1975 7 of 8
DIARY 10157
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23. Up AGAIN about 10, remembering part of a dream (see DIARY 10158), meditate, overwater the plants, call Arnie to remind him about the noon films at Donnell, and we agree to meet at 11:25. I exercise very quickly (though it's just 10.7 minutes, and I've recorded that I've done level 3 at 8.8 minutes, though the book only calls for 20 pushups and I've done 25) and eat breakfast even quicker, while dressing and putting things away. Arnie's late by two minutes, and I'm angry with him until we get onto the platform and Jo Roc's there saying she has an index for me if I'm available, and then I THANK him for being late. Stephen Pearlburg was with him, and I didn't look forward to being with him, but then he left for somewhere else at 42nd Street. The cartoons were well worthwhile, in general (see DIARY 10159), and they're out early at 1:50, allowing me to get back in time (Arnie's going to Korvette's for records and then to exchange the Treemonisha tickets) at 2:30 for the TV program on "The Children of Nepal," and it's nice to see Pashupatinath and Syambhunath again, but the program tried to say that their religiosity will quickly be replaced by science, which I hope NOT. Then get to the mail, loads of it, and read through THREE old issues of SOHO Weekly News, and then finish the last few pages of "Views from the Real World," giving me the relief of having ONLY the "Sexual Life of Ancient Rome" on the kitchen table and "Beelzebub" to read on the subways---leaving Kant and Heidegger for long-term reading. Try to call Stephen Waite again at 4:30, when I'm finished, and GET him, but he's tied up for dinner. I type two diary pages, put stuff away from the mail, and get back to "Between Years" to look up my people list, and then go back to the archives to hunt up what I'd written about Walt Nersissian and Jerri Gropper and others, and then get into an elaborate summary of my relations with Bob Grossman (see DIARY 10160). Then Stephen calls at 7 to say that his friends won't be meeting him for dinner, and I say to come over at 9, but I've only done 1 publishable page after all that research, and then I do the second meditation, "wrecked" because I'm CONSTANTLY thinking about sex with Stephen, then look at the porno to show him, change the sheets, shower, have dinner, and that takes all the time until he comes at 9, and we have a session until 11:30 (see DIARY 10161), when he leaves and I watch Joan Crawford in "Possessed," where she kills Van Heflin and ends with Raymond Massey to take care of her. Eat shamelessly during it: cookies, an orange waiting for the corn to pop, a beer, then cream cheese on cookies. AWFUL. Bed at 2.
DIARY 10162
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24. [Figure to FINISH this page through leaving for Actualizations at 7, since I'll have the WHOLE THING to catch up with on Tuesday!] Up at 9:50, depressed to hear that the woman upstairs isn't working today, but constantly banging and bumping around. Figure that between 10 and 7, 9 hours, I'll do ONE hour for meditating and exercising, ONE hour for showering and eating and preparing to leave, and THREE hours for seeing "Day of the Locust," which leaves FOUR hours for typing, which should suffice for the 26 pages---or most of them---I need to catch up with "Pub" this week. But get involved in putting things away until 10:30, then meditate, and then type six (counting this one) pages of diary until 11:45 (good rate, 8 per hour, so I COULD catch up in the THREE hours that's left to me for typing). Then exercise and get back to typing at 12:05, but only type 6 pages in the next hour until 1:05. Have lunch, then get out to "Day of the Locust" at 1:50, to a thankfully little-filled theater and the only annoyance is someone behind me who keeps kicking the seat. The authenticity and realism of the filming, as well as the facial (though HARDLY physical) beauty of the leading man, and the kookiness of the girl and her father, and the spectacle of the scenes---the throwaway of Norma Shearer as "Marie Antoinette," for example (though that was MGM and the film was Paramount?), was a beauty; all this made for a gripping realistic film UNTIL the end: the stomping of the kid was bizarre but possible, the tearing apart of Sutherland was almost unbelievable but vaguely possible, but the subsequent riot (mixed with the faces of the designer on the people, I thought I might be seeing hallucinations, but then there were REAL segments intermixed, so it was hard to tell) was SO outlandish that THAT was difficult to swallow, but undeniably powerful. Out at 4:30 and home to talk to Arnold about it, and Bob Grossman, and then type six more pages for a total of a publishable 12, but it seems that I'm not REALLY going to finish it; it's just not working out. Finish things around the apartment and get out at 7, getting to the Warwick at 7:40, and talk to Ann for a bit, who says I'm not communicating, and in to ACTUALIZATIONS with Stewart Emery until 11:45 (see DIARY 10179), and bed to not be able to sleep until about 2.
DIARY 10181
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25. The alarm rings at 7:25, and I'm still woozy from less than 5½ hours sleep. From notes written while waiting for subway that morning: Slept VERY badly---and GREAT trouble falling asleep, and groggily up to the buzz of the bell. Dream: Leaving a vacation place in the mountains, and we're out on highway and I say "I forgot my LUGGAGE." Look at map and road that LOOKS like it leads back in "Mountain Parking Road," and we can't use it. Then I'm in subway station in mid-Brooklyn, and I take escalator down to "DOWNTOWN" before I realize that's going toward Coney Island and I'm going uptown. Think about running UP stairs, but the escalator is moving too fast. Off on landing and around corner to change, but it's a bank. Down another level and hear the buzz that signals an oncoming train, and frantic to find WHICH train it is when I realize it's my ALARM. I don't feel like chatting with anyone, and we're all in for the next session, and I sit on center aisle taking notes, so it's OK. Start by taking FEW, but then as the day goes on I take more and more. Maybe two john breaks, and still I don't feel like mixing with anyone, and when we're left go to dinner at 6:45 I take off quickly to the Yangtze River, which wasn't mentioned, avoiding the groups that are forming to talk. Order the shrimp in lobster sauce, eat all the egg-drop-soup noodles, put soy sauce on everything because it's so bland, and end up quite full, with my pistachio ice cream giving me TWO fortunes: "Teenage is age between pigtail and cocktail" (which I'm glad was not the ONLY one, and "They tell us exactly what we think," which I think is just great, and which I plan to share with the group, but don't. Over to the 57th and Broadway bookshop to see what they have by Maslow, and they have four or five, and I buy "The Farther Reaches of Human Nature," which I don't read until the subway home. Back at 8:30, and finish the evening at 12:15, the whole day described starting at DIARY 10182. Some of the subway clocks read an hour EARLY this morning, and TONIGHT'S the time change, PERFECT. Buy the Times to have it; bed at 1, but up again for CEREAL to fill my salivating mouth and hungry stomach, since it was 6 hours since last food. Have some LESSER trouble getting to sleep by 1:30, but still zonked by 7:25 alarm.
DIARY 10187
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26. Again zonked by 7:25 alarm. Wash hair, water plants, eat, and out LATE at 8:20, to write these notes as subway comes thankfully at 8:32. Fragment of dream about VERIFYING for a customer that an ad is REALLY in the paper. Too tired and numb to read or write. Don't take a book to read, and wear a short-sleeve pullover and jacket to try to allay the too-great HEAT in the room yesterday. Art and est left word last night, and this is the NEXT to the last day, so I have yet to do the LAST est office assisting, LAST est post-training, and LAST actualization day! One of the last ones into the room, so I sit in the last row, next to two sleepers through the day, and the notes have steadily increased: one-and-a-half quarter-sheets on Friday, four quarter-sheets on Saturday, six quarter-sheets today (see DIARY 10188), and a scrunched eight quarter-sheets on Monday. Today follows the same format as yesterday, except that someone raises their hand and gets recognized RIGHT in the morning, so the whole day is sort of the same thing. Out for dinner at 5:30, and I almost debate talking to someone, but stop into Bookmasters at 57th and 7th and pick up a copy of Niven's "Ringworld" to read during dinner, and it's pretty good, and I have the pepper steak and strawberry ice cream, which is VERY artificial tasting. Back at 7:15, talking to Bill while we both hold up the elevator exit. We fill out our "Personal Reality Form"---and when I try to make a list of the 13 items, I forget LOVE, which is interesting, and then we end with a HORRIBLE process that I don't get anything out of. Out at 12:15 again, not talking to ANYONE, and feeling very negative. Sort of put myself on automatic, getting home to eat something, almost tempted to have some grass or some wine, and I got depressed when I read my fortune tonight, which was the same that Bob had gotten before: "The more a man has, the more he desires," and I couldn't figure out WHAT it was that I'd wanted to get out of this, and know I haven't gotten TOO much out of it, but that's what it IS, a chance for people to display their goods and bads before a group headed by Stewart Emery. To sleep about 1, feeling exhausted and wanting it to be over.
DIARY 10195
MONDAY, OCTOBER 27. Feeling somewhat better at this 7:25, eat and out and talk to a few more people, making it a point of doing so. It starts quite a bit late, waiting for some latecomers, and then it goes into the very same format, SE even getting a list of those who haven't said anything (and getting it wrong, since he missed some who'd been up and FORGOT others who hadn't). Out to dinner after 5, which means it's dark, and though I was tempted to join someone, I just didn't. Don't feel like Chinese again, so I stop in a deli and have a Rubin (sic), but it's not totally warmed, so it's not that great. Out in search of a hot fudge sundae, trying three places before finding the est-infested Sheraton Coffee Shop had GREAT ones for "only" 95¢, and it's GOOD. Back early and talk to a few people, feeling better about it, and the rest of the evening's greatly taken up with est and future plans for Actualizations (see DIARY 10196). Then we do a last process and are told to keep our eyes shut "until it's obvious." We smell vanilla and hear people whispering, and then, tentatively, three female voices start to sing "Happy Birthday," and we open our eyes to sparkling glasses filled with champagne and a strawberry, and it's so grand I don't even hear what everyone sings "Dear Whatever," and then we're getting ours and the room is full of graduates from the West Coast to congratulate us---just like est, I guess so many people have so much money it's OK to fly out to visit someone you really like! I talk and chat and hug and kiss, feeling very self-conscious and then very drunk, and get home about 1:30, feeling teary-eyed and fulfilled and VERY pleased with the end of it, and then celebrate by smoking and poppering and coming VERY strongly, brushing my chin with a strand of connected semen of GREAT plasticity and long chains of compartments, and then eat a few things and get to sleep about 3, totally exhausted, totally emotioned and comed and eaten and drunk and stoned out, glad that it's over, playing messages on the phone unit that Grandma's sick again, and I HAD planned to go home ANYWAY, so this just makes it official, and I think of all the notes from this I have to type and fall asleep anxious to get to them, but the next few days turn out to be losers except for "Throwback," and these notes idle for ALMOST TWO WEEKS BEFORE I GET THEM ALL TYPED---UNACTUALIZATION!!
DIARY 10202
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28. Up about 10:30, feeling still hung-over with the champagne and spaced out with the grass and poppers. Don't feel like doing anything, so I phone Bob Rosinek, who'd said he'd felt "death around me" on Monday, and that's why he called. Then called Mom (actually did this first) and she complained that she was still sleeping (more like 9:45, actually), but that Grandma had had a second attack about a week ago, and then on Sunday she had another; the first left one side numb, but she refused to go to the hospital, and then Sunday left her not able to speak: she'd know what she wanted to say, but then "I waugh blauch nush" and that was it. She'd sat up all night, not able to sleep, giving her medicine, but Grandma slept OK and snored a lot, so she's just home trying to catch up on sleep. We talk for about 15 minutes, and I say I'm coming on Thursday, having called Greyhound and found a bus from 1:45 to midnight. Bob Grossman calls about 11:50 and we chat for a long time, and then I get down to reading the Times and doing the puzzles, but they don't quite come out, so about 1:30 I go back to bed, only to be roused out by another phone call, and then I'm up again, finish the puzzles, finish the Times, and then it's time to watch the International Animation Festival from 4 to 4:30, and it's one I'd seen but pretty good, and then mess around thinking and doing nothing, not FEELING like doing anything, though I think I finally exercise, and watch the end of "Valley of the Dolls," looks pretty bad, and then Star Trek, which appeared to have been cut from 2 hours to one, and they had some nice muscles among the Yangs and the Coms, evolving on another world with the SAME pledge of allegiance and Declaration of Independence! Then decide to shave and DO it between 7 and 8 (see DIARY 10205) and watch "The Incredible Machine" from 9 to 10, great, and then get to bed to smoke and come by about 11, and then continue to read until sleepy (no, actually, I smoked only BIDI and used TONS of popper fluid, and still didn't come too great), which is about 1:30, and get to sleep feeling that everything's AGAINST me, and if I've just taken the course, it doesn't seem to have taken hold yet, but maybe I'm just gathering forces for something like "Throwback," (see DIARY 10175-10177), tomorrow.
DIARY 10203
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29. Up about 9:30, Mom calls about 3 to say that Grandma's gone into the hospital, and isn't there any way I could get there earlier, but I say there's no reason to, and she accepts it, since I'm coming tomorrow, and I tell her that I'm not going to be home between 5 and midnight, but that she should leave a message if anything changes. Talk to Arnie and Bob G and Bob R, and Bob R had ANOTHER preview of the TV program last night, distinctly seeing someone drawing someone's neck from a great close-up a couple of hours before they showed it on the TV screen. He wants to get together to talk about that, and his pre-training is Tuesday. I have to wash socks for leaving tomorrow, and put on "Awakening" by the Mystic Moods while I'm doing it, and get hung up in that, thinking about "Throwback" and writing that out on DIARY 10175-10177, feeling good about it. Meditate and exercise, down for the mail, which isn't very much, and then start clearing things away from the desk. When I look up "Babbitt" in the Masterplots, I get involved in checking how many of the authors are winners of the Nobel Prize and which articles are longest and shortest, and get involved with that for about an hour, the height of wasting time, but there it is, and don't get any pages typed from the diary. Get the hash into the oven and have some of that about 3, and then shower and shave, and fuss around before leaving for the New York Sheraton at 5, after finding out that you have to be CURRENTLY drawing unemployment checks to use the Trailways half-fare plan. How stupid! But they only go to Cleveland, anyway. Out feeling pretty neutral about the last post-training for est, getting engrossed in "Ringworld," and the evening isn't bad at all (see DIARY 10204), and we even get out at 11:30. Home at 12:30, with only 40 pages of "Ringworld" to finish, so I make popcorn and finish that off with a can of beer, and then SMOKE GRASS, since this is the last night to come for a bit, and have a GREAT orgasm, very SMOOTHLY to a HARD AND FELT come, and then out for 4 slices to toast and butter and jam, listening to Mystic Moods a couple of times, and finally stoned and spaced out enough to get to sleep at 3:30 am!
DIARY 10206
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30. Wake at 7:45 and put in earplugs to stop the noise from upstairs, then awake again at 8:45 and lay until 9:30, thinking of all I have to do before I leave at noon today. Out with the laundry at 9:40 and she complains but says she'll have it by noon, and then I'm back to wash dishes and take a pot down to Mrs. Johnson and tell her about my leaving, and call Jo Roc, giving her Arnie's number in case I'm delayed beyond Monday, and she's moving to Fifth Avenue, so scratch HER from my "right around the corner" list. Then determine to get some back pages typed before showering, and type 4 pages including this until 11 am, and leave it in the typewriter to do other things like pack before finishing off. But by the time I eat and talk to Arnie and Joyce, crowing about Umberto, photographer from the Leonardo, and fish out writing to take with me to work on, it's getting close to 1:05, and I begin to worry about missing the bus altogether. Lug the suitcase to the subway, which comes quick enough, and get to Times Square at 1:30, catching myself in the nick of time from getting off at Penn Station, which is NOT connected with Port Authority BUS station! Up to a quick-moving line and buy a roundtrip ticket for $63.40 and downstairs at 1:35, boarding at 1:40, into the second seat on left at 1:45, and we start moving at 1:48. I'm relieved about smoking in last three rows only. Stop, strangely, in Wayne New Jersey and then ride through beautiful cloudy sunset to a stop about 5:30 along the route 80 in a ghastly place in which I buy a salad for 65¢ and peaches for 50¢ for a $1.22 dinner, then 45¢ for two packages of crackers and peanut butter cups that I nibble on while reading Maslow. Into Youngstown at 9:40, collect information on ANOTHER trip across the United States (and Alaska and Canada?), and leave at 10:55, feeling pretty tired. Read into Akron at 11:45, watch city pass unknown, off bus at 12 and phone a cab that takes me home at 12:15 for $2.25, and Mom lets me in, we chat until 1:10, Grandma talking and feeling better, and Mom helps me fix up the upstairs rear apartment, mattress on the floor, for my stay, and I jot down notes that I took this from and get to bed at 1:30, leaving most of stuff in suitcase, and I was so tired I didn't need to smoke or come to get to sleep right away.
DIARY 10208
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31. Wake at 7:45, hearing voices below, then back to sleep until 9:30, lay around, down at 10, eat cereal, to hospital from 11:30 to 1:15. Grandma shocked me at first with her patches of pink scalp showing through her hair, her un-madeup face, and her slurring voice as if she'd just gotten up; but after a few minutes of talking with her, she settled back down into what she was a few years ago, only a bit older. Powdered brown scabs encrust her back, she can't feel with her right arm, but with me holding my hand underneath, she manages to take a cup of tea to her mouth and sip from it. We help her with lunch, which is awkward because her mouth doesn't quite close all the way, and she mashes her food more than chews it, and it's not pleasant to watch. Home for meatloaf lunch, she naps, I look at her photo albums and newspapers, then go to ICWU office from 2:30 to 3:15, and chortle with Edna Wroe and Grace Estep and Olga from Columbia who's the greatest woman, and then down to the Swik room for Julia DeLaura and Evelyn Thorthton, and Helen Kapel's taken a friend to the hospital. In to look at the computer, into the library, enjoy the view of the treey city from the top floors overlooking everything, then out to Peninsula to Rita's trucking office from 3:30 to 4:10, meeting people and working with Phase IV system for a bit under her boss, Jim M., who's just adopted a cripple for his deaf son to play with, and then I call Marion and get to HER place to watch the Maharishi on Merv Griffin with Clint Eastwood and Mary Tyler Moore and some congressman from 4:30 to 6, and Mom REFUSES that we eat there, so we leave at 6:15 after seeing Gary's trophies for motorcycling, chat with Greg and Henry, and we're out to Yanko's where Mom refuses to wait for the crowd, and down to Lou and Hy's for AWFUL veal and GREAT macadamia nut cream pie when they didn't have the fudge cake. Home at 9 to watch "The Night that Panicked America" about the Orson Welles "War of the Worlds" broadcast, rather well done, until 11, and talk to 11:50, and then up to write notes on my mother just to get them out of my system (see DIARY 10209), write notes about the day to 12:15, when I smoke and have a MARVELOUS orgasm, then write MORE notes for Babbitt Brighton (see DIARY 10201) and get to sleep about 1:30.
DIARY 10212
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1. Up about 9:30 and down to find Mom making waffles, and the Bisquick batter makes great-tasting ones. To the hospital with Mom again at 11:30 and help Grandma with lunch, and the black woman who'd seen me in "To Tell the Truth" on TV is now gone. Grandma doesn't eat as much this time, and seems not to be improving so much as before, so it's rather depressing. Home about 1:30 and have sandwich lunch, and then Denny comes in about 2:45, and I meet him before going to Helen's for about 2 hours of talking with both of them. Mom told me Jimmy has a hernia, and then Helen tells me "I haven't told anyone, I'm just talking to you" that SHE has a herniated operation scar up and down her abdomen, and she talks about Grandma and me and Mom and Rita. Jimmy comes home looking better than he has in years, having stopped smoking, gotten grayer up top, and started wearing more colorful clothes. They give me 3 1776-1976 coins ($1, 50¢, 25¢) and two jars of jelly and a red-white-blue candy stick, and drive me home in their 1975 Cadillac (after they sold their old one that Grandma threw up in) with great stereo radio and a digital dash-clock. Neat. Denny's changed into a jacket for dinner tonight at 6 at the Peking Tokyo Restaurant, and I start with a Saki Daiquiri (in a plaster pineapple!) and order a Geisha, drink part of THAT when they bring a THIRD drink, saying they'd made a mistake, but I can keep the OTHER. Great start for a meal in which I have the Hibachi chicken dinner for $5 with starting shrimp, soup, salad, chicken, sprouts, and dessert, and Mom only makes a fool of herself when we talk about Sufism and she says it'll never last. Then drive past Denny's house in Peninsula to get to the Penisula Nite Club, Mom screaming that he's driving too fast down his OWN road, and it's big and loud and Henry pays for the drinks, I dance with Rita and Marion, Marion dances with every male, and I say I want to leave at 11:30, having had too much to drink and not enough of interest. Marion's living the good life, Henry's looking good and likes talking about TM and est, and Mom has the sense to be quiet at the table, and I almost feel sorry for her for getting old when she doesn't want to. My problem, too [I proofread this in 2003: she was 60 then, I'm 67 now!]. Home again to jerk off with marvelous feeling after smoking, and sleep quite stoned about 1:30 again.
DIARY 10213
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2. Up at 9:30, we all have breakfast and they go to church at 11 while I skim through Rita's back issues of Playboy and Oui and Monsieur and Penthouse, getting me fairly excited, and I look through the paper to find absolutely nothing. They're back and I get into a ROARING argument with Mom about wanting to talk to her, and she swings her purse at me a couple of times and she says she'll never talk to me again, seem to remember much later that she spit at me once or twice, she'll tear up my letters if I send any, and if Grandma dies I'll never hear about it from her. I insist that I want to talk with her before I leave, and stalk out with Rita to the car at 12:30 to stop on the side and have a long talk with her (see DIARY 10214) before getting to Grandma's after she's finished lunch, and Helen's there, but leaves when we arrive. Grandma seems even weaker, working over a ball of twine Mom gave her to strengthen her hand with, and I say I'm leaving today, saying goodbye and that I'll see her in a couple of years. No tears at departure. Home to find Mom gone, then Rita leaves to see Denny, I decide I'm not going to go to Henry and Marion's as they'd wanted at 3, so I call them to say I'm having trouble with Mom. Then just DON'T feel like sitting around, so I call Larry, and he insists on coming to pick me up, and we go to his place for an INCREDIBLE afternoon that really has my head spinning (see DIARY 10215). We try a number of places closed on Sunday for dinner before deciding on Sanginitis, where I have tasty sweetbreads and continue drinking, but he's falling asleep and I just CAN'T stay with him, so I call Mom, who's home and hangs up on me, and I say that Mom's hysterical, and Larry INSISTS that I go back home with him, but I stay only long enough to "decide" that I have to go home, and he finally, reluctantly, drives me home at 9. Mom lets me in, thinking I'd been with Rita, hollering because I didn't tell her where I was going, and then lays on the sofa and bitches at me for about half an hour before she turns on TV and we watch the spectacular end of "You Only Live Twice," with some of the best volcano-rocket-explosion-intrigue effects I've seen in ages, and she's to bed (saying that I didn't ask Rita to take me to the bus at 8 am tomorrow, which I had no intention of doing) at 11:15 and the movie's over at 11:30, and I'm up to smoke a pipe again and come somewhat less effectively because the DAY'S been so STRANGE!!
DIARY 10217
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3. Down at 9 expecting an empty house, and there's Mom asking me what I want for breakfast---without a word of what she said would take her out of the house from 9-5 today. The more I say I want to talk with her, the more she talks about other things. Through the day, we come to SOME sort of agreement, but without even agreeing that we'd ever had a TALK (see DIARY 10218). She asks what I want to do, suggesting the E.J. Thomas Hall, and then I say that'll be OK, and we chat during the morning, have sandwiches for lunch, and then get out about 3 after she comes back from the hospital and calls the doctor (and makes it clear that HIS saying "grandma's going to have a stroke and be paralyzed and die" is really what SHE wants him to say, because she HAS to tell him, "Well, no, you didn't SAY that," and then REPEATS her original "hearing" to Henry when she calls HIM). He invites us to dinner tonight at 5:45 at Dry Dock, and at 3:30 we're out to drive around Akron U, and then I request going down Brown Street, which she says hasn't changed, but it HAS: there's a medical center at the site of the "haunted house" (and the one near St. John's has been pulled down, though St. John's looks about the same) and its keepers' house, many of the trees have been taken down to widen the street, and it looks newly built. Down Dietz and to 1221, sided in tan aluminum, with a windowed-in front porch and a greenhouse built onto the back that totally changes the character of it, a new garage, and a back yard which is totally simple: no center rock garden, no hedges or fences, and there's a HUGE tree in Lear's back lot that I barely remember, and the LARGE tree out front is gone and the SMALL tree is large. Around Herbrick and back to Archwood, past an expanding Garfield, and down Grant Street and into new territory. Home about 5, and I'm up to shower and pack and down at 5:30, Mom screaming that we'll be late, and there at 5:45 for everyone there, and I have a daiquiri followed by a Channel Market, a HUGE snifter full of mango, orange, rums, and DELICIOUS. Have GREAT snapper, then out at 7:45 to dash home to leave off one car, then to the terminal at 8:10, say goodbye quickly, onto the bus, reading through the ride to Pittsburg at 11:15, straight to the New York bus, and it's JAMMED and hot and AWFUL at 12.
DIARY 10219
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4. Sit on the aisle, looking at the attractive fellow across the way, staring down at the crotch of the fellow next to me, cursing the black with the radio and the incredible hick talking with his loud voice to someone from England who traveled after borrowing money from friends. Tried sleeping, but it didn't work; told the hick to talk quietly, and he did. Sat up until the stop at Breezewood at 2, chatted with some OTHER mental case from another bus with a facial jerk and psychotic mannerisms, and back on the bus to look out, try to sleep, count the hours going by, and then start chatting with Domingo Ernesto Talotta across the way, teaching him English as he taught me Spanish, accepting his invitation to Buenos Aires and free admissions "front and backstage" at the Theatro Colon where his uncle works, talking about his relatives in Pittsburg and New Haven, his trips to Mexico and Europe, mine to South America, and he talked so nicely about everyone being the same and loving everyone that I gave him my address and phone number despite the fact he kept talking about his girlfriend back home. Then he got some sleep, I dozed off for about an hour and rose to find the sky getting pink, and we finally pulled into the city at 7:15, and I got off and made for the subway at 7:30. Home not knowing whether to sleep or not, but I got some GREAT porno from Brentwood, so I smoked and came with ENORMOUS gusto, checked New York Magazine to see that TWO doubles were on their last day today, that I wanted to see, and left at 11:30 to see "Slither" at the Playboy with a cute James Caan and a doll of a John Beck as his friend and a wacky plot of ditzes coming down around him; "Rollerball" with a GOOD game, great Fellini-type tree-exploding party, and long stretches of boredom---no sex at the Playboy, and then to the Elgin for no sex EITHER, awful crowd, old people, nothing much doing, for a crazy "Le Trio Infernal" with three people killing about a dozen, including a VERY gory acid-bathtub, and "Les Violins du Bal," one of the most cliché-ridden Jew-boy escapes from Germany movies of all time with inexplicable good reviews. Home at 8 feeling reasonably spaced out, having eaten only a brownie at the Elgin all day, eating a Spam dinner and watching "The Sinking of the Lusitania" from 9-10, and then getting to bed about 10:30 feeling TOTALLY depressed.
DIARY 10220
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5. Wake at 7:30 and lay until about 8, and start right in with the puzzles and reading the New York Times, and come to an ad for "Raymonda" that I can't decide what to do with, whether to clip it, see it, or ignore it, and get so freaked out that I can't decide to do ANYTHING, and end up going into the bedroom and smoking and COMING again, with SUCH a tremendous orgasm that I'm excited about it for the rest of the day. Listen to records, go down for the mail, intend to go to the grocery store but don't; when I get hungry I make myself some popcorn, and all in all the day is a disaster. Talk to Bob Rosinek and Bob Grossman and Arnie and Michael on the phone, but can't get up the gumption to call Jo Roc, tried calling Art and he's never there, and finally end up the late afternoon doing a FEW things around the apartment, like fertilizing the plants with TWO GALLONS OF water, since they seem to be VERY dry, and then watch a repeat of International Animation Festival from 7 to 7:30, then the Tribal Eye from 8-9 while eating dinner of pork chops that I got from the store (NO, didn't GET to the store today with my enormous laziness: this was TOMORROW that I had the first of the pork chops). Then just can't think of ANYTHING that I'd want to do: Jim Mathews comes over just before 8 to buy two popper bottles, had sex, so I can't go to the baths; don't feel like reading; don't feel like seeing anyone; certainly don't feel like writing ANYTHING, so I just smoke AGAIN and have an orgasm AGAIN---I must admit it FEELS very good, but I'm suffering from a lack of TM and a lack of exercising, and I haven't even taken a BATH since Sunday when I washed my hair, no, showered Monday, and I end up playing solitaire a number of times, just because there's nothing else I want to do. My suitcase is still unpacked on the floor, the newspaper is still scattered all over the living room, the kitchen is a mess with corn popper and various dishes all over the place, and I really feel the lowest that I've felt in a LONG time: conscious of all that I SHOULD be doing, conscious that all I've "learned" through est and Actualization isn't doing a BIT of good, and conscious that I'm not doing a DAMN thing---but at least things can't get WORSE, and I come a SECOND time with great feeling and I fall asleep amidst my porno at WHATEVER time.
DIARY 10221
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6. Up about 9, determined to do SOMETHING, so I finally meditate, really in more of a stupor than in meditation, and at last get to the grocery store to pick up lots of stuff, overflowing into two bags for the first time in ages, then call Arnie, who's on the phone and has to call back, so my intention of taking the Message-Minder to repair BEFORE going up to the movies at Donnell is thwarted, so I have something to eat and fuss around, maybe going down for the mail when the mailman rang for me ONE day this week, and picking up a Stolow stamp auction catalog that leads me into thinking I might GO to the exhibit, just to see it, and also to get an estimate on what they'd pay me for ART'S stamp collection. Tell Arnie to meet me at the subway station at 11:25, but when he's not there at 11:27 I go down and catch a subway at 11:31, and he meets me there at 12:05, after the program on Grierson has started (see DIARY 10222). That goes until 2, we walk down to 39th, he tells me about the half-price paperbacks at Barnes and Noble annex, I take in the phone unit and they'll probably charge me for THIS one, and then decide to walk down Fifth to Barnes and Noble, and pick up SEVEN novels by Nabokov at half-price, and THREE novels by Maslow, and one essay-book by Heidegger, all for just over $10, and I lug THEM home. Call Michael and BobG and make arrangements for the dance on Saturday, look through the books and put them into order, and then decide that I just MUST get things in order, so I put the socks away at last, which had been drying since a week ago Wednesday, finish unpacking, clear up stacks of stuff in all the rooms, and then settle in with pork-chop dinner to watch Monty Python's Flying Circus from 10-10:30, laugh when they say that Tom Mix is being replaced by a press conference with Nelson Rockefeller and watch THAT, and then watch a NEW Animation Film Festival about "Many Moons" until 11:40, and decide to try to come WITHOUT smoking. It's unseasonably warm, so the radiators haven't been on at ALL yet, so it's about 60° and chilly in bed, and I just can't quite get it up, even looking at the great new porno from the things that I mailed last week, but I come almost soft anyway and get to sleep about 2, after reading half of Nabokov's "Mary" from 1 am to 2 am to get sleepy enough to sleep WITHOUT having smoked, since coming wasn't draining enough.
DIARY 10223
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7. Up about 9:30 and meditate and EXERCISE at last, having been away for exactly a week from that, and I play MUSIC during it, and that makes it rather pleasant. (Actually, that was tomorrow). Talk to Art a few times during the day so that I'll be going over after "Treemonisha" with some popper fluid for him. Call BobR during the afternoon about his going into est tomorrow, and everyone's been saying how much he'll be changed, but he's quite open to it, Nina's worried he's going to be different, and he told Alicia that he was going to school and class and wouldn't see her for the next two weekends. And he's coming over on Thursday. Water the plants and take a long time to get the grass plucked, and then there's absolutely nothing else to do but settle into typing, so I do that, starting with the Actualization notes (after typing one additional page of "Throwback" with ideas that I got while meditating this morning) and struggling through with ALL of them for a grand total of 23 diary pages typed, really having to work at it, tempted to go off on all sorts of other things, but I keep at it and keep at it, amazed at how many pages I DO do, even while taking time off to make a filling brunch of chopped Spam and eggs, dirtying so many frying pans that I'll have to wash dishes tomorrow before I can have brunch, and get a total of 24 pages typed, feeling good, but that's only up to THURSDAY of LAST WEEK, so I'm still a week and more behind, hoping to finish tomorrow, and then I can get to the novel "Throwback," which I've been talking to more and more people about---maybe in order to get some feedback so that I'll be more inclined to produce RESULTS in it, with others waiting for them. Think to do more, but by the time I put on the pork chops and wash my hair and get everything together to leave at 7:30, there's no more time, and I've even figured out how much I'm behind on my schedule for published typing---WAY behind because of Actualization and the Ohio trip taking the better part of two whole weeks out of the available time. Surprised that it's been 70°+ outside today, wear thin pants out to "Treemonisha," which is pretty lousy (see DIARY 10224), out at 10, call Art, get there at 10:30, and have a very comfortably uncomfortable evening with him (see DIARY 10225).
DIARY 10226
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8. Wake at 9 and chat and get home about 10:30 to meditate and exercise, and then get right to typing until about noon, then wash dishes because I have no more frying pans (exercising with the Mystic Moods is actually JOYFUL, and I should make a TAPE for exercising, so I'll feel better about it, rather than avoiding it), get another batch of grass from the bushes and follow Art's advice with the spider mites and go after them with a Q-tip dipped in alcohol. One bush is so bad that I harvest it, hanging it in the bedroom over a clothes bag to dry out. Also suspect that the sun really doesn't reach the plants in the kitchen much at all at this season [Check NOW (2:15 Sunday), and find that they get about 20 minutes sun before it dips below the rooftop---in a few days there'll be NONE for them to get.] Type more pages, have another great brunch with the last of the Spam, and typed two more "Throwback" pages among the 14 others that at least brought me up through Wednesday of THIS week, for a total of 16 for the day, still about three times the requirement, which is just fine. Keeping up that rate for about a WEEK would put me in good standing with the publishable typing. But it's really getting to be a pain to KEEP at the typing, with the feeling that there's so much more still to DO. Then turn on the CBS Sports Spectacular at 4:30 to watch the Russian gymnasts, particularly superbly muscled Paata Shamugian and the improbable Olga Korbut, and then the National Horse Show, where I hope to get a glimpse of Arthur, but he doesn't show up. That goes until 6, and I put on the hamburger to broil because it's actually turned GRAY, even with the "fresh ground on Thursday" sign on it---going gray in TWO days is just RIDICULOUS! Then shower and eat and get out at 7:05 to the Riverside Church for Hava Kohav, pretty dreadful (see DIARY 10227), with Michael, and we leave at 10 to get down to the Wall Street Sauna with a half-price entry for $2 at 10:30, and IT'S pretty dreadful, too (see DIARY 10228). Keep crossing things off my list that I'll EVER do again! Out at 1, reading, and get the Times and look at the TV schedule and work most of the puzzles (the double crostic comes clear with a "k" that says "of knowledge and the" to me, and it goes quickly from there) until 2:45, and go to bed to sleep without THINKING of coming.
DIARY 10236
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9. Up about 9:45, meditate and exercise quickly between 10:20 and 11 in order to watch Camera Three's study on stairs, and then watch President Ford appearing FAIRLY competent on "Meet the Press" from 11:30 to 12:30 on which Lawrence Spivak retires after 18 years of work with the program---or was it 28 years? Have breakfast of cereal during it for the first time in ages, then get down to typing BEFORE reading the paper, a stroke of genius, because I finish with 11 typed pages to GET UP TO DATE with the diary at last, and then do 4 pages on "Throwback" that feel very good. Look at the clock at 4 and decide that's the PERFECT time to settle in the afternoon meditation, and THAT feels good, too. Then watch "The Rivals" between 5-7, and it's a PERFECT grandfather to "Monty Python," since it points up the SILLINESS of people, how they can be COMPLETELY stupid of others: witness the father's DEMANDS on the son to obey him, while saying he gives him his freedom, and the silliness of the "tests" given by the lovers, the "anger" of the lovers at the tests, and the silly mixed-up identities that form the whole idea for the play. Didn't know that Sheridan was MacNaughton's predecessor. Had dinner of hamburger during the play, and it leaves me VERY woozy with sleep, though I didn't have wine, and I just don't feel like exceeding the 15 pages done today, so I finish reading the Times (oh, took LOTS of time working a VERY intricate crossword before 2), and then smoke at 9 pm and have a MOST FABULOUS come (see DIARY 10237) that ties in DIRECTLY to BB, and then at 10 get up, make popcorn, and with cookies to RECORD MY FIRST TRIP TAPE to 1:40 am, listening to it to make sure it sounds OK (see DIARY 10238), and get to bed about 2 feeling VERY good about the day, having decided to go to est tomorrow, typing so many pages, getting everything in its place. Even talked to Paul Bosten and he'll call this week sometime. Now that I've settled back into the TM and exercising, the time seems much more valuably spent, and "Throwback" is going far more excitingly than I'd dreamed: the characters are actually beginning to take on life for themselves (in me, at least), and I'm looking forward to having Arnie read some of it.
DIARY 10239
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10. Wake early and fall back asleep, up about 9:30 to meditate and exercise, then wake Art Bauman out of a sleep at 10:30 to tell him about Arnie's orgy on Saturday, and call Arnie, who's probably interested in the baths tonight. Have time for only one page of the diary, the day-page for Sunday, before it's time to shower and wash my hair and shave and eat lunch of tuna fish and orange and get out about 12:45 for est, writing in the front of "Mary" an idea that occurred to me that I didn't have time to type out (see DIARY 10240). It's still raining when I get out of the subway and walk to 40th Street, getting into the office at exactly 1:15, which means my 6.5 hours will take me to 7:45, just enough time to get to TM in the Commodore. The day goes as usual: some good, mostly bad (see DIARY 10241) and I'm out after washing my face in the john with the sign above the mirror "Gossip kills organizations." And I thought est wasn't supposed to be an organization? Over toward the Commodore so quickly that I have the time to stop off for a slice of pizza on 3rd and 43rd for 50¢, and into the Commodore to be told "room 108 or 131" and find that they'd had so many people during an initiation they needed two rooms: they're instructing over 600 a month at this time, thanks in part of the Merv Griffin Show and the Maharishi. MUCH higher class of intelligence than at the noon sessions, in fact Jay Marcus completely lost me a couple of times, quite a change from the usual "get on with it" feeling from the noon ONE that I attended. That goes on from 8:15 to 9:40 very easily (see DIARY 10242) and I'm out to the hallway to call Arnie at Fred and Carlos's, and Carlos talks to me for half an hour about his trip around the world at reduced rates because he works for Avianca, and I recommend what he finally calls the "three Ks": Kathmandu, Kandy, and Kyoto, and I mentioned Kulu and Kashmir, if he wanted to include India. Then Arnie's on and wants to go, and we agree to meet in half an hour. I get another slice of pizza with good cheese for 50¢, and then get the subway down, meeting him in the entrance at 10:20, and we're in for the BEST NIGHT I'VE HAD THERE IN AGES (see DIARY 10243), and I'm totally delighted about it, leaving at 1:40 having given my number to Tom MacNamara, and still don't feel like sleeping, so I watch "Big Parade of Comedy" from 2 to 3:40, eating piles of cookies, buttered, and get to sleep VERY tired and contented.
DIARY 10248
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11. Wake about 9, dreamily calculate that I've only slept 5 and a small fraction of hours in sleep, and doze until about 10:15, about 6½ hours, and then call Arnie to ask if he'd read some of the stuff I'd written (mostly "Between Years" and "Throwback"), and he says he'll call me back between 12 and 1, since I want to work on the MANY pages of the diary I'm suddenly behind, what with yesterday SUCH a busy day, and then I decide to see if Pope's there, and his line is BUSY. Type 3 pages---and I meditated and exercised in here, too, at least SOME things were constantly done---and call Pope again, and he's willing to meditate at 12:45 and get over to Arnie's, so I call him and tell him Pope's coming over for some of Art's avocado, and I get to Arnie's at 1 with the New York Times, and he has three bars of Rokeach for me, so $1 and the 20¢ Times pays for those. He's got tacos for the guacamole I'm making, and I mash the avocado with a whisk, which makes a PERFECT texture (though Arnie gives me sweet Greek WINE by mistake for vinegar!) and we eat MOST of that, barely able for the three of us to get through it, and Pope's talking about his friends, bragging about the est and Money tapes he's bought, which come today, lending me a copy of New Age Journal all about est, showing off his 3-D slides, which are a REAL knockout until I get used to them, and then he leaves to sleep at 3:30 and Arnie reads "Tell-M" and says something about "the language and population vs MANHATTAN" that I'll have to check, doesn't care much for the OIs---keeps saying that he doesn't like science fiction, and then it's 4 and we watch the first half of a silly hang glider flight from the top of Mt. Fiji, a STUPID nothing show, and then he reads 1st 9 pages of "Between Years" and says only the first 3 "flow easily," and then I try to communicate parts of "Throwback," but it's obvious I'm excited about it and am going to work on THAT, not "Between Years," and then he's got to go somewhere and chases me out at 7. He lends me "City" to show to John about Male Kelly Girls, and I read an article mentioning QUANTUM JUMPS, which I'd just talked to Arnie about with "Throwback," and I sit in chair and eat dinner (read LAST of "Sexual Life in Ancient Rome"!, so I can start on the ENORMOUS backlog of Sci-Am's, back to July, 1974), continue reading ALL of est and ALL of City, then start Heidegger and get VERY high and take notes (see DIARY 1026(4?)7) and record TAPE to 12:45 (see DIARY 10249).
DIARY 10254
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12. Up about 9, meditate and exercise, and have cereal for breakfast for a change, and for the early morning I'm tempted to come, to read, to have sex, but I have to say no to all these things. Woke with a VERY vivid sequence of dreams in mind, and typed THEM on DIARY 10255 before I didn't forget them, and type a total of 7 pages through the day, STILL not getting beyond Monday and that fabulous time at the Club Baths, but about 2 I decide I MUST get out to the bank, since they won't be getting my checks until the weekend and I don't want any service charges, and go out in the driving rain and find to my delight that they don't charge ANYTHING for the money order that brings my balance up to date. Stop in and pick up "Being and Time" with the $15 price marked inside for only $12.50, and then I stop in at the used-book place and find a TROVE in the back: Yogananda's "Autobiography of a Yoga," "The Psychedelic Reader," and "Teachings of Gurdjieff" at $4, flapped at $6, in "Yes" for $6.95! Then think of Nabokov and pick up 2 hardbound and 2 paperbacks, AND there's Lewis and they have a copy of "Babbitt." So NINE MORE BOOKS TO READ! Met Malcolm in the bank, cuter than ever. Phone Pope, he tried "About Sex" but they're full, and I do other things, maybe including watering plants or something else, maybe plucking grass again---anyway, the day passes and it's time for me to shower [WHICH I WANNA DO NOW!] and put dinner on and get out at 6:55 to try to get a ticket to "Raymonda," and as luck would have it, there's a $12.50 single in the box office which I buy, copy down the row configuration and price configuration to update my "Stubs," and then read a bit and watch the program from 8:05 to 10:55 (see DIARY 10256), which is reasonably dreadful, except for Dennis Wayne as Abdul-Rahkman, and chat with Bill Wolf and his friend Fernando, and with Rudi Perez on the subway, and get home to finish reading "Farther Regions of Human Nature," the last few pages, and still feel like reading and don't want to succumb to smoking and coming, since Bob's coming over tomorrow, so I start on "Babbitt," and it reads very well, and I get through the first part by 2:15, when I fall asleep.
DIARY 10257
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13. Up at about 9:30, woman upstairs thankfully vanished, and I meditate and exercise and finish the milk after I finish breakfast---no, Bob R. CALLS me out of bed at 9:10, we chat about his "orange juice" process last night, he's leaving work at 5:15 and getting here at 5:45-6, and then I scour the sink and wash the dishes and change the washer in the hot-water tap (change its orientation, since I search and search for the box of washers I remember and can't find them anywhere, so I simply turn it around and it works for exactly one day) and put the water-joiner away since it's hardened so that it's not waterproof anymore. I look at the floor plan for the Uris and again wonder how many seats what has, and decide to pursue that, so I call the library and get some figures, get others from Hart's New York, talk to Arnie twice about it, then actually PHONE the Beacon, the Academy of Music, the Minskoff, and Alice Tully to complete my list, and that takes a couple of hours that Arnie laughs at: "So you REALLY think est and TM and Actualization changed you?" Bruce Leiber calls and says there are only a few spaces left in the 36 rebirthings when Leonard comes in December, and when I call Neil Sendar the next day, there aren't ANY spaces left. Out to buy groceries, deciding to do the chicken for Bob, after researching through to find that he'd had hamburger and pork butt here before. Find to my amazement that the ENTIRE day's gone past and I haven't TYPED a single page, and haven't really done ANYTHING. Meditate the second time at 4, as seems to be the best time (later than that, it usually gets lost), and then start fixing up the place, getting ready to step into the shower at 5:30 when he BUZZES downstairs! Let him in and give him the stamp albums to look at (and he shows me his designs, which are GREAT in thread on suede), take the shower, put on the chicken, and then we talk a bit about his est experience, and then during dinner he brings up LAST time and my not coming, and I explain via "Throwback," which we talk a lot about (see DIARY 10258), and then I thank him, hug him, we start necking, he's not smoking because of est, and we get undressed in the thankfully warm rooms, but I'm a COMPLETE dud, and we talk a LOT about that (see DIARY 10259), and he leaves at 12, and I'm so depressed I watch "Body and Soul" (unrealistic that they can just snap their finger under the crook's nose and get away "free" as world boxing champ) until 1:30 and then "Earthbound" with Warner Baxter as a spirit after a jilted lover kills him to 3:15 am.
DIARY 10263
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14. Up about 10 or 10:30, jerk off quickly just to come, and before anything determine to telephone a few people and DO something, so I call Michael to say that I want to go to Arnie's on Saturday and the dance on Sunday, and he's going to New Jersey for the weekend anyway. Call Bob Rosinek and chat about last night, saying that I wasn't at my best and I wanted to GIVE my best to him, which he accepts. Call Arnie to say that I'll be there but that Michael won't, and he's still not sure how many people are coming (and I've put a note under John's door at Arnie's request). Then I determine that I'll have to do MORE, so I phone Neil at the 516 area code, and he has to call back, and when he does he says that all the spaces are reserved, so he'll have to put me on a waiting list for cancellations, but says something that implies that cancellations are possible. Phone Michael through three numbers, but he's in the same place with HIS phone, and he's booked up through the next three weeks, but he'll ALSO put me on the list, thought about me the other night, and is glad I'll be doing it. That takes me until about noon, and I meditate and exercise somewhat late, but I somehow think I had breakfast anyway of cereal, and then had tuna about 2, so that when I was ready to leave in the evening I just didn't feel HUNGRY (Stomach still feeling full from all the junk I ate while watching the movies last NIGHT), so I didn't eat before I left for est. Wanted desperately to type about what happened last night, but I do diary pages in order, and don't even finish with the page for Wednesday before it's time to shower and shave in preparation for est. Get hung-up with reading the mail, getting rid of magazines, and going through issues of Scientific American quickly, keeping up with things and spending lots of time doing it, and there's no time to WRITE anymore, since I can't even catch up on the DIARY. Ironic: finally caught up on SUNDAY, typed the single pages on MONDAY all right, but fell behind on TUESDAY and haven't caught up in the ensuring WEEK yet! Leave at 5:10 to get to the Commodore on time, through a confused lobby, and finally get to the makeup session for "About Sex 1" (see DIARY 10265) from 5:49 to 6:59, then in for "About Sex 2" (see DIARY 10266) until 10:35, home, find nothing on TV, read more of "Babbitt," and get to sleep about 1 without coming again today.
DIARY 10268
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15. Up about 9, record dreams on DIARY 10271, meditate and exercise and decide to see what's on early-morning TV for children, and start watching about 10:15 to "Shazam" with a CUTE guy as Captain Marvel with NO crotch at all, lots of people gyrating for the cameras on various dance floors, the usual line of cartoons about "Beyond the Planet of the Apes" and "Valley of the Dinosaurs," and lots of people call in the morning: Art, back in town for a couple of hours; Arnie, who tries to get Art for some Bahamas pennies but doesn't; Norman Tinkle returning the call about Art's subscriptions, and about 6 pm Art Bauman calls to say that Linda Tarnay DOES have a performance on Sunday, but that he's not feeling well and won't be at the orgy this evening. Then Fred Bassoff calls for liquid, I watch a reasonably good cartoon on Jules Verne's "Mysterious Island" from 1 to 2 (eating cereal through some of this, and not eating the tuna that I opened yesterday for lunch), and fix the place up a bit before he buzzes at 2:5, and he's not unattractive and we sit and chat until 3, kissing before he leaves, and suddenly the day is a large part over! Continue putting things away so much that I type five diary pages (still not catching up even through my talk with Bob on Thursday), and then write the FIRST checks since EXACTLY a month ago for rent on 10/15 to the Open Eye, NY Tel, Proof coins, Man's Image, Xmas cards from UNICEF, rent, and magazines for Art. STILL lots of fringy things left over to do, however, but take the time to watch the new Kukla, Fran, and Ollie from 6 to 6:30, and then phone Arnie to take over corn popper, phone Pope to return the Biomate and magazines, and shower and eat dinner and get out at 8:10 to check on the Times (not there) for both of them, chat with Pope about his being back, then he wants to watch TV at 9 and I'm across the hall just as Ed Walls comes up the stairs, and so there'll be at least ONE person there who's nice. Again, it starts slowly as I chat with Joe Farinas about his apartment, Steven Pearlburg about "Raymonda," Azak, and I look at the clock at 10, 10:30, even 11:30 and debate going to watch "The Hot Rock" on TV at 11:30, but then it REALLY gets started (see DIARY 10269) and I leave at 3:05 totally DELIGHTED with the evening, buy Times, work on puzzle, and to bed at 4:15 am!
DIARY 10272
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16. Up at 10:35 just in time to meditate before watching Lee Strasburg on Camera 3 from 11 to 11:30, and then curse that I hadn't seen "Little Giant" with Edward G. Robinson, wishing I hadn't seen the entry at 11:30, and then watch it to find that it's ABBOTT AND COSTELLO'S "Little Giant" that they made a mistake in the TV entry with! Exercise and watch George Wallace on "Meet the Press" from 12 to 12:30, and then watch a special on Bees that follows from 12:30 to 1 (see DIARY 10273), and I start doing the page on that, but then decide that I want to call Arnie, and talk to him until about 2, thanking him for the great party last night, but he doesn't want to join me at Linda Tarnay's performance, and I leave about 2:15 having typed a total of three lines all day today. There at 2:45 to find a line waiting to get in, and it's a FABULOUS performance with NICE people around and in it (see DIARY 10274), and then chat with Art Bauman afterward about stamps that he gives me, his working on four pieces hoping that one will come out OK, the sudden "working together" of many people through ATL, the orgy last night, their computer system that had me as Zilnerzak and did NOT have Bill Dunas, who wanted them to do a mailing for him. Leave about 5 and debate going to the "Raymonda" and then to Bob Rosinek's est graduation, but home at 5:30 to meditate to 6, then fix hamburger to eat during the watching of "Woven Gardens" on The Tribal Eye from 6:30 to 7:30, about carpets from that INCREDIBLE section of the world, the Middle East, which causes all SORTS of thought in my mind about travel (see DIARY 10275), and then Rolf calls to chat at 8:45, and I've been reading the Times and finishing the puzzle, and I say he should come over, since I want to watch Rosemary Harris play as George Sand in "Notorious Woman" on the first of seven Masterpiece Theater presentations about her, and he comes over at 9:05 and we watch that, very prettily filmed but not terribly gripping, then sit through "The Drive for Power" with the humorously lisping Bronowski on The Ascent of Man until 11, and then he wants to flick channels until about 12, through Jennie Churchill and Burns and Allen and Jackie Gleason, and then we talk about his "non-being" from 11:45 to 1:40 (see DIARY 10276) when he leaves and I can get to bed without wanting to come.
DIARY 10278
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17. Up at 9 when Bob calls to talk about the weekend, over at 3, and he says he's totally accepted what happened on Thursday, and I make some asinine statement about knowing that we can still get to new spaces of understanding each other. But today's another downer-day: can't even get into meditating, so I decide to start reading "Being and Time" and jot down some notes for Rolf, and get so confused by page 32 that I phone him (see DIARY 10276, bottom) and we chat about it, and then I read on some more, having breakfast when I'm hungry about 11:30, and then STILL don't feel like doing anything, so I go back to reading "Babbitt," hoping to finish and thus liberate myself for doing more writing on the book (though I get the DEFINITE idea that I should EDIT "JOHN" for sending out to catch up on the 140+ pages that I'm behind in my writing schedule), and then finally meditate for the first time at about 1:30, and then find time to type three pages, still not really getting anywhere near where I should be, and then get back to FINISH reading "Babbitt" by about 6, call Arnie to find I should bring rosé wine about 7:45, exercise and shower to wash my hair and meditate and it's time to get out at 7:35 to buy the wine and get to Arnie's to find I'm the last guest there; Carlos has been called away to Columbia, so only Fred is there of that duo, and Bob remains skeptical of everything, Jay and Fred talk boringly about their decorating businesses and ideas, Fred and I have a go at Mind Control, Rebirthing, est, esp experiences, and other things, and Arnie's cheery and a perfect host with his Chinese chicken with cranberries and his herbed chicken, rice and gravy, hot appetizer of cheese over mushroom caps, cold appetizer of tamarasalata and egg yolk and celery in green pepper halves, crunchy broccoli, and the conversation around the table is so good that we talk until MIDNIGHT, when Fred has to leave off a logo in Manhattan so he drives Bob and Jay home. Arnie gives me $4 of stamps from Tahiti from Cathy, a $1 pullover (OH, didn't know WHAT to wear, and found a blue wool pullover I'd TOTALLY forgotten, that I GUESS Art gave me, but it was a surprise to ME), and I leave at 12:30 feeling VERY good, and don't feel like coming, so I read more of Heidegger's "Discourse on Thinking" until 1:30 and have no trouble falling asleep.
DIARY 10280
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18. [OUTRAGEOUSLY PRODUCTIVE DAY!] Up at 9:15 and immediately type dreams on DIARY 10279, and then it feels so GOOD to be typing so early, even in my bathrobe without eating, that I continue through one "Throwback" page and 14 diary pages to get totally up to date at 12:40, feeling on top of the world because of that. Then meditate, water plants, and exercise, and then have tuna for brunch, reading Sci-Am, having gone down for the mail and found only a Christmas catalog, and then about 2 I start in on TELEPHONING people that I should have phoned when they came UP: American Express and Holland America Cruises for resume-targets, Greyhound for schedules and connecting information for Ameripass, Pope for enlightenment aphorisms, and the insurance company for door-lock information. When THAT all is finished, I start writing letters and sending THEM out: (1) to Transportas del Norte and (2) Alaskan Coachways for travel information; (3) Insurance Company of North America with a check for burglary insurance, (4) finally to the Society of American Travel Writers for membership info, (5) send Tall-Manhattan BACK to The Interplanetary Noose, (6) get supplemental resumes and letters together for Writers Alliance, (7) Writers: Free-Lance, (8) Intrav, (9) Holland America Cruises, (10) and American Express, and (11) write a card to Bill asking about my tape and Howard Leighton, and sort out my letters to be written and get a response to (12) Peter Holliday. Took a break from 4 to 4:30 to re-watch an old Animation Festival with short kooky films, and then meditate at 8:40, put on hamburger and call Rolf, but he's looking at his problems with coming out of the closet after reading "The Homosexual Matrix" and we talk to 9:50, I beg off and eat cooled-off hamburger while reading about the physiology of reproduction and thinking about Rolf's homosexuality. Call him back to find a busy signal (he was drunk and decided he didn't want to talk), phone Man's Country to find they have a $1 night, call Arnie to tell him about it, THEN decide to do the Hemlock Hall research, bring the vacation list up to date in the meantime, finishing that at 1 (see DIARY 10281), and then STILL don't feel like going to bed, so I skim through Bartlett's to get a list of aphorisms for Babbitt Brighton (see DIARY 10282) and get into bed at 2 am, setting the alarm at 9:30 to ensure waking in time to meditate before movie. GREAT DAY!
DIARY 10284
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19. Wake at 7 with a jolt and then get out of bed at 7:30, feeling VERY good! Meditate while she's still banging around upstairs, but don't manage to get any more letters typed during the day as I'd hoped to. Type two regular pages of diary and two pages of Throwback, but researching the proverbs takes a long time and I follow many through the Bible, and that's interrupted by "The Nun's Story" (Part I), and there are lots of thoughts from that (see DIARY 10285) today and tomorrow on Part 2. Then get back to typing the aphorisms and Pope calls JUST then and we talk about some more, and I add IMAGES to the list of things. Then have lunch and I'd phoned Arnie about getting the projector, so I get the projector from him, chatting about the party, and then go to the grocery store---to find they STILL don't have confectioner's sugar! Back at 3:45 and take the time to firmly close the French doors, nail the outside slat on more firmly, and putty closed the bottom and part of the side so that my feet aren't cold during meditation anymore. Then watch the beginning of "Atlantis, the Lost Continent," and I'd forgotten how cute Anthony Hall was (and what an AWFUL actor), but the special effects really don't start until the last 20 minutes, but they're pretty good. That's till 6, and I don't feel like doing anything other than watching "Star Trek" from 6 to 7, about Planet Gideon being so overcrowded that they're grateful for disease to clear out the people (except that they don't believe in birth control!), and they announce that there's a special two hours for "Space: 1999" at 8. Turn to Electric Company on 13, but Animation Festival preempted by their requests for funds---and I've been cooking tongue all afternoon, having borrowed a large pot from John. Then watch "The Kingdom of Bronze" about the Benin castings from 8-9, when they redo the first episode of "Space" and the second one is QUITE good at last, saying they WENT FORWARD THROUGH ONE ALTERNATIVE IN AN INSTANT, SO THAT they'd KNOW to pass the planet by, and they AGREED that it was nice to live in a place in which there was no fear, and earth people WERE vermin! Then smoke flowers that I'd harvested this afternoon, get VERY stoned, come quickly and without a peak of feeling, and eat lots of cookies and toast and cream cheese and jelly and listen to music and continue VERY stoned until I get to sleep about 1:30, woozy.
DIARY 10286
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20. Up at 9:30, back to 8 hours when I smoke and come, and meditate for about 18 minutes so that I can get back to "Nun's Story" at 10 without missing the start of it. I took Arnie's advice and turned down the volume and looked only with peripheral vision at the ads, and it seemed that the second part held together better than the first (see DIARY 10285). Then typed one "Throwback" page of notes and two diary pages to keep up to date, avoided exercising successfully through the day, and after watering the plants started back on correspondence, writing to Paul and Mike and Elaine, then had lunch about 2:30, still reading Sci Am, and then continued with correspondence, writing the last letters to Grandma, Helen, and Rita, taking time out to write to Drake for more address labels when I get to the last little stack of them. And I'm running out of postage stamps. Finish with all that at about 4:50. In between, I called Rolf to say that I had the projector, though he said he'd call me back about talking about "Being and Time," called est to find that I don't have to register for taking the supplementary "Be Here Now" seminars with Bob Rosinek, and Paul Bosten called to chat. Had wanted to take care of other things on the do list, but somehow the time goes past to 6, and I watch a "Star Trek" about the Lights of Zetar taking over a person with all-knowledge, but they kill them and it turns out OK. Then in to wash the dishes, the last of the unlisted tasks, since I'd gotten out the humidifier this afternoon and set THAT up, and when I finish I get intrigued (after a dinner of VERY rich tongue) into making fudge, which I do steadily from 8 to 10, licking and chewing and nibbling and creating a DELICIOUS crust on the side of the pot which peels off in crackling chewy tasty strips of bubble-textured praline, and then in to watch the end of "No-Really," which seems like another British comedic import, and then Monty Python, and stick around to watch the CIA report on Presidential Assassinations (and Kennedy MAY have been killed in retribution for our known attempts on the life of Castro!) until 11:30, and then I smoke the rest of the pipeful of flowers that I started last night, smoke bidi and use popper to come VERY nicely, and then keep eating toast and cheese and fudge while watching a great Hitchcock "Saboteur" with the classic scenes of falling from the Statue of Liberty, gunfire in front of Radio City Music Hall screen, and Robert Cummings acting as one many against the great sabotage network---and the CIRCUS FREAKS, too. TO BED AT 2:40 AM!
DIARY 10287
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21. Up about 10:15, feeling awful, meditate and STILL don't exercise, type one diary page, then have cereal for breakfast about noon, reading Sci Am, and then DETERMINE to get some things finished from the list of things to do, and I put records on and start putting the rest of the newspaper clippings into the brown envelopes, relieved to find that there aren't too many countries to do this for, and then survey the shelves and figure that I'll put the travel stuff on the middle five shelves and one of the larger ones at the bottom, leaving the top and bottom two for expansion. Put them in order, narrowing the number of countries that take a wider shelf to a basic minimum by putting lots of brochures on their sides, and then I have THAT all finished and cross another item off the list, and decide that I won't have to empty out any of the boxes until I figure WHAT I'm going to do with the rest of the shelves. Go into the gay section of the scrapbook and am appalled to find that "Immortality" has ALSO been printed in "Michael's Thing" without my knowledge, making TWO things that they printed of mine without paying me ANYTHING. It's getting on to about 4 pm, it's raining very hard, and Arnie calls to say that he might get me to Norma's for Thanksgiving, which would be nice, and later Loren calls and says NOTHING, just boobily chatting on about nothing, and I say I'm just about to go into the shower. End up cleaning out the gay newsletter section, and then get into the front closet to pile all the empty boxes atop each other (though it'll be a REAL pain to get down to the Uher box on the bottom), and that takes until about 6, when I put the tongue on to heat, do a quick shower and wash my hair, and then meditate, shave, have dinner, and get out to the About Sex 3 (see DIARY 10288) at 6:45, getting there just at 7:13 in time to finish reading "Mary" before Lew starts at 7:19. Out at 10:30, chatting with Joan, and home reading Heidegger and smoke at 11. Then look for the book of drawings and can't find them ANYWHERE, and search around, getting depressed, and settle for other things, coming nicely and VERY feelingly, then up to listen to music and watch TV without the sound, eating VERY much fudge, looking at junk until I get to bed AGAIN at 2:40 in the morning, seemingly nothing better to DO.
DIARY 10290
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22. Today I MAY have exercised VERY slowly and painfully at about 6, but it's the first time in a couple of days, and I don't do it on Sunday, either. Also, do the meditation in the morning, but then Rolf calls in the evening and messes up my plans to do the evening meditation. Just not INTO it! Up about 10, don't have breakfast and meditation because of my fudge-bloat, and don't even get to typing: watch a bit of "King Kong versus Godzilla," enough to say I've seen it, type three diary pages, down to get a whole stack of mail that I just scan through and then drop beside the chair, and then the mailman rings about 2:15 and it's the tapes from Bill, so I start listening to those, but get rather quickly bored with the prerecorded stuff that Bill's sent me entitled "The Third Testament." Can't figure WHY he's done it! Art calls to say that his parent's 50th anniversary party is tonight, and that he wants me to come to the country with him tomorrow. I clean up a bit of the mess I made from the front closet yesterday, and get out the many posters that I'd saved to straighten them out and put them into the large envelope I found, and loaded some of the heavier rolled ones with EB so that they'd straighten up enough to hang, like the huge Tchiletchew. Have FIRST meal of the day with tuna at 6. Then Fred Bassoff calls for some more AN, and he comes over after I fix up the apartment REASONABLY presentably (OH, THAT'S right, the MORNING was wasted looking EVERYWHERE for the book of drawings: in the laundry, under the bed, under the sofa, through the cabinet, even in the stamp albums, and my DEPRESSION in not being able to find it was SO severe that it affected the entire day!) and gets two, then says he has mescaline to sell for $2.50, or $2 if I get 50 of them, and I call Rolf to ask if he wants some, and he says he'll come over at 6:45. I'm watching "Star Trek" and tell him to come over at 7, but he comes over anyway while I'm cooking tongue, he doesn't want mescaline, nor does Paul Bosten, whom I call on his way out somewhere, nor does Art, whom I catch in the office. Rolf brings over "The Homosexual Matrix" and we chat about it a bit, then I have dinner, he watches various things until "Dr. Zhivago" comes on, not bad, then watch the good Panovs from 11 to 12, but they don't show the other special, so I'm out for the Times and read it and do both puzzles until he leaves at 4 am, watching a pretty awful "Dracula versus Frankenstein," with someone I DON'T recognize as Russ Tamblyn, and bed DREADFUL.
DIARY 10291
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23. Up at 10:30 in time to meditate before watching Andre Gregory saying that rules are impossible to follow then sets up exercises to be followed as rules, and the remnants of Joe Chaikin's group, down to 4, on Camera Three, and then read through more of the Times, still not feeling like doing anything---not exercising, deciding not to see the Lhamo Tibet Folk Opera Company at 2 because I want to see Wolf Trap's Panov performance again at 3:30 and can see it at 8 since the last TV I want to watch (18 hours this week!) ends at 7:30, as it ends up NOT doing the second meditation AGAIN today---and decide to start reading "The Homosexual Matrix" and it's pretty good, taking LOTS of notes on it (see DIARY 10300), and then turn on TV at 3:30 to find the Panovs have been delayed to 4 on Channel 31 for no stated reason, and end up WATCHING them, not listening to the tape from Bill and only looking at them as I'd planned. Then watch a pretty good "Hedda Gabler" with Janet Suzman looking properly migrained and Tesman looking rather like a frizzy-blond Bob Malchie, and I'd really FORGOTTEN the play completely, though little things like "Do it BEAUTIFULLY" and "No, not in the STOMACH" do poke through, but I'd forgotten that SHE kills herself in the end---in the head-end. That's to 6:50, again not according to schedule, and then I watch a "Space 1999" that AGAIN goes into cosmic consciousness, flying through the black sun, getting old, and stating with awe that "everything is everything" and that "the stars are the cells of the cosmic brain," and then coming "home" again back to everyone. Then subway up to Hunter to find that the Lhamo ENDED at 2 pm, "but the Japanese mime is on, he's very good," and I debate, vacillate, then ask for a $4 ticket, and the guy says "Oh, here," and hands me a comp that someone hadn't picked up. "Thank you," and the performance is rather awful, though the audience is interesting (see DIARY 10292). Finish Martin Heidegger's "Discourse of Thinking" on the subway back (see DIARY 10293) and get back to read more of "Matrix," get hungry about 12 and put on the last of the tongue, eat from 12:40 to 1, read through until I'm nodding at 2, not having had a call from Art OR Arnie, and get to bed without having really ANY urge to smoke, come, or eat---tranquility at last? No, just an excess of boredom, sleep more to escape than anything else!