1976 2 of 8
DIARY 10689
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18. Wake at 7, then up at 8:15 to shower and shave and brush my teeth by 9:10, he decides not to do his appointment at 9:30, and I phone Arnie, who'd gotten in last night, but he's got diarrhea; then call Berta, who said my 12/29 bill was misplaced, and I'm scheduled for a 1200-page indexing job on Microbiology between March 8 and April 26, even WITH my possible trip to Florida! GREAT! Then to Rolfing, reading the book I picked up yesterday on seashells, and it's a nice session (see DIARY 10690). Out at 11:40, phone BobG, Arnie's still sick, Bob doesn't want to do anything about lunch or Tahiti dancers, and I subway to Times Square and change to BMT down to 14th and go through about three places and Strand before I spend the $40 I brought with me (see DIARY 10693) for 16 books, only 11 of them which were ON my list, and leave the section at 2:30, hungry, and put on the hamburger only at 3:45 after I meditate and get the list up to date again, having ADDED 18 titles, and I'm now up to 117 books! Call Stephen Waite about the Tahiti, he says it's been cancelled, I call Town Hall and it's not, so I eat my FIRST meal at 4, get out at 4:45 to meet Stephen at 5:15, but there's not such a large crowd, and the Royal Tahiti Dancers aren't that great (see DIARY 10691). Out about 7, he's interested in a Chinese restaurant but we can't find which one he had in mind. Look down the side streets, and 46th has two Japanese, a Brazilian, two Chinese, a Peruvian, and a Mexican---and that's on the south side of the street! Look and he's not being very helpful, but we decide on the Celestial Empire and the hot pork isn't as good as the hot chicken, but the egg drop soup is naturally good, the peppers in the dishes are CRISP, the bean curd NICELY chewy, the spicing perfect, the fried rice the only downer except for puny fortunes, and the fresh pineapple for dessert was even a treat. Feel VERY good about finding the place. It's raining hard, but Stephen's still interested in the dirty bookshop, so we slog through the rain to see it, and then I'm home, having finished reading "Sea Shells," watch "A Slight Case of Murder" with Edward G. Robinson as a brewer involved with $500,000 and honesty, rather an ODD comedy, and I finish reading "Midwich Cuckoos," GREAT by Wyndham, at 2:35 am, having eaten POPCORN through the evening, and STILL work with BOOKS until 3:30, planning to get out AGAIN to shop TOMORROW with Stephen. Fabulous.
DIARY 10692
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19. Up about 9:30, feeling pretty good with only 6 hours sleep, and meditate just before Stephen calls at 10, and he says we should meet at 11. I shower and do some things, but seem to get out late, and so get to the corner at 11:15, worrying that he's missed me, but he gets off the bus at 11:18, grateful that I'd been late, and we're down to Dauber and Pine, which doesn't have anything, then across to some of the other places on lower Broadway (Raven still closed), meeting Steve from Theta Seminars in Weisers (where I get an address for Gurdjieff's book), and Steven Waite is turned off by some of the attendants in the National, and how they look at him as if he's about to steal. The National on Waverly supplies me with about 10 books for the best coup of the day (see DIARY 10693), and then go up Fourth Avenue, where Pageant says he may have some Blackwood later, and stop in a few more up Fourth, then over to Priapus, where I buy a $12.50 book of Tom's drawing for $5, and Steven buys TWO books for $9, though he said he didn't have enough money to buy a "Scorpio basket" for 75¢ and had just come from the Puerto Rican Embassy, the local name for the Unemployment Office in his neighborhood. Then across to the Strand, where he looks for books on Old New York, and I find a few more titles that I'd wanted, and then we're across to 12th and Fifth and pass Beefsteak Charlies at 5:15, and decide to go in and eat, and I get just SLOSHED with two pitchers of sangria with the beefsteak (not such a great serving of meat, but the salad was good, though the loaves of bread were stale). Ask Steven over, but he says we'll see each other at Arnie's on Friday, so I get home about 7, talk to a number of people on the phone, and then about 8:30 I smoke, and want to come, but Nick Sanabria, THEN Paul Bosten, THEN Guy St. Clair calls, taking me up to about 10:30!! Read something (Jerome's "Tea Table Talk!") or other after coming nicely, using the Tom book that I just bought, and then bring book lists up to date, eat some more junk, and watch "Little Caesar" with Edward G. Robinson, the one that ends with "Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?" after he's shot behind a billboard showing the dance partnership of some woman and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who does NOT show up very well in what must be one of his first films. Movie over at 1:12, and I watch the following Alfred Hitchcock where a crazy killer kills another woman, then work more with books and AGAIN get to bed about 3:30, beginning to feel rather ridiculous about my schedule!
DIARY 10695
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20. Up about 10, feeling fine enough on 6½ hours sleep, meditate, and I think today actually EXERCISE, since I hadn't been doing that in a long time. Actually, I got up at 9:30, JUST put my bathrobe on, and Mrs. Johnson knocked on the door to say she wanted to fix my ceiling. The apartment was a TOTAL shambles at this point: dishes littering the living room, clothes all over, souvenirs sprawled out against the study chests of drawers, trip folders ALL over the sofa and table, bed not made, grass and porno and poppers and bidis all over. I said she HAD to come back in a half an hour, and I fixed it up pretty well in that time, and when she still didn't come, I fixed it up even better: so that only the sofa was full of EVERYTHING, and all the dishes were on the to-be-washed shelf. She came back about 11, so I had a chance to see what I wanted to do about books today, deciding that I DIDN'T really have to go to the bookshops like the Metropolitan and the Sci-Fi today, that could wait until tomorrow, when I went to see "Lisztomania" at the Elgin. Talked to people on the phone like Arnie, Stephen, Paul, (wanting to know the address, surprised that Arnie called him). Even MAIL during these days is rather helter-skelter: I think I go to the store for a few things, but maybe not, and I debate writing up a new book list, but decide to wait until after tomorrow, and I actually wash dishes for the first time in 3 WEEKS, meditate again and shower and eat dinner and sit down to watch "Star Trek" to find I'd SEEN it not that long ago: the one about the horrendously overcrowded planet where the girl dies in order to find how the immortals on HER planet can die, too. So I'm out at 6:45, figuring to get there WAY early, but the train's just left, then when it DOES come at 7, it stays in Chambers Street for awhile, then the local takes its time, and I dash into the Statler Hilton lobby at 7:15! But it's not on the ground floor, take the elevator up to three to find it not THERE, then down to 2 to get in at 7:28, even LATER than when I'd watched the FULL program. It's interesting (see DIARY 10696); I leave promptly at 10:30, home at 11 to buy Arnie the Times he wanted, then get out poppers, debate taking mescaline, smoke, and LICK the tablet, getting to Arnie's and a LOVELY Dennis at 11:30 (see DIARY 10698), leaving at 2 when everyone leaves, bed at 2:30.
DIARY 10700
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21. Up about 8:30, feeling GREAT from last night, and meditate, neglect exercising, intending to do it this evening, and am out of breakfast. Type 7 pages because I MUST, still not finished with Wednesday, and then decide I HAVE to shower and wash my hair and get out to buy books (see DIARY 10694). Out about 11, leaving work for Don who didn't answer about seeing the film, and call Arnie to find he's with Norma, Mike's staying for the weekend, and he's not interesting in "Lisztomania," but I should call him for the evening. Get to the Sci-Fi bookshop and pick up 6 books for $11, then over to Metropolitan and get about 7, including a few MARVELOUS bargains, and then across to eat a GOOD slice of pizza for 35¢ half-block above the Elgin, and get out to find a LINE, and inside it's CROWDED in the balcony at 2:20, filled with awful people, the cuties standing forlornly along the back, having no place to SIT. I figure NOTHING will happen, and I don't think it happens ANYWHERE. "Lisztomania" STARTS rather funny with Daltry's almost-nudity and cut-jump shots, but then it gets worse and worse, unfunnier and unfunnier, and not even his 12-foot cock is REALLY sexy, though one fantasizes that they used HIS for the model, and the women are really UGLY for the most part: Wagner gets applause every time (Paul Nichols, is it?) he shows up onscreen, and Hans Von Bulow is just BEAUTIFUL, too, but through it's SPECTACULAR, as in the Russian church, the flying organ (HA!), the exploding piano, the cock-head upper room, it just isn't worth sitting through "The Devils" again to see again, so I'm out about 4, to subway, meet Michael Ralph and Stephen Pearlburg (DAMN!) coming out of the subway, invite them over for frozen daiquiris [101.6° fever at 3:55 pm], they look at my books, I look at HIS book on Art Nouveau houses since torn down across the country, which he bought at the Strand this afternoon, and we smoke lots, play "Tubular Bells," "Song of the Forests" and part of "Mefistofeles" before they leave at 7, and then I play my messages and ROLF comes over to pick up the article on alcoholism at 8, picks up "JR" to read, waits while I eat sausage at 9, talks to 12, when I throw him out, saying I have to get up at 7:15 tomorrow, and I have little trouble falling asleep.
DIARY 10701
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 22. Up in time to shut off the alarm at 7:10 before it goes, then meditate, feeling as if I really NEED a rest, and surprised to find it totally light outside: getting to bed at 3:30 makes a short morning! Shower and wash my hair and boil a couple of eggs for breakfast, and get out at 8:15, figuring to get there very early, but I'm there at 8:55, in time to be told there's better seating in the balcony, but surprised to find the second balcony totally closed and the first balcony only about 1/2 full---maybe 1500 people. But $22,500 isn't bad at ALL for one day's take, with a videotape, yet. Get handed an est notebook and a GREAT pen to write with, so I take COPIOUS notes (see DIARY 10702), and at 10:30 decide that my experience to THIS point was worth the price of admission, all the rest will be gravy. Then things start going slower, there's a half-hour john break which I rather dig, since people come up to talk with me, but then I'm just as happy when we break for lunch at 2. Phone BobG from 6th and 55th, and he says to come over, and it's raining rather hard, and that might be where I got the start for the feverish feeling I feel on Monday evening and the coughing and temperature that I start running on Tuesday. Get to Bob's, and he's turned off when I want bologna AND peanut butter AND butter AND jelly on toast, and I'm so hungry I have two of them. Along with two cups of tea. Then we play backgammon, and I win every game, and he blames it on est, after pooh-poohing the whole thing earlier. He just wants it both ways. Back just before 4, sitting lower in the balcony, and the first part of the afternoon is just lousy, but then there's a GREAT final process that brings two great spontaneous tears to my eyes, and it's over with that extraordinary rush at 8:40. Out to the subway to see Anica, who says that it WAS Stewart Emery who was there, she saw him when she wasn't doing the processes, just looking at the tape. I get home at 9:30, phone Dennis and disappointed when he's not home, and then I smoke and come VERY nicely, almost effortlessly, and then I finish "Between the Acts" by about 11:30, and since I'm tired eat Spam and toast and read some more, of "Tea-Table Talk" at 12:15, but I can't stay awake, so I'm to sleep about 12:45.
DIARY 10719
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23. Up about 8:30, meditate, and then decide to finish the Times, which takes a nice long time, since I also finish the puzzle, which is a real stickler (in fact, Pope can't even get INTO it in two days). Then keep looking at the books, books, books, and I sort them out on the shelf in the order in which they're to be read, and then I decide that I just HAVE to come up with a better sheet for them, and type a want list on ONE sheet, and then debate how to type the GOT list, and decide that I'll save myself LOTS of trouble afterwards if I just type a COMPLETE list of everyone's books, in order of quantity, and put an X beside those books that I HAVE. So I type out DIARY 10713-10718, revised book list pages 1 through 6. So I'll always take them along to check in case there's a NEW title, but the only list that anyone'll really have to look at is the ONE SHEET, with EVERYTHING on it. Describe the list-evolution on DIARY 10694, and when I finish at 2 pm there's a GREAT feeling, but it's really a JOLT when I figure on TUESDAY that I'd BOUGHT 40 books, and the list of books I wanted went from 106 to 112!! Then also, after I finished typing the list, I went to count how many books I have to READ (seem to recall back when I had all the "Remembrance of Things Past" to go through that the number maybe BARELY exceeded 30), and I'm shocked to find that if I go from YESTERDAY, before I finished "Between the Acts," including the "JR" that I loaned to Rolf, I have EXACTLY 69 books to read---which has GOT to be a record (and may increase TOMORROW---Wednesday, rather), though I put away the "Hoag" and "Sheckley Omnibus" that I've read the contents of. But 69 it WAS! Then type 1 diary page, get a call from Dennis and Paul, and exercise, beginning to feel somewhat feverish, and Michael C. doesn't call for me as a buddy at the Baths, Dennis and I decide on Friday, and Paul gets passes for "The Magic Flute." I subway in, pay the $1 at 9:30, when it starts 10 minutes early, and it's marvelously well done (see DIARY 10720). Out just before 12, he doesn't want to eat, I walk over to the BMT since the IRT is skipping Clark Street after 12:01 and the BMT becomes the closest, and then I have some cereal (which I'd bought on Saturday night with milk and muffins, just to have something to gnaw on) [Oh, watched a LUSH "Star Trek" about "Cloud City" and "Troglites" and an odorless gas that reduced their intelligence and increased their belligerence]; take 3 g of vitamin C and got to sleep about 12:30.
DIARY 10723
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24. Up about 8, have the dream recorded on DIARY 10722, probably meditate and exercise, but this is hard to say since I'm typing this OVER 9 days after I should be doing it, a cause de FLU! Finish reading "Psychedelic Reader" over breakfast or lunch, just to be able to say that I did a book a day, and then start in on typing, being about a week behind, and I keep on going though I'm feeling the slightest bit feverish, somewhat worse than I felt yesterday, and about 3:10 it gets so warm-feeling that I decide to take my temperature, and I'm surprised to find that I have 100.1° fever, which I note on some page or other that I'm typing, and it feels like it rapidly gets worse, and in fact at 3:55 it's up to 101.6°, but Pope's asked me over for Scrabble this evening, and I want to go, so I start really clipping away at the typing, including the notes from est on Sunday, and then Rolf wants to come over to get the article about his research on alcoholism from the Sunday Times, and he comes over and reads it while I go typing away, and type clear through until about 8, typing a total of 25 pages for the day, and Rolf leaves just before them, saying that he'll be coming up with another shipment of "cookies," and I get dressed and hustle over to Pope's about 8:15, right when I said I would, and he gives me some hot chocolate and we listen to early Nichols and May, and then he proceeds to BEAT me two games out of two in Scrabble, at one point even GIVING me a triple-word score, on which I can get the MAXIMUM from the ONE consonant I have on my tray, making "airy" for a great score of 33, which makes the game more interesting, but nothing more. Don't ask him to watch Python or the Animation, but HE wants to watch "Mary Hartman," and we chuckle through it. I've had to cough a few times, but he doesn't seem to be bothered by it. Leave there at 11:45 and feel very heated on the way home, but my temperature's only gone up to 101.8°. Maybe have a hot bath, but I don't think so: I'm still thinking I'll be ale to bull through all my plans for the next few days, hoping not to be waylaid by anything serious, hoping that mind over matter will work and keep me on my feet. Bed about 1, I guess, setting the alarm for 8:30, maybe not even smoking.
DIARY 10724
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25. Shut off alarm before it rings, call Michael at 8:25 (probably waking him, since the boxer wasn't there when I got there), asking if it's OK for me to come with a temperature of 100.6°, which I recorded at 7 am, and by the time I'm ready to leave for his place at 9:35, it's gone up to 100.9°. But he said come ahead, so I get there at 10:15 after buying a bottle of cough syrup to keep down the whooping hack I seem to have come up with, and the 9th Rolfing session goes very well and very quietly (see DIARY 10725). Out at 11:25, rather disturbed to have taken so little time, and determine to look at the bookshops on my list. But, woe is me, the Rosenburg at 100 W. 72nd is mostly German books, and I get caught in the elevator for ONE HOUR (see DIARY 10727). Out, feeling VERY much in need of a john, at 12:35, find that the Book Gallery at 240 W. 72 has only NEW books, and walk up to Don's, gratefully home and on the phone so I can go DIRECTLY into the john and relieve myself, and my temperature at 2 is 103.6°. He gives me a red-white-and-blue time-capsuled pill that makes me feel better; I refuse his offer to nap for an hour while he fusses about getting ready for the Rio departure on Saturday. Out to find that Eeyore's on 83rd and Broadway is GONE, that Reinbardt Galleries at 62 W. 83rd is GONE, and I'm beginning to swelter in the 65° heat in my jacket, but the 999 Book Shop West at 2345 Broadway, about 87th, supplies me with THREE books (Nabokov's "Gift," Gaddis' "Recognitions," Burroughs's "Junkie"), then the New Yorker gives me the $4.95 "Slightly Irregular Fire Engine" for $4.25 WITH tax, sure MORE than $1 savings, just because I ruefully said "I should have asked for the paperback," and I feel GREAT. On up to Pomander next to the Thalia for two Huxleys for $12.50 and a Woolf paperback for $1, Lee and Lee have moved from 732 West End at 96th, and I'm into the Columbia area to buy another from Papyrus, look at some of the other places and find nothing, and by this time it's 4, I'm EXHAUSTED, and subway down to Stephen's at 4:30, have some tea, bus across by 5:30 to meet Paul and have hamburgers in Soup Burg, VERY mediocre after Stephen's recommending, and we've BOUGHT tickets for the "Articular Muscle" beforehand, so we wander up and down Madison looking in shops, Paul buys me a lovely Pralines and Cream cone, and we're in at 7:45 to a JAMMED show at the Whitney, with VERY strange commentary (see DIARY 10728). Home at 10:40 and APPALLED to find me at 104.5°. Short hot bath, bed at 11:30, feeling AWFUL!
DIARY 10731
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26. Wake about 9, feeling sweaty and coughy and dragged out, and my temperature is only a little above 100.6°. Get up and read for awhile, but quickly feel dizzy, and I still want to go to the dance performance tonight, so I crawl back into bed about 12:30, just not feeling like doing anything---not even putting all the papers on the desk back in order from the 25 pages of typing I did the day before yesterday. Feel awful just laying there, but at 12:30 the temperature is just above 100.8°, at 2:30 it's just above 102°, but at 4 it's gone down to 101.8°, and then at 5 to 100.8°, and I'd read in EB that fevers are at their LOWEST between 2-5 am and at their HIGHEST from 2-5 pm, so if it keeps going down like this I'll be NORMAL at 7, and at 5:20 I'm down to 100.5°, so I shower and feel pretty good after that, phoning Don and Stephen and arranging to meet them at the theater at 7:30, and I even want to get there at 7:15, in case it's crowded, discouraged that they sell reserved seats, want everyone to pick up tickets a couple of days before, and only as a LAST resort wait for tickets that evening. I eat a bit of toasted pound cake, and the butter feels a bit heavy on my stomach, and I'm still coughing, so as I leave I take a swig of cough syrup. Down the stairs and onto the subway platform OK, but when I sit down my stomach starts feeling queasy, and I recall what Paul said last night about getting an upset stomach from taking cough syrup, and I'm waiting for that to go away, but by 14th Street I'm in total agony (see DIARY 10732) and I can think of nothing better but to take the express back home, asking someone to please give me his seat, and I walk back to my place at 7:45, phone the theater to tell them I'm not making it, and it turns out they go HOME, Don to sleep, Stephen to a bar, and when I call at 11:10 I wake Don, Stephen's still out, and I call Arnie and BobG and tell them they were RIGHT when they said I shouldn't go out at ALL today, and I'm convinced at last that I DO have something, and am willing to stay in bed until it finishes. Get up to see the end of the Lindberg thing on TV from 10:30 to 11, then watch "Mary Hartman," and temperature is 100.7° at midnight, and I flop into bed feeling just AWFUL, convinced I have the real FLU!
DIARY 10733
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27. My 9:30 temperature was 100.4°, somewhat better, but by noon it had gone back up to 100.7°+, and I talked on the phone to a few people, having called Dennis yesterday to tell him that I just wouldn't be able to see him this evening, to free up his time, and then at 3, when my temperature should have hit the highest for the day, it went up to 101.9°, and I vaguely sense that my temperature hasn't been BELOW 100° since about Tuesday noon, over 3 days now. Talked to Rolf, who said he had a temperature for four days and then felt washed out for four days, and then at 5 it went down to 100.8°, at 8 pm down to 100.6°, but then at 11 pm it was UP again to 100.8°, DAMN. Took a hot bath and drank lots of hot tea, and the ONLY time I went out was about 1, when I bought a sick-person's list of orange tea, oranges, four cans of consommé, two cans of chicken broth, orange blossom honey, and then I felt STILL well enough to go to the liquor store and buy a bottle of Triple Sec since I hated the taste of vodka in my tea. Pope had suggested he could get groceries for me, and Arnie went off yesterday to Mexico City and Acapulco, and, horrors, DON said that he felt sick this morning, but it could have been his sleeping pill last night, and he was staying in bed to see how he'll feel tomorrow, when he's to leave for Rio in the evening. Drank broth and felt somewhat better, finished "Sturgeon's West" but when I tried to lay down about 11:30 I kept coughing and coughing so hard that I finally got blankets from the closet to build up my bed, and at last got the pillow from the living room to build it up to practically sleeping sitting up. At 2 am my temperature was up to 101.3°, and at 4 up to 102.3°, and I was getting desperate from the cough and the fever, and at last I took one tablet of Tetracycline, seeing it was an antibiotic like penicillin, and I figured if I had PNEUMONIA I could last least cure THAT, and DAMN the idea that it was so old (from 1971) that it might be dangerous: I was DESPERATE: if that didn't work, I would have gone to a HOSPITAL to beg for SOMETHING to let me sleep. Finally doze off about 4:30, feeling PERFECTLY DREADFUL. Kept getting up to piss, too, smoked a bit, coughing outrageously, checking to see how bloody the sputum was getting, figuring I was REALLY sick, GHASTLY.
DIARY 10734
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28. Wake about 10:45, feeling totally wet, the stack of pillows and blankets and sheets under my head almost soggy, but I took my temperature and was DELIGHTED to find that it was down to 98.9°, below 100° at last, having been there for 4 days. Graham Gross had called me on Tuesday about working next week, saying he'd call back on Friday, but he called back only TODAY, to say that I could come in Monday or Tuesday, as I was feeling good enough, and I was feeling VERY depressed about all that I still had to DO and wasn't doing: dishes piled up, wearing the last of the socks, clothes to clean, floors getting too dirty to even vacuum, and still feeling pretty awful. But I fertilized the plants and did a few odd things around the house between drinking down bowls of good-tasting consommé and bad-tasting chicken broth, and decided that I could read SOME during the day, and finished "To Here and the Easel," which made me feel somewhat dizzy, and then at 6 pm my temperature was back up to 100.2°. Find that the "Star Trek" was something that I'd seen before, but got a chance to see the "Space 1999" I'd missed in est on Sunday, and it starred Christopher Lee as a circus-clown future-man who could only stare regretfully when the people's stupidity changed one of their fellow travelers to ashes, and the obnoxious "earth representative" pushed his way aboard their ship to earth "in 75 years," without even SAYING or CLOSING with the idea that I THOUGHT they had to change his patterns from Helena's or he'd die. Or did they expect us to REMEMBER it? Still LOVELY bodies on Paul and Alan! Pope brings me the Times at 8:30, barging in not caring about germs, into my FILTHY apartment, and I read it and work BOTH puzzles by 10:45, when I watch the end of "Westworld" and brag to him about finishing them, and then I turn on "Saturday Night" and watch it from 11:30 to 1, feeling VERY fagged out, too much so to take a bath, but I DO smoke, and then build up the tower for my back and AGAIN have trouble getting to sleep, but I'm taking the antibiotic pills with no ill effect, and at 12 I'm back up to 101.4°, and get to sleep about 2, coughing and coughing and feeling AWFUL about it, even feeling slightly sorry for the people UPSTAIRS that I've had to listen to moving around for the past three goddam days that she's been HOME the whole time.
DIARY 10735
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 29. Wake about 11 again, obviously needing a lot of sleep, again with a SOPPING set of sheets and blankets and pillows, and find that my temperature is actually BELOW normal: 98.1°! Watch a DELIGHTFUL program on Noel Coward (except no one can sing: not Kristoffer Tabori, not George Rose, not Carole Shelly, not Jean Marsh) from 11 to 11:30, then find that Rinpoche is NOT on radio from 11 to 12:30 as he should be, and then eat and read, finishing "Not Without Sorcery," and watch the Gay Outreach program on Channel 13 from 1 to 4, VERY good, finding out Mattachine has an Open House from 1-5 next Sunday, Owen Wilson for Legal and Steve Askinazy from Employment giving a rather good image of Mattachine on the program, and Crane Davis is a perfect host, unflappable when audio and visual things go wrong, for a great show that I even send fan mail to! At 2:30 I'm back up to 99.2°, and then after 4 I read Bradbury's "Pillar of Fire," and feel like reading MORE, so I pick up "Exterminator" and read that, stopping to watch another "Space 1999," this time with Peter Cushing as a gold-faced silver-haired fellow with a candy-striped haired daughter who's impossibly ugly in her "modern beauty" and I can't figure WHY Koenig would fall in love with her outside hypnotism, and then his "spirit" is left back into his body and everything ends OK. The plots ARE getting silly! And all the modern people look like hippies, all the modern space ships seem the same, and EVERYONE speaks English with no explanation whatsoever. Soups and eggs and whatnot through the day, talking to people on the phone (and Don, I guess, DID get off to Rio yesterday after we talked on the phone about 2), and at 11:30 my temperature is 99.8°, and I'm into a tub again, smoking again, and I think it's tonight that I even JERK OFF, feeling good enough to feel good about doing it, but the cough is still awful, I keep drinking the booze, I'm feeling ill from the typical "antibiotic-stomach" feeling from the pills, and I try not too convincingly to lower the pillows, but it doesn't work, so I get to sleep sitting up again, surprisingly finding it easier and easier to do. Bed about 1, after reading part of "Room of One's Own," at LEAST pleased that I can manage to READ for the day---SOMETHING to do!
DIARY 10736
MONDAY, MARCH 1. Up at 9:30 with a temperature of 97.6°, exactly one degree below normal, and I don't feel like working today, so I call Graham and say I'll be in about 9:30 tomorrow. Finish "A Room of One's Own" and then really get the bug to read; finish the last few pages of "Tea-Table Talk" (see DIARY 10737) and then the end of "Pricksongs and Descants" (see DIARY 10738), and then read "The Invisible Man." I'm having the last of the eggs about this time, and it may be that I actually DRESS for the first time in ages, trying desperately to think "Four days for the illness, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday; and then four days for the recovery: Saturday (though 101.4° at midnight is hardly good for the first day of RECOVERY!), Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, so I today have to do SOMETHING." Do the dishes today, I think, though I may have done them tomorrow after work. By 5 pm my temperature has made its way back up to normal: 98.6°, and I'm talking with various people on the phone, but still too lazy to do anything about typing. Tune in on "Star Trek" and find that again it's one that I saw, so I settle down to read "Star-Begotten," though I'm feeling rather out of sorts for having read so much today. Jerk off again, I recall, since I felt so good coming last night, and I THINK today Rolf came by with 24 more bottles, which made my refrigerator full to overflowing, and I leave them in the cooler section until Thursday, when I figure I have to do SOMETHING and put them all in the freezer. Too cold to shower in the evening, so I figure I just have to set the alarm for 8 and wash in the morning. Smoke before going to bed, again trying to lay a bit flatter but it doesn't work, and I'm wondering when I'll EVER be able to change the sheets, though I think tonight is the LAST night that I sleep in pajamas, since I'm at least getting SOMEWHAT on the road to recovery. Pope called to say that he was fasting today, and called tomorrow to say that he did it for 36 hours and felt GREAT about it, loved the Cott book, and is looking forward to one-day fasts once a week. I can't do that, don't even have any PLANS to get back to exercising, just still feel WEAK, and Rolf said HIS weakness lasted for a long time, and I hope I'm not going solely by HIM.
DIARY 10739
TUESDAY, MARCH 2. Alarm jolts me awake and I really don't relish being up so early, but the shower goes OK and I have some hot cereal with maple syrup and the milk's gone sour so I have it milkless for breakfast, and sign in at LTS at 9:45, and he puts me in an office with a thesaurus and 37 extracts to index, and I work through to 12:20, and I'd called Bob Rosinek, so we meet at 34th and 6th at 12:30 and wander down to a closed Howard Johnson's and then back to a burger place where I have a fish sandwich and a coffee sundae which he pays for, and we talk about his going into a new company with Nina, his trip details, and his complete buffaloing of his boss. I'm back to work at 1:40, still coughing and taking awful cough drops that do no good, and working through until 5:10, for 6 full hours of work, and he says he won't be ready for me tomorrow, but I should call to see if I come in on Thursday. Joe Teller's not there anymore, a pity, and Pat's so busy I'll have to talk to her on Thursday. Get home on the crowded subway reading Blackwood's "Ancient Sorceries," and don't feel the BEST, turn on "Star Trek" to find another duplicate, and have sausage for dinner and start fixing up the place a little bit, since BobG's supposed to come over tomorrow to do some more typing. Probably do the dishes tonight, too, breaking another wine glass, and then watch Monty Python and Animation Festival while talking to Marty, who says it doesn't SOUND like a circle if you put a sine-wave on a sphere, and recommends someone's book on calculus that was a standard for a number of years. Watch "Mary Hartman," too, and then into the tub again, having two cups of tea as usual, smoking as usual, and get to bed somewhat early, since I have to set the alarm for 8:30 to get up to my LAST Rolfing session, and I'm feeling pressured into doing all SORTS of things, have been getting nothing great in the mail, haven't been typing at all and feel the pressure mounting to do something with THAT---though at LEAST I type some page numbers on things and send out some bills tonight, at LEAST, and then get to bed without pajamas for the first time in a week to sweat not so much, but still enough to know that I can't change the fetid sheets quite yet---I'm still SICK!!
DIARY 10740
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3. Up early and don't even feel like meditating or exercising or ANYTHING, and finally drag myself out for the last Rolfing, which goes rather uneventfully (see DIARY 10741), and I'm out at 12 to phone Stephen, who says I can come up for the books, and get there at 12:10 and get out at 12:30, him saying that he might meet me for the few free dance performances at the end of the week, and I get back home at 1 to DELIGHT in putting the books I've read SINCE last week away, filing the nine new ones that I just got from Stephen away, bringing my list TOTALLY up to date, and it's almost down to 100 books to get, only. BobG rings determinedly at 1:55, a bit early, so I'm glad that I didn't go out to the grocers as I'd planned, and he's in to lay around for a bit while I clean up more tings, and then he types his letters while I finish reading "The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine" and put THAT away, and then get the apartment ALMOST to rights, even having cleaned out the john, and the only things really LEFT are vacuuming the floor, taking out the laundry, and catching up on the diary. I put on the hash to warm, we eat about 3, then play two tournaments of Backgammon, both of which I win, some of them with INCREDIBLE runs of doubles that REALLY disgusts him. About 4:30 we have popcorn, and I finish the rest of the butter off, and I have almost NOTHING left in the house to eat. The wine with the hash sort of makes the day muzzy, and he leaves about 6:30, when I'd turned on "Star Trek" to find they're on the "Mudd's Women" segment, and I'm beginning to be glad I've seen them all! Again get down to letter and bill writing, and I'm to go in to LTS tomorrow, and I have to go to the bank because I have NOTHING left in my wallet, not to mention owing Rolf $120, and I put things away and feel slightly good, actually TAKING the build-up away from the head of the bed, and when I go to sleep at 11:30, it's OK for me to lay only on the pillow, and I hope to get up sweatless in the morning, but I'm saddened to find that I'm still damp, so I have to wait until FRIDAY to take out the sheets to be cleaned, but it's almost TWO WEEKS now that I've been sick, and it's ABOUT time that I'm finished. Don't even smoke or put in earplugs tonight, just TIRED enough to fall asleep immediately, coughing only a few times, thank god.
DIARY 10745
THURSDAY, MARCH 4. Again up just before the alarm rings at 8, and fry up some Spam for breakfast, with mayonnaise because I'm out of butter, get to the bank for cash for lunch today and get to work at 9:40 to find that Graham's left about 40 things to index on my desk, and he keeps adding to the list until I complete 51 by the end of the day, which means I've done 88 in all, in the 12.5 hours, or $125, which comes out to something like $1.43 per item indexed, or under 30¢ for each item entry, which isn't bad. Talk to Pat and find she and Joe are SEPARATED, and I yearn to ask about him, but don't. Sip tasty hot chocolate through the day, which helps with my cough more than the Smith brothers cough drops do, and chat a bit with Graham about the Kirlian photography, and he can scrape enough time for us to go over to 7th and eat in the Curry Pot for about $2.75 for VERY little meat and nice condiments, and I introduce him to papadum. He shows me the write-up, showing that hyperventilation is FAR more important than health or ANY other "ESP" facets of the stuff, but he was MAINLY worried about ELECTRICAL SHOCK, saying that someone's going to be killed soon in the field. Back after an hour and ten minutes, and I work pretty steadily through until 4:50, then wait for Graham to get off the phone to give me the paperwork to leave a bill, but then he says he'll mail it to me. That finishes THIS, but he might have a month's work on writing for me (at $8 an hour) in the office during the month of May. Good! Leave at 5:15 and get home in time to see I've seen the "Star Trek," and at LAST get to typing some of the diary pages, getting through six pages, not NEARLY enough, but this is AFTER I phone Rolf, who comes over about 7 to pick up his $120 for the poppers, reads over the Rolfing information, listens to a bit about the swine-flu virus that may lay us ALL flat next year, and I fix up the apartment, send out more letters, and then he leaves about 8:30, I finish reading "Ancient Sorceries," washed socks at last and cook up the rest of the sausage for dinner about 10:30, feeling woozy from two spiked cups of tea, which he said he'd like, and HE was highly affected by the Triple Sec, too, and then I get into bed about 12, leaving the pajamas off and hoping not to sweat so that I can change the cruddy sheets tomorrow.
DIARY 10746
FRIDAY, MARCH 5. Wake about 8:30, feeling almost human for the first time in ages, and decide to launder the mattress PAD, too, so I weigh out 8 pounds of laundry, fill a pillowcase with the Chinese laundry, empty out all the wastebaskets so I won't have suffering with a full garbage-bag through a weekend AGAIN, and then wrestle down three loaded bags at about 9:30, dropping off one before I drop anything, the second before my arms fall off, and the third, hoping they won't bitch about my laundering a pad NOT for 50¢ a pound as their sign demands. Then pick up toothpaste, deodorant, and more pills at Whelans, go to the bank for my bank check, then over to the post office to pick up a sheet of 50-state flag stamps and mail Paul's labels for 31¢ and other things, then to the grocery store to meticulously pick up $11 worth of groceries, for that's as much money as I have left, and get home at 10:45 feeling pretty fagged out! Have cereal for breakfast with my newly-acquired milk, but the sugar just tastes like "too much," and then I get down to typing, and typing, and end up doing 13 pages before 2, when I have lunch of a Spam sandwich and a half and an orange, then shower and shave, get out to pick up the laundry at 3 so that I'll have a mattress pad to sleep on tonight, and feel happy that things are getting DONE! To Lincoln Center VERY quickly, by 3:30, and find the Philippine Dance Company cancelled in the library, look at Nijinsky STATIC photographs, and Stephen's content with buying booze for his party tonight and walking in Central Park. He leaves me at 4:30 for a nap, and then it starts windying and RAINING hard (in the 67° unusual warmth), so I buy a bottle of awful Great Seal New York Champagne, that's too sweet and heavy, for $3.23 and get to his place at 5 to nap to 5:20, then he makes a nice dinner of spaghetti and meat sauce, and a salad, and we rather enjoy the champagne, toasting "To Sex," since tonight's my last "About Sex" seminar, and leave at 7:50 to slip in without being confronted to a rather boring evening (see DIARY 10747), and out at 10:30 to get home at 11 to watch "Mary Hartman" and then make up the bed and crawl into it, having a BIT of trouble getting to sleep unstoned, but doze off about 12:15, feeling that I'm on the long road of recovery from the flu.
DIARY 10751
SATURDAY, MARCH 6. Cough spasmodically in the middle of the night, and have to cough a few times to clear my throat when I wake about 8:30, so it's not over yet. Meditate for the first time in a couple of weeks, and type DIARY 10750 about the new activities list that comes to me at that time. Think I might be able to do lots of things before leaving for the dance performance, but all I can do is have French toast for breakfast, which tastes good, type up 9 pages to finally bring me up to date in the diary, phone Stephen and BobG and Dennis and Avi and Rolf about the Javanese dancers this afternoon, then have lunch and shower and get out at 3 WITHOUT having the time to wash the dishes and vacuum the rugs as I'd wanted to. Pick up schedules from the Modern and for the Donnell films, and find nothing that I care for, and I think the Javanese music and dance are pretty dreadful (see DIARY 10752), but Stephen rather likes them. Out at 5:15 and Stephen declines to come to Bob's, so I walk across, we talk about his going to "Chorus Line" last night and the performance this afternoon, and then watch the World Skating Championships while splitting two games of Backgammon. Then I suggest we eat, and he brings out a file of restaurant notices, and the Castilian sounds good, so we're there about 7 for fishy-tasting shrimp and wine sauce and good stuffed mushrooms for appetizers, and he has the chicken breast almandine and I the veal extremena, good with a spicy sauce, with orange rice and good Spanish sausage, thick and meaty and salty, and green peppers and rice. But still, $7.35 is a bit much for the meal. He joins me on the subway to go to Everard Baths as I come home at 8:30, buy the Times, work the puzzle, read it by 11:15, then watch "State of Siege" to get an awareness that NOTHING will EVER be able to change (see DIARY 10753). That goes to 1:15, and I finish reading "The Worlds of Theodore Sturgeon" during the intermissions, and he's just GREAT with characters and believable plots, and I brush my teeth for what seems like the 67th time today and get into bed at 1:30, coughing a few times, leaving earplugs out, enjoying the freshness of the sheets, and it's so warm that I don't even need the electric blanket, and sleep without smoke or come.
DIARY 10755
SUNDAY, MARCH 7. Up at 8:30, meditate, have some eggs for breakfast, type 4 pages to catch up with the diary, watch a program on Charles Ives on Camera Three, and Dennis calls to say he's seeing Pilobolus at BAM at 2, and I say he should come over afterwards, figuring he'll be here about 4. I shower and wash my hair and get out at 1:30 for Mattachine, taking the opportunity to take the books back, and get lots of information about the organization (see DIARY 10756). But there's not much to keep me there, so I leave at 2:45, getting back at 3:15, and decide there's enough time to wash dishes, which I do until 3:45, but Dennis is still not here, so I sort through the USA trip stuff for the Florida trip, put other stuff on the shelf, and put away the souvenir boxes I'd put out about two weeks before, and just finishing that up when Dennis buzzes at 5, and we have DELIGHTFUL sex (see DIARY 10757) until he has to leave at 6:40. I quickly turn on "Space 1999" and it's a DELIGHTFUL program on which they get air from some planet, crash, eat hallucinogenic mushrooms, have romances, and they fly away WITHOUT the threatened atmosphere freezing and crushing AlphaBase somehow without mentioning. Then watch the news for lack of anything else to do, read more of "Recognitions" until 9 (oh, forgot also that I wrote letters to Mom and Helen this afternoon, too, feeling good about THAT), when I watch what could be either "Emperor of the North" (as in the title of the movie) or "Emperor of the North Pole" as used IN the movie and in the NY Times ad. That's over at 11:15, I think about staying up to 1:50 to watch a late-late show of a good science-fiction film (and Pope the next morning says I should have watched "Talk of the Town" from 11 to 1:30, which probably would have kept me awake enough to WATCH the sci-fi film, even though the sex with Dennis seems to have REALLY worn me out!), and I continue reading "Recognitions" to page 205 by 12:15 (and Pope said he'd read it when it came out in 1955, when he was reading books, and was impressed by its writing style), and then I can't keep my eyes open so I go to bed and toss just a bit before falling asleep at 12:30, having had wine with Dennis and with pork chops for dinner, and just a BIT of grass made the whole evening pleasantly off-straight.
DIARY 10758
MONDAY, MARCH 8. Wake at 7, then again at 8, and out of bed at 8:30 when the woman AND man upstairs start thumping, bumping, and talking around. Meditate, type three diary pages, and then decide to have something DIFFERENT with eggs for breakfast, and come up with egg dumplings from the cookbook, not the best, but filling. Then MUST vacuum, so I start preparing for it by scrubbing the kitchen floor and the rest of the wooden floors, and I start sweating and panting, so I read a bit to rest from it, telephoning Celia Brewer and Pat Teller about Club Mediterrané, call Pope about going to the movies the next few days, Dennis calls and says we'll see the Carnegie Hall Cinema together, leave a message with Don, who got in this morning, so his service says, and tell Blue Cross to send in brochures so I can evaluate how much I pay. Then scrub and scour the bathroom sink and tub, again exhausting myself, and begin dusting before having lunch at 1:30, thinking I'll go to the movies this afternoon, but then figure I really don't NEED to see Wertmuller's "All Screwed Up" at a single showing for $1.50 (wait till it comes with something ELSE for $1), and then have lunch of tuna and reading Scientific American, and I still feel tired, so I start reading more of "Recognitions" until I feel rested about 3, then continue dusting, read more, meditate, watch a "Star Trek" with the guy who looks like a young Robert Walker while making out a "Star Trek" plot list, and it looks like it repeats every three months, and I've only seen about 2/3 of them, about 35 to go! That takes until about 8, then I put on the pork chops and watch "Balloon Safari," quite good and rather funny with David Niven's narration until 9, talk to Paul who invites me to his birthday party tomorrow until 9:30, then watch a FABULOUS film by Leboyer of "Birth Without Violence" until 10, then continue reading until 11:30, when I feel tired, so I have toasted pound cake, brush my teeth, and then get into bed at 12 to continue reading "Recognitions" (getting better---and gayer---all the time) until I get tired enough to go to sleep at 12:30 without smoking, coming, or putting in earplugs---"natural sleep" they calls it!
DIARY 10760
TUESDAY, MARCH 9. Wake at 8 when she gets up, then only at 9, surprised to sleep so long. Meditate, get down for New York Magazine when I realize I hadn't gotten the mail at all yesterday, look at that through scrambled egg breakfast, type two diary pages to keep caught up, and then vacuum the floor, rather frustrated in that I seem to have no empty bags, and I really NEED them. Call Stephen to find he's not coming to the movies, and it starts SNOWING quite hard outside! Shower and look around the cupboards to find that I have NOTHING for lunch, so I finish up the last can of chicken broth and the last orange, and that's all there is to eat in the house! Out at 1:10 for the movies, surprised at how much snow has accumulated already, and get to the Carnegie Hall Cinema at 1:55 for "Waxworks," an incredibly stylistic Leni film with Emil Jannings as a fat Haroun-al-Raschid with a wishing ring and a wax effigy her husband cuts the hand off of; Werner Krauss as a final Jack the Ripper in VERY psychedelic double film-images, chasing them; and Conrad Veidt as Ivan the Terrible, poisoning and being poisoned. GREAT organ sounds of rhythmic dancing, wind whooshing, screams, whoop whoop human-like sounds, and tinkly-creepy music. "The Black Cat" is not very familiar, though it promises more than it gives, ending only in Lugosi FLAYING Karloff and the castle exploding as the simpery married couple get away. "The Cat and the Canary" is VERY good with the organ, GOOD creepy effects from the hairy hand, too. Then we're out in the DRIVING snow for dinner at Chock Full, talking at length about "Pacific Overtures," then he's to "Royal Family" and I'm to BobG's at 6:45 to read while he watches the news, then HE wins a Backgammon tourney to 9, when I leave with the Rotschild Monopole white sparkling wine that's not very good for Paul's, and the party is one that I try to capture the flavor of (see DIARY 10761), but figure I can't quite do it. Out at 12 in the DRIFTING snow, reading Burroughs, who goes VERY well with the champagne-stoned I'm feeling, home at 12:45 to wash and smoke a bit and come with porno for the first time in ages, and resist eating anything, getting to sleep about 1:45.
DIARY 10765
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10. Up about 9:30, meditate, have breakfast, type five diary pages, and then ACTUALLY GET DOWN TO FINDING WHAT'S ON WHAT TAPE AND RECORD "MEFISTOFELES." It's been hanging around for more than a month to do, and when I do something like that, it feels VERY good. Decide that I will sort through the souvenirs while I'm doing that (when I'm not listening to it and taking down timings and smoothing out record-side cuts), and get out the box of souvenir programs and spread them all over the place, and that leads me to think about the ticket stubs, and decide that those are so nice I'll leave them for a bit, but then rummaging around at the top of the clothes closet gets me into the proof coins and uncirculated coins, so I get new boxes for those, sorting them out and throwing away the wrappings that I've kept all these years, and then repackage the check stubs, too, since they've long since overflowed, and the result is that I have everything spread all over the place, and the only thing actually DONE is the recording of the 6 sides of the records, so that when Fred Bassett finally calls back, I won't have to embarrassed and say I haven't done it YET. Then, coincidentally, the bell rings about 5 and the 15 tapes that I'd ordered LAST WEEK have arrived, so I have THOSE to contend with, too. Sort through the movie programs and throw lots of them out, about 1/3 of them, still leaving a lot, and then finally shave and shower (had hash for lunch, since there's still nothing to eat; had cereal for breakfast, and the overly-sugared stuff tasted AWFUL). Then out at 6:45, taking down a load of garbage, and get to the Joffrey at 7:20, and it's a pretty good performance (see DIARY 10766), out at 10, and subway home by 10:40 to look at a bit of Channel 13, "Mary Hartman," VERY depressing since SHE'S thinking of suicide, then flick back and forth watching Karen Black in "Trilogy of Terror," and the little teeth-clicking, screaming, knife-wielding Devil Doll (that she eventually becomes) is really rather terrifying, MUCH better than the silly-looking tentacle-waving red-eyed monsters born of the "Green Slime." That goes till 1:30, then watch Eileen Heckart on Hitchcock, killing first HER mother than her HUSBAND'S mother (but he says she got caught the second time), and THEN watch "Hercules, Sampson, and Ulysses" from 2 to 3:45 before I realize that I'd SEEN it at the Lyric on 6/8/70, diary page 1165, and it was pretty awful, but NICE muscles on the guys!
DIARY 10767
THURSDAY, MARCH 11. Up at 9:15, having had only 5½ hours of sleep, and Marty calls right then to say that he's gotten to write the history of the New York City Opera for Macmillan, and he talks to 9:45, happy about it, and then I get up, meditate, phone Dennis who has an appointment at Bellevue to have a wart removed from his foot at 12:30 and figures he'll be able to meet Stephen and me at the Carnegie Hall Cinema at 3. I type a diary page, wash my hair and shower, have lunch of the rest of the hash, and I've taken the rest of the morning to put ticket stubs into a shoebox in the living room bookcase, other boxes there for safekeeping and easy availability, have put the "Dance/Movies/Plays/Events and recitals" files on the same bookcase, and piled the rest of the boxes back into the top of the clothes closet, having gained a LOT of room and thrown out SOME stuff, so I feel good about it. Now have to get to the CURRENT souvenir-putaway job. Out at 2:15 and get to the Cinema at 2:50, hand in my subscription for the 1000 Eyes Magazine, as does Stephen when he gets there at 2:55, and we're down for a BEAUTIFULLY colorful mint Technicolor print of "Garden of Allah," with one of the stupidest plots, and then "The Devil Is a Woman" is much more FUNNY than I'd remembered, the carnival scenes are extraordinary, as are her costumes by Travis Banton, and I'd forgotten how beautiful Cesar Romero was, even at 28, and we leave at 6. Stephen suggests eating, and I recall Dennis talking about The Landmark so we go to 46th and 11th after I get no answer from Dennis, and wait a half an hour for a table, drinking a nicely-spiced Bloody Mary with a celery-stalk stirrer, and I'm sorry that the fish-n-chips are IDENTICAL with what I had Tuesday at Chock Full for half the price, but the soda bread is great with warm cherry on top and raisins inside, the cottage fries are golden fried chips of potatoes, and the pecan pie for dessert is properly over-filling. Dennis is home, invites me up, so we bus up and I get there at 9:30 to shit and read "The Rolling Stone," then he puts on the service, we get undressed about 10, and have INCREDIBLE sex (see DIARY 10768) until 2 am, surprise, and crawl into his small bed and fall instantly asleep, exhausted pleasantly of EVERYTHING.
DIARY 10769
FRIDAY, MARCH 12. Wake about 8:30, cuddle, and have the sex described on DIARY 10768, then he checks the clock and it's 10, and he has an audition at 11, so we're back for him to bring me off, we cuddle while I spasm, and then he showers, I shower, he makes a BEAUTIFUL omelet while I have toast and say he can give me an omelet another time, and then we're out at 10:15, and it luckily turns out that his interviewer was out, returned to say that he was prompt, and then had a dynamite ego-boosting tryout that might do him lots of good. I'd called Stephen and said I'd be over between 12:30 and 1, then walk down to the Museum of Natural History after having breakfast of scrambled eggs, potatoes, juice, and coffee in a greeky spoon for $1, and go through (OH, SMOKED beforehand, which lent a glow to the morning) the Invertebrates section, thinking how much BETTER this would all be done in FILM, except for the actual specimens of record size or weight or color, and watch a lot of films by Roman Vishniac of invertebrates (spiders, crabs, bugs) eating and being eaten, and then go to Mollusks and Man, and see lots of films of THOSE, and lots of beautiful shells, and then out at 12:40 (having paid 25¢ and searching the shop to see that they didn't have much, except some GREAT shells for GOOD prices) to get to Stephen's and finish reading "Nova Express" while he worked on some letters, and then he waited with me while I had some pizza (good for 45¢) before getting on the bus to get across to the 72nd Street Theater for "The Man Who Would Be King," with Stephen and BobG, and it's not as good as they said it was, but there were good parts, great Moroccan scenery, and we leave at 5 to go up to Uncle Charlie's North and have a beer and LOADS of seasoned potato chips and pretzels, then walk down to his place thinking it's Saturday and I want to see "Space 1999" start, then talk to Arnie again, call Dennis who'll call me about 10:30 tonight, then we're down to Goldberg's Pizza at his insistence, have the smog for $6.25, then I get home to shit, listen to my 12 phone messages, watch SILLY "Neptune Disaster," where "sea monsters" are merely tiny tropical fish ENLARGED, 9-11, and get a call from Dennis at 11:05 (after calling Rolf, who's found "The Hermitage" in Wilmington, Vermont) saying he wouldn't be over, and I'd even washed DISHES in the morning to keep up with them, watch "Mary Hartman," figure out cheese prices, and get to bed about 1:30, feeling like I'm getting a COLD??
DIARY 10781
SATURDAY, MARCH 13. Up about 9:30, meditate, cereal for breakfast, type four diary pages to catch up, then decide I want to type up the TITLE PAGES for the 1488 (!) pages I've typed since I filed the pages LAST, and do five of those through the day, stopping at 1 to fix up the tape for the recording from WQXR, and then at 2 to start the recording for the Sutherland and Pavarotti version of "I Puritani." Listen during the first part, but it rapidly gets boring, so I have lunch, and then Dennis calls to invite me to see Anita O'Day tonight with Guy and a friend, and I watch the National Geographic special on "The Amazon" (mostly about the people who live beside it, sadly, though it DOES say the yearly flooding covers THOUSANDS of acres) from 5 to 6, catching the Mr. Universe contest from South Africa that Ken Waller wins over Mike Katz (hurray!), with the SPECTACULAR body of the shorter Robin Robinson probably more ESTHETICALLY pleasing and SURELY sexier. Then tune in "Star Trek" to find that I'd seen the Kotor masquerading as Karidian, the actor, in "Conscience of the King" LONG ago, and shower and watch the climax (which I don't remember from before, the daughter going crazy, so maybe I'd had to leave for est?), then watch part of the start of "Space 1999," not YET getting to the part I watched on Sunday, but at 7:20 I decide I'm late enough to get to Reno Sweeney's 10 minutes after my 7:30 agreement, and Guy and Rhea had stood in line since 6 am to get standing room for the "Puritani" this afternoon, so she was tired and decided not to join us this evening. We chat about operas, then about est, then about singers in general, while having a VERY expensive hamburger in addition to the $5.50 music charge, Dennis paying over $20, me about $13, Guy lucking out because they charged $2.75 for his $7.75 chicken Kiev. And then the waiter didn't bring back the change, thinking $50 was all for HIM. Anita O'Day is interesting to listen to (see DIARY 10782), and then we leave at 11, go to the subway, I invite Dennis to my place, he says come to his, I do, Guy says he'll be going to a bar ANYWAY, I'm up to Dennis's to caress and cuddle through the night, though not coming through all the talking we do, to bed about 1:30, almost instantly asleep, thank goodness.
DIARY 10783
SUNDAY, MARCH 14. Wake, he's sleeping, doze, he's sleeping, wake, he's up, so we start cuddling, and then I quite ABANDON myself to him, not really CARING that I'd tried and tried to get him to come last night, that he was closer this morning than before, but I just FLEW on his manual ministrations and CAME with a gasp that rolled me over on him and crushed me to him for a number of minutes, gently recovering, which I whispered in his ear (see DIARY 10784) that it was extraordinary, and then his folks called from California at 11:30, which he "had to answer" and I started browsing through the Times, he did too, and then when I move to leave about 1, he asks if I want breakfast, so he cooks up broccoli and makes a GREAT tomato and cheese omelet, with coffee with granulated brown sugar and half-and-half, and toast and peach jam and LOTS of affection, and we leave about 2:30, he to "Seven Beauties" and me to buy the Times and blindly work through the puzzles until just about 6:30, when the "Space 1999" is a funny one about the moon being covered with soapsuds because "the Space Brain" send out antigens to kill the invading virus of the moon, though it CRUSHED a space ship to a couple of cubic feet with "bits of human tissue" inside it, so THAT doesn't connect, either. Make popcorn and devour it, flick back and forth between "Space," "Wizard of Oz" (but miss the tornado anyway), and Cousteau's incredible octopussies, and then get to typing three more title pages between 8 and 10, talking to Arnie and BobG on the phone meanwhile, and also Paul Bosten, who's bathing tonight, and then watch the American Film Institute honor William Wyler with all SORTS of people, including Mrs. And Mrs. Miniver, together again!, and Betty Ford, until 11:30, and then watch "Coast of Skeletons" with some great views of I guess what ARE the southwestern coasts of Africa, expanses of sand mainly, Germanic influences, and I gaze longingly at the Michelin map for South Africa. Eat hamburger during this, take my temperature because I'm feeling muzzy, and it's LOWER than the 99.3° it was a few days ago, but it's STILL up to 99.0°, and I feel somehow ill, hawking up nasal mucous, coughing without bringing up much phlegm, and still feeling listless, weak, vaguely nauseous, and slightly stomach-upset. UGH! Bed at 1:40, thankfully putting telephone near for Paul's call at 8:50 am!
DIARY 10786
MONDAY, MARCH 15. Paul McLean rings at 8:50, and I take down his address at his brother's since I STILL don't know when and if I'm going to Florida. Then I meditate, finish typing the title pages for 1975 with three of them, at which point I can make up for the untyped diary pages, and do with four of THOSE. Don't feel like doing anything else on my list, or like writing, so I finish reading "Junkie," call Pope to say that I want to come over and read his New Times and Village Voice articles on est, since Guy and Dennis were talking about them, and then he calls to say that he doesn't have the Voice article for some reason, and I go over at 5 to talk about the one, then tune in "Star Trek" to find that it IS the duplicate, though not the one I thought it was (and I don't remember the ending of it, either), and watch "Animation Festival" which Pope watches, and then I finish the article and get home about 8, but I STILL don't feel like doing anything---and I had a long talk with Dennis today about how I don't PUSH that we see each other because I have so much I want to do HERE, and he says he understands, and though it's NICE to be with each other, we can keep perfectly busy and contented NOT being with each other, too. He MIGHT have come over later this evening, but since he didn't call, he didn't. Pick up "Guilty Pleasures" and read THAT book through, having dinner in the meantime and maybe doing some FEW other things around the house, like talk to Arnie and to BobG. Then watched the start of the Monday Night Special on "Homosexuals---Out of the Shadows" and found that it was the old David Frost dullness with unpleasant people, so I just ended up going to bed early, or else I might have read more of "The Recognitions" to get it out of the way, and I'd started the first chapter of "Second Skin" and couldn't get into it, and I THEN picked up "Dark Night of the Soul," somewhat more interesting, and that became my "subway book" through the next week and more, since I was usually too bemused by my weird week's journeyings to read, and then start "Royal Road to Romance." But again I felt the inordinate PRESSURE that the mere fact of having books (indeed, the having of the list of books I WANT) to read sitting on the shelf, rather aghast at the constant pressure I feel to want to read, at the expense of getting anything ELSE done---but then nothing really MUST be done, so it's OK, finally.
DIARY 10787
TUESDAY, MARCH 16. Wake, not having smoked, with two VIVID dreams that I jot down notes for, for later expansion (see DIARY 10788). Meditate, but don't feel like doing ANYTHING, so I continue reading "Royal Road to Romance," even getting out the atlas to see where it is he's going, until Dennis calls to say that he'll be in town and then would like to come over here. I fix up the place somewhat (pouring out the water that I filled the pail with yesterday when they said they'd shut off the water from 9-5, but I don't think they ever did), but left out the atlas because it gave a good entrée into talking about travel. I hadn't even eaten breakfast (or had only cereal) and was having two eggs for a quick pickup lunch about 2 when he got here, I told him to settle down with the map in the front of the atlas to see which trips I took (letting him see that my year in California was 1951-1052, and that I kept revisiting Akron in 1957, which MUST have been after I moved out at at LEAST 20, so I must be at LEAST 38 to his knowledge!), but he sat in the kitchen and watched me eat, we kissed, I put on the Bartok and Schuller records for him to hear while we looked through my travel collection, and then we started talking about matchbook covers and ticket stubs and I showed him both THOSE boxes, which really blew his mind, and then I put on "Turangalila" and we necked and listened to it, then went into the bedroom and thoroughly cuddled, and AGAIN he refused to come, while he drove me up the wall so much that when I came I groaned and shouted and grabbed onto him and clutched and fluttered and gasped with exhaustion, saying that he REALLY turned me on, wishing I could do the same for him, too, sometime. Then we continued talking late enough to go out for dinner, but though I treated, I was VERY disappointed at the Peking Palace: no noodles for the egg drop soup, which wasn't so great, the beef with orange wasn't so great either, and the chicken-nest didn't have any quail eggs, and the nest was smaller and the sauce less tasty. So though it was over $10, it wasn't worth going back to. Out at 11, he goes home, Marty's called about Met tickets, I'm back to finish reading "Royal Road to Romance," all 400 pages of it (see DIARY 10789), by 1:20 am, and then go to sleep without smoking again, feeling DELIGHTED with the relationship with Dennis.
DIARY 10790
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17. Again unstoned, wake to another dream (see DIARY 10788) which I jot down, and maybe not even have time to meditate before getting everything together for a BUSY day: Marty's address, book-list for the library, TDF for John Houseman, binox, money. Shower but don't wash my hair since I did it yesterday. Out at 10:00 and get to Marty's at 10:30 to pick up the two Opera Guild comps from his doorman, meet Dennis at 10:40 inside, and we sit right next to my subscription seats in the Dress Circle, because the rest of the seats are pretty well taken. "Ariadne auf Naxos" is boring again (see DIARY 10791), but it's over at 12:40 and we're down to Burger King to use up my March ticket for a 50¢ cheeseburger, double meat, and then he's uptown and I'm downtown for the library, passing Bookmasters with a 30%-off sale and buy four books including new Nabokov and Dahl, old Vonnegut and Hesse, GREAT! To library, xerox the Hamilton story to cross off ANOTHER book I'd wanted (but at $1.80 I'm SURE a used book would have been cheaper!), then take other notes on lots of things (see DIARY 10792), and get out at 5:20 to get to Town Hall at 5:30 to meet Dennis, but they're not taking TDF and Dennis pays for my $2.50 (when I ask "Why?" he smiles and says "No reason" and I'm charmed) ticket, and he's interesting but strained (see DIARY 10793). Out at 7:15 and have to pick up the tickets for tonight quickly, so we're walking down to 33rd to the theater, then have tasty pizza for 45¢ a good slice from a CUTE kid with good arms and a James Dean-like face, then back for a boisterous production of the flawed O'Neill "The Hairy Ape" that goes without an intermission from 8:10 to 9:40 (and John Rieser was there, too), but it was interesting enough (see DIARY 10794) and we're to the 7th Avenue subway talking of eating, then he invites me up and we're up to smoke and cuddle and talk, talk, talk (see DIARY 10795) and I don't come, since I wanted him to come first, but I STOP when he almost has me, saying that I want HIM to come, too, and we talk a lot about THAT, and then I'm tired and we have some juice to drink, he makes some hot apple cider, and snuggle and cuddle and get to sleep about 1:30, KNOWING his phone may ring at 6:30 with a job that he'd TAKE, since he thinks he'd like to work more often than not.
DIARY 10796
THURSDAY, MARCH 18. Wake about 8 and cuddle and after a lot of talk, he finally gets me to come again, and it's just SO extraordinary that I can hardly stand it. He makes a great omelet with cheese and tomatoes for me, with toast and jam and coffee, and at 11 I call Don and get no answer, so I just take the chance and get there at 11:30 anyway, but there's no answer. Inquire at the garage and find he'd gone out in the morning with the car, so I think he might be back, but people look at me suspiciously, so I finally leave at 12:10, and of course he returns at 12:15. Subway home and find NINE calls waiting for me, the LAST from Don saying he'll be a few minutes late, and when I call his service AGAIN there's the word that he and Eileen will be at his place at 3. the LAST message is from Pope, at noon, saying there was something on TV, but when I look in it's over, so I call him first, from 12:50 to 1:20, then call Paul from 1:20 to 1:30, and he'd gone to the movies alone LAST night (I tell all these people about the incredible relationship with Dennis, too), talk to BobG from 1:30 to 2:05, moaning that he STILL hasn't heard about the job he's waiting for; then to Joyce from 2:05 to 2:15, she's starting est on Monday, Art's coming back on Friday the 26th; then Michael from 2:15 to 2:50, he enjoyed Canada, getting to Nome, Anchorage (awful city), Sitka and Juneau, all very expensive, but he loved the trip away. Then leave a message for Don to call ME, and he calls at 3:20, saying I should come right over, so I do, getting there at 4, we're out to pick up something from his nephew at 4:30 at Time-Life, get to his contacts appointment at 4:45, sit in the car in front of the Hotel Alrae until 5:15, when we drive over to eat at Daly's Dandelion, which has SPICY barbecued pork, but EXPENSIVE for $3.50, which he pays, so when we get to the Paramount at 7:30 for "Dog Day Afternoon" I pay for BOTH of their tickets. It's pretty good, we wait to see the start again, he slept through the best sections: the talking on the phone of the lovers, and his dictating of his last will for "the man no man loved more" and "the only woman I ever loved." Out at 10:30, to his place to chat with the family that's living there, see the end of "The Candidate" then at 11:30 I'm DYING of sleep, so he says "Go into the bedroom and sleep," so I DO, falling asleep at 12:40.
DIARY 10797
FRIDAY, MARCH 19. Wake at 8, surprised to find Don not in bed, and he says he fell asleep on the sofa, feeling better, and he's got bandages on his back from where he broke out during the trip, and even EILEEN doesn't know how sick he REALLY is (see DIARY 10798). He drives me to the subway at 9, me feeling AWFUL with my greasy hair and my OLD clothes that I haven't changed yet, and subway home at 9:30 having FORGOTTEN that the water was to be shut off, so I fill the containers while there's still water, but later, about 2:30, there's water AGAIN, so I shower THEN and wash my hair. Haven't done ANYTHING, but I just have some cereal for breakfast, don't even think I meditate, but on SOME of these days I water the plants because I haven't been there much, spraying for the flying white mites, and filling the sadly depleted humidifier. I simply read more of "Recognitions" because I don't feel like doing anything else---the apartment is a mess and I don't care! Arnold calls and says Wednesday IS available for his birthday party, since Norma's new ice-skating class on Wednesday forced him to change his tickets for "Lady from the Sea" to some later date, and he wants me to call him tomorrow morning before he leaves, but I get involved and don't call until 11:45, after he's left, but I think it's on anyway. Talk to BobG and Pope and a few other people, too, and then have lunch and think to get out to a double at the Quad at 3:10, but it's just too LATE when I finish, so I don't go, reading instead. Then leave for Dennis's at 7, get there to neck a bit with him then look out onto the black back porch while he fixes the chicken, and then we cuddle and talk [oh, I got back and found no less than 6 no answers on my message unit, and Dennis was ONE] (see DIARY 10798), then he puts on the chicken at 9:30, I read the est article, he tells me about his former sex life (see DIARY 10799), I make up the term "sex friends" and tell him about mine, Guy comes in at 10, they smoke, I don't, we have a FABULOUS spinach/prosciutto/ricotta/cream-stuffed chicken breast, VERY al dente green beans, FRESH, and FRIED BANANAS! I drink some of the Triple Sec I took as a dinner gift, we leave at 11:45, me smoking, for B.B. King and Bobby "Blue" Bland at the Beacon at 12 (see DIARY 10800), out at 3 for only the START of an incredible evening-ending (see DIARY 10801), to sleep about 5:15! AM!!
DIARY 10802
SATURDAY, MARCH 20. Wake about 9:30 in the somewhat bright room, and the three of us have sex again, though I think I'm the only one to come, again watched avidly by the other two. Shower and wash my hair, Dennis leaves at 12, when I tell him I love him when I kiss him goodbye, and then Joseph comes in with sausage, we have breakfast, I look at a couple of After Darks as Guy dresses to go at 2:30, and then instead of going across Central Park to look at various art exhibitions to help him hang HIS at the Club, he decides it would be nice to take a walk through Brooklyn Heights, so we go to the subway, ride home, come up here so I can change out of my uncomfortably warm woolen shirt (it's up to 70° today!), fill up the humidifier, read the mail, and shave and brush my teeth while Guy talks with Joseph about becoming an art historian. Then play some music, but they want to go out into the warm day, so we're down to the Promenade, where Guy takes some pictures of everyone against lower New York, we chat with Pope for awhile, who has 2 gay guys and 10 women in the class, and rather likes it because everyone agrees to do what he wants to do, and then pass some of Guy's former apartments [I'd stopped at Don's and Avi's to see if they'd want to come along, but they weren't home], and Guy rang Terry's bell but there was no answer. Ice cream at the shop, down Hunts Lane and Grace Court Alley, looking up at details on buildings, and then they leave at the subway at 5, and I'm back to talk to various people, catch the end of "Miss Goodall and the Chimpanzees" that I'd seen before, find it's an old "Star Trek," watch a boring show on Dorothy Hamill from 7 to 7:30, and feel VERY tired, but finish up the Spam in two large sandwiches, go out for the Times at 9, work the puzzles quickly and read most of it, watch the end of "The Red Shoes" and see the VERY good "I Regret Nothing" from 11:35 to 1:15 about Edith Piaf, and what a GREAT life she had, looking VERY old when she died at 48, and having almost EVERYONE who had been connected with her die fairly recently, including her 24-year-old husband who died in 1970, sadly in an auto accident. Then get EXHAUSTED to bed without smoking or drinking.
DIARY 10803
SUNDAY, MARCH 21. Up about 10, meditate, almost debate exercising, but there's not enough time before Camera Three shows a VERY interesting company called Mummenshanz from Geneva, GREAT gimmicks in whole-body masks and dough-faces and yarn masks that are uncovered and then unraveled as the whole things pulls away. Type one page (see DIARY 10785) before watching a new Animation Festival from 12:30 to 1, then read more of the Times, get a call from Paul which I promptly forget, eat lots of cookies in lieu of eating real food---having finished the last of the Frosted Rice for breakfast, which still tastes ghastly---and then read more and watch "The Importance of Being Earnest," in a PERFECT production with Michael Redgrave, Joan Greenwood in her voice, Edith Evans in her handbag, and Margaret Rutherford in her pince-nez. Paul comes in at 4, and we sit and watch the end of the film with his lovely bedmate Jay/José and HIS friend Kique/Enrique, VERY cute and built and I thought interesting until I said something about a lover and he lazily said he WASN'T ready for another, and then when he left, following Paul whom I kissed, he practically went into the closet to avoid where I was standing at the door. We ate cookies, they drank wine, I passed the pipe a number of times, Paul started orating about the English Church's relationship to Rome, Jay got quiet, then pale, then sick, then fainted, then slept, and as it got darker Paul and Kique went out to eat at the Chinese place while I babysat, listening to music, and then they got back about 10, gathered up a VERY sodden-faced Jay, who said flatly "goodbye" to me as he staggered out the door, and I watched over the railing to make sure he didn't tumble downstairs. Read some more until 11:30, when I watched a VERY boring program about est on David Susskind's show until 1:30, but BobG said it was very good, so maybe I just knew it all: Stephen and Trish and Don and a couple of other people I knew were there, S and T saying NOT a word. Talked to various people inviting them to Arnie's party on Wednesday, Rolf bringing chocolate mousse, John A. coming, and I go to bed and smoke some more and jerk off for the first time in ages, feeling rather good about it, and get to bed about 2, feeling quite tired indeed.
DIARY 10804
MONDAY, MARCH 22. Up about 9:30, meditate, have breakfast, again debate exercising but don't, phone lots of people and get the Wednesday dining list down to 8 and the dessert list up to 7, and then call Dennis and say that I'd like to see him this evening. He's planned a dinner with a friend who's taking him for the friend's birthday (that's what he said), but it's up near his place and he'll call me when he's finished. I start typing on the diary at last, then stop to watch "Nowhere to Go," disappointed to find that it's the second time I've watched it, sad to see that George Nader isn't as sexy in the body as he was before, but that Maggie Smith is good in an understanding woman's part for this man who robbed a coin collection and ended up dead. Then get back to typing and telephoning and finish with 11 pages and hours on the phone. Any time I feel like doing anything that would ACCOMPLISH anything, I phone someone else. The water is off again today, and I'd forgotten about it, so when I have to shit around noon, I just close the door and let it stink up the place. Tune in "Star Trek" to find that it's back on cycle, then watch the Animation Festival on Zagreb, and finally the water's running so that I can shower and wash my hair for when Dennis phones tonight. Have dinner of sausage, get the Cheeselovers package in the mail and call Pope about it, and then at 10 watch the start of "The Browning Version," which Dennis interrupts at 11:10, so I don't see the end of it, but Arnold called and reported that he DOES leave his wife, DOES promote Taplow, and gets enormous applause AFTER he talks AFTER the fellow who's gotten the football fame. Subway to Dennis's in a car full of smokers that I rat to the policeman on, feeling vaguely annoyed until I get to his place about 11:50 and his beaming face in his torn shorts meets me at the top of all the stairs and we hug and hug and hug, talk and talk and talk, both tonight and the next morning (see DIARY 10805), and start getting involved in sex but AGAIN I want him to come first, but after working over and over and OVER his limp/rising/limp cock, he suggests we get to sleep, and it must be about 3 am, because we're both exhausted, not really having smoked that much, but having SEXED that much, and without the release of coming, too.
DIARY 10806
TUESDAY, MARCH 23. We must wake quite early, because we have a LONG talk about my being fucked (see DIARY 10805), and then debate about what time it is, me finally saying "between 9 and 1" then "between 10 and 1" with difficulty, and that may have BEEN at 10, because when we got out of bed, it was 10:30. Delighted at having a large part of the day before us with so much talking and loving (and my coming, without him again) behi---NO, I said that I had a fantasy of our coming together, and he jerked off (delightful to watch), and then I came, and THAT started us off wet and tired. We then talked more, he showered, I read the Village Voice and some articles he showed me about "Chicago" and "Chorus Line," and then he made breakfast for us, we drank coffee, talking all the while, and then he got me out at 2:30 to shop for the salad for tomorrow, and I walked to the 96th St. subway station and got home about 3, got the schedule of the ballet from Michael, went to the store for shopping for dinner tomorrow, all the while feeling terribly listless, as if things could very easily completely fall apart by tomorrow night. The water's off AGAIN today, which is a PAIN, and then I watch a NEW "Star Trek," as scheduled, with Robert Brown as a sexy Lazarus who fights himself from an anti-universe forever, but saving everything that exists from "winking out." Then make the chili between 7 and 8, going on brute energy levels while stirring, peeling, cooking, seasoning, and then let it cool which watching "Dr. Seuss and the Hoober-Bloob Highway." OH, also washed dishes between 5:15 and 6, in preparation for tomorrow night. Then type 7 diary pages to almost catch up with everything, then put on the last of the sausage and watch Monty Python at 10, Arnie calls at 10:30, back a day early with a cold, but he's happy about tomorrow's event, and watch to find that "Animation Festival" moved to 11 pm is a repeat to what I saw yesterday about Zagreb. Drat. Then feeling so tired that I wash and put things away and get to bed at 11:30 after smoking some to block out the noise of the radios from above and below, and the two damn barking dogs that I hope are just VISITING the terrace next door. Get to sleep almost instantly and don't wake until 9, getting out of bed at 9:30, so I MUST have needed the rest.
DIARY 10808
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24. Out of bed at 9:30, meditate for the last time in AGES (probably not AGAIN until AFTER 4/2, since "today" doesn't lend itself to meditating), type three diary pages, and then can't resist the mess from the Blackwood titles to type yet ANOTHER books-wanted list (see DIARY 10807). That probably takes me until about noon, and Michael calls to say he probably won't be coming, Bob's not coming, so I call Arnold to see if he wants to invite anyone else (which I hope he doesn't) and get to work with the setting up. Have lunch early, so I can move the table out and cover it perfectly with Paul's batik, put in red lights for the Mexican effect, go to the supermarket for crackers for the paté and cheese, wash more dishes to get everything clean, change the sheets, dust the rooms so that it'll LOOK clean except for the carpet, which will be a mess enough to vacuum AFTERWARDS, and then the preparations take until about 5, when I shower and shave, get to work changing the last lights in the bathroom and bedroom, put the chili on to heat slowly at 7:30, and have done everything except to change when Paul Bosten arrives first at 8:03 with the fresh bread he's made, and then I change, then Steven and Guy and Dennis arrive together with salad and wine, and I'm starting to run around the place, and immediately Arnold and John come over with plates and canoli (I'd borrowed two trays earlier from John, on which I put out everything but the cold cheese and paté before 8, and borrowed two chairs from John also), and when I look around, Rolf's putting his dessert into my refrigerator, having to take another container to John's fridge, because mine's loaded, and by 8:15 everyone's here, they're sitting talking, and I'm still rushing around, amazed by the crush of arrivals at one time. Talk starts rather awkwardly, but the whole evening ends up a TREMENDOUS smash (see DIARY 10809), and JohnC and BobG and Michael arrive, PaulM calls to say he WON'T be here, and then Don keeps calling, getting varied reports about what's going on. Everyone finally leaves, totally smashed, around 3 am, Dennis stays, we listen to more music, talk until 4, get into bed to turn lights on and have sex until 5, when I'm so hyper that I get up and write notes till 5:30, feeling GREAT (see DIARY 10812), and then get immediately to sleep in the lightening dawn outside.
DIARY 10814
THURSDAY, MARCH 25. I wake about 9:30, feeling passable after 4 hours sleep, and then Dennis wakes about 10:30, we cuddle, both do ourselves to come in great glee, then up for me to quickly make some scrambled eggs, which come out ALMOST PERFECT, and toast and reheat John's coffee and get dressed to phone Paul at 11:45 to say we'll be late, straightening out Al Barash's message with a snippy Hilton operator, and out to subway to GLOW through the ride there, getting to Hilton at 12:30, up to GREAT suite (see DIARY 10815) and I SIZZLE through the early afternoon, meet Dr. Arsenault in the lobby. Buy pastrami sandwiches to eat in Central Park with cute guys walking wolf-hounds, wander through the zoo with pipe-leg doll with awful face and huge crotch, then north to boat pond, Alice, rowboats, Ramble, Castle, toward Stephen's, where Dennis walks home, Stephen's not in, we grab cab to the Metropolitan Theater, Paul paying $4.50 fare, riding through pleasant CP roads and jammed Broadway, getting to movies at 4, which have gotten even more outrageous than before (see DIARY 10816). Leave at 5:35 to walk down to Jack Gilbert's at 7:45, he's not there till 6:15, cuts my hair after talking, hunting for sprayer and I'm out at 6:45, for $8 plus $1 tip, and it's not sitting very well with many people (see DIARY 10817), and then take a bus uptown, still reading "Dark Night," and get two tickets to "Solaris," sit in lounge, wash face, BobG arrives at 7:45, surprised at haircut, and "Solaris" is pretty bad (see DIARY 10818) until 9:45. Out and uptown to where Bob's found the Ichie Japanese Restaurant, which isn't bad, VERY tasty chicken at the start in GREAT sauce, but it'd be nice for $1, not $2.75, and then we have Ten-Ich shrimp, like tempura with the vegetables, good, and sukiyaki, which must be developing into my least favorite dish: fatty untender meat, mish-mash overcooked vegetables, ending up hungry afterward. It closed at 10 and we were the last one out, and he ended across the street at Camp David, I walked down to 68th subway to get a local, so I walked across to the 7th Avenue at Fulton, since I had to change anyway, feeling that THIS day has produced an INCREDIBLE glow because of last night and Dennis. Smoke just to get to sleep, appalled at the mess in my apartment, and sleep at 11:30.
DIARY 10819
FRIDAY, MARCH 26. Up about 10:30, getting something over 10 hours sleep, which I must have needed. Lots of people to talk to on the phone, and I finally put away all the records---also, during these later days (one on Wednesday, I think, one today) I recorded Bartok's "Celesta/Percussion" thing and Sibelius's 4th on the ends of various tapes. Took over an hour to wash all the dishes (Guy confessed to breaking a glass on Wednesday, and I broke another 4/1 when I tipped it from the amplifier onto the record player to shatter; down to 6 now), and was waiting for a call from Paul and Dennis so I couldn't vacuum until something like 4:30, but was glad to get the place dusted and everything vacuumed so that it looked FINISHED by the time I left for Dennis's for dinner at 5:30, having showered and washed my new haircut. Vacuuming was a new record: changed bags at last, and the last time I vacuumed was ONLY 17 days ago. Left the bags to take down, but I had to carry his salad back and the mousse that I'd packed into the openings, as well as binoculars, popper liquid, books to read, 12 West card, etc!! Get there at 6:30, neck for a bit---OH, I'd kept CALLING him but he wasn't home, since Paul said Al wasn't entertaining him this evening, he went to the convention and then shopping, and when he finally called Dennis at 6:30 he SAID he'd eaten at Tad's, so we'd meet him in the lobby at 10:30 for the evening. Dennis made tacos with meat, cheese, lettuce, hot sauce, and we had a few other things too, like the salad, but not enough time for the mousse so we left at 7:40 and the bus wouldn't take $1 bill so we subwayed down to get in at 8, exactly, for a rather disappointing Thelonius Monk concert at Carnegie Hall (see DIARY 10820), then out at 10:45 to Paul in the Hilton by the sphinx (and $2.50 for a drink), and then we subwayed down to 12th, walked down to Christopher Street, stopped in at Ty's (as we'd done before, Paul reminded me), saw the backroom at the Studio Bookshop (see DIARY 10821), walked up to see what we could see of the trucks, stopped in at the Anvil for a bit of action, then across to the Toilet at 1:30 for an INCREDIBLE thing (see DIARY 10822) until Paul leaves at 3, just before we leave to his place, being nicely together until we fall asleep, probably at something like 5:30 again!
DIARY 10825
SATURDAY, MARCH 27. Wake about 9 after too little sleep, cuddling nicely, and he keeps trying to ream out my throat with his cock, and I keep trying to get him on his back so I can do him with my hand, and maybe AGAIN we don't do anything profitable until we grab ourselves and bring ourselves off. By then it's probably about 11, and it seems that he drives to finish sex by the time his parents call, and then we talk for a long time, then shower and brush our teeth and shave and talk and talk and talk, and I don't even remember if we went out of the house at ALL that day, and I bring myself up with a jerk at 12:30 because I've forgotten to call Paul at the hotel before he goes back to Washington today at 11:30, and then we have French toast for brunch, I might do some reading, except that I think we talk about the ENTIRE day (NO, Dennis has a reading of a one-act that we go through 3-4 times, then he goes to the reading and I got to Don's from 2-4! Also phone Art and he says we may call him and see him this evening, but we don't), taking time off to neck and gaze into each other's eyes, and then it's time to get out to the subway about 4:45 to get up to Dyckman Street to Dana and Boyd's apartment, where Magda (or whatever) wagged her stumpy tail all over with delight at seeing Dennis, and then took to me when I started mauling her backside, and even Taffy, whom they warned me not to touch, came over and nuzzled me after stopping barking. We waited for someone else to join us and then took off about 6 for Cranford, taking about an hour, where I somehow get into a HUGE explanation of Velikovsky that leads Dana to say that I'm SO intelligent and to like me, and then we get to a Roy Rogers Family Restaurant for chicken for our dinners, since we hadn't eaten, and then they go back to check on the tickets while we finish and get there just as the doors open at 7:30 to the teeny tiny theater that holds all of 99 people, I'd guess. "Mack and Mabel" isn't that great a play (see DIARY 10826), but it's entertaining for the time, and a doe-eyed fellow in a black turtleneck turns disappointingly normal when I see him up close afterward when I'm calling Don about plans to meet for 12 West. Play's over at 9:30, into the city to have a snack at The Front Porch, which I pay for, then have to borrow money from Dennis. We're to his place, I shower and shave and suddenly it's 12, we miss Don and Gary at 12 West, getting there at 1 and waiting until 2:30 in the FREEZING breeze off the river, until they announce that it's full up, and we depressingly walk to the subway and up to his place at 3 am where we neck for only a little bit before getting to sleep, VERY tired.
DIARY 10827
SUNDAY, MARCH 28. Up early (or was it LAST week that we did the "I think it's between 10 and 1, and it was 10:30?) and neck and come, then talk for hours around the breakfast table, then read the Times to exhaustion, working the crossword puzzle, of which there was only one, not really thinking of what to do, only knowing that we want to be together, and then about 4 we decide to go for a walk in Central Park because it's such a nice day out (we'd been trying to get out since noon), and walk over to the reservoir, around the southern end of it to watch the color of the lowering sun, and then Dennis wants to walk across 86th Street to see some lights, and we stop into a Marlboro's where I can't resist---OH, THIS WAS THE DAY THAT I thought and THOUGHT about Dennis's response to "You WOULD go out of town if you got a job, wouldn't you?" and he said "No," quietly, but said that I had to do what I wanted to do about going to Florida (see DIARY 10828)---buying a $1 book (with money borrowed from Dennis) of Southern Gardens, and we're over to 3rd, walking down it, looking for a place to eat, then by 60th I call Bob, who's just eaten at 7 because he hadn't eaten all day, and then Dennis calls and checks that Bucky Pizzarelli is playing at Sweet Basil, so we go down in the BMT and transfer at 42nd and get off at Christopher (no, 12th, since the local's not there and it's still mild out), and walk down to get THE guitar-picker's-hand-viewing seat for me, and the one across for Dennis, and the menu's VERY interesting, and the evening is so fabulous that it brings TEARS to my eyes (see DIARY 10829). Sit through the first set at 9 and the second at 11, and leave at 12 to come to my place, but then I discovered at Chambers Street that I'd left my keys at Dennis's, since we were JUST going to stroll in the park, so we have to get back to HIS place about 1, saying that he should really spend some time at MY place. We probably think of smoking (or maybe do), but it doesn't add to anything, and I'd brought over some liquid, but he just seemed to fill the tube with it, and it didn't work very well, and maybe have sex or maybe not, but it doesn't matter because the relationship feels fabulous, and I'm staying with him and not going to Florida!
DIARY 10830
MONDAY, MARCH 29. Set the alarm for 8:30, but we wake at 8 and start necking, and then after the alarm rings I really don't care, so I don't get to work until about 9:35, catching breakfast in the typical place, sorry to see a new fellow (cuter, though) cooking the scrambled eggs, and he makes them a bit too dry for my taste. Tom gives me some Time Capsule Challenges to copyedit, and Ellen is there from before, and I'm glowing with my relationship and she says she can see it. I call Michael (this is probably Tuesday, as hours today were 9:30-2, 2:30-5) and we have lunch at a place he wants on 34th Street, and I have a gristly pastrami sandwich and no dessert because they're too expensive. Back and Tom gives me a huge write-up to transcribe, and I'm fuming over the ribbon running away on my Adler Japanese typewriter, but I get the whole thing finished, and he says I'll be able to rearrange it and get most of the work done tomorrow. There seems a lot to be done, so I suspect I'll be there for a few days beyond tomorrow. Get home about 6:15 and find that "Star Trek" is a repeat, then fix up the apartment a bit and water the poor plants, who are REALLY suffering because I hadn't watered them since Friday afternoon! They're just not USED to THREE days without water, and of course the humidifier is totally dry and VERY smelly, so I put it away for Guy and Dennis to come over this evening. Eat dinner a bit late because of a large number of messages, from PaulM saying goodbye, BobG, Rolf about the pots, BobG complaining that we'd sort of planned on a DANCE performance on Saturday, which I'd forgotten about, as I'd forgotten about the "Mack and Mabel" that replaced it, and then ANOTHER call from him, saying that someone should arrange to pick up my mail and water my plants. Watch a soupy John Denver show with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie, Harry James, Jimmy Dorsey, and Nelson Riddle---ridiculous!---and then at 10 comes on the awards and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" sweeps the top 5 as only "It Happened One Night" did in 1934! Guy came in "fresh" from his exhibit opening, took a shower, wore my robe, and looked at the porno and raved about Rolf---who called 5 minutes later and said he was on his way over to pick up the pots! HE'S in a suit, freaking me out since Dennis and GUY were in suits. He says NOT to give Guy his phone number, and forgets to pick up his POTS! Program is over at 12:15, Dennis shocks me by LEAVING at 1, I start reading the Monday NY Times and working the puzzle, eating, jerking off, and get to bed at 4:30 am!!
DIARY 10831
TUESDAY, MARCH 30. Set the alarm at 8:30 and wake at 8, stagger into the shower and shave and have some cereal with almost-sour milk for breakfast, and get to work about 9:35 to find that Tom wants me to rewrite most of the write-up, coming up with an outline with Ellen and me that looks like it'll take a WEEK to finish. I eat lunch somewhere I don't remember (this is probably Monday since hours today were 9:30-2, 3-5), passing 11:03 am somehow, starting into my 5th decade of life!!! Leave work whenever I manage to, feeling sorry for myself to have to come back tomorrow, and get home to get ANOTHER long list of calls, and spend a lot of time calling Paul Bosten, Arnie, Rolf, Steve Waite, and Pope to tell them that I'm NOT going to Florida, and even call Art and find out that Joyce LOVED est! Home about 6, more messages, including the one from Don, and settle down to have some dinner at 8 while watching "What Time Is Your Body?" and get into a LONG conversation with Don about not going to Florida (see DIARY 10828) and try calling Pope to tell him I'll be late, but HE'S on the phone, so I finish dinner, feel very unshaven, lots of things to do, falling more and more behind on diary, but I want to talk to Pope about this, so I go over and we talk until about 10, and he says it sounds good what I'm doing, we play a game of Scrabble that I win, even though he puts down a 9-letter word!, and I get lots of nice letters and enjoy the game. We watch "Mary Hartman" and then he wants to play ANOTHER game, so we do, and I win by ONE point by invoking the REAL rule that you SUBTRACT from one and ADD to the other if one person uses all his tiles. Back at 12:30 feeling dead to the world, yet at the same time hyper-happy. Arnie said that he wanted to get rid of some paté that Norma made that he didn't like, which I did, so I brought that home, and I took some canoli over to Arnold and Pope, though the crust was rather soggy, and told them about the mousse, and I still had Paul's bread to finish and the souring milk to drink, and Pope was delighted I brought over something because he had NOTHING to offer, and then they both wished me a happy birthday and Pope showed me his biorhythm calculator, clips me a photo of James Joyce that looks just like John A.!, some of his other toys, and I came back dizzy with experience and refused to go to bed, noting on card "Tues (Mon Times) bed 3:20 am, up 8 am; Wed (TV, eat, music) bed 4:20, up 9 am (Don calls)" strikingly late in an ULTRA-BUSY week.
DIARY 10832
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31. [Still 11 days behind and I've GOT to stop typing now because it's 11 pm!!] My note that Don calls at 9 puzzles me, but I seem to recall that he's VERY muzzy from sleep but has gotten over his disappointment from the phone call of last night, and I suggest that Dennis and I go over to his place tonight, maybe to have Chinese food in, and he says I should call when I tell Dennis all about it. Late to work at 10:30, and Tom keeps saying "You should be in early tomorrow morning," and I keep getting there when it's convenient to get there. Out at 12:45 to meet Tom at Munk's Place, but he doesn't get there until 1, and he's still on his "two glasses of wine" diet, and I have the beef stew, which isn't so good, and Tom usually requires me to pay somewhat more of my bill than normal, and he does it again, I having to chip in a quarter extra when I already THOUGHT I tipped more than my usual. Talked all about Don and Dennis, and he keeps saying that I don't seem HAPPY. I'm concerned about Don's reaction, I'll admit, but otherwise I think it's HIM seeing HIS unhappiness reflected in my face that he's reporting. I didn't feel that unhappy. Back to work from 2 to 6:15, and then subway up to Dennis's to tell him about the various conversations, and he's willing to get over to Don's, so I call Don and we get over there about 8, and Don's just had a late lunch, so he's not wanting to eat, but I want to call out anyway, trying a few pizza places which don't deliver that far, and then down to the Chinese place for not-so-good food that I pay for since Don's not eating and sort of INSISTING that I pay, and we have egg drop soup that he eats a little of and I fear for the evening, but then they sort of get into each other: Dennis saying things to Don that I never heard him say, and Don REALLY gets into his medical problems, stringing them all along the table in a very impressive array (see DIARY 10836), that is, provided you BELIEVE in all of them! Drink wine and Drambuie and various liquors around the dining room table (more comfortable than the living room) and then it's 2 am suddenly, and we have to go, but talk and neck until about 3:30, so there's NO chance I get to work early TOMORROW.
DIARY 10836
THURSDAY, APRIL 1. Wake about 9:30, cuddle, talk, cuddle, probably come, and just can't get out of bed until 11:15, and then he doesn't even volunteer to make breakfast: we just have some toast. Rick calls, he talks so nicely to him I write note "I wanna go too" and he laughs and says he was NOT out when he didn't answer when Rick called before! Get to work about 12, and Tom criticizes everything that's been done before, wants everything completely written from scratch, and he doesn't seem to care that it'll take a long time. I find myself slurring over words, not being able to type terribly well, and not being able to understand what he's saying, but attribute it mainly to him until I start running into typing problems of my own here, and find that I'm forgetting things outside of work. So things have been happening, and maybe it's too much smoking, though some evenings Dennis and I get so involved in each other and our talking that we don't even get to the pipe at all. Work till 5:30, relieved to hear that I don't have to work tomorrow but that I have to be in on Monday, when I have an appointment at Ron Greenburg Productions, so it's worked out nicely. I'd been reading "Switch Bitch" by Dahl on the subways, and I couldn't resist. BobG calls about "Helter Skelter" on TV this evening, which leads into a long conversation about what I don't like about our society (see DIARY 10837), but I turn it on at 9 anyway, doing lots of the crossword puzzle through it, since I'd picked up the rest of the NY Times that I hadn't read Sunday at Dennis's and brought it in to work this noon and carried it home along with the travel folders that I'd picked up at Michael's on Tuesday. [Also, at work, I forgot, I walked across to the Divine Flame to find that it had changed into a Chinese-owned place that gave me GREAT feelings of sadness about it (see DIARY 10838).] Watched that until 11, calling BobG to say how much I HAD enjoyed it, and then started EATING again, thinking how awful it is to be at the mercy of my stomach (see DIARY 10839), how nice it would be if Dennis lived with me (see DIARY 10840), and fantasizing that Dare cookies would turn ME and the WHOLE WORLD on (see DIARY 10841), jotting down a card of pages that I want to write, eventually, and I've put them all TODAY, just to get them out of the way---if I EVER catch up with this, I'll feel SO relieved! Get to bed at 4:40, disgusted with myself but pleased I don't work tomorrow.