1976 6 of 8
DIARY 11202
FRIDAY, AUGUST 20. Wake just before the alarm, search for my letter to Mrs. Johnson about the cats, have cereal with milk for breakfast, shower and shave, get Mrs. Gray up from Mrs. Johnson's where she's drying her hair to see about the tub and the toilet to be fixed at 6, collect the stuff I want to xerox, the program for Dana, wash the dishes, and get off to work VERY late at 10:15, getting in at 10:45 after getting a quote for $32+ from Apollo for a half-ream of three-hole and a half-ream of 16-weight bond. Work from 10:45 to 1:15, finishing the orange juice that Ellen left for me, and then go for a quick fish-lunch at Chock Full until 1:45 (THEN is when I price the paper!), and then resume work until there are only a small list of questions; Tom's got all his notes numbered, and he thinks we'll be able to finish up quickly next week, but he's not working on Monday, so he'll call on Tuesday. I've been trying to get various people on the phone, but then he says I should lay off them, and finally get Dennis at 3:30, chewing him out (and apologizing later when he tried about 5 times to get ME), and leave immediately for Dana's, getting there at 4:30, by coincidence picking up a sci-fi comic book for the first time in YEARS and looking through it. The dogs are yapping, Dennis arrives in about 15 minutes, and we're out at 5:15 for Westport, getting stuck in slow-moving traffic about two exits before, so we're down to Route 1, which is where the theater is, so we cruise past looking for a place to eat and pass something like Dairy Farm, where they have a cheap menu for Jody to get chicken, Dana shrimp, me pastrami, Dennis a Reuben, and then Dennis and I get a "Special Alice Sundae" with fudge ripple, pistachio, black cherry, mint chocolate chip, maple walnut, butter pecan, and another nutty for the seventh ice cream flavor, and FIVE toppings, all BURIED under a whirl of whipped cream, and we eat until we're stuffed while they sample four OTHER flavors. Out at 8:05 and to "The House of Blue Leaves" (see DIARY 11203) which starts out poorly and ends better, for an $8.50 ticket, and I treated everyone to about a $16 bill for dinner, and we're out about 11 to get back to Dennis's at 12:15, they drive us back, and we feel sleepy so we just cuddle and drink some water to help digest the food, I write DO list because there's so MUCH to do, and get to bed about 1:30.
DIARY 11204
SATURDAY, AUGUST 21. I think we wake early, but after I come completely with his hand and he puts on the light and sits on me to come copiously on my shoulder and even on the pillow, I think it's 10:30 and he thinks it's 11:30, and it's actually 11:50. Have an omelet with rice and toast for breakfast, and I'm aiming for the Bronx Zoo, but with showering and getting things done and reading his journal (and seeing his self-imposed limited interest on a new friend John, who's slept over once and had sex with him three or four times already), it's 2:45 when we finally get out into the hot day. Walk toward the subway thinking we'll only have three hours there at a maximum, so I change plans to upper Central Park. He shows me some jazz bar at Amsterdam and 97th, I ring for John Connolly but no one answers, and we enter the park at 97th, going north to look down from rocks at 103rd Street, puzzle over abandoned sand-areas from some game, avoid groups of black teenagers that put Dennis uptight because he's been mugged by them twice, and then go down into the stream-gurgling tree-entwining area that reminded me of Inwood Hill Park just to the west of the swimming pool. Then out to 110th Street at his insistence, past the abandoned pavilion at the northeast corner, chat with a PR woman who talks disparagingly of the neighborhood, saying we should be careful, and then we walk south looking at the huge tadpoles in the boatless lake, the flowerless except for scrawny tea rose bushes in the Conservatory Gardens, then across for 15 minutes in the toys of the Museum of the City of New York, where he buys a book on the dollhouse for $1.75, and then we're back into the park to wander exhaustedly to the reservoir to look at some of the humpy runners, down at 5:15 to find the photography center closed, over to Lexington to look in the bookshops around 93rd Street, and just wish for soup when we see a Chinese special for $1.35 of egg drop soup, egg roll, egg fired rice, and 7-Up. Out and subway down to 23rd Street to tour Waterside, and then I'm over to Kips Bay for "Bambi," but the $3 admission puts me off, the camera goes dim in the AWFUL "Follow me Boys," and I get my money back and subway home to ring Arnie, having given my keys to Dennis, and we talk of his shooting leg-pain, then over to Pope's for Scrabble, me winning then he winning, and home at 12:30 to shower, shave, fry up hash, eat, smoke, and get to bed without coming at about 2 am, listening to the Beegees with high contentment.
DIARY 11205
SUNDAY, AUGUST 22. Wake in the very hot room and have sex until about 12, then I call and talk to Joan about her budding career, her grass plants, and Werner on Thursday, until 12:45, when we're up to look at the Times for a bit. He's read it last night, waiting for me at my place from 10:30 to 12:30, and he's reading articles in New York Magazine and writing a letter to his brother on the typewriter. About 2 I decide I have to use up the hamburger, so make meatloaf with bread crumbs, spices, raisins, eggs, and wrap it with lots of bacon for taste. At three make a cream of mushroom sauce for that and the cold beans, and sprinkle nutmeg and cinnamon on top of applesauce, and we're both so hungry that it tastes pretty good. Call Arnie about 3:30, since he didn't want to come over to brunch, but he's still not feeling like going out, so I work on the puzzles while Dennis reads other things, then about 5:30 he wants to go out for a walk, so we visit the Pierrepont Place street fair for the Kissing Monster, rather a limp disaster, and then walk over to Atlantic Avenue up to Court Street, across to Baltic, passing a couple of used paperback bookshops that I can check later, and the Morocco Restaurant that's written up in New York the very next day, he buys a popsicle and we're back here about 7:45 to watch the end of "The Deadly Mantis" with a horribly clunky monster killed with smoke bombs, emitting ludicrous outrageous growls. I finish the puzzle, we have toasted corned beef sandwiches for dinner, having finished up the milk, cream, meat, and oranges during the day, as well as orange juice and vegetables, then have orange-juice frappe while looking at my photograph book both the regular and the Polaroid-face, not yet showing the Polaroid-sex, and then we smoke about 10:30 and get into rather listless sex, and I don't think that I'm up at ALL through the evening, but he's interested in getting into his cock again, filling up the whole of the well of his foreskin-around-cockhead with clear juice that I run my fingers through to produce a smile of "ain't that great?" on his blissful face. Maybe because I'm not really participating he has trouble jerking off, going at it and at it as I twist his nipples, until when he DOES come he collapses with a gasp, saying that he pictured himself there FOREVER trying to come and never quite making it, and I add "whacking away as Manhattan slips beneath the waves." VERY hot evening, fan making it seem even HOTTER. Bed about 1.
DIARY 11206
MONDAY, AUGUST 23. Alarm rings at 7:45 to find us both fagged out by the heat. He's up to shower and shave and put on the coffee, and I drag myself out to make soft-boiled eggs with the last three of them, hoping he doesn't see that I only have one. He leaves about 9:15 to go to the Union League Club for menial work, wearing Don's elegant shirt which is probably even more heat-producing, and then I'm starting to work on more of the lists until Rolf comes over about 10:45 to deliver 24 poppers for his stay in Boston for 2 to 4 weeks, staying until 12:30 talking about Nepal, and I get out the journal and read him parts of it, to his seemingly great interest. Type a few more lines and then watch "Knife in the Water" from 1 to 2:30 on 13, not remembering the hitchhiker was stupid enough to hide beneath the buoy to make them think he was dead, and then the MAN swam to shore to let them think HE was dead, but everyone survived to return to their affectless, affection-grazing, stupidly-trying-to-impress-everyone lives. I type the Air-Flight list (see DIARY 1196), recheck the EB Atlas for the next trip list (see DIARY 11197), decide to add the Plays of Shakespeare list as it is (see DIARY 11198), and then sort through the porno to add as much as I can to update the porno expenses list (see DIARY 11199-11200). Dennis calls, baking bread, and I just DON'T feel like going over to have sex, so I watch "The End of the Game" from 8 to 8:30, Academy Award winner produced by his acquaintance Claire Wilbur and Robert Lehman, whom they said won it LAST year, too ("Don't"?), and then finish the LAST of the 9 pages I type during the day, which is BROILING hot, too hot for the FAN-use to cool down enough, and then watch "Judy Sings" from 10:20 to 11:20, eating the remains of the hash from Saturday and meatloaf from Sunday. Then don't feel like doing ANYTHING, so I smoke and get out the porno and have a fun come by 1, putting on the fan for coolness, then waking at 5:30 to jot notes when I REMEMBER that we had French toast for breakfast Thursday, and debate getting UP before falling back to sleep somewhat after 6 am, the dawning light starting to come into the room.
DIARY 11208
TUESDAY, AUGUST 24. Out of bed about 9, surprised that I'd sleep so late, feeling full-sinused and cursing the article I read in the Times on Sunday about hay fever striking between August 15th and the end of September (though the READINGS end September 17th, though some say it lasts through mid-October), giving me the idea I might have it. Get right to typing, doing this as the 6th page by 10:45. Then spend what seems like hours bringing the monthly activity list up to date (at least three) and making a new page for the next few years (see DIARY 11209-11213), and then get to the FINAL sheet from the PERSONAL drawer: the list of all lists! That reminds me of the performance-length list (see DIARY 11214), which I work on for another hour or so, getting the dates of the performances and trying to evaluate WHICH of the four 4:30 performances would have last longer than which other! Stop somewhere in the middle to have lunch of tuna salad, using the last of the huge almost-used bottle of salad dressing, and then toast bread at 6 to watch the whole of a "Star Trek" that I'd forgotten about, mostly, while finishing up the last of the corned BEEF. Dennis calls at 6:15 and I say I'll be over after watching "The Goodies" at 8, but when I finish "Star Trek" I decide that since the refrigerator is SO empty I should defrost it, which I do, and then start doing the incredible stack of dishes at 7:30, just finishing at the start of "The Goodies," who really aren't that good: they don't have the imagination, zaniness, acting abilities, or disguise abilities of Monty Python. Then decide I can't wear "interview clothes" over my cruddy body, so I shower and shave and wash my hair, calling Dennis to say I'll be late, and am JUST about to walk out when Joan calls to say she GOT the part of the nurse in the touring company of "Equus," and I KNEW there was a reason I was staying. In fact, with the coincidences tomorrow, I type a whole PAGE of these things (see DIARY 11215). To Dennis's at 10, and HE phones Joan with glee and talks till 10:30 while I catch up with his journal and read magazines. Then he makes omelets with his great fresh-baked bread while we smoke my new crop, getting VERY stoned, and talk and talk until about 12:30, when we go to bed to neck and wake at 5:30, finding we'd BOTH fallen asleep atop the covers. Piss and crawl in to sleep more.
DIARY 11216
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25. Alarm goes at 7:45 and we cuddle until he seems to get into his cock, and he comes on my chest with great white gouts, and he makes me so excited that I demand to come too, cheering both of us up up up! Then he showers while I laze, some old trick calls him at 8:30 while he's shaving, and then he cooks hamburger and fresh green beans for breakfast, which we have with toast from his fresh loaf, somewhat crumbly because we hadn't put in into the refrigerator last night. I leave at 9:15, to be sure to be at Random House early, and I get there at 9:50, three subways and all, feeling somewhat spaced out because of the grass. Bob Perske is as young reaching 49 as I am going onto 41, and he seems to like me, saying that I rate very highly among the five he's considering. Talk of the project, books that I should read, and mainly about how we might get along together. I'm out at 12:20, making a remark that he takes poorly about how long the interview went on, and I get out to "Star Trek" headquarters to buy a "Citizen in Space" by Sheckley merely because it's 95¢, finding out that a concordance of all the plots is coming out at the end of this year. Then down 53rd to find the Science-Fiction shop that's been there since May, and he says he may have a few books from my list for me, having, by coincidence, "A Way Home" that I'd JUST bought at 8th Avenue! Then debate where to go, and decide to pass by the Festival Theater, where "Bambi" is playing, and at 57th and Madison someone taps me on the arm and it's MADGE, saying that she's firing someone from her group, and if I'd only send her a resume, SHE might be able to get me a job back at IBM! Extraordinary coincidence among the many that I HAVE to record (see DIARY 11215). Downstairs at the Festival at 1:30 to read a bit, then watch "Bambi" from 2:05 to 3:15, and then a surprisingly better "Follow Me, Boys," as it turns out I saw the only SILLY section, and the rest was rather good. Then RE-see "Bambi" from 5:34 to 6:43 (see DIARY 11217), and phone Dennis to find his service on. Home at 7:25 to get lots of messages, call Dennis and Joan and Art, wash socks, cook hash for watching "Jennie" from 9:15 to 10:15 (damn pledge week), and do this second page by 10:30, ready to start on my IBM resume! Type it BLIND from the top, and it comes out looking as beautiful as it ever did. Just cleaning teeth at 12:30 when some guy from Atlanta calls, trying to meet us for sex, and I smoke a bit and go to sleep at about 1 am.
DIARY 11218
THURSDAY, AUGUST 26. Barking dog wakes me at 6:40, and I get out of bed about 7u, putting binoculars, DTW schedule, extra book to read, and extra Buckminster Fuller ticket together to take to work. Water plants, and I think I even wash dishes to fix up apartment after the spate of list-making. Out to get to work at 9:30, but Tom's tied up with Frank Gil, so I xerox about 100 pages of things that I'd typed and am seeing what can be read and what can't when he's back at 10 and we start work. He's come up with a list of entry levels, and we start outlining what tables he wants from points and marks and EA levels, but he has NO talent for accepting what statistics can do, knowing what a tallier can come up with, or making a difference between data kept for ALL students or for EACH student. Break for lunch about 1:15, and I've been phoning people to warn them about Bob's calling them for references, and I finally find that LAUREN BAHR had given my name to Judy Schwab, who game my name to Bob. Talk to Susan and Ginny and Dick and Graham, and when I make up some more maze-sheets and put THAT away, it's 2:30, Tom's back, and we're back to work without my having eaten lunch. Work through until 5:15, putting in a bill for $245, saying to come in early tomorrow and FINISH, but I know it can't be done, since we haven't even answered all the questions I had from LAST week. Typing the final processing sheets, then have to shit, which delays me, so I meet Joan at 5:35 and go to a bagel place where she has cream cheese and I have egg salad for my second meal of the day only. On line at 6, but people pulled in ahead of us so we're in third row of loges, best and most comfortable seats, and no one asks me about the sign I made to sell a Buckminster Fuller ticket. Talk's uncomfortable, Paul's around to take up Joan's time as I watch the screamers getting ready for Werner, and he comes on at 7:17 (see DIARY 11219). Out at 12, tired, and subway to Dennis's to ring TWICE, so he's been sleeping, but he's hungry, so he makes hamburgers and toast and we drink kir and don't even bother to smoke, though I brought grass, and we're rather tired to bed about 1:30, setting the alarm for 8 so we can both get to work on time.
DIARY 11228
FRIDAY, AUGUST 27. The alarm goes at 8; we cuddle blindly until 8:15, when Dennis says that we have to get up. He showers, I laze, then get up as he has coffee and makes fried eggs and toast, but then he starts cleaning up and I say that I'll be leaving about 9:15. To New Century at 10 and Tom wants to review the answers to the questions yesterday, taking about an hour to do it, and then getting back to the MIDDLE questions, which I had assumed were SETTLED, and starts changing THEM all around. I experience a great deal of exasperation, which means that he's very solicitous in the afternoon, so I apologize for being so touchy, and we'd broken for lunch at 1:15 and I chatted with the IPI customer representative who'd been around since 1967 at Chock Full, and back at 1:45 to line everything up on EA level and sublevel and grade, and then he has to leave at 4, and I start writing up my final notes in SOME form, but then leave to cart home half the paper that I bought at Apollo today for $32+. Get it home as it's getting dark to rain, and then take two checks to the bank and deposit OVER 70% of my balance, over $1700, check to find nothing in the library, and then buy a load of groceries in two bags, stocking up on EVERYTHING. Then Dennis calls about 6:45, saying he'll be over, and I read the loads of mail that came yesterday and today, finish the last 10 pages of "Defy the Foul Fiend" by a charming John Collier (and makes a list of three books to ADD to the book-wanted list today, a difficult thing for me to do, but it keeps it CURRENT with Vonnegut, Roberts, and Collier). I'd put on a pound of butter with the grass-junk at 6 and kept adding water through the evening, smelling the grassy-junk smell as the water got down, or hearing the bubbling as the water overheated with the butter in it. Cooked huge steaks and had to use another frying pan for boiling corn, but it was too tough ANYWAY. He puts on Respighi's "Pines," so I put on the "Rossiniana" tape later, and then I say I want to look at slides, but he has people to call, and people call me, and we don't get to them until 11, and then he sits through four boring boxes and calls for the two good ones, but they're not really a turn-on, and from being VERY charmingly up when we necked earlier, he STIFF from sucking on me, it's now a chore to be up, and we try it for awhile, then to TV about 1:40 for "Invisible Invaders" possessing people until they're driven out with a sound gun that shows a white dying monster, then Dennis confesses he's tired, and sleeps about 2 am, and I get to sleep at 3:00 am.
DIARY 11229
SATURDAY, AUGUST 28. Because I went to sleep an hour later than he did, we wake about the same time, about 10, both feeling like we'd gotten the right amount of sleep. Raise the blind and get the poppers for incredible sex, him first, then me, then him again. Out of bed about 11:30, and he'd suggested we have corn fritters from the third uneaten ear of corn from last night, so I make that in black butter (because he insisted I turn the heat up so high), and it tastes of fifteen-year-old baking powder, but they're not THAT bad with lots of bacon and coffee (for him) to improve the taste. Call Joyce at 1:15 for a stereopticon, but then I remember that the shop is closed on Saturdays during the summer (and I'd called the shop to find Art in Stanford on Thursday looking for stained glass for the house, and on Friday to find that he'd gone up to the country for the weekend already). Pope doesn't have one either, so Dennis wants to go out and search for one, finding that OTHERS have been looking, too, strangely enough, but he doesn't find one while searching out the West Village antique shops. I drag myself to type part of the first diary page on the new, heavier, paper, but just don't feel like doing that, so I settle down with Clarke's "Beyond Jupiter" (see DIARY 11230) and "Indian Ocean Adventure" (see DIARY 11231) that I'd borrowed from the library. Then crumbled the first grass from the current batch, some for me, some for Dennis. Put on hash for dinner, since there isn't much time to prepare before "Star Trek," and find that I hadn't remembered MUCH of "Methuselah," which is essentially a NEW episode, and then find that "Space 1999" ALSO has a chapter I hadn't seen, about the return of Voyager with a Queller Drive that destroyed planets with fast neutrons until HE destroyed the killers who followed it back to their moon. Dennis called at 6:50 and said we should see "Middle of the Night," so I leave at 7:55 and get to the theater JUST at 8:30, to be the last person into the darkened area for a loose-knit production of a VERY dated play in a TALKY audience (see DIARY 11232). Out about 11 and buy bread and the Times and get up to Dana's about 12; Dennis takes the dogs out, makes patties and beans for dinner and we have jello and fruit for dessert, with white wine, and then we smoke my NEW stuff and get to bed about 1, to cuddle and try vaguely to come until about 1:50, when we're both tired, so we turn over to our respective dogs, on either side, and sleep.
DIARY 11233
SUNDAY, AUGUST 29. Alarm rings at 6:15 and the dogs jump all over the place, and Dennis gets up about 9 and takes them out, and then returns to have sex with me and we get out of bed surprisingly early, we have breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast while watching "Love and Death" from 1 to 2:30, but it's more of a series of comedy sketches than a movie, though some parts are funny; however, his cowardice, self-abnegation, and the fact that Diane Keaton acts more and more like him work against newness in the flick. Then out for a walk about 3:30, taking the elevator to the garden near the Cloisters, but it's crowded, there are no flowers, and we walk down to the north side, buy peaches that are mealy and kiwi fruit that are green, and start walking back about 6 when Dennis tells me about the Fort Tryon Restaurant "a few blocks from the place" and we walk from 214th down to 184th and sit at the counter for a stomach-splitting diner: fruit cup, cup of chicken noodle soup, tossed salad, sweetbreads with two vegetables, rolls and butter, and cherry pie and tea, all for $6.15 including tip, and we get out about 7 groaning about our stomachs. He leaves at 7:30 after taking the dogs out, I read a bit of "A Way Home" until I have to leave the last for the subway tomorrow (I'd figured going home tonight, but he HAS to stay up there, I'm probably working next week so I won't join him, and I'm too full to move, so I decide to stay on). Search out Dana's porno, and the $10 book on stars is a REAL rip-off, so it's just as well I didn't get it (except that THEY got it, which I dislike), and then I watch "Once Is Not Enough" from 9:30 to 11:30, having showered and shaved for his return, and it's an awful story about the "fifth richest woman in the world" who loves Melina Mercuri, marries Kirk Douglas, whose daughter goes through a series of involvements with everyone but the astronaut, who I guess is gay, and gets stung into "I loved you once / Once is not enough" and wanders off. Then watch "King Kong" for lack of anything else to do, and Dennis comes in at 1, tired, and we don't even smoke, just cuddle and fall asleep about 1:30, and I'm exasperated with the dogs begging for food, scratching carpets, jingling their chains, and coming around while we're having sex, and I'm glad I'm leaving tomorrow; sad I can't TALK about it.
DIARY 11234
MONDAY, AUGUST 30. Wake at alarm at 8, but we just nuzzle and he has to get up, which is fine, since I don't feel very sexy, and he makes breakfast of fabulous french toast and bacon, and we leave about 10 am for his tryouts and my home. Buy some sloe gin, fertilize the plants, and then am reminded about Art's birthday today, so I get out to the new greeting card shop and find one for him and a thank-you note for Richard Kleyn and mail them at the post office, finding nothing at the library, and back about noon feeling that I've ACCOMPLISHED something. Try calling Madge and Margaret, but they're out to lunch [oh, and I'd finished "A Way Home" EXACTLY as the subway pulled into Clark Street.] Talk to Arnie about an hour, read the mail, and take about an hour to wash ALL the dishes, the stove, and scour the sink in preparation for cleaning the apartment again. Mrs. Johnson's up to look at the toilet, telling about an apartment below her available for $300, and she leaves as Arnie calls. Then get in touch with Madge, who LOVES my resume, tells me to FORGET about my having quit back in SBC "the records are all destroyed, just cover it up; it was only three months," and commands me to send copies to Art and IBM. Ginny calls about working tomorrow, and Tom hasn't called about tomorrow yet, and I think for about an hour about ALL the jobs that might come about (see DIARY 11235). Then put on hamburger after Fred comes over to buy 4 poppers, start typing, find that "Star Trek" is a duplicate, have dinner while reading New York, then sort stuff out and retype ALL the additions to the Academy Awards list onto the xeroxed sheets, for uniformity---it looks nice but it's TOTALLY unnecessary, just adding a list. Then force myself into typing, finally doing 11 pages by 11:45 and feeling that I'd like to finish, but there are still too many things on my mind: IBM, Random House, Index, Ginny, Tom. Fix up the apartment until 12, debating what to do about Dennis calling, and he calls JUST at 12, and we talk until 12:15, and I smoke till 12:30, putting the phone near me for a call from Tom in the morning, shutting the windows against the VERY welcome coolness in the night air, even getting out an extra blanket to keep warm, and the grass lulls me quickly to sleep with the earplugs to shut out the goddam dog barking in the morning.
DIARY 11246
TUESDAY, AUGUST 31. Wake about 8 and up at 8:30 to immediately make the bed, sort things out, and call Tom at 9:15 to find he doesn't want me to come in today, a relief, and call Ginny, who calls back at 9:35 to say that SHE has found someone. I tell her I was only doing her a favor, and really don't NEED the work, which makes me feel better, too. Delighted at the freedom I have to catch up with August IN August, so I have breakfast after EXERCISING at the first level in a long time, then get to DIARY, typing 7 pages to catch up with that, then the Tsi-Dun list (see DIARY 11236), then go over and over and organize the list of LISTS (see DIARY 11237-11238), then forget the pagination and type an upset list that becomes DIARY 11238A, a pain list on 11239, and by about this time it's 1, I make tuna salad for lunch and watch Celia Johnson and Noel Coward and Margaret Leighton in "Astonished Heart" about Coward committing suicide because he loves Leighton and is hurting his faithful wife, Johnson (written by Coward). Then at 2:30 continue with typing with a desk goodie list (see DIARY 11240), DIARY 11241 in the book and DIARY 11242 at the desk as a coincidence list, resurrect the list of misspelled words for 11243, type addresses of famous people on 11244, and another Babbitt Brighton process on 11245. Then John Cernusca calls at 4 to say that the CURRENT Pediatrics index is 17,000 lines, and I look at my estimate for a bit, then take off to the Carnegie hall Cinema for "Daisy Miller," set in the lovely Trois Couronnes in Vevey, Switzerland, and the Hotel Bristol in Rome which turns out to be VERY faithful to the summary, but her quick fluttery talk was MOST off-putting and her brother was really a fright. "Madame Bovary" by Renoir was so dated that people laughed at the overacting of Valentine Tessier as the much-too-old Emma, and many of the plot subtleties were totally lost. Out at 8:30 and down for a blood test at the Gay Men's Health Project, which still has my file from 1974. Phone Art, who isn't there, then Dror, who's just come in. He meets me in Sheridan Square and suggests Aoi, a VERY good Japanese restaurant on Greenwich. We eat till 11, walk up Hudson after a root beer swirl ice cream from Mother Buckla's, Art STILL doesn't answer at 11:20, so I'm home at 12 to call Dennis, tell him about my day, smoke at 12:20 and come VERY feelingly with little porno and fall asleep about 1, VERY contented with the amount of work I did today.
DIARY 11264
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1. Wake at 8, waiting for the phone to ring from Tom, and get out of bed at 9, and meditate in my bathrobe until 9:30, still delightfully cool in the room. When I settle down to type a few pages, Tom calls to say I should go in tomorrow. Continue typing lists and Arnie calls for about an hour at 10:45, and I ransack the Personal Box to find what MORE I can add, and come up with the Autograph list (see DIARY 11247), the list of names typed at ICWU (see DIARY 11248), an old list of school activities (see DIARY 11249), a list of 18 courses in a Chinese feast (see DIARY 11250), my Ashton second-prize winning oration "Integration Made Practical" (see DIARY 11251-11254), my college poetry work (see DIARY 11255-11257), robbery notes (see DIARY 11258), my list of old IBM employees (see DIARY 11259), my record of IBM raises (see DIARY 11260), the list of questions I sent to Encyclopedia Britannica (see DIARY 11261), an old informal transcript of University of Akron grades (see DIARY 11262), and a formal one (see DIARY 11263). Before that, I spent about 2 hours estimating how much time the 18,000 line Pediatrics Index would take me, talked to John about it, and called Berta to check on my using her as a reference. About 12 I exercised for the second time, feeling somewhat stiff from yesterday, and I had lunch about 2:30, tuna salad while reading about Carter's "thrice-bornedness" in New York. Don Maloof called finally, asking me to come over this evening, and I tried getting in touch with Dennis. Looked through the EB reports that I got while typing the EB list, an example of how I get hung up on what comes up. Check that "Star Trek" is a dupe and get to this point at 6:20, the 18th page typed today. Kept trying Dennis, and Don called to say I should come THEN, so I showered and shaved and left about 7:05 and got to Don's at 7:45. We drove to his sister's in New Jersey, talking about his trip down to Atlanta, which he loved, and get into the huge house with the son, down to about 170# from 220# playing soccer, the father, about to go off to a three-month training session for his engineering company (but he never heard of Buckminster Fuller), Bob; and the sister, Diana, pleasant enough to talk to, but we talk about design and paintings and nothing but relatives until I say we should leave at 10:30. Eat chicken at Holly's, good, but COLD french fries, and to Don's at 12:15 to call Dennis, who's got a trick there but he's come and chased out before I arrive at 1:15; we snack, smoke, cuddle, and sleep about 2:30, no come.
DIARY 11265
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2. We wake about 9, Dennis takes the dogs down, we do each other fairly softly and out of bed about 10. Dennis makes hamburgers and frozen vegetables for breakfast, then gets out at 11 for his singing lesson at 11:30, and I'm around to wash dishes and read my book and tune in on "Woman of Dolwyn" at 1, but the reception's not so good and the dogs bother me, so I'm out at 2:15 to get to work at 3:15 (having called Tom this morning when Dennis said last night he has no rehearsal tonight), and Tom's FINALLY come up with a plan of his own with figures HE wants, and I praise him to the sky and figure we've finally gotten started on the project. Work through until 5:15, trying to call Dennis, who hasn't called me, but I know the dogs weren't fed in the morning, so he'll have to get to Hillside SOMETIME, and then the double IS still playing at the RKO Coliseum, so I leave word on his message service that I'll be at Hillside at 6, subway up, but he's not there. I read Dahl's "James and the Giant Peach" and "The Magic Finger" (see DIARY 11266) that I borrowed from Tom to read, but he's still not there, and so I read more of "Beyond" and he arrives about 7:25, just in time to take out the dogs, make dinner of defrosted hamburger, and we drink wine and get rather stoned for the double feature, and get out looped at 8:05 to dash down Broadway in the chilly evening for "Bug" with a dour Bradford Dillman who gradually goes mad with incendiary bugs, but the third generation of flying roaches beggars the imagination, and the explosion that occurs when he falls into the earthquake-caused rift implies that it's all in his OWN mind. "At the Earth's Core" is JUST awful, with purple plants and pink skies and a fat Doug McClure and a wise-cracking Peter Cushing "You can't hypnotize me, I'm British" and "Have you ever thought of going to the moon?" Explosions, bird eggs destroyed, rumbles, monkey-faced slaves driven by huge birds who seem to miss EVERYTHING everyone does against them, and we're out at 12 to walk back, indulge in wine and jello and fruit, eat chicken, cold, then smoke lots and have one of the most INCREDIBLE edge-walking brink-of-sex session of them all, he coming for days, me in spasms for hours, finally to sleep about 2:30, completely worn out, loving it, and marveling at each other.
DIARY 11267
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3. Wake about 9, kiss him, and say I MUST leave, so I'm up to wash my face and dress and get out at 10, carrying a heavy bag of stuff from "New York by Car" and "Southeast US" that I'd lent to Don, and get to 7th and 28th at 11, so I stop for breakfast and get to work at 11:25, Tom mad because he'd set aside 10:30 to 12:30 for me, and we go over the questions and notes and get lots done by the time he leaves at 3, and I chat with Ellen, who says she'll bring me some fresh food from the country on Tuesday, if I'd like, which I would. Out at 3:30 and lug the five reams of paper home with the stuff from Don, getting in VERY tired at 4:30 to play my messages, call Susan but she doesn't answer, call Don to thank him for the brochures he added to my collection, put stuff away, exercise for the third time, feeling much better now, and get another title from "Star Trek" at 6. Have the last of the hamburger, gone almost bad, and call Pope to ask to go over tonight to show him Werner's notes, play Scrabble, watch a TV mystery, and hopefully borrow either his alphaphones or aura goggles. Type two pages to get up to date by 8:10, having watered the plants, killed white flies in the kitchen to the count of about 100, and fixed the place up a bit. Then decide I have enough time to type "kazrenloZ treboR" (see DIARY 11268; though backward) for New Yorker, but don't leave until 8:35, late. Start a game of Scrabble and watch the first half of "Death at Love House" from 9 to 9:45 while playing, and then he makes popcorn and we watch the end of it, silly with Robert Wagner getting seduced by the "ghost" of Lorna Love, who turns out to have been burned and is living with Sylvia Sidney as her caretaker, with Joan Blondell, Dorothy Lamour, John Carradine, and others, in the old Harold Lloyd house. I win first game, he second, and at 11:30 he reads my Werner notes, gives me his aura goggles, and talks about the impossibility of talking with Gary. I'm home at 1 to try the goggles unsuccessfully at 1:04-1:20, then get into bed about 1:40, having counted that I have 25 items on my DO list, which I'll try to get down to 20 tomorrow so I can write a new one, but while meditating at 10 the next morning, I have a GREAT idea (see DIARY 90001) about it. Sleep easily by 1:45, since I'm feeling weary, and the low 60s temperature feels just GREAT in the room, with a spare blanket spread over the bed.
DIARY 11269
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4. Out of bed about 9:30, meditate about 10 and come up with the idea that leads to typing 8 pages in the 90000 series of pages (see DIARY 90001) until about 12:30, and then I feel I MUST exercise and have breakfast, so I do, with the milk seeming to be sour, probably from the popper-smell in the refrigerator! That takes until about 1:30, when I phone Paul (and get told that I should call after the matinee ticket-rush!), Stephen, Michael, Eddie, and Joan about coming to Dennis's play, and Joan in particular talks a long time, and I'm finally off the phone about 3:30, when I get out to look at the three colleges in Brooklyn Heights (York atop the Promenade Restaurant, Packer next to St. Francis, St. Ann's the big building on Pierrepont I never knew what was), see the mini-fair on Henry, then down to the Key Food in Pineapple Walk to take advantage of the prices on tuna (49¢) and 10¢ off on Spam (that saves me over $2 right THERE) and other stuff, and bring it back and put it away, and remind myself that I have corn that I have to eat, so I clean it and boil it while I'm showering and shaving, and have it while seeing that "Star Trek" is a duplicate, and then I subway off to Houston and First and find the Weird Books bookshop closed 15 minutes before its normal closing at 7, then uptown to get a slice of pizza at 11th, down to the St. Marks at 7:05 for a VERY slow "Kipps" with Michael Redgrave as the gofor who loses his surprise inheritance in a breach of promise suit to Diana Wynward and then on the same day makes a mint on his investment (all unknowing) in a playwright's plays. Probably an example of "God provides for simpletons," but his UNCLE left him money in the film that in the book was a product of bastardy and his grandfather. "The Stars Look Down" was a dreary mining tale until the retaining wall to the water broke and imprisoned six men, who died, and Michael Redgrave was the English Gary Cooper: silent, earnest, loving, put-upon, finally winning. Out at 10:30 and up to Dennis's, buying the paper, reading it all and working both puzzles until 2, then to bed until Dennis gets in about 3, and we chat for a bit, and then go to sleep preparing for a good bout of sex in the morning.
DIARY 11270
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5. I wake about 10:15, and then about 10:25 decide I can do my meditation lying down, which doesn't work well the first time, but it works for the day: just TWENTY SECONDS after I finish my 2-minute rest period, his parents call from California, they talk, and then about 11:15 we smoke some and get into poppers, and he plays and plays with his cock, and he comes on the kitchen floor when he gets too hot to bear it, and I have to race back to the bed to whack myself away, he saying how much he wants me to stand and shoot into his mouth, me saying that it's somewhat harder that way. Then he comes a second time as we cuddle. Then up for breakfast when I say I'm hungry, having had only cereal, corn, and pizza yesterday, and he makes FABULOUS french toast, about five pieces each, and lots of bacon, and then we're back to read, me finishing "Venus Plus X" and him reading the paper until he starts playing with himself on the pillow, swatting back and forth and giving me one of the most open-faced smiles of childlike glee I've ever seen in my life, playing with his cock on the pillow. I come up with him, we smoke some more, and we're over to the side to sit and I put on his cock ring and get quite hard, playing with myself, and he's beside me doing the same, and then I come in a GREAT way with my own hand, and he climbs on top and comes a THIRD time in the day, somewhat harder this time, but still marvelous to watch. Then it's about 3:30 and we're deciding what to do, but he goes back to the paper and I'm back to the book, and we have dinner of hamburgers and toast before he leaves for rehearsal at 6:30. I decide to stay over until tomorrow, since the plants were watered heavily before I left Saturday and will wait until Monday, so he leaves after showering and shaving. Skim Williams' "Memoires," "Jackie" (or who?) good, in an hour. I finish "The Waltz Invention," not very good (see DIARY 11273), and I settle down with "Our Man in Havana" by Graham Greene, which isn't that good but has some quotable lines (see DIARY 11271). Finish with that about midnight, after shaving and showering in preparation for his return, and then decide to continue reading with "Travels with My Aunt," but get tired and almost get into bed when he comes in about 2, which is really 2:15, talking of the evening, saying how tired he is, and we cuddle a bit and get to sleep without having sex AGAIN.
DIARY 11272
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6. He has a singing lesson at 10:30, so he sets the alarm for 8, we doze until 8:30, he's up to shower and shave, and then we have breakfast and he gets out about 10:10, to return very quickly because his voice sounded too tired, and his teacher told him to come back tomorrow at 4:30, that singing is a matter of knowing WHEN and HOW to do it, as well as how to sing when it's the right time. I'd called for the movie schedule and we decide to see the 12:30 movie, and I'm reading Greene and he's fixing up the dishes, and we're out about 11:45, too late to walk through the park. The weather is just about perfect, cool, breezy, very clear, and we walk down CPW and through the corner, and get to the theater early enough for him to piss and get popcorn and investigate the balcony, which we move down from. "Stepford Wives" is VERY slow, with the only JOLT of fear when he appears next to her on the stairway and fights to take her away for her "operation," and the robotic appearance of the second lead (Paula Prentice is NOT her name!) was the best part. "Murder by Death" was typical failed Simon with good performances by Maggie Smith and Nancy Walker, and a sexy body by James Cromwell holding up the bedroom ceiling, and bad ones by almost everyone else, PARTICULARLY Peter Falk and Truman Capote. Out at 4 and walk along 57th looking for a place to eat, stop in at Paul's to say hello at 4:45, and then up First looking into expensive places to 78th, then down Second to Dr. Generosity's to eat a GOOD meal of fish-n-chips, salad, wine, and rolls for $1.95, less than HALF the cheapest we'd even LOOKED at before, which was $3.95! Out at 6:30 and look at the paperback bookshop and find two MORE Sturgeons, so I don't have to visit the 53rd Street place for "Aliens 4," and Dennis goes off to rehearse and I buy two OTHER books, too, and leave to get home at 7:40 to watch the rest of "Yellow Submarine" (and it's not so much fun on re-re-reseeing) until 8:30, and then decide to come lengthily. Get out the slides, which I remember to be slightly out of order, and push them around and rearrange them, getting only the SLIGHTEST hard-on, and by 11 I'm smoking, getting out the popper (and the broken one seems PERMANENT), and finally lathering myself up with the Lotion to come with GREAT feeling and lots of lather. Then make popcorn, eat cheese, salami, and orange, and listen to music until about 1, finally tiring myself enough to get to sleep.
DIARY 11273
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7. Wake before the alarm goes off at 8:15 and out of bed to find there's nothing to eat for breakfast. Shower and shave and get out at 9:15, getting to work at 10 (just after Tom leaves a message here for me, worrying), but he's busy, so I type the page of notes from Dahl's books (see DIARY 11266) until 10:30, and then work till 1:30 going through my list of questions, revising everything again, and getting half through by the time I have to go to lunch at Chock Full, chicken livers this time, with rather decent cheesecake. Back from 2 to 4:15, but take off 15 minutes because I phoned each time HE was busy: trying to get Carol Day, getting Susan, who puts me in touch with Dennis Sillari, who has an index; calling Ellie at Bob Perski's, saying I can bring stuff back anytime; calling John C about picking up pages from Pediatrics, Don and Michael about coming to Dennis's, and Dennis who isn't there. Tom's on vacation the rest of the week, so he'll call me Monday. Ellen brought in a load of green beans, a squash, two tomatoes, a cucumber, and a tiny potato, so I load THAT into my bag at 4:15 and dash uptown to John Cernusca at 4:30 to get the old index torn out of a book and about 222 pages, about 80 unnumbered, and phone Dennis Sillari to find the index will be ready probably NEXT week, so I get to Random House at precisely 5 to find Bob Perski coming out to talk with me for about 20 minutes, envying my freelance status, having to finish his job by New Year's Eve, but keeping my name on file, and possibly cruising me. Out to check on the Box Tree, cheapest $18.75 for dinner, but $12 to $15 for lunch, about a week's wait for reservations, and the cellar smelled FOUL from outside. Then back by subway via Boro-Clark to get another "Star Trek" title, put on dinner of pork chops and green beans and tomato while Art calls about going to his place tomorrow and I say yes, since I have nothing better to do, and THIS emphasizes the fact that EVERYTHING has priority over WRITING (see DIARY 11274). Eat, finish a New York, type 4 pages to catch up partway, then watch "Naked Civil Servant" about Quentin Crisp on Thames on 9 from 10 to 11:30, disturbing but good, then watch Forsythe on "Girls" from 11:30 to 12:30, an awful, ugly Kenneth Haigh, some of Eldridge Cleaver, then "Frankenstein" with Ian Holm as BOTH creator and created from 1:30 to 2:45, feeling VERY tired then to bed.
DIARY 11275
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8. Rick wakes me at 9:45, trying to get in touch with Dennis about coming into town on Saturday, and that adds to my feeling that I don't want to go to Art's, and tell him that when he calls at 10, saying that Tom has some things for me to do earlier, and about 10:10 Tom DOES call to say that he wants me to type things up in rough form for MANY people to look at, by Monday, and my SAYING it has made it TRUE? Meditate about 10:30 and type two pages about extreme swings in emotion (see DIARY 11276-11277), and then exercise and watch "Virgin Spring" from 1 to 2:30, much simpler than I'd remembered, though it didn't look like the rape scene SHOULD have caused so much trouble with censorship, even back in 1961. Then continue typing for the last of the five pages I do today, and type another page in the 9 series, 90010 on funny lines. Had lunch during "Virgin Spring" of toast and the rest of the soft cheese and salami from Cheeselovers, and then get out to take a pair of pants to the cleaners, take the books back to the library at last, on the last day, and buy a small amount of groceries, surprised to find that the temperature is recording at 92°, but it's still cool in the apartment. Back to put things away and put on "Star Trek" when Mrs. Johnson comes in with the plumber to look at the running toilet, and he has to come back with the right screw. Find that it's a NEW program, #75 of the lot, another very early one about "Court Martial," and Joan calls a couple of time during it to talk about Dennis's talking about Kuno. I'd talked to Dennis for a long time, tried to find "Waltz Invention" in shops and failed, and tried Carol Day again. Then watch "Father, Dear Father," mediocre British Comedy series, followed by "Man About the House" from 7:30 to 8. Putting away mail, phoning more people, more typing until 10, when I watch "Rock Follies II," a pretty decent series of three "Little Lady" singers until 11, then turn off TV and get into an INCREDIBLE sex-consumption session (see DIARY 11278) until 12:50, when I channel switch until 1:45 and watch "The Suicide Club" with a sexy Jonathan Newst as Bayberry Rich, or someone, until 3, when I take the stuff off the bed and fall definitely asleep from fatigue.
DIARY 11279
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9. JUST got out of bed at 10, having waked when the dog barked for a bit at 7:30, content with 7 hours sleep, when Shelley calls for another "Clockwatchers" session on Monday the 13th. Arnie calls at 10:05 and we talk until 11:25, just incredible, about TV shows, movies, his interviews with various travel agents, Graham Greene as a writer, and the movie "Trouble for Two" which is the 1936 US version of "The Suicide Club." Then I meditate until 12, putting things away and exercising, and actually have cereal for breakfast about 12:30 for the first time in ages. Put more things away and watch "Storm over Tibet" from 1 to 3, with some good footage of the Dyrenfurth expedition to the Karakorum Range padding a plot about a pilot killed while flying the hump with a mask of Sinju, but the USE real place names like Tezpur, in India, NEAR Ledo and Kunming, the REAL ends of the hump-flying, even though maps indicate that the Himalayas aren't REALLY down THERE. And they say the temple shots are form Lamayuru Buddhist Monastery, and the peak of Amne Mandu is NEAR Amne Machin in China, so it's an interesting film. Then get back to the diary, with this as the third page (and 90020 started) for the day, up to date at 3:40 pm. Then I retype the book list in order to take it to work on Monday and get it xeroxed, and when there's still time left, I write a letter to Mom, the first in ages. Then check the duplicate on "Star Trek," getting a new title, and have the last of the pork chops and some more beans before showering and shaving and getting out at 7 to meet Stephen out front of the Manhattan Theater Club at 7:45, up to find that the seats aren't reserved, only the tickets, and Joan's there quick, and Don doesn't arrive until 8, and Joan moves aside two agents to sit next to us (who LATER talk so well about it that they're trying to get Joe Papp interested in it!). The production is good (see DIARY 11280) even though the theater gets VERY warm; I buy lemonade for 50¢ just for the ice. It's over at 11:15 and we wait; I walk Joan to a taxi, having given her a "taxi scholarship" for the performance to get her to see it, though Dremak doesn't come with her. Jeanyee and Waie and Emily (who can't hear well, so she's uncomfortable with conversations) and Peggy and Dennis and I go to Cafe Galerie for good but expensive ice cream snacks. Bus across to his place, smoke, and AGAIN fall asleep in bed.
DIARY 11281
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10. Wake about 5:15 to find us lying in 69 position on top of the covers, so I blow out the candles and put out the light and we get back to sleep until about 10. Wake and have fabulous sex with both of us getting into our cocks, and am VERY discouraged to find that it's 12:15 when I get out of bed! He makes breakfast very leisurely, and I finish "Starshine" on the subway on the way home about 3. Try Carol Day and still don't get her, and decide to cross her off the list: I don't need any more writing references at this point anyway. Then figure this is the time to vacuum the apartment, so I dust and sweep between selling bottles to Jim Moultner and Fred Bassoff, and get everything done but vacuuming the living room by 8, when I watch "Everybody Rides the Carousel" based on Erik Erikson's eight stages of development [1) Newborn (Trust/Mistrust); 2) Toddler (Autonomy/Shame, Doubt); 3) Childhood (Initiative/Guilt); 4) Schoolchild (Competence/Inferiority); 5) Adolescent (Identity/Role Confusion); 6) Young Adulthood (Intimacy/Isolation); 7) Grownup (Generativity/Stagnation); 8) Old Age (Integrity/Despair)], and dislike them talking about "One's one-and-only lifecycle." That's till 9:30, I finish vacuuming and then watch "Special Duties" from 10 to 11, rather poor Graham Greene story about John Gielgud who is VERY rich paying a woman to store up indulgences for him who lays with a man during the working day. Arnie had thought of going to the baths tonight, but I feel sexed out by the great sex this morning, and decide to get to bed early so that I'll be fresh for tomorrow's all-day lecture. Called Don for Dennis's play, and I have to call him for this, but only tomorrow morning, when I set the alarm for 7:45, and then smoke around midnight and crawl into bed, tired, but debating whether to come or not. It seems that I DID come this afternoon, just for the sensation of coming, knowing that I wouldn't be seeing Dennis this evening, looking at the pornography, feeling good about it, but that takes it off the agenda for this evening. Still have lots of things to do, but it seems I'm never doing the right thing, always have things pressing on my mind, and I fall asleep with thoughts still churning in my busy brain.
DIARY 11282
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11. Wake at 7:30 and shut off the alarm just before it rings, debating meditating and exercising, but I just have cereal, shower and shave, call Don and arrange to meet him at 9:15 across the street from Town Hall, and get out without doing anything more. He's late, about 9:25, so we have to sit way in the back of the balcony, which gets hotter as the morning wears on. Buckminster Fuller is not the best show in the world (see DIARY 11283). Out at 12:30 for a 90-minute lunch, and Don wants to get something fast, so we walk up 7th and I suggest the Burger King, using the coupon I have in my pocket, and he gives me $1.50 for a meal that's about $2.14 in all, since Don gets a shake for 50¢. Eat fast, not bad-tasting, and out at 1 to get back to the Hall so we can sit in about the 6th row and talk for a bit about nothing. It starts again about 2:10 and goes boringly through until 5, me nodding a few times, Don dozing, others sleeping, and BF seemingly affected by it, so he stands and starts being more dynamic. Then at 5 Don has to leave for something at 7, thanks me for the afternoon, and I walk him to his garage, then tour the bookshops on 42nd, finding nothing much good, then up to scan a street fair on 46th between 9th and 10th, looking at books and smelling satés burning, then back along Restaurant Row to A La Fourchette, which I'd wanted to take Don O'Shea to, but have mediocre onion soup for $1.95, dry sweetbreads in a tasty wine sauce for $6.95, and treat myself to creamy alcoholic Zabaione (as they spell it), for $2.75 and 95¢ tax for $12.60, and I leave $14.40 for just a BASIC meal! Out at 6:55, back to piss, miss the first few words, and thankfully it's over at 8:50, and I'm out happy to BE out, subway home by 9:30, picking up the Times, but get to reading the mail instead of the paper. Rick calls at 10 during intermission, asking if it's OK for him to "crash" here, and I say yes. Read the Times and work both puzzles, having watched excerpts from "Show of Shows" from 10 to 11, and they get in at 1:45, because of photos being taken after the show. They're hungry, so I make up tuna salad for them, using too much bread for them, and drink sloe screws with both of them, and that's over at 3, so I make up Rick's bed on the sofa (having cleaned it first to make sure it was presentable), and Dennis and I smoke and talk and cuddle until 3:30, then shutting off the light to save all the good hard stuff for the morning. He says "I love you."
DIARY 11292
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. I wake about 10 and lay torturing myself listening to the dog barking, wishing I had the understanding of Dennis and Rick to just get UP and READ until Dennis wakes. He does so at 11, we cuddle and get very hard, and he draws me to the mirror, rock-hard, and comes with GREAT enthusiasm on me lying on the rug, and then I whack myself off with enormous feeling to match his, and we're out at 12: me to shower quickly to wash off and Dennis to chat with Rick, who'd put away the bed and made coffee for them both. I put on cornbread, have Dennis put in bacon, and make omelets for us three, finishing the muffins toasted, too, and make honey butter for the cornbread, good. Finish eating about 1:15 and Rolf calls about going to the Mr. America contest at the Beacon, and I'd like to go, but Rick says he has to get back to Poughkeepsie. Then MOM calls, giving me her new address, not having gotten my letter, talking about how much money she and Grandma have, and Grandma'll be OUT of money in about two years! AND the plumber comes in and puts a screw into the plumbing! Call Rolf back about 2, and at 2:25 Rick and I go down to meet him while Dennis stays (and reads my journal, smokes a bit, comes in front of the mirror, and enjoys my place until Rick, who'd gone back to Dennis's to get his stuff, wasn't able to use the key and had to come BACK to the Heights, slightly pissed!), and he gives his card to Rolf, saying to "look in on him in Poughkeepsie on his way back to Boston," inviting me and Dennis to see his four new films and the foliage change at the end of September. We get to the Beacon at 3, buy $15 tickets, and get in for a zoo of an afternoon (see DIARY 11293). Out at 6:30, Rolf exhausted, and I'm in at 7:15 to read more of the Times, find VERY little to watch on TV this week, and put stuff away from this morning. Rolf comes over to leave 12 more bottles for Eddie, I get stuff ready for a busy day tomorrow, and don't even eat dinner as I type up about 30 pages for New Century's "final" WSR survey, ignoring the angry walking upstairs, doing everything I wanted to do in 5.5 hours and decide to charge Tom for 7 hours. Finish at 1:45, smoke at 2, and fall into bed, getting up to add cash and checks and the bankbook to the pile of stuff to take care of tomorrow.
DIARY 11294
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13. Had set alarm for 8:45 but got up at 8:30 to call Tom and get no answer, shower and shave, eat breakfast of cereal, and then call Ron at 9:15 and find that Tom's on vacation this week! Take stuff anyway, call Eddie and talk to HIM about his new job at an antique shop on Hudson just north of Christopher and tell him to call Rolf, and leave at 9:25 to leave off the laundry and wait at the bank's long line for my checking account payment, and JUST catch the Lexington Avenue line when I made a dash for it BEFORE I heard it coming. Get in at 10:05 for the final tryouts at "Clockwatchers" (see DIARY 11295), and "win" $10,000 before leaving at 10:45. Phone Ron and he's STILL Tom-less, so I tell him to call ME next. Then phone Dennis Sillari and he says to come up for the index, so I pick it up at 11:15 and talk to Susan from 11:30 to 12. She gives me "Salem's Lot" for Dennis to read, xeroxes my book-wanted list and the new pages on indexing from the new Chicago Manual (that she says will soon be coming out with a NEW edition, which I'll then buy), and we say we'll have lunch when I bring the index back. Home about 1, hungry, so I have tuna, read lots of mail, call Arnie about the weekend, Art to find his best friend's sister was killed in an auto accident on the Verrazano Bridge, that his apartment was robbed, and that he's going to "Threepenny Opera" next week! Call Dennis about 4 and find that "Summer and Smoke" has been extended a week and it might go into the Public Theater!! Call Joan and talk about all the good news, and arranged to go to the Four Seasons for Dennis's birthday-and-celebration dinner at 7:15. Type 2 pages but can't do more because of the time, shower and shave AGAIN, and dress up in shirt and tie and jacket and get out at 6:15 after seeing that "Star Trek" was a duplicate. Into the bar about 7:10 for the start of an INCREDIBLE eating session (see DIARY 11296). Out at 12:15 and walk across in the pleasant evening to the 7th Avenue subway, just miss the local so we're down for the express at 42nd, and get to Dennis's at 1, too full and tired to even smoke, just wash my face, clean my teeth, and crawl into bed even before he does, leaving the air conditioner on and sleeping immediately.
DIARY 11299
TUESDAYS, SEPTEMBER 14. Wake early, about 7, to take a sip of water, and Dennis put off the air conditioner, so it felt a bit warm. The alarm rang at 9 and he put it on again, and I cuddled, went down on him, enjoyed the feeling of wetting his cock thoroughly and then drawing back from it, leaving one or even two strands of spit between my lips and cock, and then got into a rhythm that he liked, straining, and he came in my hand for the first time, flowing oozily down my thumb as he came, saying that he enjoyed it very much, and it's something else we can play with. It was just 10:05, which was fine, and he shaved, I looked through the Guinness book of records, he puttered around with telephoning and we talked a bit before having some honeydew for a coolness rather than a filling breakfast, since we both still felt last night and its fullness. Leave at 11:30 after he calls Catherine and says he'll be a bit late, and I subway down to the 8th Street Bookshop at 12, to see that it's open at 12:30, and walk to Brentano's to browse until 12:25, when the 8th Street's open and there's a melee almost of people searching for bargains, and I buy 13 books for $7.02 where the LIST price would have set me back over $100: travel books on Africa, books by Chardin, Dahl, Collier, Krishnamurti, Watts, Searle, "Pumping Iron" for 25¢, and great picture books listing at $19.05 and $15.95 on Netherlands and the Alps, for $1 each, and a book on ballet for $1 and amusement parks for 25¢. Out at 1:15 with a load, home at 2 to look all through them until about 4:30, then get down to typing a bit, talk to Dennis on the phone, meet Pope on the street and he's going to Georgia for a week tomorrow, start feeling poor with a listless malaise (see DIARY 11298), check "Star Trek," nap from 6:15 to 7, then back to typing 9 pages of Buckminster Fuller notes and 9 pages of other for a GRAND total of 18 by now, 11:05, caught up at last! Then I soap up the sponge and try wiping off some of the smoke-grayness from the books to get rid of the smell, and then by 12:15 I'm sure that Dennis isn't calling from their free production of "Summer and Smoke" at Waterside to say that he's coming over, so I get into bed. But I'm hungry because I had only melon for breakfast and tuna for lunch about 2, so I finish the cookies while reading Dahl until 12:45, and I'm sleepy enough to turn off the light and sleep without smoking.
DIARY 11301
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15. Wakened at 7:30 by the dog, but then I wait for it to bark again so I CALL the people and say "Is that your dog barking?" and "Could you PLEASE stop it from waking me up every morning?" but it didn't bark again and I dozed off to have the dream on DIARY 11300, got up at 9:15 to type it, and finished these two pages by 9:30, pleased to be caught up. Then meditate, water the plants, and exercise, brush my teeth, have breakfast of cereal, probably talk to Arnold, who seems to be calling every day, and then get to the Harper and Row Language Basics Level C index from 11:30 to 3, doing the marking and typing, finding that 24 pages are missing from the middle, but Dennis Silari refuses to help me, preferring to send a messenger with the rest of the pages. Have lunch, finishing New York and finally able to get back to Sci Am reading, and then type and alphabetize and edit from 3:25 to 5:55, getting the missing pages PRECISELY when I needed them and even type the final manuscript before time for "Star Trek," another duplicate which I'm getting tired of watching for. Dennis calls to say that he'd like to come over this evening after the rehearsal at the theater this evening, and so I do the dishes to get them out of the way, which I'd been intending to do for awhile, and then get out to the deli to buy milk and eggs and bread, which I'm out of completely, and laugh when the clerk says "All you need is butter for the bread," because I've been thinking of baking something stoning with the GRASS butter this evening, but decide that since I only have the AWFUL tasting Broadcast chili and beans for dinner that I'll be hungry enough for popcorn, and we'll try the butter to see how it TASTES, if it'll be too STRONG to put into something baked. Put in another half-hour on the index, mainly trying to decide how to bring it down from 248 to 198 lines, from 6:05 to 6:35, actually call Mrs. Pollack about the barking dog, and it seems to work, and then I'm putting away the books I'd bought, call Dremak about Dennis, and then decide it's a good time to sort through the scrapbook stuff. Get into it, making up sorting sheets that I file in the "To be filed" folder behind the scrapbook, and Dennis rings at 12:05, takes a shower, and we smoke quite a bit and end up feeling very muzzy and sleepy, so I make popcorn and we have that, but then just listen to music and don't feel really like having sex, so we finally get into bed to sleep at 2:45, not actually knowing whether the sleepiness was from the grass, butter, or fatigue.
DIARY 11302
THURSDAYS, SEPTEMBER 16. I wake at 9, determine to tell Dennis about my getting out of bed when I get out of bed at 9:35 to call Dennis Sillari and Dennis wakes, then turns over to sleep again, and he says it's OK, he'll just call me. Things DO work out! Then Dennis calls to say I can just bring the ms in as is, Arnie calls and I say I'll call him back, put the phone on the machine at 10, and Dennis and I get into GREAT sex with BOTH cocks shooting off gobs of white stuff, him all over my chest, me first UP to my chest and DOWN to my knees with great gouts of semen. Out of bed at 11, find that ART had called while we were having sex, and he HATES the Foreman production of "Threepenny Opera." Make omelets, find I have no orange juice, and Dennis drinks coffee before leaving for his singing lesson at 1, at 12:20, rather late, but he seems to have had a good lesson and tells Dennis that he was IN "Irma la Douce" with Art in Montreal for a number of months. It's raining, I finish putting the scrapbook stuff away, and I'm out about 2 after putting things together and talking to Arnie, getting to Sillari about 2:45 and he seems to like what I've done (and Susan is down and out of work with some sort of intestinal thing that sends her to the bathroom regularly and Bob Kelly to vomiting). Then out and over to the Carnegie Hall Cinema early, to find that the schedule's been changed from 3:35 to 3:25 and I'm glad I was there early. Scan the two 57th Street bookshops and down for a breathtaking "Warehouse" as only the Japanese could have done such a flick, and "La Prisonniere" with a great Elizabeth Weinner like a young Jeanne Moreau, and a sexy Laurent Terzieff as the master of S&M who falls in love with her. Great double feature, which Arnie passed up for "The Ritz" and a sneak preview of "The Seven Percent Solution," which he didn't care for. Home about 7:30, warm up the rest of the awful chili, and watch "Trial by Wilderness" and a walk through Zululand, Natal, South Africa from 8-9, then "The Last of Mrs. Lincoln," with Julie Harris seeming to say that Mary Todd Lincoln was more sinned against than sinning, the enemy of writers and editors and biographers and politicians and debtees, from 9-11, and then watch "The Olympiad" about "The Marathon" from 11-12, rather a bore, except for the irony of Abebe Bikila being crippled by an auto accident and dying after his two marathon wins. Finish "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator" from 12:15 to 1:30 and fall asleep without needing grass.
DIARY 11303
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17. Out of bed at 9:30, grateful that the dog doesn't seem to be barking anymore, but Mrs. Watson puts on some goony record while I meditate and exercise, and I finish writing checks that I'd started last night, taking the rent check down to Mrs. Johnson and picking up some of the roach powder she'd said I could have, whittling away on the DO list at last! Arnold calls about 10:30 and talks to 11:30, I have breakfast at 1 while watching "One in a Million" with Sonia Henie in a silly plot with Adolphe Menjou, Don Ameche, and the Ritz Brothers, with Jean Hersholt as her father who'd won the gold medal for skating and then lost it for one professional performance, and the plot revolved around HER exhibition skating. Water the plants, get out for the laundry and take the Chinese laundry out during the movie break from 3-4, then back to watch "In a Lonely Place" with Humphrey Bogart acting like a maniac hitting people and making Gloria Grahame think that he killed some woman that her former boyfriend had killed. Good job of writing by Andrew Solt, whoever he was. That's over at 6, "Star Trek" is another duplicate, and I quickly type these two pages by 6:35 to catch up. Down to the subway, reading, to get up to 47th and the Edison Theater to find no one there buying tickets, so I go to the TKTS booth and sell the two tickets to "Me and Bessie" for $10 (paying for my subway fare there and back) to the second pair I suggest it to. Back to buy most of the groceries I need at Key, buying muskmelon or Spanish melon or WHATEVER (they're out of arugula, sadly) for Dennis and brownie mix for the butter. Home at 8 and search for the right recipe and find ONE that demands the OLD chocolate I have AND ALL the butter, so it's perfect. Make THAT while crumbling the current harvest of grass, replenishing my supply. When that's done I STILL feel like doing things, so I tackle the rest of the bedroom closet, finishing THAT with a pile of stuff thrown away and a pile to be given to John. Another item off the list, THERE SINCE THE FIRST OF THE YEAR!! Then sprinkle the white powder from Mrs. Johnson for the roaches and it's 12:20, so I put on the pork chops for BOTH of us and JUST start eating that and beans at 12:55 when Dennis shows up, having shuttled across to the 7th Avenue line and ending up at Borough Hall ANYWAY. I had a brownie at 12:30 and begin feeling it by 1:30. We eat some melon, smoke, listening to music, and get into INCREDIBLE sex, both VERY hard, both VERY stoned, and I suggest he come while parting the slit of his urethra and he DOES, white cum oozing out sexily, and then I hand myself off to a GREAT feeling; sleep exhausted at 3 am.
DIARY 11305
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18. I wake at 10:30 after 7½ hours sleep, but Dennis sleeps on. I lay, debating getting up, but feel good lying there thinking the thoughts recorded about "opposites act as opposites" on DIARY 11304. Meditate between 11 and 11:20, and finally get up at noon to start reading the Netherlands book, and he's up almost immediately, saying he feels GOOD and needed the sleep. I put on music and we have melon and scrambled eggs and Spam and orange juice and muffins and his lovely apple-nut bread toasted, eating from 12:30 to 1:30, and then I do the dishes while he makes out a list of HIS 10 best movies, based on mine and including NONE of them, and then he leaves at 3 for some tryout. I finish reading the last 20 pages of "Aliens 4," another great Sturgeon collection, and then type these two pages to catch up to date by 3:50, feeling REALLY like I've been ACCOMPLISHING something. Take all the letters to be answered off the shelf and sort them out, getting the responses from before out of the drawer for correlation, and start going through them by 5 when Dennis returns (after some WOMAN rang the bell at 4:30 to see an empty apartment; I thought it was Dennis and opened the door NUDE). We kiss, cuddle, and he wants to get into sex, so we smoke a bit and he thrusts into my mouth until he gets VERY hard, and he comes with a flurry of white on my chest. I haven't really been up, so when he's come at 6, I get up and start making dinner of tuna salad, green beans, his bread, and sloe screws. He's out at 6:45, I finish eating and debate smoking more and having sex with myself, or reading, but I steel myself and get back to the typewriter and write 14 letters: to Grapevine gay travel, Hubbard maps, SYDA to stay on Muktananda's mailing list, Bernie Mazie, Marion, Grandma, Laird, Bill Hyde, Peter Holliday, Edgardo, Elaine, Paul McLean, Helen and Jimmy, and Mike Schaeffer, finishing at 11:10 and feeling GREAT about it: only Mom and Rita left to write to! Decide to shower at Dennis's, so I'm out at 11:30, to his place at 12:05 to find him in, and we're invited to a "Summer and Smoke" cast party at 304 W. 88th, so I shower and wash my hair and shave, he shaves and showers, we glance at the Times, then out about 12:50 to enjoy the group, particularly Lynn and the two hosts, good music, then Cathy comes back to Dennis's to drink and talk from 4 to 5 am. I walk her to a cab and back to fall into bed, exhausted.
DIARY 11306
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19. Peggy calls Dennis at 10:50, then his folks call while I'm watching Blitzstein on Camera Three, then Dennis wants sex and we're to bed and grappling and he's REALLY into it on the floor, standing to come on my chest, and I use it to come most agreeably, and then we lay together for a bit until about 1, when we're up for hamburger-raisin-sunflower-seed sandwiches and beans. I'd wanted to see the Atlantic Avenue Fair (and the Horatio Street Fair yesterday from 12-5) from 9 am to 8 pm, but he wants to see "Marathon 33," and I decide that street fairs usually disappoint me anyway, so we're down at 2:30, meeting one of the pair of friends who joined us at Princess Pamela's after the play (the quiet self-effacing one), and we all stare at a DYNAMITE PR muscle-builder with two tiny girls who keep looking at us, knowing we're gay, on the subway. I don't care for the play (see DIARY 11307), and we're out at 5:45 to wander 42nd Street and then to Colonel Saunders to have tasty but too-expensive ribs for $2.53, Dennis intimidated by a black INSISTING on a handout because he was a Vietnam POW for 8 months, and then we're to our respective subways. I don't feel like writing at 7:15 so I call Arnold to take back his Life magazine, for backgammon, and go over after calling Bill Wolf to xerox some stuff for me. He gives me TV guides, a Christopher Street article to have Bill xerox about Russian homosexuality, and discount tickets to the Big Top. He wins most of the backgammon, makes some GREAT hot fudge sauce with ice cream and shavings and sprinkles of chocolate, and I'm home at 9 to look through the TV guides, start on the puzzles from the Times, and welcome Bill and his new lover Regis at 11 when they ring, then continue with the puzzles through "In Search of Ancient Astronauts," again, from 11:30 to 12:30, then watch a wacky "You're a Big Boy Now," enjoying seeing I saw it in 1968 from my OLD movie list, since Bill now has my CURRENT movie list, and then end it interspersed with "The Naked Jungle" with an ever-effective Charleton Heston and Eleanor Parker as the "used" mail-order bride who wins Heston over after he, Leiningen, battles the ants by flooding his plantation by blowing up the river weir. That's till 3:15, and I've eaten two brownies so I feel vaguely sexy, so up and smoke and come with porno nicely until 3:45, putting the phone next to the bed and dreading a call from Tom in the AM.
DIARY 11308
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20. Dennis wakes me at 11 by saying he'll be striking the set this afternoon and will call me about "Face to Face" this early evening. I'm up to meditate, exercise, return the boric acid dish and give the mop to Mrs. Johnson, TRULY the last of the things to return (except Don's pencil at Dennis's), have breakfast at 12:15, water and fertilize the plants, and talk to Bill Wolf about xeroxing, do these three pages, and get a call from Tom Aloisi telling me to MAIL the work I did, and my bill, to him, all by 2:10. Then I finish my letter-writing tasks by writing one page to Mom and THREE pages to Rita, the equivalent of 8 typed pages, by about 5, having to read all their letters to ME first, and about that time Dennis calls to say he'll be over later this evening (we'd thought to pick up "Face to Face" today, but he had to help break the set at the Manhattan Theater Club). I type out the bill to Tom and get ready to mail it, but it doesn't go out until tomorrow at 3, when I leave with Dennis. Turn on "Star Trek" at 6 and find something called "Emergency One" usurping the time slot, and the ONLY appearance of "Star Trek" is on channel 11 at 7 on Saturday, Well, that's THAT! Fix up the rest of the apartment and watch "In Search of the Loch Ness Monster," nothing really new, narrated by Leonard Nimoy (lose one, gain one---"Star Trek" character, that is), from 7:30 to 8, and then turn on "Airport 1975" while setting the table up for us to eat in the living room. Dennis is in later than I think, and showers, so the pork chops are a bit overdone, and he had to bring some additions since I'd been prepared to eat only by myself. We get to eating while Charleton Heston is lowered in the most SIMPLE double-exposures into the cockpit, no real imagination even in the plane-crash scene, except for the body being jerked out of the copilot's seat, and I'm switching to "La Traviata" with Beverly Sills, which is not being done in translation, and Dennis makes such fun of the acting that I finally turn it off. We'd had brownies for dinner, watched the rest of the slides, rather a DUD, and then smoked a lot, and all that happened was that we listened to music (Sibelius sounded good) and got very sleepy and drifted off to sleep about 1:30 without coming.
DIARY 11309
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21. Dennis wakes about 9:30, just as I was deciding whether to meditate or not, and we have glorious sex with doors and windows open to the light until about 11, when we got up to have the rest of the Spam and scrambled eggs, making quite a bit with six eggs and lots of slices of his apple bread, and his coffee and my orange juice---no, it was later than that, because I just remembered that I had to go to the store, bought the Times, and brought the stuff back, THEN decided to meditate and exercise before we had breakfast, which we did about 1:30, rushing a bit because we had to leave about 2:30 to make sure to get to "No Exit" on time, and I remember remarking that "Here again the tasks to be done fill whatever time we have." Subway out to the Carnegie Hall Cinema, he thinking we'd be late, but the connections are good and we get there during the intermission. "No Exit" even HE doesn't care for, it's so predictable, but "Les Jeux Sont Faits" was unpredictable because it was ALSO written by Sartre, with a pretty Micheline Presle as a society woman and a Jean Gabin-type as a socialist who die, were meant for each other so they get 24 hours of life, but they get involved in trivia and die again, unrequited in love. Out at 6:30 and stop at the Coliseum bookshop to get the two books that I'd seen there before, and we subway up to his place, where I read "Bottom's Dream," appalled at the thought that Updike probably got paid PLENTY to write those few plagiarized words! We hadn't been able to find hamburger at the supermarket, so he gets chicken and makes a FABULOUS sour cream and olive and onion sauce for it, and he's baking banana bread, and it goes on and on until 9, when we eat until 10, and I finish reading the Times, we smoke somewhat earlier, and we again get down to sex, me building up to a great climax, he really getting into his cock and introducing a new term to his vocalizing, "I'm a masturbator," which sort of freaks me out, partly because it's such a morally loaded word for me and partly because it sounds silly for me to say anything like "I'm watching a masturbator." Still the evening gets very late, and we're to bed probably EARLY, for us, at 1 am.
DIARY 11310
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22. Wake about 9:30 and have sex again, though I might not come this time, since I just don't FEEL like doing it twice a day as he does, and the day is so glorious outside that I start insisting that we go to the Bronx Zoo, and finally he agrees after we have a great breakfast with his banana bread. We leave about 12, taking about an hour to get there, he reading the Times, me finding "The Drowned World" fascinating. It's free on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but the first place we look at (after watching the wildebeests, white-tailed gnus, and ostriches in the African Plains, with one lazy lion, said to sleep 22 hours a day) is the World of Darkness which costs 25¢, but we enjoy porcupines, bats and the flying areas for the bats. Then it's about 3, so we wait for the penguin feeding, the enormous Emperors looking PERFECTLY round in the water cross-section. Then around by the small mammals, where Dennis falls in love with the five Minnie Downs mice clustered together "like they'd just gotten a telegram with DREADFUL news" and I said "I just want to tell them that it's not going to be THAT bad." The giraffes are ambling about, and the tapirs, sadly, have been put in for the night, but the South American section is new to me with rugged landscapes and inquiring rheas. Around the wildfowl area to watch great rhinos wallowing in the mud, through the lion house to find the bird walk closed, and then quickly through the almost empty aquatic birds house to the rare animal range, where we don't see ANYTHING as it nears 5 pm, closing time, and Dennis inquires how they get the last guests out, and the keeper says that they just let loose the wild dogs. Walk around the park, along the vacant buildings along Bronx Park South, and just miss a train, but subway down through all the vacant buildings of the Bronx, a TRUE crime, and to 96th, where we shop and I buy envelopes and find a copy of Lem's "Solaris," the only one of his already "out of print." Back to his place and finish reading "The Drowned World," and leave it for him to read, we watch "The Creature Walks Among Us," a sequel to "Creature from the Black Lagoon" where the creature turns into a MAN through being burned, then get bored with "The Quest" (having called Dana [who couldn't help] and Arnie [who did] for the TV schedule), smoke, talk, have sex, and bed about 2.
DIARY 11311
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23. He set alarm at 7 to leave at 9, left at 9 to an agent's audition, and got BACK at 10. Sex again, Dennis probably coming both times, me probably coming only in the morning, and out for a quick breakfast before subwaying down to Appleton at 11:30 to pick up the additional pages that John had for me, giving me a copy of the 16th edition of the Joklik with MY index in the back, and call Susan to hear that noon is fine for meeting her. Walk up weighted down with the stuff, meet her in front of the bank, walk to 58th and Madison, where Viking is, to meet George Flynn, quite pleasant and talkative, and we look for a place to eat and settle for O'John's on 59th between Madison and Park, a Greek place to which they're just bringing a plaster repro of the Charioteer of Adelphi, which has phony-plaster walls and phony-ivy over the rather nice lattice on the ceiling. Lamb and spinach is tasty and filling; Susan has a good devil on horseback (bacon and cheese on toast) and the talk goes well until 1. I'm out toward Bloomingdale's and pass Argosy Bookshop, walk inside on a hunch, and find 6 books that I want: 4 Blackwoods, Collier's "Touch of Nutmeg" that JUST went on the list, and Well's "Undying Flame," INCREDIBLE FINDS! I have NO money, so put a ten-day hold on them, and then get to the subway reading "Solaris." Home about 3, read lots of mail, then start looking at the index and find lots of typos, so I phone Margaret, who says I can proofread it and bill the hours to Pediatrics, so I start going at 3:45 and only half finish at 7:45; it's taking FAR longer than I'd thought! Dennis said he'd be over for the debates, but he's over at 8---and maybe THIS is when we finish the pork chops? Watch "Piccadilly Circus" with Stanley Baxter doing all the parts, amusing, but not the uproar Arnold promised, and then the presidential debates, which WAS an uproar with a 27-minute burst of silence that drove the finger-talker on 13 into all SORTS of shades of colors with the inane remarks of the commentators. Over at 11:30, and I shower and shave SO late, and then we smoke, again having eaten brownies and smoked and gotten out poppers, and again, as I suspect, he comes after a lot of build-up and I don't feel particularly excited afterward, so we sleep.
DIARY 11312
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24. Up whenever, both have sex, and I think he has some appointment or something, but I'm not sure. Tom calls to say that I should come in on Tuesday, I call Don to make final plans to Delmonico's, and then I feel I just HAVE to do the dishes, and then the next notation has me continuing the proofreading of the Microbiology index, finding lots of things wrong, from 2:45 to 5:45, when I stop and shower and wash my hair and shave and get out Don's suit to wear to Delmonico's tonight, supposed to meet at his place at 7:15. I dress fine, except that the short points of the white shirts that I have don't tend to fit inside the narrow collars of the double-breasted suit, but at least, thank goodness, it's not raining. Get to Don's about 7:17 and Don's still THERE, having just left his gang go, and Dennis has arrived already. Don dresses while Dennis and I drink wine and nibble on hard brie and Triskets, and Don talks about all the competitions and designs he's doing with 20-year-old Stephen and some female, both of whom he's very hard on, and they love it, and he's feeling very good about it. I have directions for subway and driving, and we go down for the car at 8:05 to find the garage man offering him a joint, which we don't smoke. Don kept saying he was amazed we could make reservations so late and still get in, but when we GET there, the place is totally empty except for a group of about 6 businessmen who then proceed to vanish, I hope to a hidden dining room, rather than just GONE. We have a rather farcical meal (see DIARY 11313) for $120.25, actually more than we spent at the Four Seasons, and leave at 11:30 to drive uptown, smoking the joint in the car, feeling VERY fine by the time we get to his place, up for random chatting before I say I'm tired at 12:30, and we're to Dennis's to fall into bed without either of us coming, the grass and the food has us so totally stoned that we really can't even get into our own bodies. Dennis kept saying how much he liked Don, and Don kept thanking me for inviting him along, and from the point of view of the RESTAURANT I'd have been just as happy had the whole thing not taken place. I'm getting nervous for reasons that I can't quite put my fingers onto.
DIARY 11314
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25. Wake about 10, have great shooting sex for the both of us, this time I may have eased up to the orgasm in a pleasant way, and we got out of bed about 11:30. He wasn't quite ready to start on breakfast, so I settled down to read some more of "Travels with my Aunt," then we had breakfast, and before we knew it, it was 1:45. I'd suggested museums today, but he wanted to see "Unfaithfully Yours" at the MMA, and then checked to see that "Life with Father" started at 2:30, and I said we could see them both, but that we'd have to take a subway down. Get there about 2:10 and they've just sold out of tickets to the first one, and we get tickets to the second one marked for 5:30. Down to wait on line, getting in in plenty of time and space, though it IS fairly crowded, but there are no programs. The film is VERY long, 116 minutes; William Powell is nice but Irene Dunne seems JUST too intelligent to be so stupid, or she's consciously manipulating him, and neither alternative seems pleasant. Elizabeth Taylor did very badly in her hysterical crying when "Father's suit" refused to let her sit on its lap (silly at best), and I kept trying to place Martin Milner as the second son. Out at 4:30 and look at the museum (see DIARY 11315), and down at 5:20 to find that the film started at 5! Dennis said to leave, but I watched the fire, thinking that things HAD to change now, and the plot of his dreams of revenge prompted by the suspicious nature of Linda Darnell's visit to her husband's (conductor Rex Harrison, looking quite young and almost sexy with his cookie-duster mustache) secretary (sexily played by Kurt Kreuger), which was, of course, nonsexual in the end. Rossini's "Semiramide Overture," Wagner's "Pilgrim's Chorus," and Tchaikovsky's "Francesca da Rimini" made good music, though I didn't agree with the program notes that said that Preston Sturges was making fun of the sophisticates. Out at 7 and subway home for him to get groceries and me to watch the zoo on Broadway waiting for the Times until 7:30. Home to read until 9, when he serves fabulous chicken with cashews, sautéed corn like in Poughkeepsie, and great banana bread. Lovely meal, then out to buy the Times, read it, smoke about 11, affectionate sex for hours, and bed whenever we get there.
DIARY 11316
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26. His folks call about 10:35, waking us both up, and we sort of sit around playing with reading, but he's interested in bed, so we crawl back in and have great sex in the light, though his ingrown hair above his left nipple is leaving its scab very slowly, and I'm reluctant to really get INTO it as he urges, and he's still capping his verbalism with "I'm a masturbator." When I ask him about it, he says that some fellow who advertised for jerking off used to say it, saying that STANDING ACROSS THE ROOM while jerking off was a turn-on. We'll have to try it sometime. Then to breakfast about 2, and I finish the puzzle quickly and see what's on TV for the coming week. Watch "Dance of the Athletes" with a jumpy forgettable choreography by Villella and Tanner from 1 to 2, but see it as a nice POSITIVE statement: dance is like sports, all glorify the body and all are good for those who like them. Dennis wants to cook and clean, so I get out in the light drizzle to the Museum of Natural History to see their new mineral collection (see DIARY 11317) from 2:30 to 4:45, and then stop back into Barque after looking at another bookshop and finding nothing. Home to Dennis's at 5:30 to find him taking out a lemon bread, then finish reading "Travels with my Aunt" before watching "Space 1999" from 7 to 8, and it's too bad they saved all the good special effects for the exploding volcanoes at the end of the sequence. The book started well but ended rather poorly (see DIARY 11318). Have dinner about 9, and I'm thumbing back through "The Recognitions" to get back into it, then eat the rest of the chicken with great rice, tangy lemon bread where the glaze has collected around the bottom of the sides, and then back to read more while Dennis continues cutting down on his stack of programs by stapling the casts to the covers of the hundreds he's saved over the past five years, but feeling good about it. We start having sex early (since I'd showered and shaved about 10, rather than at 12, as on earlier evenings there) since he's working tomorrow, and talk about the possibility of his learning indexing (see DIARY 11319). Play around with our cocks, getting nice and hot, and to sleep about 1:30, too late.
DIARY 11320
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27. Alarm rings about 7:30 and he's up to shave and shower and exercise while I lie there in bed, and he makes two fried eggs each for breakfast, rather awkward with apple bread with the yolks, and he leaves about 9:15, fairly typically late. I subway home and pick up mail from the weekend, still depressed by the AMOUNT of mail I have scattered over the apartment from the day last week when EVERYTHING seemed to be something to put away [and the stuff STILL litters my desk, but I'll have to get RID of it today]. Blocked out everything to meditate and exercise, and the people downstairs seem to be moving around a lot, and I guess they are moving out and someone else is moving in, and I hope these NOISY ones aren't the NEW ones. Reminded of a New Yorker cartoon where the woman sits below an empty apartment WAITING for someone to move in so she can bang on the ceiling with her broom, and I feel EXACTLY the same way and HATE it, but don't know what to do about it except make my OWN noise most of the time. Turn on "Androgynous" to find it's "Concentration," which I watch, and then WANT to wash the batiks but it's raining gently. Don't feel like doing ANYTHING, but finally type the cx to the Microbiology index from 12-5, finding 70 errors in all! And finally decide to watch Steve Reeves in "The Last Days of Pompeii," lousily dubbed, and he was an AWFUL actor, except his face was SO masculine it made up for a body which wasn't huge by TODAY'S standards. Not even the volcano exploding was very good, and his final swim "for life" under the "burning water" was ludicrously simple. Still feel like doing nothing, watch "In Search of the Bermuda Triangle" where someone phoned and said that THIS was where the Earth's AURA came from! That's 7:30 to 8, and in another access of laziness I watch "The Crosswits" and crossword puzzle solving from 8 to 8:30. Have dinner of hamburger and sweet potatoes without wine, so that I won't feel even sleepier, and finally type five pages to do the only noteworthy thing of the day aside from finishing the last 50 or so pages of "Solaris" by the great author Stanislaw Lem. Tom Aloisi called for a 15-minute consultation on his cutting down the WCR survey. Dennis called about 10 saying he was tired, too, and going to bed early. I've been troubled with FARTING and loose bowel movements. I started smoking about 11:15 and came with an ENORMOUS amount of time "at plateau" for a great orgasm and got to sleep about 12, setting the alarm for 7:30.
DIARY 11321
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28. Wake at the alarm, meditate but don't have time to exercise, shower, shave the electric way, have cereal, and get out at 9:15 and get to work at 8:45, Tom obviously pissed. But his ideas for shortening the survey are great, and I work straight through lunch rescuing what I can of the work I'd done before and make a VERY rough estimate of 330 hours for the tallying work, and he seems to end up happy about it, leaving at 5:35 and I phone to leave word with Dennis to call me at home after 6, also finding that Argosy closes at 6, too early for me to pick up my books. Home at 6:10 and get one message from Arnold, whom I call, and he invites me over to dinner, so I go, hearing a phone ring as I go down the steps, and it WAS Dennis. To Arnold's to pick up the xeroxing from Bill Wolf, talk about his lessening relationship with Norma that won't have him with her so much, disappointed that she'd been wanting to talk about it for a long time and hadn't, particularly her disturbance at his not working. Great dinner of herring/almond-stuffed olive/ tamarasalata/ radish/ lettuce salad, chicken with falafel and great pepper-lemon spices, and the last of Dennis's apple bread, which I took, and got the rest of the bread pudding he made from NORMA'S heavy breads, one for dessert, one for us. Leave at 8:30, Dennis having called and coming over, to watch "Rivers of Sand" about the Hamars of southwestern Ethiopia (about whom I can find NOTHING in EB) that affected me very much (see DIARY 11322), and when Dennis comes I confess to him the VERY strange feelings I have had about unworthiness (see DIARY 11323), but feel MUCH better when he arrives at 10:50 (having been delayed by his own cleaning of his apartment, and I called Bill Wolf (Arnie having said that he would BALK at xeroxing 1500 pages) and sympathized for the death of my pot plant to him, but he seemed happy about the grass he got from it, and told me to tune in to "Family" from 10:30 to 11, about homosexuality, and neat, too), and I put on a ballet-music tape and we drink sloe screws and cuddle from 11 to 12:30, when we're dozing off, so I say we should sleep, and we cuddle more, then I turn over, self-conscious because I hadn't showered in the evening, and we both drop off to sleep quickly in the damp, chilly room.
DIARY 11325
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29. Alarm WAKES me at 7:30 and I tell Dennis about my dream and he tells me about his (see DIARY 11324). We cuddle and he starts to get hard, so I can't resist and neither can he, so he comes in my MOUTH, with groans of appreciation, by 8 am, then jumps into the shower as I scramble eggs and put out the melon (honeydew on the outside, cantaloupe on the inside!) and make coffee for him, serving it to him as he shaves. He wanted to be at work at 9:15 but didn't leave here until 8:45, so he was probably late. I moved around fixing up the apartment, then thought of "Androgeny" on TV and turned it on too late at 9:25, and then watched "Concentration" for half an hour, "The Price is Right" for an HOUR, and "Gambit," a silly game based on blackjack. All of them come from California, so I couldn't even say I was studying them for PARTICIPATION. That took until 11:30, and then I started on the diary pages, determined to catch up, and took time off to study the Hamars (see DIARY 11322), get a call from Dennis from work, go down and get the nothing mail, listen to someone working noisily in the apartment below, and have lunch of almost-rotting hamburger at 3, finishing this, the last of twelve pages typed today to catch up, at 4:15! Then start sorting through the things that have been piling up: check the xeroxing of the Datebook pages that I gave to Bill, throw papers away, update telephone lists, work on the paging of the Pediatrics index from 6 to 6:30 (billable work), look through the stuff Arnie gave me, sift through the mail and send out bills and orders, phone Stephen and Dennis about various tickets for events (and the NY Opera is out because of a musicians' strike), and think about what ballets to order, finding one page out of order, which means that I have to change 4 contents pages and open 2 books to change it, which is really a PAIN. Then watch "The Seagull" on 13 from 9 to 11, having steak during it, enjoying the play for the first time (see DIARY 11326). Actualizations, Arnie, and someone named Steve Miller (who says he knew John and me two years ago) from Chicago calls, and then I read "Seagull" synopses, smoke at 11:30 and come gloriously with porno, then still feel awake (had eaten a brownie at 10:30 and think I feel it GREATLY) at 12:30, so I have cookies and milk and start reading "Crash," stoned out of my skull, until 1:40 am.
DIARY 11327
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30. Wake to outside noises at 8:15, but then wake again at 9:45 and again I needed the sleep, a bit over-warm under the electric blanket that I just had to put on to keep from being so COLD at night. I put all the stuff away that's gathered by my bed (pipe, ashes, book, cookies, cookie box top, milk glass, rubber bands, bidi, water glass, bathrobe, clothes that I put on, telephone from when Tom didn't call at 9 as I'd expected) and decide with the cloudy day and only 30% chance of rain today and 50% tonight that I can wash the batiks. Strip away an outer layer of rope that had decayed, preventing it from moving around my pulley, and hang them outside as Dennis calls, saying he'll be over for dinner between 6 and 6:30 this evening (and it's now 6:35), and then I phone Barbara Weller and Bob Perske, who say they'll try to get Dennis's books, and then meditate and exercise about 11:30 and have breakfast at 12:15, finishing Scientific Americans through 1975 at last. Get the mail and go through it, asking Mrs. Johnson to water my plants and pick up my mail, while getting the lowdown on the two new tenants and that the guy at the door is leaving too, and SOMETHING about raising rent 8.5% at the first of January that better not be true! Pope calls and says that Julio was loud but pleasant last night, and then I number the pages of the Pediatrics index, call John with my questions, which he says I should write a memo to answer, and that I should come in tomorrow for chapter 12. Work on that from 2 to 3, and then Tom Aloisi calls and we talk on the phone about the WCR forms for an hour, and he wants me to send him a bill, and then another half-hour on the Pediatrics memo. Lunch much too late on spam at 4:30, shower, bring in the batiks because it's raining since 3 pm, let Mrs. Johnson through my bedroom window to open the apartment door below that's been painted shut, and type these two pages to finish off September in style by 6:40, Dennis not here YET. He arrives at 7:10, reads Times while I continue writing checks and addresses. He wants to eat in, not go to a restaurant, so he fries squash while I make a tuna casserole and we have bread pudding after brownies and watching Nancy Walker, and we smoke and feel VERY good together and he comes with GREAT gouts of white in my mouth, and he HASN'T come for two days. Cuddle under the electric blanket and get to sleep about 1 am, dreading the alarm that I've had to set for him at 7:30.
DIARY 11329
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1. Alarm at 7:30, Dennis wearily up at 7:40 and I had to get up to take the batiks from the shower-curtain rod and drape them over chairs to dry. Soft-boiled eggs, coffee, melon, and orange juice was breakfast, and neither of us could stomach the bread pudding that was left over: I guess I'll have it for breakfast tomorrow. He leaves at 9, I change the calendar sheet on the day, I call BobR to say goodbye, 5 minutes before he was going to call ME, and type 2 by 9:50 am! Then I plow through all the mail that I still have to send out, and send 8 pieces: bill to New Century, sweepstakes entry, BUG and Blue Cross bills, and orders to UNICEF, TDF, "Kings," and Medic Alert. Then I finish reading "Cinema as Art" just to put the book away, and put the other books away and make up a list of Collier's stories and read the only story left to read from "Touch of Nutmeg." I finish off some of the food that I have left, but not all of it. Michael called about picking up the 12 West card, and then I talked a long time to Eddie, now working at the Barracks, and he finally agreed to come over to take the extra 12 bottles that Rolf left with me for him, and I figured it would get me to bed earlier, since I have to get up at 5:30, so I should get to bed by at LATEST 10:30. Eddie comes over at 9:40, talking about maybe becoming a manager at the Barracks, going into the wholesale business through Rolf for a friend who wants a gallon of the stuff, and he comes over to have some wine, then takes the poppers, then gets high on the wine, takes the 12 West card, tells me he's willing to do any stripping or repairing jobs for friends, freaks out over all the stuff I'm giving away and takes most of it and wants more, and leaves VERY high about plans for a Spanish translation and production of "Street Scene." Busy guy. He leaves at 10:40, I smoke about 11, loving the porno, jerk off after a timed 2.5 minutes at plateau, feeling incredible about it, though sad that I'll be away from this and from Dennis for a whole week with John in Hemlock Hall. Fall asleep about 12:30, not yet packed, with lots to do in the morning and the alarm set for 5:15, hoping that I'll be able to finish everything and meet John on time at 6:30 for our departure at that ungodly hour.
DIARY 11354
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12. I wake about 7, as per last week, and meditate before Dennis wakes up, and I sort of rouse him by 8. The blind comes up and the sun comes streaming across the bed, and we're both staring at our cocks in the direct sunlight, a real turn-on, and again we both come with great sensations, again sorry that the pressures and tensions of this return won't possibly extend over a number of days. I'm out of bed about 9:30 to start phoning people: Tom wants me to call back on Thursday about my working on Time Capsules; Dennis Sillari says that he wants me to do TWO indexes and I say that I'll be there at 4:30, and John Cernusky says that there are no more new chapters, and that chapter 6 has been changed around. We have the omelets for breakfast, Dennis has to pick up his resume so he leaves about 12:30, UNLESS this was the day he left AFTER we had sex with his cock on the sofa in the afternoon, and then I get down to the mail for awhile, after killing more white flies that have reproduced at a great rate since I'd last controlled them. Watered the very dry plants yesterday and they're still wet today. Rather depressed by the number of things that I have to do, and get out at 3:45 to get to Dennis's at 4:35, picking up the two indexes for grades 4 and 5, and subway to Dennis's for a fabulous dinner of stewed chicken with a bouquet of marvelous vegetables: celery, onions, carrots, and maybe other things. We have to race down to the New School by 8 to see Beatrice Ponds talking with an awful Mr. Soyer, or someone, who's teaching a course about humor in TV, and they show a segment from "Sergeant Bilko" and "Car 54, Where Are You?" with her, and I really don't care for her character, but SHE says she didn't like the bitchy women either. The moderator is a totally depressing person; about half the audience leaves, and we insist at 10, when it's over, that it was HIS fault it was so lifeless. Dennis wants to go down to 9th Street for Whole Wheat 'N Wild Berries, and he has a peanut-butter ice cream pie that he loves, and I have a raspberry goat's milk sundae that's quite filling. Out at 11 and back here with the indexes and slices of his berry dessert, but we smoke and have great sex again or this was the evening we just cuddled and shut the light off at 3 am (except that I'm tired and poop out without coming about 1 am) and bed.
DIARY 11355
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13. I'm up later, maybe 8, and meditate, and lay around until Dennis gets up, and again we both come, feeling just great about our cocks. I'm eager to start him on the indexes so we just have soft-boiled eggs, me about half finished before he's finished showering and shaving, and he wants to do the index page-by-page, rather than through the table of contents, so I answer questions while looking through more and more stacks of mail. He has to meet Andrea at 3:30 to talk about "Trash or Treasure" in the afternoon, so he only does a few hours of marking before he has to go off, and I just wallow in the mail and magazines and lists and orders, separating out a huge pile of bills, but glad that I hadn't really missed anything. Also take a lot of time to go through the old Times, too, working on the two puzzles, and the time goes very quickly and I seem to be doing nothing except catching up. The fact that I'm writing nothing in the diary doesn't bother me, since I'll have no trouble remembering what I've been doing, since it's been mainly reading the mail! Dennis figures he'll be over about 10:30, so I wait with the pork chops that I'd gone to the store yesterday to buy. I watch a neat Nova on "Ninety° Below" from 8 to 9, and then "Ah, Wilderness!" from 9 to 11 with a long-suffering Geraldine Fitzgerald and a VERY handsome Richard Backus who isn't QUITE up to some of the heavier emotions, but he's marvelous to look at. Dennis surprises by coming in at 10, saying that his group lesson was over early, so I put on the pork chops and we eat at the TV set for the end of the show. He'd never seen Olivier's "Hamlet" so we watch THAT from 11 to about 12, then get tired and shut it off. I feel like going to bed, but Dennis wants to smoke, so I go along with it and find myself getting turned on, and again we have a marvelous session, and I just can't seem to get enough of his cock, and mine has been hugely hard for most of the session, and it's a great time all around. Forgot that BobR called this evening when Fred came in, and HIS bell rang at the same time and it was Nina, back from Germany, but she's leaving for China on Monday, so we'll get together then. We finally end up falling asleep about 2 am. Maybe this was the night I had buttered chocolate nuggets while waiting for the muffins to toast so that we could eat that while waiting for the popcorn to pop!
DIARY 11356
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14. Up somewhat later, have sex, and since I've run out of eggs I decide to make pancakes with nutmeg and the old baking powder to give that distinctive "heavy flour" taste to the batter. Dennis works for a little bit on the index before he has to leave about 12:15 for his singing class, and I'm starting to fear he won't be able to finish both indexes by Monday, though he seems to be making progress and is putting up with my meticulousness very tolerantly. I go down for the mail and STILL have a pile to go through, but things are sufficiently under control that I can get to a partial transcription of my notebook of notes from Hemlock Hall, going through 8 pages before I have to shower and wash my hair and get ready for Dennis's party-dinner tonight. I'd called Susan last night on his suggestion and she's coming. I've talked to Arnold and Pope and tried to call Rolf today on the phone, and the mailbox is full of plan changes: "Kings" hasn't gotten enough business and is canceling Monday's performance, scheduled things I definitely want to see at LaMama come in the mail, and other items that I have to order pile up. Out about 7:30 with napkins for his party in the folder of xeroxed stuff that I'm finally taking to him. Get there at 8:20; Waie is still parking the car, Emily couldn't come because she had some illness, and Susan didn't seem to be fitting into the conversation. Again Dennis comes up with a FABULOUS assortment of new-fangled goodies: a "green brain" of cooked cauliflower covered with mashed avocado mixed with sliced almonds and surrounded with a red-and-black necklace of cherry tomatoes and olives; incredibly taste-melding stuffing of mushrooms, celery, onions, breadcrumbs, and "a pinch of thyme" [as I ask him right now what was in it] in a cooked leaf of cabbage which is ludicrously difficult to cut with a metal fork on a paper plate; the fabulous sautéed corn; and a dessert of freshly-made applesauce with chopped walnuts (that he said wasn't worth the trouble to prepare, with all the chopping). Beverages were coffee, Constant Comment tea that got constant comment, orange juice, and sherry that I'd brought him a gallon of on Tuesday, seeing how successful it was on Monday. They leave about 12, pleased, I say I'm staying to help clean up, which I do, and then we smoke and get to sex on the floor near the lamp, but my rubber bands are a bit much and I find myself too excited to come, so I take them off and bed about 2:30.
DIARY 11357
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15. Wake about 10, and I feel VERY sexy and get into a beautiful number with my cock that Dennis loves. He delays breakfast and I look through New Yorker and catch up with his diary of the past week, and then get a little annoyed with the time GOING without my DOING anything. We're down in the subway about 2:45, he to pick up photos, me to come home, pick up the voluminous mail and put it aside for later in desperation, and start working through the mail: refund from the Alvin Theater, OK to Drexel-Burnham, NO to QPBC, great book orders for 4 books that I want from S&S Books, dues to ACLU, bills to Con Ed and NYTel, and get out at 5 to wait in the long banking line, reading more of the sexy "Crash," though some of the automotive orgasms seem repeated; check records and get Woody Herman just for the container for the stamps, which they don't have at the regular windows and the philatelic windows close at 5. Pick up a gallon of wine and a half-gallon of cream sherry, check the used-book shop, buy fish emulsion, stop in Key for various items of groceries like eggs and orange juice and half-and-half, and home about 6:15, relieved that I've managed to do so much. Dennis is still working the index over, having come up with 150 lines when it should have been 196, and goes through editing the cards while I search for more entries. I make shake-and-bake pork chops that are really quite good (though I'm sure the 45¢ box, even with the 12¢ coupon, is too expensive for a bit of sugar, coloring, and spices in a bag), and fresh green beans to go along with them, and applesauce, and then he's back to the index and I'm to typing again, going through 13 pages by 11 pm, by which time Dennis has gotten grumpy about all my changes to his index, not really happy with my statements that it's NOT according to length that I'm adding all these things, and then I suggest we smoke. He writes in his diary as I shower and wash my hair and shave, and then we smoke about 12, listening to music, getting into Strauss's "Alpine Symphony," and the time goes until about 2, and we're both almost falling asleep, so we crawl into bed, cuddle for awhile to warm up the bed with the electric blanket, and drift off to sleep.
DIARY 11358
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16. Start meditating when I wake about 9:30, but Dennis is up (in more ways than one), and again the blinds go up for a fascinating session in cock-staring-squeezing-licking-liking-loving, and coming. He shoots endlessly, and then I squeeze my cock so hard it seems there are globs of come that seep out long after, prolonging the intensity of orgasm. We lay exhausted, then decide we must get up, and I'm searching for something different for breakfast so I put on hash at 11, then add eggs in pockets in the bubbling top about 11:30, but it's not done until 12, by which time we've finished the corn that Dennis put on to cook. He'd rashly said he'd finish BOTH indexes today, but he starts typing very diffidently and it takes more and more time. Art had called today about coming to see him this evening, and I finally call Stephen to say "Kings" is cancelled, and then Michael calls about 12 West, and he'll check on my new card. I go down for the mail, and find another load, and put away the mail from yesterday and today. Dennis is still typing, so I wash the dishes, put the socks away that I'd washed, then scrub the kitchen floor while dusting and vacuuming, feeling VERY accomplished as I even re-hammer the nail for the speaker-cord into the kitchen and think about re-attaching the thermometer outside. He finishes typing about 6:30, I shower, and we dash out for the sounds of fireworks at 6:50, but it's over before we reach the Promenade. Back to check that "Star Trek" is an old one, and proofread his index to find things missing, and he patiently makes it what it should be and then I want to type more so he starts the second index (having taken about 12.6 hours for the $125 job, pleasing both of us) while I type 6 pages, at last getting to a reasonable point of catching up with the diary, and then at 10 we're out to China Chili for an unpleasantly hard nest in the "Bird in nest" dish, with too little sauce, too, and the hot and sour soup was good but the fried pork and mushrooms and vegetables had too little meat though we were full at the finish. Out at 11 and to Art's, to chat about his work in "Threepenny Opera," Dennis's trying for jobs, the place in North Salem, and we leave about 2:15 with my typewriter finally in hand, pick up coffee for Dennis and the Times for me on 14th Street, and thankfully get a subway IMMEDIATELY and get home about 2:45, having muffins for a snack and then Dennis finds the Total and we both have lovely bowls of cereal before cuddling and sleeping.