1976 7 of 8
DIARY 11359
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17.l [Now 6 diary-days in a row: that's what I get for having been on vacation, having things to do here at home, and not doing much of anything between times.] Wake about 11 and Dennis is up too, so there's little time for anything before we're rolling on top of each other, he pushing his cock against my chest like an importunate prodding child, poking and poling for attention, and me taking his come and working my cock into a bubbling frenzy. Cock-exhausted but exhilarated we get out of bed at 12:15 and I decide to have french toast for breakfast, which means that I have to buy bread and butter (90¢ for a half pound!) at the deli, and we finish eating about 2:00, ready at last to begin the day. He's working on the second index, making good progress, and I've told him he doesn't have to finish it today but had until Tuesday. I FINALLY catch up with the diary with these three pages at 3:20, constantly interrupted by Dennis asking questions and making comments about things that amuse him (see DIARY 11360). Now I can read the paper! Do so, finishing quickly, and there DOES seem to be something wrong with my comma. Then get to both puzzles, which go well, and then Dennis is editing the cards and I go to mail out five MORE things, in addition filling out the check for the rent and taking it downstairs before Mrs. Johnson has a chance to complain. Mail to UNPA, Rowland Hill Stamp Company, US stamp ABCs (3 for stamps!), an inquiry to Sun Lines (though I clip an article about winter cruises that happens to have the information I want!) and a mushroom book order to Cloudburst. By then it's 7 (and Dennis has been very hungry) and I make a catch-as-catch-can dinner of two shake-and-bake pork chops, the rest of the Spam under Grenadine and cloves, the solitary remaining ear of corn with the rest of the beans, and a glomp of brownie with the wine to make us dizzy. Watch "Space 1999" from 7 to 8, still pretty awful, with a Charles Laughton-type illusionist who kidnaps Maya until she turns ugly then he lets her go, then watch "Echoes of Time and the River" by Crumb and then Saint-Saens' "Third" on Evening at Symphony, my playing the record WITH the Third not working at ALL. Then watch a lousy "Having Babies" with the Lamaze method as a gimmick, more or less, though it DOES appear that "Mr. Mary Hartman" is holding a newborn in the lighted bath, from 9 to 11, then watch a chapter of "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe," new to me, to 11:30, then Dennis finishes about 12, what he's doing, and we smoke and sex and bed at 2.
DIARY 11361
MONDAY, OCTOBER 18. I wake about 9, laying pleasantly, and then meditate before he gets up about 10. We again have great sex, again going for the attenuated thrills of poppers, and then we're up about 11 for breakfast, which I just make as scrambled eggs, repeating over and over as I do so that we've not only STARTED eating breakfast before 12, but that we actually FINISHED breakfast before 12. He works on editing for a bit, NO, only in PM, counting cards and coming up with 198, to both our disbelief, and then leaves for his singing lesson about 12:05. I perversely take down the section I'd torn out on winter cruises and go through THAT until 2 (see DIARY 11362), then fix up the apartment a bit and go down for the mail and read the New York magazine until 3, then decide to finish "Crash" and finish that by 4, and it's time for me to get out and take out my laundry, pick up a koto record, buy many (4) sheets of stamps at the philatelic window, and then buy groceries from memory, having forgotten the list, but buy everything that I need, substituting Beef Stew and Chicken and dumplings for the usual Spam and Hash, which are both too expensive. Back about 5 and Dennis comes in about 5:30, makes himself some coffee, and I'm working on the yellow cake, clearing out the last hash brownie and washing the pan, then putting that in and starting to worry about the frosting. He's out to start on the final typing, and when asking questions about the editing our BOTH stomachs are growling so much I decide I HAVE to start on the chicken. He helps me with it (which is silly, since he should be typing, but I just like to have him near me) and then goes out to type while it cooks from 8 until 9; I've made a frosting with the last of the confectioner's sugar, though I've somewhat altered the taste by bringing down the sweetness with lime juice, and we start eating at 8:45 even though the chicken isn't quite done, eating all the frozen peas I'd cooked and even opening a can of beans with some more of the sour cream. He keeps working while I'm putting everything away, and then I'm finished with about everything and get the pipe and the poppers ready for when HE'S finished about 12, and then we smoke, he comes and I don't, and we're up to eat the pomegranate and get to sleep about 1:30.
DIARY 11363
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19. Alarm goes at 8, which wakes both of us into vile feelings. I make soft-boiled eggs quickly and he leaves about 9:05, too late to get there on time at 9:30, obviously. I slouch around the apartment, loath to do anything, but finally call John Cernusca to say I'll be there at 2:30, Susan to say I'll be there at 12:30, as she wishes; and I get together lots of stuff to take to the library to research. Arnie calls and makes arrangements for things for us to do tomorrow, and I just have time to trim my whiskers with an electric razor, not even shower, as I get out at 11:25 to pick up my laundry and bring it back, pick up the mail, and get the indexes that Dennis finished and go to Arnie's to leave a Monopoly board that I found outside and pick up a discount ticket to the Eliot Feld Ballet. To Shezan at 12:25 and go down to see that it IS posh, and then up to look at passing crotches waiting for Susan at 12:45, when she says she doesn't want to spend more than $6, so I say I'll pay the rest, which comes out to be $23+! Interesting Papaya Mystique, but not worth $3, our entrees were tasty Karahi chicken for her and peppery kidneys and sweetbreads for me, both for $5.50; a half-bottle of Mateus for $4.50 served with ludicrous service; the rice, just tossed off, fabulously good, was $3.50 (!), and the Naan-i-Babri was $1, the bargainest of them all, and Susan's coffee was probably $1, or maybe just 75¢, as $1 makes it too high. NEVER AGAIN! Incredible wait for the check, me standing, waiter apologizing, and we're out at 2:20. I drop the indexes with Dennis, who says I should call his roommate on Monday for the last one, for grade 6. Down to ACC and John gives me more chapters, and then I'm down to the library about 3:15 to get contents of "Retrospect" and "Rotunda," and look at "Jonah" in the fabulous rare-book room, with a Guttenberg standing open in mint condition in a class case, also skim "What are you going to do about it?" (see DIARY 11381). Out at 4:35 and subway down to 8th and suddenly decide to get in EARLY, so I see the end of "Lennie," one long last act, then "Buffalo Bill and the Indians," silly junk with a non-sexy Paul Newman and a good Sitting Bull, then a good "Lennie," though I'm frustrated with the self-destructive people. Out at 9:30 and home in time for Civilization's "The Frozen World" with good shows from Ravenna, Aix-la-Chapelle, and other places before 1100. Smoke and jerk off quickly and SLEEP at 11:45!
DIARY 11364
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20. Am only barely awake at 9 (so I MUST have been tired!) when Richard calls, not having been able to get in touch with Dennis. He wants to come down the week after we go up for his dance, and I say that by chance John put the GAANJ schedule under my door LAST NIGHT, so that's for him. Up and fussing around when I remember, at 10, that I'm supposed to call Arnie. I do, we arrange to meet at 10:30 at the subway, so I get my things together, still not showering, and meet him in time to subway to Times Square and get the #7 across to the library for their 11 am tour, which isn't terribly exciting except for the Trustee's Room (see DIARY 11365). That's over about 11:50 and I insist we eat, so we go to Zum-Zum and have lunch in the strangely empty place, then to Grand Central for my dessert ice cream (awful mint chips in chocolate buttered rum) and Arnie's bank, and we're late to the Committee to Save Grand Central across the street, but he's an interesting-enough talker and some of the places we see THERE are great (see DIARY 11365). It's over at 2, Arnie and Jane Franklin go off their separate ways, and I'm to the library again to xerox the 9 sheets of "Jonah" for $2.70, very friendly with the people by now. Then check the contents of "On the Margin," which, silly, I HAVE already, and then read John Wyndham's "'Melia Ann" and "The Curse of Obo" (see DIARY 11366) and Huxley's "The World of Light" (see DIARY 11367) until 4:45 when I'm back home at 5:25 to call Dennis, who says he's coming over "in half an hour" and he gets here at 6:45, after I've had the chance to type two diary pages to get through the day before yesterday and call Bob, who has some wild tales to tell about his first "About Sex" seminar (see DIARY 11368). We three talk sex for awhile, then Dennis is starved so I put on hamburger and we eat that and the last of the green beans from the can and cake, and then lay and neck for a bit (he's VERY hard and sexed-up) until 9, and watch a TV version of "Madame Butterfly" (see DIARY 11369), until 11:30, and then cuddle more, smoke, and get to jerking ourselves off goaded by the other, and I come off first, he second, over me, and then we finish the pomegranate and get to bed about 1, alarm again set for 8, not TOO close this time.
DIARY 11377
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21. I'm up just before the alarm, as is he, so we get up somewhat more tranquilly. In my desperation to make something different for breakfast I hit on fried eggs, mixing oil and butter as he'd suggested and it goes VERY well, cooking without hardening or burning. He leaves at 9 and I'm still in bathrobe, which is a mistake, because I feel vaguely like coming, since we did nothing this morning, and then the heat comes from all the radiators with such an intensity that I finally shut them all off, but the enervating effects remain. At last I get to the desk to get absorbed in Huxley essays, which I finally type out on DIARY 11370-11374, and check through all the books I have and decide that I don't NEED "Retrospect" and "Rotunda" is wanted ONLY for "The World of Light," so that I want 8 titles but need only end up with 7 books, since once I get ONE of the two, I can cross them BOTH off my list. That takes until 2 pm, an astounding amount of time, and then I get into the Huxley stories on DIARY 11375-11376. By that time it's 3, the temperature is up to 79° in the bedroom and 82° in the living room, forcing me to open a window, and then I'm hungry, so I finish up the chicken and have a piece of cake. Feeling somewhat better, I dress, then get a call from Dennis that he'll be over this evening, so I finish typing the 15 pages of the day and do the dishes from 7 to 7:30, then shave for the first time in three days, and Rolf comes over with 20 bottles of which I buy 8 for $40 and take 12 for Eddie, and he tells me about his adventures in Providence (see DIARY 11378). [OH, forgot that, today, I read Dennis's play "Cages" (see DIARY 11379).] He leaves at 8:45 as Dennis comes in, and then as I shower and Dennis has sherry, Paul Bosten comes in at 9, we talk about the Little Theater, ghosts, Dennis's book, and then out at 10:10 to eat, finding Mexican closing, Bali Rice Bowl closed, so we're at Adnan, where we eat for a total bill of $6.90, leaving 8, Dennis having the grape leaves under a sauce he doesn't care for, and I have the beef Rognons which smell of urine and taste strong, so we've decided not to go back. Paul leaves for his evening away from Mitchell at the Strap about 11:10, we're back at 11:30 to smoke, cuddle, get into poppers, he's VERY hard into 69, and then he spurts in a come as I'm almost dizzy with grass. To sleep about 1 am, early.
DIARY 11380
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22. I wake at 7:40 and lay comfortably (with the radiators off and the blanket on 1.5, the room is JUST comfortable) until the alarm rings at 8. Dennis and I nuzzle to 8:05, then he showers as I broil bacon to eat with the two kinds of his bread that he brought last night for me, and he leaves about 9:05. I shit and dress quickly, to avoid what happened yesterday, and quickly type these four pages to get up to date by 10:15 am! Then kill white flies, down substantially from their levels well into the 400s earlier in the week; read Dennis's New Yorker from last week, things by Woody Allen and Isaac Bashevis Singer; clean off the desk for the third time this week; make arrangements with Arnie, who talks for over half an hour, and then call Pope for the same length of time. Type the page on "Jonah" after taking this out at 1:45. Rolf calls again and says that Eddie has quit the Barracks and he wants his $240 from Eddie because he's going to get a margin call quickly on United Asbestos, which has slumped to 3 9/16, just 1/16 above its local lowest of 3 1/2, so he comes over and gets a check from me, sitting and talking for another bit. Before that, I'd gotten out to mail letters, go to the bank and get cash, return records and bring back a new one, and shop for meat and food, getting back at 3:30, starved, eat tuna and the last of the first cake, and then call Rolf at 4:15 and he comes over until 5, when I chase him out. Bill Wolf comes for popper about 5:30. Then shower and wash my hair and put up the humidifier for the first time this year when Arnie rings at 7:05 and brings up the Guide to the World's Museums that he bought for me at Altman's after I'd shown him the article, and we get to LaMama to sit in the cafe until it starts at 8:25, and "Sacrifice to Damballa" is very short and not terribly interesting (see DIARY 11381). Up to the B&H, whose price for soup has gone up to 95¢, and have lima bean while Arnie has a bland matzo-ball soup, then walk him across to Man's Country and I subway up to Dennis's, surprised to find him there, doing things around the apartment, and we neck, smoke, have sex, then he makes dinner of something grander than the omelet I'd have been willing to settle for. Either tonight or tomorrow he comes by pressing his cock down against my check with his thumbs, friction by thrusting, and pushes piles of semen up my chest with his cock, which turns BOTH of us VERY on. Bed at 2?
DIARY 11382
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23. Wake about 10, have lovely sex with my neck being covered with come that I leave through the day, drying, and Dennis makes an elaborate breakfast with omelets and rice and his-bread toast, and then he leaves about 1:15 for an audition (that he messes up by switching east with west (NO, that was MONDAY), and that AFTER he'd left the address in a book that he'd left at work, so he had to phone Answer Service and get them to look back in his messages for the address, which they DID for him. I read more of "Vermilion Sands" and he's phoned me back quickly, about 2, after I'd called Don and went through the usual shit "Why didn't you call me; I ALWAYS call you; you never ask me ANYWHERE" and I had to say, now, that ALL THREE WERE WRONG, weren't they, to which he responded jovially "OK, shithead." But he didn't want to go to Japan House OR to New Jersey tomorrow. I meet him at Broadway and 50th and we walk over to Japan House, stopping at Gotham bookshop to get a Huxley and a Burroughs off my list!, see a rather boring exhibit on Shinto Art (I'd though it would be statuary but it was mostly mandalas, many in hard-to-see condition, with lots of too-detailed explanations on hard-to-read white-on-black printing) and astounded to see Richard Fleischner's 100-foot sod ramp that I'd just READ about to Dennis across the street in Hammarskjöld Plaza. We lay, neck, walk, run, and get vertigo on it, then go to Grand Central Station to walk ALL the way into the corner cornice and ALL levels of the windows, to his delight, and then home to get a message from Art about a free ticket to the Feld Ballet for us, call Lois and find she works TWO MINUTES' WALK from the Raggedy Ann Doll Museum that Dennis wants to see tomorrow, and get no answer when phoning Elaine. Water plants, kill flies, put on the radiator against the cold, and leave about 8 for the Cookery, which I really don't care for at all (see DIARY 11383), for Mary Lou Williams, and then I run back to a $1 paperback place to buy a Chardin and a book on Heidegger, 4 books today! Subway to his place, buy a Times but hardly look at it since I shower and he showers and we smoke and have great sex and though we STARTED at 11:30 (and I felt VERY tired) we got into bed at 2 after both coming, then having toast, figs, orange juice, and other goodies that are really too filling on the stomach but which TASTE so good.
DIARY 11384
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 24. His radio-alarm wakes us both at 8, groggily, and we lay and limply caress each other, then up at 8:45---we MUST have dozed off, and he makes omelets and we quickly eat and get out about 9:50, almost too late, and the train comes about 10 and we're rushing through the gates about 10:11 to gate 172, and as we board he finds that he's dropped his diary-notebook! Too late to look for it, since the bus leaves on time (for $5.80 for one roundtrip), and we chat about our ideas of differences between Broadway theater in the 20s and now, citing differing standards, differing quantities of plays, differing morays, and I come up with "filler" which applies to most of what's done, which he doesn't care for unless applied to dance or opera. In on time about 11:40, having told him where we want to go and being let off right near Lois's place, which we find first, and she's delighted to see us, falls in love with Dennis, and we go to the Lunch Bell for lunch of toasted ham and cheese and great carrot cake, and then she's back in the little drizzle while we case the Raggedy Ann Doll Museum with a helpful Mrs. Back and LOTS of dolls: Dagwood and kewpie, Liz Taylor, Jackie O, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Madame Alexander, wax, wood, pregnant, googley-eyed papier mache, china, bisque, French, Amish, and toys, trains, dollhouses, and mannequins. Out about 3:15 to rest, then look thru bakers, getting things to eat, candy shops, clothing shops, housewares, gourmet foods, look at the railroad, then I find a guide with a bookshop on it and buy four MORE paperbacks, one new Ballard, others duplicates, then up the Main Street, around a specious block to look at neat houses, then into the Union Hotel to get a quick dinner for 2 for $10.03 of London broil before our bus arrives in the rain at 5:45, talking about Guy and Beatrice and the Joffrey when Dennis saw them all, and the rain slows us, the tunnel almost stops us, so he goes to inquire at Lost and Found for his book (no), while I call to hold the tickets longer (until 7:45) and we dash there at 7:50 to find the tickets there, but the performance isn't the greatest (see DIARY 11385), but we're out at 10, to his place still feeling stuffed, I shower while he calls and chats with his folks, shave and brush my teeth, and look at some of the Times while he showers, and then we smoke, get into cock-cock-cock, and AGAIN, though I'm tired, I come first, then he comes on top, and we lay together until 2 am again.
DIARY 11386
MONDAY, OCTOBER 25. Alarm rouses us at 8, I doze until 8:45 when Dennis gets me out of bed for breakfast of hearts, which unbreaded strike me as rather anatomical and veiny, particularly some much smaller than a dime, which must have come from tiny chicks. Out at 9:15 and get home to have a call waiting for me from BobR, verifying tonight's meeting at Dennis's. I water the plants and kill more white flies, which seem to be multiplying again even though the branches of grass are cold against the wintry window. Figure to get all kinds of work done, but I'm putting books away and again checking on my book list; Arnie calls to pass a lot of time on the phone; and I decide that I WON'T catch up on the diary until I get some of Bill's tape finished, so I start playing it about 11:30, taking notes, then start recording the first side at 12:35, then play the second side from 1:40-2:40 and simply despair of making an adequate tape in answer to it. I decide just to hear it through, so I have tuna while listening to the third side, from 3 to 3:50, but by then it's getting close to 4, and I haven't done anything yet---except going down to check the mail, which hasn't come today, Veteran's Day, though UPS DOES deliver my package of stamps from Rowland Hill, and spectacular values they ARE, too, but I just have no time to devote to THEM. Out on the subway with thoughts about Bill's tape whirling through my mind (see DIARY 11387 and 11390) and get to Dennis's just about 5:15, BobR not there yet. Shower quickly, shave, and brush my teeth before he comes in, and then start reading the rest of the Times when he buzzes about 6. He talks about firing two from the company and getting others in right away, suggests we smoke, tells me he has to be home by 10:40, and then showers, and he grabs me for having sex, acting determined to bring me off, but I'm wanting to wait until Dennis comes, which he does only at 8:30, after we'd watched "Search for Incan Treasure" from 7:50, after I stopped doing him, to 8, and the first part of "Amelia Earhart." Dennis starts to make spaghetti but I have to go buy it, and then he has no garlic. He'd done Bob while I was out, Bob shooting just as I came in the door, so it was a STRANGE evening (see DIARY 11388). He leaves at 10:30, then Dennis and I smoke more, I'm not very hard, but Dennis is into his cock and he comes on my chest after I shoot rather little on my stomach. Bed about 1.
DIARY 11389
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26. Again the radio-alarm, too early at 8, and Dennis calls me out of bed for breakfast of BLACK olives, RED cherry tomatoes, and the more muted colors of spaghetti and meat sauce. We leave at 9, have fun looking at sexy people on the subway, and I'm home to surprise Mrs. Gray swabbing down the hallways. There's a message from Bob, confirming Saturday at 7:30, and I write a letter to Bill telling him about how much I want to change our mode of correspondence (at least for ME) from tape to letters. But that's only after I read a lot of mail, articles in New York Magazine, talk to Dennis on the phone, and then at last get a call from Eddie, who's trying to make money from photography, furniture stripping, light repair work, painting, and anything else since he can't seem to get a job. I'm feeling that I'm again wasting time, but I watch "Pack Up Your Troubles" from 2:35 to 4 with Laurel and Hardy, with a riotous scene with their driving a tank "accidentally" through the German lines in WWI and capturing the whole platoon in a mélange of barbed wire. Then watch "The Dark Corner," with Mark Stevens loved by Lucille Ball and threatened by Clifton Webb until he's killed by his wife for killing her lover through William Bendix, thinking it might be the early memory of Lucille not being able to walk and coming to a fancy nightclub in a ball gown, but I think the guy in that was Glenn Ford. That goes till 6, and thankfully Dennis hasn't come yet, but when I finish this page at 6:45 I'm wondering what's delayed him. Type 11 pages by the time he arrives at 7, and I give him Enryakuji and Kathmandu articles to read (he says they need more PERSONS: he liked the little boy and the bicycle in Kathmandu and the girls giggling at John in Kyoto, but would have preferred more how the sights affected ME: "Facts you can get from guide books; I want to know more about what affected YOU and other PEOPLE.") We neck a bit, watch Peggy Fleming (and BOBG must cream to see her skate to "Send in the Clowns") from 8-9, then clothes come off and he jerks off grandly in the chair while watching "Civilization: The Great Thaw" between 1100 and 1198, the rebuilding of Chartres. (And I really don't think I've seen him come so COPIOUSLY or so FAR (to his armpit) before.) He vocalizes a bit at 11, I try steaks for dinner, smoking for dessert, crawl into bed at 12, neck, and I wake to shut off the lights at 3:20 am, groaning into a late deep sleep.
DIARY 11392
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27. I wake about 7:30, preparing myself for the alarm at 8, and he's up IMMEDIATELY, showering and shaving while I watch the coffee and give him his first cup, then make soft-boiled eggs and he eats and leaves at 9. I'm feeling industrious, so I've made the beds and watered the plants and brushed my teeth and washed the dishes and typed this page by 10:35 am. Then I make a few phone calls and check that the double at the Carnegie Hall Cinema is still on, so I'm out at 11:30 to the movies to see "The Passenger," which is better than I'd heard, Maria Schneider giving the impression of a directionless kid, Jack Nicholson indecisive enough to take over someone's life. However, the "Spider's Stratagem" is lushly filmed but dramatically silly: the guy's "hero" father was really a traitor who told of the bomb being prepared for Mussolini, so he wanted to die and his friends arranged to shoot him and make it look like a martyrdom. That's from 12:15 to 4, and then I subway down on the BMT to look through the books at the China Book Shop and pick up 2 dozen of the soap for $8.64, then walk over to the Sci-Fi shop and pick up "E Pluribus Unicorn," then subway home at 5, pick up wine and sherry (bought a typewriter ribbon, too), and up to read (haha) both the EST review (see DIARY 11393) and the PEKING review that I got free from the bookshop. That takes until about 7, and then I'm debating getting to bed, so I (forgot that I made hamburgers when I got home and ate them then) phoned Arnie and Dennis and chatted with them, then worked with the aura goggles for about 20 minutes, then decided to finish up some things and wrote notes to the Webbs, the Griswolds, and to Book People, and then I made an order for 6 tickets to the NYC Ballet. Showered and washed my hair with the vile-smelling Sebulex, and finally about 11:30 I was ready to smoke, gaze at porno, take bidis and poppers, and go down from a nice high and whack myself off limply by 12:30. Then get up, hungry, and whip up the topping for the last half-cake, eating lots of that, which tastes good, and then get into bed about 12:45, putting in the earplugs, happy that there are no sounds around me, at last making up for the sleep I think I've been missing for the past week.
DIARY 11397
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28. Wake by habit at 8, then doze till 9, and get up at 9:20, successfully ignoring the remnant of a nice hard-on. Determined to do things RIGHT (see DIARY 11396), but start on the phone with Susan, saying no; Tom Aloisi, finding that George Allen said no yesterday; George Allen (see DIARY 11395), saying lay off till he's together; Art, saying thanks and maybe I'll help him 11/10; Ginny Larrain, saying I'll take the index today if she'll deliver it, which she does JUST as I'm dressing after meditating and exercising; Eddie, to tell him the stuff Art told me he might do; then look through Grapevine and taking notes, calling GSF and maybe seeing them Monday when I take in the index, go to the library, and maybe see more Pediatrics chapters. Bruce Lieber doesn't answer his new number in the Brooklyn phone book. ALL that, with doing these 5 pages, takes me until 1:55, and I'll be watching another Laurel and Hardy this PM. Also phone Lauren Bahr, finding that they'd sold American Heritage and that I should call her after Thanksgiving because SHE'S all tied up. Call Dennis to talk about the Cadillac article, and he's talked to GM and they're sending him photos and he's really enjoying his job. Then talked to Arnie for 11 people that I can remember, then watched "A Chump at Oxford" with Laurel and Hardy, the latter "starring" as an intellectual athlete who got hit on the head by a window to come in and out of his "enlightenment." That goes until 4, and Dennis calls to say he's gotten free tickets to "The Innocents" from Equity for tonight. Since he's coming to dinner, I have to go out for groceries, and I look at the rates for ads in the Advocate and go to the post office and put in an application for a box, which they say will take 4-6 weeks for me to get; then I pick up records, look in the bookshop for "The Fourth Way" and find two books that I must have, buy meat and groceries, and pick up the mail, which I read after putting it all away. Had shaved with the electric in the morning, as well as showering, so I worked on Pediatrics from 6 to 7 and just get out at 7:10, after talking to Bruce Lieber, and meet Dennis in front of the Morosco, delighted to see it's intermissionless, and it's not THAT bad (see DIARY 11399), and we're out at 9:30, subway home, put on hamburger to fry and the rest of the peas, eat a kiwi fruit, smoke, and get into bed to play and play, falling asleep about 1 and waking at 3:30 to shut off the lights.
DIARY 11400
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29. Alarm goes at 8 and Dennis is up quickly and only shaves while I'm messing up some french toast in a frying pan to which it sticks. He's out at 9:10 and I water plants and kill white flies and make the bed and at last get to four solid hours with the index from 10 to 2 (oh, had breakfast of the too-chewy Country Morning, too, which I shouldn't get again), and then figure to hear the end of Bill's tape, and find that he might be in WEST VIRGINIA at the Gurdjieff farm for all I've heard from him since he'd sent the tape in April! Have tuna during the listening, and that takes me until about 4:30. Then I want to get back to the index, but figure I have to do the dishes before Dennis gets here, so I do those until 5, and then down for the mail, of which there's a lot, and get a strange call from someone who says "Zolnierczyk, Robert, Do you speak Polish?" and when I say "No," there seems to be simultaneously a grunt and "thank you" and they hang up! Arnie calls, too, and we make arrangements about possibly seeing each other tomorrow, and then BobR calls for a great conversation from 7 to 8, causing me to question why I don't want to be seen (see DIARY 11398), which I'm typing as Dennis comes in at 8. We talk about that while he has tea for an incipient sore throat, made worse by a callback on Sunday, which has to be fit in with his doing the index (and Ron Tiekert called at 4:30 to ask if I wanted to work on something ELSE, and I said no; and Bruce called to say how GREAT it is that I'm fitting in with his job-handling in Actualism, and couldn't he play the intro tape for me sometime, no obligation? I say I'm VERY busy, but Ron'll probably call Bruce on Monday for sure now). I've had a pork shoulder roasting since 6, and at 9 we have that and the last of the mustard green (awful), and the pork shoulder is even tastier than the pork butt. Decide there's enough time on Saturday and Sunday for the estimated 14 hours for the index, so I shower while Dennis calls Rick in Poughkeepsie, then he showers while I put things away and get the grass out, and then we smoke, listen to trumpet music, cuddle, and he gets to a GREAT far-out state (see DIARY 11401) twice, and then we sleep at 1 am, exhausted and comeless.
DIARY 11402
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30. I wake in the night and urinate and drink some water, since my throat and lips are dry from the radiators, bustling with heat in the middle of the night. Then wake at 8:15 and part-meditate until 8:45, and he's awake and we're cuddling and feeling our cocks rubbing against each other on my stomach, and we both get into watching my cock juice so much that it drips down my cockhead onto my belly three or four times, and many times beside that he smears it around my cockhead. I finally come, with great quantities, and he wants to save it for this evening, so we're out of bed at 10:45, thinking how hard it is to get started working at 10, as we'd planned. I'd decided to have Wheatena for breakfast, but it was a mistake, as he HATES it, finally making coffee to get the taste out of his mouth. He starts working on his index at 11:25, disturbed because the table of contents and page 5 are wrong/not there. I'm down to check the mail, which hasn't come yet, and Fred calls to say that he'd gotten his check returned because he mailed it to me without a stamp! I type these 4 pages by 12:40. Then decide to type some of the index cards, and work from 1 to 2:30 and type VERY close to 450 cards, so my initial estimate of 300/hour is good for THAT, anyway, though my pages per hour has fallen from 40 to somewhere below 20 and just above 15, which I hope can go faster as I get into the book. Down for a lot of mail, Dennis and I looking through Falcon and Ah Men mailings with interest, and I sit down with Scientific American and other things while he types up the cards, working VERY fast, taking only 2.5 hours for the marking and 45 minutes for half the typing. Dennis leaves at 5, finishing the typing, for a haircut before meeting BobR, and he's happy about a callback for "Walking Happy" tomorrow. I wash the dishes and wash my hair (oh, we hassled about lunch, and I finally had the Dinty Moore beef stew, which wasn't worth it, with the noodles I'd just bought and got rid of a leftover hamburger, too) and leave just before 7, Fred having come over with a check while Dennis was still here. To Dennis's to find BobR there, and an interesting evening ensues (see DIARY 11403) from 7:35 until BobR leaves at 1:50, but 12:50 with the clocks turned back one hour per time change.
DIARY 11404
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 31. Wake about 9, light a candle when we get VERY horny together, and I speak of his getting to the point of coming and TELLING me, so that I can play with myself until then, but he comes on my chest, and I use his come to lubricate my cock and come with great feeling AGAIN, and he gets up to find there's no hot water for a shower. I go down for the Times, early at 10, and read it in the kitchen because he's been having trouble with his light bulbs blowing in the living room lamps. He makes bacon just as his folks call, so I eat it before it congeals, he finishes, makes some eggs, and I'm reading the paper until he leaves about 12:30, then I almost fill the toilet bowl with, I must say, nicely formed turds (so, as Norma would say, things are going well with me) and leave about 1, having read the Times and taken pages with me to finish at home. In at 1:45 to a call from Art, but he's left for his matinee already. Work both puzzles fairly quickly, kill only about 120 white flies, water plants, and put on a sweater in the 62° apartment (it's only 56° outside and the heat's not on). Dennis arrives at 4, hopeful for the leading role in "Walking Happy" from his reading, and we have tea and the last of the cake until 4:45, when he goes back to his index, and I start typing, interspersed with his wisecracks, so that I finish typing the two pages for the day at 5:30, almost finished with OCTOBER!! I'd also finished reading "The Seeds of Time," and find that it was the 101th book I had to read (see DIARY 11405). Then type another 400 cards for the Pediatrics index from 5:30 to 6:45, finishing all that I'd marked just as Dennis was finished with editing and wanted to start typing HIS index. Had put on pork shoulder, and make dinner while watching the end of another pretty lousy "Space 1999" from 7 to 8, and we sit and watch the start of "Life Goes to the Movies," which is more of a NEWSREEL than a showing of movies. Finish eating, Dennis watched until 10, then goes back to finish the typing for the evening, until 11:40, and I'd gone through the stuff and it was all pretty good, and then he was making too many mistakes, so we smoked (I'd showered earlier) and crawled under the warm covers in the 64° apartment, me not feeling sexy, he coming on my chest, bed at 1.
DIARY 11406
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1. He's told me I can set the alarm at 9, and we both wake about 8:45 and grin at each other, cuddling in the warmer room, and he rolls over on me with a nice erection, which he proceeds to get rid of by himself on my chest, and I still don't feel the slightest tingle in my cock, so I guess I have to get into exercising and feeling better. He showers and shaves while I finish frying the bacon and make omelets out of the last four eggs in the refrigerator, and we're finished with the breakfast by about 11, and he's finished typing the index, making NO alphabetical errors, and Ginny Larrain calls with laryngitis to say my getting there at 2:30 would be fine. Dennis leaves about noon for his singing lesson, and I'm typing away on the revisions and double-space typing of "Come to Me My Melancholy Baby," "The Contents of the Tell-Manhattan Library," and "Future Therapy" for Bruce Moody at National Lampoon. That takes until 2:45, too long, and then I'm into the subway, catch Susan just as she's about to leave, and she makes 23 copies of my 21 pages of writing, liking "Tell-M" when she reads it, and I give the index to Ginny, along with the bill. Pick up two datebooks for 1977 from Hallmark, THAT nice thing done, and then try three places for a Universe Macro Art calendar and have no luck, so get to the library at 5, read "Hal Irwin's Magic Lamp" (see DIARY 11407) and get the contents of "The Olive Tree" by Huxley and "From the Ocean, From the Stars" by Clarke, and I find that the library HAS most of Blackwood's and Clarke's books that I don't have yet, so that's DISCOURAGING with the magnitude if I want to read it all, rather than ENCOURAGED to finish it. Out at 5:45, home to catch up Huxley's essays list and my book list, wallowing in it, and then tear apart the last of the pork shoulder for dinner, not very much, and call Pope to find he doesn't want to play Scrabble, so I settle down to marking another 81 pages, and it DOES take an hour for 16 pages, VERY slow, from 7:45 to 1, with a call to Dennis to chat for about 10 minutes. Stomach rumbling, so I have cookies and milk while starting to read "The Burning World," and get into it enough so that I make popcorn to feed my belly and read to about page 100 of the book, then smoke and get to sleep instantly at 3:20 am!
DIARY 11408
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2. Up at 9:45, surprised that I only needed 6½ hours sleep, and shit, reading more of "The Burning World," meditate, exercise, shower, eat breakfast, finish reading "The Burning World," get a call from Dennis at work, delighted over a package from the museum-man in Maine, and get the new calendar sheet out for November and type these 4 pages at 1:20. Then wash the dishes, listening to music, get some stamps from Mrs. Gray, and make a list of groceries and get out at 3:30 (having phoned to find where I get flu shots, that I can buy my calendar at the bookshop, and to find the address of National Lampoon, to which I sent the three items with a cover letter) to mail off the pieces, vote for Carter in an almost totally empty place, and then look for the Red Cross headquarters to find no one in the room for the vaccine. Back to get loads of groceries for $13 and lots of bargains at the Key on Pineapple Walk, getting weak from lugging just as I walk up the stairs, carrying all the mail. Put things away, lovingly unpack the three Sturgeon books and Wyndham book from S&S, and check off the stories to find I have only ONE to read from Wyndham. Also showered and washed my hair (earlier, idiot!), had some steak at 6, and then left at 7 for the Statler-Hilton and the evening on Relationships with Stewart Emery (see DIARY 11409). Out at 11:30, debating calling Dennis, but I just get down to the subway and up to his place about 11:50, and he greets me in shorts, having just baked a loaf of bread, and we sit around the kitchen table talking for about a half an hour, making toast to eat, and he goes into wash and we'd been smoking after I'd told him about the "I love you" and "I hate you" processes, and find that I DO say "I love you" when I don't really mean it: at the closing of my letters to relatives, except possibly my sister. Then we're cuddling on the bed, he getting into his cock so much that even though I'm hard, he only feels it by sitting on it, and he jerks off onto my chest with my bearing down on his tits, and we cuddle at the end and drop off to sleep, and he gets up later to shut off the lights and candles, and I'm too tired to even look to see what time it is.
DIARY 11411
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3. Radio off at 8, he leaves about 9:15, I sit and read, call John and talk about election, and it looks like Carter's WON! Call GSF at 10:30 but she's not there yet, and phone's busy at 10:50, so I take off, get there at 11:25, fill out an application, and it turns out to be $190 for "lifetime" membership and it's not worth it for travel, AND it's under Insight Dynamics Corp, which sounds VERY est-y, with a one-day training for $65, and it's too lonely-hearts for me, too. That takes until 12:20, I dash to pick up chapters from John, dash back to be next-to-last into "Alphabet Game" (see DIARY 11412) and get a hold in the 4-round, the first win in second-round, win in 2-people, but miss $20,000. Out at 1:20 and back to pick up chapters, walk down to buy a Macro Color calendar from Universe, across to 6th and eat in San Francisco Plum, good eggplant for $2.50 and DESSERTS of lemon mousse and pecan pie were $1.75 and $1.25! Out at 2:35 and down to Carl House's for a great look at his collection of ship memorabilia, out at 4:35 to finish "Secret Oral Teachings" by Alexandra David-Neel on the subway and start the last story in "The Infinite Moment," and buy red wine, get loads of mail, much of which I read, and then Dennis is in at 7 before I can get to any typing. I'd fertilized the plants before, killed large numbers of white flies (over 567!), and then showered after he did, shaving for him, and then we start watching "The Barber of Seville" and drinking sherry and reading the plot. I put on wild rice and chicken to roast at 9, and we eat about 10:15, drinking lots of wine and ending up watching Nam June Paik's tribute to John Cage with an incredibly stuttering Alvin Lucier that makes us think we're TRIPPING, and we're smoking, then down to the floor for an INCREDIBLE session that he doesn't remember that he came during. I've drunk too much---and it's sad that THREE glasses of booze is too much---and feel actively sick while he's on my chest, and then he comes wildly jerking onto my chest, we lie for a bit as the music stops (only two sides worth of sex), and then crawl into bed with music going somewhere so I put in earplugs, zonked out at 1:15 am from sex.
DIARY 11413
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4. Wake at 5:30 to remember that the alarm was for 9, and set it for 7:45, so that Dennis and I can cuddle for a bit, when he generously gives me some of the blankets that he's wrapped around himself. Up for a light breakfast of Country Morning with the strawberries that he brought last night (that went bad in the meantime, about half of them) in cream, and he leaves about 9:15 and I try reading for a bit, feeling like I have a hangover from last night, but then feel rather nauseous so I lay down on the sofa from 9:30 to 10:30, when Bruce calls and I say he can come over at 12. Sit for a long time at the desk trying to do something, but nothing works until I make the bed and clean up the apartment a bit, sorting things out until 12, when I type a bit of a page and then Bruce comes in about 12:15, high from walking and Actualism, and we talk until 4 (see DIARY 11414), when he leaves, and then I've talked Dennis into going with me to the Actualism live introduction tonight. Down with him to get the mail, with 6 books from NYTimes ad, and I decide to ADD Lem and Ballard officially to the list, bringing it up to 20/79, as if I DIDN'T want to make progress. Letters from Rita and Mack take time to read, and at last I get to typing about 5 and type these 5 pages and the next one by 6:40. Not enough time to shower, so I just shave and wash my face and get out at 7 for the subway that takes me to the Wendell Willkie Memorial just at 7:30, and Dennis is there already. There's some delay, I introduce Dennis to Bruce (and Dennis said he thought Bruce sparkled, too), and then someone starts talking without introducing himself to us (see DIARY 11415). We're out at 9:30, Dennis insists on getting a drink and then doesn't finish it at Nedick's, and he's willing to come to my place since "I have to go to work tomorrow and you'll be home," and we talk for a long time about the introduction to Actualism (see DIARY 11416). Drink wine and sherry until about 12, listening to Berlioz' music, and then smoke enough to get cuddly, get fucked in the mouth for awhile, then into the bedroom and he comes onto my chest, and when I turn the lights off it's late, about 2:10, when we sleep.
DIARY 11417
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5. Wake at 6:45 with a rush of stomach-anger at the sound of YOUNG cats yowling in heat beneath my window, then doze off to wake at 7:30 and lie peacefully until the alarm goes at 8, when Dennis is hard and almost working toward getting it off, but he gets out of bed at 8:20 and showers while I make coffee, soft scrambled eggs that he likes, and bacon, and he leaves about 9:20 and I read some more Sturgeon stories and get to finishing typing these three pages between 10 and 10:35 am, right NOW! Then immediately get to typing on the index until 2:05, when I go down for the mail, which I look at until 2:45, and then type more from 2:45 to 4:30, finishing up a second batch of 1000 cards to match the first batch done in the morning, and I've decided to keep SOME track of letter-length, just to make the tearing and sorting and inter-filing of each thousand more interesting. That's caught me up with the typing, so I mark chapter 6 from 4:30 to 6:15, when I'm so hungry I have to eat, mixing the chicken and dumplings from the can in with the wild rice left over from before, and it makes a very tasty dish that I have three bowls of to finish. Pope called just before I ate, Dennis just after, saying that I should come over if I feel like it, and I say that if he's going downtown to do something that I wouldn't want to do with him, he could come HERE after---and though he says he wants to celebrate Friday, he doesn't come and I don't come. Then back to work from 7:40 to 9, when I turn on "Star Trek II" to find that it's merely the same old tales, but started in the MIDDLE! Then type more from 9:05 to 11:05, getting caught up with what I have to date, and then from 11:05 to 12:45 mark chapter 8, and I'm feeling pretty good that I'm working, but if I have 316 hours to go in something like 40 days, that's 8 hours per day SOLID work, which doesn't make me feel good, since I'll have to be taking SOME days off that I KNOW of. Total up my hours and find that I'm at 44, bring my work-money books up to date, and wash my face and fall into bed at 1. But I can't sleep as I'd hoped, so I'm up at 1:30 to smoke, and then get hungry and go for cookies and finally get to sleep about 1:50 am.
DIARY 11418
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6. Wake, rather surprised, at 8:45 after 7 hours sleep, but my stomach and mouth feel badly from having eaten even those few cookies! Up at 9, meditate to 9:30, exercise to 10 after putting things away and making the bed and watering the plants, and then have breakfast and brush my teeth and shit and feel completely ready for the day, getting back to typing the rest of the third thousand cards by 11:20, then this page by 11:30. Then back to typing until 12:05, marking from 12:05 to 12:45, making it up to almost 18 pages per hour, and then down for the mail and eat lunch while reading "Loving" from "Living Love," and then back to typing from 2:45 to 4, pleased that all the chapters are together now and I can type them in order and keep a running count of how long things take. Then decide I just HAVE to wash dishes, so I put on music and do them, then phone John, who says he'll be leaving for the theater about 6:30, and then I wash my hair and shower, getting out the first of the "Bee and Flower" sandalwood soap from the China Book Shop. Don't have enough time for dinner, though I'd been thinking of another corned beef sandwich like the two I had for lunch, or an omelet, but then I mark from 5:30 to 6:20, and stop to debate it just as John calls at 6:30, saying he's leaving in five minutes. I dress and take binoculars and he almost loses his car, then stops for gas and to fill the tires with air, so we're parked on 23rd and at the theater at 7, which is about the time I'd have gotten there had I taken the subway. He told me about the sold-out house on Tuesday, the huge line on Thursday, so I was pleased to be able to pick up two tickets at the box office. Dennis showed up about 7:15, we went for coffee and donuts at a place where a "brujo" from "Guyana" was talking about jacking off with a wonderful word: malacca! Back to the theater and good seats on the side, but Dennis doesn't like the performance of "Light" parts 9, 10, and 12 at all (see DIARY 11419). Out at 9:40 and subway to the store, then read most of the Times while he makes spaghetti and meat sauce, we eat just after 12 (he'd gone down to talk with the woman below about a leak, and she DOESN'T mind his radio!), then smoke, get into banana cake, then sex, and he loves rubbing his cock on my stomach, and then he comes with potent amyl, I'm tired, and we get to sleep I don't know when.
DIARY 11421
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7. Wake about 9:30 and start cuddling, then have Dennis check the time (10:15), put on the light, get the popper, put the phone off the hook, and get back in to come on my chest, cuddle, then he wants to take me in his mouth, so I work myself up and sadly come soft, when he makes sound good by saying "It seems like your cock turns to come in my mouth." Up at 11, Peggy calls while I watch a snip of Philip Johnson on Camera Three, then we have breakfast of eggs and bacon and his bread until 12:40, when I get out quickly and subway up to Riverside to see a small waiting list in front of me, work the puzzles partially, and get in for a good performance of "Spirit of Denishawn" which is VERY dated (see DIARY 11420). Out about 4, subway home to find Dennis returned from his trip to BAM for Margalit, which he rather liked, and we neck and I just DON'T feel like leaving go of him, he just feels so GOOD, but I say we should work, so I put the dishes away, he vocalizes, I finish the puzzle, then talk to Arnie, then there's not much time left after I finish these three pages at 6:45 for anything but "Space 1999" and our plans for the Morocco restaurant tonight, Dennis is studying a serious "classical" speech (Bottom's waking from his dream), so he doesn't care when we eat, and I watch the beginning of "Space 1999" and get sucked in by Brian the Brain, noting that Brian someone is something on the actual program, and wonder about the backstage fun. Get tired of it (and hungry) at 7:40, so we leave in the cold to the Morocco restaurant, which pleases me with its spices and lovely flavors of the Harira soup, the Bestela pigeon pie and the couscous, but the hors d'oeuvres are a loss (though the crisp coldness of the tomatoes, pimientos, and green peppers would be good on a hot summer's day), the pigeon pie is too cold, the couscous not moist enough with soups, and there are chunks of bone in both dishes, and the "orange dessert" is served at the side of the pigeon pie, disappointing Dennis, who was looking forward to it. Back at 9:30 hoping for the heat and hot water to be on, buy they aren't, and he studies for a bit with me in the kitchen doing an index from 9:30 to 10:40, but then he's sleepy and I crawl into bed with him at 11 after washing my eyes and teeth, and we cuddle and kiss but don't feel sexy, so at 11:30 I set the alarm for 7:30 and we sleep.
DIARY 11422
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8. I'm up a few times during the night, coughing, spitting, and feeling pretty terrible, and then the alarm goes at 7:30, we barely move for the next half-hour, and Dennis gets out of bed at 8:10, washes, shaves in the freezing water, and I make bacon and eggs and orange juice and coffee and we sit, still chilly, with the oven on, and when he leaves at 9:15 I'm heating water to water the plants with, and I finish one page by 9:25. Had intended to get to the bank and buy groceries and do all sorts of things today, including cashing the check for Dennis, but I get into the index at 10:20, the heat starts coming back about 11, which makes me put away the heating pad that I got out to type with, and I work through till about 5, feeling relief to finally get into the most enormous chapter of the book, the 219-page chapter on bacterial and viral infections, and find that it divides into two sections that STILL equal the largest remaining chapters. Go through renumbering the pages, then for broad editing, and I'm getting into a multi-pass method of indexing myself! Take 35 minutes off for lunch to go down for the mail and read it and eat, then found that "Star Trek" is back on, so I watch to see the duplicate at 6, then continue until 7:30 when I watch "In Search of Life after Death," which is quite interesting with its out-of-body experiences of light and even people in a beautiful field. Back to mark a total of over 100 pages today, the best day yet, and stop from 10 to 11 to watch "Mother Ganges" on "The Real World," which is quite a spectacle of people, water, and Hinduism and elephants, and then back to continue marking until 12:50, when I've had more than enough for an 11-hour day, and I'm finally feeling that I'm working hard ENOUGH to keep up with the schedule. BobR called at 11:45 and talked to 12:20, and I told him I started "Nature of Personal Reality." Feel that I'm tired enough to sleep without smoking, so I get into bed about 1, but toss and turn and put on the light at 1:30 and feel that sleep is still far from me: thinking of Actualism and writing and Dennis and sex and books and S&S and reading, and so I get up and smoke a few puffs, debating if I'm going to get into sex, and I DO, and come sort of soft but the build-up was fabulous. I'd ripped off the sheets this morning to change them, but my hair was dirty so I just put the dirty ones back on to sleep on tonight.
DIARY 11423
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9. Wake at 8:20, after only 6½ hours sleep, but I feel pretty good, so I get up, tear the sheets off again and get laundry ready to take out, meditate, exercise for the first time in ages at the 2 level and still feeling OK about it, finish up the Country Morning cereal, make out a shopping list, and get to marking from 10 to 1 before I do anything else to take my mind off it. Since there are cards in the typewriter I decide to delay typing the diary pages until I free it up sometime this afternoon. Phone Pope and he says I can come over to read the chapter on Actualism, but I should bring over the aura goggles which by coincidence Bob Rosinek said he wanted to try THIS MORNING on the phone! Fix up more of the apartment and get out about 2:30 to the bank, cashing checks and getting cash, but not yet mailing for the S&S books, which still keep COMING, and check to find no good records, to the store for $18.89 worth of groceries in one very heavy bag which I then cart up four flights to Pope's apartment about 3:5, and we talk about his work for awhile and I read and skim all of Metzner's "Maps of Consciousness" (see DIARY 11424). Leave about 4:30 and get home to find that I WILL need binoculars tonight, and Dennis had called without leaving a message for me. I wash my hair and shower and shave and watch the start of "Star Trek" before realizing that it IS 6:10 and I should be leaving, so I get out at 6:15 and get to the Longacre for "No Man's Land" at 6:50 and watch Hermione, Lauren, and Ingrid besieged by people, but Lillian needs the Gish to be identified. Get Hermione's signature for BobG, but that's the high point of the evening, for the play is totally inconsequential (see DIARY 11425). Out at 9:10, we're not hungry so we go up to his place, talking about the play, buy groceries, sit around in the heat, then get into smoking and sex, he comes, then I ask the amusing "Uh, have we EATEN yet?" and he starts on dinner at 11:40 as I turn on "Terror on the 40th Floor" a rip-off of "Towering Inferno" that's totally unbelievable (why didn't they hear the fire engines, they SELDOM showed the building burning, HOW did the fireman get up THROUGH the blaze, why didn't they think of the roof sooner?) until 1:30, and then we cuddle some more and crawl into bed much too late to get up at 8 the next morning.
DIARY 11426
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10. Wake at 8, Dennis so hot that he sticks his cock in my mouth, after we'd lay next to each other getting nicely hot, that he shot almost instantly, great feelings, after I jerked off myself with a spurt. He fries himself a hamburger after frying us some rice with apple and mushrooms and nuts left over from last night, and we have fried eggs too, and then leave about 9:15 for me to get home at 10 to be surprised by the mail in the box already, and I look through it and then get to the index at 10:45, marking the rest of the section on bacteria and then typing cards for HOURS, sorting them out and typing and typing over 1000 cards until 5:15. Then back to marking, Art calls for about a half an hour about things happening to him, and then at 7:15 I stop and shower and shave, cutting myself rather badly on the lip and under the neck, since Dennis said that he'd probably be over after singing class this evening, and then make dinner so that [forgot that I finished reading "Sturgeon in Orbit" on the subway home from Dennis's AND that---for the first time in AGES when I was dressed in a suit on the subway in the morning---I met Art Khanlian, looking VERY old, on his way to the downtown office, saying he had NO chance to hire me at all, and that Madge's use of me would probably have been only as a freelancer.] I can watch it while watching the start of an entertaining "Great Waldo Pepper," except for the surprises of the woman falling off the plane wing and him not catching her, he bashing his partner over the head to knock him out before he dies in a burning plane, and then fighting both to the death with Kessel and he flying into clouds for the "climax." Turn back to Channel 13 for a STUPENDOUS performance of "Taming of the Shrew" with the American Conservatory Theater from 9-11 (see DIARY 11427), and still Dennis didn't show up, so I continued watching "Trio" (1950) by Maugham with "The Verger" "If I could read I'd be a VERGER, not a rich man," "Mr. Know-All" who knew that the unfaithful woman's pearls WERE real and lied about it to save her, and "The Sanitarium" where a lovely Michael Rennie and handsome Jean Simmons decide to marry with tb even if it DOES mean death in 6 months. It's over at 12:35, Dennis still not here, so I smoke and jerk off very nice and slowly, getting to sleep about 1:40, seemingly UNABLE to get to sleep earlier.
DIARY 11428
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11. Wake sometime after 8 and doze until 9, then up to meditate and exercise in good time, have breakfast, water the plants, and type another thousand-ending cards from 10:40 to 11:40, also calling John to make sure he's not surprising me with ALL the final chapters, and it looks like the 24th for the last of the chapters, rather than the 17th. Then I call Dennis, who didn't get out of class until 10 and decided to go home, start typing pages and get a call from Arnie for about an hour, talking about nothing, and I finish these 6 getting-up-to-date pages by 2 pm. Take the laundry out, bring up the mail, read it, have tuna fish for lunch, and get back to marking from 3 to 6:45, when Dennis comes in, and I'm relieved that I'm almost through with the longest chapter in the book, and John hasn't called about delivery YET. Dennis isn't hungry so we try to decide what to do, we play with bricks for awhile and then I put on music and suggest mescaline, but he says we should just smoke, and we get through about three pipes before we start cuddling on the sofa, listening to the music, and then he suggests the bedroom, and I warm up the blankets that we lay on, the clothes come off, and we're playing on my chest until he finally comes. I don't feel like doing much, so we're up about 8:45 and I'm still so stoned that the cooking of the chicken becomes a long-drawn-out endeavor to convince myself that it's not REALLY taking so long, that I WILL get all the ingredients mixed, and I just NOW put soy sauce on my shopping list, since I didn't have it last night and had to go to the Chicken Diablo---sweet and mustardy, finishing up the bottle of honey, and then finish the jar of U-Bet chocolate with the last of THOSE egg creams, and Dennis laughs at his sherry glass, egg cream glass, and orange juice glass. We eat quickly from 10:40 to 11, Dennis so stoned that he doesn't say ANYTHING about the chicken that I had SUCH a rough time cutting up, and then we're in to watch the Maugham stories of "Quartet," (1948) "The Facts of Life," where he's robbed by her and takes ALL her under-plant money; "Alien Corn" Dirk Bogarde shoots himself when he's judged not to be an adequate pianist; "The Kite" turning out well when his wife takes to flying kites too; and Dennis goes to bed here while I watch "The Colonel's Lady" who makes a great smash with a book of poems to her husband, whose LOVE has died, and I get to bed at 1, loving Dennis for letting me watch, putting chicken in fridge late.
DIARY 11429
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12. We both wake at 7:30, doze, jolt awake at 7:45 at alarm, cuddle, I start jerking off and come on my belly and his forearm, from which I take come and rub it on his cock for him to shoot with onto his belly, and then he's into the shower while I reduce his coffee ration to 4 cups, which he drinks so that's the minimum, and we have scrambled eggs and he leaves at 9:15 and I get hung up in the bricks again, using almost all of them to build a rambling ground floor and a seven-story tower until about 12:30, and then get to finish marking the long chapter from 12:30 to 1:25, then type the single page for today in the TOO long 20 minutes. Type the rest of the cards from 1:45 to 4:20, and then start marking the next chapter from 4:20 to 5:30, again relieved that John didn't call, and I'm sure I can finish up through 1/3 the book by Monday (though of course it doesn't turn out that way!). Then have dinner of decaying hamburger from 5:30 on, not having gone to the store as I'd wanted today, and down for the mail and look through that, find "Star Trek" a duplicate, and to make it worse they don't seem to be following any kind of a pattern at all. Mess around some more and get back to marking from 7:30 to 11:05, working a total of 8.15 hours today, and I check that I've worked 86 hours in all, so that the total time will be GREATER than I thought (just taking MUCH longer to mark each of the dense pages WITHOUT the help of the author's comments about what should be indexed), and I'm still vaguely concerned about making it on time. Then watch "Encore" on Channel 13 from 11 to 12:30, and the "Ant and the Grasshopper" ends with the spendthrift brother marrying a rich woman and buying the manor house that the thrifty brother had sold: "Winter Cruise" with Kay Walsh a tea-shoppe lady who talks and talks until they give her an affair with a French steward, and she changes the name of the shop to "Chez Mollie"; and then "Gigolo and Gigolette" with Glynis Johns as a high-diver fearful of dying until her lover shows he loves HER and not the money, and then she dives and comes up smiling. I have thoughts about seeing a movie and remembering NOTHING, though I saw it in 1962 (see DIARY 11430). Finished the pigeon pie, smoked and came, and got to sleep late as usual, about 2.
DIARY 11431
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13. Wake about 8:30, doze until 9:30, then up to meditate and exercise, feeling good to be doing as many as 18 pushups and situps again and then have breakfast with cream for my cereal, then call Arnie about 11 and he's wanting to come into town with me. Talk to Dennis before he leaves for Poughkeepsie. I get out to the Grace Court Fair and look through the books there and find nothing of note, except for some paperback plays by Pinter, which I don't buy, and then walk at 11:15 across Willoughby and around Fort Green Park, LOVING the enormous staircase up to the monument for the battle of Long Island, and to Sisyphus at 11:30, just in time to see her opening the doors. Browse and find a mushroom book at the end, and she says there's another, and I find the Dutton book that John and I are used to, a $17.95 book for $4.50, less than 1/4 the price, with tax---well, I check it and it's ONE PENNY more than 1/4 the price with tax: $19.39, coming to $4.85 vs. $4.86. Walk back, phoning Arnie, to Nevins and catch the subway to 14th, hearing people whispering about the mushroom books that I'm reading, and stop at Dauber and Pine to find nothing on my list except one Clarke book, but coming down from the balcony find two MORE books by Jerome K. Jerome, so I seem to be collecting HIM, too. Across to a few more places and meet Arnie at the Strand, find "John Silence" there for $1.95 instead of the $8.95 that S&S wanted, so I feel the day is worthwhile, since the REST of the search finds NOTHING, so the shops don't get much that's NEW in 6-8 months. Look into Polish meat markets with Arnie, stop for soup in the cream-soda place on 9th and Second, which isn't so good, and then still hungry so we're in to a Szechwan place for spicy shrimp and spicy beef, both quite good, for $2.25 apiece, great deal, and then we walk to the BMT, I find the laundromat closed at 6 (closes at 5:45), and home to do MORE fussing with book lists, thinking that I'm going about it BACKWARD (see DIARY 11432). Write letter to S&S ordering 13 books. Michael calls and comes over for the 12 West card, talking about his past (see DIARY 11433) and my past for about an hour, until 7:30, and I keep trying to phone Nick and then watch Fred Wiseman's "Meat" on Channel 13 from 8:30 to 10:30, interesting but sort of tiresome. Out for the Times, buy milk, work the puzzles through an AWFUL "Saturday Night" with Dick Cavett and no Chevy Chase, finish puzzles and read more until bed at 2:45. LATE.
DIARY 11434
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14. Wake about 10, meditate and think about all SORTS of things, like the incomparability of experiences (see DIARY 11435), meditation versus Actualism (see DIARY 11436), problems of actually living in the present (see DIARY 11437), and about the problems and unhappiness with my body now (see DIARY 11438). Make a list of those, exercise, water the plants, have breakfast, finish reading the Times, and then start putting things away. Putting the bricks away I get involved in the Lego I brought out last night to show Michael, and find myself building a neat little building using everything in it, and tearing down the old construction as not being worth showing to Dennis. Want to do lots of other things, but the flies are swarming around so I kill those, then wash the dishes, then clean up the place and scour the tub and the sink and the toilet in the bathroom, then scrub the kitchen floor and get to dusting and vacuuming, and it's 5 already, so I quickly shower and shave, and Rolf calls and comes over to see a bit of "Taming of the Shrew," which he grins shit-eatingly at when the guy is galumphing about the stage. He arrives at 6:15 and Dennis comes in about 6:30, and we all sit around and chat, Dennis drinking coffee he'd bought somewhere, me into sherry, and Rolf leaves about 6:45, saying we'll talk and obviously disappointed about Eddie's non-productivity in selling. We watch until 7:15 and then subway to Feld in nice time, see a fairly lightweight evening (see DIARY 11439), find the East-West restaurant closed during the second intermission, and then over later to find the B&H closed so we're down to La Boheme to have mealy chicken with honey and lemon for me and mealy steak, on the small side, for Dennis, with "Mellow O" for $1.15 that's almost a rip-off of OJ, honey, and banana. Out about 11:45 and walk to BMT to Times Square to 96th, catching both very quickly, home about 12:15 since he wanted to get photos for a tryout the next morning, and we smoke (I took him grass and amyl), get into sex, he comes on my chest and I get into a sexy thing with my cock, coming profusely, and we sleep about 2, and sadly he DOESN'T tell me that he's not working ON TIME on Monday for tryout.
DIARY 11440
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15. Wake at 7:40 and debate meditating, but don't, and wait for the alarm that doesn't come, so that at 8:20 I tell Dennis about it and he says he's not going to work until later. Oh. We cuddle and work on each other's cocks, and he comes in spurts on his belly and my arm, and then I work up to a GREAT gush of tiny drops, laying until rather late, and then up to a rather rare omelet from him, and find that it's 10:30 already! Subway home, meet Pope and chat, pick up the laundry, and get into the mail, seeming to have no time for anything ELSE. Then get to the stack of stuff in the desk drawer and send out 5 bills and sweepstakes and orders and such, AND 9 book lists to various companies that I should have done before. Get a call from Edwinna MacMahon, Susan's sister, about an index for about 20 minutes, and she thanks me profusely. Typing goes slowly since I'm reading and checking out things in the meantime, and finish this 11th page typed today, no typing done since Friday (as no index, either), by 4:30. Then type part of the pages from 4:30 to 5:50 and get the cold chicken out of the refrigerator and sit idly watching a duplicate "Star Trek" while dredging out every last bit of white meat on the carcass before my greasy hands. Then shower fantasizing about the meeting (see DIARY 11444) and shave and I feel that I'm late, leaving at 7:25, for Actualism, but the subway is coming into the station, goes quickly, and I get up to apartment 1615 in the Hotel Olcott at 27 West 72nd Street at 7:58, about the fifth in the room and just before another crowd from another elevator, so the timing was perfect. Lesson One is interesting (see DIARY 11441) and much longer than I'd expected, getting out at 11 and walking up to 88th with a girl from the meeting who's into yoga. Up to find Dennis cooking away on a mung-bean casserole, persimmon date-like for appetizer, my first, and good corn on the cob, and we're full by 12:35 so we delay on dessert-jello until we smoke (and I've drunk about two glasses of sherry, which may contribute to my lousy feeling in the morning) and get into sex and his hard cock rubbing against my stomach, and he comes marvelously and though I'm hard, I'm feeling too tired to come, so we have jello and get VERY tired to bed about 1:45. Am I coming down with something?
DIARY 11445
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16. Wake about 5:35, then about 7:35, but feel NOT like playing with my star, so I lay in a stupor till radio goes on, and Dennis seems to be in an equivalent stupor. Lay until 8:10, then he gets out to make coffee, exercise, shower, and I'm up at 8:45, still feeling awful, to find the eggs on the plate already and the toast unmade. Eat and commiserate with each other until we get to the subway at 9:30, and don't even read I feel so strung out: 6½ hours sleep, grass, and sherry to blame, I guess, except that I sneeze a lot when I get in after buying groceries and picking up the laundry for every penny but 8 in my pocket, so I MAY be coming down with something. In to a call from Arnold, and I record the Debussy record on tape while I put groceries and laundry away, read the mail, and start on these pages. Arnold calls back at 12:15, I finish 5 pages by 12:30. Type the last cards through THE FIRST THIRD OF THE BOOK: PAGE 669 with great relief from 12:30 to 2:30, and call John to hear it MIGHT not be due in the field in February, and I tell him I want to talk to Margaret about the extent of the editing, too. He'll call tomorrow with the lengths of chapters 12 and 21 so that I can continue pagination through chapter 26. Then to marking from 2:30 to 4:40, put the beef sirloin tip roast into the oven for my first one, then decide to make brownies, too, and do so and shower and get out to tend to cooking until 6:15 when Dennis arrives as he said he would, and he RAVES about the rare roast beef, likes the corn on the cob, and we eat some unfrosted brownies before leaving at 7:35 to walk to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It's more like a 25-minute walk, and "The Plough and the Stars" is quite dreadful (see DIARY 11446). Out at 10:30 and walk back with a VERY interesting discussion about the play and other great items in our life, talking until about 12:30, and he almost makes me weep with the simplicity of his statement: "Just because critics were so quick to glom on to Twyla's talent doesn't mean she's to blame for her FAME." We finally smoke and get into VERY hard-cocked sex in bed, he thrusting on my chest and finally coming greatly, I whacking off VERY hard so that my fingers and wrists and knees and ankles are VERY sore afterward, and sleep about 1:30 am.
DIARY 11447
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17. Wake at 7:10, doze, alarm goes at 8 and Dennis snores right back off, finally getting reluctantly out of bed at 8:10. He showers while I broil the last of the opened bacon and make scrambled eggs to the nth degree of perfect doneness for him, he makes a roast beef sandwich for work and leaves at 9:15. I have to wash my socks, so I do, and then continue to wash the dishes, which it seems I did just a few days ago, and then get out about 10:30 for my flu shot and to take records back, finding that Clarke's "First on the Moon" only has an EPILOGUE by him, and I'd rather xerox the last 20 sheets than buy the book, so that's another off the list when I get copies of it. Back and talk to Arnold, who called, as usual, when I was out, and then get to marking from 12 to 2 and typing cards from 2 to 3:40, finishing the 8000th card, surpassing my previous record in the VERY low 7000s. Bruce is over for amyl; I type 2 by 4:05. Then get to marking more from 4:15 to 5:35, Art phones to make final arrangements for tonight, and then I shower and wash my hair and eat dinner and see a duplicate on "Star Trek" and feel VERY tired, so I nap from 6:15 to about 8, finish with everything in enough time to sit back down and work from 9:15 to 10:15 on the index. Then get out and immediately catch an express, wait not too long for a local, and get to Art's at 10:45, looking over the building two doors down that he wants to buy, and he shows up in about 5 minutes, pleased that I'm there, and we get into the car and drive down to his place, where I leave him the amyl I took for him. He drinks some beer and we chat, then leave about 11:30, carrying down a large chest with us, and into the car, talking about him and Bob and his other exercises in patience, and about the troubled "Sanpaku" Raul Julia, off in India with Werner, and we find ourselves paying 25¢ for the toll into Connecticut, and turn around in the far lane and get back to where we should be. Down the drive to his place in the clear night air, look over the reconstruction in his place, impressive, and to Joyce's for flatbread and cheese and chamomile tea, he builds a fire at 1:15, we sit and talk and watch it burn out, then crawl into bed about 2, hoping nothing will happen, and as we're chatting I feel relieved to hear him snoring in sleep next to me, and I drop off immediately in Joyce's large hideabed.
DIARY 11448
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18. Wake early and piss, and Art cuddles up against me and then falls asleep again. Up later and he's still in bed, so I lay doggo until about 10, when he gets up without initiating sex, so I do too, and he makes coffee for both of us. We look at the beautiful day and then get to moving stuff out of his bedroom about 11, finishing most by 12:30, putting some things into his incredible sky-lit portable van storage-room, and we're back to Joyce's to have him make lunch from three scrambled eggs and three pieces of "gopher-shit" bread, all organically produced, says Joyce. Eat out on the glass table in the sunlight, looking at the places where he's cut down the trees for more light, listening to the rather annoying wind chimes from across the road, talking about the Bronfman gay son, and then load up the car for things for a thrift shop, no books there, then around to another place and I look through books and find nothing, he buys a coat and glasses, then back to the house to leave about 3:30 after buying a load of McCoun apples which don't taste quite as dynamite as I remember them. Drive down in increasing traffic and he says he doesn't want to delay himself with my bookcase from 60th and Second, which is a pity. Stop at the shop at 5 and chat with Elizabeth and Joyce, then find another bookshop on 8th that I buy three books from for $1, another copy of "Psychic Discoveries behind the Iron Curtain," a Zen book, and a Clarke old book under a new title. Then call Dennis for 25¢, decide to go up there at 5:45, and get up at 6:15 to stop in and make a haircutting appointment with Haydee, and to Dennis's to find him not home. Read until almost 7, when he comes in with loads of groceries, happy to see me there, and he gets dinner with spaghetti together and then as I talk with him about Art's he chops up nuts and dates for persimmon cake, which he puts in for 90 minutes at 300°, which may be a mistake because it solidifies on the outside and remains unbaked on the inside, which may be due to my substituting 1/2 half-and-half and 1/2 water for the 2 cups of milk he didn't have, and he blames it on old baking powder. We smoke and get into cock-strong sex, up every so often to check the baking, but at 12:30 we take it out, he comes with great gouts on my chest, he later thinks he HADN'T, and I wet his fingertip and have him reconstitute the dried come of his on my chest and THEN he believes me, and I use the come to jerk myself off, feeling just fabulous with it. Bed at 2.