1977 2 of 11
DIARY 11592
THURSDAY, JANUARY 27. Up about 10, leisurely breakfast, then look at the pages that Dennis has done to convince myself that he won't have to go through it again to look for more lines, and I'm pleased at what he's done so far. I putter around doing lots of things, probably things like washing dishes, washing socks, putting things away from the index, and answering Dennis's questions, which are taking a much longer time than I would have thought. Had marked lots of TV shows to watch this week, and I don't watch ANY of them. Bring my book list up to date with a list of books by Watts and Chardin that I don't have, then get out to pick up the laundry, stop at the bookshop and pick up a Chardin hardcover that tells me there are 12 books in all by Chardin that I don't have (what a revoltin' development THAT was!), and buy two bottles of new Beaujolais (not very good) and a quart of Gallo Rhinegarten to replenish the wine supply that Dennis and I are slurping up. Had suggested to Dennis yesterday that we invite Dana and Jody over, and to my chagrin it turns out they might be over TOMORROW, so I KNOW I washed the dishes today! Back loaded down, and Dennis has started typing, so he refuses to go the ballet with me tonight, and Michael had called to say he was busy, so I figured I wouldn't try anyone else. We have an early dinner of the rest of the chicken from last night, and I subway there in plenty of time to sell the ticket to a girl who sits next to me for the first and then moves downstairs to the half-empty orchestra. I love it upstairs, but the night isn't that grand (see DIARY 11593). Back about 11 to find that Dennis is delighted to have stayed home, and we have peaches, maybe, that he bought, with sour cream, and again we get into bed with the heater going and smoke and chat and talk (beneath the slowly tearing sheets, two sets of which hit the waste recently, as did THREE wine glasses, one of which HE broke, two of which I broke, though it was probably because they were cracked already because of being forced down on the wrong side of the drier. Poor Dennis, he just finds this place laden with booby-traps---I resist the logical outcome of THAT observation!) and usually I'm VERY hard during play, but then have to whack away at myself with his come afterwards; I'd love to get it together with him. Again probably to sleep at 2 to 2:30, seemingly impossible to change that habit.
DIARY 11594
FRIDAY, JANUARY 28. Up and THIS is probably the morning that we both got so into our cocks that I jokingly remarked we should contest to see who would come first, and essentially that's what we do: I come quite quickly and then he gets into it slower and finally comes, and we stagger out of bed delighted. I'm determined to get rid of the TDF vouchers and make up for the time I spent on the index and didn't go out, but no one wants to go with me. Phone Arnie and Pope and various people, then finally phone John Cernusca and find that Margaret DID put in my full bill, recommending that it be paid, though even Berta said that it was astoundingly high. I confessed to charging a higher rate per hour, but didn't say how much, only that I charged the SAME hourly rate for "Microbiology" which they seemed to think was fine. He DID say that the author said the index was "magnificent," so THAT helped, I'm sure. Call Ginny and she says SHE put in the higher bill, too---rather, left it up to HER boss to decide. Dennis goes to Tree to work, and I'm typing the only diary pages I typed since Sunday about 5 and it dawns on me that I MUST go to the bank this weekend. It's surprisingly warm out (something like 43 today feels positively BALMY compared to the sub-freezing weather the past week or so), and I get money, find no records to get, get groceries, and get home at 5:30 to decide to put on the roast beef and cook the outside of it for myself; Dennis calls and says he'll be late, so I find myself showering and eating alone, leaving him a note about the meat (and the potato that didn't quite bake all the way through) and leave for the Richard Bull Dance Theater at Larry Richardson's, despite Arnie's warning about the severe temperature drop expected this evening. Find it crowded; hate the first part, but the last piece is quite super (see DIARY 11595). Out and home to find that Dennis has finished the cooking and is ready to eat, but everything is hopelessly overdone: I guess leaving it in the warm oven wasn't the best idea. I finished "Man's Place in Nature" on the subway, surprised to find those sentiments exactly echoed in the next book I start "You Are the World." Again it's very cold, temperature dropping from 43 to 13 and much lower just in a few hours. News begins to fill about a gas shortage, pipes freezing, and the cold in the apartment after 11 begins to get worse and worse. Bed at 2.
DIARY 11596
SATURDAY, JANUARY 29. SOME of these mornings I managed to get through one or even two cycles of light-work, which was nice, but others I was so tired when I woke that there was no chance of doing it before I got out of bed. What happened this morning I don't remember. Up at 10 to a call from Rolf, then into bed until 12 for great sex. Rolf wants his money. Dennis still working on the index, and maybe we got up fairly early and had an early breakfast, because I remember being almost hungry as I went out at 1 (after calling Arnie and finding he didn't want to go) to Riverside Church to see Cohan/Suzeau at 2. Very windy up there, and the ice at the side of the streets looks like incipient icebergs floating down to the sewers. Out at 3:30 and walk in the extreme cold (it only got up to a high of about 11 today, even though the sun was out) back to the subway, walking the long trek between the Lex and the 7th Avenues LAST night and TONIGHT, but not NOW. Cohan/Suzeau were pretty good (see DIARY 11597). Home about 4, read yesterday's Times that Dennis bought, then find that some dances have been cancelled ("Nimbus" at 5 pm and everything today and tomorrow at the Bijou Theater) by the cold, so I decide on "Nimbus" for tonight, leaving "Decadance" for tomorrow. Dennis has a cold roast beef sandwich, which I don't join him in, but I shower and get ready to get out at 7, getting to Marymount vicinity early enough to stop for a 55 slice of pizza and enjoy the warmth after the cold. There's a pretty good crowd, but the dances aren't that good (see DIARY 11598), and I'm sorry not to see the sexy David Malamut and Michael Cichetti under better clothing conditions. Spent this morning sending out 10 or so porno mailings I got from a copy of "After Dark" that Dennis was reading. Back to buy two Times and take one to Arnie's, where he gives me 6 TDF vouchers for ATL tomorrow, and phone Dennis, who comes over and shares a super hot-fudge sundae with walnuts and chocolate sprinkles and whipped cream and cherries with us, and talk about his trip to Mexico that starts early Wednesday. Out about 12:15 and lay around thinking about sex, and one of these evenings, out of sheer perversity, we don't shut the light off until about 3:30, just necking and talking and eating cookies and keeping warm under the electric blanket until too late.
DIARY 11599
SUNDAY, JANUARY 30. Up after sex at 11 to watch for Louise Nevelson on Camera Three about Robert Indiana, but she's not on and Indiana is a DREADFUL bore; the only nice thing about him is the money he makes. "Love" derived from "Love is God" and the best way of putting four letters into a set of four squares in another square-thickness half that, everything "patterned off human height." Continue with the Times, work both puzzles, sitting reading while Dennis asks me questions about editing his cards. Watered plants regularly, killed white flies regularly, and watched enormous foot-long icicles from outside the kitchen window, soaking the sills with moisture when the daylight melted them. Dennis finally manages to call Greg to get Frank Simon's number for tonight, and "Decadance" is said to last only 45 minutes, so the timing is perfect. I continue reading, tune in the last five minutes of Tolstoy, to my disgust with Muggeridge (see DIARY 11585), reading the magazine almost completely, and then put my sour-cream chicken on at 5:30, shower, shave, check the "Star Trek" title at 6, wash dishes, and we eat at 6:35 and leave at (no, this is MONDAY)---I make the hamburger/mushroom soup/noodle dish for dinner and we're out at 7:30 to meet Rolf on the street, give him $60 to get to ATL, the most crowded it's ever been, probably everyone trying to get rid of their TDF vouchers at the next-last day, and they're delighted with Arnie's donation. In to a DREADFUL performance, the worst of the week (see DIARY 11600), but it's over at 9 and we subway up to Frank's by 9:30 and in to chat with Crystal from Trinidad, Karen from the building, a sexy Michael from the building, and two leather-number lovers who live in adjacent studio apartments on the East Side. Can't figure too much to talk about, except Dennis's indexing, "Decadance" this evening, and George's cranberry apple pie is nicely tart and Frank's cheesecake is super-good. Out about 11:15 with everyone else, and subway home, finishing "Your Are the World" hoping that the sniffles and nasal irritation I have are from their cats, and not the cold that Dennis says he doesn't want. We're into bed, smoking, the heater going almost full blast in the extreme cold, but neither of us really feel like coming: we enjoy cuddling and sucking, but we don't get close to orgasm, and finally we sleep about 2 am, as usual.
DIARY 11601
MONDAY, JANUARY 31. Alarm rings where I set it at 9, we cuddle for awhile, get up to change the sheets which had been thoroughly ripped last night, and Dennis works and vocalizes until he leaves for his singing class about 12. I decide I MUST get to the diary, so start typing with the help of his diary, and manage to get through six pages, but that's still only up to Tuesday of last week, and the typewriter isn't working well because of the damned space bar. OH, of course, we got out of bed at 10 to watch "The Rains of Ranchipur" with lots of people: Lana Turner, Richard Burton, Michael Rennie, Joan Caulfield, and particularly Eugenie Leontovich, whom Dennis adores. Watch that from 10 to 11:30, having breakfast of bacon and fried eggs in the intermissions. THAT passes the morning. Phone IBM and tell them the space bar isn't working, and the best he can do (besides trying to sell me a new typewriter for $700) is Wednesday morning for the missing part. Merely a week between visits! Wash dishes (it seems we dirty LOTS of them!), start dribbling at the nose, and make the sour-cream chicken and put in on at 5:30, hop in the shower until 6, get the "Star Trek" name I'd needed for humpy Apollo, and do the dishes from 6:10 to 6:35, when we eat, and then I leave hurriedly at 7:20, for no good reason, since I'm there at 7:50 still anyway, delighted to see that it's gone all the way up to 23 and feels warmer. Indeed, the ice has been melting off the windows at a pleasant rate, though the sills are being soaked, particularly where they're unpainted. Pay Matthew the $1.50 I owe Allan, then up to find that Hazel will STILL be with us, and lesson #8 is not the best of the lot (see DIARY 11602). Out about 9:45 and Hazel, Matthew, Malcolm and I end up riding the same subway down to 42nd Street, then disperse into many directions. Home to tell Dennis that I DO have a cold, and I suggest hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies after I check his alphabetizing and editing of the letters D-R from 10:30 to about 12:30, during which time I get pretty cold. Into bed with the heater on, and he's feeling horny, but doesn't really ACT in a way to bring it to completion, so finally we agree it might be better some other time. Set alarm for 9 again.
DIARY 11604
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1. [God, ANOTHER month!!] Took two Coricidin before going to bed at 2:30 and another two when I got up at 8:30, but couldn't get together enough to get into light-work. The alarm rang at 9 and no one moved, and about 9:30 we started cuddling, sucking, and having fun, but at 9:55 we got out to watch the ending of "Rains of Ranchipur," with its very spectacular earthquake, dam bursting, and flood about 1.5 hours into it. That goes from 10 to 11, then we have breakfast of soft-boiled eggs, Dennis goes back to editing cards, and I start on catching up with the diary. Arnie calls at 10:15 and calls back about 11, I call Ginny to make sure editing on his pages will be OK to a reasonable extent, and she tells me she's put in the bill for $750, so there's reason for happiness. Dana calls and talks about Tavern on the Green and is coming to dinner on Saturday. I rearrange the books on the shelf-to-be-read, bring the booklist in the LIST book up to date, and look forward to typing the new list of books wanted, which I'll probably do after this---no I won't, not with THIS spacing problem! Time passes, I check Dennis's cards some, we have lunch about 4:30, finishing up the hamburger/mushroom/noodle thing AND the roast beef, and I've put on long johns for the 60 heat IN THE LIVING ROOM, though it's gone up to the 20s outside and all the ice on the windows has receded to a wedge just above the sills. Finally catch up with this page at 7:55, having changed the calendar sheet and typed 14 pages! Then wash dishes again, beginning to feel tired from the cold, and make three cups of triple sec/honey/lemon/tea in a Mason jar and take it into the bathroom to soak in the tub for about a half-hour, feeling somewhat better, and then put on bathrobe, but that's too cold underneath, so I put on the red woolen pants, and then the sweater on top, looking vaguely Irish, as Dennis laughs at me and asks me to do a reel for him. We get into bed about 11, but he's not kissing me, we smoke and choke a lot, talk a lot, and one of these evenings got into what we felt in each of our bodies, but probably cuddled and sucked and didn't come either of us, though we both kept insisting that we were horny and wanted to come. Probably to sleep about 1:30, setting the alarm for 8:45 to be sure to be awake and up before the repairman comes.
DIARY 11609
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2. Alarm rings, but we don't move. I do light-work until 9:15, then Dennis is getting hard and demanding, so I start doing him with my hand, warning him that I thought the repairman would come without calling. JUST as he's ready to come in my hand, the buzzer goes, so I finish him off, he gasping and gritting his teeth as I bear down on his creamy cock, quickly don pants and a sweater, wipe off my hands, and let in the repairman, who goes with his characteristic directness to the typewriter as Dennis described, and I wonder what would pass through his head if he smelled (and knew the smell) of the come on my hands. Dennis is up and editing, asking me questions, and I check the rest of what he'd edited before. Then I'm finished and Dennis isn't, so I get out the pages to be sorted and decide to split up the largest volume: 17: People, places, and things, into Gay people (Q for queers), straight people (R for regular), and places (P), and start sorting out those pages. The repairman's done about 12:30, giving me the ball free with which I'm typing now, giving me a new set of and and a one to the left: 1:l as the ell. With an ! where the +/- is on the keyboard. But the bill is $168 and the contract will be $31 and change, so it's as close to $200 as makes no matter---and the space bar STILL doesn't work well enough---no, THAT'S not the ! Warm up the sour-cream chicken for breakfast/lunch/brunch about 1, and then he takes to the typewriter and I continue with sorting the pages for the diary, taking down volumes and spreading the sheets out on the table in the living room while he types in the study, starting about 3 pm. I wait until he's gotten a lot of experience with typing, and asking fewer questions, before I go out at 4:45 to pick up a record at the library for the jacket to buy stamps at the post office, for $20!, then to the supermarket, the new D'Agostino's, to pick up almost $20 worth of groceries and lug everything home about 5:45. Continue sorting after showering and shaving, then we make tacos and refried beans (not so great from a can) and he gets back to work as I watch "The Sunspot Mystery" from 8 to 9, then a Great Stoned Great Performances "Salome" with Teresa (see DIARY 11610) Stratas and awful German people from 9 to 11, and he's STILL typing, so I watch pieces of "Tonight" and "Ikiru" until he stops about 1:15, and we're in bed to neck to 2:30 am.
DIARY 11611
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3. Alarm again rings at 8:45, and this time Dennis gets out of bed and starts working while I lay there and do light-work, except that Art calls and talks about tonight, which breaks my chain of working. Back to the page-sorting, and then Dennis is wondering when he'll finish, but he's only doing 6 pages/hour typing, so I say he definitely won't be finished today, so I call Ginny and tell her it'll be tomorrow, and she says that'll be fine. Check through the work that he did, find lots of things wrong with his punctuation and convince him he should have put it in as he went along, and kept insisting that he keep track of his hourly rates for various tasks, which he doesn't quite get together yet. Errors in alphabetization, too. Down for the mail but it's only the Soho Weekly News, which I take almost two hours to read through, and then continue with the next batch of his pages. I made some bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast, and then about 4:30 we decided we'd better have something before Art's late tonight, so he mixed one can of tuna while I finished washing the dishes AGAIN (did it almost every day for the past week!) and we had that with toast and the blackberry jello (awful Royal brand, as he said) with bananas that he'd put on last night but we didn't have time to eat. Then he's back to typing, Art Ostrin calls to say that the evening's OFF because I'd called earlier to say I had a cold and would be coughing, and he said EVERYONE was feeling unwell. Dennis and I started fooling around with cocks and the phone rang. I chortled "That's Art and the evening's back on" and it WAS! Art Bauman had called earlier inviting me to Monopoly at his place tonight, but I had to turn him down. So I shower and wash my hair and we're so horny that we put on the electric blanket and crawl into bed to look at porno and he comes once and I come and then he comes AGAIN, and we're up at 8:30 and get to Art's about 9:10, drinking wine and talking until the other three arrive at 10:30, and Bob Marshall's a lisping tour director, Reese's a cute gallery owner on Jane Street, and Wayne's a DYNAMITE-handsome Pan Am steward who sweats at the evening's end to help Dennis on with his shoe. We all leave about 1:15, getting home nicely stoned and full from the chili and salad and tofu cheesecake at 2, again setting the alarm, mentally, to get up early and do lots of work tomorrow.
DIARY 11612
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4. I wake about 8, listening with misery to the woman upstairs; then try light-work but the dog next door is barking constantly. Dennis seems awake so I ask "Did you want to get up?" and he's blearily out of bed by 9:20 to get to the final checking, after he finished typing after I went to BED last night. 75 pages with 1845 lines is about right, and I check the last pages and guide him to the errors I'd found in the earlier pages, and down for the mail at 12 to find more returns from the porno mailing, though not THAT great, and then he types one page over and the title page, and then I arrange the stacks of SORTED and NUMBERED pages on a table to type the ORIGINAL title pages for (as TITLE PAGES 52-55; DIARY 11605-11608) those pages for which I should have typed the title pages FIRST. But now I can type the volume page-number, too! Dennis leaves after showering at about 2, saying he'll get something to eat outside. I type those pages and feel hungry about 4:30, so I have some cereal for breakfast and then read the rest of the mail (New York on FRIDAY is LOUSY), and then get to these pages to catch up at LAST on the diary with these four pages at 5:50 pm. Can't think of much else to do, so I check the "Star Trek," then set up the coffee table with all the pages on it and begin typing (no, I DID that!!), so I continue by typing the datebook pages 143-145 on DIARY 11513-11615, getting it over nice and quickly because it's only from the middle of July. Then make up the index-sheets for the four new volumes by typing the tabs, and start with the journal and go through with travel, and then I'm just not feeling like doing much more, so I get into the kitchen about 8 to make the rest of the hamburger for dinner, reading Scientific American while I do it, and then eat and don't feel like doing anything other than going to bed. OH, about 4 I just felt so horny with the mailings that I went in and smoked bidi and jerked off, quite quickly and liquidly, but it felt so good. Then got out the porno again and jerked off again, and that took until about 11, and then I went to sleep, fortunately with the phone next to the bed, because Dennis phoned at 12, I moved around fixing up the apartment until he arrived at 12:35, we talked, smoked, but the pipe was stuffed so we just rolled over at about 2 am, our usual time, and slept without further action.
DIARY 11616
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5. Wake about 8 but don't feel together enough to do any light-work. Dennis surfaces about 9:30 and we cuddle and he gets into his cock and gets VERY hard, helped by my egging him on, and he really glories in its hardness so much that I holler at him to stretch it out, stretch it out, and when he SAYS he's coming and when he DOES come seems separated by a marvelous stretch of edge-walking. I try to get into mine, but I'm thinking of all I have to do today, so we're up. He makes breakfast while I make out checks for various bills and check on the checking account, and he's come up with bacon and fried eggs and it's all very good; we finish just about noon. Then he calls Dana and Jody and tells them that we have a cold, but persuades them to come over anyway. I start dusting and vacuuming while he goes to the store to pick up lots of stuff for the dinner tonight, and then I go out to pick up a large vat, another cake tin, and a gallon of wine while he goes home to pick up the Christmas gifts he has for Dana, sure that Dana will have something for him. Poor Jody's allergic to dogs! I get back and start on the cake mixing when Dennis comes in (OH!, forgot about the INCREDIBLE impromptu sex we had this afternoon, see DIARY 11617) with more stuff for dinner, and he starts cutting vegetables for the chicken while I finish with the cakes and take a shower myself. WNCN provides music for the afternoon. Down to Mrs. Johnson for basil when John doesn't have any, but she gives me rosemary and "orders" Dennis to use it. Good people. Then he goes to vocalize and I type these two pages to come up to date at 7 pm, good WITH cold. Dennis wants to smoke before they come, so I get to making the icing for the two cakes (which look super) until 7:35, at which time they ring the bell and come up. They bring a Carol Channing record for Dennis and a fruit cake for me ("Hope you don't take it personally," smiled Dana), we had first a regular daiquiri and then a banana daiquiri with ice borrowed from John (who answered the phone as if he were stoned and answered the door with a smile and a costume on, and I said "You must tell me about it sometime," and he leered back and said "OK."), which almost puts Jody under the table. Dennis's chicken is good, the vegetables are a great hit, I put too much vinegar in the salad, and they like the cakes, the white wine, and I get rid of the poor "new Beaujolais." They leave about 12:30, we crawl into bed sated with everything about 1 am, ready for immediate sleep.
DIARY 11621
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 6. Wake at 8 as Dennis goes to the john, but then he goes back to sleep and I get through a cycle of light-work before he wakes again about 10:30 and I gently caress his cock until it's perfectly hard, and he's into it so much that he's groaning and moaning and staring at it and getting into it and finally comes with the agonizing ecstasy of slowness which is so exquisite, plopping large gouts of come onto my chest, gasping at my pressure on his nipples (all day yesterday he went around with oil spots on his tee-shirt when he'd tried to sooth his tweaked protuberances), and then rolled off to the side while I drove my cock crazy with the "Now I will; no, longer" seesaw to total arousal and definitive coming. Out of bed totally comed at 11:35, and show him how to proofread at 12:15 after he talks to his folks and I clean up the place a bit, and then I wash dishes and he proofreads until 12, when I go out for the Times and he makes a grand breakfast of bacon, sautéed Jerusalem artichokes (raw and good in the salad last night), and scrambled eggs with the rest of the fresh mushrooms, just great. That's over at 2:35 and I have to rush out to Actualism, convincing him to stay and watch "Salome," eat the rest of the food here tonight, and finish the proofreading. Subway to 72nd right in time for my Hand-Session (see DIARY 11618) and leave at 5:30 to get home at 6 and pick up a roll of toilet paper (Dennis didn't mark on the list when he used the last one, of course, because I didn't tell him about my system of reordering) and check his 13 finds on the proofreading, convincing him he SHOULD do it next time. Good. Then watch the ending of "Mighty Joe Young" and he starts cooking dinner and I get to typing these four pages by 8:10, looking forward to early dinner and sex. But then we get involved in an endless conversation about my personal feelings about time and priorities (see DIARY 11622) which I enjoy very much, but it means that we find ourselves getting ready for bed only at 11 pm, and he's said that he has such a cold that he's not smelling anything, so I take advantage of his non-smelling and don't bother to take a shower this late at night. He comes in a block-busting totally spectacular way, hanging onto the edge, announcing it, holding back on it, and REALLY feeling it all the way. Sex is SO great with him. Get to sleep about 1, setting the alarm for 8 am.
DIARY 11628
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7. Alarm rings at 8 and we're up feeling pretty dreadful, and he finally gets off to work about 9:45, and I don't feel like getting into anything until I read the paper. Read that, browse contentedly through the Magazine section, then get into the puzzles and the double crostic comes quickly but the crossword just doesn't work, but I keep at it, looking in dictionaries and thesauruses and quotation books trying to find solutions, and at last put it away and decide I MUST shower before going to my duties for the day. Don't even get to any of the diary before I have to dash out at 3:10, waiting a long time for a JAMMED subway at Borough Hall (though a marvelous fillip: ask a black woman smoking in the subway "MUST you smoke in the subway?" with a laugh. At first she ignores me, but what I asked must sink in and she looks back at me and says "No, I DON'T," and crushes it under her foot. Grand. Then I find that I FORGOT to bring along a book to read (forget #1), very strange.). Get to Rachel about 3:40 and she's chattering away on the phone in Chinese interspersed with "That's OK" and "Right." She gives me a form to fill out and for a second I think it's only an interview, but then she persuades me to put down $8/hour and flexible for everything else and gives me "Econometric Study of Saudi Arabia" by Bashir to do, and it's mostly FORMULAS! Out about 4:15 and across to the library to have a copy of "What Are You Going To Do About It?" by Huxley xeroxed. Funny with the format: catalog for number, call slip for book, pink flag for xeroxing, form from room, form to take BACK to information desk "And then the library DOES like forms...," and then get pages for $5.10! Out about 5, across to Times Square subway and up to Dennis's to turn off blazing radiator and work on the index from 5:45 to 7. He calls, asking if there's enough time to buy groceries, comes in with liver that he defrosts and fries with delicious onions, and I dash out quickly at 7:55 to race down to Actualism at 8:15 on the dot. Actualism #9 is interesting as always (see DIARY 11629) and pick up a copy of "The Dead Father" on the way back. Rig up a towel-hanger-glass-tray humidifier in front of the radiator for him, smoke just about the end of his grass, and get into his cock very nicely, so that he comes all over the place. I fall asleep cuddling against him OUTSIDE the blanket at 1.
DIARY 11630
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8. Radio goes at 8 and Dennis is out of bed immediately heating coffee, returning to cuddle until it's done, then showers, and I feel NOT like getting up, but he makes the rest of the liver and it's a good breakfast. I get home about 10:30 and call IBM, and he says he'll be over THIS AFTERNOON for the spacing problem. Great. I work a bit more on the puzzle, still convinced that I can't finish it, so I tear it out and put it into the drawer, where I glance at it through the week. Put the journal stuff on a stack, fix up the apartment, and suddenly see that I have to go to the BANK soon. Chris comes and makes his bee-line to the typewriter as I read more magazine articles, and then he announces that something to do with the spacing had been cracked and had now fallen apart, so he has to RETURN in the morning to fix it. I'd started typing ONE page for the diary, and now I can't finish! Phone Dennis and say we should do SOMETHING tonight, so he suggests meeting at TKTS at 6:30. I water plants and fix things up around the apartment and update my booklist and generally waste time until I get out to the bank at 5:30, forgetting the check for Byron (forget #2), getting the check for the account, then going through to the subway to Times Square at 6:20, and the line is very short so I get two tickets to "Dirty Linen" as Dennis said I probably would. Stand reading "The Dead Father" as he passes me by, then suggests we eat at a Broadway Coffee Shop that he saw advertising an Italian special for $2.49, and we're down to 43rd and Broadway and it's tot BAD: a glass of good Italian Swiss Colony wine, nicely fruity and almost sweet, a pile of spaghetti and bread, and a tiny veal parmigiana, for which they had to ring up a charge of 50 for the wine, so the $1.99 meal wasn't bad at all, and the Irish waitress was twinkly and sparkly and Dennis loved her. Out to the theater at 7:50, and up to the third row of the rear mezzanine for $9 face value, $5 TKTS-value ticket for a rather awful play (see DIARY 11631). Out at 9:35 after only 90 minutes and come back here so that I can catch the repairman. In to a warm apartment, thankfully, and get a message from Art, but he's not home, and smoke and talk and get into delightful sex, while Dennis scans the awful stuff I've been getting from After Dark mailings, and we again manage to get to sleep about 1 am, setting the alarm for him at 8.
DIARY 11632
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9. Though the alarm rings at 8, we're not out of bed at 8:45, joking about coming just as the repairman rings, as happened last week. But Dennis eats and leaves for work and I debate calling (DO call, but get no answer at the IBM office) and finally he gets in about 11, and works to 11:45, saying that it should be a better touch now. I leave immediately to get out to 47 Horatio Street just after 12 to pick up "Time Out" from Wayne Aycock, sad to hear he has a lover, but he implies that he might be invitable to an orgy at some time. I give him $1 and he's flying off to the south of France but hates to be away for the Valentine's weekend: he'll miss so many friends, cards, and parties. Leave at 12:30 and stop in at the Science-Fiction bookshop, picking up a long awaited Clarke and a new Wyndham and a lot of Ballards, but add more Ballards to the list. Walk out and a block or so when I FIND I'D FORGOTTEN MY WALLET ON THE COUNTER (forget #3). Back to see the clerk shuffling through my cards, saying he's glad I returned. Yeah. Then wait for the 8th Avenue subway and sit in the lobby looking at the elegant clientele of the Hotel Olcott before going upstairs at 1:55 for my oil and vibrator job with Rebecca, not that interesting (see DIARY 11633). Out about 3:30, and Jan laughs and says that my forgetting would be due to my work with the STRUCTURING light of the Energy of Perfection. Then walk up Broadway, picking up a schedule of performances for Louis-Nikolais at the Beacon, making an appointment with Haydee at 5, having a slice of pizza, checking books at Barque and picking up "Beyond Theology" and a new Gamov book, then to the barbershop to read and get a poorish haircut from a Haydee who's moving with all the subtlety of a cockroach. To Dennis's at 6 and look through all my new books, my book-wanted list falling apart, and then get to work on the index from 7:40 to 10:10 (having skimmed a book about Ted Shawn by Walter Terry, quite frank about Shawn's gayness), starving, and finally Dennis's back from his singing lesson. Though he'd eaten, he puts on chicken to cook and I eat at 11:30, then we smoke, and get into incredible sex, and he comes on my chest while masturbating toward the light at the foot of the bed. We turn on Viveca Lindfors in "Cauldron of Blood" but turn it off quickly. Sleep about 1:30, possibly a bit earlier than usual, but still later than it should be.
DIARY 11634
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10. Alarm goes at 8, Dennis is up to shower while I lay there, and then he has breakfast ready of eggs and bacon, and we leave about 9:45. I get home and decide I REALLY want to type the books-wanted list, so I do, getting things wrong and adding more books, and then get into typing lists of short stories by Ballard, Wyndham, and Blackwood (see DIARY 11624-11627) for 4 pages typed today. Then Lauren calls and says that Jim LeMaster is going out of town for the next two weeks so that our meeting has to be Friday at 10:30. I finally tear myself away from the nonsense typing and my infatuation with my list (and put the books onto the shelf, upping the list of books to read to 126, with 81 to get yet. Shower and shave and type drafts of two of the letters, getting out the clickers to find that the syllabic intensity is quite low, but I leave it to see if it might now, in fact, be OK. Was glad that Peggy didn't want to meet BEFORE the play for dinner, and Paul was good in saying that he'd have three tickets waiting for us at the box office tonight in my name. The woman upstairs had been out working, or something, the earlier days of the week, but Mrs. Gray said that she refused to pay the 7% rent increase, so she might be kicked out because of THAT; maybe she was apartment-hunting. But now she's clomping around upstairs again and I'm glad I'm going out tonight. Finished "The Dead Father" (would that all books I read were that short) on the subway this morning, so I'm back to Chardin's letters. Out at 7:25 and get to the lobby at 7:55 to pick up the pass for 3 from a woman and a glimpse of an elegant Paul Bosten, just as Dennis and Peggy (looking hollow-eyed and sick, rather reminding me of Helen Arnett) come in, and we're off the side aisle in the 6th row. "Your Arms Too Short to Box with God" is somewhat more sedate this time (see DIARY 11635). They both love it, and we're out at 10 to hunt for restaurants, stopping at the Rio-Lisboa on 46th where I have Fejoida, good beans and ham and sausage, and they have fabulous garlic-chicken with tasty french fries that I eat most of and collard greens. Peggy is VERY sleepy, so we put her into a cab about 11:45 and get to my place to smoke and cuddle and then (I guess Dennis comes, but maybe not) to sleep about 1:30.
DIARY 11636
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11. Alarm goes at 8 and we lay until about 8:30, when I check the clicking on the first two, slice pork shoulder for frying for breakfast (with the muffins that I picked up last night), but when it's 9:15 and I have to leave in 45 minutes, I tell Dennis to continue the cooking (which he does with green beans, apple sauce, and toasted muffins) while I type up the third letter. In for a quick breakfast, don't bother to shower, phone Lauren at 10:10 to say I'll be late, which she doesn't care for, but I get out about 10:15, JUST get the subway at Clark Street, and though the local doors CLOSE across from me as I exit the express at Times Square, I see the conductor answering a question with the FRONT doors open and dash up THERE to just make it, getting to Lauren's empty office at 10:37, undoubtedly a record. Directed to Jim LeMaster's office and he's starting to tear Bob Lamb's work apart. Mine he treats a bit better, generally saying I should write about ONE thing only, and then we're into Lauren's office for a recap, Bob leaves, and I stay until about 12:30 chatting about ballet and then leave. Home about 1:30 and type 5 pages to get somewhat caught up on my diary, talk to Arnold who's back from Acapulco and about to leave for Palm Springs and read the Soho Weekly News. Shower and shave about 5:30, have some toasted cream cheese sandwiches with jelly, and remember that I spent about half an hour on the phone with Rachel In, discovering that the proofreader did a LOUSY job, so I'm to call her on Monday to pick up the pages for proofreading errors before I type the cards. Also went out for groceries after taking out the laundry. Lots of things done. Then out at 6:35 to get to the Manhattan Theatre Club at 7:30 to find we can't get in to "Billy Irish," but Dennis still wants to do something, so we find that "Casanova" has just started, that the paperback bookshop on 71st has nothing that I want, and that "Network" starts at 9:10, so we buy tickets for $3.50, buy a record for Dennis, and get inside for a FABULOUS movie (see DIARY 11637). Out 11:15 and subway to my place (since I didn't want to carry around HIS index, and he DID manage to get home and shower and change after his singing lesson before coming to the theater) where I broil hamburger and we have that and beans until 12:35, then get into bed and cuddle and sleep without smoking or coming at about 2:30, deciding to save the fun for the morning.
DIARY 11638
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12. I start light-work at 9:15 (the metal rod fell over on the window, letting in BRIGHT light JUST at my eyes JUST at 8:30) and don't quite finish by 9:45 when Dennis comes alive, starts cuddling, and gets into an INCREDIBLY oozy masturbation with GREAT globs of white come afterwards expressed with BREATHTAKING slowness over poppers. Then I take his copious come and lave my cock to a heart-stopping orgasm that it takes a LONG time to recover from, but then we have time to crawl out of bed by 11. Make french toast for breakfast, phone Arnie for the drill, Pope to say hello, and Michael Sullivan to celebrate his green card after three years, all from 12 to 12:30. Then start Dennis on his index after he figures his time estimate for it, out at 1 to get a Mexican stamp, a niddle-noddle with a pen for Dennis from Mexico when Arnie didn't get to see his nephews, and the drill with instructions on how to put up strips for wood. Stop across the hall to help Pope with his puzzle, finishing it (and getting SATI as the Egyptian goddess to finish MY puzzle) with him, then drop off the drill with my mail and pick up the laundry after stopping into the DREARY flea market at Montague and Henry and finding nothing, and then back about 3 to help Dennis with the index and type these seven pages to get up to date at 5:30 pm. By that time Dennis is hungry and I make the rest of the hamburger with the mushroom soup, and I'd bought frozen peas from the supermarket so we had some of those too. We can't decide when to go to his place tonight, but we DO want to get into sex, so after dinner we look at each other, smile, smoke, and crawl into bed and have an incredible session in which we each come with more energy than we'd expended in a long time. But then I'm so stoned by about 11:30 that I just DON'T feel like going to his place (there were TV movies on, and we DID manage to catch the battle on the ice in "Alexander Nevsky" from 10:20 to 11, and then I wanted to subway so we could get to Dennis's by 12 so that I could catch another movie that I'd marked, but I felt so out of it and ready for bed), so we crawled into bed about 12:30, not even having gotten the Times, and slept almost immediately.
DIARY 11639
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 13. I wake early and do light-work, but I'm still not into it, and Dennis wakes about 9 and we probably have sex, except that I think he might have bounded out of bed, determined to head for home, which we did before he even had COFFEE, which made him a bit testy when I said that since he was carrying HIS index he should carry MINE since I was buying the Times, and he practically sputtered and insisted that I carry MY index MYSELF. Get to his place about 10:10, he makes coffee, I read the Times, his folks call about 10:45, I watch a sexy Thomas Pasatieri on Camera Three from 11 to 11:30, Dennis off phone at 11:20 but not seeing Pasatieri, and then he gets to making breakfast about 12:30, after watching Louise Nevelson with Beverly Sills on "Lifestyles" from 12 to 12:30. I finish reading the Times and doing the puzzle by 2:35, at which time I start back on the index from 2:35 to 5:05, when we have something else to eat, and from 6-8---No, at 5 I put on a Young People's Concert from Philharmonic Hall with a syrupy-with-kids-but-I'll-bet-he's-a-whiz-with-adult-men Michael Tilson Thomas doing a rather puerile "Making pictures with music" until 6, and then I watch "Island of Terror" with huge sea-slugs and Peter Cushing (a tossup which was worse) and a moaning woman from 6-8, WHILE indexing, and then turn on "2001: A Space Odyssey" while we DO eat, and then intersperse it with 2.3 hours of "Oscar's Best Movies" from the 48 Academy Award Winning Films from 1927-1975 from 9-11:20. Dennis is working around the apartment cleaning things up, moving me from here to there, washing and scrubbing everything, and HE feels good about it so so do I. Then he showers and I shower and we smoke and get into cock for a couple of hours, using up tons of matches from the Algonquin Hotel which they left for Dennis and which he says we have to use up because they keep overflowing the bowl he keeps for them. Find more broken glass from the bathroom fixture that Greg broke for the only downer of his stay (except that he hasn't picked up the rest of his stuff yet, which he did VERY soon after: the day I got his phone number from Arnold---today?), and get to sleep with the radiator turned completely off about 1, comfortable.
DIARY 11640
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14. I wake about 8:30 but can't get into light-work, and Dennis is up about 9 and into his cock so much that he goes into the kitchen for poppers and comes very nicely on my chest. Then we're up quickly, he wants to go in to Tree for the afternoon after his lesson in singing, so we have a deal about who's going to make what for dinner. I finish my work on marking the index from 9:50 to 10:50, phone Rachel who'll send a messenger after it, and talk to her from 11:10 to 11:40 about the problems in the manuscript and the pages. Repairmen come to fix the leaking radiator which has been causing the ceiling to drip in the apartment below WAY away from the leak itself, and Dennis squares away the fact that they DO have a key to his apartment. He goes off to his singing lesson, I buzz up a STARTLINGLY beautiful-eyed messenger about 12:30, and then spend the rest of the afternoon in the delightful luxury of reading old New Yorker magazines. Dennis returns about 3:30, and finally when I PRESS him into saying what he did, he meet Frank in a supermarket and went home with him for sex, and they both came, even though Dennis had come with me only this morning. At least he told me about it at all! Then he makes some sort of meal and I say I'll bring back pizza from my class tonight, which he thinks is a great idea. He continues working around the apartment and I continue on New Yorkers until I leave about 7:55 for Actualism, and as I'd hoped, it was an intensive that allowed me another week to work on the problematic Energy of Perfection (see DIARY 11641). Out about 10:10 and walk up to 95th (the better pizza place at 93rd has been closed, I didn't know) to order a pizza, then buy a glass quart of apple juice so Dennis'll have the bottle Greg threw out for him, and then carry the pizza down to Dennis, who's still working on the index at 11, and he waits until he finished part at 12 before heating it in the oven and we have about 3/8 of it and put the rest into the fridge. Undress and smoke and get into cocks again, but I'm tired and he's come twice already today, so it's not hard to say "let's go to sleep" at a particular time, and we do about 1, the earliest in AGES. Find that Dennis keeps LOOKING at me, and I'm beginning to wonder if something might not be going wrong.
DIARY 11643
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15. We're awake about 9 and possibly have sex, except that I thought we got up fairly quickly, had breakfast, and went to my place to work, except that Dennis's records show that he starts on his index only at 2 pm. Whatever happened, I finish "Letters to Two Friends" on the subway, and then while he's typing the cards I take the opportunity to sit down from about 1 to about 1:30 to update the movie list, taking it from the typed datebook pages, checking the journal for a movie that I'd totally forgotten about, and passed the day answering his questions, updating the list, and eating whenever we wanted to. Oops, almost forgot that about 2:50 I decided I needed money---AND the mail had brought in the $5390 check from ACC, so I decided I had to go to the bank, figuring that I would be losing ABOUT $1 a day in interest for each day I didn't deposit it. While going to the bank, I decided to renew my driver's license, which had been hanging around for at LEAST two months to do, delayed by the Pediatrics index, and when I checked where the 2nd floor science-fiction shop was, I took down Sergio and Kenneth's address and decided to stop by on THEM. Armed with this schedule, I left about 2:55, kissing Dennis goodbye, and got to the bank just as it was closing with almost NO lines, then walked up Schermerhorn for almost no lines at the renewal desk, went through the VERY clear eye test, and paid my $4.50 for my license until 1981! Out of there about 3:30, feeling great in the warming weather, and walked up Flatbush and the remaining ice floes in the curbs and gutters to 6th, knocked and got no answer at Sergio's, and then up to 7th Street and the CHARMING fellow at the bookshop, where I picked up another autograph: that of John Updike in "Assorted Prose." Home to see that of the TWO "new" stories by Sturgeon, one I'd had before. Drop a note under the door at what I HOPE is Sergio's house, then walk back by about 5:30. Dennis breaks from 6:30 to 8, so that's probably when we ate, and then he works until 1:30 while I watch a quite good "Where Have All the People Gone?" by John Lewis Carlino about a solar flare that causes a viral disease that kills about 95% of the people, who then carry on, though the second flare might be fatal to THOSE, too, though they don't say that. Then at 1:30 watch "Dark City" with a debut of a grand Charlton Heston as a gambler who finally marries "his kind of woman," Lizabeth Scott, whom I kept thinking was Lauren Bacall. Bed happy at 3:30 am.
DIARY 11644
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16. Wake sometime between 10 and 11, probably didn't do light-work since my impression is that the week was very bad for that, and probably had sex, since Dennis didn't start work until 12:30, so probably we didn't have breakfast until about noon. I sit with the movie list and add things up and calculate new columns and even get the slide rule to trace the changing average of "number of days between movies" from year to year. Then I announce that I can't think of anything more to do with the movie list and take to the drill in the kitchen to put up the two spice racks. Then start looking for the braces that I'm SURE I remember having, for the kitchen shelf, and just can't find them. Ransack the closets, search under the kitchen cabinets, look in the drawers in the study, move all the games out of the closet and find Don O'Shea's old "exclamation ball shadowed by a question-mark ball" artwork that I'd been missing, but just can't come up with the braces. Call Eddie but his phone's disconnected and call him the next day at work for chatting (he doesn't have a camera yet, so there wasn't even a MENTION of paying me), but he swears he didn't take them, though he offers me some 8" braces that I decide are too big. Even call John and HE says he doesn't remember them. So from about 6:30 to 7:30 I'm in a tremendous funk, observed by Dennis since he's finished typing his cards at 6:30 and is tearing them in the living room while I'm sitting there in a depression. So many thought-fragments came up that it's worth a separate page (see DIARY 11645). Galvanize myself at 7:30 to watch a half-hour on apes, then watch the Monte Carlo circus acts from 8-9, particularly beautifully-muscled acrobats and aerialists with awful faces, and then get interested in "A Man Called Horse," finally calling Paul Bosten (who though of coming over, but since he has to work early tomorrow he says he'll be over for dinner tomorrow night instead) to say I'm involved in it, he should arrive at 11. I make the sour-cream chicken in an intermission and we eat it in the living room as Dennis starts editing. That finishes at 11:20 and I don't even bother to take down the table as we shower, shave, smoke, sex, and finally sleep again at 2 am, probably.
DIARY 11646
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17. Probably wake at 10 (and maybe THIS was the morning that I woke at 8:30, vaguely started the light going, dozed off, woke again, moved it a bit, marveled at the passage of time, and didn't even finish when Dennis moved closer, eyes open and gleaming, at 10) and I guess we didn't COME, only played at sex until 11, when he starts work until 1, which is probably when we have breakfast or a brunch of tuna salad with celery and curry powder from my new spice rack. Then I get to typing the 10 movie pages to finish THAT task and start on the contents pages from some of the journal volumes. Dennis on ONE of these days stands behind me fresh from the shower and hugs me with his cock sticking into my back. We neck for a bit, beam at each other, and dash into the bedroom to strip, try getting high with bidis which doesn't work, and get the poppers to have a nice sex session in the middle of the afternoon. Anyway, for SOME reason he didn't work between 3:30 and 4:30, and it was PROBABLY this time. Then I dress and get out to return the QPBI paperback that I DIDN'T order and for groceries for tonight's dinner, then get back to typing until 6:30, when I put the pork shoulders (2) into the oven, hoping the greenness of the older one won't affect anything. Then shower and shave and answer numerous questions from Dennis---AND (almost forgot!) talked to Rachel In and Fred Bernardi about Econometrics: the beautiful messenger delivered the index BACK to me at 5:15 yesterday WITHOUT A MARK TO ANSWER MY QUESTIONS, and after checking with Dennis that it seemed reasonable to EXPECT an answer, I called and found the author was in Saudi Arabia, they wouldn't change the manuscript, and expect me to index to the WRONG entries. I doubt that I will. Anyway, spend time on THAT from 9 to 10:15 this morning! Fix up the place for dinner, Dennis starts on the salad, and Paul comes in about 8:20 with a bottle of sparkling Asti Spumante that I put into the freezer. He's had two scotches already, we drink white wine to start, then have the wine with dinner, which turns out pretty good, and we're talking about how he started in the box office business, his house, our indexes, theater in general, and get to smoking. By this time (10), Paul is stretched out on the sofa totally zonked, and he leaves about 11:45, saying he has to get up early THIS morning, too. Dennis and I cheerfully get to bed and feel VERY good but don't come. I glance at clock at 12:55 and want to see "Long Voyage Home" at 1, but when I look at clock AGAIN it's 2:30, so I'm up to watch the last 10 minutes and sleep at 2:40.
DIARY 11647
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18. Probably up at 10 again and maybe AGAIN try to come and don't, and then I guess I get to the dishes and putting things away AGAIN, since Rick's supposed to come this afternoon, and Dennis phones him to find out when. I know I type more pages of contents, and Dennis asks me how often I do this. He's relieved when I say yearly, because he seems to think it takes up much too much time if I'd do it monthly. I THINK this is the day Dennis comes up to me (he worked from 1-3 and from 4-4:30) and said we never seem to have time for SEX, so I smile down at him and AGAIN we get undressed and hop into bed in the afternoon. He comes very quickly on my chest and I use his come to work on myself, but since I haven't come in some time I come VERY copiously over my hand and thumb and belly and chest, even spattering some come down on my legs, and we're up then, both quite content. Then he goes off to his singing lesson. Rick is due to arrive between 5 and 6, so I shower at 5 and start getting things neater in the apartment when he rings in about 5:30, and we chat for a bit, he makes a few phone calls, I put things away (I'm doing the dishes as he enters, so he has some Sciarada while I'm washing), and he calls to find that "Night of the Iguana" and "The Cherry Orchard" are sold out for tonight. We'd talked about the Louis-Nikolais ballet, but I don't think I have the schedule and when Dennis arrives at 7:10, it's too late to do anything but sit around and talk and drink sherry and wine. He's hurt his back and doesn't want to walk very far, so we're out about 9:30 to Bilqis where they've run out of duck bigarade for $4.95 so I have a Cornish hen for $3.95 while they have Bilqis glaba and stuffed grape leaves and everyone likes it. Talk about Rick's relationship with the non-coming Bruce, and back about 11 to hear that Rick's tired, so I pull down the blinds in the living room and he goes to sleep while Dennis and I sit and talk in the bedroom, eventually ending up having very nice sex, but Dennis gets VERY stoned and starts emitting tiny, pained, squeaking-gasping noises and wincing and clasping his tits that I've squeezed too hard and falls asleep about 1. I'm hoping Rick isn't uncomfortable listening to us.
DIARY 11648
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19. Alarm rings at 9 to start the day early, and I make the rest of the bacon (almost past the point of edibility) and six fried eggs to get everyone on their way by 10. Dennis goes off to a "Hot l Baltimore" tryout (walking) in Park Slope and Rick goes shopping for 9 lbs of coffee and a bathrobe. I start typing some diary pages at LAST, but when I get to the page on Monday's Actualism, I phone for another phone call and type a page on THAT (see DIARY 11642), and then go PRACTICE what she said from 10:50 to 11:10. But can't really get into it, finish off the four pages that I did, and am washing dishes listening to Scriabin when Richard comes in AGAIN, then leaves to buy the coffee up near Dennis's place, returning here in time for me to have showered and shaved, and at 1:20 we subway off to Broadway. Down to the john for relief and up to the last row of the Broadhurst for "Sly Fox," a fabulously funny comedy with George C. Scott (see DIARY 11649). Out at 4:30 wondering what to do, so we walk up to the Uris and find that standing room for tomorrow's last performance goes on sale at 10 am tomorrow morning. It's beginning to snow HUGE WET flakes again. Continue walking up to Lincoln Center, where I buy tickets for tomorrow's ballet and they buy tickets for "The Cherry Orchard" for March 12. Then we continue up to 69th and the Fleur de Lis, where they like the menu, so we're in for Dennis's first tripe, my first venison (not terribly gamy, but somewhat; quite gristly, though not obnoxiously so; tasty even though I accepted her suggestion of medium rare, which was quite broiled on the outside and almost raw on the inside), and "one of the three best" duck bigarades that Rick ever had. The bill is $50, rather a shock, but the Medoc was good for $7.50, my puréed chestnuts went over well; the vichyssoise was interesting in texture, if not in taste; the lobster bisque fabulous, the onion soup not as interesting. Out at 7 to subway to Dana's at 7:50, Jody looking somewhat perturbed that there are three of us, but they weren't home earlier. To Phone. They pour out almost half a bottle of Amaretto da Soronno for Dennis and me, Rick and Richard arrive (Richard, Dana's former semi-lover, with new contact lenses, seems uncomfortable through the evening; Rick is quiet but a pixy-faced doll), and we watch Bette Midler from 9-11, having homemade crepes in the intermish (and I ASKED "Is there an intermish?" when I came IN, freaking out Dana), more wine, and we leave at 12:15 and get home about 1:30, VERY tired and VERY full, buying two copies of the Times. I finish "Terminal Beach." Midler (see DIARY 11650) funny; we talk of jazz (see DIARY 11656); bed at 2:30.
DIARY 11653
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20. We wake together about 10, me not having time for light-work, but we start playing with each other's cocks and Dennis ends up giving me the MOST fabulous hand-job---rather like the FIRST ones that impressed me so much about him, and HE and I just LOVED it. Then out of bed while he calls his folks and I watch the Yale Repertory Theater and a nearly-nude Robert Drivas as Antony on Camera Three, and then make a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs for a grumpy Richard---NO, NO, NO, THAT sex was MONDAY; TODAY I woke at 9:45, telling Dennis I was going to Circle in the Square for tickets, to which he replied "This is not a value judgment, but you are a VERY peculiar person," since I'd said I did NOT want to see the play. Up and "created" the "completely sold out" sign, the book of SRO seats, and the seller saying "I have a pair of seats." Back with what Dennis calls "a coup" and THEN I watch Camera Three, and eat breakfast while Beverly Sills laughs and trivializes her way through an interview with Gael Greene (who DOES look worse than she photographs) and Craig Claiborne---saying NOTHING of value. I type one page, read some of the Times, probably wash dishes, and we get out about 2:15 to watch people pleading for tickets outside "Night of the Iguana," which was VERY good indeed (see DIARY 11654). Out about 5:55 after a LOVING ovation and cast-blast, and walk quickly up to Amy's (with Dennis talking about atonement and Richard not understanding and Dennis shouting "You're not LISTENING," which turns Richard off for the first two ballets) for a delightful change of pace with fish-stuffed pita with a GOOD fruit/honey salad (after I took back my sour one), and was quick enough to get us to the State Theater in time to piss (though Dennis couldn't with someone jerking off next to him, which is why Richard uses the stalls) and then see a disappointing evening of "Fanfare," "Bournonville Divertissements" without Flower Festival, and a somewhat better "Symphony in C" (see DIARY 11655). Out and walk up to 72nd, stopping by the yogurt place where Rick drooled over the guy inside, to Fine and Schapiro's where I couldn't resist the tongue omelet with fries, slaw, herring, Hausen Blausen (kruschicki to Poles), and tea dinner for about $8. Out stuffed again about 11:45, while they're closing, and subway home to a cold bed.
DIARY 11657
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21. Woke about 9 and have the sex described in error for Sunday morning on DIARY 11653, then out of bed to get Rick up, and we have the last of the bread for french toast for breakfast, and since I'm out of orange juice I serve tomato juice, having to wash some of the dishes to serve it in. Get to washing the dishes and fixing up the place while they get everything together, and they leave about 12:20: Dennis helping Rick down to the car with everything on his way to his singing class. I settle down in complete luxury to work out both puzzles in the Times, looking at some of the other sections, and Dennis returns about 3:30 to say he'd been home to get the mail and pick up some things that he needed and changed clothes. Then he gets to work on the index and I continue to read the Times and clear up some old mail while he asks questions about indexing. Do light-work before leaving for class. Don't have anything for dinner in the house, so I simply make spaghetti over which I pour the tomato sauce, not a very good dinner, but I'd made the pistachio pudding with the milk that was going sour in the fridge, and IT was pretty awful, too. Couldn't go to the store because everything was closed thanks to Washington's birthday today. I GUESS it was today that Rolf called, back in town for a few weeks, and chatted about his stay in Boston working, and marveled at the entertainment-laden weekend, my luck with the "Iguana" tickets and getting a free movie projector from Rick, who's been given one he didn't need, with some films he didn't want. I take some time to catch up with typing five diary pages through the day, almost a week behind, but I catch up through Saturday, which is good. I THINK this was the afternoon that Dennis was so horny that we went to bed AGAIN in the afternoon, he getting into his cock and coming with eagerness in the heat of the day. Then I leave at 7:25 for Actualism, fearing not to get there on time, but the subway comes right in and I'm there at 8 for a more-than-usually interesting evening (see DIARY 1168). Out about 9:45 and get home at 10:30 to try phoning Bruce at 11, but he's not home and try to entice Dennis into bed again, and we probably roll around a lot, smoke a lot, drink a lot, and maybe drink a lot of Triple Sec, ONE of these evenings.
DIARY 11660
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22. Wake about 9, cuddle until 10, have breakfast, and I start typing from 11 to 1, then break for lunch, and AGAIN, I think, Dennis is horny and says we never have time for sex, and AGAIN we get into the bedroom, but THIS time I have absolutely no interest in coming, only in getting him off, which I do, and it's delightful. Then type from 4:30 to 4:45 and I HAVE to start on errands, so I take the record back to the library, go to the bank (so it must have been during the 1-4:30 break!) to get more money, shop for more books and pick up another on Sufism, placed there for me, no doubt, buy Dennis the Times, then shopping at D'Agostino's, picking up OVER $25 worth of groceries and the mail. Up to put things away, and maybe it was THEN that Dennis started attacking me and we went to bed. Then work on typing the cards from 6:10 to 8, watched "This Far by Faith" about the black church in America with a short appearance by Carmen deLavallade and Geoffrey Holder, until 9, and then worked from 9:15 to 9:35, have hamburger for dinner, and 10:10 to 11, but not quite finished with the cards. During SOME of this time, 11-12??, I check some of the cards that Dennis has edited, A-C, and he goes through much of them and is ready to type the entire pages tomorrow, except that he's beginning to run a fever. Last night he crawled into bed feeling VERY cold, and I'd gotten out my long underwear for him to wear, and he kept taking it off and putting it on during the day as the apartment got warmer or colder. The weather hovered around the freezing mark, sometimes raining, but usually it was warm enough for everything to melt away completely by Thursday. When he got into bed tonight he turned the heat up to 7, still shivering, and left it there through the night, so that when I hugged him in the morning, I couldn't decide whether it was residual heat from baking under the blanket for the entire night or an actual fever. When he took his temperature, however, it was 100, going down slightly later, but then up to 101 during the day. All this time he was coughing and sneezing and blowing his nose, though he courageously kept saying he felt well enough to finish his work on the index. To bed VERY late and cuddle, but sleep without sex.
DIARY 11661
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23. Dennis set the alarm at 8 and we got up by 8:15, he made coffee, and I finished typing my 900 cards from 8:35 to 9:05, and then sorted them while he sat in the kitchen reading the Times I bought him yesterday (which I read too) from 9:05 to 9:35. Then while he starts typing his final manuscript for Basic Language IV, I decide it's about time to finish up the Sunday Times laying all over the floor. So I finish the puzzles and finish reading all the sections, tearing out all the pieces I want, and then go down for the mail and get through all THAT, and even read the daily paper, putting them all into a huge pile by the door, and already there's a stack of garbage in the kitchen to be taken out, and I say "We've got to go OUT one of these days" and he laughs. We have tuna fish for lunch from 12 to 1, and then I start editing from 1 to 2, and actually think we have sex AGAIN, except that he comes very fast and then I come very fast, just to get it over with, so that we can get back to work. Work STEADILY from 2:50 to 9:25 (though I think this was the day that Pat Teller called from LTS about cheap ways to get to Iran, and Bob Rosinek called (see DIARY 11664) and I give her addresses of 5-6 travel agents in London and ask her to ask about Nairobi too!), editing the cards in fine state, except that I'm getting about 1050 cards, which I think is fine. Ask Dennis which he wants first, so I take a shower and wash my hair (which is good since I changed the sheets today for the first time in ages) and THEN get to boiling up the spaghetti and making the rest of the hamburger and having a great dinner with wine until 11, when he still wants to work, so he proofreads to find what his rate is (10 pages in 30 minutes), while I do more editing from 11 to 11:55, and then I persuade him to get to bed, since he wants to get up at 8 am again tomorrow. He helps me make the bed and we crawl into it, luxuriating in the clean sheets, and I keep telling him to turn down the heat controls, but he keeps saying it feels good, and I try doing light-work while I'm laying there, but it's not going very well and finally I roll over and get to sleep early, about 1 am, turning my blanket down as low as possible because I'm getting heat from HIS side, too.
DIARY 11662
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24. Wake about 5:25, conscious of him kicking me, as he seems to be moving to my side of the bed to get away from the heat of his side. I'm conscious of a dazzling clarity (see DIARY 11652), go to the john, get some water beside the bed, then wake at 7 with the alarm, cuddle briefly, and get out at 7:15 to knock over the glass of water. He's sunk in contemplation of the boiling coffee, so I check some of the things that he's done and figure he'll be about 200 lines over. Write a letter to Mrs. Johnson to stop her bugging me for the past week about Ms. Watson (see DIARY 11651), when Bruce phones and talks for over an hour and a half (see DIARY 11663) about Actualism. Then I put bacon in to broil and make omelets for both of us for breakfast, feeling somewhat put upon cooking all the time for the two of us while's he's making money with the skills and answers I'VE given him. He puts on a new pot of coffee and stares at it as I bustle around doing dishes. FORGOT that Bob Rosinek called Wednesday (see DIARY 11664). Finish just about when HE gets back to the typewriter. He COULD have washed them, but some time earlier in the week I caustically suggested HE could wash the dishes just as he was GOING to: he said he felt like doing it before I said anything, and NOT like doing them AFTER I asked---TOLD! Then call Rachel to say I have 1050 lines and she says it must NOT be more than 800! Damn! So I sit down from 1:30 to 4:30 taking out 250 cards in about three passes, making me somewhat irritable, in addition to which Dennis's temperature has gone up to 102 so obviously he IS sick with something, and I'll NOT get it myself! Then it's drizzling, but I take out the laundry and one bag of garbage and buy a frying pan (he fried eggs one morning (Tuesday) in the old frying pan and they were BLACK on the bottom!) with a glass cover for $8.98, a bottle of Gallo Rhinegarten, and a $4.50 bottle of Crème de Menthe for Dennis for $2.50 + 19 tax, and when I say "Guess what I paid for this?" he blurts out $2.69! I was left with 3. Put on the roast beef and have that for a quick dinner between 6:50 and 7:20, get out to a good Yamini Krishnamurti at Alice Tully Hall (see DIARY 11665), out at 10 and home in a DRIVING rain to dry out our clothes and take out some of HIS 250 lines. To bed at 1:45, talk to 2:15, smoke, THEN get into sex, he comes and I DOUBLE COME (see DIARY 11666); sleep at 3 am!
DIARY 11667
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25. Set the alarm for 9, which only gave us 6 hours sleep, at Dennis's insistence to finish the index early, and he was so slow in arising that I jumped out of bed and raised the shade, then threw him the thermometer to get a reading of 102. He got up slowly, put on the coffee as I put in bacon and made fried eggs with the last eggs, and then we got back to searching his index for the last 50 lines. We found them by noon, when he called Ginny to say he'd bring it in around 2, and I went down for the mail and glanced through Soho while he finished by 1:45 and left about 2:30, saying he was going home to BED. I had finished typing the LAST of the contents-pages for the diary, retyping a few of the sheets on the 8x10 paper that caused such stacking problems, and got into catching up with my diary in earnest. Rebecca had phoned back at 9:45 to give me information (confused) about energies and tools in Actualism, and later I phoned to say that I wanted to see Merle Miller on March 6. Arnie called, returned from his trip, and talked for about an hour, I continued typing after finishing off the left-over tuna salad for lunch about 5, and then went back to typing diary pages until 9, when I watch (forgot that Dennis had called about 4:30, Dana had called HERE for him and then I guess got in touch with Dennis because he didn't call back here, and I called Pope to suggest Scrabble and we talked for about an hour about a crazy NEW pyramid club by mail that HE thought was different but possibly I laughed him out of it (see DIARY 11668).) "SST---Death Flight" from 9-11, which had EVERY cliché in the book: the old man-young man-woman triangle / philandered-sexy chick-pregnant / sliding pro-faithful wife / hysterical reporter / Japanese navigator / former-rivals-pilots / dissatisfied employee / bossy employer / legendary inventor / black doctor / black woman medic / gallant faggot / easy lay stewardess-pilot / (where was the kid going for desperate operation?) / no airport accepts virus / fuel running out / crash / death of unnecessary characters. Phone Pope back for 10 minutes, complete typing the 10 diary pages for the day by 11:30, when I watched "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" which was CONVINCINGLY good as a historical British-squalor-of-dark-ages film, and I smoked and continued drinking the wine and eating MANY too many COOKIES that I had with the good warmed roast beef with the first film, and ALMOST got into "Will Penny" but zonked out at 1:50 and crawled into bed alone for the first time in ages to get to sleep immediately.
DIARY 11669
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26. Wake about 8:45 (earplugs shutting out sounds) and have a full stomach from COOKIES and lay until 9:40 doing light-work, then up at 9:45 to make bed, clean the pipe, decide to type a page for the Actualism book, have a good shit, and get to the typewriter to catch up with the diary at LAST with these four pages by 10:40 am. Then decide to compose the page for the Actualism book, and get through 4 versions by about 1:30, doing it in my usual perfectionist way, but it looks pretty good (see copy on DIARY 11670). Then have cereal for a VERY late breakfast, phone Dennis to see if he's alive and wants to see Nikolais tonight, and he phones back to say he doesn't. Then I decide I want to come while selecting what porno films I want to order for my new projector, but the phone rings once with Arnie and another time with someone else, so it's about 5 when I finally select the 11 films I want for $100 and have come with almost soft cock and VERY nut-like balls. Don't even shower before leaving too late at 7:15 for the Beacon, and get there at 7:45 to get a $6 seat in the corner of the first row, not the BEST seat, but surely not the worst, either. The performance is very variable (see DIARY 11671). At intermission I'm wandering the lobby reading blurbs and there's Azak, fresh from meningitis (he said in May in Geneva; Arnold said he had his EXAM with him in Harlem Hospital in August or September. Oh, well), and we chat and meet afterwards, when he says he's been sleeping with someone in the cast and will try to get free tickets to some of the remaining performances that I want to see. What a pity that much of the house is papered and I didn't get in free! Walk up to Dennis's, buying hamburger and orange juice and the Times, at 11, and he's feeling much better, having cleaned the apartment this afternoon. I shower and wash my hair while he makes spaghetti and meat sauce, and then we get into smoking and I'm quite tired, so we're in to the bedroom where he keeps poking away with his cock in my face until he gasps breathlessly "I'm going to shoot in your mouth; I'm shooting in your mouth," and he does and it's wonderful as I feel the spasms, lick the tortured cock, and then say that I'm SO tired that MY contribution will have to come in the morning. The radio announced that it was 2 am when we finished reading out parts of the Times (and I'd finished the puzzles), so bed at 3 am!
DIARY 11672
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 27. We wake about 9:30 and REALLY get into good stiff cocks, Dennis waving his around, getting on VERGE of come, and then I GRAB it, it oozes two drops, he gasps, then I continue massaging his cockhead as come continues to flow out, and he's not sure whether he's had an orgasm or NOT!---fabulous! Then he uses his hand to bring me off, and that ALSO feels great, and he's made coffee by about 10:30, hoping for his folks to call. I watch Camera Three, Cyrus Vance on "Face the Nation, and ANOTHER poor Beverly Sills program on middle-aged men that says NOTHING, so so much for HER. That's till 12:30; I finish the puzzle, and we have breakfast at 1:30, when I've about finished all the Times. Then go through the remains of his New Yorkers, and then go down for his mail and look through the most recent one, then get out to finish "Caravan of Dreams" by about 5. Then shower and wash my hair and shave, he puts on hamburger with cheddar on top with jello for dessert for lunch, and we agree to meet afterward for something at the Front Porch after the opera that I've decided to go to this evening, incidentally using the binoculars I didn't have to use last night from the front row of the Nikolais. Subway down at 6:15, using my transfer from last night, and get a $6 seat for the perfectly delightful opera "La Belle Helene" (see DIARY 11673). Out at 10, phone Dennis, and walk up in the rain to the Front Porch to wait for him until 10:25, when we have the two soups, and he likes his and doesn't like mine (pea and peanut, delicious and thick and tasty) and I like mine and don't like his ("Turkish Wedding" soup with lemon and other things to make it thin and sour---rather like sauerkraut soup). Out at 11 without dessert because I say Sara Lee is cheaper than desserts here, and we stop in a supermarket where he buys about $10 worth of food and then wants ME to carry it through the rain. Back to his place, I read more of "Gravity" while he puts things away, and then I get out the sherry and we smoke a great deal and get to bed about 12, early enough to have a good time with each other's bodies (and I think we both come, but I actually don't remember, since I ended up the evening VERY tired, hoping I was NOT coming down with some version of the pestilence HE'D just gotten over) until 2.