1977 4 of 11
DIARY 11771
MONDAY, MARCH 28. Alarm goes at 8, after I'm amazed by the light outside at 7:15, and Dennis is up at 8:15, and I'm feeling so bad I have to get up and put on bacon and start eggs frying. He leaves about 9, and I get the dry cleaning together and banking ready and leave about 9:30 to do that and return at 10 to phone to see what time I'll see the double at the Playboy, wishing I'd seen more earlier in the week, thinking that the letters again take the lowest priority. Call Arnie and talk to him about a half an hour, and then Madge calls to say I should send Nick Oliveri ANOTHER resume, she might have a job for me, and then I locate one and will write a cover letter for it today. I delight in changing to a new ribbon and type seven pages by 2:15, LATE! Do the letter for Oliveri and put things away to discover that I'll have to move to get anywhere on time. Get out the smelly steak and put it on to cook about 2:45, then hop into the shower and wash, then out to turn the meat and lower the gas under the boiling beans, shave, and eat from 3:10 to 3:25, almost debating not going to the movies, but figure I'll get there anyway, so out and get to Playboy Theater about 4:05, in to the beginning of "Lipstick," but I guess I've got all the plot, and it's wrong-headed in that BOTH court results were wrong: the guy should have been prosecuted for rape, so that she never would have killed him, but she SHOULD have been punished FOR killing him, as much as any vigilante groups should be. The audience reaction (and mine to the audience) was VERY ugly (see DIARY 11772). Equally ugly reactions to "Marathon Man," which I react to, and get out thankfully early at 7:35 to stop in at Marlboro's, hoping to find a book, but don't, and then walk up along the park, savoring the light drizzle and the yellow glow of forsythia, to the Olcott just at 8 to ride up in the elevator with Michael and Dorothy to lesson 13 (see DIARY 11773), which thankfully lets out at 9:40, so that I can walk to the subway station with Hazel and talk, and then dash up to Dennis's to get there before the first awards for the 1976 Academy Awards from 10 to 12:30, during which time he makes and serves good chicken breasts wrapped around green peppers and mushrooms, with rice and bread, and then we smoke, he comes in a fabulous jet of come over my chest, which I use to try, but I'm soft enough to suggest dessert, so we're in for his cherry and dough and almonds until about 1:30, and then we're both tired to bed.
DIARY 11775
TUESDAY, MARCH 29. Alarm goes at 8, Dennis is up to shut it off and STAYS up, making coffee, showering, and I doze enough to wake and get out of bed at 9:15 feeling like it was only minutes before that the radio went on. He makes breakfast of meat and sauce over rice, which is OK, and we leave about 10, after I finish reading most of the Times, and get home about 10:30 to pick up the mail, glance through it, then check the TV schedule, then do BOTH puzzles, and Frank Simon calls for Dennis, then Bruce Leiber calls from 12:20 to 12:50, when he has to get back to work, and I just don't feel like doing ANYTHING, so I have lunch about 1:30, then can't work STILL, so I sit down to do light-work from 2:40 to 3:15 and THAT feels better, then I type 4 to 4:10. Then probably put on some records and do the dishes, still not having gone out for groceries, and finally get SOME work done on the letters from 5 to 5:45, though not nearly enough. Shower and wash my hair and shave, and then toast some muffins and have butter and cream cheese on them, and then it's 7:15 and time to leave for Bejart. I'm coming down to the last few chapters of "The House of the Solitary Maggot," amazed at how DIRTY it is, and still there are delays and I spy Dennis coming in the lobby just after me, and wait at the top of the escalator for him. Bejart's "Notre Faust" is a real lousy piece, as far as I and Dennis are concerned, even though everyone in the theater seems to love it (see DIARY 11781). Dennis is catching up with his diary during intermission so I'm down alone to meet Azak and Fritz, in free seats (as was Arnold many times), and I've promised not to say anything bad about the performance, so I can only say that Bejart dances well for someone who's 50, and the dancers certainly do what he tells them to do. I leave them and look at other pretty people, then up to sit through the second act and out at 10:30 to come to my place where I put on sausage and peas, which he says (former) is too salty, so he doesn't finish, and then we smoke and have great sex, despite the voices of people coming from above, and get to bed fairly early, about 1 am, which is somewhat a record for us, except, that is, when HE'S tired, as Thursday, when he goes to sleep even EARLIER.
DIARY 11782
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30. Wake at 7:30 and have good shooting sex, wherein Dennis says "Happy Birthday," and I'm now 41! I'd wanted to get to my work early, but I read the New Yorker on Sara Rudner and we get into a GRAND talk about "quantity producing seeming quality" (see DIARY 11783), and I jot down a note to write a page about that under the page about "What's bigger" (see DIARY 11784) that I'd thought of one day doing light-work. Also, I keep reminding myself to draw up a summary page on Actualism energies (see DIARY 11785). Our talk takes until about 12, and I feel good about having the time to talk, but I'm worried about the letters. Subway home, listen to the phone messages and get a call from Paulo, who's in town with a French friend until to (no, this is THURSDAY, this is all mixed up)---ACTUALLY we're HERE, I fry Spam and eggs for a tasty breakfast, and when he leaves I get down to letters from 10:30 to 12:30, at which time I go out and pick up the laundry and dry cleaning, figuring it must be rather warm out, and in fact it hits 79 today to tie the record high for the date. Then put the laundry and cleaning down (and the laundry is STILL sitting there now) and get back to the letters at 1:30, calling Lauren to find answers to questions but she's not there, and I work through until about 5:30, finishing 7 and debating sending them, but then shower again and have something small for eating, and get on the subway early to meet Dennis at 7:45 in front of the Cinema on 66th and Broadway, and Dennis slinks up behind me and says "Wanna go out?" We walk over to Tavern on the Green, get seated immediately in the Elm Room, and have a GREAT dinner with good waiters and lots of banter (see DIARY 11786) until 10:50, when we stagger out VERY happy, and Dennis wants to get home for sex, and we catch the double-decker that takes us unwittingly to Lincoln Center, and hop off, losing the rose our table-neighbor gave us, and walk to his place feeling just GREAT, undress, smoke some, and get into bed for Dennis to shoot all over me, even though I say MY stomach is so full, but he gets into it, using what little popper juice is left, and he's very, very happy, as I am, and we're to sleep about 1 am, delighted with the world as it is.
DIARY 11787
THURSDAY, MARCH 31. Wake at 7:30 and he comes again and I just don't feel like it, and TODAY (not yesterday) I read the article on Sara Rudner and we talk about "quantity producing seeming quality" (see DIARY 11783). We talk until about 12:30, I subway home and get a call from Paul, who's in town with Georges Borgetto until Friday, from Arnold, and from Margaret Willard! I call Margaret and talk to Naomi Feiner, and she'll mail a pathology annual that will be 450 pages and due toward the end of April, so I'm in GOOD with her. Call Lauren and she says I don't have to have the pages in until April 15! Call Arnie and while I'm talking with him from 12 to 1 (by actual timing), the buzzer goes and it's 10 films from Maverick! I leave word with Paul, and then call Dennis and relate my totally ecstatic happiness (see DIARY 11779). Still not hungry because of the amount of food last night (and didn't have anything for breakfast as Dennis just guzzled coffee), and since I don't have to work, I dash through a bit of the mail and get to looking at the films about 2:30, and end up coming 4 times over some of the more sexy ones, like Stan, John Holmes, Gordon Grant, and Joe "Angelo" that I think is Markham. I'm delighted with the turn-on, though the quality isn't THAT good, and I succeed in slicing up a number of feet in the "self--threading" machine, and enjoy back-spacing, going slow, and slowing for single shots, though it's wrecking my right thumb. Look almost constantly until 6:45, when it dawns on me that I HAVE to do something about leaving (and Dennis called between when I'd come twice, and Lauren called with answers to my questions about editing and clicking---so I was glad I'd moved the phone into the bedroom). Spray on spray-talc to stop me from smelling crotch-wise, and take deodorant showers to stop me from smelling arm-wise, and decide I don't need to shave, so I'm just dressed and off, in a too-light jacket, seeing that it's COLD and WINDY when I get up to Columbia at 7:30, with enough time to have my first meal of the day, a $1.35 hero of salami, ham, and provolone at Chock Full until 7:45, and then get three TDF tickets in row P and wait until 8:05 for the late (retarded?) Theo, and Kathy Posin is heavier than before (see DIARY 11788) and not THAT great. Out at 10 and subway to Dennis's and he's VERY tired, but we chat a bit, I wake Paul to talk at 10:35 and we agree to meet at noon, he gets into cock, smokes (permitting me NOT to), uses popper, and comes so soft I wonder if he's forcing it, but he says he liked it in the morning, so good. Bed 12!
DIARY 11789
FRIDAY, APRIL 1. Alarm goes at 7:30 and I remind him at 8, and he's up without touching anyone's sex. I'm up at 8:15, feeling better, and he makes hamburger with celery for breakfast, pouring tomato sauce over as an afterthought, and I'm reading about Christo's fence, getting a poor idea of spending $3 million on THAT, and we talk about it until about 10:30, when he leaves for his singing lesson, and I shower and leave about 11:10 to get to the AWFUL Sloan House YMCA and they're not there, so I stand in the lobby and they come in about 11:50, and Georges Borgetto is soft-eyed and pleasant and speaking very little English and overweight, otherwise he'd be nice sex. Up to the rooms and look at the AWFUL place for $8.50 a night, and poor Georges has been here for two WEEKS. Down at 12:30 to walk over to Paddy's Clam House for their decent lunch (though the waitress just plumped it on the table) for $3.75, which they paid for, and then we decided to walk over to the Morgan Library, which was pleasant with Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Ravel (Bolero), Mahler (Third, both from Bejart), and many other composers, and look at library and out about 3, and then I talk them into going down to pick up my "Statistics" book, and they're making Ron wear a TIE now, and then we're across to buy Paul more clothes (cheaper here than ANYWHERE else) and back to Y at 3:30 to finish packing and get down to a cab that takes Paul to the East Side Terminal by 4 and Georges and me to the subway to my place by 4:30, I get refused second time by Olivieri and try calling Madge at 5, but she's gone already, when he has some orange juice, looks at the latest Brentwood brochure, but he thinks he can't get film mailed into CANADA! So that's out. He wants to watch, so I put on the double, then three singles, but he appears not to be excited, and I don't make a move, so he says he has to leave, and does at 7:30, and I don't even kiss him, which is a shame. But he gives me his address on the 32nd floor of the Tour Cortina! Where a friend stays, but he has many OTHER friends I would be happy with. Then I'm horny enough to get into films for myself, and find that I can PULL film through frame by frame when the bulb BURSTS about 8. Pity. I come anyway, then don't feel like eating, so I finish "House of the Solitary Maggot" and notice all the Ballard books, so I finish the story in "Voices of Time," then the ones I hadn't read in "The Disaster Area," and I have dinner of cheese and cereal and cream, but don't feel like anything else, so I start and finish the rather exciting "Wind from Nowhere" from whenever to 2:30, and crawl into bed TIRED!
DIARY 11790
SATURDAY, APRIL 2. I'm wakened about 7:30, but drift back off and wake with a chorus of sounds and get mad about the cat upstairs, so I call Ms. Watson again (see DIARY 11780) and the noise stops. Then read "The Crystal World" while having Spam and muffins and apples and cheese and two baked potatoes for lunch between 1:30 and 1, then start typing about my lethargy for the day (see DIARY 11776), call Dennis about tonight at 1:15, write about Ballard (which was what finally stopped my READING) (see DIARY 11777), write a page about contrasts (see DIARY 11778), and then catch up on the diary, doing the page on Actualism that had been on my mind for a long time (see DIARY 11785), and send for TDF vouchers again, DON'T go for groceries in the rain, and talk to Arnie for 45 minutes and Terry for 10, and type 15 pages, the most since 22 on 12/16! Stop just after 6, feeling good for having finished, and think I have lots of time left but by the time I finish showering and shaving and dressing and taking a long time to put the films away and clean up the living room (putting most of the junk on a pile on the desk, which I'll get to on Monday), there's just the time to leave about 7 on the subway for Riverside, again getting up there at 7:35, which is enough time to get into Chock Full o' Nuts, on the verge of closing, and the only sandwich they have is cream cheese and walnuts on raisin bread, so I have that, then get up to get three TDF tickets for $3 each, Dennis arrives about 7:55, and Theo (no, this is THURSDAY), and about 8 leave a ticket for Dennis and get down to a third row seat for a pleasant evening of modern dance with Diane Boardman and Robert Small (see DIARY 11791). Dennis comes in about 8:10 and joins me at the first intermission, and Murray Louis is there, so I butt in and he asks me to call him on Monday at 1 to talk about the editing job. We're out at 10 and up to Dana and Jody's about 10:35, and Dennis puts on chicken which is done at 12 while I look through the terribly mediocre pornography after watching the end of the terribly mediocre Carol Burnett show until 11, and the terribly poor "Mandingo" on cable until 12:30, where Perry King is pretty but ineffectual, the sex scene with Ken Norton is muscular but only from the back, and the boiling is not really that awful at all, just a lot of screams before the old black shoots the father, leaving Perry to weep. Eat at 12:30 and get into bed at 1 to talk until 1:30, but neither of us feels particularly sexy, so we're to sleep after a brief cuddle.
DIARY 11792
SUNDAY, APRIL 3. We wake about 9 and shoo Rhoda away and get into cock, and then the lights come up and the sun comes out and we get into it more and more, until he comes in a gush on my chest, and I demand to come though he's looking at the clock, and I come about 10:30 and at 10:35 he's already talking to his folks and I'm lying there busily drying come. Watch a VERY poor performance of Walton's "Facades" on his 75th birthday by incompetent Felicia Montealegre and Michael Wager, fluffing all over the place and somehow "above" the lilting lyrics. About noon we have a great "breakfast" of hamburger and peas and potatoes, and I say we should get going by 1, suggest we dash down the hill a bit, but his foot is hurting him very much from his corn, but we JUST make a subway, so we plump down in our seats and he says "Well, SAY 'I told you so!'" I smile. Subway gets to 86th at 1:25, so I sit and read the last of the Ballard books and one train passes and he comes down right after, having changed pants and jacket (and not picked up grass, which he seems not to have taken to Dana's), so we chat and catch the next subway and get there earlier than we've ever gotten there. My jeans are ripped, by me and by him playfully fussing until they rip more, and I go down for intermissions on the final performance, good, by Bejart (see DIARY 11793). (It seems that 15 minutes IS the length of "Bolero," so he DIDN'T cut, as I'd thought.) Out with Dennis feeling hungry, so I notice the Rincon Argentina that I'd mentioned for sweetbreads, and we're in for him to have them and me to have the mixed grill, to show him, and the black sausage is AWFUL mushy and fat and gristly, the other sausage nice and flavorful, the steak tough, the sweetbreads best, kidney urine-tasting, and the warmer was convenient to keep everything warm while I ate and ate and ate EVERYTHING, washed down with a nice glass of California Romano burgundy that I should try in a gallon, and we leave about 6:15, swinging out and full and nicely drunk, and get to Dana's at 7, too dark to even THINK of going into the park, and I read some of the Times and watch the first part of "Jesus of Nazareth" by Zeffirelli (see DIARY 11794), to which a conversation on Tuesday morning applies. That goes till 11:30 and seems to exhaust both of us, so we simply both acknowledge our fatigue and turn out the lights after necking a bit and go to sleep about 12:30, me still stuffed.
DIARY 11795
MONDAY, APRIL 4. Alarm rings at 7:30 and Dennis gets up with a sort of a groan, again we don't have sex. He later says he goes to Man's Country after work but doesn't come, but that doesn't quite square with his not getting into his cock this evening. Though it doesn't matter, since I was tired anyway. We have breakfast of fried eggs and peas-and-carrots, of which he eats the most part, and get out about 9:30 for an already short and already crowded subway on which we sit separately. I finish reading "The Day of Forever" on the subway and decide I MUST go to the store, so go to D'Agostino and get just enough to buy their special on ice cream and coffee, and get in to fertilize the plants, put groceries away, read the mail, and fuss about fixing up things until 1 pm, when I finally finish the puzzles I'd started yesterday and finish marking up the TV section and watch "Shoeshine" from 1 to 2:30. It's really not THAT good, though the scenes of the nude kids in the reformatory shower could have been fun, but it was just SO much against the poor kids and SO heavy that da Sica seems to be trying TOO hard (see DIARY 11794 again). Finish that and drag myself to the desk to work on the pile of stuff that I've left, and I read articles on Alaska and Africa and cut things out of "Town and Country" magazine that I save, but Terry doesn't call and I call Madge about 4:30 and she says she'll be seeing if she can find me in Oliveri's WRITERS file, and if not I should send BACK the resume. I decide to make green (creativity) marking on my resume and take it to Actualism. Ms. Watson's bird feeder crashes down on the fire escape and I phone Mrs. Johnson about it, but she just wants me to throw it away. Don't even GET to the typewriter. Have "brunch" at 5 of cream cheese and jelly on muffins, and Gruyere and apples, but that's not super except in the fact that I had NO meat before Actualism today. Write lots of checks for ordering dance tickets from NYC Ballet, Limon, and Graham, and then shower and shave and the day has gone and it's time to leave for Actualism, which is fun again (see DIARY 11796) with a group sigil. BEAUTIFUL guy on subway coincides with readings about attachment and beauty (see DIARY 11797). To Dennis's in the rain at 10:30 and he's making chicken again, we talk, eat until 12, drink Amaretto and Anisette and produce jello and fruit salad for dessert, then try to get into sex but it doesn't work, we're neither really hard with mediocre porno, sleep at 1 and wake to DREAM (see DIARY 11798).
DIARY 11799
TUESDAY, APRIL 5. Alarm rings at 7:30 and Dennis lies snoring until about 8, when he sighs and gets up, and I recollect details from the dream (see DIARY 11798) that seemed to take all night and exhaust me. I'm up at 8:30 and look through the incredible collection of Michener and Caldwell and Christie and Uris and Kazan on the shelves, all read by Jody, and then we have breakfast of eggs and mushrooms and juice and toast and jelly, not that much, and get to the subway platform in the driving rain that makes me decide that today will NOT be spent looking for books, but I get home at 11 and add 50% more (from 10 to 15 items) to my list of things to do. Throw the mail away, look at the dishes to do, get a call from Dennis to meet him in front of the Martin Beck at 6:10, and finish these 9 pages by 1:15, only 4 hours of work possible today at the MOST, and the letters for McGraw-Hill are a pain AGAIN! Get in for a lunch of the rest of the cheeses on the rye bread, reading New York as I do so, and then I wash the dishes while timing the fact that the "Bolero" DOES last something like 16 minutes. Don't know what I do from 2:30 to 3:30, since I don't remember talking on the phone, didn't think I mailed out any more checks, and didn't go out at all, didn't read, didn't jerk off, but (ah, yes!) I DID page through "Secret of the Golden Flower" to see what connection it may have had with Actualism, and they talk about light-work a bit and have something in "Center 2" in drawings, but didn't get much more out of it, but I guess I COULD have taken about an hour with it. Then proofread 7 letters and finish one more and send out 8 letters to Lauren from 3:25 to 4:25, actually spending LESS than 8 hours for those letters, which is nice, and then shower and shave and put on lots of stuff for my athlete's foot, and have another half-hour from 5:15 to 5:45 to work on editing another letter, then leave for the Martin Beck at 6:20 with Dennis's jacket and cap, meeting him on the corner, and he says the line at TKTS is long, so we should eat first, so we go to Tenape, his treat, for good salty bean soup for 85 for me and pureed gazpacho for him for $1.25, and we both had the good special #1 for $4.50 with HOT chili relleno that he finishes for me (and I can feel it around my anus shitting this noon), good enchilada, tostada, and corny tamale, and he spend about $2 on Cuernavaca cocktail of flan and peach and on a good-tasting hot chocolate. Over in the rain to stand on TKTS line and "Alamo" is taken down at 7:55, so we see "Mohammed, Messenger of God" (see DIARY 11800), home at 12 to bed 2.
DIARY 11803
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6. I wake about 7 after a hideous night (see DIARY 11801). Alarm rings at 7:30 and Dennis staggers out of bed at 8, and I tell him what an awful time I'd had and he thinks I'm blaming him. He cooks a tiny hamburger and lots of peas and cranberry sauce for breakfast and we leave about 9:45 as usual, he going to the post office for two stamps for his parents' anniversary Saturday and we walk through the long graffiti-tunnel for 191st St. subway station. Home about 10:30 to the ballet schedule from ABT from Lauren that I call Arnie about from 11:30 to 12:15, then finish "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" (see DIARY 11802) while having lunch of cereal and peanut butter sandwiches. Dennis calls a few times; Arnold's going to try to buy tickets for the theater tonight, Rolf calls for about 45 minutes about Gay Self-Awareness (est-like thing I interviewed for) and the bars and baths he's been going to. I call Pope about 3:15 and talk till 4, ordering a horoscope and we talk about his name-dropping friends. Where HAS the time gone, I wonder at 4:05 as I finish typing these FOUR pages only. Work on letters from 4:10 to 5:10, but that's interrupted by a call from Arnold that the line was too long for him to wait on, so I call Dennis to say that we have to go back to the original plan: I meet him at the theater at 7:50. I work a bit over to take care of the telephone time, then put on the beef to roast at 5:30 and exercise and read a bit of the new Zen book and shower and shave until 6:30. Then have dinner at 6:50 with good beef and find that it takes 80 minutes to bake potatoes, which are good too. Have wine, but it leaves me with a sickly feeling---can't I even do THAT? Out at 7:20 and get to the theater (but Dennis called at 7:15 and says we're going to "The Shadow Box" since they only had balcony seats left for "Ladies at the Alamo") just before he does. The place is crowded and "The Shadow Box" is pretty good, but fails in a lot of ways (see DIARY 11804). We're out at 10:20 and subway to his place, he walks the over-exuberant Rhoda and feeds her, and I get out the grass and poppers that I brought and he gets into them and into his cock, saying always that he hadn't come since Sunday morning, and he ALMOST comes by pushing his cock against my chest without touching it. He unloads a THICK mess on my chest and neck that I use on my cock, bringing it off to add to the impasto, and he tries to come a second time but doesn't, and we fall exhausted to sleep at 12:30, and, Whaddya know? I have no trouble sleeping!
DIARY 11805
THURSDAY, APRIL 7. Alarm at 7:30, Dennis up at 8, me up at 8:30 feeling better than yesterday, we leaving at 9:30 to get train at 9:45 to get me home at 10:30, and I read mail on the john till 10:45 and find an error in my banking statement by 11, when I turn on "Nicholas Nickleby" on channel 5 and find that it's not ON. Phone Arnold to ask about it, and it's not on at 11:30, either, and we're off the phone at 12, so I start eating peanut butter and finish about 1/3 the jar while going back to channel-flick on TV, going through "Love of Life" and pretty boys and "Nabonga" from 1 to 2, with Julie London as a White Witch that Buster Crabbe comes to rescue from the gorilla, named Nbonga in the credits, and he gets to show his chest only when a villain (who's later chopped apart by the gorilla, of course) tries to kill him and they fight in his bedroom. Awful. Continue with "Second Chance" (that's from 12 to 12:30) and "Gong Show" during intermissions and "$20,000 Pyramid," and HERE'S where LeVar Burton is now being used, making a GOOD SHARP guesser and clue-giver, and then Arnold calls to invite me to "The New York Idea" for a $5 ticket that Greg Warner doesn't want to use, and Bob Grossman's using the seat Guy St. Clair isn't using, so we're going to be "together" at last. Watch the last of "Ingres" from 3:45 to 4, then eat a lot of roast beef with bread for SOME sort of brunch or lunch or dinner, and just CAN'T get into anything to do, hearing from Murray Louis and calling John Vinton to find that Wesleyan is good press but the book will NEVER make money or sell over 3-4,000 copies, so I should sign a contract for two months for $2,000 or something like that. Finally push myself to type these 2 pages by 5:55! Shower and eat more ice cream for something to eat and shave and manage to get in a whole half-hour of working from 6:50 to 7:20 on letters, then dress and get to the station at 7:30 to meet Arnie and Bob at 7:40 to get to BAM for "The New York Idea," a VERY good production (see DIARY 11806). Beatrice talks all our ears off during intermission, then they return on the Eastside bus while Arnie and I debate touring the bars, but Bill Wolf's not at the subway station so we have a slice of pizza and go home. I call Dennis and talk to him and then watch "Come and Get It!" which didn't win the excellent Edward Arnold anything, and he was never nominated, which is a pity, but it was the first of THREE (the most of anyone until Hepburn tied him in 1968!) supporting actor roles for Walter Brennan, who WAS quite good---watch it from 12-2, and go to sleep, tired, instantly.
DIARY 11807
FRIDAY, APRIL 8. Wake at 8:50 and lay comfortably until the alarm rings at 9:25 and I'm up to watch Werner with Jeanne Parr (see DIARY 11808) until 10, then sit through "Double-Dare" until 10:30 (from California), to keep up with the quiz shows, and it's getting MORE like "Whaddya Know?" with Spoilers who answer or miss elaborate questions. Then type three pages until 11 am. Work on letters, and type 9 new ones in a lovely flurry (only 11 left!) from 11 to 1:30, when I remember that I wanted to watch "The Wild Duck" from 1 to 3. It's a DREADFUL play that reinforces my ideas about things creating MORE evil in the world (see DIARY 11809). Then decide I MUST go out, so I get a record at the library to go to the post office and buy two sheets of new stamps, then walk Court to find no projector-lamp places and wander down Schermerhorn over to Fulton and buy one for $10 ($9.99 marked on box, so I pay 1 tax? Though Boro Photo says "$10" when I ask THEM, too). Back to find no new books (and it's rather a relief) and pick up the mail at 4. Get hungry so I whip up some scrambled eggs for the first real meal of the day, reading mail, and then get back to editing letters from 5-6, finishing as Dennis calls and I'm hassling the movies at Bleecker Street Cinema TOMORROW when Arnold says they're NEXT Saturday. Stupid! Dennis has dinner with Jeannye and Waie tonight, so I'm free to make plans with Arnold, who doesn't want to see the Divine double, and then I'm caught in a GREAT turmoil: it's 6:50 so I have ONE hour to shower, wash my hair, shave, eat, and subway to the theater for the 7:55 show! Waste time thinking about it, and then decide to put the roast beef on to warm, leave showering to the bath (if I feel like it: I'll be wearing contacts through the movie and still feel a cold coming on though I've been guzzling 5000mg of vitamin C), shave, eat a quick meal that leaves me with severe heartburn after the movie leaves out, and get out at 7:30 to catch a late subway and get to the Cinema Village JUST as the titles are going on. Well, it's just awful (see DIARY 11810). Out at 11:15, walk in the shivery-making cold (and I'm REALLY thinking I'm coming down with something) to the Man's Country on 15th, find no line, so I'm there from 11:30 to 1:30 (see DIARY 11811), then feel like meeting Arnie, so I walk down to Perry and Greenwich to the International Stud from 2 to 4 (see DIARY 11812). Subway home with Arnie after leaving the slow Bill Wolf behind, and crawl exhausted into bed at 4:50 after NIGHT!
DIARY 11813
SATURDAY, APRIL 9. Wake for a moment at 9, then Dennis calls at 10 and Norman Tinkle at 10:30, so it seems that I'm up at 11. Water plants and fill humidifier since it's sill COLD outside, and have three more scrambled eggs for breakfast while reading the morning's mail of "The Thousand Eyes." Fuss with check to Tinkle and making a reservation for my missed Actualism class on Monday, making out a schedule of the three operas we still want to see at the New York City Opera, and I'm supposed to get ready to meet Dennis at 6, so it's rather silly that I've typed only these 5 pages by 1:50 pm! Fuss around and fix things up (telling myself that I'll remember what I'd done when I next type the page, but of course I don't), and work on letters from 2:30 to 4:15, getting lots of them edited and feeling pleased with it, and then shower and wash my hair and shave in preparation for this evening and edit another letter from 5:05 to 5:35, when I dress and leave on the subway for Rossoff's, Dennis inside waiting for me at 6:05, and it's a nice place with tasty breast of veal in a saucy sauce for $5.95, but the extras for $2 make the whole thing: his fruit cup and my VERY large portion of good marinated herring fillets in sour cream; his pureed borscht that's sweet and my vegetable soup that's too thick; our salads from the "come again" table; his green-apple pie ala mode (Victor Moore) and my nesselrode cake (was it Walter Hampden, I forget?) with his coffee and my glass of milk. The touring girl from Montreal chattered with both of us, remarking about the bib for my veal, rather than for Dennis's expensive lobster, which he loved, though the french-fried onion rings didn't taste so good, his zucchini was untasted and my cranberry compote was ordinary. Out just before 8 to "Ladies of the Alamo," and it was pretty bad (see DIARY 11814). Out chatting with Dennis's girlfriend and her handsome beau who had to strap on his wooden leg before we left, and then to Dana's about 11:30, for him to walk Rhoda, and he got into working over me by hand, which was so nice that he kept on and kept on, and finally I came all over, and then he got onto my chest and came himself, and we fell asleep about 12:30, surprisingly early for an evening---NO, we looked at the Times and we got INTO bed at 1234 and ENDED about 123---THAT was it!
DIARY 11815
SUNDAY, APRIL 10. Dennis is up about 10 and moving about the kitchen and calling his parents about 10:30, and then I get up about 11 and read the Times until he makes breakfast of butterless eggs about 12:30, and I want to sit around until 1:30 to watch "The Easter Chester Mystery Play," which I do, and the frank rattling-off of lines, even by Tom Courtenay as Christ, in the naïve 11th century style (the adulteress was "doing amiss") was better than the drawn-out posturing of "Jesus of Nazareth" later in the night. Dana's friend Jeff calls to say he'll be over at 3, and I'm shaving after showering when he gets in about 2:50, and we chat until 4 about his work and his Wedgwood and stamp collections and how to attend auctions for these things, and then I (by previous clue with Dennis) say that I want to go for a walk, and I do (see DIARY 11816). Back at 6:45 to hear that Jeff stayed longer than Dennis had preferred, but that Dana called and was back in town, so we could leave. He thought he had to go to his house, but things got ironed out so that he came directly to mine, buying milk when I said I had raisins and eggs and nutmeg and cinnamon and flour and sugar, but not corn meal or enough milk, and then he had to go out for cornmeal when the mix contained flour as well. I get a message from Nick Oliveri to call him at what turns out to be his HOME on 2 Charlton Street and watch "Jesus of Nazareth," with Anne Bancroft over-acting her oldness as the prostitute, Olivia Hussey not looking ANYTHING like late-40s as Mary, Rod Steiger coming off most believably as Pilate, and the Sanhedrin looking like a bunch of farts, just IMPOSSIBLY outdated, and there were a few striking close-ups of Christ, but it was just too drawn-out, artsy-fartsy, and episodic (just one miracle after another, with such DRAMA and INTENT that you really HAD to question their validity). That was over at 11:30, Dennis made an eggplant-hamburger-mushroom mixture that NEEDED something, baked potatoes, and apple sauce, and took a long time cooking an Indian pudding that we had at midnight that turned out to be DYNAMITE. He smoked, we played, he took it out of the oven, he got on my chest and I talked him into coming very ammoniacally, and then we had dessert and he set the alarm at 8:15 after we got into bed to sleep at 1 am, after HE had a slice of toast and I managed to refuse the offer to join him.
DIARY 11819
MONDAY, APRIL 11. Alarm at 8:15 leaves me lying in bed thinking about my dream (see DIARY 11817) and the difficulties of being positive (see DIARY 11818). Up at 8:40 to time Dennis's coffee while he showers, then I put on bacon, sauté mushrooms, and make great omelets for breakfast while he makes a beef sandwich and takes Indian pudding for lunch, giving me the ticket for "Lulu" for tonight. I look up the old program I have, read more articles from the Times magazine to throw it away, phone Oliveri to find that he wanted to find if I'm still looking for work and will call me later in the week, phone Naomi to find that Margaret was out with flu last week and she's out with flu this week and Steve Abramson will call if more chapters are coming, but April 20 is out of the question, and type these 6 by 12:15, STILL LATE! Then finish the next-to-last-eleven letters for McGraw-Hill from 12:25 to 4:10, figuring I've worked 11 hours for these 11, or almost 60 hours for 50 letters, so I'll undoubtedly make OVER $20 an hour for the job, but was it really worth the HASSLE of WORRYING about them all the time? Address the envelope for Lauren and put it to be mailed, and then warm up roast beef for dinner, having some of Dennis's pudding, and I shower and wash and shave and get out fairly late for "Lulu," and the subway's don't help any, and I get breathless running down the corridor just at 8 and push through 8 people to get to the seat for a GREAT production of a perfectly AWFUL opera (see DIARY 11820). It's out at 10:30 (or so, I don't remember) and we walk up to his place, getting groceries and steak, since there's no hamburger, and I teach him Azak's method of quick-frying, but it doesn't quite work because he doesn't sear it enough and remove all the fat, so it's tough. He's tired, he says, but he manages to get into sex while smoking, and I'm still not doing it, but I've forgotten his keys so that he has to leave me his for tomorrow, which rather pisses him, but he's being nice about it. I wear my hooded coat because it's chilly out tonight, but overnight the weather changes in one of the most extraordinary ways, and the temperature of 90 tomorrow breaks every record, as well as being the earliest 90 on record. (I MISS the degree mark of the old ball!) We get to bed about 1, exhausted.
DIARY 11821
TUESDAY, APRIL 12. Dennis gets up before radio goes on, fixes a good breakfast, and leaves for work about 10. I sit around reading New Yorkers and get out at 10:40 after showering, and Jan's waiting for me at 11 for my special Actualism class, which IS special and entertaining (see DIARY 11822). Out at 12:20 and over to 8th in the HOT weather to subway down to 14th and get a Ballard book I didn't know about and add a new title, so THAT didn't help much, and then I wander over to 5th and 18th into the Barnes and Noble Annex and end up buying 13 books that I'd wanted (well, a few that I HADN'T wanted), paying just over $20 for GREAT bargains, and looked around so much that it's 3:20 when I leave, subwaying home with my coat over my arm in what turns out to be 90 heat, VERY uncharacteristically, and get home in time to watch "Figuring All the Angles" with Chuck Conners, about stuntmen, from 4 to 5, getting a call from Nick Oliveri to say that I have an interview at 10 am on Thursday! Incredible! I'd bought an artichoke for 25 that looked very dried out from the subway fruit stand on the way home, and spent lots of time bringing my list up to date, boiling the artichoke, so that the only thing I had left to do BESIDE that (not catch up on the diary, not write more letters, not work on the impending income tax) was shower and get ready for the evening, leaving the apartment in rather a mess. Out late again and get to the Roundabout Theater at 7:40 to find Dennis not there, the TDF seats sold out, so I buy one for him for $6 from someone standing there and one for me for $9 just two rows in front, and it's really not worth it for the chic-pop Louis Falco (see DIARY 11823), though it was a kick to be called "Bob" by Anna Falco, his sister, who went through the est training with me. Out at 10 and Dennis is so hungry that he just doesn't want to get to my place and wait to eat, so we think of going down 8th to the place that Art had recommended, but then Dennis gets enthusiastic about the Blue Fox, so we get there for a BEAUTIFUL wide-thick-chested waiter with nice biceps who recommends the Blanquette de Veau for me (and it's LOTS of food and good veal in vegetables in a rather heavy sauce, with rice and tangy green beans) and Dennis has CREAMY lasagna, and we're too full for dessert with the half-carafe of wine. Then to my place for him to watch the first movie, Stan, which gets him up, so he comes on my chest and I use his come to REALLY whack away, and come great; bed at 1:50.
DIARY 11825
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13. He's up as the alarm rings at 7:45, I make soft-boiled eggs because there's nothing to cook them in any other way, and he has the rest of the rye bread in making two sandwiches with what still isn't the last of the roast beef. I wash dishes while he leaves, and STILL don't feel like doing anything, so I read "Bosch" and number the plates and count the pictures he's done, and then get back into the bedroom to run another film and come through it, pleased to note that the air flow does NOT seem to diminish when the thing is reversed or slowed or even stopped, though the diffuser that drops in front certainly reduces the quality of the pictures. Don't have any underwear but can't take the laundry out because it's Wednesday, and I take hours to read "Bosch" because it's interrupted by my calling Madge and talking about my interview tomorrow, and she gives me more hints, and then I get out the Brooks suit and try on a shirt and tie that look good, then had a call from Arnold who wants to get the "Hold Me" tickets to Dennis, so I say I'll go over there and do so at 1, and he comes out with me to the library at 1:30 after we talk about IBM tomorrow, and I'm to Myrtle Avenue to get a conventional short haircut for $2.50 from a barber who SAYS he remembers me from so long ago. Look in the bookshop and see two more Watts titles, but there's no place to shine shoes. Back being ribbed by black kids who say "That's a REAL pocketbook, isn't it?" Stopped in D'Ag and wait about 15 minutes for a beef roast for 99/pound, KNOWING that it's silly, but manage to get $8 worth of groceries so that I can get all their specials that I don't really need. Think increasingly about the interview tomorrow. Finish the roast beef in a kind of dinner, showered to wash my hair before the haircut so I don't have to shower this evening and will be shaving tomorrow, and I keep thinking of all the things I have to DO and brood about IBM. Out at 5:50 to Cinema Village and meet Dennis for "Next Stop, Greenwich Village," which may be real for Paul Mazursky but it's boring for us, and "Hester Street" with Art Ostrin doing the dance sequence which was largely cut, and a leading man who's so MODERN that it's not believable as 1898. Out at 10 and home to buy Raphael on Dennis's suggestion, he showers while I make the hamburger with mushroom soup (the vegetable stand is closed so we can't have artichokes, so I make peas), and we look at film and he smokes and poppers to build VERY quickly to a TRANSCENDENT come; bed at 12:45 GOOD!
DIARY 11826
THURSDAY, APRIL 14. I wake about 5:30, lay thinking about the coming day, still feeling that I might be warding off the flu that's laid Appleton and Time-Life low, but up before the alarm rings at 7:45 and shower, wash my hair again, rewarm the hamburger for breakfast, but it's 8:50 and I can't eat, so I put the stuff away, dress, and get out in the BEAUTIFUL morning to enter the BMT at 9:15 and simply use Ring-Pass-Not instead of reading to try to give me confidence, and get PERFECTLY to the Central Employment offices at 9:57, and the morning goes SO perfectly that I'm worried about it (see DIARY 11827). Out at 12 feeling GREATLY optimistic, smiling to myself as I read the glossy IBM booklet on the Programmers. Home at 12:30, meet John on the stairs, saying "Condolences," saying Lutece is LOUSY. To undress and phone Arnie, Art (whose father is going downhill and whose mother couldn't take it so she fell and broke her hip, being operated on yesterday!), Pope (whose line is busy), Madge at 2 to say how great it went, and then have the last of the hamburger while reading "Mars and Man," and AGAIN I can't get into anything so I'm back looking at the movies after Dennis calls, crowing about lunch with the man with the greatest collection on Duke Ellington in the world, and he calls again to tell me about a man who says that holding a well-bound Bible in his hands delights him as much as an orgasm, but the movies really don't turn me on that much so I have to watch more and more, and finally come about 6, feeling tired, and read more, but then decide I MUST do my income tax, and it goes fairly smoothly between 7 and 9:30, having to pay less than in previous years, and this year I DO expect to return to IBM, my excuse for not paying estimated taxes in previous years. Then I'm not feeling so tired, so I type 4 pages until 11, Azak call, I call for Thalia schedule, and watch "Jules and Jim" on 13 from 11 to 12:45, almost dropping to sleep, having a dinner of cereal, yogurt, Indian pudding, and Danish chocolate-covered popcorn to fill me up. I'd forgotten that she MARRIES the German Jules, that the WWI intervened, that she had a kid and STILL lay around with others, including Jim, and that she drove herself and Jim off a bridge at the end, so that Jules could mourn "the woman who would never be happy on earth, but she was all woman, that's why all men loved her." Brush my teeth and fall, earplugged, into bed at 1, expecting to sleep until 10, but waking at 8 with the shits, maybe I HAVE the flu?
DIARY 11831
FRIDAY, APRIL 15. Wake at 6:30, flabbergasted, and then get out of bed at 8 with very runny bowel movement, so I might be toying with the flu. Then feel like typing, so I get down to that, interspersed with calling Pope, Dennis, and then Bruce calls and wants to come over, so I invite him to lunch, then get out about 11:30 to pick up four more books (found a NEW Watts when I tried to find the two Watts at Community Book, and bought Ouspensky's "Fourth Way," since I doubt it'll be at Barnes and Noble), and then get back to put things away, put the roast in for Bruce, and finish 8 pages by 1:15. Put those things away, Dennis calls, and Bruce rings to be let in. Finish talking with Dennis, we have beef and peas and Indian pudding, all the while he talks of his experiences with the mind-blowingness of Actualism, and I stare at him, wishing he'd leave, being thankful if IBM takes away these boring people from my time-consumption. He talks on until 3:45, when I say I have to get out for the laundry, and get it, put it away, and almost think to get back to letters, but I decide to finish reading "Mars and the Mind of Men," write notes about getting interviewed by IBM to Mom and Rita, and then had showered and shaved and subway out to the New School at 7:45 with Arnie, buy our tickets, then return to 6th for donuts for him, and sit through a terribly boring film called "The Passionate Industry," about film production in Australia from 1920-1930, and the most interesting footage is about the new theaters in the country, and the fact that they spent so much footage on the theaters coupled with the fact that they had to DO that, indicated how nothing was their film output. Arnie sleeps most of the time until 9:10, and then we dash out for a very cheesy pizza slice that leaves us farting through the second film, "Chang," by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoendsack, who then went on to make the original "King Kong." Well, as Dennis would say, it was NOT wonderful. Long introductions about the Kru family were enlivened by a marvelously human spider monkey who ate, demanded to be patted, and got humanistic subtitles, and the trapping of leopards and tigers were interesting, but then they got a baby "Chang" (elephant) which attracted the mother, and then the whole herd, but they looked like they were being FORCED to trample the village. Arnie slept. Out at 10:50, I subway to Dennis's and he makes sausage and spaghetti, and then we're both tired so we drift off to sleep about 1:30 am.
DIARY 11832
SATURDAY, APRIL 16. We're up, again without sex, and I finish reading "Studies in Zen" and get into "In a Shallow Grave" while Dennis is fussing about the apartment, and then he's broiling sausages for breakfast, and eggs, and I suggest strongly that we should see "Carmina Burana," and he finally agrees, but says he has to get his pants out to the cleaners first, so we walk down Broadway rather than Riverside in the beautifully cool afternoon. There's not too long a line, and someone sells us tickets in the second row off to the side, and we're in to the two productions, neither of which is the greatest they've ever been (see DIARY 11833) of "Oedipus Rex" and "Carmina Burana," with the Dennis Wayne Dancers without Dennis Wayne. Out about 4:40 and decide that rather than killing time before seeing the movie in the Village, I'd go home for the money that Dennis needs for the concert tomorrow, since he had no time to go to the bank today, so I subway home, finish "In a Shallow Grave" (and it's nice to have a book that can be finished in a day), read the mail, get money, and then it's time for me to catch the subway back to the Village, waiting until 6 so that I can get a return, and get into the Bleecker Street just as the movies are starting, assuming that Azak is not, in fact, going to meet me there after our numerous conversations about it. Oh, and surprised by a message from John Connolly on my service! "Brewster McCloud" is rather charming, with a Bud Cort about whom you can believe anything, he's so fey, young looking (and unsexy when he strips to chin for flying muscles), and vulnerable, but Shelly Duvall isn't what I'd call sexy at ALL, with the hanks of hair glued to her lower lashes to make her look like she has a doll's face. He kills a number of people, but he's not shot by the cops who floor the Astrodome, he kills himself by crashing into the ground after he's flown about the dome. "Where's Poppa" (or "Going Ape," its silly retitle) is just stupid, with a crazy (like a fox) Ruth Gordon almost messing up an EFFECTIVE Trish Van Devere's marriage to the ever-klutzy George Segal, and finally finding "Poppa" at a home where he comes forward to say "Mama?" and they drive off into the sunset. Spot Jeff on the line waiting to get in at 10, up to Dennis's to find he's out, read the Times, eat more food, and AGAIN get into bed and cuddle and don't come---a habit?
DIARY 11834
SUNDAY, APRIL 17. Wake with a dream vivid in my mind (see DIARY 11835) and Dennis is up to listen to a program on RVR that interviews Mary Lou Williams from 9 to 9:30, and then he crawls back into bed and starts playing with me in a gentle persistent way that, coupled with my lack of orgasm for a long time, produces a stunning orgasm that lets ME take HIS cock in hand and move it back and forth for a grand gush from HIM, and I end up totally immersed in oceans of semen. He's up and going, I'm back to the Times and work both puzzles after getting the clue that the double crostic was about Hitler, and then we have breakfast about 1, I get back to finish reading "Concrete Island," a good time-waster by Ballard that continues his obsession with automobiles and highways, and then I get back into reading "The Recognitions," which I'd started on March 3, 1976, and haven't gotten half through in over a year. Dennis vacuums and showers and scrubs, and then I get into the shower about 6:30 and shave, have some cantaloupe and ice cream and some of his bread toasted for a quick intermeal, then walk down in the sapphire-blue sky to Carnegie Hall at 7:45 to find almost no one in line, and he has no money, there are no seats until the 26th row in the center of the orchestra (oh, I'd called John Connolly, whose Ivan is in Houston for 7 months (starting 2.5 months ago) and he's only working from 7:30 am to 10 am, so he's wanting to play games and see people, so we'll have to do that) so we take $7.50 seats in the center of the dress circle, which turns out to be the best possible place to sit. The evening is passably interesting (see DIARY 11836), and Dennis is delighted that I enjoy it, saying even that I've changed, take that as a compliment, and I'm so flabbergasted I can't even think of a snappy retort. Out about 10:45, he'd wanted to walk to 42nd, but we get a local immediately at 59th and an express quickly at 42nd, so we're home about 11:15. I put on Shake-n-Bake pork chops (but never again, since it covers the gristle and fat), put away the books I'd read, bought (when we went to the Coliseum when the doors weren't open at 7:45), and have to read, and we eat late, finish two pans of peas, he can't finish his Indian pudding, and he's too tired at 1 to watch films, so we just go directly to sleep.
DIARY 11838
MONDAY, APRIL 18. I wake about 6:30, feeling VERY dry and thirsty, but go back to sleep and wake at the alarm at 7:45. Dennis puts on coffee, shaves, and showers while I broil bacon, sauté mushrooms, scramble eggs, and pour orange juice. I talk about my dream this morning (see DIARY 11837) about working at IBM, and he leaves early, at 9, and I shit, reading more of "The Recognitions," and then water the plants, read more, and feel myself tempted to slip into nonproduction, looking at book lists and others, and so I get down to the typewriter (leaving word for Marty, saying to Jack Gilbert that I've already gotten my haircut, wishing him a good summer), to type these 7 by 11:05 am! Then I do light-work for only the second time this week (didn't have the sheet along, I tell myself) for half an hour, go down for the mail, and talk to Arnold who calls to say that I phoned him on SATURDAY asking about tickets to Tomlin that he wouldn't see until SATURDAY NIGHT, agreeing to go to the Carnegie Hall Cinema with him tomorrow, leave word for Dennis since TDF has come through with "Gemini" ticket discounts, and can't resist adding this by 1 pm. Then completely determined to finish the drafts of the last 11 letters for McGraw-Hill, so I sit at the typewriter and get 4, then 5, then 6, then I'm left with 4, then 3, then 2, then 1, and I'm thumbing through the telephone book to get ideas for translators and window gates, and at last by 6 I've pushed through the last of the first drafts, feeling VERY relieved, yet still a bit kicking myself for being so SLOW and dragging it out so MUCH. Then shower and eat some roast beef to put something into my stomach, and shave, and then it's time to leave at 7:15 for Actualism, not reading on the subway, but not doing light-work either, and we're early, so we sit in the hall and chat with people leaving the first class of a new session, and everyone seems to know someone there but me. In for an intermediate session that's part bad and part book (see DIARY 11839), and for homework he says to remember our dreams for the coming week: well, I'd started already yesterday and today! Tom's joined the class and since he's made the rate $12.50, I'm willing to share a cab with him, but it's $2 for me up to 88th and West End, which is a bit much. Dennis reads while I edit from 10:15 to 11, then he serves tacos made from stiff tamales (no, TORTILLAS), with cheese and lettuce that HE grated, and we eat until about 12:15, talking a lot, and get into bed without sex AGAIN.
DIARY 11843
TUESDAY, APRIL 19. Alarm gets Dennis out of bed and I follow him, to his surprise, so he makes the bed and fixes up the place. I work from 8:45 to 9:15 on editing, then we have breakfast (he requests my fabulous soft-boiled eggs), and I do more work from 9:45 to 10:45, when I'd determined to do light-work, so I do it for about a half an hour, then leave about 11:30 after shitting, but when I get to CPW and 88th at 11:40, I know I'll have to rush to travel the 31 blocks in 20 minutes, but I walk very fast, weaving in and out of the pedestrians of school kids seeing the Museum of Natural History, kindergarten kids walking in hand-in-hand chains, and older kids looking sexy in tee-shirts and jeans, and attain an average of 7 blocks in 4 minutes, so I just get to the Carnegie Hall Cinema after the titles for "Middle of the Night." Alain Tanner is definitely a moviemaker to ignore: talky, into women's liberation with women who are USED without even having the wit to TALK about it, and men who assume the WOMEN must change to fit THEIR ideas of what should be, then are puzzled when they WON'T. "Retour d'Afrique" ends on one of those awful freeze-frames when they look down to see what the coin's turned up to see who'll stay home to mind the coming child, poor thing, but Geneva looks DREADFUL in the gray light of the black-and-white film: "Middle" at LEAST had beautiful Swiss villages interspersed with dream-visions of daffodils in spring through the story. Arnie leaves about 3, I leave at 4 and walk north more slowly, getting a slice of pizza, seeing some nice bodies, none of them havable, and phone Madge at 4:50. She says she'll talk to me tomorrow, so obviously they haven't been trying to reach me at home. I do a half-hour's more light-work, feeling good about it, shower, then Dennis calls about going out or eating in, and I don't decide for him, feel guilty, so I do his dishes, which he thinks is sweet. He'd damn well better, though I chew him out about NOT using steel wool. Peggy calls and wants to join us, so he gets back at 6:50, calls her, puts on chicken to fry, we eat from 7:20 to 7:35, then (I'd worked from 6:30 to 7:14) walk to the Thalia for a "The Caretaker" that's quite a bit better, to my surprise, than Olivier's "Uncle Vanya" (see DIARY 11844). Out at 12, tired from sitting (had bought a Teilhard de Chardin next to the Thalia, to my delight), Peggy stops to eat, looking DREADFUL, and we're home to wash and get into bed about 12:45, not even discussing the fact that we don't seem to have SEX anymore!
DIARY 11846
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20. Alarm goes, we cuddle for a bit, and both out of bed at 8. I again work from 8:45 to 9:15 as he fills the kitchen with smoke from broiling his sausages, and he gets VERY annoyed when I say it's burning and then shout at him because I think it's ON FIRE, and he accuses me of shouting at him. Hamburger bit and sausage and lettuce with creamy Italian (yes) for breakfast, and he remarks "How many lovers have served you THIS before?" I work again from 10 to 10:30 while he goes out to pick up pants from the cleaners, and then we leave about 10:40 and I get in at 11:20 to phone Rolf, waking him up and telling him to call back, and then look through the mail, try to see if the broken bits of film work in the manual projector (they do, but the images are hard to look at and hardly for jerking off), and then do another half-hour of light-work between 11:45 and 12:15 (forgetting that I should plan it AROUND the bells at noon), and then type 8 pages by 2:10 pm. Work on editing the last letters for McGraw-Hill from 2:10 to 4:30, but in the middle of that Madge calls for about a half hour with a BOMB from my IBM personnel file (see DIARY 11847)! I flutter about and decide to do light-work to help me, but it doesn't seem to be working (see DIARY 11848). But then the thought that THIS is what EVERYONE goes through most of their lives helps calm me, and I call Dennis, who says he'll change his plans for the evening if I want him to, but I say no, I want to go to est. Cook some of the pork chops in the awful shake-and-bake, then shave with the electric razor and leave for est about 6:30, and who's there but Matthew, and we have a GREAT series of conversations (see DIARY 11849). Then est is quite a revelation in Zen philosophy (see DIARY 11850), and I feel that with "About Sex #7" I've completed THAT. Tons of coincidences about the day (see DIARY 11853), and I ride home with one of them to let myself off at Clark and Henry at 11:30, to find a message from Rolf on my machine, and I call him at 11:30 and talk to him until 12:55 about HIS starting a job for both of us (see DIARY 11854), and my head is reeling so much I figure I won't be able to sleep, but I brush my teeth, wash my face, drink water, and get to sleep about 1:10 am with only a minimal amount of tossing, grateful for the PERFECT silence around me even WITHOUT my earplugs. But what a DAY that takes 9 pages to cover!
DIARY 11855
THURSDAY, APRIL 21. Wake about 7:10 with not a TRACE of a dream for the first time in four days. Doze and out of bed at 8:20, fuss around for a second, then get to editing letters from 8:30 to 9:45. Then have the first breakfast of cereal for a long time, getting back into Scientific American, and then finish up the editing from 10:15 to 12:30, catching up on the job-workbook hours, putting things away, and phoning Lauren to find that she DOES want the final things in today, so I have to deliver them, which is OK, since I think I'm going to the New Yorker to see the Fassbinder films until I call and find that they left yesterday. Charge a half-hour for delivery, and find that I've worked 74 hours on it for $1500, just over $20/hour, and to make THAT at IBM I'd have to make over $30,000! Do a half-hour of light-work from 12:30 to 1, phone Naomi to say that the index pages haven't come yet, and try to get in touch with Dennis, call Pope to tell him about Werner on TV tomorrow, and then decide to call Marty about Dennis's opera-going, and stumble onto the incredible "Rigoletto" coincidences described in DIARY 11853. Put "Rigoletto" on to play just as Marty calls back, saying, "This is Rigoletto," and I crow, "This is 'Rigoletto'," and let him listen to a bit of his old album. Talk with him about 45 minutes in all, listening while he has the extraordinary patience to tell me about his life, and then I'd been cooking the pork chops until 2:15, and have them for lunch with more of the green beans in sour cream and Mrs. Johnson's pineapple crush, and then decide to wash my face, NOT shave, and leave for Lauren's at 3, after filling out a form for the bank but not going, but get to the bookshop on Middagh to buy another Jerome book, get a card with his hours, and leave at 3:45 to Lauren's at 4:15, to chat with her until 5 about ballet, happy to leave my bill with her (SO happy, in fact, that I'd forgotten to put on the fact that it was for $1500!). We walk up to 5th and 58th, she telling me about her upcoming cruise on the Cunard Princess to Bermuda May 14, I get to Argosy to search and find no new books until 5:45, then up to Mason's to find "Ivan Osokin" until 6:15, then home to phone Rolf, sick with prostate, strep throat, and another encounter with hepatitis for which he got gamma globulin, then do another half-hour of light-work with the pork chops, last of them, cooking, and finish the last of the green beans and Mrs. Johnson's pineapple, too, look at book lists, type 9 pages until 11:30, when I watch a POOR episode (and only #4) of "All That Glitters" with not so many neat male bodies, brush and waterpick teeth, toss, then masturbate to 1:10; sleep.
DIARY 11857
FRIDAY, APRIL 22. Wake about 7:10 with the vague memory of a dream, then back to sleep and up at 7:45 to take notes of the dreams (see DIARY 11856) that have returned, then, despite the woman upstairs plumping around, I doze until 8:40, figuring 7 hours MUST be enough, and get up for more light-work, feeling very self-righteous about it, from 8:45 to 9:15, then have breakfast of more cereal, reading New Yorker, water the plants, leave word for Ginny at 9:35, when she hadn't gotten in yet, and catch up with these two pages by 10:10 am. Then Arnie calls and we talk until I realize that I want to watch Werner on "Good Day" with a good interview. Ginny calls during that, and I call her at 11:20, and she says "Just a second," and I crow that she called me, I called her, she called me, I called her, and NOW she says "just a second." Give her Dennis's number, and she says she'll have something for me in a while, and by then it's time to finish scouring the bathtub, which I'd started before Arnie called, cutting a piece of screen to put over the drain to help stop the instant plugging of the drain with my hair all the time. Then it's 11:45 and I want to get to the bank for money before it gets crowded at noon, so I get $150, return the record to the library (waiting for it to open at noon) and check the items on my list and check out "Guernica Night," since it's there and I don't know whether I'll like Malzberg or not. Then shopping for $9.53 and a lot of hassle over getting the wrong bargain yogurt and two pounds of butter, and I figure I can do without D'Agostino's unless I NEED it. Home to finish the old roast beef, having gotten new roast beef for tonight, and there are 4 phone calls in the hour I'd been gone: no answer, Madge (who refers me to a job that Margo's sister likes, so she IS thinking I won't get the IBM job), Bruce (who's shaved his head and comes for 4 popper bottles for $40, so I needn't have gone to the bank), and Dennis, who's coming over for dinner tonight. Then I can't put down Malzberg (oh, also did a half-hour of light-work) and read it until 5, not liking it (see DIARY 11858), and then put on roast, having made a spice cake with maple glaze icing, and shower and shave and dust everything, but don't vacuum, and Dennis is in about 6:50 and we eat and leave (I work 15 minutes on index that Naomi MESSENGERS over when I don't get it in the mail today, which is good, because I don't get it TOMORROW, either) at 7:40, getting to Limon late (see DIARY 11859), walk down with Jeff, home to daiquiris and sex to 12:30.
DIARY 11861
SATURDAY, APRIL 23. Wake at 7:45 with the dream (see DIARY 11860) fresh in my mind, glad that I now had 4 out of 5 for the nights since the assignment to remember them, but doze off to ignore the woman upstairs moving around, and I woke again at 8:30, figuring 8 hours sleep was enough, and trying to do light-work, but not getting anywhere since Dennis woke at 8:45 and we started cuddling with hard cocks, he rolled over and got into his quickly, and as last night he came QUITE quickly and feelingly, and this time I grabbed for it and sucked it, pressing down on his bulb, and he felt like he could be coming up again, and I was hard enough so that I came easily, and then he got up for coffee and I crawled out of bed about 9:30. We listened to the first half of "Rigoletto" after talking about an hour about est and my last brush with the last of the "About Sex" seminars, and then he showered while I broiled bacon and made a good cheddar cheese scrambled-egg dish that we ate until 12:15, when I did the dishes, to the background of "Rigoletto" again, and then I went down for the mail and he wrote in his diary, then phoned BAM and decided to exchange his tickets for it, and I read the May Graduate Review and re-read my "The Body" notes enough to decide to take "The Body" 7-10 to get back into finding out if I wanted to sign up for a NEW seminar. I did a half-hour of light-work, which is getting boring since I'm doing it only for myself, and then decide I have to type these 4 pages to catch up by 3:40; LATE! Wonder when Dennis's coming back, but decide I have to vacuum anyway, so I do that and he's still not back, so I shower and wash my hair and put on the roast beef to heat up, and at last sit down to check the pages of the index and find two missing between 6:30 and 6:50, when Dennis finally returns, and he's hungry, so he vocalizes, I make more spinach, and the beef is very tough but we finish most of it and leave about 7:20 (without having time to finish listening to "Rigoletto") for the Limon, which is not quite as interesting as last time (see DIARY 11862). That lasts until 10:10, which is nice, and I'm quite cold in my jacket outside, where the weather seems to have sunk to the high 30's, and we buy a Times and do some shopping, and we read it, and we're both not hungry so we get into bed about 1:30, moving the clocks forward an hour, thus losing an hour, without having sex, and it's starting to seem to me to be becoming a problem.
DIARY 11864
SUNDAY, APRIL 24. Wake about 7:30 with some of the dreams going through my head (see DIARY 11863), but lay until 8:30, trying to do light-work but it doesn't work because I keep dozing off, and then we're up at 10:30, and we cuddle and I'm out of bed at 11 to watch the Waverly Consort talking about how the Arabs brought all the instruments and songs to Europe in the 11th century, he talks to Peggy, I get back to the Times, and he calls his folks about 12:30, talks until 1, and we have a good breakfast of cooked carrots and scrambled eggs with cheese (rather like what I made yesterday) and the last of his bread as toast, and it's raining, so I work the puzzles and look through the Voice and New Yorkers and Smithsonians, not willing to get to the index, and he's writing in his diary and reading the Times and doing chores, and we leave at 3:40 to get there at 4, subwaying in the COLD rain (thermometer at the bank says 36!) down to the State Theater at 4, and wait until Marty comes out at 4:15 to have us help him do collating of the notes, then we're in to read (I skimming the index in the Hess book on cooking, to Dennis's delight) until 5, when he starts, and I take a few notes, but the lecture actually isn't the best, but I learn that he's been doing a new series of "Through the Opera Glass" on WBAI for the past 2 years! He talks until 6:15, we have three sandwiches (small heroes) and potato chips and tiny bits of wine, and get into the house at 6:59 to find we're no longer allowed to stand on the Parterre Box level, down to no standing on the right, and stand below on the left, in perfect position for the guy to get a heart attack in the middle of the first act, wife squeaking, "He can't be dead, this can't be true," and they get an aisle-chair for him, neat, and take him out just before the end of Act I. "Rigoletto" is rather tame after that (see DIARY 11865), and we're out about 9:50 to find it's still raining (Marty said that the Trilogy is on for Tuesday, and Regina said they ONLY had to stand for "Mefistofeles" before, but they're selling out a lot now), so we subway home, still cold, and I read more and Dennis writes more and we watch "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" with a nice chest-shot of Tom Tryon as an understanding man from Andromeda who finally all get killed off, and I make some soft-boiled eggs for dinner while Dennis doesn't eat, and we get to bed to talk for a long time (see DIARY 11866) about where our relationship seems to be going; until 2:30 am?