1977 8 of 11
DIARY 12176
MONDAY, JULY 25. Feel terrible when the alarm rings, but Dennis gets up to make coffee and we talk about the index for awhile, but he's determined to continue, but I go back to bed about 7 and sleep until 9:30, when I feel quite a bit better, putting on another layer of lotion, and the skin seems even REDDER this morning. Work on the index of Metastasis in the kitchen in the breezy coolness from 9:35 to 11:35, when George Flynn calls and send a messenger for his index and when Dennis makes his arrangements to take things in, and then I stop for breakfast which turns into lunch with cold roast beef and ubiquitous ears of delicious corn. I'd had to wash dishes before we had enough to eat with beforehand, so we didn't eat until 12:15. Then I cleared off the table and went back to the index from 12:50 to 5:20, finishing the marking of the 504 pages in record time of 56 pages per hour! Dennis isn't finished typing his index yet, so he's had to call and change schedules, feeling depressed about it, and he goes so long it's obvious we won't get to the movies this evening, not to mention the fact that it's raining pretty heavily, which is nice as an antidote to the heat, though he keeps the fan going in the living room as he types. I watch "In Search of Nazi Treasures," which is 3/4 about the war and 1/8 recreated film footage and only 1/8 authentic, from 7:30 to 8, and then he's finished and I fry up ham/pork and slice 5 rotting peaches into Sambuca and try it over a flame, setting off a two-foot flare which is startling but nice-smelling, and I like it but Dennis doesn't. Finish at 9 and watch the start of "In Search of the Nile" until I remember I'd seen it before, and he vocalizes when I say I want to type, but I'm feeling something's wrong and I get into the bedroom to surprise his dressing for home. He assures me that he IS disappointed, but he's not going home in anger about, in my burn and lack of sexual interest, but I say HE turns me on, so about 10:15 we have Kahlua in milk because he's thirsty, and it's nice, and then he smokes and gets into pushing his cock against the sheets and jerks off standing over my upside-down face, which turns us both on, and I FINALLY come off, sore again and sweating, but I don't shower, just slather on more lotion, and we watch a pretty Jean Simmons in "Young Bess" from 11:30 to 12, when he's tired and goes to sleep, and to 1:50, when it's over, reasonably historically, with Deborah Kerr in love with Stewart Granger, and with Don Rolfe as a Clint Eastwood-like "Uncle Ned." Not so sore.
DIARY 12178
TUESDAY, JULY 26. The alarm that Dennis set rings at 7, but I bat it out before he wakes, and then I wake him at 7:05, again at 7:10, and he gets out of bed wearily at 7:15, but I fall back to sleep and wake about 8:15 to hear him preparing breakfast, and I think it's for US but it's only for HIM, and he leaves without saying goodbye at 9. I'm up about 9:30 and do light-work until 10:40, feeling rather good about it, and I'd also jotted down notes for the pages of dreams this morning (see DIARY 12179). Then have breakfast of cereal while finishing up an old New York, getting finally to the current issue, which I read a bit of, and then down for the mail, which comes up with the penultimate two seed catalogs, which I go through and date the entire in "The Green Pages," and read the brochures that est sent. It's about 1 by then, and I'm amazed at how the time goes so quickly, and then catch up with 6 diary pages by 2:30, and leave word for Dennis to call me from Tree. Eat the bit of pork Dennis put into a dish yesterday evening, and then feel hungry again, so I eat more cold roast beef and an ear of corn while getting back to reading the book on Philosophy. By that time it's 4, so I shower and shave (which goes well), and put on some lotion, but when I try on a tee-shirt, the seams in the shoulders hurt so much that I change to the short-sleeved shirt that seems much lighter and more tender. But the white pants are a mistake because they ride low on the hips, irritating the burn there, and are tight at the knees, so I go up and down stairs with an odd hop to minimize the amount I have to bend my knees. Out at 5 to the BMT, feeling the warm sun uncomfortably on the back through my shirt (though only my face had been peeling in tiny flecks that stopped when I wet them), and get to Video Associates at 162 W. 56th at 5:35, and everyone's there, and Joan D'Incecco has an interesting class till about 8:30, when we walk up via Central Park (though it's so cool to my burn that I put on my jacket) to buy Sabra for Dennis's graduation (it's not terribly good, but there's not terribly MUCH of it for $5.79, pick up his chicken hearts and New Yorker, and subway to my place by 10:30 for him to shower and me to fry them after watching a good program about Vladimir Nabokov and his "The Texture of Time" which was renamed something that I can't trace in 1966 or later to 11, then fry them up good and have a Sabra screwdriver and corn and wine for dinner while watching "The Red Tent" from 11:30 to 12:15, at which time all the spectacle is over, and we read in EB that they're rescued eventually, so we turn off TV, he smokes, and we both try to come after long and futile attempts, but by 1:45 we're both so exhausted we just go to sleep.
DIARY 12170
WEDNESDAY, JULY 27. We both get our way: he sets the alarm at 7:30 and it rings, but I shut it off and we get up at 8, when I'd wanted. Have soft-boiled eggs to, as I think it, save on butter, but he slathers the overdone eggs to "make them moist" so has barely enough for his toast. We eat, I read the good New Yorker article on the blackout, and he leaves at 9:15, so I water plants, put things away, and type only one page by 9:40, ready for indexing. Type straight through until 1, getting 309 cards with the first 1/3 book, 316 more with the second 1/3, and then panic with 215 for the third 1/3 until I see another pile by my seat, which brings the total up to 989 cards, which can hope to expand to 1100, the number required as a minimum. Dennis calls right then, and I go down for the mail, have lunch, then watch "The Magician" from 2 to 3:40, but it's not really as good as I'd remembered it being: he DOES talk, begs for solace at the end after he's frightened the wits out of everyone, and there's an incredibility-straining climax when they get a performance before the king. Then do an hour's light-work, finding it rather hard to concentrate, and I really SHOULD do it earlier than 3:50. Then get back to sorting and shave, and there are one or two tiny cricks of peeling on my back ALREADY, and clothes feel more comfortable tonight, and I finish the day from 7 to 7:30 with editing, then leave, worried about the subway that just left at 7:40, but one comes in time to get me to 72nd at 8 pm, so I have time to get a slice of pizza that my stomach's demanding since the last of the roast beef and one slice of cheese (can't have any corn since I'd finished the butter) wasn't very much. Get in just at 8:15 as about the last person in, and it IS the initiation, with Rebekah with a golden-yellow dress on, and the tape is not spectacular (see DIARY 12180), and get tree #626, which Jim whispers sums to 5, but I prefer to think of it as six to six, since there are so many threes and sixes in my birthdate. Out at 10:15 and up to Dennis's to copy down the recipe for Sabra chiffon pie, Dennis calls at 11 to tell me to eat hamburger, and I read his New Yorkers with articles about Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, and quarks all in one issue, and his LaCotta volcanic-rock frying pan does nicely with hamburger, which I have with toast and lots of Apry, and then I get to bed at 1:15 and he's in at 1:20, having had sex with Jack Herbert at his place on West 11th after Cathy left at 12. Chat and sleep nicely.
DIARY 12181
THURSDAY, JULY 28. Alarm at 8:30 is painless, and Dennis is up for coffee and I read more New Yorker and Burroughs, and he calls Winterthur at 9, then puts on thick hamburgers on the volcano and makes fried potatoes, and though I'm not complaining---he's showing me chalkware slides, we're talking nicely---it IS 10:30 when I leave, 11 when I get home, 11:30 when I put away all the groceries I got on the way back, and 12:30 when I'm finished talking to Bruce Lieber after I called John Connolly to tell him that Tangerine Dream's cancelled. Then read the mail and get to the index at 12:45, editing for a long period of time, until about 4, and then start typing (so it WAS 5 hours for the ending editing, but there were LOTS of cross-references to check), getting into a nice speed that takes me up to a tiny bit over 15 pages per hour, which is nice, and at 7:10 finish typing, relieved that I managed to get JUST over 44 pages, for 1100 lines, the minimum of 10 pages that they wanted. Water the plants and talked to Rolf, who recommends Tripp at WSDG next Tuesday, and then from 7:30 to 8:40 I proofread and alphabetize, finding lots of errors, and then type cover-sheet and note to Laura Kosden and fill out the rolodex cards for Viking and Raven, fill out the job-work datebook, and put the index into an envelope with everything to take to her on Monday by 9 pm. Debate doing light-work, but there's not enough time, so I put in a tuna casserole about 9:20 and put on some clothes since it's actually getting CHILLY in the apartment, though the thermometer is only down to 79, and then type these two pages to catch up just at 9:55. Pour tuna onto a plate and watch Barbara Walters interview Mr. and Mrs. (Elizabeth Taylor) John Warner (she's fat but happy and wants to keep acting), the Shah and Empress of Iran (she's regent but he doesn't think she can do it if he dies), and Barbara Jordan (she's fun at parties and hasn't found anyone to marry) until 11, then have corn while watching a couple minutes of awful "Fernwood 2-Night" (is that Fernwood Night-Night?). Then start watching films, get RIGHT to a nice edge and actually drip white drops before coming while watching Stan after Rick's new films were (1) pretty awful and (2) broken. Watch pieces and end of "Man Afraid" to see if George Nader is sexy, but he even RESCUES the man who had been threatening his son without taking off his shirt, so it's not hopeful. Then do light-work effectively enough, it seems, between 1:30 and 2:25, and then fall asleep with the itching really starting and the peeling beginning to connect circles on my upper back.
DIARY 12182
FRIDAY, JULY 29. Wake about 8:30, still tired after only 6 hours sleep, and then Bob Rosinek gets me out of bed to tell me about his "invisibility" (see DIARY 12183), and I try phoning Bruce Lieber at 9:50, but the line's busy. Then get to marking the Pathology 2 index from 10-12, interrupted by Dennis calling to say he might be over tonight, and Mrs. Johnson caulking the bathtub with a cute handyman in shorts with keys on the right. Get to page 112 in those two hours, feeling good, and then Bruce calls at 10:05, goes crazy, then I have cereal for lunch after I read the mail (getting a check from Viking ALREADY!), call Mark Elliott, make a check for John Connolly, and STILL wonder how the time goes so fast. Back to marking from 1:30 to 2:30, getting 188 cards in 3 hours, and I wonder how I'm doing with the number of CARDS, so I stop to type two pages and get to typing cards at 3:00. Then I sit to do light-work from 3:06 to 4:02, coming up with a GREAT idea of a story about "The Last of the Sensualists" (see DIARY 12185), at which time I decide I'm hungry, so I put on hamburger, phone Dennis to ask him to dinner tonight late, phone Rebekah to get great answers from Actualism (see DIARY 12184), read more Philosophy while eating, and type THIS by 5:15. then type 320 cards from 170 pages, which isn't very good, and go back to mark more on those between 170 and 188, then continue marking to 250 from 6:30 to 7:45, and figure out where I am until 8, when I watch the second half of the special about the Moscow Circus, which has a bit of duplicating, with essentially the SAME final act, so it's not terribly satisfying. Hungry during that, so I get out the prunes and finish them, which means that I fart very redolently until Dennis arrives, at which time he says "I thought you created your universe," and at that point I STOP. Then decide I must wash dishes, which I do, and shower and shave and get back to typing 269 cards from 10 to 10:45 through page 250, which is a much better average. Turn off the tuna casserole just before Dennis comes in, he accepts corn, so I make that and we eat until midnight, celebrating by boiling up some more Sambuca and coffee beans, then get into bed for some LOVELY necking, feeling VERY close, though not hard, and when we get down to that, we decide we're tired and should wait for the morning, so we get to sleep about 1:30, almost cuddling.
DIARY 12186
SATURDAY, JULY 20. Alarm rings at 8:30 and jolts us both awake, though I HAD wakened at 7 and debated light-work but went back to sleep. Then we start cuddling again and get hard and jerk each other off: me coming first, using my come on his nipples, and then he sits on me to come on my chest and doesn't shower for the first time in the morning---I think EVER. Make the bacon, onion and egg dish again which we finish eating about 10:15, and he rings the bell which says there's mail downstairs, so I go down for that and read it, lots from NGTF, and then get to light-work about 11:08, doing it until about 12:15, with the church chimes going, and then phone Pope and talk to HIM for a bit, after talking to Bruce, who didn't phone, but BobR phoned HIM and he's willing to hear the Actualism intro, and finally get down to the index at 1:05, to work until 2, when I watch "Jack, a Flash Fantasy" with perfectly typical songs by the "Godspell" star and Gilda Radner, with some other nice actors, but it's all so PREDICTABLE and fragmentary, and all the card tricks fit so NEATLY together that even "Moo" the cow, doesn't seem over-cute. Then back to mark until 3:15, then type till 4, going through page 340 and getting 804 cards in total, which isn't bad, and then mark to page 410 until 5:35, not putting in very many, so it'll be a short index. Then shower and wash my hair and I'm just starting to peel in FRONT now, and the back is really flaky! Shave and type this page before dressing at 6:20 pm. Subway to his place just about 7, picking up a half-gallon of cold white wine as he'd requested, donating that $4 to the party, and he puts me to work fixing the salad, which I fix so much of that we have the last of it on Wednesday morning! Cathy arrives about 7:30, others by 8, and others, namely Michael, by about 9, and Ina Tuvar arrives about 11, but everyone fits together for an absolutely fabulous party (see DIARY 12187) that everyone thinks is just great. We sing "Happy Birthday" to Dennis at 12, Joan and Paul had left earlier, and everyone else leaves by 12:30, and we fall into each other's arms, quite stoned, and I bring everything into the kitchen and he washes and washes until about 1, and then we fall into bed without sex.
DIARY 12188
SUNDAY, JULY 31. We're up about 9:15, me doing what I consider to be half my light-work for the day, and we get into HARD cock and both come just before his parents phone from North Dakota at 10:15. It's a short talk and I say that I'll just be off, since he's not hungry for breakfast, so I grab a subway and get home JUST at 11 for the start of Camera Three on Kabuki, which I phone Dennis to watch, and then work on Pathology from 11:40 to 5, catching up a little bit at each step of the way on my schedule, taking a little less time to type, edit, and type the pages, and I do the last half-hour of light-work and have some lunch because I'm starved by that time, and then get back to work from 6-9 to type through 42 pages and even count to prove that I won't be going over the 1320 lines maximum. Watch a Cousteau program on "Forgotten Mermaids" about manatees getting chopped up in motorboat wakes, and then the second half is a saccharine sentimental story about "Sewer Sam" who's "gingerly" tested to see if he likes a natural spring, natural greens, natural manatees, and Cousteau gushes over "look at him" when he knows how to swim and moans "No," when someone says they saw a manatee with a rake stuck in its back, and shows a manufacturing plant with distaste without bothering to say how it connects with the manatee, all the while building constructions to keep him in, panicking him by trying to put a beeper on him, and disturbing their early-morning sleep to film them while condemning the crowded river-users who won't leave them alone. Then watch Wodehouse Playhouse's "Mr. Porter Takes a Rest Cure" with the two people who are rather bores and VERY predictable; "Fawlty Towers" which is just as tasteless, and Monty Python which turns out to be an old one (or at least I saw the END of it), and then there's nothing to do but have some toast to fill my hungering stomach, finishing up hamburger, and get to bed about 12:30 after reading more of Burroughs just to put me to sleep, though I'm convinced that tomorrow and the following week will make up for the efforts I had to put in all this week to get these last two indexes DONE in time for the various deadlines. Didn't come, either.
DIARY 12189
MONDAY, AUGUST 1. Up about 8:30, feeling pretty worn out for some reason, and have breakfast and talk on the phone to people until I manage to get back to the index at 10:40, finishing typing the pages and proofreading until 12:40, and then find that I've put in so little time that I can raise my rate to $22/hour, which makes me feel good. Then type cover letters and phone people to see when I'll get there, and Susan doesn't have my books yet, so that's one thing off the list. Shower and shave and by this time it's almost ready to rain, large loud cracks of lightning and thunder coming right together, and sirens on the street making me think something may have been hit nearby. Out of the subway at Times Square about 3 to pouring rain, so I get my feet wet and go over to Raven, meeting Terry Kornak and her boss and the editor on the book and another indexer, and they're all pleased with my work, so there may be more coming from that (also called Joyce Palmer, who said she'd look into my check; and George Flynn, who thanked me for thanking Viking for sending the check so early). Then over to ACC at 4 to find that Naomi had gone home, Margaret takes me to DYNAMITE Bob Leap, and my HEART leaps at his marvelous face and eyes. Back home about 5, still raining, and Dennis calls about an indexer who wants to come to learn from me via Dana, so I say she should call me. Talk to Dennis at work, and he can't decide whether he wants to see Ina tonight or not, and I have dinner and he calls back at 6 to say he WILL, so I get dressed again and get to her place on 53rd and 1st as she's getting out of a car at 7, and we're up to her apartment, with Dennis later, to find that she'd gotten rid of the paint earlier, so all there are are books and a Scrabble-word-sentence game, so I take books by Lovecraft, Hubbard, Hegel, Dostoyevsky, Joyce, and Dr. Seuss, as an INCREDIBLE range of authors! Watched "In Search of ESP," where there are "known examples of ESP," Nick Panis among them. We leave at 8:30, not eating with Ina, and I convince him to come to my place, and I finish reading the Times as he does, he's hungry about 11 so I make hamburger, have spinach and apple sauce with him, and then he smokes and gets into bed to lay back so I suck on him, but about 12 he's VERY tired, and so am I, so we just turn over and go to sleep, listening to the record of bird calls which is pleasant.
DIARY 12190
TUESDAY, AUGUST 2. Alarm at 7:30 gets him up AGAIN without sex, and I try to make poached eggs, but the red vinegar gives a smell and taste to the eggs and a color to the water, and all the glair bubbles away, leaving not so much egg, so it's not totally successful. He leaves about 9:30, reading more of the Times, and then I get itchy to come, so I go into the bedroom and pull down the shades and put on the film of Stan, mostly in slow motion, and come very nicely making me wonder where Dennis and I are on sex (see DIARY 12191). Then don't feel like doing anything, but about 1 pm I determine to go out to pick up my jacket and pants from the cleaners, so stop by Mrs. Johnson who called last night to see if I wanted to get my windows changed, so I said I would if she painted, and she said my rent would have to go up, and I said it would have in any case. Wash socks at last, and then do the dishes with Bruckner blaring away on the tape recorder, and then finish cleaning up the Times and the living room, and finally get to light-work about 6:30, after coming AGAIN with the film of Tommy, rather more quickly this time, and reading, and throwing myself across the bed and bemoaning my totally wasted day (see DIARY 12192). Read some, looked through all the books that I got from Ina last night, resisting the impulse to read any of them except for Seuss's "Fox in Sox" and totally scan "Immortals of the Screen" to waste MORE time. Light-work goes with GREAT fuss until 7:15, when I figure I've done QUITE enough, mainly peeling off my skin and eating it, and shower and shave and (oh, Bob Rosinek called to say he'd liked talking to Bruce, and will "Bring him off his position" against homosexuality, and had lunch with Arthur Coleman, whom I'D given Bob's number to from 8 years ago when he checked MY number at 57th Street) get out at 7:45 to see NICE people that I hope are going to see Tripp, but they don't, though Tripp is fascinating (see DIARY 12193). Out at 9:45 and subway quickly up to Central Park to hear "Daphnis and Chloe" and "Gaite Parisienne" with GREAT fireworks, then call Dennis, who's buying meat, and get to his place at 11 to have steak, good in his volcanic rock, and salad from Saturday, and wine, and we talk and neck, but he's tired AGAIN, so we're into bed at 12:15 without doing anything, mistakenly leaving the air conditioner off.
DIARY 12195
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3. I'm awake at 7:30 and lying there until about 8, when he gets up, and we get into cock and both come nicely---NO, see DIARY 12191, we DON'T have sex. I'm up about 9:20 when he has breakfast ready of the last of the salad and a great omelet, and I'm sort of bitchy because I'm out so late: 10:30. Home to finish the Burroughs three novels about Pellucidar, do light-work from 11:05 to 12:05, still fussing in seat so much that I phone Actualism and say I need SOMETHING, and Jan says someone will call back, but they apologize when they don't. I decide to start on the letter to Carter, and redo my cover letter and come up with the letter to Carter fairly fast, and pone Avi, Pope, and Rolf to check it through them, and they all think it's good. Type 5 pages between times, and then the time has gone and I make tuna casserole to have for dinner, phoning Dennis (no this was LAST night). Still rather miffed at not doing too much (see DIARY 12192) in the line of letter-writing, but pleased to get the two letters typed when Susan calls (and I check it with her) to say that my books are in and I can xerox there tomorrow at 10 am. Though Dennis broke the toilet seat Monday morning, I still don't have it fixed yet, but it sits in a good enough position to use in either up or down status, but I'm just as glad he's not here to check up on it. Try phoning Paul for washing windows, but no one answers, and there wasn't much mail this morning. Take two checks for Actualism and Susan and get out at 7:30, still getting up there at 8, but they're all waiting downstairs talking, and Michael asks if I'd been limping. Up to a textbook lesson on inversion (see DIARY 12196), and down at 10:30 after making an appointment for a pelvic unloading at 11 am on Friday, maybe an x-out during the "blank" week, and some knowledge of when classes are and are not. Walk to Dennis's and he's made spaghetti with a tomato sauce, too, studying his "American Bookman" while he cooks, but it's good with the rest of the fresh mushrooms, and we eat until 12:30, talking about this evening, and he smokes and gets into his cock, and he hasn't come since Sunday, so he comes LOTS, very sexily, but I say I'm tired and will wait until tomorrow morning, so we get to bed about 1.
DIARY 12197
THURSDAY, AUGUST 4. Surprised that we both wake about 9:30 without the alarm, stretching and feeling good, and I get into manipulating his cock and he comes under my fingers just before my arm falls off, and then I jerk myself off without lathering up, good, and we're out of bed at 10:30, so I phone Susan and say I'll be there at noon. Hamburger and herb toast for breakfast, and I'm out at 11:20 to get there to chat, xerox 40 of each letter, give one to Susan, and then walk down (after giving her a check for $38+ for books, which are heavy) to Donen's to find they have nothing I want, the Sci-Fi bookshop on 53rd is closed, and the Theosophy Bookstore has good books but no out-of-print section. Back to A train and subway home by 1:30 to finish Tolstoy's "What Man Lives By" and to phone Pope and find he wasn't terribly taken by the plump Church of Light-rabbi-type next door to him last night, phone Bruce to find no one home, and I decide to start packing index cards into larger cartons and filling index boxes with travel stuff, and succeed mainly in getting the books to be read onto the BOOKSHELF in the living room (to stop my thinking about them so MUCH when they're in the study), in neat rows of 30, 40, 50, 40, for an average of 4 rows of 40 = 160, plus the next for overage and "just reads." Unpack about 24 boxes of cards and pack with 10 boxes of stuff and just move travel stuff to study shelves. John slipped note under door about sweater, and HE got a black one, so I phone Betsey and say I got it, and she's pleased. Czenberg comes over to pick up his book, Raven calls to say they'll mail another index due in three weeks, and Bruce comes up with his tall pretty girlfriend for about 15 minutes with my place a mess, and then I put on dinner to eat, and finish typing 5 pages to catch up at 9:30 pm. I send the FIRST of the chain letters to Carter, putting on a return address to see what kind of a response it gets, and quickly send two resumes to two ads from Sunday's Times. Get almost to end of Philosophy book, and then leave about 10:30 to get to Dennis's about 11. He's working on his index almost in the dark, I shower and shave, then he smokes and we sit and neck and fantasize who we'd like to go to bed with (me: Gordon Grant, Warren Beatty, John Gavin; him: Al Pacino, Robert Redford, James Garner), and we're neither up very strongly and he suggests that we just go to bed about 1 am, and we do.
DIARY 12198
FRIDAY, AUGUST 5. Wake at 7:30 alarm and he's into kitchen to put on coffee and to shower, and I'm up about 9 to have hamburger breakfast with him, and he leaves about 9:30, leaving me the hour for light-work until 10:40 when I leave to walk down to the Olcott and my Pelvic Unloading (see DIARY 12199). Out at 12:25 feeling as if something had been done but I'm not sure what, and get home to do lots of grocery shopping and home about 1:30, feeling the day's gone quickly. Finish reading "Leaf Storm" and other stories, a better book than the OTHER short-story book, and put some VERY few things away before deciding to get down to solid LETTERS: writing Betsey and Mack 2 pages between 2:30 and 3:35; Mom 2 pages from 3:35 to 4:50, taking lots of time to go through her OLD correspondence, too; to Rita 2 pages from 4:50 to 5:40; to Arnold 2 pages from 5:40 to 6:45; to Bill 1 page from 6:45 to 7:30, and finally short notes to Bruce and John and Paul in England (with 31 stamps, forgetting that I had the 22 air letters, and send out the first few Carter-chains to Rita, Mom, Arnold, and Bill, and take a set to Dennis last night and gave one to Susan, too. Then watch "Shades of Greene" which Pope had recommended, watching "Chagrin in Three Parts" with Zouzou being seduced by Genevieve Page while a snobbish writer watches, thinking HE'LL get the attractive ZouZou; and "The Case for the Defense" in which twins are accused of murder and ONE is struck by a bus, leaving everyone to wonder if God might NOT have made a mistake. That goes until 10, and I've eaten the last of the tuna casserole and am drinking lots of sherry, which lets me turn on "The Legend of Hell House" and watch Roddy McDowall camp it up with Pamela Franklin and lots of poltergeist effects as everyone's killed getting a ghost out of the house. THAT goes until 11, rather amateurishly, and then I watch a FABULOUS Ben Vereen imitate Bert Williams (which is difficult, since I don't know what he was like, but he's NOT like Ben Vereen, so it's different, anyway). That's over at 12 and I get ready for bed but am not tired enough, so I read more in "Gilgamesh" until 1, when I AM sleepy, and I get to sleep in the 80+ weather without much difficulty, not the slightest bit horny.
DIARY 12200
SATURDAY, AUGUST 6. Wake about 9:30, obviously still needing sleep, though I feel a bit fagged out because of the heat of the evening. Bruce calls right then and we talk about yesterday until 10, when he has to leave, and I settle down for an hour of light-work between 10:08 and 11:01, feeling good about that, and then put some few MORE things away before gathering up the laundry for the Chinese and taking out the MAIL of the 8 pieces, all the way to the post office to make sure they get off, and then find that the library's closed so I can't get my library card; there are no books at the place, and buy a gallon of wine and a half-gallon of MUSCATEL to see what THAT'S like. Then back home about 12:15 with the mail, including the xerox of "Nonsense" by Watts, which I read immediately, and then decide to make my book lists up to date, which cuts ANOTHER item off the do list, and then start in on the Carter chain letters until 2, when I toast bread for the Spam that I got 6 cans of at a bargain 99 at the supermarket yesterday, and the Ivor Novello program is SILLY because they never say he's gay, and Sandy Wilson lisps his way through, friend of Art's. Watch that until 3, then DETERMINE to clean up the place, and DO, watering the plants, too, and then finish sending off 41 Carter letters to people, sending personal notes to most, including Laird and Dana and Avi and LOTS of people, and then decide to play Scrabble with Pope at 6, so phone him at 5:15, then it thunderstorms, and I catch up on these 3 pages and it stops raining by 6 pm. To his place and he insists on starting regular Scrabble right away, and I win the first game and he wins the second, which makes him very happy, and then we play a bit of the Sentence Scrabble, but I win every time. Call Dennis and he's working, so I stay until about 8:45 and get to Dennis's about 9:30 with the Times and a bottle of Crème de Cocoa, which he doesn't care for that much, and I do the pelvic light-work for half an hour, and then he's got dinner ready, tough steak in the Lacotta, and I don't want to watch TV and we don't even have time to get to the Times, but get to sleep without sex about 11:30, incredibly early, with the alarm set at 6 as he wants so we can get out at 7:30, as is necessary, and I don't mind no sex, but I think he rather does, and we seem to go lightly on sex lately.
DIARY 12201
SUNDAY, AUGUST 7. We both feel pretty bad when the alarm rings, but I say I'll have coffee with him, and I do, but he's doing Medaglia d'Oro now and it's QUITE strong, though he doesn't turn down the control on his maker. He dawdles and I fuss and we get out about 7:25 and get a train quickly enough to get to Penn Station at 7:35 and buy a ticket in no time, told to go to track 15, which is then moved to track 20. The car was nicely air conditioned until we're sitting there until 8:40, when the news spreads that the crew hadn't arrived yet, but finally we take off in the hot car and get to Jamaica to get directed to the "two last cars," the penultimate of which is full except for backward-facing seats welded into place, so I get VERY annoyed and walk to the LAST car which is terribly sooty, being open to the breezes because it's not air conditioned. Dennis is concerned about me, getting my brochure and badge, which I pick up when I see what the free coffee and cake are like, but he said they ran out quickly, and the line was too long to wait in, so I went back to the windy car and watched Long Island passing by, including duck farms, butterflies, wildflowers, and factories. In at Southampton still 40 minutes late and transfer to busses in which we sit in the heat for another long time, but then finally take off and SOMEHOW manage to get to Greenport at 11:40, right on time! From here on in the tour is rather nice (see DIARY 12202), eating at Mitchell's, going quickly across Shelter Island and across to the Whaling Museum in Sag Harbor, then out to Montauk to wander around for 100 minutes of the best time, then back to the bus at 5 to ride through driving rain to train station at Riverhead JUST at 6:45, but train's delayed until about 7:05, and the car JOUNCES around so much that I move back two cars and finish reading "Epic of Gilgamesh" and love "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" by Lovecraft. Into Jamaica about 9:15 and transfer to a jammed train to Manhattan, getting in about 9:45, and then subway uptown to find supermarkets closed, so we eat at Argo, MUCH too much food of liver and onions and candied yams and peas and carrots and vegetable soup and good baked potato, and to his place at 11 to feel sleepy but watch him come, and then I get into my cock, which had been VERY hard, and SPURT up BEYOND my shoulder onto the pillow, to both our delights, and get to sleep about 1 am, feeling totally worn out from everything that day.
DIARY 12203
MONDAY, AUGUST 8. Wake at 8 with the alarm and play around a bit before he gets up, and have breakfast quickly enough so that I get home by 10:15, to phone Paul back and he wants to come right over. I leave stuff in a pile and start pulling plants off the sills and dusting, and he's in about 10:45 and reminds me of Rolf, and cleans industriously without opening any of the stuck windows and managing to forget his spatula and to drop his squeegee down in back, so I get a chance to see you don't HAVE to go through Kaina's apartment to get there, and TWO people back there have air conditioners. Apartment flooded with displaced plants by the time he leaves at 12:30, taking $18: $2.75 for 4; $2.25 for 1; $2 for easy-working one, telling me how to douse the windows in clean water to get off the last of the smudges. The windows remain open while I go down for the mail, and I made out lots of checks and figured bank accounts while he was here, so I take all the checks to the bank, get my deposit check, check out Bradbury's book and check my list against "Books in Print" until about 4, and buy a gallon of white wine and a half-gallon of Muscatel to see how it compares with sherry. Have Spam for lunch while reading Philosophy, almost finishing it, and then finish "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." Bill Wolf and Fred Bassoff call to say they'd gotten my chain letter (and Bill to say he'd been fired, as had many friends from other jobs, who didn't have to submit to future salary cuts, so COULD we be turning around?). Then finally get to light-work about 5, and get out the vacuum cleaner to tackle the incredible mess, but it's so hot I don't feel like doing it. Spent one tacky hour sorting out Purple Passion and philodendron stalks and nailing lianas around windows. Tempositions called about an encyclopedia, so I have an appointment with them at 10, and Dennis calls about a showing of Ana Teresa Callan's Camera Three program about pasta at CBS at 11. Then decide to get films back from Pope, so I phone and go over at 9 after I have roast beef that's been cooking for a couple hours, and we play two games which I win, he gives me back all films but Stan, which I give him, to his delight, and a stamp collection of his father's that isn't terribly super, but nice, and I leave JUST at 12 to get back, make the bed, shower and shave, and crawl into the 86 heat and manage to go to sleep after doing light-work in the pelvic area that late.
DIARY 12204
TUESDAY, AUGUST 9. Wake about 8 to do light-work for about 40 minutes, then have some cereal for breakfast and get out a bit late, wearing my newly-cleaned tan pants which unfortunately still seem to have a strain from sweat in a saddle-marking around the seat and upper legs, and get to Tempositions at 10:10. Fill out the application blank and the copyediting test, and get interviewed by Judith Bard, who says I do VERY well, but it has to be IN their office, which I refuse, but she says there may be ANOTHER job that she could call me on, since I did so well. Out at 11:20, too late for the CBS thing, and get the address and phone number of the Queens Borough Public Library from the lobby. To the Public Library and check on LOTS of listings for new works, but find none, then walk to Sixth Avenue and take the D train down to 14th and walk across to 8th to bug Baird Searles about checking with Clarke about contents of "Of Time and Stars," buy a copy of "High Rise" (which is silly, since Strand is selling them for half price), around to Greenwich books to buy a $6 book on Burroughs and leave my 13-title want list with him with name and phone. Then across 13th to the Strand, buying a lovely "Lovecraft at Last" and "Human Chord" and finding that they have nothing of anything else, except a $2 "Across the Sea of Stars," and then eat in Blimpie's, down to check other places, down to Weiser's, and then decide to walk across to Village to check Phoenix Bookshop on Carmine, as recommended by Pageant Bookshop, but there's nothing there, and I decide to walk up 6th to Barnes and Noble to check on "Gravitation," the whole day about 95 and VERY muggy, so I'm sweating heavily, and lugging my heavy bag, and they have nothing, so I walk up to 23rd and across to Park to eat in Lotus Eaters Park (LOUSY sweet and sour shrimp, though it felt great to wash my hands and face, which were actually GRITTY with dirt), and then had phoned est (and Dennis to get no answer) to find the Doral on Lex and 49th, so I subway up at 7 pm to fill out form and get in to sit next to someone recommending Michael Moorcock and someone else impressed with my reading "Tales of Power," and "The Body #7" isn't bad at all with Mimi Schweed (see DIARY 12205), and get a ride to 87th and West End and Dennis HAD eaten and IS waiting for me, so it worked out perfectly. He smokes but we decide that since we're getting up at 5 am that we won't have sex, so we're to bed now.
DIARY 12206
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10. The radio isn't quite on the station, so I have to wake Dennis in the 5 am dark. He's into the shower, then drinking coffee as I shower, having put on the soft-boiled eggs, but he doesn't put them into water as I direct, so the hot shells hard-boil the eggs. I nudge again about going faster and he shouts at me, and we're out at 6:10 to grab a cab right on 88th Street and roll down Broadway to Penn Station at 6:20, and we're downstairs as he chats about class casually, so that someone gets in front of him while he's dawdling onto line, and he gets pissed at me again, but the lines move fast and we're on the train in plenty of time. The tinted windows make the gray morning even greener, and it rains most of the way down, delaying for various things so that instead of getting in at 8:10 we're in to Wilmington about 8:30, for $15. Grab a cab through pleasant countryside (what a pity we couldn't get to Longwood!) for a half hour to get into the impressive grounds with Canadian geese outnumbering the swans in the streams and ponds in front of the Guest Pavilion. In about 9, paying $9 for the cab, and look at books and catch the shuttle over to the house, which I'd never been in before, and it's mind boggling (see DIARY 12207). The morning tour is conducted by bright Mrs. Wolf, who's patient with us, and we're sight-stuffed and leg-weary by 12:10, when we bus back to the cafeteria and stand in line for a pasty sauce for good mushrooms on toast with a side of chicken salad, and Dennis has Beef Burgundy, all of which is rather expensive, but the place is so nice it's OK. Back at 1:15 to the Glass Pavilion to meet Mr. Fennimore, who seems a bit curt, showing us the chalkware, finding the marked piece, passing lots of other places, and ending in the library xeroxing an article for Dennis for a dime, and we walk back along the garden paths, have the woman call us a cab at 2:50, comes at 3, back at 3:25 for $9.60, and find a regular train's due at 3:49, so Dennis insists on walking about the decaying area in the heat, the train's 10 minutes late, and we're in at 6, SAME time as other train took, and I'm feeling very irritable and impatient (see DIARY 12208). To his place while he buys meat, finish reading the Times to 7, pelvic work 7:15 to 7:45, then walk down after the rain had stopped for the lesson, which isn't effective (see DIARY 12209), back to Dennis's at 10:40 for taco dinner, wine and Blue Curacao, and VERY sexy come all over his body.
DIARY 12210
THURSDAY, AUGUST 11. Alarm goes at 7:30 and he's up and making hamburgers for breakfast so quickly that I get home by 9:45, picking up a rather full mailboxful before the THIRD day's mail gets stuffed into it, and into a rather depressing apartment with the vacuum cleaner still in the middle of the floor and lugging my books that I'm interested in reading. Ten messages on the phone: 4 no answers, two from Byron's friend Norman who comes over tonight for poppers, and one from Bruce, Dennis, "Sam Spade" who never called back but I guess it was Malcolm, and Laura Kosden, who says that the editors on the book insist on a LIST of entries which she'll put in the mail tomorrow. But I STILL don't feel like working, so I sit and read ALL of "Lovecraft at Last" when I don't have space to put it away, and send out two more Carter letters to Phoenix and MCC of Brooklyn, when Art Bauman doesn't want his and John Paul Hudson's is returned. Write a couple of (THIS IS FRIDAY!!) checks to clear out some of the mail, but then I have muscatel with lunch, which makes me feel sexy, so I take the rest of the afternoon to go through ALL the loose porno that I have: first dividing it into "Nice, but not for coming" of about 200 pieces, leaving STILL over 200 pieces to go through again and sort into a "Good, but still not coming" of over 100, but by that time it's VERY hot in the bedroom, my cock is getting sore from being rubbed so much, so I come GRIPPING the cock by its base, and then do about 45 minutes of light-work, not doing pelvic work today since I'm not sure if I SHOULD do it, and by that time there's only time to water the plants, put some more stuff away, talk to Pope and Bruce on the telephone, find that Dennis doesn't want to come over this evening, and presto it's 8 pm, and I start an 8.5 hour television marathon (see DIARY 12211) that leaves me rather disgusted with myself: "Finian's Rainbow" is on from 8-11, and lose a HUGE filling from teeth! But it's boring so I watch "Endless Summer" from 8-10 and "Pygmies" from 10-11, and then another god-awful "Fawlty Towers" to 11:30, "The Transplant Experience" on Nova till 12:30, "Monster Beach Party" from 12:45 (always flipping channels) until 2:15, and "Invitation to the Dance" until 4:20, when I finally crawl into the still-warm bed with the thermometer registering its eternal 86.
DIARY 12212
FRIDAY, AUGUST 12. Wake at 9:50 to the roar of debris down the chute from the hotel, but surprised that I've slept as long as 5 hours without hearing any of the other noises. There's a YOUNG dog yapping hysterically next door now, and I REALLY want to kill it. Up abut 10:15, have cereal, terrible sweetened Crakling Bran, and finish "Introduction to Philosophy" (see DIARY 12213), then finish the article on New York, good, and then it's time to watch the TV coverage, live, of the first separation flight of The Enterprise space shuttle from 11:15 to 12, while putting things away. Manage to make bookshelf space for books so I'm not tempted to do THAT, and then do light-work from 1:35 to 2:25 while studying the anatomy book to see where things are. Phone Queens Borough library for hours, make out check-deposit card, and get down to find I've made $150 from EGR, great, but then the teller pisses me by saying I have to make another deposit slip because of the change. Over to pick up the package of index from Raven and mail about 5 letters from yesterday, pick up huge $7.86 laundry package, and pick up mail on the way back up at 3. OH, forgot that I KEPT watching TV after 12, watching "The Better Sex" from California, "$20,000 Pyramid" with Bill Cullen and Lucy Arnaz and a quick-witted kid until 1, and watch "Tattletales from Hollywood" until 1:30. THAT'S what I did before light-work! But it's hot and I'm disgusted and I DO take apart the tape recorder to see what's what, and sort through some stuff to do, updating the DO list at last, and then get down to typing to catch up with the diary, getting 10 pages done before 9 pm, when I have Spam in Grenadine cooked, as well as corn and apple sauce, to watch Shades of Greene's "A Chance for Mr. Lever" of yellow fever in Africa to sell an ore-crusher, and it's rather grim. Then at 10 I don't feel like continuing typing, so I sort through the stack of letters and put THEM all away, deciding to retype the "Miscellaneous Correspondence (13-13 eh?)" sheet tomorrow. Showered during the day, just to get less tacky, and washed my face again and brushed and jet-watered my teeth to prepare for my dentist appointment at 12:30 Monday, and then did pelvic light-work from 12:15 to 12:45, feeling quite sleepy, but it's been raining lightly and seems somewhat cooler this evening, though the thermometer still registers the ubiquitous 86, and I open a window for circulation.
DIARY 12214
SATURDAY, AUGUST 13. Wake at 7:45 and lay thinking until 8:15, then study the anatomy book and do what feels like good light-work from 8:30-9:30, at which time I REALLY get out the Medical Dictionary and search out all the terms and draft two marvelous synopses of the Digestive System and the Brain which I add to the anatomy book for myself and Actualism. This takes until about 11:30, and it's raining nicely outside, so it's fairly cool. The guy next door is banging on his door, repairing it, and coming out with the MOST ludicrous "Bastard, I'll break you apart," SCREAMING and roaring in his frustration, and I think of mild-mannered Son of Sam who killed 6 people. Then type up a new Miscellaneous Correspondence page, the bills-due-in sheet, and some letters. Then warm up Spam and have lunch while watching a decent production of "Trouble in Tahiti" and "Odyssey of a Tumbleweed" from 2-3, call Dennis to find I should be there at 9 for dinner, wash dishes, and at last get down to typing these last 4 pages to catch up to date by 5:20, having gone down for the mail and looked at index sheets and I'm STILL PEELING from 7/24: 2 weeks. Then decide NOW is the time to finish those letters from Christmas, so I write to Seavers, O'Sheas, Landas if they know anyone in London, Arnie about getting $150 from EGR and Mark's wanting books, Jean-Jacques with a GREAT idea of meeting us in Calais and putting us up in Paris, Mike with last batch of stamps and NY Times article on Cracow, and Maverick to order 11 films for $102. Then send all four copies of the book-wanted list, since it's ALREADY so thoroughly out of date with all I've bought and the Burroughs additions, to 4 from American Bookman, and feel GREAT about doing all that! And getting another item off the DO list! Then debate showering but get out at 8:15 to get to Dennis's at 8:55 to shower and shave and have his stuffed steak, dry from the Lacotta, with FABULOUS cucumbers in sour cream, and strange-rye-overtones to white bread with caraway seeds, with some more of his pie for dessert. Talk about all I'd done today, how good I felt, and how good the Rosé d'Anjou is he serves with dinner, and he smokes and we get into sex though he's hard to get hard, but he goes at it and comes all over me with great feeling, so I find it easy to get us to fall asleep at 1, though through the night I wake up feeling sweaty in the closeness of the tiny bed.
DIARY 12215
SUNDAY, AUGUST 14. Wake a number of times, but finally wake at 8:50 and do light-work very effectively until 9:40, when he wakes, and we start playing with ourselves and I jerk myself off to a quantity of come that he likes, but he's not interested in coming, so we're out of bed at 10:15. I start reading the Times, his folks call from Dakota, and we watch a repeat of a program I'd seen on Camera Three on Philip Johnson, and then he gets to breakfast of hamburgers, the rest of the cucumbers, and more lovely bread toasted. That takes till 1, when he's starting to work, but I watch the beginning of "The Stranger" and find it's AGAIN the "planet behind the sun that's the duplicate of Earth" plot, obviously as a series pilot with the somewhat potty Glenn Corbett and a raised-eyebrow Cameron Mitchell as the heavy from Terra. Subway home and watch the end of that until 3, having met Lloyd Moore confessing to an MCC meeting at 1:50, and he says he'll be over in an hour, so I get down to setting up the indexing log until he buzzes at 3:30, and I serve white wine and he's discombobulated, has two young kids living with him and "Arthur" (Jack), and expresses interest in Seth, fascinated that I'd been with him, and says he'll meet me at est on Tuesday. He leaves at 5:45 and I phone Pope to ask to come over, and type this by 5:55. Then type DIARY 12216, the list of books that I've indexed, rather surprised that I've only indexed 39 books, though many of the multiple English books counted separately would bring the total to 53, some of which Dennis did. Then decide to update my list of books that I HAVE by authors, and find that I need another two pages on this, which I type, including a cover page 0, and that takes me until 8:05, so I'm about 20 minutes late to Pope's, and wouldn't you know but that he'd made popcorn and eaten quite a bit of it, seeing as I said I'd be over at 8. Play three games at his insistence, but even though the last one is while watching the last of the "Fawlty Towers" from 10:30 to 11, I STILL win all three, and he's saying he's off Scrabble from now on. Return the screwdrivers to Arnie's and pick up two books on Europe for Mark Eliot, and borrow the Alphaphones from Pope, who didn't want time taken away from Scrabble to let me listen to them. I get home about 12, make some scrambled eggs since I'm starved, having had nothing since breakfast, and do the pelvic light-work from 12:20 to 12:40, and get to sleep about 1.
DIARY 12217
MONDAY, AUGUST 15. Wake about 8, lying in bed thinking NOT very loadedly about the dentist until 8:30, and then up to mope around the apartment until 9 and do light-work until 10, when Dennis calls to say that he's working well on the chalkware article, I phone Michael to set up a meeting with him on England on Wednesday, phone Mark and say we'll get together for his books, and then I'm sorting through the pile of things to do when it dawns on me that it's 11 and I should be going already, so I quickly make breakfast of more scrambled eggs, get delayed by a phone call, and then rush into the shower, brush my teeth for the second time today, pleased that an assiduous practice with the electric toothbrush has stopped them bleeding, and even brush the lost-filling tooth, relieved that it's not aching, and shave for the dentist and get out at 11:50, much too late, and JUST miss a subway. Get a NICE feeling from telling the whacked-out black to stop smoking and he DOES, whereas the butch black sitting next to me tells the black standing next to HIM to stop and he DOESN'T, and a black across the way and I shake our heads at each other. I'm feeling pretty good waiting for the local, even though I do get to Rosey's 10 minutes late, but she's just left someone out, and I sit inside for just a minute before going in, and she says she'll have to put in a pin, which she does, and then says she thinks the tooth is dead because it didn't hurt when she drilled (with an injection) for the pin and it seems loose. I VERY much hope not, sit uncomfortably until 1:15 when she's ready for her next client, and make an appointment to check an X-ray of the problem tooth and a checkup at 4 pm on Wednesday. Home JUST at 2 to watch "Kamaradschaft" until 3:30, a Pabst film from 1931 about "Comradeship" between miners from Germany and France, ending IRONICALLY with the French praising the German miners who helped in the VERY effectively-filmed mine fire and explosion and flooding by saying "Auf Wiedersehn," and they DID see them again when they INVADED again in a few years. Good scene in showers reminds me of the Yugoslav nude-shower brochure cover. Then scrub the kitchen, scour the tub, dust, pick up plant parts, and vacuum by 8:10, then do more desk work until 8:40, then pelvic light-work from 8:40 to 9:15, and this page to 9:35. Put everything away and JUST get out Dennis's brother's mazes to do when he comes in about 9:45, starving, so we walk down to a crowded Ferry Restaurant and walk back to Front Street Restaurant and I have tasty shrimp curry and Dennis has fettuccini, back 11:30 then I regoout [go out again, silly!] for half-and-half, he makes drinks, we have sex till he shoots at 1.
DIARY 12218
TUESDAY, AUGUST 16. Wake earlier because I'd left door open for light, and he dozes back off when alarm rings, so I build up a nice hard-on and turn on the light (wow, the light was SO turned ON!), and he ogles it, then comes himself on my chest. He showers while I make scrambled eggs and bacon, then he says there's no time for me to read his chalkware draft, but sits around drinking coffee until 9:35, then leaves. I look at stack of things to do and decide to work on his brother's mazes, which I do from 10:10 to noon, having fun with them. Trace out non-connected areas and right-wall-following patterns. Then get back to stack (he buzzed that mail was here, which I did from 9:40 to 10:10) and phone Dick Hsieh for lunch Thursday, air conditioning bargain for delivery Saturday, read over copyright stuff while waiting for Columbia bookstore to answer about Misner, and when Barnes & Noble and NYU don't have used copies, I decide to buy it for 10% off from Bookpost, without tax. Sort through travel stuff, phone Mark to try to get books back tonight, phone Blue Cross at Workmen's Circle to see if it can be reduced, and it can't, and phone about Audio belts and Hoover belts, so get quite a bit done, but just AMAZED when I quit for light-work between 3:25 and 4:15 that the time has gone so FAST. Then back to Audio phone call and check-writing and scheduling for tomorrow's out-day, and type this page before exercising at 5:20. Decide there's no time for the pelvic light-work, so I shower and shave and cook an ear of corn for some sort of lunch, and get out about 6:15 to make sure I'm at the hotel for Lloyd. Get in and sign in at 6:50, and he shows up at 7:05, meeting someone he used to work with at GE and chatting, and going off to his guest seminar while I have the regular Body #8 (see DIARY 12219), which is pretty good, but I'm still tied up on Rhodes Cox and some of the other bodies, so I'm not terribly happy. Up to pick him up at 10:35, he fibs to the GE guy, saying he'll see him again, and we subway up to 86th and chat on the way to my corner, then up to Dennis's and he's making stuffed steaks, great mushroomy filling and dry Swiss-steaky outsides, and I do part of the paper of his on chalkware, sort of irritating him late at night, for which he later apologizes, but it's about 1 when we're finished so we're to bed without sex.
DIARY 12221
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17. Up without sex, and Dennis quickly fixes breakfast so that I can look over the rest of his chalkware article and talk about how to fix it. I'm surprised he's leaving so late, so I absent myself from him at 10, do light-work for 40 minutes, but then delay so long getting out that I leave at 10:50, knowing I won't be able to walk, and it looks like rain, so I head for the subway station and see people at the head of the stairs beginning to run down and so I DASH down the stairs and through the turnstile and across the platform and JUST make the closing doors of the train. Thank the conductor, who barely acknowledges it, and ride down to get out in a sprinkle and get to Actualism in plenty of time. My x-out is VERY stunning (see DIARY 12222), and I'm surprised to be out at 12:55. Take the AA south to 50th and find that I can't transfer to uptown, so down to the A to 42nd, seeing that it's 1:20 and wondering if I'll have enough time at the Queens Borough Public Library since it's so far away. Onto the E at 1:30 and out at 2, since it goes fast and far, and walk a couple short blocks to the new library, and everything's VERY nicely arranged (except that I have to reserve books at EACH section, rather than centrally), and check card files and shelves and librarians and stacks downstairs and come away with 3 books and 3 reserves (one for Burroughs JUNIOR's "Speed," which I don't need), and feel VERY happy about it. Out at 3:10, rush to a crowded platform, get on the E, change at 53rd for the D, which is right there, then at 59th for the 1, for which I see people running, and make a mad dash, and get on with the SAME conductor as before, and get up to 125th at 4:02, pretty good. Into Rosey's office and she says what I THINK is "You need another injection," and I try to keep calm, but she gives me another X-RAY, since the first didn't come out, but she says that the tooth feels firmer. While cleaning she knocks out a chip from where I'd felt a crack before, and drills around and puts in another filling almost before I can react. Out at 4:25, subway down to the Phoenix Bookshop to get LOTS of Burroughs, and reserve "Port of Saints" for $40, then have SPARE TIME (see DIARY 12225) and sit in Sheridan Square watching people, leave at 6:10 when rain clouds threaten, walking across 8th to Astor Place and the Lex, getting to the Loew's at 6:45, so I walk along 86th looking for restaurants for us and find the Estia with a $6.50 full-course Greek meal, and meet Dennis at 7 and go there, but it's ruined by a $3.50 additional charge for two small glasses of wine. To Michael's at 9:15 and an underlined map to 11:15, then bus across to Dennis's and bed at 1, sexless.
DIARY 12227
THURSDAY, AUGUST 18. Wake at 7:30 and up with no sex, and Dennis does an omelet fast enough to get us to the new York Historical Society at 9:35 to meet Mary Alice, pretty and excitable, to see their collection of chalkware, and we walk through some nice galleries until 10:45, when Dennis goes down to work, and walks me uptown to the Museum of National History where I get roped into a tour that I follow around more for the shorts and crotches than for the parroted information. Leave at 11:35 and down for the subway, which is a long time in coming, and it doesn't go down too far, and I switch to the IRT, which is a mistake, since it takes a while and I get to meet a plumpish Dick Hsieh under the Dubuffet (they're supposed to be trees but I think of them as mushrooms) and he's had an operation for scrotal warts and doesn't feel like walking, so we're down the street to Chicago for all the beer I can drink (3 glasses) and a burger and fries and salad for $5, which isn't that good. Out at 1:10 and talk with him about going to Hong Kong, coming up to his place for chicken velvet with 2, and computers. Then I'm down to the Federal Reserve to find that one has to have a letter for tour so that "nuts off the street" can't come in to blow up the place. I take it personally. Subway home about 2 and bring up only a letter from Bill and two newspapers to read, then remembered I wanted to watch "Back Street" with Charles Boyer and Margaret Sullavan from 1-3, but it's 2:30 and I just watch the tail end, where both die almost together, with Tim Holt as the un-understanding son. Update the DO list with all the stuff that I have to do NOW, and sad to see that it's up to 19. Rolf saw the movies last night, Dennis doesn't want to see them, so I have dinner of roast beef, and feel like coming, so I get out the porno and have a VERY good come with rubber bands about 5, then do light-work and get out about 6:10 to pick up "Port of Saints" for $43.20 and leave my typed list of the 5 Burroughs books left, and have a slice of pizza (so I HAD no roast beef!) and get to Cinema Village to find it not very crowded, and "Pumping Iron" and "Fortune and Men's Eyes" are vaguely entertaining but not that great. Art's in the audience with Bob, but I don't bother to say hello. That's from 7-10:30, with numerous film breaks, and I subway home to read most of "Port of Saints" and masturbate again and then do pelvic work till 1 and bed.
DIARY 12228
FRIDAY, AUGUST 19. Out of bed about 10 after waking at 9 and coming at great length with porno for the third time, and after a bit do light-work, regretting that I don't have the sheet from Dennis for the new lifebelt, finishing about 11 as the sun comes in. Mark calls and says books will be next week. I read New York while eating a peach with cereal after exercising for the first time today to catch up from laziness earlier. Water plants, look to see what The Body #8 had been like before, and phone Dennis to bring my sheet when he comes for dinner tonight. Send $1 to Carroll Enterprises for envelope stuff, clip out more things to do, and send a check to Dr. Sheik. Somehow this nothing takes until 1:30, and I take out the laundry, go to the bank to get cash and a money order for $247 for the air conditioner tomorrow, and buy groceries for $15 with Chock Full o' Nuts coffee finally down to $2.79 with $7.50 worth of groceries, which they DON'T check with my meat bill. Back at JUST 2:30 to see "Earth," which turns out to be interesting, but only barely (see DIARY 12229). That goes to 4 and I watch part of the childishness on "Big Blue Marble" until 4:20 (OH, forgot that when I went down for the mail the Spaulding faucet squeaked AGAIN, so I knocked on the door and told them to get it fixed, and they said they'd see Mrs. Johnson about it---so I got VERY irked when I heard it again on Saturday). Checking through for "Earth" information I find that my movie file is not in order, so I take about 2 hours to sort THOSE things out, still finding no material on "Earth," so I guess they'd run out. Have to check listing for dates of many movies from datebooks or movie list. Then I clean up the place a bit, exercise a second time, and finally get down to typing diary pages, finishing 2 by the time Dennis comes in at 7:40, wanting me to read his chalkware article again, and that takes until 9:45, drinking a cream-rum-Sambuca whipped drink, and he showers while I'm putting in the chicken and I shower while it's cooking, and get some possibly-rotting spinach from the freezer, and the chicken's not quite done at 10:45, one hour. Fruit cocktail and sour cream for dessert, and then Dennis says to put on music, he smokes, and then he comes nicely, then gets into his cock so that I can come, and then HE comes a second time, scantly, and falls to sleep with his Crème-de-Menthe-and-soda only partly drunk, so I turn off the lights, record player, shit, brush my teeth, and crawl in next to him at 1 am, reasonably contented.
DIARY 12230
SATURDAY, AUGUST 20. Dennis wakes at 7:50 when the buzzer goes downstairs and the rest of "Vascular Grafts" is left on the table, and we're into sex already when the alarm rings at 8, the dog starts howling, and the people downstairs start talking. We get into cocks, both quite hard, and he comes off and then surprises by saying, at 8:45, that he'd better go straight home for rehearsal for his scene. I put stuff away and make the bed in preparation for the air conditioner delivery, worrying about how I'll pick up the laundry, but figure to let it slide until I HAVE to worry, and do light-work from 10:40 to 11:30. Put more stuff away, and I'm STILL PEELING from 3 weeks ago! Then the buzzer goes and they bring up the HUGE air conditioner, Dennis calls to say I should be over about 10, and I exercise for the first time and then have cereal and peaches while watching the start of "Sirius" at 1, but it's not connected with the Stapledon novel, just another thing on a dog named after the Dog Star. Then wash dishes while listening to "Mefistofeles," and catch up with 10 pages by 3 pm. Decide to shop for shoes and pants, also, and get out with $175 and spend a surprising amount of it: pre-washed Levis for $12.80, shoes for $17 at A&S, then TWO pairs of pants for $25.60 that they have to tailor, and back to find the place I wanted to buy sneakers closed already at 5:30. Then dash to the laundry just at 5:45 and persuade them to give me my bag, and back to the ridiculous discounts in the expensive shop and buy 2 MORE pairs of pants for $10.80, VERY nice, loud, breezy summer pants that I have to hem. Home feeling VERY good about what I'd done by 6, and just leave everything there and get out at 6:10 to get to the Eros Theater by 5:30 to see the end of "Gordon Grant Superstar" and he only comes drippily on his ass at the end, and "Heavy Equipment" twice to see the GREAT previews of "Incest" twice and Roger, live, in the first of two porno shows (see DIARY 12231). Out at 9:50 and get to Dennis's at 10:10, but he's not concerned, so I shower and wash my hair and he likes the letter from the Landas, and then we have gazpacho that he made, tasty and garlicky, and hamburger (good done SLOW on Lacotta) and soyed-honey-sugared soy bean sprouts, with a great dessert of whipped froth around cherries in a pie, and I command him to dig out the last of the Apry pie from the garbage so I can finish it. Read a tiny bit of the Times, but it's 1 already and he's tired, so we go directly to bed without having sex.
DIARY 12232
SUNDAY, AUGUST 21. I wake about 9:30 and Dennis is awake at 10 as I play with myself to a nice erection, and then he goes down on me and INSISTS that I come in his mouth, so I do, and it feels VERY good, and we're out of bed fairly early so he can make breakfast before his folks call. They don't, but others do, he makes eggs and toast, and I finish the Times and get out at 12:30, one of the earlier times, having watched a poor Camera Three on a staging of "La Ci Darem la Mano," of whatever, of Mozart. Home to get engrossed in "Tales of Power" and finish that about 4, thinking it's quite good, and try calling Bruce, but no one answers, and then call for information about the Sensory Lifebelt from Rebekah about 5 and find that I can ASK my experience about the truth of Castaneda: if I'm ready, I'll get an answer, it it's not true, I won't; if I'm not ready, I won't, so there's really no PRESSURE behind not getting anything out of it. Haven't been doing Pelvic unloading, however, since it doesn't feel needed, though I'd BETTER do it TONIGHT! (So I exercise preparatory to bathing preparatory to pelvic unloading.) Then do Actualism light-work until about 6, feeling that this is about the time the day starts, and I warmed up the last of the chicken in the oven and cooked the last of the ears of corn (though it looked dry, it really wasn't), and then decided to get ANOTHER item off my do list by going to the Big Top tonight. Call to hear that "Mary Marvin, Mary Marvin" goes on at 8:30, and that the go-go boys went on at 3 and 5. I eat dinner, put some things away, including the dishes, and finish all but the last brownie and jelly donut that I ate 2 and 5 of yesterday, respectively. Then shave with the electric razor and don't bother to shower, and get out about 8:10, and just miss the subway, so I start reading more Maslow, fascinating, and another comes and gets me to the place JUST at 8:30, and it starts a bit late and is LOUSY, though I find myself laughing, and Michael (Michelle) is humpy enough in a skinny PR way, as LaVoine and JuanRodriquesPutanaCucarachaMonroe. That lasts about 45 minutes, then an AWFUL "Harley's Angels" and pretty poor "Men Between Themselves" (see DIARY 12231) and find it's 12:30, so I get out and to the subway with AWFUL circusy-types on the streets, and read more, get home to have some muscatel, some poppers, some porno, jerk off nicely, then finish wine, brownie, and donut while starting "High-Rise," nicely set up, getting to sleep about 1:45, tired enough to sleep instantly.
DIARY 12233
MONDAY, AUGUST 22. Wake at 7:50 to the damn dog, and then again at 8:50, and then decide to get up, read the rest of "High-Rise" till 12:30 (see DIARY 12234), taking time off to have cereal with a peach, and get a call from Bruce, and call Rolf, who comes up with an idea of going to Atlantic City next weekend, via Longwood Gardens; Dennis, who's not sure about it; Audio, who says they'll send the bands to me AGAIN; and Bob Leap, who says the index should be 11 pages. Then put some things away, read the synopsis to "Mary Marvin" while having lunch of WARM roast beef on raisin toast for a change, and disgusted with myself for not doing the things I MUST do. Do light-work between 3-4, then get out to pick up the two pairs of altered slacks with no trouble, and a quick pair of sneakers for no trouble, and buy a quart of gin and get home to feel very good. Mrs. Johnson sold me a colorful Mexican throw for $5, and I complained AGAIN to her about the squeaks, third time, saying I wouldn't pay RENT until it's fixed, and she says they're coming to measure for the windows, so I say they have to leave enough room for my air conditioner, and she says she has a 15 ampere fuse, so I should fit with even another AIR conditioner with no problem, except for possible peaking. Then exercise, after making up another new do list, with 20 items on it, and sending out a check for the two books, and then catch up with these 3 pages by 6:25 before showering. Shower and shave until 6:45 and sit down with pelvic session, first time with EP, until 7:05, feeling good about it, and then subway to Actualism to meet Bruce, alone (George doesn't show up until 8), and his parents and people from the previous class in the lobby, then upstairs to meet a BEAUTIFUL Sidney who's been into computers, and there are 9 of us finally for the Pelvic Unloading Group (see DIARY 12236). It goes until 11, and I phone Dennis from downstairs, who puts on the steak, and walk to his place feeling very hungry, and we have steak and zucchini and lots of his fabulous pie, forgetting gazpacho which we can have for breakfast. Try phoning Laird but there's no answer, and he's agonizing about "Thinking, critical" in his index. By then it's 1, he says we have no time for sex, but after I tell him about Roger's show he's hard, so I put on the lights and get the popper and start playing, but the moment's passed, he suggests we sleep, so we do about 1:30.
DIARY 12239
TUESDAY, AUGUST 23. Wake at 7:30 but we're both so zonked that we lie there until about 8, when he gets up and has to take a cold shower, and then I'm up to 8:30 to commiserate with him as he makes breakfast of scrambled eggs and cheese and zucchini and toast, and we get out about 9:30 and I'm home at 10, which is nice, except that THEN I finish reading "Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences" by Abraham Maslow, a really great writer of tremendous ideas, doing that until about 11, when Rebekah calls and we hammer out possible dates for my replacement lessons around the Hemlock Hall and England trips. Brush my teeth, look at my do list, talk to Bill Wolf, read the mail which came before 10, phone for the schedule of movies at the Olympia, and talk to Dennis about the new dates. Do an hour's light-work between 11:20 and 12:15, and then settle down to typing pages on "High-Rise" that I finished yesterday (see DIARY 12234-12235) and a page on Time, which is obsessing me AND Dennis (see DIARY 12238), so I've done 6 pages and it's already 2:05 pm, GOT to get to INDEX. But first I exercise, and then get started at 2:30, still dripping with sweat, and mark to 3:30, doing about 45 pages per hour, and then stop for lunch of roast beef and a peach and some cantaloupe, and then back from 4:15 to 5:15 to get to page 82, slowing down, only 2 hours today, and then don't have time to shower or shave, merely dress and get out right then to get to the Olympia precisely at 6, scouting around for places to eat and decide on Mexican, and Dennis agrees when he arrives at 6:10, so we're across and get combination platters and he gets malty Double-X Mexican beer which is good, and then we eat and look at passersby until 6:55, when we pay bill and dash across to find that "Cousin, Cousine" has already started, but it's FUNNY and fast in a Jacques Tati way, but the blond heroine is pretty and Pisier is actually touching as the sleep-cure wife, and there are marvelous sequences. Not even the circus in the theater can daunt the goodness of the flick. Then "Obsession" moves VERY showily and slowly, getting cumbersomely through the twists of the daughter being used by the business partner after mother killed, and the father almost but not quite killing her after she tries to kill herself on the plane. Out at 10:30 and walk back to 11, Dennis buying some honeydew, and I make a great crème de cacao and cream and ice frappe, one for me and two for us, shower, he smokes and gets into his cock, and comes VERY fast, despite my demands that he slow down, and then he insists I get into mine, so I lather up and then just rub the skin up and down as he necks with me, insisting that he loves it, and I finally come thickly but not far, and then it's 1 and we're both tired and it's overtime to go to bed, air conditioning on.
DIARY 12241
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24. Alarm goes at 7:30 but he's UP, so that I'm into the kitchen at 8:20 in amazement to have scrambled eggs and some gazpacho and toast and zucchini again, and we're actually out at 9, dodging the showers, and I get home by 9:45 to get a call from Paul Bosten (Laird still isn't answering), and then do light-work for an hour, read the mail, and get back to the index marking from 11:50 to 3:05, when I finish marking the first half, so then I stop and have lunch of the last of the roast beef, more cantaloupe while reading the New York, and then make dinner so that I won't have to start from scratch when I return this evening. Back to type the first half with a grand 560 cards from 4:15 to 6, and I'm pretty much on schedule except that I called and they DO want 147-148 page ranges, and they sounded happy when I said I was aiming to get it to them by Monday. Then (oh, I exercised in there before having lunch, too, up to 25 now, and starting to feel like I'm GETTING to the limits) shower and shave and do about 25 minutes on pelvic unloading, feeling good about that, and get to these 2 pages by 7:30. Get out rather late at 7:35, but the subway comes quickly enough and I get there at 8:10 in plenty of time for the class (see DIARY 12242). Rebekah looks prettier than ever, but it's sad to hear her say that Nick couldn't afford it anymore and Rich Semmel has dropped back another class, and there's a new little twerp of a girl, Kathy, there, and I brush her down, and she does me VERY lightly except for the hands, and we're almost as many women as men by now, which I don't care for, but I guess other classes are even worse, by the looks of the male groupings. It's stopped raining, and I just subway directly home by 11 to heat up the hamburger and continue reading "The Psychology of Science" and decide to finish it, which I do just by 12, which makes it read today. Then I read the cover matter of the last Maslow book, since I'm getting rather bored with him, and forget to put away the hamburger sitting on the stove, and get into bed trying to sleep on my back, but it doesn't work, so finally I just roll over and drop off to sleep in an instant, tired enough to sleep through until 8 am the following morning.
DIARY 12243
THURSDAY, AUGUST 25. Dog barking next door wakes me with surprise as late at 8, and the NEXT time he barks it's 9 am, so I still need sleep. Get up leisurely and do light-work for an hour between 9:30 and 10:30, and then take some time to read the mail, then exercise, and by the time I get to breakfast (after watering the plants) it's just about noon for my peach and cereal, and then I get down to the index from 12:40 to 5:10, going slower so I just mark to 375, getting many too many entities. That time was interrupted by Rolf calling to say that the Philadelphia company doesn't sell the bottles anymore, so how'd I like to go to the beach early Friday, and I figure Dennis won't like it, and he doesn't. So he decided not to go, after three telephone calls, and I'm sorry about it, but it's his business. Joe Farinas calls and asks me about his quandary: his job is moving to Detroit so he must either move with it or become unemployed. I tell him that Henry Messer has moved there, and he wants to write to him, and I tell him to get in touch with NGTF people there to get another opinion, too. Then type these two pages, Dennis calls at 6 to say that, in fact, he won't be going, so he wishes me a good time, and then I have something to eat and get back to the index from 6:20 to 10:20, typing the first batch of cards and marking more of the pages, finishing my 8.5-hour workday in order to watch "Marijuana: The Grass is Getting Greener" which looked like it might be dropped from the airwaves and I wondered why the ONE program I wanted to watch during the week might be having transmission problems. But Roger Grimsby comes on to look at grass plants, part of "Reefer Madness" which is now controlled (and making money for, how ironic!) NORML, which has gotten all sorts of law-enforcement people to say it should be legalized, except for the guy who asks if we want ANOTHER official drug, now that booze kills 50,000 a year and cigarettes another 5,000 a year---not BOTHERING to say how many might be killed from marijuana, though even the guy from NORML says he wouldn't want the pilot of his airliner smoking grass. Then do a half-hour of pelvic unloading between 11:30, when I finally get into bed, and 12, and I packed most of the stuff that I'll need tomorrow and set the alarm for 6:30 for morning light-work.
DIARY 12244
FRIDAY, AUGUST 26. Wake at 6:30 and feel pretty awful, but get up for about 40 minutes of light-work and showered last night, as I remember, and had some breakfast and packed stuff, and he calls at 7:45 to say he'll be downstairs at 8, so I hurriedly water the plants and get downstairs JUST as he pulls up, Kaina watching from the downstairs steps as we look at maps and get into driving position. I almost get up lost getting to the Garden State in my role of "Prince Henry," Who? "the Navigator." But then we're cruising down making good time, talking about the pine barrens which he says will NEVER be good for anything (though that was before he saw the crops of old-age homes that Jersey seems to be specializing in), and we drive off to Island Beach State Park and I pay the $4 to get in, decide not to pay 50 to get down to the end with the fishermen, and get onto the beach where I change into trunks in the bathhouse, and we tromp down so that I can get into the water that SEEMS cold to me until Rolf says it IS cold, and the waves aren't large enough to have any fun with, so I'm back to read and we chat, and then he goes in, I sun, he comes back, digs hole for ants to fall in, and then we're back for one last time when the lifeguard blows us away from swimming in the surfers' area. Back to the car about 1, feeling too hot for such a short time in the sun, but better for having showered to get the VERY salty water off, stared at by two little back boys "looking for role models" as Rolf puts it. Back across highway 70, dreary in the sun, to have lunch about 3 in Marlton's Mama and Papa Restaurant for pork barBQ and hot fudge sundaes. Which put us behind, so that we're tootling down 295, 322, and 1 to get to Longwood at 4:35, but the Conservatory doesn't close until 5:15, so we see enough of it so that he wants to come back all day Sunday, and then we're out to grounds till 6:15, up to Eye of Water and around fountains and vegetables. Try calling Laird and Bernie and Michael, but no luck, so we decide to tootle back across route 40 as darkness falls and Rolf gets tireder and tireder partly due to the fact that he couldn't sleep last night (and fumigated this morning for a new breed of FLYING roaches that LAND on him as he reads), and we're in at 9 to drive up and down Ventnor and Atlantic Avenues a bit before he spots Chester Inn on New York Avenue, a gay hotel, but $26 is too much, so we settle on Evelyn's across the street for $15 and a double bed and LOUD people after we eat at her recommendation: Franks, with lots of beer.
DIARY 12245
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27. We'd gotten to bed at 1:30, listened to noises until 4, when I put in my earplugs, and then I woke at 8 to do light-work till 9, when I woke a grumpy Rolf. Take incredible notes after light-work (see DIARY 12252). Showered and shaved and out at 10 to eat in the Ranch House, recommended by Evelyn, after packing and leaving the key for her. That takes time, too, and it's 11 by the time I walk him back to the Convention Hall for his computer convention that brought him down here, and we stopped in the Visitor's Bureau where I got a map and guidebook in which I jotted all the notes (see DIARY 12246) I wrote as I walked to the end of the Boardwalk at Ventnor, then back to its other end at Captain Starns, then back to each of the 5 piers along the Boardwalk, cataloging their attractions, and getting VERY sore-footed back to Rolf at the Convention Center at 4, as planned, to find that HE'S very tired and I'm very tired, and I admit "Something inside me just said 'YEAH'" when he suggests that we simply return to NYC tonight: he's losing stamina, patience, and money, and has seen what he'd wanted to see. We sit inside, LITERALLY cooling our heels on the marble floor in the air conditioned lobby, and then we walk back to the Shelburne, where the convention WAS, for him to buy a book, me to stare at uncomfortable professional types, and then we walk back to New York to get the car about 5:30, and make a beeline for the Garden State, but he takes pity on my hunger and his sleepiness to get off at Manahawkin where we stop at the diner and I have a huge Hoagie and he has a BLT, we have birch beer, and we're out to continue our drive up the Garden State to the Turnpike and across to Staten Island just at 8, and I get home at 8:10 to stare at my sunburn and turn on channel 13 to look at all four episodes of "Five Red Herrings" with Ian Carmichael, but I just CAN'T remember who's who with the herrings, and at 10 there's a rattle in the door and I open it to Dennis's "WHOOP!" of surprise as he'd come because his typewriter broke down, and he waits until my program finishes at 12, buying a paper while I take a shower, and he does too, and then he smokes and I finish Kahlua with milk and we neck until 1, but we're both tired so we fall asleep, postponing sex until the morning, better time.
DIARY 12249
SUNDAY, AUGUST 28. I wake about 9, and he's up right after, so we're right into cock and sex, and I'm very hard and he's to get the popper, and I get myself so excited that I say that I'm coming, and he obviously wants me to, so I do, and he finishes by going down on me and throwing me about the bed in delightful ecstasy. We're out of bed about 10, he showers and shaves, and I make my egg-and-bacon dish perfectly by using ALL the bacon grease for the omelet. Sadly, the cream has gone bad again so he has to use milk. We look through parts of the Times, finish breakfast, and he leaves about 12:30. I do light-work for an hour and get back to the index from 1:30 to 6:55, taking time off from 5:40 to 6 to watch a blurred version of the lightshow for "Tristan and Isolde" on channel 31, and then decide that I have to eat something, so I put on the hamburger again while watching "The Wolf Equation" from 7-8, narrated by Robert Redford, which starts out by saying it's a crime to kill off the wolves and then ends by saying that there's nothing to do but kill off the wolves. Then I get back to the index from 8:05 to 10:55, finish the final marking and typing and ending up with about enough cards to make 14 pages, which is just fine. Then give myself a treat by watching Monty Python's Flying Circus, which comes on late because it's the last of their pledge week, and I manage to see the first sequence and through to the last, when they rebroadcast the "best episode" which shows them at their wackiest, and they ARE funny when they're most outlandish, though the cartoons, probably BECAUSE they COULD be so outlandish, are usually the calmest parts of the whole thing. Actually now I remember that I typed about half the pages of the final manuscript, so that I'm farther along than merely typing. Feeling tired, even though I didn't exercise, and had put on some lotion yesterday after showering to cool down my flesh, but today it didn't seem so hot, and my face was lightly flaking, so it might be over with quickly. Punctured the blister with a pin and took out slightly pinkish fluid, putting over a bandage so it won't get infected. Get to bed about 12, and then turn off the lights and roll over to get some sleep.
DIARY 12250
MONDAY, AUGUST 29. Put in the earplugs so I don't wake until about 8:30, and then get up to make a list of 21 things that I have to do in the next three days and get busy with them by doing light-work from 9 to 10, and then get back to the index from 10:10 to 11:55, when I stop to have some hamburger for breakfast because I've phoned and found that "Cinderella" goes on at 7:15, so we'll be eating beforehand. The milk was just going sour but I drank it down anyway. Then finished proofreading and alphabetizing (finding no errors here) from 12:55 to 2:20, writing up another memo, and adding a half-hour for delivery to come up with a bill of $514 for a 465-page book, over 10% ABOVE the $1/page limit. Phone and ask if I can xerox, and she says to bring it in, so I shower and shave, peeling slightly around the face from the burn, and put everything into a shopping bag and decide to take all THREE books when I go along about 4, and get in at 4:30 to be told that I can do 60 or so pages, so I do Eiseley's "The Mind as Nature," then ask Terry to change the tray for large paper for Clarke's "Exploration of the Moon," and finish that by 5, surprising Laura who says the index is beautiful, so I ask if I can do another book, and do the 70 pages of Clarke's "Indian Ocean Treasure" and feel VERY good about it by 5:35, when she walks with me down to the subway (and I'm carrying the first chapter of a NEW index-book on "The Hypothalamus") on 6th Avenue and get down to 6th and 13th JUST at 6 pm to read a bit in "Long after Midnight," since I have to return it on Wednesday, and he sneaks up behind me and asks if I want cock, and we find that "Berries and Fruits," or whatever, is closed, and then he suggests Shakespeare's, so we're down to 8th and McDougal and he has Guildenstern hamburger platter and I take ale-dipped fish and chips which is HUGE for $3.95, and we have a carafe of rosé, and it's pleasant company, street-viewing, and talking, and leave at 7:05 to get up to "Cinderella" where he meets Joel and sits and chats with him until the movie starts, and it's not so hot (see DIARY 12253) and the kids AND grownups in the audience are AWFUL. Out at 8:30, avoiding seeing "The Boatniks" as everyone else seems to be doing, then up to Dana's to AWFUL dog smell, and we look at Dana's British information, drink Harvey Wallbangers with Strega instead of Galliano, and get to bed to have good sex, both coming, bed about 1 am.
DIARY 12254
TUESDAY, AUGUST 30. Alarm rings at 7:30 and Dennis is up slowly while I continue to snooze, and get up about 8:30 as he makes hamburger and peas for breakfast, and then he leaves for work about 10. I phone various theaters and find that "Orca" is playing with "Lifeguard" ONLY at Olympia, which starts at 2:30, and Coliseum, which starts at 1, so I look through their drawers for new Advocates and other porno, skim more British things, do light-work, then do exercising, and leave about 12:40 in a VERY hot afternoon, penning poor Rhoda in her rugless cubicle for the day, and get to theater at 12:55 to find that it doesn't start until 1:20, but theater opens at 1 and there's "White Mountains of New Hampshire" to terrible narration and redded-out colors, and a shameless ad for Benihana of Tokyo entitled "Karate and Eating," or something like it. "Lifeguard" isn't bad at all, Joe (Bud?) Elliott perfectly cast as a humpy 32-year-old, with Parker Stevenson good-looking as his apprentice, who's seduced by a 15-year-old, his ex-girlfriend, and various stewardesses, passes up a $20,000 job selling cars, and will remain a lifeguard as long as they'll have him, despite a GOOD scene where he loses a winning spot on a relay race because he's weakening and slow in the water. "Orca" is pretty good, with ridiculous apotheosis at end in ice floes and him sinking dead, after being flipped out of the water, in a crucified position, and the film really couldn't decide who was the VILLAIN in the piece, but the shots of the killer whales were good, good refinery explosion and boat-rammings, surprising stillbirth when wife is killed, and cold performance by Charlotte Rampling, who was NOT believable warming him when she embraced him. That's out at 5, I walk down to G Washington Bridge before seeing subway sign, home about 6, adding xeroxed books to stack of junk all around, and decide NOT to go to est, which makes me feel better. Read some Bradbury and then debate calling Pope but decide I HAVE to do some typing, so type 7 pages until I don't FEEL like doing more, so I turn on TV at 9:20 to watch "Die Fledermaus" and JUST catch someone throwing an apple pie at Beame at Cooper Union mayoral-candidate debates, then watch lousy opera with lousier people until 11:30, making popcorn after finishing the LAST of the hamburger stuff for lunch, and then watch "Under the Garden" on "Shades of Greene" with Denholm Elliott as a man dying and reliving his rather bizarre English past. Drink lots of wine and get to bed feeling somewhat soused, doing pelvic work before turning out light at 1.
DIARY 12255
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31. Up about 8:30, finish Bradbury's "Long after Midnight," type up one page about it (see DIARY 12251), and he has LOTS of men-love, cry/ laugh, and "What do men REALLY want?" questions. Do light-work, phone Rosey to find "nothing unusual with tooth X-ray," then exercise after a bit, then phone Dennis about Multigravitation Aerodance and arrange to meet at 12:30, and read lots of mail, then subway to Union Square and sit from 12:15 and meet Bob Buecker who talks about how lucky they were to have bought their building on West Broadway when they did, that Sylvia Leiser just had an eye operation before which she couldn't even read, and that Charles and his lover are just thinking of buying a building on Wooster which is very expensive and they're having a lot of problems. He introduces me to a red-headed, tall, beautiful Richard Hayman, who did the tape for Aerodance, and they perform unimaginatively from 12:30 to 1:10 (see DIARY 12256), at which INSTANT it starts raining, and I thank Richard, talking about Hartmann and Gurdjieff, and he says he hopes he'll see me again, so I do TOO! Subway back to find it's stopped raining, phone Dennis to find we've BOTH been inappropriate (see DIARY 12258), THEN I do light-work, stopping at 2:35 to get down to the bank to cash in Eddie's last checks on the $180 he paid back in full, get $100 more in cash, return Bradbury to library, check out a record, check no labels in mailbox, buy stamps, pick up two photos from slide for $1.46(!), check bookstore, buy meat and groceries, and get back to put SOME things away, having checked for tailors and being put onto "Magic Web" for hemming pants MYSELF. Fry Spam for an early dinner, hem one pair of pants VERY nicely with steam iron, do pelvic work until 7:20, then out to Montague to return to pick up books to return to Montague to exchange books with Mark Elliott, talking about his trip to Munich and to South America and Arnie's stay in San Francisco, then to subway in drizzle to Actualism and a bad session to bring me out of my complacency THERE (see DIARY 12257). Out at 10 and subway up to Dana's at 11, where Dennis raves over my new pants, shows me his new draft of Chalkware which I correct more, and he's made spaghetti which we eat between 12:15 and 12:30, then he smokes, we get into sex where he comes and I come VERY soft after a VERY long time, quite muzzy with wine, and he's taken the chain off Rhoda, so that's better, and we finally drift off to sleep at 2, waking again at 3 to shut off the light, and he wakes again through night.
DIARY 12260
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1. Wake at 7:30 and Dennis is VERY hot, but he still wants to get into cock when we finally think about getting out of bed at 8:45, and I lay and jerk off nicely and HE then jerks off on my chest, rubbing lots of white come into his cockhead and really getting off on it. Then he makes coffee and dawdles over breakfast while I read Dana's subscription to the News, out of order so the news is REALLY garbled, and finally he makes breakfast of warmed-over spaghetti at 11:30, and we leave about 11:45 and he STILL forgot to serve the chocolate-chip ice cream that he had for me. Hot and muggy out and he admires my shoes but admits he MIGHT be feeling sick. I show him sections of the Maslow book on the subway ride down, and get home about 12:30 to find another chapter of "The Hypothalamus" and lots of other things, adding to the STACK of stuff in the apartment. Then DETERMINE to finish off the 21-item list I'd made up on Monday, do light-work from 1 to 1:40, hem the second pair of pants poorly, stretching the double-knit out of shape but hoping the press-hanger will push it back level, wash dishes while listening to the end of "Mefistofeles" that gives me the idea of modernizing Faust (see DIARY 12259), then put some LITTLE things away, water the plants, set up the fan to cool things off, get a call from Dennis who MIGHT be sick, and a call from Cheryl Wilcox who will call back about going into apprenticeship on indexes, write note to Bernie Myers, to Drake about JOYI labels, phone Audio AGAIN for tapes, and then DETERMINE to get back to the last item, catching up on the diary, which I do (though hungry) at LAST with these (kill MOSQUITO!) 9 pages by 6:50 pm! Exercise again, feeling surprisingly easy about it at the third level, then put in Spam to cook while putting dishes away and have dinner of peas and apple sauce and Spam. Then back to sort through EVERYTHING in a mess in the apartment, and finally end with a stack of stuff to send: note to Mazie, "No" to Malcolm X rewriting by Bruce Frazier Perry, Paperback return, BUG rate adjustment, Channel 13 slap for asking for renewal when I'm member in DECEMBER, Bureau of Mint coins (actually the next morning), Drake letter, and Workmen's Circle requests---8 letters! Watch "Tristan" fantasy again from 10:40 to 11, then last of "Lion Hunters" on 13, then Nova on "The Pill: History" until 12:30, then into bed for pelvic work "for 20 minutes" that's over at 1:15, and to sleep almost immediately in warmish room, but I don't really NEED air conditioning 9/1!
DIARY 12264
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2. Wake at 7:30 and out of bed at 8:15, marveling about noise abatement (see DIARY 12262) and remembering a vivid dream about a theater (see DIARY 12261). Sort through stuff one last time and really feel that I'm getting organized (see DIARY 12263), and then do light-work "for 20 minutes" from 9 to 9:50. Then make out "Workman's Circle" section in the file, mail the last of 8 items, make out a "slop do list" and finish 4 pages by 10:40, GREAT. Stare at the air conditioner box and decide not to take it apart to check if it needs a plug, phone for an Actualism appointment tomorrow at 4 pm, get a call from Rick that tells me we're not meeting them for dinner, and phone Dennis to say we'll be eating at Dana's after. Phone Margaret to say that I'll be away on vacation, she says she probably won't have an index for me, but that she and Bob Leap will be away on vacation next week so I should leave the index with Alan Gold, and Rolf calls and talks a long time about asbestos, so I phone Larry Price and leave a Limit Order for 800 shares at 15/16 (which hasn't been acted on for a week). Have lunch because I'm hungry, get more mail, and finally get down to the index at 1:15 to 3:55, then stopping to talk to Larry Price, then back from 4:15 to 5:15, when I shower and shave (having tried the beard-remover, which is AWFUL and leaves a dreadful smell of sulfur), and then subway up to Kabuki at 7:15, meeting Azak AGAIN by coincidence at the Beacon (actually at the subway exit), and he needs a ticket, but walks to a fellow waving one for $15, and he gets it free. A French friend of his comes up and monopolizes him, ignoring me completely, and Dennis had been waiting at the other side and joins us, and we're into the fairly-full theater, perfect seats in the 4th row. The performance is slow but action-packed in small packets (see DIARY 12265), but the Beacon doesn't seem to be air conditioned and a woman in front is totally awful by INSISTING on fanning her mother who doesn't WANT to be fanned. Out at 10:15 and subway with motley crew up to Dana's for Dennis to put together dinner, and then he smokes, I drink 3 large rum and Tabs because I'm so thirsty, and we have cuddles but no sex (watching "Janis" from 12 to 2:30, interesting but she sure WAS a sad person), waiting for the morning, and Dennis moaning that he hasn't come for three days, and I haven't come since Sunday, I think!
DIARY 12266
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3. We're awake but still woozy when Rick calls at 8:45 to say he'll be here at 9:45. Dennis wants to get up, but I stoke him until he COMES up, then we play lengthily until he SEEPS two large globs of come, and then in the excitement I grab me and come VERY nicely, then he uses my come to tease hic cock into what I take to be a come but HE says was another intermediate step, which is quite exciting. I get into the shower while Dennis makes coffee, then he showers and Rick doesn't show up until about 10:15, which is good for him. He talks inanely and I'm feeling touchy about something, maybe pre-activation for my session this afternoon. We have only eggs and toast for breakfast, which Dennis is concerned about though we say it's OK. Rick leaves about 12:30 to meet a friend, and then we go for a walk in Inwood Hill, though I DIDN'T think he'd meant to take RHODA along, who pulls and pulls but heels nicely when she's let free to roam in the park. Goldenrod, little blue flowers, daisies, a burned-out car, and the "mystery path" that leads back to the top are all very nice, but when we exit about 2:30 I'm feeling VERY tired, so we get cherry and pineapple ice and sit watching the kids play in the spray, little foreign kid terrorizing Rhoda, who gets fed a bun by a pleasant woman, and we enjoy surroundings and I feel rested. Onto subway at 3:15 and wait a long time, but get to Actualism JUST at 4 for a long pleasant session of "Touch-Up" with Bruce until 5:10 (see DIARY 12267). Then phone Dennis and say I might as well stay down here, thinking of sitting quietly, but I roam Central Park, quite changed from before (see DIARY 12268), stand on cancellations line at 6:15, chatting with people and watching people pass, and Dennis comes up at 7:40, almost late, and we're in to a slow-starting but fast-finishing dance program (see DIARY 12269) that he doesn't see the end of: at 9 he's shivering and feverish and feeling NOT well, so he leaves quickly, I chat with ice-dancer on right and old lady on left, then leave at 10:15 to dash down to a closed-for-vacation Milestone (oh, had a slice of pizza and root beer for "lunch" before standing on line), then up to Al Buon Gusto on 72nd and Columbus for average cannelloni, Rick's good sauce in seafood platter, Bob's dieting, good wine, and we leave about 11 for Man's Image Bookshop (see DIARY 12270), where I stay until 1, disgusted, buy Times without book section, home 1:45, glance at Times, bed about 2:30, tired.
DIARY 12271
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4. Up about 10:30, watch Bella Abzug instead of Camera Three while looking through the Times, getting in an hour of light-work, and then getting to the index to mark through page 207 from 3:10 to 5:10, then talk to Dennis who's talked to Dana, and they'll take him home tonight if Rick can stay here, so I say OK (though Dennis said he'd probably stay with Bob) and IMMEDIATELY Rick calls to ask if he can crash here. I don't know what else I do through the evening, but the place is still pretty much of a mess, and since the hamburger is getting awful, I decide to make up the hamburger dish so that at least it'll be COOKED. Eat and get back to index from 8:25-9:25, typing 310 cards from those 100 pages, which is a good figure, and then from 9:25-11 mark 82 more pages, finding it hard to come up with good entries for this Vascular Grafts book which at least I'm UNDERSTANDING, and then knock off to watch Monty Python from 11-11:30, and it turns out to be one I hadn't seen before: with the gimmick of the Queen supposing to watch, and then having the "nasty foods" contest with someone coming up with a dish of braised PUS, said with particular nastiness by the dark-haired guy, and other sequences of people sipping other people's brains out was quite nasty, and I felt myself writhing in my seat and enjoying it all immensely. Then get back to marking, too late to type, from 11:35 to 12:35, when Rick finally rings downstairs, and he's willing to get to bed immediately, so we make up the bed without the pad, I pull down the shades, he borrows the porno so that he can jerk off in the bathroom, and I get into bed without having had more than two meals today, feeling somewhat hungry, but not exercising. I'm getting my floppypot back again, so it's to the good. Do Pelvic Unloading as he moves about the apartment, and I don't get to sleep and neither does he, and I can hear him moving about, but at least it's not too warm in the apartment without any air conditioning, and I learned the next day that HE demanded not to have one, too, so he's used to it. Brought in the Collier book to read in case I felt like passing time, but I didn't feel like coming and eventually got to sleep about 1:30 without reading.