1977 9 of 11
DIARY 12272
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5. I wake about 8:30 and don't feel like light-work, so I start reading Collier, doing about half of it (maybe I DO do light-work, don't remember) until 10:30, and then figure I SHOULD get up, so I put on coffee for Rick and he gets up and puts stuff away and I make pretty good French toast for us, then talk about the air conditioner and it turns out that he installs them for all his neighbors, so we unpack it and put it IN with comparative ease, although I cut my 8 fingers to the point of bleeding on 4-5 of them on the sharp fins on the back grill. Then about 12:30 we leave for the parade in Brooklyn, having phoned Dennis to hear he doesn't feel like coming along, and get off at Utica Avenue and walk back toward the Brooklyn Museum for an interesting afternoon where WE move more than the parade (see DIARY 12273). Then about 3:30 we're both tired and hot, so he subways to Dennis to get back to Poughkeepsie early, saying that he might be sending me down some typewriter ribbons and even balls from the supply rooms he works near, and he returned my films, too, saying he'd keep only the "duplicate" of the Joe D'Angelo film, and I should decide which of HIS I'd want to keep by the time he returns on the 17th. I'm back to the index at 4:15-4:55, typing only 190 cards for the third quarter of the book, and then Avi calls to say that he hadn't gotten my Carter letter, we chat about Monopoly since I'd just been to Atlantic City, and then I finish marking the book from 5:10 to 7:20, type some of the cards from 7:20 to 7:45, and then Dennis comes in, having been tempted by Rick giving him a subway pass and telling him that I had the hamburger dish for dinner. I heat up the meat and we watch the new "Laugh-In" from 8-9, some old, some new, some cute, some awful, but it'll take awhile for the new crews to catch on. Poor Bette Davis got only to quote lines from her famous movies, and she CAN'T sing worth shit. Then we talk until about 10, when I'm drinking and he's smoking, and we get into good shooting sex for the both of us, me WHACKING away at myself until I come a lot, and then we get to sleep about 12:30 under the low-working air conditioner because the regular extension gets quite hot and Rick warned me not to turn it up too high or leave it on all night. But consequently it's cooler in the morning when we open the doors than it was during the night. Hm.
DIARY 12274
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6. He gets up about 8:30, not having set the alarm, and I make french toast and he dawdles over coffee and pauses so long in getting out that as he showers I get down to the index about 10:40, and finish typing at 11:10. Down for the mail, lots of it after the weekend, but no New York Magazine, and look through that and get into the editing of the index at 11:45, pleased that it's cool enough that the open doors give enough breeze until the hottest in the afternoon, when I put on the fan, and take much longer than planned with the editing because I make up a new section on "Patency" and add lots of cross-references to build the 1000 cards up to 1200 lines with VERY few turnovers in the 55-character/line specification. Work through continuously until 8, taking out 15 minutes to talk to Rolf to recommend entertainments for his French "13-year-old girlfriend" in from Amiens. Almost completely finish the editing when I warm up the last of the hamburger during the intermissions of "The Hindenburg," somewhat better than the reviews would have led me to think: Anne Bancroft is sort of silly as George C. Scott's girlfriend who keeps smoking hash even in the hydrogen-filled balloon, and William Atherton is the German who's setting off the bomb to discredit Hitler, but it's set at 7:30, the winds delay the mooring, and it goes off in a rather appalling welter of flames and buckling girders in one of the better climaxes I've seen, only sorry that it had to be in black and white to match the footage, but there was LOTS of felt carnage in the film. Flicked back and forth to "Logan's Run," which came out just last summer, to see Farrah Faucett-Majors as a wild-haired underground girl in some of the sequences against the dark paleness of Jenny Agutter as the heroine and the explosions at the end. That went until 11, and I watched nonsense until 11:30 and watched "Two Gentle People" with Harry Andrews trying to seduce Elizabeth Sellars while HIS wife got soused (marvelously naked performance by Elaine Stritch as a former world-famous model) and HER husband seduced a little boy and whooped it up in the next room. When it was over at 12:30 I thought possibly of coming, but just put BACK the mattress cover that I should have taken to be washed today and crawled into bed after doing a QUICK half-hour of light-work and a 15-minute pelvic session until 1:30, STILL no exercising!
DIARY 12275
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7. Up about 9 and take the mattress cover off again, do light-work for about an hour, and decide to see if the mail's in, and it IS, with the two books I'd ordered by Ballard and Stapledon and a WHOLE stack of other mail, including the New York and Scientific American. Look through all of this marvelous stuff in detail and bring my book list up to date, seeing that it's down to a marvelously symmetric 40/20 arranged in a neat way: 5
Just as I'm finishing with that there's a buzz at the door and the 4 4
postman's back with a package from Library of Congress with 2 MORE 3 3 3
books xeroxed, so it's been a great day for that, and I pile up all 2 2 2 2
the books I have to rearrange tomorrow. Finally get to the manuscript 1111111111
typing at 12:30, typing all the way through till 4 with 48 pages, and then proofread and finish from 4 to 6, getting a call from Alan Gold that there's "a mistake" and I tell him there are 35 pages with mistakes on them. Then quickly shower and shave, eat some corned beef and warmed-over peas and the last of the banana cake to have SOMETHING to eat so I don't have to go out and can spare time to type the Actualism sheet for Lesson Nine, so I won't be confused with tonight, as well as the write-up of the Touchup (see DIARY 12267) on Saturday so THAT won't be taking my mind away from what's happening TONIGHT. Phone Dennis and find it's OK to go over there tonight, and then John knocks to say that he, "Ma Nature" has left some more tomatoes downstairs and that Shirley Peterson may be joining us at Hemlock Hall (she's the girl he FOUND it with, and she's "heavier" now). Out at 7:45, worried about getting there on time, hauling along the index for tomorrow and checks to be deposited, and get there just at 8:17, to find that the 12 of us ARE the group. We go through the Sensory Lifebelt with the Monadic (see DIARY 12276) and I brush down Maureen for the first time, and I THINK she means to say I have nice pants and it comes out "You have nice legs." Walk Faye Levy up to 73rd and tell her about my writing negatively about her 4 years ago, then she's down to 67th and I'm up a restauranty, almost cruisy Columbus to Dennis's, and he's punching down Granola bread and making good chicken with fresh green beans, which we eat about 11:30 and he puts on bread at 1, smokes, and we get into sex, both VERY hard, and he tries to bring me off, but I do, and then he puts out the bread to cool about 1:45 and we get exhaustedly into bed about 2 am.
DIARY 12277
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8. Dennis sets the alarm about 7 because he has to be in the office early for a shooting session for the cookbook article. He makes scrambled eggs and green beans for breakfast, but the Granola bread is rather chewy, "like a cracker all the way through" as I put it. He agrees. Out to the subway at 8:55, a new record, and I decide to stop down to British Rail at 270 Madison first, picking up a few brochures from the tiny office, and then see Alan Gold about 9:45 to give in the index, forgetting the page numbers, and xeroxing with his permission 12 copies of each letter again to Carter. Picked up a Manhattan phone book from Dennis's this morning, so the bag gets heavier and heavier. Up to Thomson at 516 Fifth at 4th to find that they don't handle flights to Britain, only trips FROM Britain. Stop off at Barnes and Noble's new store and pick up three books for $3, including "Something Happened," and then continue up to 680 Fifth and the British Tourist Authority, where I pick up about 50 brochures and talk to a fellow who says it'll be COLD but probably CLEAR in Iona, and there's NO chance of being stranded, but there'll be NO tourists in that season. Sounds like it might be FUN. Back to 50th and the subway at noon, getting in VERY weary with lugging the bag around, phone the list of pages to Alan, and then take the mattress cover out to be washed, buy a heavy extension cord for the air conditioner, buy a belated birthday card for Art, cash checks, vote for Bella, and pick up over $20 in groceries, coming back with ANOTHER load in my arms. Looked through lots of mail, too, and then re-sorted the books to be read in the living room, putting them all in neat order and labeling all the xeroxed copies I'd gotten. Put stuff together to be mailed, put things away, and get out to mail letters and pick up the mattress cover at 5, putting it on the bed to stretch and dry. Phone Audio to find he's SENT the belts last Thursday, but I can hardly believe him. Phone Pope and find it's OK to come over to watch Nixon this evening, and forgot I watched "Dreams" by Bergman on TV (Harriett Andersson getting her wishes with Bjorn Bjornstein as a rich dirty-old-man, and Eva Dahlbeck getting her wish to see her former lover again even though the WIFE shows up and drags him away from her again) from 2 to 3:30). Over at 7:25 and watch Nixon making an ass of himself until we both tire of him and start a game of Scrabble that Pope wins at last, and then he consents to make popcorn and gives me apple juice, and since I've had nothing but fried Spam since breakfast, it tastes very good. Stay until 10, winning the second game by getting 399 points, then home to get a call from John Woods, wash dishes until 11, make the bed, fix up the place, and sell him two bottles by 11:35, THEN do both light-works, belatedly, and get to sleep about 12:15, tired.
DIARY 12279
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9. Out of bed about 9:00, getting a call from Bruce at 9:15, saying he's at work, and then decide to throw away the "slop list" and add the last two items to the regular do list. Find that the 6th letter, that I couldn't remember, was to Public Theater with songs to be set by Liz Swados. Type some pages, then down for the mail and read Soho News while having breakfast of cereal at 11:45, lousy peaches for 49 a pound. Phone for another set of $10 restaurant certificates, talk to Dennis who doesn't want to decide about tonight yet, and get a call from Cheryl who will be here at 5:30, so I probably won't get to the dance performance. Decide to make a list of people who attended Actualism with me, and find that 30 have reduced to 12, and I'm in the 4th highest class in Actualism. Things seem to go slowly, and I've first typed the dream from this morning (see DIARY 12278) without page number, then caught up with this, the 14th page today, 4:20. Try to speed up on light-work, but it takes about 45 minutes to go through the lifebelt, and then I water the plants in time to let her up at 5:30, right on schedule. Cheryl Wexler comes across better in person than on the phone: small, quick, intelligent, she seemed to learn what I was saying, pointed out my error in something, and said she hated her work as a complaints person at New York Telephone, gotten through a friend of Dana's, who's been her longest steady friend. I give her the first chapter of Hypothalamus to look at while typing letters to Arnie and Paul McLean, and then go over it with her and correct her and give it to her again. She works until about 7:30, then we chat, she has a slice of toast to quiet her stomach, and then she leaves about 8:30, when I put on the specials on Saturday-morning TV on channels 4-7, flipping back and forth to the sexy Captain Kool and the Kongs, and he's a BEAUTY with a tiny crotch. Then 9-10 watch Donald Pleasance in drag in Graham Greene's "Root of All Evil," which is secrecy, though it ENDS on the father NOT telling the kid what SODOMY was, I now remember! And a program on gun control to 10:30. Then jerk off with porno and an antiproductive bidi (which I NOW go throw out!) until 11 when I go out and listen to music (see DIARY 12281) until 1:40, finally ready for sleep.
DIARY 12283
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10. Wake and out of bed at 9:45, supposedly needing the 8 hours sleep, and get right to light-work after seeing that the mail hadn't come in yet, and it takes from 10:05 to 11:15 because I just can't get into it. Mail STILL isn't here, call Dennis, who doesn't answer, and then he calls to say he was in the shower and had called twice before, and he just wandered around Soho and the Village last night before going to bed alone. He suggests Luchow's for dinner, and I tell him about the body-building program, then type a page about Maintenance Problems (see DIARY 12280) that I thought about last night when not wanting to brush my teeth before going to bed, and then the niceness of the terminology of Actualism that I thought of this morning (see DIARY 12282), stopping at one point to read about color vision in Scientific American from 12-12:45 (see DIARY 12281), and then finish the letter I'd started last night to Edward Moulton-Barrett, do some address-searching in the London guide and find that both hotels are quite close together, and write a letter to Bill to finish the letter file. Phoned Rebekah to change my make-up schedule, but she's so busy I'll have to call her Monday at 4 pm! Have a toasted roast beef sandwich because my stomach is growling at 3:30, then finish this 4th page at 4:20, by coincidence the SAME time I finished typing the day page YESTERDAY! Exercise for the first time this week, then shower and shave and wash my hair and brush my teeth by 5:30, and dress and get out to the 6th Avenue, just missing one, and get to Luchow's at 6:05 and Dennis kindly says NOTHING about my being late. The place is surprisingly crowded, and we have special dinners for $12.95 that STILL, with the half-price food-discount, comes to $24 with tip, and though my Weissenbiere with raspberry syrup is quite a kick, and he loves his desserty peach soup and has headcheese for the first time (and the herring in sour cream was good, too), his beef roast with vegetables isn't spectacular, my loin of pork (Kassler Ripchen) has a funny ketchupy sauce on it, the weinkraut is VERY spicy, but the final apple "cakes" (torts) are pretty bad, and I race out at 7:55 to get to the body-building show, which is a kick for $10 (see DIARY 12284) until 10:40, then I'm up to his place to find him out, buy Times, we read it, chat, and get to bed tired to cuddle a bit and fall asleep about 1 am.
DIARY 12285
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11. Wake about 9:30 and again we both cuddle, and I say "If we both want sex, we'll surely have sex; if I want sex and you don't want sex, I'd probably be able to coax you into it; if you wanted sex and I didn't want sex, you'd probably be able to coax me into it; but if we BOTH don't want sex, it's very difficult. Do I tell you to get coffee or do you tell me that you're getting coffee?" About a minute later he says "I'm getting up," and he does. I read the Times while he waits for his folks to call, which they do about 11:30, but then he still fusses, so that I finally work both puzzles, and we eat at last at 12:50, and I'd told him about the TV show that I wanted to watch at 1, but when I turn it on, it's been changed to some political program, so we finish breakfast by 1:30 and then dress and get out about 2 to subway down to 42nd and 7th, then walk across to 2nd Avenue and down to 36th for the St. Vartan's Fair, which is mostly foods, and then across to 34th and 3rd to the TAMA, Third Avenue Merchant's Association, for a particularly boring street fair (see DIARY 12286). I get tired around 24th Street saying we should leave, and at 23rd he says he wants to sit down, so I suggest the Madison Square Park, so we wander over and sit at 5, fantasizing about going to my place for frozen daiquiris, roast beef, or pork chops, OR to Coney Island, but we're tired, and then he says he needs some coffee, so let's go down to Amy's, below Union Square, so we do, hitting the Washington Square Art Show for a THIRD dose of junk-kitsch, and see the Garden Restaurant atop the Village Restaurant open, so we're up for a bowl of onion soup for me and walnut pie and coffee for him, and he does feel better, and then he says OK to my place, so we subway for me to get cream cheese and dash to my place to watch "The Magnificent Adventure" from 6:30 to 7:30, about 18 yachts who kill about 4 people and lose four masts to sail around the world while he picks up someone on the Promenade and has sex with him, without coming, at his place on State Street, and Rolf comes over to borrow $20. Have roast beef, so does Dennis, and then I make a cake, we have GREAT sex, though I strain so much that I may make myself sick the next day (see DIARY 12287), then watch "Thirst in the Garden" about Mexicans without water in the Rio Grande Valley from 10:30-11, and he wants to watch "Seven Keys to Baldpate," an old-fashioned murky suspense comedy about the ONE key that turns into 7, and he conks out at 12, I watch that to 1, then "Sandcastles" to 2, bed, light-work LATE after lots of WINE.
DIARY 12288
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. Alarm rings at 7:45 but Dennis goes back to sleep and I remind him he did that at 8:30, when he gets up and puts coffee on and goes into the shower. I feel pretty awful (see DIARY 12287) and get up at 9 to make fried bread when he gets out of the shower, and he doesn't say he feels good OR bad, but tries to cheer me up, which sort of doesn't work. He doesn't ring when he leaves at 9:50, so the mail's not here yet, and I mope around the apartment for a while before sitting down and looking at the stuff I have to do today, putting some things in envelopes for mailing, and then the postman rings with "Gravitation" and other stuff, but NOT the tapes (belts, rather) the guy from Audio sent LAST Thursday, as he said, and I look through every page of that, then start reading it, but finally decide that I have to do light-work, from 11-12, getting a call from Terry Kornak saying that I can call the author of "The Hypothalamus" if I have any questions, and then I read more of the book, crossing off the item on the book list, then moon over that so much that I search through Burroughs books to find that I HAVE "Electronic Revolution" in "The Job," so that takes another off, but I add the Tolkein and Fowles new books, so I'm back where I started from. Mope and read more, water plants, just feeling nebbishy (see DIARY 12287 again), and at 5 decide I really can't DO anything anymore, having typed a few pages and made lots of mistakes, and called Rebekah to find we'll talk Wednesday at 6:15, and drop into bed for a nap, but up at 6:25 to take my temperature of 98.2, and finally get up to finish these 5 pages for the day at 7:05 pm. Then start typing title pages for the 1977 sheets, until 8 when I turn on "Young Dan'l Boone" and watch blond, nice-smile Rick Moses escape Jeremy Brett, who's trying to kill him so he won't open territory for the British who'll take away his French land-grant. Then at 9 think to start watching "Birth of a Nation," but it's all in tints, is corrected to the proper speed, and has an orchestral accompaniment so I watch it, again amazed by the newsreel quality of the battle sequences, the "blackness" of the blacks, the "truth" in Lincoln's killing's depiction, and the overacting and yet sadness of "the dear little one." And how MUCH the son kept looking at the camera! That's over at 12, try jerking off to muscle-building photos, but it's not much fun. Maybe do the pelvic unloading, maybe fall asleep doing it, but I don't remember.
DIARY 12296
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13. Up about 9 and get right to finishing typing the title pages, going through DIARY 11295. Then sort them rather quickly, and decide to see how fast I can type up the contents pages. Separate the Learning volumes into two: one for est, tm, and others; the other for Actualism. Then things go well until I get to the large section of book and opera and movie and other notes, and since this will end up over 500 pages in length, I decide to separate it into three volumes: books; plays and operas and other LIVE performances; and movies and TV and other FILMED performances. This divides very nicely and easily, since I know that most of the DANCE performances will go into THAT book regardless of whether it's live or on TV (though film seems to remain a problem), and it quickly separates various performances of "The Cherry Orchard" and "The Three Sisters" that I've seen recently in both forms. But all this takes a long time, and I just keep going, volume after volume, typing many new title pages and getting to the point where the Table of Contents volume is back where I can handle it, having interpolated sheets from Dance, Subjective, and a few other categories that had gotten mislaid in the Notes volume, when Dennis calls to say that he'll be over for dinner, thanks to the appeal of pork chops for dinner, and he comes in about 7 as I'm finishing a phase of the page distribution. Since all the dishes have to be done, I clear out the YESTERDAY broiler foil from the bottom, which means I have to open orange juice to get a can to put the grease into the over-full garbage bag, and then put on the pork chops and do dishes while Dennis reads travel information, and then he makes frozen daiquiris as I and the pork chops finish at the same time. Finished eating just at 9 when "Daughter of the Regiment" comes on, and it's a lovely production (Beni Montressor, of course, though I didn't recognize his style until the credits), so I reluctantly turn on "Soap" at 9:30, and it's JUST DREADFUL, the most awful stereotypes of everything: family, blacks, gays, women, faithlessness, smartass kids, dotty grandfathers, so I turn back at 10 and Dennis says he's tired and taking a nap, and I finish watching Beverly Sills, William McDonald with nice easy top notes and a fat face, and a VERY much thinner Muriel Costa-Greenspon as the Duchess by 11, but Dennis stays in bed with a sleepy smile, so I brush my teeth and crawl in beside him to try light-work, NOT DONE.
DIARY 12297
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14. He's awake at 7, before alarm rings, and puts coffee on and showers as I make cornbread because I don't have but one slice of bread in the house. It turns out well enough, but needs sugar and should be more moist, and he finished at 8:45 and gets to work early for a change, taking my slice of bread with roast beef as a sandwich, during the toasting of which I knocked over a cup of HIS coffee, with cake and the pork chop from Monday, which still isn't enough for him. Then I get back to getting the number of pages per month together, making a list of those things I still have to finish, and still working on that when it starts to rain and at 11:15 I realize that I'd better get to the library. Out with the three books and the card, reading a GOOD Roth "Reading Myself and Others" since the other books are so close to the finish, which is good, since I read about 114 pages in it. Get there at 12:30 and find I CAN check it out, and that the Clarke book isn't in yet, so I leave immediately and get back about 1:40, glad that I didn't cut it any shorter, and Dennis calls to tell me about the Tree contest for naming "Plant cards" (I try Happyplant/ Plant/ Green with Pleasers/ Hints/ Guides the next morning), and then I turn on TV at 2 to watch "The Servant" and find to my chagrin that it's replaced by hearing on Burt Lance and his financial shenanigans, which are a bore. Back to the pages, getting the pages/volume all listed, typing a new Volumes Page, and adding to find that I'm off by only 4 pages in 12300, so very many of the mistakes must have cancelled themselves out---was far WRONGER before! Still in the process of typing out the 4 new center sheets, since I decided to transfer Subjective into an "A" volume for expansion, when I have to stop at 4:30 and shower and try to extract ingrown hairs on my neck that leave bright red welts and wash my hair and shave and make a quick roast beef sandwich and brush my teeth and leave at 5:45. Get there JUST at 6:15, doing what little light-work I did today on the subway facing a DYNAMITE curly-head with a perfectly straight nose, shaved eyebrows, keys on the left, and an Alfa-Romeo shirt on (but fat thighs), and get to Actualism at 6:15 to spill my SECOND cup of coffee today but get my schedule OKed by Rebekah for vacation November 2-22. The Reunion in Consciousness is a doozy (see DIARY 12298), and we're out at 10:10 and I walk to Dennis's for late chicken and quick shooting sex by him, taking a LONG time to watch a come-string dry from my cock, with lovely sangria made with claret and orange juice, and Amaretto that seems to give me a HANGOVER.
DIARY 12301
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15. Wake at 7:30 as Dennis gets up before the alarm rings, and lay feeling vaguely hung-over from the Amaretto, I supposed. He makes breakfast and we leave about 9:30, and I get home about 10 to sit down for light-work and it takes about an hour and a half, which nonetheless feels very productive. Then finish the last tasks on the sorting of the pages: putting in the 4 new central sheets and rearranging the lower shelves so that there's more room for the books, putting in notebooks so that the back sections are more supported so they won't tip over, and put the current 13 volumes up on the third shelf from the bottom, moving some of the books that had been there (that had never been referenced, like the Koran and the Talmud and the Fowler's English) to the regular bookshelves to make room for these. Feel great to be finished with these about 2, have some lunch of the last of the roast beef, and then move all the bookcases' material around to get the spaces that I'd left for expansion before filled, move out the mushroom books and others that I'd filled in temporarily, and when I get to the set of shelves by the door, I find that everything lines up just perfectly leaving no space, except that I have to finish the travel-weeding to give more room in the living room bookcase. Rolf called in the afternoon to get information about Newfoundland and the Adirondacks, and then he called about 5, while I was typing the 4 diary pages that I managed to get in today, and I said he could come over then to look at my files, so he came over and stayed until about 7, so that I just about had time to shave very quickly and not take a shower before getting out at 7:35 to just miss a subway and get to the Loft at 13th and University Place for Harold Clurman at 7:55, and Dennis saved me a front-row seat for the hyperkinetic Mr. Clurman (see DIARY 12302). We're out at 9:30 and can't figure what to do, but I say we should come to the Heights since I was at his place last night, but then suddenly think of the Fantastic Animation Festival, so we're down to 8th Street and get in at 9:58 to miss the first one of 17 cartoons (see DIARY 12303), out at 11:40, and Dennis was VERY sleepy through them, so I suggest we go to separate homes, but he joins me in Bagel Nosh while I have a Waldorf salad that's good, with buttered bagel, and I get home at 12 to come very nicely without bidi or rubber band, then do Pelvic Unloading until about 2, and sleep VERY tired.
DIARY 12304
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16. Up about 10 and do light-work for about 75 minutes, and though I have lots of insights about myself (see DIARY 12305), I don't sit down and type about them, since I'm in such a spaced-out mood (see DIARY 12300). Decide to clear up the stuff from the travel section, in order to put away the books that I have for the living-room bookcase, and throw away thousands of used cards, feeling rather good about it, and put on "Tommy" while sorting through lots of stuff, looking at it, too, and marking the names of the countries on the boxes and on a card so that I can sort them into vaguely contiguous geographic areas. Stop and have lunch, then type the one page for the day, Bruce calls about 2:25 and talks for a long time, and then I get back to sorting travel stuff out, making the place a total mess for Dennis to see tonight. Out about 6:40, AGAIN just missing a subway, to meet Dennis in front of Trinity Church at 7, then walk down in the rain to the foot of Manhattan and the Big Apple Circus, which is surprisingly a LOT of fun (see DIARY 12306) from 7:30 to 9:05, and then it's early, so we decide to have dinner at Les Pits, which has not been changed to Jeffrey's. Subway from South Ferry to Fulton, then to 14th, then to 23rd, and walk across, buying Blue Nun, good, for $4.63, and into the elegantly appointed Jeffrey's to be impressed with the wine-minestrone-macaroni soup, Dennis doesn't like the Empanada but I love the flaky crust and like the filling, and the salad is a kick of beansprouts/ radishes/ scallion/ cuke/ lettuce/ olive/ celery/ pepper/ dressing, but his chicken with blue cheese is a mistake: the tastes just don't go together, and my Cordon Bleu is rather greasy and has not so much meat, though the broccoli isn't bad and the fried eggplant good. Lots of sexy people in and out, and the mirrored john is a hoot. Dessert is what Dennis calls Coolwhip with a few strawberries on a COOKIE, since I guess they couldn't get shortbread, with good bits of chocolate cake for contrast, but Dennis doesn't care for it for $18.50 apiece, and we're back in rain to subway, where I finish "Toward a Psychology of Being" (draggy at the end because of his insistent repetition), then wait LONG time for a JAMMED express that breaks down, and finish John Collier's "Paradise Lost," great, and home about 2, quite exhausted, and fall into bed TRYING to do pelvic work, but turning over for sleep at once.
DIARY 12307
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17. We both wake about 9, and get together with our cocks for very good shooting sex, which leaves my chest covered with come through the day. Richard calls in the morning to say that he's got tickets for this afternoon and evening, and will be over for breakfast tomorrow. Dennis has been complaining that he really didn't feel that we were going on a trip because we hadn't sat down and looked at books about it, so I cleared off the table after breakfast of almost-perfect fried eggs and bacon (after I went to the store this morning after he found the cream soured and I had no eggs), and from 11:30 to 4:30 we went through Frommer's books and all my large reference books to make up a list of places we want to see inside and outside London, coincidentally coming up with a 6-day minimum in each place, which leaves 8 days to spend checking out Mull/Iona/Paris, or whatever we happen to find to spend time on. He seems to feel better about this, and I even get to the brochures, but we've both lost our steam and he has to get out at 6 to meet Peggy for "The Club," so I put on the pork to cook at 5:15, and leave it on till 8 because I get involved in rearranging the stuff in ALL three closets: decide I HAVE to put away the air conditioner box, so I can ONLY put it in the front closet, which means that the clothes have to come back at LAST to the bedroom, so I wander back and forth, the Beatles playing on the tape recorder that just shuts off every so often, and comes back on when controls are jiggled, carting loads and loads of stuff, and then decide that the empty boxes should go into the large closet so that the small closet can be for coats, the travel file, and boxes of stuff that have already to be saved. This goes back and forth, listening to music, getting my shirt all dirty when I hang the bicycle in the closet, taking off the front wheel, and get everything away by 11, but Dennis is still not home, and I'd eaten some of the delicious pork. Then wash dishes until 11:45, doing almost all there are in the house, and then sort out things from the drawer, writing a few checks, putting aside things to do, and even get to the index from 12:50 to 12:55, when he finally comes in, and he smokes, has some juice with white wine, good, I have some Slivovitz, awful, and he comes and then I come after a LONG try at it, and then he almost comes again, but it's 2:35 and we're both exhausted. I do some very fast light-work (having formed TPH in the AM), to sleep about 3:30.
DIARY 12308
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18. Put the phone off the ring, so that Richard wouldn't call, and Dennis is up to make coffee at 10, so I listen to Richard's message and call him back to come over for breakfast, which he does at 10:45, so they drink coffee while I broil bacon and make more fried eggs, and then suggest we go out to the Atlantic Avenue Fair, and it's better than the Third Avenue one (see DIARY 12309) from 12 to 2, at which time Rick goes off to the nearest subway with his frame and Dennis and I come back here with his suitcase and he has cake and leaves (but they were very GOOD leaves). Then read the Times, working both puzzles for the first time in ages, and where my first CROSSWORD had "Akron," my first DOUBLE CROSTIC has "Brooklyn" from a quote by Jose Greco. This takes me till about 6, and I'm hungry, so I have pork while reading more of the DREADFULLY-written book on Biofeedback by Brown. Have wine, get to one diary page, and then I feel so horny that I look at the Monte Hanson film that Rick left for me this morning (when he brought me 3 IBM typewriter ribbons, bless him!), which turns me on but doesn't make me come, and then watch "Rock Hard," which I come with, and that takes me to 8 and I watch "Best of All in the Family" again, though I'd watched it before, and then sit from 9-11 watching "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" with funny cameos by Stacy Keach as Bad Bob, an albino; Tab Hunter, who's hanged in about 3 minutes; Anthony Perkins as a preacher; Jacqueline Bisset as an Indian who has his daughter and dies; and didn't get to see Ava Gardner as Lily Langtry because I turned to Monty Python, another new one, from 11-11:30, eating lots of cake and making popcorn because my stomach feels empty. Then finished with TV but not tired, so I decide to get out a book and read "Love and Napalm: Export U.S.A." between 11:35 and 1:10, which I thought was pretty good until I counted WRITTEN pages and found only 108 pages, so 95 minutes isn't THAT fast for the large-print book (see DIARY 12310). Then lay down with the lights on from 1:20 (after brushing teeth and washing my face) to 2 to finish off light-work, almost dozing during it, and get to sleep amazed at how much I manage to do and how much I DON'T get to do.
DIARY 12311
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19. Wake about 7:30 with a memory of a dream that leaves me with a roaring erection, and I work it off, coming on myself, then doze back off and get out of bed about 10, Light-work from 10:05 to 11:20, seeming to do reasonably well, and then take the garbage down with the papers to clear the decks for getting rid of more junk, vote for Koch and Bellamy, and get back at 12 to have cereal for breakfast, no mail delivered. Phone Dennis but he's not at work yet, put things away and water plants and at last get to catching up with the diary, finishing 10 pages by 3:25, having taken time to talk to Dennis, get out letters to write to Arnie and John Whittingham, talk to Susan and schedule lunch for Friday, and rotate pot plants. Get off the letter to Arnie and debating writing to Whittingham, but decide that I should call the gay hotels in London first to see if any are more centrally located, so I put the letter in but never start on it. Finally get down to the index, after having tuna fish for lunch about 4, from 5 to 7:30, marking the first quarter of the pages by 2 hours, which is perfect. Then shower and shave to be ready for Dennis, who's coming over after class, and turn on "Hearts of the World" at 8 on "Films of Persuasion," and again Richard Schikel is belittling Griffith, this time for "selling out" to Britain to make a war-effort film trying to get the US into the war that they'd already entered by the time it was released. And then a post-war flu epidemic closed many theaters and lost more business for it. Put the pork on at 9, but Dennis calls at 9:30 to say he's just gotten out of class. They also show Chaplin's "The Bond" about selling Liberty Bonds, and Griffith's "Voice of the Violin" about anarchists using bombs to terrorize the rich. Make brown rice with chicken broth, and he comes in at 10:25 and we eat until 11:30, then he smokes and gets marvelously into his cock, getting the poppers and coming by rubbing on my chest only, groaning and gasping and cuddling, and it's so nice that I go down completely, and when he asks if I want to come, I say no and mean it. We turn off the lights about 1, putting on the air conditioner because it's about 81 in the room and VERY muggy outside. Sleep well under it, and the room IS cooler and more comfortable than outside in the AM.
DIARY 12312
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20. He takes a long time to shut off the alarm at 7:30, then gets up to boil coffee all over the stove, shower, and I'm up to make pancakes with the crepe recipe, using the requested rum, since I only have two eggs for breakfast, and they come out tasting not TOO bad with the real maple syrup for garnish, and he can't finish the last one on his plate, and neither can I. He goes off to work about 9:30, I water the plants and phone for the bus schedule for Dennis to Hemlock Hall, then go down for the mail for a pile of it, do light-work for about an hour, and am at last ready to get back to the index from 12 to 5:50, marking the book and typing the cards, taking about 10 minutes off to talk with Bruce, who's very pre-activated for a body session he's taking after he hangs up at 5 pm. Then I'd put on the pork and finish that, nibbling away with my fingers at the last shreds of meat from around the shoulder bone, and get back at 6:40 to type the last of over 1000 cards at 9:50, but I've been nodding so I'm too tired to finish the last of the marking. Try phoning Gay Switchboard but their line is always busy. Wash dishes while listening to "Fifth of Beethoven" to see what sides I'll tape tomorrow before returning the record. Then turn on "Shades of Greene" at 11:30 to see John Hurt killing himself while dating the poor daughter of a security-maniac who she returns to in some sort of gratitude. Then at 12:30 continue watching "The Alpha Caper" with Henry Fonda teaming up with a bearded Leonard Nimoy and a fattish, puffy-faced Larry Hagman to steal $3.5 million in gold by blowing out the bottom of an armored car making a bullion transfer, and the fact that no one would SEE him peering out of the manhole is just simply ludicrous. They get caught at the end and try to save him for a teary ending. Then "Susan and God" comes on, and I find that I'd not marked it down when I saw it before, so despite the fact that it's 2:20, the screenplay by Anita Loos, the direction by George Cukor, and the acting roles of Ruth Hussey, Joan Crawford, Frederic March, and Rita Hayworth is enough to keep me watching until 4:40, seeing her redeem herself with her husband and child, praying at the finish "Dear God, don't let me fall again," and I've finished the last of the cake and gotten ready to flop gratefully into bed at 4:50, savoring the goodness of the bed before finally falling asleep.
DIARY 12313
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21. The temperature's dropped to about 50 overnight in commemoration of the first day of autumn, and I wake at 11, surprised that the noises outside and upstairs let me sleep so late. Get a message from Dennis on the phone that I'd turned off, phone Art to find no answer, and phone Dennis to get told he has to call back. I'd already recorded what I wanted from the record, so there's nothing to do while waiting for his call but catch up on the diary with these two pages by 12:20, still waiting since 11:50 ("15") (That's "15 minutes I'll call back," he said.) Then work on the index from 12:20 to 12:35, get his call, and return the record, do whatever else I do that I can't remember now (9/26) and then start back on the index form 4:05 to 6:05, then stop to have something to eat, and return to the index from 6:50 to 7:30, at which time it's time to leave for the China Royal, getting in pretty late, but they're chatting nicely away, the place is big, and they don't have a Chinese wedding next door so the service is fast. Art tells a tale of Bob beating him up, getting knocked out of going with Art on the QE2 as had been wonderfully planned, so he's going with Marcy, from whom he cancels out later when he decides he wants to be alone. He's also going into dramatic readings (ala John Vinton?) with characters from Steinbeck and other American authors, and when he puts it together and presents it to Joyce and John LaFex and Marcy, they all love it and it's "to time" of 40 minutes, so he's delighted with a whole new phase of his life. The fried milk is interesting, like VERY soft french fries, the Buddha vegetables are rather ordinary with fewer kinds of mushrooms than he remembered, and the shrimp is liked by everyone. We talk until about 11, then Art rides off on his black moped and Dennis and I walk over to San Gennaro to wander through the street, and THIS is a better type of street fair, and I even drop $1 on a shooting gallery (see DIARY 12314). But Dennis is humphy, so we get back here after walking a LONG way to a subway station at Houston Street, and we're here to get right into bed, he somewhat annoyed about me getting to him, I somewhat annoyed with his annoyance. We don't talk much about it.
DIARY 12315
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22. He stays for a long time because he has class, and I make him breakfast and he leaves about 11, when I get to the index SOLID from 11 to 6:40, take out a few minutes to talk to someone on the telephone, then work from 6:55 to 8:55, having decided NOT to see "Casanova" and "8" by Fellini since Dennis has to work on his Cookbook article and Art calls to say that he just got his music so he has to rehearse, so I decide not to go, but stay in and watch what's billed as the premiere of "Man from Atlantis," but it's not about when he's found, but someone's trying to kidnap him by melting the polar icecap. Some good effects and he's still pretty, but they're not showing as much of his body anymore, to my regret. Dinner during that, then back from 10:05 to 11:35 to type more than half the pages, and get pissed at the woman upstairs for obviously training her cat to leap around while I'm typing. I'd stop if SHE would, but she probably wouldn't admit to doing it, and it may be just my paranoia that blames for stuff like that, BUT it's rather a coincidence that the FIRST time I type beyond 11 pm in a LONG time finds the cat leaping about RIGHT above my head. I'm feeling pretty good about things, having decided NOT to return the audio belts unless they write or call me three times about them, from 6:40 to 6:55 talked to the Gay Switchboard and found that there ARE no hotels listed in Soho or Bloomsbury, and the one that's listed as WC1 is really in WC3, too far over. So that's ANOTHER thing off my list. So by tomorrow when I bring the DO list up to date, there's only 12 things to do, and none of them terribly critical. Feeling a little depressed about Dennis recently, and the Actualism practice is coming in at stranger and stranger times as I'm emphasizing the index almost to the exclusion of anything else, and I haven't even called them to say that I'm bringing it in tomorrow, although Bob Leap (lovely Bob Leap) is giving me another index when I go in tomorrow. Get into bed and jerk off rather feelingly, but quite fast, almost like I'd WISH it, but a bit too fast to really get INTO it: at least I didn't go down before I had a chance to shoot nicely.
DIARY 12316
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23. Get up about 9:25, again getting about 8 hours sleep, and get right back to the index, finishing it from 9:25 to 11:30, but then Susan says she's too sick to go to lunch, so why don't we try next week, and then Dennis calls to say that he's gotten a chance for a $250 (which later changes to $275) bargain of an 8-day, 7-night hotel and flight and transfers in PARIS, and he asks if I want to go, and I say yes. That certainly solves a lot of the problems about London! Fuss around with that for awhile, letting HIM do all the business on it, since he got the idea in the first place, and then type up the last three cover memos for the index from 2:30 to 3:25, including some time for delivery, and get out to walk with the heavy load over to ACC first to pick up the index from a Bob Leap who NOW wears glasses and is growing a mustache, which doesn't help him, but he seems friendlier now than before. Though it's getting on to 4:20 (he's on the phone with the author of my new book on Echocardiography), I ask for Margaret, get out of the way for a woman coming in with a heavy box, ask her for "Pediatrics" and it turns out that it's THERE (OH, from 11:30 to 2:30 I retyped 8 items to send out to Liz Swados at Public Theater and to the Shanghai Review in Austin, Texas), and so I get to lug around the 8 pound book in the drizzle. Zip over to Raven and let Terry read my stuff, which she says she likes, but she looks at "Pediatrics" far more, and I get into the xeroxing room to do the pages from "The Flames" and the rest of "To the End of Time" by Stapledon that's different, AND get three copies of good pages from this index, which I also checked through for, AND get four copies of the 8 things to send out, so when I leave at 5:20, it's AGAIN loaded down and worried about getting to Anna-Teresa's. ALSO kept phoning the wine shop on Henry but they never GOT the Savant wine, so I had to get to Montague's shop to buy a case, bring it home to chill it, and get back to get everything together and get out at 6:30 to get to Anna-Teresa Callan's at 7:05, finding a TOILET seat on the street, and her party's fun (see DIARY 12317) with everyone giving us information. To Dennis's, and again we just go to sleep, me feeling pretty woozy from a LOT of wine.
DIARY 12318
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24. Have breakfast at his place after we both come, and he even comes twice, saying that he'd come twice yesterday morning: once at home and once with someone he met on the subway, and I came too, then got home to find the films arrived from Maverick, so I get up about 3:30 (had tried calling lots of people about getting rid of the tickets that we now had to sell: Alicia Alonso, my Animation Festival, and the two for October 1st at Brooklyn College) to start watching films, and essentially keep myself hard from 3:30 to about 6, when I finally come with the film on Doug that I give an 8.5 and come so high that it splashes against the WALL with a sound I can HEAR, so it was really a shot! Feel muchly drained and rather weird, wondering whether it's related to the fact that I've been doing Actualism more after 1 am than in the morning, even not forming Hierarchy in the morning as I'm supposed to, and just get through things, putting things away, and get out to Dennis's at 7:10 when we decide on the spur of the moment to go to the Olympia. Decide to take my umbrella since it's STILL raining, for about the 5th day! Get to his place more like 8, and he's "surprised" me by making oysters in a nice casserole dish, and I manage to get them down, but wonder if they're going to compete with the sangria (claret with orange juice turns out to BE it!) and the baked carrots with pineapple, which are a lot of tastes. Get this all down by 8:45 and get out in the rain under my umbrella to just miss a bus and walk up Broadway and get to the theater before another bus passes. There's more of a zoo than ever, and people are shouting out at "Futureworld," which is pretty bad, even WITH a view of sideways nude Peter Fonda and a rather zippy Blythe Danner trying to be like the blonds in the 40s comedies, and the "Island of Dr. Moreau" is rather good, with Burt Lancaster and Michael York ACTING well enough to make it convincing and believable, and get out just after 12:45 to find it still raining hard enough to bus down to 86th, buy a Times, and splash back to his place to read bits of it and then get to bed sexless, while I doze through the night practicing sporadic light-work.
DIARY 12319
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25. Up about 10:10, and he's right out of bed to start on coffee, and I lay until 11 and watch "Story of Sam Bimbo," which is interesting only, then read much of the Times, try phoning more people for tickets, and find that Lloyd Moore is at EST! Stay around there again until about 3, just sort of wasting time, and finish "Reading Myself and Others" on the subway home, impressed by Roth's writing, and then finish watching the rest of the films and get down to some of the things that I have to do before the trip on Tuesday, even making out a list of things that STARTS on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, then isn't done much of until Monday, and most of it's slid into Tuesday. Do call Susan and tell her about it, and she says I should come in about 11:15 to meet her for lunch. Called Actualism and someone ELSE recorded my extra lesson at 1, so I didn't have to hassle with Rebekah or Bruce about it at THAT time, and then moseyed around the apartment until time to get off to "Nutcracker" at 8, well, Dennis had rehearsal until 6, but he didn't get in until about 6:50, and I said something that he mistook about being a comment on his being late, and his point was NOT that the noodles had congealed on the bottom of the plate, but that he DID get here on time to eat the last of the fresh corn, the salad that he'd given to me rotten after getting it from Tree where they were making a photograph of it, and the hamburger and mushrooms that I made to get rid of the last of the hamburger, but it made so much that I agreed to go back to his place if he came HERE tomorrow to eat dinner, which he did. Got out at 7:15 and just made it into our last row seats, and Dennis didn't bring his binoculars, but there wasn't that much to see of even Baryshnikov and Kirkland in his mediocre production of "Nutcracker" (see DIARY 12320). Out about 10:15 and up to his place for him to smoke and me to drink wine and we listen to music, and we get into his cock and he comes, and then I whack away at mine, finally dry, and I come about 1:15, and we both drift off to sleep, I not problemed by the coming flight, only by dozing in and out of Actualism practically all night.
DIARY 12321
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26. Up at 7:30 and catch up on New Yorkers while he makes breakfast, and he's working at home so I don't have to rush out, but I find to my disgust that I left my Animation Festival tickets at home, so I have to go back and get them before taking another subway to Susan's to see her new windowed office at 11:15. She's against lunching at MOMA, so we're off to Yunnan Yuan and have good hot soup and mediocre chicken and beef. Out at 12:30 and debate about how to get to Actualism, but none of the subways are convenient so I simply grab a cab and get there just at 1. Rebekah is very annoyed but trying not to show it, about my changing my schedule so often, but Jan comes right in and says the trip sounds great, so it's OK. Bruce comes in and we go into the bedroom for my lesson, and it's about CALMING, which is prefect for my upcoming trip-excitement (see DIARY 12322). That goes until about 2:30, and then I compute that from 72nd to 89th and back to 66th is 40 blocks, and I have 45 minutes to do it in, so I try calling Jack Seelye but his line is busy, so I dash up there and get into his cat-smelling apartment to sell him the two tickets to Alicia Alonso for $30 and give him two tickets for Saturday's Linea in Brooklyn. Then out to dash down to the Animation Festival, sell the rest of my subscription for $6, and it's almost as bad as the other program (see DIARY 12323). Out at 4:57 and look at exhibit from OLD films, and I'm not missing MUCH, and finish "Scientology Ethics" on the subway, getting into the second Scientology book, and it's VERY much like est! Had made the Sunday things-to-do list into Monday, and I clip my toenails and phone Michael and apologize for not giving the tickets to him for $10, and HE might have hepatitis! Since Dennis didn't pay Eli yet, I still can't QUITE believe we're going, which doesn't help in packing. Send two packs of 8 written items to Shanghai Review and to Liz Swados. Then decide to vacuum, and do that right up to the time that "Strike" starts at 8, and I've made the last of the hamburger-mushroom thing and the last of the salad stuff, but Dennis just can't get into the film from other than a historical point of view, not liking it at all. Thank goodness it's over at 8:30, rather than 10. Then we're to bed fairly early, him smoking, and we have good sex, but I don't feel comfortable because I'm starting to worry about the trip (no, we DIDN'T have sex, which might have made me MORE like sleep!), and I toss and turn and don't even think I hear HIM sleeping, but he is, he says.
DIARY 12324
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27. Wake about 3, then again at 5, then about 7, debating getting up, but just lie there and worry, not even succeeding in doing light-work. Dennis up about 8, we have bacon and eggs for breakfast even though I don't really feel hungry, and he finally gets in touch with Eli, who's meeting someone in Chock Full of Nuts at 11, so he'll pay him then. We both sort of neglect to mention we might be TAKEN (though Fran's now in SICILY with a trip of Eli's), though Eli asks Dennis for a bottle of Pastis, how RUDE! I phone Pope about saving me the Times, write John Whittenham, take out the garbage, do the dishes, tell Mrs. Johnson to water the plants and take my mail, tell John I probably won't be seeing him since there ARE no busses to Blue Mountain Lake, give Mrs. Johnson milk and melon, and she says she'll have a quart waiting for me when I get back, and she DOES. Phone Bob Leap and tell him about the trip, leave word for Bruce Lieber that I'm going away when he's not at work, and get to the bank to draw out $400 and cash checks for $50, so I end up taking about $490 in cash, since Dennis has gotten $300 in travelers checks. At first I think I have time, but I put the still-wet dishes away, pack everything including a pair of shoes, and go to finish the diary up to date, but I can only get done 4 pages before Dennis calls and says that he's home, make the plane reservation for San Diego, and will meet me at Luchow's, SAYING he doesn't realize that means I have to bring his suitcase down with me TOO. Out about 12:30 but just miss a train and lug the stuff up the stairs at 7th Avenue and grab a CAB cross-town to get to Luchow's at 1:15, Maggie Oster very pleasant, even more so as lunch goes on and she has beer AND wine, and we get cheapie lunches which lets us get the HUGE crepe with kirsch flambé at the end of the meal, and it's a great success. Out at 3:15, leaving our suitcases in their kitchen, and go up to Tree to get the list of places from Cathy, and it's huge, and then over to the sporting goods shop to buy rainsuits, Dennis bright yellow and me green, and he gets a lock for his suitcase and we repack our bags and it's 4 already, and now I'll get to my notes taking during the trip, and starting with DIARY 12325 all the rest of the Paris trip will be in the Travel Diary.
DIARY 12344
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6. Wake at 6:45, early, but not too early, so I'm up to have cereal (this is tomorrow!) with the milk that Mrs. Johnson so kindly left for me, and then go through the mail again to find what needs to be kept and what can be thrown out, and then phone Pope about 8, to find that he'd been to a drag show yesterday evening at Sal's and had gone to bed late. He says that I should come over about 9:30. I continue going through things in the apartment, and for a little blessed while the heat comes on to let me know that at least it's working. But that's the last time so far this year. Make a list of things I need at the store, go out to Pope's, talk for about an hour, then, still drizzling, go around to withdraw $150 from the bank (paying Pope 75 for the Times left me with EXACTLY 10 in my pocket after the trip!), and then pick up groceries. Have pizza for first meal of the day at 11:45. Good! Look through the Times, deciding that the double crostic is too hard, so I don't do it, and about 3 pm decide to start on stamps. Phoned Rolf, Dennis to call Rick, Marty Sokol and Ed Gillen for indexing freelance. Start first with Pope's collection, sorting through and sifting out those that have to be soaked, and then soak them, let them dry while sorting out the others, and then practically dry them by hand to find that of the about 500 stamps from 57 countries, I could extract 30 stamps worth $3.17 from 19 countries. Then soak the rest of them off while putting Pope's father's collection to rights, and sort through all of those and load the table down with stamps to be put in the albums, but still the urge to work with stamps is there, and I get out the collections from France and include those. Sometime around 8 pm I got quite hungry and roasted the Cornish game hen I got from the supermarket, eating half of it with peas. Quite by chance, since I was doing stamps, I put on tape until the machine seemed to break, then put on the radio to WNCN to find that on THIS night they're broadcasting a fund-raising gala from the Met, so about 11:30 I phone in my pledge for $20 and they'll send me a bill and I'll get a record of Caruso available ONLY tonight, and a year's subscription to Opera News. Nice preparation for JJ's coming with his mother to see the opera. Get VERY tired around midnight, and get to bed about 12:15, content that I'm getting used to the time change back. Phoned Bob Leap to find the index's delayed, and that's about it. Dennis phoned to say he was working on his cookbook article.
DIARY 12345
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7. Wake at 7:30, 45 minutes later than yesterday, and just about right for when Dennis starts back to work. Get right back to the stamps by making out a NEW list of the number of stamps from each country I have to put away, and come up with just precisely 50 countries from Bulgaria with 461 to the Bahamas with 1 souvenir sheet. Work on them for awhile until I have breakfast about noon, cereal again, putting on the oven to keep a bit warmer, and put on long johns against the 60 temperature inside. Back to stamps, starting on the first volume and sorting through to see what would produce duplicates, rather than the strict simple pasting due such countries as the 390 from Ajman, and put away some little countries and then tackle big ones like the USA, Hungary, and finally Bulgaria, about half of them duplicates, but that gets rid of the top country on the list, and by the time I'm finished with stamps for the day at 9 pm, ready for TV, I've put away about 12 countries with more than 1200 stamps, which is a good chunk out of the list: if I keep on at that rate I could be through in three or four more days, but that's hardly reasonable. For one thing, I'll be running out of hinges in a day or so. Warm up the other half of the Cornish hen for dinner at 9, and wash my face for the first time today, not having showered or shaved or done anything but go down for the mail and look that over. Feels good just indulging myself, not even doing the diary, since things are so simple I'll be able to recall what happened. Fred Bassoff came over for 5 bottles for $40, Joan never called back, and Dennis called to say that Rick was coming to town so he'd be staying here tomorrow night. Then watch "Canal Zone" by Frederick Wiseman, and I don't understand his point: the horse shows, dance contests, bingo games, flag burning, speechifying, letter writing to Congress go on in ALL towns, so what's so special if Americans do it at the Canal Zone and then complain about how rough and uncertain their life is? Why wasn't there ANYTHING about what the Latin threat to them WOULD be? WAS there any and not shown? Shows how subjective such reporting can be. Almost doze off during the last hour, fell exhausted into bed about 12:15, too tired even to do lightwork, though I form hierarchy every morning and sort of let power ray take over for awhile. TIRED!
DIARY 12346
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8. Wake at 8:15, continuing the 45-minute increments, and have cereal again for breakfast only after getting to the stamps for a goodly period of time, getting into the second volume and clipping through lots of little countries because now I'm just making out the extra sheets, adding all the mint stamps (forgetting how much I'm decreasing the value of these beauties by touching a hinge to their backs, but it's MY collection and I'm doing it more for MY pleasure of organizing and displaying than I am for any monetary appreciation, and for the REAL appreciators, it's not going to make much difference if they're hinged or not; and ignoring what may happen by continuing to put in loose sheets without cutting down the old album pages to have the supplements ATTACHED---and too cheap to pay the $5 per 100 sheets for replacement pages), and just going at it and going through the hinges. Dennis calls to say we'll meet for dinner at 6:30 at the Milestone, and Rick calls back to get me to volunteer to bring wine for all of us, and then I've taken a shower since my ass was getting sore from shitting without being washed for so many days, but I still haven't shaved since Wednesday. Continue with the stamps until I'm almost finished with the United Arab Republic, almost out of hinges, but doing a total of 21 countries with about 750 stamps just today, which leaves only 15 countries (though the 3 top countries left (Ajman, Uum al Qiwain and Fujeira) with an average of 350 stamps per country will take AT LEAST a day, if I EVER do it---though I guess lots of them are duplicates, too) with about 1820 stamps, which may be too much for two more days, but should be done in three days, if I get hinges and continue with them. Then shave with electric razor at 5:30 and put some of the things away, including the hen bones into the garbage, in preparation for Dennis coming over tonight AND to wait until 6 to get a return on the subway. Buy lousy Private Estate California white 1/2-gallon for $4.16 and take it to them waiting on line, and we sit about 6:45 and have a good meal for about $27 with tip, with good quiche, reasonable chicken parmesan, they have mushrooms and walnut pie, and I have GREAT fudge sundae. Out about 8:30 and subway to my place to pick up half-and-half and muffins, read the Times, and Dennis says he's tired and goes to bed at 10, and I watch "Second City Television" to 11:30, read more of the Times, put on blanket, and get to bed at 12, cold.
DIARY 12349
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9. Wake about 8:30 with three vividly remembered dreams that turn up a fourth when I get right down to typing them (see DIARY 12347-12348). Have breakfast about 10, making bacon and eggs and have most of the remaining muffins, and Dennis keeps working on his Cookbook article. Then I watch the awful performances of such people as Swen Swenson and Margaret Whiting on Camera Three doing the songs from "The Golden Apple" that were NOT as brilliant as I remember them being, and get to typing so that Dennis can have the typewriter when he wants. Tells me about noon that he's invited to Guy's for drinks and dinner about 5 this evening, but says he'd like me to read his article before he types it. I continue typing until 2:30, getting lots done, and then turn on a brilliant production of "The Marriage of Figaro" that leaves me strangely cold (see DIARY 12350), which isn't strange since the thermometer in the living room registers about 60 and a humidity of about 85%. Dennis leaves without even saying goodbye, which pisses me, and he'd insisted on some kind of lunch about 2 with corned beef and the last of the muffins. That goes from 2:30 to 6, which seems a VERY long time indeed, and then I just sit through "The Age of Uncertainty" about Karl Marx, about whom I knew almost nothing: neither born in Germany, exiled to Paris and London, and hardly ever connected with Russia at all, and very impressed by Hegel's Dialectic. At 7 I lethargically sit through some of All-Star Soccer, until they start giving the rules, and then I get back to finish typing the 17 pages I did today. Then at 8 I put on Twyla Tharp in "Making Television Dance," and THAT leaves me with very strange thoughts (see DIARY 12351). Then, tired from doing nothing, and having eaten hamburger and drunk wine to make me placid, watch "Dreams" of "Dickens in London," played by an unpleasant man who's only superficially interested in hypnotism, until 10, and then watch "The Onedin Line," but it seems to be going NOWHERE, so I turn it off about 10:20 and start putting the house in order, ready to shower, and Dennis buzzes just at 10:45 as I've run out of things to do. Shower and shave and Dennis lying glumly in bed (and I didn't know until the next morning that he'd smoked), so I figure it's a good time to talk, and we do (see DIARY 12352). To sleep, after we get up to have good tea and Sambuca, still disturbed, at 12:45.
DIARY 12353
MONDAY, OCTOBER 10. I wake about 7 and try to do lightwork, seeming to verify that I'm doing it right, but still torn about CHECKING on it. Can't really get into it with my drippy nose, and Dennis doesn't hear the alarm when I shut it off quickly at 8. He's in to shower and fill up the tub, while I make cornbread because we don't have any more bread. He tells me that Anna-Teresa Callan is on Stanley Siegel's show for Columbus Day at 9 am, so we eat soft-boiled eggs and orange juice and cornbread (still not very good, sadly) in the living room while watching a LOUSY program that she appears least stupid on, of Connie Francis, Sergio Franchi, and Georgio Somebodielli from Soccer, and they talk mainly about the Yankees having gotten into the pennant. Read Dennis's article and critique it from 10 to 11, then he leaves for his class and I finish off the stamps for all the hinges that I have, and then Rolf calls to say he'll be leaving town, so I buy 20 more and he comes over from 1:15 to 1:45 to tell me about the Cobol job for an insurance company on NCR computers that no one knows anything about. He knocks down the moose head. I leave with him for Actualism, getting there just before 2:30 and there's pretty Malcolm for a body session with Bruce, and Rebekah listens to my tale of woe of Paris with good spirits, and the session is a pretty good one (see DIARY 12354). Out at 4:15, too late to call Bob Rosinek back, so I look in the yellow pages for stamp shops but Coliseum on 200 W. 72nd is closed, and when I subway to Boro Hall, I can find none, but don't go to A&S, where the Brooklyn Yellow Pages says the nearest stamp shop is. In to meet Mrs. Johnson complaining about HER cold, then sort out Ajman, Fujeira, and Umm al Qiwam to eliminate 603 duplicates, then finish typing these five pages for the day by 7:55, having put hamburger in the oven for dinner and TV. Eat good hamburger and corn while watching "Laugh-In," from 8-9, getting better as I get used to the people, then "Triumph of the Will" from 9-11, getting VERY tired toward the end, and it's not really gripping on TV, then the premiere of Dick Cavett with Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren which is ALSO pretty stupid until 11:30, then wash face, make bed again with dirty sheet, and fall into bed VERY tired at midnight, having noshed on raisins.
DIARY 12355
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11. Wake about 8:15 and out of bed and determine to do light-work, so I do THAT from 8:40 to 9:50, feeling pretty good about it, and then have breakfast of cereal with half-and-half, since I'm out of milk. Then back to look at stamps, and decide I have to get hinges, and make a list of things I need from the grocers, and go out at noon, after having watered the plants, with Chinese laundry (tried ironing on the material from hems to mend a tear, but it was a mess, so I just threw the sheet away after wasting about half an hour trying to mend it), the regular laundry (after going through all the closets and getting out LOTS of stuff), and check information, so I drop off the laundries, get the check, then over to A&S to decide to buy 100 replacement pages for $5.00 along with 3 packs of hinges, and then buy groceries, pissed because they don't have the bargain bacon, and get home at 1:20 to work on stamps for a bit, then get hungry at 3 and have pizza that I brought, not so good, reading New York, and had gotten a call from Terry Kornak saying I couldn't charge over $1/page anymore, and they'd send me a reduced bill. Then continue to transfer stamps from old loose pages to new attached pages, but get pissed doing it and phone Michael and talk to him, cured of hepatitis in only three weeks, talk to Mark about Mavis in town, Arnie returning; talked to Pope about his stamp collection and his money worries, and leave word for Dennis, Joan, Lloyd, and find that Bruce Lieber's in training in California for 5 weeks. Then put lots of check stubs into the closet, and type a few pages by 8:25. Make the last of the hamburger and open a can of corn in preparation for my watching "Tour en l'Air" and "Ballet Adagio" from 9-10 with David and Marie Holmes, and he's FABULOUS of body but awful of personality, and then they end with Norman MacLaren's film of the latter name, which they'd been filmed making, with David making a total wrong-person of Marie. Then finish typing the pitifully poor four pages, and watch the end of "Equality" on channel 13 before watching Dick Cavett make a fool of himself with Nureyev, showing some scenes from the awful-looking "Valentino," and then I mope about doing whatever there is to do until about---NO! I continue to watch "The Trial of Aaron Burr" until 1, almost falling asleep during it, and it was QUITE stuffy, more about how it showed that a PRESIDENT has to submit to LAW, rather than LAW to PRESIDENT.
DIARY 12356
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12. Up about 9, into stamps for a bit, then do light-work for almost exactly one hour, don't get ACC's index in the mail so I call Bob Leap, who says it should be here by Friday, and then Linda Hertzel calls after Dennis tells me she'll be calling, about doing an index for Tree, but I won't be here (if I'm away on Christmas) for the Fresh Food book, and will thus only do the one on "Running," and then Terry Kornak calls to ask if I'll do an index for RAVEN which she'll send out. Do a couple of pages of stamps, but get so disgusted I figure I'll have to put them away to permit myself to work on other things, so I spend a couple of hours mooning about that, putting some of the stuff away, but leaving others on the table, so that I can continue to feel guilty about it and work on it sporadically through the next couple of days. Though I'm not feeling too hot, I still have to get out to take the library book back, after checking to see where the Glendale branch of the library would be and finding it impossible to determine which subway stops near it: I need a guide for NEW YORK like I just bought for PARIS! So out about 12:30 without lunch to the Queens Library to return the Stapledon book and find they don't YET have the last Clarke that I requested from them, and buy a brownie (50), a glazed donut (20), and a creamy éclair (30) as a quasi-lunch. Reading "Night and Day" has begun to weave its spell around me, and I return to the Heights to pass Hunan Square JUST at 3 pm, when they say lunch stops, and pay $2.65 for a fairly good pork and garlic sauce dinner with good egg drop soup. Back to look at all the stuff I have to do, maybe talk with Mark and Mavis about Friday's lunch, manage to type only 1 diary page, and then shower and wash my hair and shave off three days' beard, AND sell $30 of poppers to Marty, and open-faced S/M friend of Eddie's, and then it's 7:20 and time to leave for Actualism, getting in at 8:15 for a crowd in the hallway, then the final session with the Red-Gold (see DIARY 12357) that lasts until 10:30, and I get to Dennis's about 10:55 after rescheduling my sessions with Lois. He's made London broil cut taste like Swiss steak, and we talk about my pushiness and control in Paris (see DIARY 12358), and we crawl into bed at 1 too tired to do more than cuddle, but he's VERY hard, I hand him off VERY quickly, and he gets me going so that I finish myself off, wet under warm blankets, and sleep fast.
DIARY 12359
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13. Wake and lay about without doing light-work, and when he gets up I suggest it's about 8:45 and it's really 9:15. He gets into his cock and comes nicely on my chest, and I start working on my cock, but we're both conscious of the time dwindling before his singing lesson at 10:30, so I say we'll finish tonight, and he jumps into the shower and shaves and dries his hair and cooks fried eggs and Spam and leaves about 10:25 for his lesson, getting there late but having a good lesson anyway. I look at New Yorker a bit and then scan through the Michelin from 1977 and copy down the 3- and 2-star restaurants in Paris, and characteristics of the 3-star restaurants outside Paris, and then do research on the topmost hotels, and there are only two in all of Paris: Ritz, with its one-star restaurant; and Plaza-Athenee, with its two-star restaurant, so IT is the best place to stay of all! Leave about 11:10, hoping not to meet him on his way back, and pick up the laundry and get in about 12. Sit and glower at the stamps for awhile, do light-work from about 12:15 to 1:15, sit down to type about 5 pages, including an insert for the 1969 Michelin with the information typed that I got this morning, make reservations at Gaylords, and suddenly its 3 pm and I haven't really done ANYTHING yet. Dennis calls for the movie schedule and doesn't want to eat fancy, so we should meet outside Amy's at 6:45. I have the rest of the cold hamburger for lunch while reading more of New York, do some diddles with stamps, and then it's time to shower and shave and get out at 6, early, because I'd decided that we should start eating in French restaurants and looked through the Yellow Pages to find which LA and LE restaurants were in the Village, but find none. Get out of the subway at Waverly and walk over to University Place and up to 13th before finding La Grande Bouffe, then up to Amy's to check Dennis not there yet at 6:35, back to theater to check starting time, and then looking at menu again when I see Dennis coming around corner. I suggest we eat, and he says "I won't even look at the menu, let's go in." Cream of vegetable soup is incredibly good with pureed nuts, which I take for tuna fish, his scallops in Coquille St. Jacques are VERY tender and flavorful, and my veal in cream sauce is tasty, though the veal is not of the best quality. Mouton Cadet 1975 is yeasty and flat for $9, but my mousse is fabulous with chocolate sauce and whipped cream, but his crème caramel is mediocre, yet the whole thing comes to $35, a bit much for me and MUCH too much for him (see DIARY 12360). "The Day of the Locust" sees best for last 8:10-9:55, last scene is not GREAT, I think, in orchestration; "Welcome to LA" has AWFUL singing and songs, to his bed at 1:15.
DIARY 12361
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14. He's up at 7:15 and I'm out of bed at 7:40, reading New Yorkers while he makes breakfast of hamburgers and rice with butter. He's out to work and I'm reading New Yorkers and the Voice, then do about 20 minutes of light-work from 10:20 to 10:40, then out to subway to Actualism in the rain, meeting Anna Falco, who remembers my name and takes down the address of Star Center and my number in case she wants to call me for an intro. Steamy wet into Actualism at 11 and Pam gives my arm-and-hand session from about 11:15 to 12:20 (see DIARY 12362), and then I quickly dress and subway down to 59th and dash across to Gaylord's by 12:40, still beating Arnie, and Mavis is youngish and pleasant, Mark looks completely dissipated, and those latter two order what I do, which comes in one tureen so that we have to share it, which is very awkward, and then Arnie has to ask for two more plates when we say we'll take one of each of the desserts. Mark didn't care for the restaurant and neither did I, even though the bill was only about $27 with Mavis's drink. Out about 2:30, Mavis saying I should call when I get to London, and Arnie goes to the bank and we get to the Festival where "Salo" has been announced for 3:10 and it went on at 2:10 due to a misprint in the Times. We're in anyway, Arnie loaning money, and "Salo, or 120 days of Sodom" is pretty poor, only good cock on a Fascist guard, not on a pretty boy, and the shit and stories and piss were childish, as were the "heroes" and the whole decadent "moderne" villa. Out at 5:15 and pick up some Carnegie Hall Cinema programs, then subway home so horny that I water the drooping plants, get a new films of FABULOUS Jeff, and run it from 6-7, coming twice with the glory of it. Read Soho, moon over stamps, don't feel like typing, so much so that at 9 I put on TV to watch ANYTHING, and end up watching the Yankees win the third game of the World Series 5-3 from the Los Angeles Dodgers in LA, having half a tasty broiled Cornish hen with two glasses of wine and two pieces of cornbread, and then watch Dick Cavett with James Taylor (not NEARLY so pretty on TV as on his record album) and Carly Simon, who is NOT very pretty either) to 11:30, then the special set of ABC clips on Bing Crosby's life since he died on the golf course in Spain today, and brush my teeth and wash my face and flop disgustedly into bed at 12:15.
DIARY 12366
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15. Wake about 8:15, then doze back off to have a couple of dreams (see DIARY 12363) before 9, and then doze off AGAIN to get out of bed at 10, surprised that I want to stay in bed so long. Have cereal for breakfast in the middle of the much-disturbed kitchen, reading much in New York, then sit and look at the Rex drawing book and jerk off again, feeling so good about it that I sit down and type a page about it (see DIARY 12364) and about how many things I have to do that I'm not doing (see DIARY 12365). Then DETERMINE that I'm going to get more typing done, and sit down to start really catching up, taking time off to call Dennis and phone for reservations for Barbara Roan for Sunday, finding how far it is from San Diego to Mexico City (about 1000 miles, too far), and moping about the mess in the apartment. Wherever the time went, I type this, the 17th page of the day, at 4:50, beginning to watch TV on sports, and had looked through the Carnegie Hall Cinema program to see what I'd want to see. After typing all that, I felt that I deserved a vacation, so I took the time to watch the sports until 6, seeing Nadia Cominichi get another 10 on her somewhat unathletic floor exercises, and then turn to see if I can see "Star Trek" but find out that it's still the World Series, and I watch THAT to its end at 6:35, interested that New York has now won 3 of the first 4 games, but it's not "Star Trek" on afterwards. Then sit like a lump and watch "Space 1999" about a god who gets his energy from a "crystal in the base of the brain that slows light to zero" as a HYPOTHESIS! That's till 8, and I'm JUST thinking I won't be able to wash my hair to get to Dennis's at 9 when he calls and says it won't be ready before 10, so I wash my hair and shave and get out about 9:10 to buy Times and two bottles of wine to start experiments with THEM, getting there at 10 to read the Times and eat dinner at 11:30, not watching Second City so as not to take emphasis away from his cooking: a parsnip pie whose crust isn't finished and an apple dish that doesn't meld with the flavored breadcrumbs sprinkled over it. Drink a poor Meursault (3 out of 10) that I'd bought for $4, have crème de cacao, and we get to bed about 1:30 am, too tired to get into sex, but we cuddle nicely and feel good together, talking with rueful memory about how awful it was in Paris.
DIARY 12369
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16. We wake about 9:30, cuddle into sex, and Dennis gets very hard and goes for the popper. He wants to get into me, since we MAY have had sex last night to the extent that he came and I didn't, so I come first, taking over from his fingers when he doesn't do me---though maybe he DID do me, I just don't distinguish between this and a near-past sex. Anyway, then he sat on me and came with gusto on my chest, then moved away and said "I didn't want to do that," by stroking his cock, but I stroke it anyway, and then he moves away to put on coffee, waiting for his parents to call. It's 10:55 and he puts on channel 2, but Victor Borge and Jasche Silberstein are more into playing than joking on Camera Three. His folks call, but he still putters around in the kitchen as I read the Times, doing the puzzles because of the extent of time ahead, and he finally serves the hungry me breakfast about 1:30, giving the lie to the idea that HE needs breakfast every morning, but I'm not willing to push his nose in it. Good eggs and olives, more of the apple thing, more parsnip pie, and then we both return to the Times, he listening to music all day, I reading every article in the entertainment section, practically. Then about 3:45 get down to figuring out expenses for the trip, but it doesn't come out, since one way he owed me $16 and another way he owes me $83.15, and neither seems quite right because the amount of money IN and SPENT just doesn't balance. He's thrown away his exchange papers, which is sad, so I need mine to find how many francs we DID have, and how much I cashed in at the last day. Then it's almost 6, no time for light-work, and he gets dinner together, and the onion soup is creamy but not beefy, the bread is cheesy but not crunchy, the cheese is marvelous but not browned enough, and we like his experiments. Out at 7:10 to get down to ATL for Barbara Roan's "October Parade" from 8:10 to 9 (see DIARY 12370), Dennis remarking about the sexy people in audience, and I knew Art Bauman, Bob Pierce, Rudy Perez, all of whom made it a point to talk to ME. Dennis doesn't want to do anything else, so we subway to my place by 9:30 to watch Benny Hill camp it up until 10, the perfect exemplar of the British comic you suspect is a BASTARD underneath the simpery smile, and then he watches part of "White Line Fever" while I do dishes until 11, and then we crawl into bed and have a LONG talk about going to San Diego (see DIARY 12371) and turn to sleep at 12:45 am.