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1980 4 of 10

FRIDAY, 5/9/80: Note from NEW YORK CHAPTER OF ASI MEETING OF 5/7: David Vorhees handles the Encyclopedia of American Economic History and the Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, 3-volume sets, with notes at the bottom of EACH INDEX PAGE saying Volume 1 is pages 1-847; Volume 2 is pages 848-1432; Volume 3 is pages 1433-2089, and he says there was never any reason NOT to assign sequential page numbers, though Karen said that my 1001-1NNN for volume 1, 2001-2NNN for volume 3, and 3001-3NNN for 3 was probably too sophisticated for some of the high-school libraries it might find itself in. Reports: there are 117 names in the NYC ASI area, 25 people were at the meeting, and the new officers are Karen Simmons as Chairperson, Mauro Pittaro as Chairperson-Elect, Patricia Mandel as Secretary, and Elliot Linzer as Treasurer.
Louise Ketz (all these from Charles Scribner's Sons) handled Dictionary of American History (DAH), with 6200 articles, started in 1930's by David Thruslow Adams (who now writes trash), dictionary format of events, places, and NOT biography. 7 volumes. McGraw-Hill Science and Technology Volumes ran into "incomplete series" purchase problems from libraries. Couldn't do it in a YEAR by index-card method. Marren Waxman had the Soviet Encyclopedia translated by Macmillan, 30 volumes, with the same computer company.
They did the program for indexes for every 5 volumes, had problems with Leos (Popes, Kings, Emperors), and kept NO rates on how much it COST per line! Only subentries, furnished on 8 x 11 in ORDER, and then keypunched into
FIELD 1 FIELD 2 FIELD 3 FIELD 4 FIELD 5
Main entry Subentry Sub-subs Volume # Page #
Print program did NOT print main or sub if repeated. ONE FINAL ARBITER NEEDED FOR LAST WHOLE JOB. Problems with hyphenation---just repro-copy paste-ups for problems: Program came out with pagination and running heads.
They used EXCEPTION SORT KEY for putting A 26 bomber before AAA; they had to assign VALUES to spaces (highest), hyphens (no value), #'s and alphas.
They accepted Adams, Abigail
Adams, Fort
Adams, John
Though computer couldn't print bold or ital: *BOLD* $ITimes$X
Computers good for SPEED with no CARDS needed.
EB III FAILED in their indexing, the micropedia doesn't work, in their opinion. She used 7-8 people, got charged by STROKE count, $5/1000 strokes (incl spaces, corrections, redo, etc). "Came in cheaper than many printout systems."
Program by Sedgwick Printout Systems, Princeton, N.J., Manager Ed Cotton, but they have NO terminals; freelancers said they would NOT work in offices. This programming company would love to work with your company: computers are coming! OTHER computer has the convention of a * meaning "skip to turnover line now."
DAH had 502 pages of 4 column format, 28 char/column = 112 characters, 78 lines/column, 312 /page, 166,000 LINES.
David Vorhees was Managing Editor of AEH and AFP and of Dictionary of American Biography. NOT computerized. Each new correction made a full printout necessary---like Hare never catching up with the Tortoise---ALWAYS cx.
Took several days to several weeks for EACH computer correction printout handling. "For any topical indexing, the human element is always highest priority." He thought that the man-cost for this ONE-SHOT job + computer cost = PROHIBITIVE.
Computer: typing entry, KEYING INPUT, then automatic sort.
They (all of them) alphabetize AS indexing; one MAIN indexer for each index.
Whether whole REFERENCE works are kept on computer tape is a DIFFERENT TOPIC.
$2500 he paid for "100 pages of index, though AFP had 120 lines/page for 63 pages for 7500 lines, or 33 1/3/line, STILL pretty good (though it IS over $2.20/page for the 1138 pages of BOOK!), and AEH had 106 lines/page for 76 pages, or 8000 lines, which would make THAT 31/line, $2+ for 1210 pages of BOOK.
Jim Maurer had 5000 biographies in his Dictionary of Scientific Biography (of which we got two pages and I gave him my card to get the introductory NOTE, which was good).
Had 7 indexers, 1 head indexer, 10 years' work! Tracing CONCEPTS and TOPICS.
Computer "seriously considered," NO because of CONCEPTUAL NATURE of index. "Certain marks" meant main, sub, and sub-sub, and TYPIST kept completed index. EACH BIOGRAPHY'S index was checked and kept for possible future uses.
Computer used in COMPARING 3x5 cards: keyed in TWICE, proofread, and then COMPARED WITH DISCREPANCIES SHOWING UP ON CRT FOR CORRECTION, so they thought it was VIRTUALLY ERROR-FREE. Codes for bold, italic, and biographed people.
DSB had 65,991 cards, ending in Zymohexase, 3 columns in pages 1-439, 240/page for 115,600 lines, RATHER CLOSE to 2 lines/card, and he said they TRIED printing it in four columns, because it WAS on computer, and it took more SPACE that way, so they did it in three columns (40 character lines = 123/line-across).
With computers for HOME: we ALWAYS want more SPACE and we ALWAYS need more sophisticated software, but we all agree that we have to keep watching day-by-day because the day is QUICKLY coming when we'll all have a computer, and Louise said that by 1985 EVERYTHING would be on computers, she thought, and David was cutest (though with red eyes) and HAD been an indexer, but there were certainly nice vibrations from Jim, and hope he sends my "note." Also sent my resume to Louise this morning with a note: "I was the one who kept asking about money, and I have a staff of a dozen, if you want INDIVIDUAL resumes."

PHILADELPHIA TRIP - 5/17 - 5/18/80

SATURDAY, 5/17/80: Idly watch the scenery outside, reminded again of the zoo on the river, gypsy cab to Bernie's and through Chinatown to the Holiday Inn, then the kindly Bernie meeting me at 4:15 and walking me up to the glass kiosk around the Liberty Bell (where we both spend more time ogling cute male tourists then eyeing the exhibits), then through reconstructed town square gardens with herbs and flowers and wedding parties, to Carpenter's Hall, down to the newly redone docks for too-late on the Frigate, all-male crew on the sailing ship from Italy, the too-distant submarine, the bulky Olympia on which Roosevelt steamed into Japan, and the nicely designed pennants that when blowing streamed from green to blue. Inland to Newmarket and multileveled shops and restaurants, pleasant enough except for outdoor yowling of "talent" entertaining, upstairs to Dickens Inn to be sent down to the wine cellar for nice drinks and sautéed mushrooms for me and soup for him with bread and butter, then more walking up Lombard where I buy a dynamite layered glass vase for $210, sans tax, and we wander past the 1928 Packard and sexy shops full of magazines and places where he says the toughs will rough gays for nothing. Lots of reconstructed and original housing that looks VERY nice in the gray twilight, rain just holding off, and finally in for a drink at Old Bookbinders, only because I'm paying, and a sour daiquiri until David and John welcome us to their 29th floor apartment in the Dorchester for a GREAT hearing of "La Cathedral Engloutee" by Debussy, then down for a GOOD dinner for $40 and an ENORMOUS strawberry cream cake for dessert after arguing with their 10 pm closing at 10:05. Then back to the Dorchester for wine and talk and out to the Post (on 18th?) and the Steps and awful cruising and eye-hurting smoke, and bed at 1:30, Allerest anti-three cats.

SUNDAY, 5/18/80: Wake and listen to rain in his nice garden, up at 11 to look through books and shower and he cooks breakfast of small steaks and eggs and bread and cake, and we're out wandering small alleys in his neighborhood, nice, meeting his next door neighbor, a cute hustler, and I pack and get out for the 2:30 which gets me in at 4:30 in time to get to Avi's party, a pleasant weekend DESPITE Laird's being busy, Amy's not coming, and Guru Bawa not being available on Sunday because he didn't come out for the cloudy weather, saw no one yesterday, either.

THURSDAY, 5/22/80: Note of ASI MEETING OF 5/17: 145 ballots in for: John Regazzi VP; Nancy Knight Corres.Scy; Bill Bartenbach and Cynthia Weber (all of whom I voted for) and Barbara Preschel (and not Frank Sokolove, for whom I voted) for Board. There were 232 Publications responses, John Updike wrote and said "Indexes are good for books," and they announced ABC-CLIO's Dr. Hans Wellisch's "Indexing and Abstracting: A Guide to International Sources," a 328-page bibliography on indexing and abstracting in 12 languages, analyzing techniques and applications and tools and special problems. It WILL be in the newsletter, published in June at $22.75, with a member discount of $17 by mailing to ASI at 235 Park Ave. ASI archives now in Karen Simmons' office in NYC. Courses in Indexing going into Second Edition (also announced in Newsletter), and H.W. Wilson granted $2000 to DO it. Regional workshops coming for hands-on problems. Jessica Milstead WILL send me the article in 2-3 months. Talked with Jay Tebo about publishing Courses.
Jean Marra---Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Wilson's Cumulative BOOK index started in 1898. Poole's index to subjects in reviews and periodicals came OUT infrequently and had NO cross-referencing and ONLY on keywords in titles. Reader's Guide founded in 1900, WITH subjects and cross-references. 1917 they moved to Bronx. 177 periodicals for unabridged guide which comes out twice a month; 58 in abridged guide which comes out once a month, so they have to correct 3 sets of galleys a month. Every five years questionnaires are sent out for new magazines to be included. Decided by the ALA-Wilson committee, passed last new ones in 1978. 30 staff: 8 fulltime indexers, all library school grads. Year's training period; attention to detail. Wilson PURCHASES magazines. One indexer does science, another education, one business, etc. MANY sees, but only in FIRST, quarterly, and yearly cumulatives. Houston Opera, see Opera, Texas. Metropolitan Opera IS heading. Library of Congress headings used. Wilson Social Science indexes queried for Reader's Guide topic-names. Headings have been changing: Boats and Boats and Boating have gone to one heading: Boats and boating. Gravity and Gravitation has gone to Gravity and gravitation; Negroes to Blacks; Cookery to Cooking; Automobiles, theft of, to Automobile theft. Sociobiology now, NOT Biology, social applications.
Fast-food chains now OK. Bachi, Allen, case now a MAIN heading, so they had to search the ORIGINAL magazines for OLD reference headings and MOVE them to the new one. Now SEIZURE headings: Iran, Mecca, Colombia, London. Plans for AUTOMATION in 1982 are taking place, not online to libraries till later.
50,000 circulation, $62/year for whole, $58/year for abridged. Indexer salary range is "on par with public library: $11,000 and up." Authority file has 80,000 heads and subheads, not planned to be distributed currently.
Alcohol is the chemical, with a see to Liquor; Alcoholics are PEOPLE, and Alcoholism is the PROBLEM.
Magazines from 1979 are thrown out October 1980.
Alphabetization by person, place, and thing, word by word NOW, though it may change. ALA is word by word; ALA SEARS listing of subject headings are word-by-word.
MAY in automation phase give cumulative (all years) subject AND old lists automated. Magazine Index covers 541 magazines now!
Ronald Henderson---RECOMP development. Founded I&PS in Oct, 1973, but he's "basically a programmer." Of the 55-60 attendees, LOTS had to do with computers!! "You're lots more sophisticated than I thought." Federal Education Assistance Programs 1976, first SAMANTHA use. Each data field UNIQUELY IDENTIFIED makes a DATABASE. KWIC index done, bad because Airplanes, MIG-15, and Boeing scattered throughout. He's an ex-IBM Miami-Herald text-handler programmer.
Manual hyphenation about 86% accurate while machine hyphenation is 94% accurate, but machine errors are DUMB and attract attention, which manual errors do NOT do! Hyphen problem: pre-sent versus pres-ent!!!
CIS = Congressional Information Service. Serial set: 11 million PAGES for entries. SAMANTHA designed to handle this. KWIC index done to create a thesaurus for each 10-year period---up to 4 words: matches FIRST on 4 words, then 3, then 2, then 1, and if no match on one use ANYWAY unless forbidden. Example: Address see also Eulogy/see also State of Union address (at top!) Address by Hutton on Cotton/Hutton: address by Hutton on Cotton/Cotton: address by Hut.
He goes over the CIS indexing stuff I got. "Takes you from the general to the (s)Pacific." 4331-4341 runnable, $150,000 machine. Jay Tebo for lunch.
Courses: 1st edition 38 pages; second about TWICE the size.
Wilson award: Linda Salo "Beyond Orpheus" MIT Press: Studies in Music Structure. She worked with author, studied music, music librarian, indexed CONCEPTS.
Larry Block---Microfilm indexing; he indexed Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, etc. University Microfilms International. Microforms will be on videodisks by 1985, he says. CAN get to "frame 543" by counting blips. Filmed ALL US-Canada dissertations, and 1300 serial titles in microform.
Using Anglo-American II cataloging rules starting 1981. Hope to have ALL serials and books done in 5 years. American Culture Series for US 1493-1875 for books and pamphlets. VERY expensive (2 or 3 times the $2000 for a unit) for frame-counting. Dime novel series: 508 titles on 17 reels of film
A. Dissertations---author submits 600-word abstract:
1. Dissertation Abstracts International: monthly; KWIC, author, and year indexes.
2. American Doctoral Dissertations; yearly; by author, subject, and school.
3. Comprehensive Dissertation Index, yearly; KWIC, stopwords, author, titles, subjects, years, schools.
B. Serials since 1975---legal mainly
C. Life Insurance Index---by year, took 3 years to do.
D. California Administrative Code Index---WIP, updated monthly, transportation, electricity, etc, handled at 1/3 the cost of paper. UMI pays royalties to publishers. Raw film prices tripled in past year. Silver microfilm lasts 500 years; Cyclic and diazo microfilm lasts AT LEAST as long as a book. They already have 96% of Reader's Guide periodicals.
Helen Ferguson---McGraw-Hill, supervisor since January 1979, at Mc-H since 1951. 181 indexes in 1979, will have 460 in 1980; required author to prepare them. Cost of professional index charged against royalties. Hands out study.

Delight Ainsley's Law: The number of entries in an index depends on the number of subjects in the book. She was supervisor of indexing there 1951-1968. Pay scale: $6.50/hr for beginners. $7 for preparation, $7.50 for editing, pays about 38/line, or about $1.50-$2.00 per proof page.
Then Heller steps out and Lewicky steps in and it's finished at 4 pm sharp!

FRIDAY, 5/23/80: Note from J/O AT J'S #6: Rolf calls at 8:40 and wants to see films; I tell him I'm going to J's and he says he'll join me, rushing for the 9:30 closing when he gets here at 9:05. Bartender tells him he can't wander in sock-feet, though later people barefooted. Bartender complains he can't make out, asks me "What I'll do" for a beer. "Anything!" Lots more people, lots more clothes until later, when jeans slip to crotch-mast. First corner finds most beautiful body of all: Roy, playing with his young friend without caring that the friend isn't hard. Refuses help from others. Rolf ties up with Jim [?], a Dutch boy, most of the time, comes once with him, once around the table. Glance to side, familiar face: it's JERRY, hurt his lip, can't neck, so I tickle and kiss elsewhere and he says he'll call this weekend. Reminds me of Dennis being pissed at Dick Curry for going to J's and not calling HIM. Guy from Mineshaft says he remembers me, but I don't say his name nor does he say mine. Bottles of poppers passed around, and I have AWFUL headache the next day, maybe because of that, probably not because of the 5-6 beers that I drank, though I was up pissing a lot. But the best was around the table: since no one was ON it, about a dozen could gather around the side and watch EVERYONE else (not just the centerpiece) playing with themselves. I looked from the side as the beautiful older man with the strong blond body came, then the tall fellow sprayed the table with a fine cream, and others shot without giving any sounds to draw attention to themselves. I found it very exciting, but before I could get into it the stars left and the perimeter quickly emptied. Around to the side to see other scenes, people being fucked and sucked, but mainly getting off on playing with themselves. Others coming up to me but finding me soft gave me the excuse to hug and say "I'm resting." The Mineshaft guy ATTACKED with his affection again, not really much fun, and the Dutch guy smiled at me and we kissed goodbye: he was next to me at the table and I enjoyed looking at his over-slender body and white cock in a black leather ring. Roy was at the table egging people on, and I shot before the others did, knowing I didn't want to miss THIS time around, and others shot after me, but many left before they came, and I passed the corner as Roy deposited three or four meticulous white dots on the green baize of the pool table, seeming not to care that no one was watching. I noticed his formerly flat tits were now almost POINTED out of his meaty pectorals, so I took the chance of feeling them from behind and he left me alone, playing my hands over his wide shoulders, his triangular wedge of muscle between his round shoulders and his strong neck, his pouty belly with abdominal muscles finely marked, and his cushiony soft tits, so large and pliant they could be rubbed around like Vaseline pillows, and then his cock was throbbing below so I reached underneath to feel spasms and did a few of them myself as he continued to work on himself. When I got my fill of this somewhat second-hand pleasure, I moved away, and then at the end of the next session at the table he was again seen putting down his three meticulous drops, and someone said "He just CAME five minutes ago." Talked to the guy who I thought lived in the Heights, but he doesn't, so he's not who I thought he was. Rolf tried the table for a bit, saying he came there once, but not when I was there. A second table got started and I left the popper bottle out for shares, and others took, and again I couldn't wait until they started, but a few started coming, and then I came, and some really sprayed across the table, as if they hadn't come before, and some die-hards got onto the corner and tried to suck others off, though I don't see how that could be managed since they take hours with their HANDS. Not that much going on around the bar, this time, and the little guys came off in the corners without a sound. A rare black was there, turning up pallid whites in his darks of eyes as he creamed onto the table, and I said he looked good, and he said "I look even better when I fuck." There were scenes in the john most of the time, but I went in to find them uninteresting and the smell turns me off, not on. Couldn't identify who Dick Curry might have been, thought it was great, as did everyone else, and will probably go back next week to see if the magic lingers. Fantasize (as everyone else does) getting up a special relationship with Roy, who just stands there as I go all over him with everything I've got. Other people worth noting, too, and it DOES seem to be getting better. Talked to John and he said he WOULDN'T refuse Mark Barton, merely told him it was a private club. Others turned out for "hogging john."

SUNDAY, 5/25/80: IS IT A COLD?: Arnie calls me Friday morning and asks if I have a cold, and it seems like I might: my voice is phlegm-filled and I'm feeling slightly "off" and into a cold. But then when I get going, "Empire Strikes Back" is just fine and I don't find myself coughing or sneezing, but then doing lightwork that night I sneeze a few times, so I take some Glycothymoline and feel so washed out when it's time for bed that I take some Comtrex. Saturday I feel even more mucousy, so I get out and get more Glycothymoline, and as long as that tastes GOOD, I intend to keep it up---but it's ironic having a cold when I'm sweating over my Virology index and Rolf says the temperature went up to 90 today! Since the back of my throat is getting sore, I even try the Chloraspetic, forgetting in the meanwhile to take vitamin C, which is probably the best thing, since my shit is very compacted and NEEDS some loosening from the over-ascorbicing. Also, Vicks up my nose at night feels good. Wonder if this had anything to do with my start at exercising on Thursday, but by Sunday I feel well enough (though still phlegmy) to do exercises again, though I seem to strain a muscle in the middle of my right back, though not enough to give me any discomfort when I move in any other way. Finally tell Dennis that I seem to have a cold, and I'm debating taking something strong on Tuesday night so I can still get into J's without discomfort, and I WAS considering showing Rolf the movies Saturday night but he was willing only to drink about a quart of gin and tonics and didn't feel in the mood for sex, though he said he'd join me again on Tuesday at J's. Felt VERY achy getting up in the mornings, though I still have incredible dreams, now a FULL WEEK, probably the longest stretch of continuous dreaming recorded---so I took Comtrex again Sunday morning, and the aches sort of went away. But there's still something there, though I shower and sit out the rest of the warm Sunday afternoon in only shorts, with slightly coolish feet, but still some feeling of congestion in my lungs, though I haven't coughed or sneezed at all today. Whatever it is, I hope it gets out of my system as quickly as possible, so I can keep GOING!

ENTERTAINMENT 3
5/25/80

ALVIN AILEY COMPANY (and others) / SEX!!

Missing the first dance ("Later That Day") was a good thing, said Dennis, since the music was tuneless and the dancers didn't relate to each other or to the audience in any way that Dennis could even EXPLAIN, let alone appreciate. "Inside" was a solo energetically danced by Donna Wood to a pretentious spoken and played score, but I was reminded, as Dennis was, of some amateurish production at DTW. "Les Noces" again reminded me how awful was the screeching score of Stravinsky for the piece, and the incongruity of the black cast dressed up in Russian costumes was a bit much---not to mention that therefore it wasn't SEXY at all. "Memoria" (for Joyce Trisler) was much sexier: black and bronze and tan men in gold lame dance belts with muscle-builder definition made me feel vaguely horny, and the lush Keith Jarrett "Runes---Something Else" music was pretty, and the formations of dancers was vaguely effective, but Dennis didn't like it and I kept wondering why I COME to dance, which immediately brought up the answer "Because ballet gave you a chance to look at pretty men in white tights that showed off bulging crotches," and I again thought it would be much better if I wanted SEX to go to the baths or the bars and get SEX, and not confuse it with culture. That's why I started going to operas (to see the ballets), and to modern dance (to see the naked men, which is STILL how I judge what to see), and which is a lot about the way I watch TV ("Hustler of Muscle Beach" and "The Hulk" for prime examples) and movies (by pretty men's faces, like for "Virus" as Dennis told me about). But now I can have sex DIRECT, so I should USE sex direct. Not to mention that most dances ARE second rate if there have been enough seen and remembered that ARE first rate, and who has the patience to see second-rate dances all the time? If I didn't use my JUDGMENTALISM, each dance would be fresh, but if I'm a wise JUDGE I might see that I would better spend my time making money and finishing the indexing book and starting on other writing so that I can MOVE through life, as Dennis wants to, rather than just treading water making pretty indexes and saving not much and making not much movement professionally.

ENTERTAINMENT 4
5/25/80

EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (5/23)

Amazing how all the OLD "new" stuff (R2D2, C3P0, the rocket ships, the light swords, the Force) is taken for granted so EASILY, demanding NEW "new" stuff (Yoda, the sky-city, the Empire's stalkers, the snow-beast, the bipedal ice-planet camels). But none of these exploded as satisfactorily as the "Death Star," and the hints of the Emperor only made me think it might be Alec Guinness, even though it was the voice of Clive Revell. The twist that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father was presaged in the remarkably mystical trip into the roots (get it?) of the trees, going with fear ("you get only what you take with you"), and slicing off the helmet of Darth Vader to find his own face (meeting the monster/evil within and killing it before venturing on the quest). In this, part 5, Lucas could indulge in more forward-looking dialogue: "Skywalker will fail," "There is yet ANOTHER" with no hint that I could see of who it could be, though Leia proved to be telepathically receptive to Luke. Hamill grew some nice muscles, but his face is still that of a boy, not a man; Leia and Solo finally got to kiss before he's frozen and encased in silver for a "to be continued" ending with Skywalker losing his hand (right hand) to his father in battle and getting a mechanical one. I'm waiting to get the philosophical observations on their good mystical advisor, who talks about the force surrounding planets, people, inanimate objects, and even getting applause for Yoda's command of levitation of the rocket, getting the first applause for enlightenment I ever heard in a theater (which smelled sadly of BO and rocked with commentary and screams for anything that happened; even the too-late puzzlement of "They were INSIDE that worm??" which I picked up when Leia said "Ground feels funny." Guinness actually APPEARS, so they'd better film what they can if they need more of him before he dies. At least with Yoda, which had very lifelike (stupid, intelligent, menacing) eyes, they don't have to continue with an ACTOR, only with technology---which was not THAT great in this film: a galloping camel when he was still, lines at the edges of Solo's transport into the starship, other "edges" of the film that seemed not as seamless as the first, but STILL AN EMINENTLY SEEABLE FILM!

MONDAY, 5/26/80: CONSTANTLY CHANGING TRAVEL PLANS: First it was Florida-Yucatan-Haiti-Guadeloupe-New Orleans. Then the planning was so dreadful that Guadeloupe was dropped out and our reservations were made on Eastern for $439. Then Dennis's Lee Shaw moved from Fort Lauderdale up to Cohoes, New York, and he said he had other money and time priorities. But I kept hoping he, or someone, would take the trip with me, though I started looking at the Aeromexico $195 roundtrip, even though I couldn't leave on Tuesday or Wednesday and would have to pay a $55 surcharge; still $250 looked pretty good. Then Michael called and said it was time to make a deposit at the Oloffson; so I said don't do it and make reservations on Aeromexico TOO. But it turned out that he couldn't get me back within 3 days of July 2---"Remember it's the July 4 weekend," so I told him to put me on a waiting list. Then Mrs. Johnson said it was the start of the rainy season in Mexico City in May, so I figured I'd better check the WEATHER there in June, and on Thursday night, with Dennis lying next to me in bed, I started thinking about the idea of going to MEXICO, the tropics, in JUNE, and why not take the three weeks for ALASKA, which I'm obviously not going to get anyone interested in OTHER than myself? Recalled the ad I looked idly at last weekend in the paper about Anchorage, Fairbanks, Skagway, Whitehorse, and the Inland Passage for about $1600. So I studied the guides and found that there were only 4 days WITHOUT rain in Mexico City in June, and the section said that it was hot and "constant showers" in the Yucatan, SO I got out the maps and guides on Alaska and remembered that I HADN'T been to ONE Canadian province: Manitoba, and not to the two territories, Northwest Territories and Yukon, and not to one United State, Alaska, so I looked at the idea of taking a plane to Winnipeg, the bus across to Calgary, where two days (9 and 10 hours) on the road would let me know whether I want to BUS or FLY up to Yellowknife, and try combinations of hitchhiking and looking for singles or for cancellations (while giving the whole itinerary to Michael on Tuesday) to get up the Inland Passage to Alaska while picking up part of Yukon, or maybe taking the Canadian Airlines trip to Inuvik to get above the Arctic Circle for ANOTHER mid-June stretch of the midnight sun!

TUESDAY, 5/27/80: DENNIS AND INDEXING MATURITY: Been so long since I've written about Dennis and me it seems there's a lot of say (also 311). But he would NOT let me in on his troubles with the Gynecology index, so I had to FORCE us to look at his schedule to see that he only had to work about 8 hours a day to get it finished in the three weeks, but that it'd be bigger (and therefore more money) than we thought, so he has to check with Margaret Jack, so he'd better say I forced him to look at it. Disappointed that he's had all the pages for a month and a half and isn't more along than halfway, though I certainly put him into the idea of WAITING for the actual page numbers. He said he felt no need to cozen them, but he ALSO seemed willing to tell them to go to hell, though I needed McGraw-Hill and a part of their 460 indexes! He kept saying that he realized this, that I supported him a lot, but he just doesn't LIKE the work, thinks that he's going to be doing this for the rest of his life and where will it GET him; he'd rather work for 1/3 the salary taking care of disabled children, at least that would give him a feeling of accomplishment from what he did. "Maybe people who work on what they don't love have to make up for it by eating in fancy restaurants and going on lots of trips," he almost said, but I didn't take him up on the implication. I guess the best thing I said to him was that certainty took KNOWLEDGE and knowledge took NUMBERS, and unless he could come up with the NUMBERS, he couldn't KNOW what his alternatives were. He REFUSES to keep good track of his time and his rates and his hourly incomes, and REFUSES to think that he'd have to be working even MORE hours if he were still back at Tree. But he came up with the "interest" in his work at Tree dissuading him from trying the ACTING work that he wanted to do, whereas the agonies of indexing made him think of OTHER things that he'd much rather be doing. I didn't bother to tell him that NONE of us would probably have any future anyway, and that there were lots of things I'd rather be doing than indexing, but one HAS TO MAKE MONEY TO SURVIVE, and it's all a matter of figuring how many hours has to be devoted to that to find how many hours are left free for what you WANT. And as long as he refuses to even LOOK at those details, he can't be mature from the point of view of earning money to be self-supporting in a day-to-day world.

WEDNESDAY, 5/28/80: DENNIS AND OUR RELATIONSHIP: I asked him one evening just where we were, and he confessed that sex with the two of us just didn't seem so exciting anymore: maybe we know each other TOO well. I said he hardly ever instigated sex, and he reported this morning that Janet Lawson reported last night that she was happy he DID instigate their talk about sex---by chewing on her nipples and neglecting to tell her that HE liked his nipples worked over. But of course that's a NEW relationship, and by watching him on subways and in the streets, he's still the usual comer-on in NEW relationships, it's just the OLD ones that he falls down in. I asked if he thought we could ever get back to where we WERE, and he said he didn't think so, though this didn't make him angry or sad. I said it made ME sad, and he seemed impressed by that, though we didn't seem to follow that up very closely. We neither of us seemed to know where we'd go, though we both admitted we liked being with each other and sharing food and entertainments together---and he didn't seem to like it when I suggested that relationships go stale only when each realizes that the other will NEVER be exactly what the one hopes or dreams or wishes (or actively tries to change) the other would become. I keep saying that I hope he doesn't "blame" me for living in a basement, having a job that he doesn't like, and is removed from other people, but he said that I don't have to keep worrying about that: it was perfectly clear for him all the steps of the way were HIS decisions, and there wasn't anything that I had to feel I exerted undue influence over. Which makes me feel better, but the issue is still somewhere THERE. So we sleep together less and less, he never invites me down without me inviting him down, he hardly ever sleeps up here, and over half the time we sleep together we don't have sex, though he DID call one morning saying that I seemed cuddly the night before and he felt so tired he turned over and went to sleep and hoped I wasn't feeling too disappointed about it. But I jerk off more myself (as does he) and enjoy J's and continue to talk with him and see where it will lead to: at least it's not to the point where we know sex will NOT happen between us, but it seems to be getting to that point almost by default---should I start keeping dates so that I can know when we've gone without a week having sex or sleeping together?

THURSDAY, 5/29/80: DENNIS AND HUMOR: Though things might be wrong with his indexing maturity (Notebook 310) and our relationship (Notebook 311), there's something still sparkly about his humor---when I'm in the mood to listen to it and not get annoyed with it. He was feeling good this morning---and I joked "despite all my training so that you feel just MISERABLE when you index," and said that it probably had something to do with his Fallopian tubes, which he's not quite seen yet, and I ASSUME he knows he hasn't got any. "Were you a large for gestational age baby?" and I said probably small, though on second thought I MAY have been large so that I could SURVIVE, and he said "Oh, no, you were a preemie," "Yeah, six weeks," "They call them other things too." "Like LET ME OUT OF HERE." "You probably came out with a travel guide: all right, I wanna go to Nome, I've BEEN to Womb." I tell him he really should watch me in what I have to do with the cumulative index---"You mean that thing with the little bits of paper?" I said "Then you would REALLY know what misery is." "Are you REALLY miserable---I don't think you are, I don't know anyone who has such control over what they want, the ability to make things interesting." And I feel good to hear those things from HIM. He said he'd known about "A Wedding" on TV and was happy that I didn't watch it because HE didn't watch it---he didn't want me to have that pleasure without his having had his pleasure with it too. He went out shopping, though the stores were closed, and met Rolf "As I've met him before---I didn't have my contacts on so I was staring at this sexy guy's legs and crotch, and HE made sounds like he might know me, and it was Rolf." I asked if he looked hung over from his quart of gin-and-tonics from Saturday night, and he said he didn't. He was going to cook something special for dinner, but then had to go to the Promenade at midnight for a hamburger because the stores were closed, and was willing to try the same thing tonight, maybe having dinner about 6:30, and without saying it maybe having time to go to a movie in Brooklyn tonight if he feels ahead of himself enough on indexes: and he's begun looking for ways of feeling good: he's found that the part he's TYPED is bigger than the part he has YET to type, and he can feel good about THAT---maybe he's learning.

ALASKA TRIP - 6/12 - 7/8/80

THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1980: 11:12 am, after being told 11:50 flight delayed to 12:20. Could I have used the time! Slept only 4-5 hours previous 2 nights, working, then Dennis talks to 12:45 last night and suggest getting up at 6. I say OK, may get up earlier. Sleep fairly easily and wake COMPLETELY at 4:05. Figure I'll have LOTS of time and it's STILL a rush, getting 3 indexes to Dennis, washing dishes, having no time to vacuum, and car service I wanted for 10:30 calls and says it must be for 10:20. He rings at 10:15 and I dash about and get down JUST at 10:20 (forgetting my mailing list on my bureau, which I didn't realize until I returned), to airport at 10:50 and STAGGERED that it's $18, so I'm down $20 ALREADY. Then delayed flight? Do my "off with the turtleneck, on with the shirt-short sleeved" number and write this waiting for seat assignments, saying I can STILL get to Winnipeg's flight. Well, OK, now to read at 11:17. Flight leaves at 12:30 and gets in at 1:40 over GRAND circle of Long Island, Hudson Tappan Zee Bridge, swimming lakes along the way, and a couple of the Finger Lakes, though I don't think I saw Ithaca and LAST one was U-shaped. Gets a bit cloudy over Lake Ontario, tan from stream efflux, and then the enormous spire of Toronto that I hope comes out and we fly WAY out over farms so flat it's possible to see old streambed contours in plowed fields. Then turn and land and breeze through customs in minutes and get to next waiting lounge at 2, flight at 2:35, and they ASSURE me they'll have sandwiches on this one. It goes off and plump female metalworker has been traveling from Deer Lake in "Newflan" from 6 am to Lynn Lake 500 miles north of Winnipeg to her first job. Cloudy flight, but still glimpses of those enigmatic areas where you can't tell if you're looking at islands in one HUGE lake or LOTS of little lakes. Jerky shot of built-up city. Pleasant change lady says "Bank of Commerce" gives more, SHE gives 1.125, the Hotel St. Regis gives 1.13 and Greyhound 1.15 (AND says the pass is for CANADA). Took map from desk pack, asked for transportation and it's city bus for 40, exact change, which she gives me for US money. They recommend museums and walking tours enthusiastically, say everyone is friendly, they ARE, and even license plates say "Friendly Manitoba." But this is all that they have to OFFER. Flat tree-lined suburban streets go off to infinity, and downtown is a REMARKABLE hodgepodge of rundown buildings, standalone churches, LOTS of parking lots and 2-3 floor towers, public buildings from Centennial, and huge 30-floor skyscrapers most modern. To BEAUTIFUL Legislative Building for look around and book of hotels, and there's the gay-recommended St. Regis with 4 stars. It's about 75 and HOT in jacket, and I wander streets and take $28 room from sheer FATIGUE. Open suitcase and change to red pants and shoes for restaurant on Boulevard Portcheur, and checked that $99 plan ended May 31, there's 15-day that looks GOOD, YMCA is only $10 says woman behind desk, but it's prison-grim, and there are LOTS of humpy tanned guys bicycling in shirtless shorts. And lots of motorcycles, ugly with helmeted drivers. Long walk to "beauty parlor façade" Grenouillere, and around to Vielle Gare for not-tasty Velvet Hammer with 1/4 oz brandy, 1/2 oz Grand Marnier, 1/2 oz Tia Maria and 1/2 oz cream, for $4. Local French girls break beautiful railroad car's atmosphere. Into restaurant for FILLING sweetbreads that had SAME texture as mushrooms under sauce, and 1/2 Liebfraumilch nicely cold. Filling, and Winnipeg Goldeye is mealy and overcooked, too much broccoli au gratin, but good-flavored Lyonnaise potatoes (ruddy with browning and tasty with onion). Watch LOVELY guy (combo cigarette ad and Ron Miller) extolling his stock prowess to lisping girl, and feel the place TRIES but has nothing to SHOW. FORM of a French restaurant without content: tacky "head waitress" giving out menus like hash-house girl around table: guy, girl, guy, girl; headwaiter's uniform smells of old sweat, and table boy setting and unsetting tables. Walk back at 9:15 to pink sunset, and to room to phone Greyhound and find I CAN fit in "Yellowknife only on Tues-Thurs-Sat midnight getting to Vancouver by 21st." Can't sleep, jerk off.

FRIDAY, JUNE 13. Wake at 7:45, sore throat from immovable cold-air freeze. Sort through stuff and throw lots out, but STILL have to pack boots in plastic outside bag. Out at 9 and walk to station and AGAIN friendly people save day: how easy and good my trip is, lunch at 12:15 in Neepawa and I dash to cafeteria for egg salad and grapefruit juice for 95+30=$1.25 sans tax. Hear 9:45 bus announced at 9:20 and I get on to write and finish this at 9:55, only about 6 empty seats left, one next to me, and bus filled with chatty people. Winnipeg: LOTS of stainless steel-strut bridges to rusticated 18th-century stone buildings! 10:30, 89-car train---how LONG it's been since I counted TRAIN cars! Left at 9:55 and QUICKLY get bored. How SOON some thoughts return: leaving a SPOOR of myself like snail-slime encircling the sphere; myself inking up a map; the predictability of these thoughts! NICE bus, gray-clouded but still BRIGHT enough day. Highway 1 an experience for 20 minutes only. Rent-a-car for $104/week with 1500 free km STILL a CHORE to DRIVE. Speed limit NEAR town of 70 km/hr, outside 100 km/hr, but CHECK gives less than 3 km in 97 seconds, maybe 66 mph. But everything's so FLAT and things change so little it seems to go slowly. Another standard thought: how important WORDS and SIGNS and sexy DRIVERS become! Portage La Prairie: Newman Hotel: Buffet Lunch $1.99, band "Haze," Dancer Lya Lee---HOW elegant! You see the SAME people: cutie gets off at station and we pass him 5 minutes later on the main street, still walking; other fellow gets off and in a few minutes we pass him talking to an autobody parts shopkeeper. Cyclist in striped shirt passes as I cross to Chicken Corral and is eating at a park bench ahead of the bus as I return to find an old woman spread over my two seats. She remains at the aisle and stops at "Theodore." But her brother's not there so she continues to Dafoe, past a lake I'm sure is shallow but she repeats 6 times her son said is "Deep, deep, deep." She says it was 90 in Winnipeg day before yesterday and 80 yesterday and 66 today, and that the wheat that was sown on May 1 should be MUCH higher but there's been NO rain so the farmers are even turning cattle in on them to eat the stubble. Some seemed plowed under but she said the soil is so poor it can only support a crop every other year. SOME sexy people on bus, but they all sit in back to smoke like men. She chatters away (82 years old) about German mother and Dutch father and coming in 1924 and having 9 kids and visiting 4 remaining sons and 4 daughters and finally I close my eyes after Yorktown to stop her chatter. Clouds brightened then darkened and RAIN fell for a bit, and now at 7:30 at Esk the sky is VERY dark with clouds and the bus feels about chilly enough for a sweater. Flat, then hilly, now flat again. Lots of trains pass, lots of bus traffic, not so many cars---but we're on "Yellowhead Highway #16," not main #1. Acneed blond from some foreign country has hamburger for "dinner" at 3:40 in Yorkton and SHE said I missed the best restaurant in TOWN by not eating at the bus stop in Neepawa. Well, Yorkton has omelets that are awful, but hot chocolate seems sustaining, and I'm glad I'm stopping in Saskatoon tonight and not boarding until 11:30 am tomorrow. Keep thinking of my EASE of doing the 99 days and NOW 15 looks ahead as a PENANCE. BUT I'VE NOW BEEN IN EVERY PROVINCE OF CANADA! Only Northwest Territory, Yukon, and Alaska to conquer in the remaining days of my trip. Grain elevators like big wooden, double-level milk cartons marked "Saskatchewan Pool" and city name, like Viscount. Some few mining plants now, but cows, fields, pools, farms, villages, fallow land, tree clusters, roads, rails, and that's about it. Hm, BLOND keeps a log TOO. When we get to Saskatoon as sun sets at 9:15, blond comes over and smiles and stops and I say "Hi" and he's from Denmark, studying agriculture on a farm south of Winnipeg and is off on a tour to San Francisco and Las Vegas for two weeks. Nice smile. I ask for hotel and she suggests King George, but it looks too elegant and I'm back and find there's a Y. Ask SECOND girl how to get there and she says there're no rooms, but the Patricia is cheap and just as clean. $16 for a room, $1 for a sandwich and I find Gay Community Service in phone book and David says they have social from 9-2, so rather than sleeping, as I'd thought, I put on sweater and go to S. 3rd by going wrong way in two directions FIRST, and David lets me in free, saying it's quiet so far, and I buy a $1.75 Black Russian from fat Bonnie and David introduces me to EVERYONE. I might end up with HIS bright eyes and short compact body, but as an afterthought (last person) he introduces me to Peter, with an Oxford accent, and I talk of north and HE talks of fabulous rail trip up to Fort Churchill and flight to Baker Lake for Cape Dorset, Resolute Bay, and other Inuit sculptures. He raves by name of artist and I "fantasize" seeing his collection and he offers, so we walk out at 1:30 and along river with its homes, motels, museums and mixed office-residential towers, and across University Bridge to his new house, plain but bulkily evocative polar bears, Arp seals, shaman shape-shifting pieces, and antler art with narwhal and seals. Drawings and prints and other art, and in basement is hot tank, which we enter and he winds up tug and whale and fish and we PLAY. Bed at 2:15 and sleep easily, he with scarf over eyes to keep out light.

SATURDAY, JUNE 14. Wake at 8:30, bit of lightwork, and out of bed at 9:30 for easy chat, exchange of cards, a boiled egg and toast and juice and coffee, and leave to walk back 10:35-11, out of Patricia and to bus station for Edmonton, writing this as bus leaves Saskatoon---maybe I WILL come back for mines in the north and canoeing and art galleries and the LOVELY air and the PLEASANT gay group. Peter might come to the Picasso in NYC, cancels out of the antinuclear party at Dennis's tonight, and waits for guy to tear down his garage. Pleasant interlude, and I DEBATE staying extra day but think to get AHEAD to NWT and explore THERE while I'm there, rather than "known" south of Canada. Day on bus STARTS cloudy but clears up considerably: pretty fluffy gray-white clouds and SOME nice views over gentle hills and river valleys of North Saskatchewan River (that flows to Churchill River and Hudson's Bay!). He said they had a surprising mild EARTHQUAKE in Saskatoon about a month ago, possibly BEFORE Mt. St. Helens, which hasn't affected them at all. Cutknife, a trying little "planned community": trees down divided "Main Street," VERY square layout, lots more Indians, 2-story buildings are tallest, lots of planted trees and hedges, lots of people lounging beside cars perpendicularly parked to street. Bus seems to symbolize modernity: saluted by kids, waved at by hopefuls, cursed by dotty Indian woman in Cutknife, flinging an angry arm from an angry body and face toward us. Yellowhead Highway boringly constructed: two center lanes and usually two shoulder lanes for slower vehicles to pull over to allow bus to pass. But 30 is BARELY two-lane (ruts in most of sides), but thankfully almost devoid of traffic. I'd hate to drive SMALLER highway! SOLID farmland now giving way to 10% brush, 90% farm. Not many "spring" flowers---few buttercups and daisies, some clover-like purples, some brush-tipped rye, some yellow tiny broomlike flowers, not much more. Ducks and their TINY offspring in most ponds. Road improves a LOT in Alberta. Normanna is a nice couple-farm name; forgot Neepawa's population sign of "just 996,600 short of a million." Starts drizzling the MINUTE we cross the border. Fox lopes out of copse as bus passes. Sunset in Edmonton ABOUT 9:55 pm. SOME pretty hills and valleys along way, but terrain is mostly merely more uncultivated, getting to 40% brush in some areas. Edmonton is HUGE, and everything centered about 100th St. and 100th Ave (Jasper) makes addresses simple but cumbersome. Leave bag checked for 50 to wander to door-open Information Booth to find the door's open ONLY to Underground Parking. BUT on map pasted to wall I find YMCA on 102A AND that the quadruple pyramid of the Muttart Conservatory is open to 9 and reached by #47 and 51 busses. Back to Y, lots of YOUNG, nicely dressed people about, and Y is big and cheap (sandwiched next to 4-5 times more expensive Four Seasons Hotel, and room is only $10.50, but I can use the Alberta accommodations book I picked up for the north). Phone gay number and he tells me cruising areas, two pubs mixed, and the "more gay" Boots and Saddles on 106th. Pick up bag and check into room at 9:20 and sun STILL hasn't set, so I go through NWT stuff and get populations and a tentative itinerary and shower at 10 and to McCauley Plaza for a decent enough Lancashire Hot Pot in the Pub for $3.55 and pint of beer for $1.75 and $5.25 bill verifies there's no tax. Out and there's sign "MacDonald Drive." It's the most scenic view over river (Muttart not lit, though) and few guys cruising but it's not very interesting. Over to Jasper and there might even be a bodybuilding convention in town because there are so many GORGEOUS bodies on street (as in Conservatory, all with girls). Jasper and 104th or 105th has a PARK filled with hustlers (and Pub had the 4 creeps dressed for seduction saying "What's he staring at?" when I looked at waitress behind them). Plump guy at Boots and Saddles says, "Membership only $5 for 2-month membership." No thanks. Get route CHECKED at bus station and they finally tell me Coachways IS Greyhound and ON pass!! Back to Y at 12:30 and leave call for 8. Up at 2:30, 5:30, and permanently at 6:30 and so I'm up at 7:15 feeling OK.

SUNDAY, JUNE 15. Pack and phone only buzzes gently at 8 and I leak and get $3 back for key and to Greyhound cafeteria for $1.25 cream of wheat and 70 hot chocolate. but no tax OR tip (NO one seems to tip here!). Note on menu for $1 minimum at table, which 3 Indians don't read and Wey (Dennis's friend)-type and mother laugh, and the daughter's fat and old and black-dyed---all of whom laugh, smoke, and drink too much. They get "free coffee at the counter" by gruff waitress and they joke "Maybe she thought we was niggers" and when I refuse their offered cigarette they seem to have to make sure it's not personal with a "You don't smoke?" Pancakes pretty good but THIS $2.95 for two fried eggs is lousy. Shape of things to come? Write in empty terminal, few people gathering, and first call at 8:50 and final call at 8:55 as I write this. Everyone has a window, Indian guys in shorts and open shirts cruise white girls and they're all in the back of the bus but for me and a white-haired lady 2 rows in front, in second row, where I sat on FIRST leg and got annoyed with window reflections from front and side, so 4 rows back is perfect, though I at times get sniffs of smoke. Bus starts at 8:57, luggage doors down, revs from outside (driver checking motor?) at 8:58 and he takes a final walkthrough count (checking john!---told little girl "People try to sneak on without tickets") and Indians leave to join his buddy in back so first 4 rows are US two and driver in sporty jacket and we putt out with toot of horn at just 9:01 with two other departures. Touring again unlocks my childhood---well, maybe not MY childhood, but SOMEBODY'S childhood. The Pop Shoppe is ALL OVER Canada! 488 km to Peace River. PERFECTLY clear sky today, as it was last night! 12 on bus. Huge GROUNDHOG colony along road just south of St. Alberts. Huge FIELD of yellow daisies. SOME distant views of infinite farms and copses are rather NICE. Herd of buffalo (woman says BEEFALO) just west of Clyde (scrawnier, she says, than buffalo, though they could be YOUNG ones, she says). Lots and lots of chat, and farms DO vanish into brush farther north. Along bottom of Lesser Slave Lake he tootles along a gravel road out of Faust for my edification. Indians coming on board evince the usual "Yugh" looks and he talks of the ones he had to throw off the bus for drinking. She was 7th oldest child and there were 14 after her and SHE (like the German) had 9 kids. But BECAUSE of ALL the people she had an ENDLESS line of in-laws and cousins and siblings dead of lung and stomach cancer, auto accidents, drowning, war deaths, and even ball lightning that flashed off knives and forks and bounced to the floor of the garage where it ran UP an iron rod, swung it in an arc of TOTALLY burnt wood, and UP out of the roof, blasting wood 1/2 mile away. Seats DOUBLE in movie either ON aisle or against wall---with USED seats! Lots of ADS before "Luna" starts at 8 pm. STRANGE STONED movie of great photographic beauty but strange individual actions: father leaves, husband dies, Luna sings and interminably cares for her attention-demanding son who shoots up and gets masturbated through the pants in a not-very-erotic scene, and her burying his head in HER crotch for a RETURN is merely embarrassing for her as an actress, him as a character and us as an audience. Out at 10:30 to sew buttons on shirt, walk down to make SURE it's 7:30 leaving, better than 6:30, and get to bed stuffed from DELICIOUS crisp fresh sauced egg foo yung from Northlander Restaurant. Bed at 11:10 after leaving word to wake at 7. Trekked uphill to 12-foot Davis's grave for a photo, too.

MONDAY, JUNE 16. Wake at 6:40 and up soon after to put things together and get downhill at 7:10 for two buses standing there, second already 3/4 full for Hay River. Ask to sit near window next to man, put in bag, get half a submarine to go for $1.75 and a can of cold apple juice for 50 and get back on bus to find old man moved across to his old wife. Mostly couples on bus, and some PRETTY men and a squally child pulling on my armrest. Sit to write this and hear people in front saying that RAPE seed is expensive and people farm THAT rather than wheat. Rather taciturn people UNTIL they start talking, then they DO go on. Driver from last night, bound out at 7:15, says it really came down in SHEETS last night, and roadside is still slightly muddy and wet in the AM, though sky isn't quite as threateningly cloudy as it got last night, so I'm glad it didn't storm while I was dining or going to the movie. My spread bag does no good as a fellow sits next to me with a jar of water and even the DRIVER has to move his stuff as the bus is left with only ONE empty seat, yet I still have my ideal 3rd from front right window. Guy next settles down with Titus Groan, so there might be talk this trip too. Two more people get on at Grimshaw and fill last two seats and someone who looks like an Indian who says he's from Madeira gets on and he stands for a bit---can't get fuller! Manning stop last to 9:30 and I get dried fruit in market. Farms come and go, and at one point brush is ALL pine, but then poplars and birch return. Now about 80% brush, with large flat tracts just being cleared. Not a considerably varying land. Flatter way up HERE than I'd suspected, only river valleys to be deeper. Couple dark gray rabbits dash into brush. High Level Restaurant FINALLY gives me liver and onions for $4.50. Good, and fabulous apple pie for dessert and good tomato-vegetable soup, and beer which feels good, so I drop back and give $1 tip on a $5.75 bill. Help us all feel better. Rain let up for stop, but comes down steadily before and after. Almost NO traffic north of High Level---and almost 100% brush, though still relatively flat. Picturesque old wooden railroad bridges. Actually a trailer-size Hudson's Bay Company (and post office) at Meander River. When woman in front of me moves out, I graduate to an UNCRAZED window, not that there's THAT much to SEE. Bus about half full after High Level. Indian wearing bead-appliquéd leather-fringed new jacket. Steen River 10 minutes early on arrival---most of it CLOSED, left 25 minutes before schedule---hope that doesn't happen to ME! Clouds clearing away but road is being fixed and is AWFUL. Soda can says "Raisin" and I think "What a kick to try" and it turns out only to be the French translation of GRAPE. Off at 2:25 after stopping for "15 minutes sharp" at 2:04 at Indian Cabins. INCREDIBLE talk with driver and evening and sunset not BEFORE 10:45 in Hay River. He lets me (alone) off at the border to snap the sign, then everyone's off at the Information Center to pick up a TON of stuff, including a certificate for crossing the 60th parallel. Quick stops at Alexandra and Louise Falls, visible but hardly accessible in a minute, and continue on to Hay River. I'd been talking with Arlin and the driver, Scotty, and Arlin says Fort Smith is MUCH nicer than Yellowknife, so he gives me Jacques Van Pelt's name and escorts me to PWA airlines to get a $39.95 ticket Wednesday between Hay River and Yellowknife, so I can see BOTH. Scotty says he'll take me to Caribou Lodge and I invite him for coffee and he pauses and says he'll show me the town. I get room 43 and it doesn't open, so I get 44 and change to long-sleeve shirt and down to restaurant for a milkshake and in he comes. We chat nicely and his wheels for the tour are the Greyhound bus! I freak! He drives around looking for the two Germans; the Bay is closed for inventory and he starts worrying since they wanted to shop for a canoe there. Look at a few other places, but the garage has only powered boats leaning against it for sale, and they're not there. Out road past airport and across bridge to Old Town and onto Island to Old Old Town and Great Slave Lake Beach and Indian community and flood remains and the Sinker-Life Building and the boats being painted and he drives IN and we climb aboard tender and he takes my picture and I snap place and then him and bus and we're back to Norweta and Arlin's aboard and we find him and have banana bread and coffee with the cook and chat about trip up Mackenzie River in 5 days and 5 months at oil drilling platform in Beaufort Sea. Leave and THERE are the Germans---gear locked in Greyhound office! He gets keys, we get their gear, I take their picture after they tell me of their 2-3 month trek and their souvenirs from their girls. Drat! Back to hotel and he says he'll pick me up at 6:30 am. I get groceries at Red Rooster at 9:10 (no movie in town today) and find the Migrator ALSO charges $35 and eat in Pizza Patio with wastrels and Indians and sexy idle snotty kids, one of whom looks like Luke Skywalker---and he knows it. Full with $5.75 special pizza and back to fall into bed at 10:30 after watching some TV. STILL trouble sleeping with the SUNLIGHT streaming in the windows poorly shaded.

TUESDAY, JUNE 17. Wake at 5:30 and put stuff together for my day in Fort Smith and shower and do a bit of lightwork and leave note I'm staying another day and get out at 6:25 and there he comes! To station and get Fort Smith ticket and Jerry Goodman is CUTE. Guy from Newfoundland is on and helps make outgoing conversation from 7-8 to Pine Point, past mine tailings and to ANOTHER hang-out restaurant, and then to Wood Buffalo National Park in PERFECT day and see a HUGE bull buffalo and a TAN body of a yearling and moan that most of the woods come up to the road so we can't SEE. Scare up two sandhill cranes (when I can't think of name Jacques tells me I say "tan mountain cranes"---CLOSE!) and that's it till we arrive at 10:50. Phone Jacques and he's a bit flustered at the start until he asks the question important to him: "Is this to be a favor or a commercial hiring?" THEN he figures it'll be 15 miles for $35. OK (Do I have a choice?) He'll be there in 10 minutes, he says. Guy who was going to hitchhike to see his brother last night in Fort Smith (and was later seen in town as we tootled about in a Greyhound) finds his brother is leaving on a trip at 1 pm, so he's not interested in sharing my tour and calls a cab. Jacques shows up in a van at 11:03 and says we'll have to rush if I'm to catch the 12:30 bus, and gives me an overview of the river and rapids and pelicans and walks from the RCMP center to the river and sets up his telescope---what looks like a fringe of white on the rocks below becomes a gaggle of feeding pelicans! They dip and scrape and chase seagulls and slow and speed, and then he focuses on another group and shows me COOPERATIVE feeding: they're in a circle and dip from a common center. Some arrive and leave, and some start to soar up in a tight pattern of 10-15, turning and wheeling in perfect unison, black wingtips contrasting mightily with white bodies and purest blue sky. More and more join the wheeling groups until there are four or five independent groups, being joined by more and more strings from the feeders, until about 100-120 are turning and banking in unison, as they fly farther and farther away, seemingly trying to keep their formations, from 10-110, right in my lenses, filling them completely all the time. Reluctantly tear myself away to go upriver to the nesting site, past his self-constructed house, via 1920-1940 wagon-cart tracks, across a definite hill that Mackenzie forded, and to a less spectacular nesting area (black flies, called bulldogs there, gather around, overshadowing mosquitoes, and he has spray we use 2-3 times to keep them away), 4-5 groups of birds sitting on nests, waiting for relievers, rolling eggs, hearing of their vascular feet that keep their feet from freezing on winter ice. and then it's 12:20 and we whiz back to a sales pitch for a 7-day $1200 canoe trip and Jerry is still loading the bus when we pull up at 12:40, and like LOTS of NWT services, he almost INSISTS I take a receipt. Give him a card, as I did to Theodora and Peter and Mrs. Borlee and Scotty, and get on bus to burble to Jerry about my lunch break, which Jacques made sure I didn't need. Fairly boring trip back save for the young buffalo and the greenish-brown center water of the huge sinkhole behind the Angus Tower. He has two children from former marriage in Calgary and a 4-month-old child with his NEW wife (Arline has FORMER wife, too---occupational hazard for bus drivers?) in Hay River, so there goes my fantasy of his tense-muscled legs and narrow hips and pretty mustache-fringed smile. I almost doze on way back but for dust studies, taking some photos, and we get back on schedule at 4:30. I buy stamps at PO and find movie is "Thunder Country" at 8 and back to pay bill and put stuff away and take shower and decide to write Edgardo a letter and eat second can of Vienna sausage (first for lunch on bus with V-8) and cans of juice and box of saltless Canadian Triscuits by Cristie Co., and do some lightwork until 7:45, and decide I'm just too TIRED to go to a movie I really don't want to see anyway, so I go to BED at 8. Recall dream of 6/16 of trying to fix poached eggs prettily on a platter, but some break, so I put them all in cups like snail cups, but bottoms are too raw and runny, so I toast muffins that end up toasted only on one side, so I figure I can put them under a broiler, but I realize MOST strongly and with MUCH feeling of frustration that I'm NOT cut out to be a fancy chef---for one thing I don't have the TOOLS. THAT dream stays in my mind but I can't remember the DETAILED dream---sexy, too---I had LAST night when I woke at 4, then at 5, then at 6, then at 7, surprised that I NEEDED 11 hours sleep.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18. Up and NOW (not before) eat second sausage for BREAKFAST and pack stuff up and get stuff sorted and find to my disgust that I THREW AWAY (or forgot) the MAILING LIST! Remember Edgardo's as Via dei Mille 10, so I write that on and send it off. All ready at 8:45 and take off walking up road and attract a large flock of GNATS that make breathing pesky, and I actually have to cough one up that I sucked down my THROAT. Sweater comes off at bridge and I'm sort of sorry I didn't call a cab, but walking feels pretty good. To terminal at 9:20 and it's 8 minutes late and then it arrives and I board in left front seat and put bag BEHIND, and take lots of pictures on the 10-10:25 flight across Great Slave Lake, land, lake, islands, and mainland, then off plane to grab cab to Con Mines, which one guy says is the only one offering tours, and the UNDERGROUND tour left at 9:30 and I'm at 10:45, so I sign up for the above-ground tour at 3, and back to cab to Prince of Wales Museum, getting receipt for $11.60, and it's CLOSED on Wednesday! Walk through back of town and find library but it's only open 1:30-4:30 and 7-9, so I (glad I left bag at Con!) walk out toward Old Town and Latham Island and past plane rentals and Indian village SMELLY from open sewers and climb rocks on farthest-north island and take pictures, avoiding blue house driveway and walk back to Wildcat Cafe, which looks VERY busy, and up to Bush Pilot's Monument to take more pictures and down for GREAT lunch at CROWDED local place: cream of potato soup with bannock, a hard-coated combination of a muffin and a roll, toasted bacon and cheese sandwich (and I underline BANNOCK in my Watts book this afternoon!), and strawberry milkshake all for $4.50+50 tip. Out at 1:15 and decide to hitch JUST as woman who LIVES in the blue house comes past to see her daughter's music program at school and leaves me off on "10 minute walk" road past lovely rocks and bushes to WRONG part of Cominco grounds, and I walk back up, developing blister on left heel, getting bandaid from girl at 2, and wash up and want to write a bit when they give me brochure on mine that I read till 3, and then I get hard hat and we're off to crushers and evaporators and cyclones and slurries and concentrators and pregnant tanks with cutie from Edmonton and his girl and a couple of Germans who don't understand English. Lots of pictures of slurries and screws of ball-rolling machines and a few of CUTE guide, and out at 4 to get a ride into town to NWT bus, which is CLOSED! DAMN! To library just at 4:25 to leave bag and search out theater that shows "The Rose" and "Tom Horn" tonight at 7, and then I try to find place to SIT that's not a BAR, and end up on a real estate office chair from 4:30-6 with a plump girl with a cough that isn't made better by her smoking and talking to friends constantly on the phone, and I get a cup of water and a copy of the Yellowknifer, which is mostly ads for Mad Raven Days that start tomorrow at 10 pm and go through the Solstice Weekend. Write this all down by 5:40 and have to decide what to do next: bar? wander? shop? And at 7: movie? library? Then eat at 9 and wander MORE till 12, when the bus leaves? NOT a very hospitable town, and LESS to do here than MOST places. Car was $25/day, but hardly any place to GO but for camping and fishing. COULD read, but don't FEEL like it. Silly to see a movie I don't CARE for, however! Fantasized dropping in on woman in blue house and saying "HELP!" Movie's at 7 AND 9, so I can do BOTH! So I stand on a street corner from 6-7 (after pricing some Eskimo stuff for $30 for TINY junk to the $200's for ANYTHING decent, none of which appeals to me), and some NWT guys DO look good: HANDSOME masculine faces, GOOD tanned arms and LOTS of bare chests with NICE pectorals. Not that they look GAY at all, but some are NICE to look at. I have to keep reminding myself of what I want: though OTHERS may treasure polar-bear-shaped NWT licenses and Inuit sculptures, I don't have to! Read my own book 7-8:40, up to movie house to wash my face and see "villanous" Tom Horn 9-10:45, a good time-passer, and have perfectly AWFUL ribs (hunks of bone with bits of meat and gristle attached) and get to finally-open bus station at 11:40 to get on bus with lots of Indians at 12---the sun's already set by 10:50 but the sky REMAINS ruddy through the ENTIRE "dark."

THURSDAY, JUNE 19. Giggly gals smoke constantly, all of 13, and I stare at waning light to Rae and Edzo at 1:30, car headlights lighting all the KIDS bright-eyed about at that time---they're healthy looking but HOW? Doze a bit on road, looking at lovely-eyed fellow whose pack had lain trustingly in front of the station, and then there are two buffalo that dash off the road too fast for a picture. Sky lightens and sun comes up before we get to ferry at Fort Providence, where I take a few pictures, and then stare out at gentle hills and woods to Enterprise, where I grab a bacon and egg sandwich to finish on the bus down to Peace River. Looked through schedules standing on corner last night to find I CAN get to Vancouver by 3:15 pm and NOT ride for 24 hours AND take new roads: by riding to Edmonton by 10:45 tonight. Start chatting with Ian Stalker, who makes time go faster as I stare into his hazel eyes and listen to his 20-year-old voice crack and look at his incredibly hairy arms and legs, which he rather tends to stare at like a kid suddenly overwhelmed by an adult body. Talk of travel and firefighting and cigarettes and smoking and families and job opportunities and Montreal and New York City. Forgot: saw a bear, small and brown, run across road in Buffalo Park this morning while Ian slept. Chicken soup for sore throat at Peace River, where I take photo of STATUE of 12-foot Davis, and he looks for Edmonton paper for want ads. It rains a lot, "dampening" his hopes of getting back to fighting forest fires, which training had given him a free helicopter ride in Alberta. Bus is so crowded they have to put on a second one, and the stop at Whitewater is at a Chinese-American restaurant with such an awful menu that I walk down the hill to have a VERY small fish filet in a sandwich that's zappy with raw onion, which gives me no ill effect. Last part of ride is mostly conversationless, as we're tired and all talked out. LOTS of kids on bus making INCREDIBLE ruckus: crying, fretting, shouting, playing loud games, banging on windows and sides of bus, sneezing. Awful! Hope to get in early, but sun sets and we wheel through traffic and some buildings reflect light in west and we pull in about 10:10 and Ian goes off to check messages at youth hostel and we agree to correspond through Whitehorse General Delivery, where he's maybe visiting a friend (girl) of his sister's. Over to Y and they have $12.50 semi-bath (sink and toilet) and $14.50 full bath (and who wants a Y without a common shower?). Shower with GREAT relief (but bath is a disaster: one shower only cold, no shower HEADS, just PIPES) and shave and squeeze 3 pimples and survey single mosquito bite from NWT and get wake-up call in for 7 and bed at 11:45, later than I would have thought. To sleep instantly.

FRIDAY, JUNE 20. Wake at 6 to piss and drink water for my still-sore throat and instantly BACK to sleep and be jarred awake by 7 am phone. Pack and out and on bus (Up early at 7 and out later at 7:35 and to cafeteria at 7:40 to be IGNORED. However, my idleness puts me only 27 on line for the 47-seat bus to Calgary at 7:45 that boards at 7:50 and is finally first-called at 7:52, as I get on to find all right windows taken, so I squeeze in on a woman sitting at aisle and she immediately moves and I'm alone for a moment before another woman joins me.) and BEAUTIFUL rolling countryside down to Calgary, but nothing REALLY to take a shot of. Hawks sitting picturesquely on two fence posts. Nonstop express stops only 3 times: once in outskirts to pick up passengers, once in middle for driver to check tires, once in Calgary outskirts to drop off a woman who refuses to hear driver warning her he wouldn't stop here again. LOTS of cows and bulls and horses of various colors, farms, roads, towns, and ride gets in a bit late at 11:25, my right side chilling from constant air blowing on side that makes me glad I have sweater on. Into cafeteria for a bacon-and-egg and fruit plate that's TASTY, and the seat has a GREAT crotch-level view out over sidewalk and there are GREAT sights of BIG-chested fellows, lots of them tanned and shirtless, lots in shorts, and GREAT jeans and crotches and heads and faces. Out at 11:50 and find I'm 12th in line ALREADY formed for Vancouver and stand and write and keep in front of old man who keeps trying to edge me out and PANIC when they announce they're forming a SECOND line for SOME destinations! If MY Penticton is called LAST after all others have moved UP, I'm sunk for a good seat! But the call is for Kelowna alone and about half move over and my bus is for Penticton and beyond. Whew! Pushy guy gets out of way and they start calling people to desk at 12:20 and luggage slows some down so much that I'm SECOND on bus, choosing 3rd seat back because bus seems NEWER and LONGER (collected three rocks from MacLeod River), though still with 47 seats, and it's WARM inside so I take off sweater and spread stuff over seat next to me and finish with this at 12:25, ready to GO. Used 11 of 20 coupons in bus pass in 8 days, so I MAY need a new BOOK, particularly if I take short trips to Victoria and New Westminster from Vancouver. Family of 3 to left chews potato chips loudly, speaks French, and gurgles drinks from cans and moves from 3 seats to 2 and back and forth and back and forth among them. Did great lightwork session with dome, working with sexual desire and past trauma, and feel good about the way the rest of the trip is structured (Ameripass and north) and free. Off at 12:37, unsat next to! Next stop Banff! The International Building has 36 flavors; cafe "Daddy's Money." GREAT mountains from FAR away. Pictures 15 and 16 TRY to get all the contrasts: busy ugly Banff, beautiful scenery and tourists all jostling up next to each other---missed a FABULOUS chest, hairy, just through plain SHYNESS to snap as he passes in front of my lens. Have to LEARN. Fifteen-minute stop starts 3 minutes early and ends 9 minutes late, more people getting on, so I continue to write and spread as much of myself out as possible, though it looks like ALL seats will be taken. IMPOSSIBLE to get good SMALL picture of hills---either they're wide enough but too SMALL, or high enough and too WIDE to get scope of them in, or too CLOSE to get a vista or too FAR to get details or the sun's not out or trees or poles or limestone mining plants are in the way, and everyone gets on, including someone with the shoes-on-seat guy in family, and there are only about 3 empty seats on bus and I have ONE of them, busily writing in my book. The chests are so DEEP here and the arms and shoulders and pectorals so well developed it'd be a PITY if very few were gay and residents would eat their hearts out. INCREDIBLE muscle builder types, one admittedly softish, the other SWOONINGLY wide of shoulders and thin of waist and narrow of hips and THICK of chest in a purple pullover and not-too-tight pants. There was the red-shirted Adidas guy with the PACK straps pulling back on his arms to show his chest. Shortish guy with FABULOUS legs spreads them as he sits on a fence and sprawl his knees about 3 feet apart, and more people board at 2:35 (this'll be a bitch to type, but worth it if it works keeping people away from my seat), and it seems to work: 2 people thrown off, more on, only woman in front of me (with a choice window, but she's FAT), and one with a space, and at 2:39 it's worked. LOTS of hitchhikers who look like they've been there a LONG time. More and more shaded slopes, one burnt out above, logged out in middle, OK below. Field produces a partner for me, a locomotive engineer from Revelstoke. Road through canyon to Golden is SPECTACULAR. (Record for food freebies in Glacier Park restaurant: 2 cream and 4 sugars for pot of tea; 5 salts and 5 peppers; 2 tartar sauce for fish and 5 butters; 2 for roll and 3 for potato, and 2 crackers for soup!) He's a GREAT informant of old rail routes, ice and snow and rock slides, train disasters, weather characteristics and local color. Pity he gets off at Revelstoke, when I set watch back a THIRD hour. Probably 2 more to go? And I threw out my time-change map, too! Mountains are great to look at as they get lower and lower and are interspersed with almost Italianate lakes which they soup up to look like Germantown. We get in VERY early to Vernon and Kelowna, but they're declared half-hour stops so I sit and sulk and do lots of Golden Javelins in lightwork. Sadly dark on the last lap, but lights show the boundaries of hills and lakes and the precise first-quarter moon lights up horizon constantly. Into Penticton JUST at 11 and across to Three Gable Hotel to try dickering for room less than $24.15, but he gives me an extra $5 in change, I remark "only 10 on the dollar?" and he looks at 1.12 conversion and comes up with 60, which I take to be the ADDED amount, so I'm happy. When I get to my room (after demanding to be CHANGED from in front where 3-4 girls were hollering to passing cars) I find: window broken and letting in breeze around frame, horrendous rumble (air conditioner on roof above me?) and no shower! Hot bath feels good, however; guy PHONES for $5.40 MORE, which he slips under door. Bed at 11:50.

SATURDAY, JUNE 21. (Four GLIDERS soaring in clouds over mountains in Hope.) Wake at 5 (again!) and then at 6 and lay till about 7:15, obviously wanting no more sleep---yet not concerned about day. Jerk off gently and shoot a good deal (first since last Thursday in Winnipeg?) (Good for higher: locomotive engineer as partner to Revelstoke; new bus for Vancouver at Penticton; room with sink and toilet at Edmonton (boo on no Price of Wales Museum) that feels good. EXERCISE, then, and repack and get phone as it rings at 9, then down to station for a real MOB scene: they say you MUST wait inside (after I wait outside 1/2 hour) and there are 3 Vancouver expresses. There ARE, and they announce one for NEW passengers and I'm on SECOND, for third right seat, and we drive past more of lake and LOTS of nice scenery too BIG for the camera, but I take 5-6 anyway! Woman across from me chats at lunch and for the REST of the 3 hours we talk of Amy, travel, the Hope slide, forest fires, "Something happening in 80's or 90's" Mt. St. Helens (she felt BOTH the Hope slide AND MSH in Penticton) and her daughter's and her adventures on an unspoiled island north of Fiji, her good tour and the 5 or 6 Andsonassan Islands "up and to the right," and LOTS of other things. Meet her daughter and her husband at terminal and we chat and they tell me whole thing: airport bus from Hotel Vancouver for $3.50, YMCA down street, information booth where it nicely IS, and they say the dome of St. Helens is building AGAIN 20 feet/day and WILL go, and they can't get NEAR it. I give them my card and they write things for me, as they CAN call me at Y for anything. Get good brochures for great Vancouver (and BC information for the rest) and pass CPAir and ask "Where's Pacific Western?" and they say: "Down five doors, hurry, they close at 4" and I get there and they say flight IS going, but can't call desk for me (which might be good, see later), so I check into shop they mention for prices, and they're ALL too much: $85-400 for prints, $80-xooo for sculptures. Up to Y and he says I CAN check in at 8 am for THAT night for $12, and I see money changer for 1.145, highest yet, so I get $229 for $200 and get to airport to find rate of 1.1605. Lose $3. Ask standing airport bus "Are you next?" and get on and he leaves IMMEDIATELY, city feeling better and hotter than reported 18 C or 66 F. Leave at 4:30 and get there at 4:55, past elegant Granville Avenue mansions, and find NO ticket at counter, but she says Goligers will be here at 6:15. So I sit and write this till 5:30, washing face and hands and glasses and ogling lots of NICE bodies. Let's hope Vancouver is nicely GAY, too. May stay HERE awhile, resting up for more bus by 6/28. Just lovely faces, chests, arms, crotches walking airport and airport johns, though I guess NOT cruising. Flo's into color-numbers on bus: 1=white, 2=black, 3=gray, 4=blue, 5=red, 6=yellow, 7=green or something, and when I say 12 she says "White and black" and I say numerologically that's 23 AND her gray, but I try 15 and she says white and red-pink, and 6 is decidedly yellow for her. Pity. At 5:35 begin to get antsy for 7:15 flight and a LONG night. Read the paper that someone left and there's not much in entertainment going on in Vancouver. Decide to STAND at desk at 6:05. He comes at 6:20, no ticket; returns at 6:30, TICKET, but seats assigned at gate 8 and I'm almost LAST through at 7 pm, getting 3D (on aisle, remarking that it's my ACTUALISM group number), and on plane at 7:10 next to Jim and Vivian Robertson from Nanaimo, who let me change seats over North Vancouver and I KEEP it to Inuvik! Cloudy, then clear, but LOTS of snowy peaks, rivers, roads, straight carved seismic lines for oil drilling, clouds, and midnight sun and really TASTY dinner of char and carrots and mashed potatoes and wine and coffee and cognac and cheese. Land at 11:35 (their time, after 3 hours and 10 minutes) and bus starts at 11:57.