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1984 1 of 3

My journal from 1984 is not as detailed or day-by-day as before; I just want to get the BASIC journal pages on the website. For missing days, I've included LIFELIST at the end of the year to supplement journal entries.

1/4/84: "HUDSON RIVER GOTHIC" (ALL these are on the EAST bank): l) Bannerman's Castle in Beacon, exploded in the l940's; 2) Boulder Castle in Cold Spring; 3) Dick's Castle in Cold Spring, across from West Point, now abandoned; 4) Glenburn in Rhinebeck; 5) Woodcliff, a ruin, as is Fink's Castle in Rhinebeck, with no floors; 6) Ogden Mills Mansion, OPEN by NYState, in Statsburg, three miles south of Rhinebeck, a Stanford White 80-room mansion; 7) Zabriskie House, now an 85-room administration building of Bard College, as is Blythewood; 8) The Locusts, in Statsburg, next to Mills Mansion: l940s Art Deco, changed hands last week; 9) Sylvania, just changed hands; l0) Roqueby, the Astor country mansion from l8l5, by Livingston family---William Astor WAS the richest man in the world when he built it, but it's not rich: gloomy now. There are THIRTY contiguous estates in 20 miles along the Hudson: Vanderbilt in the south to southern Columbia County, each 400-500 acres, the largest unbroken chain of estates in the country. ll) Ward Manor Gatehouse, again Bard College; l2) Morningside is on the WEST side of the river; l2) Mandara is 85 rooms, just changed hands for $7.5 million; l3) Wilderstein (Daisy Sucley), just south of Rhinebeck, is MOST atmospheric, WILL be preserved, built in 1850s and 1870s.

1/7/84: 2:45AM: Such an INSANE intensity of feeling that I MUST write. Though I must be up in under 7 hours to wash and eat and get to Actualism for an X-out at llAM this morning, though I spent time this evening---BECAUSE I spent time this evening doing exactly what I wanted to do, I lay in bed and felt such an INTENSE well-being that I had to SPREAD it over this screen in writing, NOW! Having spent a splendid evening with Joe Easter seeing "The Basileus Quartet" and having dinner at his Chinese restaurant-find on Elizabeth Street and chatting amiably on the street and on the subway---I find I have such FUN with him, and laugh so AGREEABLY with him, and can't even put myself down with him in jest without his stating that I'm BETTER than that, and KNOW it. And how good THAT makes me feel! Then I'm home to jerk off to porno, and feel GREAT about that, and think of Allegra phoning to say she's moved back to the Bronx, that Andre's coming back to NYC, ANOTHER good friend, and my mind moves back over Paul Bosten and HIS liking and praise for me, and tomorrow's events of X-out and "Nicholas Nickleby" (which I've seen already, another reason to be happy) and a party at Marcia's, where I may meet someone new, and how my feelings now about HER apparent liking for me blends with my memories of MADGE'S liking of me that Joe reminded me of when he recalled what I had TOTALLY forgotten: our day with her four-year old cousin at the Bronx Zoo, and I think of pleasure of the Bronx Zoo, and the Zoo in Central Park, and ALL the good times I've had in NYC, and then back over my scanning of "The Recognitions" which I READ lots of to get me to bed late, and ALL the good books that I've read, and the notes I've taken about them, and the time I've put into them, though I have no one to talk about them, and would like to jerk off with someone to the porno (though I recall MANY sexy evenings with Rolf, and then his help on the stock market), and this sort of exfoliating eventful HAPPINESS is so fillling (Mimsy Farmer in the movie! Marty Sokol on the street telling of a Flatbush restaurant that offers good opera, even to the only NYC production of the ORIGINAL (whatever that means) version of "Tales of Hoffman", and I think now of opera, and ballet, and plays, and movies (though I've completely FORGOTTEN many of them) and the people I HAD and the person I now LACK, and all the HAPPINESS piles up against all the UNHAPPINESS and it might even be the CONTRAST that throws all things into a pot to be looked at with such agonized amazement that I just HAVE to sit down and spill them out to LOOK at them (if not now, later). And James and the trip to Egypt, and continuing amazement with Actualism, and reading, and reading OF Barth, whom I read and love; and Updike, whom I've read and outgrown; and then the pleasure with the COMPUTER (and I flick through changing to a new page, updating the contents-page, and STILL I think there should be a more efficient way of doing it, yet how AMAZINGLY efficient it all NOW IS (and I even, now, think of something that had been puzzling me: how to check alphabetic corrections in a small piece of text, and of course I can block OUT huge sections from consideration with the "skip checking" characters!), and what a PLEASURE it is to work with, and the indexes I've done, the indexes I'm to do, and the money I'll earn and the pleasure I'll have spending it---and my network of friends even seems somehow PROOF that the world won't explode in the next few years---almost as optimistic as Teillhard de Chardin in his book that I'm currently reading: I have (I again think) so MANY things to be proud to HAVE DONE: traveled and collected books and studied and read and written and known people---and yet contrasted comes the NEED to share all this wonderfulness with SOMEONE (and debated telling Jon tomorrow that I just want to HOLD him and talk with him and share LIFE with him), and then I feel SAD that I don't have the someone, but someone WILL COME, and it feels almost good to ANTICIPATE the arrival, and the WAITING is fun, and the joy of watching stuffed blue-jeans on subways returns, and everything is full and satisfying---and all this without even having DRUNK or gotten HIGH in any artificial way except being HIGH on life itself--though methinks there might be the slightest bit of manic-depression, or hyper-some-enzyme-tion, in all of this, and by 3AM I'm sort of written out, hoping I've captured the elation AND the sadness of the moment, but most of all the RICHNESS of life, not even having MENTIONED Dennis and his plays, and Arnold and his interests, and Pope and his machines and astrologies, and other friends, and other interests, and other travels, and souvenirs and slides and newspapers and puzzles successfully solved, and tomorrows stretching out in more pleasure, and how I'll probably weep with mixed frustration, elation, and sadness in today's session, starting only 8 hours from now, with Jon. Marvelous, and yet more marvelous, and IS this my style, and WHO will read it---and I have to hark BACK to my "conviction" that, after my death, I WILL BE READ, which THOUGHT may profit me more now than any ACTUAL reading (and extolling to the SKY) of my writing in the FUTURE could ever HOPE to profit me--since NEVER in my WILDEST fantasies of time do I think of it as being RETROACTIVE, and that anything that WILL happen could ever ACTUALLY benefit me now (should I try to imagine my next lover's touches, kisses, appreciations, beauties?) That way DOES lie sadness! Yet I DO want to end this on a POSITIVE note: the ONLY note: THAT I HAVE DONE this, which is why I got OUT of bed 20 minutes ago, and to which I now return!

1/11/84: The Brooklyn Nobody Knows: the SPEAKER is awful, but some of his TEXT is interesting: H.G.Wells and Sigrid Undset lived in the Margaret. The St. George TOWER opened last, in l929. The Bossert has been bought by Jehovah's Witnesses, but had Rudy Vallee in the MARINE Room on the top in the 30s and 40s, closing in l949. Where the lousy Chinese place on my BLOCK (on Henry just off Clark) is, was the ORIGINAL Patricia Murphy's Candlelight Restaurant. In l9ll the first trans-US flight took off from Brighton Beach RACETRACK! Floyd Bennett field had the LONGEST concrete runways when it opened.

1/12/84: Mom makes me so MAD when she says I'm not coming to take her to the hospital because I'm busy, that I copy down a LIST of things I HAVEN'T done:
l) Actualism meditation, 2) gym, 3) showered more than 3x/week, 4) washed dishes more than once a week, 5) swept since Mom here in November, 6) looked at recent mail, 7) phoned friends, 8) changed bedclothes, 9) washed hair, l0) washed clothes, ll) gone to bank and had to BORROW cash, l2) get body sessions, l3) mailed bills, l4) checked stock statements, l5) scrubbed kitchen, or l6) cleaned the toilet ONCE. Though I must admit that TODAY I managed to clear up lots of the mail and put LOTS of things in order. It DOES feel GOOD!

1/18/84: Manhattan and Brooklyn: had 1,000,000 (largest) and 600,000 (3rd) people, respectively, in l883. Nothing more interesting was worth noting! In the evening the trio mentioned that the War Memorial was having a gallery opening on January 26, and that the famed Rookery Building in Chicago got its structural steel from a manufactury in Brooklyn. Nothing more THERE, either!

2/7/84: Dr. Lobsang Ratgay at Swedish Massage Institute, from 9:40-10:45 AM. Symptoms are SUBJECTIVE to patient experience. SIGNS (labels) are OBJECTIVE to doctor's TRAINING. "Human aspect may be missed." Living, in east, is RELEASING from TRAPS of LABELS. ALWAYS look for HUMAN aspects of DISorder. Buddhism says: without images, mind functions NATURALLY. FORM of music (for example) not AS important as Evoked Emotion. Sound (of bell) EPITOMIZES CHANGING TERMINATION-LEADING life-flow. LIBERATION may produce a sense of VOID that you may not be READY for in the ABSTRACT, so COLORS keep you in BALANCE---used in letters: RED letters may GROUND you. Meditation LIMITED in Buddhist training. WEST doesn't accept NONEXISTENCE of ego. EAST wants to BRING ego to NONEXISTENCE(void,above). Buddhism: ego is a LABEL. A label "flower/rose" comes from WORDS, arising from intentions to express CONCEPTS. But "intend" and "concepts" only from EGO. And "I" am only a CONCEPT of the EGO. So you ATTACH to ego and GENERATE concepts. 3 types of medicines: folk, materialistic (he named about 15 in 3 categories: pills vary from 6 to 88 ingredients. Single ingredient has ACUTE action, neutralized by SECOND ingredient, with ITS acute action, neutralized by THIRD... In spiritual medicine, you work with SUBTLE aspects of energy field. These deal with chakras and centers and 72,000 energy fields. Three humors from Indian Ahura(?) Vedas (to Tibet in the 5th Century)--"having exchange programs": Alexander's GREEK doctors left influences, PERSIAN doctors traveled with Alexander also. Around 11th Century, king of Tibet decided WHAT was included and NOT included. PULSE comes from CHINESE, as do 5 yin/yang elements. Dietary care and medications come from Indians. 3 humors are wind (air of 5 elements), bile (fire of 5 elements), phlegm (water of 5 elements), and other elements are energy field and external influences. Humors in BALANCE = HEALTH; Humors OUT of balance = DISease. External influences INCLUDE non-human beings. "Buddhism not a RELIGION by an INTROSPECTIVE EXPERIENCE. Buddhism DUALISM: Mahayana is MORE frightening and MORE positive: "It takes a thief to catch a thief." Therefore, ENGAGE in desire and hatred to USE them to transcend them. TANTRA is to ENGAGE in sex to TRANSCEND it. HINAYANA seeks "To avoid the negative by becoming a monk, like I am." Sharp edge of the monk's orange petticoat is POINT OF VISDOM: what I am to DO. Monks have 2200-2300 vows---"if you did them all you couldn't SURVIVE." There are four KEY states in which the clear light appears: 1) time of birth, 2) time of death, 3) time of sexual culmination, 4) time of soul-transfer. Mahayanists meditate on these to SIEZE the clear light and KEEP it. Tantrists create "perfect opposite" to desire for PRACTICING with. SIGNS appear only WITH levels of realization. "Hinayanists are more REALISTIC in living." "No state of mind can exist without physical basis: "gross wind supports brain-mind consciousness." SENSES for NO labels; brain-mind does. Brain-mind ONLY cognitive; NOT perceptive. Brain-mind controlled by SECONDARY emotions. FIVE chakras for "basics" and two more added for those who are advanced. "Mental is stained by thought process:" images. Two basic energies: heat more on right, action more on left. These two SQUEEZE central energy channels, forming NODES that must be LOOSENED to allow FREE flow of PURE MIND, can be done on MENTAL and PHYSICAL levels. "Train your mind to become aware of HUMAN ENERGY POTENTIALS in YOURSELF." Dualistic method works in Buddhism and in life. "No doubt you need a guide and teacher." TELL doctor what you WANT or DON'T want. If you cannot DIRECTLY express emotions in social or family environment, you CAUSE disease. "Be more human, compassionate, and REALISTIC." DISEASE has RIDDING and EDUCATION functions. LONG questions responded to with "Well, YOU KNOW....." "You feel you have no emotions left--- try this, not as a SPIRITUAL but a PRACTICAL technique: sit and concentrate on 1) your body, 2) thought process, 3) emotions, 4) mental objects (picture of someone). You KNOW you have a problem, you don't know what it is: concentrate on anyt of the 4) above; your thought will be DISRUPTED after a while; first mind is ALWAYS disrupted; ANOTHER mind, behind, is more stable and reliable, and comes FORWARD. Buddhism purifies body (mudra), mind (yantra), and speech (mantra). I'm amazed at how BEFORE I would have DISMISSED this as KNOWN or TRIVIAL; NOW, how RICH this is!!

2/12/84: Oh, how I want a PROGRAMMABLE color-computer organ to PICTORIALIZE such composers as Vangelis and Bach and Ravel and Berlioz and Bruckner!!

2/21/84: GREAT day DOING things: morning watching Pope's recorded "Comedy of Errors" (though the plot is SO silly! And Roger Daltrey looks more like Stan Laurel than anyone sexy), then quick scrambled eggs at home and lug bags of books to Elaine's before going to Lois for my last IF with her at 1 to 2:30, then deliver the McGraw-Hill index to 3, then to Radio Shack 3:l5 to 5:l5, getting no answers on PEEK or POKE, finding that Steve Wyman left in July, buying another games book that has biorhythm-programming, getting four addresses to write to for l) games for $50, 2) SORTQ for $100, 3) STAMPS for $5 for the listing, 4) lots of expensive programs in a $l catalog after scanning through the entire 500-page applications book. Then to NY Public Library 5:l5 to 6:45 for an exhibit on poet's manuscripts, AB Bookman's Weekly as an IMPOSSIBLE source of books because it needs desparately to be COMPUTERIZED and simplified, rather than company-by-company (though I find a place to send $1 for a vintage fantasy-paperback catalog), can't find "Indexing Books" by Ruth Canedy Cross, but find "Indexing Concepts and Methods" by Borko and Bernier, which isn't bad, though not really much on HOW to do it, but CLOSE to "my" book, and look at "Classification and indexing practice" by K.G.B.Bakewell, which has ONLY classification schemes, but GOOD. Then get to Molfeta's for dinner before "Stravinsky" at the Met with Hockney's sets the best part of "Le Sacre du Printemps/Rossignol/Oedipus Rex", and then home to finish reading Huxley's "Mortal Coils" and program and run BIORYT, so it's QUITE a DAY!!

2/23/84: Have a LOT of fun with COMPAT program. Have dates from biorhythms:
Arnold Bernstein 03,24,1929 and Pope Hill 05,19,1924 and me 03,30,1936; combos: Arnold and Pope 55%, Arnold and me 13%, Pope and me 39%. Then David Hoch calls (06,13,1943) and he and his new friend Steve come out 66.6%, the highest yet, with 100% cognitive compatibility. Then I try me and David, which is 54.2%, the highest for me yet, but then I get John Vinton (01,24,1937), and he and I have Physical at 100%, Sensitivity at 42.8%, and Cognitive at 87.9% for the highest average of 76.9%! Dennis Southers (07,31,1946) and I come out at 55.7%, while John and Dennis come out 69.2%. Me and Mom (05,01,1911) come out 55% with 100% Sensitivity (incredible!), and Mom and Pope are at 40%. GREAT! Tell Pope about it and go right over to see ESP program, take charts, etc.

2/26/84: Museum of Natural History exhibit of Silk Routes and Sailing Ships: the Chinese invented l) clocks, 2) gunpowder, 3) compass, 4) porcelain, and 5), as Dennis insists, spaghetti. Fantastic quote: "Constellations in the Middle East recorded EITHER as seen from the earth or in reverse as they might be seen from outside the celestial sphere." "....a hypothetical perspective outside the celestial sphere." HOW??! Why would they even THINK of portraying it FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF SOMEONE OUTSIDE THE KNOWN UNIVERSE?? God? Extraterrestrials? Or because they'd been DIRECTED to for some reason? The little (sometimes mislocated to WEST coast of India) island of Taprobane was known VERY early in history, appearing on maps as far back as 200BC, which EB happens to give as the date of the start of Ceylon's Classical Age.

3/2/84: Clothing giveaways: l) old "pink" overcoat, 2) raglan-shouldered black topcoat, 3) old khaki raincoat, 4) double-breasted blue suit (Maloof), 5) brown corderoy jacket (Dennis), 6) yellow corderoy shirt (Rita?), 7-10) "sexy" shirts (Maloof), 11) white pants (Barbara Lea), 12) "oldest" tailored green wool pants, 13) old huge-bell blue jeans, 14-19) too-small "sexy" pants (Maloof), 20-21) old Hong-Kong shorts, 22-27) old too-tight pants, 28) roll- neck shirt.
Clothing throwaways: 1) terribly ratty mackinaw, 2-5) actually torn pants, 6) actually torn-at-neck pullover---AND 19 "crease-producing" pants hangers and 28 regular hangers.

3/26/84: Make the earth-shattering decision to re-learn the numeric row on the typewriter according to the "sensible" way: NOT "left fingers on 2-5, right on 8--(why does the little finger have to be on dash? I ask myself, but quickly answer that in page RANGES the dash is actually used, on average, MORE than any other key!!! And again the "custom" that the typewriter is designed to be as SLOW as possible really becomes clear for my indexing: where the numbers are MOST used, like the 1 and -, they are at the EXTREMES, and if I put my FINGERS at the extremes, it'll be the WEAKEST LITTLE fingers that have the 1 and -, and in THAT position the 6 is TWO keys away from EITHER finger. But since now I'm really into typing SORT-FIELDS when I'm typing dates, I can NO LONGER rely on the "next-little finger on right hand" to get the lower-case L for a 1---not to mention freeing up lots of "not in the dictionary" entries for indexes. But I recall how LONG it took me to REARRANGE the indexcards from "A at top" to "A at bottom", and figure it will take even longer (maybe not, since it's only been since I've been ON indexes that I really decided to AUTOMATE the numeric row) to relearn NUMBERING. And now it seems quite definite that I'll only relearn the LEFT hand, since it's clear that the right little finger must still be kept EXCLUSIVELY for the -:---though when I "go" for it NOW, it's with that VERY overused "next-little finger on right hand!" (And in fact find that I send up the "next-little finger on LEFT hand when I want the !!!)

3/26/84: What I REALLY came here to type was about my INDULGENCE: First I wanted to work with stamps in preference to anything, and had to root myself away for work. Now stamps have been supplanted by what I've decided to call my LIFELIST (the combined date-order list of movies, plays, operas, restaurants, sex-partners, individual events, events, concerts, books, jobs (like indexes, but "I" has already been taken by individual events): had to get to an index today and just WANTED to CONTINUE with the lifelist. It'll take about a MONTH to finish with that, and then I can go back to stamps (I tell myself). But I'm not maintaining the things I SHOULD be doing: NOT doing lightwork practice and NOT going to the GYM!! But I can always hold out the hope that the lifelist will only be a priority for a MONTH, and stamps will only be a priority for a YEAR and I get "rid" of the $1000 purchase into five albums and plastic trays (which will make it EVER-AFTER easier to work with stamps), and then I can "settle" into KEEPING UP with exercising, lightwork, lifelist, stamps, and take care of the "current concerns" like learning the computer and doing major reorganizations of books and major repurchasing of laser-disk recorders and digitalized televisions and VCRs. Always something at the back of my mind, eh?

3/29/84: It's really 12:30AM on 3/30, but I'll call it 3/29. Finished the index I had to do and sent it in (whether the snow will let it get to Philly tomorrow is another matter entirely), and then spent most of the evening at Pope's watching his taped TV, and when I left he said admiringly "You really have made a great life for yourself." I gloried in that, and then when I came home and watched TV and phoned Camille Joslyn and watched my new porno and came and thought about wanting to go to the computer show, then to my OV T&R at 2:30 and then Hsu at 5, I felt the click that I DO have an incredible life: I CAN do what I want, just about when I want it, and now that I have the luxury of being "caught up" I can even ENJOY it (except that I think I MUST save all the files on the hard disk in case anything goes wrong (and try the idea of having a saved file of RENAMES which HELPS getting "stray" things saved, like making everything that's NOT GAMES/* and NOT */SCR have ONE NAME/*, so that TWO SAVEs will save everything except SCRIPSIT files); then finish the "edit index-files according to line-length; then catch the Chronicle up to date; then print everything; then learn the two Rosenberg books----not that much, ho-ho-ho! But for NOW it feels like everything's working (except having a close personal relationship, but it's been the LACK of that that's given me the TIME to keep caught up with everything! And maybe having done Lightwork the last two nights helps too, but I just HAVE to get back to exercising; and though it looks like I may soon be through with the dentist, obviously the acupuncturist is setting himself up for taking a LONG time. But the days go on, and I do and do, and it seems to get better and better SCHEDULE-WISE---now to get the right PERSON in!!

3/30/84: Had wanted to start notes on my acupuncture sessions BEFORE, but have to catch up NOW: Heard about him 3/11 from Arthur Ellenbogen and Pat Mandino between my bodywork slots at the center, then phoned Arthur (and GOT him) at JoAnne's on Tuesday or Wednesday and made an appointment on Saturday 3/17 at 1.
#1: Subways went very well and I got there 10 minutes early. Didn't care for the apartment (too bare and tatty), even though it was in the "EDEN Apartments" and thought the doctor was too young to know much and his circled ads in papers like the Village Voice didn't have much style. But he seemed competent finding the three pulses and did ear-acupressure with a spring-loaded probe (so he COULDN'T press harder on one spot than another) and said he found my kidneys and urinary system very weak (I told him about "frequency of urination"), and then found my liver weak (though he said my wine-drinking was OK, and made sure I ate "everything, not staying away from meat or ruining yourself with silly diets), and found me pained when he pushed on the point that corresponded to wrist, and then I said there was soreness BETWEEN two points, and he pointed to the chart on the wall and said that was the ELBOW, where I WOULD have gotten "arthritis-like pain" NEXT: he'd just been going up to test the ELBOW. Then he told me to take off my shoes, praised my loose pants (just by CHANCE I was wearing my flannel baggies), and took off my socks, then stuck needles into my calves, feet, and into the painful joint (on TOP of hand) between index and thumb, and into elbows. Then the WIFE came in and started doing moxibustion (but I couldn't look at the needles OR at the burning) on my thumbs, but she didn't get very hot with it and poured liquids into my hands. He sold me "$1 per day, but for the first two weeks you take it TWICE a day, so it's $30 for a two-week supply" something that he looked up to be "Lycium root" and something else flowery, saying to take two teaspoons in boiling water like tea. Then he told me of "$30 for first session, $25 for single sessions, but a rate of $200 for 10 sessions except the middle one is ALSO $30, so the rate is $210, so since I gave him $30 for the first (and $30 for the herbs) it would be $180 next time if I wanted the series, and that would just make sure I came, rather than taking the first four or five, getting "cured" and not coming back while not forming a firm BASIS for CONTINUED health." I felt relief ALREADY at my thumbs, so I figured I WOULD go back, and figured I'd see him next Tuesday.

#2: Tuesday started with the dentist at 11AM, so I waited until I was home at 1:30 before phoning and saying I could come at 3. This time the subways were delayed, and full of school kids (some of them SEXY), so I got there at 3:10. Another guy was in the bedroom so the wife started mox with me in the living room, and we started talking: she was born in Taiwan, in Tainan in the south, and I told her about my visit there in 1971, and he said SHE said I was easy to talk to, even though he had to translate often for her. Last time when I gave my birthdate he asked for the TIME of birth and I'd said 11:02AM and explained that was ONE HOUR BEFORE NOON, and they said NEXT time they'd have some astrological things to tell me, delighted that I knew my birth-time so PRECISELY. Well, this time I talked to POPE about how something could be SO positive that I grew suspicious that they were setting me up for some sort of CON job. When he called me in at 3:30 to take my pulses, he said they'd been talking together about me from last time: why was someone so attractive never married? I paused, looked at him, and said I was attracted toward MALES, and then couldn't look at him closely afterwards because he was SO positive about "of COURSE males are more attractive than females, it's only SOCIETY that tells us that we should go with women, but it's MUCH more intellectual and challenging to go with males" that I thought he might be trying to put the MAKE on me! THEN he talked about how "I would feel like a king" because HE was ministering to my BODY with NEEDLES (and he kept asking me to respond when he put the needles into me, but THIS time it was clear he wanted to know when he hit what I described as the "nerve" within, so that it felt like he jabbed an INNER IRON BAR, setting up an almost METALLIC throb and contact; and SHE would sit to the side and read in her books and total her numbers (just above my NAME on their form, so she may have been working with the letters in THAT, too) and tell me all the following (which I jotted in the back of "De Profundis" quickly afterward so I wouldn't FORGET): I would have an AFFAIR in 1984, would make money in 1985, money in CHUNKS in 1989, that I have "five good, then TWENTY good years coming up", that "marriage" would come up in age 57-61 (taking care to tell me that Chinese years have me one year OLDER), that I should wear METAL because I'm weak in it, that I should invest in REAL ESTATE (despite my early burn with a Florida condo that I told him about, which got into a discussion of "lucky times and unlucky times" and they talked about 1968-1975 as being an UNLUCKY time, but I said that I may not have been earning MONEY, but I was having a good TIME), and "before age 42, nothing; everything good comes in the 42 years AFTER that" and when I told him about my desire to live to be 105, he said "You already created it, so you can do ANYTHING you want to do." He also made me feel better by "agreeing" that it ISN'T arthritis I have, but now it's associated, not with my liver or kidneys like last time, but with my LUNGS, which are weak, and he starts using the phrase "easily tired," which I can agree to since ANY tiredness would be "easily tired" to me. She now tries TAPING sections of mox to my body---oh, and when she did it sitting UP I saw HOW she did it, of course, and it's not as "dreadful" as I would have thought.
He also insisted that SHE was only "one of three" people in world who could give a "magic number" from birth information: 842-814, and he asked for my social security number to compare, and he kept repeating that LATER in life would be MUCH better than early in life, both success and money, and gave me an I Ching trigram - - / - - / - - / - - / --- / - - which turned out to be #7, the ARMY (and Pope on Thursday let me select a RUNE which came out THE WARRIOR!), saying this is "all of me." About the number: if you BUY this, you may not win, but if you WIN, it will be WITH this number. And I said I understood! Also, I got out of there at 5, which ALSO impressed me a lot!

#3: Friday, 3/23: 2PM, got there on time, and he sold me mox sticks at $2, gave me starting fluid and burn-lotion that prevents burns completely, and pointed out the "life spot" four fingers below the navel, and what she called the "health spot" at the fourth-finger when the heel of the palm is on the top of the knee and the middle finger is on the point of the shin---feeling for the "weak spot" which feels to me like a small slice of skin removed. He worked on the same spots, again saying it was problems with lung and "easily tired," and getting me out so expeditiously at 3 that I complained to Pope that they were NOT treating me with specialness: so easily am I SPOILED!!

#4: Tuesday, 3/27: 5PM: a new subway car wouldn't open at Hunter's Point, and the crowds delayed the train so that I got in at 5:l5, but they didn't seem to mind, and she REALLY worked over my thumbs, giving me a BURN on the right one that lasted until Friday morning, and these needles were the STRONGEST, particularly one in the left wrist which he crowed about connecting to the PERICARDIUM, though he didn't particularly say WHY he was working there. Oh, in session #2, she ALSO said that pains in the thumb joints were associated with tensions in the back of the neck and cramps in the arches of the feet, both of which I could certainly verify. Also, each time I ENTER I use the john, and he sort of smiles knowingly, and many times I do it before I LEAVE. THIS time I say "well, now it's once a week?" and he says "No, you're not stabilized yet, I want to see you Friday," so I have to say 5PM again since I have a T&R with Rosanne at 2:30 which should be out at 4 or after. Rush-rush!!

#5: Friday, 3/30: 5PM: Get there as cute Britisher leaves with nice eye-contact and get in for Hsu to say I'm improving on lungs but KIDNEYS still weak---and I should EXERCISE my joints, too. Get usual needles in legs, below navel, which I don't feel (he says the stronger the needles FEEL the stronger I AM there), and this time in the BACK of my left wrist, not so strong as inside the wrist. His wife does more mox on thumbs, and he says I should come back on Tuesday, and gives me Astragalus (which look rather like barked tongue-depressors) for five parts and Angelica (a very thin mushroom-shape) for one part: boiled in three cups of water down to 1.5 cups, then drink one cup, leave 1/2 cup, then the next potion add 2.5 cups water and again boil to 1.5 cups, and do this two or three times, or until it doesn't taste anymore. Then "rest" one day between batches. Continue the powder in the AM and this before sleep. All increase CHI, which pushes the blood through the veins: he says my pains are because the blood isn't pushed "hard" enough. Reserve for 1PM Tuesday, but have to change.

3/31/84: 7AM: JOLT awake to woman saying "BOB!" again!?!

4/10/84: It seems like these past few days have been VERY IMPORTANT. There was a DOWN when being "caught up" went by the boards: I kept getting RETURNS from things that I'd sent out to GET caught up, and it was a struggle to KEEP caught up. There were UPS when magazines like two/sixteen arrived, and I found useful information at the Computer Show on 3/30. There was a TREMENDOUS up when I got the LIFELIST programs working and did the first few years, but then there was a DOWN when I figured how long it would take to catch up and KNEW that things like income taxes and indexes would prevent my finishing the LIFELISTS at once. Then I started feeling TIRED, really looking forward to the end of the ROUGH week April 2-8---keeping UP with the activities, but seeming to need lots of SLEEP: at least 8 hours, and even then I wouldn't REALLY feel like getting out of bed and was REALLY tired by the time I got to bed, sometimes at MIDNIGHT! I began to hope that the acupuncture was "turning me around" and that this was a temporary stabilizing process that would soon end. Then (to Jon's disappoint- ment) Curtis Hay didn't show up, which released me into Central Park to soak up some sun and people-watch (mainly thick joggers' thighs). It felt good to have time to do NOTHING, but I couldn't say I was RADIANT WITH JOY. Then the body- work went well enough, ate at Taco Villa alone and feeling it, and then back for a critical IF with Bruce: at one point he said I was TOTALLY rigid against change, and I felt myself on a pinnacle of aloneness. Told him that and he said "Tune into our unified immortals," and I got a RUSH of acceptance and joy which quickly passed, but I told him "You almost got me that time," and he referred to it later as "an incredible moment." Feel, as Jon said earlier in class, that I might be nearing a breakthrough. But Monday wasn't joyous either: spent a lot of time mooning over trips, debating taking the Amity tour to Helsinki, Leningrad, Moscow, and Kiev and phone Paul Bosten to ask if he wants to come, figuring I'll probably DO it. Then Tuesday (this) morning was a catastrophe in bed: still nursing the enormous blister on my left thumb that I gave myself last Wednesday, worried about the cough I seemed to get last night that was gone by this morning, still concerned about the cold-sore like lesion on my lip that started with the dental-floss slit LAST Tuesday, and felt what I HOPE is a temporary charley-horse but what FEELS like arthritis inside the cap of my right SHOULDER, which comes and goes in intensity as the ANAL PAIN comes back TWICE, not as intense as before but there nevertheless, and I REALLY FEAR that things are beginning to fall apart. Recall thinking that I wanted to live until I was 105, but the I that wanted to live that long was the young, vibrant, HEALTHY I THAT HAS SINCE VANISHED. No longer can I DREAM of thinking that "things are getting better and better." No way: things are DEFINITELY on the downhill slope, and even knowing how destructive that THOUGHT is, I can't think of an easy way of shaking it (well, then, think of a HARD way of shaking it!). And still I have to do the income tax BEFORE I get to the index BEFORE I get back to the LIFELIST BEFORE I can get back to stamps BEFORE I can truly start living from moment-to-moment, even reading such things as the Auel doublet that I wouldn't mind getting into. Though I keep reminding myself it's silly to think of the LIFELIST and STAMPS as "to be done," they remain more a DUTY than a PLEASURE, obstructing my way to "living for the moment ALWAYS."

4/15/84: Then---I think when I finish LIFELIST, then indexes, then stamps, then everything else---I CAN GET BACK TO WRITING!!
NEW first act in ACUPUNCTURIST'S office 1) Days of birth, sign, and background, 2) "I'm gay." 3) Wrongs and rights ofpast, and STRONG play on person who wants to LIVE FOREVER---THAT IS THE ULTIMATE CONFLICT IN ANYONE'S LIFE!!

4/19/84: IDEAS:
1) U.S. has in LITTLE (mugging/graffiti/crime) what it has in LARGE (Vietnam/ Nicaragua/Bay of Pigs/Salvador/Mexico)
2) We are AS BAD AS or worse than Russians in GOVERNMENT, yet we DO have more freedom AS INDIVIDUALS.
3) I so seldom GIVE (gifts/money/love/energy/good will), is it any wonder I seldom GET?
4) I FREEZE books, travel, slides, records, writing, then EXPERIENCE, then LIFE
5) How can I get anything MORE from KEEPING books THAN the pleasure I DID get when actually READING them?
6) Here, or there; IN my skin, or networking; now, or then; it's what a person IS DOING (helping, loving, being happy, hating, taking, pulling a trigger). NOT what's PLANNED, or what's THOUGHT, or HOPED, or ADVOCATED by GOVERNMENT.

4/22/84: Wake early and take notes on a number of indexcards:
CERTAIN FACTS SEEM IMPORTANT:
1) I've been seeking increased perception and not getting it. Sad&frustrating!
2) I've been seeking a close personal relationship and not finding it.Sad&frst!
So I think I must be doing something wrong. I want to find out what that is.
To pinpoint what I'm doing WRONG, I have to pinpoint what I'm DOING.
ONE problem: when I get INVOLVED with something (project, index, entertainment- blitz) I don't do enough SESSION (not enough "soul exercise.")
ANOTHER problem: I don't get enough PHYSICAL exercise.
CAUSE of BOTH problems: I give PRIORITIES to what I WANT to do (projects, entertainments), not what I "should" do. So NOW I look to CHANGE priorities!?
DEEP MEDITATION TO CORE:
1) I HAVE seen and DO see my PURPOSE IN LIFE:to EXPERIENCE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.
2) DEATH is so FEARFUL because it ENDS life and CUTS SHORT its PURPOSE for me.
3) When I FORGET a) What I said to Sue Lieber, b) a book I read, c) a movie I saw, d) a person I met, I HAVEN'T FULFILLED MY PURPOSE, since to BE an experience, it must be REMEMBERED. MEMORY is crucial to life's EXPERIENCE ( and experience's LIFE).
LOSS of memory of an experience is loss of life of the experience. So I FEAR memory-loss AS life-loss.
4) My CONTROL airms at KEEPING life of BODY and MEMORY.
5) PEOPLE are one KIND of experience. TRAVEL is ANOTHER kind. I want to SEE EVERYPLACE and SELECT a few to RETURN to. It's a WASTE of time and energy (a waste of LIFE)(so LIFE=TIME+ENERGY) to RETURN to a place where I've EXHAUSTED the EXPERIENCE. it's a waste to stay near people (Sue Lieber) I've...explored? drained? grown to dislike?
6) With THIS aim to life, I think I would WANT to perceive more; but I may FEAR to perceive ANYTHING which would INVALIDATE my PREVIOUS experiences. I welcome what is MORE, EXPANDED, WIDENED, DEEPENED (but I don't welcome jazz or blues as being SHALLOW and limited and restricted). Bruce Jaffe's EXPANSION (be at Actualism a lot) seems TO ME a CONTRACTION, as opposed to RUSSELL'S implication to "Get out and LIVE." Carol Ann's "Our Father" seems to me to be "return to limitations of CHILDHOOD. PTM is different in that I may a)FEAR to see that I can AFFECT worldwide suffering (then I'd have to devote my life to it? Suffer to serve? Limit my PERSONAL experiences? Do I fear "Can't watch a movie, I should be PROCESSING?

4/23/84: COULD IT BE? Seem to realize I HAVE been perceiving! In the past, when I felt alone, or angry, or fearful in an IF, I assumed that BRAIN-
MIND AT PHYSICAL was feeling that, and I was frustrated, trying to look ELSEWHERE (emotional body at subatomic, for example), and "feeling nothing." But IF I AM at emotional subatomic, what I'm feeling is what IS at Emotional subatomic!! Bruce SAID that, but I didn't UNDERSTAND it til NOW. Didn't realize PRECISELY what "denial" was---I wasn't denying THAT something's going on, I was denying WHERE it was going on!

4/25/84: Again, a list forms: 1) Clip toenails, 2) Take laundry out, 3) Watch "Gambit", 4) Phone John Connolly, 5) Do painting bits, 6) Finish Hematology index, 7) Get TRSDOS 4.2 pages xeroxed, 8) Check stuff at library, 9) Take Silver Palace poster to George, 10) Eat Brunch at Silver Palace, 11) Write Micro: OK with 4.2?, 12) Write BDLOAD, OK with 4.2?, 13) Put up perimetron, 14) Catch up on chronicle, 15) Separate parts of LIFELIST, 16) Learn Micro program, 17) Install TRSDOS 4.2, 18) Read and do two basic books, 19) Write Paul McLean new summer dates, 20) Write JJ: I guess no Bayreuth, 21) Dryclean gray pants, blazer, and jackets, 22) Wash windows, 23) Do Lauren's quickie index, 24) Lunch with Lauren, 25) Vacuum, 26) See Rolf's computer, 27) See Nathan's office, and I manage to get rid of one a day til 5/2, taking it down to 19, and 9 deal with the computer.

5/1/84: Things somewhat better since April 10: I DID finish the taxes (though I couldn't pay ALL the estimated because I didn't have enough cash, but I could "fib" around that easily enough by simply ESTIMATING LOW, and making up for it later---leaving a $2600 burden for the three quarters left---which is actually OK by me), and DID finish the Hematology index last night, even WITH a second "wraparound", this time seemingly from an electric "glitch" (see CHRONICLE), and DID finish the Auel duo (not to mention "The Watcher" from Susan and a lot of "Kalki" this morning from 2:05AM to 3:55AM, though only getting 90 pages done in 100 minutes, lots of underlining. Up at 11:10 and record the dream, then review the last notebook section to find with relief that health is better: no more anal pain, no more shoulder-cap arthritis, no more lip-sore, no more ear-acupuncture to make sleep uncomfortable, and even the blister is finally going, being left dry the last few days. I'm troubled to see the blister-area ITSELF oozing and crusting, but the rash-area is much better and I feel it should now all be left DRY to just GO AWAY. Lots of things DONE---even managed to get all the LIFELIST input before the index, though I'm still looking forward to SEPARATING the lists. Came up with another DO list because there was so much hanging over, but 7 of the 27 items are already gone and 9 of the remaining 20 are really all "computer learning," so it's not that bad---though I'm AGAIN "list-fixt" as I don't care to be. But I have a few days before the Automotive index needs to get going, so things will get out of the way before the Washington weekend---though the day after tomorrow is my last "free" day before the trip! Things DO MOVE, don't they??

5/2/84: Limbo, nowhere. That's rather how I feel. "Kalki" ended in such a "nowhere," so that's partly explainable. After the orgy of movies and TV yesterday, though, and after finishing the book, I'm left with nothing to do (but eat and shit and finish the index and deliver it before the ASI meeting tonight, having a care to get the mail and phone Hsu as I have to), and the "nowhereness" of that gets to me. No index to do, so I can begin to catch up. But there is so much to do I hardly know where to start. Well, now with the pressures building, at least, first, SHIT! So that, then the mail (get through the May BYTE in record time), then lunch (pork chops just about the end of edibility), phoned Hsu and am "off the hook" until "I feel I need a tuneup." Now to the index-finish (manual editing only), but it's 2:25PM already! Guess I'd better SHOWER next to let my new-longer hair dry, so I'll shut this OFF.

5/2/84: ASI/ASIS meeting: Went because it was lots about microcomputers.
A. Barbara Preschel: Database from Scratch. Sub-files for abstracts, case histories, corporations, and resources. Tabled after 8 months PLANNING only.
B. Mauro Pittaro: Creating Engineering Databases. Engineering Index $1290/yr! 250,000 records in system, going on for 100 years. Controlled-vocabulary index + Keyword index + Free-text index - Citation index = Compendex, listed with 9 vendors. Conference index listed with 6 vendors.
C. Mary Tomaselli: WP Indexing. Uses Decmate2 WP, has to strip out redundant heads. "Publishers are asking if I can send index by modem." Saves 1/3 time, even though <se> and <te> for secondary and tertiary entries must be removed. DECSPELL has 70,000, she'll get it soon. 4 hours downtime in 10 months' usage.
D. Elliot Linzer: Computerization cost-effectiveness. Short (under 1000 lines) indexes will NOT pay for machine. Uses Mugglestone Microindexer on Columbia PC
QUESTIONS: 30-50% of authors NOW submit books online; 50-80% of authors COULD go online now; Elliot suggests 5 cents per line could be added for composedisks and Assn. of Publishers are standardizing on-line indexing-term codes for ALL.
Mugglestone's have sold TWENTY systems, constantly modifying them. I told them to send me specs. Peter Rooney asks for diskette he'll see if he can print!

11:45: Then delivered index, went to meeting (and got more things to do) and back here to catch up on Actualism, Notebooks, and Dreams; lots more PAGES!
Work VERY slowly, unable to really CONCENTRATE, until 12:30, then drop in bed.

5/11/84: Last night was a real low-point. Up early at 10 to start on the programming of the line-length adjustor, pleased with the "insight" to read in an entire line, and then chewed my nails while flowcharting, finally deciding at 2:30 to start programming, and then get so involved in the CODING that by 11:00 the program was hopelessly involved and buggy, and the only clear way out was to flowchart what I'd DONE to see how the flowchart could be made CORRECT and reprogrammed. But I kept pausing and wanting to be FINISHED, sharing my frustration with programming when Elliot Linzer called about his frustration with Helen Ferguson. Ate when needed, watched one hour of television, and then decided to do a long session---and couldn't. There was clearly nothing there to do that would work, and the idea of reading Bailey's "Initiations Human and Solar" grew so strong that I read almost half of that from 11:30 to 12:45. It made more SENSE than it did before, so I didn't underline or comment, since what I would "mark" would change from year to year, and I wanted to be able to read it "fresh" next time. But I still didn't brush my teeth before bed, still felt that I should be exercising and wasn't, still wanted to get to stamps, and was again debating CANCELLING the trip to France so that I could indulge in entertainments, lists, and computer-delights at home. Yet THIS day of computer -delights certainly doesn't sound like a DELIGHT! Yet I'll surely be glad when it's DONE, just as the three days' programming the LIFELIST package was appreciated when IT was finished---yet I don't LOOK at it like that: I feel impatient with some task like programming and I want to be FINISHED with it; I get to the gym and I want to be FINISHED with it; I watch a cultural TV program and I want to be FINISHED with it. I start reading a good book and I want to be FINISHED with it---all these things I want to HAVE DONE---except life, which I want to CONTINUE with, and orgasms, which I want to PROLONG LONGER than I actually do--though even THERE I find, when I'm NEARING THE END of it, that I just want to ACCOMPLISH it---that's not quite the same as FINISH it, since I never really want to FINISH an orgasm, I just want it to go on and on and on, like life. Funnily, I want my LISTS to go on and on and on, like life, yet in a sense I feel that there are too many and those are MUCH too long ALREADY. That's probably involved with some idea that the lists ARE OF THE WRONG THINGS: like restaurants shouldn't be the NAMES OF THE DIFFERENT ONES, but the NAMES OF THE PEOPLE I ENJOYED THEM WITH. And I STILL, endlessly, want a person to be close to, and get depressed as the days go by and I still don't HAVE anyone!

5/12/84: Determined to write down masturbation: 9:25PM start: MUST to 10:30
9:35 Playing with rubber bands
9:45 FIRST FOAM AT TIP
9:50 First brink with fur
9:55 REALLY TEASE at first plateau with fingers
10:02: DEEP throb with fur, 28 minutes to go
10:05 Balls very tight; light cigar; 25 minutes to go, 5 5's
10:07 HUGE glob of precum on left
10:10 Smaller blob on right; down; 4 5's left to go
10:15 Back up
10:18 TERMINAL hard--12 minutes!
10:20 Two "almost loses" with fur
10:22 DOWNISH
10:24 HARD with fur and fingers
10:25 Band at base
10:27 FULL cock, FULL cigar
10:28 Juice flipping UP over head of cock
10:29:30 So I can cum when I want!
10:32:30 CUM ESSENTIALLY limp, essentially unfeeling
10:37:30 Wrote these last two notes, munching cum-crunchies

5/26/84: Better than "s/he" pronounced sha-hee) or "he/r" (pronounced hear) for "sexless pronouns" of before, with nonstandard characters,I decide on 1) hesh (pronounced HEESH) (starts with he, lacks one letter of she)
2) herm (like Herm) (starts with her, lacks one letter of his)
3) Dear Msir (All letters of ms and sir, pronounced mizzer, not my-zer)

6/2/84: Made list of rides at Great Adventure from 11:45 to 12:15, only 12 that I could remember (just did an INCREDIBLE "glitch" with a <HOLD><RT ARR> that FRAGMENTED lines above and below, but going to "next" page "refixed it". WHEW!): 1) Forward Rolling Thunder, 2) Backward Rolling Thunder (a REAL sickie) 3) Jousting, 4) Flume, then lunch and safari, then 5) Ferris Wheel (2x), 6) Roaring Rapids, 7) Lightning Loops, 8) Splashdown, 9) Bumper Cars, 10) Runaway Train, 11) Parachute, 12) Bobsled. Left at 12:15, wreck slowed things on Outerbridge Crossing, left off at subway at 2:15, get home at 3:30, bed 3:45!

6/5/84: No, I DON'T want to finish Lem's "His Master's Voice" before I write this. My brain is so fertile with ideas NOW that I don't want any MORE to flow into them before getting some of them OUT onto PAPER. The last note that I wrote on page 194 is: "There seems to be a Godel's Theorem of Philosophy," which means that Philosophy can NEVER end, in that it's always possible to pull back one more step and construct a philosophical system that ENCOMPASSES the one just defined, but that THAT system can't be totally specified in the system itself, but it needs a META-system to contain it, and so on ad infinitum. And here I use a "silly" Latin phrase just as Lem (or Kandel, the translator) does so often in the book. But what a WONDERFUL book it is, even to using the name "McMahon" when I'm thinking that THIS is a book I should give to Susan to read. But it so "bounces off" Barth, in that Barth uses reams of words to no effect, while Lem writes so much more succinctly, while still playing with words, of IDEAS on the forefront of Physics, Psychology, Sociology, Politics, Religion, Mathematics, Mysticism, Philosophy, and History of Thought. Yet my mind wants to take it all in, diagram it, delineate the possibilities he doesn't describe, yet the TOTAL expanse grows larger and larger: universes BEFORE and AFTER the 30-billion year course of our "local" one, either sentient or non-sentient, whether Created or Creator. And of course the "melding" with current Actualism lessons makes me wonder if I can ever communicate to ANYONE the brilliance of the book WITHOUT having had my background. And AGAIN all the desires come to mind: to read all the books, discuss all the ideas, travel to all the places, see all the movies, listen to all the music, WRITE all the music, see all the EVERYTHING, touch all the PEOPLE, love all the generations, TEACH all the generations, CREATE all the generations, which circles back to the LSD-DREAM of LIVING, as "me," all the lives ever lived and to be lived. Know all the knowledge, distill it into all the wisdom; love all the loves, while being all the lovers loved; experience all the tastes and smells and touches and sounds and sights and feelings and yet-to-be-defined dimensions of supra-sensual input---and yet "put up with" a limited span of years in the life of this body christened Robert Zolnerzak. As the vistas of POSSIBLE experience widen (to include not only all the above on the physical, but on the emotional and mental and soul and angelic and arche- typal and logoic and supra-cosmic and god-like and god-surpassing and god- creating---the ARENAS of possible-to-ME narrow ever drastically: lessening years remaining, lessening energies remaining, seemingly-lessening judgments of what is ACCEPTABLE input narrowing and ever-narrowing. But even this STATEMENT needs to be read in a context (the computer) in a larger context (my corpus of writing) in a larger context (my life) in the largest context (the current universe) in the supra-largest context (any supra-system conceivable, which is an infinite number almost by DEFINITION). There's a touch of FREEDOM: since I CANNOT know my computer FULLY, I should just USE AND ENJOY it when and where and how I please; since I can't do EVERYTHING, I should just enjoy more what I DO perform in actuality. Just as I didn't eat yet, read the book to page 194, and turned on the computer to write this page. And it all feels good and well. Why there are two words there I'm not sure. But there's still yet the yearn: WILL I put an ad into papers to get a "Lem-Lovers" group formed, so that I can expand my thoughts and maybe MEET someone to "narrow-with" in expanding? It's just as well I wrote the above BEFORE I finished the book, since it ENDS in a quotation of part of a Swinburne poem that extols DEATH and SILENCE, rather than the vibrant, ever-continuing, ever-CONCERNED life that the book---that "the letter" seems to offer. Strange, but fitting to a seesaw of elements, sensations, emotions---that which is life in ALL its manifestations!

6/24/84: Notes on "Gremlins" in the form of a letter to New York Magazine: David Denby's review of "Gremlins" suggests that "the filmmakers are like gremlins themselves." Audiences of real gremlins see the movie. Constant talking is punctuated with the "Oh, shit" that epitomizes today's culture's highest efforts at criticism. The mean laughing self-centeredness on the screen is duplicated in the audience when anyone pleads for quiet. No popcorn is thrown or soda dropped more thoughtlessly on the screen than it is in real sticky-life in today's theatres. What cachinnation greets the chainsaw sequence! What vicarious vicious hilarity celebrates the crushing of human life!! We laugh with the same manic cackle that is coming from the soundtrack. Paraphrasing a sage from an older medium: "I see the gremlins, and they is us."

6/30/84: For the past weeks there's been moments when everything "works," but there have also been moments (sometimes as much as an hour on awakening or on going to sleep) when everything seems TERRIBLY bleak. NO LONGER can I console myself that "things are getting better and better." With the graying hair, and the growing pot, and the increasing arthritic pains, and the shortness of breath on coming up the stairs, and the lengthening time without a "close personal relationship"----my God, can't people even SAY "lover" anymore?---I KNOW that I'm on the downslope, and of course even that RECOGNITION lends force to it. Now I do what I do, and then I stop and BROOD! The stamps are AWAY, so I don't get into THEM; the computer-learning isn't INTERESTING now, so I'm not doing it; there's the AIDS-fear, so I can't go to baths, and I don't even KNOW where the bars are (and just call John Connolly to see where HE is and there's no answer, and Jack Seelye's now with "Lee", and Lloyd Moore's number doesn't answer), and I feel that I've been "movied" out. I KNOW I could read a book, but that's just ANOTHER book; go to ANOTHER museum, gallery, play, dance---and it all begins to seem like RUNNING, and I want to ENJOY. Could just "listen to music," but that makes me think of sex or companionship and leads to sadness. Could "go for a walk" but that leads to thoughts of cruising, and where would I go or what would I wear. Even have the car to "get out and go" but AGAIN there wants to be a PERSON to do it with. So as I GET CAUGHT in it, I can brood INDEFINITELY, so I have to drag myself out of it with coming, or TV, or work, or telephoning someone. Then there's the TRIP in the offing, and "slightly" concerned about the flight I get nervous and want DIVERTING, but there's no quick diversion. Should I get back to WRITING (my favorite "what to do when I've finished work and don't feel like any other kind of playing")? Think of getting involved with SAGE, or visiting AIDS patients, but that'll just be ANOTHER "fix" until this VOID comes up again. But the VOID will always be there, I just have to learn to RECOGNIZE it and continue to DANCE around the edges of it.

TUNIS-FRANCE TRIP, July 17 - August 26, 1984

TUESDAY, JULY 17: Leave apartment at 5:25, onto A train at 5:30, into Jay Street at 5:35, but (having waited for LAST train-to-plane) NEXT train-to- plane at 5:55 PASSES BY FULL! I sit at 6 and start THIS, hot and disgusted ALREADY. Another comes at 6:04, seats and all, and stall and stall and onto bus at 6:45. Forgot SUN hat, and WHERE is razor blade? To checkin at 7PM! Get seat 16B (next to next-to-window) and in to crowded lounge to pay 50 cents for Mom's number (216-253-7500) and talk till boarding starts at 7:35. Could we be on schedule? Sweaty palms now, and cramp in thumb last night, ripply calves the night before, and FOOT cramps on subway. Soon I won't be ABLE to travel. On at 7:55 and back out at 8:10. Off at 8:37, LIGHT for an hour. Lasagna dinner and CAN'T sleep. Starless! Light at 4:45 and land at 8:58 after [Rue Le Regrattier a tati l'Ile de Notre-Dame, apelees aujourdhui L'Ile Saint Louis] cloudy descent and clear farmlands. Nervous over, BUT NOT AS MUCH AS WAY BACK!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 18: Meet Paul VERY easily at 10, and he escorts BRIAN to road to Marseilles and French Foreign Legion! Bus to train to metro to JJ's at 10:45 and unpack and out at 11:40 to bank to change $300 for me and subway to Cluny, looking around outside and finding at 12:30 that museum closes 12:45-2. Across bridge to Sainte Chapelle nice and photos, then to Notre Dame, and we SEARCH for place to eat, ending at brasserie for croque Monsieur a cheval (undercooked with eggs on top) for 18F and 1/4 of cold and GOOD Cote de Rhone wine, and out at 2 for Berthillon sherbet and the "circus" of tourists in Notre Dame and the treasury and parvis til 4, until EXHAUSTED. WALK back via the Pantheon and St. Etienne du Mond and Rue Mouffetard and Avenue de Pot au Feu and stop for two beers and home at 5:45 to REST to 8PM. JJ in. Phone 5-6 full or closed restaurants until Chez Toutoune, chat, and out at 9:25 to restaurant for 91F for adequate meal. Back at 1AM, EXHAUSTED.

THURSDAY, JULY 19: Wake at 9:30, breakfast, shower, chat, and out at 11. To car at 12:20, onto Versailles LINE at 1:05. Sweet Europcar girl struggled through English for Paul. COMPLEX fast drive through Bois de Boulogne to Palace. Free parking but 2F for pictures. In at 1:35 for 13F. Dog barking in line ahead of us, doesn't get in. GRAND rooms with LITTLE furnishings and HUGE crowds of guided tours til 2:25. Then onto long line for King's Apartments and Opera. Paul wants the Trianons and I rather insist we should stay, moving faster by 2:45. At 3:35 we hear "Sorry, we don't know where the English-speaking guide IS." On SIGN it says 14F, on box office it says 20F---it turns out to be 11F at 3:45. Tour SUMPTUOUS rooms til 5, then drive to Grand Trianon (totally closed), past Petit, to Hameau, and wander pleasant (though over-sweet) lake and Queen's cottages and fish and tower and Love Arbor, then drive back to look into Theater and wander gardens, then to car to drive "cross" around canals, cute joggers and views over Versailles, then at 6:45 drive back to city by 7:45 and have a drink and change for JJ's arrival at 8:15 and go to Taillevent. Somber surroundings but engaging English-speaking waiter and interesting menu, hit of which is JJ's Bordeaux GRAVE Pope Clement 1980 for $20. My appetizer of warm sliced sweetbreads and mushrooms dynamite, Paul's jellied Homard soup rather tart and medicinal, and JJ's eel-terrine tasty but over-bland veggies. My pigeonneau, not deboned and finger-eaten, is tough and tasty, good (not spectacular) brown sauce, and "pretty" vegetables: carrot slice over zucchini slice and a puff (oh, starting cheese-puffs good) of "slaw" OK. JJ's kidneys FABULOUSLY clean and tender, and Paul's steak is all tender and GREEN with cresson (watercress) sauce. JJ's ice cream (vanilla) and nuts and honey nice, our "farandole des desserts" starts out as a JOKE with CANNED slices of peach, pear, orange, and grapefruit under a nice saboyan sauce dotted with fresh strawberry and raspberry, but marquisette of mousse in great chocolate SLICE in kiwi (!) sauce makes up for it, as does FABULOUS pear, heady mango, tart cassis (French: Groseille noir, English: CURRANTS) and raspberry (told by a SEED). Not GREATEST but at 1550 F not bad. Home at 11:30 to search for JJ's keys, and Paul and I chat til 1:05 and sleep immediately.

FRIDAY, JULY 20: I wake at 6:30 and up at 7:30 to repack and JJ comes up at 7:50, having found keys in handbag, and I shower, he leaves at 8:45, I read and Paul's up at 9:45. Breakfast til 10:45, out at 10:55 and Paul cashes $200 and me $400 at 8.75, for 3446.50---going FAST. Out at 11:10 to a PERFECT day! Leave Paris 11:20, into Chartres at 12:40, worried about nonfunctioning (?) gas gauge. See Cathedral, examine screen and windows, look at glass exhibit, watch crotches, chat, go to shop, buy, then to Treasury at 2:30, then out at 3 to wander town en route to St. Aignan, St. Peter the Eube, and ask TWO people how to RETURN to subterranean carpark by 16:32, four hours for 10 francs. Through town to N1 to Vendome, where we stop to cross flower-decked bridge to town and information station who, at 6:30, makes reservations in Tours at Hotel Central for 9PM. Wander streets, St. Trinite, and market to 7, then active N10 to Tours at 8 (I'm UPSIDE DOWN on map!!) to hotel at 8:15, kir (3 for him and 2 for me) to 9:30, to Cathedral, square, and river, and American AEF memorial. Then to Old Town and no FOOD at 11, so to Restaurant du Musee at 11:30 for choucroute and two half-liter beers for 100F and back laughing to hotel at 12:30 to piss in sink and laugh about EAU and WC on toilet in 122 Front, and I write this to 12:40 and sleep.

SATURDAY, JULY 21: DREAMS. Wake at 7 with memory of driving with someone like Sheila Andron in a car driven by, say, Neil Sendar and Kristen. I have some hidden agenda to meet someone at 11:30 somewhere else and THEY think WE have plans. I antagonize Neil, but then SHEILA turns against me as manipulative and awful to deal with. I have a great conviction of the truth of her accusations. Then at 8:30 I wake from a LONG dream that started with my meeting Beverly Sills, when she says that "As I start off, I can only have a small role in a vanity production" but better things will come after I take a voice-range test, and everyone laughs at how actors screech and screw up their faces to get the highest and lowest possible ranges of their throats. THEN I'm in an ugly "Liquid Sky" type movie with beautiful Grace Jones-type people doing ugly things like committing suicide, but at the END the pretty-boy hero "points" to a football hunk who starts a funky jerky dance with shoulders contorting in break-dancing, and there are perfectly-edited fast sequences of, say, a board becoming bifurcated, drawn legs becoming in stages WOODEN legs and REAL legs topped by a "cabinet" that becomes a body that turns into a dancer that points to a cat that turns into a horse that---etc, and I remember the REVIEWERS said the MOVIE was awful but the concluding DANCE sequence was beautiful and marvelously inventive. Wake at 8:30 (when Paul said he could be waked by) and write to 8:50. Continental rolls and butter and prune jam with good 2-cup chocolate (his coffee was cold) til 9:15, and leave for 212F (they forgot two drinks @ 20F last night) at 9:30 and get to Europcar at 9:45 and out at 10:25 having traded an Opel for Peugeot. Drive down to Azay-le-Rideau by 11:35 and find it closes 12-2. Walk back to La Chapelle de Chielle, but there's nothing there but the ramparts along with the Indre surrounds Azay. Look at wedding in chapel and eat in Grande Monarche. Paul's 70F includes kidneys and cheese, my 195 gets braised eel in cream of scallions, GREAT; sweetbreads and raspberries, sort of not mixing, and GREAT pistachio ice cream, with 40F for 1/2 bottle Chosy 1981 Chinon wine, OK. Slow service ends at 2:05. Castle 13F only with French tour at 2:40-3:40. Beds and chests and tables and tapestries and copies of painting in "a few large rooms in a small castle." LOTS of people, but I get most of it. Out at 3:40 and to Usse at 4:15 to tour chapel, saddlery, coachery, and stables, then up to courtyard (1/2 still private) to wait for 200 people to gather for 22F tour! Starts at 4:40. Weddings, REAL paintings, king's room, LOTS of STUFF, til 5:40. 6.5F Pschitt Limone. Tired!! Drive Loire-dyke road to Langeais, busy, and Hosten (full) refers us to Chateau, room M. We shower, sit, and go to Langeais at 8. Park at Church, climb hill, then drive to Fete Champetre, loud and gamey (ring ducks, fire at 5 targets, bottle and coin toss), wine and beer, absent gateaux, swings, fish, ring bottle, lottery. LOUD music piped in! Leave for "forestiere" and "complet" crepes, large and good, and cider for 90F. Back down to sit on bank til 10:45, one rocket, then fireworks 11-11:15, and Paul DEMANDS to leave, so we're back and in bed at 11:45.

SUNDAY, JULY 22: Wake 5AM, then to sleep to LOTS of sex-dreams of type: beautiful guy says "I remember you from (so and so and so) a place, and I want you to suck me off!" One is Lloyd Moore-like with a hard rod down one pantleg, another is just a kid with a great enthusiasm for kissing, another bares a huge gnarled cock that OTHERS have obviously chewed on. I feel excited but wake limp. Then there's a strange interlude of a city-scene with blacks dressed in long which gowns IN FRONT only, bare black asses folding and getting up,m and I see they're being chased from lighted city by police cops AT NIGHT, so TOWARD city they fade in WHITE and looked at against black night they fade in BLACK. They're smuggling dope and running from the cops. THEN the odd sequence: I'm at the top of a VERY high (about 400 feet) steep hill that I have to get down. I'm afraid, but I can see lots of logs, trees, papers, etc., that can SLOW me DOWN, and the bottom DOES slope more so I can COAST to a stop even if I'm going fast, and there's no overhang where I'd actually FALL, so I start sliding down, hitting first bundled cardboard that slows me, but tumbles out of the way faster than I descend, then some gravel I can dig my heels into, then a treetrunk end that I push down, almost STEERING by shifting my weight, and I'm 1/3 down and going not very fast and it's ALREADY less steep and I'm gaining CONFIDENCE, when I'm transported to a strange garden-party: a fanatic group of three or four are "conjuring" a Dea to descend from the sky, and there are cloud WISPS that intersect to fool some into thinking it's a shape, but then I see five STARS that I think are part of a dipper, but they dimly generate a LINE between them and the formation begins to BEND and MOVE, developing into a GULL-SHAPE that FLAPS across the sky, except when it gets CLOSER, in glowing white outlines, it looks rather like an EAGLE, except someone turns in terror and says "It's a BAT." It flies lower and closer and a feeling of AWE overcomes me when suddenly (I have an IMPRESSION of David Hoch) I'm LIFTED UP from behind, like someone folding his arms around my waist and hugging me to his huge body so that I'm in a SITTING position, and PROPELS me forward with SUCH SPEED that I feel the fronts of my calves and knees and chest and arms TINGLING with speed and terror, and it's all I can do to FORCE from my petrified throat the words "WHO...IS...CARRYING ...ME...SO........FAST?" The scene becomes punctuated by two or three egg-sized blind-white spots that flash out dotted rays of light, BEHIND which are orange-red dots that I can ALMOST judge for the words "see" many times overlapping, and my BRAIN tingles with anticipation---"Can I...will I be able to see at LAST???" and I FORCE my concentration....if this is the START of the "final white light," do I have to CHOOSE now (I feel it IS choice) to FOLLOW the light (rather, go TOWARD, ACCEPT,and BECOME ABSORBED by the light), or turn AWAY from the light and not YET die (or possibly, RETURN to the world to live AGAIN---or just simply CONTINUE to live THIS life). I awake with a DISTINCT tingle remaining on my calf-fronts and feet, still INTENSELY in the FEELING of the dream, which slowly fades to the light of a 7:35 cool dawn in France. Up at 7:55 and Paul's sick (I think he threw up last night, the SMELL was bad and he was scrubbing the RUG). I shit and write this til 8:30. Repack a bit (get out the old green "Loire" book at LAST), new film, toilet paper for my slight runny nose, and down at 8:45 for quiet breakfast room of 7 tables and chocolate again. Out at 9:20, 130F bill, to Langeais at 9:40. GREAT beds, floor tiles RICH in color, ORIGINAL wall paintings, LOTS of tapestries and chests and IRON. Out of BEST castle YET at 10:30. Up hill for Paul's photo, double back because Sunday market blocks road, and finally leave town about 11:10, over bridge and quiet roads to Villandry at 11:35, to get french tour for 15F at 11:45. Out at 12:10 to Gardens, lovely. Out 12:45, noting that for five years 1979-1983 he PAID 4.7 million francs and GOT 1.4 million francs! Out at 1:15, reading, Paul ill, to Chenonceaux. Hit a "nowhere" D86 and get LOST! Lost, lost, lost. To Chenonceaux at 3PM! Poulet Basquaise and Chenonceaux wine and melon for 56F, wax museum for 4F and john for 1 F by 3:55. Tourists in Chenonceaux: "Catherine de Medici turning out her husband's sh-sh-sh." "Whiskers?" "MISTRESS!" LOTS of flowers inside, CROWDS of people, LOTS of paintings and tapestries, but more a TRY than a treasure. JUST catch train to gate at 5:05PM, I have to RUN onto it. Get English guides, meet Paul and decide on Loches, which pleasant drive on UNmapped highway past fields of MARIJUANA leads us to by 6PM. Room for 97F in FIRST hotel (France) and out at 6:20. To medieval city through Picior Gate and Porte Royale and St. Ours (Chamoidon is a bland muenster, Rouy NICE-tasting, creamy and good, and Chambol aux Noys good and pasty. Vieux Panay is not-so-good brie, and brugnons are delicious plumier nectarines). Eat 7:15-9:15 (my 72F dinner huge: foie de volaille avec morilles, brochette de lotte ala provencale (lots of BUTTER), and canette (VERY dark meat) in raspberry vinegar, and three cheeses above, PLUS nice Sauvignon de Tourraine for 32F. Paul feeling better AND I give intro and do handwork on him before leaving at 10:45 for NICE walk through chateau/buildings/donjon-lit Loches, kids with flashlights taking tours from bus, me alone on ramparts and surprising lovers on grass. Back to bed at 12, raised by sirens from tower at 12:07, then to sleep.

MONDAY, JULY 23: Wake at 7:30, up at 7:45. Breakfast IN ROOM to 8:30, and leave at 8:55, paying 303.5F. Repack car, revisit church, and get to chateau at 9:15. Large rooms to 9:45, to Donjon for slides and tour of prison, and back to car at 11:15. Out to Montresen chapel and tomb of Imbert, and on at 11:55 to Nouans-les-Fontaines to 12:05. NICE Fouquet. Into Blois at 1:30. Leave 2:50, eat pizza in town 3-3:30, off to Chambord at 3:45, in at 4:15 (Paul staying out) and the place is IMMENSE. CLEAN, too, with tourists EVERYWHERE, but the place is SO huge it never really seems CROWDED. First few rooms DAZZLING with fresh silks on the walls, spanking-new chandeliers, and new furniture and shiny bad paintings. Chests and tapestries and clocks and chairs galore. But OTHER rooms empty and bare, including a VERY uninspired chapel. Stairs great and QUIETLY efficient, loads of side exhibits of painters and drawings and hunting weapons and trophies and models, and a 15-minute presentation in French and English that's quite good, AND a roof that's lovely fun to walk around, from which to photography ABSOLUTELY empty spaces of "formal" lawn and canals. Down at 6:15 EXHAUSTED! Taste and buy wine for 16F, then try country for places to stay but get to Orleans at 7:30 and park in hotel-less place and back to Marguerite for loud room at 7:45 for 137F on street. We decide to go out to eat and he does what has become so TYPICAL of him: "Oh, I guess I'll take a shower;" JUST as he did when we were circling Blois for entry and he says "Oh, let's look at the shops and see some CIVILIZATION before going to the castle." He SO comes off the WALL sometimes to do something QUITE contrary to what I've just SAID! Undoubtedly unconscious, and at least he LEAVES at noon the day after tomorrow. He leave at 8:35. In to Jean D'Arc square and STUMBLE into L'Assiette---all hors d'oeuvres, all wine, dessert, and main dish for a fixed price: 92F for beef brochette, 94F for lamb brochette). GOOD time with singers and cute pigtailed waiter. Out at 10:45 and walk around past Bellefior (gay restaurant) and back to hotel at 11:15 and stagger to loud bed at 11:45.

TUESDAY, JULY 24: Wake through night to thunder and traffic noises, finally at 7:25 to lie, wearily contemplating writing dreams and looking forward to a rainy day and feeling TIRED. Dreams: 1) I'm lying at the head of Bruce Lieber's sickbed, and he's dying of AIDS, and he says sobbing that he's lonely and scared, and I caress him and he turns into Dennis who insists I kiss him, and his blubbery fat lips enclose mine and I fear contagion from him and back away as soon as I can, worried I'll get it from him. 2) I'm sitting in a cramped theatre-type seat in a class, and argue with the black woman next to me to remove her coats from under MY seat, and she insists that's not my business and they're not bothering me, but I shout that they ARE and haul them out and throw them at her and put my OWN under. Then I'm on the aisle sorting MY things out and put my violin (!) under my seat, grubbing around in waste papers wondering what this METAL object like a microphone or plumber's snake is doing under it. Then the "class" includes a showing of "Bloopers of a famous quiz program" and in one scene at windows the camera zooms ABOVE the set to show a huge cockroach and the audience laughs "This IS New York!" In ANOTHER scene a stout woman who's supposed to be slapped around suddenly refuses to react and quits on the spot. Ha ha. Finish this at 7:50, Paul about to send for breakfast. Then he says "Let's go downstairs." I phone JJ, we see cathedral and I buy slides, and see Hotel de Ville, then out of town to read about Germigny-les-Pres and 8th Century mosaic! While following AWFUL smoky trucks, Paul getting pissed driving. Guy GETS OUT reliquary and I buy slides and postcards AGAIN because there's no light (storm cut lines last night) even if they were lit. Leave Germigny at 11 and to St. Benoit til 11:50, DELIGHTFUL. Good lunch 1:30-2:05 at Le Bivouac and drive straight back, to Croulebarbe at 3:25. Take bags upstairs and drive THROUGH Paris (Paul panicked), to Europcar at 4:15. He buys pate and we elevator to top of Arc de Triomphe and WALK down colorful stairs, and subway home to drink and repack and talk exhaustedly til 8:10 and JJ returns, we talk of trip, then out to La Chaumiere des Gourmets for GREAT salmon de Paul Bocuse (me), riz de veau (JJ), and crab soup with creme fraiche (Paul); bouillabaisse en gelee (avg, me), turbot (JJ, delicious), and pepper steak (Paul, poor), GREAT Laurent Perrier champagne for 240F (total bill about 600F, JJ pays) and to Tour Montparnasse for "Ciel de Paris" (gin, noyau, and grapefruit) 36F for ONE and 120F bill. Kid screams out of john with shitty pants down for climax at 11:45. Very wearily to bed.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 25: Wake at 7:30 and up at 8:30 to JJ leaving and then Paul and I breakfast and out to buy workclothes souvenirs for him and 1984 Michelin for me for 70F. He leaves at 10:10 and I go to Cluny 10:40-12:30 not enough, LOTS of STUFF. Buy sandwich for 13F and then Guinness at Select for 19.10! Watch LOTS of people, some sexy, walk Seine past coming Musee d'Orsay, book/stamp stalls, art dealers, guarded Foreign Affairs office, to 3PM entry to Menil, GREAT for a PRIVATE COLLECTION, and buy guide for 150F and jot note: LIKE Viktor Brauner; GREAT Magritte and Ernst and Tanguy, at 4:45. Write this on steps to 5PM, exhausted again. Sit and look at people and decide to take bus 83 home, just get to stop at 5:10 and it comes in, but charges 8F to get home, JUST as much at NYC! Ride is essentially the way I'd come. Back at 5:40 to meet the maid, coming Friday then going on vacation. Jerk off waterily for the first time in AGES and then set up slides, shower, while listening to grim Zemlinsky "Lyric Symphony" and not-too-flashy Rossini "Elizabetta (Queen of England)" and get a call from his niece Dominique, who calls twice and will call him tomorrow. I sit and write this at 9:15, being disappointed with slides and starting to get hungry---dressing in my suit, washing shirts, listening to Beethoven Quartets: 15 I know, 14 rather dull until the second side. Laurent calls at 9:37 and JJ arrives a minute later, apologetic, and we dash off to Le Marronniere where I have haricots verts and the SMALLEST crevettes and he has Cornettes des Soeurs Jurassienne, pasty herbed ravioli, and his liver, fried slowly for twenty minutes, or even in a bain marie, is very tender, and my sole aux morilles and cream is SUPERB, and Brouilly (Cave de Coucelles) great red. Rain doesn't come; my raspberries and creme fraiche are great. Home 12:30 and JJ's maid locked him out of his brother's apartment.

THURSDAY, JULY 26: Wake at 5, fearing the building will fall! Then at 7 and 7:30, and JJ's up and I'm up at 8:15 for breakfast and call Linda 9:10-9:50, to dinner tomorrow. Out at 10:10 for Petit Palais, in at 10:50, first to Duteil Greek, and #318 "Peintre de l'Ange volant" shows a cockless man with one-eyed flying PHALLI! Apocalypse of 1415-20 is oldest xylographed book. Colors and print and drawings in one? Out at 1:30. Try to eat at Laurent (300F for three courses, including wine) but not dressed. Across to Berkeley at 2PM for 32F Croque-Monsieur and 31F for 1/2 Muscadet, and watch people. Leave 2:15 for St. Denis, in at 3:15, LOTS of tombs, and tour, out at 5:45. Back to shower and Restaurant a la Gare for AWFUL food and bed at 12:05, TIRED!

FRIDAY, JULY 27: Wake at 7:30 with JJ, and shit LOTS at 8; he leaves 8:45. I eat, try first place for "ten days to repair camera" and second for "it's OK, piece broke, happens in all Mamiyas." Stand 10:10-10:25 for change in bank talking to gal from SF and move to Societe General to get $300 cashes for 8.72F in five minutes. Subway to Bourdelle and get in 10:30-1 for 14 pictures and a FEW lovely bodies---why no reproductions of Adam? and WHY is his cock cut off? Subway and eat at Rendez-Vous Denfort-Rochereau for 23F: chef salad with LOTS of ham and cheese and white stuff (noodles?) and 50 cl BEER for 12F for 41F total lunch, ending at 2 to get to Catacombs line for 9F and buy ten slides for 25F and get down 130 steps, MOST changes 7/1859, some 1/6/1814 and 6/25/1814, some 7/18/1792 and 4/1786. Endless rows of bones, mostly FEMURS---if you count SKULLS you get fewer than 1/10 the number by dividing long bones by maximum of EIGHT per body, and a wall has maybe 100/sq.ft., a SINGLE wall of 6x10 feet for 60,000 per wall, and maybe 100 walls, or 6 million bones, or a million people. Staggered. Out at 3 at Halles and Deny Duchanel, and walk long way back to Metro and subway twice to Jeu de Paume at 3:45 for a long line. Decide "I'm here, I'll wait," and write this and listen to awful stereo-augmented violin (as opposed to reasonably decent banjo-augmented gypsy violin in metro tunnel). In by 4:10 for 13F. Out at 5:10, best obviously Renoir, with some nice Monet, Manet not understandable, and Pissarro only good for a few and Sisley not much good at all. Take metro, VERY tired, and it's crowded and lots of young blacks rush and PUSH in, squeezing and elbowing and jostling. I FEEL that my back pocket is being touched, but I jam my elbow into my BAG to protect my WALLET, but when they get OUT my zipper is OPEN halfway and my wallet is GONE! My stomach knots and my brain screams "NO!" with rage and frustration---and my proof-of-purchase of American Express traveler's checks are gone too! Ride and change and get off at Gobelins to ask for police, get to Mairie, ask again of cute cop and around corner at 5:45 to get interview at 6:05 and get form which turns out to be CRUCIAL. Home to phone Visa, handled well, and then Mastercard is a JOKE ending in "send two xeroxes!" Shower and JJ's home at 7:45 to hear my tale. Phoned Linda, we leave at 8 to search for flowers, all closed until Arnaud, and get HUGE bouquet for 80F. There at 8:45, CUTE baby, and have filling tomatoes farci, wine, cheese, and cherry pie, with Alain talking with JJ in french while me and Linda go at it in English. Leave at 1, EXHAUSTED!

SATURDAY, JULY 28: Wake at 6:15 and can't get back to sleep. Phone Dennis at 6:45 and he calls back at 7:30 with Visa and Mastercard numbers and address and NO license number. Plan train to Bayeux at 11:30 and gaze at map, and breakfast and pack and JJ's up at 9:15. Europcar says Bordeaux will RECOGNIZE my police statement in lieu of license! Out at 10, looking warily at two young blacks who seem to be gazing at me with interest. Not AGAIN! On train to Opera to change to St. Lazare. Onto ENORMOUSLY long line for change at 10:37, HOPING to get out by 11:15? It moves fast. VERY paranoid in Metro: is he casing me or another pigeon? Sit on the right so my bag is against the CLOSED door. Don't get on if the entrance is jammed. Get my place in line held by obliging Americans and find I MUST get my ticket validated IN THE STATION, and it's good 7/28 to 8/27, so yesterday was really the FIRST day I COULD have used it. Feel nervous about travel, only because of the theft and "cashing my first check," and I'm sure I've NOT REALLY realized this is the start of 6 (Sat-Thu) days of free train-travel, hotel-search, and food-trial. A black girl (3 years old) howls and I suspect a SCAM, rather than the mother has gone all across the station to get an orange drink. Thomas Cook gives 823F, losing at least $3, but at least I have MONEY. Out at 11:10; amid a black WOMAN buying dollars for 835 and a black MAN whispering something I don't care to hear as I vindictively push him aside to leave, then fearing he might chase AFTER me and holler. Train in to Cherbourg, but it says Bayeux and FIRST fist-class cars are JAMMED, but LAST one is DELIGHTFULLY empty. Settle in and write this by 11:20. Train leaves 11:32, past cathedral of Evrieux, the Basilica of Lisieux, that I decide NOT to stop at since Michelin won't even MENTION it, and nod a bit with fatigue until I get to Caen at 1:10 and find dining is OVER (and you had to sit in the ONE stuffy car to eat). Into Bayeux at 1:48 and find I'll probably stay overnight in Rennes, leaving Bayeux at 7:10PM. Into Museum at 2:10 and there's 1) a slide introduction of the Viking invasions, 2) a "narrated" tapestry, scenes enlarged and taken apart, that seems to go on for complicated AGES, winding around hallways, 3) a "sound" slide show that "moves" through the main segments while moving YOU through space. Then at 3:15 into CINEMA to 3:30, then to REAL thing with "phase in-phase out" acouteurs, and it's wonderfully FRESH after all that time, rather SURPRISINGLY fresh, though the FOUR sets of explanations are surely necessary! Out at 4:10 to cathedral, to Baron someone's AWFUL museum, then wander back at 5:45 for a beer for a surly tavern- keeper's 7F. Back to bar for tomato soup, pork shop, FRESH (though overcooked) green beans, ice cream and 1/4 wine for 54F, and back to cruise a Paris-bound blond til my train comes at 7:11. Through St. Lo, Coutance, Avranches, and Pontorson, between which there are VERY distant, misty views of Mont St. Michel quite small on the distant horizon, and lingering sunset 9-9:45PM. Scenery not terribly grand save for churches, tranquil canals, and a few gentle hills. Off at 10:02 at huge Rennes. Brest Hotel seems gone, so I'm over to Cheval D'Or, being shown an OCCUPIED room, with douche for 128F, a bit high. Onto balcony to overlook a flat south cityscape (hotel tallest, though there are skyscrapers elsewhere) and get to bed directly at 10:30, to toss a bit, sleep by 11 latest.

SUNDAY, JULY 29: John Vinton and others and I have tried to eat at "the best restaurant" without reservations but the tables are full and we're turned out. It seems we try a second, having left word at the first for someone to meet us at the second, and then go to a THIRD. There, I ask if anyone thought to say that we'd GONE to the third after the second. After we've eaten, someone who's rather like an 8-year-old Gary Vallish has fallen asleep to my left and I just save him from slipping off his chair under the table. Then he turns into Malcolm Simmons, who says "I'd go to bed with POPE just to hear the things he TELLS me." I say, "Then why don't you go to bed with ME for the things I could tell you?" He looks at me with dark, steely, hateful eyes and says "What a STUPID way to approach me!" And I protest, "What do YOU do if you see someone who attracts you?" With the start of a smile that leads me to think I MIGHT get somewhere, he says "Well, I guess I'd talk to him, no matter WHAT I'd have to say!" Up at 7:30 and douche (shower) doesn't work! Bathe til 8:10 and breakfast til 8:35. Out to lovely Madeleine d'Lafayette, old streets, to gaudy dark St. Saveur, then find Cathedral (hours 8:30-12) closed at 9:10! Wander Vieux Rennes and back at 9:30 to find painted ceilings and retables of church good enough. More old city to Museums at 10, and for 3.5F they're EXCELLENT: well-lit, nicely laid-out, even to English/French audiovisual slide presentations! Lovely DISPLAYS better than stuff displayed! Breton has lots of stuff I can't see, and de la Tour very PLAIN in Beaux Arts, but they're nice. Buy stuff and back to hotel at 11:20 to find they've CLEANED up! AND I have NO more film with me! Wash and brush teeth and pack and pay 150F, too much, and get to train that leaves at 11:55AM. Guy said "CHANGE at Redon for Auray," so I dutifully get off at 12:35 and, seeing a train across the way, ask a clerk for the next train to Auray and he points to the VERY car I CAME from, saying "first car" only. I board and ask the DRIVER to be sure and he says YES. So NO wait in Redon (to see town). And this ISN'T on "Paris-Montparnasse-Quiberon" schedule, either. We start at 12:45, and at 2:10 onto 15F BUS to Carnac! Slow but VERY colorful and LOTS of tourists and camping. In at 2:50, having lost my lens cap at photo-stop! Ride with English woman who'd lived in AKRON for 4 weeks in 1965! They take me to middle of HUGE Kermario and I wander up and down in hot sun and buy slides and a book for 68F, take a few pictures, and go back to see Menac, even larger stones over a larger area. Get a ride to intersection, but have to walk back to town. Tired enough so that the Tumulus doesn't attract me. See that the bus doesn't get THERE til 5:10 and to Auray at 6:10, missing my 5:35 train! So I try hitching from 5:40 to 5:55, but it doesn't work so I JUST make a sign "Auray" in my notebook when a woman stops who said she was afraid of "an old man" (and she's 40 HERSELF) but "the too-little sign" intrigued her! We chat in French until SHE changes to English! Drives me RIGHT to station where I have a 5.6F beer to match the 5F beer I had at the "Artisans" at Kermario. To crowded platform to finish this at 5:30. Hope there's room in first class! I get a GOOD seat at 5:35 but have to leave it at 5:55, not thinking to check it was occupied from VANNES to Paris. So I get ONE LAST windowseat in a stuffier nonsmoking COMPARTMENT at 6PM, hoping NOT to be replaced by a MUTILE! Into Nantes after changing trains in Redon and waiting on hot platform for a long time. VERY hot ride, and Terminus only has room and breakfast for 167F! Sit for an exhausted hour in pretty Jardin des Plantes. Get hours for places (except Chateau) and search for places to eat, and end at La Raclette with Brazadere, good meat self-grilled, good frites (square) and salad and company of water-drinking tough and his girl, and mother with child who say goodbye to me. Walk back to hotel to bed by 11, still too tired to cum.

MONDAY, JULY 30: Wake at 6:45 after strange dream of a medieval courtesan who displays her cotton-draped and ribboned cunt, then removes the "cap" to display a slit over which shiny trimmed blond hairs have been artistically combed and held with a gold clip. Jerk off at 8 and feel too weary to move, so I search Michelin A & B for three-star sites, listed on page 41 of notebook. Shower and down at 9:45 for breakfast, packing and FINDING my traveler's checks! Out at 10 for ill-lit shot of park, and Museum of Beaux-Arts is 3/4 CLOSED, so I'm out at 10:25 having bought two de la Tour cards for 3.20F. To Cathedral and IT is half-closed for repairs, so I shoot frances II tomb and organ and trot to Chateau by 11, and HERE the Duck gave BRITTANY to FRANCE! Lots of lace and costumes and crafts and closed beds and marriage paraphernalia, and climb hot walls and see silly SEA museum (models, ships in bottles, men harpooning whales and whales foundering men) and buy slides and out at 11:30 to look for change, but leave hotel and get to station to find 855F for $100 THERE, and ditzy clerk examined my passport only AFTER giving me the cash! Onto broiling train at 12, again reserved, and I must sit in SMOKING car next to SMOKER to get a window--- leaving BACKWARDS at 12:10. Hot ride (could FIRST class have been UNCOOLED and second class COOLED?). Into Angers at 1 and find that the MUSEUMS are closed til 10AM tomorrow, getting information from OPEN office across from station, AFTER spending 10F to get RESERVED seat on two-hour train to Bourges tomorrow. To Hotel L'Universe and check into 441 for 127F and wash face and head toward chateau, disappointed to find that Logis du Roi and other apartments are CLOSED. Buy film at LAST for only 50.50F for 36 slides! Climb walls and take photos and down to bare-ish chapel and refuse "free" wine tasting under Logis, and into Apocalypse at 2:10 and follow each and buy til 3, then to cathedral and look at INCREDIBLE pulpit and buy cards of it after paying 5F for a fairly poor treasury. Out to see other churches but just start wandering old city and sit down EXHAUSTED outside for a huge omelet de Club for 19F and two beers, slow, reacting for one hour to an allergy! I watch people come and go, then get a Panache Blanc, half beer and lemon, good, and TOTAL bill is 39F WITH TIP! At 5:30 decide to walk to St. Serge, and choir carvings are ABOUT one foot tall and 60 feet up! Hard to tell a THING. Folder says XVII Century! Walk through Jardin des Plantes and like Rennes it has fountains and cages, this time BIRDS (remember deer BELOW in "moat" around Angers Chateau!), and across to OLD "House of Adam" and lovely theater and pass museums of Pincus and Barrault, having walked more "old city" walks and getting cassis and mure (?) ice cream for 7F. All open at 10 tomorrow, and I search out (past unlabeled Tour St. Aubin, thanks to Angers folder) Prefecture and cop strolls out. "Est-il le Gallery Romain?" He says I'm REALLY not supposed to be there, but go ahead. OLD carvings and heads and grotesques and religious figures and ORIGINAL FRESCO -COLORS! Incredible. Thank him lots and wander more streets at 7:20 to FINALLY see seven cinemas in one! One is "Hercules" at 8 and I wait on bench and write this and watch Olympics on TV and watch musclemen gather for film! But mostly kids sitting in back smoking, and for SOME reason the 28.50F admission is 19F, "dix francs moin cher" she says, for plus agee? For early show? Getting in early? Well, at least I've solved the problem of what to do to 10:22 PM. Hope it's VO (voix original). Good chance to research my NEW muscle-man fantasy---to start a FAD at orgies for gay muscle-builders to tense their muscles to MAXIMUM and then cum that way! I've had (and WILL have) lots of good HARD---head of body symbolizing head of cock that CULMINATES in cum. Perfectly AWFUL movie, at least bettered by Ferrigno being dubbed into French. But if OLIVIER couldn't pull off Zeus in the ARSULA UNDRESS epic, how can Bobby Smith pull it off HERE, with AWFUL goddess costumes, CHEAP special effects interspersed with COLORED shots of volcano from One Million BC and Pal's Atlantis picture. AWFUL, but NICE bulk, though he must have an AWFUL stomach because he NEVER shows IT. Out at 10:35, to hotel, eat Pub Salade for 19F and "Formidable" Dortmunder for 18F and tart apricot for 6F. Awful food, but cute kid with dull father and CUTER friend look good. Bed at 11PM.