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1990 1 of 3

My journal from 1990 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.

1/2/90: NOTE from 1/1/90: 1980s top-ten movies:
1. ET (1982), (they didn't say how MUCH!),
2. Return of the Jedi (#3) (1983) $263M
3. Batman (first SIX MONTHS! 1989) $250M
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark (#1) (1981) $242M
5. Beverly Hills Cop (1985) $235M
6. Empire Strikes Back (#2) (1980) $223M
7. Ghostbusters (1984) $221M
8. Back to the Future (1985) $208M
9. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (#3) (1989) $195M
10. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (#2) (1984) $180M
So FIVE are really parts of TWO series, and there sure was a DEARTH of blockbusters in 1986, 1987, and 1988!

1/2/90: Then I noted from weather that it was 48 degrees New Year's Eve, and that sunrise was at 7:20AM and sunset at 4:38PM, nicely symmetric about noon!
And Terry Conner is a cutie with AIDS from West Chester, Pa, where LAIRD lives.

1/2/90: Wake with the determination to DO something FINAL about "The Shopper":
Jacqui, this is Bob Zolnerzak, 522-0591; it's about 10:30 on Tuesday, January 2. This is about the sixth time I've left a message for you. I was irked before, but now I'm just puzzled and very disappointed. I don't know why you've never returned my calls. You published two of my articles (though I was sorry to see the typographical errors in both of them), yet you haven't paid me for them as you said you would. You published the Raintrees' review after I sent it to you ONLY through contact with Charlie himself, not through you. I certainly can't talk with Charlie about my reviewing a SECOND restaurant for "The Shopper." I can't talk with Charlie to find out if you plan to publish the other two articles I sent you or if you don't like them for some reason. I can't do anything other than talk with you, but you haven't returned my telephone messages. I'd like to review another restaurant for you and send you the article before January 9, the next issue of "The Shopper," but I don't know which restaurant to review unless you tell me which restaurant to review. I can't do anything more unless you call me back at 522-0591. I thought we could work together, but you don't seem to want to. This will be the last message from me unless you call me back in the next couple of days.

After preparing the above, she actually ANSWERED the phone. "Yes?" "This is Bob Zolnerzak, you haven't answered my messages. Are you interested in another restaurant review?" "No I'm not, Bob." And THAT'S the END of it. HA!

Well, it's a blow, but it IS finished and I can start looking for ANOTHER Brooklyn newspaper for my work. Another phase ENDED and another phase STARTED!

I'm AGAIN at the point where it's "everything that has to be finished is done" and what comes up NEXT is what's handled NEXT. There are a lot of POSSIBILITIES, like catching up with the VCR index before beginning another spate of duplicating through Mr. Video, and working on other writing, like AIDS house, the Actualism book that I talked about at Sherryl's yesterday, or other things for the writer's group. Or the Casteneda index. Or the brochures on indexing for publishers. Or other items from the fruitful NOTEBOOK pages-from- the-past. And let's stop it THERE, or else this will become a DO list which I'll have to FINISH before getting to the writing. And now that the VCR list HAS come up, I WILL do that next, and see what pops to the top NEXT, without even bothering to get this to the bottom of the page!

1/3/90: [Typed 1/5]: Phone Richard Gourley at work today, and he works for Paine Webber in Rockefeller Center and can say he's visiting clients, and comes over at 2:35 when I've just come back from the gym (so I'm clean) and am eating soup, and he talks about being happily married to Carol, has a 16-year-old son that he's paying a lot to send to Exeter Prep and a daughter, and he'd "been in love with women two or three times before, but felt EXACTLY that feeling about an old college roommate" and offered himself to him only to find that he was living on the West Coast with an older lover. He laughingly says that he really wants a mistress, no commitments, because he's happy in his marriage but loves men's bodies now. He suggests we look at tapes, and his clothes come off slowly (he has the balding looks of Paul MacLean and David Hoch but is 42 and he says 6'1", though he seems shorter than me. He's not got the greatest body, but his cock is long and curved upward and almost indestructible, and I enjoy playing with it and he says "I manipulate very well," and he comes with great spasms and grunts when I wet my palm and manipulate his cock-head, which he says he NEVER does, and it was a GREAT and POWERFUL new feeling, even to the point of soreness, which was only for the moment, gone away when I phoned him the next day at work and he said he'd call me back. He said he didn't think "good friends" would be affected by learning he was gay, that his wife "was a good friend," and she found a Torso magazine he left out after he jerked off in September, his wife found his SON looking at it and asked "Is this yours?" and the son said, "NO, this is DISGUSTING." He drove his son for four hours back to school a few days later and no one said anything about it, so he assumed it had been dismissed. His wife asked, "Does this mean you are partly homosexual?" and he said, "Yes, but I don't want to talk about it now," describing HIM as the heart-oriented one and HER as the logical arbitrator in any of the little contretemps they have before "they go to bed happy" as they've agreed always to do. He dressed nicely in a suit, goes to the gym to reduce from his athlete's body without the muscles, is down to 179 his lowest in years, believes in healthy habits if you're going to live a long time, and loves my tapes and wants to come back to see more of them. I didn't get that turned on except when he came, but I foresee a lovely growing relationship. We hugged when he left, he probably would like to be more affectionate, seems very open (which I praised about him, which pleased him), and he'll be coming back.

1/4/90 [Typed 1/5]: Phoned Joe of Bensonhurst about 9:30PM, feeling horny after the nudes at the Met and awake after dinner at Teresa's with Dennis, and he phoned back quickly and said he'd be over in half an hour. I put things away and couldn't get out of my head what (I thought, though he said he DIDN'T) Pope had said about "good to phone, so that if something happens, I'll know who did it," and Pope's line is busy so I phone Arnold and tell HIM about it, and John buzzes at 9:55 and bounces up the stairs VERY fat. Sort of a Danny DiVito type who becomes appealing on further knowing. HE'S recently straight, though he'd come when a guy in the gym played with him when he was 17 years old, and a little later, at a straight orgy, he came 16 times in 24 hours. He's 39, divorced, takes his daughter out every other weekend, lives with a sister and brother-in-law, is on the road buying and selling cars a lot, likes to eat (gained 15 pounds over the holidays, which probably wouldn't make much difference in his 50-pounds-over condition), isn't good with words but can repair anything mechanical (perked up slightly when I said I feared my VCR wasn't rewinding properly), and kept trying to make ME feel comfortable when I wasn't turned on by HIM and kept saying that I felt self-conscious. He loved looking at the male bodies on tape, said "Wow, he came a LOT" a couple of times, and got out his cock and started playing; saying he didn't want to put spots on my carpet I got out my towel from yesterday (useful, that!) and then when he came with a spurt to his chin I joked "You didn't say that I had to be careful of my WALLS." He ASKED me to come play with him, so I did, wetting him too, and he said "I can come anytime you want," so I figured to give him quick satisfaction, too, and he seemed to enjoy it, playing with MY cock which was dripping but came up ONLY when he came, which he noted, and I said that the guy YESTERDAY took his clothes off and started posing for me, and John said no one ever thinks he's gay with his voice and looks (which is true) and praised his wife by saying that when the marriage was going SHE brought in another woman and had sex with HER to turn him on, and even suggested HE could bring in a GUY and fuck and then they could both screw HER. He kept saying he didn't like women because they took too much courting and so often said what they didn't feel, lying to manipulate and get more out of a guy. I used the opportunity to say that I liked what I liked, trying to let him off easily, but at the end he seemed to like to talk (even said he wanted to stay LONGER next time), and left at 12:15 saying he'd like to come back, appreciating the fact that I worked at home (allowing me to say that I was too busy at any time), was interested in my explanation of indexing, has a Commodore that he beats playing chess at a low level, and said that he'd definitely call me again, because he didn't like going to bars because they looked at him as if he didn't belong there. He seems to have a few other gay contacts but seems to want to talk, very much like Richard, and I wondered what there was about my ad that attracted so many almost-straight guys! But I'm feeling better with it and look forward to making the OTHER four calls to the guys who responded to my Brooklyn Paper ad!

1/5/90: There's a phonecall from Tony of Bensonhurst waiting for me when I get back from Actualism about 9:45, and he's at a party with his sister and brother-in-law but he asks about what I like to do and he says he gets HARD talking to me. Then he calls back at 10:45 to say that he's still horny, it's too late to get here, and though I say I don't like phone-sex, he plays with himself while I talk to him. He's into nipples and foreskin, likes to wrap his cock with his former wife's underwear (though he insists he's not into cross- dressing at all), and cums up to his nipples while I talk with him while ignoring the climax of "Abduction from the Seraglio." Then he calls back at 11:15 but I say I'm ready to go to bed. Now it's three out of three for the married men! He wants badly to come over Saturday, but I say I'm busy, and he can't make it Sunday, so he's coming Tuesday at 4PM.

1/7/90: Back from Sherryl's about 10:30 and there's a call from John of Park Slope on 3rd St. near Grand Army Plaza "before you get to Methodist Hospital". He was away for the weekend but liked getting my message, can be reached home most evenings (except this Wednesday) after 7PM, but it's too late tonight because he has to get up at 5AM, "But there's lots of time," he says calmly. I tell him I'm waiting to have windows installed before I know what my schedule will be since my weeks is TOTALLY tied up, and I say I'll call him when I know.

1/9/90: TERROR! Maybe it WAS something wrong with the meal at Tres Palmas BESIDE Vicki's telling me about being in psychotherapy for months because of waking up most evenings in sheer TERROR. I thought it sounded AWFUL, and I seem to have opted for a piece of it last night! Got to bed EARLY at 10:30 because I was just TIRED and didn't have anything better to do, and woke at 2:30 WITH a feeling of dread---was my mouth tingling because there'd been AIDS virus in Richard's semen, which had been carried to my mouth when I wet my fingers to continue his pleasures, and now it was attacking my bleeding gums (THAT feeling got so bad that I actually got up and rinsed with hydrogen peroxide to get a feeling of CLEANNESS)? Then I thought of my dried-up nasal passages---was I getting a cold, or the flu---despite the fact that I had a flu shot this year? Then I WAS getting older: I've been thinking that this is my 54th birthday coming up the month after next! Read the AARP paper about the "affluent healthy elderly" who STILL seemed to use more medical supplies and nursing homes than anything ELSE in their old lives. Then, just to make things even, I reminded myself of the ozone layer vanishing, the sealevels increasing, the atomic bombs exploding, and other reasons for death beside AIDS. I tried to get to sleep but couldn't for awhile, finding the Actualism energies ineffective. Thought with concern about other people coming over for sex and robbing me, that the windows would never be replaced, that I'd die without publishing anything at all and all my stuff would just be thrown OUT, and I thought idly of what would be rescuable from Spartacus's apartment when he died with all the books and records and tapes and files and clippings and souvenirs, as well as all of Pope's gadgets. NOT a very pleasant frame of mind, thinking I MUST get the articles on eating out to another Brooklyn paper TOMORROW, that I MUST get more written for the writer's group which is now meeting TOMORROW,
I MUST get more response from Mitch about what ideas I have with him, and what GOOD would it do me to have read all the books I devote so much time for reading. Think at least to make this into a PIECE for a play or essay, but I couldn't think of a handle to ROMANTICIZE it; Vicki didn't even agree that her "TERROR" was in any way related to Conrad's "HORROR" in "Heart of Darkness." So I tossed some more, thinking other terrible thoughts that I can't even remember now in the bright light of 4PM waiting for Tony to arrive, sorrowing about the TV-movie "Rock Hudson" where he died without ENJOYING being gay, and now I'll finish up this page and put the final things away for the Tony who might not even COME---maybe it was HIM who called at 3PM when I was out and didn't leave a message. And now there are INDEXES waiting to be done, TOO!

1/9/90: Note from 1/8/90: Richard comes in at 4:25PM, and I immediately tell him to take his shoes off. I ask "Would you like to talk or take your clothes off," and we establish that he can take his clothes off AND talk. He cums three times in all, each more feeling than the other, he saying that at first his cockhead isn't sensitive, almost numbed, at all, but then it GETS more sensitive as my stroking goes on. We look at tapes and he particularly likes people that I get off on, which is very nice. I'm down to shorts and fondle myself, but I'm just so overwhelmed by HIS orgasms and PERMANENT hardness that I can't get away from my interest in HIM. I apologize that I have to send him on his way at 6:50, but I didn't know he'd be staying so long: he told his wife he'd be seeing a client in Brooklyn Heights. He brought along an internal memo about the "Age Wave" of Baby Boomers and Busters, and I checked out the stock quotes from August through January and only U.S.Surgical increased by 40%, most of the others did nothing at all! So much for HIS expertise. I put my arm on his back a few times when he came in, but he didn't seem to lean toward greater intimacy, though he seemed to push back my knee with his knee and like the feeling of my hands on him, and he put his hand on the back of my chair but went no farther. From having had NO interest in men before, now comes a story of his going into the National Guard (like Vice-President Quayle, with whom he would have been a classmate had he chosen his SECOND-choice college) and being teamed with a cook who made a pass at him that he refused, but the SECOND pass he made at him in a hotel room at a conference he says he wishes NOW that he would have TAKEN. He also mentioned a couple of other passes when he was younger, so he wasn't QUITE as out-of-it as he had implied, and Joe insists that he'd even had other gay relationships outside his marriage, and I could only say, "We'll have to wait and see what comes out." Mentioned to him my comment to Vicki that I felt like a WOMAN, not being able to make anything more of it even if I WANTED to. But I'm looking forward to his next visit excitedly!

1/9/90: Disappointed when 4PM comes and passes and Tony doesn't show up, and I'm on the phone with Susan and Joe until 5:35, when Tony calls, apologizing for getting home late, saying he'll be here at 6PM. I phone Joe back and he laughs at my gluttony in gobbling it up, "As I always do." What a terrible reputation I seem to have? So I get the letter to THE NEWSPAPER out and type up this page to 5:55PM, and now there's nothing to do but wait! Don Maloof calls, in town for a Mother with "water on the heart and lungs" and a cousin who just had a heart attack! He's leaving Friday but "I'll phone before I come back in February and we'll plan to get together." WHILE he's on the phone the buzzer goes at 6:20, and I ask him to hold on (the security for #1 was Pope, for #2 was Spartacus, now #3 with Don! Though Spartacus INSISTS the next day that it's DANGEROUS to have these people up without checking them out BEFORE OUTSIDE my apartment) and can report "Looks pretty good!" when Tony comes up the stairs. He's balding, but his hair is long and black, and he's like a more substantially-built Bob Rosinek: same directness, same Brooklyn accent, same hard body, though Tony actually has some MUSCLES. HIS story is stupifying: he was doorman at Ty's during the 70s, met the sister of his best friend and dated and married her 15 years ago, had three sons, and when the sons were 4, 8, and 10 the wife VANISHED in his car, driving him out of HER house (and "she has to be gone three more years before she's declared dead" as he said, or "deserted," as Spartacus insisted. That was two years ago, he's raised the sons, went for 1/5 years at 16-17 to Grayfriars Monastery in Harrison NY until he told his folks to get him out, likes the gay movies on Kings Highway, and wears his wife's silk undies as he smokes and works on his thick, veiny, purple-headed very uncircumcised cock. He likes jamming his finger in his ass and fucking my cock between his thighs and pinching my nipples too hard, but otherwise he's sexy and responsive and active and loves films, calls his kids after he and I cum, and leaves at 7:40, saying he'll be back again. The livest and most experienced of the bunch, and most conventionally sexy into the deal.

1/11/90: Decide that today (rather than starting on the index, as I was tempted) I'll go to Spartacus's to edit my past-life regression tapes! And I search AGAIN through EB to see what I can find on Japanese planes, and DO find from EB 1-p.383 that in 1912 a plane left a cruiser deck, from 1-386 that the first aircraft carrier was in 1917, from 1-388 that "Imperial Japanese Naval Air Service taught technique of torpedo bombing by British training mession in 1921-1923," from 19-970 that Washington Conference in 1921-22 signed Five-Power Treaty to regulate aircraft carriers established a ratio of 10:10:6:3.3:3.3 for US, Britain, JAPAN, France, and Italy, and from 19-973 that London Naval Treaty of 1930 established a ratio of 10:10:7 for ships of US, Britain, and JAPAN, and from 12-894 that Japanese aircraft carrier "Hosho" was completed as the FIRST aircraft carrier in 1919! So a BIOGRAPHICAL-HISTORICAL past-life IS possible!!

1/12/90: DEBATE sending an ad to New York Magazine, which should be cheap compared with the $45 for 10 phonecalls to the Brooklyn Paper ad, but find that "Gay white male, 20s, loves muscles. Photos appreciated. Box NYMNNN" would cost $79 or $85.52 with tax, with which I could BETTER rent FIFTY video pornos or buy at least EIGHT magazines. And why not go with the Native or the Voice?

1/12/90: Watched Robert Bly (with a still-stupid Bill Moyers) in "A Gathering of Men," and RAILED through it: with war, patriotism, nationalism, and paternalism, do we NEED "The food from the father" or "The initiation into MAN hood??" What about growing into a HUman? Who WERE my male models in growing up??? Muscle builders? Superheros! Movie stars like Dean Stockwell or James Dean? Phallic sex-objects like photos or statues of athletes or Greek nudes? He said that WOMEN initiate with FEELINGS and love of EARTH. THAT's what men need! "Woman's values rejected"---but only through men's GREED and their OWN mistaken notions of power and value. "Men don't feel devalued"---but they damn well SHOULD! "Grief is a door to man's feelings." WOMEN do it BETTER. How did I want to be fathered? Did I want a father to muscle-pose before me? My UNCLES were male models! One building model planes---and how I treasured the sheets of paper that he gave me! I surely didn't want a father to throw footballs at me, or teach me how to fight! My MOTHER taught me to TYPE, the most valuable skill I STILL use! "But don't BLAME (that you didn't have "the food of the father"), MOURN!" SHIT: forgive and FORGET it! "Men: inadequate at work; having no male friends; wife says they don't talk enough." BOY am I glad to be GAY!! "Grief is the door to feeling"---unless you TEACH yourself how GOOD it FEELS to FEEL! "You can tell Americans in Europe; they're smiling!"---GOOD, KEEP this! "Te be a MAN means to be a WARRIOR, and ignore the BODY." BULL-SHIT!! "Warrior is not KILLER, just DEFENDER"---yeah, like STAR WARS! "Male mothers (mentors) nourish men's SOULS. Men NEED BLESSING from OLDEN man." YUM!! "Old men give young men ZEUS energy." "GANGS are all YOUNG men looking for initiation (by OLDER men)"---send 'em OVER here, baby!! "Robert Bly is a man of POWER." Who NEEDS that? A man of COMPASSION better!

1/12/90: With just twelve lines left on the page, here's WHERE AM I NOW? Been putting off getting a Mr. Video movie-book in order to get OTHER things done, but OTHER other things keep piling up: transcribe the edited past-life tapes, redo "Future Therapy" and get Lampoon current address to send it to, and I WILL have to get to the indexes fairly soon, and then it'll be time to update the movie file in February, then finish "setting" my videotapes, then more pages of AIDSHOUSE, and phoning Marge and Dennis and Sherryl to see THEIR reactions to the NEW version. Then probably more ads, bolstered by the good luck with the Brooklyn Paper ad, probably in the Native and in the Voice rather than New York Magazine. Then Rolf to see his computer, Marck Smith and his computers, Susan and her new computer, show the slides to Paul, go with Dennis to the drive-in movies and the Houston rib-place, restart dining with Shelley and Sherryl and Alice and Joe, and by then it'll be time to plan for a TRIP that'll take time!!

1/24/90: DECISIONS: Mull in morning; mull in evening:
1) WINDOWS: But I don't have to worry because they weren't the right SIZE today
2) STAMPS: Just decide NOT to look through the bimonthly catalogs; too-much TROUBLE
3) PEOPLE: Phoned Richard and he's coming Monday; when will I get to the others?
4) VIDEOTAPES: Managed to avoid going to Mr. Video so far, but now I've got the
5) INDEXES: To attend to, both of them, but at least I've gone through weeding
6) DISKETTES: Deciding which to keep, got to order more soon if I don't buy NEW
7) COMPUTER: Which seems to be building up pressure, now that I have enough
8) MONEY: Though I'm tempted to take what I have and start reserving for that
9) TRIP: That seems to be building up in my mind now that I have sufficient
10) NOVEL: Pages typed out: THREE batches to hand to THREE people at tonight's
11) WRITER'S GROUP: If everyone's there, which'll give me a chance to say I'm
12) HOMOSEXUAL: Which I wanted to do when all three were there,and they've been
13) WORKING: Which even Richard is thinking of changing now that that volatile
14) STOCK MARKET: Seems to be collapsing, as Rolf predicts as I try to see his
15) INCOME-TAX PROGRAM: On his new computer, which now has an expensive hi-res
16) MONITOR: Which I have to consider with all the data I'm getting for MY NEW
17) TANDY 3000: That seems to be the best they offer, at least now that poor
18) LEADING EDGE: Has gone through Chapter 11, about which I just telephone
19) SHERRYL: Who isn't home. Must renew 20) WORLD OF VIDEO: Before Sunday
21) WINE TASTING: Which really isn't a decision subject, but it's nicer than
22) PERIODONTICS: Which I just improved by switching to Dr. Messing, though the
23) PROXABRUSH: Doesn't seem to be as effective as the toothpick: MORE decision
24) FUTURE THERAPY: Still hasn't been revised, nor have I gotten an address for
25) NATIONAL LAMPOON: To send it to. But at least my list of current to-be-done
26) RESTAURANTS: Is coming along well with Arthur's Landing next Tuesday with
27) VICKI: And SHE is really a problem, not telling Joe if she's coming to the
28) CHINESE NEW YEAR'S DINNER: That Joe put together after I stopped him from
29) DENNIS: 's trick of having ME do the invitations, but he's out NOW getting
30) LISBON TRAVIATA: I hope, or I'll have to try something special, maybe even
31) PAUL BOSTEN: Who seems not to be more greatly affected with EVERYONE'S pet
32) AIDS: Problem, which reminds me that I have to change Acid House enough for
33) AIDS HOUSE: To be a proper title. AND I have a phone-message with Trudy of
34) THE NEWSPAPER: And if she doesn't call in a couple of days I'll try the
35) BROOKLYN PAPER: Because now that my impetus has been started, I want MORE
36) RESTAURANT REVIEWS: To my credit, so that, if worse comes to worse, and
37) INDEXING: Is REALLY going to collapse as Elliot predicts, I can have some
38) INCOME: Without selling my body, which leads to the TERRIBLE desicion of the
39) GYM: Which I have to attend more asiduously so I'll be more inclined to
40) LOSE WEIGHT: Though thankfully I've never been back to the 190# high, almost
41) SPARTACUS: 's grossness, which would NEVER work, or I'll start suffering as
42) POPE: Suffers with his knee, or as some of those heart-lung disabilities on
43) NEAR-DEATH: Which took six hours on Sunday and Joe only saw for two before
44) TERESA'S: Gave me heartburn with its heavy dinner just before bedtime sans
45) JERKING OFF: Which I seem to do less and less and with less and less (AGH!)
46) PLEASURE: Which is what the whole thing is supposed to be about: that thing
47) LIFE: The best decision of them all, coupled with a decision to re-practice
48) ACTUALISM: Long past the point of "practicing or quitting," because it may
49) VANISH: Without anyone being willing to support it. Am I really run out of
50) DECISIONS: ? I could go back to the problem of Mitch Rose not callingAbout
51) INDEXING HANDBOOK: And how I've not made a decision about producingSeparate
52) BROCHURES: That I sell to publishers independently; not to mention my idea:
53) CASTENEDA INDEX: Which has been on the list perhaps longest. Then there's
54) YEARS PASSING: For which I read the book that I haven't started from Vicki:
55) PASSAGES: Because I'm insisting on turning and marking many pages of MyBook
56) QUANTUM THEORY: Reactivated because of the program on the top quark-hunt on
57) TELEVISION: Which is a problem because I watch it too much even WITHOUT new
58) CABLE: Facilities, & here I am at the bottom of the page without mentioning
59) LOVE: One of the biggest decisions of all, not to mention THE biggest of ALL
60)DEATH:Just to end the page at the end of the page WITH the end of EVERYTHING!

1/27/90: Thank goodness I don't have a headache THIS morning! It started Wednesday night, when I went to bed: it felt like I had a starting set of pimples on or inside my right ear, so that it "didn't feel good" when I lay on my right side to fall asleep. Thursday morning I woke with a "ring of headache" around my right ear, as if the focus IN the ear the night before had now expanded out AROUND the ear. I indexed almost 8 hours Thursday, every so often getting a "twinge" in the head, as if someone had flicked their middle finger, using their thumb as a cocking device, at a localized point one or two inches from the rim of my right earlobe. I got the distinct "picture" that there might be something wrong with a fan-shaped (more precisely, a palmate- leaf-vein-shaped) vein or artery INSIDE my skull (though I kept saying that the brain or veins don't HAVE nerve-ending sensation), which started at the focus of my ear, and was now radiating out FROM the area of the ear. I worried about it affecting my dinner Thursday night at Brandywine (appetizers of italian noodles with truffle-cream sauce, (starting with thin crisps with olive-anchovy paste on one side, tomato-mustard sauce on the other), marinated herring for Joe, and forgotten for Alice, then disappointing roast pheasant for me with vinegary sauerkraut and lingonberries, great bloody venison and chestnuts in black pepper for Joe, and tender and fatty goose with spinach (special from the cook since Alice dislikes vinegar in sauerkraut) under mashed potatoes for Alice. My chocolate cupcakes for dessert were sad reminders of the two-delicious intensities of Rakel, Alice's quince flan was enormous and mild- tasting, and Joe's almond meringue was rather dull. The starting 1985 Trimbach Reisling for $21 and the Pommard, Joe's indulgence, for $38, were both fabulous, and Joe even "liked" the bill for $217 split two ways to treat Alice for Christmas), but it didn't, though I told them about it. Felt it a bit when I went to bed Thursday night, but this time when I lay on my LEFT side it felt that the "vein" was "hanging" uncomfortably, and it felt better when I LAY ON it, as if "anchoring it in place." No trouble going to sleep Thursday night, and then Spartacus woke me Friday morning at 10:15, we talked until 11:20 with no twinge from my head, but then my LEFT EYE-SOCKET began to pain ever-so- slightly, and based on his observation that HIP would be closed over the weekend, I went to deliver an index and pick up groceries at 12:45PM Friday and found what I thought was a TOUR leaving the building until the Practitioner (not Mr. Reddi, but some almost-word) told me that there'd been a BOMB scare and they'd phoned the police bomb-squad. I bought groceries and retrieved my laundry in the rain and phoned HIP at 2:25 to find they were BACK but that emergency calls had ended, as usual, at 2PM, and I COULD phone 1-800-HIP-HELP and get the address of my nearest emergency location, but the twinges had disappeared enough so that I was mildly enough concerned to mention them to Vicki (with whom I had felt vaguely guilty about a month ago when I mentioned I had about one headache every two years when she described her almost CONSTANT migraines), who tended to dismiss them---but then what else could she do, say I was dying? Felt one or two twinges Friday night as I watched TV, but was glad to find that there was no further pain Saturday morning as I jotted down many dream notes and got out of bed at 9:25AM to wait for the delivery of an index package from a new company that had been delayed since AUGUST, having decided that I did NOT need the extraneous pressure of going to the gym with the headache, fearing to make it worse, and I didn't even feel now that I could take a shower for fear of missing the buzzer for the delivery (which I thought I heard at 7:30 in the morning, CLEARLY too early, thus a dream-fragment), though I could leave a note for someone else as Dennis had left a note for UPS all day yesterday on the outside buzzers, and no one had the courtesy to remove, even if he DIDN'T get the delivery yet. Feel mildly dissociated this morning, but it would be romanticizing to try to connect it with the headaches: I guess things are changing slightly; I'm looking for something to be concerned about, and I just felt a twinge in the upper right of my head, so maybe it's not even over YET, though I can print this page now that I've finished it all!

2/2/90: I'd wanted to be SO productive today, but got SIDETRACKED: the MAIN thing I found is that MY computer has a FLOPPY-expansion slot---can I get an EXTERNAL 720K (so that my SCRIPSIT files can be copied with space to spare, as they could NOT be with a 360K) 3 1/2" floppy that could be used with TRSCROSS on ANY IBM-compatible, which would EITHER 1) let me go to ANY other "new" computer, OR 2) Let me KEEP MY OLD ONE with the knowledge that, with constant "saving" on 3.5" floppies, I could get ANY new one when my old one folds AND have all my files INSTANTLY available! MORE to think about!!

2/2/90: FUGUE ON STORAGE ARRAYS: Went to bed early last night and woke early this morning but didn't feel like getting out of bed, and I kept thinking about 1) helping Actualism, 2) OOBEs, 3) OCRing my old 20,000 pages into my computer, 4) reading books, 5) watching VCRs, 6) exercising, 7) meeting people, 8) travel a) files, b) plans, c) locations, d) souvenirs---and I started FUGEING through CD-ROM arrays of hierarchies of data: 1) titles and topics of books that stretched into strings that were the words of the books themselves, 2) networks of data arrays that displayed my pages of writing either by a) date or b) topic or c) keywords, 3) lists of movies that were followed by the movies themselves, 4) people crossindexed by traits and knowledges and activities, 5) travel thoughts cross-referenced by plans and observations and souvenirs, 6) GENERAL programs for GLASS-BEAD-GAME programs where an individual could enter their LIFE into a computer for manipulation of storage arrays for ANY AND ALL purposes. Exercises cross-referenced to sex and individuals and health parameters. Books connected to movies and digital images of their best scenes. Printed books that were all my writings, set for transferring to any computers. Then I got to: why did I want my books printed in the first place? The answer was that I wanted people to KNOW my thoughts and FOLLOW my advice, but that doesn't need PRINT: I could send diskettes of writing through modems to others' computers DIRECTLY. Then I had a dream, then I wanted to eat breakfast, and now it's 10:15AM and I'm WELL into the day and haven't done ANYTHING yet! EAT!

2/7/90: NOTE from NYPL on DAHL: Two Fables, Viking/Penguin 1986 (Viking at 40 W.23rd St, NYC 10010 if I want to order it).
"Princess and the Poacher [Hengist]": p/15-16: "Drowning tub filled with water so that the top of his head was just below the surface of the water. The result of all this was that the victim spent many hours, sometimes days, being pulled down by the weight of the anklets, then jumping up again for a quick breath of air when his feet touched the bottom. Finally he sank altogether from exhaustion." p.20: "having his way with her by force." p.30: "jet of water...right up the backside of the offending guest."
"Princess Mammalia": The wicked beauty is told (by the king in disguise) how to kill the king. She poisons the king's oysters, he switches them, she poisons herself and dies.
This was published on the occasion of Dahl's 70th birthday in an elegant little volume with ink-wash nonobjective illustrations by someone, and it occurs to me as I'm reading it that it would NOT be found in the CHILDREN'S section of the bookshop, and maybe I SHOULD buy it since it seems UNLIKELY it would come out in a paperback of its own, unless the two stories are gathered together later.

2/10/90: Get the mailing from Salen Lindblad and I FEEL LIKE IT WANT TO GO on the inaugural Antarctica trip! Then Spartacus calls with cheap ENGLAND fares, and I'm tempted to do THAT. Then watch "Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" about one's 9-5 job and one's COMMITMENT, and decide I MUST write and THEN go to the Antarctic trip! At 2:11AM on 2/11 I make this note: ACT: 1) Salen: a) Do you PAIR? b) Can I board as "spare" in Hobart to replace cancellations? 2) Mitch: a) Indexing Handbook? b) Passing Years letter? c) Lindblad inaugural voyage? 3) Spartacus---Antarctica WITH me? 4) Tom Pearsall---Antarctica WITH me? 5) Gary Bywaters---Antarctica WITH me? 6) Computer DECIDE! OCR? 7) Brooklyn Paper wants reviewer? 8) FINISH AIDS HOUSE---to Mitch? 9) Index 10) Casteneda Index

2/15/90: Certainly my cold for the past week has been assisting my light-headed feelings, but I seem to be COMMITTING myself to the Antarctic trip: Spartacus could lend me $5000 (or maybe a bit more) in November from a CD coming up, and Toni at Cadman Travel is checking the cost of a flight from Santiago to Easter Island to Papeete to New Zealand, and I've written to Jean-Jacques asking him (indirectly) if he'd like to join me. And I've told a few people about it, and I'm hoping it'll spur me into WRITING FOR SALES during this period when I have NO indexes (and no prospects until April 1 for the Macmillan indexes---and just talk to Joanne Kane and she's talking about Reading and Science projects coming up--meaning that I might work on them???---and she appreciated ME telling her what she already knew: that I'd be working with Monica directly on the Math books). THIS COLD HAS BEEN A BUMMER!!! I keep hoping it's NOT some kind of flu against which my flu-shot didn't protect me, but I thought I was getting over it YESTERDAY and then I used it as an excuse to leave Phyllis's early last night, got to bed at 9:30, and got up at 7:30 NOT feeling that I'd slept TOO MUCH. Breakfast, brush teeth, write to Yama and Jean-Jacques, and have to order pills, and still have "calling Mitch" and "doing Casteneda index" on my "do list top", but I guess I've FINISHED with this & now out for today's FILMS!

2/18/90: Finish reading My Father and Myself by Ackerley, and I get the insight that his FATHER led a GOOD life: one he WANTED to lead regardless of what anyone thought about him, while the SON led a SAD life, which I summarized in the back of the book with a note which reads: "How SAD---not so much for HIM as the world which CREATED his sadness." The British world that said that sexuality was not to be spoken of, that everyone had to be the same, and if they weren't, they had to expect a life that was somehow LESS than that of others who "did the right thing" or "were more normal." Then I reverted to thinking about my proposal for "Passing Years," and thought of a TWIST ON IT: "PASSING YEARS: THE URGE FOR A REVOLUTION!" Most revolutions are brought about by the young, who either know too little about everything, or too much about a very narrow area, so that their DESIRES for the RESULTS of a revolution aren't well thought out: they might get the economics right, but forget about the emotional lives; they might predict the intellectual response, but ignore the physical realities; they might get the INSTITUTIONS right without a real understanding of the UNITS that won't fit INTO those institutions: the individuals. The young are encouraged, in worst cases to a PROCRUSTEAN extent, to "conform" and to "fit in." Only the old KNOW that their chief pride usually comes from the ways in which they have NOT conformed or fit in. No REAL conformist would EVER become an artist, a playwrite, an author, a politician, or even a revolutionist. Only those who have "passed years" KNOW that conformity is only fear: fear by the "ruling classes" that the young might overthrow them, fear by those ruled of being punished, or not being accepted, or of not accepting THEMSELVES, which is the real message of conformity: Accept what WE say you are, not what you yourself THINK you may be. I fumbled around, while washing dishes, trying to think of the FOCUS for the direction toward the incitement of revolution by the aged: would it BE toward individuality? Only the AGED know the PLEASURES of being an individual: "Oh, he's an old fart," can be said with genuine AFFECTION, rather than mere displeasure. "She certainly is a character" is a mark of APPROVAL, rather than reproof, when said of someone who's 80; but it's the other way around for a problematic daughter, sister, or wife of 20 or 30. Maybe it was the idea of SINCERITY: if the characters in "My Father and Myself" had only been SINCERE with each other, they could have led more fulfilled lives. But that skirts the more direct issue of TRUTH. In this world of relativism in science; increasing genetic influences in psychology; worminess in local, national, and international politics; positivism and pragmatism in philosophy; and increasingly dichotomized nationalism in government---truth is a dirty word. The bottom line in current science, psychology, politics, philosophy, and government seems to be that TRUTH DOES NOT EXIST. Well, I say that's bullshit: spinach is spinach and truth, which DOES exist, is truth! The sad part is that only OLDER individuals KNOW the truth, and for the most part only when the older persons have had the time, the leisure, or, sadly, the ill health, to REMOVE themselves from their formerly-active lives and LOOK at those lives, and the world around those lives, to SEE what the truths have BEEN. AND THERE HAVE BEEN TRUTHS. But interestingly they wouldn't be the SAME truths for ALL people. I'm ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE that these FOUR truths exist for large groups of elderly:
1) It was absolutely correct that I never had children,
2) It was absolutely correct that I had children,
3) It was absolutely wrong that I never had children,
4) It was absolutely wrong that I had children. For example, for Ackerley's father it was abolutely correct that he had children because his son's book fulfilled his wish as repeated on the last page of that book: "I hope people will generally be kind to my memory." Since the junior Ackerley didn't bother to say what he hoped, even though it would be interesting to hear HIS son's comments on his forebears, the truth for him is not known. This is true: THOUGH THERE ARE DIFFERENT TRUTHS FOR DIFFERENT PEOPLE, THERE ARE TRUTHS!
The revolution, greatly desirable, would be TO LET ALL THESE TRUTHS BE TOLD! This certainly can't be done with the societies, the churches, the governments, the schools, the moralities we have today. But for the good of humanity it must be done!
It CANNOT be done by the young who tend to think that HIS OR HER truth is the ONLY truth. The opposite truth is probably equally true, but it takes "passing years" to make that clear. Anyone trying to convert the entire world to Catholicism, heterosexuality, democracy, monogamy, vegetarianism, or even a better environment MUST be wrong. May the only "one" correct be the one crying to convert EACH PERSON in the world to THAT PERSON'S truth? Do you really WANT a nine-to-five job? Then GET one! Do you really NOT want a nine- to-five job? Then QUIT it! You can even stretch your imagination and have a nine-to-five job one or two or three days a week rather than four or five or six or seven days a week. Or even one day a year!
The point would NOT well be expressed AS "stretch your imagination" because most people think of their imaginations as dreamings that produce fantasies and illusions. Better express it as STRETCH YOUR TRUTHS! But before you can STRETCH them, you have to FIND them. MOST AGED PEOPLE KNOW THEIR TRUTH! The sad thing is that the world has been conditioned not to listen to them. "Oh, they're past their prime, into their dotage, out of it." If the "it" that they're out of is their "life," that might be the BEST vantage to take to find the TRUTH of that life. "You can't see the forest for the trees" and "fish don't appreciate the water they swim in" are ways of stating that "You can't see the truth of your life unless you can remove yourself from it, however temporarily." If you MUST have a job, and a family, and money, and friends, and a car, and a sex-friend on the side, and a particular kind of shoe to feel comfortable in, what you NEED is a year on a desert island to find out what you REALLY must have. YOU are YOU: you're not your family, or your friends, or what your family and friends think you are, or even what you THINK your family and friends think you are. You ARE what you ARE: there is no MORE basic truth than THAT. How amazingly ignored that truth IS! You are NOT what you were, though memories may be pleasant and comforting. You are NOT what you will be, though plans may be comforting and pleasant. You ARE, right now, ONLY that which you ARE, right at this moment. But if the telephone rings and your friend asks "How are you?" and you automatically reply "OK" when you in fact aren't, you aren't dealing with what you ARE, right now. You aren't dealing with TRUTH. And you're the less for it. As much of the YOU that you ARE right now that you are not willing to BE right now---that much of you is a total loss. Are you a writer and not writing? That part of you that's a writer is presently a total loss. THIS MUST CHANGE!! WHO CAN CHANGE IT?? WE, NOW, CAN!

2/18/90: Note from 2/17/90: Go to Sherryl's to try out MACREX, and make two notes: page 6-3 demands that Tyler{,} Anne is necessary, but I CAN say that / = {,} but a PAIN! Option = Flip caps switches Abstract, logic to Logic, abstract. GREAT!

2/19/90: I come up with a TENTATIVE round-the-world airfare itinerary: Santiago, Easter Island, Papeete (Tahiti), Apia (Samoa), Tonga, Suva (Fiji), Auckland (New Zealand), Sydney (Australia) Perth, Mauritius, Reunion, Mahe (Seychelles), Harare (Zimbabwe), Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe), Johannesburg, Capetown, (and then I SEARCH through Windhoek, Sao Tome, Sal Island, Bissau, and Dakar for SOME flight to Caracas or Bahia, but the BEST I can find NOW (from the 1982 OAG) is the following), Rio, Cayenne, Paramaibo, Caracas, Angel Falls, NYC. I note that Havana Airlines HAD gone Sal Island to Havana, but can I take a flight to Havana? Sort, re-sort, and re-re-sort things to not WRITE!!

2/22/90: I feel ON THE VERGE of being EXACTLY where I want to be with the planned trip: 1) enough jobs to keep busy indexing, 2) satisfaction with VCR viewing and reading so that I'm "up to date" rather than "have a lot to do NOW" with them, 3) enough sex-phone numbers to check with when I feel like I NEED someone "permanent," and 4) in control of "what I must handle next." To further break down the last item, I think of rescuing compartments of my black storage-case to hold PAPERS from my current areas of activity: 1) trip plans and papers, 2) AIDS HOUSE pages and additions, 3) PASSING YEARS pages and additions, 4) computer-purchase ads and notes, 5) restaurant-writing attempts and clippings, 6) Casteneda index beginnings, all in addition to "look at now" stack kept on my bookshelf. AND get rid of the STACKS of stuff BELOW the file!

2/23/90: Do lots of the stuff from above, but that uncovers lots of OTHER things to do: A: immediately phone all the "REFERENCES" people to make sure it's OK with them, and this is a chance to get BACK in touch with Ruth Adams (WHAT was the book I wanted from her?) and Dick Smith, not to mention Tony and Russ, and I think of phoning Helen Ferguson just to see how she IS. Then with the call from Sherryl to TALK with David about computers, I think to B: PHONE the guy in Jersey that Amron told me about, just to SEE 1) if there's a "backup" Model II nearby, 2) if I could RENT someone's "8-inch-to-5/3-inch- diskette" CONVERSION system for a day (COULDN'T be MORE than THAT: 4 minutes a diskette for 50 diskettes is 200 minutes, not even four hours with handling time! If I could do BOTH of those, I'd not NEED to worry about a new computer! Then concerned about C: "reediting" INDEXING HANDBOOK so that it could be 1) NARROWED for NEATER printing, 2) ASCII for easier computer-convert?, and 3) MODULAR for easier conversion to COMPANY BROCHURES, which reminds me that I really should D: phone the Gene-Crofts-given name to ASK about brochure prices. Then the shelf-freeing AGAIN makes me thing about starting the project of E: the Casteneda index, just to START it. And then F: the thoughts of CONDENSING the number of diskettes to be converted on the computer-convert lead me to the idea of FILLING THE COMPUTER STORAGE with everything I have NOW, and then doing ANOTHER "one-series" backup onto 14 diskettes, then emptying out EVERYTHING and "filling it again" with all the OTHER diskettes from the past, which probably would JUST fill it a SECOND time, and then doing A SECOND "one-series" backup onto 14 diskettes, so that I'd only have 28 diskettes to convert, and in only "two series" which could then be BEST condensed into a series of 14 million-byte diskettes or maybe 10 1.5 megabyte diskettes! That leads to the thought of G: reading in all the SCRIPSVN diskettes AT ONCE so that I could COMBINE the SIX MAJOR SECTIONS: a) Notebook, b) Dreams, c) Actualism, d) Chronicle, e) PERM, and f) everything left over! Even my asking Sherryl if I could use HER system as backup on a "stalled index" makes me feel a bit easier. And though I got to bed at 3:10AM last night, and it's only 10:50AM as I finish this, I'm inspired to START DOING for the day, getting lots done before going to the 4th Meeting tonight at 6PM to end THIS productive day!

2/24/90: Yes, I KNOW it seems to be POSTPONING writing by organizing the files (and now thinking of updating the yearly MOVIE LIST) and looking at the Casteneda index, but I think it's all in the nature of PRODUCTIVITY and let it go at that. Even transcribing the ACTUALISM notes from last night is an effort, but I think it's all for the good and general improvement of myself!

2/25/90: Take with David about computers. His BEST statement is that MOST hard disks have about 30,000 MEAN hours to failure, though it might be as low as 20,000 in some of the earlier systems. I figure I've had a MAXIMUM usage of 3 hours per day (that's REALLY a maximum), or VERY roughly 1,000 hours per YEAR! So I could go for TEN years and still not even be HALFWAY to the MEAN (as Sherryl emphasizes---but then I use my computer ONLY MYSELF, and I only use the MOST GENERAL programs---nothing that would STRAIN it!) time of failure. So I feel MUCH better about THAT! Even if I'd used it TEN hours a day, at 250 working days per year, or 2,500 hours per year, I'd STILL only be up to 20,000 at the END of 1990, or EIGHT working years! He said that Leading Edge was bought by a KOREAN firm. He said I should check with Hugh Maddocks to see if there's a CONVERSION PACKAGE on some hardware system that would convert my 8" diskette information TO 5" diskette information. I said I'd try to find WHAT my disk's mean time to failure was, but I looked through what I have this morning, and couldn't find ANYTHING about that, not even in my old file of "two/sixteen" magazines. He even knew the name "CP/M" as the name of my system, though he suggested that rather than WORRYING about it, I should just "bite the bullet" and get a new system, even though I AM going to Antarctica!

2/26/90: After talking to Sherryl about Philosophy yesterday, this morning it dawns on me that FOUR MAJOR FIELDS seem to have boxed themselves the WRONG WAY: 1) PHYSICS went the wrong direction by following the COPENHAGEN INTERPRETATION, 2) PHILOSOPHY went the wrong way in following the SEMANTIC THEORY ofPhilosophy, 3) COMPUTERS are going the wrong way trying to prove they can THINK, and even 4) PSYCHOLOGY went wrong by thinking the brain is MECHANISTIC and COMPUTERISH! Maybe my REVOLUTION BY THE AGING would TURN THESE MAJOR ERRORS AROUND???

3/2/90: From 2/10 note: 1) I called Salen 2/12 and got answers; 2) I phoned Mitch on 2/20 and again on 2/27, told he'll be back 3/1; 3) Spartacus said no on 2/11; 4) Phoned Tom Pearsall 2/20 and left word; 5) Phoned Gary 2/20, and we dined together 3/1; 6) on 2/11 I made the decision NOT to continue working on the computer-replacement because of the TRIP; 7) Sent Brooklyn Paper the food proposal on 2/27; 8) made another note to finish AIDS HOUSE; 9) 2/12 I did the index that was due; 10) 2/26 I sent out the Casteneda index proposal; and I added 11) 2/27 DS IS gathering cards for me in his empty boxes.

3/2/90: From 2/27 note: LETTERS/NOTES: 1) I sent another letter to Michael Blackburn saying I got his card, did he get my letter? 2) Sent another letter to Michael Zolnerzak asking if he WANTED his letters? 3) Sent Castaneda proposal. 4) Sent a letter to Paul McLean. 5) Sent clips to the Brooklyn Paper. 6) Typed "The Connoisseur" for the writers' group. 7) Sent a trip-article proposal to Modern Maturity Magazine. PHONE: 0) Spartacus taking over 2/19 New York Magazine. 1) New Jersey "wirer" said to be back 3/1. 2) Mitch Rose out of town and back 3/1. 3) Left ANOTHER message for Gene Crofts. 4) Gene's printer said he'd get back to me (which he did 3/2: $674 for 16-page and $865 for 32-page brochures, 1000 copies. 5) Tech Magazine said he'd be back 3/6. 6) Dennis didn't know anything about the drive-in movie cars. 7) John Vinton will come to my presentation 3/17. 8) Shelley and Alice and I will go to Palio on 3/20. 9) Left word with Ah-melee Lytell. 10) Visa got Met refund. But I still had enough LEFT that I made up a NEW list of two letters and eight phone calls on 3/2, including Mitch Rose's questions, and the final note to "Finish AIDS HOUSE." Getting things DONE, GREAT!!

3/2/90: NOTE FROM 2/27: with the LIST OF THINGS OUT:
1) Indexing Handbook out 5/88.
2) Two stories to Tech Magazine 12/89.
3) "Passing Years" proposal to Mitch 1/90.
4) "Passing Years" proposal to EGG 2/90.
5) Castaneda index proposal out 2/26/90.
6) Restaurant clips to Brooklyn Paper 2/27/90.
7) Travel article proposal to Modern Maturity 2/27/90. LET'S GET THEM IN!!!

3/2/90: Note for outline for HOMOGENIUSES talk on 3/17:
FREELANCE INDEXING ON COMPUTERS
A. FREELANCE
1) Wanted to be a priest
2) Training in Nuclear Physics
3) IBM
4) FREELANCE
B. INDEXING
1) "Retired"
2) Proofreader
3) Copy-Editor
4) Rewriter (Accounting)
5) Writer (Display)
6) INDEXER
C. COMPUTERS
1) Four sheets of paper
2) Trained myself
3) Computer musts
4) Indexing Handbook
5) Computer shopping
6) Computer usage
7) Computer replacement

3/13/90: Read PIERS ANTHONY: AND ETERNITY from 2/27/90 to 3/6/90, and it was bought by the Brooklyn Public Library (where I borrowed it) on 2/5/90. The crux is a silly "want-list" on page 50, including the DREADFUL sentence: "From War, a seed, to generate the violence inherent in man as a healthy competitive spirit." Come ON!!! p.109 I thought Judge would become God, but he didn't, though the "red herring" is repeated at the top of p.110 and 111. p.121: the stupidity of going to Hell just for having SEX, but that's somewhat clarified at the bottom of p.123: "Gaea disagrees. She feels that natural (as in straight?), consenting love is no sin, and if it is to be considered such, then the definitions of sin need amending." You bet your ASS! p.147: "That, for her, was significant progress; she was learning self-sacrifice" UGH!! p.152: "...women had little interest in looking at men the way men looked at women. Life was inherently unfair. No it isn't, Vita thought. It gives us power, because we've got what they want." So gay men have it MADE, OUTSIDE of your shitty values. Then I started making a chart of Orlene's relationships with EVERYONE in the book: granddaughter of Lachesis, in Fate, who was Niobe; and daughter of Nature, who was Orb; and lover of Chronos, Time, who was Norton, who currently loves Clotho; and friend of Jolie, who's the lover of Satan, who was Parry, and p.292 gives Luna, "the swing vote" as "aunt;" and the daughter of War, who was Mym, the stutterer; so she's only unrelated to DEATH. She gets 1.Lost soul from Death on p.142, 2.Sand grain from Time on 167, 3.Thread from Fate on 205, 4.Seed from War on 248, 5.Tear from Nature on 280, Curse from Evil on 302, and never gets 7.Blessing from God since it's wrapt in its own vision, to be replaced by Orlene. p.343 quote on p.201. p.234 AND 236 "Mym? His name." p.248: "It is the nature of mortal man to fight." BULLSHIT! p.343: Title and of COURSE Orlene is "Goddess" and "Holy Ghost." DREADFUL book; DON'T buy it!!

3/13/90: Notes from 3/4/90 excursion that started with the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and went ONWARD from THERE! Leave 10:55AM and to park at 11:10AM; see
1) In "Hosta" THOUSANDS of pubple, light-blue CROCUS,
2) "Winter Jasmine" dead WHITE flowers, with NEW forsythia flowers GROWING,
3) A dirty CAT on the prowl,
4) The IDEA "as below" (renewal in spring) "so above" (HUMAN reincarnation)!
5) Bright red buds on Pieris (Heath family)
6) HUGE green rhododendron buds
7) Yellow and purple azalea buds ABOUT to pop open
8) YELLOW willow-tree withes
9) CONSTRUCTION at Prospect Park Zoo at 11:40AM
10) Plump dead jay under carousel-side benches
11) White snowdrops/plastic-like yellow flowers on green leaves/iris reticulata is BRIGHT blue. Then I tour the Lefferts Homestead, where I get a schedule of the park lectures, so I go to the Boathouse at 1PM for the snake lecture to 2:30, and get a schedule for the Urban Park Rangers that I follow to Marine Park next Saturday (3/10), the Promenade tour Sunday (3/11), and reservations for the bus tour on 3/17! Then to the Brooklyn Museum (after the Steinhardt Conservatory) for 1) "Images and Reflections: Adolph Gottlieb's Pictographs and African Sculpture" which had its most interesting feature the five mantelpiece sculptures displayed before a photograph of him standing before them in his apartment before he died and his wife bequeathed his collection to the Brooklyn Museum. 2) "David Mach: Grand Lobby Installation" is the kick of spiral piles of Harpers Bazaars piled around two existing columns and inventing three new colums, piled to the ceiling, with interesting color-stripes where the spines were different. 3) "The Blue of Jintai: The Samuel P. Avery Collection of Chinese Cloisonne Vessels" wasn't very interesting. 4) "Tiffany Glass and Lamps" were only about 15 examples in the corner of a hallway. 5) Czech Modernism had some interesting glass and stone constructions, but the paintings seemed klunky and not that interesting, though it was strange to feel that I should avoid Tony Rubino from Actualism going through with his girlfriend. Got home VERY tired about 5:30, feeling that I'd really USED the day COMPLETELY!

3/13/90: Talk to Paul Bosten about how much I liked his party, and HE asked if Claude had PHONED me, so he KNEW about it! I asked about sexy black Robert and drunk Wayne, and Wayne's problem is he's POSITIVE and doesn't want to ACCEPT it, and when I ask what ROBERT'S status is, Paul says "That's the problem, he doesn't WANT to be tested." Such a GORGEOUS guy with such an AWFUL problem!!

3/13/90: Just want to get things OUT OF THE WAY!! Watched TV tapes all day yesterday (Monday) before the writer's group, and then made fudge and got to bed at 3AM, which didn't get me out of bed this morning until 10:30AM, for a late breakfast, and then 1) talked to Spartacus for a long time, then started phoning: 2) Circle Rep to find they MIGHT extend "Prelude to a Kiss" and they'll call Spartacus for my tix if they do, 3) Michael Blackburn calls back to say how much he loved my letter and will probably come to my party, 4) Susan McMahon will DELIGHTED that her last day at her "awful office" is next Tuesday and she'll be working at home again, 5) Paul Bosten gives me above info; 6) Joe Easter stepped out and the snotty woman answered, 7) Society Expeditions doesn't handle air-flights, 8) International Expeditions will send me a brochure, 9) NY Telephone will send me Manhattan white and yellow pages 3/27, 10) I'm to meet Rolf downstairs at 6PM when he buzzes me for tonight, and 11) Tony Davis tells me to call Lee Goerner, 12) David Frost says he'll find someone at Scribners for me to write to, and 13) Lee Goerner's secretary says I should "send him a note" which I'll take as the proposal. 14) Left word with Miles Groth about Shelley's invitation to Palio next Tuesday---and then I wonder where my 105 calls/month come from on my telephone bill! The invitations to the party are going FABULOUSLY, too, and Actualism list's upcoming!

3/22/90 [Note from 3/12]: Tony Davis of Macmillan (he's called a Production Editor) called about pages for Gardening book, and I asked him about who to ask about publishing my Castaneda index. Tony suggests Lee Goernes, who's the Publisher for Atheneum: his specialty is South American authors, that KNOPF has a South American trend, and that I can mention his name and David Frost's name. Then I think to phone David Frost, who says that Latin America IS Goerner's turf, but that he'll talk to "Matt" about Scribner's REFERENCE division, which has a DIRECTORY of Latin American Writers (David only has volume 2, so he can't see if Castaneda is in it), and he'll get back to me. He calls back in 30 minutes with the name of John Fitzpatrick, in Trade and Reference at Scribners, at 702-3422, but he says NO to my idea. Then on 3/13 I decide to telephone Goerner to make sure he's at the same Macmillan address, and some secretary (male) tells me to MAIL it to Goerner, which I do on 3/13, and on 3/17 I get a response saying "contact his editor at Simon and Schuster, Michael Korda," and I phone 245-6400 which is changed to 698-7000 and get told that his address IS 1230 Avenue of Americas, zip 10020. So now there's the NEXT step!

3/22/90 [Note from 3/13]: Called Mitch Rose, and as USUAL the third time is the charm: he answered my questions about 1) Indexing Handbook: Modern Library Association gave no response, but a number of reference divisions of publishers are being reorganized and he's waiting for the changes before sending it out. 2) "Passing Years" should be BY or COWRITTEN by expert with years of experience since "how-to"s are only bought from people who know more than the READERS do. Then a few days later Spartacus reads a note from "7 Days" that Gail Sheehy is working on a book BEYOND 50 that people in publishing are calling"Passages II." SHIT!! 3) The Antarctic trip would be a magazine article rather than a BOOK (which I hadn't said at all), and he'd LOOK at a proposal for the UNIQUE FIRST TRIP focus on ANTARCTICA ALONE, rather than the rest of the trip, emphasizing a STRONG SINGULAR FOCUS. He said a BOOK on this could only be sold by John McPhee, and I didn't bother to say that I wanted to be the NEXT John McPhee!!

3/22/90 [Note finished 3/13/]: Borrowed Sheehy's "PASSAGES" from Vicki, and started reading it 2/22/90. Notes: p11: We confront death between 35-45. p15: "Years between 18 and 50 are the center of life." p24: ages 18-55 in book. p46: At 50: No more bullshit. p127: "We are utterly convinced that all our notions spring full blown, as if by magic, from our own unique selves." p162: Freud: "A sense of her inferiority sets her on the path towards femininity." HISS!! p171: Jung"Our archetypal images of feminine and of masculine can be withdrawn." p187: "The notion that our personalities can be changed on command belongs to the twenties." p/238:"One can get rid of the unresolved problems of self by getting rid of the person onto whom one has been projecting them." Good to get RID of this! p253: "Only 5% of American men over 40 are unmarried." p287: "Middle age, 46 to 54." p.350: "Deadline Decade 35-45." p362: ""Take back your silly rules!" we can shout at last. "No one can dictate what is right for me. I have glimpsed the worst, and now I can afford to know whatever there is to know. I am my own and only protection. For the fact is, this is my one and only journey through life." p367:37-42 is peak years of anxiety." p375:"The greatest freedom of all has opened up: the freedom to be independent and self-sufficient within any relationship." p377: "The crux of it is to see, to feel, and finally to know that none of us can aspire to fulfillment through someone else." p404: "The gratification they are really seeking is derivative of the childhood desire to center the world on ourselves and to have all our demands appeased. The liberation they are looking for is freedom from the influence, censorship, and guilt-provoking love of the inner custodian. Above all, there is the vague promise that by becoming masters of their own destiny they will beat even the grim reaper." p416: "It is one of the central points of this book: How is it that accepting our essential aloneness allows us to become more loving and devoted? It is because the dismay of realizing that our safety does not reside in anyone else emboldens us to find security within ourselves. And once our individuality is no longer endangered, we can be more magnanimous in giving to another. "To be sure," says Jung, "it takes half a lifetime to arrive at this stage." p425: "At 50 there is a mellowing and a new warmth." p439: "Things can never be settled once and for all." p445: "Males and females are most alike before they are born, at 18, and over 60." p454-456 are HOT! Other final comments noted on card, but it really doesn't go PAST 55, and I find that she's in process of writing "PASSAGES II"!!

3/22/90: WHERE AM I NOW: I'd SENT out lots of things, many of which were refused, many of which were ignored, many of which may still be pending. I DID a spate of movie-catching-up-on viewing, and now I seem to be readying for ANOTHER. I DID catch up on VCR tapes during the first three days this week, and have agitated for more restaurants among friends. I finally, today, caught up on typing dreams and Actualism and Notebook pages, and now I'm ready to send out Castaneda to Korda and the Antarctica proposal to Mitch. AND to catch up on the movie list. AND to go through the stack and get MORE "Things to do."!!

3/23/90: Get the bug to find out how much I DID earn, having guessed that I'd made half-a-million on indexes so far. Calculate the following figures:
FIRST EARNINGS PRE-COMPUTER INDEXES COMPUTERIZED INDEXES
1957 $1,200 1973 $2,227 6 1983 $33,132 30
1958 2,141 1974 2,502 8 1984 33,089 47
1959 5,052 1975 3,170 6 1985 27,335 56
1960 7,360 1976 2,406 3 1986 29,715 49
1961 8,861 1977 14,505 22 1987 32,322 33
1962 10,199 1978 15,932 39 1988 30,229 37
1963 7,637 1979 16,450 47 1989 33,412 38
1964 11,255 1980 17,788 26 1990 17,517 8
1965 12,420 1981 18,834 18 $236,752 298
1966 13,695 1982 35,814 54
1967 14,518 1983 7,192 12
1968 12,052 $136,820 241
1969 0
1970 106 INDEXING TOTALS
1971 2,049
1972 2,339 $373,572 539
1973 6,912
1974 8,780 GRAND TOTALS
1975 876
1976 990 $502,014
TOTALS $128,442 (or $449,979 BEFORE $2,035 bill received)

3/24/90 [typed 3/29]: HEAL meeting: started "late at 7:21PM." Intro: Montagnier accusing Gallo of stealing HIV on French TV! 7:28 Dr. Duesberg from US (Berkeley), short and feisty, gray-haired and glassed, rather a comic. New AIDS model: HIV cannot cause AIDS. AIDS is a collection of noninfectious deficiencies. First five AIDS patients (1981) had CMV and drug-use. 60-70% have PCP, 20-30% KS, and dementia, psychosis, etc. Two risk groups in ages 20-40 years: male homosexuals and IV-drug users. 10% (12 million) American males estimated having had homosexual experiences. AIDS is a COLLECTION of 25 diseases (and of these PLUS HIV-positive = AIDS; WITHOUT HIV-positive=nonAIDS). 1) Virus hypothesis: HIV kills T-cells. TECHNOLOGY for TRACKING latent viruses only ten years OLD. Immunologically, risk groups have 1 Million people so 1-2& per year would yields 20,000 cases/year. The disease is transmissible, so the fact that mothers give it to children and blood transfusers get it only after 8-10 years (and in only 1-3% of hemophiliacs) is CORRELATION, not PROOF. The others are only ANECDOTAL, there are NO controlled studies. The January Lancet reports that KS-sufferers in US AIDS are HIV FREE! NO MORE than 1 in 500 t-cells are infected, and only about 1 in 10,000 t-cells have an ACTIVE virus. HIV TEST proves viral vaccination/immunity. "Disease 8-10 years after positivity, but average cell lasts 24 hours." HIV has 9 kilobases, the SMALLEST virus---and it's supposed to kill T-cells and cause cancer GROWTH in cancer, lymphoma, and dementia. Male homosexuals have KS to 90%. IV-drug users have PCP to 90%. "They ALREADY proved viruses don't cause cancer." NOT ONE successful epidemiological study. Latency period has gone from 3 to 5 to 7 to current "10-12 years."
2) RISK hypothesis: Cocaine, drugs, antibiotics, and AZT as CAUSES. INFECTIOUS agents RANDOMIZED in victims. VACCINES will NEVER work---in time (predicted date of getting one) with LATENCY period! "Latency" depends on SUSCEPTIBILITY to noninfectious agents. DECLINE in poppers means a decline in KS. Since 1987, 20,000 in US and 50,000 worldwide are TREATED with AZT, which is an immunosuppressant. "I'd rather take ten years of cocaine than 6 months of AZT." It's DIFFICULT to transmit these diseases; MANY contacts needed for them. 10% OUTSIDE risk groups are "normal." Retrovirologists have come OFF cancer and gone ON to AIDS! Biotechnology breeds MONEY from diagnostics, prophylactics, and aids. Duesberg goes to 8:12, 44 minutes. Dr. Sonnabend is grim and dour, describing a number of FALSE assertions made about AIDS:
1) HIV virus causes AIDS. KS and PCP DO come from IMMUNODEFICIENCY. CMV role? INCREASED in gay men in 70s til 40% would excrete it in semen. Can invert T4/T8 ratio and decrease CD4. GENERALLY immunosuppressive. ALL have it, but gay men have MUCH more. EBV role? ALL carry it in B-lymphocytes. Interferon role? SLE and AIDS cause large inappropriate secretions of interferon. This causes all infection FEVERS. Naltrexone REDUCES interferon and those patients do BETTER. "Appearance of interferon is bad news." It's GOOD for KS IF there's NO interferon in blood, and not less than 400 T cells." NO evidence that autoantibodies contribute to AIDS. Alloantigens (in semen) ARE immunosuppressive. Opportunistic pathogen mix is DIFFERENT in Africa, so the DISEASES are different. AIDS in France get TOXOPLASMOSIS from RAW MEAT.
2) WHAT HAPPENS?: HIV goes to AIDS. "Seronegative people can have latent genomes and after 5-10 years be seroconverted. a) thru human necrosis factor or activated by agents like CMV and malaria. b) thru alloantigens MIXING, c) herpesvirus-6 "turns it on." d) EBV activates it. First query NOT to me at 8:48 but to "Jim" way in the back. QU1: Why do women progress quicker? D: "Not aware of numbers." QU2: Why AIDS now? It recombines OLD things; it's NOT new; we don't KNOW if PCP is new, we only STUDIES T cells starting in 1980s. Maybe increased sexual freedom: syphilis increased GREATLY thru 70s, as did CMV. SHOOTING galleries escalated in 70s. Cocaine MUCH availabler in last 20 years. 2) AIDS IS THE LAST CHAPTER OF CMI: It IS a chapter, but it's not the LAST!!
Q#: Undiagnosed syphilis is AIDS?? Q4: AIDS going up; how did safer sex help? Q5: Salk's vaccine? "They need more time and money. Animal retrovirus antibody contains retrovirus. Q6: Viruses LATENT (herpes and HIV) can be REACTIVATED. Q7: WIFE of IV-user---average of 500 contacts to get HIV. Q8: P24 antigen is MARKER, but no CORRELATION with AIDS. Q9: NO syncythia formation for HIV+. Q10: Dr. Lelhrman: Less than 1% needle-stick disease. Causes: chemicals/radioactivity/dioxin/cyclosporin: ALL immune suppressors. TRY for chemical screening on HIV+. Q11: Protein/calorie malnutrition leads to PCP in Africa. Q12: WHY should COCAINE select for AIDS? Q13: Safer sex MUST prevent multiple infectious diseases. Q14: Tetracycline and chloramphenicol immune suppressors. Q15: MUST check "what goes through needles" as dangerour, not "dirty needles" in 30% of AIDS AS IV-users. Q16: Imuthiol helps T cells, naltrexone too. Fluconazole for CMV, Zovirax for MANY, and other drugs. Q17: 100% certainty that LESS than 100 T4 cells MUST be prophylaxed. Q18: Chronic fatigue syndrome a total mystery. Q19: Plasmaphoresis contaminates MACHINES, it's good but COSTLY. Q20: D: We're in process of KILLING 20,000 AIDS patients; we haven't saved ONE life yet. "Sex is NO more dangerous than before." S: There IS a good reason for safe sex." DS and I leave at 9:25PM.

3/26/90: 1990 Rich and Famous:
US RESTAURANTS: 6.Commander's Palace in US. 4.Four Seasons, 3.L'Orangerie in LA, 2.Cote Basque, 1.Le Cirque.
MODERN HOTELS 9.Regent in Sydney. 1.Oriental in Bangkok.
UNIQUE HOTELS 1.Cipriani in Venice.
INTERNATIONAL RESTAURANTS: 10.Mr. Chow in NYC, 7.Tse Yang in NYC, 5.Gualtiero Marchesi in Milan, 4:Arcadia in NYC, 3.Citrus in LA, 2.Parioli Romanissimo in NYC with 18 tables, 1:Spago in LA.
ROMANTIC RESTAURANTS: 2.Cipriani in hotel in Venice, 1.Moulin de Mougins.
RESORTS: 9.Regent of Nandi, Fiji, 1.Hotel Gran Cap in Cap d'Antibes.
GOURMET RESTAURANTS "Most exalted category": 10.Lucas Carton with Senderens in Paris, 9.George Blanc in Vonnas, 8.Jamin with Robuchon in Paris, 7.Cote Basque in NYC, 6.Comme Chez Soi with 14 tables in Brussels, 5.Le Cirque in NYC, 4.Louis XV in Monte Carlo, 3.Boyer Les Crayeres in Reims, 2.Giradet in Crissier, 1.Paul Bocuse in Lyon.
GRAND CLASSIC HOTELS: 10.Imperial in Vienna, 9.Beverly Wilshire in LA, 8.Richemond in Geneva, 7.Baur au Lac in Geneva, 6.Claridge in London, 5.Dolder Grand in Zurich, 4.Plaza Athenee in Paris, 3.Peninsula in HK, 2.Vier Jahritsen in Munich, 1.Ritz in Paris.
PREDICTIONS: Plaza in NYC; Patina Restaurant in LA, The Mirage in Las Vegas.

3/26/90: 1989 ACADEMY AWARDS: CRITICS CHOICES: Watley got four except for Fourth of July, Reed got the top three, Ebert got two actresses, Siskel got 0!

3/29/90: WHERE AM I NOW: Pleased with the birthday cards from Spartacus, Midge, and Mom, now caught up with typing; still 7 hours of TV to watch; things about set for the party tomorrow; worrying about lack of indexes due in soon, and will have NOT ENOUGH money by April 15?? Jerked off ALMOST WITHOUT FEELING even after a WEEK OF ABSTENTION---this doesn't feel good AT ALL!! AND Joe and Vicki and Shelley and Alice do NOT seem to be calling me for restaurants, and I had to INVENT three "restaurants on my list" so that I could be COMPLETE in March, though admittedly MANY of the "far-out" ones on the list should be saved for the SPRING and SUMMER. AND determine to do the Actualism poster for Mary to pick up tomorrow night, NOW.

4/4/90: NOTE FROM BIRTHDAY PARTY: There's the "core" of BZ and DS and Pope and Spart and JV for 5, then Mary and Maya (with handmade Mexican pizza) and Phyllis with chickens; Vicki and Rhoda said they'd come late but Rhoda phoned about 9:30 to say not, and Susan and Rick made it FOUR from Clinton Street not attending: she's got a sore throat! though Rick "wants to come" (and why NOT?); and Dorothy and MMB had to go upstate for a new apartment, and Paul brought toll house cookies that were a success, Ann and Nat brought lots; Marj never phoned NOT coming, Stephanie with an upside-down apple cake, Meg, with a "hummingbird" cake, who talked with Matt who brought popcorn while Carolyn brought a huge Popcorn Factory tin AND spent time making two dozen deviled eggs in the messy kitchen. Alice's enormous salad nicoise arrived late but left with late-leavers, as did Meg's cake and Carolyn's deviled eggs. Joe E was quiet after carving his beef, delicious with gravy but hard on plastic plates; Tony never called, Mike told Matt his pecan pies weren't coming (and some SAID they needed another dessert); David's seviche was raw-ish and Sherryl left lots of wine in the fridge, Joe's chianti almost all went, and Richar had to spend the time with his family. So there were a total of (Delores Lawton never came) 32 names on the list (Dennis got sick to his stomach part-time) (Rolf never showed, assuming I even ASKED him?), and only 19 showed up, which didn't exceed the amount of chair available, and I didn't even PUT Bernice and Valda on their list because they were "so busy at the end of every month." I was VERY tired about 10PM and rather glad when people left by 11:15, and I FINISHED cleaning up ONLY by Monday evening before the writer's group, still having Paul's SILVER!

4/4/90: WHERE AM I NOW? Seem, again, as so often before, to be "right on edge":
1) READING: In process of three books, only three books left on shelf (+list).
2) TV: Just about 7 hours left to see on tapes, Montague finished, Mr.Vid left.
3) PARTY: Just about cleaned up, save returning forks to Paul, and just phoned JOE, who turned out thinking I was mad at HIM for 1) taking back the BAG for the shop's inventory and 2) being abrupt on the phone with him when he called about the article on 44 (and I didn't even REMEMBER why I'd been abrupt, but it hadn't been HIM), so it was good I DID call him, even though he's getting a cold and doesn't want to make reservations yet for Cote Basque.
4) Other RESTAURANTS going well, soon to be down to FIVE un-planned-yet places, the lowest EVER, with few seeming to be added---will it be CLEAR by trip-time?
5) WRITING seems to be in limbo: after all, I have book and proposal with Mitch, proposal with Modern Maturity, and short stories still out, though I'm despairing of EVER hearing about many of those. But NOT writing for GROUP.
6) SPRING seems to be well on its way, which is nice, no danger of more snow?
7) HAD TO ERASE two pages at the end to make room for THIS, so I'm about to save SCRIPSV0 and start a new SCRIPSIT file.
8) COMPUTER is still working, though John Strong panicked me when he said "NEVER work with a computer over five years old," and then changed back to "I'm sure there won't be any problem," which he knew I wanted to HEAR. Susan is hoping I'll get an IBM-compatible so that she can share lots of her software with me, even willing to give TOBIAS IRS diskette to Rolf, if he hasn't gotten his yet, which he's not YET called me about (DID I ask him to Birthday Party?).
9) I seem to HAVE money for taxes, and am willing to spend $102 for each Met opera ticket next year to save the seat and the continuing pleasure of opera.
10) Have to start thinking about REVERSING trip-direction and FINALIZING rate quotations from various companies to see how much the air-fares WILL be.
11) Lots of other details, but it's now 12:40AM, I haven't eaten BREAKFAST yet, and I'll be getting to other VCR tapes and hope to get a goody in the MAIL now!

4/5/90: Can't add another page to this file, so I hope to finish out THIS page before duplicating the whole file onto SCRIPSV0 and erasing these previous pages, still thinking that I should devote the effort to read in ALL the SCRIPSV files and combine the DREAM, NOTEBOOK, and ACTUALISM pages into ONE file that would save a lot of space and make FUTURE additions and editings easier. And I seem to be getting that IMPATIENCE with people that marks me when I've not been doing "productive" work like writing or indexing, but have only been "absorbing entertainment" in the line of watching TV programs or getting VCR tapes of movies to "catch up." Can't figure where reading comes into this, since I AM getting wonderful stuff out of the penultimate Watts book and out of "The Turning Point," though this will shift to some OTHER books when I get more from my list. Concerned about the spot on the outside of my right knee moving UPWARD in time---some sort of cancer?---and the sore feelings in the bottom of my lungs---some sort of pneumonia?---and that my planning for the trip might be for my LAST trip, but I try to push that down and enjoy my day-to -day living, thinking that I'll be going into town soon for museum catch-up, to the bookstore for book-catchup, and soon to Marty's for VCR catchup in the best stop in the neighborhood, now that I've exhausted Montague Street Video and have almost done the same again with Mr. Video. And this page has MORE lines on it before I get the end-of-space blinker, and I pause to think of more words to string out---annoyed with having seen "Some Americans Abroad" last night which seemed MUCH inferior to plays that I'd written pieces of (though I hadn't finished NOR had I really tried to get them produced), and I've just moved my writer-resume to PERM so that I had time to finish off THIS space, which pooped out at line 54, which implies if I keep on going, I might have a WHOLE page finished before having to delete another page, and I'll definitely duplicate the file if I can't write a new page after THIS, because I've run out of anything worth the slightest bit to continue typing characters on these pages!

4/11/90: Notes from Sherryl's QUINE books on philosophy:
1) THE WEB OF BELIEF: 93 pages, start 2/25/90, finish rereading 4/6/90. Pages 3-11 is much ado about nothing? Balk on page 27 "the sentence "Someone helps all who do not help themselves" logically implies the sentence "Someone helps himself"; and to say that it does so is simply to attribute logical truth to the sentence "If someone helps all who do not help themselves then someone helps himself." I don't agree, and have an hour's conversation with David (who threatens to send me a consulting bill) without clearing it up (He ends up saying that logical rules, for simplicity, may sometimes ignore small exceptions like the one-person planet on which the person does NOT help himself so that NO ONE helps himself.) So on page 27 I equate "all" and on page 32 "those" [in "5. By self-evident steps from a self-evident beginning, prove this: If God helps those who do not help themselves, God helps Himself."] as being ALL THOSE (REGARDLESS of paradox) in order for me to BELIEVE what he says, CONTRASTED TO the words of Exercise 3 on page 32: "Legend has it that there is a barber who shaves all and only those who do not shave themselves. Use a valid logical form to lay the legend to rest [which implies to me: show it to be false]. How about a bibliography that lists exactly those bibliographies that fail to list themselves?" [which implies that it can't exist], in the first part of 3 "and only" and "exactly" in the second part of 3, which means CONSIDERING paradox.
2) THE ROOTS OF REFERENCE: 141 pages, start 4/6/90, finish reading 4/9/90. p16M: "This shift from perceptions to perceptual similarity brings not only flexibility but also a certain gain in ontological clarity, by dismissing the percepts of perceptions." But it introduces LINGUISTIC complexity, such as the following "temporal segments of the perceiving subject's body." p19T: "Some implicit standard, however provisional, for ordering our episodes as more or less similar must therefore antedate all learning, and be innate." An example of why I don't like his writing. p19B: "Our innate standards of perceptual similarity show a gratifying tendency..." YOU invented "innate standards" and then call them GRATIFYING??? p20M: "We saw that some implicit standards of perceptual similarity must be innate." Just because you SAID SO??? p20B: "A problem arises..." but you said this was supposed to make things EASIER! p24M: "It behooves us to keep these functional specifications as simple and specific as we can..." SURE!! p32B: "Thinking and writing is not fun." BOO:then STOP! p101M: [Summary paragraph] "I have been hoping to deepen our understanding of reference, and of object, by an imaginative reconstruction of how people and peoples might achieve reference to objects. I have been trying to devise a series of plausibly easy stages, plausibly short leaps, that might bring the emulous individual or the evolving society to the point of handling something tantamount to quantification and thus referring in the fullest sense to objects of some sort." Well, big deal!!
3) ONTOLOGICAL RELATIVITY: 160 pages, start 4/10/90, finish reading 4/11/90, completing ALL books except for the Grimm Tales and the new-bought Hollinghurst book. p1-69: understandable, wordy, and relatively trivial. p80B: Vienna Circle, Peirce, Duhem---this is HISTORY, not philosophy. p82B: "Epistemology.. falls into place as a chapter of psychology." !! p83B: "The old epistemology aspired to contain, in a sense, natural science; it would construct it somehow from sense data. Epistemology in its new setting, conversely, is contained in natural science, as a chapter of psychology." p88M: "It is ironical that philosophers, finding the old epistemology untenable as a whole, should react by repudiating a part which has only now moved into clear focus." FRUSTRATING! p100-1: "His notion of object was, as Chishold puts it, jenseits von Sein und Nictsein. Oddly enough I find this idea a good one, provided that we bolster it with Bentham's theory of fictions." Come OFF it! p106M: "Substitutional quantification makes good sense...no matter what substitution class we take--- even that whose sole member is the left-hand parenthesis.9 Lesniewski's example, from a conversation of 1933 in Warsaw." p107B: "Indenumerable and indefinite universes are what, in the end, give point to objectual quantification and ontology." p111B: "In fact there is a theorem due to Craig which shows that the negation of a functionally existential formula is never equivalent to a functionally existential formula, unless the functions were superfluous and the formula was equivalent to a first-order formula; and correspondingly for functionally universal formulas." What IS all this??? It continues: "Thus classical, unsupplemented quantification theory is on this score maximal: it is as far out as you can go and still have complete coverage of validity and inconsistency by the Skolem proof procedure." p112-3: "Classical quantification theory enjoys an extraordinary combination of depth and simplicity, beauty and utility. It is bright within [unlike this BOOK!] and bold in its boundaries. Deviations from it are likely, in contrast, to look rather arbitrary. But insofar as they exist it seems clearest and simplest to say that devialnt concepts of existence exist along with them." In other words: if you don't agree with me, you're deviant! p138B: "Now a proposition is the meaning of a sentence." And here I thought the meaning of a sentence was its MEANING! p141M: "...a sentence may even be an eternal sentence for a speaker at one time and not at another. Maybe someone can devise a natural example of this." How about Galileo's student statement "The earth is unmoving," and his adult statement "The earth moves around the sun"? p148M: "Our individuals here are the points of space and we know that they are not all nameable, since they are indenumerable while names are denumerable." Why aren't names JUST as denumerable as points, since each number in a coordinate could be replaced by a letter making a name, though unpronounceable?

4/14/90: Note an IDEA: Ask David: if HD BOMBS, it's probably not FINAL: I just RE-INIT (and maybe get sectors blocked off as damaged) and feed in diskettes and go for at least a month longer? But then I ask Rolf about this and he says that the USUAL bomb is a HEAD CRASH, which clobbers the MACHINERY and fills the space with DUST which WOULD be fatal, final, and the total complete ending.

4/30/90: Noted from the Quaker Cemetery tour that the Cemetery is on the second-highest hill in Prospect Park at 186 feet, that Lookout Hill across the road is a few feet higher, and that the highest point in NYC is Battle Hill at 3XX feet in Greenwood Cemetery. From the 4/28 Staten Island Cemetery tour (which started WAY late at 11:25AM, waiting for late-comers), we got to New Dorp Moravian Cemetery from 11:45-12:45, taking slide #21 of two 1792 deaths, left dying at 70 (born in 1722!) and right at age 37. Entry to the grounds (designed by Olmstead) of the Richard Morris Hunt-designed 72-tomb $1M Vanderbilt mausoleum, the ONLY entrance to MALES SURNAMED VANDERBILT, and all the in-laws named Shepperd and Davis and Sloan are buried OUTSIDE, but still in the 22-acre grounds. 700 plants were watered by special pumps which broke in the 70s. Woman had a great 1978 newspaper article that I gave her $2 and my card and asked for a xerox copy. Then from 1:25-1:40 at Blazing Star Cemetery on Arthur Kill Road in Rossville, then pass Burk's Landing, 1840 restaurant that's said to be good, and from 1:40-2PM at St. Luke's Cemetery, the most modern of the lot, with depressing views over sunken ships in the Kill. Then back to the Ferry Terminal just past 2:30, so we had a filet-o-fish sandwich, DREADFUL, at MacDonald's waiting for the 3PM ferry, from which Yama got separated and went to Brooks Brothers to get his altered jacket, and I got home to start watching TV, before he gets in and treats me to dinner at Fuji San with sushi, sashimi, and maki on a massive BOAT for $55 with two and a half beers for me and the half-beer making him sleepy. We waited 35 minutes for the D train to Newkirk Avenue, but luckily the speaker was on the same train, so the talk went from 9:35 to 11PM, and we left early to JUST get the train back just before midnight, feeling very tired from the evening and from Yama, so much so that I left Sunday night to see "Henry V" just so I wouldn't have to sit around with him in the apartment for an entire unstructured evening. Sad!

5/1/90: 9:50PM: Finished ridding the apartment of signs of Yama's visit, felt better after being "excused" for being late with the proofreading of the Macmillan project, phoned Sue Stellingwerf AGAIN to complain about my check not being here, phoned Joe and Pope and Dennis, and finally (to avoid working on the FUTURE NOVEL) went to the video shop to pick up "Do the Right Thing" (how can they say it was neutral when the main song is "Fight the Power" and the movie ends with a quote from Malcolm X that says that "Violence against the Power is Intelligence"?) and "Lethal Weapon 2," which I seem to think is even better than LW1. Then phone Linda, and Mom, and type this until 9:55PM, when it occurs to me that I want to watch TV---which I do---ANYTHING to get out of working on FUTURE NOVEL, which sits appallingly on my desk, waiting for work!

5/8/90: Notes from 5/5/90 ASI book judging. Everyone decided to CREDIT the publication house, if they were responsible for the index. Went to 123 W.74th St, to Dorothy Thomas' apartment 6A, interested to see Roy Scheider leaving from his "million-dollar penthouse apartment," and the name Scheider rests innocently on the call-board. I arrive at 10AM on the dot, and David Billick, the elected president of ASI, and Alan Greengrass and Jessica Milstead, the last two having been on the committee for years, and Zita, the second alternate, are all there (no, Alan arrives later). Her number, to throw away my card, is 787-5412. "Phase 1" has us skimming 18 books from 10-12. Then lunch to 12:30, paid by ASI, hosted wonderfully by Dorothy, and I bring up topics of "overdoing" Plath index and "overspecialized" Debussy index. Then 12:45-1:50 a second phase of finishing up. At 1:55 we submit a lits of "will consider" books that Dorothy tries to make into a VOTE. We discard all but about four; too many things wrong with three of them, so at 2:45, by default, "Nuclear Arguments" wins because "everyone could live with it winning." Award to Marcia Carlson, in Amherst, NH. Everyone leaves at 3PM, David to catch a plane back to Minneapolis, and I look at her Crosstalked Gemini and IBM compatible Datavue 25 costing $3000, for which she had someone COME UP to do wiring. SHE says that 5" diskettes are GOING OUT, and the solid, sturdy 3.5 inch is becoming standard. The writeup for Crosstalk XVI does NOT include Radio Shack in its list of trademarked references. She says Wordperfect 5.1 is GOOD, support is good via an 800 number, and it handles floating footnotes, has a good sort and indexing program. Jessica Milstead, 203 740-2433, POBox 5063, Brookfield CT 06804, says Dorothy would probably be familiar with LOCAL conversion houses, thinking that $20/floppy was fairly standard. The Anesthesia book got two votes, but I thought it was overindexed, the Debussy was thrown out because it didn't have STANDARD indexing features; Dorothy loved the Legal Aspects of Optometry but couldn't defend it when Jessica and Alan looked for two reasonable entries and couldn't find them. I voted for the enormous Dictionary of Middle Ages but Dorothy said it didn't have "Weapons" though it had "Crossbows" and should HAVE weapons even if words was NOT in the text. She also said it lacked Painting, Religion, and Ecclesiastical Art, and had inadequate editing and running heads.were wrong. Dorothy and Jessica both harped on Undifferentiated Entries (UE) and BOTH agreed that the cutoff should be at FIVE. Ortho was discarded because of "too many 'ands' after Disease, and again and again." The Plath biography was condemned for "analytic subentries" under Plath which didn't lead you to what you wanted to KNOW. I'd said (looking at Nuclear Arguments first) that it was NBD (No Big DEAL), and let the others talk me into making the vote unanimous for it. The indexer wanted the New York book back, which I would rather have liked. I wondered what the 200 line/page for 564 pages = 113,000 line index for the 8400 page text for an indexing density of 13+ (Dictionary of Middle Ages) was PAID!!?? Other indexing densities were 4, 13+, 5, 5.5, 5, 4, 3+, 6, 9, 7, 5.5, 3.5, 10+, 3, 5, 4.5, 8, and 280/144 pages = 40,000/770 = 50+ for Ortho, which I didn't like since it had no Weeds page, for page 815, where they were introduced. Good lunch, good people, and I said I'd LOVE to do it NEXT year: tell Dave B!

5/11/90: Getting old is depessing for ANOTHER reason: all your FRIENDS are getting old: worried about:
waning energy (Arn)
traveling SAFELY (Mark)
increasing ailments (Pope)
constantly breaking teeth (Joe)
AIDS (Dennis, Paul, Alice, Don)
grown-children's problems (Vicki)
grab-last-love syndrome (Susan, Sherryl)
increasing irritability (Spartacus, BZ! [SEE BELOW!])!