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1991 4 of 6

6/7/91: 10:15AM: Pope and I discuss Almendovar's "Tie Me Up Tie Me Down," he saying that he found the hero attractive and is disturbed by my judgment that the hero's upbringing does NOT excuse his horrible behavior, quoting John saying, "Here I sit LAUGHING while people are MURDERED in an Almendovar film." I respond that Pope condones the people (Almendovar) who condone violence to get for people what they illegally WANT. Pope's quote to me: "I don't like your sense of JUSTICE." I say that yesterday, probably through that film, I thought again of my "little breakdown" in the second or third grade where I tore apart my books and scrawled "F" on my A papers and screamed and cried and was taken out into the hall by Sister Mary Raymond who told me that I was going through a bad time at home and maybe should talk about it, but I really shouldn't disrupt the whole class. Pope said he thought this was so SPANISH, that violence and passion gets what you want, and I said the movie was bad because it helped PERPETUATE this awful condition. I didn't bring up my usual thoughts about OPERA, which I perceive increasingly as promulgating horrible ideas of revenge, honor, and warped justice, like "Masked Ball's" statement: you can kill my children to avenge my honor. Great, guy: you'll end up killing your wife and your sons and have your honor. Great lot of solace THAT will give you in your old age! But WITHOUT killing the sons that I don't have, I will certainly fight for the honor of what I SAY about this: that the REWARDING of violence, theft, laziness, grabbing power and money at the expense of those weaker and more gullible, and the DEPICTIONS of this rewarding, are EVIL and WRONG- PERPETUATING. I haven't, and don't think I would, advocate CENSORSHIP, but I would CERTAINLY beg for COUNTERACTIVE messages that give a POSITIVE side. Pope insists that hostages, often, fall in love with their captors, confessing admiration for their points of view. I say that LOVE turning into HATE is common enough, witness the proofs of my adage that "That which first attracts you to someone will be EXACTLY that which you hate most when the relationship is ended." But his statement that HATE can flip into LOVE seems totally reprehensible: did the Jewish holocaust victims love the Germans? Did the 444- day Iranian hostages return with love to Iran after their freedom? The film only ENCOURAGES the mentally defective to GO out and TAKE what they want, and it'll all turn out all right! MONSTROUS!!

6/10/91: VERY mixed emotions at "Welcome Home Gulf War Troops" parade today. I'd intended to GO, then got caught up with watching TV and stayed home until 3 when I took back my videos to World of Video, then walked south on Seventh Ave. and east on Bleecker and south on Broadway, then around to find it still going! Drunk tries to start singing "America the Beautiful" from a treetop but can't remember the words. Sightseers get military personnel to sign their AMERICAN FLAGS! Old fat farts with potbellies represent the despicable American Legion, while lots of women and children seem to have joined the Vietnamese, Korean, and WWII veterans who go all the way back to the "Survivors of Pearl Harbor." Why are there so many bagpipe groups; surely more than 15 of them alone! Watch aghast as machine-gunners grin as they mock gun-down the applauding crowds. Everyone tries to get "USA, USA, USA" chant going when they're not grunting and fisting the air like illiterate simians. Pretty guy doesn't sell any of his "ice-cold drinks" from his bicycle saddlebags. Follow the colored dots of confetti all the way over the Brooklyn Bridge and manage to find a scrap on my block on Hicks Street! Pope said he wouldn't contribute to their statistics, and then said he thought it was NOT the place for the police-protected ANTI-war demonstration. Lots of people selling things, including "Pretty Women" by a black just south of Canal Street. Ticker tape exhausted by 4:15, as the last units straggled toward Worth Street, one unit led by a fat woman with an American flag draped over what would better have been a pregnancy than blubber. Shredded white and YELLOW (the operative color) telephone book pages with color swatches, worded red/green tokens, computer sheets, envelopes, and just plain trash. Mixed emotions, but all ready for what should be GREAT fireworks tonite!

6/14/91: Notes from NY Chapter ASI meeting 6/5/91: Timothy DeBaets on Legal Aspects of Indexing. I get there LATE at 6:10 and have to leave at 7:15, before he finished, to get to a show downtown, and my MAIN note is "Not much!" He was gotten via Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (callable by those who have $20,000/year income or LESS) at 212-977-9273, a hot line, that publishes "Writer's Guide to Copyright" and an IRS Schedule C aid: "Art of Filing." Small Claims court top is now $2500. NO right to index "Danielle Steele" works: SHE has copyright FOR DERIVED INDEX! He recommends "Send letter of agreement to indexing clients." I phone and the first is $17 and the second $7, so she suggests I can come to the VLA office M-F 9-5 at 1285 AveAm (51st), Paine-Webber Bldg, 3rd Floor, to look at them and see if I want to buy them.

6/17/91: Dennis phones at 9:15 "to give me more death notices," and I tell him that I don't like to be called before 10AM, and he angrily says that I keep confusing him: hadn't I said that I was getting up at 7AM and didn't know when to call HIM---so he'll hang up now. I'm frustratedly left holding the dead phone, and call him back to say "I apologize for the WAY I told you, but I WAS getting up at 7AM on SOME days, but now I'm BACK to my habit of getting up after 10AM on these DIFFERENT days---now if you could tell me what you'd phoned to tell me---" but he doesn't pick up his phone from the machine and I lay there thinking about how I'm going to store my papers and books. Many choices:
1) Double up on shelves I now have: books behind books against my north wall.
2) Buy another bookcase and start books behind the table against my SOUTH wall.
3) Buy another filing cabinet and fill up space before the south double doors.
4) Pile bookcases atop chests of drawers in the bedroom or behind bedroom door.
5) Somehow expand the TV-records corner toward the ceiling with more storage.
6) Utilize closet-space more efficiently, which leads to my CHOICE of result:
a) Fill closet computer-paper boxes: 1:PLAYS, 2:DANCE, 3:OPERA, 4:MOVIES, 5:EVENTS;
b) Replace lowest-shelf a) with 1:AIDS,2:SCRAPBOOK-,3:TRAVEL-,4:LETTERS-FILES;
c) Remove filing materials to shelves and FILL filing cabinet with FILES ONLY.
And note to myself that "clear-out" category has REPLACED "transcribe journal" for my JUNE 5:1)Clear-out,2)Travel-article,3)VCR-tapes,4)Index-do,5)Slide-show.

6/17/91: Notes from 6/16 Green-Wood Cemetery tour: Steinway has largest mausoleum: can hold 138 people! Eliza Gilbert was real name of Lola Montez, buried here after she died penniless at age 43. Now tombstone is decaying: sic transit gloria Lola! AVR is gate to Alexander Van Rensselaer's hillock. Laura Keene, actress onstage who held Lincoln's head on her lap. Wife at grave with Caesar's Palace cap: "I hope my husband doesn't notice." Gravestones and bodies moved FROM old Dutch Reformed Cemetery are now the oldest in the place. Hope to have gotten "Boocock" name at upper right of 1871- still alive? stone.

6/24/91: Notes from 6/23 Green-Wood Cemetery tour: 478 acres with 22 miles of roadway. Laura Jean Libby wrote "Arsenic and Old Lace." Feltman who started Coney Island. Perpetual care costs $5000-$10000. St. Clair McKelway NOT in EBs. Henry Ward Beecher died SAME DAY as wife did. Why?

7/29/91: Paul Bosten died at 7:30AM, positive since 2/88, aged 53 years, 4 mos, 20 days, born 3/9/38. Phoned Dennis (who said Jose had just moved in with his brother to live, another positive friend-of-a-friend), Joe, Alice, Spartacus, Pope, Susan at work, Mary Vilaboa who called that day, and Vicki, who thought I was taking it much harder than I was when I went to dinner with Henrietta and Joe at her place that night. Left word on the machines of Sherryl and Shelley and BOTH phoned a message that night of surpassing compassion. Recorded that my last dinner was at his place 4/28, when I left at 6:30 because he was feeling tired and was ALREADY forgetting things, phoned him at work a couple of times in May, last TALKED with him with Spartacus 6/9 and SAW him (past talking with) on 7/21 with Dennis: tired April, hospital May, home June, dead July.Aug?

8/12/91: [Just catch up with 2/9/88 note I'd never transcribed:] FAA has been SITTING on SMOKE HOODS (for passenger protection against plane fires) since the 1960s and STILL hasn't taken action on them!! SURE they're afraid to FRIGHTEN the passengers, but like "Jaws" they might KILL more than they PROTECT them!

8/12/91: Check out the Directory of Obsolete Securities in the black notebook containing the Financial Stock Guide Service on the right-most bookcase in the Brooklyn Heights Library, and find the following: 1) Pop Shops Inc, and its successor Pop Shoppes Int'l Inc, were in receivership in 1983. 2) Globe Superior was bankrupt in 6/19/72: "No stockholder equity." 3) Listfax was dissolved 9/29/82. 4) No listings for Normandy Isles or SIRE Plan of New York or Small Investers Real Estate (SIRE) Plan at all, for which I can't find the certificates from back in the early 60s.

8/12/91: Should keep track of my progress in "professionalizing" my slides:
1) 4/27/91: 15 Homogeniuses loved Antarctic slides here, including John Strong.
2) 7/20/91: 14 Homogeniuses here for Australia/NZ slides, John is pleased.
3) 7/24/91: To John's 6:15-7:30 for slide-talk about my professionalization.
4) 7/27/91: John here to split Australia from NZ, remove some, and add some.
5) 7/31/91: John here to remove Antarctica, rearrange them, suggests changes.
6) 8/3/91: To Kevin Walsh's 1-3:30 to videotape my Antarctic presentation.
7) 8/5/91: On phone, John says I'm NOT to rearrange Antarctica chronologically!
8) 8/7/91: John here to watch part of videotape, suggests changes, OK for 8/11.
9) 8/11/91: Show Antarctica to 45 Prime-Timers at Sloan House 3:20-4:30; GREAT!
10) 8/12/91: Broken slide belt not at Boro, Photo-Tech; try other places??

8/12/91: To BPL for MORE notes on Antarctica: SciAM index refers me to June 88 pages 90-97 on Polynyas and I get Lamont-Doherty phone number to try phoning Arnold L. Gordon. Talks of 460-berth Ocean Princess. Check Reader's Guide from July 1991 to 3/75: Aug 87 Omni on "Watch This Space" on Ozone hole, found two years before that. Then Oct 5 81 Newsweek, pages 72-74, gives me "ice streams move one mile in three years. British Antarctic Survey found Antarctic PENINSULA temperature rose 2 from 1950-1980, MELTING ice. BPL stopped in 81, not having USA Today from D 80 on Antarctic warming. BEFORE I took OTHER notes
1) Scott+ 4 died in March, 1912. Tennyson's "Ulysses," "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield" on Scott's cross. Three Norwegians went maximum 120 km/hr in 105 days. Scott's Hut Point 1901-1904. Royds: Shackleton's hut built in January 1908, from which first climbed 13,000 foot Erebus, and on 1/9/1909 to 97 miles of South Pole and turned BACK. Cape Crosier starts Ross Ice Shelf off Ross Island. Tall mountain is Mt. Herschell at 10,000 feet. Campbell Island's Perseverence Harbor. Auckland Hooker sealion is RAREST pinniped. Silvereye and red-crowned parakeets are birds. SOUND of bellbird.FROM 1911 EB: Ross Ice Shelf "Largest tabular body of floating ice" first seem in 1841 by British Admiral James Clark Ross, and it stretches 500 miles and goes 600 miles south. Ice = easily deformable crystalline rock. NO "convergence" noted yet in 1910. XXI:966: "Edge of Ross Ice Shelf RECEDED 30 miles between Ross in 1842 and Borchgrevink in 1900, reaching 7850' Ross commanded "Erebus" in 1841. Crozier in "Terror" with Dr. Hooker! Scott and Shackleton to 8217" on 12/30/1902. Shackleton took MOTOR CAR which laid depots on sea-ice! Prof David of Sydney U BOTH first climbed Erebus in 1908 AND south magnetic pole. On 1/9/1909 they reached 8823', 97 miles from pole.
ALSO recorded that John said that I should take a slide of the globe with the Americas and Antarctica below, then ROTATE it to show Antarctica, with an arrow pointing toward New York, and showing New Zealand, Tasmania, and the Subantarctic Islands that I visited, and he'll ask Fred Knoerzer's son Nick how much HE would charge to draw up such a map. Also should get PICTURES of the four hut-people. AND spend $1300+ for two "dissolving" projectors and the machine between them that HANDLES the dissolves. He figures I'll make MONEY!!!

8/13/91: WHERE AM I NOW? Talking to Mary Vilaboa at dinner last night, I confessed to the feelings which might be called a "panic attack" of the previous week: something was wrong, something was GOING wrong, something was GOING TO BE wrong. She described it as depression, saying that she knew what I was talking about. I looked at it in terms of fatigue, tiredness, and when I got more sleep, it seemed to go away. But last night I went to bed at 12:15, quite contentedly, and this morning I woke with SO MANY THINGS going through my head: things from the past to catch up with, things from the present to pursue, things from the future to have concern about. At least I could list them here:
A) THINGS FROM THE PAST TO CATCH UP WITH:
1. Letter to Chase et al: now it's CLEANING on the rent-bill?
2. Letter to Chrystal a) TELL chords, b) Jan sent 17 pages, c) THANKS.
3. Update Restaurants list.
4. File stack of typed pages.
5. Phone Gene Crofts for work and how are you?
6. Phone Russ Till for work and how are you?
7. Pick up Mark Eliot's medicine from Spartacus's apartment.
8. Pick up Gel-Kam from Pathmark.
9. Get laundry back.
B) THINGS FROM THE PRESENT TO PURSUE:
1. Find a place to buy Rollei-belt replacement.
2. Shop for backpack and bedroll for the trip.
3. NYPL for reserving copy of Boyce's Galapagos book. Xerox parts of it.
4. Go to the gym.
5. Go to the dentist's this afternoon.
6. Go to Laura Dean tonight.
7. Thinking about last "Turandot" at City Opera.
8. Thinking about Taipei Theater ticket-ordering, and when?
9. Thinking about upcoming weekend upstate & reservations/calls to be made.
C) THINGS FROM THE FUTURE TO HAVE CONCERN ABOUT:
1. Get HIV test tomorrow.
2. Phone Lamont-Doherty to find data about Antarctic Convergence.
3. Shift VISA cards from EAB to AARP and Crossland; figuring least year-chg.
4. Get an X-OUT or something to help where I am.
5. Write letters to the stack waiting for me.
6. Find what happened to my book-conference ticket.
7. Go to all the places on the places-to-go stack.
8. Further reduce stack of things-to-look-at.
9. Get rid of non-fitting clothes from closets and drawers.

Well, at least, having gotten them all down on paper, they don't seem so nebulous, threatening, and out-of-control. Many of them are so tiny they can be done in a few minutes: just DO them and get them out of my mind. Others come to mind now: 1) Phone to see if I can throw out "Kindling" index.
2) Discard old indexes to make room for new.
3) Look again at getting a new computer.
4) Look again at getting "Gain" published/probably calling Mitch Rose about it.
5) MAKE more lists so that I don't feel things inchoately "hanging over me."
6) Keep checking on this list to find what I've done and add to it if needed.
7) Clarify what John Strong wants me to do next in showing slides.
8) Clarify what I want to give priority to---travel, writing, publishing.
9) Now that Crossland panic seems over, plan to pay off Spartacus and Mom.

And now it's 7:30AM, I seem truly awake, and soon the humidity will be high enough that I can close the windows and put on the air conditioner, which always seems to make me feel better---maybe my malaise is simply trying too hard to live in the fresh air & use my air conditioner less? Or not spending as many days of the month as I should keeping fit in the gym--AH, get BLOOD test!!

8/13/91: Keeping notes on EVERYTHING: this time on my attempts to predict the NYNEX yellow-page listing represented by the bees on the comb. I have only the BROOKLYN yellow-pages, surely smaller than Manhattan's, but "Combs" are tantalizingly listed at the top left of the back page, but they're not a MAIN entry and I can't find where they'd be the SECOND word, having checked Combs, Bees, Curry Combs, Tooth/Teeth, Honey---and can't connect it with Honeycomb Assemblies, see something else, and Busy. Think to page through ALL of it, but it goes too slowly, though I think Aircraft Schools has possibilities. Then decide that the Brooklyn directory just WON'T help, and stop looking!

8/14/91: Busy day outside: late for the 11AM AIDS test, but get it anyway at 11:30, then subway to 77th St (by mistake) and lunch (serendipitously) at The Mark (gloriously), then to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for Paul Manship, Indonesian Art, Japanese Court, Japanese Painting, a tour of "masterpieces" that I take lots of photos on, and a seat outside watching the reactions to the soapsuds in the fountains outside. Then stop at Susan's (too early) and we dine later at Patsy's, which is BETTER than I'd had before. Win two Scrabbles.

8/15/91: Another great day outside: After finishing Ishiguro's "A Pale View of Hills," which Susan gave me and I started last night, I get out to find that ALL seats for the first of the Taipei Theatre is sold out, but buy two OTHER seats, then check that I don't want either of the books I'd wanted to check at the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts on the third floor of the Paine Webber Bldg, or whatever is one-up from Time-Life, GET the belt for the Rollei after checking at 47th Street Photo and being given the address of Projector Workshop where the cute Stephen Wong waits on me, then to buy a ticket for tonight's Turandot (after he says there are no center seats, I say "$16 seat please" and it turns OUT to be a center seat), watch dances (below), dine out, and float through a presentable (and nicely supertitled!) Turandot and home for tomorrow.

8/15/91: Great three drinks at Lincoln Center Plaza dinner, after watching Conversano (fat), Salaam (Firebird-like), and Ward (awful), and hearing that the Manhattan Jazz-Tap group will be playing as they'd been rained out before: Peach Punch: peach schnapps, black rum, cranberry-pineapple juice, and soda, Zwack Attack: Zwack raspberry fruit liqueur, vodka, raspberries, cranberry juice and Strawberry-Banana Margarita: strawberries&bananas, tequila, lemon juice: $6EACH!

9/2/91 (note from AGES ago:) Construction rotates bottom of ship, "Where's your crash helmet?" I talk with man at tiller. Toothpick from Gladys. Luck: why you're here. Not voice, HAND was father's. Problems of VERY rich. Caught in "The Freshman(?)."

Dun DUN! du DIT, du DIT, du DIT, du da-da-da.
Followed by one note lower, then another note lower, and then a final DUN!
"Theme Music for Scene Change." Final THEME: have ALL, and KEEP it all/spends, versus have NOTHING "Gave it all up"/gets. Buy lottery today: 6, 16, 23.

9/2/91: Not from 8/21/91: George Pierson on video-cameras: NOT VCR, camera HOOKED to TV set through "video in." VHS dupes work wonderfully. High-8 is the FUTURE, giving PERFECT COPIES. Super VHS even has a $500 crappy editor. Canon high-8, 4-5 pounds, A1 digital, smaller than VHS. Broadcast quality. Good editing devices, dissolve frames, Sony high-8 editor now $2500, will come down. Shelley said it listed for $1599 and can be gotten for $1499, plus $110 for the necessary case. But for computers he says he likes MacIntosh, which is also not what I'd heard before. Shelley says that if I didn't make copies for users, they'd have to have the MACHINE to SHOW their films. Shelley will be in New York 8/21-27. George said that 47th St.Photo sometimes has FABULOUS price!

9/2/91: Note from Gaiety Burlesque 8/23: 11:15 to 2:45AM, home at 3:25AM and bed at 4AM! Athlete, iBerian, Cuban, Dork, Entire gang (followed by movies, Florida, Geo (Joe), Handsome, Italian, Joker, Kuban (same as Cuban), Lovely, Maigre, Negro, O!Pablo!, Pair of guys, Queens (same as Athlete), ibeRian (same as iBerian), Silly, Twerp (same as Dork), and Universe of all, 14 guys in all, 21 "acts" to the evening, ten-minutes each for the 210 minutes of my stay.9/5/91: Since today about 2PM is my 50year-50month-50week-50day-50hour-50minute-50second birthday, and I observe that's ABOUT .11 (one-tenth of 50 years is 5 years, one-hundredth of 50 years is 6 months) more than the decade birthday, I wonder how the fact that there are TWELVE (rather than 10) months would affect it: would 100 years be 111 years or MORE? JUST NOW I think of a MATH way to go
1 month = .0833333... added to ONE year, and continuing,
1 week = .0192307 added to one year,
1 day = .0027397 added to one year,
1 hour = .0001141 added to one year,
1 minute= .0000019 added to one year, for a total of
.1054197, which is LESS than .11, implying 100 years would STILL be less than 111 years, but that doesn't quite square with the 80-year calc I did:
80 years
80 mos= 6 years 8 mos
80 wks= 1 year 7 mos
80 dys= 2 mos 20 dys
80 hrs= 3 dys
87 yrs 18 mos = 88.5 years, or .1054 x 80 = 8.43 years, and I find that I'd made a MISTAKE before, so it IS just more than decade-number-yrs in addition!

9/10/91: Notes from 9/5/91 Brooklyn Heights tour:
1) 102 Pierrepont: Norman Mailer in 1940s.
2) Arthur Miller was at 62 Montague in 1940, 18 Schermerhorn in 1942, 102
Pierrepont in 1944, and 31 Grace Court in 1947, the last with Truman Capote.
3) Henry Miller lived at 91 Remsen in 1924---front half of the ground floor.
4) Louis Untermeyer lived on top floor of 88 Remsen until his death.
5) Norman Rosten, "Poet Laureate of Brooklyn" lived at 84 Remsen until he moved to the top floor of the apartment building at Pierrepont and Love Lane.
6) Arthur Miller wrote "Death of a Salesman" between 1947-1951 at 31 Grace
Court, and after him, W.E.B.Dubois, black "name" lived there 1951-1961.
7) Max Bodenheim and his second wife lived at 10 Montague Terrace in 1940, and
both of them were murdered in the village in 1954.
8) Thomas Wolfe lived on 4th floor of 5 Montague Terrace from 1933-1935.
9) W.H.Auden and his lover, Chester Kallman (18 years old) lived at 1 Montague
Terrace for a short time, wrote "best" poem: In Memory of W.B.Yeats.
10) Henry Ward Beecher lived at 176 Columbia Terrace; his accuser, Ms. Tilton,
lived at 174 Livingston St.
11) Norman Mailer lives now at 142 Columbia Heights, third from Pineapple-end.
12) Hart Crane lived at 130 and 110 Willow Street.
13) 7 Middagh, now gone, was W.H.Auden, Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, Bowles.
14) James Purdy lives at 236 Henry Street.
Interesting tour, but I had to leave for the SAGE meeting, which wasn't very interesting, and the Natural History meeting, which had some interesting guys AND gals, souvenirs from Easter Island, photos from Russian Georgia, and lots of talk about white-milk gravy, red-eye gravy, and other mid-western eating oddities. Maybe I'll give SAGE another chance in following weeks, and there's still the Scrabble Group to check out, and I feel good that I have a membership card in the Center, though I still had to pay $3 non-member's rates for the SAGE meeting and $2 for the Natural History group, and might go to future events given by both of them, just to get more active in my gay life!

9/22/91: Book PubWorld notes transcribed: Saw Berta Steiner, Larry Meyers (who's still at Churchill Livingston, where EVERYTHING is on Cindex or Macrex), Lauren Bahr (who's DIVORCED, head of Macmillan Colliers Encyclopedia, index being computerized from boxes of cards), and Sylvia Warren, now freelancing. Chat with Barbara Preschel, meet Sandi Schroeder who uses a Tandy 3000/4000 with a UNIX system, and a Turkish Literary Agent who's mentally LOSING it, sad to see! I get two photo-service names and phone numbers: Photo Researchers SAYS he'll send me information packet, but he doesn't. He wants 200-400 slides and "Antarctica's BIG."

10/7/91: INCREDIBLE that the last time I entered anything was OVER TWO WEEKS AGO! Yes, I'd been to Garnet Hill for five days, but I didn't type anything from Monday through Friday, when I left the week before, nor anything from Wednesday through Sunday last week! Lots of piles of stuff gone through yesterday to reduce junk to a foot-high pile on my desk, which I went through this morning, to reduce to a number of things to transcribe here before getting to the possibly FIVE indexes I have to finish by NEXT FRIDAY! Good luck to me!

10/7/91: Notes from 9/20/91 Bronx Water-Control Tunnel tour with Spartacus: Work started in 1970. Cannonsville, completed in 1965, is largest water-tunnel (105 miles) in world, 125 miles away, last added to system. This tunnel #3 is due to be finished in 2002. Then from 2002-2012 Tunnel #1 will be "redone," and from 2012-2022 Tunnel #2 will be "redone." Roosevelt Island Tunnel was 800 feet down. HERE we have to WALK 250 feet up and down, which turned out to be 56 flights of 6 steps for 336 steps for 250 feet, so each step was just under 9 inches high, so each "floor" of two flights was nine feet. They lost 23 lives to accidents! Van Cortlandt Park has 17 laterals in 600-foot chamber, each about 12 feet in diameter. Central Park has two laterals and Welfare Island has 4 laterals, and Queens (at 34th Avenue at 64th St) has 3 laterals. THIS installation will be finished in one year. Hillview holds ONE BILLION gallons, enough to supply NYC for SIXTEEN HOURS.

10/7/91: Notes from 9/28/91 Garnet Hill: Garnet Hill is NOT Hemlock Hall! With most rooms CONNECTED I hear vacuum at night downstairs, kid crooning to himself next door, and the babble and laughter of guests. Thermometer outside reads 35S at 9AM, with a strong wind that whips away heat. The having a CHOICE of food is good, but MY choice is bad, having soup and salad and Chicken Key West smothered under bananas, pineapple, and coconut, AND the "You forgot your pants, Mack" cake AND ice cream AND a brownie. AND the after-redfacedness of saying "Well, the Brownie Sundae cost extra, so I decided not to have it." The babble in background is like an annoying radio in the next apartment. Overfull stomach, the urge to cough, and the sadness of Betsy AND Betty with failing eyesight, Betsy with "the crud," and Betty's head NOT throbbing while she's seated. Dream this AM of two cocks in my two hands wakes me hard. Then the thoughts of "the body in the bed," that EVERYONE, rich or poor, young or old, happy or sad, is left ULTIMATELY with: AFTER dinner and sex and talk and the day, YOUR body in YOUR bed is what encompasses your dark sheltered universe. Put on scarf and jacket to sit on the balcony, but it IS cold out there. 10/2: 7:30: Feel INCREDIBLY erotic about idea of buying a camcorder and TAPING Tony straining for orgasm while shouting, "No, stop, not yet!" And going on to Bob R. and Tony in frenzy of hard cocks, then selecting show-MEN from Gaiety Burlesque and offering $50 for half-hour J/O session with an EXTRA $50 if they cum TOUCHLESS and think of FAME as a videographer and guys FIGHTING to audition for me, or a "dirty old man" videoclub where we EXCHANGE best tapes so we can CHOOSE bodies for OUR/MY precise fantasies of straining-to-cum cocks against furs, silks, rubber bands, cockrings, tabletops, erotic clothing and straps, with MY music and camerawork and THEIR pleas to be allowed to be filmed, clamoring to get onto the sex-network for PERFECTLY safe visuoerotic activity!

10/16/91: First to summarize this busy week-start: Susan phones Monday morning AFTER I phone Michael and hear him say: "We're still eight; no one's died and no one else has been added" to say that after we'd talked on Wednesday, 10/9, she was struck by the thought "I'll never see him again!" It wasn't the flight, which she knew I'd be concerned about, but something about "the boat in the water." She'd been "foreseeing" what she'd be getting in the mail, but this was the first time she'd ever had this kind of premonition, and it disturbed her. She phoned Joe and Pope, both of whom agreed to keep quiet about it. Then on Monday, 10/14 (see DREAM-319) I felt particularly anxious about the TRIP IN GENERAL, and not really about flying, and phoned Pope about it in those words, which panicked HIM into calling Susan, who then phoned me when I was about to eat the last of the bacon and toast. "Bob, it's Susan," she announced in a sepulchral voice, and I HAD to listen, and when I got her gist I said I'd call her back. As I ate, I didn't feel PARTICULARLY disturbed about it. When I phoned her back, talking about the trip, she "got a chill" when I mentioned the CREW, and said I should find out more about them: they might try to rob us, just eight rich passengers with five poor crew. She said I could talk to Pope and Joe, and Joe pooh-poohed it, Pope wasn't home, so I tried Mary, who wasn't at work OR at home, then Maya, who "did a potential" with a thermometer that went up to 99% safe, while mine went up to 95% and got stuck, and when I "looked closer" I saw a little ship sitting on the mercury- surface, so I tried stormy seas, lightning, explosion of the gas stove that struck Maya, crew robbery, something swimming out of the depths, and nothing really "held." She said it looked good to her, and was one of the first to say that something might happen to SUSAN that she would never see me again, rather than anything happening to ME. Then she said "Dorothy Kent is very psychic, why don't you try her." So I did, and we had a WONDERFUL talk about her going into fourth, having seen the Dalai Lama last week and on Sunday at St. John's, going to other things, and saying "You're very strong, can use the right tools when you get into the water, and something might happen but YOU can protect yourself from it, don't be foolish, don't jump into water WITHOUT tools; I hear some kind of accident, but YOU'LL be OK. It doesn't have to happen, because of preventive inner work by ME. I have divine protection; it's a test for me; trust in God and Immortal. You have MANY MANY breaths left. It's NOT me if I use my tools, like the planetary, protective warrior. It's surely fear on HER part. Then she tells me about the anyone-can-go Teachings on the Mind at the Penta/Pennsylvania/ Ramada Hotel Grand Ballroom 1-6PM Monday and Tuesday, and a special Milarepa Empowerment Tuesday night. Get off the phone with her and LEAVE for the Monday teaching [see NOTEBOOK 596], and Susan phones and says that "piracy" seems to be more accurate to her. I talk to her 10/15 at work and she talks of an "act of violence: check in with Quito Consulate; you're not far from all the crap in Bolivia, I sense crime and violence." I tell her I'd phoned Michael Tuesday morning but no one answered, and that she and I should get together before I leave so she WILL "see me again." She laughs. My anxiety comes and goes; Joe and Spartacus totally disgusted with her for doing this to me, Pope more understanding. I phone Michael Tuesday night and he says "The guide's registered, the company reputable, he was there BEFORE with ten people on a charter and nothing happened. It's one of the best companies, one of the larger operators with 4-5 boats. Getting robbed by the crew is the LAST concern." Then we go on to talk about tipping and what money I might need. Now it's Wednesday at 9:50AM and Susan's not at work yet, so I leave message on her home machine and phone Pope. We talk til 11, then I call Joe and Susan and Dennis, and then it's noon and I still haven't eaten breakfast! Shelley calls and we arrange to talk about her brother getting a camcorder that I would rent to "the other three" at $100/week, and Shelley says that might work! Susan and I might meet tonight or tomorrow night to defuse her "never seeing me again" and I tell Dennis that I've got something on every day for the rest of the week, & the trip-work now seems IMMEDIATE with only four days for packing!

10/16/91: Then to summarize the TIBETAN section of this week-start! George Pierson mentioned the Kalachakra Initiation at Actualism, so I picked up a copy of the Free Spirit that was devoted to Tibetan Buddhism and tore out the pages giving the dates of the meetings, but since I was going to be away October 21-23, the dates of the main initiation, I sort of figured going to the rest of it wasn't worth it. Then Dorothy Kent praised the Dalai Lama and the ceremonies at St. John the Divine the previous week, and when she said that the "Teachings on the Mind" series at the Penta/Pennsylvania/Ramada Hotel was NOT part of the series, and open to anyone for $25, I took off IMMEDIATELY on Monday at 3:30 and got in at 4PM, just as people were returning from a break, and, by ignoring the signs that said "Don't have a ticket? Check at the Registration Desk downstairs" I merely walked down a side aisle and listened to the Rimpoche giving his talk in English, stumbling over his fan-fold bamboo-leaf-style notes when he'd get to point 8 without having mentioned point 7. It was a fairly "well-known" lecture about meditation: have something in front of you, brush all other thoughts from your mind, if something comes up, just let it go again, start briefly and build up to a longer time, don't be too intense about it. There were some cuties in the audience to attract my eye, and then there was the announcement of the Venerable Keutmal, or someone, talking about his "Vision of Shamballa" at 7:30, free. So I stood around watching and listening to the Tibetan instrumentalists and singers that Alice and I had seen dancing in Lincoln Plaza, mildly cruising, and then went inside the cold Main Ballroom to wait for it to fill halfway up for the translated dream, not really terribly interesting except for the sexual attraction he had to the Green Tara who flew him to Shamballa and its 32 cities on 32 lotus petals surrounded by 800,000 smaller towns on a white carpet, and I left at 9PM to walk down 8th Avenue looking for a French restaurant and ending up in the estimable Intermezzo for good Merlot-by-the-glass and terrific Vitello Tonnato for only $6.50 for a real MEAL. Wanted to get to the last lecture by 1PM, but Spartacus's lending me $3000 took longer than I'd planned, so I got there at 1:30 to find them still in their stultifying introductory chanting. He talked til 3, again through a translator, this time without much humor, about the difference between Hinayana and Mahayana and the different forms of Higher Mind which of course were all resolved in the nonduality which was Nirvana which was also Samsara. Too-filling Reuben Grill at the Leo Lindy's downstairs when every other place in "restaurant row" looked closed, and took the half of it back upstairs til 4:30, when I decided I'd really had enough: I'd forgotten to bring another Buspar and I was beginning to obsess on the trip, and I'd forgotten to mail off the Xland Visa bill which had to be in, I thought, by the 16th, but turned out to be the 18th. Home to mail bills, then to 35 W. 19th by 7AM to get one of the last cushions for the Milarepa Empowerment, going up behind Dorothy for "Refuge," where I got the name "Karma Zodpa Puntsok" which translates as Excellent Abundant Patience, given by Ven. Tenga Rinpoche, and had the tiniest wisp of head-top hair tonsured. Then for the Empowerment itself there was having the cup of nectar on the head, water in the hand for brushing over the top of the head, and the tinted water which I suppose was to be taken as nectar. Pat Mandino said I "looked the same as ever" but wasn't terribly warm, Dorothy embraced me and wished me a great trip, saying that she wanted to see the PREVIOUS trip-slides, too (which means she HAS to see me again), and I walked Maya to the subway while she RETOLD me the story of how the SECOND plane of her party to fly from Buenos Aires to Bariloche slid off the runway and caught fire in being towed back on, and Flower Henderson (or whoever) who was in that plane say the Dark Angels coming for the bodies being chased away by the White Angels when they weren't to die. That gave me just about enough of the Rinpoches and the audience, some talking and dozing off and not paying attention at ALL to what was being said, and at least I can hear about the "usually secular" empowerment that George thought was going to be such a great thing, after I get back from the trip I've been obsessing about.

GALAPAGOS TRIP, October 20 - November 11, 1991

NOTES TAKEN BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER TRIP:

8/28/91: From Barry Boyce (800-969-9014):
1) Air: Sunday, NYC-MIA "cheapest", MIA-QUI Saeta, $664 +$100 "Diff airport"
2) Hotel: Sunday, single at Alameda Real
3) Air: Monday, QUI-GAL, San, to Puerto Ayora
4) Hotel: Monday, Grand Hotel on San Cristobal
5) Boat leaves Tuesday; leave ship 11/4
6) Hotel Galapagos 4 nights
7) Air: GAL-QUI 11/8
8) Hotel: 11/8 + ?
9) Air: QUI-MIA and MIA-NYC; CAN change this date later
Next: HE calls with PRICES.

9/15/91: Delores's cousin and husband OUT; Eric's dad OUT; Komodo book-writer and dad and step-mother in---she's five months pregnant. Still SEVEN: M+D, me and Eric, new three. THEY supply ME with my sleeping bag!

10/17/91: Barry Boyce: Bird-watching places, take VAN to market. Otovalo market two-day tour on Friday and Saturday: $190 for each of 2; $325 single.
Tinilandia $140 for each of 4; $400 for single. Cholera: drink BOTTLED water; don't buy ANYTHING from vendors; NO ice in drinks; NO orange juice; islands are fine: diarrhea most likely first or second day BACK in Quito, tired from trip!

10/18/91: Wake after I THINK I hear a "SQUEAK-thump!" No, antlers did NOT fall. Dream, or something here or upstairs actually fell?
10/20/91: Take SIXTY rolls of film: 40 UNMOUNTED (cheap),exp 10/92 (use 12/91!)
20 MOUNTED (one IN camera), exp 4/92!
Cash $516 + $550 trav chex for $1066. Back with $366, spent $700.
PAID $2500 for boat+$599 RT Quito+$374 Galapagos = $3473+700=$4173/23 =$181/day

10/20/91: Went through USUAL "leaving" list of 1) Desk light on, 2) Set VCR, 3) call for car, 4) phone machine on (record message), 5) eat breakfast, 6) unplug computer, 7) humidifier empty, 8) garbage out, 9) lock doors.
Then the SAVE THIS LIST of packing: beret/gloves/scarf, earplugs, bathing suit, layers/sweaters, notebook/pens, shower cap, books/papers, scissors/dop kit/ pills, socks/shorts/shirts, shirts/pants, bandaids, sunglasses, handkerchief, camera/film, MANY plastic bags, sunhat, belts, shoes, slippers, umbrella?, spare glasses?, binox?, jockstrap?, gym shorts?

10/20/91: The day before leaving, I came up with a tailored "do before leaving" 1) phone Barry, 2) JV: watch leak, water plants, pay bills, 3) record phone message, 4) Sunday: set RCA for Saturday, 5) JV:leave mailbox unlocked, 6) wash dishes, 7) pack, 8) sell opera ticket, 9) phone Spartacus, 10) phone machine on

10/20/91: Weighed my bags before I left: duffelbag 26#, bluebag 18#, handbag 13# for a total of 57#. Returning, my duffelbag was 19.2kg and my handbag 7.6 for a total of 26.8kg or 59#, not much paper added, though I DID leave sleeping bag behind, AND they took my little Olympia and York carrybag.

10/20/91: Last-minute take list: adding 1) hydrogen peroxide, 2) pills, 3) address list, 4) cards OUT of wallet and calling cards IN, 5) 2 thick sox, 6) silk sox, and I'd bought Dramamine (no good), Bonine (OK), and took earpatches.

10/?/91: Take-list for Alcedo-climb: WET landing: towel, red underwear, "night" stuff, soap, toilet paper, finger bandaid, pills, clothing bags, bandaids, booties, film+film, jacket and sweatshirt, waterbottle, sleeping pills, suncreen, flashlight, toilet paper, beret. Note toilet paper TWICE!!
Sunday, October 20: (notes in back of "Wild Seed") Wake at 4AM! Lay til 7, up to write checks and fix place up. VERY nervous; eat breakfast at 10. Phone for 11:15 car at 10:30 and Shelley calls and I phone Dennis, and JAM stuff into three bags, weighing in at 57 pounds! Guy buzzes at 11:10, I get down at 11:20, pick up a woman at 11:25, to airport at 11:55; quick checkin and stow duffelbag through to Quito and on line at gate 5 at 12:05 and board 12:10 on LEFT side--- nothing but ocean? Write this by 12:25, full plane with NO sign of leaving on-time. Couldn't find notebook to buy in LAG. Probably OK in Miami. Move at 12:32! Off at 12:50, GREAT swing over Bronx with ALL Manhattan glittering in the south sun. Down Hudson River, over, in turn, Chinzan-so Restaurant, Central Park, Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Narrows, Staten Island, Sandy Hook, Atlantic City, Norfolk, and clouds at 1:40, 1/3 way with GREAT views! I'm VERY nervous, counting 1/5, 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, and AT 2:10 out over ocean, having seen MORE land than I'd expected. Up to date at 2:12, only to 2:30 to be 2/3 there! Club sandwich lunch OK after $4 vodka-tonic eases my Buspar down. To pee at 2:30, plane jittering---2/3 there! GREAT clouds, some pix, even BIMINI and over MOST of Miami and land at 3:20, to gate at 3:25, off at 3:30. Buy 60,000 sucres for $60 (+ $2 fee), a yellow pad for $1.05, one liter of Southern Comfort for $12.25, and get to gate E9 at 4:30, Eric spots me, Kali cute; I have to DIG for passport, and BOARDING starts at 5:15! We're on at 5:30, when I finish this. Fast! At 5:45 it's 3 hours 35 minutes to Quito, 215 minutes! Move at 5:50. Off at 6:15, and set watch back to 5:15 when pilot says we should land at 8:45 local time. GREAT moss-green south of Miami, and HIGH clouds over Cuba (pictures 32 and 33). Then dark at 6:15 as we pass over Grand Cayman Island. Another vodka and tonic, and I HOPE flight goes well. At 6:25 get out puzzle. Dinner of beef is GOOD, and "Soapdish" is awful. Quito lit in hammock-valley at 8:45 and we land AT DOT of scheduled 8:57, jolty flight down between hills. Sulaikah meets us after long wait for immigration, about 9:30, and drives J. Marie and Kali and Eric and me to Alameda Real. Delores and Michael in 1003, but they're out at the Ballet Folklorico. I leave them a note, write this, and get to bed at 11, midnight in NYC, and we're meeting at 9:15 tomorrow! [I've written SEVENTY notebook pages!]

Monday, October 21: Bed at 11, but don't fall off til past 12. Then look at watch at 4, 4:30, 5, 6, and up at 6:45 to shower nicely and collect hotel's soap and shower cap. MUST repack now at 6:55. It goes quickly and I REPACK dop kit and clothing and STILL don't have enough bags! Steal a laundry bag (and two MORE after they make up the room) and start "souvenirs," but it has to be recruited for PAPERS and "yet to come" stuff. So two more should do it. Check bag with doorman and get a stub and put laundry in WITHOUT getting copy. Meet Dick (writer) and Mary (Dutch) and THERE'S Michael and Delores. Good buffet breakfast for $6---ham and fritters and chocolate donut and two hot chocolates and papaya and pineapple and watermelon and eggs and steak! Up at 8:45 to gaze from balcony onto town, get bags down, and pee and pack to 9:10, ready for plane! Load and leave at 9:20, but most of Quito looks like most of the rest of Quito. Airport is a mob scene but we all get seats in Row 6, me NOT on left and NOT at window. Meet a (gay?) guy from Dayton and chat, and load onto the smallest-clearance seats in world. NO possibility of "heads between knees" in crash. Talk and joke, and board last passengers and take off toward volcano at 11:05. Some bumps and turns, Michael takes two "light-adjusted" shots of Cotopaxi and hills after, and we fly through clouds to muggy lowland Guayaquil that they SAY is 37C, but NOT 99F. Land across swollen river (pools in fields) at 11:37 and shuttled OFF plane into seating area with NO access to shopping, making all the women miserable. Kali forgot toothbrush (Delores gives him the one Saeta gave her in their packet, and I bid on the comb), shoes (he went across from the airport: lady's open, men's closed), and sunglasses (at airport he buys eared glasses that fit OVER his). I sit and write. One girl on plane got red in face and cried from fear during the flight. Maybe if I'd been alone and not talking to the casual Eric, I would have been more panicked too-- climbing toward a distant volcano, clouds around craggy hills---though MOST hills are FARMED, and some riversides had white herons flying. Cool in waiting room, but smoke thick. Katherine, the guide, gives me the idea of a three-day Amazon trip: we have Mon-Tue-Wed nights in hotel, return Thursday, Tinilandia overnight Friday and Saturday, and I could go Sun-Mon-Tue, or Mon-Tue-Wed, depending on what's available and going. I'm to talk to Sulaikah. Now 11:53 and no sign of reboarding. Off at 12:15, 90 minutes! Cloudy, then hills and forests, then a COAST! Sandwiches and Quin (poor) and finally vodka and Sprite, and then it CLEARS! Land on San Cristobal, dry and rocky, at 1:45, but it's 12:45. Long wait for baggage and then Grand Hotel Room 3 at 1:40. Lunch of carp and beer and WASHED GRAPES. Onto bus at 2:40 with video camera for first time! To Lago Junco in mist, Kali slips and sits in mud, all are sliding, and mist clears to prove my guess that it's a round volcanic crater. Around side trail to see WILD HORSES running through mists, frigatebirds sailing overhead, and finches placidly feeding while I film only feet away. One even hovers in wind, fluttering, while I stare and debate using camera, saying to Delores it's more FRUSTRATING than not. Then we go to Seal Beach beyond airport and THERE I'm in my element, filming seals nursing, scratching, and masturbating, blowing their noses at me. GREAT shots to 6PM as sun sets and full moon rises. Back to shower, Delores saying "Maybe I'll see something EXCITING" as she comes to get their stuff (stored in my room since their patio door won't lock) as I strip to shower. Dine at 7 on local clawless lobster DEEPFRIED, rice and olives, and french fries, and good rennet custard that neither Michael or Delores eat. I have two only. To look at map (we cross equator to and from Tower) and to rooms at 8:30 with fresh water in pitchers and I brush teeth and write this to 9PM. To BED??

Tuesday, October 22: 5AM, YES, and sleep FAIRLY quickly, and wake after eight LOVELY hours, having had two VERY explicit dreams: 1) a woman SORT of like Vicki and I are dining in a Chinzan-so type restaurant on the river and there are slow drum-like sounds, two "thick" ones and 5-6 "thin" (lighter and softer, or less distinct) sounds. We look around mildly and wonder "What was that?" Then there are two or three SWIFT LATERAL SHIFTS of the entire restaurant, and I think "Earthquake" and fear that our area will be catapulted into the river three stories below. It stops, but I fear these are only foreshocks and say to Vicki, "Let's go toward the back, QUICK," hoping not to start a panic in the other diners who would obstruct us. We start moving back, no more sounds or shakes, and dream ends. Later 2) I'm in a kind of maze of rooms, like in a Dungeons and Dragons layout, and many "enemies" slink past but seem to ignore me, but I find many "allies" who seem to be gay, and I feel comfortable. Once a group of five or six guys comes out of a prison-like building. But they seem to "like" each other, and I give signals that I'm gay too, and they leave me alone. Then I'm in a room with 4-5 humpy guys and one short fellow seems very proud of his calves, standing sideways on his toes and flexing for himself and me. I reach down to clasp them (am I thinking of gold-haloed legs on the darkly tanned boy at the airport yesterday?) and he melts into my hands. His body is very short and compact, but his chest is covered with extremely short (1/4 inch)) black curly hairs, and I plunge my face and mouth into them and nuzzle his tits, getting us hard with my lips and tongue and teeth, and his crotch becomes palpable to my left fingers. I'd seen he had a very small cock, but when I felt it, it was opening, expanding, hard and juicy, so I clasped it and pulled it downwards and he groaned with pleasure and I curled my fingers around its length and it started spurting thin white fluid again and again and again, til I marveled at his production when he passed 10-15 spurts, paused, then launched another 3-4 thin jets: a VERY tactual dream---the calf muscles, the chest hair, the hard bony cock. Wake hard in dark and lay for a bit, then turn lamp switch and find the power off. Luckily I'd put the flashlight in the front of my dop kit, which I knew was on the toilet tank, so I took out my earplugs to hear the faint dawn sounds, a crowing of seals like hoarse cocks getting ready for the dawn, and an occasional gecko click, and now the very distant bark of a dog and the sound of a rooster crowing, though the cloudy sky is only gray-blue without a hint of red yet at 5:18. Get to bathroom to find THAT light definitely off (forgot to ask WHAT the hours were) and find the flashlight, pee, have a slight urge to shit, hoping it won't be moist, but don't have the urgency to do it yet, in the dark, and take light back to fair bed and sit and write this to 5:20, debating dressing and going to the beach to watch the sights and hear the sounds (almost continuous gecko-croaks, or maybe a bird?) of the coming dawn, since yesterday in Quito the sun was UP when I woke. Even my vague concern about leaving my battery-charger on overnight is solved: the power is OFF from maybe 9PM! Sit on beach in VERY light mist at 5:40. Frigatebirds cruise overhead, but the seal-brown shape on a beach rock is only a rock, not a seal. Roosters constant now, black rocks merely damp so I sit on one to write to the pulse of protected-harbor light waves. Bottoms of thick clouds are picturesque but it's almost too cool for short sleeves, and probably the water feels COLD! Each large yacht has a cruising light on on the topmast, otherwise there are no lights in the town at all, though it's now totally dim-strong light outside at 5:45. Black rocks are lightly coated with algae and VERY slippery as I test water, not THAT cold, and scramble back to shore as tide is coming in RATHER quickly! Do I hear a distant generator and see lights in town at 5:54? Small fishing boat moves out to sea. INSTANTLY birds call from powerlines and a GULL swoops over beach. INSTANT wakening! A waiter (did I wake him?) gets off lobby sofa as I exit hotel. Black crabs clamber on black rock, and the largest, almost a foot from claw-tip to claw-tip, is dark red. They JUMP from rock to rock and I nervously ensure there are none near MY rock at 6:03AM. Mist stops. Black crabs ominous as they creep along, claw after claw, clinging to the rock edges, tearing at the lichen on the rock-sides, jostling each other for size-position dominance. A yellow finch slips on the rocktops; I'm not the only slick-bottom footed. A large mottled gray-white bird skims in the wash above the waves. Michael out with camera and binoculars: they show me that the far head is a buoy, and pelicans squabble afar. Long dark shape was a WAVE. Waiter sprays hotel-front plants. Cool breeze even after light rain stops. I'm hungry at 6:55. Broken coral like man-made BEADS---is THAT how Egyptian beadwork started? Red Sea Coral! Find a pierced pink helmet shell, a lovely purple-tipped tiny conch, and what may be a piece of clamshell looking like a bone carving! Back at 7:02, people talking and toilets flushing, but no real signs of life yet. In to find Michael looking for me for breakfast at 7:15. Only bread and butter and strawberry jam and hot milk and pineapple juice. At 8:30 we walk toward Frigatebird Hill, but get lost on beach and end up on a point with three blue-footed boobies. It's windy and slightly rainy, and back to hotel at 9:55 to find that our guide, Juan Carlos, will be in at 10. At 10:20 he arrives to say Resting Cloud needs a generator piece, coming on the flight with the three Lutzes, with two mechanics to install it, and he hopes we'll leave tonight after sailing today on the ship VERTIGO! If not, we stay at hotel tonight and start on Vertigo at 6AM for Hood. OR board Resting Cloud. I insist on going into town, get lost and walk along beach, meet Kali and Eric returning form Naval Base deadend, find Pepe the Galapagos Turtle on street, buy book for 4000S and entry for 1000, donating 500 above entry price (and 1000 above the price of the book elsewhere!). Walk back at 10:05 to try AGAIN to find Frigatebird Hill, trying EACH path, frustrated that beach guys probably HID it. Lots of lizards, flowers, and I try fuzzy fruit hoping for Chirimoya, and local says NO, gives diarrhea. I spit and spit and spit. Photo castor, flowers, and beach. Back to REPACK for day on Vertigo, and the three Lutzes come in with Juan Carlos at 1:25, and we sit and chat before lunch at 1:45. Sun's come out and it's HOT. Juan Carlos says he HAS flippers on ship, ONLY Michael is diving with the marine iguanas while we snorkel above. Can RENT a wet suit in Puerto Ayora. Lunch of fish soup, shrimp with lime, and beans and squash and two beers. Juan Carlos translates for us, saying we had lima bean soup yesterday. At 2:30 we're told we'll know at 3. Walk along rocks at beach to look for marine iguanas, but there are none. Back at 3 to find we have to wait for 3:30: Vertigo isn't SUPPLIED yet, and Resting Cloud isn't ready until later, too late for today, so tonight in hotel, this PM back to Seal Beach. Out to beach in desperation, then at 3:40 decide to find what the news is. Everyone's in bus! Except Michael and Delores. I dash in to get sunscreen since my forearms and hand-backs are QUITE angrily red. Down to beach and there are many MORE seals on shore, but angles are worse because there are more people (8) on beach, AND other groups, including a Spanish young group with a REAL trollop with buttocks-bottoms showing below shorts. Lots of tape on sealions and yellow warblers, then at 4:50 Juan Carlos calls "a meeting" and gives us the rules of the islands. Bright yellow little bird is Yellow Warbler, which is NOT endemic. Waved albatross is endemic, green-rose lantern STILL unknown (though later they're called Mary's Tears). Beach morning glory has HUGE runners on beach. Pick up "complete sea urchin spine"---end (blunt) and insert (smooth), and a tiny complete shell. Juan Carlos says that EXCEPT in public areas like this we must ALWAYS stay together! I smoulder, pick up today's two pieces (AGAINST THE RULES), and bus comes at 5:25 and we're back to hotel BEFORE sunset, Juan Carlos saying "They're taking BATTERY out to test the generator; if it works, we can go aboard tonight." I go to room and write this and find comb at last and wash OFF sunscreen and put on Vaseline to prevent drying. At 6:10PM still no news! At 6:30 the Nortada ("Carrying the woman I love," simpers Juan Carlos, "the naturalist on the Nortada") steams in, having charged the battery to be tested with the generator on the Resting Cloud. It's still going! I blaze up CF, CM, GEN, REGEN, HW, RG, RPN (RW, SW, JW), and throw in EP for an even 10. Nothing happens. In for a glass of Southern Comfort! Play cards til 10PM (I win both), and Juan Carlos says we board bus at 5:45AM for Vertigo with all our luggage, to transfer to Resting Cloud during the next day.

Wednesday, October 23: 5AM: Wake with dreams: 1) Climbing through attic of apartment with wiring in a terrible shambles (sort of a simile to Alzheimer's?) I have a sexy adventure, but I forget what it was. 2) Meet someone like Stephen Waite, who's still unpaired, and I try to get together a group for sex, but it gets very complex, ending driving down a street where a) Stephen's vest of ice is too large and inflexible to permit him to drive, so someone NEXT to him moves the gas pedals while I reach in from the other side to steer, and I manage to stop the bike (!) in the right place, parking it on the sidewalk while all four of us "get out" and part, except for me and Stephen, who then attaches a basket to a wire from the upstairs balcony for charming Miss X, who comes down as he pulleys the basket UP to her, and everyone laughs at the inane charm of the circumstances. I'm sure we'll have pleasant sex afterwards. Keep looking at watch with flashlight, and at 5:20 there's a knock on everyone's door. I've been farting with an awful fishy smell, and my bowel movement is rather loose, so I'm observing it. Thumbs hurt rather a lot when I do things like hold the notebook to write while I shit. Must remember to take Bonine! At least they arranged for us to have lights! Full moon tonight, last night's clouds obscured sunset and moon. All out at 5:45 onto bus that leaves at 5:48. Onto VERY EDGE of pier and watch sealions cavorting off side. Five people into Zodiac and to Vertigo (oh, I find Bonine in bag at 5:55), large public area, four tiny cabins. Consternation. I get Dick. Breakfast of FRESH pineapple, FRESH NATURAL blackberry juice, and ham/pepper omelette. Delores and Michael don't eat eggs. Tea for me. Climb to top cabin and Juan Carlos says we're on Resting Cloud TODAY at Hood Island. Leave 6:55AM and hit swells south of San Cristobal at 7:15. All talking. By 9AM we're all talked out. J Marie has been sick 2-3 times. Eric sacked out, Michael dozing, Kali and I on bench. I took videos behind, bracing for dips and rolls. I do lightwork and think of piracy. Full-moon day. 9:02 still no Hood. Two dolphins leaping off right side, and three "maybe" albatrosses easily outrunning ship which is sailing due south. Darker clouds to either side, San Cristobal last seen around 8:15. Almost bright enough for sunglasses---very humid and warming up for AM snorkeling off Gardner Island, tiny speck off 113-meter high Hood, sighted at 9:20, at Gardner at 10:15, land at 10:35 on Hood. Five go ashore, then the Lutzes and me. He says "Wet landing" so I wear my old SHOES, but it's a smooth sandy bottom, so it's a waste of sandy shoes! Hobble around getting feet dry in Vertigo towel, and leave stuff to be later nuzzled by sealions. Into shoes and struggle across sand to sealions, and FIRST marine iguanas, stark against rocks, and a pair of love-bubbling Sally Lightfoot crabs. Lots and lots of footage of seals tumbling in the surf and iguanas sunning. Back at 11:45 (having been told 11:30 by Juan Carlos, talking to his girlfriend, guide on Nortada, that seems to bear 8-10 surly Frenchmen) to beach, saying FIRST back should be SNORKLERS, so five of us hop aboard and back to Vertigo to commandeer first cabin on left and tear bags apart to get out snorkel stuff, thinking we'll PACK it onto beach. NO, we're going to ROCKS off BOAT, so I put stuff on and get good pair of size-nine flippers. Juan Carlos insists I wear them IN the Panga (their word for the Zodiac), so I do, but no one ELSE does and I feel foolish. Near rocks we're told to jump in. I put feet in and it doesn't feel so bad; everyone else leaps in. I gather courage, adjust mask and snorkel, and jump in. PANIC! I gasp and taste salt water. It's so cold I feel gripped by a force I just want to AVOID. Swim away and swim back, debating RETURNING to Zodiac----but shivering while the rest swim? I try to calm down and finally start to look around. Small black fish with white markings come to view and I start watching them. There's a large black Bull-Headed fish with an INCREDIBLY purple-blue eye. Small schools of white and yellow fish dart about. I get engrossed and feel better. Kicking, I move along perimeter of rocks against which the waves dash with foam underwater. Larger schools of gray fish with round bodies and three dots over tail (I thought Dick said "Sergeants," but they're yellow-tailed surgeonfish, called "Chancho," Prionuris laticlavius). Then there's an incredible black fish with GLOWING SAPPHIRES set along the front part of the body. Another school of foot-long surgeonfish appears to be herded by two extraordinarily PRECISELY-MARKED King Angelfish "Pez bandero" Holocanthus passer with distinct areas of orange and yellow and white and black which make it look like a late-Matisse collage. [But now writing and ship's motion makes me get another Bonine. Decide to sit MORE STRAIGHT FORWARD.] A sealion, formerly glimpsed on the rocks, now splashes deep underwater nearby. Later it buzzes Eric. Large parrotfish sweep below. Lots of patterns and colors of fish in clear water---visibility at least 40 feet, few small pieces of crap later turn into a cloud of half-inch fish: an eye followed by a transparent tail, hundreds moving in balletic unison. I keep glancing up and see them moving away, so I kick in their direction, longjohns keeping legs comfortable, black socks perfect in flippers, only arms cold and a dash of cold on my head as I look DOWN rather than ahead. Mask has to be adjusted; I think my mustache and gasping lets in the water that I feel constantly in my nose, worrying me until I find I can breathe ONLY through my mouth. There's fluid, but when I suck it back it's only my saliva. Only once did the snorkel-end, protected, seem to ship salt-water that I tried, I guess successfully, to blow out. Little seaweed, lots of rocks, some sandy bottoms, large rock-plateaus with most fish, and Eric sees the biggest (it grows from one to two feet through the evening) lobster he's ever seen. Glasses seem perfect for views; I don't know that the left side of my neck is being burned. We leaped in at 12:30 and at 1PM I hear a whistle: look up and everyone's IN the Panga. Kick over and try to pull myself up, but I'm exhausted. "How do I get in?" "We'll pull you." They try, then shout "Kick," and I propel myself upwards like an emerging penguin and flop aboard, flippers awkward. We're all delighted, and it's 1 and we're starved. Feel relieved that THAT unknown worry has been experienced and conquered! Clamber onto slippery back deck and to room to take off wet clothes---didn't even NEED towel for warmth in boat. Grab another dry towel, warmed from sun---which NOW comes out after having been clouded over all AM---and dry myself off. Hear Delores mention "shower" and of course I must have one. Delores and Michael quarrel about finding shampoo; two bathrooms are full, so I climb to top to get hangers for my clothes to dry atop. Down to find Delores exiting, and she TELLS me she left shampoo in the shower JUST as I'd resigned myself to using SOAP, since my shampoo wasn't in my dop kit---HATE not having UNPACKED. Shampoo, condition, and shower, bottom full of soapy water, and back to dress, last to lunch of soup, tasty fried fish, and peas and carrots and salad. Soda for dryness, and a beer. J Marie not eating, still sick. After lunch at 2:05 Juan Carlos says we'll have briefing on Hood walk from Something Bay at 2:45, so I lay to rest, feeling tired but better. Out at 2:45 to NO briefing, so eat nuts and chips and dried limas, both green and toasted, in bowls. Shoes off for wet landing, rolling up white pants, slathering sunscreen on arms and face: Michael red, Eric positively ORANGE. First group goes before I can put all my stuff into one bag---the Resting Cloud is FIXED and we'll have DINNER on her tonight! Second group preceded by big white boat from Nortada---it seems we'll have them along ALL the time for safety, in case something happens to either, a Quasar Nautica practice that at FIRST is depressing but later sounds GOOD to me. Land at rock-rimmed beach at 3 with seals, nesting and courting blue-footed and white-footed (masked) boobies, lots of the scavenging birds that Juan Carlos says are awful: attack young of anything, kill young to eat them, break eggs, etc. Lots of shots and French-speaking group goes off with Juan Carlos's girlfriend, with whom he sat on the sand and chatted most of the morning. I'd forgotten to recharge my battery at lunch! Start walking about 3:15 and it's INCREDIBLE: rocks COVERED with birds (while pelicans and frigatebirds fly over), shitting and cawing and knocking bills, and path displays loads of lizards, from three inches to a foot, and then we see MASSES of marine iguanas, red and green and crested and black, singly and in MASSES. LONG walk to 6:45 (6PM supposed limit of time) and get to blowhole, sunset vistas, 3-4 albatrosses, just as my camera battery expires. Take about three rolls of film, having trouble making change. Back in dimness, Juan Carlos warding off possessive sealion from biting those on narrow trail he's ATHWART, and Delores snaps at him for having to clamber over lavarocks to avoid a sealpup. I'm VERY tired, happy to have this as conditioner for Alcedo CLIMB. Michael and Delores are slow, wanting to be last off, and we get to Nortada boat. I'm next to last of a bad lot of French, and they're back and we're back and GASP at day as I get stuff together outside and closed up for transfer. Light nearing IS Resting Cloud, and she arrives at 7:30 and we're onto a polished-wood ship that looks older and more cramped than the Vertigo. Women choose, and they assign J Marie to the front, Michael and Delores to the front, and Lutzes and Kali and Eric take the back, so I'm stuck with the "Engine Room." Dinner with toast and introduction of six hands: Juan Carlos, Nelson the captain, Alberto the cook, B_____ the outside guy, and two hands, one a Panga pilot. Good shrimp and potatoes and green beans and salad, and great chocolate ice cream/mousse for dessert. At 9:45 they suggest rummy but I say I'm to bed. Brush teeth and get to roasting bed at 10, fearing fumes: they said air conditioner STILL wasn't OK, better tomorrow. I fall asleep instantly, but wake at 1:45, feeling AWFUL. Open door for coolth---there's WATER on the floor of the john. Is boat sinking? Pee and there's no water flowing IN, to the toilet, to FLUSH it. So I OPEN it (the valve) and it works. But come back at 3 and there's MORE water trickling---the bowl's OVERFLOWED! So I CLOSE valve and pump it all out! [Ask at 1:15 and find there's a VALVE missing; they'll replace it and I can leave it OPEN/CLOSED?---I'll have to ask THEM]. Think in agony to move UPSTAIRS, but someone's sleeping on the LONG table, and two bodies (I guess the Captain and the Guide) are on the "lounge beds" in the Pilot House, which seems to be THEIRS, not ours, even though it has the racks for our SHOES, that we take off EACH time we come in; NO shoes on the ship! So I just leave the DOOR open and it seems to make it better but I still can't SLEEP. Cut TWO Flents 2/3 size, one for each ear, to cut down noise, then take two sleeping pills, each needing a search through luggage not quite settled yet, since we were toasting before I put it all away. Quite miserable at 2:45 when ship STARTS, the SMELL grows, and the noise and rocking becomes DISTINCT. UGH! Finally drop off as, I hope, the sleeping pills take effect. End of a LONG day.

Thursday, October 24: Wake at 5AM, feeling VERY tired, and get out to lounge, since when I WAKE I look across and see the waiter who'd been sleeping on the dining couch just getting up, probably because of me. Try to catch up with writing, but others are up and talking and our 7AM breakfast is moved up to 6:45. I'm still moving things around, thinking there's been no announcement, and Juan Carlos says he's leaving at 8 for a wet landing! Did I not hear or did he not say? First Hood landing at Gardner Bay, second at Punta Suarez. [First Floreana at Punta Ayora, second [mailbox] at Punta Cormorant.] RUSH to get stuff together with shoes and towel and come by FAR the last into the panga. Other boats there too, and Juan Carlos talks with his damn girlfriend while Eric and Michael and I cluster around a shallow inlet with crabs, brown anemones that curl up into kidney-like lobes when touched, and little pools with sea urchins. Along the beach to a "display" of urchin mouthpieces and pencil-quills and green spines, and pinhead pieces of green glittering olivine. To the lake to see the flamingoes, unique on islands, and the French group hogs the shore, having chased the dozen-or-so mating group to the far shore. I fuss and fume and steam until they finally move away. My long lens is fine, and Eric wanders out for a closeup, adding scale. Little stilt feeds. Around to far shore, French group wandering to OTHER shore, and Juan Carlos waves at THEM and I think he's waving at ME to come back to logs above beach, probably the no-tourist line. Try to get away from them but they follow everywhere, and back at the path a THIRD group files down to the beach. Delores and J Marie say "He wants us to gather," and our group returns to the foot of the path and Juan Carlos goes off with his girlfriend to round up HER passengers. I spit out, "I'm doing all I can NOT to be pissed," and no one else seems to support me, J Marie observing "She can't keep her group under control." I snap back, "It's HER group, he's supposed to be OUR guide!" Delores looks at me sympathetically and Michael, as usual, stays out of it. Juan Carlos then tries to find some sting-rays for our group, and the others tag along. I'm furious! Go up the path by myself to be alone, and there are birds on the trail that the others had chased away. Film away, but Eric and Kali come quickly up behind me, and as I photograph something they move PAST me and scare things away. Juan Carlos catches up with me and says he UNDERSTANDS my gripe: HE'D rather be alone, too, but on some future islands we may have TEN groups vying for space! I say, with my pointedness, "But you have ONE group, not THREE groups," and he probably figures I'm in a jealous sexual pet over the biggest sealion on the beach. I keep saying, "I'd like to be FIRST to a site, not following ANOTHER." He says, "If I WAITED for them to leave, there's a THIRD group breathing down our necks." He also says he'll try to get us in earlier, and he in the afternoon FOLLOWS my suggestion by GIVING the orientation on Punta Cormorant ON the beach, NOT on the ship, where, as I put it, "We just stare at each other and not at things on the beach." He puts his hand on my shoulder at the end, saying he understands, but could I please be a bit more patient. I feel better, and when we get back to the beach, he tells the THIRD group to stay AWAY from the lake for a bit, and we go down AGAIN to take photos, and the people in the other group, led I'm sure by the snotty girlfriend, says "Make way for Monsieur," in French, about me, and I duck my head and pass as if everything were normal. Back to the ship and dash to get ready to snorkel from the panga around the rocks in the harbor, and I'm FIRST dressed and getting my perfect-fit flippers, loading them into a milk carton for lowering into the boat. I'm first in, others behind, I leaving camera with Mary to take photos of us loading. Off to the forbidden sealion beach, and over with an ENORMOUS gasp, hanging onto the panga ropes trying to get my breath from the cold, then dive in at 11:24. Brilliant blue stars, fat red stars, the same surgeonfish herded by angelfish, solitary puffers, and a seal actually SWIRLS AROUND me, turning to look as I turn to look at HIM. More schools of brown-striped snappers, and I float WITH them, moving with the current, as they break ranks to feed, darting downward in unison as some shadow darkens the surface. Sunlight comes out in shafts that brighten the surface as undulating waves against which tiny white flecks look more like FEATHERS than detritus. Keep looking up for foam from waves against rocks, once being almost driven toward one, turning on side to kick around it, hoping not to skin knees on it. Go over rocks, touching with hands, looking at smaller fish taking refuge in lava holes. Once got caught in actual current between island and rocks, rushing me out to sea, and I tired myself kicking in the middle before it occurs to me to get CLOSER to the island where current would be LESS, and in fact it dies OUT. Wide berth to seal beach where Juan Carlos said males will ATTACK interlopers, and to rock at OTHER side, where I find hundreds from many schools diving up and down eating goodies swept between the rock and the island. Great watching fish-shapes from BACK as they rise and fall to catch in their mouths what catches their eyes. Go to FRONT of them and turn to see all the forward-pointing eyes and gaping and gulping mouths, batfish spreading out their short, neck-centered fins. GREAT views that I repeat and repeat, coming up to see two, then three, then four people in panga, then return when I think I'm last, but they say Eric's still out, so I go back down. Later write the following from the fish book: Bull-Headed: Bump-Headed "Bumphead Parrotfish Scarus pearico. Bicolor parrotfish Scarus rubroviolaceus (male is BLUE, female is RED). Bluechin parrotfish Scarus ghibban (male pink under, blue-green top). Sunset wrasse---starts life as FEMALE and changes LATER to different-colored male. THINK I see gold-rimmed surgeonfish. What looked like batfish, Ogcocephalus darwini, "lionlike" on bottom. Puffer may here be called porcupinefish, Diodon holocanthus. Could have seen "Violet front, yellow band, red head, and blue tail SUPERMALE configuration of rainbow wrasse. The MASS school must be brown-striped snapper, to six inches, distinctly schooling. "Golden eye" identifies grunt, golden-eye, Haemulon scudderi, FOR eye. Largish silver fish may be JACKS. MAY have been a black triggerfish, but it was more like a blue-edged black angelfish. Bullseye, or concentric, puffer is most COMMON, but DID I see it? The fish book was in the boat's library, but Eric still had it out, and I had to ask 3-4 times for it. Back into boat, exhausted and exhilarated, at 12:04. Pin things to deck ropes and strip and shower, water coming JUST when I need it. Next landing on Punta Cormorant for Mailbox, and THAT takes us just ten minutes and we're back to SHIP! THEN sail to Puerto Ayora 3-6:30, and we try tape on TV and there's not enough POWER. I review ALL the tapes 1-3 (put on page 1.5 until I can move it to END, someplace), taking two times out for DOLPHINS! I take a rest in top bunk in room 1, BETTER than 5 at Engine room. until next day's orientation at 6PM, then into Puerto Ayora, lots of ships around, and dinner, after which I'm exhausted, and EVERYONE seems to be going to bed, so I do my teeth well as J Marie prepares for bed, and I climb in around 9PM; it's refreshing to sleep under the open hatch. Have SOME trouble getting to sleep due to the strange new bed, but do so fairly quickly.