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1992 1 of 5

My journal from 1992 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.

1/14/92: WHERE I AM NOW is quite a bit beyond the previous page. I call Mom on Sunday to thank her for her FIRST $11,000 in checks, received and deposited 1/4 and not yet cleared in the bank, and she says she's not going to send me any MORE, which relieves my thoughts about "What would she do with the $5,000 I might be able to return of her 1991 loan if she DOES send me another $5,000 after February 2, since I seem NOW to have enough til April 15, with $15,000 in the bank and $5,000 coming in, and only $7,000 for Keogh, $3,000 for taxes, $2,000 for January 15 taxes and bills, $3,000 to live on if I get NO more jobs by April 15, and $5,000 to start buying my computer, toward which I've taken my first steps by phoning Hugh and Rolf on Sunday and buying "Computer Shopper" for January from Waldenbooks yesterday, when I did a GREAT number of things between 1:30 and 4: returned tapes and checked that none on my "want list" have appeared in the new Maltin dated 1992 published 10/91, mailed off my last index and bought stamps at the post office, checked my checking-account availability, looked into the rather pathetic Brooklyn Public Library (every seat at the 3-4 tables full, every desk overcrowded, the most common question asked among the staff being "Did we bring THAT over from the old building?") where I find that it's not ROSE but ROSS that did the self-publishing book, and to Remsen to pick up four books and order another. My foot is getting better at walking, but it's still painful when I try to push PAST it. Great shower on Sunday got rid of the last of the OLD skin on my feet, and now the NEXT layer is starting to come off just to even things up. Talked to Susan today ending at 11:10, saying that I was concerned that I'd sent off my last index yesterday and there's NOTHING scheduled to come in, and at 11:15 Tim Armstrong calls with a re-indexing job from McGraw-Hill that he'll leave at Actualism tonight, and then at 11:25 Springer-Verlag gives me another small one! Great! Took notes on the computer system that Hugh just finished buying, and both he and Rolf are willing to look at my final selection, which makes me feel good. IRA $2000 went out (I hope OK, since I used an old application and "by coincidence?" got another, newer, application in the mail yesterday, but WITHOUT anything like "fill this out so we can process your $2000." Also expected to get the Keogh out, but they sent me the wrong form and will have to send the right one---thank goodness for a fairly-quick answering 800 number. Only one of the three requested IRS forms came through, and the Brooklyn office STILL hasn't called back with the response I already hope I know: I CAN have more than one Keogh plan. So my list is really down to the nitty-gritty: 1) rough tax-draft so I can get a better idea how much should go into the Keogh plan when my checking-account money clears, 2) check through Computer Shopper for my next computer, 3) phone John Strong about renting a dual-projector for 2/6, 4) do a 45-minute Galapagos tape, 5) clear off a roll of film (take it to MMA today!) so I can finish the Galapagos slide-show (AND check if Kodak will respect my "send in unmounted film AFTER 1/1/92" request!), and, increasingly obvious, 6) vacuum apartment and 7) get a haircut. If I can get all these things done by the NEXT time, it'll be great! Now 1:15 and I guess Spartacus is IN town, and I'll have to leave soon for the MMA movie at 2:30, which he said we should be there to get the tickets from Frederick at 2:15, and then I'll look at the "Maus" exhibit which will soon end and that I wanted to see anyway, and get up to the Olcott to pick up Armstrong's index, Mary's stamps, and hear the tape and go out to dinner with Mary and others. Phoned Carolyn to find she's NOT coming over tomorrow because she's NOT read the book yet, so I'm OK about going to the Museum of Broadcasting talk by Dennis Potter until 7:30 and then "run" (HA!) down to the Imperial for the "good tickets" Dennis bought for "Les Miserables" for tomorrow, leaving only "Phantom" to be seen, with difficulty since Spartacus says it's still the ONLY play that Variety reports 101% capacity every single week. Too bad Dennis had to pay full price now that it's out on twofers, but if he's willing to pay the tariff for good seats, I certainly am! Then 8) phone Bob Karwowski to get my two "1001 Nights" volumes back, and I'll surely think of other things I have to do by the next time I do this page anew.

1/18/92: Checked out the computerized magazine-references at BHL yesterday and got the following notes: There were 14 "indexing program" entries:
1) Virginia Systems Index-creation software: MacUser 12/91, p.95: $130 Sonar
Bookends, "concordance-way," "NOT as good as WordPerfect or Microsoft Word."
2) Knowledge Set's Hyperindexer: MacUser 5/89, p.205
3) Fetters Article in Online 5/88, p.116
4) American Petroleum Institute's system
5) $299 Word Cruncher "Document analysis tool": PC Mag 8/87, p.38
6) Byte "Remove Boring Words" article
7) Simple sort: Byte 7/87, p.275
8) Indexing: Compute 5/87, p/109
9) Charles Anderson column 5/87: Wilson Library Bulletin
10) Magazine indexer: Compute, 4/87, p.106
11) Indexing programs: Writer's Digest, 5/85, p.58
12) Rayport Systems software, "The Printing Industry," 5/85, p.126
13) dBase II for Bibliographies, Online 1/85, p.46
14) Creative Computing, 12/84, p.164
INDEX-80 mentioned 4/83
INDEXIT in Special Libraries, Fall '87, p.314
CDMARC Subject CD-ROM controlled vocabularies
Rolf: Lotus's "Explorer" HD management utility 8/88.
Lotus Bluefish Indexing software? Couldn't find ANY references to it!
Self-publishing: Publisher's Weekly 11/10/89, p.42

1/22/92: 7AM: Loads of thoughts during session: "We" by Lindberg (subject-ive); "Me" by Hepburn, and we, as an object, making a "Us" by Robert Z (object-ive). We HAVE billions of cells and trillions of atoms. We MOVE thousands of mph on earth's rotation (facing the sun, we're speeding LEFT); millions of mph on earth's revolution around the sun (facing HOW?), and ?illions of mph as "solar system moves toward Hercules," and ?illions of mph as galaxy rotates around galactic center, and ?illions of mph as galaxy moves---WHERE? in cosmic big-bang expansion. We GENETICALLY result from "population of whole world" some SURPRISINGLY SMALL number of generations back (and I try to look for WHERE I'd seen that recently, but it wasn't in Sunday's Times and it wasn't in Feb. Sci Am, so I don't know WHERE it was). Knowledge-wise we're the product of BILLIONS of words. We EXIST in molecules-of-breath of EVERYONE who's ever lived. ALL the words you've READ, ALL smells and tastes and notes HEARD. Sun's rays absorbed; molecules ingested with air in and out, food in and out. As you look at the stars, how MANY PHOTONS from EACH one, visible and invisible, striking each one's retina per second? How many "eye-areas" ARE there around the farthest- visible star? IS photon DENSITY a FOOT from the star INFINITE, so that a FAR- distant magnifier gets ONE photon in the "magnifier area?" BASIC EXISTENTIAL question! My session: 9 energies, 4-fold 8-fold 6 =4x8=32x6=192x9=1750 ASPECTS! How many NEUTRINOS pass THROUGH us, from ALL directions! And ALL exists IN vacuum that is almost INFINITELY rich in COUNTLESS virtual particles, EVERY SMALLEST FRACTION OF A SECOND! We are out-to-in TANKS of INFINITE influence from INFINITE directions, and IN EACH ATOM of us (within each atom) is the SAME vacuum of "big-bang source" ENERGY! And, to think, THIS might be ONE aspect of INFINITE ALTERNATE UNIVERSES that spring off at EACH Planck-instant in EVERY-possible PLANCK-length direction from EACH basic particle, but if each universe is Space-All-Filling, each ALTERNATE has to, somehow, INTERMESH with each other universe, and maybe the "quantum froth" within the Heisenberg energy -time constant is only bits of the ALTERNATES becoming visible for a faster- than-flash and sinking back into its OWN proper appropriate dimension before erupting in the "next" alternate---maybe at the SAME instant. Then I get into the day occupied with buying my computer, telling this only to Pope, who says that "Someone once TOLD me all those speeds we're going through, and I never thought of it again afterwards; it was just too confusing and overwhelming."

1/22/92: COMPUTER-shopping: Started by buying Computer Shopper and started looking through it on Sunday, getting it down to 111 entries from the original 177 486 vendors. The next day it got down to 58, and then to 28, from which it was reduced with agony to 24, and I didn't know how to get it any lower until Rolf kept insisting that SCSI (pronounced "scuzzy") was important, and that reduced my list to two EXPENSIVE SCSI dealers and two INEXPENSIVE ones, the lesser of which was in New Jersey. So I made a list of the 22 people I should call (or things I should do, including the perennial 17) finish videotape and 18) clean apartment), and then I found out it'll take two weeks to GET here (for only $35 shipping charge) after I order it, so I'll have TIME to catch up with other things before the computer gets here to eat up ALL my time in February, until March starts what Terry hopes will be a BUSY month (this year only) at Springer for indexes, but she gives me two names to register myself as indexer with, and one I have to write to, which I haven't done because John Day from HarperCollins wants it computerized "just so." So I'll write to him and he'll send me a form and we'll be off. Various people give various advice, but I'm getting tired of this because it's all down on PAPER which I'll save in the archives, so I can stop here.

1/23/92: BUY PRO-486/EISA with SCSI disks @ $3383, delivery on 2/6/92!!!

1/24/92: John Vinton says he isn't working now and is VERY interested in "Zippy's" work. I get a phone call while I'm showering: do you edit and publish books? No, only indexing. Then it hits me: WHY NOT PUBLISH BOOKS ON DISKETTE? I'd asked about it before, and no one seems to be doing it (even though it's possible to copy-protect the text itself on a floppy). I have a number of books to be published, so does John, and Pope, and others, and MANY others are seeking ways to self-publish, ala Poynter's book. But most deal in PRINTED books and my idea is to go DISKETTE! If John needs a job, why can't he come across the hallway to my computer to duplicate disks and fill orders for $20/hr? Why can't Dennis help out at some decent hourly rate if the workload warrants it? And if my apartment gets too crowded, wouldn't it be neat to rent an office on the 40th floor of one of the Court Street office buildings (at a low rent in these recession/depression times) and look out over Manhattan during daylight hours? LOTS of books out there to be published, as Dime Novels seems to be saying, and THEY would pay ME to put the books out, and it COULD grow through advertising, distribution, and sales to where it actually CREATED a MARKET of its OWN! GREAT idea, let's hope I follow it up! And JUST hear John entering his apartment NOW! Later: JV: I'll do ANYTHING for $20/hr!!!

1/26/92: FINISHED 1001 Nights, all 17 volumes, today, AND went through all the videotape backup, after finishing the Sunday Times. About time to try the
1) gym tomorrow before Actualism and see whether I'll be getting together with 2) Shelley with the computer-list BEFORE getting printer ELSEWHERE, if not then 3) printer somewhere, and looking around the apartment it's time to sort the 4) stack by the desk to find what I have to do THIS week---HEY, how about doing 5) IMAX tomorrow BEFORE the Actualism class, since I'll BE there, then to make 6) clean apartment, now on the list for a record-time, followed closely by the 7) tape-edit Galapagos; then I look through old NOTEBOOK pages and find only 8) get haircut from before, having called Bob Karwowski about "1001 Nights," & 9) figure tax AFTER I get the brochures I need from the tax service, and final 10)photograph "non-mounted" film out of camera with museums and clear THAT off, 11)install computer and get TRSCROSS from "Zippy" and finally order modem and 12)join Brooklyn Bulletin Board to see what software I might get FREE before 13)ordering Macrex and word-processor for 486 and getting into new system and 14)clearing indexing shelves to make room for the new diskette-format indexes. 15)consolidate DREAMS, NOTEBOOK, ACTUALISM into new files in 486, and finally 16)make up new DO list to take me through the REST of the time before next trip!

2/4/92: 5:34AM! Incredible DREAMS:2/4/92 wake me at 4:52, which I note until 5:13, then at 5:28 my thoughts are SO expansive I get up to type this! Three main "directions" of thought:
1) Letter (registered) to "Star Trek:" How do I offer you a script-idea (dream)?
2) Computer-capability in NEAR-FUTURE will be truly "sci-fi in real life."
3) "Phone Vicki about 1) [i.e. IS this the way to transmit an idea to a show while documenting (copyrighting?) what the idea is and WHEN I sent it to them], but I only phone her when I have a QUESTION, but she only phones me when she has a PROBLEM, so we 'mutually use' each OTHER, and is this somehow SIGNIFICANT in the sense that we 'create' each other for our uses and advancement, and I think about 'the future' [as in 2), above] when a vocoder-type modem can translate our TELEPHONED-conversation words into a WORD-PROCESSING document for editing and dissemination as an ESSAY for my future use." Alternatively, my NEXT computer might have to act as a "final refuge" for three possibilities:
A) this really IS the start of an enormous-range depression and I'll be getting FEWER and FEWER jobs and have more and more time to expand my writing "career" in the following areas:
i) send out Indexing Handbook in diskette-form to "readers" in publishing
houses so that they might eventually want to PRINT it,
ii) send out Gain and Dr. Gain to get IT published,
iii) finish AIDS House to get IT published,
iv) try to get "Star Trek" to publish my dream as in 1) above,
v) "professionalize" slides and show them and eventually get a forum from
which to publish my TRAVEL materials,
vi) through future interests, like
a) SAGE writing group or
b) Brooklyn Bulletin Board, get more publishing possibilities
vii) pursue in some way my "start publishing company for diskette-books"idea
viii) future ideas.
B) this highly expandable computer will "last" through my "very old age" in
which I add lots of capabilities, among which are the following:
i) increase my writing/publishing possibilities along lines in A) above,
ii) OCR page-scanners to read in all my OLD writings for future processing,
iii) CD-ROM (maybe wait for WRITE capabilities, now at about $2,000, to come
down in price) for books/encyclopedias/huge-text potentials,
iv) spoken-word to word-processing file capabilities as in 3) above,
v) modem-links with "useful people" as friends and future-friends multiply,
vi) GAMES of infinite variety, some interactive with v) above [GAMES group!]
vii) interface to computerize my existing visual files of:
a) 8-mm porno film,
b) VCR porno tapes,
c) travel slides,
d) art slides,
e) Scientific American magazines and notes therein,
f) Omni magazines and notes therein,
g) travel brochures/books/souvenirs on whole bookshelf,
h) VCR programs-to-remember tapes,
i) porno magazines/clippings/photos/slides/catalogs/collections,
j) art/drawing/museum books and notes therein,
k) later expansions
viii) interface to computerize my existing verbal/reading files of:
a) books and notes therein,
b) encyclopedias and notes therein,
c) travel information and files,
d) letters/correspondence, both business and pleasure,
e) file-materials: old jobs, FILING material, lists,
f) old TRS-80 floppy disks,
g) JOYI writings, to disseminate (HA!) those, too,
h) later expansions
ix) interface to computerize my old aural files of:
a) reel-to-reel music magnetic tapes,
b) vinyl records, including 78s, 45s, and 33 1/3s,
c) cassettes,
d) CDs, if I get those before CD-ROMs take over their potential,
e) later expansion
x) sound capabilities for a number of purposes:
a) composing music,
b) programming music: combining my visuals with appropriate music such
as
I) perfect j/o-fantasy visuals with existing or my own music,
II) LSD/hallucinogenic visualizations for Wagner's Ring, etc.,
III) animations ala Fantasia, necessitating
xi) drawing/animation capabilities
xii) programming capabilities for my OWN "attain enlightenment" games
C) so the computer will incorporate MANY existing electromechanical units:
i) 8-mm film projector,
ii) VCR,
iii) stereo system,
iv) Uher tape-player,
v) cassette player,
vi) CD player, see B) ix) d) above,
vii) later expansion
D) but it can't include current hard-storage devices (except WAY-OUT
future!):
i) closets full of clothes/stamps/toys,
ii) chests full of things/equipment/stuff,
iii) files full of programs/ticket stubs/souvenirs,
iv) glass-front of beautiful objects/souvenirs/things,
v) later expansion
E) and it can't include food/linens/stuff/etc.
Now at 6:40AM I feel pretty much typed out. Shut this off and see what happens?

2/6/92: 10:30: SYNCHRONICITIES! Hadn't even DAWNED on me last night, but this morning I woke with the "from the blue"---where IS that blue, anyway??---idea: "Since John Strong called at 11:15 last night and said he wanted to TAXI to the Gay Center with the dual projectors, I can go to the DISCUSSION GROUP to see who's back who walked out last week AND to announce (by wearing my Frontier Spirit coat, also) they're welcome to see my slides at 9PM after this is over!" Then phone Herb Nagourney (who says he DIDN'T get my bill, so I turned the computer on to PRINT that out again, and then decided to do this page) and when I see him at 3 I'll take along a 3 1/2" diskette (bought back when I bought and then returned the laptop from 47th St Photo) to try their page-scanner on my OLD material, and then when I wondered WHERE I would get those old pages, I thought that I'd taken out old stuff from the folder on my bookshelf and these old pages---a WONDERFUL selection of types, blurrinesses, line-counts, odd margins, and inked notes that I WILL want to see how they interpret---are right now RIGHT UNDER MY CURRENT STACK of pages, so they could HARDLY be MORE convenient. AND I've now got all the government stuff (though I guess I should wait for the last of the 1099s and do my "first draft" with REAL numbers) so that I can see what my taxes will be, since the over $9000 in my CHECKING account is burning a hole---and was GLAD to see this morning that my check from Oxford HAD cleared, so the hassle with the "Crystal Maze" can't lose me what I've ALREADY got, AND took out $100, not thinking I'd had much need for it, but then find I was down to $40 in my home-stash, AND happy that Crossland has been taken over by the government, so it's (they say, and I hope it's true) now in BETTER condition than it had been before. NOW I have to get the leak fixed, GET Irene Pavitt (she MUST be sick, by now not to have called me back), GET Dorothy Mulligan (SAME?), and look forward to the games group on Sunday for which a LOT of people are calling in, AND end of dentist AND foot x-ray 2/14!

2/12/92: NOTES FROM Olivier Bernier's "India" lectures:
1) 1/4/92: 7:06-8:25: Brahma cam from lotus from Vishnu's NAVEL. Buddha said: I give philosophy, NOT religion! SEE Ajanta fresco-caves. Mahabharata was ORAL from 800-900BC, WRITTEN later. India: Buddhist and Hindu, making MOST lovely MOSLEM art. BrahmaN is Cosmic Soul--originates and receives all life. Siva: Only death permits rebirth. Vishnu's avatars (fish, turtle, boar, lion (Hampi god), monkey(?), sub-human(?), human(?), hero, divine, Buddha) (10 of them) are AS evolutionary stages of Darwin. Aihole and Pattadkhal worth seeing.
2) 1/11/92: 7:07-8:23: South India NEVER invaded. Tamil OLD language: 3000+ years. Tanjore has the LARGEST vimana (tower).
3) 1/18/92: 7:07-8:20: BEFORE Aryans, Agni WAS important, NOW only god of altar -flame. Indra WAS god of lightning and thunder, VERY important, and he becomes very vain. NAGAS are guardians of knowledge and secrets. Temples are journeys into consciousness; they're different outside and in plan, but SAME inside. Palms and soles rouged with SAMBOR flour (EB gives only SAMBAR as a deer and SAMBAL as a condiment). Khajuraho had been FLOODED; temples were ISLANDS! "We KNOW there were Tantric sexual rites IN these temples." Ranakpur has a white marble Adinatha temple: no nudes shown, but a JAIN temple.
4) 1/25/92: 7:05-8:27: Babur descended from Tamerlane; Moghuls were Turkic!

2/12/92: 2/4/92 notes from "SAGE Creative Writing":Sandy Friedman (212)929-4184 may phone early JUNE if he starts registration for September. I don't like him!

2/12/92: 2/5/92 note on "People MUST call me BACK!"
1) John Strong FINALLY calls 10:15; he'll call BACK before noon for meeting.
2) Chase FINALLY answers (after my 3rd call) a) he'll send Fethi to look at leak;b) he laughs about me and my RED ANTS in apartment! He says he RANG phone!
3) I leave about FOURTH message "I guess this is an emergency" in over a WEEK trying to get in touch with Dorothy Mulligan, but it finally works out alright.
4) Leave SECOND message for Irene Pavitt ("Hope you're getting this; hope you're not sick. "She DIDN'T get Tuesday's message on WEDNESDAY, only on FRIDAY!
5) Left word with Tony, who didn't call anyone since Sat.'s "heart attack" msg.

2/12/92: 2/9/92 Games group attendees: 1) BZ, 2) Vicki (arrives at 6PM for dinner only), 3) Blanche Shindler (her son, Mark Landers, couldn't come), 4) Ina Stone, 5) Peter Brizard, 6) Rich Blanda, 7) Thelma Sax (late), 8) Bruce Kent, 9) Abby and 10) Sid, 11) Lena Marx, and 12) Tony, unpleasant blond nerd.

2/12/92: WHERE AM I NOW? At least all the ABOVE calls were finally handled, but I'm sorry I have to go to periodontist today at 11 and maybe miss computer delivery, phoned as shipped yesterday at 5:14PM, getting Dennis to say he'll let them in if needed. I went through stack to get out dreams (see DREAM-329) and other notes (see above), and phoned EFA job-phone to get ONE indexing "part -time" from (212)260-6470, and Karen Deaver at (212)864-2121 from checkin phone at (212)807-41-74, since I sent my check in 1/18/92 and guess I'm a member now!"Karen Deaver" turns into Maro Riofrancos, and we have a GREAT talk for about half an hour, making me anxious about my periodontist's appointment at 11, since it's now 10:34, and I'd LIKE to finish the page, but I can't!

2/13/92: Day starts early at 8AM so I can get Falletta index at 8:40, then the computer is delivered at 9:40, Susan brings Wordperfect at 10:15, and I spend most of the day on the REVISED SOLID-STATE INDEX until 1, when Rolf calls, and I go to the gym until 2:50, eat a quick lunch, and Rolf comes over at 3:15 for me to take the monitor out of its box by the molded-foam supports and BOUNCE it off my knee and DROP it onto the carpet! I'm appalled, but when we plug it in, it works! Rolf does most of the plugging and handling, making a copy of the MACREX files and installing MACREX, making it accessible with MX, and then we play and he leaves and I get to SAGE and back to play with it until 1:20 TIRED!

2/14/92: This should be "COMPUTER CHRONICLE" but it's what it is: worried last night when I hit the mouse and the WHOLE SCREEN WENT BLANK. Tried clicking mouse and had to shut machine off and start again. Went through the loading process and ALMOST got to WINDOWS and the screen went blank and it went dead AGAIN! I shut the machine off AGAIN and started it up AGAIN and this time the screen went blank AND IT STOPPED LOADING right during the first screen. In a panic, I brush my teeth and HAVE to try it again, and it WORKS. I guess it didn't like being shut off and then put on so fast? This morning it went black again and I had to reload it. Are these electrical transients? Mentioned it to Rolf and he said "It happens." Not while I'm working on a project, I hope! Tried playing with Paintbrush, Solitaire, Revetsi, then tried the TUTOR index but it really didn't teach me that much. Maybe I was supposed to have entered items? Not much time to play with it, having my foot to x-ray with "Disuse osteoporosis" at Meyer's, talking on the phone with everyone, and then going early to Mary's at 4:30, back tired enough to JUST watch TV before bed at 1AM.

2/15/92: Stephanie gives me a GREAT history: Xerox didn't sue Apple for "stealing" its "desktop," but Apple sued Microsoft for duplicating its desktop with WINDOWS! IBM GAVE AWAY its architecture, permitting the clones to take over the MS-DOS market, but Apple didn't do that, so there are no Apple clones with the Macintosh OS, in its own universe. She mentioned ATT's UNIX as another closed universe, which IBM-Apple will take over with RISC chips for ITS system to try to compete with Microsoft's stranglehold on the OS market. IBM's PS and OS systems are off on their own, too. HER internal fax/modem can't take ANYTHING other than what's in the computer, but she recommends ZOOM from Boston to me. Then Maro cancels me, I cancel Tony for Stephanie's birthday party this evening, but Tony will probably get back to his lingerie queen on Hicks for more of his fetish. He's getting to be a bit much for me. Clear away stuff this morning in preparation for Maro, finishing off REVISED SOLID-STATE and asking all the needed questions (except repagination) of Falletta's Steve, and start reading the DOS manual during lunch. Get this down and ready for more trials!

2/15/92: Notes from foot-doctor. Had recorded (and generally told him) that I'd had cramps in my left CALF about 3-4 times Jan-Feb, had a numb heel after exercising, and that the TOP of the ankle-joint was sore. He said I SHOULDN'T use the Stairmaster, since it moves too fast and puts too much pressure on the ankle joint, but that I could start using the bicycle LIGHTLY. He still recommends warm compresses, gives me an Ace bandage which he wraps loosely, recommends twists of the foot, even with one-pound gym weights, and whirlpools. I have "disuse osteoporosis" but should take pills but get another x-ray and checkup in six weeks for my thinner, fragile bones. DON'T be too pushy, yet exercise is what I need to get the strength back into the foot. No reason I can't go up on tiptoes, and I should take two Ibuprofen twice a day (after eating) and then taper off after a week or two, taking two again if I overstrain the foot. He seems slightly concerned, and I hope there's no permanent damage. Mary is doing MUCH better, putting weight on it ALREADY in its very light cast. Maybe HE'S out of date?

2/15/92: Tony's VERY demanding: LOVES pulling up his teddy and pulling down his pants and spanking him; loved the guy from Hicks Street playing roles: daddy and his little girl, husband and Tony's wife, master and slave, boss and helper; and Tony related with relish (and catsup) how he ordered Tony to get things for the dinner, how they ate IN costume, how he ordered him to change clothes, obviously hoping I'll do the same, including letting him hold me when I piss and my pissing on him in the tub. He was willing to get grass for me, and said how much he enjoyed the other guy's cooking for him and "a nice white wine," and how they had to rest a lot before he got home at 6:30AM this morning after each having come four times. I don't think I'm in that league at all!!

2/23/92: SO much going on that I want to note: finished Pilcher's The Shell Seekers early Friday, then ordered six copies to give away (Mary, Barbara, Susan, Pope, two others maybe Dennis and Vicki) I liked it so much. Then the INCREDIBLE set of coincidences in current readings: the tolling of the bells in Vonnegut's Hocus Pocus and then finishing Valerie Martin's A Recent Martyr with the tolling of the bells for the "martyrdom" of Claire, THEN going to the start of John Calvin Batchelor's The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica to read on page 15 "the last helicopter lifting off the besieged American Embassy in Saigon" just as I'd finished reading about Vonnegut's character of the Colonel who COMMANDED the loading of that same last helicopter!
THEN there's the COMPUTER CHRONICLE to catch up on: Susan giving me a cable, three diskettes of Andrew Tobias's "Minding Your Money," Scrabble that doesn't work except onanistically between the computer and the computer, MS Word which misprinted in a DIFFERENT way from the no-line-advance of WordPerfect and the seemingly OK-cable for MACREX and DOS, after I'd gotten the second one "for IBM computers" from Tandy Fulton after Tandy Willoughby didn't get delivery on Tuesday, didn't phone me on Wednesday, and refused to give me satisfaction on Thursday, when I picked up the first cable before the Sage men's group at which I sympathized with Maté, who wasn't going to dinner, and with André, who wasn't going to dinner and probably wasn't even returning to the men's group, so that I went with Gordon who agreed to have dinner at Cellar in the Sky with me, comparing calendars for next week. But back to the computer: loaded Tobias's program but got turned off with the requests for personal information; played Scrabble against itself but the machine kept bombing when I tried to execute SCRABBLH, which I'd hoped would play with ME rather than SCRABBLC. Rolf suggested on Friday that I try Tandy for the first shot at solving my problem, so I went back there Friday before buying a 1.5 liter of Gallo Cocktail Sherry for Mary before class at which we forced checks, mine of $152, on Barbara, after which we ate at Il Duomo, where I was shocked by the vision of a black crawler on the tablecloth, then as I glanced to the right to follow the black-sperm-shaped object, it transferred to the wall, and when they expressed concern about my glancing, I said that I had a remarkably focused black floater, but could assure them it was NOT flashing, so I didn't need to go to the emergency ward. But the next day Susan suggested I might have high blood pressure, and was appalled to self-measure at 155/87 at the PathMark store after getting her goodies, along with the modem which Rolf helped me install today, Sunday, after I clicked out the three plastic pieces from the front of the machine to prove that the motherboard wasn't accessible from there, then removed the six screws from the back and with his encouragement slid off the case to reveal all the cable-intensive innards of my 486, verifiable DX, with its expansion slots, 5 INTEL chips, the AMI BIOS, a chained hard-disk expansion slot, and a drooping SCSI board that Rolf loosened before resettling, and then a frozen mouse before he changed designations between COM1 and COM2, freeing the mouse but not operating the modem, which crashed the system when attempting to dial a number, and I suggested calling Matt Kuhn, who said that he'd send ROLF a shareware COMMO program that, if I liked, I was honor-bound to pay $35 for, but it was better and smaller than the ProPlus and another whopper that Rolf already had. Then Sandy Gomez called from San Jose just before I had to leave to dine with the Sage group at Cowgirl Hall of Fame before seeing "Hot Little Island" at the Wings Theatre Group in the Archives Building at 7PM, from which I returned to phone Mom for 10-10:30, insisting against her not wanting to understand that she shouldn't buy stocks, which will be going down, but bonds; selling stocks when they decreased by 5% before they could decrease more, and then finishing the Martin book and phoning Sandy back, talking from 11-11:30, he telling me of all the programs he'll send me when "I settle down in a month or so," which was about what Bernice said, and I'll have the 200 megabytes of my hard disk filled in no time at all, even BEFORE CD-ROM!

3/4/92: COMPUTER CHRONICLE hasn't improved much. No advance on the computer- cable problem because I optimistically told WordPerfect when I phoned them that I'd get my modem up and running and MODEM the two user-written programs they suggested for working with TRS DWP II, but I phoned Monday to say please MAIL to Susan, after getting her permission to do so. Rolf was over TWICE trying to get the modem to work, and I finally called David last night and HIS suggestion was to switch from T for Touch-tone to P for Pulse since my line might not "really" be touch-tone, but THAT didn't work. Even after I went through the trouble of taking the case off AGAIN to move the "jumpers" that really didn't EXIST on the modem board, to Rolf's confusion. AND the switches, set to the standard on-off-on-off settings, seem to be OK. But STILL, one time out of about 6-7, at random, the computer will "sound" the number being dialed (either beeps in T or dials in P), but won't connect. Even added the Brooklyn Bulletin Board's number since Matt phoned me when he got my $100 check, adding to his niceness, and HE tried to help: add two commas for "wait for dial tone" to the ATDT command, but that didn't work either. He said he'd start my year's membership when I GOT to the bulletin board, which I tried last night and didn't. Maybe I can get HIM to try to phone ME! THEN there was the matter of the "Michelangelo virus" which is due to strike 3/4. Phoned Bernice Monday and was talking with her while Nightline was on TV talking about it, and SHE insisted I buy a copy of Norton Utilities, but I figured either to PHONE Pro and get assurance it wouldn't happen, OR expect them to phone ME if they thought it WOULD happen, since it's still under the 45-day warrantee. THEN Stephanie helped by saying "just date computer AHEAD to APRIL, so it'll miss 3/6 AND another that's supposed to occur later in March." And Spartacus amazes by coming up with the same suggestion (though maybe he watched the same program Stephanie did).

On other fronts, my birthday party is coming along nicely, even to inviting 26 people and getting a refusal from someone who was one of the rockiest: Shelley will be in Baltimore, but will take me out to dinner otherwise! Andre coming too, though he hasn't invited me to see his play yet, and he may be at the group on Thursday. Also getting information about MAN, for a nudist group, and asked for "Broadway-dinner" info along with, today, the Gay Center's men's group and men's 8-week cycle. But the apartment is loaded with things to do, including the Galapagos-tape-edit that's been around for months, but I hope to get my new computer VAGUELY installed to unveil it to the party participants. All I have to do is learn Word and WordPerfect (getting the March PC Computing from Susan today, when I return her three books that I've read so far [and DELIGHTED to find out that Pilcher's "September" continues with the characters and milieu of "Shell Seekers"], thankfully without wanting to read MORE of the Martin of "A Recent Martyr" or Batchellor of "Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica" [both of which are JUST TOO GRIM] or Atwood of "Cat's Eye," who just isn't "flashy" enough, particularly compared with Pilcher), get the modem and printer working, and do a test case on Macrex--that's all! Not even the HOPE of currently getting TRSCROSS from Zippy and transferring data from TRS to IBM. But it'll come! Such a relief to "afford" my reading books when I'm not catching up on tapes, spending the day in town (as on Saturday) with Spartacus and Kit at the Taipei Theatre acrobats, the Reade F/X show, dinner at the Empire Grill, and the set-wonderful play-lousy "Four Baboons Adoring the Sun." Then the retinologist tomorrow, maybe phone Lopez to make sure partial filling-out isn't bad, continual improvement with the foot, even the swelling going down, but the last WEIGHT, at 192#, at the gym ISN'T good, so I've got to get THAT down, even though Tony's balled up with his March-end year-budget finals and isn't pressing to come over, though he says he'll come to the party. Took a whole day phoning everyone for the party, but that's to look forward to with pleasure. Took the sheets off today, probably more than a month, and MUST get a haircut soon, but hopefully at 41st Street to try THAT new one, rather than Hoyt Street butchery. And not out of space HERE yet, good!

SOUTH AFRICAN TRIP, June 26 - August 11, 1992

FRIDAY, JUNE 26: Wake at 2, do some notebook pages, and get rid of list gradually. Breakfast at 3:15 (9:15 AM), lunch at 8:45 (late at 2:45 PM), and the last of the chocolate-banana cake at 2. Pack and pack and PACK, getting to 54 pounds! At 3:45 the Heights Car calls and says 4:10. I pack and pack, turn off air conditioner, turn on light (paranoid: I told Car Service I'm going to FRANCE from 167 Hicks, apartment 8!). But John'll be in and out, so I DON'T unplug computers, buffered by protectors. Agony. FORGET black shoes! So much for grand Paris dressing, unless I borrow Jean-Jacques' shoes. Car buzzes at 4:07, and I'm down at 4:08, and he goes Tillary to PARK, then down Vanderbilt to Atlantic, getting to Air France at 4:50! Great! Gal says I CAN check bag through to Johannesburg, so I put "top suit" into shoulder bag--GREAT! Get seat 34E, on aisle but only two people, she says. Hope to SLEEP! Checked in by 5:04, gate 34 opens at 6:10. Look at Grand Marnier for $36! Get Jean-Jacques a quart of GIN? South Africa allows one-liter liquor and two-liter WINE. One for Wolf and one for Laird? Look at International Buffet on Third Floor, but $16 for all I can eat doesn't appeal. Get a turkey and cheese croissant for $5.25 and a Heineken for $4.50! For $9.93, collecting SMALL US bills. Now 6 PM, midnight for me, and I sure feel ready to SLEEP! Locate pills and take Buspar #4: 2 AM, 8 AM, 2 PM, and 6 PM, upping ante. Mizzy from Heineken. To gate 34. Oh, it's seat 14E---near FRONT? Have 19A for Johannesburg? Window? To JAMMED gate, boarding 6:30, MOVE at 7:05 and on LINE at 7:20 when I take Rohypnol and OFF at 7:40, effortlessly. I try to doze and probably do: first we're taking off, then I open my eyes and they're eating dinner, then I open my eyes and they're through. WONDERFULLY comfortable seats in business class!

SATURDAY, JUNE 27: But at 5 I can sleep no more so look out windows, chat with men whose 300-passenger charter was CANCELED with no alternate plans! Drink lots of juice and feel pretty good as sun comes up at 6:30 and breakfast is honey-gruel and TWO rolls, one from neighbor, and at 7:50 we start down. Land wonderfully at 8:15, quite HAZY over 55F city. Onto bus at 8:20, to terminal 2 at 8:40 and HUGE crowd at Immigration. Wait! BUT people are hurrying around to RIGHT, and I go THAT way to find entry for EEC and SUISSE ONLY. Stand on line and the EEC guy waves me over! Stamps me and I'm OUT! Go way away to baggage claim, then back to get to Gate 5. Only to Etoile, told gate 3. To Gate 3 and there's an ORLY bus every 20 minutes, but Montparnasse is every HOUR at HALF hour and it's 9:05. Had changed $60 into francs for 286.50 @ 4.7750, where $58 @ 4.8 would have given 278F. So I lucked OUT for 10F. Bus comes at 9:25, 65F, NOT cheap, and taxi yet to come! Lots of people (and kids) on. Then to Terminal 2 and they fill up by 9:50---it's an HOUR to get to Montparnasse Station---so I miss Jean-Jacques at 11 AM? Leave at 9:55 and get to Montparnasse fast at 10:45. Phone Jean-Jacques 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 times, FINALLY getting him at 11, and he waits while I DIRECT a cab to his door at 11:15, shower and change while he stops to 12:05, and he suggests Giverney and we're to Garden Restaurant at 2:25, closed, and down to Montardier Cafe for crepes of dark wheat, mushroom/ham/cheese, and smoked salmon and creme fraiche for me. Out at 3:30 and LONG line for house, but it moves fast and photo gardens and sit till 6:10. Back by way of Defense Grande Arche and Exposition Hall and to Arab-Union Building at 8:15 for dinner as sun sets over Notre Dame. Great baba ganough, humus, tabouli, yogurt, and fun slim sausage/tomato pita/pizza. BUT at 9:30 we're STILL not served barbecue and he says it takes 1/2 hour to 45 minutes to get to Charles de Gaulle when I have to be there by 10:30 for 11:30 flight! Ask again and again for check, finally GO to pay it and it's 485F! $100! Jean-Jacques insists on paying and we dash down at 9:50! Out gate, not there; down near stairs, LOCKED door. Down FAR stairs to ANOTHER locked door, but then ANOTHER way and we're THERE, and "Caisse" refuses to accept his two 10F coins for the $20 bill. We leave it beeping. He ROARS to Charles de Gaulle by 10:35, a new record, sun JUST SETTING. First gate locked, second gate (15) pointed to Gate 24, but 15 IS open. Go in gate 16 and it's SOUTH AFRICAN TRIP - 2 11/14/92

first class only! Have slip and dash to back to escalator and it says I need "passport" and "slip." Can't find passport. TEAR bags apart and it's on the bottom. Up LONG moving stairs at 10:35 and they ask for TICKET! I tear bag apart AGAIN (after tearing bags apart before remembering I put film in CAMERA bag from which I removed it while bag goes through x-rays. Up EXHAUSTED and tear bag apart to find pillbox BROKEN. Rattle through for all pills but pain and pulverized C, and into dop kit for a replacement. GOT seat 19A and stand in line till 10:55 and seat is JUST behind door, AT window in FRONT of wing, and stop is in BRAZZAVILLE, DAYTIME in Africa in Gabon just south of equator! So I can sleep at start and not have to worry about a NEAR stop in NICE! Drop bag on seat and get glass of water at 11:25 and down 9 pills, all but Rohypnol, catching up (I hope) on meal with pain pill, AND take a Buspar to be sure, since I'm almost a-TREMBLE with the haste of the last frantic hour---and cars passing Jean-Jacques at 30 at LEAST when he's going 120 km or 72 mph! THEN get to john to piss and shit, GRATEFULLY, and back to buy and take out notebook, pen, and book, which I'd laboriously put to stay, and go two storage cabinets back to force stuff to one side and put my bag in, then back to my seat to hear hassle about missing tickets, illegal luggage (though NOTHING as terrifying as the LOST PISTOL found in the toilet seat in JFK!) and other hassles, and finish this as jets rev up at 11:32, already at least 20 minutes late, but with hour's time difference and a LANDING, the final flight CAN'T be much more than nine hours, STILL time to sleep before dawn and AFRICA below! Bouncy bumps and we back out at 11:34. Great! Off at 11:50, said to be 6:50 to Brazzaville, so that's my maximum sleeping time. Takeoff is quite smooth, not that many lights from suburban Paris below, and it's the start of ANOTHER day!

SUNDAY, JUNE 28: At 12:30 AM I ask for MORE water for my Rohypnol: I'd tried using my evident fatigue (by nodding off every 30-40 seconds in the car in two half-hour periods before lunch and before dinner with Jean-Jacques) but I felt nowhere near sleep. Peed again, told stewardess I didn't want earphones OR dinner, just wanted to sleep. Pillow at window, which she told me to pull down the shade of, and blanket over legs, which had the luxury of stretching out into the doorway area. Propagandistic-airlines films on the TV, as well as the fetching moment-by-moment screen of local time, time at destination, time flown, time yet to fly, altitude, tail wind, outside temperature, and air speed, alternating with large-scale and small-scale maps of just where the plane was, with boxed references to nearby geographical features like towns or rivers. I doze off probably about 12:40, and I don't sense ANY meal service, though I glance at my watch at 2 and at 3 AM. They finally shut off the glaring over-window lights, and the handsome male steward moved back and forth, as well as the VERY handsome young man with the black tee-shirt and the steady gaze in the seat behind me, and the hefty blond in the seat ahead of the aisle who would have been even more attractive had he not blown billows of cigarette smoke into the air almost constantly, which seemed to annoy the handsome stewart-trainee in the third seat on my row, next to the young woman reading a French magazine but speaking English to suggest Brazzaville, our stop, might be in Gabon, though on land-based vehicles later seemed to be labeled Congo. I looked out window on occasion at the waning moon, a fingernail with its heaviest part downward, and since this is the morning of the 28th and there might be a solar eclipse on the 30th, it must have only one thinner fingernail remaining, then increasing waxing until mid-safari full moon on July 14th, to go back to blackness on July 28, and back toward fullness by August 12, my departure. When I woke definitively at 6 AM, there are pink streaks in the sky above a cloud deck below toward which we seem to be descending for a 6:25 AM landing in Brazzaville. Look out at the lightening horizon, and then the cabin lights come on and welcome orange juice is served and we dip down and into the clouds about 6:10, strangely 5:10 local time, since I guess Brazzaville is east enough that it doesn't participate in the SOUTH AFRICAN TRIP - 3 11/14/92

almost ubiquitous African standard time zone. But at the 6:20 landing, it must be 8:20 in Johannesburg, and with about an hour on the ground we have roughly a two-hour flight to Johannesburg over morning-lit southern Africa. Landing is quite smooth after sailing low over masses of light and dark on the ground, only a few fires that, for me, marked the previous African stopover in Khartoum, and the brightness of the lights suggested prosperous ranches, sometimes laid out in a square with harsh guard-lights outside and guttering native-family lights inside. Crowds start gathering for departure, including a squalling Japanese kid strapped by a yellow blanket to its tiny mother's back, and the grandmother seemed to have the job of patting, safeguarding, and cajoling the kid who wasn't about to be mollified. They finally crashed their way into the 30-seating 20-standing bus, but about 10-15 still milled around as it left to empty out and return to refill. The white-garbed black UTA attendants with green travel bags and green tires on their tummies were FINISHED as they entered from the symmetric entrance to the right of my side, and I glimpsed them later with more and more voluminous travel bags. With all the exits from Rows 60-70 on the level above on this 747-300 (less now than our highly-praised 747-400 yesterday with its rather discomforting RAISED wing tips---how strong was the metal at the upturning joint and WHAT would happen if it snapped off?), I went up the narrow steep stairs to see open galley, metallic panel in the rear, to a rather conventional, low-ceilinged, 2x2 seating for 11 rows in what looked like first class or business class luxury, many exiting and entering these areas. The STAFF was quite attractive, females AND males obviously charmed by our man steward who'd stopped himself in facing us as we took off for Paris and casually put his sexily large hands and thumbs proprietorially on the LWR (life W? raft) cover at the bottom of the exit door storing the emergency-exit chute. Women he kissed and handsome men he exchanged amorous winks with. Is THIS one of the charms of South Africa? Black attendants still scurried about redding up the plane's cabin at 7:28 as we prepared for departure, already over an hour, during which I wrote almost continuously. Guy in faded denim jacket to my right (while the entering girl still sleeps) takes the Herald Tribune and the Figaro, rubbing his scruffy salt and pepper beard. The LOUD squad of black maintenance people are now in khaki. Amused to glance out the window to see the 10-15 boarding passengers closing their carryon luggage, which was scanned for metal, as were their outstretched bodies with raised arms as they bemusedly endured the series of investigations. After their boarding, now at 7:33 AM, a Hydrocargo fuel truck in fire-engine red trundles from the rear of the plane and covey of 4-5 black suited, white shirted, black-tied, badged officials chat between a white, light-green-dark-green striped tiny truck and a four-door white Toyota. The black crew has now gone from white to khaki to working blue to blue-suited officialdom. A man smiling behind stewardess hands out "Serviettes," citron refreshed, and when I say I'd like an orange drink she answers we will be served them soon. The door on the right closed (debarkation had been only from the front first-class entry, leaving my door conveniently closed). So I'm up to date at 7:39, looking out at the quiet hill on the horizon, obscured slightly by haze, continuing village-like small scattered dwellings, and I break out my serviette and wipe my face, already washed when I got up to pee about 6 AM this morning. The sky is evenly overcast, foreboding a fairly boring view between Brazzaville and Johannesburg, but I hope the moist clouds viewed as we head south over Angola, Zambia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe on our way to Johannesburg, having ALREADY traversed France, maybe Sardinia, the Mediterranean, Tunis, the Sahara, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Gabon to the Congo for Brazzaville. Announcement at 7:45 for fastening seatbelts for departure. They show the same, rather dramatic (oxygen masks falling directly downward into the camera's eye, groups of passengers looking startled when the array of masks fall from the ceiling, the kid being furnished with his mask before his father). At least the filmed stewardess actually gets her cheeks SOUTH AFRICAN TRIP - 4 11/14/92

brushed with an INFLATED lifevest, as opposed to the flat-remaining ones on the listless demonstrating stewardesses, who utter not one word and seem to be studied by about no one. My emergency exit is at least convenient at my left foot. A stage-fearing couple on TV examine the plastic card in their seat pocket, which I don't possess, three copies of each (whoopie bag, atlas, plastic card) being squeezed into the pocket at my left knee. Added segment on packing, labeling, and safeguarding personal luggage. No change in the grayish light outside, but the TV is relieved by a sneaky gift from a blonde girl to a suited businessman. The scanning metal detector fiends only a metal tin of ginger bonbons, amusingly unique. I sit with my pillow and blanket on my lap, the blanket helping me feel more concealed from revealing the 3-4 inch SEAM tear in the seat of my suit pants, worsened when I shit last night---hope Wolf has the equipment so I can sew it before I use it for some fancy restaurants on the trip or in the Sandton Sun Hotel. It's now displayed as 6:54 at present position and 7:54 AM at destination, so Johannesburg is the same time as Paris! Maybe NYC and Paris are ahead (spring forward) of Africa (always on standard time?), so there IS no change between Paris and Johannesburg. Forget to note how far or how long the flight is. Paris-Brazzaville was something like 5800 (?) kilometers. At 7:57 the air-conditioning motor fades off, leaving an unaccustomed eerie silence in the plane, broken mainly by conversation among the attendants. After filling up with two Heinekens, lots of appetizers, and 90% of the thin breadsticks---tasting terrible, which with a surprising bone, and beef with a few lumps of fat, but still medium-rare, tender, juicy, and tasty---I'm now feeling quite HUNGRY, but since that was at 9:30 and it's now 8, it's rather like my usual eating hours in Brooklyn. Motor sounds rev up again and it seems, if anything, more foggy outside at 8 AM. Thoughts of a good-viewing flight over Africa---OOPS, I'd forgotten to get my AM pills, guess I'll do it pre-breakfast? Four clouds of white smoke arise from (cooking?) fires on the village slope before me. There's a bump, the lights flash, and I store pillow and blanket beneath my seat as the air-conditioner whooshes reappear to my ears. My Helprin book, wedged under the seat, stacked in the only space at my door-foot seat, still contains my passport, my stolen UTA menu, and my sunglasses, probably needed as I'm facing east and we'll be ABOVE the clouds. Start moving, maybe the ONLY plane at the airport, at 8:05 AM. Didn't even bother to get my CAMERA out: getting more and more choosy, though there's really NOTHING to see, but there are four other jets and a funny bulbous-headed PROP 747 lookalike, and a smattering of 4-6 passenger (charter?) planes. Recalled WEEDS growing in runway tarmac as we landed, and runway strips are quite weedy and unmown. Stewards strap themselves in at 8:04 as a red-orange sun peeps through scattered clouds down the runway. Stupid kid starts to squall as we line up for takeoff at 8:09 AM. Dirt streets, TENTS arrayed near airport, DIMMING clouds as we ascend. Sand bar matted rivers, intended flying time of 3:15, getting in at 11:25, NO time change, 2700 km Brazzaville-Johannesburg, estimated arrival 11:19, GOOD for Laird and Wolf! LOTS of clouds below. OOPS---gotta get VISA out of bag! NOW it says it's 8:20 at destination, and 2:53 to get there at 11:18! 390-400 minutes FIRST flight, 190-200 minutes SECOND flight, and ALL flights with TAIL winds. (Forgot to mention KNEELING for long periods of time at DOOR windows at sunup and coming to land in Paris on FIRST flight). Sun is quite high at 8:35, and sunglasses give lurid pink-purple striations to eastern sky that CLEAR vision sees as only light and darker areas. Clouds below more like HAZE, maybe to clear as sun burns it off? Almost CONSTANT line for johns, and clouds jostle plane a bit. Should I take a Buspar? Sound of a breakfast being served and my stomach applauds. Scrambled eggs (tough) and mushrooms, roll and butter and cherry jelly, cheese and two sweet rolls, three delicious cups of tea (I must be DRY), and nice fruit compote. Return tray, take down shoulderbag and put in book, take out camera bag and camera and film and jacket (probably cool in Johannesburg, she says) and notebook and put THAT under my feet. SOME ground SOUTH AFRICAN TRIP - 5 11/15/92

visible at 9:30 from 11,800 meters, the glint of a tortuously sinuous stream, what looks like sandy river or lake borders, and patches of trails, woody sandy areas, and dark saline (?) pools or streams. NO chance for a photo, however. Everyone rapt in 10 minutes of CNN news, "everyone" also going to the john, so I go to BACK where three guys are sacked out three seats across in nice cul de sac. To shit a bit at 9:45 and back to see huge clearing: what may be acacia trees, sandbanks on "banks" of rivers, and shallow crater-like depressions that may be filled with muddy water. ALMOST good enough for a photo with telephoto? And my telephoto LENS cap has vanished?? And CAMERA batteries are going! NICELY caught up with writing and feeling GOOD and only two hours to Wolf and Laird! Spectacular smaller jet winging NORTH not TOO far below us at about 9:30 AM. At least a PLANE wreck in this village-less plain would be a snap to spot. HUGELY meandering and ox-bow river as plane starts bumping and lurching. Thermals? Real CRATERS below! 10:15, FIRST "fasten belts for turbulence." At least there's WATER in rivers south of Maun? (Photos 2-7) LOTS of thin, straight, dirt ROADS, some turning at right angles! Herds of elephants, or KRAALS, too small to make out even with telephoto lens. Lots of dry lakes, some with a TINY centered dark dot of liquid. It just occurred to me: I AM going on a WING SAFARI! SOME green, but mostly brown and yellow below at 10:40 AM. 10:55 start of farming plots---no kopjes yet. Hello, we SHOULD Be starting down at 11! Miner's huts with new GLITTERING tin roofs? GREEN lake-water. Start down 11:02. Land over industry and land-tailing sites at 11:19 AM. Here! Door opening 11:27, right at me! [ONLY Capetown-Johannesburg Blue Train is August 5 and I GOT it. BUS Johannesburg-Capetown OVERNIGHT 6 PM - 11 or 12 noon. RESERVED bus, too. Since I'm back on the 6th and here to 11th, try going on a LONGER tour FIRST, but Drakensburg is FULL this week and had to call back for August 5 - 11th. No, but I can take a bus and stay at their hotel, she says when we call back at 1:55. I let Springbok tour leave and Jimmy's Face to Face doesn't ARRIVE and that's the SAME office that was CLOSED. To bus terminal: no maps, get bus 85, and bus 13 GOES to Gold Reef City, but I walk and it's CLOSED Monday. Check map and Art Gallery is closed Monday, too, so only LIBRARY is left, with NO hours marked on map! To Africana Room 3:30-4:30, wars, costumes, some native chiefs but mostly British generals. To Gem Collection, Tsumeb Namaqualand mines furnished incredible specimens, but he starts putting lights out at 4:55 when they're to close at 5:30. I leave, footsore, and walk to Electric House and pay 16R for two adaptors, then to Carlton Center where there's a wet rag on the chair in the restaurant and the waiter refuses to change chairs, so I do. In retaliation (?) they have no quiche, so I get a Monte Cristo--ham and cheese sandwich dipped in egg and fried, and a choice of two beers that I don't know, so they select a Castle for me, leaving the chair BESIDE me where I put it. Today is some kind of memorial in Soweto, so even this WEEK it might be dangerous. Maybe FORCED to Sabi Sabi for three days and THEN to Drakensburg by bus? Stuff food down (did Wolf give more to me to TREAT me OR because he's on a diet and SHOULDN'T eat more?)(forgot AGAIN to call Jean-Jacques)(Laird called to moan about two co-workers SHOT in a DAY as they came out of a bar Friday night) and hassle trying to get on the Sabi Sabi trip at 7:30 AM, when Wolf would have to drive me in. Bed at 10 PM, TIRED, and wake at 3:15, 4:15, and then at 6:50 AM.

TUESDAY, JUNE 30: Think how to do it: Downtown tour today, Drakensburg Wednesday-Thursday-Friday by bus through Hesty, then to Sabi Sabi on FRIDAY after I get back, being left off at airport! Shower (warmest day yet!) and eat and Wolf gets neighbor in for billing, and out at 7:55 to Carlton at 8:30 and Jimmy's is OPEN, so I buy Soweto AND City tour. Soweto great, lots of photos and good guide, and handsome Richard from London and goony Oliver from Faroe Islands, later a family of four from Stuttgart touring by 200 mark/day (about $90) camper. Back to Carlton at 12 and up to SATRAV to find NO way to have gotten tour last night through Springbok; there HAVE been animals in Kruger SOUTH AFRICAN TRIP - 6 11/15/92

but ALL three: Manyelete, Sabi Sabi, and Honey Guide and Londolozi are OUTSIDE in PRIVATE reserves where they would FEED the animals; AND I can call Hesty, who calls me BACK for "two nights" and KNOWING I want North Drakensburg for Tugela Falls. Catch up by 12:37 with this, feeling a bit bushed, also HUNGRY for lunch before tour of city 2-4:30, and then to PAGE Wolf to come get me. Then IF I get tour, cancel with Natalie. YES, it comes through: 225R/night and 50R transfer and 156R for Greyhound. Have to pay CASH at Computicket and I'm lacking 23R! Up three escalators to National Bank, up another level to Foreign Exchange, which will change 10R for exchange of $20! I blank, she says "Try STANDARD Bank, down two escalators!" Go and wait behind a multi-terminal series and get quote of 44R for $20, obviously 280/100, 56/20 from Wolf, obviously THEY charge 10R too! Ugh! But I HAVE reservations for next three days and it's "only" 1:27, HUNGRY! It's coming together, but it's ROUGH! Maybe Laird can pick me up at bus station on Friday? At least 10 AM departure means THOMAS can drive me, not Wolf. Pass form in at 1:29 and HE fills out the needed forms. And YES, it's 54.76, a charge of 10R! To 1:32. City tour stops in LOTS of interesting places: Blue Train Museum, Costumes, DeBeers, "Museum of Man and Animal"---but NOT the Panorama! Joel from Zambia and NYC is interesting, as is Chinese couple from LA. KLM crew STAYS at Carlton and gets shuttled around in a GORGEOUS white minivan. Patrick not so good as Opau, who JUST hands me his card and says to "call him when I get back." WHY? Houghton is great, and Rhodean is a school for "very rich people" where Laird's friends took their daughter. GREAT homes with "Armed Response" for Alarm Systems. Out for house-shots and Wilds shots and overlooks. ZOO is safe for individuals and is right down Prince of Wales Road from Sandton. Off at JUST 4:30 and phone the pager and decide to shop for monopod. Japanese "rifleshot" monopod is 300R, ridiculous, and I look at smaller and smaller items and get a light one for 120R they knock down to 115R because they have no box. Hurrah for Visa! Indian woman KNOWS beanbags but has none. Try a camera shop at CNO, but she's never HEARD of one. Around to toys, look and look, but nothing LIKE a beanbag until the very END when I see a flexible rubber SNAKE. I know I have only 5R left and change after a 13.10R Wimpyburger (AWFUL!, with bacon/limp ham and cheese), but the "grenadine" juice was good for 2.75. I give her my last 20R and then a 20 piece and she looks up in exasperation and asks "How much do you want back?" I repeat "I gave you 20.20 and the bill was 13.10, so I want 7.10." She gives it to me. The toy has what I THINK is a CODE 6-59, but it turns out to be 6.59R, which I'm quite sure I have and actually end up day with 2.27R, not enough for a juice! Out to Carlton front and finish this at 5:30, getting chilly. Sure hope I know how PAGER world! She DID repeat message back for me. Oliver says these streets are BUSIER than London's, but we say they're sure quiet compared to NY or LA. Smoker areas for me in Wimpy's and behind me on his ashtray BUTTS are sure annoying. I hope Seat C is in FACT a window on Greyhound and that smoking section row 11 isn't TOO bad. But it's "only" 6 hours each way. Read to page 3 of book and Wolf picks me up around 5:40 and he talks of traffic stopped for accidents, and begins talking about Martin, the 40-year-old dependent who went to live with abusive alcoholic psychiatrist manipulative father and psychotic mother. He leaves almost immediately and I phone Natalie, Laird, Cynthia, and FINALLY Jean-Jacques, and eat Belinda's spaghetti with fishy chicken (that turns out to be tuna!) and last of guava juice and diet Tab (and Wolf had a HEART attack from STRESS in February!) and then repack through 10 PM, when he comes in, and MOST restaurants are CLOSED Sunday night, so he finally reserves for 5 on July 10, Friday, when we're BACK, and for five at Ile de France on Sunday at 7 (or 7:30, which'll drive Delores WILD!). I pack finally and smelly socks make me decide to shower tomorrow TOO, so I'm back into bag for flashlight AND deodorant, and write this to 10:50 PM.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1: At 7:20 I make a list of things to do: 1) Find tie and hang SOUTH AFRICAN TRIP - 7 11/15/92

to unwrinkle---and I find I left it with Jean-Jacques! 2) Natalie, if you want to go with us, phone Laird at work---but she works Saturday. 3) Greta, how do I pay you for Blue Train---Wolf: if I pay by credit card, she has to have my PHYSICAL signature, but he'd prefer to pay her in South African rands and have me give American dollars to him so he can use them when he travels to the States. 4) Greta, is it a good inexpensive hotel including transfers? Yes. 5) Computicket, how do I pay for Greyhound ticket, and Wolf says I have to pay 248R cash for this. 6) Wolf gives me one of his cards for identification inside my bag in case it gets misplaced. 7) Wolf says that the Lipizzaners are fun, but he's seen them in Austria and prefers them there. The shower is somewhat COLDER today, and Wolf says I should leave around 8:45 to make sure traffic doesn't delay Thomas and me. Phone Natalie and Greta and have breakfast and pee and pack for the final time and leave at 8:35 contented that WOLF will pay Greta by CHECK for Greyhound, hotel, and train, and I'll return him American cash. No traffic at ALL. Thomas excoriating the "Afrikaans Government which is killing all the blacks. I direct him to the Rotunda at 9:05. My bag will fit on board and hostess can change my aisle seat to a window if she can. Music in the depot is surprisingly good, playing light classics that I love and some favorite tunes. Bus announces, she says, at 9:30, and there's a half-hour stop for lunch, too. But it's 9:33 now and NOT many people waiting for bus, but a military Afrikaans pair, one in uniform and one in nicely-filled jeans, and a wistful young man with a nice dangle in his loose white pants keeps catching my eye. Pick up MORE brochures---a WORLD of travel, particularly a bargain at a coming 99 ROUND TRIP London-Johannesburg coming later this year, "finally settling at about 1000R round trip," opines Wolf. Food kiosk offers "Russians, Vienna, Frankfurters and others." What, no Hamburgers? 9:37 for passengers to Durban. Girl A said bag would FIT on bus, but Girl B insists it must go beneath. SO glad I brought the LOCK! So only my LITTLE bag on board (should have put the MONEY in my HANDBAG!). Bus ARRIVES at 10, luggage on (only TWO to Ladysmith) and off at 10:10, getting switched to right window #7, but too close to smokers in back. Get to Heidelburg on time at 10:45, early at 11:50 into Standerton. Lots of burnt fields, blacks hitchhiking and riding on backs of trucks, a fair amount of slow traffic to pass, clear blue sky, winter: brown grass, and industry and smoke. Brahma bulls in fields and odd birds flying. Get cookies and juice. TV shows "Alibi" with Tom Selleck and Paulina Poriskova. Two translucent blinds block half the windows on sunny left side. WATER in streams and ponds and holes, so it's not THAT dry down HERE. Termite hills about a foot high in fields where black women sift corn stubble for leavings. Dead tires along road. Eucalyptus trees and cows and horse herds. Early into Volksrodt at 12:45. One man on. Newcastle at 1:40, after slight auto mishap at intersection, chrome strip banged off and fender-dust liberated. Almost WARM. Fort Mistake 2:20-2:55 isn't bad: pretty lake, and a fantastic NON-Wimpy burger and egg and ham and cheese and onion and tomato and a GREEN creme soda for 9.75R for which I leave 11. Hope I don't regret the ICE in the creme soda! $565 @ 280R/$100= 1582+128R=1710R [1210 Blue Train + 248 + 300 (?) (hotel) = 1758R, so I'm totally broke!]

THURSDAY, JULY 2: 1:30 AM: "Maybe It Started With a Dream," I was going to write, but as I peed, it became ANOTHER song in "Black Lady" [from "My Fair Lady" to "My Black Lady" (but too derivative) to "Black Lady," which includes "Dark Lady of the Sonnets" and "Queen of Spades" and "Woman of Death" as a triad of "Last-Third" songs, as MISWAD, "The Typing Song," and another are a triad of "First-Third" songs, as Barbara Johnson (?)(the black woman on the Warren Commission---or the Nixon impeachment?), Marya Mannes or Maya Angelou as a writer, and Diana Ross as an entertainer ALL hit Mary as PROVING that she MUST speak well in order to make her way better in the world. And now at 1:45 AM I'd paused as the plot-ideas rushed to me: she starts (an adorable black 5-year-old) by singing "I Never Knew There Was a Christmas," as she finds out SOUTH AFRICAN TRIP - 8 11/17/92

(at the age most children find there is no Santa Claus) that she never had the treats of Christmas as she was growing up in Soweto, which DID start in 1904, and she started in the 1930s. And it could include "I've Just Seen My Fair Lady" as she sees a black performance in Johannesburg in high school, as she meets the black boy who will later return as Prince Charming, but not until after she's become a guide for the musical equivalent of "Jimmy's Face to Face" and falls in love with a white tourist who tempts her to "Marry Into Money" rather than "Making My Own Way." So she goes back to school to learn typing, which finally enables me to write the finale of my dream: a young lady learning the typewriter keyboard, making up songs as her fingers fly through the triplets of "The Trying Typing Lesson" as she complains about how EASY TRY is to type compared with the long right "Little-Finger Reach" (and there's ANOTHER song, coming in late as SHE becomes "The Little Finger" who provides the key in a Soweto Conference to bring peace between Afrikaans and Blacks in South Africa in some magical future when she's an old lady, having lived through her black Prince Charming husband who dies of AIDS, leaving her to raise all the grandchildren when HER children die of AIDS, leading to ANOTHER kind of "Why Do ANY of Us Deserve This?" plaintive song as she goes through the prejudice against gays, drug-users, prostitutes, and finally basically GOOD Women of Color all die of AIDS due to lack of governmental education because of high-placed manipulation and politics. Ah, "Politics," as a pattern song of "He paid me to pay him to pay her to screw him to vote for that to get the money from there to elect THEM to rule THEM to exploit ME who got the money to start the whole thing off in the FIRST place (a la "La Ronde" and Bernstein's "What's the Use" in Candide). Still didn't QUITE transcribe the lilting triplets in the letter of the typing song: "The" being automatic, SOW-ETO being rather unbalanced or mismatched compared to the gracious circle of WORLDS, as larger SPHERES of being (WORLDS isn't circular, but I'm sure I could find words that would): children, feminine, success, world peace, AIDS, motherhood, patriarchy, potato, musical, writing (she BECOMES a writer and uses her typing AND her voice to change the world through words as I hope the PLAY might do---"The Power of the Word," she muses, as she drops the S from Sword to find that SHE has powerS that are stronger than the power of the man, as she is WOman. A musical for the stage-yearning-for musicals: a positive black female singer to counter the black self-hatred of "Jelly's Last Jam," and of course a BETTER black play than the touted "Fences" (or whatever James Earl Jones was so acclaimed in that was such a BORING play), or "The Changing Game" (or whatever the play was that catapulted Lewis Gordon, or whoever he was, in that play that opened the Walter Kerr Theater and got such GREAT reviews that Dennis and I HATED because WE could write a better play. And now it's 2:07 AM, I'm muzzy from dinner's wine and coming down from elation of "going to Tugela" and finding Karos Mont aux Sources FAR from falls which are ANYWAY FROZEN SOLID and DRY from May to October! So I have to come BACK! The "Typing Song" ALSO urges everyone to learn to TYPE as a needed way to operate in the world, as EVERYONE needs it, even her boyfriend faced with his computer and the "non-macho" quality of tapping with one's fingers---maybe her BROTHER gets caught up in CRIME and she tries to save him and mourns over his bullet-riddled body, "If You'd Only Learned to Talk With Your Fingers Rather than Pull the Trigger and Kill and Be Killed," which I suspect somehow would not QUITE work as the TITLE of the song. But how INSPIRING all these songs COULD be---a Black Lady to rival Miss Saigon! To 2:11 AM, can I sleep now? 2:45, a curving MELODY hits me: FIRST, when you START and you THINK of the REST of it, THEN when you GO and you KNOW it's the BEST in you, THEN you can GET on the BOAT with the REST of them, AND you can SING this fine SONG. Chorus: TYPE and you SHOW all of THEM how you KNOW you can, THEN we will GO get the JOB that we REAL-ly need, SO we can EARN what we NEED for our LIFE on earth, AND we can SING this grand SONG! By 3:45 AM I've cum---on tape---AGAIN! 3:55 take two aspirins and two vitamin C tablets for incipient hangover. Dinner last night SOUTH AFRICAN TRIP - 9 11/17/92

of good cold salad with mushrooms, ANGELFISH soup, roast beef with potato, marrow (okra) and "yellow petit pans" little squash and two wines and steamed pudding and sauce and tiny bits of four cheeses. Breakfast I just had cold ham and sausage, cheese, an apple turnover, awful chocolated Rice Krispies, and pineapple, melon, cantaloupe, and a small VERY red grapefruit. Changed rate from 195 for Bed and breakfast to 225 for DINNER and bed and breakfast, since dinner is MARKED at 36R, though she SAID last night was 32R, and lunch is a steep 28R, ALWAYS chosen. Trail by open truck, winding, at 9:30. Quick walk past "Real Yellowwood" and Pepper tree and Kilimanjaro-like Protea. Deep-digging "rat moles" leave PILES from deep under, while Creeping Moles leave the tunnels from their SHALLOW diggings. Nana-berry trees. Tugela River VERY dry. Policeman's Hat and Dooley stand out. ROEBUCK on hill VERY hard to spot, gray FADING edges, but then it was gone when I tried telephoto lens. Couple from Capetown have a spare 3R week's entry and will buy my Natal map and booklet FOR me. Back to RNP Hotel at 1, but NO truck! Oh, herd of seven baboons down a slope I managed to get two shots of. Video won't SPACE ahead, so I PLAY ahead from last cum at 12:25 to 25 minutes to leave room for MORE, and take various panoramas to 29:07, TRYING to hold it steady. At 1:20 PM guide Alphonse says "It's coming," from distance. But it's a DIFFERENT truck. My foot STARTED OK, but trench for new water pipe (the pump for which polluted the sounds for kilometers around) made walking a pain. Two different trucks take us back to the gate, where the pair pays 5.20R for the good map and the guide (which the Hotel cribbed from), as I take a good shot of the Park Headquarters which he finds closed, so he can't use telephone, but at 1:35 (not that late, actually), laden with tea and other purchases, the truck arrives and drives us back. The clouds have SOMEWHAT cleared, and it looks like there might be snow on Intaba Endanyazana, the peak beyond the unnamed central mesa. By sunset at 5 PM there's only the slightest wisp of cloud obscuring the very top of the ten highest peaks. Imagine that most of Losotho (pronounced LeSUthu by the guy who had something to do with its independence in 1968). A royal party ruled until it wanted to hold an election, heard they would lose, and canceled the election, but a recent election "was democratic." Americans operate three diamond mines, the women weave materials found in many South American cities, but otherwise it's farming and herding and not much else. Now at 6 PM a VERY polite 9-year-old asks "Please, which is the clean water for tea?" and the black seems intimidated. Fire's going strong and the rum and tea of last night is repeated at 6 PM, boiling hot and stronger than the bottom of the pot last night. When I asked for a sandwich at 1:45 for lunch, the waiter imperiously pointed me to the lounge, not to sully his Gigaba Restaurant with a non-buffet person. LOTS of choice, including heavy desserts. I order a Boerewor Roll and the waiter says "It's meat" and comes out a long burnt sausage, actually good, and french fries for 9R, and a quite good banana milkshake. Take some milo to my room when the lounge fills up with businesspeople having a conference with notebooks for some kind of exercises. The lounge suddenly fills with conference men getting their keys, so they're staying. I move to the table near the fire, hoping the two from Capetown would like to share it with me. AGAIN the Roman Carnival Overture, or whatever, is cut off in mid-classicism to be replaced by a Richard Clayderman-type piano rhapsody. the dining tables are set into long rows, obviously for the conference, and I'm filling antsy with the kid who WON'T stop sniffing---who's going on the HIKE tomorrow, too! Delores will seem a RELIEF. Clearly, for on the trail, here in the lounge, or the bar, of waiting for Wolf to pick me up at the Carlton---a pocket notebook has it ALL OVER even the smallest laptop. Number the 108 pages left in this book, and I'm HALFWAY THERE already, not even a WEEK gone! To much time to myself! TWICE the "suggested" four pages per day typing into one full page." Bar jammed with chatterers and people have gone in to eat by 6:25, people not here yet. Carnaby starts to set up, the sad guitarist-singer of last night. Babes in arms on the TRAIL this morning, and SOUTH AFRICAN TRIP - 10 11/17/92

now going into the buffet. YUGH! In retrospect, LOTS of booze yesterday: two beers, three rums and teas, and 500 ml of wine! Overheard from the bar: "No, it's a spittoon---don't forget to chew the lumps."

FRIDAY, JULY 3: 5:40 AM: ODD DREAM: 1) I'm at Mom's and she has lots of canned goods (tiny tins of fruit cocktail and larger cans of green beans and corn) and lots of jams and bottles of herbs and spices, but no FOOD. She'd just opened a can of tuna for HER dinner and I wanted SOMETHING, so I said I'd go out and BUY it---she had huge jar of mayonnaise so I just needed three tins of tuna, a half-pound of gooseliver for my sandwich, bread, and some kind of juice. I go out into an old residential area like Red Hook, that I haven't been in for years "since I moved away from home," and across the street to find an odd restaurant in the vestibule of a church, but they sell no canned goods, but I continue INTO the ruined church which they're changed into an "opera restaurant" with Carmen and some Italian high sopranos singing on a GLORIOUS old record and LOTS of people sitting on either side of the old aisle in HUGE family-sized booths. There's a boy playing with an old cupola top with words commemorating how "each complex fell apart until the dome collapsed in 1480," and it was rebuilt into the "ruined restaurant" I'm passing through. Get to Emery Street and it's along an old industrial waterfront, but I COULD have gone swimming there when I was a kid, but I never KNEW about it! To an elevated intersection and there's WATER cascading down it toward the low-tide beaches I'd seen before, exposing old piers and the gnarled root-systems of trees, and I reason "Since the tide's going out, this water is all rushing DOWNHILL to the sea." It's dark, but I manage to make it to a little bakery that sells canned goods, and I wait behind 3-4 customers at a take-out counter, and look around to see an ornate chocolate construction filled with walnuts that gleam white in the middle of the chocolate layers which have been cross-sectioned when someone bought HALF of it. "If half of what's left is under $5, I'll buy it," I think. AND there are LOVELY cherry pies, obviously a specialty of the bakery. Turn back to the clerks behind the counter and one is a teenager with love handles until he straightens up and sucks in his gut and he has a nice chest and torso, shirtless above blue jeans a full two inches below his navel. Then the neighborhood kids decoy him from behind the counter and parade him on their shoulders where he flexes and poses like a boxing champion, his nipples erect in excitement against the sky, his left one with some decorative earring piercing it. Finally a clerk asks what I want and I ask for three tins of tuna and a half-pound of gooseliver and has he a cherry pie? "Do I have a cherry pie---do WE have cherry PIES?" And suddenly I'm in a cab going home and realize I haven't brought the groceries! I'd looked in my wallet to see lots of ones, but then there's a $20 bill in the middle, so I can afford groceries AND a cab. Ask the driver "Do you know Ernie's?" and he says yes and I say "You have to go back so I can pick up the groceries I ordered." I look at my watch in despair, fearing it might be as late as 8 PM, but, on the watch that I've brought on this trip, given by Mom, that stops after four hours, it's only 6 PM and I ask the driver what time it is." He panics, takes out a book, and loses control of the cab. "What's WRONG with you; I just asked for the TIME, is there a PROBLEM with that?" And I wake. 2) 7:15: I'm shopping with Elizabeth Barber and she vanishes, leaving her beaded jacket, handbag, and KEYS behind. I take them to her, but stop someplace else and she's there, but then I'm in the street with only a bundle of MY clothes held in front of my crotch and behind to cover my ass, and I rationalize by thinking, "I'm not showing very much more than I'd show in a BATHING suit," and I know Elizabeth will react with only a howl of laughter. For arthritis: celery, parsley, and FEVERFEW leaf each day, bonite, lemon-balm or melissa sprig in TEA, and borage, and dandelion leaves, kelp, and POPCORN! 2:45 PM: nothing like being stoned on two 375 cl of beer! Left Karos Mont aux Sources at 12:30, I THOUGHT in enough time, but even though the wife of the
SOUTH AFRICAN TRIP - 11 11/17/92

Assistant Manager risked a FLAT by going by the old unpaved road, saving 10 minutes, we STILL go into Ladysmith AT 1:20, and couldn't find the Greyhound stop, and by the time I got out the ticket to see that it was MURCHISON Street, and we GET there, it was 1:30 and the bus had GONE. She raced across the street to the COMT building and HE told her to pursue the bus on the Newcastle Road to Fort Mistake! She got back in and off we went, finally spotting the white backside, passing it with my TICKET flying outside the window and we CAUGHT it at 1:45, Greyhound driver signalling her to pull to left. "I'm for Ladysmith boarding," I said and the driver calmly acknowledged, "I know." Stop at Fort Mistake at 2 (saving her SOME driving) and board at 2:45, after I have LOVELY toasted ham and cheese and TWO beers, for a total of 8.80R for which I give 10, then took the rest of the second beer outside to bask in the sun, watch the three schoolgirls react to their lunches, cruise the doll behind me with the uniform, and another guy asks if he can sit under the grass-umbrellaed kiosk and I say sure, finishing beer and floating into peace. Blind girl jumped when bus door hissed open. We have a black female to white male attendant. And pull out at 2:55 PM. Bus landed at 7:10 PM and I got into Laird's car at 7:18, when he apologizes for being late. Laird makes FABULOUS dinner of steak, Boer sausage, roast mushrooms and garlic, and carrot cake. Oh, and a GREAT Chardonnay and a nice red, two bottles for the two of us. His place is airy and cool, but I sleep fine at 11:15, up about 3 AM.

SATURDAY, JULY 4: Up at 6:50 and shower in his bath, no TV connections for my videotape-viewing apparent. Wash laundry and hang it just before we leave, after breakfast of cereal and juice. My mini-brush broke yesterday so I have one less step today. Out at 9:15 after clearing with Natalie directions to her place for dinner at 8. Read DeKlerk's speech Friday, accusing the ANC of ACTIVELY sabotaging negotiations. At last! To bank for Laird to withdraw 1500R for me, they charge 13.10R for phone to his branch in Rustenberg, and I'll send a dollar check to his Philadelphia account. It helps him get rid of Rands! We're back to take down the clothes and he endlessly explains how we'll get where we're going. North at 11 to Lion Park, and at 22R it's rather a bargain. I buy a brochure for 7R and try to distinguish between Gemsbok, Springbok and Otherbuck! Ostriches, wildebeests, birds, and then LOTS of lions in three of four camps we had time to see, getting out at 12:15 to get to DeWildt at 1:15. He goes long way around via the Hartebeestpoort Dam at Schoemensville and Hartebeestpoort, BUT it turns out that the Cheetah Breeding ground is 8-9 km THIS side of the TOWN of DeWildt AND our appointment was for 1:30! Laird buys us two chocolate bars for 3R and I devour mine for lunch. Ta'n Malie (Aunt Mally) opened in 1921, gave AWFUL chicken pie at 5 PM AFTER we finish LONG tour and I jab my finger with the porcupine quill while searching for a film that's not there. STILL I've done SIX rolls of film Sunday to Saturday in six days, so 42 rolls won't last 48 days! (Peter, Lynn, and Alison were the trio I met at Laird's.) Cheetahs produced a few spontaneous King recessives but this place BREEDS them from an accidental pair in 1975. Meerkats, vultures, kudus, springboks, spotted, black and brown hyenas, wild dogs. THEN, FABULOUS evening at Natalie Gordon's---smoked trout, marinated herring and onions, boiled potatoes with butter, cream, and cream cheese, and fruit salad with chocolate ice cream. She gives me ten years of Johannesburg Arts and turns us on to the New Budapest String Quartet in the Pretoria State Theatre at 3:30 tomorrow! Home at 10:45, head aswim, to bed.

SUNDAY, JULY 5: Wake at 3:45, again at 5 and pretty much stay awake, shitting at 6, up at 7:05 to sort paper things out, and am IN shower at 8:02 when Laird enters and says "A woman says she MUST talk to you!" "MUST be Delores---from Champaign or Chicago or NYC or London?" NO, from Sandton Sun, we're leaving THIS morning! Aghast, I throw clothes on, command Laird to dress and take me to Wolf's, all thoughts of bacon and egg breakfast LOST. To car LITERALLY at
SOUTH AFRICAN TRIP - 12 11/17/92

8:10 and Laird REMEMBERS way to Wolf's, getting there at 8:17. Wolf reminds me of medicine tablets, leaves out my cough medicine, and I put shoulderbag overflow into duffel bag and pile stuff into Wolf's car for Sandton Sun. He and Laird check Friday dinner, and then Wolf can't find CAR keys! Then we're out by 8:22, quickly to Sandton Sun, and dash into lobby at 8:30, Delores rushes to hug me, THEN sends up for THEIR luggage: she didn't think I'd be SO quick. Phoned "my room" last night and this morning, woke their house sitter to get Wolf's number, and Wolf gave her Laird's number. Out to car with Helen at 8:50 and to Lanciate Airport by 9:15, now "only 15 minutes late," and the plane hasn't even LANDED by 8:45. Introduced to pilot and co-rider, and I get (untoasted) ham and cheese and a creme soda for "breakfast" for 5.35R. Onto plane on left and we're 7th in line and off at 9:37, at 7500 feet, for "70 minute" flight to Kruger. Photo VERY distant city, airport, Leydenburg, hills, tree-farms, and landing strip below at 10:53, 75 minutes. Blond Bruce picks us up in truck, Michael in front with Scott (a dog)(of Antarctica?) and we see only impala. To Honeyguide, get a beer, get "Giraffe" while they're next door in "Stork," and unpack ONE bag and Delores is over to say they're going to the Hide. Nothing at waterhole. I say I need lunch BEFORE 2, and they say they'll put out sandwiches for me. There's cheese and tomato and onion, last TWO of which Delores can't have, so I have three sandwiches and another beer and chat up girl and guy guides, and back to get binoculars for impalas around waterhole. I'm down close with binoculars and camera to two HUGE kudus, enormous V-horned waterbuck, a herd of 14 female impalas that KEEP coming back (or ALL herds are 14) and three warthogs, two smaller kudus, a bushbuck, one LARGE antelope with GREAT white eyemark and lots of red-beaked tick-eaters on antelopes. Michael come in, his huge lens-view ABOUT like my video WITH enlarger, and then a LOUD couple (HE breathes loud and attracts bees with his soda, SHE starts coughing (all heads go up) and at least LEAVES---then he does too). Six zebras, lots of birds, some impalas leap, a small white marked antelope and lots with the vertical XXX stripes. GREAT views, too far for good photos but OK for video. At 1:35 I think of lunch. A grey Loury goes "Myaah." Have Amarida (creamed fermented fruit of tree also used for jams) and start a bottle of Reisling with the impala pot pie, beetroot, a salad with dressing, a cucumber melange, and cheese with bread and butter for dessert. Unpacked rest of stuff and rearranged everything before finding my hat. We eat lunch 2:25-2:50, announced by sounds of drums) and Blond Ben gets to be our driver "between 3 and 4, when truck gets back from hauling wood and other supplies." I zip tent shut, take along two sweaters for much-warned-about night cold, and pack all cameras and extra film of both kinds and scarf and gloves and hat into shoulder bag. Plane could have squeezed five in, but I'm sure our luggage for three was at LEAST the weight of one more person. Sadly, Michael left his BAG in the NOSE of the plane, back to pick us up in two days. They can RADIO them, but I must give my recharger to Bruce to take "home" with him at night to recharge, since our camp is SOLAR and they didn't want an electrical cable in or the noise of a generator, but the gas-fired freezer seems to make a rumble! Gunther from Austria and a young couple flying KLM to Frankfurt on Saturday join our table, with a studious older fellow and Ben. I catch up with this at 3:45. Drive in DARK from 6:10-7:45! Dinner 8:30-9, fire watch till 10.

MONDAY, JULY 6: Wake at 5 and pee and drums go at 6:35. Tea and rolls and cheese to 7:05 and truck takes off at 7:12. To 9:30, HUNTING but not FINDING rhinos. LOTS of giraffes, hornbills, wildebeest, impala, kudu, but no "major" animals. Breakfast (lamb chops, yogurt, cereal, toast and three jams, two eggs, chicken, liver and onions, butternut squash fritters) to 10:30, brush teeth, take OFF long john pants and change to shoes, and at 11:05 off to the hide, but hear about two rhinos (about 15 and 4 years old) and leave truck at 11:40 and walk till 12:10 to take QUICK shots of them. Then to hide at 12:20-1:40, lots of warthogs, a bushbuck (FORGOT the shot of the STEENBOCK last