Sex and (non-sex) with individuals 5 of 7

DIARY 11702
3/7/77

MERLE M. AT JERRY C.'S

About 15 old, fat, unpleasant men sit around on couches and chairs, and another 10 stand talking to each other and to Merle M., but when I enter, a total silence falls over the crowd, I can barely look at anyone, and when I ask where the tea is, about 5 voices chorus its location. Try cookies and stand watching Merle talking about the vicissitudes of book publishing, joking about the few numbers of his books that had been sold. When he talks, he uses the New York Times Magazine article that morning about pornography and the Hustler, which he waves in the air (and later I get and look at, and it's Playboy without the airbrush). He's writing a book about Lyndon Johnson, so he keeps pandering to Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (who told Sulzberger ("whose mother would just die if there was a faggot at the Times") that his possible co-reviewer was gay, and he later moved to Newsweek for twice the salary at the Times) and people on the jury for the Book of the Month Club so they'll select his book (saying they'd probably get someone VERY anti-gay if they ever DID review Kopay's book, which he'd praised lavishly in that same NY Times Magazine's ad). He talked about dinner with Ted Sorenson (where no one else arrived, not even HIS paranoia suggesting that the others who'd been invited stayed away when they heard he was going to be there) and his wife and their awkwardness when his "friend" (he didn't like the term lover, after all, they'd been together for 12 years) came to pick him up. When Schlesinger called gays "morose," MM wrote to say "Only when they're around you." He praised Johnson as the TRUE law-giver to the blacks, and hoped that Carter could be the same for gays, saying there were more open gays on the White House staff than EVER before, that Barbara Jordan is gay, but has problems being a black woman from Texas in Congress ENOUGH, and that George Washington was VERY friendly with Alexander Hamilton, who was much in demand as a young, attractive man in an old Washington. He talked of his problems when he was blacklisted in the McCarthy era, worrying about being asked if he were gay in a 1953 TV interview, writing plays under his mother's name, admitting to writing drek, and saying pretty awful things about his lack of sex life, his fear of the BIG wet red cunts in Hustler, and his fears that we couldn't get REAL freedom for another few generations.

DIARY 11708
3/11/77

AZAK'S PROBLEMS

He says his psychiatrist said it was GOOD that he had the obligation of his mother and a couple of nieces and nephews to support, otherwise he might let himself go into the luxury of a nervous breakdown, which he's fearing right now anyway. He says he's lost his passions, but I gave the analogy that IF he had a passion for looking through the microscope (which he says he has) AND if he falls asleep after doing it for two hours (which he says he does), THEN it seems to make more sense to LOSE the passion for doing it rather than getting FRUSTRATED about not doing it. He keeps saying that he might be doing it to gain attention, and I try a couple of times to make THAT OK, but I don't think he understands. He keeps saying he has no one else that he wants to talk to. He can't concentrate, he hasn't had much sex in the past months except with the dancer from the Nikolais company, and he feels that everything's falling apart (though when I suggest his trip might cost between $1100 and $1200, he has THAT much, and he wouldn't mind spending $300 for est, either, which his doctors said he could if he wanted to). His doctors don't want him to go to Japan, but there's a cytology conference there about May 6. I mention Paul and remember that Paul's supposed to be in town sometime soon. He's despondent about having to travel alone, but I say honestly that I don't know anyone who wants to go to Japan with him. He's about to get his green card, which cost him over $7000 over 12 years, and he's always traveled with a re-entry card only and a Turkish passport. He's thinking of resigning from Harlem Hospital, but then thinks that a 6-month leave of absence, in which they wouldn't have to replace him, might be better. He enjoys working for the interior decorator on the West Coast, though he pooh-poohs the article that he'd had published in the Architectural Digest about shopping and having fun in Istanbul. He said that he could go there all he wants, but he doesn't think highly enough of himself to feel good sponging off the company that he says likes working with him. He's dropped most of his friends, sees no one, takes naps during the day and evening, and freely admits that the whole thing might by psychosomatic, but he can't seem to take the final step to sign up for est.

DIARY 11734
3/17/77

CONVERSATION BETWEEN DENNIS AND ME AFTER BOB

I ask him to summarize the evening, and he says that I was annoyed as I came in the door, but that Bob and he both had a fabulous time, and where did I get off thinking the evening was a flop? I said that it was the old est "gold fuck in a silver box" syndrome: I KNEW Dennis could get into his cock in an incredible way; I KNEW BobR could come and come and come again in one evening, preferring to go home completely drained rather than having come only once; I KNEW I could be a turn-on when turned on, but not when not. And no one seemed really turned on. Then he said that he thought BOB had one of the most incredible orgasms of his life, and that he was sure that HE had one of the most incredible orgasms (or two) in his life, so why was I so much out of it? He said that he'd gotten into Bob more than ever before, enjoying him, enjoying time alone with him, and that he thought Bob got a kick out of his coming (he couldn't remember coming with him before, but pointedly "didn't remember" whether he came at Bob's or not; I check the books and Dennis came MOST of our times together and I did too, the last time). I said I got the idea he was trying purposely to delay the start of sex-play, and Dennis said "Nina's his problem not mine, and if you think I didn't do the right thing by him, then fuck him and fuck you!" I didn't know what to make of that, told him so, and couldn't think of any neutral way of putting anything, mystified (and stoned) by my own inability to step back and look at the whole thing. I kept saying that I was building the whole thing up from nothing, but then DIDN'T think that I should just DROP the subject. He seemed not to be able to help me out of my quandary at all, just listened to what I had to say, and usually saying "I don't know" to my questions. After a bit I decided to change the subject, getting no closer to anything and deciding that it was all in my head anyway, and then he did some dishes and we necked and felt better about the whole thing, though it wasn't until the next morning that I realized a possible connection between EVERYTHING (see DIARY 11735). But that didn't help the impact of the strangest evening that I spent inside my own head in gross error in a LONG time.

DIARY 11735
3/17/77

GUILT AND ACTUALISM AND CONVERSATION BETWEEN DENNIS AND ME

Lying in bed thinking about Actualism after Dennis got up at the alarm at 8, and remember that this feeling of not being in control of anything, not being able to trust anyone, this feeling of GUILT NO MATTER WHAT I DID, was very much bound up with MY MOTHER, who was coming to town on Saturday, AND with Actualism. Dennis said that he didn't hear my WORDS, but he had never heard me talk to ANYONE that way, with self-abnegation, with self-doubt, with the invitation to step on me. The more I thought about it, the more EVERYTHING seemed to be connected: "I'm dizzy with insight." My apologies to Lauren for not getting the shorthand letters in on time; my feeling of responsibility for Bob's have a good time in his few free hours and feeling guilty when he didn't have the multiple orgasms he usually has; my feeling of guilt to Dennis for enabling him to blame me for anything he didn't like about the evening; feeling guilty with Arnold because of his thoughtfulness and givingness; feeling guilty not having written to Rita, Bill, Paul, and Mom; guilt about not working more on Azak's trip to Tokyo. Told Dennis about two things: my being struck by the statement in the Actualism offprint that we get imprinted with the idea of our smallness and inability to cope from our parents, and we KEEP that sense of guilt through life; and then the coincidence of dealing with the mother in Actualism just as my mother comes to town on Saturday. Part of the guilt about not calling people went quickly in the afternoon when I called Don Maloof (and found something awful had happened to him in Rome which he wouldn't say over the phone), Joan (whose mother had just revealed she has cancer), Art (whose father had a stroke on Monday, and he'd quit his job on the Oceanis because of stoned-out accompanying trio), and Bob G., who DIDN'T have a heart attack and DIDN'T have anything to report as having happened to him---which broke the chain at last. But there's still the guilt of not doing the list, working the way I do, not writing as much as I should, not reading the books on the shelf, not continuing with est, not exercising, not doing lightwork, AND IT'S ALL FUCKING CONNECTED WITH MY MOTHER AND WITH THE CURRENT ACTUALISM LESSON, AND IF I CAN SURVIVE THIS, I CAN SURVIVE ANYTHING. Let's just hope it all VANISHES as I experience it out thoroughly---believe me, ONCE for this kind of stuff is ENOUGH!

DIARY 11801
4/6/77

HIDEOUS NIGHT

We tried lovely sex until 1:40, when Dennis demanded to sleep because we had to work tomorrow, but I couldn't sleep and it got worse and worse until I counted 22 items on a list of things that were annoying me rather immediately: 1) not getting in to "Alamo," 2) "Mohammad" not as good as I would have hoped, 3) Rhoda eating late and not sleeping and licking her cunt for all hours, 4) My not bringing my earplugs, 5) my frustration of JUST reading Zen and not at ALL being able to accept THIS reality, 6) my frustrations at not getting the Actualism Lightwork right, 7) dripping of the shower into the tub (which I stopped), 8) ticking of the clock (which I stopped at 3:20), 9) the incredible dryness of the room (which I remedied by filling the humidifier at 9 am, 10) exasperation at my athlete's foot, 11) exasperation at Dennis's corn, which is really UGLY, 12) Dennis's sleeping smack in the middle of the bed, 13) Dennis's rolling over and saying "What are you DOING?" when I pull the blanket that he has tucked around his neck, 14) the hotness of the Mexican food that makes my stomach uncomfortable, 14) the woman (HA, how would I know) walking upstairs at the worst time, 16) the wind playing ping pong with the paper cup in the street, 17) the streetlight shining in the window, 18) the lumpiness of the mattress, 19) the frustration of getting ready for sex tonight and not having it at last, 20) my frustration of being so very frustrated and not being able to do anything constructive about it, not even willing to get up and read into the morning in the living room, 21) the click of each minute flipping over on the digital clock, 22) my present frustration of not being able to remember all the items, coupled with my past frustration of not being able to remember which items I counted and which I hadn't to get to 22. Told Dennis about it in the morning, and he tended to think I was blaming him, though I'd said "You'd rather not hear," when I said I was not feeling well, and I added that I HATED people who felt sorry for themselves, as I was obviously doing that evening. Crises seem to come just when things appear to be getting under control, just to indicate how far from "control" I typically AM. But at least there'll be moisture in the air and plugs in my ears TONIGHT (and let's hope we COME, too, haven't for BOTH since Sunday AM!).

DIARY 11812
4/9/77

INTERNATIONAL STUD FOR THE FIRST TIME

VERY pleased that I'd gotten something in my eye at the corner of 7th and 11th, but the lens slid off center, cleared itself, and I managed to push it back in place with no troubles, offending mote gone. Terrible players were playing pool in the typical stand-offish bar scene, and when I went to the backroom I was told that it was $1, because I didn't have a drink. Into the crowded room under the lights, and then plunged into the crotch-to-crotch spaces in the dark, but it was too untasteful, so I stood along the wall and listened to the duo on the left where one guy tried to get his conquest to come to his apartment on 12th Street, and on the right where they tried to see who had the biggest tits. They only showed one film, and it was just dreadful, with awful people and a small-come orgasm by two people. Arnie arrived at 3:15 (I'd got there at 2 and gave up for him at 2:30) as I was eyeing a pretty hump, but when I finally reached for him, I was crushed by the ironic statement "I'm too old for you." Arnie gave me the perfect response: "That means we both lie about our ages." That affected the rest of the evening, and not as a paradox I found myself grateful for the relationship with Dennis and hoped it would last longer than I was seeming to steer it. Others kept looking at me, but AGAIN I refused 4-5 people and couldn't even find others that I'd wanted to touch: THAT'S NOT TRUE, but it WAS true that the people in white tee-shirts that I wanted to touch WERE with someone, or looked as if their façade was all they had to offer. Stood around in inert groups until last call, when we went to the front, and a fairly humpy number seemed to be cruising me at the end, and Arnie said that a BEAUTIFUL kid looked like the one he'd cruised earlier but who had acne. Again, things got more active about 4, when people had to go home, but with the double feature with Divine, the downer at Man's Country, I probably couldn't have gotten it up for ANYONE (that's a rationalization, but it would apply if I just took ANYONE for the sake of TAKING someone). Left relieved that I don't do this so often, and just as glad as not that Arnie didn't want to continue to the Anvil, the Strap, the Mineshaft, the Cockring (and call Arnie for more now, but he's talking to Bill), or any of the other new places, like the Sewer and the Triangle that Rolf had found in his newborn interest in seeing the awful places of the city.

DIARY 11849
4/21/77

TALK WITH MATTHEW

He starts by saying "My lover's outside at a table," and I say "Allan?" and he smiles, says "I see how you could think that; no, even though he wanted to, we were never together that way; Stefan." I later talk to him about Dennis and HE says "Do I know him?" and I say, "No, he's my special person," and he also implied that he had only ONE person in his life. Then he slips out the statement "Yeah, my mother committed suicide over the training," and later says that she took the first weekend and took 27 Seconals and a bottle of Southern Comfort and was rushed to the hospital. She lay in a coma for three days and the doctors all said there was no hope of her coming out of it, but then he kept phoning the Star Center (this was about a month ago, he said) and he kept doing lightwork on her in Intensive Care until the doctors chased him out for putting his hands on her head and on her back, and then she CAME OUT OF IT (then he clarified that she HADN'T succeeded in committing suicide, but he had to BRING himself to the place where he could LET her die, thinking it was all for the best; than living with the idea of his being a lousy son. I said I had the same situation with my father WITHOUT the benefit of est and Actualism, but I DID realize that it was for the best---and didn't even add that he DID die, except that he seemed to REALLY like my statement "Then you've got both, your mother AND being able to live with her death."), and all the doctors said it was really a miracle. Then, about two days later, he had his mind blown when she said "What was this Actualism you said you were in?" (That is, if he HAD told her about it.) We also talked about when HE told his mother he was gay, and I told him the classic "You fuck him or he fuck you?" line of my mother's, and he hugged warmly when we parted. But THAT wasn't all: when I talked about IBM, he said he worked for a company that had something to do with PMI, and though he was in management consulting, the programming section was ALWAYS looking for someone who knew the insides of IBM machines for hiring, and it would be IDEAL if they could get someone for a PROJECT basis and then let them go for a number of months while they got the next project, and I could TRAVEL if I wanted to, THEN, and he demanded that I bring a resume to him on Monday. FAR FUCKING OUT!

DIARY 11854
4/21/77

ROLF STARTING A NEW COMPANY?

PMI founded by John Langness which was sold to Riker Maxon which was sold to GTE Sylvania. Langness then formed Lambda Systems which has since grown to about 100 employees. He doesn't know who would use IMS and Teleprocessing, as Matthew (whose last name I can't remember) said his company used. AND Rolf wants to start a software firm OR wants to set up a minicomputer leasing firm, since no current company does, and there's a legal loophole for an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) discount between 10 and 19% for only a SOFTWARE change by a company enabling them to sell it at FULL price. Set up a leasing subsidiary for minicomputers, which are growing at 30%/year, as opposed to large computers, growing at 15%/year. They'd make a mint: depreciate over 2 years, rent over 4 years, and make profits as long as they grow. We talk from 11:30 to 12:55! He talks of largest minicomputer manufacturers, of which there WERE 100, then lots shaken out, now maybe 100 again, but the PDP (Programmed Digital Processor) -8 was the FIRST on the East Coast. 1) Digital Equipment Company (DEC, pronounced Deck), with largest of PDP-10, about 40,000 installed, average installation with a $30,000 machine. 2) Data General (half as big as DEC), which is good and growing and going. 3) IBM with its Series 1, announced 6-8 months ago, first with only assembler, now with FORTRAN and PL/I (Rolf says IBM is NOW in the forefront of technology, as they SHOULD be after spending a billion dollars a year for 10 years!), 4) Prime (Boston), 20 million a year---VERY advanced OS, virtual memory, timesharing, million bytes, up to 32 terminals; he's worked on it, great. 5) Interdata (NJ), bought by Perkin-Elmer.
First National City Bank has NOW gone mini, and many other companies are following because "you can put your arms around them."
IBM's System 3, System 32, System 34 announced few weeks ago: IBM's going mini. These companies just don't have the STAFF; THIS is the customer of the minicomputer software house. He's thinking that both Sarah Allen (married by common law (didn't want husband/wife/state) to friend of his, and now looking for a job) and Kathy Nearing (if her company fails, which it might be doing) and he and I would be great people to start a company with, so he's starting to look into marketing so that the "glossy brochure" would call it HERE already. MIND-BOGGLING JUST TALKING TO HIM!!

DIARY 11866
4/25/77

TALK WITH DENNIS ABOUT RELATIONSHIP

I start slowly, careful to make no judgments, but then go faster and fear less to step on his feet, since the only thing he says is "I agree with you, but I don't know what to do about any of it." I say that we've been having less sex, and neither of us likes it. He likes his private time, but each time he's private he smokes and has a great masturbation session: I said I didn't want him to STOP it, but I was jealous. I said that sex for us usually took about 90 minutes, we COULD do it in 15, if we wanted, couldn't we? He agreed. I identified "Let's smoke" as a risk-free WAY OF SAYING "Let's get closer together." I'd hardly EVER refuse to smoke, even if I were sleepy and thought nothing would happen. To put it on the line: I want to get close to you with the idea of having sex, would be much more of a risk. We sort of agreed on "Let's smoke" as a nice way of saying, "Dennis smokes and Bob gets close." If we smoked, but didn't have sex; well, we'd smoked. If we said "Let's have sex," and didn't, it would be a "failure." I admitted to be "between" in thinking about IBM, but it seemed we didn't have enough TIME for sex since he'd been working, and if I worked, the form would get stricter. I said we'd gotten CLOSER last night and tonight than we'd usually get BEFORE saying "Let's smoke," but neither night did we say "Let's smoke," and neither night did we have sex. (Amusingly, when I did a summary, he squeezed his cock under my leg, said "Don't worry about that," but he WAS hard and DID want sex, so he smoked, got the popper, and came with pleasure, though I said I'd wait until the morning, then didn't feel like it in the morning, but he stayed in bed until I DID feel like it, and we both came, which was pleasant.) I said I wanted to make sure it was ONLY things wrong with ME, and he said he didn't like it, but he didn't dislike it, which was fine with me, but we seemed to feel closer to each other without bothering to SAY it after our talk, and the sex made things good because we necked and kissed and said what great sex we were, and enjoyed what we'd enjoyed before and seem to have been getting a noticeable small proportion of it recently, and I guess we're both looking forward to more changes.

DIARY 11875
4/26/77

MY PARENT AND DENNIS'S CHILD

Giving the examples of his wanting me to cut up the chicken, asking when he should stop the blender for the dessert-drink, wanting to burn the tracing of his warty foot on the living room floor, not wanting to burn the last of the wet tracing after he dropped the burning paper into the sink, I say I can't find a value-free way of inquiring about his constant bringing-forth of his child so that my parent can emerge and swat at him. Or, I say, I'm just very irritable lately (and certainly the feeling that I'm wasting a lot of time (see DIARY 11874) is something that's guaranteed to make me feel irritable). He doesn't seem to see it, but he DOES day, "Why should you be reluctant to offer your opinions or suggestions when I ask for them; you're very free to offer them when I DON'T ask for it," which sort of verifies the thought that I had that I LEAD him to play in his child---reflecting on the number of times recently where he's said he needs a WIFE to take care of washing up and taking out the laundry and telling him what to do, and he may have requested a FATHER to take a hand in his life, balancing his desire for the theater with his work at Tree. He has the sense of doing too much, having hoped to leave Thursday free to work on his index, now he has the thought of dealing with John Connolly to put up with. But it IS a rare thing that John calls and says he's free, and I HAD talked about John to Dennis, who wanted to see him. But EVERYTHING is a rare thing: Paul's visit to NYC, his friend's writing for YMCA reservations, Mom's birthday coming up too soon without my having sent her anything, my interview at IBM, my clearing out my souvenir drawer and taking care of the pile-up of stamps. But should I start another list of the amount of time I've put in on stamps, something more to maintain, to convince myself that I don't spend inordinate amounts of time on THAT? Are these pages, mounting to EXACTLY 100 THIS MONTH WITH THIS PAGE (talk of coincidence!), growing to be too much? But this month will be ABOUT the level of my highest YEARLY average of 3.5 pages per day, so that's not TOO much. But the pages get finished, the indexes get finished, so obviously I should just get to the end of it and stop WORRYING about it!

DIARY 11885
4/29/77

EVENING WITH JOHN C.

Dennis complains that he doesn't LOOK at him when he talks to him, but then Dennis sees that he does that with ME, and feels better about it. At last his hyperkinetic energies are catching up with him: he's having trouble with insomnia, but will only take the mildest sleeping tablets, which his doctor insists requires a MONTHLY physical exam to check for ill effects, and he won't take the "hypnotic" drug Placidil, because it's like falling off a cliff and he thinks he's going to die as he drifts off to extremely deep sleep. But the weaker drugs wear off in effectiveness and he has to change brands every couple of months. He's finally gotten to TM to try to help him relax, but he wouldn't take the group sessions and demanded to be introduced to it alone, and he rather likes it, having no trouble sitting still for the 20 minutes. Adair's moved out to Connecticut, which he likes, and his room has been fixed into Ivan's room, though they've never slept in there. Dennis remarks about the mix of decorating styles: stone, flowers, wood, glass, plush, mirrors, spotlights, Vasarelly's, and geodes, with teak walls, though he'd gotten rid of Adair's Mies sofas saying they were so uncomfortable no one liked to sit on them. He's got a TV wall of 3 main sets and 4 little sets for UHF, and is thinking of getting a SECOND video recorder to keep up with things. He HAS a recording of "Deep Throat," of all movies, and looks forward with GREAT interest to seeing my porno films during the week of May 15, when he goes back to his 7:30 am starting, rather than a 3 am wakeup time. He tells Dennis that he wakes, goes in for a couple hours to tell everyone what to do on "Ryan's Hope," his series (on from 12:30 to 1, so I missed it now at 1:30), then drives BACK for breakfast, goes back down, insists on going to the gym every day at noon and then comes home when he does, feeling too tired even to watch television. He thinks he MIGHT ask for a week off, a week on the easier schedule, since he's so much enjoying this FIRST MONTH on an easy schedule since he started working for a difficult producer two years ago. He has so much stuff he had to take his bed off the platform and will make it into a Murphy, building EVERYTHING in and out to make it good, but it's sad that he hardly gets the free time to ENJOY it.

DIARY 11894
5/2/77

DENNIS'S FIRST WORDS ON HIS NEW TYPEWRITER

He unwraps the new one he's bought to show me, but he'd tried the keyboard at the shop. He gets paper and puts it in and immediately types the following: "My name is Dennis. I am an actor. In addition to occassional (sp?) acting jobs I have cleaned houses, taught school, done officer work (we both laugh about the mistype), freelance writing and researching and indexing. An all-round Renaissance man. I am very fond of jazz, dance, movies, theatre, and cooking. I am a practicing homosexual, though I have had one affair with a woman. I am oral, affectionate, and masturbate escessively (whatever that means.) I seem to be a basically happy person, though I sometimes get crabby without good reason. I certify that all of the above is true." Then I sit down and type the following response to him: "This is Dennis's new typewriter. Speaking. I was amused to find that my first endeavor would be an autobiographical blurb. Frankly, I would have thought that he had about all the practice he needed and no longer had to be a "practicing" homosexual. Actually, I don't know what "masturbating excessively" would be either, but then I'm only an electric typewriter." Then I put a line below of his repeating keys, say that the typewriter is seemingly a great buy, and then take out the sheet and put it into my bag. He's amused that I'm keeping it, and he would probably shake his head and smile if he knew that I was typing an extra page about it so that I could put the sheet into my Personal file and save it AS IT CAME FROM THE TYPEWRITER, but that I would also include it in my diary. As it was, this is the only spare page from Sunday since I spent almost 9 hours working on the end of the Pathology index for the rest of the day, and the National Survival Test didn't seem interesting enough to make into a separate page, and it seems that I'm almost REQUIRED to make an extra page about every day unless I'm just terribly behind and the only thing I've done is work, which doesn't happen often and last happened only in the month of December, which is 5 months away by now, and I've managed to fill up the rest of this page with random letters just to make the bottom come out full.

DIARY 12069
6/28/77

ROLF TALKS ABOUT VIOLENCE

He's seen "Black Sunday" (in which the blimp was finally ditched at sea, with the 100,000 darts for killing the stadium-full unused) and wondered why MORE people didn't commit violence. Why didn't some gay person bomb Southern Miami, killing 5-10,000 people, and then phoning the police and saying they'd better insure passage of civil rights for gays? "Because I'd probably end up in jail," I observed quietly, insisting that the "lawn order" factor would FORCE the police to jail gay activists so that the bombing wouldn't happen again. "And if the bombing happened again?" he asked with his malicious grin. "I'd probably be shot." He didn't think that would be done, but I insisted that it was UNUSUAL to find someone who would take responsibility for 5,000 deaths: people in WAR insisted that it was necessary, or that others had ordered them to do it (as did his friend, who didn't think himself RESPONSIBLE for bombing 5,000 Vietnamese, but admitted to being "the efficient cause," and I insisted that if he DID think he was guilty, Rolf would have heard about it), and even crazies like plane hijackers or school exploders tried NOT to kill people, as if there were some sort of AVERSION to killing large numbers of people. We could think of a couple of dozen people killed, and he mentioned "Vlad the Impaler" and I thought of "Gilles de Retz," but even HE had to admit that they probably DID have the know-how, but that something was stopping them. I suggested he MIGHT be asking why he thought the human race was so bad. After inveighing against niggers and guineas for a bit, he suggested that a small shaped charge could cut one of the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge, which would disrupt things for a bit, and I suggested that if things like that started happening, I might seriously think of killing him in order to protect MYSELF from someone who, I would AGREE with him, has seldom surfaced in society. But I insisted that if a solitary person killed 5000, then 50,000, then a half million people, without being caught, it could very well result in an anarchy in America that might end the civilization, which showed how weak I thought civilization was and how evil HE thought individuals were; I hope we're BOTH wrong in that.

DIARY 12142
7/16/77

MARK E.'S REPORT ON LONDON

He saw ten performances, most of which weren't any good: 1) "Tales of Vienna Woods" about Austria in the 1930s before the rise of Hitler was the only good thing, 2) "Wild Oats" was amateurish and bad, 3) "Madras House" by Shaw was VERY talky and disconnected and his friend left after the first act, but these were at the National Theater, to which one should go at 8:30 for cheap tickets for the last seats left. 4) "Bedroom Farce" was the new Ackbyrne, which is dreadfully empty, just nothing in it, though the Olivier Theater is GOOD, with every seat great, though nothing's air conditioned, so it was HOT. 5) Giselle with Nureyev and Ava Yvdakomova (?) from the London Festival Ballet substituting at the last minute for Makarova was good, with Nureyev being as good as he's ever been, in perfect control. 6) the Gala that Mavis (who is lovely, and we MUST meet her when she comes over in September or October to visit) got him the ticket to a poor Les Sylphides with Fonteyn, Seymour, Nureyev, who was worst, and Makarova, who was best; "Duncan" with Seymour, whom even HE didn't care for, a BAD "Marguerite and Armand" which they should retire, and "Corsair" which was the best with N&M. 7) the Royal Ballet in Battersea Park in a HOT TENT had "Swan Lake" with a poor Monica Mason and an injured David Wall, who danced anyway, was poor. 8) the Ballet Rambert with the Death of Lorca by Lindsay Kemp, campy, was poor, even out in the countryside where it was interesting to see it in cheap seats, from which the people loved the awful stuff. 9) "On Approval" was an old vaudeville thing resurrected for Kenneth More, and it was awful except for an American actress that he knew in it (and----Patricia Routledge, it was---he met ANOTHER actress who was doing well there, too; but had lost my card with Rob Walker's name on it, so he didn't waste time finding that he wasn't there anymore), and an ABYSMAL 10) Australian Gala with Kirkland and Nagy in two pas de deux, one of which he didn't know, but it was the only thing worth doing. He stayed in the BAD Strand Palace Hotel for $30 without air conditioning under the roof with a bolted window, but the Carvery is the best restaurant for buffets in hotels in the city, and he wants to talk to us before we get there, because he has lots of hints to give us about London. And WYNDHAM'S book (p. 9 "Best---51-60) says "White Hart" was CAWARDINE'S with Arthur Clarke, and that Bloomsbury Fantasy Book Centre is a great place to have been (is it THERE NOW?).

DIARY 12148
7/16/77

TALK WITH DENNIS ABOUT DOING THINGS

He finally agrees that he MIGHT want to be less noted for not being able to make decisions, and that I MIGHT not want to be such a nudge as I am, and that maybe if I SAID more "I don't want to do that," rather than CENSORING that statement to "Why don't YOU start doing that," maybe we both wouldn't get so annoyed with each other. I admitted I was mistaken to tell him to get the 314 stamps, since I DO like to get stamps for both of us. We talked about the difference between "helping" and "doing it for," and I got it off my chest about the wine last night: if he were BUSY and wanted me to open the wine, fine; but if he STOPS and LOOKS at me doing it, that means he wasn't busy and he should do it himself. But if I tell HIM to do something, that's OK, he implies, even to standing over and watching him, and I admit to the horrible feeling that I DO know how to do things better than other people, which is why I don't WANT to think of such things as "What does Peggy give you in return for your $15 tickets to jazz, only hamburgers?" and "Does Richard have coffee during your CLASS TIME?" and say HE thinks of it too, since he DID know that Richard sometimes goes OVER his 30 minutes, also, so HE was keeping track, too. Peggy's none of my business. BUT I don't want to CENSOR what I'm thinking---except that I should put it more directly, about ME, rather than about what HE'S doing. Report MY feeling, don't evaluate HIS actions. He said something snotty and I replied: "I have the choice of saying 'Fuck you' and stalking off, or being nice," and he changed the subject to a better point of view. We agreed that we DO get along in most ways, but that he's only GRADUALLY getting to the point with DANCE that I'm at with EVERYTHING: I don't say "It might be OK, let's see," I say "Yes," or "I don't think I'll like it, no." He IS more open than I am, but that doesn't mean that we should change OR that he's got more points stored up than I have. He DID start keeping some sort of point score, but I don't understand it. We agreed that it was good to talk it out, he reported he was sorry when his brother said HE was sorry not to have seen him act, since it took away a point, and I remarked that HE was doing the same feeling sorry for himself because MY putting the trip BACK to three weeks took away the possibility of HIS saying he was flexible about it, and he looked to the side and smiled and turned red as he does when someone's caught out the truth and he doesn't know how to respond to it. And I said thankfully that he's NEVER had to say "You're like your mother," to me, and we should say MORE often, when we mean it, "LISTEN to me," or "I DO want you to do this," as he DIDN'T follow up with the third Jazz Festival ticket before.

DIARY 12183
7/29/77

R.'S INVISIBILITY

He calls to say that he still enjoys his 5:40-9 am period best, and this morning when he picked up his shaver he looked into the mirror and saw only glass, he had become invisible. Everything else is invisible, too (and I freak because just yesterday Bruce L. had described lightworkers as invisible). People are concerned about work and he just goes along working, telling his boss to think of "who's doing it to you?" and when his boss realizes that HE HIMSELF is doing it to himself, he gets off worrying about the guy he hired and "told all the secrets of the company" who decided not to come to work for them. Nina is worried about the trip to China Aug. 10 which will be prefaced by a trip to Miami for Bob's brother's marriage from next Tuesday through next Monday, or something, and he says she'll do it when and how she does it, and no other way. His friends have all vanished, all his considerations have vanished, and he feels an incredible feeling of space. I give him Bruce's number and tell him to call him, but he doesn't sound too happy about it, and then when I talk to Bruce (not giving him Bob's number), I say that he's the same and Bruce would like to give him the intro and a body session (since I'd mentioned that Bob wants to get into some kind of body work before taking "The Body" seminar series from est), probably here. Bruce is getting into craziness too: his Robbie is trying to take his sister Sue's boyfriend away from her; he's meeting a married guy in his 50s who's divorcing his wife and seemingly into going to bed with Bruce; and meeting a guy that he "saw:" as his roommate previously, though he's a very powerful person. Also met a cutting guy who he's glad will NOT be his roommate. I sit in the middle and listen to all of it and try to contribute that I'm not worried what my lower body will do, not worried about my higher "getting it" since I'm sure it is, not worried about doing the indexes since I have it all planned out (which said plan isn't working, since there are too many other hours to spend on other things, but my WORKING rate has increased, it seems, to make up for the difference), so I'm getting there, too, but as Bruce said all lightworkers are invisible, so what I say isn't even HEARD by anyone. At least I give THEM the space to share all their breakthroughs with ME.

DIARY 12187
8/3/77
DENNIS'S BIRTHDAY PARTY FOR HIMSELF

Michael brings out some joints, which pleases Joan and Paul, who had come stoned and sort of separated from the group, and Joan's phony voice seemed to set her off from the people even more, but some of her stories amused people. Andrea's more comfortable than I'd seen her before, at the end taking the teddy bear on her knee and talking through him to the group, smiling beatifically, and blushing for him when the group loved him. Ina tells marvelous stories in her husky voice that has everyone stopping to listen to her, and Dennis sets the delicious tone of the party with two loaves of marvelously subtle herb bread that he was afraid would be too harsh, white wine, pureed squash and bacon soup served in large cups for convenience, mushroom kubliaka "Off the wall" from Tree in small portions for the 12 who came (Cathy and Guy, LOVELY fellow who ACED the painted-cube problem but goofed the cut sphere; Linda and David, SHE one of the maddest people going with her frizzy-just-dried hair and he rather quiet; Joan and Paul, he quiet to make up for her artsiness; Dennis and me; Michael and Ina, and Andrea for 11 and Donna never DID come), and lots of salad with honey and tahini dressing with mushrooms, avocados, tomatoes, and two kinds of lettuce. Then the Apry chiffon pies for dessert, lovely, too, and they only ate two so we have a third to finish. Linda started something about a fantasy that each person added a line to, Michael totally broke up with laughter while passing around the joint (Linda hadn't smoked for 8 years), Cathy was Kitty in a bout of nicknames, and Dennis just sat there with a wide smile on his face taking it all in and showing off his homemade birthday cards from Linda and a promise of a tarot reading from Joan. Ina talked of having to move out of her apartment, across from which the old lady died, and I said I'd be there between 6-10 Monday to pick up paint and books from the debris. She inhaled as if she were from Maine, and she picked it up in New Hampshire, which is the same thing. She sat on the floor and was just as lovely as everyone else, eating and talking and laughing, and Michael called to say that the laughing continued in the circus that was the minibus taking six of them back down to the Village together, and it was FABULOUS, which makes me SO sad that I can't think of the words to do it justice.

DIARY 12191
8/3/77

DENNIS AND ME AND SEX

Dennis complained this morning that we haven't had time for sex, but I observed that he had the TIME, but we didn't DO it: citing the various nights when one or the other of us would say we were tired and we'd go to bed without doing anything, and the mornings (except Sunday) have been equally sterile since the alarm rings at 7:30 and he hops right out of bed to put on the coffee. So when else is there? He keeps saying that he's still into cock, but many times he seems to be into HIS to the exclusion of MINE, or when he wants to get into MINE, his isn't being played with, which is what turns ME on. The current status of affection has been very good, but I was reminded when he left me on the subway this morning saying "I love you," how sometimes I would find myself saying that to John when I felt that things weren't going perfectly well and we BOTH needed a reminder of the facts in the case. Then Dennis kissed me long and hard at the table this morning, so long and hard that HE started getting long and hard, and since we were at the table, there was nothing to be done about it, since he had to meet Andrea at Penn Station at 10 am. We DO talk, and kiss, and eat well, but we don't seem to be willing to GIVE UP SLEEP for sex, as we had before. Some of this would HAVE to be due to a surfeit of sex in the recent past: I keep ending up whacking away at my cock, he keeps coming on my chest, and though it still FEELS good, there might be a bit of deja-vu in the experience which makes the thought of MORE when we're feeling tired just NOT that appealing. If there were some new things that we could do, some bits of surprise that we could offer each other, some unexplored areas to be plumbed, there might be more interest. But now we know what will happen: no matter how much one will get interested in the other. USUALLY the come is out of the mouth and with the own hand. If we could start to teach each other to use the OTHER'S hands, that might be better, or if we'd COME in the mouth more often, or SOMETHING different, so that it wouldn't be so easy to think "Oh, it'll just be that," making it easy to say "We'll do it some other time, when there's more time." But I think we're doing it less AND enjoying it less.

DIARY 12352
10/10/77

TALK WITH DENNIS ABOUT PARIS

He was lying on the bed looking challenging, so I accepted and lay down and asked, "Is it me, is it you and me, is it both of us?" Rather than contribute anything, he insisted that I say more. I said that I felt irritable with him and irritated with myself for feeling that way, saying that it started in Paris when he didn't act like an adult when he was hungry and seemed to blame me for not finding a restaurant to suit us. It boiled down to our bringing forth HIS child and MY adult to contest each other. He said that I WANTED to do everything myself because we both acknowledged that I DID do things like read maps, make change, figure bills, and plan itineraries better, but then I got annoyed with him because he went along with it. I said that I wanted something in return and he said, "You're into bookkeeping; I don't do that." I suggested that HE went to the Louvre for the same reason I went to Beaubourg: because each knew the other insisted on seeing it, so each went along to see what the other's reactions would be. I said, after he said he wanted "mutuality," that it was hard to be mutual when I spoke better French than he did, understood the money and subways better, and had been there twice before whereas he's never been in Europe. I said, and he agreed, that when things were NEW for both of us: eating in some restaurants, going to the top of the Eiffel Tower, Montmartre Cemetery, it WAS mutual: it was only when I refused to go again to the Bateau Mouche, when he wanted to eat and I wasn't hungry, when he wanted coffee when I didn't need it, that things got antsy. I told him that he WAS complimenting me on things that I'd done, which I didn't think he'd done enough of on the trip, but that still didn't get to any roots of it. He sat and enjoyed what I did for him without doing anything in RETURN: if he thought I always wanted things my way, HE also wanted things his way and he usually GOT them: we DID eat when he wanted to---though I must admit with some hassle sometimes. He said that Doris told him he had to watch out, because I was PUSHY, not in a bad sense, but just that I knew what I wanted to do and did it, even at the cost of someone with me. Maybe that set him off defensively and he felt he had to fight for his rights, rather than merely requesting, or exchanging for, them.

DIARY 12358
10/15/77

DENNIS AND I TALK ABOUT MY PUSHINESS IN PARIS

Actually, the discussion started over dinner about my ANGER, and I said it was funny that Actualism seemed to be insisting that I was angry, too. He said that he thought my irritability had something UNDER it, and I just said that if something happened five times to IRRITATE me, the sixth time it happened I GOT angry. He said, crushingly, that it seemed that things about him I'd LIKED at the start I found irritating now. I said that when I traveled with John for a long time, the first few weeks were pretty bad, but then we had a discussion, much as we'd had, and I figured I had to change, and did, so I said "I probably would have had to change on the Paris trip had it lasted longer," and Dennis said that he was completely shocked that I would have admitted that I was wrong in the way I acted, and realized that I should change. I said that as far as ANGER was concerned, I would have hoped that I'd worked out a LOT of it about being angry with my MOTHER about not letting me have the ideal childhood I used to describe myself as having: I couldn't continue being angry with the SAME thing, could I? He compared me with his girlfriend from Connecticut by saying that we were both too intelligent to be good to ourselves: as soon as someone pointed out something that we could change about, we'd immediately find a reason why that kind of behavior was all right, or could change to another sort of irrational behavior. I tended to agree with that, too. He'd mentioned before that he wanted us to make out lists of things that we liked and didn't like, and I said I KNEW he was good with people while I was good with things, but I said it WOULDN'T do for me to tell him about the things I DIDN'T like that he NEEDN'T change (such as filling up my shower rather than running the water slower as I would; eating too fast just to clean his plate at certain times as I wouldn't do; not wanting to spend money), while I WOULD continue to harp on things that he SHOULD change, like making decisions, not giving things to other people to do, and thinking more highly of himself in risky situations. The talk felt pretty good, though he seemed to have things hanging over which still needed to be talked about: he still said we were in a bad place from our trip to Paris.

DIARY 12360
10/15/77

DENNIS AND I TALK ABOUT MY MONEY PUSHINESS

At the end I say we should each summarize what we've said, and I'VE ended by saying "You're worried because you wrote a check for $10 more than you have in the bank, REGARDLESS of how much money you have; and you'll make all the payments and lessons and bills you have to do, AND you will have had a good dinner this evening, which was fine before you started qwetching about how much money you can't spend." I would have summarized what HE said by saying that I pushed him much too much, now I know where his boundaries for being pushed are more clearly, but he still feels himself as a victim of poverty and circumstances: when I didn't want to go to Amy's, I pushed until I didn't. I CAN say no. He didn't push, so he ate in the Grande Bouffe, and now he's thinking he spent too much money. He DID ask the girl at the office when he was getting his partial payment, but did NOT say that he needed it for a certain day. He would probably talk to her again, and probably in stronger terms than he would have used before I got to him. I said that I WAS being selfish: I invested time and effort into this relationship, based on my judgment of him as a worthwhile person. If I found that he didn't measure up to my expectations, I'd try to push him to change BECAUSE I OBJECTIVELY THOUGHT I WAS MORE RIGHT THAN HE WAS. When I said this, I expected him to get angry, but he didn't, so he wasn't quarreling with my premises. He just said that he was always annoyed with his brother for wanting to change him. Also, talking about the trip to San Diego made him uptight: he started by saying he'd feel uncomfortable in "their house" having sex, though he'd TELL them about his using the house for marijuana but NOT for masturbating, and he couldn't see that it was an ARBITRARY line between what he'd do and wouldn't do. I suggested I might go down to Mexico, but finding it's 1000 miles to Mexico City is a bit much. He made it sound like it would be a pleasant trip, that we'd all enjoy each other, the only trouble would stem from the relationships between HIM AND ME! Anyway, he made it very clear he didn't want to spend any more money until HE said he was ready to spend money on food, and got VERY annoyed when I said "This is the first of our 'one French meal a week' outings" without ASKING his opinion.

DIARY 12371
10/18/77

DENNIS AND I TALK ABOUT SAN DIEGO

When he FINALLY says "I think we can work out some way of having sex while we're there," I say "That's the FIRST time you made such a positive statement about it." He asks why I'm emphasizing sex so much, and I say that I FEEL that I don't have to worry about getting along with his parents or relatives, don't worry about spending the time in San Diego OR in Mexico, don't worry about having the money or the time for the three weeks there, so the only things that are LEFT to worry about is how uncomfortable he'll feel having sex with me in his house, and to try to get as much information as I can about the framework so that I'll feel part of the family. He said that I'd probably "pretend" to sleep on the sofa, since he didn't want to confront his family with even the QUESTION of our sleeping in the same bed. He said that PROBABLY the kids and relatives would stay out of the house, so we'd have it to ourselves. He said there'd be dinner with friends, maybe trips to LA, maybe visits from relatives from North Dakota, but they'd not interfere with OUR having the trip to ourselves. I said there'd be the zoo, the zoo outside town, the Coronado hotel, and when I found it was SO far to Mexico City, the idea of renting or borrowing a car and going down as far as seemed reasonable in Baja California seemed reasonable: if Cancun can be built out of nothing in Mexico on THAT coast, there's no reason why this area couldn't be built into a huge resort center in the near or far future, and it's a pencil of land that I've always wanted to see, and so 4-5 days there out of 22 days in San Diego doesn't sound too bad. Then there'd be movies and plays and TV and museums and shopping there, too, and the activities of Christmas, so it doesn't sound like it'd be a bad thing, and Dennis STILL didn't say that he WANTED VERY MUCH for me to come, and his folks, when he broached the subject for the first time today, said that I might have to sleep on the floor, but that was only a figure of speech, and they liked Dana a lot, and it worked nicely with HIM there, too. So it seems now that I'll be going, so maybe it can take the Mexico portion OUT of the Eastern flights that I fantasize about doing maybe in February.

DIARY 12379
10/20/77

SEX TALK WITH DENNIS

Since I know how much he loves it, I can bring him up by huskily whispering about what he's got between his legs: "What are you playing with? What IS that long, hard, red, round object that's getting bigger as I look at it? Can I watch you as you play with it, pull the skin back and forth around that cock head? It's growing bigger, look at the ridges, look at the veins, look how red the cockhead is getting, how full the edges of that cockhead, and here comes some juice from that red cockslit---oh, when you squeeze it like that, the cockslit turns purple because it's so excited. Oh, I get so excited watching you masturbate your cock, just reach around and feel how hard my cock's gotten just looking at you masturbating your cock. Get into that hard, throbbing cock, feel that skin between your fingers, push that cock so that I can feel the length of it pressing against my stomach. Sit on my stomach and put on the lights so that I can look at it; oh, you can even pull aside the lips of that cockslit so that I can see the clear juice welling out of that cockslit, running down over that purple cockhead, and getting that foreskin all wet as you pull it up and down over your cock. There's a pool there on my stomach where it's dripped off your cockhead as you masturbate. Oh, how hard that cock's getting, it's really working up to something great, how hard it's getting, how long it looks, how much fun it looks to play with it like that. Tease your cock, lover, tease that cock so that it wants to come, and then stop, press down on it, and then tease it some more so that the shaft is wanting to split with all the pressure you build up, and the come squeezes that juice out the cockhead to make that whole cock slippery between your fingers. Oh, you can't hold back anymore, your cock's going to shoot, going to pour that white come all over me, what if you just pulled aside that cockslit as you shot, how exciting it would be; jerk that cock off, man, masturbate that cock for me, how good that feels, and now it's coming, it's shooting, it's squirting that come all over me, oh, how much come, how that skin stretches against that cockhead, how fabulous that cock feels, I can feel each jerk of that cock as it comes, and I can reach and feel how hard that cock still is, and how slippery, and I know you don't want me to keep playing with your cock after you've come, but I love the feel of your slick cock slipping back and forth between my fingers. Thank you lover for coming.

DIARY 12399
10/26/77

DENNIS AND I TALK ABOUT COMPROMISE

I get annoyed for having to turn off his sleeping blanket and empty his ashes from pot, and he says his first priority on getting up was pissing and putting on coffee, and I make the snide remark he would have to be careful on rolling out of bed NOT to turn off the sleeping blanket at the same time. Last night was pretty bad: I remark from the shower that it must not be him coming in at 7:05 when he said he'd be here between 7 and 8, and he responds that sometimes he lies. He takes a shower and I say he shouldn't when I'm still shaving because I'll still run the water to shave. Then he fills up the tub and I say he should clean out after he runs the water to remove the hair I put into the dry tub while drying my hair, and he responds that he should remove MY hair AND his hair, and I retort that he should remove HIS wet hair and MY drying-hair hair, and I should remove MY wet hair and HIS drying-hair hair and MY drying-hair hair and when I see his drying-hair hair the next morning, I'm sorry that he's left already so that I can't show him what I mean. Then make cracks during dinner about the beef being rare enough for him, moan that we didn't drink the red wine, and insist he eat cake when he wants to wait till later, but he doesn't tell me that. Give him coffee in the shower when he tentatively asks me to turn the coffee off in five minutes, and I restrain saying that I USUALLY bring it up to boiling and time it. He compliments the eggs and bacon looking like a magazine ad, and later I do NOT bring up the fact that this is not the kind of breakfast I usually make, only saying that I make compromises for HIS job by getting up at 8 and going to bed at 1, rather than later, and he says that's just one compromise and I say it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week, and then last week and then next week. He says he's only here about 3 times a week, and I shoot back that I'm only THERE about 3 times a week, and he sighs and looks away. He puts dishes on the table after washing them off, and I say I must have made him feel guilty about something, and then he looks at me and says later he was debating taking his cup to the high table, then decided I would think he was feeling guilty about something, so he didn't do it. I tried to hug him (because I was feeling guilty) but he was having none of it. No wonder neither of us seems certain that I'm going to San Diego with him this Christmas. We speak of Pearl's, and I repeat that I don't like going to such places on Saturdays, since there's a matinee crowd which is so different from the regular crowd: La Grenouille was ruined because it wasn't jammed with elegant people, only that group of Chinese girl-tourists and the pair of matineeing ladies next to us, half full, and the waiter KNEW that only the dregs came on Saturdays, so he was supercilious. He said he enjoyed it, and I said the FOOD was good, and he said Susan was good. He said he sometimes got to work late and worked late, so he didn't want to interrupt his cash flow, but I insisted that I wasn't making a value judgment, only pointing out that HIS priorities were different: if he found a trick on the subway he'd not get to work until noon (he responded that he didn't want to pass up his only opportunity), but when I wanted him to join 4 of us (who could go without him) for lunch for a couple of hours, he wouldn't make a decision, and he finally blurted out "next Wednesday." Then he, IN FACT, looked so childlike and lost and frustrated when he talked of moving the dishes and then NOT moving the dishes (though in fact he NEVER moves the dishes in my place, as I never do in his unless both are asked in respective places), I KNEW that I was saying too much, that he was bringing out his child, and that he was accusing me in his mind as he did vocally by saying "You made up the story about Ohio, you're really JEWISH." I tried to "make it better" by laughing and showing some affection, but he stood stiffly and said "I have to go to work," and wrenched gently out of my clasp. I felt worse than ever, he went to work with his stomach in a turmoil and would think about it during the day without the opportunity to get it all out as I'm doing now, and I wondered again how Actualism might be affecting my relationships, bringing up things long buried, and I was just taking it out on him. But these things being said to him NOW may clear the air of the feeling that I've had recently that our relationship has been DRAINED of what was good in it. He accused me of not reacting enthusiastically to anything: I look through the Times, he says, and constantly say "Humph." He looks through the Times and says "How great this looks, how great that looks." I respond that I'd wanted to go to the Joffrey's "Romeo and Juliet" on Sunday, Ambrose Arts and the baths on Monday, Sara Rudner on Tuesday, and didn't do any of them because there wasn't enough TIME, so I surely didn't want MORE things preying on my mind. He said I prejudged them as being bad, and I shot back that I was sure that HE prejudged things he saw, but then wiped away the prejudgment for being neutral, as he thought he MUST be. He said he didn't understand me: when HE'D suggested "Dracula" I went "Humph" and when ART said it was great, I wanted to go. I said I went "Humph" when ART said it was great because of his praise of "Gemini" but when Paul B. ALSO said it was great, I had to change my mind. So I COULD change my mind. He keeps accusing me of being rigid, having things the way I want, and not listening to him. I say that I listen to him but ordinarily I have to ask him in five minutes, "Now what was the answer to my question?" where I give answers all the time---though I have to admit they're not the most consistent, even to the same question. When I brought up the fact that I KNEW La Grenouille was better from having BEEN there, I accused him, unjustly and on no visible grounds, of being annoyed with me for HAVING been there and flaunting that, and when I asked him he simply didn't answer, merely went on to something else. So I'd asked him and didn't know the answer YET. I keep hearing myself digging at him and digging at him, wanting him to change to be more like me, but as time goes on there seems to be MORE that I'm impatient with rather than less. Got disgusted with his slurping sounds with the corn-on-the-cob last night, though I'm SURE I make the same sounds. Don't let the egg drip down my hand as he did this morning, but he had the aplomb to stare at it and says it looks like Claes Oldenburg, then decided it was more realistic, so it must be an Andy Warhol. And there were a few genuine laughs last night, which still make him pleasant to have around, but I get tired of his child and tired of my adult rearing its ugly head in response. When was the last time we said we love each other, and MEANT it? Am I or HE or WE doing this to ourselves? Why? What can we do about it? What do we WANT to do about it? How do we start?

DIARY 12432
11/5/77

POPE AND SANDY

Pope said that he'd even written to RHINE ("Bryan," as Sandy called him) about this incredibly psychic person, and he'd do BELOW average on the tests because he wanted to be SPECTACULAR and wanted an AUDIENCE. Like when he said he could kill people by wanting them dead in a certain way, and when he said that he'd killed the manager of the Hotel Pierrepont and Pope INSISTED he was alive and went over to find he'd been murdered in a bizarre way, he even thought Sandy had KILLED him. He said the first time Sandy came to his apartment he went into a "trance" and spoke out in a voice that was SO like his father's, saying "Son, I'm getting so WEAK," and he said that HE didn't know his father's name for him was "son," that he got chills, and then when Sandy insisted he phone his father, his first words were "Son, I'm so SICK." Then the first time he was at Sandy's apartment he was looking through his record collection and was amazed that he liked Vivaldi, and Sandy called in from the other room, "Oh, you like VIVALDI TOO?" There were times when he'd call and say "You have on such-and-such and are doing so-and-so," and it would be the LOGICAL thing for him to be doing, and he WASN'T doing it, he'd feel the need to check these things against reality. BUT he insisted it was significant that he was thinking about Zelda Fitzgerald and Sandy went on for 15 minutes without saying ANYTHING about writers, drinkers, auto accidents, or ANYTHING connected with them, I began to wonder what HE was thinking of. He wants to get BACK to the point of being psychic, knowing he was always a better SENDER, and saying that I'd probably be bad since I don't VISUALIZE things, and they should be SEEN. I said I always needed a RATIONAL reason for things to change: like shifting socks to let toes closer to the floor, but he said that the best card-results were when he saw it in a FLASH, and usually when he'd "change his mind," his first guess would be right. Also, when he kept with the same thing: cards, animals, lights, he tended to fall into a PATTERN, and that made results worse: star, cross, wavy line all the time. So I said If he ever needed a partner I'd be glad to assist him any way I could, hoping to get some of MY images about MY not being psychic blown away, TOO.

DIARY 12442
11/9/77

BOB R.'S NEW JOB AND POWER

When he resigned on Friday he was mainly struck with the personal feelings shown by Howard, his boss, offering him a partnership or even his own company, but even more impressed by the way everyone wanted to come WITH him, no matter where he went, which he refused to say. Howard had said a couple of weeks ago that Carolace had SAID they wanted Bob, but he didn't know that when he said "Don't go THERE," that he WOULD. He'd spoken to his lawyer, who recommended that he continue the switch, and had already come up with Trendsetters as the name, knowing that his new division would use his expertise and put THAT large company into a whole new, profitable area, to the chagrin of his boss, who even babbled about his plans for the coming year to Bob to entice him to stay. He took it all as a game, playing with the suggestion of the president that he take HIS desk by looking around and saying "No, there's room for two desks in here." Then he met Uncle Joe, who was their first and star salesman, and who kept saying "Very progressive," all the time and hit it off respectively with Bob. He loved all the buttons on his telephone, which included a WATTS line, in his corner office overlooking Herald Square and uptown, with his designer on one side and his art director on the other side, and he had the two in mind that he wanted to take from Park Schiffli in the VERY way that his boss had taught him to do. "The main thing he taught me is GREED, and that's what I'm using." He went up from his $40,000-a-year job to a consulting position with the new company and an even bigger percentage of a far larger company gross. He loved the game of the whole thing, satisfied that "Priority One" was now taken care of and he could look at the second priority: the Manhattan townhouse. He'd have a car, loved his license, liked the idea that a son in the family-controlled company has been assigned to him as liaison, will be seeing the factory in Jersey and maybe the outlets on the West Coast, and maybe soon travel to Switzerland "to make my deposit" and to Johannesburg. He was now "thinking executive" and loving it, and even Nina fell in with it, knowing that he'd gotten into a good thing, but even leaving himself open for ANOTHER change for the better after ANOTHER 32 years in a company that taught him the next step in his rise to the top in the fashion industry.

DIARY 12446
11/9/77

DENNIS AND I TALK ABOUT DIANETICS

I briefly describe the idea of it, saying I'd like him to be an Auditor for me, and when he asks what I'd like to get into, I list femaleness, my mother, Actualism, getting stuck, not having enough time, maybe even the death of my dog on Oakdale that I'd circled on the text. He started sleepy but ended awake enough, and said he'd think about it. I came to the conclusion that (OH, forgot about my pleasure with LET in Actualism contrasted with my reluctance to LET GO with the experiences with BOB) we needed a modern version of "Perennial Philosophy," which said that the TEACHERS of Buddhism and Hinduism and Sufism and Catholicism and Protestantism all said the same things even though the RELIGIONS that grew from them differed so greatly, which would show the similarities between the TEACHINGS of Actualism, and Dianetics, and est, and probably Mind Control and the others, without getting into the e-meters of Dianetics, the authoritarianism of est, the secrecy of Actualism. I kept listing the alternatives, and he pointed out that the alternative that Actualism has NOTHING to offer had been overlooked, but I kept saying that since it offered so much to OTHERS, even people who turned AWAY from it like Sheldon Levey and Tom Campbell, that it could offer SOMEthing to me, couldn't it? Unless I refused to be brainwashed as they were being? Anyway, he didn't think I'd said that, which might mean I'd not. THEN he blew my mind by asking "What would happen if you were an asshole?" just as BOBR did. With Joan Ann reading my mind last night about 3 times this was getting to be too much. We stopped to have sex before really resolving anything, but I ALSO said that I wanted LOTS of money, liked to write, and thought maybe I could combine the two, so THAT'S why I was interested in getting back to writing while he was in San Diego, even saying that I WOULD refuse any indexes that came in during that time, but that I also wanted to try a writing schedule beforehand. He pointed out that my "Do-list" would NEVER be exhausted, and I was going around a spiral course when it would be simpler to hit in toward the center directly, I agreed with him. THEN he asked where my "both/and" had gotten, and I said I wanted to do BOTH Actualism AND Dianetics, and that I could see myself following WHATEVER came along, just so that change and improvement was a part of LIFE, not a means to an end. In other words, life would never be "fixed" in EITHER concrete terms OR repair-wise!

DIARY 12457
11/12/77

TAPE TO BILL IN OCTOBER, 1976

This was recorded at 12:35 pm, more or less contiguously, on Monday, October 25, 1976, which YEAR I didn't say, but Bill could guess if he noted the day. Talked mostly about Dennis: how I met him at Arnie's, his physical characteristics, his experiences with "Street Scene," his part-time jobs, and my teaching him indexing. I chatted about my job with ACC and Tom Aloisi and the Math Achiever survey. Told him about indexing work (and added on the later tape that it's still going very well). Mentioned that I was a late person originally, had moved to an early person for John, and was again a late person with Dennis, seldom getting to bed before 1 am. He was working on a book of "Trash or Treasure" (and I noted to say that it developed into a fulltime job with Tree Communication). Described the day in Flemington in great detail, the doll museum, meeting with Lois, and getting back in time for the dance at Papp's. Noted that people like Dennis better than they did John. Talked about Dennis's apartment (though I made it sound like a shack built atop the roof), his interest in cooking foods and breads, his parties, and his affection for little old women. Again commented, Bill, you'll have to go along with my repeating myself. Talked of the Culinary Institute of America and Rick, going to Poughkeepsie (and being asked back, and down to Lois's which I never mentioned we didn't do), and eating at the Four Seasons and Delmonico's for his birthday present. Mentioned that the Androgyny course was coming, that I was dropping most of the est seminars. Mentioned the books-wanted list that became a compulsion (and still is), having 95 books to read on shelves (up to 180 now), with 80 on list to go (with only 7 on list from start, 40 on list now, 15 new, paying record $40 for Stapledon's "Man Divided" and Burrough's "Port of Saints"). Pedantic composer-brother Leroy got better than Dennis. Spoke of his great openness, smile, and jerking off on subway platforms. (He STILL hadn't told his folks he's gay, which is ANOTHER reason why I probably won't join him in San Diego this year. We used his roof during the blackout, and that's about it). (At least this sounded better than my NOVEMBER, 1975, tape!)

DIARY 12458
11/12/77

TAPE FROM BILL OF APRIL, 1976

November 12, 1977

Dear Bill,

Hope you got the tape by this time, and weren't too shocked when you found on Side Two that Side One had been recorded in 1976. True to my word (SEE! SEE! SEE! Change IS possible!), here's the letter I promised at the end of the tape, so that you don't have to scratch your head and say "I'm sure I said more than THAT on the tape, isn't he going to say anything about---" etc.

My first note, again, is *whew* but I did go on in the tape that you sent BACK to me. Thanks again for your patience, forbearance, and ear. Back in August you'd mentioned you'd gotten neither your stamps nor the $375 insurance for them. Anything new on that? My stamps have been increasing in bulk: had I mentioned a company named Rowland Hall, on Long Island, that sells loads of mint for less than face value? Can't imagine how he does it other than steal them or buy them at enormous discounts from issuing countries or companies going out of business. Some of them were "dealer stock" which means that I have high-value sheets from places like Mauritania, Gabon, Dahomey, and Senegal, and others were Trucial states like Ajman, Fujeira, Umm al Qiwain, and Sharjah, which probably aren't worth the paper they're printed on, but some are "legit" ones from Gambia, Liberia, Switzerland, etc. The "junk" came in their "bonuses," which usually ran something like "$1200 retail value free with $180 in orders at 1/2 wholesale value," and since I'd gotten a few of their offerings, in lots of cases the "junk" was duplicated. So if you know anyone who's interested in the early Trucial States, let me know. Then I bought about $200 in face value from France, Andorra, Monaco, and French Colonies (former) when I was in Paris. Lots of pretty pictures.

I guess my puzzlement with the talk about progress/evolution/enlightenment circles around a note I took from you (which hereinafter will be indicated by quotes): "wholly adequate." I certainly agree that very few people, perhaps NO one, can be described as WHOLLY adequate. I suppose even CHRIST left something to be desired. But isn't there such a state as being RELATIVELY adequate, which could increase to HIGHLY adequate, which would be the only way to reach a state of WHOLE adequacy? If you say that it's a quantum leap, with no intermediate steps, you'll begin to sound, to me, like the people who argue about "when" a soul starts to inhabit a body to make abortion a no-no or "when" the current forefront of evolution ceased being apelike and started being manlike. I would think that there were intermediate creatures (not dead-ends, either) who possessed SOME characteristics of apes and SOME characteristics of men. Wouldn't you? Or is this so completely incomparable an analogy that it's not worth pursuing? The same argument applies to words like "responsible" and "in control."

I made no choice to be homosexual ANY MORE (since some hold that reincarnation IS a matter of choice) than I chose to be male, born to my parents, with brown hair and brown eyes. ABOUT homosexuality, I can merely say that I didn't choose to try to change it. However, I DID decide to change by moving from Akron, CHOSE St. Mary's High School over a public high school, CHOSE Akron University over a Catholic college, and CHOSE Columbia University over the University of Illinois. If I'd made ANY of the alternate decisions, I think there are lots of reasons for my saying that I'd be a VERY (no, I KNOW I can't say COMPLETELY) different person now. I CHOOSE to buck society by not marrying, by quitting IBM. I took up indexing by CHOICE, decided to travel to India by CHOICE, and am now involved with Dennis BY CHOICE. Since I think of myself as CHOOSING these, I think of myself as RESPONSIBLE for what happens to myself because of them. Certainly, I have more choice than many, perhaps MOST, other people, but I think it's arguable whether people don't choose because they don't WANT to or because they CAN'T---in the sense of HAVEN'T THE CAPABILITY OF. No, I don't CHOOSE to make errors in typing or speaking, but I certainly choose to make AS FEW ERRORS AS I CAN, and to correct SOME errors, like the date, above, in ways that are different than merely striking over letters.

"Nothing is more real than an orgasm" for me. Well, Bill, my FLESH is one of the more practical, substantial objects I know. Since I can't think of myself EVER (but I believe in the possibility of change) becoming impractical (to the extent of giving up EVERYTHING, for example) or ignoring the substantial (though it WOULD be nice to be able to fly!), the flesh is something that I have decided that I should use to the utmost so that I won't find it easy to fall prey to the "Gee, if only I had ... " syndrome. Aside from sitting in a dentist's chair, I can't think of anything that ZAPS the body into aliveness, hereness, nowness, more than an orgasm. Bodybuilders (see "Pumping Iron"?) say the pumping-up is more fun than sex. If so, I envy them that, but I'm not willing to go to the extent they do to enjoy it as they seem to. My MIND enjoys that kind of "pumping-up," too. That's why I went into est: when I saw what was going on around me, felt my mental excitement, I remembered that I hadn't felt like that since encounter-group days back in the late 60s---I'd missed that sense of newness, adventure, excitement, stimulation. So I got back into it. As est was palling, there came Actualism. Actualism hasn't palled yet. I expect it will someday, even at the risk of CREATING that pall BY my expectation of it. But you could also say I EXPECTED the relationship between John and me to end, though when it ended it was because HE wanted an end to sex and I decided that the relationship without sex wasn't want I wanted. So I certainly didn't expect it to end THAT WAY. I expect my relationship with Dennis to end, too, but I have no idea how.

I can't think of anything more important to say about Gurdjieff's books than they were INTENDED as channels of COMMUNICATION. If I can't understand what it is that's being communicated, those channels don't work for me. He may have wisdom, but it doesn't do me any good if it's presented in a way that generates my animosity. Of course my animosity isn't desirable, but since I haven't been convinced that it's a matter of my life or death that I HAVE to lose my animosity toward his books, I guess I'll have to be content with whatever I consider to be an alternative to enlightenment: Actualism.

"You revel in sexuality---it's a large part of your life." "Intellect, body, emotions, sexuality are only tools." Yep, but I think tools are to be USED---though interestingly enough I DON'T use the tools of Actualism as much as I should. Am I suffering from that? Yep! But I KNOW that I am, I don't know that I'm suffering from too much sexuality.

I want things that are "easy of access and comprehension---easy to perceive on a literal level." I agree, but we BOTH can get a good laugh at what I have to put up with because Actualism's TRIMMINGS are impossible for me to perceive---I'm going on my current faith that the CORE is worthwhile.

To beat an old horse: you can't run a 4-minute mile before running a 5-minute mile. I don't think you can be permanently enlightened (despite the fact that Werner Erhard has recently said something very like that: Enlightenment is permanent, so if you've EVER been that, you've ALWAYS been that) without being enlightened "in a flash" and then "temporarily" and THEN "permanently."

"Can't you NOT judge?" I find it LOTS easier to say "yes" or "no" than to say "I'll wait and see" or "It may be and then again it may not be." I'm not saying its RIGHTER or BETTER or MORE PRODUCTIVE, it's just easier, mainly because that's the way it's been in the past. No ass tethered between two equal bales of hay I, as Dennis would say.

Thanks for the illustration of ancients digging holes to see stars better.

"I wonder if you can see how much you are the victim of something inside you that turns you this way and that?" Yep, my judging machine makes me feel that THAT'S better than not turning any way at ALL.

I'm curious how "Pass the butter please" could be thought to have significance if the person who said it never demonstrated an ENORMOUS EGO? Are accredited gurus the only people who are acceptable with egos? How's this for a tautology: I like my ego!

I think this had better be the last page, for now, anyway.

Sorry I blew up your moment of despair into repeated seasons of depressions. I had misunderstood about your tale of woe.

I don't THINK of you as a person who frustrated me sexually, but I DO think of you as a person who INSISTS that I don't know anything and will always find it impossible to change. So when I see an opportunity to say that YOU have a choice and a chance to change, I TAKE it!

est would say that the CONCEPT of a pink rabbit is the SAME as a physical pink rabbit. I'd tend to agree with you that it's a mental trick.

FYI: your "So what!" is the ANSWER to est's seminar entitled "What's So?"

Looking into Emerson's "Over-Soul": "Of this pure nature every man is AT SOME TIME sensible." Someone seems to believe in degrees! " ... all unawares the ADVANCING soul has built and forged for itself a NEW condition ... " In fact, the closest I can find (though I haven't scanned it a THIRD time to make sure) to your quote is "The soul's advances are not made by gradation ... every throe of growth the man expands ... passing, at each pulsation ... " Well, to ME that sounds like gradation! Even the second SENTENCE says "Our faith comes in moments." And the last sentence says "He ... hath already the whole future in the bottom of the heart." Future sounds like time to ME. Nyah! If ESP wouldn't be part of a higher plane of evolution, what would?? I sure DO agree with p. 66 of "Cosmic Consciousness."

What's the LATEST with you and Shaker? HAVE you sold the farm? Are people still NOT coming to you when they need someone to listen to them?

You didn't care for "the sound of the Anvil." I haven't been to a bar since Dennis (except with him), but would LIKE to get back to the Baths soon.

Front seat of car on casters and TV in stove room is so YOU, as my place is ME, just delighting in a two-shelf bookcase I found in the street.

"You're not willing to wait until the Being grows to receive the Knowledge." RIGHT!!!!! I'm thinking I'm constantly pushing at the ends of Actualism to find me ways to get there even though I appear to be IDIOTIC!

"Sign of Being is ability to bear unpleasant manifestations of others." Woman upstairs FINALLY got a carpet and castrated her cat (not that one depended on the other, you understand), so SHE'S better now.

I have "The Fourth Way," but I haven't read it yet. I'm afraid I won't give IT the reverence you thought I should give "Beelzebub" either.

FACT: I DO want to "master" Gurdjieff and then pass on, but just as OTHERS have passed beyond him. I think Krishnamurti, Watts, Huxley, Schofield, Castaneda, even BACH (Richard, that is), have things to say.

I read "The Journal of a Pupil." Wished the Orage commentary would have covered about 100 times more than it did. It helped.

Your church attendance still off?

How are David Gordon and Elizabeth doing recently? I'd be curious to know WHAT the astrologer corroborated you on about him. Gay?

MY sister is doing well: loves not working, busy making crafts, playing tennis, cooking, caring for the house. They SAY they want kids.

The New York City problems affect me MERELY in shorter subways that run infrequently and often stop for no reason. Garbage collection down from daily to 3-a-week, streets dirtier, but nothing SERIOUS as yet.

No knowledge of Hamilton Caine's Plato translations.

Ross and Sue still satisfactorily separated?

At the risk of being laughed at, showed Dennis parts of something I'd written. He liked some, didn't like others. Still on schedule getting things off list to clear decks for writing while he's in San Diego over Christmas. Sister coming to visit in January, per letter yesterday.

Hamburg ready now, meeting Dennis at Carnegie Hall tonight for Janos Stryker (or whoever the cellist is). My cold's holding steady. Snuf.

Love, Bob

DIARY 12461
11/12/77

TAPE TO BILL OF NOVEMBER, 1977

Most taken from notes: don't know the film where $250,000 ends up in stamps. Hot water still only 1.25 hours per day, or have you cut it down even more? Third Testament showed a few here, I watched Soren Kierkegaard and thought it was rather dismal, so I haven't watched many of the other programs. "Calm activity" that confused you was CONNECTIVITY, but it's not important. What kind of progress is Blake talking about if NOT toward a firmer grasp of reality in life? Burnt Ellie IS who I was thinking of, as who may have been Blue Flettrick---both adjectives for first names. "Worthy, adequate, and OK, a solid regular guy": Definitions of worthy and adequate CHANGE from age to age. "Can't put water in a full glass." My glass is not FULL, but FILLING. "Bob, you are naïve." "You are saying everyone is conscious." To a DEGREE, more NOW than before. I AM responsible for my colds. We ARE more enlightened NOW than before. "Some of 4 billion are children and NOT in contact": YOU seem to say that if ONE person is NOT responsible, NO one is. I SAY DIFFERENT. "If you wanna change, go ahead and change. Bet you can't!" "You are constitutionally incapable of forgoing a movie or dance performance." I HAVE BEEN, BEFORE hearing this again. Not ENTIRELY different, but SOMEWHAT different. "That is not the way things are, from my several years of observation of myself and others." "Wholly adequately"---where's RELATIVELY adequate? "Help me, help me; bet you CAN'T" is PRECISELY where I am now in ACTUALISM (and I explained it in detail: bodywork, lesson, cold, talks with Dennis and BobR, sex with BobR as woman, asking Dennis to be a Dianetics auditor, saying that I KNOW I'm in trouble now). "How to MAKE people aware" You can't MAKE anyone do anything, but look at changes Gibran, Gurdjieff, etc, produced. I WANT TO DO SAME. MY failure is worth much more than YOUR success: Humanity IS changing: change will come from a POSITIVE attitude, not a NEGATIVE one. I DO feel like a crusader/guru faced with your truculence: If Gurdjieff wasn't self-confident, who WAS? "I'm interested in a permanent elevated state of being." Will you GET there step-by-step or all at ONCE? This is the end, will answer rest in letter (see DIARY 12458-12460).

DIARY 12502
11/21/77

SOMETHING WRONG BETWEEN DENNIS AND ME

I have no more patience with his "I can see you and Arnie standing on Kilimanjaro, battling for Ava Gardner" stories, and he bores me with reading about the cooking classes in Bologna with Marcella Hazan that he says he wants to take this summer (which prompts me THEN to locate Bologna on the map, check my Europe trip to see that I went from Venice to Ferrara to Ravenna, bypassing Bologna; and then put me into the 200 museums of the world, where I checked where and how many museums were where, and there were none in Bologna). I feel that I can't talk with him (or anyone, for that matter, except Bruce) about Actualism, and I'm not THAT interested in his work at Tree---in fact, even his questions about the index that he's doing partly for me are difficult to answer with patience. I feel that some kind of spark has vanished: I'm not interested in everything that he does: I say no to most things that he suggests to do, just as he does with me. Sex had fallen into a routine before. He seems to be noticing it too: asking me if there's anything wrong as I sit and peruse the Times as he makes dinner, picking up the New Yorker to read while he serves, and then HE continues reading the letters by Hazan during breakfast, which leads me to pick up the Times and read travel articles, and there's the "silence of two people saying nothing" again, and we both feel that something is vaguely wrong, but obviously I'm tired of bringing up such things and he's not about to EVER bring up such things, except I test him long enough so that he feels COMPELLED to. My lack of enthusiasm for San Diego, his lack of interest in Kilimanjaro, both seem to indicate something's wrong. He meets people and stays with them, talking about dynamite sex, and I make plans to go to Man's Country tonight, so we're not even reinforcing our good feelings with sex. I continue to buy wine for his table and he continues to refuse to contribute his share. He grumbles about eating out with me, yet goes to Russian Bear with his girl and spends a lot of money WITH drinks and dislikes it this time. He spends on his jazz programs and is surly even though we get free tickets to Dancers of Bali. We're not willing to CATER to each other anymore: we're TOGETHER, the honeymoon is over; no one's trying to impress the other, and it seems, unless someone takes steps, it'll be down hill from here.

DIARY 12604
12/19/77

BOB R. AND HIS NEW JOB

He's confessing to being depressed because someone he hired last week to work for him, away from Park-Schiffli, phoned in this morning and said that his old boss offered her a LOT of work at home, which is what she wanted, so she's not coming in anymore. He's got lots of workers he can use in New Jersey, but he finds he has to write out far more detailed instructions to send them out than doing them in the shop. Another person that he tried to hire away was called in by Harold, given a BIG sob story about how everyone there was a member of a family and how awful BobR was to steal his family away from him, and gave them a large raise, so THEY stayed. Bob said that he's worked through the sadness that Harold's "working out of panic," because he said that someone else told him that Harold DIRECTED that almost everything be sent to the new woman he'd tried to hire, so she'd HAVE to quit, and that he was still laboring under a number of lawsuits from various companies who didn't get their work on time, who sent it to Schiffli and it just sat there doing nothing, while Harold labored under the self-pitying for "Bob's doing it to him." I asked if he spoke about this to "Uncle Joe" from the idea (unspoken) that people might try to stab Bob in the back VIA his NEW company, but he said that wasn't necessary, that he'd spoken to the salesmen from other companies, who were all happy to come to him at Coralace. He said he didn't have much work for anyone yet, since the division was still a baby, but he was watching the whole thing as from a distance. "I'm sorry he had to take it this way, but he's still not admitting that it was ME who made him such a success." He still wouldn't feel the least bit sorry for HAVING PUT HIM into such a position, and he still feels that that won't harm him at Carolace. I felt more and more negative about it, but didn't want to get into it EXCEPT from Bob's feelings, so it doesn't do me any good to be negative with HIM, but he's even started saying "If this one doesn't work out, I can just go somewhere else; it's all part of the game and I'm still watching." He even said Harold's wife said for Harold to STOP recommending est to friends, because of "what it did to Bob and you."

DIARY 12605
12/19/77

POPE AND RICH MEXICANS

He doesn't know if Ann Rogers has her own plane or not, but he just wanted to go down with DOROTHY, who he's so fond of, and he's confident that SHE would get him lots of work through her friends, and if her plans for the TV show came through, he'd like to go down then. I thought he'd planned not to go AT ALL, and even John said he'd be silly to avoid the whole thing, but he said he just didn't like their "innocent" view of the world that took them in their limousine (that locals hit with their hands as they passed) from shop to shop, and, as Pope put it, "It's not really interesting; it's mostly JUNK, but they say it's so BEAUTIFUL and so ELEGANT." They went to Doubles in the Sherry-Netherland for drinks, and the bar was full of "their people" because she talked to Countess so-and-so and everyone else. She hires the upper room at "21" every Christmas for Vida MacArthur ("Do you suppose she's the generals widow; I suppose so, she talks about "The General" all the time.") and other old ladies that she feels comfortable with. Everyone there gives them all the praise in the world; the doorman at the Olympic Towers (where she has TWO suites, one on 35 and one on 44, both paid as part of her alimony from her former husband) gushes over how beautiful she looks, while POPE may have stepped into it by praising the beauty of Gabrielle ("Gaby"), who's from Cuban class. But Jeannette's husband lost $150 million to the Mexican government, and she's worried about $4,000 that seems to be lost in an American bank ("She must mean $4 million!"), so her husband said she can't call Pope so much, and the Board of Directors had to vote so that she could be bought a sable coat from the children's trust fund, and the father was depressed because he wouldn't have been able to afford it. So they might sell the house in Acapulco, "But then I might buy a ranch in Texas." The wine cellars at 21 are "nice, wood paneled and all that, and the food IS pretty good---she just had hamburgers, and she was eating shredded wheat while we were having wine in her apartment---she's SUCH a kook"---, but it's the only place she doesn't have to put on airs because EVERYONE there is very rich. Just like the neighborhood bar, I think, he said, but I said it was the "neighborhood bar" for the jet set of the WORLD, so it SHOULD be somewhat more expensive than the little bar around the corner.

DIARY 12620
12/23/77

ROLF'S CSI EXPERIENCES IN PROVIDENCE

They're not so special as he'd hinted, but maybe he's not telling me everything since I wasn't overjoyed about hearing it. He said that any company that was as poorly run as this MUST have something illogical behind it: blackmail, extortion, tax loss, or other madness. The president is an ex-salesman from NCR who's had a Service Bureau operation for 7 years, financed by the president of a jewelry company and a number of other companies, who's thrown $285,000 into the company so far, but it'll take $150,000 to maintain it for another year, and they're "morally bankrupt, intellectually bankrupt, and in a few months they'll be legally bankrupt." They've bid on 5 jobs (one, for the City of Dennis, was $15,000, one of their larger bids, and they were "at least $14,000" under the NEXT lowest bid; "poor Dennis is still sitting waiting for their system after a year, and they've got no one assigned to their project."), all incredibly low: this one for an insurance company was bid for $5,000 and Cathy Nearing estimated it would cost about $85,000 to finish. He's gotten $5,000 for 6-7 weeks' work and has only taken ONE of their applications (maybe "5-10% of their work) and had a programmer do it in 4 weeks, and IT works, though they had to rearrange the program since the tiny compiler can only take about 1500 lines of code and the program expanded to 3000 lines. He's advised the president of the insurance company, from whom he's gotten good cooperation but THEY don't know how bad they're off with CSI, to sue them for the $5,000 they'd paid as a retainer: "In all operations like that there's some money floating around, but it's just not all going in the right direction." "The president's very anti-management: if something works well for 1-2 weeks, or it's predictable, or someone's doing a good job, they're immediately changed just for the sake of change." He also feels that he'd like to finish the system's study, which he "has in his head, but it's just a matter of putting it down on paper." He goes into the theory of hashing numbers, which DOES work, though in some few cases you need an overflow bucket, as an efficient way of finding records, and maybe my lack of appreciation for HIS level of current computer knowledge quieted him down. When I searched through his batch of microcomputer mailings, the main thing that struck me were the facilities for making animations and kaleidoscope patterns on a CRT tube with some of their packages. But as far as automating my indexing, I have no great feeling for how much it would help me, how much trouble it would be, and even HE started by saying, "I guess I'd advise keeping away from computers at ALL."

DIARY 12625
12/26/77

CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER

STARTED with me/Arnold/John/Eddie/Friend/ArtO/Azak/Pope, but then Eddie broke up with the friend and had to be convinced to come, but then Azak and Pope said OK, so it didn't matter that Rolf couldn't come and that Arnie said that Malcolm wouldn't WANT to come if it wasn't an orgy. Had asked Arnie to ask Michael Ralph, but he said he'd probably have plans, but then Michael AND Allen said they'd come over, and that made 9 until Art called and said he couldn't leave (so he had to finish his shrimp curry himself), so it was a perfect 8. I think Michael brought grass, Azak had joints that he insisted were special, and John brought his bottle, and I brought out Paul's gift, so about half the people brought their own supplies. I furnished Azak his smokes between bouts with the salad, we finished the white wine from the gallon and Pope's wasn't cold enough yet, and I had to refill the red decanter a few times. We finished Eddie's Cherry Kijafa, they dented the brandy they brought, and the Kahlua bottle is almost finished. With Azak serving the salad and John dishing out the lasagna while I served the green beans with the pinchers, THAT worked very well, and they seemed to like the melon and lemon-wedge that I started with. Borrowed three chairs from John but only needed 2, didn't need the glass plates since we were 8, and didn't need John's fork, either, but his salad bowl, olive oil, and lasagna were most welcome. LOTS of smoking, and I suppose I got a contact high from it, and Azak and John loved the films, Pope wanted to borrow the ones he'd not seen, while Arnie and Michael stayed in the living room and chatted with Pope, and when Michael talked about anyone, it was to see only ass, so I guess I wouldn't be interested in going to bed with him. Eddie was against Azak for some reason (maybe for wanting to go to bed with him), and he was delighted to find that Michael and Pope had both been into chanting. Arnie talked a lot, John laughed a few times and enjoyed ripping open his Velcro jumpsuit, and Allan was a nice stranger to mix things up. Pope fit in well, as he always does, and I felt it was a success even though it didn't end in sex, which I wouldn't have joined anyway, and Arnie's tape of "Close Encounters" provided the perfect music, and they complained that I didn't have any NEW music, but liked the Beegee's "Odessa" anyway.

DIARY 12640
12/30/77

ROLF'S OVERLOAD

(AND I think that these PAGES are marvelous shunts of MY overload, too!)
He'd spent Christmas with Veneroso's family, "fasting" with them through an enormous meal without meat and lots of booze while an uncle that everyone had known for a dozen years lay dying in the next room, causing everyone to think more than usual about death. Before he left, he'd gotten the first Christmas present for YEARS from his estranged father: a photograph of his great-great-grandfather and the house he built between Bergen and Oslo that's still being used now, built in 1810. And Rolf thought to himself "The line stops here" (even though he has a sister), since he's not about to have any children. Then Veneroso and friends ("Do you want to talk about it?" "No," but then he at least said the TOPIC) chided him, saying that he would ALWAYS be in his cruddy apartment, would NEVER get married and have children, and I said that AT LEAST it would bring pressure for him to TELL his close friends that he's gay, but he said he didn't think a general announcement in that milieu would be appropriate, but he'd wait to tell them separately. At that point I confessed that I didn't want him to feel comfortable, then, but that he should continue to feel the pressure until he does, indeed, tell them. He'd bought some United Asbestos at 13/16, but it's been down to 3/4, but no one told me about it. Then the NEXT night he was invited to a house party in an elegant house in Westport where all the cast of the newly-closed "Joseph and His Technicolor Raincoat" or whatever, was partying up; he was feeling "stonier-faced than usual" and a few people made overtures that, in retrospect, were for sex, which he would have wanted, but he froze them out and ended up feeling miserable for himself. So he's been cooped up for the last few days merely THINKING through everything (and I said that did no good without DOING anything), so that if ANYTHING appealed to him for New Years, it would just be going to the baths and having some sex without ANY conversation whatsoever. I said that it was probably good that it came to a peak like this, but that it wasn't the best thing to make DECISIONS when he was so PHYSICALLY TIRED as he described himself being, but he refused to listen. So I'll be hearing more about his midlife crises in a few days, I guess.

DIARY 12641
12/30/77

DINNER AT AZAK'S WITH MICHAEL

Azak was on the phone, so Michael and I essentially squared away the schedule, paying about $100 more in airfare to get to three more islands while staying on Eastern for the TICKETED version of the trip, and he gave me the Time magazine with the religion article, and he said he'd save Pan Am and Fielding's and mark up the places he wanted to see. He served me Pommard, good, when I'd asked for white, and grudgingly gave Michael quinine water for his recovery from hepatitis. Then we went to the table and had a Dumas paté with crisp-crusted bread, Michael went into the salad early and so I had VERY few tomatoes and lots of olives, and then he came out with some green fettuccini and that was all there was until the fruit, when I peeled an orange and then reconstructed it in the basket. Michael was coughing, Azak looked sick, and talked about how he couldn't take a long TIME in flying, though a LOT of flights wouldn't bother him, and he and Michael smoked the joint that Michael made while Azak cooked, and we talked about personal health and somehow the conversation got around to what people thought about ME, and I'd been talking about Actualism, probably over their heads, and I quoted Paul's saying that I was one of the best-adjusted people he knew, and rather than Azak saying what HE thought of me, I turned to Michael and said to get ANOTHER opinion, and he refused to say anything, probably feeling about me as I feel about Arnold: interesting, too talkative at times, into lots of different things, not sexy, a good friend, since I'd met him about 3.5 years ago, when he FIRST came to NYC, and doesn't THAT say that he thinks I'm a good friend? We talked about Arnie, Bob G.'s whining, my est/Mattachine/Actualism flitting, Azak's sickness and responsibilities, which I was lucky not to have, and Michael's comparative youth and strength. I talked AGAIN about all my lovers being good cooks, how Michael hates to cook, as Azak says he does, though he DOES, and he talks about his elegant photography sessions at 3 am when they serve the quiche, how the jar of Crisco rolled out from the night table in the elegant Park Avenue apartment above Regine's, and how Ted James took his idea to make a terrace-connection from north to south in his 57th Street apartment (and how I have to meet Tristan Jour), but he merely got a gift and not the contract for the job; such a JEW. And lots of fuzzy MORE!

DIARY 12649
1/2/78

ARNIE'S DRUNKENNESS

He'd seemed normal enough when he came in, apologizing for not bringing mousse because he couldn't find Half-and-Half in a store, but bringing me the Times and a TV Guide and clippings for Azak, who left them here. Then he seemed straight enough before the smoking started, but later, when he could find no one to bed down with him, he came over to me and said that he'd drunk about 8 ounces of vodka with lemon juice before coming here, and then the drinking and smoking here sent him over the border. I said he'd probably been drunk at his place before, and he said "Could be," and it dawned on me that if he was OUT for someone, he'd never quibble the way he did with Pope and me when he didn't want us. He whispered to Alexei, "I find you very attractive, and I'd like you to come over and I'd cook for you, and then we'd go to bed, and if you wanted to fuck me, you could fuck me, or if you wanted me to fuck you, I'd fuck you, and I'd just want to be near you and talk with you." He later said he wanted to go home with someone, and then said that ordinarily he'd get drunk and go over to Sal's and within five minutes he'd find someone to go home with. But it wasn't working tonight. He sat and I didn't know whether to try to get rid of him or just let things take their course, but I was SURE that he wasn't going to stay HERE tonight. (Art had complimented me on my haircut, saying I'd NEVER looked so good before, saying I should always stay like that.) He said that Joe F. had one of the most beautiful bodies he'd ever seen, he said that he DID think I was looking very good recently, he praised Azak for looking very fit, but no one tumbled to his smooth talking, and he almost whimpered when he said he didn't want to go home alone. I sort of wondered how many other parties he may have been to that he subjected the host to this: he also said that 1977 had turned out being a good year: the long job in the summer, meeting nice people, but then he said that since he and Norma weren't together, things weren't quite the same, and it might be that he needs someone to think of as "his" so that he won't feel so alone. Don't think I'll tell Pope about this; it just seems too personal for Arnie.

DIARY 12821
3/17/78

EDWARD M.'S LECTURES

For the past two years he's given his months of March to raising money for the purchase of the Robert Browning-Elizabeth Barrett Browning "apartment" in Florence (which even EB mentions as being in the Casa Guidi). Last year he'd put the tour together himself and did rather poorly, this year someone else scheduled it for talks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and three towns in Texas with colleges. He mentioned that he'd made $2,000 for his personal appearances, kept $600 as his private fee, which gave $1,400 to the foundation, though what he hopes to do is find the ONE benefactor or foundation that would like what he wants to do and furnish the funds to complete the task. Next year, he said, he'd spend his March in Florence, and then in 1980 return to the lecture circuit in the States, which he said was quite arduous, having been away a month by this time, almost, and having done more than a lecture every two days, since some days he even gave two a day. He'd made a luncheon reservation with the Hopes at the Lotos Club this afternoon, but had to call to postpone it when his earlier trips to find a toy manufacturer who would ship his books to his shop in Borough Green took fruitless time, and the shops and porno stores he'd hoped to enter were all closed until noon or later. He'd taken time yesterday to see the Jack Wrangler 3-D film, and even wrote on his questionnaire that his fantasy was "to be fucked by Jack Wrangler while fucking him." If that doesn't quality as a fantasy I don't know what would! He knew about the Metropolitan Theater, though he'd only heard of friends who'd been there, and knew all about the Ramrod and the Eagle, but had never been to the Mineshaft, which friends had told him about. He liked to keep up in these things, and talked about a "semi-spouse" that he has, who lives a number of miles from him, but when they get together they have pleasant sex which both enjoy. He kept talking about how he's stared at because of his "gray hair and pouches under the eyes," and he took our refusal of him last night so sadly that it must be something that happens to him often, though his offer to stay with him in Borough Green was renewed time and again, and I DO hope we can see him there.

DIARY 12822
3/17/78

TALK WITH DON R.

He said he loved to say "Zolnerzak" because his mouth had to move three ways to get it out, and he liked the feeling of it. Then he mentioned that he was supposed to write an article about his Windjammer cruise for The islanders, and found from Arnold that they're mostly gay, and after seeing Edward off called him back and talked about his disastrous trip on the Tiki to Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Salt Island, and Peter Island, and a couple of uninhabited islands EXCEPT for the other ships that were sometimes anchored so thickly about that there wasn't a place for THEM to anchor! Particularly busy were the spectacular Baths at Virgin Gorda, and some yacht club, where he got off to take a shower because there was no water on board for two days, which also meant that the toilets stank. I guess it's Mike Burke that he described as trying to milk every penny out of the thing: putting on a batch of blue-haired ladies with a gay cruise when they didn't fill up the Polynesia last year, and they did everything but draw a line down the ship to keep the warring factions apart. So the windjammers seem definitely out. Then I mentioned "splentic surgery" and he asked and I said Actualism and he said he'd gone to a psychic on Central Park South, who said amazing things about his past and future, which "I want to figure out for myself." He loved his guest house on St. Thomas, wanted to get to St. John, and worked quietly during the week in his room in a three-person house just to the right of the ferry dock at Pigeon or Widgeon Walk, figuring the place got much too busy on weekends for his taste. He talked of flying to the West Coast when he was "searching," and meeting people he knew all over, and visiting his parents in Colorado where they have a home on a mountainside. My feelings about him grew and grew until it took the proportions of an entire separate page about them (see DIARY 12823). He's had to decide again to stay a freelancer about 12 times in the past 2 years, and talked to someone in his St. Thomas choir who knows Guy St. Clair of the St. Bartholomew's choir, and Don likes the money he gets from it, is great friends with the pastor, and likes to do his thing, but talks of LOTS of time being ALONE.

DIARY 12823
3/17/78

ANTICIPATING DON R.

Staring at the typewriter fantasizing about Monday, debating whether to tell Arnold and Dennis about the meeting, thinking that I should exercise to fit in with his constant references to working out at the gym and running on the beach, feeling a churning in the pit of my stomach, and debating whether I should just TELL him that I've gotten butterflies about this meeting---all these effects from the delight of getting a phone call from Don this noon and talking to him again this afternoon (see DIARY 12822). Just when I'd been thinking that I haven't had much to do with anyone BESIDE Dennis, here seems to be SOME chance (though I keep thinking that he's SO attractive he might REALLY want someone as a friend, rather than someone who just wanted to go to bed with him) of doing something with him, and I debate taking along a j/o questionnaire, hoping to get him into SOME activity, but then the even GREATER fantasy churns through that if he's a bodybuilder, and on the slight side to start with, he might have a slender (but potent and VERY hard) cock that it might be a kick to get fucked by, and HE might be turned on with the idea of being very gingerly and teaching to someone, AND he might even ENJOY the idea of someone mature, in the publishing field who can talk to him about his love of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, whom he puts just below Jane Austin in his pantheon of writing greats, and talking about travel, and even while I'm TYPING I can feel the excitement of thinking about seeing him, and it's after my splentic surgery, so we can talk about that, after getting the letters in to McGraw-Hill, so we can talk about that, and while I'm working on Spinal Injuries and Cyclic Nucleotides. Seldom have I built up any person at the start, THEN gotten some idea of meeting them, and SO looked forward to starting something with them, deciding that Dennis really DOESN'T have to know about it, nor do Azak and I have to have lunch for him to tell us about the Windjammer, and he's a writer, too, and I'm already wondering what to wear; know that I have to maybe take a shower so I'll be CLEAN for him, wondering how he lives, and faintly charmed by his saying that he DOESN'T know the Heights, so there's something I can introduce him to. In addition to a panting, anticipating, activated, salivating, horny-for-the-new ME.

DIARY 12867
4/3/78

SOMETHING'S WRONG

Want to talk to Dennis about something, but I have to end up saying that I'm looking forward to working, to doing things on my own, and it makes me frustrated to spend so much time at his place. Then I ramble into Mind Control, telling him about Joan Ann and her mind reading, hypnotizing, and thought projection experiences because of it; then go on to Bruce L. and his new interest in the Hollow Earth, and then say that I DO want to be connected with SOMETHING like this mind-expansion business, confessing that I wanted to start a "send $1 for the next installment" sequence for the JOYI/S and JOYI/V mailings, but that I was disappointed with the small return on that and pleased with the large return from the Advocate. Then go into my depression of yesterday, making out lists, and he insisted on knowing what lists. and I just couldn't tell him about the list of how many times we spent at each other's apartment, so I was content to tell him about the list of people that I'd had new encounters with, and he said that he wouldn't mind going to the Club Baths some Monday evening. But somehow I couldn't get up the courage to tell him that HE was getting sort of boring in sex, because I remember how hurt I was when JOHN said that I was boring in sex, since that's the way I'd always been, and it was obviously something in MYSELF that had changed my liking for the activity, rather than something in HIM that changed to my disliking. He sat and listened noncommittally, and how could I tell him that I'd rather expected that he'd be doing SOME kind of maturing through the past few years: not be SO hyperkinetically enthusiastic about jazz programs, not be so INCESSANTLY interested in the bizarre thought or keeping conversation going when I'd prefer it to be relaxed, and that he wouldn't CONTINUE to stare at me when his mind went off and let him sit there, a shell, and that he'd LEARN to answer questions when asked, give opinions when the opportunity presented itself, and not feel that he wanted to change ME. I kicked myself for feeling superior to him, and then doubly kicked myself for thinking how disappointed he would be if I said that I wanted to see him somewhat less frequently. But it didn't work.

DIARY 12881
4/11/78

DENNIS AND I TALK ABOUT US

I said I was feeling better because of the lesson, and said that this MIGHT be doing something with the relationship. I again admitted that I was to blame in finding his sexuality boring, because once I got INTO it, I knew that usually I'd be feeling good about it. But I said that I didn't like to feel forced into being excited about something, and that there were times when I really didn't feel like doing anything, and it seemed best not to force at those times. I said that I still admired his intelligence (and he remarked something on Sunday about his 135 IQ) and sense of humor, but that it was ME that I was annoyed with. I said that I was pleased with his being promiscuous, since it meant that he TRIED other people and then paid me the compliment of coming BACK to me, and that I wanted to get to meet more people, and he rather snidely remarked that I'd just HAD Theo and Don, and I said that I wanted to get to the baths, which I hadn't been to in a long time. I mention John Bryce to him, too, and he's eager to meet him. I say that I know there's still something very special between us, but that I'm also hoping that my lack of interest at this point doesn't affect the whole thing, and later in the week he said something that I didn't like the sound of "I'm willing to put just as much effort into the relationships as you are, but NOT ANY MORE." I felt that I would have to be doing the pulling for the both of us, but I didn't say anything about it. I said that I admired his honesty for saying he READ my diary yesterday morning, rather than reading it and just fuming silently about it, and said it was good we could talk about it. I said that I wasn't really as awful to be with as I had been before, and that my KNOWLEDGE of jazz, now, gave me the PLATFORM from which to be choosy about what I saw now: I AM changing in the relationship in a number of directions, and I just can't be expected to be the same, EVEN to NOW wanting to see the new Mamet play, which he'd barely told me about, since I hated "American Buffalo" so much, and changing my mind and wanting to see the Agnes deMille "Conversations in Dance." I told him that he could NEVER predict me, and that he should give me a CHANCE to say no to what he offered---but that didn't mean that I'd say "No" any the LESS!

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