Monday, March 9, 1981

 

out to be quite nasty. The left-right sensation reminds me of an SD course on FH. It was in the guest group. Toni was leading. It started as a trance of some sort I think. But slowly for me it became the sensation of my body increasing in size. It was as though I was growing from a single cell to birth size. In the fantasy that was with the sensation I had a diaper on and eventually filled a whole house with my legs and arms sticking out the windows and doors. Then everything burst, and I continued to grow. Don't remember how it ended. Its like when a feeling of suddenly being pressed down goes away. It seemed as though it would go on forever. Constantly growing and filling the universe. Michael has a new definition of monogamy. I'm monogamous with Connie every Saturday night. Simone wants to see him but he keeps waffling. Saturday is his monogamy night. I don't want to talk, she says, I want to fuck. Talk is cheap. How about next Tuesday morning between 11 and 12 noon, he suggests. Well, she says, that's my birthday. If you want to fuck all day, or take me to Plum Island, then ok, she says, other wise forget it! He thinks he's getting a fever, ill, thinking about being with Ginny and Connie and Simone. He wants to suck her breasts and if not that tonight, then not till next Tuesday. Michael is afraid to ask all his roommates about taking Senoi. The fifth is very annoyed with extra cat hair. He hasn't asked this one about taking the cat yet. Stu has told Simone he hates her. He won't see her if she moves in, but said maybe he would modify that position. He thinks she should try her new assertiveness on me. Don't fuck up your dates with me, he says. Do it with Richard. He's not going to call her here. You will always have to call me, he says. Somehow Simone gets started on a story about nuns. It seems her grandmother always told her that bad Catholic kids had to walk under the dresses of nuns. The grandmother would threaten Simone with sending her to a Catholic school and making her walk under the nuns dresses. She believed this till she was in junior high school. The sexual implications of this completely escaped her till then.

 

Tuesday, March 10, 1981

 

Reading an article about why normal cells become cancer cells. Makes me think back to an old common fantasy of mine. Immortality. Often I would have anxieties about dying. From this would come the fantasy of an immortality drug being invented. In the fantasy I am about 50+ years old when its done. It is questionable that it will work for me but I try it anyway. I don't want to die. Sometimes another fantasy about certain physical things about myself that I pretend are indicators that I will live forever. Once I broke a bone in my right hand. The finger next to the little finger. The joint part was broken. The one next to the joint connecting that finger to the hand. The doctor took an xray. He said I had the bones of a 12 or 13 year old person, but in fact I was about 24 or 25 at the time. My mother gave birth to me at a very early age. She had even then what was called an immature uterus. From this I conjecture that my body has some special quality that will enable me to live longer. But behind all this seems to be something else. Don't know exactly what. Maybe just a normal fear of dying. Maybe just a reaction to not really feeling alive. Maybe a reaction to not really living my life as best I could. There are many things like this that cause me to imagine myself special in some way. They always seem to follow feelings of insecurity and inferiority. Like the body reacting to disease. The mind tries to react to damaging information or ideas. This is not quite what I mean. But a constant searching for explanations about things, but outside myself, or for things to make me feel better even when I don't. Simone had an interesting revelation last night. I can't blame you for it, she says. She can't blame me for her inability to let go sexually and have an orgasm with me. She has never talked like this before. It was the first time she has spoken so directly about the problem being inside herself. Resistance, she called it. She described it as a thing that was so obviously inside and a part of herself. It happened as she was about to have an orgasm. She turned away from me and said it was time to go to sleep. At first it seemed like a little game, but even then there was something different about it. She was very tired last night. She hoped I wouldn't try to seduce her. She said nothing. Went along with everything. I wanted to fuck. She gave some silly reasons for no. She had a tampax in her. I'll tell it to move over, to make a game of it. A very good orgasm for me. She is able to enjoy it a little more after awhile. She spoke about it more this morning. Feelings about being rejected by me. I tell her it will happen if she spends all her time talking about and trying to get me to reject her. Who wants to live with that all the time. Why be with someone who lives in constant fear of rejection. Then she wonders about overcoming all the social conditioning that has made her that way. Is it worth it? Better she should be with someone else if she doesn't want to try. That's not for me. Its like a fight inside, she says. Exactly the same for me. Almost a constant fight. She wants it to be over quick. I make jokes about the two-weekend cure. But it will be a hard and long fight. Lots of energy was used to make her the way she is. It will take a lot to undo everything. An interesting little story when Roberta visited. Something to do with long hair and fat. It seems she has always worn her hair long and tried to stay thin. It had to do with being beautiful. She never thought she would cut her long hair. But with me she has felt loved and that it didn't really matter. The same with her weight. Roberta overhears this and says she has always thought the same. As for me, I always am conscious of my stomach sticking out and what people will think of me for that. So a lot of energy goes into keeping the stomach flat and controlling my breathing. This will give the impression of my being in better physical condition than is really the case. And so, I imagine, a better image with the women. I have just had this idea about my notes. Why not get a group of other people interested in the same thing. Compile writing from many people into a magazine like format and market that. Readers could vote on who they want to have write more, or in the next issue. And of course, I imagine, immediately, that my writing will be the best and most often voted for. These little conversations in my head are interesting. Now I'm having one in my head about having little conversations in my head. I remember reading something once about the borders and limits of consciousness, and what could be thought about. Is there such a thing? I make a mental image in my mind of some arbitrarily shaped place or thing, and then immediately break through the boundary at any place. Its the same with thought. I can think of something not thought of before and then go beyond that thought. It is easy to carry any thought some distance more. Yesterday I had a feeling of being light in a way such that if I had pushed a little harder it would have been possible to float away. Today I had this idea about videotaping some of the group interactions that occur here. More specifically, the way we talk about try to do something about difficulties between us. Images of me trying to say something in front of the camera.

 

Monday, March 16, 1981

 

I am not sure of what is going on. Earlier today everything seemed very uninteresting, dull, gray, unhappy, anxiety inducing. I could not move. It has been a very hard few days for trying to write. I feel attacked, like running away. From everything, but it is impossible. I don't want to be here. Simone can move out if she wants. But that is gone now. She thought of it herself in the last two days. She says she started to pack some of her boxes, after unpacking them. It is strange to be so overwhelmed with feeling that I can't write even in a straightforward way about what happened. Some things seem to be very clear. But at crucial points it seems as though I moved very far away from the situation and had to make something of voices in the distance. But it was my attention that way far away. Some primitive thing inside me was taking over and barking back at the attacker. It happened this way, as best I recollect. Simone and I were in bed. It was Friday night of last week, only three days ago. A few days before I had said something about how I was missing some of my women friends. It was working. The last few days had been very busy. Simone got very nervous about this. Saying something about how things seemed to be going very good with us and now this. As though there was something wrong about me wanting to see these other women. She had, as was usual for her, been seeing Michael, Jeff, Stu, and recently, Ron. My best judgement of this is that it was not the same for me. Most of the time it is quite ok for her to do this. Sometimes she tells me only on the day she will be with someone, and then feels guilty for it. But it seldom bothers me. I can use the opportunity to work. Why is it, I ask myself over and over again, that these feelings on my part are, for her, nothing more than a weird philosophy, FH dogma, crazy ideas. How is it that of all the times we have spoken of such things, that she can't see my behavior as being motivated from feeling? Is it because . Who knows. Who cares. I feel overwhelmed by resentment. There is no reason for this to happen. I resent all the men fawning over her. I resent all the women I like being so offended when I'm sexually straightforward with them. I resent everything. I just going to withdraw and fuck them! They won't get a chance to know what I am like, how I am as a person. Too bad for them. Who needs anybody anyway. It doesn't bother me. Lotti has been sitting here reading my notes. She likes it very much, thinks it to be a good foundation, but its like a sketch that needs to be painted in. I resent having to be so dishonest about getting fucked. Not a single man I know has called her a sexist pig for saying what she wants. It feels like more resentment from me. Its just overwhelming me. A constant gritting of my teeth. Why do I have to present a totally distorted picture of myself to be accepted? Yesterday Simone says to Dana that I am a ‘basically monogamous person'. What the fuck is that? Its a person who follows their religious orders and ignores their feelings when it comes to their sexual behavior. I know it. It happened to me for years. All that time in church or trying to be faithful. It was the same. Giving one impression, but foaming at the groin inside. Always denying myself, denying my feelings and needs. Its what made me such a moralistic, arrogant, self-righteous asshole. If I couldn't have what they had then I could have what it seemed they wanted to have. Anything to be superior than they were. Who were they? I don't know. But somehow this buzzing energy that comes from these internal impulses to get what you need got distorted into running marathons, being a social hero and draft resister, a person who seemed to be doing a lot of things for others, and other strange things. Somehow a little of this feeling is gone out of me. It feels a bit like crying. A lump in my throat. Wet eyes. Why do I have to fight back against things so much? These last two days with Simone, and withdrawing. Certainly I can say its not as bad as it has been. There was a time in highschool where I didn't talk to my sister for what seems like a year or more. Not till after she wrote me about being pregnant and about to be married. With Adele it was also very bad. It was this feeling of resentment about not being understood. It came over me like a dark cloud. I became insensitive to her pleading and not wanting me to be this way. Only once do I remember overcoming this with Adele. I broke down and cried about it. I had to say I didn't want this to go on. That I wanted things to work out between us. I wanted to try to make things better. Only once. The other times were like resisting a spanking from my mother. Nothing was going to move me. Now I am able to use this to some extent. It worked the other day with Simone. Carol, Lotti, and I were sitting at the dinner table. Simone was on the phone. Carol and I wanted her to get off so we could go to the movies. Watch this, I tell them. With just the right cadence, tone of voice, positioning in the room, I walk by her and say, I'm going to work. At just that moment she raises her voice and says she gas to get off the phone now. The other two, in the kitchen, burst into laughter. So I carry it a little more and put my coat on, and walk to the door. By this time she is off and running to me. So we leave a little later for the movies. These last two days, though, it has gotten a bit rough for me. Last night she spoke to Carol about the place she is thinking of moving into. One thing I remember very well. It seems they have this house rule about no close relationships between the people living there. It isn't good for the atmosphere and one's relationship with the others, or so it seems they believe. Carol was quite perturbed about this. Why an arbitrary rule about having a relationship with someone you live with, she asks. Simone also thinks it is pretty stupid. How can you have better relationships by restricting relationships? I ask her about this the next day and she agrees with what I heard. But I notice its as though I am trying to make some point. This is hardly the thing to attempt with someone in a situation where they are not rational. But I do have this thing about wasting my time trying. Always trying to get someone to see some obscure principle or point. Dana keeps asking her about how she can possibly be confused about my sexual inclinations. She continues to imagine that ‘Richard is a basically monogamous person'. Sigh. This fight is not over. Its like the cats. It will rear its ugly head again soon in some other form. I will be put in a position where I feel attacked and have to defend myself. Or its possible to overcome this. One thing I have thought of trying is to just go ahead. It is mostly talk on my part. And certainly I fall into this abstract, intellectual way of talking about this, and many other subjects. Talking with Lotti about fathers. It seems her father left when she was 3 years old. I am talking about some quality in me that seems to attract Jewish women. It seems to me that a typical Jewish father is rather liberal with his daughters. He allows them a lot of freedom. Everything they do is ok. The mother is just the opposite. The father supports the positive side of them trying to get everything they can. And I wonder if its not some quality like this that they see in me. Maybe its wishful thinking. But on the other hand both Adele and Simone have said things of this sort to me. That they like freedom from their relationship with me. Simone is on the phone with Jonathan trying to explain her relationship with Joe. She doesn't have sex with him. I have sex with just one person, she says. Dana comes in to tell me he has almost choked on his drink when hearing this. Of course, what she really means is only one person at a time! Dana is so excited about it that he must tell Lotti as soon as she comes in from having her cigarette. This resentful feeling of earlier this evening has almost faded. Long time talking with Lotti. I say a lot of things about it. Some of it seems insightful to her and me. But it is all suspect. I like her too. Some of it is part of an unconscious desire for her. Not so unconscious. She would have a difficult time with me. It seems I can't get away from this projection problem. I say she will have a hard time with me. More like I use this as a rationalization to explain why she doesn't have more to do with me. I can't stand being rejected so it is necessary to have some explanation that makes it her problem. Dana tells me about the guy he worked for today. He walked around all day in his bathrobe while Dana painted things in his house. From time to time the bathrobe would open up and there would be the guy's prick. It seems the thing almost ended up in his rear. And Dana could not tell the guy to fuck off directly. I can see him waffling in his attempts to tell this man he wasn't sexually interested. Old Joe was not one to give up. I suspect he will be back and trying to get something going with Dana.

 

Wednesday, March 18, 1981

 

I was going to write about how it seems a cold is coming on. There is this dirty feeling at the back, inside, and under my nose. The passages at first seem clearer than normal. I can feel the air moving through them. But soon they start to feel very dry. Then they go the opposite direction – a flood. And the cold is on! A lot of stress this last week. Last night was Simone's birthday. Before that two days of fighting. Before that was the Suzanne incident. I learned something about myself from it. It started with a comment about her behavior. How she often seems to indirectly get the attention of people around her. Or I mean tries to get this attention. With me its just putting a sample of my writing under their nose and asking them to read and comment. But she went around apologizing about if it was ok to sing. All the while it seemed to me she wanted to have people stop what was going on and listen to her. So my opinion, casually given to Dana in another conversation, got back to her. One week ago this evening she is here and calls me in the office. She seems a bit irritated and says she has something to speak with me about. There is something in her voice that immediately puts me on the defensive so I try to get her to talk right then. She wants to wait till another time when I'm there. So for nearly an hour she tries to rake me over the coals for having this opinion of her. And furthermore having no respect for her privacy. Privacy to me means that someone will not disturb me if I'm reading. It hasn't anything to do with being in the bathroom, without clothes, or even fucking. Simone and I usually leave the door open. There was more but it puts me in this position of being attacked. My whole body is starting to shake with it. Its not so hard to talk back, but the tone in her voice is very aggressive. Its like a parent telling a kid to do something through gritted teeth. Simone and Lotti notice how distraught I am. Everything inside me is becoming tense. My face feels hot and flushed. Its like the tension of the final moments before some big competition, like a race. It finally gets ended after it seems she has run out of steam and energy. I thought to myself, how much longer do I have to fight this off? The next day finds me stewing and plotting the coming return match. I fully expect her to start a fight again. The next night presents a total surprise. She is aware of being a little crazy lately, and says not to pay much attention to her behavior. There was more, but for me, half an hour later, it was very depressing. I found myself completely tensed for a fight. And nothing happened. How to say this. I was disappointed. I looked forward to the fight part. It was further depressing to realize that I wished her ill. My expectation was to be able to fight back and squash her completely. I wanted to see her done in. It was not a pleasant thing to realize this about myself. I always want to see myself as a good person who is forever being attacked by the crazies in one's life. Life is a constant struggle against such people. They are always out to get me or do me in some way. The example I always fume about is standing in line at a post office while the clerks slowly go about their business with a practiced crawl and stall. It reminds me of my stepfather. At the end of each day he would come home and tell us the latest stories. They would always involve him and his work and how he spent the entire day overcoming the stupid mistakes of his bosses and sometimes his fellow workers. It was like a family institution. Sometimes I have the feeling that this same quality is buried somewhere inside me. He was always able to hold the attention of his friends with these and hunting stories. Another part of this was that he tried to keep all the attention all the time. It seems he had this uncanny ability to move the story in such a way that everyone else could only make little contributions. He seemed to know when someone else was trying to put their two cents in. I remember lots of stories from him, but not much from the people around us. He always liked to make the most of his expert marksmanship. Often he would use only one bullet on a hunting trip. Seldom did he go out and not get something. Often he would shoot something for one or two of the others on that particular hunting trip. The exact way in which he stalked and shot the animal would be the highlight of every story. Often to be told over and over again with emphasis on different parts, or combined with other stories of the same type. There would be one shot hunting trips, neck shot hunting trips, elk hunting trips, carry it out on your back hunting trips, and so on and so on over and over again. Bantam Books, from New York, called me today. I sent the notes to someone there. They liked them. Very interesting, she said. She will pass it on to two people who are regular editors. Normally one would feel quite good that a publisher calls you about your writing. In the beginning it made me very excited. But as the day wore on it seemed as though something was undermining this feeling. A sense of dread. Failure. Depression. These keys are very heavy. I have made a good jump to get over a wall, but didn't quite make it. Donna read some of it last night before the party and was very positive. She asked me, do all men think like this? I don't know that they think exactly like this, but probably similar. She didn't know of any men who had written like this, an inner journey, or something like that, she called it. Simone wants me to stop writing and go to sleep. I am disappointed with myself. This fear of not being able to write well has gotten hold of me. It seems like this is what happens at this very moment. I think about some of the things written in the last two months and fear this won't measure up. What if I make it the best I can and then fail? Failure won't be so bad if its not the best I can do. David found it hard to put down but says there seems to be no center. To him this means no goal or objective. What is my goal in doing this? To use it as a way of seeing myself and surroundings better. To make discoveries about myself and people. Are those the same things? To express myself in what seems to be a good way for me. At this moment I find myself thinking about writing enough to fill this page. What silly ideas pop into people's heads. I have been thinking about this woman who attracts me. Her name is Nina. She is subletting Linda's apartment. I want her but feel very anxious about an approach. She seems the skittish type. Who knows. My excuse for not trying more? She gets a copy of my notes. I've invited her to the Saturday's party. Only a couple lines more on this page. What a funny obligation not to waste paper is what I feel a nonsense sentence.

 

Thursday, March 19, 1981

 

I have been trying to think about my confused thinking. Some things I notice are that even though its confusing lots of practical things get done. The confusion doesn't seem to interfere with getting up, laundry, work, and similar things. What started me on this was David's criticism of not being what he called centered. Or, as best as I can figure, having some sort of goal or objective in life. Or having the ability to get what you want. There was a time when I wanted to be a scientist. My plan was to go to MIT, study physics, gets a PhD, and from this be able to determine all things. So much for that. I got there only to discover that things needing to be talked about or have something done about, weren't getting done. My impression of such places was that everything would get considered. It turned out that an even smaller number of things were thought/talked about. Maybe they thought about a lot more. This was never very clear to me. Here I go trying to improve my writing while writing. I often keep track of how many times I use the pronoun I. I try to write, or I find myself censoring the number of times I use it in sentences. I find that this interferes with how well I can write. Not in the sense of, backspace, delete, start over, backspace, delete again. Does it matter? Anyway. While growing up I always had the feeling that something was not being talked about. Not many things. But just something. Maybe there were many things. But when you are standing in a supermarket line its the person being cashiered who seems to be slowing things down. That is, only one person. Even though there may be many people in the line. Maybe there were many things to talk about. But I would have settled, at least initially, for talking about one of the untalked about things. It continued. As an adult there were many things on my mind. Today there are many things on my mind. At this moment. How to get them all out? So I am confused about a goal, maybe a purpose in life. Is it possible for human beings to know? They have thought the purpose to be many things in the past. I just don't feel it. Once I thought it was to be good and get to heaven. I really believed that. I tried very hard to do it. It was easy to give the impression of being good. But inside I knew all the things that went on before, my ideas and thoughts, were still the same. I still cursed under my breath, thought evil of others, had sexual fantasies, and so on. This outside peace never settled inside me. In fact, a lot of energy went into giving this peaceful appearance. I remember myself as being quite adept at this. Some number of people from my childhood thought so also. But the truth was otherwise. So I am very suspicious of those who tell me they have a goal and purpose in life. Often a little investigation shows it to be no more than the disguised goals of their parents or social group. And this is my impression of David. He does a lot of things. Its well organized. There seems to be some sort of purpose or guiding idea at work. But the feeling I get from the person does not correspond. It is easy to poke and find resistance. I don't mean in a provocative way. I mean while trying to find out what he means I notice he resists the challenge to his ideas. The usual defense to such things is that, well, that's how you feel. So it becomes impossible to challenge the idea because he accepts it without challenge. I have done, and do the same. My old religious ideas presented me a similar problem once. It was with a highschool friend. He went to a different church. I don't remember exactly what brought it up. But one day I must have asked him something like why don't you come to my church sometime and see how its the right one. But he was able to immediately challenge me in a way that made me feel very threatened and insecure. This burning sensation that I can remember still, even though I forget exactly what we talked about. He would have none of it. I didn't understand. But he probably challenged me in the same way. Why don't you come to my church for the same reason, he might have replied. He was a much brighter student than me. Did much better on everything. As a freshman in highschool he won the local county math contest. He beat out all the seniors. Took first place I always envied him. It never came up again. We never talked about it. It was a separate part of our lives. Had we talked about it the probelems would have destroyed our relationship. We couldn't talk about it. It would have changed everything about us. We would have been constantly coming up against our resistance to different ideas, resistance in the form powerful feelings that would come up. This happens to Simone and I when we talk about sex. Usually it starts with her feelings threatened when I say something about it. A sort of rage overwhelms her. My defense to this is the same sort of rage. That something I've said is being challenged. This is a difficult thing. To try to understand something that automatically takes me over. I'm trying to see through it. It gets very confusing. The fingers are stuck. No words for it. She can talk about it in a much more natural way. Last night she talked about how she wanted to develop her new relationship, Steve. I don't want to bring him her the first time, she says. She had planned to meet him there. Maybe we will just go out for a drink. I want to have a free night where there is no pressure. Where I can stay with him or not, depending on how it feels, she says. It doesn't happen this way for me. It does not come out so naturally in my conversation. It is not something I've done much of. She has fucked with a lot more people, and approached a lot more. Its easier for a woman. There I go with a defense. So what if they turn me down. My friend Ron gets accepted by about half the women he asks. Of course he is usually careful about his selection. He is much better at presenting the right sort of image. The one that promises the zipless fuck. Who said that? But I seem to be excusing myself again. I'm no less horny than either of them, or any other person. Doing something about it gets excused to death. Later in the day. Something has been on my mind most of the afternoon. It started when Simone asked me for some gas and parking money. She must see the dentist. I notice a bit of irritation. She has been going to work for me these last few days, but no time, she says. Then this fantasy about supporting my own royal family. Her. It occurs to me that this irritation has another source. She gets a call from Steve the photographer who wants to speak with her. I'd thought she'd be working some this afternoon. Its irritates me still more that she might have been with him. But then this idea did come to me as a paranoid fantasy. Its happened before. Once on FH Reggie left the room with another man. I was sure they went to fuck. But that was not possible. She was a guest and he was a regular member of the group. But it made no difference. The biggest real problem here is that these paranoid fantasies keep cropping up inside me. Even if it were true – so what! But then the internal preoccupation with this is what's really important for me. It takes over my whole body. Walking along the street, my body, but the mind is in another world. The body is just left to run on a simple program. Go to the store. Go to the post office. Go to… Do this. The tensions and experiences from this other world seep and flow down into the body. Soon it is caught up in the fantasy. And then I wake up. Sometimes realizing that I've forgotten something I meant to do. Sometimes I've gone past the place I was going to. I have been thinking about three kinds of writing. The first is just a straightforward recollection of what happened. Only one thing really happened. Atoms and molecules were in only one place at any given time. From different positions or consciousnesses things may seem to be different. But only one thing actually happened. Writing about it as exactly as one can is the first kind of this writing. The second kind of writing is the expression of thoughts and feelings. In this mode time, place, and matter can be distorted in all sorts of ways. In this mode things can go backwards. In this way things can happen that would never really happen in reality. And a third kind of writing is some combination of these two, but with the whole picture in mind from the beginning of the writing to the end. It seems to me that I can do the first two and only seldom, the last type. This little bit of writing about writing is of this sort. I thought about the whole thing before writing it down. I had the idea to demonstrate something before I started. But on the other hand I don't know that this has happened. I got into this fight with Simone today. Not in reality, but in my head. It had to do with Beth and Nina, two women I am interested in. Beth is Simone's friend. The fantasy is about starting something with Beth and then having to handle Simone's difficulty with this. But at this moment it is only my imagined difficulty. I get paranoid that she would call Beth and indirectly tell her not to have anything to do with me. Or that she would be direct, no. Not direct. I do not imagine her as being direct. It is impossible, difficult for me to imagine her as being direct in this situation. Then that I will have to point out her hypocritical behavior. She will resist, and our old fight will start again. A funny thing. The paranoia goes away a bit after writing it down. As though it has literally flowed out of my fingers and into the typewriter. Perhaps it waits to be picked up by the next typist! I have the impression of being able to do this, and then the idea that if I can manage to say even more exactly what I mean, then even more of this feeling will get out of me. I have noticed this many times while writing. Maybe I could even build a type of therapy around it. What for a course title? Can't think of anything. Stuck. Staring at the keyboard. Reading parts of this over. A fantasy about teaching a writing course. I walk into the classroom. A terminal connected to a large screen tv is in the room. I sit at the keyboard. Type the day, date, page number as is my usual custom. Then begin to write about teaching my first writing class. This is my first writing class. I don't know exactly how to begin. But I had the idea of sitting down here and having you see everything written as it comes out of me. I would imagine you took this course because you enjoy my writing and believe you can get something for yourself if you write like this. Its true, you can. But the question is, how does he do it? Have you asked yourself that? Try it. How does he do it? Good. Next, I don't know. I have just got stuck. Let me think for a moment. Yes, the people in this class. Some of you will get written about. There are some attractive women in this class. From time to time you will read something here about my thoughts about them. Perhaps something will happen between me and one of them and it will also appear here. But one thing that will definitely appear here is things that I notice about the people in this class. For example, the very laid-back guy in the 1960's hippie outfit over there. You will get some of my attention. And the gorgeous woman sitting at the back of the class with the absolutely beautiful face and body. You will get more of my attention than will be written about here. Some other things to write about. At just this moment Dana has interrupted my writing class. Normally in this class such things will not happen. But on the other hand, one of the things that could happen is little staged events, designed to evoke some feelings or ideas in you people. But its only an idea. It might not happen. But then again it might. You never know. This class will be for several things. One is to be able to write a lot. It doesn't matter about the quality. Most of you will never be as good as me. But it is a start to get you thinking and writing about all sorts of things. The other is to challenge yourself. This will help you to develop your writing and your life. And this is the most important thing. Gradually you will be able to write more and more about yourself. It will get more and more exact. You will know more and more about yourself. For a moment I thought there was an evolving theme here, but its evaporated. Anyway, this class is for writing. And now you must begin. Its getting close to the time for me to stop. One of those real world realities will soon be here. Lotti is going to do some typing for Dana. We can't both use the typewriter at the same time. I will go back to the office and work. All you imaginary people will have to fend for yourselves. And that is the end of the first, and today's class. Goodbye. Yesterday I was afraid of not being able to write anything decent again. But the anxiety has gone away somewhat. This is not such a bad few pages. It seemed stiff and disconnected and influenced by the call from Bantam. But that seems to be going away. I will have to ask some others what they think. Everyone tells me it flows well. Often It feels like walking over the edge of a piece of jagged glass. Other times it is like molasses. At this moment it even flows for me. This whole page in only a few minutes. I got very excited about this whole writing class idea. I could hardly keep up with the ideas. Now if only I could write so quickly about the swamps I get stuck in!

 

Tuesday, March 24, 1981

 

I couldn't tell him he was eating the wrong place. His prick was in my mouth and it wouldn't come out. It was the position of his body. I tried to move him but then it became a game. He started to jostle me. Then I bit his prick. That did it. So I was able to tell him. But he did want to know why I bit him. So goes Simone's latest adventure and overnight stay with Stu. He was very antsy it seems. Simone demonstrates how he was grabbing, touching, pushing her. It was very aggressive if her impersonation was accurate. At first I was a little jealous. But as a picture of it began to form in my mind it made me horny. It was quite another story when I told her about what Linda and I were going to do. Linda wants to fuck me again. She had to get an early train to NYC. We would meet at South Station, get on the train, and do it in the washroom. I would get off at Route 128 and take the next train back to Boston. But she got to the station to late. Simone stayed up till about three that morning. It occurred to me later that it was intentional on her part. So I would be too tired to get up for meeting Linda. This writing of the last few days is not going so well. In my head the story is perfectly clear. I have been nervous the last few days about doing something with the writing. A feeling of some new insight. About myself or Simone, I don't know for sure. But first I noticed sort of new development in her fight against my having other relationships. Now she is seeing it as sort of a competition about who can have the most lovers. Well, it is really no contest. She is much better able to do this. You win. Sunday night was very hard. Suzanne was on her way out the door. It was about midnight. She was going alone. I wouldn't let her. Dana didn't want to do it so I walked her home. But before leaving Simone says, anything to get another woman. And just before this, I'm going to win in the end. It was the tone of voice that Dana and I noticed. We talked about it today. He thought it meant a lot more than she said. How did he say it, I wonder what's behind that? I don't even remember what set it off. Yes, I do. I had gone to the office. She was in my room with Joe. They were making out. I came in to get my coat. Joe turns away and can't face me. Simone sits up, grabs her toes and feets, smiles broadly and beings to rock back and forth. I accuse him of doing immoral things with my wife. Also point out the guilty look on Simone's face. Later she told me how nice it was with him. She could easily ignore his fat body, bald face, and joking manner. They all disappeared when he became very sensual. Joe tells her how I'm not good enough for her, that he notices how happy I am being with her, and why don't you come stay with me on Thursday. Just now Simone comes home, and I have got off the subject. Which was about the three phases I have noticed in her difficulty with me having other relationships. It is currently that we have a competition to see who can get the most lovers. But I said that already. At least she is beginning to see it a little more realistically. It is competition, but not with me. Its probably a deeper form of competition that she is aware of. Namely, to get as much for herself as she can. And this is exactly what she accuses, and I do mean accuses, me of. But that's not now I have forgotten what to say next! So it seems like competition. She and Dana have just left for their dream group. The other Dana, who visited with us, and then her, has also just left. She has not seen him in some time. She thinks him very handsome, but he has a lot of belief systems, she says. He plays the piano very well. We were at the office. He played. I left. Then he tells Simone all the gossip. That he is getting a vasectomy next week. He has always wanted to sleep with her, he says. But was afraid to. He was a born again Christian for eight years. That stopped him. Now, or rather in two or three weeks, he wants to sleep with her, but no sex. He doesn't want to get involved too deeply. She tells me and the other Dana about the song he wrote for her. Its very romantic in parts, and then comes the refrain, I fuck the shit out of you, but only in my filthy dreams. She likes that part very much. They make a date for about three weeks from now. He doesn't seem bothered that its right here in my room, with me here. But later he will probably tell her more about what he was feeling. I give him a copy of my book and notes. This sets me to thinking about why its so hard for me to attract women. She and Dana do much better at this than me. But on the other hand, Dana spent some hours last night telling me how he doesn't like the way things are going. Maybe its not good to be so blunt and staraightforward, unless its with a woman like Simone. With her it goes just fine. She likes me even more for it. Donna commented on my notes after reading everything up to March 10. This time it came out qutie a bit different. She says I never talk about love, and that everyone seems like an object. My reaction is to say its true, but I hadn't thought about it. Its something like breathing for me, I tell her. It is something that everyone needs, and everything people do is to get love. She thinks that people have relationships, or do things for other reasons. Nope! I think not. Love is a thing inside us just like breathing. Maybe you want to run a race, but the breathing part is not something you have to think about. Maybe you want to run a race, by why you do it is not something you have to think about. We talked about it some more, but love seems to be the sick feeling you get about someone from time to time. The feeling makes you constantly long for and think about them. You constantly worry about their being with someone else, or what they might be doing. Simone told me she loved me at breakfast Monday morning. I told her I knew this. How, she asks. Because of the way you cut the banana into little pieces and arranged them all around the edge of my bowl of cereal, I tell her. I put extra bran in it, she says. That's still another reason why I know you love me. You don't have to say you love someone, or have them tell you. You don't have to tell your lungs to breath, and you lungs don't have to tell you they will breath. Its an easy thing to feel. I know she loves me when she does so much for me. It is only necessary for me to ask her for something. When she resists it is clear how much or little she loves me at that moment. On the other hand, I could make a false test of her love, and ask her to do something when it is not possible for her to do it. Then it is only the problem of my feeling insecure about her loving me. Donna seems to have the idea that love is something you talk about, think about, write poems about, but avoid relationships where it will be tested for real. Its when you want to be with people and do things for and with them. All this nonsense written and said about love but with no real contact between people. What am I trying to prove here? I seem to be a bit perturbed about her problems with love. What else about life. Its when the things in daily life get taken care of with ease. When one doesn't feel put upon, resistant, or obliged to do something. When its an easy thing to fit in. For me its when I help Simone to do things that will help her develop herself and her relationships and abilities. And she in turn wants to do lots of things for me. It would never work one way. But on the other hand it is not really that I am expecting anything of her, but rather that she is stimulated in a very natural and positive way. I keep falling back to my own inadequacy in attracting people the way Simone does. It is not possible to put all the blame to her being a woman. Dana has no such problem. He does have the problem of developing deep relationships. But that has nothing to do with his being able to start so many. It still comes down to something about me. I imagine myself in the middle, for an SD, to try and find the way into myself for an answer. Pacing around. Covering my face with my hands. Not being able to look at anyone. Ashamed to reveal myself. I try to get off the track by thinking about times I've attracted more women than other men. Back to the subject. Simone tells me I am starting to look like a derelict again. Sometimes when looking in a mirror, or window, I try to arrange the angle of my face so that certain parts, like the eyes, will be dark, and maybe evil? A handsome face, but very stern and cold do you think? An odd thought about the end of that line. What word to place last do the end of the line isn't so blank. So after cold goes the word do, rather than going to the next line. How the fuck am I ever going to develop anything of any importance about the world when I get caught up in such small things? Such trivial, stupid, who knows what, such things. I speak to Jeannette on the phone last night. We talk about what's going on here, what she's doing. How about dinner Wednesday night, she asks. We could go to your place, out, or come here? Why not there, since I haven't seen your new place I say. I want to cook her some chicken with Tamari sauce, the way she did some times before. It never came out right for me. Maybe it was the Tefflon pan she used. I really want to see her, desire her, and so find myself carefully presenting myself and trying to be open to her in a way I have found her responsive to. She slept with me some number of times after I had done this. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but it works. She did ask me to stay. This was last summer. She has not had much to do with me for some time. Maybe things are over with her and Vinnie. I am overwhelmed by sexual fantasies of her after we hang up. Later I masturbate myself to sleep and again in the morning, with fantasies about her. Fucking her from behind, biting her on the back and legs, grabbing her all over with my hands and squeezing. Playing a rough gorilla with her. Watching my prick go in and out of her cunt. Its making me horny again. Its not a definite date. The next day I notice anxiety about telling Simone about it. Anticipating an explosion, and then pressure not to do it. Maybe she will cancel her date with Michael, I imagine, just to prevent me from seeing Jeannette. But this is only me making my own trap. Such a thing shouldn't stop me even if it happens. Lotti has just called from the office about doing some work. It is so much fun to do things with her. She is very proper and prudish. It is easy to make jokes and funny things with her. I enjoy it a lot with her. Just now I am reminded of something Simone said. It was about fucking with Judy or Lotti, anyone but Linda. But she knows they can't really do anything with me, so it's a safe thing for her to say. I suspect if anything happened that they would become the same as Linda. But maybe this is just a sort of vengeful thing for me to be saying. Why do I have to get stuck with this so often? Always these little resentments about not having things work out in my favor, or they come up when she gets what she wants. Maybe starting out this days writing with the story about Simone was another example of the same thing. Was it too provocative? Was it a cutting thing for me to write about? On the other hand it did cause me a lot of thought. This sort of thing evokes this constant questioning of why Simone has so much difficulty with my developing relationships. But then just now I think maybe it is a defense of my own. That is, I use it as a way to say that I would have more, if only she wasn't putting so many roadblocks in my way. She is able to fill the air with intense feeling. Her I'll win in the end remark stopped both me and Dana in our tracks. She was out of sight in another room when she said it. But I see myself continuing to make Simone somewhat of a scapegoat. Anything to avoid looking at my own deficiencies. The second way that Simone explained my wanting other relationships was that it was an ideological thing from FH. I only did it because that's the way things were done. My natural inclination was to be monogamous. And then I realize that many of our discussions on the subject would be interrupted by people calling to make sleeping dates, or otherwise, with her. Is this another example of hyperbolic text in the pursuit of resentment material? Grit my teeth and suck in my breath about doing this so often. Why am I persisting in making this woman such a problem for me? Constantly feeling like I have to fight off something. Is this what Michael couldn't stand? Is this what made a thousand affairs so short? Maybe there is something that tries to push down what comes out in her. Lately its been possible to defend against these attacks by turning what she says around and using her own behavior as an example of what she means. Perhaps its this that's caused her to develop this new defense, competition, as an explanation of what's going on. I have just been leafing through my writing for the last two plus months. There is a not-right feeling about it. That some quality is missing from it. Not, it seems to me, the leaving out of anything crucial, but something I can't put my finger on. It always seems so stiff and frozen. I get impatient for progress, or some sign of it. There have been several times these last few days when I have shut myself off. It always follows a feeling of rage. On Sunday it happened. The morning. We got up. Simone said something that set it off. I'm going to the office, says me. Gets dressed. Goes to the kitchen and starts doing the dishes. The rage subsides. I realize that it was about to control me again. I don't go to the office. We make plans to go to Bryant's for brunch. Suzanne and Dana will go with us. We walk. Its pleasant enough. Totally superficial. We have something to eat and leave. The walk was the best part. Last Friday Simone and I go to New Haven for a wedding. HEr friend Loris. She is 3 months pregnant. Its in a Catholic church. We talk during the whole thing, make jokes. There is this neat box from which the priest takes a cup. It has two sets of doors. They open and close in a very interesting way. I speculate how the cup is full of sperm from the priests. Then to the reception. We learn that Loris's best friend, and someone Simone knows, killed herself the day before. She jumped from the same building Loris's mother jumped from just about one year ago. The dead woman left a jealous, nasty letter to Loris. Simone and I both have the feeling that this is not a good thing for them to do. He is 22 and she 25. But she has this confident tone in her voice when she says, nothing ever seemed more right to me. But the shaking head, and downcast eyes, as she says this, do not convince. But who am I to say. She may be strong enough, and he also, to overcome their difficulties. They keep us in the dark about this side of their relationship. We stayed the night with Simone's parents. A number of things happened where I saw very clearly, as did she, how she does things they do. Changing subjects when talking about something emotionally charged. Her father not signalling when making turns. The way they keep animals. Her father always being late. It reminded me of growing up in my own family. Most of this growing up seemed to be absurd. It seemed that something was very wrong with my family. That most other families seemed to be much better. We gave Loris some baby clothes. I was reminded of Cheyenne and the first year and a half I knew her. I wrote many little things about her development. They are on 3 by 5 cards. The idea of writing them as a set of notes occurred to me. I told someone the story of Cheyenne and the orange sling. It went around your neck and under one arm. I resembled a deflated bicycle tire. One section had an accordion type fold in it. This could be opened and the child would fit in it. She came to know this orange seat very well. At some point she would become very excited when I put it on. She knew it meant a ride. It never mattered how short the ride. The excitement was still the same. Then, a few minutes later, it was possible for her to be just as excited again, if I went to go out again.

 

Thursday, March 26, 1981

 

I have just returned from the office. It is 1:30am in the morning. Something inside me was very paranoid. I kept looking around as though someone was in the room with me, and behind my back. It was impossible not to turn around and look at the door for less than a few moments. Simone called me from Michael's. He went upstairs to do something, meditate. He talked a lot of not marrying her again. Yesterday he figured out why he is not going to marry her. He will do it in his next life. Furthermore, he will be the woman. She almost left twice to come home. It was 1am. She must get some sleep as she is substitute teaching at the Harrington School, has a Brookline School after school class, and her group later in the evening. Called San Francisco about 11 to speak to Jud. He was out. Eve answered. I must say that the whole conversation from her end sounded a bit pre-recorded. It seemed as though she was reading from a menu of stock questions. The jargon was everywhere. The theories was everywhere. The wearies was very wary. Where E the marry very leery Larry. All these ideas about how things should be done and not so much just letting things happen and see what comes of it and then change something to see how to make it better things happening. An odd sensation of talking to a priest. The phone conversation was like a ritual.. It seems Jud started writing every day, but wasn't able to really continue it. Not enough discipline. To myself I sort of say, well, I won't have to worry about competing with him. He won't be yapping at my heels. Time shows me to be the better man! But this sort of satisfaction is short-lived. I feel better only because someone else is not doing so well. Always this sense of relief when someone fails. I put myself in the position of having to compete, and then worry about not winning, instead of doing something with myself. This funny tightening sensation in my head. Like a towel being twisted and wrung out. Makes my head seem as though it is being turned to the left. Simone left to be with Michael sometime after 9 this evening. Shortly before I got a little tense and nervous. Then a burning sensation in my face. It spread to the front of my body. Almost like the front being painted or having a hot sun shine on me. The sensation was more intense in the arms and hands. A feeling of wanting to take something and destroy or squeeze it. A sort of excited feeling when you expect a bear to jump out from the bushes, but you don't know exactly when, or which bush. There was some possibility that Jeannette might invite me over for supper this evening. I did call Nina, who I sent a copy of my notes. She found them very revealing. She is still a Mormon. Seems she converted about 3 years ago in NYC. We have made a date for tomorrow evening. I tell her how she is very attractive to me. That I want to sleep with her. She doesn't know about this, but she would like to see me. Lotti turned me down earlier this evening. At first she didn't take me seriously. Then it was that I asked only as a matter of convenience. If someone else was available, that I would have taken them. But that doesn't go either. It seems she gives each of these ideas up by herself. I don't have to challenge them. Finally it is that she can't do it now. At first there was a bit of panic in me about he asking. Then it turned to the burning sensation. From time to time a sense of rage and hatred would erupt from inside me. But go down very quickly. A sensation of being inside a box. I am expanding, filling more and more of the box. Everything is getting tight. I can't see or feel what's going on. Its just like this emotionally. Everything starts to get vague. I can't figure out what's happening. From time to time it gets serious, then funny. I get insulted for a moment and tell her she will never be as good as Simone for this very reason, namely, resisting like this. She is always fighting with John's resistance. She expect something of him that she is also incapable of. But its not much more than a bunch of sour grapes for me. I have this same version of my own problems. I just manage to find people who are more inept, stubborn, stupid, resistant, and crazy than me. Called Bryant about 10pm. It seems my notes, and me, were the main topic of conversation at the Tuesday night dream group. I learn that this is often so. Wow! I must really be hot shit. They all like my writing very much. They don't know of anything like it. At least not any contemporaries, and nothing so revealing from a man. Simone often mentions Anias Nin to me as being somewhat similar. They talked about having me change the names in it before any publication. It seems they think some people might sue me. Michael says he will if anything with his name gets into print. Welcome to the new age of openness and honesty! Simone thinks Jeff would be especially enraged about what's written about him. That he might even do something destructive to me or my business. I think this is true to some extent, and will probably do this. It could all be types on a computer and then word substitution automatically done. So anyway, Bryant this evening. She had not read the notes. The others had read some or most of them. She did not want to take a copy because she didn't think it would be ok with me. It was of course, but she seems a bit paranoid about me. She wanted to have a copy, but has now decided she doesn't want to read them. She excused herself by saying that she was in the middle of something and that she would call me to talk sometime. Simone is very skeptical of this explanation. Ha! she says. So I have been enjoying myself all day with the idea that they spend all this time talking about me. The best part was about monogamy. Bryant thinks Simone has more than one relationship as a way of avoiding being close to any one person. Withdrawn, reclusive, tight-assed, uptight, closed Bryant thinks that open, honest, friendly, direct, sensual, loving, attentive Simone is avoiding close relationships! This is exactly the source of all the energy that makes her so admired, envied, and liked by all her friends. It, this following her feelings in sexual and emotional matters, is what they are jealous of and would like to have for themselves. I can't believe that Simone has fallen for this ridiculous line from Bryant. Bryant who was led on by a 55 year old married man who kept telling her he would leave his wife. Bryant who spends almost all her time with a man who is even more superficial, closed, and withdrawn. He recoiled from an embrace by Simone when he and Bryant came to the Saturday night party. This shit for brains asshole tells Simone to throw away the best thing she has, her ability to get love, and what for – because she needs to be alone, to get rid of me. It reminds her of all the underhanded little fantasies I have about doing people in, of ruining them. Simone is the way she is because of her experience. Her experience is that she seldom resists her feelings about anyone, especially men. It makes her whole world and view so much broader than the tight little rooms any of her friends live in. From all this experience she has learned how to make me, or anyone, much happier. She knows a lot about how to make everyday life good for herself and the people around her. They on the other hand, are forever withdrawing and not having the chance to experience and learn things. It seems she learns something big about herself everyday. Her friends come to her with the same old problems, over and over. They alternate between being completely withdrawn and asking her for help. I seldom see them offer, or even be capable, of helping Simone. An odd impression in my head just now. Its of the lost little girl in Simone. Counter to what I have just written, but also there. This is the side she shows mostly to me. She tells them, the people at the dream group, that I've sent a copy of my notes to her new beau. But later she confesses that its only her fantasy. She does this to me often to get the sympathy and support of the people around her. It's the reason they always tell her to leave me. He'll only hurt you some day, they say. He will leave you for one of those other women. She confesses that what she wants is someone who will be faithful to her, someone that she can depend on, but at the same time who will allow her to have whatever relationships with other men she wants. It comes out exactly that directly. And then, when I am unable to make as much happen as her, I think, why not give it up, spend the time getting money for a group leader. Things will be much better when someone is here. But its also an excuse for not following what I want. I suddenly feel sort of silly sitting here scratching my head, trying to figure out what to write next. Why am I doing this. But I also notice that writing all these things down makes me feel a little better. The fingers are really flying now. It feels like a very real form of catharsis. Some of these unpleasant feelings actually go away while I write these very words. I am alive. What an odd sensation. It drifts around like a cork in a large turbulent sea. In and out of awareness. Sometimes good and then bad. Chaotic and then organized. Clear and then fuzzy. Scratching my head. Simone says I'm getting bald. I rationalize and tell her how my father and grandfather have exactly the same hairline. But their hair is even thinner than mine. The shape of the hairline is called a Widow's Peak, I think. Its getting too long. Soon a haircut. I have done some art work in the last few days. A picture of a pig. One day this image of a pig kept coming up. And that I wanted to draw one. I thought about mounting some of the pictures drawn while on FH. The green lady of Otto's is my favorite. Business has been very good. Some old bills start to go away. A call today about an order that will be for more than $1000. Type Judy's resume tomorrow. Time to go beddie-bye.

 

Sunday, March 29, 1981

 

It feels as though my writing career is about over. I find myself making excuses about not writing. Saying to myself, do you have anything to say? I have been thinking of ways to make it better. For example, paragraphs, as a first way to better organize material. But it only comes out that way in my head. Sitting here writing shows the folly of that idea. So then I thought, why not just begin each new subject by indenting as in a paragraph. It doesn't have to be organized as a real paragraph, I think to myself. It will help me to better organize, no, the real intent is to listen to what some people say about my writing, and write a particular, familiar way. Bob Rimmer has sent me another letter with advice and criticism. I show the letter to some others and they agree. He doesn't know what I do for a living or where I am sexually. Does it matter what I do for a living? Does anyone, including myself, know where I am sexually. The first is easy to answer. I have a business which automates and sells special purpose mailing lists. Sexually I want to have more experience. This is difficult now because of my couple relationship. To be honest with other women amounts to making them afraid. To be dishonest means too much emotional bookkeeping. Who did what, to who, and when. Then being careful that nobody knows what really happened so as not to hurt their feelings. Simone and I fuck a lot. She sleeps with a couple of other men sometimes, and I sometimes, but not as often sleep with someone else. I want to do away with all this fear and bookkeeping about who is sleeping with who. It does not seem possible that we will ever be able to enjoy ourselves with this hanging overhead. It doesn't seem possible to really love and care about other people if you can't be open to them in this way. It seems like such a simple idea. Just to be free of the fear of doing something. I'm not that way myself. Yesterday I noticed something about this in myself. The situation is that I will be with Simone, but it has happened lots of times with other women, and I will see someone who is attractive to me. The next impulse is to try and look at them in a way that doesn't seem obvious to the woman I'm with. That is, to almost pretend to be looking at someone else so she will not be jealous of my looking at another. I noticed the funny my head moves and tries to pretend something else is being looked at. A very self-conscious feeling. A little bit of anxiety and stiffness. Its as though I freeze up a bit. It worries me what she will think of my looking at another woman. Its seldom a natural and free thing for me. I try to hide what I'm doing from her. I worry what she will think. It then changes my behavior. How will it be possible to live with people and express myself freely when I can't even look at other women without anxiety? It has been a big thing the last few days. I had a date Thursday night. With Nina. We went for a long walk. At first she said that she had left a note at my door about how she didn't want to see me this evening. We took Linda's dog for a walk. Then she asks about going to Harvard Square. Ok, I says. And so we go. Through Harvard Square, down Brattle Street. Do you know what's just ahead, I ask her. No, she replies. The local Mormon Church. She is very surprised. We walk to the front door. A young woman with a baby goes inside. Its Thursday night, or Relief Society, as I remember. It has a strange magnetic pull on me. A little anxiety. Fear of being sucked into it again. She hesitates at the door, almost as though she does want to go in. She converted several years ago in NYC. It has a strong attraction for her. The sense of community and a feeling of belonging to something are what she wants. She has an odd feeling about Mormon men. That they are very held back, if I understand correctly. We talk about it for some hours over hot chocolate. She is slow to order it as her Mormon conditioning is still quite strong. It is against the doctrine. The caffeine. She has the idea that nothing will ever come of a relationship with me. Its clear from what I've said about my expectations of her. But she enjoys the evening anyway. She has a hard time making friends. My advice to her is to get out more and be a friend, in order to get some. She enjoys the way, or appreciates the way I reveal myself in the notes. This is also the kind of relationship she wants – open and honest. But it is so that she rejects me for being exactly that way. What is it about this sort of behavior. She wants people to pay attention to her, open up to her, approach her, but I have done this in some way that is wrong for her. How is it that everyone wants contact on the one hand, but is always rejecting it, not always, but most often. Everyone wants to be accepted and approached, but only by the 'right' people. Not you though, you're not the right ONE! How do I point such a thing out to people? I have done it often enough myself. Always this fear of making a wrong choice. But mixed up with trying to see what is going on here is resentment about being rejected. So part of this understanding is to make something wrong with what she has done. What could I do to be the right one for her. It seems obvious. Hide my real feelings. Fake a romantic interest in her and maybe reveal something about myself after she is in love with me. She seems the sort to be completely taken in by this approach. Even though what she wants is openness and honesty. Most people couldn't stand complete honesty from those around them. We all seem to turn our heads aside at a multitude of little, but common sins. I do it myself. Just little things that are destructive to another persons life and ability to make contact with others. Things they do that are counter to making their relationships better. Its one oclock in the morning. Simone has to get up before eight to go to an interview.

 

Tuesday, March 31, 1981

 

Yesterday I had one of my best ideas. It is to have an art show at Gallery East. The art making up the show would come from the times we are together with other people and just doing things. Often in the evening we will just sit around together and do something, such as painting, drawing, collages, different things with clay, materials, and so on. Anything produced in this situation would be in the show. Duane, who runs the gallery, likes the idea very much. So does everyone else. Simone says she likes the idea but her enthusiasm seems wrinkled with resistance, that is it seems somewhat influenced by envy or jealousy. Its hard to put a finger on it. Otherwise yesterday was not such a good day. I couldn't get up. Extremely tired. Not really depressed but unable to get going. Walking to the office and remembering how Simone has often said she hates Reagan and even once wanted me to kill him. Two hours later I hear the news about the attempted assassination. A lot of distress and anxiety. He's the President even if I don't like all that he does. Feeling anxiety about nuclear war the last two or three days. Fantasies about what would happen to me if I were in various places around Boston if a bomb were dropped. Sometimes its about being blinded, crushed under a building, blown away by the blast, melting, wondering where Simone was, if she survived, how I could find her. Difficulty getting going on my various personal projects. But I do notice that something is different about what I work on by myself and things done with other people. The art show

 

Monday, April 13, 1981

 

            I have been inspired by another writer, a woman, from another time. She writes of her life and surroundings during the Civil War. It seems to be writing in my own style. Or is it that I imagine this to be so? Stuck. The last two weeks – stuck! Lots of gossip and events to write about. Stuck with the fright of life. The emotional situation with myself and Simone and caused me to be paralyzed. At least in the writing. I have been keeping the first word of what to write, when it, the urge, strikes again. Panic. A feeling of panic. About everything. Writing being the latest to cause panic. It seems to be another thing I have started up, blazed away at, then died without a whimper. The thing about it is that it seemed to help me make some progress. I feel so guilty about all the things that could have been written about this last two weeks. It seems I try to mimic Mrs Chestnut's style. But I am not her. Maybe its best to go back to what I did before. But there is a new feeling I have about writing. The gossip and small stuff does not interest me so much anymore. There is something new in the air. I can't quite make it out yet. Its like when trying to learn something. At one point it seems you have the thing mastered. But little things keep going wrong when you try it. It gets so bad you want to quit. It seems nothing good will ever come of trying again. But finally you master it and go to the end for the first time.

            I have been sitting on the wrong chair. The other was too low and hard. This makes it lots easier and faster. But now what to say about anything. Poor Mary Chestnut and not having IBM Selectric to do her writing with. But even with just writing a little bit by hand, for over 20 years, each day, her book comes out to over 800 pages. It has made me quite excited to read about her writing. I have called the Cambridge Public Library and asked them to put me on a reserve list for this book of hers, and an autobiography. My fantasies about someone reading this a hundred years from now start to come up. Shall I talk to whoever you are? What do you think of something addressed to you, but written 100 years ago? The writer is long since gone. But I know that with Mary Chestnut's writing, what few snatches I've seen, it gives me the feeling of being there, of being inside her head. The things she writes of are so human and common. Can you say the same for this? What is your name? Are you male or female? What an interesting idea it is for me to try and conjure you up, 100 years before you exist. Quite a feat, don't you think? And is the world you live in much like mine? I mean the human world, without all the names and faces that identify it in time, the emotional world, where people are just the same as today. But maybe they have learned more and are different. Much of the world does not have Mary's few of slaves. What slaves have you managed to free in the world, and in yourself? Enough talking to you. Time to get back to myself. But it is hard to resist. More defense. Its like not writing has been for me the last two weeks. Now I write about what? Its still me. That came out of me. It was there. Why not let it come out. It frustrates me. On the other hand this page ends. I have been trying this silly thing with paragraphs. Do I ever say more than one sentence about anything? It was just a matter of hitting the tab. And there it was. A new paragraph. I'll try it again.

            Now I must start off on something completely new. Not completely new. But about another idea. An idea that builds on previous paragraphs, or, if the last paragraph, a summary of all the previous paragraphs.

            Do I have a new idea yet? Maybe it should be written like conversation. I will just use this as a way of talking to myself. Surely there is more than one of me in here. Mary says she writes, in response to someone's asking, 'Why do you write in your diary at all, if, as you say, you have to contradict every day what you wrote yesterday?', 'Because I tell the tale as it is told to me. I write current rumor. I do not vouch for anything.' This is something I wish I'd said. She goes on to say, 'I write daily for my own distractions. These memoirs pour servir may some future day afford dates, facts, and prove useful to more important people than I am. It is hard, in such a hurry as things are in, to separate wheat from chaff.' And so it is for me. And I am envious of her way with words again.

            Things have turned around with the art show. Simone is now very enthusiastic about it. Dana has even said he will participate. At first Simone was hesitant about the idea. She thought I would try to connect art and sexuality. Perish the thought! What a silly idea, that there is any connection between art and sexuality. Where does she dream up such ideas? Tsk, tsk. Then her complaint was that I would try to control how everything was to be. She has come up with some ideas of her own and some from other people. She was anxious to get the work of her friends in the show. It seemed as though she wanted to use it as a means of gaining favor with these friends. I have started with some publicity today. Called several papers. Simone got some people in the psychology/psychiatry world interested, having spoken to them about the idea at a recent conference where she presented. I have had the idea to contact FH about the idea, but then it always comes with some anxiety about how they will gobble up the idea and I will disappear. Anyway, we are working on it and others are interested. Perhaps we will even be able to take it to NYC. My imagination races ahead of me again, and I've had the idea to visit Linda, and try to arrange something. Neither happened this last weekend, although that was the plan. So much for my plans. This has been a problem recently. A feeling of spinning my wheels. Lots of things going on and lots of motion. But no progress. I continue to feel stuck. Shit, forgot the new paragraph.

            Last night was a big thing here. Simone and Ken slept together, here, in her bed. Dana in his bed, and me in mine. There was a bit of tension at first. We were doing some drawing. Me, Simone, Dana, Tom Howard, Edwin, when he arrived. He did not participate at first, but later joined in. Stu had promised to kill and disown him if he sleeps overnight with Simone. He wants Ken and Simone to come to his house, talk about the whole thing, and for Simone to spend the night with him. Ken does not like this idea. Simone stalls for sometime before going to bed. She finally comes to kiss me goodnight and says she will be going to sleep right away. And that she wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for me. She wanted to make an agreement about not having anyone sleep over with either of us, but I would agree to it, and this is the result. I tell her that its not really my fault, the devil made you do it, I says. She had thought I was going to be gone for 5 or 6 days. Monday night, and the rest of the week, were to be spent with Michael. She only told me about Monday, but confessed about staying with him the whole week only today. But he has called to cancel their date for tonight. I want to fuck him, she says. What he mouth she has acquired since knowing me! I want the big O, she says. That's an orgasm, which she has not been able to have with me. She had fantasies of a fantastic sexual affair with Ken, like what she had with Dave Ring. But that is not destined to be right away. The fact of them being here caused much of the excitement of a new relationship to be squashed. But it didn't go so bad. For me there was a combination of jealousy and horniness. I could hear them in the next room. At one point she got up and was rummaging around for something. Birth control devices, I says to myself. And she was going right to sleep. She could find her diaphragm. It was right there in her suitcase. She says I hid it. Not so. She probably did not want to find it. But she could have used condoms. She always had those around. She could have gotten one from me. She tells me she wanted to be with me, and told Ken so. But they had a good time talking. About me he said how his opinion was one way from what Stu told him, but now its quite different. He thought me to be a very big and crude person, not too smart, and other not so nice things. Simone has the idea that he is a very together person. It will go away in time, and if he continues to come around here. She had a similar opinion of me at the beginning of our relationship. Soon she got a more accurate picture.

            Simone and Stu are having the same problem. An acute attack of jealousy. For Simone the problem seems to be Linda. For Stu the problem seems to be Ken, me, and Dana. Its not any of us really. Simone has been putting the screws to me so I won't do anything to make her feel insecure. She was continually telling me not to go to NYC to visit Linda. She has to constantly search for other explanations about why I do these things, and in the same breath out comes her urges about other men, like Ken and Michael. In her most lucid moments she will just admit wanting to fuck, wanting their attention, wanting to talk about things with them. This contradictory behavior will sometime cause her difficulties. For me, hypocritical behavior always gets me to thinking and rationalizing about the thing, and this always paralyzes me a bit. I think to myself, soon a confession will be in order. But it often never comes. The time never seems just right, or another convenient distraction pops up. In Simone's case, she always changes the subject. Her mother is just like this. That is another story again. The dog at her parents house is not kept in the basement all the time. They have just completely re-carpeted the whole upstairs. The dog pisses on everything and chews everything. It seems they should get rid of the dog and the cats. They are not taken care of.

            I am not satisfied with this. It seems to degenerate to the old style and small minded gossip of two weeks ago. Its not really about me. Always I am distracted by someone else's influence on me and what is the meaning of this little thing and how has that little thing caused me some problem here or there. How to get around these things? It's a distraction from doing something about feeling stuck. It leads me to believe that is the cause of my being stuck. Not so.

            Simone and Dana have just returned from teaching their Tufts dream course. I am a little bit anxious about them coming in and reading my notes. It seems more so than in the past. I noticed something about those two yesterday. Simone wanted to do some work in the kitchen where it was quiet and she could eat something. Dana comes in and starts to do something, plus make noise. This disturbs Simone who speaks to him in a harsh voice. It makes me uncomfortable as he does not stop immediately and its obvious she holds back about criticizing him a second time. But what should I do? It makes me feel tense. Its obvious that I could say something. Not about the noise, but about their communication with each other. Dana is insensitive and Simone does not really reply to this. I see it, feel it, notice it, but do nothing. The tension in me says to do something. But I don't. I have an opinion. But it is badly formed. The words do not come out quick and sharp. I am too slow and the best moment passes. Then I say it is too late. The tension has paralyzed me.

 

Wednesday, April 15, 1981

 

            The Space Shuttle landed yesterday. Bonnie called me to say they had just come down. I can never resist telling everyone that I worked on the Space Shuttle Project at one time. It was for 2 years, 1974-1975, maybe a little more. It was during a very hard time in my relationship with Adele. I was also trying to get visitation rights through the courts. It still excites me, space travel. I remember some of the problems from when I was growing up. One was how to get enough fuel in the rocket so it could escape Earth's pull. The typical picture would show a rocket that would hold 10 gallons of fuel, but it was calculated to take 20 gallons to escape the pull of gravity. They solved the problem by use of rockets with stages. A big rocket would push a smaller rocket. They also worried about the space suits for the astronauts. It didn't seem possible, at the time, to be able to build something small enough, light enough, and comfortable enough, from current materials. So they invented new ones. At Intermetrics they were developing software for the onboard computers. The programs were always too big, and always ran too slow. But obviously they have solved that problem.

            My stepfather always said it would not be possible to get to the moon. It was some sort of religious idea he had. Men were destined to be trapped inside the moon's orbit, like fish in a bowl. There was even a science fiction story about just such a thing.

            Coming back from New Haven on Sunday I was reminded of another story about my stepfather. We stopped at a gas station to get gas, check the oil, water, etc. My hands got dirty. I went to the restroom to wash. My stepfather owned a gas station when I was in my teens. Sometimes I would have to clean the restrooms. He would tell stories about the women's room and what a mess it was. I never saw any such thing, but he was a convincing storyteller. It seems that women would somehow whip off the bloody sanitary napkins, splattering the walls inside the restroom, and generally making it look like a slaughter house and garbage dump. His stories always made the most vivid pictures in my mind, but none of this was ever available for me to see. More than 20 years later the image of this happening is still there. And so is the idea that it might have really happened. On the one hand it is a very preposterous thing from what I know now, but then was a very impressionable time for me. And he was a fantastic teller of tales. I could not tell what was so and what wasn't. Thinking about it, I realize how the same is true of me. I can't resist telling some story or other if it smells like a believer is in the room. Even my newsletter used to have phony items written in it. Even now I hesitate about saying exactly what is going on in some situation. It always occurs to me to say something else. To tell it just a little bit different. I get such a pleasure leading someone down the wrong path, and then to have them realize it, or say something that knocks them back to reality. I like it when its possible to keep someone just on the edge of believing and doubting. It is like a great challenge. And other times I like to be deadly accurate.

            Simone has asked me not to give out anymore of my notes unless I change the names of everyone. She is still afraid of what Jeff or Stu might do to me if they learn what I have written. I'm beginning to think so more and more. I wish I had the benefit of 100 years later, like Mary Chestnut and her Civil War diary. It would make it possible to write even more freely. Why not, with everyone dead for so long. Another possibility would be to just hide this from everyone. But it is hard for me to resist showing my latest writing to someone.

            More gossip about Jeff and Carol and their affair. It seems that they have both confided in Simone that they are not really interested in the other. They plan to end it as soon as someone better comes along. This I can only snicker and smirk at. They got together because of their loneliness and horniness. They both described how the deficits of the other person became irrelevant when they felt this way. Jeff does not like fat women, and Carol does not feel attracted to Jeff because of what she knows about his sexual difficulties. But they get to where they realize their real deep down feelings, and suddenly none of that matters. They just want someone. As soon as their intellect, or better judgment, gets control again, they reject the other person. But only a few years ago I can remember myself holding back with someone, and at the time thinking, is this person the right one? These two seem to have the same problem. Does everyone have the same problem? Even Simone has the same old second thoughts about me. I ask myself, what can be done about this? Maybe nothing, and just let them go on doing the same thing to themselves. Tell them how I see the situation? Have Simone tell them? She's the one who knows it best. She heard it directly from both of them. Just letting it go on seems like the best possible way to ruin them both. To say the truth would be devastating to both of them. Why do I have such mixed feelings about this? It seems so obvious how this should be done. But on the other hand there is some anxiety and rationalizing going on. Am I so afraid of the consequences of speaking my mind? On the other hand I have these fantasies about being a nightclub performer and telling all these little stories as part of a routine. Leaving out the names of course. There I am, up on the stage. Casually dressed, relaxed, microphone in hand. You wanna hear a funny story I heard today, this guy asks the audience. And without waiting for a reply, he tells it. Its about letting some things about me out, but on stage, so I still have a little distance from those who listen.

            Last night, while taking a shower, I thought of Linda. She has been having a hard time in NYC. She wants me to call her more often. It makes her feel better to have someone like me in her life. Then this thought progressed and included Simone. It got a little tense. Somehow thinking about Linda always results in Simone being dragged in. Then it becomes confrontational. I have a fight with Simone. Every time Linda comes up in a conversation something happens to Simone. A very primitive thing takes over. She becomes hostile in voice and movement. Sharp in tone. She speaks more quickly and with nastiness. So, to go back to my fantasy, I confront her behavior. I can't let it go by this time, like usual. I point out how her acceptance of Linda is different from other people. That it shows what she is really like. Someone who is no imagined threat to her is acceptable. But not someone who causes her real feelings to come up. She has a choice, I say, to confront this thing in her and give it up, or leave. I don't want someone who is this way. Its the best reason I would have for really rejecting her. She doesn't have to imagine my doing so. For this I will really reject her. I don't want to spend the rest of my life with this tension. It is not necessary. We don't need it. I can do without her if she continues with this. Later, when I'm in bed, and can't sleep, the fantasy continues. I am in bed with Linda. But suddenly there is Simone again! Linda gets up and hides behind the door. Simone takes scissors and goes to stab her. I stop it. There are only two possibilities now. Either I report this to the police, or she must move out within 24 hours. Then I make it 2 hours, then 1 hour. A struggle over what to do. Talk to the police about how long I can wait to report the incident, second thoughts about how long Simone gets to move out. I move her furniture out into the street. And all the time fighting with her about Linda's presence. She overflows with little tricks and what's wrong with Linda, what's wrong with me, how its only my fear of being close to her, etc., etc., etc. All the old things she has said. Recently she has in fact dropped all these old complaints and come up with new ones. But the fantasy is a composite of all the old, but real fights. And then I become more conscious of what is going on inside me and ask, why am I having this fantasy? Is it really a submerged wish to be rid of her? Certainly to be rid of that part of her. An urge to do her in? My own desire to get some sort of resolution to a constantly existing, but pushed down thing? It always seems to be present in some form. Maybe not immediately there, but like a very low-level tension that one feels, but whose source is not evident. I don't know for sure. I just know something is there and it keeps coming up in this way. With these rather murderous fantasies. Sometimes it comes out in reality. I find myself censoring what I say and do so as not to offend Simone with it. But that sucks. I don't want to have to walk around on eggs all the time. I had brought up the subject of Linda visiting with us for a few days at the beginning of May. Suddenly people visiting with us is not so simple as it is when its someone Simone knows. It has to be talked about. We have to make some rules about it. Its no longer a straightforward and social thing that we will do because we like people. And she never sees what she is doing. It constantly places me on the verge of threatening to find another place for myself so I don't have to put up with this nonsense. She continues to create good reasons for me to reject her. Its impossible for me to write more about this. I will have to do something.

 

April 17, 1981

 

            I was thinking today about how to write a story of recent news. A short story about today. There would be an introductory paragraph to set the tone. Then would follow some other number of paragraphs about individual events. Finally, a concluding paragraph with a conclusion or moral-of-this-story ending. But a funny thing happened instead. Near the Orson Welles, on Mass Av, I am crossing a little side street. A teenaged-looking guy, with a beat up old car, is about to turn onto Mass Av. Suddenly a violent fantasy starts. He whips out a gun and points it at me. Making threats about walking so slow in front of his car. I knock it out of his hand with a quick movement of the mailbag I'm carrying, grab his arm and pull him out the window of the car. His passenger gets out, tells me they are police, and points his gun at me. I grab the first one around the neck, and stick the gun in his ribs, using him as a shield. Police cars converge from every direction. I won't let go of this guy till the other one gives up his gun. The police get him to do so and then I do the same. Suddenly the second guy grabs a policeman's gun and starts to shoot me. I do the same and shoot the gun out of his hand. The other police take their guns out. A few quick shots and the guns fly from their hands. I have a portable radio and call for help. Suddenly, overhead, Cobra gunships, filled with special forces men. They rescue me and tell the police to forget everything they saw. So much for my nice neat arrangement of the days events. The start of my organizing my writing gets blown away. I haven't had too many violent fantasies of this sort the last few days. Most of them have been about confrontations with Simone. She continues her coercive efforts to come between me and any relationship with Linda. The usual fantasy involves me getting fed up with her harping about it, exploding, and telling her to give it up or get out. She saw Michael today. He has lost weight. Probably from the stress of trying to avoid is feelings about her. He had an enormous hard-on when she got there. No agreement, she says. I'm not going to marry you till you are past childbearing age, he says. And so it goes. Simone has the feeling that they will be getting back together. This is the first time she has had a positive feeling like this, or at least expressed it so positively. For a moment there is a flash of anxiety for me. It goes away. The possibilities are that we will work things out together, or they will go off by themselves and slowly run down to ruin. This comes at the same time I am having these increasing strong confrontation fantasies about her. Some of them of turned to irrelevant fights. That is, about something at the time, mostly about the moments feeling, but never anything I can clearly remember.

            A talk with Lotti about her mother getting old and not having anyplace to live. Her fear of having to take care of her. She has the idea that somehow a community will spring up to take care of her in her old age. But thinking concretely she realizes that it is not so easy. It is difficult, and getting more so, to have a have a relationship with me and Simone. She has noticed this thing about Simone. That Simone treats her in sort of a sickly sweet way. Condescending, like a constant patient and therapist relationship. Lotti has the feeling that Simone would have no interest in her if it was not for my relationship with her. She listened to our fight the other night and got sick, vomited, from it. This was on top of the things going on with John. But our fight caused everything to come up, literally. Simone is starting to have a difficult time with Lotti as she gets emotionally closer to me. I took care of her when she was sick. Went to the store to get her some ginger ale. Stayed by her side while she vomited. Stayed up and talked with her afterwards. I am going to have to talk with Sten to get some perspective on things again. The tension is making me crazy again. Lotti and I talked about how we can make a community to take care of us. It needs love. Nothing works without this. I realize how Simone tries to destroy things when someone has this feeling for me. She is always trying to end the feeling or anything, between Linda and me. Just the opposite is what's needed. When she tries to put an end to anyone's love she destroys the very community she wants to create. Linda cares for me a lot. I am the longest relationship she has ever had. It is a secure port in an almost constant storm for her. She seriously thinks about living with us. She is willing to try and overcome the problem of jealousy. She knows it will be hard, but wants to try. This feeling she has for me is very good for her. It's a sort of security she hasn't had before. It has put an end to a lot of the running away from relationships that she has done in the past. She sometimes sleeps with others but doesn't have the same feeling with them as with me. I have waited out her numerous rejections of me. She understands more about how its important not to give up. And it makes me feel good also. Not her being away in NYC so much. But that she thinks of me often and wants to spend time with me when she is here. The possibility of living with me has caused her to change all her plans about staying in NYC to study art. She will now try to get a place at Boston University. She wants to stay here for a few days in May. Simone has gone crazy over the idea. But just a few moments ago she asks if someone she hasn't seen since high school can stay for the night. Of course, I say. There is no reason for him not to stay here. Although I am a little wary of 'crazy' Mike as she calls him. Supposedly he once set himself on fire. He was dressed in a business suit. Is he a dope dealer, I ask. Not anymore, she replies, or at least I don't think so. Even though I notice a tendency to make up reasons for his not staying here, and a twinge of jealousy, it is ok. I have got to overcome this thing in me also. This expecting more of other people than I do of myself.

 

Friday, May 1, 1981

 

            My stepfather died today. Carl, my half-brother called me about 9pm. He died in Salt Lake City. Cancer of the brain. I spoke with my mother the previous Sunday. She told me there was not much hope for him. He was 64. I first knew him when he was about 31. My mother just moved to Cody. That's where she met him.

            I did not feel much at first. Carl's call was quite unexpected. He seemed like his usual self. Casual and a bit joking. He was never the serious type. We spoke for a few minutes. Then he told me. Simone says he called the house first and spoke to her for about 15 minutes. He said he thought she was sweet. The funeral will be next Tuesday. So we spoke about business and family for a few more moments. His wife, he calls her the smart one, is very interested to meet me.

            We had no contact since 1974. I visited with Cody for a short time in November of that year. I walked from Ken's house, or was it the airport, to his gas station on the main street in town. He was there, doing something on a car, and recognized me right away. It had been ten years since we had seen each other. And now, seven years later, he has died.

            I think about it again, just like after Carl and I talked, and the same lump comes to my throat, the same tears to my eyes. For the first time in my life, an important part of my growing up, is gone. I did not think of him often in the 17 years since leaving home. Now, for some time, I will often think back to those years, and the ways he influenced how I am today. An odd physical sensation comes over me at this moment. Bending me back to the past and its reliving. A flood of sensations of some memorable and stark moments. Something is lacking in my attempts at poetry. Better to just stick with the facts. He was like a poet. More like an old time bard. Always telling stories of everyday life and great adventures, all in one sitting. Mixing and weaving them into a hypnotic blanket that he would throw over all those in his reach. Was it really that way? Yes. He could really hold an audience spellbound. There were his friends and cronies and buddies. They all liked the same things. They all had the same sort of lives. They all liked the same sort of fun. He could retell and recreate the best moments as well as any of them.

            So, there in the office, I began to think about what I knew of him, the things I remember about growing up with him. At first it was just a little tightness in my throat. A little dampness in my eyes. And thinking, wondering, just like I did when growing up, did he love me, did I love him? It always seemed uncertain, not a well answered question to me. There was never the same feeling as with my mother. The good and bad feelings about her were always more clear. She was also more definite with me.

            He was not well educated. He grew up during the depression. It was in Missouri, I think. This lack of education caused him some difficulties. But there is one story he told me as a proud memory. In one of the early grades he attended the teacher had everyone cut out the silouette of a car from paper. The name of each student was placed on their car. The cars were then placed around the edge of the classroom to indicate who was the best student. An informative bit of competition. It would always be perfectly clear who was best and worst. He would describe how his car would often be the first. He would tell this story with great pride, but also to compensate for not having gone to school for many years. He compensated quite well in other ways. I did not know anyone more skilled in doing real, practical things, than him. While growing up he must have built the equivalent of three houses. It seems he was able to do everything necessary to build a complete house. All but digging a hole for a basement and pouring the foundation. But he could have done it. He bought everything and put it together. To me, as a child growing up, it always seemed that everything came out perfectly. And, indeed, the houses we lived in were not so bad. Life was always a struggle to improve our economic situation. Some of the houses had problems. The one near the airport was too close to the ground. There were sometimes problems with water getting in. Another house, the first one we lived in after moving to Cody from the ranch, didn't have an indoor toilet. I remember a little private celebration I had the last day we used this outhouse. It seems I made some sort of little speech to the last time. I have a memory of holding up some kind of commemorative flag and then letting it fall. Anyway, he built an addition to that house, and a brand new bathroom. I remember having fantasies about a snake coming out of the toilet or tub and not being able to kill it. It seems I may also have read some sort of science fiction story about such a thing.

            And life on the farm! It was no Dick and Jane picnic. It was incredibly hard work. This is something he could outdo anyone at. I hardly ever remember him except for working or telling stories. Or just doing something. I don't remember him ever being depressed. He may have been. He probably had it sometimes. But it never seemed to show. Only once on the farm do I remember him not working. It was from an accident. He had caught his foot in a machine. The ankle was broken, or badly injured in some way. He was hospitalized for a short time. Then he worked on crutches, with a bolt in his foot to hold it together. It only slowed him a little, for awhile. Then back to work. How to work. The most important thing I ever learned from him. There is no substitute for it. Work, any kind of work, where I have a feeling of accomplishing something, still, always makes me feel good. It must have been a source of enormous pleasure for him. I don't know anyone who worked harder. Only my mother came close.

            It was late in the Fall. I must have been 11 or 12. It was a cold day. Cloudy. Some sort of snow and rain was falling. A good day to stay inside. Stay warm and comfortable, I says to myself. But he had some other idea. Time to dig up the root vegetables and pack them in sand, says he. Complain, grumble, curse, foot dragging, and general piddling around, as he used to call it. So with considerable rancor, I help with the work. Why couldn't we have done this sooner, I says. Who care what the answer was. I don't remember now. We didn't do it earlier, so it has to be done now. The plants won't wait. They will freeze if its cold enough. The weather and the plants don't care if it could have been done earlier. And so we do it. It was what had to be done. All the things of this sort, the things that had to be done to guarantee that life would go on, always got done. I often resented having to do all this work. It seemed that I was being picked-on by him. Chalk it up to youthful paranoia. What does it matter. I learned how to work. Nobody has ever called me lazy. Not a bad thing to learn from anyone. But its something I got from him. The telling of stories is another. I can't do it in quite the same way. I think writing is a better way of doing this for me. But there is something very satisfying about getting the attention of others in this way. It is so unnecessary a thing. You don't need to tell or listen to stories to live. But work and stories seemed to be his whole life. I can't deny that I have some pleasure for myself when telling a story. It's a great pleasure to lead them along. Having them on the edge of their seats. Having them almost begging for more. Perhaps going off on some other little subject for just a moment, teasing them with little asides and irrelevant things, and then, suddenly, back to the story and a spectacular conclusion that has them rolling in the aisles or nodding their heads with understanding of some important idea.

            On the one hand I was always very conscious of him being my stepfather. But I did not have a real father. Not in the way he was my father. He was there. My real father was far away. It seemed he avoided being my real father. It seemed he always gave more attention to his real sons. I remember the candybar incident. He came home one day with two. This is all there were, he said. I will give them to the two little ones. That's not fair, I says. Why don't you divide them in half, and give a half to each of us? But he had a reason why not. I was not able to convince him. I don't remember what it was. I can't believe, in thinking about it now, that it was a good reason. But now, thinking about this incident, its really one of the worst. And can it have been so bad if this is the worst thing I can say about him? He didn't share a candybar with me and my sister? Lots of people could wish things had been this good for them.

            One of my favorite things was to go in trips with him. Several times I went to the thriving metropolis of Billings, Montana. We took pigs, as I remember, to a place where they were auctioned. Loading the truck, driving for several hours, over the Wyoming plains and around the mountains. The auction house was an enormous building. I would be free to wander around. Secret pleasure hiding away and watching people coming and going and talking and them not being able to see me.

 

Thursday, May 7, 1981

 

            Simone has gone down the street to meet with a new friend. She met him last week while waiting to see if she would be on jury duty. He was there for the third time and hoping to get out of it. They went to lunch. He is very romantic. Bought her flowers, sang songs to her while they had lunch. He is an actor, plays the saxophone, and is a condominium developer. A nice Jewish man. The sort her mother would be proud of. She met another man at the court. He was an assistant district attorney. He's going to be in Washington for two weeks. A postcard from him says he thinks of her and can't concentrate on his work. And what does this do to me? Sometimes it makes me feel a little bit jealous. Mostly I try to make fun of the whole thing. It does not seem to be working. It becomes very serious. She says something sharp back to me and I get overwhelmed with rage. Not often. But enough to make my treatment of these situations suspect. For me it is possible to see how these things might come out and make things bad for her as she tries to develop other relationships. I notice that its not always a tight ship for me. It leaks a bit. Some little things get through. How to catch myself doing these convoluted things. They are backwards from what is best. I need to work more to put her at ease, and to make the situation better for the other person. Its getting a bit abstract. Shit. I don't want this tension from other relationships. How do I want it to go? I don't want to feel trapped or panicked when another chance comes along. I want to be free to change things to fit circumstances. Somehow it is still trapped inside me. I can't get it out. I don't really see it. More of this bullshit.

            It is getting more and more difficult to write. On the one hand the pace of things here is moving a little faster. We are at least chaotically confronted with more of our inability to live together in peace. The war in us is coming out. The desire to dominate and win is becoming more obvious. We both try to control the social flow of things. She is more skilled. But it is like guiding by the numbers. I am more crude and threatening to people. I always blunder into and introduce forbidden things. Like to night with the joke about Lotti possibly being pregnant. It is obvious that most people got it. They pretended to ignore it. It's the same with most charged items that come up. But I don't really see how to guide these things. Sometimes I ask myself, what would Otto do? I can sometimes mimic what he seems to be doing but it doesn't ever lead, only rarely, to the sort of resolution he achieves with people. But I feel the need to continue to try. It is almost so hard sometimes that I wish myself back at FH so I can fall down. It is not something I can do here.

            She comes back to tell me about how he has asked her to sleep with him tonight. What are you thinking, he says. About how you would look, all wet, in the shower, she answers. Fucking is the most beautiful thing people can do together, he says. He's a smoker. The first crack in his seemingly impenatriable armor. He won't give it up for her. It is all downhill from here! Its no contest. Unless, of course, he is only playing a Richard Gardner trick on her. He drinks coffee with two sugars, eats meat, and drinks a case of coke every week. He is sure of his relationship with her and knows they will sleep together within the week. Hm, what to make of this, and her playing hard-to-get. He likes this even more, and gets an erection at just the thought of it. He has started out on a good note. Saying how she is going to know she's in a relationship with him. Exactly my line. Not bad. This is a man who shows real promise. Character, fortitude, integrity, straightforward, and a bit aggressive. So she thinks. Still not able to recognize it. What will become of the new three mouseketeers? Stay tuned! She stands behind me reading this and rubbing my tummy. Kissing my neck. Every now and then stopping to read what I've just written. Putting the tongue in my ear. Rubbing my crotch. Well, this has lightened up considerably from the academia of the last page. She has booze on her breath. Snookie, Richie, she whispers, in that soft way of hers, Tell me a story, she implores, as the little girl in her starts to come out.

            Now a new subject. Bonnie, her therapist, thinks we play sadistic games. What they are who knows. Now she slowly gives me some old news. Bonnie wants me to separate from her. And why? Who knows. She has very little to go on. Her own failed relationships? What has she seen in other failed relationships? How can she really know about successful relationships when there are so few available. What we know about them is usually hidden. The best thing about our own is how so many things come out of it. Every day has some new volcanic eruption of long hidden tensions, repressed desires, hidden and self-thwarted longings. From this we can learn more than what we see from others. And always the crank and crackpot analysis, so little basis in reality. The things that get talked about being only the scum on the surface of a large swamp. The iceberg is no good. Its more a swamp. Teeming with life and fantastic things that everyone is capable of, but held down by this thin layer of scum. Even for me, there is an entire world of things that never see the light of day, except maybe in my writing or ideas. And the ideas don't get such a good treatment in real life. The art show being one of them. It seems to be staggering along. Last week we were going to do some art on Thursday night. Just now another chink in the singer's armor. She has told him about meeting the ADA. Are you going to date him, he asks, in a slightly defeated, deflated tone of voice. Or at least that's how I imagine he is going to sound. The ADA is more of a threat to him than me. He might be thinking something along these lines: well, if she has gotten interested in me so quickly, then maybe it is a sign that they are on the way downhill in their relationship, and I only have to wait here at the bottom of the playground slide. Into my arms she will slide. But the ADA, on the other hand, is also at the starting gate, just like me. So he's the one to watch. She wouldn't really be going out to see me this evening if things were going so well between them. This open relationship nonsense never works anyway. Its going to be one of the other of us in the end. And I think my chances are better than the ADA's. He's only got his career. I've got my boyish good looks, I'm Jewish, a very good amateur actor, a saxophone player, a darn good singer, romantic, and many other things that women go crazy over. This one's a little bold and outspoken, a little bit too upfront about sexuality, but that probably means she really likes it and wants to fuck all the time. But I can handle this. If only there was something I could do about that fucking ADA. At least he's going to be out of town for two weeks. That gives me somewhat of a head start. He will never be able to make up the difference. That turkey she's with has still got her tied down. I've got plenty of time to work on things. No lawyer type for the state can take off all the time I can to do things with her. This guy she's with is a total nothing turd. He's not romantic. He's sexually boring. He doesn't do as many interesting things as I do. He won't even take her out to a nightclub like I do. This guy is definitely on the way out. Any woman with gumption and a half-decent man would not be out carousing this time of night, just down the street from where she lives, and the man knows about it. Nah! It doesn't add up. She's going to leave him. I know it. And I'm just the one for her after its over.

            I notice that a lot of the tension has left my body. My face no longer has the feeling of a sunburn. The warm feeling is going away. How does this work so often for me? I only have to write what comes out even and smooth. The part in me that fits it goes away. At the beginning of these pages I wrote in stops and starts. It was difficult to go more than one sentence without stopping to think of what's next. At the moment everything is coming out just fine. At the beginning of each sentence I have the feeling of falling. But halfway thorugh the next sentence begins to come into my head. For a moment I thought this would be the last. But I can amble on for some time like this. It doesn't matter what I say. The feeling of falling continues. What will come out next I don't know. But on the other hand its beginning to get a little silly. Time to go on to something else.

            Back to the situation with me, Simone, and Linda. She came a day early last week. It was very hard for her in NYC. She is not enjoying the apprenticeship with the guy who does restorations. She wanted to come a day early and spend some time with me and have us sleep together Thursday night. Simone was bullshit about this. An endless stream of criticisms of Linda. Everything that anyone, including Linda, ever did wrong, gets dumped on Linda. She does not like it. Everybody gets called about it. Everybody gets to here whats wrong with me and Linda. Everybody tells her to leave me. They don't understand why she won't do it. She keeps coming into my room and trying to read this. I don't let her. Go back to work, I say. When they won't let you see it, they really want you to, she replies. The mood here has been like an earthquake, tornado, and hurricane, all at once. There is rage and counter-rage. Fight and counter-fight. We tear at each other. Tomorrow we will go to see this therapist we saw last week. It was my idea. It seems that some sort of neutral third party needs to hear what's going on. More about all this tomorrow.

 

Wednesday, May 13, 1981

 

            Today is an important day for Simone. Sarah Wright, from the Real Paper, is coming to interview her about the Center for Creative Dream Exploration. A short time ago I had this fantasy of being at my typewriter and discovered by her. What are you doing, she casually asks. Oh, I'm just doing a little writing, I casually respond. And from this she goes on to read some of it – and I get discovered and published in the Real Paper! Then on to even greater fame and fortune.

            I talked to my mother on the telephone last Sunday. It was Mother's Day. Simone has this thing about holidays. She responds like Pavlov's dog. You have to send something to your mother, she says. There is pressure for me to do this also. She even says she will order some flowers for my mother the same time she sends some to hers. She expects me to do these things. She gets nervous, anxious, feels guilty when she doesn't send something to somebody on various holidays and birthdays. I, on the other hand, have never done this. She is constantly disappointed in me in this way. It was a big topic of discussion last time we went to see this therapist. It was the second time. I was last the first. A lot of it was about how she wants me to be the way she wants me to be. It seems I seldom live up to all the traditional expectations she has of me. And I become more resistant than necessary when she wants something of me. Often they are not such difficult things to do. But they become enormous to me. All but impossible to do.

            I have another idea for the art show. It was to take my typewriter to the opening and write about what was happening. I would just have it there at the gallery. Poised with paper and fingers. As a page got finished it would be taped up as my own exhibit. Simone became excited when I told her of this idea. Richard! She says, I don't want you writing about sex! She got a bit paranoid. My idea was only to write about what was happening there. If someone had sex then I might write about it. Otherwise I would only write about the art show itself. She was relieved to hear this.

            Simone has noticed something interesting. Its about our other relationships. It seems that anyone she or I had an intimate, sexual relationship with before we met, has managed to stay with us. New people, on the other hand, have gone away after seeing her or I one or two times. It is as though they have enough good experience with either of us to help them overcome the uncomfortable feelings they have about ‘breaking' into our relationship. Some of the men have had sex with her once or twice, then they disappear. I never get that far with women. They hold back more in that way. They seem to have more to lose. Or maybe they are more aware of the emotional difficulties they may encounter and so don't get so involved. Men, as usual, seem to have no idea about the emotional difficulties they will have. They say, oh, I can handle it. No problem. But it soon gets to be just that. Some of the women I've met since Simone have kept somewhat of an emotional relationship. But I can feel the distance.

 

Sunday, May 24, 1981

 

            The art show opens today. It's a little after 2pm and only 4 people have stopped by so far. Two of them were people visiting Duane at the gallery. I had the fantasy of lots of people being here. A big crowd. They would watch me write about the show. Dana and a viewer are watching me. They are talking about the dream groups. My intention was to write about the idea for this show, a short history, something about all the little things that happened, how it developed. I had this idea about ten days ago. The idea to sit here and write during the show. I thought it would be easier. At the moment I'm feeling a bit stiff. Its not coming out like I wanted. I told Simone about the idea. Richard! she says, I don't want you writing about sex. Ok, I says, but if anyone has sex there then I'm going to write about it. Otherwise, it will just be about the show. History and what's happening, what I think is interesting. I had the basic idea about two months ago. I told Simone how it would be nice to do something with the art we would do with other people. We were both a bit tired of the party scene. It was getting boring. What could we do to make things more interesting? And how could we do something about he lack of initiative, spontaneity, doing things, that always pervades a party. The lights are turned down, the music up, the people turned on with alcohol and drugs. Then they try to communicate. It doesn't work. Everyone is passive, an observer. Sometimes you meet an interesting person, but the form never changes, or gets better. One never gets anywhere with a relationship with the people there. Maybe you go home and sleep with someone, but that doesn't satisfy the need for feeling close to people. For feeling the way Simone and I feel about doing things together. At this moment Roberta is sitting here telling me how she likes everything so much. She feels connected to the art since she knows most of the people who did things. A different feeling from being in other galleries. Its because she knows the people. Next time do it in Cambridge she says. She didn't wear a dress because I'm wearing farm jeans, or so Simone thinks. Someone over to my right and behind me is doing pushups. He did 38. I will show them about the leaping pushups I do. That will impress them. Not very many people here today, or at least not right now. We made some mistakes in publicity. It didn't get into most of the papers. I called some to see if they got the announcement in time. Some said yes, but they didn't make it. The press release should have been sent out earlier. Another mistake was having it this weekend. We are competing with a lot of other events. Its Memorial Day weekend, the Cambridge River Festival is today, there's a big parade in town, etc. We made a mistake on our postcard. Several things were left out. The gallery being open by appointment, for one. Two well-dressed people have just come in. It looks like a mother and son. Some young boys are here talking with Duane about body building, or some kind of body training.

            It is almost 4pm. Not many people, many 20 or so. A bit disappointing. Simone wonders if we will get back the $700 we have invested. I am not too worried. It will not make me feel so good if nobody comes to the art work tonight. A friend of Simone's has just come here from Connecticut. She and Simone went to high school together. Edwin is giving me headlines for writing. I tell him its a report and I have to meet a deadline. Two more people have come in. A man and a woman. The man talks to Duane and the woman looks at the exhibit. Jonathan has finished taking slide photos of the exhibit. He gives the film to me for developing. Ho hum. Gina comes back with the baby, Aurora. She gets lots of attention. People are more enthusiastic about the baby coming in than anything here. I just had the fantasy that hardly anyone will come tonight. It sort of reminded me of arranging lectures for Otmar and Brooke. I would work my tail off and nobody would show up.

            Originally the title of the show was going to be Art is life/Life is art. That title got into one newspaper. Carol Wit came up with the idea of Social Artworks. I modified it to Social Art Works. Simone says a bunch of us were sitting around trying to think of a better name. They didn't like mine. So we thought about it and that's the one we decided on.

            It is after 9pm. Only one person here for the participatory part. We started to put down a large paper circle. The inside diameter is about 15 feet. The outside diameter is 20 feet. Barbara, who came to the opening, and knows Lotti, helped me tape down about half the circle. I told her to stop. It doesn't look like anyone is coming. It occurs to me that people have stayed away because of the participatory aspect of the exhibit. Sometimes people stay away from our house because they feel threatened. Maybe they imagine they will be forced to do something. I used to get this same feeling on FH.

            Simone and Carol are walking around and putting prices on the Social Art Works. $25 is the maximum they will allow. People come and go in a casual manner, but not really doing anything. Idle chatter. Simone likes another one of my titles. Roberta said she found all my work very interesting and didn't expect so much of me. She found them to have a lot of expression and diverse. Olga, Simone's friend from New Haven, visited for a few minutes. She hurt her hand. It happened at a Cowboy bar. It seems she was thrown from the bull. Its not broken, just badly sprained. It is starting to turn various green and gray colors. Her ass is also turning colors from the same event, being thrown. She took Simone into the bathroom and showed her the whole thing. Simone continues to hear lots of new gossip about each person who visits us. Simone wants me to write about her stepfather's neurotic dog, but somehow it does not fit into my trying to write about the art show. Her mother called here a little earlier. Daniel was on the phone when I picked it up. He talked to me because Simone told him to. Oh well, she is trying to train him to be civilized. So far it is a complete failure.

 

 

SOCIAL ART WORKS

 

            This is an exhibition of art works created in social situations. These 'social art works” were created by some 20 Boston artists, musicians, and writers in group situations, as contrasted with the usual situation, where an artist works in isolation. The visual projects include paintings, sculpture, collage, photography, and drawings. The exhibit will also feature group created poetry, music, and drawing. Some exhibits will involve participation by attenders.

            There are two kinds of 'art” here. On the right side of the gallery is art done in a more conventional way, that is, the artist working in isolation. Those on the left side of the gallery were done in groups of 3 or more people. An obvious difference is in the amount of time taken to make some of the things here. The works done in groups were all done in 1 to 3 hours. That's the usual amount of time we would spend doing art. The evenings also included dinner, sometimes just talking, watching television. Not everyone in the group would participate. We would try to have a relaxed atmosphere. Each 'artist” would have a chance to decide what they wanted to do and with what kinds of materials.

 

Friday, May 29, 1981

 

            I have this nervous, shaking feeling all over. Its not noticeable, but I difinitely feel it. Lots of things happening. Linda has been here this weekend. She came on the train. Arrived about 1am this morning. She and Simone were in the office together this afternoon for a few minutes. Linda had to leave for work at 5. The radio was playing some sort of jazz. Simone says, who put on that horrible music? Its the sort she likes to listen to. But suddenly, because Linda had put it on, it was horrible. She knows I don't listen to that sort of music.

            Stu called a few moments ago. He wanted Simone. I told him she was at Michael's. Simone tells me she will be staying with Michael tonight. I thought she would be with Stu. I tell him this. He says he expects to be with her tonight. And Simone has told me Joe offered to take us out to dinner tonight. He just calls and says that is not right. Hmm! Is Simone playing a Simone Alter game with me? Joe will call me back when he gets the story.

            Lottie called a few minutes ago about working for me tomorrow. She has done an enormous amount of work in the last two days. Linda wanted to work for me. She is even faster than Lotti. I told Lotti how fast she was. This caused her to say she would stay and work on something till it was done. She types about 200 names an hour. Linda can do 300 or more. She has gritted her teeth and done it because she was afraid Linda might end up getting all the work. She even says how Linda's prescense has caused all sorts of havoc for her. She feels beaten or wounded, or something like that. Its competition. She doesn't see it that way. Its just that she needs money for the rent. Sure, that's all it is Lotti!

            Jeff called earlier to say how much he liked Simone's new flyer for her courses. I had to add that it was me who did the layout and typing. It was also my idea to have them cut up the Real Paper article and include it in their mailing. Simone says its just my jealousy or something, coming out.

            I called Gina at Gallery East today. Simone told me how she came up to her last night and started telling her about life with Duane and Al at the gallery. Simone gave me a ride there and didn't want to leave. At one point I just said I wanted to go work with Duane on the mailing list for awhile. She stood there looking despondent and sad. Gina and Duane were standing in the doorway watching us. They had seen us kiss and razzed us about it. I went to do something with Duane and Gina went to Simone. You have this look on your face just like I felt two weeks ago when I was going to leave Duane, she says to Simone. It turns out they have relationships with other people and it causes the same sort of problems as with Simone and I. So the call was to suggest that the four of us talk about things like this together. She didn't think Duane would be interested but would tell him of my idea.

            We had our fourth visit with Eric yesterday. We met in a different office. We were almost half an hour late. He kept us 10 minutes longer than scheduled. I told him of my idea to video tape our sessions with him. It would be a good way to see ourselves. I thought it would also be a good way for other people to learn about how to talk about certain things. We talk about things that are often very difficult for other people. It might be helpful for them to learn how we start with such things. He will ask about using the equipment for next time. I also suggested having Linda join us sometime. Simone exploded. She wants to keep everything between just the two of us. Linda found the idea acceptable.

            A busy time on the telephone at just this moment. I called Lisa, who came to the art show last Sunday. We flirted with each other. She likes me. There was a lot of competition between her and Simone at the dinner table. Later, after the meal, she went to the bathroom to change her clothes. It was taking her a long time. I went to see what the problem was. She had vomited. The whole thing upset her. She got a bit nasty. It looks like this fuck is going to cost you $700, she says. That's what it has cost me to finance the whole show. She is already having paranoid fantasies that Lisa and I will get sexually involved. Simone calls me on the phone while I'm speaking to Lisa. She will see me this evening, but is wondering what is going on with me and Simone and the people at the table. She had the impression that Simone was being nasty towards her. There was competition for the attention of everyone at the table. A moment later Roberta calls from the airport. I tell her Simone is at Michael's.

            Simone tells me she and Michael are in bed. He is pissed that all those men, Joe and Stu, called while she was there. Stu is really pissed that she is staying with Michael tonight. Then Joe calls her to find out about dinner. She had the idea that he would be paying for us this evening. Not so, he says. Maybe another time when he feels richer.

            Joe called to say how much he liked the art show. He thought it was going to be a really amateur event, but was pleasantly surprised. He and Ann liked Simone's work the best. It makes him like her even more, he says, and wants to sleep with her tonight. I won't take no for an answer, he exclaims. Maybe next week sometime, she tells me.

            I have been reading Mary Chestnut's Civil War Diary. Her writing efforts remind me of my own. Everything, from the very commonest things in life, to the life and death of her new country, are written about in such an interesting manner. She called her writing her notes, just like I do. They begin February 18, 1861. There is something about her style better than mine. I always am trying to be so literary and eloquent. Always trying to spell everything correct. Always trying to say everything just right. She just puts things down. Every little thing even if it is wrong in the grammar or syntax. The result is more interesting reading. It seems to me that I ignore the interesting story sometimes and try to be a writer. Better I should just stick to writing an interesting story. I like the way she sometimes spells words wrong and makes funny little verbal tricks. I do the same. She spells words just plain wrong also. One amusing thing is the indirect references to her and other people's sexual behavior. She always just brushes up against it. Perhaps I need to read still more to be sure about this. A good feeling from having just written 2 pages.

            An interesting event with Jeannette a few days ago. It seems she needed someone to babysit in an emergency for her. She called and asked me. Ok, I says, but I've only got an hour or so. Its the two children living in the house where she has a rent free apartment. Its in exchange for the apartment. So the mother and children are there. Some guy comes by and takes the mother our for the evening. Later, Vinny who may or may not be the Vinny I've heard about, comes in. He is very nervous and anxious. Pacing around like a caged tiger. Jeannette returns. I tell her how beautiful she looks. The situation is a bit tense, but why is not completely clear to me. I talk with Vinny as he gives me a ride home. He tells me about how they are in the middle of a passion filled affair. Next day I get a telephone call. Its from someplace like a bar. Music and chatter in the background. But there's nobody talking to me after I say hello. So I give it a try and attempt to get whoever it is to talk. Come on, I say sweetly and softly, you can talk to me. Don't be shy, I says. Its Vinny. He wants to lay something on me. I'm going to beat you up if you have anything more to do with Jeannette. Now that's now exactly how he said it during the 45 minutes we talked, but that's the impression I got. I try to get him to say everything he wants to say about breaking my legs and twisting my body. He wants to protect Jeannette from me. She is a very weak woman and I am very clever. You might try to talk her into living on one of those European sex farms he says. That's not my philosophy, he says. I decide not to remind him about the gonorrhea she got from him. And maybe one of those pregnancies she had aborted. He wants to tell me about her terribly family life and how its made her susceptible to all sorts of crazy ideas, including mine. You are very slick and smooth, he says, and god knows what you will try and talk her into.

            And all the while I can feel the fear in my body. There is some in him also. It must be difficult for him as he doesn't really know that much about me, and what I might be able to do. But his honor is at stake. He tries to control the rage and hatred he must feel. He tries to be smooth and cool about the whole thing. He has some very astute criticisms about me. He seems to have noticed many little things about me in only the little time we were together. He notices all the little social conventions and rules that I do not observe. They are very important and necessary for him. He seems to think I didn't talk or socialize with him while he gave me a ride home. Its not true. What I didn't do was acknowledge all the things he wanted me to verify about his relationship with Jeannette. He wanted me to recognize that she was his.

            Simone has just returned from a visit to Michael. She tells me that Michael says I changed his recommendation for her so that it doesn't make sense. I tell her its not so and have her call him back after reading it. He wants to know why I didn't change it. Let me talk to him, I tell her. He doesn't want to. Its not important, he says. She reminds him that you don't have to talk to him if you don't want to. He is a fortunate lad, to have someone protect him from the likes of me!

 

Tuesday, June 2, 1981

 

I am a nervous wreck today. In Harvard Square I saw the man who tried to pick Simone's pocketbook yesterday. We were on a bus coming back from her dentist appointment. He was sitting behind us. She noticed something. Thought it was the window flopping back and forth. It was a hand. She was excited. Wanted to move. We went to the front of the bus. He got out after a few minutes. Today he got out of a car by the bank. He seemed reluctant after he saw me. Sat in the car. He was a passenger. Got out and went to the bank, same as mine. I followed. He got in line and I started to fill out some forms on a table. Two or three people lined up behind him. I got in line. He finished and left. I followed a few minutes later. I walked toward Mass Av. He was in the car again. A passenger. I noticed the license number as they went past. On the other side of the street he leaned out the car window and looked back just as I was writing the license down. What to do? He was black, about 5' 6”, 120 pounds, beard and mustache, but not full, wearing blue sneakers with a half white circle, a tan-brown shirt with the sleeves rolled up, blue jeans with fancy white stitching on the back pockets, license number 881-AHS, Massachusetts. Should I call the police about it? He obviously noticed that I recognized him. Something to think about.

      Other things have been making me nervous today. The last few days with Linda and Simone. Its difficult. I know something happened but the right words fail me at this moment. The situation has definitely evolved. Last time Simone was hysterical. This time I would describe her as sharp and caustic and venomous. She has a better handle on her aggressive behavior. But Linda, on the other hand, says she feels like punching Simone. I suspect that Simone has also some of these murderous thoughts. But she does not express the so directly. Linda is starting to withdraw from the competition. I can feel it. She starts to waiver in her determination to see me and spend time with me. Simone has had two setbacks. Last night Stu and Michael both said they would be moving in with other women. She got desparate from this. Lets get married, she says to me. Nina calls about the ad for the artstudio space in Linda's apartment. Oh Richard, she cooes, its for you. You've been calling everyone on your list again haven't you, she says.

 

Friday, June 12, 1981

 

            I can't get this movie off my mind. Raiders of the Lost Ark. Saw it last week. Its an adventure film. It has everything ever put into any of the films like this, or so it seems. I have this desparate longing to be transformed into just such a situation. A constant stream of fantasies about wanting to be this character who overcomes every adversity. Someone who always wins in the end, even after endless setbacks and failures. Always winning by pluck and wits. He uses a whip. The hero. Old fantasies about knowing how to use one of those, and other exotic weapons. I wonder why these things sweep me away. The movie was totally absorbing. Simone says I was yelling and clapping and doing all sorts of things. I only recollect a little of it. She was as much influenced by me.

            A rejection letter from Bantam Books. The editor thought it was experimental fiction. Contact a university press, she advises. Simone always tells me not to be discouraged. Anias Nin couldn't get published for years, she reminds me. What you write is very interesting but to avant garde, to advanced, too experimental. When you are 70 you will be rich and famous, she always tells me. She has read all of Nin's work but the last book. I read a little of one last night and liked it. Simone thinks I write much like her but without the romanticism. We were trying to think of who had become famous for their diary writing before they became old or dead. Can't think of anyone.

            Last Saturday was Cheyenne's 9th birthday. I tried to call during the day and evening, and Sunday. Monday Adele answered. I want to wish C a happy birthday. She wants to know exactly what I will say. I tell her about the time last year. How I wished her a happy birthday. She said she wanted to see me. I told her to arrange it with her mother. I am not to say anything about seeing her. The rest is ok. I am surprised she lets me do that. C is very uncomfortable and nervous. She is very hesitant about talking. It seems I have to draw everything out of her. I tell Adele this. What do you expect, she says, of course she's nervous. I see you are just as insensitive as always. This makes me feel even more right about not letting you see her. You haven't changed a bit. You should have known she would be very nervous. But you didn't. I can't convince her to let me see Cheyenne. She is quite convinced of my intentions to do her harm. She has become remarkably like the sort of person she accuses me of being. Simone listens to the conversation. Afterwards she says it gave her a tension headache. How can she be so mean so long after its all over, she asks. She says there is still lots of feelings about me in her voice. I was amazed that it went on for 20 minutes. It's the most we have talked in 7 years. Adele sets me apart as a very special person when it comes to hurting people. And again, like she accuses me of being insensitive, she has become the same as far as things concerning me. I mean she has a special way of hurting me also, and she uses it still. Her voice is very controlled, as Simone noted about mine. But one can still feel the rage, vengence, and fear in her. She is not direct about it, but implies that I should be sending birthday presents to C. It is what any 9 year old would expect, she tells me. I never gave anyone presents all the time we were together. She is still trying to transforms me. Or so it seems. I'm not saying anything will happen if you do, but C is a normal child who likes presents on her birthday, she tells me. But behind it is a threat that as long as I continue this way I won't get to see Cheyenne. Perhaps she would see something like this as a sign that I have changed. It is very difficult to continue the conversation in a fashion that will make her want to continue and at the same time not offend her. I try to note exactly every response to everything I say. She finally ends it. I don't seem to have done so badly. What to do next? I thought about sending a present to C. What? Then I had the idea of sending her one of my art works. 4th Grade Picasso is what I thought of first. Then Otto's Green Lady. It occurs to me that part of my motivation may be to influence Adele. The sending of the art. But in a way beyond just sending something to C. Look here, such a present would say, I'm becoming a bit of an artist. That's a bit of a change for me from the time we were together, don't you think? In a way she is right. I still have to be prodded somewhat. I can't get myself to do some very obvious things. I could have done all this over a year ago. I could have done it years ago. What could I have possibly lost by doing it? Nothing. I am filled with regrets and what-ifs and little fantasies of how I might have done some things differently. But none of this helps me with now. I have had the idea, again, of sending her a copy of my notes. It seems a way to reveal more of myself to her in a way not possible when we were together. I go back and forth on doing it. Could I possibly get more behind by doing it?

            I wanted to say something about loosing ground there but can never remember if it is lose or loose. What rule can help me remember this? All these years and such a simple thing escapes me.

            Some interesting observations about the people around. I seem to be getting a lot of heavy criticism from various quarters. Joe, Michael, and Roberta want Simone to leave. He will never change, they all say, in exactly the same way. She goes to them with her difficulties with me. They say, leave him. That simple they think. They give up on themselves just as easily. Still looking for the perfect person. We had supper at Roberta's the other night. She cornered herself with Simone and spilled the beans about what's going on for her. She lives in a household with very little communication. She notices that we, me, Simone, and Dana, are always on top of each other. We communicate a lot. We do lots of things together. She has an economic arrangement with her roommates. She fucks with someone who lives elsewhere. It seems they do it once or maybe twice a week. She is still interested in Joe but is afraid to do anything about it. She never comes to me with her criticisms. It's the same with Joe and Michael. Simone is very easy on them. It keeps them in the same position. Namely, with their same old problems. She should use the insight she has with Linda to criticize them. They would improve, like they think she has, in a short time. One couple Simone knows have stopped seeing her since we have been together. Jean and Andy. We were there one evening for supper. An odd character came in and made what seemed to be a business transaction involving drugs. I mentioned what it seemed to be to Andy. He denied it, but Simone and I both thought he lied. She didn't say anything about it. They have avoided us since that time. I am noticing this more and more. It would help a lot of people if they were criticized for some things they do. Simone says she does this. She calls it a different style. To me it seems to be completely indirect and a way of avoiding saying what you really think. This way the person will not be offended. But at the same time they are not really made aware of how others see them. This is a crucial element missing in the social life of people. They criticize, but almost always behind the back of the person it is intended for. This kind of criticism will dislodge a person who is stuck. It gets things moving. But most people are afraid to do this for fear of the person going away. Or that they in turn will get criticized back. I know it stops me from saying a lot of what I would like to say.

 

Wednesday, June 17, 1981

 

            A dream about Otto last night. I am on FH. Again, it is not clear, am I about to leave, or have I just arrived. Inside a small shelter, the door is open, sitting on a chair, tying my shoes. Otto walks by. I see him. He seems me and stops. It is very exciting for me. There is emotional confusion. My arms go up like those of a small child running to a parent who is missed. The grownup in me is fighting this awkward movement. It is a combination of child and adult running, stumbling to greet him. We make contact. My arms go around him. There is something like a flash, a jolt, I let go. My holding him is too tight. It is still awkward for me. I notice all these things about myself right there in the dream. He does everything right.

            Simone has had some more ideas about my writing. First, though, she has become very positive about it. She has told me that I am like many other writers, ahead of my time, and unrecognized, maybe not till I am much older. She thinks I should write more extensively on one subject. She suggested my relationship with Adele be made into a complete chapter, all by itself. Another idea was for both of us to write things and alternate them. Still another was to produce some sort of theater from the things I write about.

            She went to Atlanta last weekend for her friend Robin's wedding. She found herself noticing things and commenting about them in a manner similar to me. She would then catch herself doing this and say, oh shit, I am becoming just like Richard. But speaking out on what she sees is a very good thing. She noticed a number of things about Robin and Brian that led her to believe the marriage might only last a few years. She had a lot of experience with Southern racism. Brian, it seems, is a racist, homophobic, and may be an alcoholic. Robin runs the show. Brian does what he is told. I can imagine that he is smoldering inside, but never says anything. She asks when they last had sex. He: 2 weeks, she: 3 weeks. One wants to make it look not so bad, and the other to make it look worse. Robin wants Simone to go on their honeymoon. This woman needs a security blanket. She is in the middle of all her family and still needs more.

            I have been thinking of all these things to write about and suddenly they go away. More praise from a publisher, but its not up to contemporary literary standards, I am told again. Jack borrowed a copy and tells me he likes it quite a lot. He will be over in a few days to tell me still more. He admires my courage to give my writing such wide circulation. Shit, I sit here and suddenly everything has gone away. What's been happening the last week or so? I started to read some of Anias Nin's autobiography. It inspired me for a day or two. Reading more of Mary Chestnut's diary did the same. Why is it that women writers are inspiring me the most? Maybe they write the most straightforward and honestly. MC certainly does for someone in her time and place. I will turn this thing off and go read some of AN.