Thursday, January 1, 1987

Just now a thought: where was this pen and paper one year ago today?
You, my faithful reader will know instantly, right?  Well, perhaps a
moment or two of thought will be needed to produce the answer.  For
those of you without access to previous volumes of this diary, while
huge numbers were made available during the first twenty or so
printings, and every library ordered many copies - but may not be
open, or nearby, as this is being read, let me inform you, give you a
hint, that the location was the subject of my dreams on two
consecutive nights.  Monday and Tuesday.  Surely the answer will now
be obvious to all but the beginning reader who grew up in an isolated,
rural, cultureless, backwater cattle grazing area of Australia, Africa
or China.  So for you, let me say: Friedrichshof.  A far-away
mysterious place (still, even for me) that continues to percolate
through every aspect of my conscious, unconscious, and other qualities
of life.

Monday night's dream was about visiting FH, and then deciding to stay
longer than my scheduled visit.  Tuesday night's dream is about
another visit, but then I go back four days after leaving.  These are
the first dreams about staying.  All my other dreams have come in
sequences of themes.  A lot of dreams centered around a theme like my
fear that people won't like me when I get there.  Or another theme
where I would be there, encounter someone, usually Otto, and wouldn't
know if I was just arriving or leaving.  But these two dreams are the
first where I decide to stay longer than a planned visit, or, as in
the second, go right back after leaving.  Sometimes, while waiting at
the train station or airport, I've thought about going back, or wished
the visit wasn't over - but didn't do anything about it.  Of course,
the visit being over was really no more than my own definition.  I
could have stayed any number of times.  And there is still a tangible
knot inside my mind about going and staying for more than a visit.  I
can feel it in there.  It's got a different color, texture, and
density than anything else inside my head.  It must be about 10% of
everything that's inside the point and biological volume that all of
this emanates from.

Just read an article in Smithsonian Magazine about Fra Angelica.  A
religious artist from the last of the 1400's.  There's a guy who had a
theme for his paintings.  Also very innovative.  One painting made me
think of Picasso, or a little but of Dali.  Another has models, women,
draped with cloth, in a manner similar to what one might see in the
latest fashion magazines.  There is also something a little Asian
about the posing of the figures and their surroundings, and the
landscape.

It was a dark and stormy night - when I began this day's writing.  Now
it is a dark and stormy morning.  And I'm going to stop here so as to
be able to continue my latest diary writer's new year's resolution at
least two days: to write something on every day of the year.
Otherwise there might not be anything to write about on some of them.

Another resolution: write essays on some of my ideas and send them to
a distribution list made up of possible interested parties.

Friday, January 2, 1987

Richard is a bug that is so insignificant that nobody cares enough to
even step on him.

She thinks I'm making a joke of what she's saying.  Minimizing it.
Seen how I treat people in the last 5 ˝ months.  Seems I treat Cynthia
badly, has to nag me about being late.  Feels so insecure that she
reacts to Sandy because I do these things to bother her.  That's how I
treat important people - badly.  She can only be next.  Not a good
sign for anyone else.  Same as trying to pick up a woman at the S & S
while I'm with another.  Cynthia and her husband come up.  He cheated
on his wife to get Cynthia.  She sees my attitude and treatment of her
as bad.  You have a funny way of saying things about people.  She has
to nag me constantly about when I'm not there.  Has sympathy for
Cynthia.  Realizes I've given my best shot to experiencing new things.
And this doesn't make me happy.  Dealing with all this stuff.  Being
alone doesn't make me happy either - but I know all the characters in
the situation.  I've given it time, patience, looked for the good
parts.  Don't know if anyone out there can help me feel the way I want
to feel.  It was an attempt.  I learned from it.  But I've also
learned to move on.  This is nothing against you or anybody.  I can't
deal with all the things going on.  The other night while in
Dorchester I read some of Cynthia's writing.  It is not for me.  Every
other word was paranoid or convoluted.  How can I count on such people
to care about me.  It might seem that my needs are being met on the
surface.  But I want to be needed, cared about, loved, looked to for
things.  I don't feel that.  I want to be special and important.  I
want to believe something.  We have a brief digression on the meaning
of belief and commitment.  She brings up the security of her
relationship with Kim.  C means: lets both people are secure in
knowing that another person is with you.

Our relationship has been one-sided.  I've been at risk.  I've been a
convenience.  If the risk balanced the rewards it would be different.
It always bothered me to say these things like all the other women who
have left.  When CC is still jealous after three years and so many
men, then something is wrong.  I don't know what 40 is like, but if
she's it, then I'd like to be dead at 39.  Tuesday night was a real
eye-opener.  I tell her of being pleased to have contributed.  She
admits jealousy about my feelings for Paula.  Jim made a lot of that.
But they are gone, I tell her.  She didn't know that.  Suspects Jim
magnifies things.  Nope.  Just repeated something that no longer
existed.  Tries to examine source of jealousy.  Suggested meeting her.
Wanted to get to know her.  Wanted to make a start at it.  Paula
again. Not jealous of CC.  You treat her to nag be insecure, be
compelled to do these things.  NO jealousy about CC.  Jealous of
Paula.  I was insecure, crazy, befuddled.  Not envious of CC.  An
example not to follow.  Not a happy woman.  I'm not happy and would
like to change.  Working on it though.  I would like her to be someday
as happy as she would like to be.  Her tongue has started sticking to
the roof of her mouth.  She goes off to get a drink of water.  There
is a teary tone in her voice.  It's gone after returning with some
water.

Mentions Monday night.  She was feeling something very strongly, had a
lot of feeling.  Wanted to be closer.  Thought she said something
about feeling distant.  Did that mean anything to me?

Wants to be appreciated.  Like at work.  Went in on weekends.  Worked
late.  Came up with lots of ideas.  They fired her.  But we haven't
fired her, I said.  But you don't pay me anything.  Wouldn't help if
her company paid her with birdseed.  Likewise, new turntables, books,
bags of groceries.  Wants to be appreciated.

Can only go on what she feels.  If I need rides, piano lessons,
friend, etc.  Has a leash around her neck.  I tug and she feels it.
Not going to put herself in unappreciated situations.  Wants to feel
closer but I can't return it.  Her energies go into a black hole.
Chris wants love from some other woman, but not Sandy.
 Looking for someone who wants all the things she has to give.  Weird
feeling, but feels like she has a lot to give to people, but she
shouldn't give it to people who don't want it.  Fooled herself into
thinking she could make me love her.  That she was always special.
Best at everything.  Met her match now.  Nah-Nah-Nah-Nah-Nah!  Not
going to quit - until she's given it a fair chance.  Not leaving me.
We will still be friends - dinner, place to stay overnight.  Afraid of
getting hurt.  I've not hurt her in the usual sense.  A coward.
Scared to death.  Not embarrassed about it.  Will have to try
something different.  Go back to having someone who wants only me.
Feels like she wants me more than I want her.  Like Linda, I tell her.

Jim wrote about Sandy.  Left his notebook there.  She reads from it.

Later CC and I talk about all this.  Eddie II, I say.  Yes, she
agrees.  The words are very close to what she says.  The sentiments
and feelings are exactly the same.  There is some irony in her tone of
voice, not so aggressive, more subtle way of saying things.


Saturday, January 3, 1987

Another dream about FH.  I am sort of there.  Participating, sort of.
Feeling there, sort of.  Having my usual difficulties.  Which are?
There's a kind of constant tension in me.  It prevents things from
moving freely.  One's ability to see is diminished.  One gets
distracted, preoccupied, easily.  Some of the women are interested in
me.  But something always interrupts the mood between us.  Another man
who is in the group, usually.  A second time I'm in a car with a
15-year-old girl.  I don't know why we are in the vehicle.  She
approaches me with an idea that wasn't on my mind.  Second thoughts,
doubts, get the better of her.  The women come close but can't seem to
accept me.

Erika asks Cynthia about the definition of masochism and sadism.  It
started when she asked what do you call a person who keeps punishing
themselves.  There's a reference to Fernando.  She wonders why she
stays with him when things go badly so often.

[All my life I've wanted to meet someone I could believe in. Clark
Gable to Susan Hayward in Soldier of Fortune.]

A not so pleasant New Year's Eve.  Decide to go out with him instead
of other plans.  He fell asleep.  Couldn't wait to get out of there.
Came home at 1:30 or 2 in the morning.  Sandy met her at the door.
Then half an hour of complaining and venting her frustration.  More
later when Cynthia got home.  Why do I stay with him, she wonders.  No
mystery to me.

[You don't want to go.  Yes I do.  You're pretending.  That isn't like
you or us.  I know.  I'll work it out.  Susan Hayward to her husband
(not Clark Gable), who has just been rescued from a Chinese Communist
prison - by Gable!]

He is a very nice, handsome, predictable, normal guy.  She knows very
well where his penis is going to be or not be.  Meanwhile, her
corresponding member is free to wander where it wants.  Masochist,
indeed!

Don has told me an interesting, new, (but always present) aspect of
his relationship with Jeff.  In the beginning he allowed the
impression that he had more money than he really had.  Now he says,
for the first time, that Jeff always wanted someone who had lots of
resources.  Don was initially able to create this impression, but
eventually ran up against the limit of what he could actually do.  For
a long time he's been resentful of Jeff's so-called taking advantage
of him, but he actually led Jeff on so as to help secure a hold on
him.  It's so much like the typical male-female relationship.

Sandy tells me Kim wants to kill herself.  The newest boyfriend, who
just last week was wonderful and planning a Caribbean vacation with
her, and half of a relationship she so much admired and longed for,
for herself, has ended it.  Kim is an attractive woman - but it won't
add more than a minute to any relationship she'll ever have.  I notice
a slight tone of superiority and arrogance in Sandy's voice as she
tells me this.  It gives her a chance to play the more on top of
things role.

The story of the modern world is little more than people going to
work, listening to love songs, and maybe a little sex.

Jim tells me he's worried about catching VD from Unni.  Wonders if she
did anything with her very promiscuous ex-boyfriend she visited in the
Carolinas over the holidays.  Doesn't trust her.  I can feel him
holding back from her.  Then I remind him of Miele.  Similar
situation.  This girl also had a promiscuous boyfriend.  But that
didn't stop him from doing anything with her.  He didn't have much of
an emotional attachment.  Possibly she was only doing it as a private
revenge against her boyfriend.  Unni could be up to something similar.

Sunday, January 4, 1987

Today's big event, or at least one of them, was calling my mother, and
her husband, to see if they would loan us $3000 to make a bid on a new
house.  They, he, really, said no.  It's not been a good year, and he
doesn't want to get in a position where he will have to consider
requests from others - his 18 grandchildren, for instance.  My mom
suggested Cynthia's parents.  But they are too selfish.  They could do
it easily, but won't.  Then I decided to just send a telex to Franz on
FH and ask them.  It's done.

Earlier Erika started in on Cynthia about the new house. She just
doesn't want to live in Dorchester.  Although, after looking at the
new house, she would move into the one next door to it in a minute.
The girl managed to find many things wrong with our find even though
she saw on the outside - and in the dark.  Then there's the people she
thinks will take advantage of her mother.  Geeky people, like Lotti,
Jim, and some ill defined others.  Cynthia gets a little defensive.
Erika starts to choke-up, almost near tears over the whole thing,
walks out of the room.  I tried to get to the heart of the matter, but
at bottom she wants to solve the problem of her image of where she
lives, and make sure Cynthia has enough money to send her to a
prestigious school.  To my mind came a scene of her married to a man
who doesn't have quite enough money.  Poor devil!

Monday, January 5, 1987

Somerville Theater with Sandy.  Just saw Singing in the Rain.  Dancing
(tap).  Singing.  Makes me want to study tap dancing again.

Rise is back from her vacation.  Told me the wrong time.  Got there
late.  She was waiting.  The big news is a new love affair with an old
childhood friend.  He prefers attached women.  Having an affair with
one in another town.  They hide it from her man.  That's normal - for
him and most everyone.  He finds Rise and Joe's relationship weird.

She tells me about a developing situation between her mother and her.
Mom, I suspect, has expectations of her.  Namely, that she will find a
nice man, fall in love, get married, and have children.  Meanwhile,
various peculiar events, and pieces of evidence, keeping popping into
Mom's universe, and these things are becoming difficult to explain
from that frame of reference.  Of course, Rise could enlighten her
mother, tell her about a whole other world . But she doesn't.  So mom
explains that world with interpretations, explanations of things that
didn't actually happen.  Normally, for most people, while growing up,
the situation is reversed.  Parents explain things and create a
magical world for the child.  Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, True
Love, Sexual Fidelity, etc.  But Rise has managed to get control of
the universe for her and parents.  Of course, her mother could know,
really, exactly what's going on, but being steering things by virtue
of only recognizing the direction in which things are supposed to go.

Tuesday, January 6, 1987

More tales of what is behind everything everybody does - so readers
can skip this whole day if they don't want to know any more of what I
think on the subject.

Rise describes a professor from school.  She has taken all his
classes.  Some just so she could stare at him.  A dreamboat in her
eyes.  Black hair and blue eyes.  I'm sure she's thought of more than
looking (yes), along with lots of other female students.  There's a
question of whether or not he's married.  She doesn't know.  It hardly
matters.  Aha!  Yet another example of the drive to reproduce.  She
admits that if it were possible for their offspring to be like him
. then there's a chance she might do something.  Probably some already
have.  One hears stories like that all the time.  Much literature,
theater, and music is written about it.  This joked about subject goes
all the way back to the beginning of recorded history.  But its still
only joked about and alluded to.  It still is not a part of every day
life.  I can imagine a centuries old fear of confronting this to be
what keeps it down.  An open, active sexual life makes people feel
themselves so much, and there is such fear of not having it anymore,
that the individual, and society, has to deny it, perhaps as a way of
pushing away one's disappointments with life, the feelings of being
starved for contact.

For me, personally, it's something like that.  I do not have all the
love and sex I want.  Money is another insufficient item - but its
just another way of getting the other things.  A usual I am late with
this summing up of things at the beginning of the year.  Of course, I
sense there is much more.  But a starving person doesn't notice much
about their ragged clothes until that higher priority is met.

Jennifer admits to me, today, that things are going between her and
James - still.  Exactly what, I ask.  You can guess, she replies.  Yet
another woman gone bad!  This is a good thing for her and James.  He
gets just what he wants from her.  She gets hers from him and Gary.
She tells me that Gary knows what's going on.  Hopefully it's so.
$300 came to him in the mail today.  The two of them may use it for a
trip to California.  Gary, according to her, got all coked out last
night and is feeling worthless.  His parents are on the verge of
kicking him out of the house.  Just what I needed - one more tenant at
Hamster Place!

Sandy and I were embroiled about an hour ago.  Right now she is
playing, practicing, while this is written.  The old question of
whether or not I love her, and how will she know if I don't tell her.
It goes on a bit.  She gets two choices: we go for a piano lesson or I
leave.  Some tears.  Memories of how things went for her and Jeff.  He
also left.  Maybe it's really you, I propose.  Possible, but she
doesn't see it.  I get up to leave.  It's over for her by the time I'm
through the door.  Very quiet on the drive here.  I point out the ice
skating rink near Central Street.

Wednesday, January 7, 1987

Ron is at Wrentham Street reading poetry to Cynthia and Rise at the
dinner table.  I'm told not to interrupt - go to the store, or
anywhere else to he's finished.

Who does he think he is?  He's the most opinionated person I've ever
met.  What is he, some kind of guru?  This was sort of Ron's reaction
to me last night.  He loves Cynthia and Rise - even though we all
think the same of him.  Big trouble with Pamela last night when he got
home around 1 is.  She thought he was staying in Dorchester.  Her
imagination of what might be going kept a hold over her even though he
didn't do it.  Just another couple dependent on each other, but hiding
at the same time.  An inevitable problem unless you either completely
suppress other desires or create an intimate atmosphere between
yourself and several people.

Got myself into big trouble with him when I suggested everything
between him and Pamela was not out in the open.  Neither of them
speaks their minds all the time.  They both notice things in the other
- and let them go by.  He got outraged.  Told me to leave her out of
this, as I didn't know anything about the situation.  The whole thing
started with a discussion about the connection between sexuality and
art, and if there is a connection.  From his friend Don, and other
artists, his experience, etc., he says no.  I say yes on the basis of
my experience.  Then I proposed that he could look deeper into what's
going on with Don by asking questions.  For example, when something
happens between him and Don, or between Don and another person, and he
has an idea or impression of something going on, of something being
hidden, to say what he thinks, or to ask a question such as, is
such-and-such going on here.  He asked me, at one point, to suggest
some questions to ask Don.  I couldn't think of any specific
questions, but to look for a particular kind of situation, where there
is some tension, something hanging in the air, something that has been
left unsaid, or something he wants to say, but might be afraid to say
because he's afraid of the other person's reaction.  He claims not to
be afraid in that way.  I ask Cynthia if she believes that.  He gets
outraged at my bringing her into the picture.  She mumbles and walks
out of the room, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire, and
having just the kind of fear we are talking about.  Not wanting to say
something that you know will most likely offend a person you are
emotionally dependent on.

On the other hand, I would say my relationships with women have come
about as a result of saying what's on my mind, and what I think of a
person, regardless of how emotionally dependent we are.  I don't have
money, am not tall, dark, and handsome, and am not a sexual virtuoso.
But these other two things I do better at than anyone else here.  And,
luckily for me, there are some small numbers of people who are moved
by that.

How can we make tomorrow different?  Sandy says it won't be.  She
wants to bet, shake on it.  But tomorrow will be a revolution in
thought and action!  We will grab the moment, seize its veritable
balls, and, in doing so, ride history on into the future!  Even as we
. talk about it a significant change comes about.  The excitement of
the possibilities begins to overwhelm us!

Thursday, January 8, 1987

What do you mean, "You don't get enough sex?" she said.  You have
someone every night.  Well, it's still not enough.  A little but short
on quantity.  About one more would do it.  Rise or Linda, say.  And a
bit shorter still on accessibility.  This going all over tarnation to
get it is a drag.

Then there's Sandy's recent adventure with Mr. Poo.  He regales her
and Lotti with Simone and Richard stories.  For instance, that time
she unzipped my pants, pulled it out, and began ministering to it.
All the while some others, including Lotti, were there.  He describes
how he and Dana would make up stories for me to write about.  Of
course, they don't know the stories I made up about them.

A dream last night where Sandy and I are walking though a residential
neighborhood, crowded, somewhat like Cambridge, when we come upon a
large building out of which music is emanating.  Inside we sit in a
large auditorium.  The stage curtain is down.  We hear classical
music.  I want to go peek behind the curtain.  She tells me not to do
it.  I do it anyway.  Guys in pajamas and slippers are standing around
with their instruments.  Some are playing.  It seems random, chaotic.
But it comes out orderly.

Very short practice last night.  A little up and down the scales for
fingering practice.  Then a bunch of "Heart and Soul" that nearly
drives Sandy crazy.  I don't even hear it.  The question for me is to
overcome the feeling of chaos of which my fingers are always on the
verge of.  In that dimension it goes different every time I play it.
I want to eliminate the panic that occupies the biggest part of my
awareness.  I can feel it getting a little better each day.  Of
course, I have to be careful not to drive my teacher completely
bonkers.

Dinner at Wrentham Street with Cynthia, Rise, Jim, Duncan.  Cynthia,
Duncan, and myself go running before dinner.  My health has definitely
returned.  No problems running.  No weakness at all.  We meet some
nearby neighbors (of the Welles Street house), passing the parents,
baby, and dog three times.  Cynthia interviewed the woman at AIB.
They remembered each other.  Lynn, the mother and wife, seemed
especially hungry for contact.

Friday, January 9, 1987

A long phone conversation with Diane Kett.  So long that I am now late
for my appointment, lunch date, with Sandy and Rise.  Someone (Diane)
who met me about a year ago at the MASH party.  I don't remember her.
She does me.  Thirty years old.  118 pounds.  5 feet 5.5 inches tall.
Once weighed 160 in the eight grade.  42-year-old husband of 7 years,
who has, on infrequent occasions, beaten her up - once on a street in
Paris.  Younger sister who is a born-again Christian.  Straight - A
student in high school.  Did well for two years of college.  Can't
decide between being an artist or scientist.  Seriously thinking of
leaving her husband.  A man she finds inflexible.  They haven't talked
about remaining faithful.  She hasn't told him about thoughts of
leaving.

Why has she stayed in contact with me?  The voice in my writing is
like her own.  Words and thoughts similar to hers.  Needs someone to
talk to.  A long time?  Hour and a half.  She didn't want to hang up.

And what is your personal interest in me?  Do you have any?  There is
a very warm feeling between us.  She can admit to that.  A question
about how many others like her.  Only you, I say.  Thought she wanted
to know how many women I'm interested in, intimate with.  That was her
next question.  Two, plus, every now and then, a very skittish colt.
She imagines me in a trophy room with medals and pictures.  Like a
playboy, you mean.  Sort of, she says.  But then what playboy ever had
a talk like this?  I tell you about the women in my life, ask you to
get an AIDS test, and don't dance around about what I want from you.
A long talk.

She wonders if I'll trust her about the IADS.  I'll bring the papers,
she says.

Sandy is getting a bit carried away about my writing here.  You would
rather write about her than fuck me, she says, turning away, and, to
nobody in particular, that I'm doing all this while wearing a T-shirt
from Simone . Meanwhile complaining about how her life is over and
that taking a shower earlier was a total waste . Meanwhile, groaning
in mock-horror at the end of her life!

Today I noticed how much better she's gotten in this respect.  In the
beginning my mentioning another woman would drive her oranges, and
several other tropical fruits.  Now she has, often some distance from
it, and, like just now, some humor.  I've had contact with lots of
women since meeting her.  Very little has come of any of it.  They
want to be in complete control of someone, or have to keep everything
hidden.  I don't know what will happen, with Diane.  I like her a lot,
and will take things quite a ways - if she wants.  But this way of
doing things may not be for her.  Although she and I share a lot of
common ideas.

Sandy continues on with her obsession.  Talks about having to leave me
because of someone new being better than her.  Then I tell her the
whole thing was made up.  It's my fantasy to have a woman fall in love
with me over the telephone.  Everyman would like it to be so easy.
But it won't be that way for her.  We might fall into each other's
arms the first time or two we meet - as long as it's far from our
every day world.  But a long-term relationship, with conscious effort
being made to overcome jealousy, possessiveness, and dependency, is
another kind of row to hoe!  But back to Sandy, who started crying,
and felt so foolish on my telling her the whole thing was made
up. I've invented a new game show for prime-time television: Stump
Your Nookie!  The goal being to make up stories, and to tell some not
made up, and test your mate (or significant pother) to determine if
they can separate the two.

She's feeling a lot better now.  We've made a joke of my TV program,
and I tell her how Diane watched the Letterman Show for many weeks -
hoping to see me, after I made up a story in the Harvard Square
writing, and on a postcard, about being on his program.

Sandy has fallen into a tearful, serious funk about the importance of
telling the truth.  I hear the story of how her father related that
Mozart wrote several symphonies by the time he was seven.  He asks how
many she's written, at the age of seven.  She is devastated and goes
to her room to cry - thinking that dad has called her a failure, and
doesn't love her because she's disappointed him, hasn't lived up to
his expectations.  Meanwhile, he's laughing about the state of mind
she has fallen into.  Now she's sitting up, crying, almost, and
telling how this story (I called Diane today .) is just like that for
her.  18 years later she can laugh at the Mozart story, and one day
this Diane story will also be funny - at this moment the tears (pseudo
- sort of) turn into laughing.  She covers her face with the blanket
to hide the comedic embarrassment of it all.  Thank God we didn't have
to wait another 18 years for this to become a funny story!

She wonders if Rise or Cynthia or Lotti would be able to tell what
really happened.  Rise would be able to tell best.  She wouldn't let
the story have much influence on thinking it through (well, of course,
because she's not sexually involved, or as emotionally influenced by
you as the pothers, Sandy says).  Rise is the least paranoid and
irrational.  But Sandy still claims not to know the truth about Diane
- all because I haven't told her.

Sandy, Rise, Tom, and I had lunch today.  He is a student at Harvard.
Rise says he proposed they live together in the dorm several years
ago.  It wasn't for her - not then, anyway.  She thinks it might go
different if the question was asked today.  Political philosophy is
his major.  Isn't that a completely useless oxymoron, I say.  He goes
on to define it.  I have to turn myself around and eventually
completely agree that, by his definition, it's the only thing worth
studying.  Then, carefully, and with considerable cunning, soave
faire, elegance, etc., I introduce the FH concept and reality.  She
tells me I did quite a thorough job on him.  Didn't give him anything
to fight back at.  Kept him interested for two hours.  He's even
interested in visiting with our next FH visitors.  Rise says she had a
lot of warm feelings about me today - a lot of them from that.

Sandy wants me to put this pen down and pick up my pecker, so you,
dear reader, will have to wait another day for the story of what
happened immediately after the period at the end of this sentence.

Saturday, January 10, 1987

RG is going to tell the truth about what happened with Diane.

Ok, this is RG's attempt to tell the truth about Diane.  First, she
has to be a very good woman.  She is going to have to give up her
fantasies about being rescued.  I'm not the hero type.  She will have
to decide on a life that includes other people, art, trying new
things, flexibility, accepting the other women in my life, and so on.
She won't be able to drag me of in some corner and have a chance to
create a private, hidden world that she can be the master of.
 It's a rare woman that will settle for an uncertain life in place of
a secure jail cell.

So, Sandy, don't worry.  A woman capable of passing through that
gauntlet will be able to make quite a contribution to the life of
everyone around her.  But then perhaps I am asking too much of Diane.
After all, she's not had a lot of practice doing things another way.
You can, perhaps, give her a hand, and some advice.  She's going to
need lots of both, when her present state is broken out of.

It would be great to have another good woman.  We are much better off
with more good women.  I would be willing to meet her at the airport.
If she gets two good men I would be willing to do something with them
on their nights off.  That's Rise talking about the possibility of
Diane moving to Boston.  [Note: the author apologizes for writing a
Monday paragraph on the wrong page.  This should be on January 12,
1987.]

Sunday, January 11, 1987

I can see it now, she says.  There will be a dinner party.  You will
be there with Diane.  Cynthia will be there with Eddie or Bill, and
I'll be alone.  This is Sandy's latest panic, rejection fantasy.  But
I have just realized what is really going on - what she is really
doing!  I should have seen this much earlier.  How stupid I am to let
myself be led along like this.  Of course - it's all so obvious!  I
know exactly what Sandy is up to.  First I write all these stories
down.
 Then send a copy to Diane, who immediately freaks out and decides to
have nothing more to do with me.  It's all so simple.  So obvious.
That woman is devious, nefarious.  What a slime ball to do something
like that to me!  Typical.  Thinking only of her own selfish,
short-term interests.  This is the last time I tell her what's really
going on with me!

Called my grandmother yesterday.  Guess who, say me.  Jeffrey?  Nope.
Pauses.  Then she gets it!  Actually, I asked, no, I said, its one of
your grandchildren - or something like that.  Then that it was her
grandson's lawyer.  That didn't go over so well.  She has one who has
had lots of need for a lawyer.  Well, me too, but not in the same
sense as Cy did.  I will go down to visit her in Florida about the
first week of February.  My father may be in the area helping organize
a chess tournament.  It will be the first time we have met since I was
19.

Dinner at Kathy's ( a friend of Bill Z's).  Me, Cynthia, Sandy, Rise,
Kathy, Jennifer, Bill, Duncan, James.  A pleasant time.  She and Bill
were at the last dinner with Teresa.

Monday, January 12, 1987

Another long phone conversation with Diane.  She wrote in her new
diary on Friday.  Did this for a while in the sixth grade.  I ask her
to read what she's written.  Won't do that.  Might send me a copy -
some day.  Asks if I'm recording this conversation, writing it down,
going to write about it.  She frets about all the people who will read
this.  Wonders if I can be trusted to tell the truth.

I ask her what else she's done about a job, commuting, art, etc.
Nothing.  Has lots of ideas.  Tells me her husband is always putting
then down - so she can't do anything.  You let his opinion serve as an
excuse for not doing anything, I say.  A pause.  Yes, it's probably
so, she says.

How will I know you'll write about this accurately, she asks.  How do
I know if you'll write the truth.  You don't, is my reply.  It will
just be what I remember, can reconstruct from our conversation.  It
won't necessarily be the truth.  But it will be what's in my
head. Knowing what's inside somebody is more important than the truth.

There's a comment about seeming to have known me longer than she
really has.

I am a little more than pleased at how she is able to accept
everything from me.  Her continuous nervous laughter.  This writer
makes her nervous.  The almost non-stop quaver, quiver in her voice.
Like someone under incredible pressure and vibrating from the force of
it trying to get out.

And more good men.  Not the kind who write on the wrong page, crash
airplanes, sprain their ankles, and don't line their vans with pink
fur.  Good men, dammit!  That's Rise again.

Once the women decide to do things a certain way, the men will go
along.  Men will go along if women change the rules.  Surround
yourself with good women and the men will come.  Men don't fear being
dominated by women they are sexually involved with.  A group of women
looking for men to join them looks completely different from a group
of men doing the same.  A woman, can, in general, get men more easily
than a man can get women.  Conversation with Rise.  I tell her of my
idea for her, Cynthia, and Sandy, to start living together.  Possibly
one more woman.  It would be like a vacuum.  Nature abhors a vacuum.
The way it is now, she, Cynthia, Sandy, can all get more than one man
- but not securely.  They will always be insecure about who they have.
There will be too much distance between everybody.  They (the women)
only have to decide on less distance, as in their living together, and
the men will some around.  The only other real alternative is for
someone as talented as Otto to appear on the scene.  While I have my
fantasies about me being that talented, it just ain't so.

Tuesday, January 13, 1987

Yesterday I had my best ever piano lesson.  There were some
discoveries.  Had to do with diminishing intervals.  How to transfer a
sequence of keys to another sequence.  Being able to either compute or
tell how it went by the sound.  A feeling of being on my way to
improvising.  Like parachuting maybe.  The feeling of falling is
looked forward to.  I want to jump more often.  Doing something leaves
me with a thrilling feeling.

Sandy spends time with Duncan (yesterday).  He helps her with the car
tires.  Getting new ones.  Afterwards she's driving around looking for
me.  Knows what street I might be walking down.  I need a woman like
that, he says to her.  Some talk about this FH experience.  Are you
moving into the Dorchester house, she asks.  I don't think so.  It's
just going to be Richard and Cynthia, he tells her.

Today, from Rise, I hear about how Duncan took her home last on Sunday
night.  He got a little adventurous with her.  She had to escape.
Another man who lives too close for comfort but too far away at the
same time.  I have this new view of her where she wants someone firmly
in hand, but nobody else.  More than one person close to her would be
too much of a problem.  Mike, with her and Joe, as an example.  She
likes Duncan, but he's not far enough removed for her ability, I
suspect.  Recently she's been making mating noises around me again.
Seems like a yearly ritual.  Reminds me of Linda.  So I mention this
to Sandy and Cynthia.  Their first reaction is to mention her last sex
partner and that he was after the blood donation.  Here is notice that
one can detect more than health concerns in their tones of voice.  He
whose nose is clean can offer the fresh hankey!

A late breaking story from Jim and Lotti.  She waited for Rachael to
be out of town before locking her keys inside.  He calls to tell me
all this - speculating about how the world might really be against
him.

Cynthia and I talked this evening about my career, lack thereof, and
so on.  It's been on my mind.  But what to do about it?  There are
plenty of opportunities in my own business.  The last few days have
felt like drifting in the open sea.  NO land in sight.  No firm place
to put a foot down.  My working habits have become very sporadic and
short in duration.  I have been putting off the simplest of things.
And then there's my backing of potentially profitable ideas. But they
only stay: ideas.

As of this moment my plan is to drag myself up quite early and try to
change my work schedule.  I've been getting up too late to use the
morning hours.  Cynthia promises to make coffee for me tomorrow
morning.  That will help wake me up.  Well, so much for my
late-yet-again New Year's resolution!  I must be more disciplined.  So
far, this year, I've only managed with this writing - and only for 13
days.  Will this winter manage a whole year?  Keep reading.
 
Cynthia and I talk about the problem of a mortgage on the Welles
Street house.  She may not make enough money to be eligible.  Now if
only you had a regular job and could be a co-signer on the mortgage.
Problems, problems.

Wednesday, January 14, 1987

I'm sure you give Sandy the impression she's the most important.  This
was the beginning of a long, late conversation with Cynthia last
night.  No, it's not true.  She is the 2nd most important person for
me.  Cynthia goes on to say how the other men in her life each have
the impression they are the most important.  She doesn't tell any of
them how I am really the most important.  How much she sees of each
person is hidden from each of the others - except for me.  I know
everything of any consequence.  She is sure none of them knows,
really, who is most important.  She gets a little pissed off when I
suggest a small cash-money bet about this.  I'm not going to hit them
over the head with that, she responds, with some anger in her voice.
But that's not necessary.  It will become obvious, as it is to
everyone, like Duncan and Linda, who make accusations about the two of
us being such a tight item.  Each of these two knows this because of
the time they spend, have spent, with us, in group activities.  But
she keeps each of them out of touch with each other and our group
life.

I don't do anything wrong, so I don't have anything to fear.  James
making a reference about himself.  Rise and I look at each other.  Did
you hear what I heard, we say to each other.  James modifies himself
too: I don't commit any heinous crimes.  We point out that opening his
mouth reveals his mind - which he imagines to be a private place.

Today James and I begin a competition to see who will think of things
first.

We are all individuals.  I hate being referred to as one of a group.
James tries, yet again, to extricate himself from himself.  I don't
want to be places in any group, he says.  He tries to make up
something else, again, immediately.  He is in this group (the
children) because he is so much like the others in it.  He asks to
know why he's in it.  We tell him.  He resists.

How can James get out of the group he is in?  Clean everything in the
apartment, every day.  Buy much more food than anybody else.

I test almost everything I think almost all the time.  James about
himself.  Long discussion about him and Jennifer and how he doesn't
deal with the real her, but with the highly verbal Jennifer he wishes
she were.  He wants to think her into what he wants.  She can't do
this at all.  At some point she hears nothing but the tone of voice.
With James this often happens with the first word.

A challenge for James so he can get out the children's group.  Two
simple things for him to do.  Clean the house tomorrow morning and
keep it clean from known on.  Put food in the refrigerator and make
sure there is always something to at least drink, like soda or juice.
He writes these two things down and agrees to give them a try.  We
will see how things go by lunch tomorrow.

Earlier this evening Jim gets to the office with Unni and an equally
attractive other young woman (but not quite so emaciated).  Something
is immediately a little odd.  She gives me the creeps.  Moralistic,
harsh, like there's a very small program running very fast in her
head.  She launches into Jim about how drug use is wrong but alcohol
is ok.  The woman gives the impression of being a religious fanatic.
But religion hasn't specifically come up yet.  I stay very quiet, go
about my business, and leave to meet Sandy for the drive to Longy.
This woman would be like a jailor for any man she was attached to.
Everything would have to be known to her and controlled at all times.
A very insecure person.  On the way, I would speculate, to becoming an
alcoholic.

Woke up in the middle of the night.  Cynthia is moaning, thrashing a
bit.  I thought myself to be with Sandy - who does this from time to
time.  Cynthia hasn't done this since I don't know when.  She did it
often when we were first together.  It went away - slowly.  Linda did
the same thing.  Nightmares.  I would reach over, put my arms around
her (or whoever was there), talk softly, and kiss her on the face and
neck (and possibly a number of other, nearby places).  These
nightmares also went away for Linda.

Last night I told Cynthia that a lot of her anger at me has to do with
my not being as good as Otto.  She's gone after me for this a number
of times.  She wants those qualities, but, I suspect, not for then to
be a part of a real person.  Not unlike a man, including me, who wants
a woman, but only for the specific qualities he wants.

She has been looking much younger for the last week or so.  Noticed it
herself.  Had something to do, perhaps, with her emotional breakdown
of some days ago.  The point where she considered herself to be
totally alone, with no alternative but to create an illusory life -
since, by her reckoning, from the point of view of the bottom of the
existential barrel, there was no such thing as real life, and no
possibility for people to be really in contact with each other.  So
it's necessary to pretend.  And, for that short time, it was the only
possibility.  But within a day or two things had totally reversed
themselves.  As for me, I personally am not, as a result of witnessing
all this falling from grace, charity, and faith, not so sure anymore
what's for real.

Sandy worked for Rise at the Harvard Law School Record last night.
Last minute emergency typing.  They both thought very well of each
other.  Rise has decided not to be editor for another term.  I'd had
proposed that myself.  She's come, after a talk with her co-editor, to
the same conclusion.  Says it reminder her of when she decided not to
marry Phillip.  Seems I may have had some influence on that too, about
2 ˝ years ago.  It happened shortly after we met.  Her and that
prospect were a hot, sticky, unsavory stew, cooking away for too long,
at too high a heat.  It was a big relief for her.  I've been looking
for something just like this, she said, after discovering FH through
my writing.  This after living with a man for five years, having lots
of affairs, and thinking he knew about them all the time.  She thought
it was obvious.  We talk about how Cynthia imagines her other men
don't know who is most important.  Rise agrees with me and would put
money on my side of any bets about who they (the other men) think is
most important to her.  It's a convenient way of rationalizing not
being explicit to them, as well as helping her feel better about how
they, where they, really stand.  She has convinced herself that she
has convinced each of them into feeling the most important.  And not
unlike Rise's convincing herself that Phillip knew everything.

Today has been somewhat of a success.  Managed to drag my carcass out
of bed at a reasonable hour.  Got some work done.

Sandy's hair smells like American Cheese.  Her feet like peanut
butter.  We came into her apartment and I immediately noticed a very
slight, subtle, and pleasant smell.  She asked if I noticed anything.
Yes.  The idea came from Cynthia.  She noticed that Cynthia's bedroom
always smelled so nice.  So it was worth a try.  Around the apartment
(Central Street) there are several cotton balls saturated with
perfume.
 She is very conscious that her apartment often smells strongly of cat
and cigarette smoke.  The perfume is quite unlike the overall
impression (a mild pine, woodsy smell).  Perhaps the combination of
perfume, cat, and smoke.  This is an experiment of hers.  There was a
vague reference to it as we pulled out of the record parking lot after
a failed attempt to visit with Rise - who wasn't there (and that's why
it was a failure).

As we were leaving Longy, Sandy got a bit caught in her relationship
with Jeff and the way he used his verbal ability in the way James does
with Jennifer, Rise with Phillip, Cynthia with her men, and me with
everybody I can get my glands on.

Sandy tells me she noticed the very lady-like, feminine way that
Cynthia ate on Sunday night.  It's to be sued, also, to improve her
self image and the way others see her.

I'm just thinking that your readers might confuse my Jeff with Don's
Jeff.  Sandy wonders about that, maybe worries.

Her piano practice [edited, after the fact, corrected by SBH - as her
lessons are on Sunday morning.] did not go so well today, either.
Concentration was the problem.  Something extra for her - drifting off
to other things.

Cynthia has found out a bit more about the situation with Michael
Maloney's gallery in Provincetown.  Bill Whiteman, who recently
returned from Japan with a younger wife, told her of another Boston
artist who may have been snookered by Maloney.  Call Charlie Giuliano,
I suggested.  Maybe he will know about this.  Sure enough.  A whole
new picture has emerged.  Maloney had a rich boyfriend.  Had.  They
broke up.  The boyfriend pulled his money, and everything else,
apparently, out of their relationship.  So Maloney had to scramble.
The theft story may just have been a cover to avoid paying out money
he owed in order to keep his enterprise afloat.  But we don't really
know.  This could be no more than somebody else's story.

Sandy had two good interviews today.  Brookline and Newton.  The
former seems to be a much better deal.  Closer, pays more money
immediately, with a raise later, and a better impression from the
interview.  Several times I find myself fantasizing about her
encountering Cheyenne in a classroom.  Sandy tells me of having lots
of fantasies about meeting her in a hallway or class.  Speaking her
name: Cheyenne Gardner, and having her go running, hysterically out of
the classroom.  And so on.

Diane is half Estonian.  She told me that the other day.  Sent her a
copy of last Sunday's Globe help-wanted ads.  Plan to send her a copy
of this writing, January 1, to the present, probably tomorrow.  Sandy
mentions that there are Latvians in her family.

How come you don't tell "them" how great the sex is lately, Sandy
says, and continues by wondering, aloud, why I don't just tape record
everything and have it transcribed.  Be nice to me, she pleads.  Oh,
Richard!  Smooch, smooch.  Neck nibbling.  Ear eroticizing, etc.

I made all that up.  For Sandy's benefit.  She keeps trotting over to
where this writer sits to read practically every paragraph.

Neil Young sings on the radio.  A pitiful sounding guy.

Saw Anna in Harvard Square today.  She was trying to sell a brown
leather coat out of a Filene's shopping bag.  Six days work a week for
her.  Ten hours a day.  At least that's the story.  Can she really
need money that badly.  Maybe her job as a manager of that art store
in Copley place pays only 10 cents an hour.  Perhaps every pay check
goes to her parents.  Selling a coat might be the only way for her to
get discretionary funds.  The same boyfriend is still her main source
of self-esteem.  Why do you stay in it, I ask.  It's hard: to find an
alcoholic who cares - did I hear that right?  She tried to dump him
around Christmas, but he came back!  Things are a little better for
her.  Not the whole lot better she imagines.  Still constantly
nervous, constantly glancing around, constantly shaking.

Rise comments about two evenings in Dorchester.  Robin and Eddie came
by for the evening.  She thinks Robin the better of the two.

Thursday, January 15, 1987

Today has been like a roller-coaster ride with Sandy.  From the worst
to the best to the worst to the best.  Back and forth.  She has been
set off like a bomb by her fears of this or that woman, that I will
leave her, and who knows what else.  She has left me and come back.  I
find myself in the position of having to stop one explosion with
another from myself.  And pervading everything is her constant fear of
being left.  It's like being in the water with a drowning person.
They claw and rip at you to save themselves, to stay above water.  It
brings back memories of a time in high school when I tried to save a
drowning friend.  He pulled me under as soon as I got to him.  I had
to nearly punch him senseless, dive deep to escape him, swam back to a
raft, threw him an inner tube with a rope, and pulled him in.  When in
a corresponding emotional situation, where fear has a hold on someone,
the claw and grasp to keep their head above the surface.  It makes me
want to escape and do little more than throw them something to keep
afloat.

Cynthia and I ran our regular course tonight in 27 minutes.  Two
nights ago we ran the same course, but reversed, in 27 minutes.
Tonight I had no idea or sense of the times being similar.  I felt
heavy, distracted, almost weak, tonight.  This is one of the few times
I would have said our pace was quite different.  It was only a
feeling.  No connection with reality.

Friday, January 16, 1987

Last night, as we were running, Cynthia mentions a Sunday date with
Robin.  He wants her to model for another almost-full-body piece he
may get $15,000 for.  There is an implication about Saturday night
with me.  I'd already made a date with sandy because, to the best of
my memory, she (Cynthia) told me, some days ago, that they would do
the model project on Saturday.  She insists no.  I refer to our
discussion and my memory of it.  There's a pause in the conversation
(and an increase in the pace, as their often is near the end - but in
my case it was a sudden flood of adrenaline as their was more fight
looming on a very nearby horizon).  She resumes her insistence about
what happened.  I shoot back, then suggest we have two possibilities
here: someone made a mistake, is one.  The other is to go on clawing
at each other to the point of exhaustion or parting the next morning -
which ever comes first.  There are two more pauses between assaults in
response to this.  Then, before there's a chance for anything more,
comes my final burst of speed up the last hill.  For the rest of the
evening I ask three times if we are pals again.  It got better each
time.  It was almost finished in her by bedtime.  She gave it up for
good there.  Nothing left of it by morning.  She spreads out her rage
at me by leaving big holes in it.  Sort of like a discontinuous
function, but one that would appear smooth if one were to extrapolate
between the missing points.  But I think my confronting her directly,
unrelentingly, with the prospect of coming right back at her with any
and everything at my disposal, is what really brought it to a quick
end.  Sometimes I think a lot of her self-righteous attitude about
things like this rests on her professional experience and demeanor,
which, I must admit, is better than my own.  However, events of the
last two days are beginning to make me wonder.  Yesterday she was
worried about the school going under and not having a job.  A
combination of factors that included the school's president having an
affair with his administrative assistant (even while his wife works in
a nearby office), missing money and bills being obscured by the
business manager, possibly illegal construction going on while
students are around, and an attitude on the part of the staff that
includes the previously mentioned lovers being referred to as Imelda
and Ferdinand Marcos.  Well over a year ago e mentioned, talked about
these things.  I suggested she have a heart-to-heart with him at the
time.  The idea was resisted.  The evidence seemed to be there -
although most of my impression came from talking with Cynthia.
Meeting this guy, on at least one occasion, led me to think something
was going on somewhere.  Today is another story.  The whole thing
seems to have turned around.  She went to him with the Marcos story,
her anxieties about the money and the construction.  His talk, along
with the presentation of a detailed construction schedule, and more
complete picture of accounts receivable, have convinced her better
times are ahead.  He admits to his delectable inflagrentay, remembers,
is reminded of, the time he came to her with a picture of how her
personal situation was adversely influencing her work.  The whole
thing leaves me with a feeling of I-told-you-so.  And today she
becomes aware of just how adversely, badly, Sissy is being battered
about.  Raising herself, removing herself, to a very abstract level
that allows her to pretend nothing is going on.  She returned, several
days ago, from a tropical island vacation with two male homosexual
friends.  It seems sort of like a way for her to get at him, make him
jealous, without actually having to do anything.  Not being able to
speak up to people you know professionally and personally, about
professional and personal matters, looks to me to be a professional
and personal cowardice.  Her professional situation looks to have been
threatened mostly by an overactive imagination.  The personal
situation will likely go downhill till someone of the four people (our
two star-crossed lovers are married - but we don't know if the bimbo's
husband knows what's going on) falls apart or explodes.  IN the
newspapers the last few days one can read about an American Marine
sergeant who was caught fucking with a female KGB agent.  Reports have
it that he's been passing secrets to her and/or planting bugs in the
Vienna and Moscow embassies.  Sex causes people to ignore all sorts of
disastrous things going on around them.

Sandy told me the other day that she doesn't think it would be
possible for her to live in the same house with me where I might be
fucking someone else - and she might have to listen.  What a shame.
Living in the same house would make it possible for us to fuck every
day.  Now it only happens about once every two days.

Today was my best piano lesson ever.  It had to do with learning jazz
runs.  Up till today I had to quickly calculate the number of keys to
skip to get the next note.  Today it was a combination of calculating,
intuition, feeling, and memory.  Progress continues at a steady pace
for me - every day some new advance.  I am getting quite excited about
it.  For several days I have been thinking of buying my won laptop as
Jim wants his back soon.  Today I have been going back and forth
between a computer and an electronic keyboard.

James looks to be raising himself out of the children's group.  The
apartment has never been so clean and neat - and he points to a
variety of things for everyone to use.  Some days ago Jim gave up on
storing his food in the frig.  He put it out for anyone to take.  It
remained out and untouched for several days.  Now that James has
overcome his miserliness and bean counting, Jim has decided to be
contrary and refuses to touch any of the food in the apartment.  This,
even though, I've told him of James's surrender.  My but that boy is
determined to be a victim.  And Unni bores him - even while he bores
her! [Rise, is that a chiasmus?]  He's giving up any ideas of group
living, plans to move to Concord and bury himself in his new job.  He
looks for something that he and Unni have in common.  Can't find
anything yet.

Sandy composed some music in the last day or so, and played it for me
today.  It was designed to create the sensation of being on a moving
sea - something like seasickness.  It was a success.  She asks if it
was repetitious.  Not for the first hundred times.  It came out of
being inspired by my drowning story.

My impression of my piano lessons, so far, is one of a continuous,
seamless progression where it looks as though nothing particularly new
is being learned.  But I can see, sense, imagine big developments that
come out of each very small step.  She does this very well, in away
that doesn't frustrate me - at least no often.  I never would have
thought it possible for me to learn so much about music.  Ahh!  Love
conquers even idiots like me.

Saturday, January 17, 1987

Just returned from the Boston Red Cross after attempting to donate
blood.  A measurement of 38.9 on their little testing machine.  37.3
last time.  Iron and vitamin pills every day.  They ask me if I'm an
athlete.  Explain that I should not run for a few days before
donating.  You have to wait a week, they tell me.

Just wrote a comma, three words, and a period.  Sandy walks over to
take a look.  I'm addicted to that man's pen, she explains to Jim.

The three of us are sitting in Sandy's apartment.  She is looking for
some music to play, then gets out the electronic keyboard.  A little
Bach on the harpsichord.  The seasick song, a bit of Jeff's song,
Koyaanitqatsi.  Cold as Ice.

A dream last night about visiting Don and his mother.  She has us sit
at a table to eat something.  In a battered, blackened, dented, cheap
aluminum pot there are cooked potatoes.  Cut up into smaller pieces,
they have been badly dipped in chocolate.  By that I mean not covered
completely, unevenly covered, as though done by a retarded person, a
child, or someone extremely preoccupied.

Sunday, January 18, 1987

Congratulations on your new job as Number 1, I said to her (Sandy).
This after she explains what happened to her after Cynthia called here
about two hours ago.  First she was pissed off.  Then left the room to
make coffee and do other things.  Slowly it went away.  She came back
and snuggled with me as Cynthia and I finished a nearly hour long
call.  We had just finished fucking when the phone rang.  Not the best
time for another woman to call me.  But it went away (the bad mood),
and she was able to describe, very well and consciously, what went on
insider her during the course of the call.  There was only one thing
not seen clearly, not seen mutually.  It was her opinion that I did
not know how she was feeling during this time.  But it was all very
clear to me.  Nothing she said was a surprise to me.  I was certainly
aware of this.  However, I was only on the phone with Cynthia.  Here
is where I would be after the conversation.  And she was having a
difficult time - in addition to not having seen her for some days.
And I have made it clear to Cynthia that Sandy can call me at Wrentham
Street at any time.

Sandy asks how many number one's there are.  This after my comment
about the way she follows this pen across every line.  You look like
someone reading the word of God, I say to her.  You think I idolize
you, she says to me, continuing to keep a sharp eye on every letter,
every word (evening telling me when one has been left out), [now she's
just caught the word evening in the last set of parenthesis, saying
how I must have done it on purpose.  But let me just say {for those of
you in the know, that I only pretended to have done it on purpose so
as to make it seem what a clever guy I am!}, and so on to the end of
this page and a

That last, unfinished sentence, punctuation, etc, is an old literary
trick of mine.  Perhaps you, dear reader, are left with the sensation
of having heard two people, in the room, on a bed, above you,
squeaking and groaning mightily, and only one of them has come, but
the squeaking goes on, and so you wait, quietly, barely breathing,
barely moving, all senses concentrated on the action overhead, waiting
for the other "shoe" to drop.

Can I say something before you start writing, Sandy says to me.  The
writing starts anyway . She has just gotten worried about louzing her
new position.  Perhaps she suspects it will have to be worked for.
Before she always made trouble the old fashioned way - she works for
it.

Yesterday Rise commented on how Sandy has come to have a lot of
distance from, and humor about, things she used to be totally caught
up in.

She wonders if Cynthia has gotten worse and her new position is
because of that.  Looking back at Jeff she sees how her mood would
have stayed bad for a whole day.  Now described how he would, during
what she calls a rampage, say he couldn't take it anymore - and he
meant it for more than this time, or for more than a day.  He meant
forever.  I tell her about my times with Adele, when she would give
up, and, at that moment, how I would become totally contrary and
obstinate.

Everyone is having lots of vivid dreams about things from the past and
present.  Sandy, Cynthia, Rise, me.

Last night, this morning really, after Sandy fell asleep, and I was
reading the paper, a feeling of disintegration, along with a sensation
of being pulled away from everyone, of moving away from everyone, came
over me.  Thoughts of just how tenuous my connections with everyone
are.  Or are it is?  But it went away after an hour.  Of course, the
reality didn't change.  I mean to say that it's not completely clear
to me what the real state of things are/is.  There is/are probably
something to that feeling.  [Sandy continues to follow every word with
the attention a cat gives to a mouse who is unaware of being tracked.
Of course, I am aware of not being sure as to exactly who is the cat
or mouse!]  Sandy plays a little of both roles: Meow!  Squeak, squeak!
She's done a lot of theater in her day.  Here's to the prospect of her
doing more and more theater, and less and les of the non-theater.
I'll kiss to that, she says.  It's a deal, my response says.

Now then, for those of you reading this in the future (I mean in a
time when you have no access to any of the parties mentioned here.),
let me say something.  But I forget what is was, as Sandy has taken me
off another track (it was, she points out about the previous
sentence!).

What does it mean to be number on, Sandy asks.  It's just the way I
felt at that moment.  There's no guarantee of how long it will last.
Cynthia, for example, could take some kind of bold, imaginative
initiative that will put her on top, again, in my book.

Anyway, back to you future folks, and, as you know, I have been
studying the piano.  Let me say that it hasn't been easy.  However, I
have managed, by some stroke of astounding fortune, to have fallen in
with an excellent instructor.  As a result I have learned more about
the piano and music than at any other time in my 40+ years.  But, to
repeat again, it hasn't been easy.  It's been very frustrating.  I
have thought often of giving it all up.  Quitting.  Concluding that
the bad feelings, the twisted, distorted, bent inside, hopeless,
incompetent, unable, why-am-I-torturing-myself-like-this,
it-won't-ever-get-better, I-can't-do-this, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
Then I make a small step forward, a big step, a step, and , suddenly,
for a moment, it all seems worthwhile again, I'm filled with hope and
ambitions, and I'm sure that, one day, I'll be the rock-and-roll star
of my fantasy life.  Sandy knows exactly what I mean.  Similar things
have happened, are happening for her.  It's as though, in spite of our
gender, age, life-experience, etc, being different, in this way, where
we are learning something new, we are like two very close, parallel
lines, extending off into infinity - together.  This, in spite of all
our other differences.  She knows exactly what I mean.  It's crystal
clear.

Jim called earlier to say the electricity had gone off again.  The
electricity company came by and fixed it again.  Two electric heating
devices were plugged into the same circuit.  That's what did it.  Unni
is there with him.  Things continue to not go so well for them.
 They need to find some parallel lines.  Nothing really shows itself
for them - yet.  They are together for unconscious reasons.

Monday, January 19, 1987

It's snowing outside.  The weather report says 4 to 6 inches.  More or
less in the suburbs and south of here.

Jim called about being disturbed while trying to sleep.  Last night I
had him sleep in the bedroom while Jen and James were in another part
of the place.
 So James decides he has to get into the room several times till 3:30
am.  Which leaves Jim short of sleep for a full working day.  So James
has the whole day to sleep - not needing to be at work till four pm.
James does not seem to understand the concept of sensitivity to the
needs of other people.  My idea here, by giving Jim the bedroom, is to
spread the discomfort around.  James will be kept out of a more
comfortable situation and he will have to get up when I arrive in the
morning.  He seems to be stupid about everything but his own comfort.
Nights should get real quiet, real soon, at Hamster Place.

Myself, Sandy, Cynthia, Rise, Erika, Joe, have lunch on Newbury
Street.  We have all gone down to F.A.O.  Schwartz, where Erika works,
to visit her.

An offer on the Wrentham Street house today.  $130,000.  Not quite
enough.  We will counter offer for $140,000.

An interesting story from Joe about his recent visit to Washington
where he's in the middle of a course for his job at the Federal
Reserve Bank.  He is one of a group of eight people.  Some number of
these groups are competing with each other through a computerized
simulation of some part of the money-market.  Each group tries to make
money.  The group making the most money wins.  Several days ago a
member of his group got information about what will happen to various
things, quantities, such as the interest rate, inside this model.  He
called Rise about this.  Her response was to copy the information and
distribute it to all the other players.  He looks on it as an
opportunity to get ahead.  Rise is disappointed in him.  Expects more
moral fiber, backbone, from him.  Even after calling his boss, telling
him about the "cheating", there's still lingering doubts about whether
he should have just gone ahead and used the information to his
immediate advantage.  Yet another public servant pushed out into the
river of public service!

Then there's the question of being caught after the fact.  Who knows
how this might influence his work record.  What if it's part of the
game, to see who will come out with the story?  I groan when thinking
about how some small thing like this can possibly represent the
tiniest part of the tip of an iceberg of corruption and shady dealing
in government, and how many small things like this culminate in,
converge on people and moments in history to produce something like
the current Iran-Contra mess.

Some moments ago Cynthia asked me if the order of names in m
lunch-with-Erika list had any particular meaning.  Yes, I said, the
order of things in a list often has meaning.  But that I wanted to get
back to my writing and didn't want to be bothered.  Now she strains
her neck and eyes to get a look at this.  So, since I have nearly
finished two pages, she gets to read this while I go take a shower.

Tuesday, January 20, 1987

Cynthia and I have been discussing lists, and the order of things in a
list.  More specifically, the question of her position, which had,
previous to the moment before seeing that list, been number one.  She
reads the last few days and wants to know how to regain her place.  I
can see how FH made so much progress so fast, she says, realizing how
she has just been fiercely motivated to do something.  Some amount of
time is devoted to excusing herself because of this and that.  Listen,
I say, you wanted to know how to get back to number one, so here's
how: do something bold and imaginative, something to overcome a fear
you have.  You don't have to, I said, but that's my position on the
subject.  More talk.  Finally she comes up with something.  Let's
write it down, she says, so that I won't be able to say it was just a
dream.  Here, in her own hand, are some bold and imaginative
initiatives that will put her back in first place.

TOMORROW I AM GOING TO SPEAK TO RISE ABOUT STAYING ON AT WRENTHAM
STREET, A MORE PERMANENT SITUATION, THEN I WILL CALL JOE IN WASHINGTON
AND MAKE THE SAME PROPOSAL TO HIM.  WE CAN WORK OUT ANY DETAILS
REGARDING RENT, GETTING REPLACEMENTS FOR THEIR SOMERVILLE APARTMENT
LATER.  I WILL ALSO CALL SANDY AND PROPOSE SHE MOVE IN TO WRENTHAM
STREET.  WHAT RISE OR JOE DECIDE IS A SEPARATE ISSUE FROM MY OFFER ON
THE OTHER.  I WOULD LOVE TO AQCUIRE A BABY GRAND PIANO.  A FANTASY;
BUT I WANT ONE.  WITH SOMEONE WHO KNOWS HOW TO PLAY IT THERE WOULD BE
A RATIONAL FOR HAVING IT.  IT WOULD LOOK LOVELY IN THE FRONT ROOM OF
THE WELLES AVE HOUSE.  HIERARCHY, AN INTERESTING CONCEPT.  IT DOES
WONDERS FOR ONE'S CIRCULATION.  R.G. WAS RIGHT.  HE HAS BEEN PUSHING
AND SHOVING AND HAULING ME AROUND IN A CERTAIN SESNSE FOR 3 YEARS.
IT'S ABOUT TIME I ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING.  I'M ALWAYS THE FIRST TO
GIVE MYSELF PLENTY OF CREDIT.  SEE HOW GOOD I AM AT THIS OR THAT PAST
THING, YOU CAN GET MOSS ON YOUR ASS THINKING LIKE THAT.  SO HERE GOES.

Well, I must say that this impresses me a certain amount, definitely
enough to reorder things.  The doing, I mean, not the writing.  But
tomorrow will show what kind of teeth the above words have.

Write something about hierarchy on FH, Cynthia says.  First, my
experience with it is limited to my time living there in it.  Much of
it is still a blur as I was nearly always at, or near the bottom.
Often it was not possible for me to attend structure SD's.  This would
happen once a week, approximately.  But I understand some
intellectual/philosophical aspects of it.  How can you be sure the
best people are leaders?  How can you tell who you can learn from and
who can learn from you?  The structure on FH automatically answers
these questions.  The structure changes slowly now.  Faster in the old
days.  Quickly in the beginning.  It's understood very well now.  Even
by me - although I don't live there.  By understood I mean it is
obvious/clear to me why any given person is at their current position.
Sometimes there are surprises for me when I visit every few months.
Last November there were people in higher places than I would have
ever imagined them capable of.  But FH is a place where people can
really surprise you.  That's enough for now.  But Cynthia says to say
something about how guys like Eddie hide in their ideas of growth from
within, and that judgments from outside sources are irrelevant.
Better than what?  Well, I can say something about guys like that
since I have met them and they are me.  That fear of being judged is
also in me.  It's part of why I left FH.  To escape judgment.  To
escape confronting the picture that my place in the hierarchy kept
painting of me.  To escape the feelings of not being as good as I
imagined myself to be.  Of course, in the "real world" outside FH,
before and after, it's a simple task to explain way one's obvious
limitations and lack of success.  You simply get in the line marked
VICTIMS.  It's a very long line.  Almost every single human being on
the planet is in it.  Eddie and I are both in that line.  Maybe I
could say I'm aware of it.  He would say what a hard row to hoe it's
been for him - but thank God I'm not as bad off as most people.  If
only I could win the lottery, I say to myself.  Then all my problems
would e over.  Then I wouldn't always be on the edge of disaster.
Then I would be free to do really great things.  But I haven't won the
lottery.  Maybe the world is against me?  Is this a digression?
Anyway, there is some kind of disparity between how many things are
for me in the world, and how I would like to be, and, thirdly, how I
imagine myself to be.  FH is the sort of place that can reduce you to
where you really are.  For me, Eddie, most people, that is a very
unsavory prospect.

Cynthia talks about what it was like just before she met me.  Two men.
Barely able to cope with them.  Went between desperation for them and
completely dumping them.  Now there are five men with whom she has, at
the very least, a good relationship, never thinks of rejecting them,
and where her major problem is how to give enough to each one.  Quite
a reversal.  And she imagines that even at 60 it will be no problem
for her.

Then a more complete story of the early days with her and Robin.
Things never told to me, or anyone, I suspect.  He has begun to really
reveal what's inside his mind.  You don't need me as much as I need
you, he said to her yesterday.  Her first impulse is to resist this,
to maintain the illusion that he's the most important one.  But it's
out in the open.  He will soon be smarter than her at this pace.  Only
a few day ago she adamantly maintained that she was successfully
managing to convince each of her men that they were the most important
one.  I tried to make a bet with her.  No deal.  Her subconscious
knows she can't afford another $100.  The message gets through to the
illusion department.

This morning we talk about the fantasy of a big house, fireplaces, a
baby grand piano in the front room.  We both want something like that.
But who is going to live there and help with the burdens of having
such a big place?  At the moment she can't imagine living on Wrentham
Street with other people.  She imagines that it's certain others will
move into a bigger place with us.  It's a 50-50 proposition, at best,
for me.  It may be a little crowded here with more people, but the
essential problems will be the same.  It makes more sense to see if
these essential problems can be soled here, first.  What's the
advantage of moving to a place with even more empty rooms?  That looks
like too big a step to me, for me, for her, for us.  If we win the
lottery, her parents die and leaver her an inheritance, FH decides to
support us in a larger place, or some other windfall comes along -
then we could go ahead and take a chance on lots more empty rooms.
Otherwise, it is just too risky and too large a burden.  I don't want
to do that.  The condition of the Welles Street house I indicative of
people who had just such an unrealistic picture of themselves and
others.

Eddie has withdrawn sexually from Cynthia for the first time.  This
was Saturday night.  Fro this point on I would not be inclined to put
any money on which way things will go.  However, he has told her she's
10 years late, too late, starting a commune.  In addition, she has
chosen the wrong people.  The boy protests to such an extent that one
might be led to believe he had a real interest in this sort of thing.

Cynthia tells me about her impatience with Jim and the other children.
Always the same complaints from them.  I remind her of Otto and how
there are people in the group who haven't changed much in 10 years.
But he still deals with them, and very well, very interestingly.  I'm
almost a 10 year veteran of his patience and artistry.  I work with
everyone in an artistic way.  It makes things more fun.  This puts her
in a better mood.  It gives her a new view of them.  They are young,
have energy, and want to have contact with her.

Wednesday, January 21, 1987

Cynthia has taken up my challenge to make some kind of bold
initiative.  It was to ask Sandy, Rise, and Joe to live with us in
Dorchester.  Giving up control of so much will be very difficult for
her.  Rise describes her as nervous and uncertain.  I can imagine she
was sweating bullets.  It's as big a thing as going to FH for the
first and second times.  I wasn't really sure she could do this.  But
it's obvious if we are going to try living with more people in a
bigger house.  She called Joe between 12 and 1.  He's in Washington.
Fine with him - but he got a tentative job offer today.

A great mind and a great woman. (wink) What I said to Alison about
Rise, and which Rise asked me to write down.

Piano lesson.  A time for me to put aside my obstinacy, stubbornness,
arrogance, and all sorts of other qualities that prevent me from
making progress.  A lifetime of ideas about how to do something have
not brought me as far as the last two months or so of submitting to
another way of learning this.

Sandy plays parts of two things she's composed.  It sounds beautiful.
I am frozen at attention, yet moved trying to hear all of it.  This is
Sandy's day to rehash all the things she's written in the last six
years, she says, going on the her sea then Jeff's song.  Why am I
thinking all the music she's written in the last 6 years sounds like
it's from the last two months.  It moves me so much, I think, because
there is more than hearing it to it - the difference is my connection
to her.  There is something to feeling the music and its maker.

Just came back from a short trip downstairs.  I find myself acutely
aware of the piano playing in the other rooms.  Somehow there seems to
be quite a difference between Sandy's playing and what comes out of
the other rooms.  Stuffiness, mechanicality, dull, lacking energy.
There's a real piano player in this room.

James and Jennifer showed up at the end of lunch today.  She has done
a lot of journal writing since yesterday and the letter from Gary.  He
said goodbye.  Has discovered her cheating on him.  Doesn't like it.
Wants a monogamous relationship.  He called three times to say it was
over.  She has not been straightforward with him.  We talked about it
just yesterday.  There's another new man for her.  Dean.  Also from
the Rocky crowd.  Haven't met him yet.  Don't know what he knows of
James and Gary.  He won't care for the first two weeks or so.  Then
his insides will get to feeling kind of funny.  He will find all sorts
of things wrong with what Jennifer is doing - as well as the others
she does it with.

Not long after J & J, Alison comes by to join us.  She's not having
any lunch.  Needs some company and relief.  There is a hard time on
her face.  The usual ecstatic high-energy Alison has sunk down low.
What to do with her life?  She wonders if a wonderful job (as most of
the world would describe what she has been offered - at a prestigious
New York City law firm) will make her life any better.  Will she be
able to cope with the guilt feelings of taking a year off for travel
and relaxing?  I made some attempt to have a little fun with her and
the others around the table.  A little success.  She asks for my
company to go buy greeting cards.  Our talk about her life 10 years
ago in the fish warehouse got her to thinking of how she was so much
happier then.  My picture of Alison is of a person who has entered
into increasingly difficult and complex situations (getting
simultaneous degrees from Harvard Law & Business School being the
latest example), where she has to jack herself up into a state where
more and more has to be done in less and less time, where she attempts
to grow up and succeed, at something, but also with idealistic goals
as unrealistic, as ideals can only drive you crazy as, after all, any
ideal constantly rushes away as you approach it.) hopes of doing
something real and important (like ending hunger) in the world.  Even
more than Rise she has internalized some kind of command to strive and
push and get ahead and strain for some kind of goal.  I told her she's
cut out the sorts of experiences that made her happier 10 years ago.

Sandy tells me about her first day teaching school.  Newton North.
English class - for a missing instructor who has each student keep a
diary/journal.  One student claims to not have anything to write
about.  Immediately Richard Gardner tricks come to mind.  Write that
you don't have anything to write about, she suggests.  Another
substitute teacher turns out to be the mother of a roommate of a
childhood classmate's sister of Sandy's.  Anyway, there was a
connection.  This happens to remind Sandy of her first experience with
polygamy.  Leo was his name.  In sixth grade she and two other girls
would take turns kissing him in a phone booth.  Always tasted like
vanilla ice cream, she claims.  Every now and then, to this day, Sandy
will step into random phone booths, here and there.  I would always
hear kissing, smooching sounds, and never understood this - till now!
Some people will do anything to recapture their youth.

Today, during my piano lesson, I notice yet another slight advance.
The keys necessary for a jazz run become slightly easier for me to
find, easier to calculate no matter where I start.  A small but
noticeable improvement.

Sandy has a tearful conversation with Rise and is somewhat reluctant
to tell me about it - but reveals a little of it anyway, and suggests
I get the rest from her as she also has an interest in seeing how well
tears travel.  Rise comments that Sandy was very caught up and should
calm down.  The subject: the big move to Dorchester by Rise and Joe,
but really . how she feels knowing us all has changed her life, what
she wants to do with what she knows from it, how so many unexpected
changes have been made by her - changes that she never imagined
making.  Bu then none of us ever imagined how things would work out
once we were born.

I am a spineless, mealy-mouthed creature, completely motivated by fear
of being alone.  Sandy's description of herself versus a courageous
woman like Kim who has backbone and knows what she wants.  Exactly
right, she exclaims.  As for me, from Sandy's description of Kim, I
see a manic-depressive, with strong suicidal tendencies, who is so
desperate, so insecure, that a countervailing arrogance causes her to
project an impossible-to-achieve image onto whatever man comes along.
She is totally the opposite of Sandy.  Has no courage or backbone,
seeks out only people who will reassure her of the idea of how good,
wonderful and important she is.  And how beautiful - an odd
characterization for a woman whose face is in constant pain.  She puts
too much faith in the words of this weak-will sycophant.  She puts
things upside down.  It's part of her as yet unraveled inversion and
bad self-image of herself.  A desperate woman - Kim.  She sees herself
as not being stuck on the wrong track, unlike how she sees Sandy.  But
I see her as a woman not only with out a track, but also with feet
nowhere near the ground.  She has expectations of people so removed
from reality that what happens to her can only be explained by making
her latest failure a malevolent source of evil, idiocy, incompetence.
I am reminded of her man with the big house who ended up raping her.
She saw nothing coming.  She saw only money and a big house.  She saw
herself as such a fantastic woman that obviously this man would be
everything for her in order to have her.  This is my view.  It reminds
me of Jim who is more concerned about how people will see him as a man
who can get an attractive woman - so obsessed with that goal that he
can't see anything else in her.  She is the equivalent type of woman
who needs to see herself desired that way.  Sandy was told, by Kim,
that the hierarchy was sick, when she explained events of the last few
days.  Sandy asks me what I'd do if she decided to go off and play
organ for Jerry Falwell.  Wouldn't you try to do something about that,
she begs.  Not much, I say.  Probably ask a few questions about why,
but not much.  Kim, she says, would go to great lengths to save me
from something like that - implying that Kim, at this very moment, is
trying to save her from something even worse than Jerry Falwell.  A
lot of things are worse than JF.  He's got a nice house, plenty of
money, employs, entertains, and so on.  Sandy could do a lot worse.
The Moonies, for example.

Sandy, at this very moment is in a bit of a rage.  A mild one, anyway,
about the condition of her apartment.  Looks fine to me.  No! She
insists, it's dirty, messy, disorganized (she throws something out),
stomps from one end to the other, moving things from here to there,
organizing, spraying deodorant (there's a strong smell of cat shit in
the air).

Anyway, she has also flown into a rage over being in, in her position
in, this thing.  This happens periodically.  Some days she is very
positive about things.  The she will fly to the other side of things
and find herself agreeing with another person's negative view of "this
thing."

However, I have noticed something very significant in her, a very
positive development, in the few days that "this thing" has no longer
had any validity for her, no meaning.  In the past, when she would fly
off into a rage, there was no stopping her - except with the most
drastic of reactions.  She could not stop herself.  Things would
windup, stay wound up, and run off in all directions simultaneously.
I mean it was yammer and yap city!  And now she has caught herself
several times.  Tonight with this Kim thing.  I even gave it a bit of
a tweak to see if she could be pushed over the edge.  I tried to react
a little like she might, or how I imagine Kim might have assaulted me
and "this thing."  There is a bit of an anomaly here.  Namely, that
she never reacts as strongly against Kim's view of her as she does in
support of Kim's opinion.  But I suspect that she uses Kim as a
depository of negative things, and, in return, a source of support
when she doesn't feel so good about us - I mean herself, really.
Because I find it so odd that Sandy supports, so enthusiastically,
Kim's negative view of her.
 
A proposal to Alison today: for me to send hers, Rise's, Joe's
resumes, plus a cover letter and proposal to FH.  The idea would be
for them to propose themselves as a team that could help establish,
and expedite, FH's international business interests.  I've no idea if
it would be accepted, and only a vague idea of the shape of the thing,
but the three of them are quite bright and surely ought to be able to
come up with something.

Sandy remarks how this is all an opinion from someone who is so
self-righteous and hasn't improved by his own definition, in the six
months that I've known him, she says.  It's so obvious that this
bothers you so much, she adds, smiling, and shaking her head slightly.

I have a question for you, she says.  Ready?  Forget it, she says,
pissed off, and goes off to the other room.

Did I write down that I'd told you Kim's rape was to be kept secret,
that you blew it, and aren't to be trusted, even when you say you can
be, she adds, a hard tone in her voice, with a bit of
self-righteousness.  A long pause.  You are supposed to write down
that I see you as having a lack of good judgment.

The cat is watching characters scroll across the screen of the laptop.
She has just reached down and tried to grab, then bite them.  No luck.
She goes off to chew on the phone line for a moment.

The previously mentioned question is made reference to by sandy.  I
spring for my notebook.  There's an explanation about why she's not
going to talk with me while I write.  It stops me cold.  Pen in one
hand.  Notebook held vertical.  We wait.  She decides I've not decided
it her way and goes off.  Comes back to tell me this method is a way
of getting people to not say what's on their mind.  These ways you
have of staying in control, never giving up, are what I mean about not
improving.  I laugh slightly at this.  It hits too close to home for
you, she says, adding that I know what she means.  [The sound of socks
being repaired.]  The cat meows.  Somewhere a cockroach farts.  The
world's attention is caught.  You are trying to be the protagonist of
your own stories, and I think readers will see through it, is the next
shot fired.  Darkness falls, the guns on both sides fall silent.  The
sky is clear .

Case in point, she says, as my pulling this notebook out stops her
from saying what's on her mind.  Another one of your little defenses
against hearing what people have to say, she adds.

Tomorrow, as a test, I'm going to pointedly say no to Rise.  Yes, or
no, in that manner, is what we've been using as a code for her to
determine if there's any new writing.  It will be interesting to see
if she's taken in by it.  Two days ago I played a little trick on her
and Sandy so they wouldn't read about Cynthia's proposal before she
had a chance to tell them.

Don't forget to take your iron pill, Sandy says.  Uh, I say.  Aren't
you going to write that down, she asks.  Followed by a little story of
magnanimous sacrifice involving doing things for me, like driving,
cooking, working at my business, etc.  That way you will have more
time to write all this down.  The End.

Ready to talk or make a joke out of everything, or get your notebook
back, she says after reading the above.  I'll take my notebook back,
is my first choice.

A talk with Jim last night about his job.  They are not going to pay
him more than his old data entry job.  Odd, considering that he now
has the title, and responsibilities of, system manager.  It seems to
be a consequence of his age, 18, and how that might look to other
employees.  Of course, they could also just be thinking, that, because
of his age, he can be easily exploited.  I've promised to help him
find another job, closer to Boston, that will allow him to capitalize
on his knowledge of the Pick Operating System.

Sandy sees my behavior as analogous to the way Cynthia keeps her
distance from her men.  She promises to give me as much distance as I
ask for.

Thursday, January 22, 1987

In a recent letter Diane asks me why I sent her a copy of the Sunday
Boston Globe Help Wanted ads.  And the answer is . so she could see
that there are lots of jobs, being a person who can't find much of
anything of interest in her area.  Also, to suggest that she could
come and live here, as she's already thought, quite independently of
me.  There was mention of a local art school, but not the AIB.

A letter, also recent, from my grandmother, contains detailed
directions on how to get from Sarasota to her place in Palmetto.  I
have concluded that she would very much like to see me.

I was thinking today about Alison's question of whether this was a
happier time for me than ten years ago.  My opinion is that our
conditions are reversed.  She was happier ten years ago.  This is a
much better time for me.  I seldom have depressions.  There are lots
of people who want to spend time with me and enjoy my company.  My
things to do in life, everyday life are certainly much more
interesting as a consequence of having all those people around me.  My
economic possibilities, while a bit stagnant at the moment, are also
considerably improved over ten years ago.  Of course, I would have to
say that Alison's choices have improved her economic possibilities
considerably over mine.  It's not hard to imagine her retiring in ten
years or so.  On the other hand, I could win the lottery at any time!
Or suddenly have another brilliant idea - but one that finally pays
off.

Cynthia made at least one mistake while talking with Sandy the other
day.  It's when she called to ask her to live in Dorchester.  Sandy
asks her if she knows anything about the day's plans for lunch.
Cynthia stalls, puts her on hold, as there's another call.  I know
this thing in her.  You want to know a simple thing, a yes or no, or
other simple answer will suffice, but she holds onto it in a sadistic
way.  I know this from my own experience when she's done it to me, and
when I've found myself doing the same.  As a consequence, Sandy found
this one small item to be half the emotional value of the
conversation.  At least enough for me to suspect Cynthia's motives or
sense.  Done without resistance, with a yes or no, or the usual time,
she might have considered the real content of the call without the
dark cloud cast by that incident.  Of course, one might take the
position that it was a trivial matter.  But I can't imagine anyone
saying that without pompousness and self-righteousness in their tone
of voice.  From that kind of small beginning grows a lot of very large
and hard to change attitudes - especially in the case of those two,
who are in a situation where unconscious jealousy is at work.  I could
almost see this as sabotage, on Cynthia's part, were it not for all
the times she's done similarly stupid things.  I think of the other
side of this coin - my interactions with Bill, Robin, Eddie.  There is
no other possibility but for me to absolutely clean, without reproach,
any time there is the slightest contact with them.  The slightest slip
in my footing would set Cynthia's alarms off.  Especially so with
someone like Eddie.  She is so tuned to how everything, no matter how
small, influences him, that he would go half crazy and build a
religion around it.  A complete vision of all of life could arise from
one small incident - as has happened many times in history.  But then
who am I to give up a chance for historical immortality just because
of being careful to avoid suspicious sidelong glances?

Sandy is no longer number 1.  But it won't necessarily stay that way.
It's a question of bold, imaginative moves that will completely shock
people.  Things they would never imagine you capable of.  That's how a
person rises above someone else.  She thinks that I have some kind of
double standard about Cynthia's being first, versus her.  That somehow
Cynthia has this position, by virtue of time, Divine Right, momentum,
etc.  She has gone back and forth on thinking it goes these ways, or
just on the basis of my emotional attachment.  She imagines that love
is not conditional, that it won't change easily.  But I see it as a
very fluid sea.  Sometimes people will be on land or anchored
somewhere, or grown together from momentum or ideology.  My mother
still claims to accept me - but not what she doesn't want to accept -
those she burns.  Otto is a totally honest man - more than anyone I
know. He will tell everyone their place.

She develops a peculiar form of logic: you love me when I give up.
Therefore, you don't love me any other times.  It's not my system of
logic, but some people work that way.  I'll let them do that.
Apparently, I still don't understand her after she reads the above.

Maybe it was an example of sour grapes when I said I didn't care.  But
I know that, she admits.

So many doubts, bad feelings - more than I think I can handle.  It
surprises me that I can yammer on with some kind of sense to it.

Her face is no longer sad looking.  It's not happy but has a kind of
thoughtfulness, seriousness, to it.

Lotti tells Sandy that she is the first to ever be first since
Cynthia.  She thinks Sandy should have called Cynthia's bluff.  It's
not her thing to scare the shit out of Cynthia (which is how Lotti
would see Cynthia reacting - and I can see that too, to some extent.),
or anyone, is her response to Lotti.  But that reminds me of the
stories about the music teacher she tackled head on - and so never got
a chance to have the best singing assignments.  Or where she got
excluded from a trip to Israel for what people considered an attitude
problem.  She does the same thing now - last month in her job, getting
fired, and now, in the whole area of "this thing.'

Well, I see she is back to following this pen across the page again -
albeit with a jaundiced eye, jaded attitude, suspicious mind, and
guilty conscience.  But, never mind, here we are off on another
adventure.

Doesn't this woman ever get tired?  It's almost 3 am.  This is my 12th
page of continuous writing (although just page 4 for today).

She was so wrapped up in what she refers to as this little game of
mine.  It made her feel so good.  Even Rise was somehow more attentive
to me after reading what you wrote, she says.  Well, it is a fun
little game.  I have certainly been enjoying it.

Write about it, she requests.  The topic being how close the
candidates for number one are.  Very close.  Wouldn't take much to
change that.  Turns out she had something else in mind.

There is a question of whether or not I scold and lecture people.
Perhaps it's a question of definition.  Rise would say no.  She would
agree that I tell her what I think of her.  That I criticize and
credit her when, in my mind, its due.  Sandy tells me that one of the
reasons Jim is leaving is that he's tired of me always barking at him.
This is one guy who would turn instantly deaf if he were to look at
himself in a sound mirror.

Lunch with Sandy, Rise, and near the end, Alison.  Sandy trips and
falls into a shallow hole, at the beginning, but slowly drags herself
out.  Afterwards we do some errands in the square and return to the
office for a couple hours of work.

Dinner at Café _____ with Sandy, Jennifer, James.  Nick is our waiter.
My invitation.

Spending the night with Rise in Somerville.  She's reading, and
laughing, about the Kerista Commune in San Francisco.  They are the
ones with the balanced, rotational, sleeping plan.  A strange place,
strange people.

Dream last night about Teresa.  We are off alone.  Flat country, long
roads, a car, don't know what else

Friday, January 23, 1987

How did it go, Sandy asks, first thing on calling me at Rises's.
Well, it went better than most times, but not as good as last year.
How is it that the two of us can have so much feeling for each other
and not be able to fall all the way?  Or maybe I am assuming more on
her part than is there.  Or maybe it has to do with, like living in a
group here, it will go so well that she won't be able to leave, won't
want to leave in May.  This woman does do to great lengths to protect
herself from feeling things!  She is the most cautious woman I've
known who also reaches out so far.  It's as though there's some kind
of infinitesimally thin - but infinitely strong, last barrier between
us.  Her biggest fear about living in a group here is that she will
like it so much, that she will become so attached, that she won't be
able to pull herself away, except with great difficulty.  On the
practical side she shudders at the prospect of having to reach an 8 am
class from Dorchester.  My response is to offer her a traveling
companion, at that hour, every day she needs one.  We talk about
making a date once a week.  I must remind her to call Edwin about
working for him.  And Sandy wants to tell her about a very interesting
TV program.  L.A. Law.  And now, back to our regular writing . Sandy
talks about going to law school.  She imagines not being able to get
in because of not taking pre-law courses.

A short letter from Diane yesterday.  Also, some pictures of Texas
mushrooms, Texas dog, Texas turkey, and a Texas woman.  Rise says
she's cute.  Sandy says she's no longer jealous.  Sandy woodpecker.  A
looney tunist.  This woman (Diane) is going to hate me, she says.  She
might.  She is going to have all sorts of reactions to this writing.
It's another world from what she has been living in. On the other
hand, from her reaction to my 81 writing, it seems to be something she
has wanted.  It reminds me of Rise's reaction to my FH writing.  I
have been looking for something like this all my life, she said after
an hour or so of reading.  This was not long, maybe just a day, or
few, after we met in May/June of 84.  No, about June 10, around, no,
the day Eva and I cut our respective hair off in front of a large
Harvard Square audience.  However, isolating oneself in a relationship
like that, in a limited environment, is a way of avoiding facing these
other feelings.  I would say that she sues her current situation as a
way to blame her husband and the people around her for the lack of
contact she feels.  I'm sure there are other people, men and women,
all around her, with the same feeling about her and others.

Sandy asks about the health question with Rise.  Not an issue, I
respond.  There was no sexual contact.  Cuddling and smooching, but
none of the big "F".  Rise and Richard are going to have sex last
night, Sandy says, and I have to rationalize that.  It's going to make
him happier, and that's good for me - and all of us.  But it wouldn't
have been possible for me to deal with that before.  Even a week ago
it might not have been possible.  I can't go on giving myself these
imaginary beatings.

So, the question for Diane, if she gets to this point, and hasn't
burned what's written here, is how much she's beating herself,
reacting to all of this, making these words into something real.  How
Real is Real?  How Reel Israel?

Last night Rise told me she will be leaving end of May for Virginia.
Barely four months.  I have become aware of myself feeling anxious
about this several times today.  Two possibilities here.  First, get
her to change the plan.  Second, find a replacement.

Mailed the first two of this year to Diane today.  Her recent letter
says she will call tomorrow.  I'll call in a few days and ask if she
wants more.

At least I won't have a wild maniac on my hands.  This is Cynthia
summing up what she considers to be her newest prospect.  It seems
that Eddie has said goodbye again.  Another chance to spread out what
time and resources she has.  This guy is completely different.  He is
nothing like Eddie.  But is he big, and is he is cute!  Eddie is gone,
she says.  This on my proposing that one more man, yet another risk,
who she won't have the nerve to get tested first, will cause the
dissipation of the time that she now says does no include enough time
with me.  How about a bet, I ask, on Eddie's next call.  $100.

C . EDDIE HAS GONE AS FAR AS HE IS ABLE WITH ME.  HE WON'T BE BACK.  I
BET $100.  HE WON'T CALL AGAIN.

SAT. A.M.  R.G. AND I ARE IN BED, RELAXED, THE PHONE RINGS AND I'VE
LOST ANOTHER $100.  EDDIE HAS A BATTLE GOING ON.  SOMETHING BESIDES ME
IS FULLING AT HIM.  I INVITE HIM TO LIVE WITH US.  HE VEHEMENTLY
PROTESTS, "ALL YOU WANT IS GOOD SEX AND A CARPENTER!"  NOT A BAD PLACE
TO START.  THERE IS SOMETHING HAPPENING WITH ME.  ARGUMENTS AND
DIATRIBES.  A DIFFERENT TONE.  DON'T KNOW WHERE IT'S GOING.  R.G. IS
ON THE PHONE WITH DIANE AS I WRITE THIS.  AN INTERESTING CONVERSATION.
THE POKING AROUND IN ANOTHER PERSON'S PSYCHE THAT MAY HELP HER TO
ELIMIATE THE SNOW.  MAYBE SHE'LL BE CURIOUS ENOUGH TO COME SEE FOR
HERSELF.

Saturday, January 24, 1987

Joseph Boyce died a year ago.  Left FH and my ninth visit there.

Just ran from Wrentham Street to the T.  Trying to get to a piano
lesson at Longy.  Sandy is already on her way to Harvard Square.
Cynthia and I have/were just trying to finalize the real estate deal
for selling the current and buying the new house.  We are trying to
cover ourselves in case we can't get a mortgage for the Welles Street
house.  I left her talking with Frank (her lawyer) about the exact
wording for the various sell and buy contingency agreements.  Last
night I sent a telex to FH about co-signing the mortgage.  She has
felt a lot of pressure to go ahead.  Her panic came out against me.
Why haven't I been able to get friends capable of helping me with this
situation.  She implies having them for herself, but is actually too
afraid to test the strength of their relationship with her.  Today she
has come a little closer to testing herself and "friends".  That's the
last resort if FH falls through.

Eddie called this morning.  I am $100 richer.  It looks to be the same
story for the two of them.  Except his criticism of her get sharper
and more to the point.  He talks continuously.  She throws in a word
or two or half a sentence every now and then.  Two exceptions being
complete sentences when she asks him to live with her, not us, but
her.  Then asks him to visit FH with her.  Both these things seem a
little absurd when she can't get him to converse civilly.  Later there
is a call from Robin.  They make a date for tonight.  My immediate
impression is that she's arranged at least two possibilities for
herself this evening - just the sort of manipulation Eddie is so sure
she engages in.  There's an immediate rebuttal.  But that's ridiculous
as it matters not a smidgen what reality is here, in this specific
case, since there are so many examples from the past, and this
accumulation is what makes him react so strongly.  She wants to say
just one more thing about it.  Forget it.  The look is the same.  She
can't give up protesting and explaining.  Anybody with half a brain
can excuse and explain everything.  It would be better to put this
energy into eliminating the ambiguousness, the uncertainty, the
illusions that drive him crazy.  But each time a choice has to be made
she decides to go that way to insure the moment.  Thursday he asked to
see her this weekend.  Ok, she says.  Friday morning he drives her to
work.  He arranges to come by 4 pm to pick her up for the weekend.  I
can't do that, she says.  Who will you be laying with tonite, he
demands.  Richard.  Boom!  Throws a fit in the Kenmore Square Dunkin
Donuts.  Throws his coffee on the floor, curses and swears at her,
condemns her to hell.  She leaves.  They have talked several times
today.  I can imagine her calling off the date with Robin if the
situation improves between her and Eddie in the next phone call.  All
the while these terrorist acts go on she becomes more and more certain
that another pattern is emerging.  Namely, that he's getting much
better and closer to accepting these other ideas and living in a
group.  One of us (me & Cynthia) is not seeing things clearly.  The
latest thing is that he will join us when it's going.  Sounds like
Linda to me.

Diane called me today.  She's read most of my 81 writing straight thru
for the first time.  We must have similar minds, she concludes.  A
compulsive filer - just like me, amongst other things.  She goes
fishing about the pictures.  No bites from me - except to say that I'm
a compulsive mushroom watcher just like her.  I've told her about
parallel lines, and how people imagine they have nothing in common
till they really get to the bottom of what's going on inside their
heads.  Like .