The Cambridge Chronicles

Mush. Everything feels like mush today. Can't tell one thing from
another. Thinking about lots of things but can't remember much. Last
night with Dana and Simone. We sit on his bed and talk for an hour or
so. He and I were talking alone. About the tension between Simone and
I over Sundays events. It made me nervous and hungry the whole day.
An uneventful day teaching in Sturbridge. Boring bus ride there.
Boring bus ride back. Simone is at Donna's for her dream group.
Michael has decided to join. She will not say what her plans for the
evening are. Who will she stay with? I sense a bit of getting even in
her voice. Anyway, remoteness. Her last day at work. A visit to the
doctor about vaginal bleeding. Its stopped. At first she doesn't want
to talk about something I ask her, I've got to get back to the group,
she says. Then she starts about the visit to the doctor and her
therapist and goes on at some length. Maybe I will try to make another
date for tonite. Call Judy but no answer. The dream group was talking
about me when I called. Last night was two or more hours with Simone.
She also notices the tension between us. She still wants it her way.
Tells me how she is better than Linda, has been more reliable, how
fucked up she was to have had an emotional breakdown last spring.
Tells me the whole story of how she fell in love with me. It goes back
and forth. Fighting and loving. Talking and arguing. A one point she
shouts at me, Michael is a better lover' But none of these things seem
to bother me like they did on Sunday. I don't feel caught up, wrapped
in knots. I a only tell her that I can't agree to any sort of
limitations on my relationship with Linda, or anyone else. She cries a
lot. I comfort her. In the beginning we were both horny. She was very
dry. She noticed how closed she felt. It got better. We were fucking
but she was not wet at all. Saturday, January 31, 1981 I don't want to
leave you, but I have to, says Simone one tear filled night. Tears l
and thoughts of leaving. The story of this week. And catastrophe.
Simone fainted getting out of her car while going to the dentist.
Blood pressure much too low, and still constipated. She wants me to
talk to her dentist. She is half an hour late meeting Ellen and me in
Harvard Square. We get worried. I imagine she may have fainted again
and decide to go ask the police if such an incident has been reported.
But, no, I meet her at the bank entrance. Later that night she is an
hour late to her house for a party. Again I, and Dana, am worried.
Later, five of us are lying on her bed. Me, Simone, Dana, Lois, and
Carol. Some idle conversation leads to me saying something about her
health. That I also have second thoughts about living with her. Do I
want to be a nursemaid to someone who will be dead of multiple causes
by age 35. She gets extremely offended. Enraged, she accuses me of
always criticizing her. Jumps up and goes to run downstairs. Then,
another surprise from Dana. He say the same, telling her that fainting
on the street and being late is not good for her or us. I feel better
it is out. We talk about it and she comes to lie beside me once more.
All this was yesterday. I have to stop and think to write this. It
doesn't pour out of me anymore. I sit here thinking over the day, what
has happened, how I felt, and its all a jumble. A sense of panic today
about ever being able to make anything of my life other than a series
of events that might one day come to be seen as historically
interesting. Perhaps to someone reading about me, or someone trying to
write about me. The great pretender. Fantasies about being a great
writer. I can't write in a month what some do in a day. It preoccupies
me the greater part of some days. Last night reading about someone
else's life, a good writer, one who tells a good, well organized
story. But it is about trying to make some sense of all the things he
has done in his life, and the people he identifies with. How so many
of them decided not to have children, or only one or two. He has one
and thinks about the one he might have had but for an abortion. I have
had this twice. But what is this feeling I have about what he says.
That his life was different from most of the people around him, but my
impression is that he has the same regrets and sadness, but only
because he didn't manage to change the rest of the world a little
more. Giving up his own life at times to save the rest of the world.
My attitude has been the for much of my life, when thinking about it.
Trying to do some good, and one disaster and catastrophe after another
creeps up and grabs me. They start out like little things. Not so
important that it has to get in the way of the good deeds I'm doing.
But it gets bigger with time. Once started it has never gone away.
Then it starts to influence the important work. Time after time.
Always these personal things do it. Why isn't it possible to create a
more stable personal situation? I call Linda in NYC about visiting
this weekend. She is very distant and under the surface quite
disappointed in me. You should have called me earlier in the week, she
says. Someone else is coming to visit me. And so my relationship with
her takes a turn for the worse. All from not making an earlier phone
call. I call Judy, but she is now more distant. Doesn't think I'll be
interested in a party with people from her work place. I'll call you
back, she says. But I don't feel its true. But things are much better
with Simone. In spite of half the people at last nights party saying
she should leave me. Some odd behavior by people there last night. A
strange friend of George Ferrar's didn't want to leave at three this
morning. Three of the men who were just leaving escorted him away. He
wouldn't go when Simone asked him. George was a bit fixated, and maybe
jealous about the short blurb written about me in the latest issue of
the Whole Earth Times. He mentioned it some three times that evening.
I have just wondered if the mood was from what Simone has been telling
everyone about the situation of last Sunday. Dana was in a pickle. He
wanted to go home with Ann. She was a bit cool to the idea, but he
kept trying. Finally Lois came around and stuck herself between the
two of them. It seemed as though he was guarding Dana. If I can't
have you tonight, then nobody gets you' This would effectively put an
end to Dana trying to get Ann, and at the same time lead him to resent
Lois. She talked to me for some time, left for the bathroom, and never
returned. I have some difficulty engaging in natural conversation with
her. She seems always on the defensive. I spoke about how it seems
others are able to deceive her about their real intentions, but not
me. Its as though she doesn't want to see anything from me as being
direct and straightforward. She seems quite content to indulge her
romantic fantasies with Dana, and know nothing about what's really
going on with him, or not to face any of these things. It is doubtful
she will ever talk with him about her guard duty of last night. But
I'm not going to be able to fool her, no siree. Do I sense a little
bit of resentment in my words at not being able to win her over?
Surely not from me' She needs someone not so adventuresome, who
doesn't try too much. But Dana is getting to be less and less that
sort of person. He talks more and more openly about himself. From time
to time he inserts some new piece of information in a fairly uniform
type of conversation that we have. Lately a lot of talk about sex and
how he wants to try more things. He met Kathy for the first time
yesterday. I liked her look, he says. She may be looking for someone
new shortly. An interesting observation about Simone from m m the last
week. It has to do with her behavior with me when we are in bed. She
always likes to suck on my prick. Not once so far this week. She
kissed me there this afternoon after we fucked. But that's it. Such a
thing hasn't happened before. Its because I'm still upset with you,
she says. She has also spent more days with Michael this week than
normal. She can't get over it. Linda is like some disembodied person
for her. I heard the story about that woman, as Carol described her
this after noon. Simone and Linda have said the same thing about
leaving me. I don't want to but I have to. Her (Simone) therapist
asks her why she has to make a decision now. Why is everything so
black and white. Linda at least treats Simone as a person with same
dimensions. She admits that its possible for her to have a real loving
relationship with me. Not so with Simone. She wants to see everything
about it as a bad joke or trick on her. All this while Michael and I
are in her car and she talks about the two men she loves' But it is
not possible for me to have such a situation. But maybe I get
resentful again. Tell me, dear reader, do you notice this also? By the
way, what interesting things have you done for yourself today? Or have
you only had thoughts of such things? Only fantasies? Do you want to
live with a group of people, to be free of jealousy, free of fear,
free of being rejected, fear of not being loved? What are you doing
about it? Are you the sort of person that other people want to be
with? Do you make their life interesting and satisfying? Why not? What
crazy things did you do today that caused someone to run away?
Selfish? Asked for more than you can give? Well, I'd want to get away
from you to. Forget to call and say hello? Well, I wouldn't want to
see you either. Pushed somebody too hard to accept more than they are
able? Well, I'd think you were an asshole too.