The Cambridge Chronicles

I couldn't tell him he was eating the wrong place. His prick was in my mouth and it wouldn't come out. It was the position of his body. I tried to move him but then it became a game. He started to jostle me. Then I bit his prick. That did it. So I was able to tell him. But he did want to know why I bit him. So goes Simone's latest adventure and overnight stay with Stu. He was very antsy it seems. Simone demonstrates how he was grabbing, touching, pushing her. It was very aggressive if her impersonation was accurate. At first I was a little jealous. But as a picture of it began to form in my mind it made me horny. It was quite another story when I told her about what Linda and I were going to do. Linda wants to fuck me again. She had to get an early train to NYC. We would meet at South Station, get on the train, and do it in the washroom. I would get off at Route 128 and take the next train back to Boston. But she got to the station too late. Simone stayed up till about three that morning. It occurred to me later that it was intentional on her part. So I would be too tired to get up for meeting Linda.

This writing of the last few days is not going so well. In my head the story is perfectly clear. I have been nervous the last few days about doing something with the writing. A feeling of some new insight. About myself or Simone, I don't know for sure. But first I noticed sort of new development in her fight against my having other relationships. Now she is seeing it as sort of a competition about who can have the most lovers. Well, it is really no contest. She is much better able to do this. You win. Sunday night was very hard. Suzanne was on her way out the door. It was about midnight. She was going alone. I wouldn't let her. Dana didn't want to do it so I walked her home. But before leaving Simone says, anything to get another woman. And just before this, I'm going to win in the end. It was the tone of voice that Dana and I noticed. We talked about it today. He thought it meant a lot more than she said. How did he say it, I wonder what's behind that? I don't even remember what set it off. Yes, I do. I had gone to the office. She was in my room with Joe. They were making out. I came in to get my coat. Joe turns away and can't face me. Simone sits up, grabs her toes and feet, smiles broadly and begins to rock back and forth. I accuse him of doing immoral things with my wife. Also point out the guilty look on Simone's face. Later she told me how nice it was with him. She could easily ignore his fat body, bald face, and joking manner. They all disappeared when he became very sensual. Joe tells her how I'm not good enough for her, that he notices how happy I am being with her, and why don't you come stay with me on Thursday. Just now Simone comes home, and I have got off the subject. Which was about the three phases I have noticed in her difficulty with me having other relationships. It is currently that we have a competition to see who can get the most lovers. But I said that already. At least she is beginning to see it a little more realistically. It is competition, but not with me. Its probably a deeper form of competition that she is aware of. Namely, to get as much for herself as she can. And this is exactly what she accuses, and I do mean accuses, me of. But that's not now I have forgotten what to say next! So it seems like competition.

She and Dana have just left for their dream group. The other Dana, who visited with us, and then her, has also just left. She has not seen him in some time. She thinks him very handsome, but he has a lot of belief systems, she says. He plays the piano very well. We were at the office. He played. I left. Then he tells Simone all the gossip. That he is getting a vasectomy next week. He has always wanted to sleep with her, he says. But was afraid to. He was a born again Christian for eight years. That stopped him. Now, or rather in two or three weeks, he wants to sleep with her, but no sex. He doesn't want to get involved too deeply. She tells me and the other Dana about the song he wrote for her. Its very romantic in parts, and then comes the refrain, I fuck the shit out of you, but only in my filthy dreams. She likes that part very much. They make a date for about three weeks from now. He doesn't seem bothered that its right here in my room, with me here. But later he will probably tell her more about what he was feeling. I give him a copy of my book and notes. This sets me to thinking about why its so hard for me to attract women. She and Dana do much better at this than me. But on the other hand, Dana spent some hours last night telling me how he doesn't like the way things are going. Maybe its not good to be so blunt and straightforward, unless its with a woman like Simone. With her it goes just fine. She likes me even more for it.

Donna commented on my notes after reading everything up to March 10. This time it came out quite a bit different. She says I never talk about love, and that everyone seems like an object. My reaction is to say its true, but I hadn't thought about it. Its something like breathing for me, I tell her. It is something that everyone needs, and everything people do is to get love. She thinks that people have relationships, or do things for other reasons. Nope! I think not. Love is a thing inside us just like breathing. Maybe you want to run a race, but the breathing part is not something you have to think about. Maybe you want to run a race, by why you do it is not something you have to think about. We talked about it some more, but love seems to be the sick feeling you get about someone from time to time. The feeling makes you constantly long for and think about them. You constantly worry about their being with someone else, or what they might be doing.

Simone told me she loved me at breakfast Monday morning. I told her I knew this. How, she asks. Because of the way you cut the banana into little pieces and arranged them all around the edge of my bowl of cereal, I tell her. I put extra bran in it, she says. That's still another reason why I know you love me. You don't have to say you love someone, or have them tell you. You don't have to tell your lungs to breath, and your lungs don't have to tell you they will breath. Its an easy thing to feel. I know she loves me when she does so much for me. It is only necessary for me to ask her for something. When she resists it is clear how much or little she loves me at that moment. On the other hand, I could make a false test of her love, and ask her to do something when it is not possible for her to do it. Then it is only the problem of my feeling insecure about her loving me. Donna seems to have the idea that love is something you talk about, think about, write poems about, but avoid relationships where it will be tested for real. Its when you want to be with people and do things for and with them. All this nonsense written and said about love but with no real contact between people. What am I trying to prove here? I seem to be a bit perturbed about her problems with love.

What else about life. Its when the things in daily life get taken care of with ease. When one doesn't feel put upon, resistant, or obliged to do something. When its an easy thing to fit in. For me its when I help Simone to do things that will help her develop herself and her relationships and abilities. And she in turn wants to do lots of things for me. It would never work one way. But on the other hand it is not really that I am expecting anything of her, but rather that she is stimulated in a very natural and positive way. I keep falling back to my own inadequacy in attracting people the way Simone does. It is not possible to put all the blame to her being a woman. Dana has no such problem. He does have the problem of developing deep relationships. But that has nothing to do with his being able to start so many. It still comes down to something about me. I imagine myself in the middle, for an SD, to try and find the way into myself for an answer. Pacing around. Covering my face with my hands. Not being able to look at anyone. Ashamed to reveal myself. I try to get off the track by thinking about times I've attracted more women than other men. Back to the subject. Simone tells me I am starting to look like a derelict again. Sometimes when looking in a mirror, or window, I try to arrange the angle of my face so that certain parts, like the eyes, will be dark, and maybe evil? A handsome face, but very stern and cold do you think? An odd thought about the end of that line. What word to place last do the end of the line isn't so blank. So after cold goes the word do, rather than going to the next line. How the fuck am I ever going to develop anything of any importance about the world when I get caught up in such small things? Such trivial, stupid, who knows what, such things.

I speak to Jeannette on the phone last night. We talk about what's going on here, what she's doing. How about dinner Wednesday night, she asks. We could go to your place, out, or come here? Why not there, since I haven't seen your new place I say. I want to cook her some chicken with Tamari sauce, the way she did some times before. It never came out right for me. Maybe it was the Teflon pan she used. I really want to see her, desire her, and so find myself carefully presenting myself and trying to be open to her in a way I have found her responsive to. She slept with me some number of times after I had done this. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but it works. She did ask me to stay. This was last summer. She has not had much to do with me for some time. Maybe things are over with her and Vinnie. I am overwhelmed by sexual fantasies of her after we hang up. Later I masturbate myself to sleep and again in the morning, with fantasies about her. Fucking her from behind, biting her on the back and legs, grabbing her all over with my hands and squeezing. Playing a rough gorilla with her. Watching my prick go in and out of her cunt. Its making me horny again. Its not a definite date. The next day I notice anxiety about telling Simone about it. Anticipating an explosion, and then pressure not to do it. Maybe she will cancel her date with Michael, I imagine, just to prevent me from seeing Jeannette. But this is only me making my own trap. Such a thing shouldn't stop me even if it happens.

Lotti has just called from the office about doing some work. It is so much fun to do things with her. She is very proper and prudish. It is easy to make jokes and funny things with her. I enjoy it a lot with her. Just now I am reminded of something Simone said. It was about fucking with Judy or Lotti, anyone but Linda. But she knows they can't really do anything with me, so it's a safe thing for her to say. I suspect if anything happened that they would become the same as Linda. But maybe this is just a sort of vengeful thing for me to be saying. Why do I have to get stuck with this so often? Always these little resentments about not having things work out in my favor, or they come up when she gets what she wants. Maybe starting out this days writing with the story about Simone was another example of the same thing. Was it too provocative? Was it a cutting thing for me to write about? On the other hand it did cause me a lot of thought. This sort of thing evokes this constant questioning of why Simone has so much difficulty with my developing relationships. But then just now I think maybe it is a defense of my own. That is, I use it as a way to say that I would have more, if only she wasn't putting so many roadblocks in my way. She is able to fill the air with intense feeling. Her I'll win in the end remark stopped both me and Dana in our tracks. She was out of sight in another room when she said it. But I see myself continuing to make Simone somewhat of a scapegoat. Anything to avoid looking at my own deficiencies. The second way that Simone explained my wanting other relationships was that it was an ideological thing from FH. I only did it because that's the way things were done. My natural inclination was to be monogamous. And then I realize that many of our discussions on the subject would be interrupted by people calling to make sleeping dates, or otherwise, with her. Is this another example of hyperbolic text in the pursuit of resentment material? Grit my teeth and suck in my breath about doing this so often. Why am I persisting in making this woman such a problem for me? Constantly feeling like I have to fight off something. Is this what Michael couldn't stand? Is this what made a thousand affairs so short? Maybe there is something that tries to push down what comes out in her. Lately its been possible to defend against these attacks by turning what she says around and using her own behavior as an example of what she means. Perhaps its this that's caused her to develop this new defense, competition, as an explanation of what's going on.

I have just been leafing through my writing for the last two plus months. There is a not-right feeling about it. That some quality is missing from it. Not, it seems to me, the leaving out of anything crucial, but something I can't put my finger on. It always seems so stiff and frozen. I get impatient for progress, or some sign of it. There have been several times these last few days when I have shut myself off. It always follows a feeling of rage. On Sunday it happened. The morning. We got up. Simone said something that set it off. I'm going to the office, says me. Gets dressed. Goes to the kitchen and starts doing the dishes. The rage subsides. I realize that it was about to control me again. I don't go to the office. We make plans to go to Bryant's for brunch. Suzanne and Dana will go with us. We walk. Its pleasant enough. Totally superficial. We have something to eat and leave. The walk was the best part.

Last Friday Simone and I go to New Haven for a wedding. Her friend Loris. She is 3 months pregnant. Its in a Catholic church. We talk during the whole thing, make jokes. There is this neat box from which the priest takes a cup. It has two sets of doors. They open and close in a very interesting way. I speculate how the cup is full of sperm from the priests. Then to the reception. We learn that Loris's best friend, and someone Simone knows, killed herself the day before. She jumped from the same building Loris's mother jumped from just about one year ago. The dead woman left a jealous, nasty letter to Loris. Simone and I both have the feeling that this is not a good thing for them to do. He is 22 and she 25. But she has this confident tone in her voice when she says, nothing ever seemed more right to me. But the shaking head, and downcast eyes, as she says this, do not convince. But who am I to say. She may be strong enough, and he also, to overcome their difficulties. They keep us in the dark about this side of their relationship.

We stayed the night with Simone's parents. A number of things happened where I saw very clearly, as did she, how she does things they do. Changing subjects when talking about something emotionally charged. Her father not signaling when making turns. The way they keep animals. Her father always being late. It reminded me of growing up in my own family. Most of this growing up seemed to be absurd. It seemed that something was very wrong with my family. That most other families seemed to be much better. We gave Loris some baby clothes. I was reminded of Cheyenne and the first year and a half I knew her. I wrote many little things about her development. They are on 3 by 5 cards. The idea of writing them as a set of notes occurred to me. I told someone the story of Cheyenne and the orange sling. It went around your neck and under one arm. I resembled a deflated bicycle tire. One section had an accordion type fold in it. This could be opened and the child would fit in it. She came to know this orange seat very well. At some point she would become very excited when I put it on. She knew it meant a ride. It never mattered how short the ride. The excitement was still the same. Then, a few minutes later, it was possible for her to be just as excited again, if I went to go out again.

Did you know that The Cambridge Chronicles, 1981 Edition, has been published on Amazon? Buy the whole thing for 99 cents and read it on a kindle (or kindle software for your Mac or PC), here:

A Memoir About Art & Sex During The Reagan Years (The Cambridge Chronicles, 1981 Edition)

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #963,010 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#48 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Art > Other Media > Conceptual (May 30, 2013)

Thursday, March 19, 1981

I have been trying to think about my confused thinking. Some things I notice are that even though its confusing lots of practical things get done. The confusion doesn't seem to interfere with getting up, laundry, work, and similar things. What started me on this was David's criticism of not being what he called centered. Or, as best as I can figure, having some sort of goal or objective in life. Or having the
ability to get what you want. There was a time when I wanted to be a scientist. My plan was to go to MIT, study physics, gets a PhD, and from this be able to determine all things. So much for that. I got there only to discover that things needing to be talked about or have something done about, weren't getting done. My impression of such places was that everything would get considered. It turned out that an even smaller number of things were thought/talked about. Maybe they thought about a lot more. This was never very clear to me.

Here I go trying to improve my writing while writing. I often keep track of how many times I use the pronoun I. I try to write, or I find myself censoring the number of times I use it in sentences. I find that this interferes with how well I can write. Not in the sense of, backspace, delete, start over, backspace, delete again. Does it matter? Anyway.

While growing up I always had the feeling that something was not being talked about. Not many things. But just something. Maybe there were many things. But when you are standing in a supermarket line its the person being cashiered who seems to be slowing things down. That is, only one person. Even though there may be many people in the line. Maybe there were many things to talk about. But I would have settled, at least initially, for talking about one of the untalked about things. It continued. As an adult there were many things on my mind. Today there are many things on my mind. At this moment. How to get them all out? So I am confused about a goal, maybe a purpose in life. Is it possible for human beings to know? They have thought the purpose to be many things in the past. I just don't feel it. Once I thought it was to be good and get to heaven. I really believed that. I tried very hard to do it. It was easy to give the impression of being good. But inside I knew all the things that went on before, my ideas and thoughts, were still the same. I still cursed under my breath, thought evil of others, had sexual fantasies, and so on. This outside peace never settled inside me. In fact, a lot of energy went into giving this peaceful appearance. I remember myself as being quite adept at this. Some number of people from my childhood thought so also. But the truth was otherwise. So I am very suspicious of those who tell me they have a goal and purpose in life. Often a little investigation shows it to be no more than the disguised goals of their parents or social group. And this is my impression of David. He does a lot of things. Its well organized. There seems to be some sort of purpose or guiding idea at work. But the feeling I get from the person does not correspond. It is easy to poke and find resistance. I don't mean in a provocative way. I mean while trying to find out what he means I notice he resists the challenge to his ideas. The usual defense to such things is that, well, that's how you feel. So it becomes impossible to challenge the idea because he accepts it without challenge. I have done, and do the same. My old religious ideas presented me a similar problem once. It was with a high school friend. He went to a different church. I don't remember exactly what brought it up. But one day I must have asked him something like why don't you come to my church sometime and see how its the right one. But he was able to immediately challenge me in a way that made me feel very threatened and insecure. This burning sensation that I can remember still, even though I forget exactly what we talked about. He would have none of it. I didn't understand. But he probably challenged me in the same way. Why don't you come to my church for the same reason, he might have replied. He was a much brighter student than me. Did much better on everything. As a freshman in high school he won the local county math contest. He beat out all the seniors. Took first place I always envied him. It never came up again. We never talked about it. It was a separate part of our lives. Had we talked about it the problems would have destroyed our relationship. We couldn't talk about it. It would have changed everything about us. We would have been constantly coming up against our resistance to different ideas, resistance in the form powerful feelings that would come up.

This happens to Simone and I when we talk about sex. Usually it starts with her feelings threatened when I say something about it. A sort of rage overwhelms her. My defense to this is the same sort of rage. That something I've said is being challenged. This is a difficult thing. To try to understand something that automatically takes me over. I'm trying to see through it. It gets very confusing. The fingers are stuck. No words for it. She can talk about it in a much more natural way. Last night she talked about how she wanted to develop her new relationship, Steve. I don't want to bring him here the first time, she says. She had planned to meet him there. Maybe we will just go out for a drink. I want to have a free night where there is no pressure. Where I can stay with him or not, depending on how it feels, she says. It doesn't happen this way for me. It does not come out so naturally in my conversation. It is not something I've done much of. She has fucked with a lot more people, and approached a lot more. Its easier for a woman. There I go with a defense. So what if they turn me down. My friend Ron gets accepted by about half the women he asks. Of course he is usually careful about his selection. He is much better at presenting the right sort of image. The one that promises the zipless fuck. Who said that? But I seem to be excusing myself again. I'm no less horny than either of them, or any other person. Doing something about it gets excused to death.

Later in the day. Something has been on my mind most of the afternoon. It started when Simone asked me for some gas and parking money. She must see the dentist. I notice a bit of irritation. She has been going to work for me these last few days, but no time, she says. Then this fantasy about supporting my own royal family. Her. It occurs to me that this irritation has another source. She gets a call from Steve the photographer who wants to speak with her. I'd thought she'd be working some this afternoon. Its irritates me still more that she might have been with him. But then this idea did come to me as a paranoid fantasy. Its happened before. Once on FH Reggie left the room with another man. I was sure they went to fuck. But that was not possible. She was a guest and he was a regular member of the group. But it made no difference. The biggest real problem here is that these paranoid fantasies keep cropping up inside me. Even if it were true - so what! But then the internal preoccupation with this is what's really important for me. It takes over my whole body. Walking along the street, my body, but the mind is in another world. The body is just left to run on a simple program. Go to the store. Go to the post office. Go to Do this. The tensions and experiences from this other world seep and flow down into the body. Soon it is caught up in the fantasy. And then I wake up. Sometimes realizing that I've forgotten something I meant to do. Sometimes I've gone past the place I was going to. I have been thinking about three kinds of writing. The first is just a straightforward recollection of what happened. Only one thing really happened. Atoms and molecules were in only one place at any given time. From different positions or consciousnesses things may seem to be different. But only one thing actually happened. Writing about it as exactly as one can is the first kind of this writing. The second kind of writing is the expression of thoughts and feelings. In this mode time, place, and matter can be distorted in all sorts of ways. In this mode things can go backwards. In this way things can happen that would never really happen in reality. And a third kind of writing is some combination of these two, but with the whole picture in mind from the beginning of the writing to the end. It seems to me that I can do the first two and only seldom, the last type. This little bit of writing about writing is of this sort. I thought about the whole thing before writing it down. I had the idea to demonstrate something before I started. But on the other hand I don't know that this has happened. I got into this fight with Simone today. Not in reality, but in my head. It had to do with Beth and Nina, two women I am interested in. Beth is Simone's friend. The fantasy is about starting something with Beth and then having to handle Simone's difficulty with this. But at this moment it is only my imagined difficulty. I get paranoid that she would call Beth and indirectly tell her not to have anything to do with me. Or that she would be direct, no. Not direct. I do not imagine her as being direct. It is impossible, difficult for me to imagine her as being direct in this situation. Then that I will have to point out her hypocritical behavior. She will resist, and our old fight will start again.

A funny thing. The paranoia goes away a bit after writing it down. As though it has literally flowed out of my fingers and into the typewriter. Perhaps it waits to be picked up by the next typist! I have the impression of being able to do this, and then the idea that if I can manage to say even more exactly what I mean, then even more of this feeling will get out of me. I have noticed this many times while writing. Maybe I could even build a type of therapy around it. What for a course title? Can't think of anything. Stuck. Staring at the keyboard. Reading parts of this over. A fantasy about teaching a writing course. I walk into the classroom. A terminal connected to a large screen tv is in the room. I sit at the keyboard. Type the day, date, page number as is my usual custom. Then begin to write about teaching my first writing class. This is my first writing class. I don't know exactly how to begin. But I had the idea of sitting down here and having you see everything written as it comes out of me. I would imagine you took this course because you enjoy my writing and believe you can get something for yourself if you write like this. Its true, you can. But the question is, how does he do it? Have you asked yourself that? Try it. How does he do it? Good. Next, I don't know. I have just got stuck. Let me think for a moment. Yes, the people in this class. Some of you will get written about. There are some attractive women in this class. From time to time you will read something here about my thoughts about them. Perhaps something will happen between me and one of them and it will also appear here. But one thing that will definitely appear here is things that I notice about the people in this class. For example, the very laid-back guy in the 1960's hippie outfit over there. You will get some of my attention. And the gorgeous woman sitting at the back of the class with the absolutely beautiful face and body. You will get more of my attention than will be written about here. Some other things to write about. At just this moment Dana has interrupted my writing class. Normally in this class such things will not happen. But on the other hand, one of the things that could happen is little staged events, designed to evoke some feelings or ideas in you people. But its only an idea. It might not happen. But then again it might. You never know. This class will be for several things. One is to be able to write a lot. It doesn't matter about the quality. Most of you will never be as good as me. But it is a start to get you thinking and writing about all sorts of things. The other is to challenge yourself. This will help you to develop your writing and your life. And this is the most important thing. Gradually you will be able to write more and more about yourself. It will get more and more exact. You will know more and more about yourself. For a moment I thought there was an evolving theme here, but its evaporated. Anyway, this class is for writing. And now you must begin. Its getting close to the time for me to stop. One of those real world realities will soon be here. Lotti is going to do some typing for Dana. We can't both use the typewriter at the same time. I will go back to the office and work. All you imaginary people will have to fend for yourselves. And that is the end of the first, and today's class. Goodbye.

Yesterday I was afraid of not being able to write anything decent again. But the anxiety has gone away somewhat. This is not such a bad few pages. It seemed stiff and disconnected and influenced by the call from Bantam. But that seems to be going away. I will have to ask some others what they think. Everyone tells me it flows well. Often It feels like walking over the edge of a piece of jagged glass. Other times it is like molasses. At this moment it even flows for me. This whole page in only a few minutes. I got very excited about this whole writing class idea. I could hardly keep up with the ideas. Now if only I could write so quickly about the swamps I get stuck in!

Did you know that The Cambridge Chronicles, 1981 Edition, has been published on Amazon? Buy the whole thing for 99 cents and read it on a kindle (or kindle software for your Mac or PC), here:

A Memoir About Art & Sex During The Reagan Years (The Cambridge Chronicles, 1981 Edition)

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #858,938 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#39 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Art > Other Media > Conceptual (May 8, 2013)

I was going to write about how it seems a cold is coming on. There is this dirty feeling at the back, inside, and under my nose. The passages at first seem clearer than normal. I can feel the air moving through them. But soon they start to feel very dry. Then they go the opposite direction - a flood. And the cold is on!

A lot of stress this last week. Last night was Simone's birthday. Before that two days of fighting. Before that was the Suzanne incident. I learned something about myself from it. It started with a comment about her behavior. How she often seems to indirectly get the attention of people around her. Or I mean tries to get this attention. With me its just putting a sample of my writing under their nose and asking them to read and comment. But she went around apologizing about if it was ok to sing. All the while it seemed to me she wanted to have people stop what was going on and listen to her. So my opinion, casually given to Dana in another conversation, got back to her. One week ago this evening she is here and calls me in the office. She seems a bit irritated and says she has something to speak with me about. There is something in her voice that immediately puts me on the defensive so I try to get her to talk right then. She wants to wait till another time when I'm there. So for nearly an hour she tries to rake me over the coals for having this opinion of her. And furthermore having no respect for her privacy. Privacy to me means that someone will not disturb me if I'm reading. It hasn't anything to do with being in the bathroom, without clothes, or even fucking. Simone and I usually leave the door open. There was more but it puts me in this position of being attacked. My whole body is starting to shake with it. Its not so hard to talk back, but the tone in her voice is very aggressive. Its like a parent telling a kid to do something through gritted teeth. Simone and Lotti notice how distraught I am. Everything inside me is becoming tense. My face feels hot and flushed. Its like the tension of the final moments before some big competition, like a race. It finally gets ended after it seems she has run out of steam and energy. I thought to myself, how much longer do I have to fight this off? The next day finds me stewing and plotting the coming return match. I fully expect her to start a fight again. The next night presents a total surprise. She is aware of being a little crazy lately, and says not to pay much attention to her behavior. There was more, but for me, half an hour later, it was very depressing. I found myself completely tensed for a fight. And nothing happened. How to say this. I was disappointed. I looked forward to the fight part. It was further depressing to realize that I wished her ill. My expectation was to be able to fight back and squash her completely. I wanted to see her done in. It was not a pleasant thing to realize this about myself. I always want to see myself as a good person who is forever being attacked by the crazies in one's life. Life is a constant struggle against such people. They are always out to get me or do me in some way.

The example I always fume about is standing in line at a post office while the clerks slowly go about their business with a practiced crawl and stall. It reminds me of my stepfather. At the end of each day he would come home and tell us the latest stories. They would always involve him and his work and how he spent the entire day overcoming the stupid mistakes of his bosses and sometimes his fellow workers. It was like a family institution. Sometimes I have the feeling that this same quality is buried somewhere inside me. He was always able to hold the attention of his friends with these and hunting stories. Another part of this was that he tried to keep all the attention all the time. It seems he had this uncanny ability to move the story in such a way that everyone else could only make little contributions. He seemed to know when someone else was trying to put their two cents in. I remember lots of stories from him, but not much from the people around us. He always liked to make the most of his expert marksmanship. Often he would use only one bullet on a hunting trip. Seldom did he go out and not get something. Often he would shoot something for one or two of the others on that particular hunting trip. The exact way in which he stalked and shot the animal would be the highlight of every story. Often to be told over and over again with emphasis on different parts, or combined with other stories of the same type. There would be one shot hunting trips, neck shot hunting trips, elk hunting trips, carry it out on your back hunting trips, and so on and so on over and over again.

Bantam Books, from New York, called me today. I sent the notes to someone there. They liked them. Very interesting, she said. She will pass it on to two people who are regular editors. Normally one would feel quite good that a publisher calls you about your writing. In the beginning it made me very excited. But as the day wore on it seemed as though something was undermining this feeling. A sense of dread. Failure. Depression. These keys are very heavy. I have made a good jump to get over a wall, but didn't quite make it. Donna read some of it last night before the party and was very positive. She asked me, do all men think like this? I don't know that they think exactly like this, but probably similar. She didn't know of any men who had written like this, an inner journey, or something like that, she called it. Simone wants me to stop writing and go to sleep. I am disappointed with myself. This fear of not being able to write well has gotten hold of me. It seems like this is what happens at this very moment. I think about some of the things written in the last two months and fear this won't measure up. What if I make it the best I can and then fail? Failure won't be so bad if its not the best I can do. David found it hard to put down but says there seems to be no center. To him this means no goal or objective. What is my goal in doing this? To use it as a way of seeing myself and surroundings better. To make discoveries about myself and people. Are those the same things? To express myself in what seems to be a good way for me. At this moment I find myself thinking about writing enough to fill this page. What silly ideas pop into people's heads.

I have been thinking about this woman who attracts me. Her name is Nina. She is subletting Linda's apartment. I want her but feel very anxious about an approach. She seems the skittish type. Who knows. My excuse for not trying more? She gets a copy of my notes. I've invited her to the Saturday's party.

Only a couple lines more on this page. What a funny obligation not to waste paper is what I feel a nonsense sentence.

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

Did you know that The Cambridge Chronicles, 1981 Edition, has been published on Amazon? Buy the whole thing for 99 cents and read it on a kindle (or kindle software for your Mac or PC), here:

A Memoir About Art & Sex During The Reagan Years (The Cambridge Chronicles, 1981 Edition)

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #831,069; #39 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Art > Other Media > Conceptual (May 6, 2013)

Reading an article about why normal cells become cancer cells. Makes me think back to an old common fantasy of mine. Immortality. Often I would have anxieties about dying. From this would come the fantasy of an immortality drug being invented. In the fantasy I am about 50+ years old when its done. It is questionable that it will work for me but I try it anyway. I don't want to die. Sometimes another fantasy about certain physical things about myself that I pretend are indicators that I will live forever. Once I broke a bone in my right hand. The finger next to the little finger. The joint part was broken. The one next to the joint connecting that finger to the hand. The doctor took an x-ray. He said I had the bones of a 12 or 13 year old person, but in fact I was about 24 or 25 at the time. My mother gave birth to me at a very early age. She had even then what was called an immature uterus. From this I conjecture that my body has some special quality that will enable me to live longer. But behind all this seems to be something else. Don't know exactly what. Maybe just a normal fear of dying. Maybe just a reaction to not really feeling alive. Maybe a reaction to not really living my life as best I could. There are many things like this that cause me to imagine myself special in some way. They always seem to follow feelings of insecurity and inferiority. Like the body reacting to disease. The mind tries to react to damaging information or ideas. This is not quite what I mean. But a constant searching for explanations about things, but outside myself, or for things to make me feel better even when I don't.

Simone had an interesting revelation last night. I can't blame you for it, she says. She can't blame me for her inability to let go sexually and have an orgasm with me. She has never talked like this before. It was the first time she has spoken so directly about the problem being inside herself. Resistance, she called it. She described it as a thing that was so obviously inside and a part of herself. It happened as she was about to have an orgasm. She turned away from me and said it was time to go to sleep. At first it seemed like a little game, but even then there was something different about it. She was very tired last night. She hoped I wouldn't try to seduce her. She said nothing. Went along with everything. I wanted to fuck. She gave some silly reasons for no. She had a tampax in her. I'll tell it to move over, to make a game of it. A very good orgasm for me. She is able to enjoy it a little more after awhile. She spoke about it more this morning. Feelings about being rejected by me. I tell her it will happen if she spends all her time talking about and trying to get me to reject her. Who wants to live with that all the time. Why be with someone who lives in constant fear of rejection. Then she wonders about overcoming all the social conditioning that has made her that way. Is it worth it? Better she should be with someone else if she doesn't want to try. That's not for me. Its like a fight inside, she says. Exactly the same for me. Almost a constant fight. She wants it to be over quick. I make jokes about the two-weekend cure. But it will be a hard and long fight. Lots of energy was used to make her the way she is. It will take a lot to undo everything.

An interesting little story when Roberta visited. Something to do with long hair and fat. It seems she has always worn her hair long and tried to stay thin. It had to do with being beautiful. She never thought she would cut her long hair. But with me she has felt loved and that it didn't really matter. The same with her weight. Roberta overhears this and says she has always thought the same. As for me, I always am conscious of my stomach sticking out and what people will think of me for that. So a lot of energy goes into keeping the stomach flat and controlling my breathing. This will give the impression of my being in better physical condition than is really the case. And so, I imagine, a better image with the women.

I have just had this idea about my notes. Why not get a group of other people interested in the same thing. Compile writing from many people into a magazine like format and market that. Readers could vote on who they want to have write more, or in the next issue. And of course, I imagine, immediately, that my writing will be the best and most often voted for. These little conversations in my head are interesting. Now I'm having one in my head about having little conversations in my head. I remember reading something once about the borders and limits of consciousness, and what could be thought about. Is there such a thing? I make a mental image in my mind of some arbitrarily shaped place or thing, and then immediately break through the boundary at any place. Its the same with thought. I can think of something not thought of before and then go beyond that thought. It is easy to carry any thought some distance more. Yesterday I had a feeling of being light in a way such that if I had pushed a little harder it would have been possible to float away.

Today I had this idea about videotaping some of the group interactions that occur here. More specifically, the way we talk about trying to do something about difficulties between us. Images of me trying to say something in front of the camera.

Did you know that The Cambridge Chronicles, 1981 Edition, has been published on Amazon? Buy the whole thing for 99 cents and read it on a kindle (or kindle software for your Mac or PC), here:

A Memoir About Art & Sex During The Reagan Years (The Cambridge Chronicles, 1981 Edition)

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #821,280 (May 5, 2013)

I'm an old cowhand From the Rio Grande.
I won't get out of bed Even if I'm dead.

I take out two pieces of paper. Feeling guilty about not writing for 5 days. Lots of thinking about it. Lots to write about. Lots of depression. Curled up in a ball on my bed. Simone comes in. What is it, she asks. Depression. Its your fear of success she says. Lots of reason for that. Over $500 in orders on Friday. So I'm immediately overcome with gloom. I won't get anymore. This is the last money we'll get in the mail. It turns out to be not true. But that's what I immediately start imagining. Immediately. Even before I have a chance to feel good about it. Immediately I think the worst. Positive comments about my writing. Fantasies about becoming a world famous writer. People flock to my spontaneous writing courses. Tv appearances. A whole new trend in self-development. Roberta tells me it makes her really feel things. Things that everybody experiences and feels. I've even made a list of things to write about. A head filled with thoughts. They all spring up at the same time. I don't know which one to start with. I get afraid the others will vanish. It seems as though I try to hold on to everything. Like someone with their arms full of small things. One falls to the floor. You try to pick it up and two more fall from your arms. But if this continues maybe one would have everything on the floor, and then it would be easier to pick them up one at a time? Maybe I don't really need to carry all those things around. It confuses me to keep track of all them. I suppose part of the reason is that I'm afraid there won't be anymore. It always feels like nothing more will happen to me. Sort of like a falling feeling where it seems as though any moment will be the one where I hit bottom. An emotional dead-end. Its like I can't dig any deeper into myself but more is there to be dug up. Like chipping away at something covered with a soft surface. Its easy to chip away the surface, but just under it is stainless steel. I can't get through that.

One letter was from a person in a California group of several people who have a form of free-sexuality. He says my writing inspired him to try and do the same with his life. It made me feel good. He wants to trade notes. Simone read the letter and stopped when she got to the part about the sleeping schedule. Your not thinking of starting a group like that, I hope, she says. Who wants to create an egalitarian society where you have to sleep with someone? I don't know. At first all my objections about it come out. Who am I to say what they should do. It is interesting that, like FH, they have more women than men. Women seem to be better at these things everywhere. Two-thirds of the group leaders on FH are women. Two-thirds of the men at the bottom of the hierarchy is the norm for the groups, and FH. I can't imagine anyone telling Otto or Claudia who they have to sleep with on a given night. Although I do remember they talked about trying it as a way to discover more difficulties between people. It seems like the wrong way to go if one's goal is to feel good. Can good feelings be legislated between people? It seems to be better to try and get to everyone's true feelings at some moment. And you may not want to sleep with someone because of their behavior. Giovanni was always being rejected by the women because of his aggressiveness. It was a good way of getting him to change. The women didn't want to sleep with him if he stayed that way. Its ridiculous speculation on my part. But I can't help it. The FH model is so much more natural. There has to be something good about a spontaneous way of relating that results in people fucking an average of 3 or 4 times a day. It seems it would only be possible if you felt very good about your partner. How could you do it by a schedule. The best times for me meant fucking at least 3 times a day. But it was always a spontaneous thing. I remember the time in the computer room with Sabina. She came for a one hour course. We had a good time together. She started to seduce me as soon as we were finished with the course. I couldn't resist. It felt very good. Lock the door, she says. Turn out the light, she says. Do you have a rubber, she asks. Sure, I reply. Come here, she says. Ok, I says. So right there on the floor of the computer room, when I had no such intentions of my own, it happened. Not bad. Lots of times it went this way. I will have to ask him how things are during the day, and what the rate of sexual activity is. But it seems contrived. Like the idea of an egalitarian society. Only an idea. No relation to reality. I've seen any number of groups with this idea. The leaders secretly try to influence things while continuing to espouse the idea of egalitarianism. But everyone believes its a good idea and nobody points it out, or has the courage to point out, the contradictions in the everyday life. Who knows. It causes me to boil a little every time People start to talk about that idea. In fact they secretly believe they are better than others. I believe it about myself. I know who is better or not as good as me, and in what ways. But it seldom gets talked about. We all want to be equal. What it really means is that we don't want to be below anyone. We don't want things to be how we feel. I don't want things to be as bad as I feel sometimes. Shit, difficult to say anything about this without getting dogmatic. But I know these feelings of superiority and inferiority are in me. And I always try to avoid them by being equal. An impossible condition. I'm not the same height, weight, intelligence, ability, or anything else. But I want to be equal! I think its more that I don't want to be behind anybody. Who knows. But there is so much of this contrived behavior amongst people who want to be free. They enslave themselves as a way to being free. Total nonsense. Simone spent a day with an opening-the-heart workshop where people were forced by an arbitrary set of rules to do things that go against a more natural way of behaving, which it seems they all want to achieve. Why not just do it. Why a complicated set of rules to define what is proper behavior at any given time? Thoughtful sensitive people will pay attention to what they and others need. Those who aren't will reveal themselves. It will be obvious to everyone. I told her they seemed like new-age catholics. She said they had some connection with it. I mean it only as a joke because of their rigidity but it seems like it may be true. Dana and I spent some time talking about following ones feelings. Can compulsive behavior, continuing with something because of a rule really be following ones feelings? Sometimes I feel like a party theoretician when writing things like this. But the things are in me. I read some of my old writing and cringe a bit. In fact it was the last day I wrote something, the day I began to write my old notes from FH on the typewriter. They are all handwritten now. Today I had the idea that this might have contributed to my depression. I have a difficult time when thinking back to those days. What would Otto do in this situation, I often ask myself. A dream several nights ago about being back. Don't remember it now. Yesterday I went out the back door, onto the back porch, to shake a dustmop. Left the door open. Dana and Suzanne were sitting at the kitchen table. Its right next to the door. Dana says, there's a draft, or something like that. Not till a little bit later did it occur to me that this was a mistake on my part. I left the door wide open. He did not say it directly, but later I realized what was the meaning of his tone of voice. He meant to say I should have shut the door. I can now imagine that he and Suzanne exchanged some glances over this. It does not contribute to a good social situation when I make mistakes like this. Something else like this, but it escapes me now. In any case, all the time I make little failures like this. It makes me paranoid when people do similar things to me. And probably the same for him. We are running into some problems here because of the difference in trust between me and Simone, and Dana and the two of us. We say more to each other than Dana does to either of us. In the last few days he has been complaining, and mostly to her. But some of the things have been about me. He is not as afraid of her as he is of me. Simone thinks it may be that he is not as active as either of us and resents it. His time is spent reading and doing sometime work. He probably thinks about things a lot and gets paranoid. He imagines that he is doing more of a certain kinds of work, or more work in general. I think there is a lot more that he keeps to himself and just stews over. The letter writer from California was impressed by my total candor. Over this I can only chuckle a bit. From where my brain sits its not total candor. I know its not everything. Some things make me too anxious to talk about. Some things are presently unexplainable. Some things are hidden from me. And other things I can only scratch the surface of. Its not total candor. Its just trying to write the most insightfully that I can. But when reviewing earlier writing its obvious the present is less naive, more direct, more insightful, and less spacey.

Don has come over to have dinner with me. He tells me the story of how he paid a friends phone bill. He calls the manager. The manager calls the main manager at home. The result was that his friend didn't get the phone reconnected. Don and his friend are well known to the telephone people. Now he talks about a company that imports tuna fish for Star Market. It must be nice, he says. What do you mean it, I ask. IT! he responds. Don has just farted. I tell him this document will become a main source of information about the temper of our times. He inhales deeply. This next sentence is by Don: harrumph, clearing the throat. semper ubi sub ubi. Always wear under where. Frank Perdu's latest pun: (he forgets).

Don tells me an interesting idea about what to do if one has an idea in the middle of the night. Call Western Union and ask them to send you a telegram with the message.

He reads the letter from California and starts to laugh. Can this really be true he says. It sounds like an advertisement. More laughter. You to can be healthier and so forth, he explains. Just use a balanced rotational sleeping schedule and in ten days or less your problem will be solved. This line can be sold to an advertising firm. He wants to ask the writer what kind of mattress he uses. What's the three month period of celibacy for, he asks. It seems to be arbitrary, but is probably an unconscious mechanism to keep sexual disease out of the group. On FH one has to go through a 6 weeks quarantine. That is the maximum time it takes to determine if one has syphilis. Other things can be found in less time. They don't mention anything about what venereal disease problems they have. I have read their magazine for some years and its always a bit vague and abstract about what's actually going on. Edwin has visited them and describes them as being like a group of MIT people, abstract and intellectual, who play lots of one-up, can you top this, make a pun of it, look how clever I am, games. But he tends to be jaded about everyone except Otto. He criticized my writing by pointing out the one letter from a publisher who said it wasn't their kind of book. He came down to visit last night on his own. He wanted to read some of my notes. Later he says how depressed he feels after reading all the things going on here in the last two months. I've only worked and stayed in my cave, he says.

A call to Robert Rimmer. He likes my notes, read the whole thing. But I get filled with this overwhelming self-doubt. Its like standing on the edge of a razor. I can fall to either side. The slightest wind will push me to one side or the other. This doesn't sound right. At just this moment I have the feeling that my left and right hands have changed places. Typing is still possible but it feels just like that. Like something has been twisted and bent so everything is reversed 180 degrees. He doesn't know who would publish such a book, but suggests trying to find someone. I have this odd feeling of everything being reversed in my body from time to time. Like a rope being twisted. Now its in my eyes. Its completely different from upside down, or forward-backward. I wonder why it was Jud who responded to my notes. Why not someone else from the group? Edwin says he is the leader. Maybe someone got them and passed them on to him. Don't know. Want to. I tell Bob about my fantasy that these notes will be turned into a TV program like Dallas.

Lots of peculiar fantasies lately. Getting some things ready to mail. What is it like to be a package in the mail? Dark, pressure,jostling. Who knows what next. Then I'm the package. Don't know where I am. Who are all these people? What's going on? Where am I going? Strange sensations of not having any connection to anything else. Short contact with the other packages, then they are gone forever. From my depression on Friday comes a fantasy about dying. What would other people feel? Would they miss me? Would they be sorry to not have known me better? Next was one about the children on FH. Its about their growing up and turning out badly. I imagine that heredity rules and they turn out to be like everyone else, and incapable of living on FH. Some of them turnout to be quite nasty. The left-right sensation reminds me of an SD course on FH. It was in the guest group. Toni was leading. It started as a trance of some sort I think. But slowly for me it became the sensation of my body increasing in size. It was as though I was growing from a single cell to birth size. In the fantasy that was with the sensation I had a diaper on and eventually filled a whole house with my legs and arms sticking out the windows and doors. Then everything burst, and I continued to grow. Don't remember how it ended. Its like when a feeling of suddenly being pressed down goes away. It seemed as though it would go on forever. Constantly growing and filling the universe.

Michael has a new definition of monogamy. I'm monogamous with Connie every Saturday night. Simone wants to see him but he keeps waffling. Saturday is his monogamy night. I don't want to talk, she says, I want to fuck. Talk is cheap. How about next Tuesday morning between 11 and 12 noon, he suggests. Well, she says, that's my birthday. If you want to fuck all day, or take me to Plum Island, then ok, she says, otherwise forget it! He thinks he's getting a fever, ill, thinking about being with Ginny and Connie and Simone. He wants to suck her breasts and if not that tonight, then not till next Tuesday. Michael is afraid to ask all his roommates about taking Senoi. The fifth is very annoyed with extra cat hair. He hasn't asked this one about taking the cat yet. Stu has told Simone he hates her. He won't see her if she moves in, but said maybe he would modify that position. He thinks she should try her new assertiveness on me. Don't fuck up your dates with me, he says. Do it with Richard. He's not going to call her here. You will always have to call me, he says.

Somehow Simone gets started on a story about nuns. It seems her grandmother always told her that bad Catholic kids had to walk under the dresses of nuns. The grandmother would threaten Simone with sending her to a Catholic school and making her walk under the nuns dresses. She believed this till she was in junior high school. The sexual implications of this completely escaped her till then.