The Cambridge Chronicles

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)

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