The Cambridge Chronicles

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

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

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

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

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

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