The Cambridge Chronicles

My aunt Rosemary called me the other day. It happened like this: I sent a postcard to my grandparents after calling them and finding their telephone disconnected. They had all their mail forwarded to Rosemary. She called me after getting the card. She just wanted to tell me they were ok and galavanting around the country, mostly the East coast. My father called her today also. He wanted to know where they were. She calls him a double-dipper. He is retired on a pension and also works another job. Its something with delivery of packages. His son is 23 and resembles Warren Beatty. He doesn't play chess anymore. She likes my uncle Teddy better than my father or his son. Her husband is thinking of going into some sort of computer business for himself. She says maybe he can call me for advice. I tell her that I'm not the best source of information on starting a business. It barely works. I use it for other things, like financing the art show. But it does give me some independence. She is, or will be, 40 this year. I did not realize there was so little difference in our ages. I remember waking up at night and seeing her without clothes, at the doorway of her room. The same with my aunt Jean. I remember these incidents and how my first sexual feelings were stirred up. Or at least the first ones in my memory. Another time I played a game of measuring parts of her body. We wrestled with each other. The feeling was completely different for me. Completely different from wrestling with boys. I was thinking about this difference today. About how it feels when I touch Otto. It is not at all sexual. It is as though some part of the tension in my body lets go. There is almost an urge to cry. I can get something like this with Claudia, but not as strong. With her there is something like a sexual shock. It is almost electric. It created a lot of sexual tension in me. She came up behind me once, put her leg between mine, and instantly aroused me. I did not know who it was till I turned around. Other people had done this to me but never with the same dramatic results. Anyway, Rosemary caused that same sort of shock, as up to that point I'd only contact with other boys. She has given up working as a Redskinnette. These are the cheerleaders for the Washington Redskins football team. She did it for many years. Now she just works for the Department of Agriculture. I told her about the art show and my writing. I've sent her a few pages. She must write or call me if she wants to read more.

Yesterday Simone, Jeff, and I went to Michael's 30th birthday party. It was at a pond in Concord where people can swim nude. A small beach area. Lots of woods. Only two other adults, and four children were there. It must have been disappointing for him as he sent out many announcements. One of the people bought his old car. The other was someone he lived with 4 years ago. He thought I would not like his recent attempt at writing. It was a well constructed combination of poetry and prose about how he poses. How he is not really like the impression/image he tries to project. It was very good, shows lots of insight, of a theoretical nature. He didn't think I would like it. He has a lot of fantasies about me. He thought I would act out or say disruptive things at the recent Constance party. He thought I left Roberta's party as soon as I saw that he and Constance were there. He seems like a man whose theoretical and practical sides are completely at odds with each other. On the one hand he wants Simone to leave me as I am not the 'right' one for her. I am not capable of total love. But he is going to move in with someone he is not in love with. This contrasts with his obvious love for Simone. He constantly fights against it. His inner self is always trying to do something with her. His home-grown fears paralyze him in the same instant. And then he calls me a hopeless idealist. Says that 'it' will never work. But to have such opinions only shows that he is thinking more about it. And then he is faced with the reality of nothing happening when he is with Simone. At least nothing from me to stop anything he might want to do. They went off into the woods to do some things. He was most likely afraid I might show up and so did not go all the way. A few days ago he and Simone were fooling around on my bed. Again, he did not go all the way. On the other hand it is farther than he has ever gone. He survived it. His anxieties about me suddenly showing up did not materialize. It seems that he makes a little progress.

Simone, on the other hand, is another story. It does not seem possible to build an instrument capable of measuring the small amount of progress she has made in this area. Michael, Jeff, and Stu, have all made some progress in the last year. They will talk to me on the phone, have visited, do things with Simone and I, and have even let us know something about how they feel about it. But not Simone. She is like a perfectly constructed device, designed to hold the same position, regardless of external events. Nancy has been criticizing her again. Pointing out how she does not want me to leave her, but she wants to be in a position to leave me if the situation with Michael, or anyone else, improves enough. And she would do it. But she doesn't talk about it. She has refused any conversation about Linda. This morning I related a dream with her, me, and LInda. It took place in the great court at MIT. We were all naked. It was raining. We would run around the sidewalks on the outside of the court. Simone told me about a newspaper in Italy that was about all the things going on in Cambridge. That's all I remember. But I noticed the way it changed her breathing and speech. She started to breath faster, spoke in short, sharp replies, almost angry grunts, to each part of the dream, as I related it to her. She got noticeably stiffer. She would not talk about any part of it. Another dream about someone from FH being here. We moved the piano from the office to the apartment. The rest escapes me.

Fights with Linda and Simone in the last week about how I am a sexual libertine. Linda accuses me of only wanting her back for sex. That's all you think about, she tells me. And Simone, always one to stomp on me for wanting to fuck every woman I can get my hands on. But in fact the situation in completely reversed. In the more than a year I've known both of them, they have had half a dozen or so one night stands each. This not counting other attempts. My own sexual experience has been limited to just the two of them. I have not been able to get anyone else. Just last week I failed twice. Lauren has rejected me for being too direct. She likes to take things slower. Lisa has turned me down because I have to much baggage. She wants someone who can be available to her 2 or 3 nights a week, when she wants them. My baggage seems to be that this is not possible for me. She has settled for a number of occasional, but superficial relationships that will provide her with needed sexual satisfaction. She believes that jealousy is a perfectly natural thing, that it isn't something you can overcome. In her situation, like that of most people, it won't be. Perhaps I am just being in a sour grapes mood here. So many people have this idea. That jealousy is a perfectly normal part of life. I often have the urge to challenge them about other perfectly natural parts of life, like being ashamed of ones body, even though nobody is born this way. We are all trained to be. But it seems perfectly natural. Nobody wants to be a slave, but for centuries, children and women were the personal property of their father and husband. For centuries, people have been the slaves of masters. These were all recognized as perfectly natural at one time. Women not voting or owning property. Women not having equal pay or other equal rights. All perfectly natural. It is perfectly natural for everyone to find the one perfect person in the world for them. But nobody ever does. Everyone searches for the perfect one. The one capable of giving perfect love, but always to an imperfect person, the searcher. So everyone recognizes that they are not perfect, but continue, in spite of this, to find that one perfect person. But it is always doomed to failure. Without the searcher being perfect, they will never be able to make a perfect search. Always they will make mistakes about someone, thinking that person is the perfect one. In time the imperfections will surface. But time has been wasted, and the search must go on. There is nothing more important in life than this search. What can other things mean without perfect love? No, one must carefully pick onesway through all the dangerous characters, misfits, imperfect possibilities, mistakes, and others who couldn't possibly be the one. So much for ranting about being rejected.

Judy called me the other day. Back from her trip to Puerto Rico with Steven. She had to work the next day. It was lonely for her to come back to an empty apartment. He will be there for medical school. I find myself longing for her, but hold this back. Mostly I talk about the events of the last two weeks, about me, Simone, Linda, Michael, and others. More fantasies about her. She always tells me of wanting to spend time with me but seldom does. I tell her about Lauren. She thought of Lauren as being one who would go slower, but did not say anything of this to me as it seemed to her that maybe my approach was right.

A dream about being a spy or someone in prison. I am suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of death. It paralyzes me. I feel weak, afraid, panic, breaking down. But it goes away. I am wearing a bathrobe. The feeling nearly stops my heart and chokes me to death, but softly.

A lot of thinking about the situation with Simone. It turns into confrontative fantasies. To have things change. To do something about her constant sabotage of efforts to make a group.