February 14th, 1981
Work continues to dominate my life. The job is exciting and rewarding and I am still awed at the good fortune of being there. It’s also a very high pressure position that makes enormous demands on organization and expertise. The agency is known for it’s high taste level and quality. And that touch of perfection has got to be spontaneous, because there simply is no time for laboring over projects or correcting and re-thinking. What I am trying to say is that the job is challenging, and I realize how positive an influence challenge is in my life. I love being called upon to perform and I thrive on the satisfaction of a good performance. I worked today. Not getting up until after 1:00 this afternoon, I got into the office about 2:00. Leslie was there. As usual, it’s the production part of a project that bears the brunt of time-pressure. I spent 5 and a half hours laboring over layouts for two pages of a catalog that were casually given to me to do on Friday. Although I do them well, I take an extraordinary amount of time. I have always felt that art direction was a pretense for me, being a production man. But the technical knowledge one develops as a result of years of experience at putting pieces together is easily translated into an imitative talent for knowing what looks good. I am also nervous. I am not at all self-confident about my layouts. I just have to wait until Monday and see how they are received. Casual approval will feel like a significant accomplishment of my part. It’s just finally so wonderful to have a goal that I honestly want to pursue.
My emotional world continues to be a wasteland; but, unfortunately has taken a backseat. I guess you would say that I’m seeing Doug. We are maintaining that kind of daily contact that signifies much interest. We talk two and three times a day. It wears thin for me, and the intensity of our lovemaking confuses me. I seem completely unable to accept a difference between my sexual and emotional needs. And the fact is that for me they are in many ways opposites. What fascinates me sexually, actually repulses me intellectually. Don’t I just dream and drool over my fantasies of the dumb truck driver drinking his beer and belching while he has his hand up my ass. But have you ever spent a full evening and night with one of them? Puhleaze, give me a buhreake. I want to meet a sensitive intellect that knows how to play the truck driver and waitress game. Phil was the only one, and Aunt Doris, I would run to him this second if he were to call.
I went to the Hell Fire Club last night. A new intrigue. Allan and I went together and met Andy and his friend, Koto. We ran into Milt. New York’s advertising chic at a strange underground straight Sand M club. Women, men, in bondage. Tied up, nude. Bound and gagged in French maid outfits. Men dragged around on the floor in chains on dog collars bound to severe women in floor-length leather capes. Pissing in a bathtub and smoking dope and doing poppers. Running into friends. Frank the cab driver is there. Koto takes a hot bearded number into a back room and fucks him senseless. Today he keeps him in his apartment and invites his friends over to fuck him. Weekends in New York.
And tonight is Saturday night and Valentine’s Day and Doug is visiting his mother in up-state New York (what a New Jersey thing to do) and after work I stopped at Andy’s and gave him a Valentine’s card, he gave me one too. And we drank beer and did poppers and smoked dope and he invited me to go with him and his new love and Koto and the one that gets fucked and god knows who else to the Saint. I decline. Now I sit on my living room floor and wonder what’s in the cards tonight. I’m drunk and tired as usual.
I Ching says to shun those intrigues that shun the light of day. Action without preparation of the ground only frightens and repels. Resolute discipline is far better than irresolute license.
Saturday night is the night that I would choose as my night to party. It’s the logical night. A full day to recover. More people are out. But Saturday night has become a time for recuperation for me. I pile up in my underwear and eat five grilled cheese sandwiches and drink cheap beer and wait for Saturday Night Live.