October 17th, 1978

Seesaw

A month passes and I do not write

It’s been a month of enormous activity. A new freelance job in Crystal City with Chuck (the friend of Kris with an international multilingual typesetting operation) has been balance precariously and not quite successfully with my regular commitment to The Laborer and the crazy fall promotion and first feelings of Christmas in retail. I work hard, for days on end, day and night. And somewhere in between have what is turning out to be a stormy, fairly neurotic relationship with John.

It’s just after 11:00 PM. I’m lounging in my peacock robe, typing, and staving off anxiety over a crazy phone call at work tonight from John. Drunk and crying and ranting about suicide (at one point he told me he had a gun at his head– I pleaded with him to put it down– he admitted that he really didn’t have a gun to his head)– He carried on about being broke and having no future and how he felt lost and lonely and scared and unloved. In the midst of all this clamoring, he threw in a line about his possibly going out later on. Another clumsy John-lie. I’m beginning to think that I have no need to credit John with as much self-assurance as to lie well. I have no need to hand-wring in private. His ineptitude at lying is an accurate gauge. Anyway, I told him I would call him when I got home from work. After maybe half an hour of this dialogue at Chuck’s office with him and a lady typist sitting in the next room. I was saying things like how I loved him more than anyone else I had ever loved– and how we have a wonderful future together.

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I just realized that this entire page is nearly a repeat of the previous entry. Oh, God, I wasn’t aware of that.

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