Me on Me

By jan gero

Who do you think is going to read this? my friend asks, throwing up her hands: Its your journals! Every little detail. Every lecherous fantasy, all your perversions, obsessions. Even dreams. Who gives a fuck? Youre not a famous person so who cares?

I would have thought that my several long marriage-like relationships, twenty years in psychotherapy, careers in architecture, modern dance, fashion, filmmaking and decades of dedication to nutrition & exercise would be foundation enough to give me a steady hand. That seems not to have happened.

I remain frightened of life, of people; any interaction provokes anxiety. Yet, I remain longing to be in the world. And in many ways, physically, I am. But inside, Im still inside.

Who cares? my friend says. I care. I want out of my prison; out, to show myself in these journal-driven stories, where my fears and dysfunction are vivid and evident. However, I believe my writing expresses what we all feel subconsciously, then suppress, and is, therefore, interesting.

www.meonme.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462043620

jan gero

I am a journal writer and have written consistently for twenty-five years and intermittently for fifty. From these hundreds of thousands pages I've culled fourteen stories which I offer here with my drawings. I've lived most of my life in New York City but was European through my mid-teens. Today, at seventy-eight, I feel almost as confused and incapable of handling my life as when I was that teenager. I would have thought that my several long-term relationships, eighteen years in psychotherapy, careers in architecture, modern dance, fashion, film-making, and decades of dedication to exercise and nutrition – would be foundation enough to give me a steady hand. That seems not to have happened. I remain frightened of people, any interaction provokes anxiety. Yet, I long to be in the world and in many ways, physically, I am. But inside, I'm still inside. "Who cares?" my friend asks. I care. I want out of this prison, my prison, to show myself in these journal-derived stories. My fears and dysfunction are vivid and evident; however, I believe, my writing expresses what we all feel subconsciously, then suppress, and is, therefore, interesting and relevant. I crave transparency of myself, my self, and that is why I write.

Book preview

Contents

Journey

Mexico

OK-Trip

Flight

CT1

Spring

CT2

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Journey 

June

It is hard to believe, but I have been sitting here for more than one hour writing to you, my only friend, two whole pages of good stuff. And now it’s lost somewhere in the computer. This time I am really convinced it is gone. I was too involved and forgot to save! And what did I write that was so tough that it deserves a second go round? You be the judge.

I feel like I am going crazy trying to keep a sense of reality about who I am and what I want at any one moment. It seems like most of the time I am primarily interested in getting the pants off some female— mind you this is total fantasy because I have not had my hands on a woman’s buttocks since Chang Chi in mid-May. And I gave up very easily making it with Martina; she seemed adamant against.

I have just finished making a play for an English woman, who is temporarily visiting New York and Tatiana’s movement classes. She is 48, quite attractive, with a very developed body. She does physiotherapy besides ballet and Cunningham dance technique, and has been a judo instructor for many years. After today’s class I invited her to join Martha & myself for lunch at Veselka’s a Polish restaurant on 9th St, and after eating their cold dark red beet-soup with sour-cream, I managed to wind up walking west with her, leaving Martha going east for carrots at Prana Health Food. For the next 45 min we were walking ‘n talking, including making a brief stop at my loft for some tools, and when finally I got around to ask her for a date tomorrow night, she replied quickly:

As a friend of mine said to a young man who was hanging around her— ‘it’s fine for you to come here, and for us to spend time together, but no Rossano Brazzi’.

Now where in the world did she come from and why were those particularly deadly words directed at me? Well, I suppose there is no point in trying to fool you— you know me, and I guess my little flustered pretense-response of ‘Who? Me? What? Where?’ did really nothing to fool her or diminish the discouraging impact of her message. I have been quite out-of-touch with reality lately— so it may well be that I have no sense of the possible.

As other examples of the height of my loose grip on reality, I was returning to this house (which I hope to tell you a little about shortly) on the subway when on the train I observed and naturally started fantasizing about this 14 year old Oriental girl, dressed in teen chic— oversize men’s jacket black boots black skirt, etc. I contemplated the subtle mounds that passed for breasts and wondered what it might be like to press my lips to her face …I had to get off to change trains! There, striding assertively up the stairs was a Black 19 year old with high pointed tits and wearing a sassy grin and confident air. My eyes bug out. I darted a look around making sure no one caught my reaction …that of an elder man ogling youthful body-parts.

Anyway, I should be going out to eat dinner— you see I don’t eat with the master & mistress at this house. And back here I can see myself trying to finagle my way into the pants of their cook Beata, Hungarian with whom I communicate in German. Back in Communist Hungary she was an agricultural engineer with a specialty in poultry. She is 48, short and not unattractive. At one point I ask her to guess my age …she gestures with a hand over her face: Fünf-und-dreizig pointing to me; and when I bend down to kiss her on the cheek in gratitude for thinking me 35, she adds: No, fünf-und-vierzig. She had confused the numbers. In other words— I was willing to imagine myself 35 there for a moment— that is pretty far out fantasy. The 45 should really sufficiently flatter my male-ego and affirm the physical maintenance regimen I have kept fairly religiously for the last twenty-five years since by blood father died of atherosclerosis at age 68.

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I was permitted to show my gratitude to the British dancer with kissing her on the cheek when she exclaimed to my announcing the plans for my 60th Anniversary Concert next year:

Wow, you don’t look it!

June 25 1992 and my stomach is feeling empty and my head is without pain because I am stoned; but I must also tell you that I’m now living in my step-father’s brownstone house on 91st St, in MAMMIE’S STUDIO on the fourth floor. A trip!

Here are numerous large black portfolios of hundreds of female-nude drawings, many large drawing pads of fine watercolor paper, unfired 6-12 inch high clay sculptures of reclining figures ‘n busts in stylized 50s curvilinearity. There are boxes of letters ‘n mementos, furniture ‘n greasy dust from eight years in this square 30 by 30 ft room without use except for storage.

I was surprised that Tata agreed to my coming, he was so dead-set against when I asked two years ago at the start of the recession. I’ll be surprised if I stay here past a week or two— so many restrictions! Just like it was when I was a kid in their house one block from here on 90th Street & Madison Ave, the formal Upper Eastside:

Don’t use the kitchen! Use the patient-bathroom only at certain hours! Don’t telephone between 2-4 pm, and not after 10, or at all. Don’t eat here!

During two phone conversations I had tonight, came the aggressive interruptions of Tata’s 75 year old companion Honoree who is turning out to be a complete bitch. She was opposed to my coming here this time and the last time. She cut in checking repeatedly the telephone line presumably telling me to get off it, often adding grunts of displeasure over my conversation. This last phone-call was a member from my downtown loft co-op complaining about the many people my tenants have staying over, that a penalty will have to be levied against me by the co-op board. At least people are phoning me— even though they are being nasty! Martina had called earlier to tell me that I could return to her apartment in August, and that she hadn’t meant for me to be out by the 25th, today. She had only wanted me out for ten days to house her Estonian performers during her concert at Pace College.

One final item regarding …No, let it drop! Let’s just say there is it a small ray of hope regarding the NYU Press interesting themselves in my book on women-architects. Mind you they have not even seen it yet. But my half-sister’s husband, Sammy, an economics professor at NYU, is bringing the book to the editor today.

Now, just to put a wrap on the subject of my obsessive sexual fantasies: my earlier comments were directed at the growing threat that I have lost my marbles, my grip on reality. I am constantly thinking about the seduction of women, which may be alright if I had any realistic sense where I might find a responsive chord, but I don’t even know how to recognize a 45 year old woman, and the thought of 50 or 55 year old does not really wet my appetite. Though I have certainly met a gorgeous bunch of near 50 year old women architects in my eleven interviews on the Westcoast last year when I started the project to explore what special contributions women in architecture bring now that half the graduates from architecture school are women. But with them, in my fragile psyche, I fear their success puts them out-of-bounds to me as if their talent and status in the profession diminish my chances for connecting with them as man to woman …because I am a nebbish, an outsider, undeveloped personally and professionally. I never finished my own architectural degree. I am a loner and architecture is a serious team sport.

The telephone remains the great conflict-point here. Once, during one of my rare phone-calls, Honoree made a rude remark over the telephone extension line from downstairs which is beginning to make my blood boil with anger at their hatred and unjust attitude toward me.

But the next morning was the clincher. At 10 am I get a call from Martha, regarding possibly meeting Saturday for a film. Tata gets on the line (because, of course, it also rings downstairs, and naturally he would think it’s for him) and then, when learning it was not for him, shouts, with all the furor a frail 91 year old man can muster, which was considerable and totally reminiscent of the old adolescent days:

Yu hav gott to stopp thiz telefoning, or yu must lieve my houze!

That was the voice that brusquely interrupted Mammie’s and my many fights since coming to America to live with them in that apartment at 14 E 90th St, during my four years going to the highschool of Music & Art, before going off to college. His fury stopped us cold. We feared him each for our own reasons. His attitude was not tolerant nor helpful to resolving our differences.

I wasn’t so embarrassed in the face of Martha because I knew how much hatred there is between her and her mother. She had mentioned my moving to my father’s house to our dance teacher Tatiana, to which she had replied: ‘That horrible man!’ (He had given her a hard time not paying for a geriatric movement session, when she arrived late; Tatiana was charging him a reasonable $40 once a week at his house. I had arranged those sessions but he disliked the body work and resented the money. He was charging $100 the hour for his psychoanalytic sessions.) Afterwards— what a sad feeling overcame me. And with what stealthy movement on the stairs and tiptoeing on the creaky floor I continued my tentative threadbare existence here.

At this moment I need to make a couple of phone calls to retrieve messages from my loft-phone, since I have had to put a stop to all message referrals, but had neglected to inform Kay, my LA daughter, not to phone here either. What to do, go down to the street for a pay-phone? This is insane— He is a Hitler, totally restrictive and totally self-involved, insisting on complete control. Honoree is not sympathetic either!

After finishing a few letters on the Women Architect: USA project, I wanted to get away for the weekend from here and catch a bus up to Nanuet and Tema, Kay & Tia’s mother. I missed the 4 pm bus at The George Washington Bridge Terminal, while waiting for the next one at 5, I had a lousy ‘n expensive egg-salad on rye sandwich from a Greek coffee-shop and a long conversation with an elderly woman, dressed in a cheap flowered dress with blonde dyed hair at one of tables in the terminal mall. I said to her:

I hope you don’t waste your money in that Off-track Betting Parlor over there!?

No, of course not. I am a working woman, a nurse at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital.

That is where Mammie lay in a coma for five weeks in her private room. I visited her 27 times, playing Russian music for her on a tape-deck and keeping WQXR playing non-stop on the radio when I wasn’t there …often slipping my hand inside her hospital gown to touch her naked comatose body that felt almost completely awake …simply sleeping. Touching those breasts that Tata had deprived me of, holding her hands that he had turned against me; and later, after the end, having a prayer said over Her, stiff and cold, laid out in the morgue freezer room in the basement of the hospital two blocks from here. They, Tata and Neva, had not told me of her hospitalization or the details of her inoperable tumor, until she was moved from Mount Sinai Hospital after three weeks of tests there. Tata, I somehow learned, rarely visited Mammie there, seven blocks from home, and never at Columbia the following five weeks. He is a cruel selfish bastard— comatose, she was no longer of use to him. No wonder he became a psychoanalyst …to seek to heal himself.

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And that woman-nurse was also of Russian origin. I told her the story of seeing ‘n hearing an unfortunate elderly man playing a violin very off key under one of the platform stairs— a subway musician, tucked into an untrafficked area. It wasn’t until he played the Russian national anthem and some folksong that I finally felt the pity and sympathy to give him a quarter. When the woman and I parted, I kissed her on the cheek and she said:

Love your mother!

You do the same!

Tema met me at the bus-stop in Nanuet. So nice to have a sympathetic person who cares for me. We had a superb Japanese dinner, some vodka and grass before and after. We slept together that night. No sex as usual. Worked together around Dominique’s large house that overlooks the Hudson River where she rents a room, making wreaths out of vines, and my doing yoga for an hour in the morning hours till 1 pm. Tema went into town with D and I put up screens in the windows. That evening we made dinner together for many people to which I contributed the brown rice cooking, and we smoked more grass. We slept together again and got naked in the morning— it aroused a little sexual feelings, not enough to have sex, but beginning to touch again. And today, Sunday I jogged ‘n speedwalked on a wonderful forest trail along the Hudson River, had granola ‘n soymilk for breakfast, and coffee while waiting for our other daughter Tia to arrive.

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I am back h(ere) …I almost wrote h(ome) …a giant distortion! I am getting very sleepy, getting ready to jerk off for the first time here. No shades on the windows and still very dirty from many years of disuse. Trying to figure out how to avoid them here in the house— to have a very low profile. Good Night!

I jogged this morning again around the Central Park Reservoir twice in spite of my pain feeling like a dog in this house; I made the 1.7 mile reservoir circumference twice around in 28:38 at 8:25 min/mile pace. I showered and shaved in the first floor bathroom, the office floor, hurriedly avoiding all possibilities of contact with Tata. Returning to my room on the third floor above his bedroom on the second, Mammie’s studio with her haughty faces staring out at me out from her photograph and several clay sculptures. I ate Familia cereal with water in Mammie’s Studio; I didn’t risk running into him by going down for the milk that I bought last week and put in the kitchen-refrigerator. I stayed here working until 3 pm when I knew he was taking a nap and definitely eliminated any possibility of meeting.

I bought an egg-salad sandwich, coffee, baklava and some 7-grain bread, which I took to Fifth Avenue, one block away and sat down outside the Guggenheim Museum to eat while, of course, woman-watching. I went inside, pretending to go only to the gift shop and sneaked a hurried look at the newly opened skylight exquisitely lighting the interior of the gallery spiral; the gift shop has also had the ceiling removed in a recent multi million dollar renovation so that it is now also in a glass-ceiling rotunda, a smaller echo of the main one. It is very enlightening getting me in closer contact with Frank Lloyd Wright’s genius. The building is really very fine sculpture.

And then something wonderful happened!

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At 5:30 pm or so, when I figured he was having a patient, or at least was downstairs, I took a chance to go in on the floor above to go to his toilet (I really needed to go, bad luck. I have been pissing in a bucket, but #2, that’s a different story), so I went in, Beata was there, we had a brief conversation, I wasn’t quite sure whether to consider her an ally or an enemy— so I was less friendly than usual (even though I still took the time to look at her butt ‘n tits for a kind of small thrill), and as I was about to leave I hear being called from the downstairs office & living room:

Pieterr!

‘Oh shit, I should have gotten out while the going was good. Now I am in for it.’

(I go down.)

I am sorrri about ze ozer morrning— I hat a verri bad shleep, und lost my temperr. Ze night beforr vas becauz Honoree hat to jump up tvize from ze diener.

Tata was standing in the office dressed in his light beige silk suit looking very elegant. I relaxed a little, responded, feeling like a little boy-man in my white short sleeved second hand shirt and jean-shorts on, saying tentatively:

That’s very nice to hear. It is a great relief.

I sink ve kan voerk out ze telefon prroblem.

Of course, in the meantime I have shut down all sources of potential phone calls from my business number at the loft downtown in NOHO, the personal/business phone at Martina’s, from Kay, Tia and Tema. Yes I have had plenty of opportunity to tell my tale of woe— of the concentration-camp mistreatment here. I think it is very intimidating for him to maintain a capable and masculine front to Honoree… a nearly impossible image for him at this stage of his health. She resents his dependency and provokes his impotent rage …and he takes it out on me!

We agreed to have lunch as usual tomorrow at 1:30. He had seemingly had some misgivings about the brutality of his phone-voice interruption because he had called Martina downtown asking for me and Beata was summoned to expect me tomorrow for lunch.

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Quite some news! I don’t know if I am happy about this or not: The role of victim suits my psyche so perfectly— it’s in character for me, and I have almost happily contemplated having a kind of vacation/refuge by going to the country in Nanuet (since last weekend I asked if renting a room in D’s large mansion was possible and had gotten a ‘Yes’ from her. I even have a ride for myself and all of my stuff to Nanuet on Wednesday should I decide to do that.) I certainly am too old and too proud to beg the bugger!

I am reminded of having seen one of the Rizzoli Imprints on the architects Gehry and Eisemann which had an interesting format idea for my book— huge font-type in an introductory book section for a whole page in white letters on black background or black letters on heavy newsprint or brown wrapping paper material. My book concept is conservative ‘n staid in comparison.

So tell me, friend— what should I do regarding my living accommodations for the month of July now that Tata has come through for me? In terms of my rehearsal space? In terms of the money it costs to eat out? In terms of the cost of renting in Nanuet? Being with Tema lot? Phone-calls are not too important— it can be handled through the Loft answering machine. The jogging is good both places.

July

I spent the night at Martha’s— very emotional woman. We slept together naked, did lots of hugging ‘n kissing, but no penetration— I didn’t get the old dog up long enough to attempt penetration. Nor did I get sleep so I’m really sitting groggy, drinking coffee, and aiming to leave for Nanuet; though it may not come off since I haven’t spoken to Tema for two days and she can be quite unpredictable.

Yesterday after Tatiana’s class I went to my room at Martina’s and spent eight hours doing layouts for two architectural renderings, intending to mail the copies to the ChemBank client at the post office which had unfortunately an unusually early 1 pm closing, presumably because of July 4th. I was too late. I got the rent from the German loft-tenants in cash yesterday, all $1700, which I used to pay $600 loft-maintenance fee and $350 two months of phone-bills that escaped my attention— I hate going to the loft with its disarray ‘n abuse of my lovingly designed ‘n built environment. My plexiglass bath area, my enormous empty rehearsal space, my open kitchen my wood my bare iron round columns my industrial design atmosphere.

My lower back has again been enormously sore ‘n stiff. Tatiana’s class is currently in the large upstairs studio/performance space of PS 122, so we spent time moving across the floor in various ways which may have taxed my back. Unless it was that single rehearsal I had here on ROBES #1 & 3, which is hard to believe because they are so quiet, slow and physically undemanding. So I don’t know— but if the cause is the rehearsal or the class it will make me think twice before getting involved with contracting for a concert for my 60th birthday concert.

I spend some 20 min with Mandy (ex-common-law-wife) at noon when I pay my shared loft maintenance— she looks very healthy physically. I almost …I do fantasize our being together again. She has a very exciting architectural park installation in the Bronx to design, a sculptural plaza in front of a library. She has no interest in renewing out relationship in any way shape or form. She is bitter about something I am not consciously aware of.

I did have several hard enough erections to enter Martha this evening, but for some unrealistic reason I wanted to be available to Tema this weekend without having been sexual with anyone new …other than my girlfriends she has known over the years …if we did, we’d be having sex for the first time after 27 years.

I wish you a healthy American 4th of July. Jan Peter!

The weekend with Tema in Nanuet: We went to large party of that same neighbor whose ‘gay’ gathering I had fled a couple weekends before because of its boisterous swishing gayness— but this time there was a large group of young folks from a Connecticut Theatrical troupe including a bunch of young female breasts bouncing freely in skimpy bathing-suit. I swam and hot-tubbed at length while eating and drinking easily. (Tema, D & myself had had some dope before crossing Route 9W to the party). That night Tema and I slept together as usual without sex. I did Yoga the next morning and worked in the garden until we went to another July 4th barbecue at D’s doctor friend’s house overlooking the Hudson River— a huge wooden deck with champagne and lots of food from chicken, meats, vegies and expensive deserts. It was almost racially split White ‘n Black and it was unusually comfortable. Again T and I slept together without sex, though in early Monday morning we got somewhat closer to it. I jogged that morning, did a little job of cleaning out one gutter/leader, and at noon left with D for NYC in her car. On leaving Tema half promised that next weekend we might do it.

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In NYC I went downtown to get tools and lumber together over at the Film Anthology workroom to construct Martina’s ramp for her performance with her Estonian chorus at Pace University Theater which she has rented for some $3000.

I called the editor at NYU Press several times, missing him, he finally messengered a letter over to Bond St which I picked up only to read that they couldn’t print the manuscript because of the large amount of graphics and photos. He suggested a British publisher Phaidon to whom I sent a few sample pages and a cover letter on Tuesday. After Tatiana’s class on Tuesday I went to lunch with Martha and asked if we could meet for dinner later that night after I finished work on the stage-set:

Yes, please!

At 10 pm I finished what I could of the ramp-structure, took a cab up to Martha’s house on 26th Street, and after eating Chinese take-out dinner, kissing some, we went to bed. Right away we were excited by each other and soon, with a very buoyant erection, I entered her. What a lively sexual being she is, very inventive, very responsive, accompanying everything with ahs ‘n ohs. And a real good fuck too, much more active than Margaret, my last girlfriend. After a half hour fucking without orgasm we went into lengthy caressing and kissing, with two more penetrations from behind which felt raunchy good. Needless to say, after some time of that we couldn’t get to sleep again, like the first time we spent together before the weekend. In the morning she returned to bed from peeing and laid down in the opposite direction in the bed sucking on my foot; five minutes later led to another fine erection with which I entered her from behind. What a fine riding companion she was, grinding and bumping along. And then it came finally. As she heard my moans of reaching climax she started rotating her vagina, then shaking it, till I had unloaded all my juice. Gratefully I lay close to her for some ten minutes, returning to the regular position in bed and getting comfortably to sleep. What a relief! First orgasm since early May or so at the hand of another. Speaking about hands— Martha is not shy. She touches my prick a lot, even caressing my groin and other parts. She talks a lot, telling stories and is a very emotional creature. She cried earlier this morning while laying between my feet:

I feel secure!

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But there is trouble up ahead because she wants all the time to tell me that she’s ‘in love’, and that she spent a very lonely time longing for me during the weekend that I was away with those Nanuet parties. I enjoy her company and her sexuality. I definitely love being liked but I am afraid that she will become too demanding of my affection. And I am afraid that I am a snob feeling her behavior in public strange and her looks socially unattractive. She is so demonstrative in public— also there are several other attractive females in Tatiana’s class that I will have to stop hoping to seduce. But she is a performer and I definitely appreciate her talent, and in private taking advantage of her affection for me.

We are going to see Martina’s work on Friday together and hopefully will return to her place to fuck again. And then I will leave for the weekend with Tema on Saturday afternoon where Tia is having a bridal shower for a friend at D’s Nanuet house. I’m not rehearsing though my back is almost recovered.

Again after the movement class, we went to her house for lunch and had sex. But not too good— we had a disagreement. I complained about her monopolizing talking ‘n telling stories which previously had been one of her endearing qualities, also she complained of physical discomfort during fucking, or maybe my dissatisfaction with not getting off again. The next night we met at Martina’s theater performance, which was boring boring boring, and then went to South Seaport for some drink ‘n fruit; it was very hot ‘n humid, as it was all week. I was not in a good mood from the performance and I felt a little annoyed with Martha’s hanging on me physically ‘n emotionally. On the dock she told me that she had visited her gynecologist, who had told her that she had a vaginal growth that had to be biopsied and that my reassurances to her, regarding my not being infectious with herpes except when having lesions, was false, that I should have used a condom because herpes is always infectious. This added new irritation to my attitude toward Martha. She asked me to take her home and I deliberated staying with her that night, deciding that my being the cause of her anxiety, I should show concern. We slept together affectionately and, at one point, she even offered me penetration entry for a little bit, though she had been advised against intercourse for a few days. The next day I told her about my relationship to Tema and she was very upset ‘n angry. She was depressed and hurt …and retreated into silence.

I returned to the brownstone-castle and Mammie’s Studio for work transcribing the women-architect interviews. I had a pleasant exchange with Tata, in fact we edited new additions to his autobiographical manuscript, had lunch together, and arranged for next Tuesday to continue should he have more ideas. I returned upstairs to edit and incorporate his latest comments.

I returned downstairs to repair the decking on his terrace, and before nap, he had left me a letter from the German publisher saying they would be glad to translate the American text into German— all this money, maybe $750 that I had already spent to please him with Martina’s translation and that was half-way finished! By tea-time at 4 pm I brought him the corrected text because he wanted to show it to Honoree for comments …show it off!

I left for Nanuet ‘n Tema in time to spend time with daughter Tia and ogling a few of her pretty girl-friends. Tema & I slept together that night as usual without sex, though there was almost a point in the morning when we talked about it. Later that day, we took a nap together and talked a bit more about our hesitations, etc— being estranged for 25 years and finding it odd and uncertain to find ourselves wanting each other’s company. We got stoned a number of times as well as rather drunk.

I did yoga this morning on the porch overlooking the Hudson River, although it was hazy ‘n cloudy, and I had jogged ‘n speedwalked the lovely forest-trail on Saturday morning. I returned with Dominique to NYC this morning and going with her to her fashion showroom which is on the 29th floor overlooking the western part of the busy garment center Manhattan. Very bright, good quality merchandise, and another goddamn’d attractive Black woman assistant who I’d met in Nanuet that weekend.

I am waiting to get through to Martha for her doctor’s report. Not home again. And at this moment I’m contemplating going downstairs to the Hungarian housekeeper, while my step-father is in his office, to arrange a rendezvous for later tonight. Believe-it-or-not, we are arranging to hang a string from 4th floor to the 3rd, which she should pull to signal me when she leaves tonight, so that I can go join her, going to a bar, get her drunk and perhaps set up a sexual something sometime, preferably, but unlikely, tonight up here, but most likely— never! I am getting cold feet. I don’t want to create potential problems for anyone, including myself, by seducing ‘his’ house-keeper. She is leaving for a few days but returning again midweek for some more days. She watched me repair the terrace-decking, had gotten tears in her eyes knowing that her work here was ending and perhaps even that I, her only communicating ally, would be gone for the weekend with another woman, and so today, when we met on the stairs, she pointed to her cheek indicating I should kiss her. I doubt we will rendez-vous. Now is not be the right time!

I should just jerk-off and forget it— horny male that I am!

new york city 49 east 91st Street 4th floor at mac-classic stoned

Yes, I am stoned— the only time today that I have enjoyed myself, where I have not been reacting out of fear * jealousy * lust * greed * anger— are there any more vices? There should be seven of them. Yes, sloth …and what about stealing? And murder? How about self-abuse through belittling and negativity by self-hatred.

I Have Really Had A Bad Day!

Today I get to a near empty Tatiana class, late as usual, and did this slow languorous non-toning often exasperatingly non-specific bodywork. Most of the time it is superb. Truly! Martha was there in class— luckily we can’t see into each others’ eyes across the room …today I had hoped that we were going to get back to fucking again. But after a brief exchange I see that there are too many things about her that I now see as liabilities instead of as assets …so I was a little snappy. I got a lot snappier and downright hateful when she started recriminating me for something, I don’t remember what. That’s it! I got scared as shit. This is not good news. I wanted sex without complications, like the younger generation, after Women’s Lib, who claim their sexuality to be for its own sake not for love, not for marriage or progeny, nor for gain or for sale …for warmth tenderness wetness, for chemistry for rest and for peace. For Unity!

I haven’t seriously started rehearsing (rehearsing for a concert that I really don’t yet believe in). Finding rehearsal space is an obstacle which I am not yet solving— putting out money for it makes me want my loft back; I rehearsed there for many years …I hate to spend money. I don’t have a decent place to live. It doesn’t feel good at nearly 60 to be a nomad: mattress on the floor, three different places in six months— the recession. This place is hostile. Re: toilet kitchen ‘n phone.

The Brunner Grant did not award my book project with support! Why doesn’t my Women Architects proposal stir more interest?

Kay & Dan & May are coming to NYC from LA in eight days. I will be paying the major part of the $1050 that the trip will cost though Tia Tema and grandmother Rita have pledged to contribute. I don’t know where I am going to set myself up for the rendering work. I suppose here at 91 St? I’ll have to schlep some illustration boards t-square table-top lamps paints & brushes up here to install to effect that.

Well at least she doesn’t have the dreaded sexually transmitted disease that was threatened by her gynecologist last Friday. I didn’t find out this truth of it being benign, or at least the probable truth, till Wednesday at 1 pm when her doctor returned my phone-call here at Hostilland.

Tata offered me Lincoln Center concert tickets he couldn’t attend because Honoree could not go. When I suggested that Neva and I go he said:

Neva voud vant to go wit Sammi!

…as if I was an infection he wanted to keep his precious daughter from. She and I are related, Mammie was both our mother. His and my blood have little or no love. She and I could. He is trying to keep me out. She is not! He is fucking me over in many different ways. This is a new one that came as unpleasant truth.

But I am here …that alone is a miracle, That is truly heavy!

Well, it didn’t take long for the problem to come to a head! Two minutes ago Martha telephoned here (this time getting through in a moment of silence on Tata’s part, since I always wait for him to pick up phone-calls first downstairs) and she offered to meet for a walk or something casual resolving not to talk about our conflict.

You criticize me for being who I am— vivacious, cheerful and talkative!

So I suppose, in view of that, you wouldn’t want to ask me for a walk again? (Meaning: take me to your bed.)

Certainly not. What I experienced as hate— was! (Silence) Years ago, I hesitated approaching you because you seemed walled off and not nice; but once when I spoke up to you about your remoteness and coldness you seemed genuinely grateful for my concern. Then when you asked me for lunch, I of course said yes. I guess I was wrong— you are not a nice person!"

See you in class.

Analysis or rationalization: knowing that M was giving herself to me, this being the last thing I’d ever expect from a woman, having expected it from Mammie and being continually rejected to the point of even being left out of her Last Will, made this affection seem less like a gift and more like a threat. A demand to do something …to give in return, maybe. It flies— life!

I’m no longer stoned. Maybe I should rehearse now.

I took the 7 am bus on Route 9W outside Nanuet and a short steep downhill from the house where Tema, Dominique and Cindy live— I was there from Friday evening till Tuesday morning. A nice little respite from the big city, my Mac and Martha— though, when I went to class this morning, she was there as usual, working hard at the movement, and wouldn’t acknowledge me. On leaving I said: Hello Martha!

I was in a hurry to pick up my mail, the edited videos of my Mr Wright performance, and to get the tickets I bought for grandchildren, Dan & May, to mail overnight to Kay in LA in time for Friday’s departure. I had lunch with Tata getting the vegetarian lunch Margarita makes me of fresh broccoli carrots spaghetti and tofu in a light cheese ’n milk sauce. Margarita is Philippine and has now returned from her month vacation home. She has been with the family eight years from just before Mammie’s death.

Tata watched Mr Wright with me downstairs in the waiting room. I choreographed Richard dancing this work. It is 25 minutes and has three sections. The 1st section: the audio narration by Olgivanna Wright over near-naked bodywork; the 2nd section: the dance of arranging the Red Blocks to a George Crumb prepared-piano music; and the final 3rd section: 15 architecture and body-part image photo-slides projected on the backdrop wall-screen with obsessive fast movement phrases of the dancer in the foreground to a driving Phillip Glass music score. The FLW portrait ends it.

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I fear this work will require a lot of reworking for the concert!

This morning, the first thing I did before going downstairs to shower, was to jerk-off really good to my favorite photographs of sexy young women with up-thrust asses and wide-spread legs. I have developed a new stoicism about the no sex fact with Tema …I lie apart on the mattress we sleep on …I no longer caress and hug her body in a yearning heat and with a thumping erection.

This morning, when I realized this weekend was going to be played out like the last ones, I rolled toward her forgiving her for holding me off, acknowledging her right to do that, and even its appropriateness in view of my abandonment and rejection over the past 25 years. I pulled off her flowered black silk bathrobe, in which she sleeps, she helped by pulling her arm out of the sleeve, and then pressed my erection against her naked brown back. She is big weighing 160 lb at her 5ft7 height; same as me at almost 6ft, I have to reach far to get around her stomach … her breasts are large and flabby. She is a 48 year old woman.

She was very productive and busy all weekend— I knew in advance that she wasn’t going to be too available to me ‘n my cock. She cut and sewed like crazy on Friday and Saturday in preparation for the Nanuet Street-fair on Sunday, where she stood all day pushing her wares in the burning sun …Monday was her first bit o’ rest and we spent a good deal of time together then. Little kissing though and no sex!

I built a wire-fence around her vegetable/flower beds (3-4 hours), I replaced bulbs and rehung one light fixture, bought ‘n wired ‘n hung two more fluorescent light fixtures in her basement studio (6 hours), and ironed and hung up clothes (4 hours)— Shades of the Margaret-weekends in New Paltz where I was always working on something in or around the house and also always felt unappreciated for those sweaty compulsively focused hours …waiting to be rewarded like a ‘good little boy’ with open thighs.

I played softball this past Sunday again— my thighs ‘n lower back are sore but it was fun! I jogged and did Yoga on each of the two days there, swam in the neighbor’s pool, did the breathing exercises and worked those 15 hours fixing ‘n gardening. I did manage to do some rehearsing in Nanuet mainly on ‘Robes 1, 2 & 3’. Rather than following them with each other, linked together, solving the long costumes changes with music and/or visuals, I am now proposing to separate them with other works.

Going out for dinner right now. Got to get to bed because I am doing two renderings down at Martina’s for the next three days. See if I can keep my burning eyes off the cunt in the street.

I have a penetrating thought— the first one in a long while:

This morning I saw Liv Ullman at a pizzeria on Madison Av on my way to the hardware store. After a few waiting moments outside I decide that I need not stay in worshipful attendance hoping to get closer to her …that she was just another ordinary person with a fat behind and a plain non-descript face! Photographers do the rest. I thought I understood at that moment that one does not need super looks or magic rays shooting out of one’s body to be an artist. People who are successful have special talents, but there are also several other factors that bring their persona into the public eye— vision, self-belief, and work, work work …luck.

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Tata had a terrible accident yesterday morning; the emotional and physical drain will be costly…

He had fallen in the bathtub trying to get out— he was lying on his stiff back in the broken porcelain pieces of the soap-dish handle in the bathtub, naked. He was bleeding from a gash on the back of his head. He had locked his bedroom-door, a habit he and Honoree had to insure privacy, so I had to brake it down, when Margarita, unable to enter to help him, called me downstairs. He had been crying for help for 45 minutes. Luckily Margarita’s roomie, a nurse, was home a couple of blocks away, came to give him first aid. We took him in a cab to the emergency ward which resulted in eight hours of taxing procedures like x-ray ‘n bone-scan. Finally at 7 pm, after much conflict with doctors, Neva & I were able to take him home.

What an ordeal for him! At that point I left to work at Martina’s apartment on my ChemBank architectural renderings and continued doing that several hours both days following. Today I finally repaired the major damage to door and shower— it took 8 hours. I am stating that fact regarding the time because I feel, no matter how much time I put in for his benefit, like this week’s 2 x 8 hrs, I still get basically the same attitude of my being an outsider here, though I did get both breakfast and lunch with the master today! But even when he does not spell it out somehow— like not inquiring about Dan & May, my grandchildren, but of course not his great-grandchildren, or complaining to me about my use of the telephone, or something— I probably would not be able to act any other way than servile, marginal and temporary.

This morning, when I went down to shower, shit ‘n shave, I heard footsteps up above. I asked:

Beata?

…then she, the Hungarian housekeeper (temp for Margarita for six weeks) came running down the stairs and put her arms around me. We had a long long hug. When I had showered I went upstairs, catching her in the kitchen where we did it again adding a little kissing. Most of that day, at least 5-6 times, while I have been working on the door and shower and she fixing breakfast, lunch or tea, we sneaked a few moments to get together. I was getting hard-ons! We discussed some way we could spend time together alone— hopefully to consummate the passions we’re stirring for each other. I held her breasts several times and she touched my behind lightly. She works from 1 pm to 9 pm and lives at her sister’s who is a cook in a restaurant and gets home late. That is one possibility; another would be when Martina goes away.

Speaking about Martina— she needs money, and has confirmed accepting my return to Rivington Street on the Lower Eastside on the 4th of August. It’s a tiny room no more than 6x8 ft where my drawing-board and IBM Selectric just barely fit and the mattress has to be rolled up each morning in order to work. It looks over a park on the other side of which is mostly Orthodox Jewry. It’s quite a come-down from the lavish room of my Bond St loft five blocks uptown in NOHO. When the recession first struck I rented out one room, then build another for a second rental. Now for more than one year I’ve had to rent out the whole thing to two German women. These are the consequences of the recession. I’ve moved six times to enable my loft to be my main income-producer. Martina was a life-saver and I’ve been infatuated with her strange Slavic coolness every minute for the six months there so far. She is one of Tatiana’s favored dancers which arouses my jealousy as well. She has worked naked and shaved bald in performance.

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Being able to return is good news I think, though I have come to like it here somewhat even though I must buy all meals outside except breakfast when I have the Swiss muesli with water and blueberries. I have not even begun to look at Mammie’s old things such as her many drawings, books ‘n letters. I could stay here longer I think, if it was up to me. I would have to clear out so much stored stuff, household, Mammie’s and even Alex’s, my nephew, who has done some kind of work here with his wood sculptures, in order to establish my work, exercise and possibly even rehearsal life. I still sleep on a mattress on the floor …at sixty years old! I think I can detect an emotional need on Tata’s part to have me in the house even though he will not allow it show or admit it to Others.

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The affair with Martha has died a quiet death. She was resigned to the end of our affair and was friendly in the two movement classes we saw each other. I would like to fuck her again— she was very lively in bed and I had two good orgasms that second time out of the two times we really got together.

I have got to roll a joint and get out of here— to get to Queens to see Kay and my grandchildren, Tia’s belated birthday party and enjoy Tema’s company.

Tema & I did have a very good time together at that party. I was not put off or jealous at her party manners which usually make her queen of the party— she is so gay and humorous and graceful and attractive. But I did get bogged down on a couple of trips with her; I am tired of trying to get sex or sexy with her. She puts me off, period. In fact I have stopped doing too much with her in the daytime or the nighttime. But, in addition, I feel that she is trying to take advantage of me— just as I felt thirty years ago. She borrows money ‘n things without returning them. My feeling is that she’s angry deep under the skin …partly from the way we split up our fashion business and mixing my purchase price with the children’s upkeep money when we separated, my hiring a lawyer to protect my interests …she has always been rebellious way before me:

‘He owes me something from past pain— as reparations.’

I really do believe that she is avoiding me. She spends too much time chatting with her girlfriends too close to bedtime, somehow hoping that I will be asleep when she comes finally to bed, or tires herself out so that we cannot engage in sex. She is smoking less marijuana and drinking less— so at least on that score she no longer need complain of being too spaced out for sex.

But I am having difficulties waiting— and I want a little loving myself… with T, but if not, then with B, or someone else out there. It isn’t as if I am not trying almost all of the time when I am in the bus train street store class or anywhere. However no one is a taker except B; and as a woman near fifty years old, I don’t expect her to be too romantic in the attaching sense.

Big news: I am stoned again, and well I should be to embark on the phone call I am trying to place (luckily for the fates, or whoever, the phone line has been busy). I am trying to get through to Beata, hoping to get laid and doing so without any negative consequences from my father etc.

Again I’m lapsing into only one or two times per week rehearsal for 30 minutes or so— that just will not do in order to put a 100 minute show together for April 1993 to commemorate my 60th birthday; though fully 60% of the material is past works from previous performances, and another 20% had already been worked on for six months earlier this year. I did 30 min on the weekend with ‘Robe 2’, and a few minutes ago, I fantasized adlibbing in psycho-babble to introduce ‘Vasectomy’, doing the most difficult act for me vis-a-vis an audience— to go without a plan, not even a plan to plan, or a plan of a plan. I was stoned, so it did carry me along!

I have called B five times— busy calling Hungary no doubt. It feels doomed— ‘Keine Kontakt! Keinen Verbindung!’ (No connection, no getting through.) ‘There appears to be trouble on the line’ according to Ma Belle …is this fate telling me this action will lead to trouble?

I’m upstairs in Mammie’s Studio to calm my anger at a few depressing words directed to me a few minutes ago. I came upstairs to seek refuge from the sad fact that my expectations far exceed reality. I asked the master, my father for the last 46 years, if it was alright to bring Kay, Dan & May upstairs to Mammie’s Studio tomorrow morning before we go for lunch at Neva’s house.

"Alrriht, I regret zat I can not see zem. I don’t fiel vell."

He really wants nothing to do with them and I shouldn’t have mentioned our going to Neva’s— it makes him jealous, maybe even angry at my making connections to Neva, his Nevanna. I remember his nixing our going to the concert at Avery Fisher Hall a couple of weeks ago. He wants to keep us apart as if I subvert her. She is his. I went with Tema— the other major thorn in his and Mammie’s side for the last 25 years.

I find it amazing that I have been able to survive in his proximity, his house, etc with all the anger and disenfranchisement I felt during the last 45 years and feel now again. I think, though, I have to face up to the fact that he is probably not my only demon— I am my own demon Dybbuk. You see, yesterday, when Neva came to the house for dinner (I wasn’t there— not invited, which is alright. Fathers love daughters, don’t they! And I consciously wanted to stay away from interfering with their communion.) But later, when it became apparent to me that she wasn’t going to come up and visit me (why, why shouldn’t she? Unless she also has fears or emotional problems about my presence here in the house, as if she also felt that I was trouble rather than help.) I went down to see if she was still here. He was resting in his bed, and she was downstairs watching tele. I told her that I had hoped she would come up. She said she didn’t want to:

No personal offense, I know the room.

I was definitely offended but I didn’t tell her; and hostility obviously was brewing as a defense against this rejection, because I started feeling guilty for fantasizing seducing her— I had hoped she might come while I was rehearsing, which luckily I had one strong hour of while they were eating, and that seeing me partly undressed would serve as the opening:

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‘Let’s see how similar your body is to mine Neva! We have after all the same mother— let me help you!’

She would take her dress off, I would help her with her bra or panties, we’d embrace hungrily with the awkwardness of being uncertain of all this incestuous feelings …and so on …needless to say, nothing at all happened. She didn’t come up. I couldn’t get her up. She felt threatened. I felt guilty. We stayed downstairs and talked in the half-dark TV room for some ten minutes, when I think she fled to the bright-lit safety of the living room. So, both she and Tata feel the need to keep me at a distance! Am I really that far off the wall— wanting in the past to take to bed daughters Kay and Tia, sister Neva now and Mammie always, and likely any woman who unwittingly invites me within range!?

And then there was Tuesday night when I called and reached B— we agreed to meet that night near her house some 15 blocks from here. We met. She was dressed to kill for company: high heel shoes, crocheted blouse, lipstick, eye shadow and perfume. I didn’t care for her as much as when she was simpler dressed in shorts ‘n t-shirt working here at the house. We went to a restaurant to get some drinks and we talked in our halting German. One thing she said, which had a larger impact than I thought, was:

Besser allein sein als die zweite freundin werden!

(Better to be alone than to be the second girlfriend.)

Tata, to keep her from eyeing me, and keep her focused on him, told her I had weekends with Tema. She didn’t want to be the second woman in a relationship. She’d rather be alone. I assured her that at the moment there was no one sexually, but I could see myself sinking into a funk at the thought of her setting out these restrictions on my fantasy-fuck. We walked to the East River, which I compared to the Donau River in Budapest not that I know either Buda or Pest. We hugged and kissed a bit. But I wanted to fuck, though I was willing to date a few times for her to get to know me.

I excused myself to return to Tata’s House— tonight, my first night as night-nurse!

August

This morning— after jogging through the forest along the Hudson River in Nanuet and returning by bus, walking across Central Park at 96 St subway stop on the A train from the George Washington Bridge bus terminal, I arrived here at 49E91 in time for breakfast and to hear about a number of problems relating to his house and three tenants: I need to prepare to paint the upstairs apartment, the stove needs to be fixed or replaced in another, and the alarm-people have still not finished the installation properly.

On top of these minor problems of life comes my worst distraction— the upstairs tenant-to-be is fuck ‘n gorgeous. A British Jewess I think about 40 years old, with a terrific shape, and I am supposed to go up there and concentrate on scraping ‘n plastering ‘n painting her apartment when I really would like to be kissing ‘n eating ’n humping her. Men meet that problem, they say, all the time— so I should just get on with it …the painting that is.

I think I am still a child with a large emptiness in my soul— I feel like a blank to my Self. God knows what Others think of me! I need something to fill it.

Yesterday, playing softball for three hours with the men up in Nanuet, the wife of one of the players had a huge pair of tits inside her black t-shirt, not unlike this up-scale British business woman’s tits, though hers are inside a black silk blouse and inside a $100 black lace bra. Those tits distract me awfully. Commit me! Please.

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I’m not a good father and a worse grandfather. I was uncomfortable when Kay, May & Dan came here to 49E91 to see me in Mammie’s studio; but I did manage to maneuver them all in to see Tata at the dining table very very briefly. They are very good looking children and I wanted Tata to see that. Dan is 5 and May 3 years old. And this is only the second time he’s seen Kay in her 28 years and she is a very attractive woman (father pride aside). After we walked across Central Park to Neva’s house for lunch. The kids were perfect. No anger no hysterics which is more than I can say about