It shouldn’t be that much trouble to water the thing once a day. I can do it every morning before I leave for work. That way I won’t be in the position ever of having to be home at a certain time to water my plant.
I think I’m taking this thing far too seriously. I really do.
Do your give plants names? I suppose it’s up to me, it being my plant. And no one would ever know that I was a lunatic who named her plant. I could even talk to it if I wanted to.
Anyone who talks to a typewriter is none the crazier for talking to a plant.
I wonder if it’s a male plant or a female plant, or if there’s no difference with philodendrons. I could give it a neutral name. Seems a cop-out, though. Maybe I ought to wait and see how I relate to it, whether I regard it as a boy or a girl.
I suppose I could always call it Mother.
I’m just in the silliest mood, rambling on and on like this. I feel kind of good in a weird way. I went downtown last night intending to go to the concert but decided I didn’t feel like it. Wound up going to a movie. Not like Wednesday’s movies. This was a Bogart revival on Eighth Street. Casablanca and The Petrified Forest. I wonder how many times I’ve seen both of them. Doesn’t matter — they get better each time.
Sort of looked for that coffee house where that boy propositioned me, but couldn’t find it.
4 April — Sunday
Bored to death.
Would call that bored housewife, speaking of bored, but not on Sunday when the source of her boredom is probably home. But I’m always working during weekday office hours. I suppose I could call her some lunch hour from a phone booth. If I really want to.
Feel almost like calling Wayne and Maureen. But I don’t think so. The one time was novel for the three of us but a second time would be a bore for all three of us.
Bore. Word keeps coming up today.
Just stopped and called the single guy who is so proud of his cock. The one I decided never to call. No one was there. Of course not. I was supposed to call him afternoons, so that must be his office, and this is Sunday.
I’ll have to write some more letters. I wish I felt like it but I don’t.
There ought to be something I feel like doing.
I already watered the plant. It still has the same three leaves. I suppose that’s something to be thankful for. It could have lost one of them.
What I should do is buy the kitten and let the kitten eat the plant and die of philodendron poisoning, and then I would be carefree again.
Ha ha ha, but actually I think it would probably bother me a great deal if the plant died. Which was one of the reasons and probably the main reason I was against getting it in the first place.
Something I read today. In the Times Book Review section, a review of...
No, forget it.
5 April — Monday
From yesterday’s Book Review section:
In his introduction, the editor of Vagabond’s Day-Book stresses that its author wrote it with the constant intention of its being published after his death... But are not all diaries undertaken with the conscious or unconscious anticipation of eventual publication? I would tend to think so. That they are an assist to memory, that they provide a medium for dialogues with the self, does not sufficiently explain the compulsion to record day by day the events of one’s life. Almost every long-term diarist is concerned with style. Matters are explained which he would not need to explain to himself; the explanation is surely for the eventual benefit of the assumed reader or readers. I am sure many diarists would shudder at the thought that their private confessions would ever pass before eyes other than their own, let alone see print, and am equally sure many such diaries are deliberately destroyed out of that very fear. But unconsciously it would seem that the diarist does crave an audience for his thoughts and observations, the public and private details of his experience. A dual drive, the twin needs of secrecy and confession (and thus absolution?) would seem to motivate those diaries ostensibly “not for publication” to a greater or lesser degree...
6 April — Tuesday
Typed the date and have been looking at an otherwise blank sheet of paper for half an hour. Things to write but that fucking review is more inhibiting than arthritic fingers. Wish I hadn’t read it.
Don’t know if I agree with it or not. I can argue it both ways and would do so now but I’m sick of the whole thing. What the screaming fuck does it matter why I’m writing this diary?
I was doing beautifully until I read that crap.
7 April — Wednesday
Shit. Called Bill last night and told him I couldn’t make it today. What a stupid fucking thing to do. I can’t understand why I did it.
I know why I did it. Generally depressed, reactions to that crap in the Times. Self-conscious about the diary and then self-conscious about everything, everything in the world, and convinced I wouldn’t want to see him tonight. But why in hell couldn’t I keep my options open? Could have waited until this afternoon to see if I still felt the same way.
And of course I didn’t. Woke up this morning regretting that phone call and wanted to call him this afternoon and tell him I didn’t have to go to a bridal shower after all, but how? Tell him the engaged couple broke up? So I didn’t call, and it’s now just about the time I would ordinarily be leaving for his place, and I’m sitting here calling myself bad names and meaning every word of it.
Shit!
8 April — Thursday
WILLOWY SEX POT wants to watch you do your own thing. Singles or couples or groups, gay or bi or straight, this gal of 25 wants to be your audience. Will occasionally participate if vibes are right. Photo helpful, phone essential. Occupant, Box 771, Madison Station, NYC.
I think I’ll run that in one issue of Screw and see what happens. Might add a sentence inviting them to describe what kind of a show they want to put on. I don’t know. Might look as though I’m just interested in getting filthy letters.
I am sort of interested in getting filthy letters, actually. But I’m also interested in getting filthy.
So frustrated. Really was dying to be with Bill last night. Sat around torturing myself trying to guess what he might have had planned. And I won’t get to see him now until next Wednesday. I could have tried to shift the date to another night, but of course the way I felt when I called him I didn’t think I would ever want to see him again.
The Sex Diary of a Crazy Lady.
I’m definitely going to run that ad. I won’t even bother getting a money order. It’s not worth the trouble. The rate is ten cents a word which comes to...
(Just a minute)
...which comes to $4.60, so I’ll put a five-dollar bill in the envelope and let them put the extra forty cents toward a Cadillac. It’s supposed to be unsafe to send cash through the mails but it strikes me as generally safer than, oh, for example, than sucking a man’s cock in a 42nd Street porno theater.
Just for instance. But not as much fun.
9 April — Friday
My plant is getting a new leaf!
I can’t believe it. I also can’t believe how excited I am about it.
I mailed the ad to Screw. It ought to be in not next week but the week after.