December 23, 1954. Words heard in clubs, heard on the radio, heard on bar stools.
Land of Oobladee.
Feeling the worst.
Real wild basket of ribs and a bottle of juice.
Joint. Three meanings with each in hand.
Lay it on her.
Skin, as in, gimmee some.
Pops.
She’s feeling kind of beat.
Wild.
Fall in.
Fall by.
Crazy.
Pad.
The same old jazz.
It’s a gasser.
The most to say the least.
How do you come on?
The greatest.
Somebody goofed.
The swingingest.
Cut out.
Don’t hand me that jazz.
Your timing was like the end.
Are the lowest, like in you are the lowest.
Broad.
Crack. A sexy broad.
Forgive me for coming on so square.
You are out of your skull.
Weirdsville.
The whole thing is real nervous.
Let’s fall upstairs and find out the skam.
Somebody has been making it.
There’s been a scuffle in my pad . . . Too. The three bears in 4/4 time.
Take it from the top.
Jack, don’t bug me. I’m beat.

December 24, 1954. Brooklyn. Life twists strangely. Nothing new. Definition of terms is important. Something will develop, of that I’m sure. Time.

Bought a paperback book of short stories by Damon Runyon for 30 cents.

Reading “The Moon and Sixpence” by Somerset Maugham.

Finished reading “God or Ceasar” by Vardis Fisher, “The Short Story in America” and “The Literary Situation “ by Malcolm Cowley.

December 26, 1954. Attempts to get good marks are driving me nuts. It’s my plague. Achieve, achieve, is all I ever hear no matter what I do or try to do. I wish I could just quit but you don’t throw away twenty years of life and internal pressure. At least I don’t, at least not now. So I’ll keep on pushing, keep on trying. Finals are coming and they still play a big role in the last marking period. The two weeks before finals I’ll read, study and go into a general all-around prep for the big push. I’ll send applications for grad school and I’ll sweat those. I’ll even have some interviews. It’s coming together fast.

December 29, 1954. “It might strike you as something out of the blue. It may be complete nonsense. It might have much truth. Even an underlying meaning. A strange motive? Yes. A frank meaning? Yes. Where does one begin and the other end? I don’t know. Or maybe I’m not saying. Send me a picture and then we’ll be on the road to being even. Thank you. Please.” From a letter to Bess.
I worked Friday night in the library and then did myself one better. I worked Saturday morning and into the afternoon. In my last semester I’ll take 20th Century Europe, Government and Labor, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Age of Satire. Four courses and out.

From “Beyond Good and Evil” by Friedrich Nietzsche: Intransigence. Tartuffery. Pariahs. Rococo-taste. Nuances. Minotaur. Exoteric. Esoteric.
Lassitude. Insidiously. Debilitates. Attenuated.

My education continues with these words. Where and how can they be used to best advantage, if at all?

There is so very much I want to learn. Where to begin? Where is the time? I’m not a scholar, yet something drives me on to read all and everything. Why? Perhaps I shouldn’t care.

Two more for the list: Epistemological and iridescent

December 29, 1954. Wrote Bess what I said I would write. Just curious to see if and what kind of answer I’ll get. I’m really curious to hear what she says and I hope she answers me soon or at least in a reasonable length of time. I can use nights like those again.
Two more: Ambergis and accoucher.

It is either Nietzsche or he has one hell of a translator.

“Where there is neither love nor hatred in the game, woman’s play is mediocre.” Nietzsche, again.
And, “In revenge and in love, woman is more barbarous than man.”

“To vigorous men intimacy is a matter of shame—and something precious.” This, more than many other things that Nietzsche says, requires an explanation. Why? What does he mean by vigorous, intimacy, shame?

There’s something in me I can’t explain, that defies definition. I do too much on impulse. Or better defined in an egotistical way, as an almost practical impulse—whatever that means.

I have no date for the New Year. This will be the second year in a row I’ll be alone. I know I’ll drink more than I should. And then the old year will pass.

January 6, 1955. Easton. It is now two in the morning. I wrote 1750 words tonight for class and myself. I read for a while, and now I yearn for bed. I find it hard to fall asleep. Once asleep, for me to wake is even harder. But there is joy in starting a new day. It has no peer. My lust for life is the act and ever growing art of living. Living is joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, liberally mixed with too many cigarettes, cheap booze and beer, foul food and unfulfilled lust.

January 7, 1955. Easton. I’m sitting and listening, trapped in an eternal void. I wait in a vacuum. Dreaming. Wishing. I want something that’s almost out of reach. It’s so near, yet so far, but something I can’t find. Is it the unknown? Is it the knowledge of the transcendent being? Is it the ultimate step of achievement that will be mine forever, whether it is material or abstract? Shall I be the skeptic and say, who knows? I realize I don’t really know much about anything. Then, again, I may know what I want. And it’s not too much to ask for— peace, security and the opportunity to rest. No worries. To see myself set free and emerge in the greater world around me.

January 12, 1955. Easton. Add two more to the list. Abnegation and unctuous. And a third, emoluments.
Write Bess. Problem: Should I wait for an answer (if it ever comes) to my startling letter to her or should I beat her to the punch and say what I really do not know? I think I’ll wait. She should get my letter by today and if she writes I’ll get one by Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday. Shove it. What’s my hurry?

Expenses: Books, $4.50; Shirts washed, $1.05. Do I clean my windbreaker for $2.50? Can I afford it? Add more shirts, $1.50. The books are payable by the week of January 24. That will take pressure off this week. To pay for this, I’ll have to cut down on my food bill, if I can. Eat only what’s necessary. No night snacks. Cut down on bread, my favorite lament. When I’m less full, I definitely work better. No more eating downtown. Too expensive, too greasy, too Pennsylvania cheap and mediocre.

I wanted to write Bess tonight. I did not. Why? Well, she’s on my mind only during those moments alone . . . and lately even when I’m among people, I sometimes feel I’m by myself. It’s hard to explain. So I won’t. I know that I had to write her a letter filled with self pity, shared pity. It’s good I didn’t. Instead, I’ll continue to wait and see if she answers my last effort. This, by the way, is my theme whenever I talk to anyone: Bess, and how I met her. Her red hair. Me, different. Am I really different? When Monday comes or maybe Tuesday, I’ll write her. Here I am. I know almost nothing about a girl. Yet she’s given me something. And all I want to do is know more about her and get inside her thighs. Ask her for the weekend of February 4 and 5. Song, “Return to Paradise.” I need a haircut. Why does she hound my thoughts? I like her. I’ve practically had her. I’m curious. Do I love her? No. At least I don’t think so on such short notice. I have been with her under the most ideal of circumstances. I will have to be with her more to really understand our relationship. Take her out more, spend what little money I have and try my hand with her again. Yeah. Are you a fool? Just listening to a new rendition of “Black Magic.” He talks it, whoever he is. Really crazy. Different. It sounds strange to my weary ears. It is. The song has achieved its effect.

More for my growing list of words that someday I’ll find useful, or not: Annotated. Anchorites. Marmots. Effete. Effulgence. Effeminate. Antinomians. Requital. Mendacious.