November 17, 1967

I've just finished reading a letter from Mary Kay. She's really in a bad way. Maybe I should explain her, if that's possible. We first met, God knows when. she went through high school with my sister. One night we went to a football game. On the following Monday she sent a note home with my sister, thanking me for the nice time and everything. I wrote her a letter back, and thus began something which might be called a friendship. At first we just wrote stupid little things; like I'd quote Mark Twain and she'd reply with a mixed up version of the quote. We wrote back and forth forever. All of her notes and letters began piling up and by the time the year was over I was kind of happy that we wouldn't be able to correspond as often. She was a senior, I was a junior, and my sister was the mailman. We now write back and forth maybe once or twice a month. A good question to ask now is "Why?' that's a question I've been trying to answer for quite some time and I've decided that we are what real friends are. She tells me her problems and I tell her mine. I've learned a lot from her. She's shown me that I'm the luckiest person in the world. I have no problems in my life and am still a pretty lousy kid; she has problems that give her all the qualifications for Cinderella. Her parents are divorced, she lives with her grandmother and her cousin, her mother is a drunkard and is continually calling her up and bothering her, and her father doesn't give a damn. On top of all this, she is the nicest kid you'd ever want to meet. So we're pretty good friends and God, am I lucky to know her. I could write a book about her, but I'm not even sure she'd like me to be writing this. We're going to a play this week at Lewis, from her letter she's in a pretty bad mood. I hope she feels better by Sunday. The world's growing on both of us, but she's got a heavier load than anyone else I know. Goodnight.

November 18, 1967

Today a new page began at the library. He's a pretty nice kid. It seems that everybody at the library has one flaw that keeps them from attaining complete normality. I have a passion for writing bad poetry and everybody else has something different. One's specialty is metaphysics, another's is existentialism, another's is atheism, and still another's is match-making and cut-downs. Other than this we're all 100% perfect. There isn't much to say today because it's been a pretty dumpy Saturday. I should be doing homework but I don't feel like it. I'll be in a rush tommorrow, but I don't care. I'm seeing myself withdraw from society, if I was ever in it to begin with. I'm nauseated by quite a few people I know, especially at school, and I don't want anything to do with them. "Society" won't miss me anyhow because I'm an ass. This diary is getting pretty soppy. I just heard on the radio that Westmoreland has said that America will be able to withdraw troops from Vietnam, beginning in two years. Bull! The only way the U.S. can end the war is to get out. The harder we struggle the more involved we become. It's a quagmire of chewing gum.

November 19, 1967

I've just returned from "2 by 2". Lewis College put on "Our Town" and "The American Dream". I've never seen anything like it. To begin with; the entire production was a study in contrasts. "Our Town" (of which only the first act of so was used) is a play which invokes a strong will to become associated with all other human beings. In short: it is very heartwarming (to use a quick phrase which is being pushed into the archives of shadows.) A strong identity is formed between each member of the audience and one or more characters on the stage. In writing the play, Wilder draws upon most human attributes that make a person happy to be a person. "The American Dream" is an apple of a different color. A two-dimensional set and dehumanized characters contributed to the general effect of moral corruption, physical impotency, and total despair. Edward Albee creates his characters under a canopy of depravation and spares no one. On top of all this, "The American Dream" is a comedy. It is funny.. When you laugh at a line you know that it is really funny and not just some leering side remark that half the audience missed anyhow. The completely inhuman dialogue, when added to the abstraction of the plot, makes one wonder about the realistic qualities of the play. And then it hits you. The play is realistic; so realistic that you reject it, ponder it, and then leave the theater in a comma of bewilderment and shock. It's unbelievable. "An experience to paste in the scrapbook". Excuse me for wandering on about these plays, especially "The American Dream"; but I very seldom get a chance to discuss the theater. Sitting down and reading a play or going to see one is usually a marvelous experience, but to be able to talk to somebody about it is just something else. I've read four of Albee's plays and I feel so full of Edward Albee that I have to say something to someone about it. But no one ever knows what I'm talking about, nor do I half the time.

November 20, 1967

Monday Monday. What more needs to be said? I've got a lot of reading to do. It seems like that's the only thing I do anymore, but I don't really mind because I'm reading "the good stuff". My authors at the present are John Updike, (1 book), William Golding (2 books), Edward Albee (2 plays), Mary McCarthy (1 book), some Russian poet whose name I can't spell, and other sundry personnell (sic) from the literary wonderland. That's all.

22 NOV. A+

Thanksgiving Holidays

I used to think that it would be complete hell when the day came that I didn't really get a big kick out of holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. That day has come and the thrill is gone, but it has been replaced with something better; a shadow of mature indifference. It's really a different experience to be able to yawn down at someone younger and tell them that you don't really care what you get for Christmas. Thanksgiving is a bore, and Christmas is quickly becoming one. I hate family dinners with uncles and aunts and all. I thank God on thanksgiving day that the family is beginning to drift away from these annual and semi-annual rituals. It's funny that a lot of people think the same way as I do, or vice-versa. And yet we hesitate to jump from our grooves. Maybe it's just as well because on the other side of our groove there's bound to be another.

November 27, 1967

I have been through something. When I first heard that Mount Carmel had caught on fire I wasn't stunned, I wasn't dazed, and I wasn't bewildered. I simply began to float in some sort of abstraction. It was as though I'd been sailing on a paper boat bound for the sun and I got off at the moon but the ship sailed on. Now tell me that doesn't sound crazy. It seems to me that this was the first time I had ever really cared about anything and I don't know why. Why should I worry about a place I just visited for a few days? Sure, I know quite a few of the people there, but I didn't seem to worry about them because for some reason I knew they were all safe. This may sound corny, but I think it's because I left something there. This is really bothering me. Bon Soir.

November 28, 1967

How was today? I'd rather forget. Not that it was really bad or anything, but it sure could have been better. (Now I'm supposed to list everything that's gone wrong today, like flunking the trig test and making a fool of myself more than usual, but I feel unconventional tonight so I don't think I will.) I've been thinking. I am the most cultured slob you're likely to find within a radius of ten miles. I read good books, listen to good music, and sometimes think about intelligent things. But I'm a bore. It would be interesting to see how other people can put up with me when even I can't. Oh, the pangs of adolescence! (This guy really tells a good sob story.) I've finished reading "The Waste Land". I admit a weak point: I didn't like it because I didn't understand it. But I did get the feeling of the title. It was a waste. (I really shouldn't say that because I know it isn't true.) I seem to be short on words tonight. And thus ends another illustrious chapter ---

November 29, 1967

I'm not doing a thing right now. That is, I'm not doing anything of any great importance; no tests tommorrow, and no pressing homework. I've got time and time to think, just think. I'm just sitting here, listening to Hal Holbrook do Mark Twain, and doing nothing. "Nothing" is probably the most expressive word in the English language. "Nothing" is eloquent simplicity. It is privacy in the middle of a crowded room. In another way, nothing means everything. Whenever somebody asks me what I'm thinking I answer to the best of my ability, "Nothing". I don't say that just to be evasive; I just attempt to be descriptive, but they can't understand. I think I'm a bit insane. If the way I feel now is insanity, come get me. One thing is getting me; I can't write eloquently; and I can't write simply, just mediocre. That's what I've got to work on. I want style. When I'm convinced that I've got class in my writing I'll open up. I'll tell all. Everything inside me is waiting for that moment, and when it comes I'm going to explode. I'm in a mood. When I'm like this my brain feels sickly constipated. That's just what it is. I try writing and nothing comes out, I try speaking and I sound like a freak. But there's something great about it all. Oh hell am I happy. I could write a book entitled "My Problem". I could give reasons why I can't write well, but my ego wont let me. Vanity is my cup of tea. Someone came into the library and said they she had read some of my poetry (through K. Green. It's a long story). She was so soppy about it all. I felt like a fool. Flattery breaks me down, but I can't stand it. I soak it all in like a sponge that's been in the desert for a year. About poetry. To me there must be a human, and extremely personal, commitment to both the words and general appearance of the poem. I don't know if that's clear. A better word than "commitment" might be "involvement". Whatever, it's got to be human and personal. That does not mean it can't be automated, electrified, mechanical, or computerized. I don't think my mind is functioning properly. I've written 1 1/2 sides and have said nothing.

November 30, 1967

The year is nearly over; one more month. I could say that time is flying, or that, the days are getting shorter. But that isn't very original, is it? I think I'll simply say that from the first of this month I've grown thirty days in soul and ignorance. In other words, I'm growing up. Excuse me for saying it this way but, there sure are a lot of bastards running around in the world; people with no intentions, no past, and a helluva lot of mediocrities on their minds. Instead of bastards perhaps the word should be asses, but whatever you call them doesn't change the fact that they are. There was an article in this month's Popular Science, a magazine I don't usually read, written by a man who took a trip on LSD under tight laboratory conditions. It was interesting and I don't think I'd mind doing it under the same circumstances. It must be great, but I don't think I'd like to do it just for the kicks. There would have to be some other reason, probably curiosity. From what I've read about LSD and its impression on the mind, I can see great possibilities for developing a psychedelic literature, like we mentioned in English class a while ago. It could prove to be completely abstract and apart from any physical interpretations. That might mean such literature would be impossible to understand, but after a while I think people, thinking people, would appreciate some of the finer points. This period of the school year is pretty empty for me. Nothing has been happening for me to do. I just can't wait 'til the Christmas holidays. My brother, John, will be home from SIU, and so will all of his friends. We're going to have a blast. Everybody in this house is an "early to bed, early to rise" nut. It's only ten-thirty and I'm the only one who's still got a light on. I should be a conformist and go to bed, but I don't think I'll sleep anyhow. I've got to go. My dad is beginning to make threatening noises.