We agreed to call one another to discuss “our work.” All this actually happened. This is not a dream. I made a date with Elizabeth Joel. Broadway star. And the way she smiled at me, it’s going to be more than that, I can feel it.

We’re going to see each other tomorrow night after her performance. Called Katie in Minneapolis. Told her I was being good—no drinking, no drugging. Didn’t tell her about Elizabeth Joel.

March 22, 1979

Elizabeth and I have spent the last five days together. The most intense experience of my life. I’m not sure I can describe it here. I will have to write a story about it. We’re talking on the phone every night. This is the brilliant relationship I’ve always dreamed of. We are both fully realized artists and we have each other and so we don’t just fuck each other’s bodies, we fuck each other’s minds.

The book is selling really well now. Just got a check for at least three thousand dollars! Blake is negotiating options on two stories to be made into movies. And Leon makes sure I get to at least one party a week to meet people. He’s introduced me to the writing of Paul Bowles and gave me a signed edition of Norman Mailer’s Advertisements for Myself.

Elizabeth insists I come out to L.A. at some point and spend some time with her there. She’s going to buy a little place in Topanga Canyon. (She has a huge movie coming out.) She says I can write there. P.S. She loves Gravity’s Rainbow.

It’s all happening. Just not the way I expected it.

Katie returned from Minneapolis and I had to be honest with her. We said goodbye on the sidewalk outside her apartment. Tearful. Very fucked up, but inevitable. I’m going to miss her. The truth is she was never comfortable with my success and that was always going to be a problem. Also, to be honest, she was too sober for me. Different styles.

January 15, 2007

I could work harder at being a good person. I know this. There have even been times when I’ve pulled it off. And what happens? I disappoint. I fall short. Oh, yes, they all complain when I jab and spit, but when I don’t, there’s nothing to talk about, nothing to engage. My duty in my life is to exist as an unsolvable problem. Because I am an artist and that is the artist’s job. It’s not an easy job, but if the artist doesn’t do it, who will? To acquiesce to the conventional morality is to be a well-balanced, “nice” person. What is that but a form of cowardice? It takes courage to press on and fight the good fight. Say what has to be said, damn the torpedoes, damn the feelings of others, damn the impression you make, etc. The ultimate goal is to tell the truth. This is what I do. Personally, privately, publicly, all of it. And so I am alone. I know this is the price I must pay for being honest about my heart and my brain and my cock.