10/23/47

4:00 A.M. I cannot live alone in health. In the night, alone, awake after sleep, I am insane. I read Gertrude Stein. I eat like a Cyclopian giant, only my wine and my whiskey do not make me sleep. I do not desire anyone vaguely or specifically: I merely say, if I had so-and-so, I should not be insane now. I am without discretion, judgment, moral code. There is nothing I would not do, murder, destruction, vile sexual practices. I would also, however, read my Bible. My being is rent with frustration like the curtain before the false temple. Yes, I long to meet a beautiful woman at a tiny black table somewhere, and kiss her hand, and talk of things that would delight her. I long to pare myself as I long to pare my art of the extraneous that corrupts it. It must come first in my work. I drink whiskey to stupefy myself, and regret what it does to my body—fat cells, deterioration of the brain, above all indulgence in a dependence upon materiality when what keeps me awake is a spiritual intangible.