Sensuous

13 June — Sunday

Another anniversary.

Today I begin the fourth month of this diary, and of course the fourth month of life in this apartment. It’s odd that I tend to think more in terms of the diary when I measure time. As though it is more a yardstick of my new life than the apartment in which I live it.

Perhaps because none of the more obvious facets of that new life take place in this apartment.

Four months.

How greatly those months have changed me. They have even changed the apartment. The new chairs, the rug, the couch, the lamps. It would scare me to think of the money I have spent on this place in the last month, except that I can’t help feeling it was money I should have spent months ago. Twenty thousand dollars sitting in a savings and loan association and doing me no good at all, merely drawing interest which would amount to more money which would do me no good.

So now I have two thousand less dollars in the bank and an apartment a decorator would be proud of, except that I did it myself so that it is my apartment and not some decorator’s apartment. And if it does little good in one sense — since no one sees it but myself — it does more good than untouched money, which would be seen by no one at all, not even me.

Four months.

Glad I stopped making these entries a daily requirement The diary was becoming too much of an obligation and I began lying to it, not lies of commission but lies of omission. By trying to put down everything, by setting that standard for myself, I was creating little game situations in which I cheated by skipping important things and prattling on about trivia merely to fulfill self-imposed requirements.

At least now I can talk to the machine when I feel like it and keep my fingers shut when I don’t.