I need to increase experiments and exercises toward greater concentration, relaxation, depth of inner states, isolation phenomena, etc. Also, I need to increase my social outlets.

1 MAY 72 - (Read Williams' The Tragedy of American Foreign Policy.)

Tonight Trudy called and rather abruptly said she couldn't come over, as we had planned, because she was at a friend's listening to opera tapes. She said maybe I could call her tomorrow. But I assume now that if she does not bother to call tomorrow that she has decided to bring this, whatever this is, between us, to an end. I find myself running down my own personality now, thinking of this as the end of our friendship and wondering what I did wrong. I recall what she has said about her former boyfriend, whom I suspect to be the one with the opera tapes, that he was very spontaneous and affectionate. I suppose by contrast she must find me cold, stiff, taciturn, and unfriendly.

I have been reading Lilly's Mind of the Dolphin and have just gotten to the point where he describes the results of dolphin mimicry experiments. Incredible! If this is accurate, then it has been demonstrated to my satisfaction that Tursiops truncatus has a brain and intelligence in some ways superior to Homo sapiens. There is at least one other intelligent species on this planet.

Later. We are getting a fine thundershower, really coming down! And we surely need it. Still seven inches below average for this year.

2 MAY 72 - Well, we got over three and a half inches of rain last night. That should give the lawns a boost.

Back from work at 7:00 P.M. Then light shopping.

Trudy did call tonight, but only to say she will be busy again. So I asked if she had decided to stop things between us but just did not feel like talking about it. She admitted she would feel better if we do not see each other again. She said if we do we'll sleep together and then she will just feel too guilty again, that she still wants to make it with her old boyfriend, even dreaming of sex with him while sleeping with me. Well, I suppose if she feels that way then it is best we break up. I am feeling very low and really "at loose ends."

3 MAY 72 - Continuing with Zazen meditation, in short periods of about fifteen minutes each.

I am sad, lonely, and hurt that it is over between Trudy and me, and that I do not know how to find and keep a good woman, to stay with me, to be my friend, and be my mate, to share my love, and share my fate.

Even in the most emotionally unsettled times before I have always had opportunities through the week, if not several times a day, for some kind of meaningful social exchange with friends or working acquaintances. Now, however, living alone, working alone, too exhausted by evening to feel like going out looking for company, the loneliness seems really intense. I feel quite hopeless! I suppose it is not really a good time to be planning an all-out effort to build up this lawn business or to get my doctorate. Today, in fact, I did not even feel like doing my Zazen. It seems beside the point!

I have got to find a way out of the black hole I'm in! I must examine the realistic, positive alternatives, choose what appear to be my best options, and then try to follow through on them.

Making up for lost time, the rains have now in earnest come and come, putting me farther and farther behind on the yards.

Idea: get into a local yoga group or start my own group for Zazen meditation.

7 MAY 72 - More rains the last few days have kept me cooped up in the apartment, the grass getting way beyond me on my contract yards, while my despair feeds on itself hour by hour, undisturbed, in the stillness of my lonely apartment. I long for a drink, or two, or three, or four, or more and more and more.

Called out to my folks' place and got the news. My father shot his neighbors' beautiful dog, Nutmeg, quite dead yesterday. Afterward he said it had been annoying one of his cows.

8 MAY 72 - At last a full day on the yards! Feels good in a strange way. It's all starting to get to me though, the long hours, uncertainties about the weather, equipment snafus, truck breakdowns, the high heat and humidity, the little nuisance things that get you down, like leaving a rake way over on the other side of town and having to go all the way back after it, like customers who are super-critical and then resent paying me even the little I get, which is still less, of course, after my expenses.

Washed my dishes tonight for the first time in over a month! Trudy had been doing them once or twice a week; and I had just not worried about them. But the mold was starting to form on top of the water in the sink, or is it algae? The slob will out! And my place looks now like a real dump. Perhaps I am becoming a bum.

I finally realize that my relationship with Trudy failed because of basic confusions and conflicts in our intentions that existed since our first dinner and movie together. So, I must go on. What's next? I am still looking for a mature involvement, one of commitment and mutual support for love, growth, and encounter. Somehow, I must start anew.