Tues. Sept 8 – 64
Well it’s happened. That thing I fought so long: I am crying. Next to pain, disbelief is my strongest emotion.
There is no getting around it. I looked in the mirror and I am ugly. Mom offered to trim my hair – I was losing my flip – and I thought she actually would but she cut it so short its not even short length. It just looks stupid. You can still see the scars of the summer’s impetigo all around my mouth. (Mom calls it a “deficiency” disease! Great!)
Can you imagine arriving the first day of school with a deficiency disease and stupid hair? And now my eyelids are swollen and my nose is purple!
Can I rise above this? At least in my dreams I am beautiful.
I’m exhausted from a day of shopping, sitting at my desk in my rabbit slippers in my own little room. Tired of wrestling with Mom over clothes, as usual. Finally got her to buy me a decent pair of heels and some black underpants (for my exotic moods.) I lost on the black party dress even though I promised to take the rose off the shoulder. All she will buy me are horrible Villager, John Meyer and Walter Lanz desecrations that make teenagers look like members of the golf club.
At least she let me buy makeup to cover my impetigo and a powder blue cardigan I really like which will look good once I shrink it. Genevieve caught me in the bathroom trying it on backwards and she said nobody wears cardigans backwards and if you wear your circle pin anywhere but at the collar of your cardigan it means you’re not a virgin. (Also if you wear your kilt pin upside down.) I said everyone in France wears their cardigans backwards and nobody in France is a virgin.
Mom and Dad say I need a “progressive” school because I am creative and Genevieve needs a “snob” school because she is smart. Unfortunately for us both it’s the same school.
Next-door creep Bobby Bloy raked my diaries out of the leaf pile but they were too burned to read hahaha. He will never know whether I wrote about him or not, the little grossness. (He chests his pants.) How he would love to be preserved for posterity.
Fri Sept 11, 64
So many days since I wrote! It shows how exciting my life has been. My only problem is my roommate who seems to come from another planet. But I want to write about everything.
Wed AM I woke up early, washed my hair in beer, put Dep on the ends and set it on orange juice cans. This really seems to work – it held the flip till almost noon. I had to drag the hairdryer out of my trunk where it was mixed up with all the unspeakable hockey things they make you buy. Had my breakfast under the hairdryer in my room because I didn’t want to hear Daddy’s remarks idiot women whose hairdryers melted on their heads, burned their hair off leaving only a scarred patch, welded orange juice cans to their skulls, etc. etc.
Then my sister’s boyfriend Granger showed up. My parents really like Granger but the joke’s on them. They are allowing Granger to drive me and Genevieve to school for reasons I’ll never understand. He drives like a hellion and makes “vroom vroom” noises with his mouth like a little boy. I hope none of the other boys at school are this disgusting. He and Genevieve are perfectly suited for each other however. Neither know the meaning of true maturity.
Plumly is NOT a pretty school but I’d seen it before so it was not a shock. It looks like a prison out of Dickens. Why don’t they just call it “The Workhouse.” (Oh no! Don’t send me there!) However the trees are pretty and at least it has a lake.
My roommate Thekla is an albino. When she is speaking I am just staring at her wondering what its like to have pink eyelashes and not do anything about it. She is very religious and says if I say “Jesus Christ!” one more she will report me; that it’s wrong to use the Lord’s name in vain. How does she know its vain? Aren’t you supposed to call on your savior in times of trouble? I’m in trouble a lot. Also, this is supposed to be a progressive school – my father says “Jesus Christ” all the time and he is very progressive.
I think I am going to lose this one because Thekla is from Nebraska. She is like one of those frontier women who stand in the middle of fire, water and Indians and never get budged or scraped.
I am writing with a flashlight under the covers and Thekla would be threatening to report me if she was awake. Fortunately she snores – it’s very handy for knowing if she is asleep or awake.
My Big Sister came to visit me. These are assigned to you to show you the ropes. Her name is Lauren and she is so cool it hurts. She came in wearing one of our awful gym suits and on her it looked good. She has cut the sleeves off and ripped the bottom into fringe. She says I will get a big brother named Larry Murchenwold and he is a WOLF so I’d better be careful!
Great to go to a little school where everyone knows everyone and you don’t need to waste time on trial and error. She showed me how to write a KOB (these are the notes sent from Girls’ End & Boys End at night.) You have to fold them a certain way or people think you’re queer. Also never use the Senior Stairs. (Boys who do this at boys’ end get their heads SHAVED. At Girls’ End things are more ladylike. They just cut up your underwear when you are out of the room. (Obviously I’m going to need some better underwear.)
My first sight of the freshmen boys was a big disappointment. They are such babies I assumed they must be visiting. Some have feet, which do not touch the floor when they are seated, others were crying for their mommies. The really tall one chests his pants! Lauren says sometimes the senior boys ask younger girls out. Let’s hope so. That never happened at my old school. The very nicest seniors are all taken. There is even one who looks like Jeff Hunter, my favorite movie star. (Genevieve dropped Granger like a hot potato because he has a girlfriend!) So far no sign of my personal Big Bad Wolf. I don’t think he is taking his Big Brother job seriously!
Friday, Sept 18 – 64
I can’t believe another week has gone by! This is amazing – I am actually too busy living to write! This has got to be a first. Friday seems like the only time because we don’t have sports in the afternoon. Lots of people are taking weekends but I’m saving mine up till I have somewhere special to go.
I’ll tell you about my classes.
ENG 1 – Strictly for losers. Miss Wienand is so old we can’t believe she’s still alive and not something that struggled its way out of the Tomb of Ligeia. When we speak to her we have to shout and then her head wobbles and her eyes fill with tears. At first I was shocked but you gradually get hardened. She quotes the Lady of Shalott by the hour. Genevieve says it’s the anesthesia they gave her in the war – now she is crazy. There’s a funny boy in class named Ted – he is not sexy at all but he is hilarious. When he said he preferred Coney Island of the Mind to Keats she got so upset she forgot to give us homework. Reading A Separate Peace.
FR II- Not bad – taught by a real Frenchwoman named Ann-Marie Bustas. She wears very high heels and very tight skirts so she can barely walk and she teases her hair high in back with a rattail comb. I am smug because I aced the first test! She says I can read Françoise Sagan if I want to.
ENG Hist – is my favorite class taught by a sexpot named Nichols. His teeth are stained with nicotine and his hands shake but he is very funny about Ethelred the Unready and the Venerable Bede. (Unfortunately he is married.) He never fails to crack us up.
BIBLE – a romp through hell. Zealots 5, Sadducees 0! The teacher is the janitor – he probably works for free so they don’t put him in a home. He wears a hearing aid as big as a toaster and if you want to disrupt class all you have to do is hum. He takes it off his head and tinkers with it for minutes at a time. Gerry Woo is trying to program him by remote control but so far it hasn’t worked. Gerry is another writer (he carries his sci fi novel with him everywhere) unfortunately he spits when he talks and jumps in his seat as if he has bugs in his pants. (He probably does. I hear the hygiene at Boys End is nothing to write home about. Dr Freud to the contrary I am glad I’m not a boy. Sounds hazardous to the health.) So Gerry & I won’t be forming a writing coven anytime soon.
MATH – Over my head from Day 1. I have a Math Deficiency Disease. Need I say more?
SCIENCE – I have always admired Science from afar but here’s my chance to see it up close. I’ve promised myself to work really hard this term and plumb its mysteries. What else?
Oh yes, HOME EC = putrid and ART is for babies. I’m talking finger-painting and cutting things out of magazines. If we are really good Mrs. Kurtz will let us make a potholder to take home to our mommies. Me, who made a pajama coat over and over again from scratch! (Teacher rejected it the first 4 times.)
We are imprisoned in hockey four afternoons a week while a man-woman makes me run so much I’ve developed a heart condition. We are required to take at least one hobby and I’ve signed up for Workshop Theatre but the teacher hasn’t shown yet because he’s busy getting a divorce.
I’m sure my impetigo is no longer contagious but no boys have come close enough to find out. A few drips circle warily and have to be dropped in their tracks before they
spew.
Sat. Sept 19 - 64
The most amazing thing has happened! I am the leader of the freshman girls! There are only nine of us living at Girls End! (The others are day students.) I know I am an unlikely leader type – I am not bragging or being aggressive. I think I am simply les panic stricken than anybody else. They are in hysterics about grades, boys, hair, parents, I say Why worry about it? And they sob gratefully.
They put me in charge of the Freshman Skit for Camp Suppers. Nobody wants to look stupid because there may be Boys paying attention. Har to tell which pair of beady eyes around a campfire belong to a handsome face or an agile brain so we can take no chances. We are putting on GOLDFIGURE –a girl whose incredible physique turns men into statues. What do you think?
Sun. Sept 20 – 64
Life is such a great adventure! I am planning to be so happy my whole life I wake up laughing. Got a letter from Andrea yesterday that made me momentarily nostalgic about The Past. Oh the times we snuck out of the house in the deep of the night wearing our father’s shirts. But one can’t look back one must move forward.
Alysse Aallyn 
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