Wed 5 July 67
There are those (psychiatrists) who say Environment is All. I will raise my children with stimulation & excitement. I say routine’s the modern curse; we’re always hanging about like goldfish with our mouths open awaiting the next bell. Who lives more fully, a tiger or Walter Mitty? I say Mitty because imagination IS a life but no one agrees! In fact last night’s party turned into a “company meeting” where we all complained they work us too hard, yell at us too much and are too insulting in their criticisms. (Lucky they haven’t had a suicide.) They’ve turned us into a heap of Pavlov dogs and no one has the nerve to tell them this however.
Found my own personal philosophy perfectly expressed in the explanatory paragraph before Browning’s Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister (a most awkward poem in my opinion.) I abhor the Victorians. Ugliness refined to an art. Anyway, “Life is a moral testing ground and the call to the individual to realize his (or her) potentialities is also a call to meet the moral demands of his (her) world! So true!
I wonder how many people I’ve influenced to start diaries! JoAnn is starting one. She’s thinking of becoming a nun!
Thurs. 6 July 67
In the smoker listening to Jefferson Airplane. Fran says Grace Slick is bad for her voice but she’s attracted anyway. Jodi wants The Chad Mitchell Trio which is all western and warbly. I say there must be something in between – how about Night on Bald Mountain? Fran says there’s no singing, I say yes there is. I’m pretty sure the demons howl at the end. No different from Grace Slick really.
Mousetrap opening tonight. Robin gave me a charming ring made from a silver spoon. We went to a thrift store so I could buy new jeans (and corduroys) – my old ones won’t stay up!
Sat. 8 July 67
Why has Robin such a small mind? BUT HE’S SO BRIGHT AND AFFECTIONATE AND WHO ELSE IS THERE? He’s grabby and pawy and the word No is against his religion. I dressed up for the Hawk because Michael Steele the MN reviewer would be there. Robin said we had to stop at his apt first but he wouldn’t leave. I got so mad I smacked him across the face as hard as I could. He was hurt, I apologized so he started up again! He produced condoms! I was insulted, he was angry. I told him Anything but That. We did manage some pleasure – I had several seizures. But men don’t like it if they’re not impregnating you, which is A Problem. I’m willing to grapple with birth control but not for this guy. He thinks never seeing each other again is a plus!
I kind of hate myself now. Feel like Lady Ellenborough – “too much trouble to say No.”
Feeling emotionally stomped.
Sun 9 July 67
Long mosquito-slapping talk with Robin on the way to Denny’s party. He looked really good in a gold-buttoned vest. I couldn’t believe what a long walk it was until I realized he was going around and around the block! He says he is going through a stage and he wouldn’t have admired me if I’d said Yes! So it seems to be a game and he’s angry at me because I wouldn’t lose! Now that he knows I’m a fine person it’s time for me to lose! I was so upset I had to look away. This was supposed to make our future easier?
Merry Widow such a failure of a play. Dippy and trite. Between rehearsals Robin walked me to Lourdes Hall for dinner. We were relaxed like people no longer wary of each other. Or maybe I am exhausted. We were drinking coffee and eating dessert when I was paged – ship to shore call from “the yacht Gryphon”!
Mom and Dad are not coming to the play. Last weekend Genevieve brought her boyfriend Kent Winokur to meet them and Mom had a meltdown. She says he’s a bearded hippie, Genevieve says he’s a law student and Dad has a beard. Mom made Dad shave off his beard! They already knew Gen & Kent were living together so I don’t quite understand.
Dad said they want to go to VISTA together and VISTA won’t accept them together unless they’re married so they’re getting married! Mom wants a family wedding and they don’t. Dad’s loyalties are torn. Genevieve has always been his favorite daughter – I am barely “also ran”.
Avril wanted to talk about her cat Morgan (his name means “seafarer but they have to keep rescuing him with the net because he thinks he can swim.) She did say Kent has “long hair”.
Dad felt bad they canceled their flights – he knows I’ve been homesick but I reassured him that I’m having a marvelous time. I remember Genevieve making so much fun of Merrill’s wedding, also the idea of marriage – “How can she be sure?”
I told Robin all about it – he sides with Mom! Gave me a lecture on “social responsibility” that degenerated into a paen to noble pioneer women of the soil. He is hopeless! I told him to read Giants in the Earth and get disabused. He seems to look at life as having a “traveler” and a “wayside – who feels free enough to leave who. What if I refuse this wayside? He assures me somberly that Women who Forage will Be Foraged. I usually feel confident I can land on my feet in a conversation but with him bliss keeps turning to despair. I told him he’s a perfectionist but it’s not really the word I want.
Another depressing letter from Casey – I am getting afraid to open them. She says Brian Nydahl “gave” Marnie to Reed because Reed “loved” her more. Boil! I’m furious at the lot of them.
Tues 11 July 67
What a glorious day this has been – the change of directors makes an enormous difference! Mr. & Ms. Sullivan relaxed and cheerful, use Persuasion instead of Terror.
I think my body is beginning to listen to me. Mr. Johnson gave a ballet lecture to the nuns and we Dancing Girls demonstrated the moves. After the demonstration Sister Mary Rosycheeks plied us with sticky buns and cake. She told me my hair is the color of sunlight. She is so darling. These nuns are the best people.
Robin took 100 pictures of me (I warned him they’d all turn out bad) then rewarded me with lunch at the drugstore where we could relax in the airconditioning. When he bought me penny candy I said he was too lavish – he said I’m the only person who listens to him. Actually I’m the only person “expecting more” from him – every one else takes each other at “face value”. All the interesting stuff is underneath.
Jodi said we weren’t needed till 3 so we went over to Tempo and had a leisurely shop. Then time for bath! Hot water has the power to reshape me as if I were wax – white sundress – tied my hair back with a white satin ribbon. You look like Twiggy! Said the doorman and I felt complimented!
I love the walk to the theatre, the old stone buildings, the greenery, the arches – this is a sort of paradise. Robin was waiting for me on the steps – rushed up and put his arm around me possessively. He said I looked like a tall cool glass of milk! Then he tried to talk me into staying an extra day. I said my parents need me.
When rehearsal started my joyous mood returned.
Rehearsal ended at ten fifteen so we could pile into cars for Mr. Johnson’s Mousetrap party in Wisconsin. Robin and I ended up walking on a country road beneath a sky ablaze with stars. I thought, this is not my place but it reminds me of my place. A satisfactory make-out session devolves into an argument about city people vs. country people. He says you can’t be both. If forced to pick I will choose the country just because it’s quieter but why choose? I said if you feel controlled by circumstances you will always choose the wrong things thinking you aren’t choosing at all; that’s why people should feel free. He got mad thinking I meant him (which in a way I did.)
At Tiplady’s party we listened to the entire score of The Fantasticks (which I saw for my sixteenth birthday.)
Back at the dorm reading Irving Stone’s Those Who Love.
Thurs 13 July 67
Everyone released from rehearsals at 10:30 except Maxim’s Girls – we kept at it till 11:10! Steve walked me back to the dorm – said all my freedom makes people think I am a “loose liver”. I said why can’t we just be friends and got the Victorian line: “It’s IMPOSSIBLE for MEN & WOMEN etc etc etc.” I’d be willing to kiss him if in the midst of it he’s not talking about hating me and hating himself.
We ended up wrestling against a wall – I kicked him with my newly hardened legs, trying to say he’s making me not trust him. He turned into an animal! He really scared me. I never imagined getting raped before but I see how it could happen. I’ve come unscathed through some pretty tight spots. I think I knocked his head against the wall. I said I’m sorry, He said, “Don’t apologize. It’s my fault.” But I can’t help berating myself. I shouldn’t even walk with him much less make out with him but I’m so hungry too! For passion and love and anything I can get.
I kept talking as we walked back – I can cheer myself up with the sound of my own voice.
“I can’t figure you out,” he said, “You want sex and you don’t want it.”
“I like pleasure and I don’t like pain,” I told him but he still doesn’t get it. He thinks I don’t “do it” because he would despise me as he told me he would. But if we really aren’t going to see each other again, would that matter? (I’ve got a lot of boys despising me already; Beales, Reed, Shawn too, now, apparently.) I have to feel sex will be worth doing and I’ve almost felt it with other boys – just not with Robin. Am I “using him”? He says No!
I flippantly said I didn’t think I’d find the “right guy” before age 30. He said he thinks I’ll find him sooner than that. It definitely felt like a goodbye speech. I had to go around to the smoker to rap on the window to find someone to let me in.
He thought the reason he was getting nowhere with me was he wasn’t “forceful” enough! I’m praying he leaves me the hell alone after this. I think he will.
Sat 15 July 67
I should be so lucky. Robin grabbed my arm on the theatre steps and told me he’s going crazy. I said I have bad dreams too. He asked me to “fake it” for a week! I was blind with rage. I asked him to never touch me again. He asked if I’m going to write him off as “another mistake”. I shouldn’t have told him about my boyfriends – they aren’t “mistakes” even if we don’t end up together. (Beales was a little bit of a mistake.) I don’t accept what Miss Cluny says, that its what OTHER people think of you that makes you what you are! How could you become yourself?
Robin quiet during rehearsal – I just got the “reproachful stare”. It bothers me WORST OF ALL that he thinks GUILT is the way to get to me. Whatever I’m doing, I SHOULD be doing something else! This is the end. I don’t want to waste valuable notebook paper on Robin. Shawn’s the kind of man I would THINK I’d want but Reed’s the type I REALLY do. Artistic. Uh oh.
Pawed my way through Those Who Love. Much too slick and glib. But at least he’s reassuring me I’ve made the right decision! Finished O’Faolain – he’s not Mansfield but he does have something. Struggling with Mary Renault but I’m tired of The Ancient World.
Alysse Aallyn 
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