24 Dec 77 – midnight – Plush Palace
The Big Day. Go home, sleep, wake up, do laundry, take dogs for shots, buy snow tires. In a haze of infatuation – Jervaze was in for 5 hours tonight watching me dance with a sense of unmistakable pride.
He asked for my phone number so he could call me on Christmas Day – I gave him all of them.
New York City Dec 25 77 – Fri night.
Life is so interesting, Wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Lovely intimate family talks – just what family should be doing for perspective on past and future. In two days Avril and I drive out to Michigan to see Merrill – 11 hour drive – tonight’s a dinner in the Village then an early night.
Heard of a studio apt on the island – winterized – going for $200/month.
Of course I will have enough royalties for that…or won’t I? Harcourt royalty dept uncooperative, editor Lauren very cagey. But won’t the island kill my already comatose sex life? Whenever I’m away from dancing I miss it.
It’s a great substitute for sex but not a complete one alas. Physical activity vital to my peace of mind.
96th St off the Park- New York City – 26 Dec 77
Genevieve’s apartment is triggering horrible flashbacks to how sick I was over Ryder at the beginning of last summer. Scary that a man could do this to me. Don’t ever want to get that sick again.
Makes me sorry this diary exists – my trusty friend – because it gives misery an actual corporeal reality.
Burn these sickening wails before I die. The Victorians always did.
Well I’m raring to get back. Not only do I miss the dancing, I miss the bar. Ah, the nightlife. Always a party atmosphere but I could feel superior for not drinking (or getting high). I like our status and protections – I like getting paid for exercising, being admired and having fun. This pleasure just cannot be shared – Mom’s face crimps closed – and I am lost in the unredeemable beastliness and ugliness she feels certain it must be.
The fact that I am a feminist and consider myself spiritually in tune with the universe also is incomprehensible to her. (Wives can get into big spiritual trouble too, but I am too tactful to bring that up.) Unfortunately there is no way to defend myself except by attacking back – her “safe”, closed, restricted world of handmaiden to Dad, feeding and burnishing him like a racehorse, talking him “up” as if she were his sports coach, does not seem to me more inherently saintly.
But to Mom self-loss is what “sainthood” is – you totally do not regard yourself in your care for someone else. The fact that you are puffing them up like a grampus, encouraging them to be completely selfish, is I guess too shockingly cruel to mention. So: I’m stuck in Patient Griselda mode with undeserved imprecations heaped on my innocent head.
I wonder if it would be too nasty to talk about how I am sacrificing myself for those poor lonely men who need to look upon a perfect feminine ideal while they swill beer? Guess I better not.
Mom is fond of saying that love doesn’t work unless
you open your heart to the other but you can’t do it without marriage!
I say Jervaze and I are “courting” which is a very different thing. I don’t think I will ever open my heart again. I think perhaps it opens by itself –
naturally. One might as well tear a flower open and complain about the quality of the bloom.
Interesting being here with Brett and Genevieve and
watching someone else’s marriage from the outside. Does not look too enviable. Reading “Eclipse of the Hero in Victorian Fiction.” He’s in eclipse everywhere else, too, I may add.
Mon 27th Dec 77 11:00 AM
See Dracula on Broadway – pure pleasure with some
honest scares. Frank Langella very sexy. At Italian dinner Mom and Dad push the idea of the island hard, but I know the old people would never leave me alone. They’d be worse than Ryder. Still, there’s something magical about being protected from the real world by the ferry – places you can’t get to easily are wonderful just for that reason.
Mom and Dad say further I can’t be serious about my writing or I’d have a job in publishing or magazines! I’m so rocked back on my heels its hard to even argue. It sounds so sane. But why won’t it result, really, in another “hostage taking” of my soul, which, so, so regrettably, appears to be so damn fragile? Becoming one’s self is life’s greatest challenge – and so far it does seem necessary to abjure group (gang? Team?) endeavors. Writing doesn’t satisfy unless it comes out of the wild side of me – my secret side. There’s always the temptation to rip open the spider and get the silk out faster. Dad rolls his eyes – it’s the old “I’m an artist so I can do what I want” argument again. How to tell him yes, he’s right. Yes –
I’m taking advantage of my education, my family, my “privileges”; it’s who they made me. No going back to some invented Dust Bowl life of drudgery just so THEY can “feel superior & good”. They insist they don’t WANT to “feel good!” It’s about what’s “right!” My turn to roll my eyes.
Detroit, 11:05 PM, Thursday 29 Dec 77
At the adorably, impossibly 20’s Tudoresque manse my sister
Merrill is restoring – it’s lovely here. Merrill and her husband say dancing is “sex work” and “sex work” is “OK” if its “regulated so “sex workers aren’t exploited.” I get annoyed that nobody can tell the difference between dancing and prostitution! Lots of things cause “erotic titillation” – breathing for example. Still, I find I’m inclining toward taking a two-month break in March
and going to the island to write. Is this family management? But one of the reasons I like dancing is because you can “pick it up and put it down.”
Well, we’ll see.
Thurs night 29 Dec 77 9:30 PM
I find as I distance from Ryder I remember some good things and that makes me happy. He was so unique. It was fun knowing him, watching him perform impromptu magic for street children and restaurant patrons. More extraordinary really than poor old Jervaze who in spite of his glamorous looks drinks way too much and hates his job. Also Ryder knew me as a “not dancer” which J doesn’t – maybe that persona obscures who I really am. I remember the excitement of watching Ryder make his television show – unexpectedly sweaty physical labor in choosing camera angles and shots –
timing, music, close-ups – building the tape as the excitement was happening
– more in common with sports than some couch potato activity like editing.
Greek Town for dinner after the Renaissance Center, so the night ended in a wild bouzouki. Day occupied with antiquing – especially fun since I am reading Rumer Godden’s China Court, which is basically a love song to things. It made me worry that there are not enough details in Demon – what should I add? Perhaps buy a Vogue to see.
Dreamed about Devon last night. Wonder what
he’s up to. Maybe I’m being psychic again. Getting some peace of mind about him as well. Merrill’s daughter comes to read over my shoulder, then when I move to hide the diary says, “Don’t worry, I can’t read cursive. “
Alysse Aallyn 
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