Alysse Aallyn

Author: alysse

  • Embattled Love: the diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    11:30 Am 14 Ap 80 MON


    Sitting to my typewriter trying to persuade myself that good things can be written by people paralyzed with boredom. T. doing his taxes. $9,900 he can’t find.


    He says I’ll have to get a job over the summer! Finished reading After Leaving Mr. McKenzie Superb! (Jean Rhys.) Fatuous intro by Ford Maddox Ford.


    Suddenly got a good poem last night. Surprised myself.Sickened by poor Sylvia Plath’s competitiveness in Johnny Panic & Bible of Dreams so reading KM’s stories. Very interesting. The moment she died Virginia Woolf started writing like her. T. bought his graduation cap & gown.

    11 AM Tues 15 Apr 80
    T says we need to stay till we sell this house. I said, YOU have to. He’s so worried I’ll go back to dancing. I think my body’s probably marshmallow by now. Feeling totally beaten down. I tried to tell him last night about Sylvia Plath beating herself up because she couldn’t write Lady’s Home Journal serials – he thought I was trying to say I’m Sylvia Plath and I got a full ½ hr on the glorious dignified hard work of writing for mags. Missed my point!!! Sylvia COULDN’T do it but WOULD HAVE LOVED TO.


    Got a good first draft of Blood Sacrifice. Feeling a little better. Chest doesn’t ache. My AMBITION – my ULTIMATE AMBITION – would be to write a novel in ONE DRAFT. Did my taxes. Refreshed myself with Bloomsbury Portraits. T thinks I’m trying to LEARN to be suicidal, broke, out of fashion and unsuccessful. But taste is honed. Very depressing April weather. Eliot was right.


    T finds perfect off the shoulder Mary McFadden wedding dress for me in keeping with our Greek theme. He orders it for immediate delivery. Uh oh. Groom has seen the gown. Bad luck?

    Fri. 18 Apr 80
    Living in the 20’s reading Holroyd’s Augustus John. Very pleasant. T’s house sold! $22,500! (He bought it for $9,000.) We can’t spend it, he says sorrowfully, eyes raised heavenwards. (Because one doesn’t spend Capital.) But he laughed when I laughed at him!


    Out to dinner tonight with the Wests at Les Palmiers (Larry always calls it “Les Palmer’s”).
    Thinking out a good ghost story.


    Uncharitable thoughts about Ts buddy Larry – who I can clearly see is jealous of me. Loves T more than he loves his wife!

    20 Apr 80
    Novel going horribly. Can’t conquer my absolute distaste for what I’ve set myself to do. Obviously gone wrong somewhere. But where? Wishing to give my life the proportion of myth? Should just make things up like everybody else. Fortunately the mystery is still fun. A little too crazy perhaps. Will Lois recognize herself and take umbrage?


    Re-reading Mes Apprentissages in a very bad translation reminiscent of Constance Garnett’s weirdly Bertie Wooster take on Dostoevsky. Americans don’t really like Colette – Gide of all people called her “contaminated.” Maybe that’s why they don’t like me.


    Letter from Merrill lectures me about pills – says Mom’s varicose veins shows we are susceptible to clotting. Says she’s sending me her old maternity clothes.

    5PM Tues 22 Ap 80
    In one hour have to dress for Goodbye Kentucky Newspapers party at downtown Cincinnati German restaurant. Spent 1 ½ hrs smoking in the sun in baby oil, then bathed. Wrote 8 p. Good? Not really. Sending it to Lavallee with my commentary. Maybe she has good ideas. Hideous Ann Beattie work in NY Review of Books very discouraging. I am out of step with THOSE times.


    Reading Colette’s Vagabond. The Crosland bio does not do her justice. She is encouragingly honest about her slow maturation, the humiliations of the music halls etc. She did get a lot of recognition, though, from the very beginning. Still, one would not wish to BE Colette (contrary to what I’m sure my mother thinks.)


    Trying to imagine what it would be like if T supported what I’m trying to do instead of acting like I’m attempting to “score” off him. I am not writing for him thank God.
    Publication vital. But recognition? It is the life that matters.

    23 Ap 80
    Reading Heartsounds which I want to give to Daddy I realize how barren life is without mysticism. If you put “self” first it turns out there is no “self” there. Brain damage from anesthesia the most horrifying detail – maybe Daddy can’t take it. His god is Science.


    Lovely evening at the restaurant. Afterwards T “critiqued” me. I talked a bit too much! When people ask questions, you don’t have to answer! Feels I “interrupted” him. I am aghast. I think he wants us to speak as a “unit” which is HIM. But we are not there yet I point out. We don’t agree about everything.


    He thinks we should disguise that!


    Mysterious bleedings. Just want to continue the pills FOR A FEW MONTHS. Then no nasty pills ever again! Maybe IUD between kids?


    Toss moans and groans about the summer like he will NEVER EVER GET A JOB EVER AGAIN. Weird. He seems so intelligent and desirable to me (and everybody else.)


    Put down Heartsounds for Celibate Passion which I am thoroughly enjoying.


    Novel going splendidly – E Bowen’s Heat of the Day confirming all my choices (though the Louie subplot was a mistake.) Today my wedding dress came. Fit perfect. T. dizzy with desire. Oh, this summer will be so exquisite! Only 3 more weeks!

    11:40 PM 27 Apr 80
    Blew up last night at T. We went to the movies with Larry and Suzy (saw Norma Rae) and I got another “critique.” Told him he can no longer criticize me on the basis of my behavior but only on his feelings. In the middle of our pitched battle brother Seth called from Colorado to read a 5 p letter he sent special delivery denouncing their mother. He is jealous of her “better” treatment of me, she is nice to me, never nice to his fiancé Sue. (She’s NOT nice to me but I don’t point it out. I don’t think she knows how to be nice to people. It’s almost funny. But she is offering us the house no one else can live in.)


    I ask T why Seth must attack his Mom six weeks before his own wedding? What good can THAT do? It’s crazy! I think he’s hoping to be publicly disowned.


    It all ended with T & me sobbing and kissing in each other’s arms. Suddenly get the idea for a second ghost story.


    Sitting peaceably over blonde chartreuse while T reads bulb catalogues and I skim Anais Nin diaries (No Good.)

    28 Apr 80
    Trying to assemble poetry MSS depressing the hell out of me. Who am I kidding? Ordered $63 worth of shorts. Baked honey bran bread and felt better. Need to take up bike riding when we get to Grovers’ Mill.


    Police cars assemble outside. Mr. Booger hopelessly drunk again.

    Wed 30 Apr 80
    T and I had our WORST FIGHT EVER last night – any fight I don’t dissipate rapidly becomes OUR WORST FIGHT EVER. I was so angry that it’s always my JOB to smooth things over. What if I don’t? Will he just explode and spatter the walls like John Cassavetes in The Fury? I get sick of being “blamed” for everything. I refused to let him off the hook.


    “Where did you put the car key?” What if I didn’t touch the car key? How about “The car key is lost. I can’t find the car key. Do you know where the car key is?” I’m starting to see why Seth is crazy. This kind of milieu would drive anyone crazy. Not one of them has any idea how to apologize. There is frenzied hysteria about “status” and “loss of face” that would fit right in in thirteenth century China.


    I pointed out if he wants us to have a pleasant dinner with Judge Liebowitz he is going about it wrong. Why show up a party at each other’s throats? He suddenly confessed his parents ALWAYS started fights before a party and his mother ALWAYS began parties angry at her guests! He had never “seen” it before but he certainly agreed it’s mighty stupid. He smiled, shook his shoulders and said, “I know you’re going to be your effervescent self” and I said,
    “You better fucking hope so. Let’s hope I don’t vent my spleen on you the way you do on me.”


    The Liebowitzes came and I was very nice. The Judge and I got into a spirited conversation about Erle Stanley Gardner and the Judge said, “Of course he never practiced law.” I could see the alarm in T’s eyes that I would contradict him but I sweetly let it pass. Dangerous corner averted should be worth quite a few orgasms (Gardner did a lot of work for the Chinese community whom he saw as victimized.)


    Judge very impressed that I had read Clausewitz’ Art of War (his favorite book. It would be.) I told T later “You don’t want to clerk for this guy.” He is T’s “biggest connection.


    I try to discuss it after with T. He says I am “harping.” Anyone waiting for him to apologize about anything is going to wait a long time.

  • Embattled Love: the diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Princeton Jct Station – Wed 12 Feb 80


    Trying hard not to be depressed. Almost had a breakdown on the highway driving here – imagining ice. Pulled over to the side of the road. Cop said roads were fine but he would lead me to a motel and in the AM everything would look different.


    Now I must jockey myself into a blithe, competent mood for seeing my agent but these phone calls with T are awful. He accused me of leaving to “punish” him for being “honest” about my book. I said isn’t he punishing me for being honest about Newport? That’s different he insists! He says he might not “take me back” if I’m going to be a “martyr”. I think he’s afraid of what I’ll say to people and when he catches himself being the bad guy he just doubles down. I cried for an hour. I asked to not speak on the phone any more. Let’s write. He & his family hang on the phones arguing for HOURS. I really can’t afford the bill.

    Grovers Mill NJ; Thurs.13 Mar 80
    Wow! Healed! Wonderful meeting with my agent Lavallee. I was so upset I didn’t notice a man stealing my purse off the back of the chair. Lavallee really took care of my feelings, understood the best things about the book – I had been afraid I would have a breakdown right in front of her but it didn’t come to pass. She was interested in T’s coal story too and thinks she can sell it if he writes a proposal. She said we need more plot and gave some intelligent suggestions. Joy!


    I called T right away and we had an hour’s wonderful conversation he didn’t misinterpret in the least. He said he can leave Tues night! God, I love that man. Snow was promised and that’s what it’s doing.


    T’s mother Lois not coming in this weather. So I can put off vacuuming till tomorrow – otherwise house is ”done”.

    My Old House – Queens’ Chapel Rd, D.C. -15 Mar 80 – Sat
    If I survived to this point I can survive ANYTHING. Snow melting fast in brilliant sunshine. Will finish the rewrite today and see what Lavallee thinks. Thank God for my writing fluency (T thinks it’s “too easy.”) ANY money would be good – it’s this period of NOTHING that’s so hard.


    Many plans to convert the smallest room in the Grover’s Mill house to my study.


    T called feeling romantic from a restaurant where we’d had a wonderful dinner. But he was with Larry West so he couldn’t talk. (He said all he talked about at dinner was me. Also, I have letter from Devon!) Avril arrives home about midnight. (Late shift)

    11 PM – 16 Mar 80
    What a day! Avril home in an hour and we can have a drink and talk. I was surprised this AM to wake in enough time for Unitarian service but I enjoyed it thoroughly. Their ”information” desk has a lot of counseling info. Good place to find a therapist.


    Happy drive to MD – no “hallucinations” as I had driving to NJ from KY (those damned tunnels.)
    Driving Riggs Rd I had the craziest desire to look up Ryder, ex boyfriend who tried so hard to torment & corral me. ! I remembered he was on Fox St – nobody knew where that was so I had to waste $5 on a map at the 7-11. Of course it was 2 blocks away! Right outside the apt building I saw his car! (Ghee in back seat) . I looked up his number on the mailboxes and knocked on his door! My heart was fluttering like mad but I knew I looked good.


    And there he was! He has DYED his hair brown (too many comments on his girlish beauty?) and he was festooned with crosses like he’s scared of vampires. He’s married and his wife (a nurse) was coming in later. Ho ho ho. We had a great talk. I told him the wedding is Sept because I didn’t think he would take an engagement seriously if we haven’t set a date. Wifey looked at me and said “THE Alysse?” Har har. She is sweet, intelligent and ROUND. So much for his ruthless attacks on my physical imperfections!


    T. angry that I spent $104 on a tune-up. Says I was “robbed.”

    Newport KY – 24 Mar 80
    Slicing tomatoes for our dinner. I can get through the next 6 weeks. Read Portrait of a Marriage for the 3rd time. The best books are different every time you read them. Reporting on one’s life even more difficult than living it. In 10 minutes I can call my angel. When I look at what’s available out there I feel so lucky! Having a horrible messy period – a solid week so far. Staying on the pill till our wedding.


    Trying to get to the point where I can face the novel again. Oh, to be Edith Wharton and just cast the handwritten pages to the floor for “someone else” to pick up and type!

    Thu 27 Mar 80
    First morning in the garden clutching Letters of Joseph Conrad. I’d like to outline a mystery story – think it would be fun. Another gothic: Blood Sacrifice.


    T and I “off” on our timing – I try to eliminate stress from my life – he deliberately ramps up his. He doesn’t think he’d accomplish anything if he wasn’t suffering and shrieking under the pressure. I keep explaining I can’t live like that! I think we can relax and be happy and enjoy the moment – don’t have to worry constantly about the future. He says that’s “lazy”.


    He literally screams about money. My parents were secretive fearful if we ever found out how rich they are we would grow up spoiled. NONE of us did. We are all frugal. T. says he’s spent $24,000 since last June – implication – ALL on ME. It does seem like a lot. I didn’t make that much dancing and I know I’m living more cheaply than I did then.


    Later, he admitted he’d made a math mistake – $7,000 went to pay margin debt!!! (Not mine.) Now he wants to buy me a Burberry. I don’t want. I PREFER thrift shop clothes. I can’t create good work in an atmosphere of hysteria and panic.


    Marcia Davenport’s Too Strong for Fantasy right on point.

    31 mar – MON – 80
    Thinking in the bathtub about elitism. Dancing separated me from my parents’ world. It didn’t bother me but it bothers EVERYONE else. Avril researching her past with therapist says all her childhood memories are negative! Parents wanted “unthinking docility.” And these were GOOD parents! T’s much worse.

    7:15 PM – Wed 9 Apr 80
    No sun today – sweater & jeans. T & I spent 2 hours at hospital trying to figure out pain in my gut. Right ovary “tender”. Must be psychosomatic – that I can get only 11 pages on Blood. Curing myself with Jane Austen’s Persuasion. To the symphony for Svoboda’s Seasons.

    Sun 13 Apr 80
    Wretched novel! What the hell’s it about? Answer came there none. T & I saw Coalminer’s Daughter Movie not as good as the music. Life, as Virginia Woolf used to say, is not like that.

  • Embattled Love: the diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Mon 11:30 AM – 18 Feb 80


    Wonderful weekend in Horse Cave, Kentucky with our soon-to-be wedding officiant, T’s OTHER gay friend/Baptist minister. Came home to hear T’s grandmother Louise (whose house we will be living in) had a stroke in her nursing home. They are looking for blood in spinal tap but it seems her speech is returning. (She is 88 and very frail.) Hope this doesn’t cast a pall over our cork-popping evening with friends. A cup of leek & spinach soup then walk to library.

    20 Feb 80
    Feeling crazy – in potentially the worst distress of my life. T says he can’t leave before Ap 15 – Granma changing the date of her party – I get the creepy notion T doesn’t care how I feel as long as I get my housework done and shut up about everything. Last night – after 2 nights of dinner parties – he invited people over – I said I’d be upstairs. Couldn’t see anyone. He suggested I was “manic depressive” which I consider insulting. He said he can’t work worrying about what if I’m “committing suicide.” That I’m “undermining” him by leaving him alone with guests.


    He said he will do all the cooking for tonight’s party and I can “do all the drinking”. I said No thanks. After guests left our worst fight so far. He asked me threateningly if I REALLY want to know what he thought of my novel. I said yes. He said my novel is terrible – for emphasis he shook a floor lamp at me and he set it down so hard, it broke!


    Said the Erin part doesn’t work and I should read National Lampoon’s clever “takeoff” on a school girls’ diary where she discovers she has a penis – they captured “girlish chatter” perfectly in a way I could learn from. I stare at him ASTOUNDED.


    I’ve got to get out of here before I become a basket case. As long as he insists my misery and fears are imaginary we are far, far apart. I shouldn’t have come here – should have stayed working in DC saving money till the wedding (and his MOVE.) But we were so I love and he didn’t want me to dance!

    8PM Thu 21 Feb
    Last night we had it out – every last bit and he SAW. I worked hard all day rewriting the passages he objected to – I agree it’s too bumpy coming out of “nowhere” but taking National Lampoon’s advice on “schoolgirls” is OUT OF THE QUESTION.


    I tried to get him to understand how INSULTING he is being – that he wouldn’t accept this behavior from me. First, he denied he’d said the things he’d said, then he denied being hostile and angry – all while shaking a chair over my head! It’s like he’s possessed! He says I make him “want to smash something”.


    I asked him if I’m this crazy awful person that he says then how can he love me? NO NO he insisted – you’re wonderful! Finally he got tender and said, “You need a love-letter, don’t you?”
    And I answered, more than I need a broken chair!


    He said what if things get worse this summer. I said they WON’T. You will have graduated and passed the bar! You’ll have the support of me and your family! EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE. We both fell together, relieved.

    Fri 22 Feb 80 6:45 PM
    Dinner ready for T – he’s late as usual so I have a moment to reflect. Up to p. 200 – one scene to go.


    Last night he asked about “the relentless floods of blood” in my work. I tackled his comment that I’m “suicidal”. First, he denied saying it – then eyes full of tears –admitted and apologized. He gets “so upset”. He reported an incident with a Reed college psychiatrist – it was an intervention – he was accused of being the college’s heartless heartbreaker and said he was so surprised.
    I said But I have the marks on my heart to prove it.


    He admits he’s jealous of my writing because I can “write anything I want.” Tough to defend against that! I DO write anything I want and I expect to make it my life goal! But I absolutely accept that people don’t have to like it.


    Parents offered to buy my car for a grand and give to Genevieve. But they would keep it in Mom’s name because insurance in Maine is cheaper! I can’t criticize a gift horse’s choppers.


    Found Monica Dickens’ autobiography at library today – could hardly believe my luck. Reminds me of A. Christie’s however – seems bit muted. Most difficult thing of all is telling the truth about oneself. No doubt all the best story is left out.

    12:50 PM Sun – 24 Feb 80
    Toss sighing and groaning over my book like a martyr. Sounds like he hates it. I finished writing it yesterday in 4 glorious hours. Toss NOW angry because I won’t answer the phone when I’m working.
    We’re suffering from “Doll’s House Syndrome” – anything he wants to do is for US – anything I want to do is just selfishness.


    He’s 21 p from the end. He says I “sneer” at his suggestions but I told him I’ve incorporated a lot of them.


    T. says it’s “corrupt”. Uh oh. He means the teacher scene. I reminded him of the Professor Emeritus at Plumly who wanted to talk eagerly with the boys about how to get erections, what they looked like and how long they could stay up. “Corrupt”? Toss thought he was adorable!


    Better prepare myself for the tirade. He says he’s the marketing expert and I won’t get published if I “dismiss” his ideas and he might be right. He yells, I cry and we’re both wounded.

  • Embattled Love: the diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    3:10 PM – Feb 6 – 80


    Trying to write a new novel plan with a migraine. My writing must never be pedestrian. Calculate I’ll be done Feb 17 so I can leave. 1 week ago I flew to DC to comfort Avril’s depression. Her therapy raises the problem that she feels “worthless”. That’s Quaker schools for you was my comment – they don’t WANT you to feel worth anything! We are particularly Worthless Worms because we were born with So Many Privileges and we STILL refuse to Give our Lives in Service.


    We agree on need to sell the house. (And so I get some much needed cash.) Every night I was gone T called. Moving from here will be the best thing that could happen to our relationship.
    9PM – Bad bad BAD day. Did my exercises – took bath – nothing helps. I seem to have a fever but am afraid to tell T (he called my PARENTS about the pain in my chest! “We’re getting it checked out.” Doc says “Beats me.”)


    Tried reading AWFUL Margery Allingham. That woman is excruciating. Turn to Austen with relief.

    Thu Feb 7 – 80 :9;40 PM
    Good day so far. Wrote 5 letters, cleaned study, reorganized MSS Ophelia Was A Man. Joined the Authors League even though I usually hate things like that. Cut my own hair saving myself at least $50.

    10 PM – the worst happened. T upset that I ate dinner without him, upset that I want to diet “You didn’t get fat eating dinners with ME” (manifestly false) upset that I don’t want to take care of his house “You think you’re too good for housework” and especially upset about the upcoming Mar 3-23 plan (me going east to see agent & publishers) although he DID KNOW. I’ll stay in Grover’s Mill to save cash. I’m not sure he’s heard me even now – he keeps talking about being “separated for a month” and I proved its two weeks to the day. His anger makes me shiver and shake all over. Plus cramps. (Period alas.) He feels all this is a “slap” at his love and care! I thought we weren’t supposed to “lie” but he gets too upset to be truthful to! Thank God my day was a good one or I don’t know how I would bear up. His anger makes me want to scream too but my throat was locked long ago. (See Speechless.) “Go on and let him have it!” eggs on Psychology Today but I think it would be more likely to end a relationship that would be a good one if we could just get back to civilization. Jane Austen a lot more help than Psychology Today.

    3:40 PM Sun 10 Feb 80
    How true it is – if you want to get something you first have to figure out what it is. As these frenzied Newport Days draw to a close I give thanks they are not to be extended. At least Toss has agreed to sell this house (helps that I’m selling mine.)

    Traveling relatives of T’s (a pair of married doctors) looked us up and I could tell they were shocked by the frat house nature of the place as T proudly showed off holes he’d pounded through the walls with a sledgehammer (“real brick!”) I resent doing decorator work to someone else’s taste for no money in the wreck of a rooming house whose nearest neighbor is named “Booger” (I kid you not). Before the arrival of the dogs kids broke in and stole constantly. The dogs slow them down a little but now I worry about the dogs’ safety.


    An old girlfriend of T’s (married) invited us to the Covington House last night – had a marvelous time. She said we look like brother and sister! What a compliment! He looked particularly beautiful last night in his tux – a Greek idol. Sigh.


    Reading Better than Rubies a wonderful book about women’s education.

    Tues 12 Feb 80
    Listening to Scarlatti. My tolerance for winter is definitely over. Feeling at the nadir of my stored-up strength – a bear forced to hibernate overtime. Had the clever idea of inserting short story Erin into Summer as a flashback. I think it works.


    Waiting for T to get there – he’s reading slowly. Another bad fight. When I made the comment that the Grover’s Mill house could be made so nice he looked around his hell hole and snorted incredulously. How could that possibly be when I’m such a bad housekeeper? I reminded him how wonderful MY house in DC was (and is.) Unable to argue with this he made fun of my voice! Low blows. I asked him if I REALLY sounded like that – abashed, he admitted I didn’t. The problem is “Women”. He fears women are manipulative, demanding and illogical. Hard to blame him for thinking so if you’ve met his mother (and his girlfriends.) But he’s not willing to listen to criticism of his mother yet. She’s “losing” him to me. She’ll have to meet his father at graduation.

    (They were divorced six years ago and separated eight before that.) The last time they saw each other was by chance in the Uffizi and she refused to shake his hand. Toss is in a misogynistic panic – I feel like I have all the duties of an old-fashioned wife and he has only as many husbandly duties as he cares to assume. He thinks he’s just “hitting back” against my “slights” which he refuses to acknowledge as the unfortunate honesty he claims to value. Oh well. I haven’t figured out how to explain my viewpoint without unleashing his hostility.


    I look forward to the day when we can talk honestly about this. But we will need some emotional security for that to happen and emotional security means financial security. Let’s just hope one of my book projects pays off.


    Meditation, exercise, bath, dinner with friends.

    11:30 AM – Wed 13 Feb 80
    T. apologizes by bringing me breakfast in bed. Tomorrow is Valentines Day. I have a hangover but last night was worth it – found out some interesting things about T. He was a half hour late, very angry because he’d scratched his car against a stone wall and not pleased when I said I didn’t think expensive bodywork was necessary on a 70,000 mile car. After the guests left he went for me. Said I talk too much and no one else can talk because I’m cooped up all day and that makes me a liability at dinner parties. He said, “I think it’s better to tell you now than say “Shut Up” in public.”
    I said you bet it’s better! If you say “Shut up” to me in public there won’t be a marriage! He says there you go again with the ultimatums. I asked him how he’d feel if I said, “Shut up” to HIM in public! He hadn’t even considered such an awful, unimaginable thing.


    I said I didn’t think my perceptions were so totally askew – I hadn’t “dominated” the discussion or squelched other people’s ideas trying to get them to agree with me the WAY HE DOES. He apologized later and said he fears me being lionized at parties.


    I said it doesn’t look like he has much to worry about yet. Besides, I’m a natural recluse. But so far I’m needing to muster every philosophical, theological and psychological aid I can come up with to deal with my stunning LACK of success.


    I said to Toss I thought the real problem is we are too much alike.

    11:30 PM – End of a long difficult day. I managed my 10 p. but novel is too short and I can’t think of anything more to say. Novella no good! Maybe T will have ideas.

    He came home depressed at getting a D+ in Corporations – I made him a BLT and a Bloody Mary – he ate the sandwich but refused the drink because he still had a Law Review meeting. At 7 PM! When he finally came back we made up entirely for our fight and I was once again thinking, This is the man for me. He said he was upset because I’d commented on how handsome Peter Martins is! I’ve never even met the man! I said I’m jealous of the Playboy magazine in his top left desk drawer!

    Thoroughly discussed my “failure” to settle in here. Said I was subject to “strong loves and few” and it was time for me to love some other place. Made him an enormous dinner of hash browns & eggs and after 2 bourbons apiece we felt pretty good..

    6:10 PM Valentine’s Day – 80
    Great day. Wrote 13 p so I’m up to 156. T working at the paper till midnight. T gave me box of delicious candy & card. Reading Collegiate Women – depressing tale of how the doyennes of domesticity subverted female ed.

    10:20 PM Fri 15 Feb 80
    Wrote a whole chapter – got to stop now or madness will result. Reading magnificent Man Who Cried (Cookson.) Morally quite sophisticated. Cast Harvey Cox’ Seduction of the Spirit away in disgust. Should be called “Harvey’s Closet – here – you clean it.”


    T came home to spinach lasagna and letter from ex (the one he really loved and who didn’t believe in monogamy) that he described as “a howl of agony.” Said she will never get married or have children – spoke slightingly of her own work – and signed herself “love.” I feel for her. T was upset, angry and relieved all at the same time. The crap she put him through dragging home strange men!


    T asked if I would consider living “west of Phila.” I said Sure if it has city access. Hard to beat his old grandparents’ place at Grover’s Mill right between two major cities! (His father was a children’s publisher in the 30’s.) Trustees won’t let Lois sell the house till Mother Louise dies (she is in retirement home.) In the meantime they are letting everything go to hell while hiking their management fees – Lois is suing them – needs T to help.


    Can’t talk about this life to Avril – she is too naïve. If people say they love each other there shouldn’t be any problems is her theory. If there are, then it can’t be love. I feel we all have dragons and we’re going to have to meet – and slay – each other’s.

  • Embattled Love: the diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    1 am Thurs 10 Jan 80


    My 29th birthday, enough to depress anyone. Awakened by call from – of all people, MY FIRT HUSBAND BRUCE. Says he’s married & happy. Good job with Charlotte Observer. Describes himself as “a nostalgia buff.” Does not want to lose touch, wonders what “our biographers” will make of our relationship. I feel as if it all happened to someone else. Friendly but keeping him at arm’s length – he always wants something.

    Crazy card from Devon saying “I love you madly”! Guess we all want what we can’t have. Also, good letter from Maureen. Blackberry accepts poem My Grandmother’s Ghost! T. teases that the $9 I made is “putting him through law school” (it’s cost him $10 so far. Scholarship.)

    I wish our families would JUST GO AWAY and leave us ALONE. Phone call from Avril – she’s definitely leaving D.C.so I put up our house for sale with the realtor who found it for us. Avril’s life still up in the air. Toss lecturing very unsympathetically about what she “should” do – I bit his head off. I don’t dismiss his mother’s problems with smug pronouncements! He apologized, asked if he should fly Avril out here – generous but we really can’t afford it. Mom and Dad are renting her a place in Augusta (Maine capital) which has LOTS of jobs.


    We’ll get through this. I’m making applesauce from dying apples. T’s friend had a paper that needed typing – managed to get it done in time. Itchy vagina/anus from reckless wild sex acting up. Made a delicious dinner – pork chops with my applesauce, green salad & sweet potatoes. Lie flat with yogurt in vagina reading Queen Victoria & Her Daughters. Not bad.


    Toss’s Granma called about family engagement party in March – now T has been on phone with his Mom the past 2 hours.


    Heard Toss yelling and cursing at his mother – then he comes up to tell me we have to “head off” Granma’s engagement party because his Mom doesn’t want to go to any party Granma throws. And she expects T to show “solidarity” with her by being unpleasant, stupid and cruel like she is. I try to explain to him that if she doesn’t want to go she doesn’t have to! She can throw her own party!


    Something is wrong with Rebecca West whose prognostications I can’t read – something distasteful. I just can’t put my finger on it.

    5:30 PM Fri 11 Jan 80
    Difficult, inconclusive day. Thank God for my mysticism – so necessary for an artist. I can just disappear into myself. Writing away to NJ Catholic colleges looking for a study of the mystics I can take this summer. My parents declare themselves appalled. “Mysticism doesn’t exist”. I’m making everything up, as usual.
    8 pages on novel. It is scaring me to death. Why can’t I relax? Be playful? Is it because of my mother’s anger over the father’s death? She really can’t forgive me for “killing” him! I’m so panic stricken over the ending I’ve decided NOT to make an outline.


    Toss got weird postcard from ex-girlfriend. Couldn’t even tell whether she’d received his card or what it meant. Standing outside of my own jealousy, I could see the game is to pretend not caring. Trying to accept his old relationships as a precursor to our love. He is filled with compassion for me over Devon’s weirdness.


    We discussed our children and their allowances as we walked the dogs! Very sweet letter from Beales saying he remembered me more fondly than he remembered himself! Cheered up by a book called Womanpriest.

    Sat 12 Jan 80 – 3:30 PM
    Worked on poetry, (horrible metric problems) read the 12 pages I struggled through on Summer Before Spring – no good. Throws me into a deep depression. I need to expunge all “flowery” writing-class writing. Hemingway the perfect model. Beginning to feel this bombed out cavity of a house is cursed and no project can be completed here. And Toss badmouths my lovely, finished 5 bedroom 3 bath gas piped house in Safe Queens Chapel! But he refuses to move to D.C.


    Bad scene with T when I told him I’d already spent the money he gave me. He doesn’t think $35 necessary for groceries! What’s OK is astronomical long distance phone bills with his family. But I cook and shop! We aspire to high food standards! He would do everything differently – why can’t I learn? I am afraid the real problem is males have their temper tantrums encouraged while little girls’ are relentlessly quashed.


    Accused Toss of caring a lot more about my housework than my writing. He was surprised when I said he doesn’t respect my intellect! He said why not find mentor who DOES appreciate me. Hmm. Here?


    Plowing into Tudor Women. Webb is critical of Harriet Martineau’s “gossip” – he seems to see it as exclusively female. But Pope, Rogers and Jonson said the most awful things about EVERYBODY.


    Poor Dixie having trouble walking – now the dog needs x-rays!

    11:50 PM – Wed 16 Jan 80
    Just finished Bertrand Russell’s autobiography – a bizarre document! His description of dinner with the Stanleys (each member of the family adhering to a different religion) sizes up Victorianism perfectly.


    Got a letter from Guilders College (Brooklyn, NY) saying they would consider me for teaching fellowship in creative writing program is they could see a sample of my writing. Better that than my academic record!

    1:30 AM Sat Jan 19 – 80
    On p 54 of novel!!! T read first 47 p – cried during G’s death!

    5:30 Mon 21 Jan 80
    Fight with T when he suggested I see gynecologist over “my” fungus – like I came up with it all by myself! I’m not the one who’s been using Jock Itch spray for FOREVER. I went upstairs and typed – he came up yelling angrily that “the silent treatment” was “cheap and unfair.” I’m not allowed to think privately, apparently. Toss doesn’t seem to know how he insults people. No wonder, I guess, with a mother like that. For example, he says if we move to NJ how does he know I won’t “take a whim” to live somewhere else? Cried myself to sleep. I thought I’d be happy just living with Toss and writing but I’m not. Worried sick about money and his passion for this disintegrating housewife.

    24 Jan 80
    Problems. T. burst out last night, “I don’t believe in joint checking accounts.” Uh oh, since I have no money. I have to ask him for everything and we go over the receipts. My definition of marriage is total partnership. He also acts like his taste is God ordained; i.e. “Pink doesn’t look good with black” instead of “I don’t like pink with black.” I made notes of things I wanted to argue about (here’s the list: made on a copy of Tom Montag’s Letters Home:


    Our Relationship
    1) my powerlessness – ugly flashbacks of childhood
    2) timing of the wedding
    3) ignoring my needs
    4) my collusion with him – helping him ignore my needs
    5) this endlessly protracted limbo
    6) my humiliation at housecleaning (he bought “me” a vacuum cleaner!)
    7) tears are “an illegal weapon” ie my pain not “allowed”
    8) his anguish: “I’m doing my best!” my guilt
    9) his criticism of me – criticizer becomes “parent”
    10) bad comments on my “job” compared to his “job”
    11) living in Princeton in April?

    Try to make them comments about SITUATION not Toss himself but he refers to them as my “list of non-negotiable demands.” No. Negotiation necessary, I insist. His overstatements quite exhausting.


    Are my points even worth making? I wonder.


    Last night T said lovingly, “I think we’re over our problem.” He told me he was afraid he’d be too upset to study. Wish I could agree!


    Finished Aimee Liu’s devastating Solitaire. (Bad ending though.) But you have to forgive her for throwing her parents a sop at the end. They’re still alive!


    Reading about parent/child battles has lots of relevance to my ongoing struggle with Toss. Finish the poem collection tonight It’s Later Than You Think.

    Maybe I should discuss my current theory of development of love relationships?

    Being in love is “humiliating”, because “NO WAY OUT”. Reminiscent of parent/ child relationships, etc.

  • Embattled Love: the diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Mon 19 Nov 79


    Mike & Lorraine Inzar killed in small plane accident Mom & Dad call to say. This makes Dad majority stockholder (Mike’s stock divided among 5 kids.) Painful thoughts. Lorraine so young! One of her daughters with them too! (Mike was the pilot.) Mom says salutary reminder how easily we can all be “snuffed out.” If I died now how awful!!! Dad wants to go look at Bennington airfield trying to find ANYTHING but pilot error – what could have happened?


    Try to make each day an entity in itself. Yesterday a good day reading V Woolf letters. Can read these again & again. Neither she nor Vita could truly appreciate themselves. But I appreciate them.
    Boiled diary into 5 pages for Yuna. I think we can call this a completely unsuccessful breast-beating exercise. Took dogs walking in park with T, bratwurst for dinner, fantastic lovemaking, sleep. Typical day.

    2 Dec 79
    Maddening depression. My precarious identity under permanent assault, only the cycle of achievement to carry me through. Bride rejected no note of any kind. Devastating. Thought I’d get some direction at least.


    Wrote 2 poems on Rossetti family – sent 40 poems out, wrote 15 family letters.Maybe I should hide my feelings from T. His suggestion I write magazine articles throws me into blacker depression because I would have to:

    1) Learn how to write magazine article
    2) experiment with same
    3) forge relationships!!!

    CRAZY time consuming plus new ways to fail!! Novels are BOILING inside me – can’t get over that THIS IS MY DREAM LIFE – writing full time at home while husband busy with important job. But part-time newspapering pays horribly and he looks forward to law job after graduation. So our timing is off. Let’s hope not FATALLY.

    Thurs. 6 Dec 79
    T compliments me on being “so female” (“in the Jungian sense”). He’s
    beautiful & supportive – he liked my Rossetti poems a lot. Feeling better carefully following my program; hoping I can be the person I want, follow the life I want.

    11:15 PM Thurs 6 Dec 79
    Everything looking up except this diary. Lavallee LIKES Bride and thinks we can sell it. Studying the lives of Saints makes me feel better, so I’m enjoying assembling a calendar of poems called The Spire. Does nothing for my career but provides relief. What if I learned how to pray? Assembling a Christmas wardrobe.


    T. annoyed when I trimmed my public hair! Since he goes down like Jacques Cousteau I should listen. Buying Sutton’s wife Val a sweater for Christmas from Brooks Brothers gives me & T a chance to rationally discuss our differing styles. He accedes to the more imaginative choice.

    11 Dec 79
    Finished Life of Raymond Chandler. Reading about Ottoline Morrell and Katherine Mansfield. Disgusted with poetry and taking a vacation. Bought T. the prettiest Pierre Cardin diamond cufflinks.

    5:30 PM 13 Dec 79 –Thurs
    A good day in spite of a weird pain between my breasts. Tension? Seems better when I move round so not incipient heart attack. Diet?

    Reading Lady Sackville & drinking tea. Phone call from beloved after his Commercial Paper exam. Getting a haircut then home in ½ hr. Mom called to apologize very nicely for sounding “disrespectful” about my work by dismissing it as “ghoulish” and “morbid.”


    We had a nice talk.


    Finished Xmas cards today – 172 cards! T & I had beautiful long talk last night of course followed by spectacular lovemaking. Confiding fears for our relationship. T doesn’t see how this relationship can last when everyone else’s falls off the cliff. I said I worry about hardening myself against him because it’s so difficult to be so open.
    Out shopping today got a flat tire changed by the grocery store employees! Free! Would that happen in the Northeast? Certainly not in DC. Very little sleep last night because of T’s studying – but I didn’t want him to leave the bed. It’s getting dark now – beautiful light over St John’s church. Submitting altered version of The Spire (leaving out sex poems.)

    11:45 AM – Sun 16 Dec 79
    In 15 mins my angel will have been at work for six hours. That’s more than a half day! When he gets here he still has his packing to do. He asked me what about spending summer in Princeton then back here for a year? He knows he can get a job here – his friends have been working on him. I said I’d hate it. Want to get established somewhere before I get pregnant. I have a far better chance of getting a job there than here. He walked in – greeting noises from dogs!

    StormFall Farm – Wed Dec 19 – 79
    Unalloyed pleasure! Sitting at my desk in winter living room (table pushed up to window.) It’s been snowing since we woke up at 10. I saw my new house – where his mother grew up in Grovers’ Mill NJ – very low ceilinged antique farmhouse full of original furniture. Too outdated to rent but fine with me – a whole house of our own! We could have two kids there without being overcrowded! It has some unpleasant dark curtains we could just get rid of. T’s grandmother just went into nursing home for the second time. Looks like this is the last time.


    The only problem is it has no laundry room – perhaps adapt upstairs closet? (Very tiny closets too.)
    Trish & Noah (cousins) & Toss have gone to town – I will walk dogs and then be ALONE.

    Gloriously ALONE. Very close to becoming complete recluse. Just finished N Mitford’s Voltaire in Love. T enormously enjoying Perry Mason whom I read aloud on our long drives.

    Train from NYC 1:40 PM 27 Dec 79 –
    Alarms & Diversions – T & I have just had 2 very intense fights. Guess I didn’t realize the anger than was building up in me. His mother is just so RUDE – I cried in front of her last night for a solid hour feeling sheer helplessness! She is so awful! After she left we managed to come together much chastened. Yesterday we went into New York City to see costumes at the Met – got in an epic traffic jam outside Tiffany’s and could see we weren’t going to make it – got out of the cab and T bought me a ring! Eternity band of diamonds – very sweet. They say if a diamond ever falls out they replace it!


    Celebrated at Sherry Netherland with manhattans and duck pate in lingonberry sauce. Wrote four poems but too exhausted to know if they’re good.

    12:30 AM – Wed 9 Jan 80
    Battling with Byatt’s Virgin In the Garden. This woman asserts a Proustian compass but overwrites dreadfully. T due in ½ hr – at library studying as usual. We had a lovely dinner before he left – spinach soufflé, salad and wine. Took dogs for very pleasant walk.


    T says he loves me so much more every day he can scarcely comprehend it. He was so upset when I said I might not take his name – it was only because he’d been flippant about a previous girlfriend. We are both so sore. Trying to stay open and honest as the emotions blast through.

  • Embattled Love: the diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Fri Oct 12 – 79


    Glorious day. On p 140 of book, 60 to go, 4 days to do them in. The hopelessness of this made me decide to give myself a 3 day vacation – read Rae Foley’s Put Out the Light – so awful I felt actually better. (3rd dud.) I can’t be as bad as I fear! Rush of poetry. Wrote poem about Sylvia Plath – don’t know if I like it yet. Saw Cage aux Folles. Unfeeling card from Genevieve but my annoyance vanishes when I realize she is copying Mom’s icy superiority. Less and less reason to write back honestly. Letter to Devon. T. and I had a long lovely dinner discussing love. I suggest we live on a farm and raise goats.

    Sun. 14 Oct 1979
    Toss seems entirely to understand my confusing depression: just found this note on the bed when I came up: “PAY TO THE ORDER OF ALYSSE AALLYN A WHOLE LOTTA LOVING, KISSING & HUGGING, AVALANCHE OF AFFECTION REDEEMED WHENEVER SHE FEELS INSECURE”. He’s downstairs right now with Jan.


    I don’t know what it is about my family that lays me so low. Unfortunately, this ugly pointless pattern continues into my artistic life. Set up one framework after another, only to lose faith and discard them. Dreamed last night about boyfriend Phil Jervaze of all people – that I was trying to get his phone no.

    Wed 17 Oct 79 7:50 PM
    Somewhat depressed over Bride & Wolves which I “finished”. Prose sluggish and dullsville. I blame Shirley Jackson. She’s too good.

    T & I drink glass of sherry with lemon peel to “celebrate”. Now all the things I didn’t have to think about I have to think about. UGH. Housework & money. Send copy of Devlyn to Lavallee, (agent) try for serial contract. The trouble is they want to hire you to write books you don’t want to write and the more you want to write it the less they want to pay.


    Took Speechless away from Toss. Hard to see it sitting on the floor, day after day. In a month, he’s read only 50 p. Told him he can’t read it anymore. It will be a long time before we can deal with each other fully, but that’s the way life is. Last night felt like the best so far. We had a guest, John Weber, Reed College student to whom Toss was legend. Fun to hear Toss talk about Reed – I was spellbound. Fell in love with him all over again. Made love from 1:30 PM to 3 – I can always make him come twice.

    Fri. 19 Oct 79 – 11:30 AM
    Halfway through re-reading Bride, haven’t thrown up yet. Ravings of a madwoman? Seems determined & plain. Early Dorothy Eden. Too slight? We’ll see. Exhausted. Utterly drained. Can’t imagine writing anything ever again. Worry about money and how alien this town feels. If we were married, would I mind so much being supported? No sex for 2 days – feels like a connection severed.
    5:10 PM
    Reading the novel with a critical eye. Feeling almost suicidal. Seems so bland. Blah. Who the hell cares? I imagine Lavallee calling it “tired.” Could I survive her criticism? Maybe she’ll give helpful direction. Storm coming. In a moment take dogs in, feed them. Read Jackson’s Bird’s Nest.

    Mon 22 Oct 79
    All day Saturday spent at Keeneland. The men were watching the horses, I was watching the politics between 3 law students. Home I went back to reading diaries with a view to making a book – too awful. T’s gay friend Basil to dinner – he just wouldn’t leave – he doesn’t like our new relationship either. I got too drunk. Toss wrote Mom & Dad a lovely letter today about how he’s going to “take care” of me. Happiness. Toss studying at law library.

    Tues. 23 Oct 79 7:45 PM
    Had to call the police on youths loitering by my car in our driveway. Outdoor lights didn’t discourage them. Trying to see what tape deck I have. Couldn’t take my walk. No way of getting out of 7 more months here. Kids moved on thank God.


    Cheering myself up with Zegger’s May Sinclair. More relieving than reading about poor Shirley Jackson. May rejected the system that gripped her. I feel like I interrupted my career (such as it was) to clean T’s house. I was a Disgraced Exotic Dancer probably getting too old anyway. Horrible. Think I have flu or something.

    Thurs 25 Oct 79
    Still feeling sick but just finished Honor Arundel’s Blanket Word and feel tremendous! Maybe I should write adolescent novels. Studying Awful Men in E. Bowen’s & R. Lehmann’s work. I prefer Monica Dickens who at least can handle resolution.

    Thurs 1 Nov 79
    I have been lucky to attract much love in my life. Genevieve met Danni Wisefield 5 years ago who asked, Are you related to Alysse Aallyn? Remembered me perfectly with so much love! Undeserved. Wonder if she ever went to that Swiss convent her parents threatened her with.
    Avril met Preston Pugh in an art gallery – he came up to her and reminisced lovingly about ME! Devon saw Avril dancing in a Concord, NH club and asked, “Are you related to Alysse Aallyn?”

    Mon 5 Nov 79 5:30 PM
    In the grips of a depression I can’t get out of. Cruel & disturbing, Toss left to go study, so I can’t bother him. Frightens me. Should go to library and take out pile of books. Some of the strength you need to be a writer is sheer stupidity. Doesn’t do to be too sensitive. I am happy with Toss but we do have communication problems. Don’t want drama with Families of Origin to traumatize our communication style.

    Toss asked me to make curtains for the entire house. I didn’t want to. Finally, when I announced I was ready, he suggested batiste half-panels I thought would look dumb. Not real curtains at all! We looked and looked at fabric, couldn’t agree on anything. He kept dragging out the batiste panels. Long ones aren’t so bad but I feel corralled. They come ready made, he needs my approval why? Just wants me to fulfill his vision? I couldn’t explain my anger. Why pretend you’re equal when only one has veto power?

    Keep trying like a fiend to gather dignity but everything seems to work me deeper in his debt. He offered a checking acct today! I explained he will have to put money in it. One of my financial gambits better work out.

    11:45 AM 16 Nov 79
    When to diarize? Mornings are for work, evenings I’m exhausted, nights for lovemaking. Merrill called to say she’s pregnant! Fun if our kids could be the same age. I bought wonderful African-patterned sheets on sale, sewed on rings (2 hrs needlework listening to Purcell’s Fairy Queen). They look FABULOUS and really dress the place up but T worries they’re “not good taste.” Who’s he trying to please? His mother and father have imaginative décor in their homes. (His Dad’s a fauvist painter!!!) It’s just so weird.


    Speechless should be done by Feb – submit Harper Awards? Feel completely inert. July/Aug wedding?

  • Embattled Love: The Diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    21 Sept 79


    Sex scene carries me to p. 201. Completely wiped out. Trying to read Eleanor Clark’s The Ball. Really in the mood for Edgar Allan Poe. Dinner with friends last night after T’s successful presentation – drank too much but didn’t get crazy. Still, angry at my lack of self-control. Gears shift so suddenly. The closer T gets the greater my terror. Well, we will lay new patterns down. Think T was proud of me – I was proud of him. But there’s too much going on. I am starting to feel voiceless like the people in my novel.

    26 Sept 79 –
    Hooks Lane chapter in crisis – not satisfied with it at all. Leave it and keep going.
    T said we must go to Philadelphia to see his mother. She was so depressed she went to a therapist who told her, “You have no support system.”


    Left Kentucky at 3 PM got to Phila 1:30 AM. Drive thoroughly pleasurable. His mother in very bad shape. Dreading upcoming weddings and her ex-husband’s family. We helped I think – T said he was very proud of me.


    Home to find Mary Ellen haunting the place – she can’t go back to that house and Jan doesn’t understand. Tried Catholic priest but nothing has worked. The little dog’s rash is worse and whole house a frightening mess. I feel exhausted. My youngest sister Avril calls very depressed – “Mr. Honesty” Dave has been lying to her and seeing another girl. Why am I not surprised? Says she wants to move too. Maybe Maine to be closer to Mom & Dad? I say she needs to rise up & denounce these rotten creeps. If she decides to go I can sell my Queens Chapel house!
    My lack of $$ starting to sting. After IBM and car insurance I have $150!!! Must sell the car, no other way.


    T had nightmare he married previous Bad Girlfriend Christy then saw me thru chain-link fence realized he’d made a terrible mistake!


    Much better evening than day. Ran a little, tomorrow we’ll do more. Shrimp chow mein, red pears, white wine.


    T got two letters from old girlfriends “checking in” to change his mind about marrying me. He says, “Alysse, you saved me from second best.”

    27 Sept 79
    Tremendously depressed about Speechless. How does anything ever get written? I’d ask somebody’s opinion but who do I respect? I can’t think of anybody unfortunately. Part III far too short. But I can’t “pad.” My house party at the Kimball’s now seems dumb. Phila trip screwed me up.
    Maybe just write gothic from scratch. Something crazy.

    Helluva eye opener reading adolescent diaries: how did I survive? Maybe I didn’t! Can one EVER tell the truth? Keep going back to my time in Massachusetts and molester Uncle Burt. Ugh. Aunt Nina let me read Mom & Dad’s letters (I WAS TWELVE) but told me not to let them know because “it would ruin their Christmas.” Uncle B lectured me about responsibility while copping a feel. Ulterior Motive Ranch.

    29 Sept 79
    Cheered up by finding complete synopsis of Bride & Wolves I can use! A little manic but not as extreme say as The Big Sleep. Complete with Evil Psychiatrist. I’m dropping him – Lover Ned’s all the evil I think I need.

    Mon 1 Oct 79
    Thoroughly enjoyable day lounging about reading Lofts’ Queens of England. Made 15 chap plan – finish Bride in 2 weeks!!


    Wonderful dinner with the Macafees last night – dull food but they told me Toss is WAY more physically affectionate with me than he ever was with other girlfriends! Hehehe. Milestone sex.

    Tues 2 Oct 79
    Reading Cookson’s The Girl for gothic insights. Thomas Hardy she is not. She is even more depressing than he ever was.


    Only got thru 10 p breaking my schedule as usual. Should I bring Kitten back from the dead? Can’t decide. Feel I am laying the foundation for the whole rest of my career. Shouldn’t be hard to earn $10,000 a year! Right? I feel better already.


    Good long run with T last night. Received 16 novels from Detective Book Club.

    Thurs Oct 4, 79
    Workday blown by farewell lunch party at Goldberg’s hotel. Tomorrow there’s a wedding at 2! Can’t believe 2 glasses wine gave me this sour headache.


    Should read no more of my diaries. Think my parents skipped their own adolescence. EX Ferrars’ In at the Kill a BIG disappointment. She should lose her membership in Detective Club for that one!! Boresville. #2 was Lucky to be Alive by Alice Cromie – another DUD! Makes Dorothy Eden look like Shakespeare. Starting to worry about modern publishing. Is my taste fatally out of whack with the rest of the world? That’s scary. I like to think I’m writing a “thriller”. Wish I had jewels I could sell.

    6 Oct 79
    Bride shaping up well, a “loose bag for anything” I want to throw in (Woolf.) 6 chaps so far – think I can get 60,000 words without too much trouble.


    Think I am jealous of this house – we painted 6 to 9. Toss definitely runs himself too hard. Chase elected him to ANOTHER position as well as law review editor.


    Last night I made dinner – fillet of sole in sherry, sour cream & chives with broccoli & salad. Jan showed up for dinner – luckily there was plenty – both praised my cooking extravagantly. Wine flowed. Discussed celibacy of clergy. I blame greed – church wants to own everything, like Ma Bell. Jan wants to spend the night (Mary Ellen’s at her mother’s) so he can watch Foreign Correspondent (he and Mary Ellen don’t approve of TV so have to use other people’s). He offered to help paint.


    Dinner – running – bath – reading – lovemaking – satisfying routine.


    Then today the wedding – can’t believe I survived it. Ex girlfriends Christina, Mindy & Cindy all there commenting on my lavender lace dress. Had only my burnt sienna leather jacket to wear over it. (Couldn’t afford to buy anything new.) Toss criticized the dress as “an old lady dress” on the hanger but admitted it looks nice on.


    Waiting for our ride while drinking sherry T said my face with makeup was “over defined.” I began to feel alarmed but too late to do anything about it! He said I sometimes dressed and made up as if I were 10 yrs older and had flaws to cover instead of “being a very beautiful woman” but he was afraid to tell me about it because of my feelings about my parents (their criticism I guess.) He said, “at least you don’t powder yourself any more like Marcel Marceau”! (I explained stage makeup is OBVIOUSLY different.)


    I said I was sorry he felt that way and particularly sorry he chose THAT moment to bring it up! I’m sure Mindy, Cindy & Christina were satisfied we were on the “outs”.


    Endlessly long super religious wedding. I was in a stew. I don’t even wear eyeliner! I wish he had given me some money but would I have used it on clothes & makeup? Probably not – I prefer writing and “staying alive”!


    So much emotionalism in the service I cried and he apologized. He said he was so proud of me and wanted everyone to feel the same. No more makeup for me. Financial savings!


    At the dull reception (bad jitterbug music) he formally introduced me to Christy who was COMPLETELY different from what I expected – at least a foot taller than Toss and very elegant (no makeup, alas.) After I came out of the ladies, T said Christina asked him to dance but he declined; “She had her chance.” He could NEVER have married her – a Professional Virgin. (She teaches at a Catholic school.) Impossible.


    Had to go shopping at Kroger’s after wedding for food – we were feeling better but he couldn’t stop justifying himself. Something about how “physically perfect” I am but not “psychologically perfect”! Made me sorry I’ve been honest with him – my parents are normal compared to his parents! I told him he’s lacking in charity.


    That shut him up.


    What is to become of this young, earnest couple? Life is short, marriage long. This engagement going on too long? I tell Toss I think we are separated by a thin membrane from understanding each other. This is me – trying hard to see you – on the other side. I am beginning to accept parts of him I wouldn’t have recognized in a police lineup.

  • Embattled Love: The Diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Tues. 11 Sept 79 –
    Every day catalogue.
    Jan & Mary Ellen to dinner – she has black eye but otherwise seems no different. Does not disparage new house where they still plan to live.


    Mom sends separate letters to me & T. I feel she is on “his side” not mine. She thinks “living together” is at the heart of all our problems (secretly, she probably thinks it’s my “exhibitionism”. Me, the shy introvert!)


    Reading Self-Starvation about how children make enemies of their own bodies in reaction to growing up. Tremble with recognition. Mom said things in her letter she could only know from what I wrote to my older sister Genevieve. That outlet stopped. Feeling a rush of mature personal power – I’m moving beyond them.


    New novel Speechless is a bloody struggle. Writing about things too close to me. Wrote my first seriously bad scene – the adults all together.


    3:50 PM – too upset after letter from Genevieve to write. She has been robbed of her honest feelings – she is just pumping up and down on the merry go round. They obviously think T will get sick of me soon but can’t decide if that is good or bad. My insistence on having a “real relationship” means I’ll never have one! Silly me. Need to do housework – or something – till I feel better. Shouldn’t try to write when feeling so despondent.

    Midnight – Bath & Facial. Toss beautifully aroused – we made love TWICE. He says I am only girl he ever wanted to marry. Feel even our most terrible problems are being slowly overcome. Routine & diet coming under control. Dream of the Rood unsuccessful book.

    12 Sept 79 – Magnificent day only half over. Charting novel – seems “completeable.” Starting research for short story Demon. No bad mail – no guilt about housecleaning – send off Walt Whitman entry. Sylvia Plath provides poetic incentive – I can’t put her down.

    14 Sept 79 – Woke 4 am to tremendous whoosh – hackberry tree coming in window spreading shimmering shivering glass across floor. Went downstairs – more broken windows – tree leaning against house. Seemed to come out of nowhere. Put on coffee and called Toss at the newspaper where he works part-time.


    He came home looking so handsome in wheat jeans & fishermen’s sweater bringing a photographer from the newspaper to take pics. Started calling people at 8 am. Insurance doesn’t want to pay so he called his insurance law professor.


    Trying to read Robt Penn Warren – finished me for novels. The whole thing, after many premature burials, killed stone dead p. 300. Even there it didn’t stop. Can’t blame him for publishing it. It’s the publishers fault. If this was a woman’s novel they would flatten it. Never see the light of day. Retreat to Woolf’s diary where I plan to be for rest of week. Reading my diaries emotionally draining but inspiring. I’m up to 3 pages on The Repudiated Journals of Yuna Roe-Smith which is a lot of fun. The whole Ryder saga, though, is beyond depressing.


    I had forgotten Mom wanted me to marry Armon and cried over his mother’s mean phone calls! Horrible Armon! What ashram would I be suffering in now? O, for a trustworthy literary executor instead of more family myth victims.


    T. and I discuss travel – Portugal, Ireland and the literary tour of Eng. He prepares frightening presentation for Justice Goldberg. We will celebrate with Graves couple to dinner – turkey? My piece de resistance of hot, garlicky potato salad.

    Sat 15 Sept 79 –
    Insurance will pay. Celebrate one of our many anniversaries with muffins for breakfast. Nice cool fall day – I can wear a sweater! T says after Goldberg he will set up his new study and his old study becomes our dressing room. Good, I need closet space. Type 10 p without a break – T at library – do my exercises – hand laundry. Novel going uncommonly well except for constant awareness of what I cannot do. Tonight spaghetti & green salad. Didn’t realize I was clenching my jaw as I wrote. Sore.

    Sun 16 Sept 79 – T hands me his mother’s legal file – tells me I can read it! Found exactly what I need to portray Alva. She told her kids she was allergic to their father’s sperm!! Ask if I can incorporate T’s letter to his father about StormFall into Speechless.


    Can’t read African diaries. Forgot I threatened to kill myself. Needed child psychologist in a major way. Parents were always staggering around blindfolded. No map ever suits the new terrain.

    17 Sept 79
    Finished Part I, on to Part II. Looked everywhere for Generation of Millionaires – can’t find it. Rats. I was sure I could use almost all of it.


    Letter from oldest sister Merrill tells me I have to separate from M & D for my own emotional mental health. Can I do it AFTER wedding? Reading Women in Love. Think its wasted on me.

    18 Sept 79
    Up to p 145 but feel I am just beginning. I need to write another gothic – it would be easier. Dumped D.H. Lawrence’s Women In Love in favor of Hahn’s Lorenzo which I can actually enjoy.
    Useless trying to clean our room – T has nowhere to hang his clothes! We must construct a closet out of pass-through bedroom. This is a crazy place – longing for my own house. Yesterday such a magnificent dinner – chicken stew, wine, liqueur, pears, nuts & brie – we decided to skip dinner tonight. I love him so much but still feel like a wayfarer unrevealed. Sometime I wonder if 29 is too old to fall in love. M & D called – good conversation. To bed with History of Modern Poetry.

  • The Diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Queens Chapel Rd, Washington D. C. 3:30 Thurs 30 Aug 79


    Belongings packed. I’m in shock. Crawled into the bath with a vodka tonic and now I’m feeling better. Trying to figure out how to approach parents for money. Maybe they could give me my own stock as engagement present?


    My sense of helplessness is NOT a good sign for T’s and my relationship. He can’t “make” me independent! I have to do it myself. I’m doing this guy no favors handing him a woman on the edge of breakdown.

    4:25PM – My darling just called! Relief! He borrowed a truck from somebody so although we’ll have to drive separately we won’t have movers to cope with. He’s driving it out here so I can sleep as late as I like which I really need. Reading Robert Ludlum’s perfectly ludicrous Matarese Circle. In 100 yrs people will wonder how we stomached this stuff. Avril and I going to Olney theatre to see The Bat tonight.

    Newport Kentucky – Tues 4 Sept. 79
    Reading old high school loveletters for something I can use in Blood Memory now renamed Speechless.


    T. ebbs in and out of stranger-hood. He told his friends I used to be an exotic dancer – because he says he can’t “lie” but I think it was a bad idea. One obscene phone call so far. Don’t like the way they stare at me.

    Last night we made love twice. I especially like to watch him sleeping – the perfection of his profile is heart-rending. But his angers are so weirdly arbitrary. Not against me so far. I am divided on what to do – if I ignore it will it be somehow programmed that I’ll stay reasonable while he’s outrageous? But if I don’t “let it slide” it’s non-stop arguments. Went to a famous restaurant to drink mint juleps last night and ended up in a silly argument about whether he has any misogynistic ideas or not. I proved he did (he thinks women “act stupid”) but that didn’t make him happy!


    He’s given me the entire third floor of his house with glorious views over the city – I spend most of my time up here. Total furniture so far: a desk and a lounge chair. It somewhat makes up for the fact that he presented me with a new vacuum cleaner – obviously thinking I’m going to clean for him. Uh oh! Misogynistic idea #763. Mostly I am incredibly happy. At about 8 I’ll start the casserole & set the table.

    Newport, KY: 10:15 AM Wed 5 Sept 79
    The electricians have been here for 2 hrs driving me insane. T ordered impossibly ugly furniture from Horchow catalog – luckily agreed to send it back. Enjoying A Certain Slant of Light. Point of view not a problem for this writer. Next Drabble’s The Ice Age. Project: The Contemporary Novel.
    The irrevocableness of marriage. My children mutely regard my choice. The hopelessness of explaining myself to any of T’s friends. Rain. Any excuse not to take a walk (T lives in bad neighborhood.) At least there’s a fenced yard for the dogs. Feel like a girl in a gothic novel except for the constant sex which makes it a different kind of novel. Break with the past.

    6 Sept 79 – 2 PM
    Impossibly intense happiness. Peace & joy. Feel we have been standing in a dinghy trying to balance. Equilibrium is everything.


    Toss suffering recurring nightmares that I leave him to go back to DC Can’t reassure him while I’m struggling to balance. Moves upset me to a terrifying degree. Let’s hope the next is last till kids are born. I recall when I got to Maine took me a full month to get my neuroses under control. 4 good pages on my latest novel. Molly Lefebrve’s book on Coleridge fascinating. T & I up at 8 AM to go shopping. Laid in a glorious supply food & drink – I gave him check for my ½. He is slightly alarmed I won’t open checking acct here. But he did say he can no longer afford the allowance he promised me and I’m too proud to complain. Must make money writing. Should take a walk right now – wake myself up. But light a little scorching – longing for fall.

    12:50 PM Fri Sept 8 – 79
    Long letter from Devon full of love and caring – his girlfriend sounds so wrong for him – she’s a prudish fundamentalist: what was he thinking? Must we marry our nightmares?


    Perilously close to a bad argument last night – somehow Toss & I got over it. Trying to treat his ideas with respect. Our family has a ban on displays of anger – his doesn’t! In Sheffield World the angriest person wins because they “care” the most. Or are just willing to behave worse, I suggest.
    I get angry when he postpones our wedding AGAIN. He thinks we can’t “raise the money”. I say just make it a family party on the lawn. He says “a piece of paper doesn’t marry us”. BUT IT DOES. Why does “piece of paper” make him a lawyer, I ask? “That’s different.”


    “Maybe next summer” does not sound good. Thanksgiving would be the easy thing – he says no – so I suggest spring vacation – he says Sept a year from now! Wants to have graduated into a law job. I think it is better to get wedding stuff out of the way. Now he’s trying to talk me into living near his mother in the city but I hate cities. Impasse. Seems I don’t need to cut very deeply to see pus.
    Can’t speed up the intimacy process much as I want to. Trying to detangle Mom & Dad’s puritanical creepers out of my own mind gives me a headache. At least T is making dinner tonight. If it weren’t for alcohol I don’t know if we’d pull through. Loving Christina Stead’s Miss Herbert.

    6:40 PM Long letters to Devon and Merrill, then when T came home I wept for an hour. Apologized. This is heavy work. T shocked me by suggesting we “spend the summer here”. My traumatized response showed how much I think I am “camping out.”

    Mon. 10 Sept 79 – Finished mad disturbing Miss Herbert then walk in dark with dogs. People’s complex rationalizations for the arcs, crests & troughs of their lives bear no actual relationship to what’s really going on says Stead, and I think I agree. Order & purpose come in a dream – then flash away again. I think I like Herbert even better than Dark Places of the Heart. Weird publishers’ blurb says they themselves don’t understand this novel! Poor Stead!


    War with my current novel struggles a snails’ pace 3 pages. Keep longing to write here like I’m on the verge of some great discovery. Want to read my old diaries – make notes – but that would be a massive undertaking. With NO effect on novel.


    In the meantime poor T and I continue our struggling course. On Friday his friend poor Mary Ellen was raped in her new house! I told T this was a bad neighborhood! I think I’d be scared if I didn’t have dogs. Jan and Mary Ellen left for their vacation early. Told T they should come here when they get back – she should not have to live in that house again. Great thing about this house is 3 floors and 4 bedrooms (2 bathrooms.)


    Last night we lay naked face to face kissing and talking about the amazingness of our love. It is astounding. We’re riding a tiger and trying to tame it.


    Saw Marquise of O – came home to delicious steak dinner – went a tour of restored houses after. Poor T trying to “sell” me on the area. I pine for our new Pennsylvania house just for us alone. So what is the answer? How does one give true weight to ideas & things?


    To conservatory to see plants – home for fabulous lovemaking. Good weekend.