Unspeakably rotten dinner at the Cosmo Club with Usher Glayne. Forget him and his majestic New England genes. He is simply “collecting” me as his latest oddity. He has “so many warm, women artist” friends but no dancer yet (he’s way overdosed on poets) and he drifts from one “presence” to another, sucking wattage like some radioactive swamp monster. He and his wife have an “understanding” which probably means she has no idea where the hell he ever is and nobody’s had sex in eons. Can’t I do better than this?
In spite of the fact that I’m a declassee person who doesn’t know where her next sexual or emotional meal is coming from I think I must insist on a note from wifey before taking this matter further. According to his poetry he associates sexuality with evil – not that I’m physically attracted to him –
– it’s just so piquant to be with a man who gets a fresh barber’s shave right before seeing you. (It’s been awhile).
I don’t think he listened to a thing I said, just
gazed at me rapturously. I tried getting him interested in helping me write a screenplay for Faulkner’s Mosquitoes – to me a completely ignored, obviously filmable work. He dismisses, “It’s been done.”
Well it may have been “treated” BY SOMEBODY but the point is, it hasn’t been treated by us and it hasn’t been filmed and it would be WONDERFUL. Couldn’t ignite him. He really doesn’t want to talk about writing with me – I guess he has other people for that. I was so happy when our “date” ended I could have wept for joy. On the other hand I am sorry to see these millions slip away. My children could have used them, not to mention all my fantasies of early retirement busted. Looks like I have no one to depend on but myself. Enjoying Monica Dickens’ enchanting The Moon was Low. But had to buy a Quaalude from Maureen to get to sleep.
Finished V. Sackville-West’s The Devil at Westease.
I can’t figure out why she wrote it. She speaks entirely in lost codes.
I really dragged myself in to work today. That’s how you know you’re working too much. Letter from Devon – he’s off to California to “find himself.” What he really wants is any way to figure out how to be a minister in a state of sexual abandon and he instinctively knows if the answer is anywhere, it is in California.
On the other hand, will this really turn out to be what he wants? Not if I know him. The only good news about him is that his genes are impeccable. Plus, I’m very depressed about my writing.
Spreading myself too thin – thinking about one project while working on another. My Secaire book is starting to get ridiculous, but I want to follow up this “satanic rites” thing to see where it goes. Why did I come up with it? What does it mean? Who knows? Cheap and derivative everyone would probably say at this point. Yet it holds some interest for me.
Love and sex as hostage-taking. The question is, who’s the hostage and who’s the keeper?
Could it be hours of research, prose and bitching produce only a single poem? Lucky if so.
Even if it’s a mess.
Also miserable about money and my body. Buying the house was a great idea – I love it – however, there are constant expenses I can’t ignore that keep me chained to this goddam stage and dressing room.
My mortgage calls for my monthly payment to increase next year – I could worry about that if I wanted to. And then I always respond to depression and worry with a desire to eat which of course threatens my job. (Sigh.) Tips down –
(maybe I should buy a wig.) And my face is all broken out so I have to use heavy makeup – and my skin doesn’t like that.
Party Castle 8:20 PM Fri May 18 – 1979
Fasting all day so feel much better. Two more sets. I am the only dancer willing to dance to Baker Street so they keep playing it for me and it is a tiring song. However all that stretching is good for my muscles probably. Reading A Time to Keep Silence. Secaire has got me on a religious kick.
Genevieve’s Apt. off the Park – NYC – Sun 20 May 79
It’s me laughing and joking and eating a whole box of Entemann’s cookies – and it’s not me. Family. The constant ache of having so little of myself accepted. It’s like being with people like Usher, really – they want such a little piece of you. The worst part is, you get so used to the pain you can’t imagine life without it. Thank God I am usually content to be alone.
Went to the Whitney – gave me some ideas to recast Memory – unfortunately not ideas people will like. I want to make it even more choppy and episodic– rather than “telling the story –“ which is what everyone seems to want. But that’s the only way I can get excited about it.
Reading it would be like visiting an art gallery.
Queen’s Chapel Rd – Tues 22 May 79
That trip helped. I feel better, more focused. My
new agent submitted Memory to Putnam who loved it but said they had
just published a book with incest theme! Goddamn it all to hell. But theirreaction cheered me up – they didn’t say anything about choppy, episodic, incomprehensible motives, etc. So maybe I’m a real novelist and not just a bad poet hungry for money. Making plans for The Lives of the Dancers–
– a poem for each one. Fun. More fun than novelizing with such a hideous plot –
– can’t seem to get my people out of the airport.
Write a haiku BECAUSE THEY’RE EASY. Relief.
Harness UP – ON WEARING A BRA
Two kinds of clothes –
Comfortable and un:
Two viewpoints:
Supportive and –
Fasting again today. So horribly fat right before my period
it would not surprise me to go into labor onstage. Apparently no one else has noticed I have lost my waist. Have agreed to see Devon in Boston next month.
I am going off birth control so we will see what happens. I feel sure I can get him into bed. But never telling him he is a father? Can I pull it off? I might try.
Getting past block in my novel by having different characters tell different parts of the story.
I give up on Pamela Hansford Johnson. Holiday Friend is The Perfectionists all over again– but not as good.
Party Castle 12:35 AM – Fri 25 May 79
Funny how it all comes together sometimes. Dancing tonight has been ecstasy – is it the fasting? I am cutting my schedule at the Plush Palace – the audience here is so much better. They are really quiet and intense. Probably because it’s so close to the FBI. They get the same relaxation from watching us that you get from a tank of tropical fish. Except of course with that sexual frisson reminding you you’re alive. Read Laura Hobson’s The Tenth Month– pretty shocked by a doctor who would prescribe Nembutal to a pregnant woman. But that’s the way they were back in the Dark Ages.
Now I’m on Highsmith’s Edith’s Diary– which is
fabulous – the review in New York Times was downright immoral. Books should not be reviewed by the stylistically tone deaf. Reviewer should be open to many styles – I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
Went on stage tonight glittering with body jewelry – big stones. Big tips. FBI very supportive of the warrior look.
depressing reading. I wish “survivors” seemed more enviable, considering the alternative is Death at the Height of Glory. The good news about a long life is, you can accumulate quite a body of work – the bad news is your instrument
becomes increasingly deranged.
Dreadful schedule this week – 5 shifts including one double. Present of $2500 “house gift” from Dad means I don’t need to accept
but I would have to quit and I’m not ready. These are the best places to dance with the best managers – I don’t want to get thrown into some of the compromising situations I’ve heard tell of. Plus they just let me up and leave for vacation whenever I want. Can’t play that hole card too often.
Spent all day wandering the mazes of literature – look at Lillian Hellman – surely she’s getting very bizarre. She’s a “history fixer” and no one wants artists doing that.
3:20 PM Tues 27 Mar 79
A bad day doesn’t make a bad week thank God.
Got drunk with Maureen last night, (too much sherry in our tea) but with careful diet and lots of sleep I bounce back. Anne Lindbergh’s Flower &Nettle a great improvement on previous volumes. Tantalized by Rosamond Lehmann, who ought to be my next project. Pledge: I AM HAVING ALL MY HAIR CUT OFF MAY 1!!!
Starlight 8:30 PM Thurs 29 Mar 79
Joselle plies me with Chablis – I succumb to get her to spill her secrets – but her secret seems to be she’s thinking of turning lesbian and her gaze on me seems somewhat fixed. Or am I imagining things?
Two glasses of wine on an empty stomach and I’m a goner. God knows I long for the flesh – those “brown motherly furrows” as Plath calls them are in need of plowing. Would I have to exclaim over her body the way men exclaim over me?
It just doesn’t sound fun. If only she were less female. More boyish. Order a cheeseburger to snap myself back to reality. This is a dangerous world to be hungry in.
Reading Randall Jarrell’s Third Book of Criticism.
I enjoy him enormously.
11PM – Shank of the evening. I am dancing superbly but tips very bad. The approach of tax time or are they simply seeing too much of me? The latter, no doubt. Went to the health club today but I won’t renew when my experimental month is up. I was seduced by their sauna and masseur but need something closer to home.
Starlight 2:30 PM Sat 31 Mar 79
Hot day – sun behind clouds – the sky is violet and the air intense – looks like rain, but I’m overflowing with joy and luck and good fortune. Just ate an enormous chef’s salad and two cups of coffee.
All I needed for returned confidence was one big tipper and a non-suicidal letter from Devon. (He’s been depressed.)
Obviously, it will never work out between us. We would be in competition each trying to get the other to play caretaker. I need too damn much care. It would be madness. Discuss this over vod & tons with Avril. Invited back to Mulberry Island, but also got a card to the Bullets opening (which I prefer.) Reading The World, the Flesh and Father Smith. Dancing very well – what a pity I’m “sculpting in snow”. Feeling “in tune” opens a clear lens to the soul.
9PM Tues 3 Apr 79
Buying spree with A. Bought a pile of silk shirts and a satin whipcord coat & skirt (black). Immortal piece I should still be wearing thirty years from now. We had a lovely lunch at Third Edition – reminiscing about our lovers’ bodies – what we treasure most – I vote for the flock of milky-white scars above Devon’s buttocks. Aaah. Intimations of glorious, irreproducible mortality. I am also irate at not hearing from Usher and even more irate at myself for being irate. He is obviously a no go so what’s wrong with me? I think I may be like those explorers expiring for lack of vitamin C.
Need to force myself to eat raw blubber just to save my life. It’s a wonder anyone survives.
Reading 3rd vol David Garnett’s autobiog – what an unlikeable human being.
Car pooped out on us will cost $250 to fix.
Starlight 9:15 PM Wed 4 Apr 79
I hate wasted days. Drove all the way to White Flint Mall to pick up my rhinestone glasses – a pin broke on them – and all the way back. Grrr.
Not liking Robt Frost’s letters and Christina Stead’s House of Nations is even harder to get into. But things looking up on diet front. Fewer binges. 5 days of rain, and a power mogul in the audience who keeps instructing me on how to please him. I curtsy down to the floor very gracefully and pretend I don’t speak English.
Starlight 8:25 PM Sun 8 Apr 79
Burst of freedom rescues me from inertia. My best moments are intense enjoyment of the present: must write and examine everything. Revel in my own growth – including comprehension that Usher Glayne can’t be my crutch. Lost 4 lbs eating apples and feel good – refuse to take a guy’s tip because he licked his lips at me. Yuck.
Jervaze came into the bar last night, dragging his
shame-filled self across the floor. I couldn’t resist suggesting he come home with me – he was so excited – love poured
out of him like a dizzying force. I browsed greedily on his beautiful body. It was like plugging into an electric current. He moaned, “You’re so good to me” but when my orgasm came it was just a little pop – uncorking a bottle of stale champagne. So goodbye to all that. Masturbation is really a lot less trouble.
Out to China Syndrome movie tomorrow with Avril.
John Middleton Murray is a blubbering blabster. Usher sent me a poem entitled “I dream of starting off with you” which was obviously not written for me. Took her name out and slammed my name in. What could go wrong? What a pity we leave choice up to men when they so clearly have no idea what they are doing.
3:30 PM – Dumbarton Oaks – Sat 14 Apr 79
Enjoying a day of full sun. Beautiful carved stone bench –
– azaleas in full bloom – peace. Woke up determined to finish taxes – offices
closed! When can people go if they work all week? Beats me. But it would take more than a late filing to bother me – feel blissful. Approaching Plath from the question of her reputation. Determined to write and to learn to see movies alone.
Last night awful sets with Zach – I don’t like his new band.
He couldn’t seem to play guitar and sang off-key. Promises of a future have taken his present away. My heart went out to him – ordered a bottle of champagne to cheer him up. Late dinner – I ordered catfish in a spirit of adventure (not good) he ordered what he always has – chicken & fries.
He told me about the times he’s been mugged and his belief in magic – I didn’t believe any of it. He was full of insecurities about Usher – I decided to act like we have a relationship to make it easier to get rid of Z later on. He “retaliated” by describing his affair with his friend’s 48 yr old divorced mother back on the coast. Sure, sure. Asked to come home with me. I said no.
Plush Palace – Mon 23Apr 11PM
God Malcolm Muggeridge is unpleasant (Jesus
Rediscovered) and not even Christian. Makes Waugh look like the author of Sermon on the Mount. Trying to figure out how I would address God:
What would I say?
Beautiful note from Devon saying, “I love you dearly”.
Sweet. The silenter I am the more he adores me. Sent a copy of my Plath essay to Usher – we’ll see what he says. Agent passed along a very flattering rejection on Memory – I am “too much” of a poet! Since I have just concluded(with Usher’s help) that I am no poet at all this cheered me up enormously.
Airborne today – dancing really well. It’s the fasting. Feel a shimmering force field all around me.
Starlight – 12:45 AM – Thurs 25 Apr 79
Dragging myself around this AM – my own fault for indulging in Irish coffee and caramel ice cream last night. 2nd anniversary party at the PACIFICA radio station and I thought, That might be fun! It was a disaster. I took Avril and we were immediately cornered by the club bore. (I had to give him a fake phone no just to get rid of him.)
Plus they charged us for our drinks! Rod was there – tight and prim – probably fearful I would attack him about his nonexistent dance story – I put him at his ease. Left after an hour and Avril and I “drowned our disappointment” in the usual way (it felt good at the time.) Ross & Tom should be required reading for egomaniacs.
Plush Palace 9 PM Mon 30 Apr 79
Had my hair cut today and dyed platinum blonde – like the color not the cut. I wanted it all off – she asked to “try something” and if I didn’t like it she would “fix it for free”. Of course, I don’t like it but I didn’t have the time to stay and have it re-done. I think it’s almost too much trouble to go back – get somebody else to fix it. Everyone likes color however; I needed a boost. But it’s not what I pictured – looks like a medieval “bowl” cut to me.
Fistfight! Guy dragged out of the club in handcuffs. Joselle says too bad; he was such a good tipper.
Feel too old tonight – I obviously need a vacation but the only one I can take is in my own mind. I love the house but it always needs something.
I was perched on the edge of celibacy but Jervaze showed up last night. Fabulous sex! Turned out to be worth it! 2 Hrs (I counted!) Oh, bliss. Reading very bad romantic suspense – ARelative Stranger. It’s a serious problem that I hate everything popular.
2:30 PM Wed May 2 79
Perfect day at home. Worked on poems listening to Mozart.
Got my “medieval bowl” changed to “little boy” haircut – it’s wonderful! Do nothing to my hair anymore! Don’t have to wash it, brush it or even look at it! Of course, I have to deal with all the sobbing men at the clubs. Turns out long hair is a powerful masculine fetish. I consider pretending I’m a different person – but I have the same old costumes. New stage name? Wonder if “Colette” is taken. Guess I didn’t plan this very well.
Yesterday overeating so today it’s a fast – only coffee. Phone keeps ringing I refuse to answer. It’s probably Paz begging me to come in and sub for some dancer who had an onstage breakdown. Reading Wagenknecht’s “psychograph” of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Interesting.
Sun 6 May 79 -1:50 PM
Avril and I drove to St Michaels yesterday – such a pleasure –
– I remember sailing into that port. It’s so beautiful I fantasize about buying a house and “retiring” there. I tell A, you get the country house, I’ll have the town house we can go back and forth. She says she does not want to live with her sister FOREVER! Why not when I’m so perfect?
Delicious lunch of soft-shelled crabs and homemade coconut cream pie. Didn’t get to work till 6:40 and I was the only dancer till 9 PM! Apparently previous dancer unconscious in dressing room and ambulance was called. Sorry I missed it. Eddy gave me extra $$ but told me I can’t wear my black jade rosary on stage (too many complaints). Too bad – it looks so good with white collar and cuffs. He says the place has been sold again and we will be getting new management. Hope it’s not Tony.
Plush Palace – 10:10 PM – Mon May 7 – 79
Would like to break my 2 day fasting record but I got up at 5:30 AM this morning and was just too hungry. Cucumber sandwiches with lots of pepper on whole wheat bread…mmmmm. Here’s my latest plan –
– rewrite Secaire and Blood Memory – get pregnant Sept 1 1980, have baby May 81! Father as yet unknown. Certainly not Jervaze whose family is terrifying. Crazy, huh? Reading The Restless Journey of James Agee.
Tues 8 May 79 – 4:45 PM
Great day’s work on Secaire. Not “done” but better.
Completely new scene showing why Hank and Nilssa are attracted to each other. 10 P!!! Celebrated by going out to buy new notebooks. Sniff the paper hungrily. New lighting at the Palace very bad – guess who came in to audition? Brandy! I told manager she was lying about her age so he wouldn’t hire her.
Nobody wants to work with her. She’s a grenade with the pin removed.
Interesting book by Louis Cassells about the differences between religious faiths. So far I like Unitarianism best but want to expose my kids to as many different ones as possible and let them choose. Joselle keeps asking me if she’s going to be in my book. (I’m afraid she thinks I cut my hair for her.) I start instead a poem beginning “the chaste warrior sleeps only with his prey…” Bad! Sad.
3PM Thurs 10 May 79 – Plush Palace
New manager Jasper comes in. Seems nice. I curtsy very low. Yesterday fasted till evening – wrote 7 pages – walked dogs then Avril & I saw Truffaut’s Love on the Run and went out to dinner. White pizza with plenty of garlic. Usher is reading at a NJ college – invites me to go with him. Hmm. Needing a pair of hot pink pants to visit this college in.
9:30 PM Fri night 11 May 1979
No hot pink pants. Did find a nice pair of aqua polished cotton jeans and matching high-heeled shoes. Usher phoned and we commiserated about publishing. Avril and I went to see the movie, A LittleRomance. Very good. Long walk with dogs, further exploring our new neighborhood. People keep their lawns very tidy around here. Since I refuse to do ovens, windows or lawns, house-pride like this could present a problem.
Must hire out. I’m bored with my job, but it pays the bills so well I don’t think I can make changes till July. But who knows what lies just over the horizon? Reinventing oneself could be the greatest pleasure there is.
Plush Palace – Sat night 12 May 1979
Another exhausting goodbye with Jervaze. I wore see-through chiffon bell-bottoms and flowered Qiana shirt – gratified to see they had their effect. He said he will always feel the same about me, always be jealous of the person I marry. I must say I now wish he would just go away. Which he’s supposed to do – off to Alabama. Again. I am not, shall we say, invited to this on-again, off again wedding. Awww. Feeling emotionally drained – only 30 short hours till I see Usher and I want to be witty and “on.” As opposed to slack-jawed and twitching.
Queen’s Chapel – 4:30 PM Sun May 13 -79
Dragged Avril to Unitarian church. There was a woman minister. I found the service satisfying enough and the church (River Road) very beautiful. They seem to have a lot going on – discussion groups, plays, theology class. I could be interested if I had the time. Unfortunately everyone seems old. Could I overcome my misanthropy to go alone? Remains to be seen. The church has a bookstore – I bought an interesting book on female contemplatives. I’m contemplating a future as a single parent.
Feel a faint hormonal stirring. (Avril says it’s the house.) Who’s the lucky guy?
Jervaze would have been perfect if it wasn’t for that alcoholic gene.
And I don’t think I could hide a baby from Devon for the rest of his life. Usher probably has some impressive genes along with the vast millions to which he constantly alludes. On the other hand, the kid he does have sounds defective.
Need to get clear about his marital status.
Queen’s Chapel – 9:30 PM May 15 -79
Bad visit to NJ with Usher. Thank God it wasn’t an overnight. First he showed up in a Mercedes he described as “the color of Lena Horne’s skin”. UGH! Next – brace yourself – he wanted to hide me from his audience!! Dumped me at an antique bookstore (that part wasn’t a total waste –
– bought the diaries of Cynthia Asquith) then took me out to an apologetic dinner.
I was so annoyed I commanded everything to be set on fire – fondue, oysters,
and 2 desserts. (He chose a very good wine. It was the least he could do.)
He didn’t want to talk about his reading – said if I had attended there would have been “too many questions”. And as artists, aren’t we SCARED TO DEATH of questions? Aren’t we?
keep my bills current. Bryony wailing because the state took her children away.
Sometimes seems like the pain of the helpless is smothering the world. Tony’s
the bouncer tonight and he’s all for letting the men stick their bills down the girls’ G-strings! No thank you. Wait till Gentleman Randy hears about this.
Reading a bad German mystery – the mystery being why he wrote it, how it got published and why I’m reading it. Fantasizing celebrating spring by getting all my hair cut off. Hmmm. Jean Seberg? Could be sexy.
Wish I’d brought Kafka’s Letters. Making
huge floor pillows for my housewarming party. Longing to sink into classical music & bubble bath, followed by Oleg Cassini sheets & cup of diet cocoa. Having my own house really is a dream come true.
Mon 20 Feb 79 – 12:20 AM
Such a depressing party I got drunk just to be “out” of it. Avril & Ben making out in a corner all evening. Usher brought me books and a bird of paradise flower, Stockley gave me a beautifully framed tiny drawing of crustaceans –
but then cancelled that by attempting to corner me all evening. He covers up the soul he doesn’t believe in with a repellant fleshy brutality – life is kill and conquer –
– eat or be eaten. Honestly, now I’m scared of him. Afraid to even argue with him for fear of launching something irreversible. Luckily, he next fastened his lasers on Yvonne. Poor Yvonne. Save yourself, I should say but was relieved to be off target.
Plan to ask Paz to schedule me for just two nights. On a self-dare,
I sent my poem about Rossetti’s model to Usher.
LIZZIE SIDDALL: The Woeful Victory
Be still or I can’t paint you.
It is evening and
I almost knew you. Who are you
Fair one? Your mouth is stuffed
With poppy hair
Fate coils between your breasts
A snake –
Your tongue’s torn out.
You must be the echo of my thoughts.
(“I am the motionless cradle.”)
Your flesh takes fire from my setting sun.
Can you free me, O Lady of the Sundial?
My eyes grow dim.
(“Perfect love’s not found this side of heaven.”)
I shall paint you vermilion
Butcher nightingales and use their tongues for brushes
Melting foil & verdigris
To the tune of Canterbury bells.
Stay awhile, Fair one.
I almost thought you spoke.
(“I am the face rising from the pool
to drag the drinker deep.”)
I will bury you in manuscripts, I will
Visit when there’s time. Someday
We might marry, but
I am not whole, dear lady.
I am not myself.
Who are You?
(“I am thyself. What hast thou done to me?”)
Tues 28 Mar 78
Extraordinary spiritual experience. A haunting. Someone standing behind me in the empty house. I turned and no one was there but power only increased. At first I was afraid – then felt a melting richness of love –
– coming at me, into me from outside of me. I realized it was Jesus. Relief. Followed by –
Confidence.
Of course, afterwards I question it all over the place.
How could I be so certain? Maybe just an ordinary haunting by a peculiarly loving ghost? Maybe a thing in my head? But I do have that memory of certainty and bliss to cling to. Very powerful. It’s out there – somewhere.
Starlight Thu 14 Mar 79 – 10:00 PM
Started out as a very bad night – trying to dance myself exhausted – then some guy tipped me a $50 and I ate an orange and now –
I feel better. (Feeling so unbearably fat I bought diet pills. Then “dinner” of cashews and wine.) Finished Prayerbook for a Skeptic – I liked it. Fortunately, I brought along a ton of reading. Had to dump Joyce Carol Oates’ Do With MeWhatyou Will when I became disgusted with zombie heroine. NOT as good as The Hungry Ghosts (but reminiscent of McCarthy’s Groves of Academe.) I’m in the mood for something different. Not, however, C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves which is deeply annoying. Women are “unqualified” to be “true friends”. Isn’t that the “know your place” argument?
Maybe what I need is Thos Merton’s, Seeds of
Contemplation. How to switch the physical into the spiritual – that’s what I can’t figure out. Sexual longings intense – my body on fire.
No wonder monks beat themselves. Peace and
concentration in the dressing room – we are all doing doubles. Yvonne is fine. She is more than a match for Stockley – saw through him without a problem. She just acts interested in all men regardless. On principle.
She says if you want to choose, you’ll have to compare offers. So sensible.
Tomorrow a day of cleaning & working in my study.
Sun. 18 Mar 1:50 PM.
Terrible nightmare about Usher Glayne. His face
melted showing the skull underneath – two hideous holes of darkness. The world is fierce, cruel, we are all hobbled. Wake to astonishingly gorgeous day.
Worked on expanding short story Erin – cleaning away deadwood –
– it’s only going to be 30,000 words but the hell with it. Can’t “produce” to “compete”. Want to find the intrinsic shape buried within. The secret meaning. Letting it speak for itself makes me happy.
Adoring Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. (Wish I had written it.)
Then it’s off to the library á la bicyclette for more theology books to understand my haunting.
Apparently lots of people have had it.
Obviously, I should worry more about Success and the fact that I’m dirt poor but I am interested in a different kind of immortality.
I have arranged my life so carefully to do exactly what I want.
Seems a shame to ruin it now.
12:30 PM Mon 19 Mar 78
It’s a problem that I don’t like Usher’s poetry. At least he talks about sperm and chastity so presumably is not yet dead from the waist down. He’s successful and I am not, so criticism from me sounds like sour grapes. I call to thank him for the books he send me; a woman who is probably his wife answers. Should I be embarrassed? We are NOT having A Thing. So, why?
Out in the yard with dogs trying to read Teilhard de Chardin. Hot sun.
Café Rabelais, Wed 21 Mar 79 3:25 PM
Pleasant 3 hr lunch with Usher discussing literature
– he had to run away leaving me with my coffee. Tried to get me to pretendto be willing to date his friend who is wheelchair bound. I have a feeling this was the whole point of the lunch. I want to talk about literature, he wants to give me away to his friends. I said No. But couldn’t I just make nice? I said no.
I’m not that kind of nice.
I took revenge by asking if he lives with his wife.
He said “sort of”. Their child is “a problem”. No one can write within a mile of this child. (Poor wife. Luckily her life doesn’t matter!) Usher seemed taken aback by my questions so maybe I won’t hear from him again.
Good lunch, though. Very cuisine minceur – lots of different dishes and you don’t feel full afterwards. (Rabelais would have been very disappointed.) I top off my coffee with a glass of blond chartreuse.
At the Phillips, I saw a Goya that made me want to burst into tears.
Note to self: reorganize Courtney entirely around paintings. But which artist would be perfect to express my anti-heroine?
4:20 PM Thurs 22 Mar 79
Today a model for what all days should be.
I’ve passed unscathed through the financial hysteria of closing on a house, even have money in the bank. Sparkling weather; spring is definitely here.
A day of sunbathing – the first are always the worst – skin a white blubbery mass.
Reading Kroll’s book on Plath symbols – gives one furiously to think. She wants to find everything in the poems themselves – and of course – that’s exactly where it all is. Plath controlled by potency symbols.
I am sick of Devon’s letters – he must “shield his eyes against my radiance”. Come on. I can’t believe he doesn’t want exactly the life he’s got. Always hard for me to believe that one can reject the sprinkles, the cherries, the walnuts on the sundae. My family always lectured me for being attention-seeking and voracious – so it makes me shy to advance myself into anyone’s purview. Plath seemed prepared to be loved for her accomplishments rather than her being – a scary compromise.
Although I do recognize that I am trying to
experience my own “wholeness” through the eyes of another with all
the danger that implies. Currently trying to kick my sugar cravings.
11:30 AM Fri 23 Mar 79
More sunbathing – my own skin smells
intoxicating to me. Like pool water, like beach sand, childhood.
Dixie – “God’s lioness” stretches out beside me, wind ruffling her fur.
I write a poem about dogs.
Sticks
Peter’s dog
Went on fetching sticks
Long after it was dead.
We’d find them on the stoop
Arranged In patterns
Pete would sigh and say
That’s poor old Monk all right
Still missing the people games
Heaven won’t allow
Add it to my ghost story book.
Unexpected tear sheets in the mail from Usher
– his reviews of Plath. He says he didn’t think it “professional” to disclose
that he knew her – that seems unprofessional to me. Makes his comments seem underhanded: pale. He says diplomatically about my poetry that I’m a “rare being.” Hmmm.
Mon 18 Dec 78 – Plush Palace 6:30 PM
Horrible day. Everything that can go wrong has.
Mailing off mss wildly expensive. Drove Avril around because the Gremlin is in the shop again. Reading Bodyguard of Lies– history having its usual soothing effect. (Everything much worse for everybody else.) It looks like I will have to work two jobs in Jan to pay for this house.
Maureen the costume designer wants to rent a room in our house – that would help. She wouldn’t be a problem – getting a masters in textiles at U. of M so not the usual flaky personality that finds itself onstage. Concluded I really have to break up with Z. It won’t be hard – just stop seeing him.
One good thing did happen – I was lying in bed at
1:30 AM nodding off over Bodyguard – phone rang. I almost didn’t answer it – how could it be anything good – but I thought it might be Avril with some emergency. It was Jervaze! He’s coming back. He’s been offered “crew leader” position in his old job at the Pentagon with a $5,000 bump. He wants to celebrate by taking me out – we can go to Clyde’s where we partied for his birthday last year. I hung up feeling good –
until I thought this will give me a reason to give up Buck. There’s no way Jervaze won’t find out about him. Ugh. Confrontations. Unless I can keep J out of club? Doesn’t seem possible that he is off the sauce. Must make sure he gets a place of his own – he will be living with his brother to start with. He sounded sober, I’ll say that for him.
Plush Palace Tues night 19 Dec 78 – 7:30 PM
Wiped out my savings account to pay bills – well,
that’s what it’s for. We got the Queens Chapel house! Target date for the move is March 1. Avril and Maureen very excited. (It really is huge. 5 beds, 3 bathrooms, divideable into 3 suites. Perfect. Huge kitchen, dining room and fenced in yard.) I contemplate writing a book of poems called The Lives of Dancers. Trouble is, I’d have to tone it down to make it believable. Got one poem already – Impure Women.
IMPURE WOMEN
Between my breath and your breath
Beneath the phallic philanthropic statues on
The volcanic dragstrip of my city
The wounded in the scorched earth policy
Of love
Muster, linger, await
Embodiment.
Pills to make their hearts race faster have
Stopped their faces dead as clocks
That witnessed crimes unspeakable
To mothers versed in tabloid gore.
Who will bring them
Absolution now that I am gone?
In the fresh wounds of a
Seconal summer
The stopped children meet
And kiss.
Is it the approach of Christmas that’s bringing all
the old boyfriends back to me like elephants to a boneyard? Ryder
called. Marc Kramer refers to me his “dream girl” and can’t get me out of his mind and we’ve been out what – three times? Buck gave me my present at the club – he looked adorable – bath goodies.
Don-the-Patent-Lawyer who’s been hanging around the club lately asked me out for New Year’s eve. I had to refuse because Merrill and husband will be in town but I told him to try later. He seems interesting –
– like to get to know him better. Mature. Always trolling for someone presentable to take Home to Mom.
Boston to Rockland shuttle 11:45 AM Fri Dec 22
Thank God I brought this diary in my purse. Bad flight feels like Week 7 of the flu and I need something to take my mind off stomach.
Love people-watching at the Downeast Gate – there’s a novel in that all by itself.
This flight goes straight up the coast. Avril is sleeping in the co-pilot’s seat – let’s hope she doesn’t have to assume the controls. She is trying to get a march on the insomnia she always gets around parents. We just missed Genevieve and Brett – they put 2 planes on this flight and they must be on the other one.
Christmas Day
Enmeshed in a family that’s not even close to changing age old patterns. Listening to Christmas music by the Oberlin Choir and roasting chestnuts. As always, food preparations take a disproportionate amount of time –
– one might as well just surrender and become a restaurant prep chef.
Family “scene” caused this time by me – I objected to Dad making the two older daughters executors – I guess that makes me and A “executees”? He says you can’t have four executors. A likely story. Well I felt I had to lodge a formal protest but of course it didn’t change a thing.
Plush Palace – midnight – Fri 29 Dec 78
Merrill and Julian came to watch me dance. I think
they were interested. Don The Lawyer came and sat at their table – he behaved himself. Good evening for tips. Don asked me out Wed – I explained I have a lot of demands on my time – just about to double my working schedule to buy this damn house – so it doesn’t look good. He passed that test by taking this news calmly. Having a sister makes me a Real Person at least.
Catching up on dancers – Jerrilee’s pregnant,
Fatima’s new boyfriend is obviously an ethnic gangster. (Armenian I’m guessing.) Jerrilee tried dancing at a club in DC where the girls “make lots of money” but just in tips – they have no salary. Rotten. I need extra hours but won’t audition there – prefer the protections offered by The Great Commonwealth of Virginia.
Plush Palace – 7:30 PM Tues 2 Jan 79
Horrifying letter from Scott Meredith demanding money to read my novel. His form letter didn’t acknowledge mine in which I said I was already the author of one book but went on and on about “unpublished writers new to the business.” They obviously didn’t even read my letter.
My father said, “Maybe he knows what he’s doing since he’s Norman Mailer’s agent” but I wrote back and said non merci. Auditioned at The Country Fair – they offered me $100 each three x a week. Call for my schedule. So that’s set. They have a good stage plus a barre and a pole.
Haven’t seen a barre since Shalimar.
Zachary unfortunately back from New York and in a mood to party. Claims to have provided drugs to SNL. Reads my novel and says it’s not commercial enough. I’m sure he’s right, which doesn’t cheer me up at all. Says it’s too brief – needs development which is also probably true. Trying to write a poem about funerals called TreadingPasture. Bad, bad, bad. Reading Tillie Olsen’s Silencesand that’s not cheering me up either.
Party Castle 11:15 AM Mon 8 Jan 79
I think I like this place better than Plush Palace or
Country Fair. The dancers are totally uninterested in their jobs – they are all busy being college students, musicians and models – they rush in, rush out, spend their time studying and on the phone and offering me cash to finish their sets. Fine with me. It’s very restful not having to make friends. I called J’s brother – he’s due Thurs. Probably the worst thing about this place is the commute – I need to take Rock Creek Parkway and sometimes traffic goes one way and sometimes it goes the other way. An unwary person could end up in a head-on collision.
The stage is way better than Plush Palace but the dressing room far worse – a miniature chamber behind the potato bins – très très très Colette. With me tonight are Phoebe, ex-stewardess with a degree in languages and Tasha, very silent black fashion model. She is gorgeous. Costumes are not big here – the idea is to wear one g-string all night – pasties small as possible.
Contac really works – has totally drained my sinuses but also made me very thirsty – I am drinking gallons of water which I am afraid will make me visibly sweat. (Then pasties slide off and the woman from the Alcohol & Tobacco Task Force rushes forth with ticket.)
Got my MS back from Scott Meredith. Zachary came to see me dance in
the new club. We had a tender moment on how tough and insensitive the world is – he is having a bitching time with his new band – wants to go solo but feels that will never get anywhere. The truth is it’s tough to go it alone.
Everybody thinks Giftis “unfinished’ – which – horrors – means I have to do more. The dog to her vomit. Absolutely NOT fun.
I want to start something totally, totally new. I suppose tolerating all this barfing and re-barfing is what separates the sheep from the goats – but which do I want to be? Sheep? Goat? Spare me the “fun” of wandering around blindfold trying to imagine what you are touching followed by the Inevitable Disillusionment of taking it off and seeing you’re locked in the Same Old Basement.
I think Buck has found another girlfriend. I am rather relieved to be let so painlessly off the hook – of course I miss the great parts of our relationship. It was starting to get unmanageable along with everything else. At least with Zachary I can level with him about my life. Tonight’s reading: Margaret Millar whether I like her or not – and I don’t like her.
Ordered a book on depression through the mail. Need all the help I can get. GiGi came in tonight – probably to gloat over my exhausted dancing. Even people who love it inevitably do too much. She’s enjoying being a trophy wife. She says.
Rod and I engage in a little smoochy-smoochy hand -holding following Christie play. I make an effort not to get so drunk that I pull down his pants to view his namesake. Impatient to find out exactly where my next sexual meal is coming from. Tach it up buddy.
In Dancer News, GiGi says Charlie NEVER goes
down on her unless he’s absolutely plastered. I want to know, “And then what good is he?” She has to admit “not much.” Says he laps at her like she’s a melting ice cream cone.
Did like Pamela Hansford Johnson’s Helena trilogy.
(Impressions of childhood, though, painfully unreal.) Now struggling with Grahame Greene’s It’s A Battlefield. Diseased whores abound; women bear their 12th child in crowded rooms (and because he’s a Catholic that’s presumably All Right By Him) and a gay time is had by none.
Midnight Sun-Mon July 2-3 78
Taking Avril to Cellar Door for her birthday before she flies to Michigan to see Merrill. Gifts Dior dusting powder & wrap around dress.
Festive occasion demands dress-up. Avril & I saw Grease, Rod and I saw Heaven Can Wait. Just sweet enough but it didn’t “move” Rod as much as I hoped. What if he’s one of the “pod people” with nothing inside? Jury still out.
Thurs 4:15 – 6 July 78
Missing Avril so much! Boy, did I get dependent.
It’s just SO Fun to have someone to do things with who thinks ALMOST EXACTLY the same as you do but with interestingly nourishing differences.
Rod is no substitute. Still can’t figure him out. His apartment is
completely stark. Bare. Not ONE THING on any of the walls. The
closest I can get to understanding him is that there seems to be no feeling in his family. They don’t talk at meals. Father’s dead, mother still sends him clothes he hates and he still wears them. (They are perfectly presentable. But what would he wear if she did not dress him? We’ll never know. I’m not getting in the midst of that.)
He never suggests things to do. I suggest everything.
Charlie Byrd in Annapolis (just because I love Annapolis) was OK. On the other hand, when we went to Le Bistro he ordered Piper Heidseck champagne out of the clear blue sky! Because he said now he’s “finally dating.”
So that took initative. Right?
Nice letter from Devon who ‘feels veneration” for my talent.
Sweet. Reading Green’s The von Richthofen Sisters.
8:30 PM Fri – 7 July 78
Driving in to work in a haze of ecstasy after Perfect Day, heard an infuriating review of Heaven Can Wait by Penelope Gilliatt. Really the woman’s a moron. She says she would understand a movie about transmigration of souls in “wartime” but why now! Who GIVES these people a podium? How did she get this job with so little artistic sense? Bullied her way to the top, most likely.
Von Richthofen sisters turns out to be boring PhD thesis.
So hard to get it right. Therefore switched to Murder of My Aunt. Amusing.
(Richard Hull).
Big tipper in tonight. $138 so far! I feel like the pigeons in Avril’s class experiments. “Intermittent reinforcement!” I have to pick up Genevieve and Brett up at the airport tomorrow for Women’s March (we all wear white.)
Bringing them back to my place to eat first – I made a gorgeous salmon mousse. Invited Rod just to see if he’s cool.
Sun July 9 78 2 AM
He’s cool. Wore white, walked the whole march and
was so charming to Genevieve and Brett they were dazzled. I’m now feeling relief that I only have ten days till vacation – don’t think I can become “over involved” in that short period of time.
Adelphi Grist Mill Park – 11:15 AM Mon July 10 – 78
Sunbathing on my favorite rock. When I get hot
I’ll splash around (like the dogs are already doing). Hardly a dry spot left on this rock – but who cares – my diaries have seen worse. A year ago, the Last Act of the Romantic Psychodrama just beginning. Whew.
I think I came out of it all right. I’m starting to see a possible Harold-Nicolson/Vita Sackville-West thing developing with Rod. (He actually KNOWS WHO Harold Nicolson is!!!) Last night I almost raped him in his theatre seat but I am determined to let him make the first move. But I do need to know how long I’m going to have to wear Glamorous Lingerie every day (just in case). I am starting to run out of glamorous lingerie. But we are having a lovely time – he is witty, intelligent and aware. I “confessed” all about Devon – my longest relationship – but because he’s a “newly consecrated minister” I can see Rod’s not too worried. If he only knew!
A good development is I’m learning not to drink so much. If there isn’t sex right around the corner one must stay aware. Coffee “without dessert” so to speak. It’s good for me. I told him the whole plot of Secaire – weak points become immediately obvious. He tells me about his ex-wife.
2 PM – Back at home to ringing phone – new
croquet ball on the pitch! Marc Kramer coming into National – do I want
to have dinner and discuss My Finances. Hmm. Maybe. He knows I’m too poor to invest in anything. But I say Yes.
Fri. 8:05 Starlight Club Springfield, VA Fri 14 July 78
I hate this club. It’s a bitch of a drive so I rarely come here but the tips are good. Need the cash for vacation. Unfortunately, I am working with Danielle – the Brazilian lesbian who threatened to kill me. I’m hoping she won’t recall she threw boiling hot coffee at me. (Her aim is bad.)
She’s usually pretty much out of it. Got $100 tip already from a guy who wonders why I don’t dance at The Gaslight downtown. Because the dancers have to waitress there! Ugh! That place is legendary. I tried to be polite but really.
Anyway, Kramer was different from what I expected. We ate prime rib at The King’s Contrivance – he seemed a lot older and a lot sadder.
He says whenever he hears 10 CC’s “I’m Not In Love” he thinks of me.
I asked him what about finances – he said I should invest in real estate. Wants to “watch my stocks.” I was embarrassed to tell him there isn’t anything to watch what with Dad keeping such a closed fist on the shares, and me having to sell everything I get. I start to suspect Dad is CONFIDING in him about his estate planning and PRETENDING “our” investments are actually OURS.
This meant we didn’t have that much to talk about and the evening ended with a damp kiss when I turned down sex. I say I’m In a Relationship. He says he’s thinking of proposing to his red headed secretary –
who reminds him of me. I am kind of insulted but told him to Go For It. I guess
I had this built up in my mind – sort of like Chuck Kornowitz where you think it’s going to FINALLY be about SOMETHING ELSE. How my Mom would jeer!
(Wore my 3-piece suit, anyway. With eyeshadow.)
He says he has to come through on his way back
from Oklahoma, thank God, I could say I’ll be in Maine. Looks Like It’s Over.
2:15 AM Mon 17 July 78
Another fiasco. I should leave now while I’m behind.
This has certainly been Trial and Error Week. How did poor Rod – Desirable Husband Material become Inevitable Discard? I’m sick to death of the Hand Kissings and the Knee Pinchings, Goddamit. There is something seriously wrong with this man. We had dinner & drinks at the Peter Pan Inn, then drove up and down Price Distillery Rd until I assaulted him. I admit it. He is under
the impression that we “made love”. Trust me, one time was plenty. This is a man who does not “think” with his body. He gives nothing back, an absorptive rather than reflective surface.
I worked hard not to let him know how just how incompetent he is, because really, there’s no hope.
Some sad girl somewhere who hates sex is going to find her “dream man”.
I shouldn’t have pushed it, although seriously I don’t think he will even question if it never happens again.
Damn shame is all I can say. A cruel waste, when he’s so charming in every other respect. Life is brutal. Sigh. Enjoyed Pretty Baby so much I saw it twice. (Can’t pay close enough attention while Rod is talking.)xxx
Walked in and there was Jervaze, big as life, clearly NOT in Alabama at all.. He was quite plastered but acted very pleased to see me. I feel he has turned a definite corner. He could have been somebody, could have made choices, but he seems to have decided to live in an ever deepening blur. I am well out of it. I asked him what happened to my ring. He promised to look for it. He has a new plan of course. His brother is trying to talk him into returning to school. He’ll talk that to death for a while till his kidneys fail and his liver withers and his brain goes. Then it won’t matter anymore.But I must get a picture of him now while he still looks good so I can show my grandchildren. He was dressed all in white like an angel and is letting his silver gilt hair grow long. I can hear it now: “You dated Wild Bill Hickok?” Yes kids. And it was really wild.
Called my agent and demanded to know how much I am actually going to get from HBJ. The answer is $1993, so it’s a good thing I got that stock which I sold today. April 5 I pick up my new car – a Fiat. (Avril takes the Gremlin.) Money in the bank – need to settle in for a long writing session. Trying to concentrate on my book – Bowen’s
The Last September– but it just feels too distant from my own life. Feels like I’m slowly surfacing, like a corpse that has been in the water for three days. Last night I finished Anne Tyler’s Searching for Caleb. Her most beautiful novel in my estimation. Today A and I bought plants, put money down on car. I’m exhausted and out of love with my own life – don’t understand why I personally seem to need to do everything the hard way and backwards.
4:30 PM Fri 31 Mar 78
Barrage of criticism from Mom and Dad that I
spent stock money on car. How do they expect us to live in two different places and have one car? Doesn’t make sense. Avril has car today for her eye appt – will pick me up in 45 mins. I am struggling with Bowen’s The Little Girls. She uses writing for disguise. Last night A and I went to dinner at an Italian restaurant – she had the clams, I had the shrimp, we split a bottle of wine. Then we went to see what A described as “one concentration camp film too many.” I bought tickets to Bonnie Raitt concert – Mom and Dad suggested I “look up” their friends’ son Peter Pauley.
I may invite him, I do remember him as cool and handsome. But brunette.
Oh well, can’t have everything. Got check from agent – less her percentage –
which I forgot to calculate. So I hope I get paid enough Sat to have money for car. My future emerges through a glass darkly – don’t know yet whether I like it or not.
2:50 PM Sat April 1, 1978 – Starlight
Working a double. My latest realization is: I can never have enough money. Curse you, Marc Kramer for suggesting I invest in real estate. In spite of this I’ve decided not to take on doubles unless I’m in a jam (as I am over this car.) Interesting new dancer – big hips and no boobs but a wonderful attitude. Her laugh can be heard by fishing boats on the distant Chesapeake. Alvera. She works in a lawyer’s office during the day. I’m trying to imagine her in her suit typing briefs.
The Little Girlsis Bowen’s worst written book. She’s not a narrative writer but a prose poet – always falls down over narrative. Plus I feel a loss of joy in her art – maybe because she “had” to write it? This is really a book about despair – which To The North also was – but one book was good and the other isn’t. I think writing is a lot like cooking – some ideas can’t be rescued through editing – they just get worse and worse.
10:30 PMTender is not the night thank God – three
more sets and it will all be over. The next one will be the worst – the last two I won’t even notice. I called A – she’s despondent. Feeling chained to the apt I’m sure. I agreed we’d see AnUnmarried Woman tomorrow – go out and have some fun. Monday after her classes we’ll watch The Oscars at my place. Bought 3 costumes from Kerry that I can ill afford – but they were a steal. Sent Harvey the Brownmiller book, Against Our Will. There’s no excuse for such ignorance.
Plush Palace – 8:50 PM – Thurs night 6 April 78
So ends one of the happiest days of my life. Woke
this AM two minutes before clock radio – breakfast in bed reading – good work at typewriter. Long walk with dogs – came back to find Green’s Mag took my whole “suicide” series. Avril showed up helped me play with my new car – first and second tough to get into and out of until the salesman professionally broke its little hymen. Seems all right now.
Bookgoing well. Most of the time I feel I have the ideal existence – plenty of sleep, plenty of exercise, plenty of time to write, plenty of privacy. Paradise.
Jervaze called. He is really going to Alabama this time. Said he loved me, thereby proving my point that the less of a relationship we are having the more important it is to him. If we never see each other again, I bet he will remember me as the perfect girlfriend. All future women in his life will curse my name.
Good letter from Mom and Dad apologizing for
their explosion about car. Part of the problem dealing with them is theytry to preserve a “united front” which means frantically
whispering and negotiating behind the scenes, then speaking awkwardly together like an ill-rehearsed Greek chorus. I can kind of speculate about who really thinks what – not that I want to.
A and I liked Unmarried Woman – much better
than Goodbye Girl. I tried Peter all day – no answer. Reading
Storm Jameson’s Journey From the North– it’s like watching a
slo-mo car accident the way she beats up on herself. Why this sense that honesty requires one must utterly disown all one’s earlier versions?
CS Forrester did exactly the same thing in Long Before 40– will I feel compelled to do the same some day about this life I am leading now?
Foolishness is youth’s necessary clothing methinks. Think I will dump this book without finishing. Try Angus Wilson’s The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot.
9:25 PM – Plush Palace – Sat night 8 April 78
Beautiful day. Off to Columbia, testing my new car.
A & I had lunch at Clyde’s – talked about what fun it would be if we each had a full-time man – and they liked each other. We could double date.
Feels impossible. Walked around lake – bought baby clothes for Genevieve.
Home, walked dogs, then to work.
Boring evening. Few unenthusiastic customers.
GiGi brought in a bottle of champagne – I broke my rule and had some out of sheer boredom. A father in with his 2 ½ yr old daughter – sent her up to the stage with a tip for me. Depressing fact #2 – tried to read a short story about rape in Fictioncalled The Intruder – it was awful – turned me off the whole magazine. Angus Wilson’s Middle Agemerely stupid. Will I have a go at No Laughing Matter? Still no Peter and no explanation. If he is away on vacation his parents don’t know about it. Feels suddenly difficult to be independent and alone.
10:10 Pm – Sunday night 9 April 78
Avril met a guy she likes in one of her classes who likes her. Fingers crossed. As a result I spent Saturday alone, which I don’t mind. It would be OK with me if every day were the same, wake at 10,
write till 4, then off to work. On Sun we played in Adelphi Mill Park – swam in the falls – wonderful picnic of brie and cherries – played with dogs. Wrote poem about Devon.
Phoned Peter – a girl answered! He came on very brisk and businesslike – had been in Venezuela. I asked if she was “the housekeeper” – he hurried to get off phone – said he would drop by club. Always wanted to see me perform. I told him my schedule. I figure if he and she are seriously involved so that I shouldn’t move forward – he’ll tell me. Chloe’s friend Dennis called and tried to make me feel guilty enough to go out with him. Little does he know how far past that “Since I can’t think of an excuse you’ll accept I guess I’ll just be forced to go out with you” stage I am. He turned hostile – said I’d “led him on”. I refused to rise to this, portraying self as a naturally friendly but also naturally private person. I guess I’ll have more of this stuff with J gone. He was sort of protection. Everyone wants someone who doesn’t want them. Highly entertaining if one were bored enough. I am not.
Interesting conversation with Avril where we discussed the “courting rules” we’d learned. They were grim – we’ve had to ditch them completely. Got into another one of our “Is Satisfaction Possible” marathon debates. I always say it is, she says, what if it’s not. I refuse to consider this option. Mom’s advice to A is loiter around art galleries and art museums to get the right guy. This sounds expensive & time consuming.
Plus, I know too many artists to be in love with this idea. They are the worst.
I want someone stable.
I have to admit my chances of finding someone like that in the job I’m in seem small. But I only need one guy. I’m special –
so would he be. Avril insists things were better in the past – “pre-liberation” but I’m not buying it. Opal’s marriage very instructive on these points. They are both beautiful, can think and have work they love. So why do they fight and sulk nonstop?
Each feels the other does not truly “value them” and fusses for increased respect. Each thinks the other is “holding them back.” So they claim. With any encouragement I think they would jump into a threesome. Non merci.
Waiting for cocktails, I discover a flaw in the divine Miss Elizabeth Bowen. She doesn’t like to admit that she is of the same clay as her characters. Those creatures based on the Mosleys she repudiated utterly as if creatures from another planet. I’ve got news for her. Creatures from another planet are
not that interesting.
Last night was one of the most traumatic family
Evenings I have ever experienced – I think my eyes are still puffy. I heard we would be having Island People to dinner – he used to be a university president/professor so presumably would be good company – they met because somebody was the bridesmaid of somebody else’s bridesmaid so there is a connection. It started with me wearing a green silk shirt, my denim gauchos and hardly any makeup (yes I wore eyeshadow) and being told by Mom that my “get-up” was “more suitable for a bar.” (All of a sudden she’s an expert on bars.)
Harvey and Edna turned out to have “heard of my job” –I gather in some commiseration session on Incredibly Unsatisfactory Children – however they refuse to accept that there is any difference between being an exotic dancer and being a stripper (hello! I don’t strip) and somehow Harvey
segued from castigating “exotic dancers who try to feel superior to strippers” to criticisms of “ total sexual freedom” which apparently means that “everybody should jump on everybody.”
I tried to dignify this mess by explaining that it is actually the reverse – in the “old days” under the “ancien regime sexuelle” a dancer could expect to be “jumped on” by “anybody” because of her job (like poor old Degas’ ladies) but that actual freedom for women would mean a world in which one could be a barely clothed dancer (I would think anyone would admit nudity is at least an equally valid way of expressing the art of muscle –
line and form as heavily costumed artificial approximations) without it becoming some sexual signal that one has “lost caste” and therefore privacy and choice. I recommended Susan Brownmiller’s book to this painfully ignorant male (God knows what he taught – he had never heard of Brownmiller – seems to have her confused with Ti-Grace Atkinson assuming she mustwrite books no self-respecting intellectual would read (maybe he was the type of university president who just brings in wads of cash).
He challenged my premise that the ultimate societal freedom would be for unattached females to not to be under the threat of rape every minute. Harvey insisted – with a perfect straight face that women rape men every bit as much as the reverse – “psychologically of course” which he says is just as terrible – and in fact probably even more so since we all know the “physical thing is no big deal” and often does people a “favor”.
I must say this does not reflect very well on his wife Edna but she was smiling smugly so I think she may have just been too obtuse to follow any of the arguments.
I really could not cope with this free-for-all avalanche of idiocy especially when my parents played their trump card – if bars where women sit in front of a drink and watch barely clothed men cavorting don’t exist, therefore this is an antifeminist exercise and my claim to be a feminist is a
sham. I think it was at that point that I burst into tears. Which of course was
totally demeaning. I sorely missed Avril’s assistance – she refused to jump in
but made peacemaking noises like “you both have a point” (untrue – their “points” are a disgrace). Ugly Harvey apologized – what a monster! but there could be no satisfaction in it for me at that point. Avril went walking with me until they left.
Alas, waiting till they were gone did not end the discussion. Mom and Dad pounced on us to drive home their point that the male animal is a violent dangerous creature barely contained by the civilizing influence of the female. (Guess they can’t get behind Harvey’s “female rapist” idea.) Of course they are going to rape any female who lets down
her guard for a second and it will all be her fault. (Didn’t Ryder make this case?
I’m ashamed to share a world with these people.) Any kind of a sexual display (I guess the beach would certainly qualify) is a declaration of :
“Jump in boys! It’s free today!” At least they recognized Harvey’s
behavior as extreme (“Two drinks and he’s lost” was Dad’s comment.)
Basically, as long as I work at “that bar” I’m the
“lost cause” and if any decent male finds out about it our relationship will be over in a trice. This kind of thing makes me wonder why I bother to visit them. Fortunately, I’m escaping soon, but the whole ferry reservation problem means one loses the right to fight irretrievably with one’s hosts on this island. Dad’s bigmistake was giving me an example of a good marriage as Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett!
Did I blow my top! He probably thought I’d listen to him if he produced a literary example. He wasn’t aware that not only were they not married but Mr. Hammett was married to someone else and cheated on poor Hellman whenever he could manage to stay stiff long enough. (I really didn’t want to “get in” to the alcoholism problem. Lillian tried to make him seem like a “mentor” but honestly she was just his keeper and bail bondsman.)
11:30 AM Friday, 24 March 78
Staggering down for my first cup of coffee when I heard Harvey’s voice in the kitchen. Thank God I heard it in time – if he had seen me in my baby doll nighty I guess he would have considered himself justified in pinning me immediately to the floor. He brought me a hibiscus flower as a peace offering.
A more significant peace offering came from Mom and Dad who gave us each 100 more shares of stock. I tried to refuse it– they insisted. I warned them I’ll only sell it. Maybe I’ll be able to buy a new car when I get back. I could use it.
Spent last night trying to read Welty’s Bride of Innisfallen, couldn’t get my mind around it. Read Faithful Are the Wounds instead.
Very like a stage play – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Powder Mill Road – home – 8:30 PM Sun 26 March 78
Can’t describe the ecstasy of being in my own
place. On the island I am hideous – here I am beautiful. The loss of confidence there is so severe as to actually induce delusions. Now that I am back I am ready to tackle my existence brilliantly. As always.
We got in last night in the pouring rain – 11:30 PM
– Avril had coffee and left. I read a soppy love story and slept in my Own Bed.
Today we did laundry, went to see a bad movie – actors working madly away to no effect. Tomorrow I get mail – hope there’s lots of it.
Did get a beautiful poem out of the island –
Peacock Pavement: The Poet on her walk – submit to Denver
Quarterly – which has been very polite about me lately. They’ve shown an interest in my stuff though nothing has ever been exactly “right.
Very tired. Shouldn’t keep working with this intensity but my new discovery of shaky financial position means I have to. When I “have to” do anything it makes me feel soiled. Wild idea of getting pregnant by Jervaze. He’s pretty enough. But what would that fix? Only my biological clock and my finances – permanently. Fixed in a downward direction if you get my drift. Finished Sarton’s Mermaids,startingTyler’s Caleb.
6:30PM – Plush Palace – Tues 7 Mar 78
A triumphant day. Like some manic-depressive,
I am in my high cycle. Probably from reading Elizabeth Bowen –
The Cat Jumps. Amazed at how much I like it – much better than Death of the Heart. She leaves me feeling a writer can do anything. I see my book now as thirteen short, sharp, clear scenes. Why can’t I do it any way I want? Tonight I have To The North to look forward to.
Plush Palace – 11:PM Fri Mar 10 – 78
Wednesday I broke up with Jervaze to make him finally go home. Thursday he called me. I got the impression that in the South it’s when you break up that things reallystart to get interesting. Apparently if I wanted wild declarations I should have done this long ago. Fortunately, I can handle this
on the phone. It’s that glorious body dipped in platinum dust that I can’t say no to.
Finished Bowen’ s World of Love and To the North.
I can’t believe she was ever popular – I like her too much. She suits me exactly. What a stylist. OK, forget plot, character, those little appurtenances.
She makes them seem so unimportant. Imagine recasting Courtney in this light. I guess her style is too forties, but would that be necessarily a bad thing?
Avril called. She and I are crutches to one another, but I like her better than any man I have ever met. Watched Monty Python, steak dinner, then she helped me paint my new four-poster bed. (Gilt, of course. Gives me a new title – The Gilty Bed.) Watched La Femme Infidele sur le television while consuming an appropriate wine.
Plush Palace – 11:PM Sat Mar 11 – 78
I was in too good a mood today. Bought a new costume from Maureen just when I AM JUST ABOUT TO LEAVE FOR THREE WEEKS, but it is yellow velvet and fake sapphires with armbands and everything – a beauty. Good work on novel, ate hamburgers (and eclairs) with Avril, wrote a good letter to Devon
– in answer to his weird one to me. Struggling with Eva Trout and The Ponder Heart. Nix on both. Fortunately, also have a June Thomson murder mystery for a chaser.
Avril and I assembled my bed – canopy and everything, it looks smashing with its hangings of brown lace. Then she called Mason in Calif to see why he isn’t sending her stuff – he said he’s seeking another estimate – they had a rational discussion but she was obviously very shaken when she hung up. I teased her that he is wearing her clothes and probably looks good in them.
Plush Palace – Wed/Thu Mar 15 – 78
No London in my future. I’ve accepted it. I need
affordable breaks from this life – two weeks in Maine, one week in Boston, etc. A and I going to Maine tomorrow. Avril spent the weekend comforting Opal who is upset about the failure of her marriage – it’s the old story – when it’s the woman’sturn to be babied man withdraws, making frightened, threatening noises.
Finished Sarton’s Kinds of Love. I can see why
some people like it. It kind of has a “National Geographic” feel to it – here’s a guide to the “foreigners”. But it is not a good novel – it’s Faith Baldwin through and through. Reading Sarton is like attending writing class – she never loses the miasma of the eager student and she has a lot of interesting ideas. But, remarkably for a poet, she is deficient on the mystery end. Perhaps she doesn’t understand that a novel is another kind of poem. Lots of Ructions here tonight: Gina and Jerrilee fighting and I have to play peacemaker (because there’s nowhere to go from the dressing room other than the alley or the ladies room and no guarantee rabid fans will stay away.) I haven’t packed – will be up till 4.
2PM – Shadowe Island Sat Mar 18 – 78
Every time I come back to this beautiful island I wonder why I ever leave. Dogs are in paradise. Mom and Dad relaxed, involved, charming. Avril all defensive about the “failure” of her life with Mason so I am off the hook – temporarily.
I’m reading The House InParis – restores my high estimation of Bowen. The trouble with this island is that the rest of existence vanishes totally when I am here. I am eating too much but the food is so fabulous it would seem immoral to resist – roast lamb, new potatoes, spinach quiche, sour cream gravy, stuffed mushrooms, strawberry trifle. We stayed up late reading Ruth Rendell’s mystery stories aloud, then I fell asleep and I had the most delicious erotic dream about J – much better than the real thing.
Felt what it would be like to be a deep-throated cello vibrating endlessly.
Mon Mar 20 7:00 PM -78
Why is it around my parents my self-confidence takes a nosedive? Every fingernail becomes deciduous. I had better call Plush Palace and get put on next week’s schedule. Finished House and began Heat of the Day. My mother asks questions that reveal her to be jealous of all the reading I do. Her delicate hint – she would feel “lazy” doing so much readingbecause there must be something that she would be neglecting. I tell her I, on the other hand, if I were not reading, would feel guilty. (As well as deprived.) Thus we must differ. The great thing about Eliz B –
– she writes like no one else.To criticize her would be like saying the plumed flycatcher has a little too much plume.
Managed to prevent Mom from inviting “young people” to a “weenie roast on the shore” for me and A. We are here to HIDE. She was very nice about it. Do imagine I could live here. Listening right now to Haydn’s Clock Symphony. Now that would be a great title for a short story about an unattached woman in her late twenties…
Avril and I have wonderful conversations in our twin beds like a pair of teenagers home on holiday from school, listening to the distant waves crash on the dark shore. I realize we could still be feeling like thiseven when we are a pair of decrepit old maids – which is probably why families like to stay together. You are timeless for each other. She asked me which of my boyfriends had known me best. I think Toss Sheffield –
certainly better than my own husband. But this is not a flattering conclusion since he seems to have run wildly in the opposite direction
What a day. Lost a contact just before bed, which put
me in a hideous temper. 1 ½ hrs sleep, drove Avril to the Laundromat, did laundry, bought cosmetics, picked her up, went to lunch and visited broker.
Just like the other rich girls except for the Laundromat part. Then to MVA, got MD license renewed, new address, not too horrible photo. Avril flunked her test must retake Wed.
Back to house managed 2 more hrs of sleep. Woke
up feeling cheerful and streaked hair with L’Oreal. Still have a rotten cough. The trouble with being sick is you can’t imagine yourself well.
Intimations of mortality. Ate lasagna with Avril, then off to work. Jervaze dropped in second set, said his car was fixed, seemed cheerful, said his sister-in-law (whom I suspect of being The Pirate Queen) is reading my book “to figure out what kind of person I am” (uh oh). He left during my 3rd set without saying goodbye. Should I drop in on him? Tempting.
He also asked to read Demon. Hmmmm. Avril of course thinks I should clamor for “boundaries” “rights”, “clarity” and “definitions.”
I am embarrassed even to tell HER that this is all completely hopeless.
I’d have to set him on my knee and move his mouth. I’d end up defining every term and he would immediately forget anyway. Anyway, in my experience, the less “clarity”, the better the sex. Once things have been completely defined you no longer want to touch each other.
Missing Devon of all people. He must be sick of
Gwynne by now. Where will he find another like me? But it’s always a bad sign when I plunge into “default” mode. So, I dropped in on Ryder to take him by surprise. He was there and it was worth it. Gave me a gorgeous massage. I gave him my cold. We are at the wrong points in our life trajectories to connect in any meaningful way. Picked up Holt’s Lord of theFar Islandwhich one of the other girls is reading. Unbelievably
crappy. Why do people prefer this stuff to mine? Oh well. Feeling better –night almost over.
Sun. 12 Feb 78 – 10:20 PM
Psychic tremors driving home. But when I walked in the door everything was fine. It’s so comforting to be surrounded with one’s own stuff – it seems to assumes a personality – like a separate self.
A reassuring stand-in – someone who “goes on” for you when you’re tired.
Very busy weekend – Avril moving into her own place – sorting, packing, cleaning, buying. Moving. Hard physical labor since we are doing it all.
“Mother Truckers.”
Rushed on to work with my arms aching – J. showed up.
His body seemed solider, less fragile. I gave him a comforter for his birthday
– he seemed to like it – we went to his place to watch Harper– side by side like an old couple on the couch. I’ve decided he reminds me most of some wild animal. He always wakes up like a deer finding itself in a cage. He seems to be just now comprehending that I’m there. He insisted on pleasuring me –
I just accept it. Said his body “hurt”. I wish I could convince him that caffeine, junk food and alcoholare his enemies, but he is too stubborn to believe it.
I fear a return of that kidney thing that felled him before. I’m afraid our relationship belongs to the bar and his apartment, however.
Can’t get him to go anywhere with me; he is “tired” and he works enough that it’s a believable excuse. He’s so beautiful you’d think he’d be more of an exhibitionist but it’s just the opposite. Three days off. I need it. But on the whole I am pleased with my life.
1:45 PM MON 13 Feb 78
Lovely dog walk. My desk collapsed under piles of books, so I bought new furniture – unpainted. Cleaned, redecorated spare room (A’s old room.) Looks good. Decided just thinking about Jervaze is channeling myenergies away from writing. We have a “sexual friendship” –
so there. That’s Hugh Hefner’s “highest good” so presumably some people would be happy with it. But Jervaze has no influence on my life-plan. Ryder called.
We had a decent conversation.
5:45 PM Snow pouring down – four more inches
expected so I decided not to go out. Last night was the first night I’ve actually been unable to rouse Jervaze – so I just left – went home dirty and sleepless to a couple of short-changed dogs. Now it turns out he’s in the hospital undergoing tests because of “passing blood”. Medieval sounding. Does he have those big black knobs under his armpits?
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. The sister in law phoned with this info, also gave the brother’s number where Jervaze will go after tests.
9PM Plush Palace – Wed 15 Feb 78
Jervaze quite drunk when he came into the club this evening – said he’s turning in his notice and returning to the South. (I wondered if they
fired him but didn’t ask.) I was so upset I walked into the men’s room by mistake! (No one in there.) He did say “or I could live with you.”
This does not sound good to me. My monogamous soul does not aspire to a lifetime playing nursie.
10PM – Plush Palace – Thurs 16 Feb 78
3 sets done – I’m exhausted and my legs hurt but I’ll survive. Spent the afternoon with Chloe and Dennis Parks at WPFW taping a vibrant show on paperback publishing. Really enjoyed myself. Avril came over for dinner and helped me paint my new study furniture. Got a frightening letter from the IRS– I phoned – turned out that they think I owe them an extra $56! They can have it.Electric bill $76. Disappointed by Noel Coward’s Future Indefinite, seeking escape instead in Mona Farnsworth’s Dark Wood. I deserve escapism after all I’ve been through.
11:40PM – Plush Palace – Fri 17 Feb 78
Just finished Rosenberg’s bio of Dorothy Richardson. She seems just like me – then when I get to the end of her life – poverty & anguish! Oh dear!
4:00 PM Mon 21 Feb 78
Lying in bed – hair set – an hour to go before work.
Spent all day tidying study – including file drawers – if I was to die this minute I would give everyone the impression of being a hardworking artist and an astute businesswoman. Maybe I shouldn’t wreck it by ever going in there again. Gregory’s book about Dorothy Richardson – lots left out.
Putting myself to sleep with Homage to Daniel Shays –I must have already read this because all the essays seem so familiar.Very unpleasant Gore Vidal attack on Anais Nin.
Plush Palace – 7:45 PM
Lots of comforts in this job. Inhale the pleasure
of a messy dressing room, so full of life & hope. I was sitting down taking out my curlers when GiGi asked me to do her last set – her knee hurts – so I put on a gold G- string and did one setwithout makeup.That paid my electric bill right there. Settle down with Anne Tyler. Comfortable.
10:30PM – Plush Palace – Thurs 23 Feb 78
Avril came to work with me – I’m having a great night.
She met a guy here she likes who asked for her number – he seems nice, but he must have the problems intrinsic to all who haunt this place – alcoholic or druggy – or just unmotivated in some fatal, fatal way.
Paz’s been telling me her new honey’s too “big”
for her – makes her bleed. That can’t be right. This triggered an
avalanche of gynecological horror stories that ended up with all who
are interested examining Fatima’s hanging “meatus” left over from a “botched childbirth”. She has trouble tucking it into her G-string!
I declined inspection. Missing an opportunity other writers would have
jumped at? Will I need to describe this someday?
Sun. 26 Feb 78 – 9:45 PM
Jervaze actually showed for dinner last night – while I was stuffing the baked potatoes – we had a wonderful evening, played Clue, very good sex. Said his sister read my “gothic” but called it Too Victorian.
Disguised praise? I decide to think so. He asked me to visit him in Alabama.
I’m sure there’s a novel in that but do I want to be the one to write it?
Then of course he had to leave early. I called Avril – had kind of a psychic flash – a feeling of trepidation about the human condition – she said she had been sobbing all night. Are we going no place? I asked her. Is it all an illusion?
She said she feels she once hada home and family but somehow lost them and now can’t adjust.She has a life others would envy – young college student with her own apartment in DC – but she wants back something she never really had. “Neva vu” ex-husband Bruce and I used to call it. The unrecognized familiar. I am reading – very appropriately – The Troubled Helpmate. Misogyny in literature.
9:30 PM Mon 27 Feb 78
Love the drive between my place and Avril’s – taking not New Hampshire Ave but Riggs Road. Blind turns and non-sequential lights give me that old country feeling. We had just seen The Parradine Case. Interesting. Good jumping off place for other ideas. I like the form.
Could I manage novelistically the “outsides revealing insides” that film so confidently assumes? Day started badly with non-working electric blanket
and slowly building headache – probably from finishing reading Helpmate –
– what a chronicle of lacerations.
Tues. Feb 28 1:15 PM
Left message with agent – why no check? I was
thinking of going to England in two weeks, according to my old timeline.
Doesn’t seem possible now.
9:50PM – Plush Palace – Wed 1 Mar 78
Jervaze in to say goodbye – off to Alabama for a
few days to set things up for moving there. I did wonder if it was
the last time I would ever see him – but from the way he clutched
my hand and kissed the air (illegal to kiss here) that can’t
be true. But remember the way Devon carried on about me and then disappeared for years? Men are strange. So who the hell knows.
3 sets down. Dancing superbly if I do say so myself. Ticking like a clock.
Friday Mar 3 – Plush Palace – 9:15 PM
I am forcing myself to write this. Jervaze came in tonight, very drunk and crying. (Sold the Shelby. They gave him some kind of middle of the road muscle car in return.) Would he carry on like this about me? Now that he has the money to go to Alabama he doesn’t want to. What made me think he would actually complete something just because he acted so definite? I am hampered by my physical passion for him – he is so gorgeous. Those dents in his thighs alone are worth everything. But I can’t start mothering him – it would be the end of the Life as We Know It.
Finished Tyler’s Tin Can Tree – I see why she
likes it least. Characters blurred. Reading Wm Trevor’s Elizabeth Alone
– too many curlicues.
6:55PM – Plush Palace – Mon 6 Mar 78
Eventually everyone in this job gets bad knees –
something to do with dancing in six-inch heels. I would be better off if I just walked around like some of the other girls, but my narcissism demands I be the best. I can see guys in the audience poking each other when I come out – “that’s her” and that alone makes it worth it for me.
On the other hand the presence of Jervaze seriously diminishes tips – he needs to go away so I can make some money.
A and I were restless after dinner last night and
went out dancing. Big mistake. Defensive, boring, hostile men who count like drill sergeants while pretending to “dance”. “Do the hustle!”
Much expense – no pleasure – after three brandy and sodas I was content to rack out on Avril’s bed at 3 AM. I need to up my writing to 10 p a day – I do NOT need to party.
Amazing letter from Devon about how lovely
and precious and gifted I am but he can’t see me because he’s too deep in his own life. He’s still searching for the perfect lover and has no clues. Well, I guess that’s honest. Should be flattered he’s trying to preserve our relationship at all. London is beginning to ebb away – looks like I’ll only get a few hundred dollars. There’s a downer. So why aren’t I writing?
Reading Crucial Conversations by May Sarton.
You’d swear it was written by an eighteen year old with no experience of life whatever. However, its very brashness gives me the courage to jump back into my own book.
Jervaze and I were supposed to go out Sat night – I had the day shift and he said he’d pick me up. I waited 20 mins before going to his apt.
There he was with a little blond beard on his chin – lying on the sofa very depressed. Told me to go to the concert without him. By myself?
Wouldn’t that be fun! I was aghast – tried arguing with him – he said he wasn’t leaving the apt. So I said I’d stay with him. Went out and bought fish and chips and beer. We watched Sahara, then Saturday Night Live.
Pitiable. Made love in the shower. In the AM he refused to come out to breakfast with me, and I really had to go home to the dogs. He gave me a good hug when I left but do I want to drag this inert man through all the stages of intimacy?
Called him today, he was very blue. Homesick as
always. Takes alcohol for depression! Can’t figure out whether to go over there or leave him alone. I really need a better invitation – my choice is to stay away.
I don’t think he’s actually SUICIDAL although if he stopped drinking, he might be. And how could I tell? He still has his car so he’s either asking too much for it or he’s doing nothing about his problems. I bet the latter’s the case. Reading The Letters of Charles Dickens in conjunction with the Life. Decorated A’s old room with Dad’s old charts –
– looks pretty good.
Dancing well – I can’t give a bad set. Remembering what Devon said about skiing – the body does the right thing – if you “get out“ of its way. J came in – in a much better mood. (Some new “magic” elixir, no doubt.) He must have called to get my schedule because I didn’t tell him. Asked him if he wanted me to “drop by” after work – he said it was “up to me”. A question of wanting what you get.
I think the traditional male female role thing may be reversed in our case. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of those pretty guys who’s always been pursued and as a result he feels like a “thing”. Never developed a self, so to speak. This is what comes of being so hung up on beauty. But when I look at the assemblage of clowns, predators and weirdos soliciting for my hand my heart fails me.
Wrote a difficult letter to Devon in which I answered
(long overdue) his about Gwynne and frankly (but with masterful subtlety) –
went all out to make him jealous of J. Cheap of me, but I have to have somefun. He started it: we are reduced to bragging about our dance cards.
I don’t think you can truly have a “passionate” relationship with a guy who doesn’t want exclusivity because of then of necessity you’re required to hold something back. Dad called, says he’s sending me more stock “for tax reasons” (I.e. it’s really mine and they’re making him.) Then said in a very depressed way, “I suppose you want to sell it.” I wanted to surprise him by saying NO but that would leave me feeling manipulated so I said it depends on my royalty statement (which it does.) Due in 3 weeks.
Mon midnight 6 Feb 78
Fri night J was in the bar getting slowly snockered. Very proud to take me home. We had our most passionate sex session yet –
– 5 hours! Of course he couldn’t come. We finally quit because I was exhausted. I am out of love with Tantric sex. He told me the sexiest thing I do is play with my breasts when we make love! I only do it because he doesn’t! The big lug.
He asked me what I would do if I accidentally got pregnant.
(He knows about IUD.) I said have the baby. Of course I didn’t
tell him that I might not inform him of the fact – depends on him
and the state of our relationship.
Which raises the important question: do I want
an alcoholic baby? Wouldn’t you be watching it throughout childhood to see if it favored rum candy? He said he hoped we’d get married because a child needs a father. I think this might be the way an Alabamian proposes. Surprising how totally un-good it felt. I almost got as depressed as he is. Jervaze, who has the beauty of an angel-god, is no better than a drifter. Even I am shocked by my own taste. His life is guaranteed to go from bad to worse because of his fatal Hamlet-like inability to take charge. Clearly he needs to be the full time project of some managing woman. This is bringing out all my masculine characteristics, some of which, frankly, I was hoping never to see again. I am also bothered by the fact that he can’t have serious conversations. I would say he absolutely does not know me at all, and appears satisfied with that.
I probably also don’t know him, although I am beginning to face the fact that there may be nothing to know.
The drama of my own existence is important to me.
There’s a full cast of characters and A LOT OF PLOT SURPRISES
and he hasn’t even opened the book. It’s frustrating because it makes everything less meaningful. I feel I’m in a bind, though, because he’s definitely the best of the bunch in all the bars I’ve danced. Most attendees are married men looking for fantasy, fun and excitement. They are the dancers’ favorite because they’re established, generous and sometimes they actually leave their wives. This happened with Ryder –
– although he always insisted (and I believed) it wasn’t me, it was him.
(And her, presumably). The best you can do is “catch them on the cusp” of divorce. The “singles” men come in three kinds – total losers who can’t manage a relationship and that’s what they’re doing in a bar like this, guys who need you to quit the minute you start dating them because “no girlfriend of mine” blah blah blah. (More R). The third is guys who are fine with you dancing – in fact they want to be your manager. Several dancers have fallen for these guys and often they marry them. He buys their costumes, drives them to and fro, bargains with the club owner and even looks after the kids.
The good ones don’t just drain her money, date the competition or beat her up.
(Those are rare. But exist. I’ve met them.) Only now she can’t ever quit!
Take Lida for example. Lida’s in her 40’s and can’t be seen in the light of day. Although she has a perfect body, she is real scary in close up –
– gets the worst clubs and shifts – here she is strictly a fill-in. One dancer and her boyfriend live in a van, going from club to club. He sits in the bar for every set and that has to be OK with the management.
This would seem to mean my parents are right that I can’t meet nice men because of my job, and although I don’t want to go all apocalyptic, it is hard to see how this can get better. I could meet someone through my writing –
if I were a different kind of more public person but I just can’t seem to change. (I’m getting happier and happier Being Me.) Probably my best bet is to go back to college –
– I’ve been wanting to – take a class here and there (a lot of dancers do this) and
date guys without letting them know what I do for work until I know them really well. Money is the problem there. More capital expense. I make good money and I should be able to afford it, however it doesn’t combine well with my plans to take time off and travel. I would have to work constantly which so far I have been too spoiled to do. A light schedule keeps dancing fresh for me –
– it’s also good for my writing. So I should probably compromise and
take one class – something nice and cheap like adult ed at the community college. I’ll think about it.
Sat night J was all withdrawn again. I don’t think he wants me to coax out of him what the problem is; I think when he is in that mood he really just wants me to go away. So I do. Avril says I’m being an idiot – that he is clearly in love with me – in her definition, I’ve “arrived”. I could get him to move in with me, structure his time and tell him what to do.
Maybe that’s what he wants but it certainly isn’t what I want.
He’s so depressed about his family — and it is too late to lie to them about what I do because his brother (whom I’ve still never met) “already knows”. Could I change my name and get away with being someone else entirely? Tell me again why should I go to those lengths?
He would just appall my parents. This would confirm every bad thing about me they’ve ever said (and they’ve said a lot). It’s really one of those tragic Victorian love stories (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) except that maybe its more SCI fi because we’re from different PLANETS. I’m beginning to think he’s actually “cast off” by his family –
– that’s his deep dark secret. His alcoholic behavior “ruined” him in his
hometown somehow. (He did graduate high school. He says.) He’s the horrible albatross from the Coleridge poem (or he’s trying to shift it off onto me.) Under the apparently inexorable rules of sexual attraction, once again he’s a weird mirror image of me. But instead of being a drunk (which my parents would prefer) I’m a poet. Probably in the South it all comes to the same thing. In the North it’s almost the same. Here we’ve got actual mental illness thrown into the mix.)
Can’t say my advice which is heought to write them off . He totally buys into their rejection and who knows, maybe it will save him in the end. “Dump your family” was my advice to my ex-husband, so possibly it’s mewho has the problem.
Mom and Dad asked if Jervaze was an intellectual and I said,
“Well, he’s reading my book.” I didn’t tell them he’s been reading it for the past two months with no end in sight. I don’t dare even comment on it.
It snowed about 20 hours – that’s another thing I like about J –
– he lives right next to the club. It’s hard on my dogs – but so would my death on the roads be.
Ryder called today – 3rd time in a month. He acted very loving and considerate – I don’t believe it for a minute. Now he’s worried about my health – wants to bring me homemade chicken soup, etc. I don’t rise to these flies any more and it feels so good. Any desire I may have had to see the flesh ripped from his bones with red-hot razorblades has ebbed.
I take that as progress. I look forward to seeing him again because I think it would be great to feel nothing.
Alysse Aallyn 