Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Addiction

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

        7:45 Pm – Plush Palace – Thurs 12 Jan 78

                              Called Jervaze and suggested we do something tonight – he acted enthusiastic.  I said, “Should I be calling you?  Wouldn’t want to call too much,” and he said, “Call all the time.” Ryder–induced horrors dropping away one by one.  It’s snowing – I’ll go straight to Jervaze’s. (He’s close to club.)

        4PM Friday, Jan 13-78

                              I think Jervaze may really be an angel; one of Milton’s 

    sexed up angels who took a wrong turn to our planet by mistake.  Some anxiety is relieved. We never did get to go anywhere – stayed in bed. Bliss. 

    But if this doesn’t work I will damn well marry Devon whether he likes it or not – I can’t take much more of this.

                              I’m at my desk hammering out letters – trying to answer one from the island realtor. The studio apt has “no cooking facilities”. I don’t care but the realtor does, she has a house on the pond for $175  “long lease” she wants me to take. Says it has a Franklin stove and I could “bike to town.” I admit I’m interested. Jervaze has offered to come to the island with me in March –

     I really shudder at the thought of introducing him to my parents, how to tactfully say, Please don’t ask him about Ideas and only offer him one drink.  

                              Last night I let myself into his apt, took a shower, tried to use his sparkingly hazardous blow dryer, gave that up, crawled in bed with him. I had lots of Ryder-induced fears that he wouldn’t be there, in bed with another girl, etc.  But no. There he was, nude, gorgeous, asleep – and when he woke up, happy to see me.

        5:25 PM Plush Palace  – Sat 14 Jan 78 

                              Snakes dropping into paradise one by one. First, although Jervaze is incredibly easygoing – it is impossible to get him to state a preference about a movie or a restaurant, for example – (had to drag him to Eastwood’s Every Which Way But Loose)  I can tell he is nervous about introducing me to his brother and sister in law. Should I just suggest we lie about what I do for a living? I guess that wouldn’t really solve anything.  

    Sartre is so right.  Hell IS other people.  Then there’s my mother – the latest demon fondling my ear.  Once a woman has made herself vulnerable to a man, she’s through.  Uncommitted sex brings out the worst in men, blah blah blah.  Because it’s “too perfect” ( his point of view).  I am “causing him moral hazard”. Yes, I tell the voice, 

    and it would be perfect from MY POINT OF VIEW TOO IF YOU WOULD JUST SHUT UP.  WE ONLY STARTED DATING A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO. But one can’t shut out THAT voice so easily.   Mystified by Willard Gaylin’s  irritating Caring.    He acts like mutual dependence or interdependence is some “failure” of personal autonomy.   

    Powder Mill Road – 11 PM Sunday 15 Jan 78

                              Jervaze “dropped by” this afternoon.  Since it’s such a 

    long way from his place to mine I was astonished.  Is it that I can no longer believe a man will climb mountains for me? Or is it just my sensitivities to Jervaze’s strangely inchoate “disabilities” warning me and sending up red flags?  We had a nice talk – he seemed faintly down –

    then he had to leave because he needs to get up extra early tomorrow.

     I was in too good a mood to work on my novel, bought clothes instead. 

    3 pairs of pants, sweater coat, five pairs undies, one pair gauchos. All clothes 

    size 7. Packaged MSS when I came home so as not to feel too unproductive.      

                              Coleridge poem taken by Virginia community college 

    screed. No money. (Natch.)

                              11Am Tues 17 Jan 78

                              Reading Evelyn Waugh’s diaries over my third cup of coffee with open mouthed amazement.  It seems almost a work of fiction. Try to imagine these whines and wails ever appearing in print! Imposserous as Bert Lahr would say. Thank God for The Victorian High Colonic: a pre-mortem bonfire. Highly recommended, my dear.

                                7:30 PM No word from J so I assume he is really coming to eat dinner here.  The evening’s menu: sherry and smoked oysters, cheese and crackers, burgundy and manicotti stuffed with crab.  French bread, banana nutbread and coffee for dessert, if we make it that far without attacking each other.  Need to watch the drinking – had two glasses of sherry while cooking and am definitely feeling it.

        2:15 AM Wed 19 Jan

                              J gone – he had to – no clothes here.  I let him go

     fairly gracefully – after hours of sex without anyone coming I was happy to be alone. He’s definitely an alcoholic. He gets away with it by never seeming drunk (only once in awhile. His “tell” is he wants to talk about Alabama.) But he’s also never not drinking. He seems too young but it definitely explains the physical problem.

        11Am

                              Avril came to consult about a bad date. Glad her classes start tomorrow – Limbo an unpleasant place to live. Need to walk dogs now 

    – going to AFI theatre tonight to see Next Stop, Greenwich Village.  

    Time keeps chewing us up and spitting us out.

        1 PM Thurs 20 Jan 78

                              Excellent morning lying in bed reading Byron. It would 

    be lovely to be rich – it would not be lovely to be Byron. 

    Another deeply rooted legacy of Ryder’s is that I now expect others to constantly lie (to themselves, above all)  about their motivations.  

    You can only judge by what they actually do which throws all planning 

    into the crapper and means you’re stuck with a lot of confused, open mouthed standing around waiting for disaster. I don’t make promises either – I just don’t say anything – which fact apparently caused me to assume I’d really enjoy a relationship with a totally nonverbal type like J. 

                                Turns out: noooooooo.   I torture myself about what he must be thinking and feeling which – let’s face it – may not be much.     Wish my royalties would arrive – I’ve spent them over in my mind a thousand different ways. 

    Can’t do anything about island property, travel, car, or self-publicity without them.  Capital expenditures, all. I am making dinner for A at four thirty to hear all about her first day of classes – then I go to work.  Love driving down the highway with the other “night shifters” – I always think I can pick them out.  Our special sense of purpose makes us different.

        Sunday 24 Jan 78  7:30 PM

                              Read Popcorn Venus, saw Julia, so alternately 

    depressed and cheered by turns. Thinking a lot about “impure relationships”. 

    How innocent to assume those are the ones with certain kinds of sex in them. In actuality, it is more the hostage taking mentality that is to be feared.  Can one just “Glance in” so to speak and then hustle the hell out? 

                              I’ve been so scared off,  I am having a non-relationship. 

    When Jervaze is not in my bed, it’s as if he never existed. Would I be surprised 

    if I found out he had some secret life?  Hell no, I’d be encouraged. I think the truth is he watches football alone, gets drunk, sleeps and works – 

    that’s all he does. 

                             I liked Julia because I am interested in the question 

    of what repressed sexuality does to relationships – does it change them?  

    Seems it would have to. Well, you can fool some of the people… Starting to re-think Courtney.  Worst novel ever written?  If so, what can I do 

    about it?  Is it too late?  Tell it from the cat’s point of view – something radical like that. Write it in blank verse like Spoon River Anthology.  

    Jervaze is mystified that I read by choice. Avril says “Don’t you get it? 

    He’s a mud puppy.” What can I say?  I’m such a sucker for male beauty. 

        Mon. 23 Jan 78

                              Enraptured by biography of John O’Hara.  Starts brilliantly – 

    describing his study at the time of his death – framed awards, Cape Cod lighters, bound diaries. Everything just “perfect” the way poor F. Scott always dreamed. The novels were steppingstones to the study, not the other way around!  I am feeling alienated from my study at the moment. 

    Have decided that my typewriter table – a board atop a wine rack – is all 

    wrong.  A and I went to Hechinger’s and studied several “office systems”. 

     Plastic cubes $70 even for a looksee. I’ve set my heart on satinwood so I guess next stop antique stores. What would an antique typing table

     look like?  A dressing table is the right height?  Sans mirror?  Wouldn’t want to look at oneself while working! First step to madness! 

                               When I work without interruption, time vanishes.  Maybe it’s like riding without spurs: you become the horse (one’s deepest self). 

     J. showed up Sun night.  We drank sherry, played cards. He is getting to like sherry, which I’m afraid, is my fault.  Someone needs to go on the wagon and I don’t want it to be me.  Heard via the rumor mill that Ryder broke his leg skiing!  Ha ha! Did he get insurance for that?   Maybe he wasn’t kidding and he was trying to kill himself.  I just don’t understand people like him.  He approaches everything as “it’s you or me” so the mountain let him have it although frankly I’m surprised it wasn’t someone else’s leg that got broken. Maybe he killed the other guy. Sent him a card – he’s “recuperating” at his parents’ house on a steady diet of Italian food.

        Thurs 26 Jan 78

                              Jervaze came in the Plush Palace last night and I talked to him until Eddy got restive. Turns out he has horrendous financial problems – 

    including hospital bills for a kidney complaint. Probably will have to sell his car even though it is a part of him like his cowboy hat. I was feeling carefree and immortal and suggested he move in with me – he’s thinking about it. Now of course I’m aghast. What if I gave him Avril’s room and he started bringing girls home? I could listen to them making love for hours and hours and hours – no one ever coming. Would I be jealous or would I feel sorry for her? See, this relationship is complex – I am wanting to run like hell or place an ad for “Needed: Goal oriented individual – good at sex – not too inflexible.“  Hopeless.  They have to get stiff and then hang loose at just the right times – “Impeccable timing”? A tall order, I know. 

                              Today I had trip to the dentist and letter from Mom –

     trip to the dentist was easier.  (He told me I have a “runner’s heart”.  

    Did not tell him I was a dancer.  Said I was a walker.  True – since 10 mos old.)  Mom says that if I really loved her I’d get a decent job. She and Dad offered to give me money so I don’t have to dance.  Respectful endowment of course would be great.  Unfortunately, they only mean, “till I get over my sickness.”

                              Happy to turn ‘em down flat.  Mom keeps saying a 

    feminist wouldn’t allow men to look at her in a sexual way. This is my 

    mother of the “Marilyn Monroe dress” (still hers and Dad’s favorite.) My mother who has always turned heads and received accolades as a major

     beauty, with drunken men pawing her in European restaurants, dazed Arab men following her down the beach, stoned college professors slobbering over her at parties.  All “her fault” apparently!!  It’s a critical component of hers and Dad’s relationship that he “captured” such a “prize”.  

    But all this must remain unsaid or “someone” will boo-hoo.

                              Who would bother to deny the roles of biology and 

    acculturation?  I’d like to live off my writing – but it is rapidly becoming apparent that to do that you have to write to “their” taste. And they have such bad taste!  Plus, I find I covet anonymity.  In spite of my profession of “being stared at”, I feel like I am the observer. It’s a heady sense of power.  

    This is theatre, after all. They may think they sit in darkness, but I can still see them.

                              Off to visit Ryder and his broken leg.  Took him cookies and magazines – cookies I did NOT bake myself.  I wondered if I would end up telling him about Jervaze – flirted with the idea – he would be scared to death if he ever caught sight of that beautiful, beautiful man.  That’s what J is best at.

     But I would be doing it to hurt him and since he has always accused me of doing everything to hurt him (born on an island, sentenced to prep school, losing my virginity to someone else, writing) it  seems as if actually doing it I would 

    be “giving in” to his worldview.  I must remain a refusenik. In the end he never asked me about myself;  but talked incessantly about him.  Trying to impress me, like on a first date. 

                              Looking back on it I think he’s just trying to stoke any hots I may still have for him.  He’s never bought into his own “friendship bullshit”;

     he doesn’t even believe it about same sex friends. The universe is fundamentally competitive and we’re all crabs in a barrel trying to step on each other’s heads to get a better view. Eat or be eaten, baby!  He made allusions to the fact that  “you” only value things you work hard for… or things you’ve lost.  Ha ha – zinger!   A grenade lobbed at me. 

                              The visit left me feeling uncomfortable – frustrated – 

     vaguely “one down” –  but unable to put my finger on it. From the way his sisters treated me I have a horrible feeling he tells people I was the love of his life but wouldn’t give up my selfishly immoral lifestyle.  That’s what he would do, the bastard, act like he was the victimized one.  I hope his leg heals crooked.  

                              Probably a good thing I didn’t mention Jervaze – he looks so good but he’s totally non-nutritious and collapses like a creampuff on scrutiny. We’d have to live in Alabama – he’s made that very clear. I can’t even imagine him having a conversation with another person in front of me. 

    He has no family pictures. I’d drop in on him at work just to catch a glimpse of him interacting with humans but it’s the Pentagon ! They wouldn’t let me in. He’s only a repairman, too, so he probably has a completely fictitious personality there.  

                              Still working on Waugh’s diaries.  Hard to avoid the 

    conclusion that he became Catholic to avoid giving up his pride.  

    Just another elegantly exclusive men’s club.  Anything to get out of “becoming human”.  You know.  The way Jesus did.

                              Almost midnight – last costume change of the evening. Pink and black lace, pink gladioli in my hair.  Black tassels, the works. Gentleman Jim – now a magnate with a string of clubs  – was in earlier – I was dancing my absolute best – wild applause – the crowd was chanting  my name.  But when I went to find him to ask him for a raise he was gone. Next time. 

                              This is the time of the evening Zombiehood sets in.  Jervaze comes in earlier and earlier – he asks me to come over, I don’t have to bring it up.  

    Made me promise to wake him.  I told him I would be “merciless” with him. 

     He wanted to know “how merciless”.  He is pretty cute.  He wasn’t wearing my ring – said he took it off at work because it was bothering him. Uh oh!

     I can imagine. What an idiot I was to give it to him.  Tips have been good –

    – I think I’ll buy a steak on my way over.  He doesn’t eat well at all. I am so hungry I have been stealing saltines from the kitchen.

                              No excitement here. Neither Gina nor Mary pregnant as they thought. Turns out both have flu.   The new girl, Maggie, has been telling me she’s got $35,000 in parking tickets.  She is one of those see-through thin girls who can’t dance at all – but has a great sense of humor.  She injects bute directly into her knees, as if she was a racehorse.

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                 Plush Palace – Tuesday, January 3, 1978 – 9:25 PM

                                        Back at work. Can’t concentrate on The Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey, which is the book I brought – because I keep thinking Jervaze will drop by. Dead silence from him – no call on Christmas.  I sent him one card but of course I only got back yesterday.

    I can’t bear to take all the initiative. Oddly (especially after my dream about him) had a card waiting from Devon. Maybe I AM psychic. Evidently he regrets that love-letter – encourages me to “hang loose”. Quotes from Sister Goldenhair.  In other words, don’t try to get him to plan to meet skiing, that’s just way more planning than he can handle. Kind of a pathetic specimen.

        Plush Palace – 10:05 pm Thurs 5 Jan 1978

                              Jervaze came in Tues after my 10:00 set – with lots of little presents for me, perfume, bears, cards, pins – in a Christmas stocking. He wore a gold-banded black cowboy hat covered with snow and a shiny black down parka, his platinum hair swinging around his face – like a visit from an angel.  Or possibly a Chippendale dancer.  He is too pretty; mine eyes dazzle. 

                            He stayed till I got off at 1 then walked me to my car – one kiss – asked me out very formally for Saturday night.  I gave him directions to my place and he wrote them in a book – tipped his hat, climbed into his Shelby and vanished.

    Leaving me wondering, is he gay? Is he even real?  I continue to struggle reading The Young Romantics – artists in 1840’s Paris.

                              Avril and I found a perfect black sequin tube top while

     we were out promenading yesterday – I’m going to wear it with my black silk trouser suit.  She thinks she found herself the perfect apartment too – a studio in a skyscraper with a great kitchen, huge closets, only $216 month utilities included, says she is going to look for another week before she decides. Financial fount M & D don’t want her living with me because I am a “harmful influence.” We saw Armon in a bit part on TV last night – there weren’t any credits, but I knew it was him.

                              Listening out of one ear to gossip – Gina says the bartender at the Starlight is bisexual and that Tony the bagman is her male lover. 

    I can’t imagine them together. He is called the “bagman” because he runs between the clubs in a Lincoln filled with bags of money. Gina also says that she is a priest in a mail order religion and that her breasts are real and her ex-husband raped her nine-year-old daughter. I can tell for a fact those hard breasts are fake so it does make it tough to believe anything she says. 

                              Last night went out with Erika to see the new Bunuel

     (in spite of her claims to revere him she failed to notice he used different actors for the same part) and to eat at Chateau Gesundheit. Depressing conversation about how terrible men are – she says her ex-husband is a cross 

    between a psychopath and a momma’s boy – she naturally assumed because of Ryder that this would be my favorite subject. She also says all exotic dancers and showgirls were molested as children and as a result are lesbians who hate men. I say is that alllittle girls have some unpleasant memories of Adult Men but this is just a chip on her breeze.  A breeze I think I better stay out of in future, perhaps. I also get tired of hearing the Marxist slant on Life. Love doesn’t exist, people do everything for “self-interest”, etc. etc. If that is true they are doing a piss-poor job of it. I think people live for fantasy and some people’s fantasies are very, very cheap.

                              Hoping drinks with Maeve will be more fun.

                              Midnight – 6 Jan- 78

                              Crazy  with love.  Jervaze and I had one of those unforgettable dates last night – Took him to my favorite restaurant in Ellicott City – Coco Lane and we talked for hours. He loves dogs – wants to raise Grand Pyrenees. His favorite cats are English blues. Wanted to be a vet except he always hated school, so that’s how he got into working with his hands and he thinks there’s no way back now. He loves WC Fields and horror movies.  

                              The thing I love about him most (apart from his astonishing beauty) is his natural courtesy, his dignity (he is very polite to anyone in a service position – the exact opposite of status-focused Ryder who acted as if being exigent was the same thing as being discriminating.) He has such an aura of gentleness and calm, just like those big dogs he loves so much. His isolation, I like too – he’s the only male I’ve met in quite awhile who doesn’t travel in a pack. He has a brother in the same job locally – that’s why he came up from Alabama – but he plainly thinks suburban Virginia is the “fast lane” and I don’t disabuse him. 

                              He eats seafood by preference and wants to live on the water.

     He probably drinks too much and could be an incipient alcoholic. My parents would be totally, totally appalled but of course it doesn’t take much to appall them.  Alas, he hasn’t finished my book – claims he’s “working on it”. I am waiting for him to outright say he doesn’t understand it – maybe when he knows me better.

                              When he kissed me goodnight he only kissed me – a relief at the time, since it was one less worry. Now of course I wish I had some clearer indication from him that he finds me even attractive. Is he polite or am I resistible? Don’t want to be resistible – we’ll have to change that.  

        Sat -1 pm 7 Jan- 78

                              I’m at the Starlight – our club owner owns this one too – it’s huge.  

    How I hate this stage. It isn’t a true stage but a runway winding through the audience, which means you must keep walking all the time – and they try to fill it by having several girls up at once. One can’t build any audience hypnosis – people pay less attention and have more business meetings – and tips really take a nosedive. The bartender is a grizzled old lesbian who stares right up my crotch – supposedly to see if my stocking seams are straight (they aren’t. Fortunately she doesn’t offer to do them for me – but she still watches.) Four of the other girls tried to get me to let them smoke dope in the dressing room – I told them no. They’ll have to go out back with the alley cats. 

                              Thank God Glee – who has a lot of class – backed me up. So –

    the two of us had the dressing room to ourselves, which made a pleasant change from watching the others trying to disguise the scars from their breast operations. Book I brought – The Pleasure of Ruins – does not go with this atmosphere – in spite of its title.

                              Ryder called me here – says he found me thru Randy who was impressed because Ryder’s on TV!  I flatly told him he is scaring the life of out me with this behavior. 

                               But he seems to know just how far to push things, so, amazingly we had a wonderful talk!  Gentleman Jim lets us talk in his office: very respectful of our “privacy”.   He obviously thinks we are dating.  Wonder if he will tip R to the fact that I have a “honey on the side” at the Plush Palace?  Jesus!

     I told R I am sick of his “psychotic twin brother” (good idea for a novel, actually) and he really laughed – admitted he has “a Jekyll-Hyde” thing going on.  (It’s actually worse than that – it’s really Hyde and Mr. Nastier Hyde – but didn’t say that. Keep conversation light.)  He promised to stop calling me at work. 

        Monday 8 Jan 78 – 6 PM

                                Twenty-four hours ago I was sitting in my red dress over a glass of port, waiting for Jervaze to arrive. Anxiety level high.  Somewhere –

     – I think from Mom – I got the impression that my needs are so automatically repellent to any sane individual that they must be hidden. Therefore, I have to carefully think my way through to any honest approach – and then it isn’t really honest any more.  But I can’t just be impulsive.  Prepared myself for disappointment – that he would be late or perhaps not show – because there is something weird about him.  Some deep dark secret perhaps? But he was right on time.

                              This time I took him to my nearest neighborhood restaurant 

    –  where the waiter put on quite a show with Irish coffee till flaming liquor rolled down his sleeves!  Jervaze  came inside my house without hesitation – 

    Me fretting about how to best establish physical contact while he sprawled comfortably on the couch.  I turned off the overhead light and lit candles – took off my jacket – he rubbed his face against my breasts acting calm, respectful and not neurotic. Must be my experience with R that makes me fearful of being “shamed” every second.  

                              Jervaze kissed and kissed my face so long – tears 

    automatically filled my eyes.   But he did not get upset. Got up like aperfect gentleman “when it was time to leave” and I managed to resist attacking him.  I did one very strange thing that is causing me anxiety now. 

    We showed each other our class rings – he always wears his. I slid mine on his little finger and left it there. He wore it home. Uh oh.

        11:30  AM Wed 11 Jan 78

                              Experiencing sharp attacks of fear all day long at “being in a relationship”.  What the hell was I doing giving him my ring?  See, I agree that everything’s my fault!  Story of my life! Currently enjoying two quiet hours while Avril is at the gynecologist.  It will be great when she gets her own place. 

    Plenty of private time and space to panic in.  

                              Today I got a phone call from Ryder and a letter from Devon. So –

     I was able to line my relationships up, so to speak, contrast and compare. 

    Even lumped together they are not one full relationship!  R’s “gamesmanship” is down from its zenith, but, owing to my total nonparticipation, also at its most exposed.  Lengthy chat about our vacations, and then he spent probably a half hour telling me his “insurance setup”. Why? So I can tell everyone where to find the will and the important papers when he runs into a tree on his next ski trip!  I should be worried about him dying apparently!!!  

                              I let him talk, I didn’t cut him off and I asked no questions, largely because this makes him the craziest and he deserves it. I know he’s comforting himself now that I at least care about his finances if not about him. Devon thanked me for the glamorpic (described me as “so lovely” and said he feels like he’s talking to me when he writes his letter) and then launched into a long description of his and Gwynne’s relationship. 

                              They have an “understanding” which seems to involve “being there for each other” without “demands”.  “Why won’t he admit he’s gay?” howls Avril when I read this to her. 

                              But I don’t think sex is even that simple for him. His approach is much more diffuse – a constantly vibrating choice between “being sexual” and “not being sexual”. He and I had such good sex, but if it all has to happen in a sort of coma, if there can’t be any planning or god forbid, discussion then the hell with it.

                              As for Jervaze, he showed up for the last three hours of my first night back at The Plush Palace from the Starlight. He was wearing my ring. I asked him if my work bothered him. He said, no, he was cool with it, but was glad I asked.  

                              Whereupon we went back to his place and made love for 3 hours.  Whoo-hoo!  I’m not kidding!  The first test – home design – alas he failed. His furnishings are truly HORRIFIC Spanish Mediterranean dreck.  His shower curtain consists of festoons of blue chiffon – it is INCONCEIVABLE that a male could purchase such a thing. Guess I am not asking the right questions. Old girlfriend? Mom? Sister-in-law? Some woman raised exclusively on pirate films had a hand in here somewhere.  

                              As to the sex – that test he passed. He’s a prizewinner there. Everything takes forever and that doesn’t seem to bother him in the least. Is he some kind of reptile, living in a time zone utterly different from us mammals? 

    It took him 20 minutes to get my pants off working steadily.  I got enough comments about the beauty of my body to satisfy my ego for life.  

                              He went down on me without a flicker – so much for all those rumors about Southern men – and when he goes down he stays down.  On the other hand – he never did come. Calms fears of premature ejaculation but –

    raises other ones. 

    When I left, he gave me his key.

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

         24 Dec 77 – midnight – Plush Palace

                              The Big Day. Go home, sleep, wake up, do laundry, take dogs for shots, buy snow tires.  In a haze of infatuation – Jervaze was in for 5 hours tonight watching me dance with a sense of unmistakable pride.  

    He asked for my phone number so he could call me on Christmas Day – I gave him all of them.

        New York City Dec 25 77 – Fri night.

                                Life is so interesting, Wouldn’t miss it for the world.  

    Lovely intimate family talks – just what family should be doing for perspective on past and future. In two days Avril and I drive out to Michigan to see Merrill – 11 hour drive – tonight’s a dinner in the Village then an early night. 

    Heard of a studio apt on the island – winterized – going for $200/month. 

                          Of course I will have enough royalties for that…or won’t I?  Harcourt royalty dept uncooperative, editor Lauren very cagey.  But won’t the island kill my already comatose sex life?  Whenever I’m away from dancing I miss it. 

     It’s a great substitute for sex but not a complete one alas.   Physical activity vital to my peace of mind.

                              96th St off the Park- New York City –   26  Dec 77

                              Genevieve’s apartment is triggering horrible flashbacks to how sick I was over Ryder at the beginning of last summer. Scary that a man could do this to me. Don’t ever want to get that sick again.  

    Makes me sorry this diary exists – my trusty friend – because it gives misery an actual corporeal reality.

     Burn these sickening wails before I die.  The Victorians always did.

                              Well I’m raring to get back. Not only do I miss the dancing, I miss the bar.  Ah, the nightlife. Always a party atmosphere but I could feel superior for not drinking (or getting high).   I like our status and protections – I like getting paid for exercising, being admired and having fun. This pleasure just cannot be shared – Mom’s face crimps closed – and I am lost in the unredeemable beastliness and ugliness she feels certain it must be. 

                           The fact that I am a feminist and consider myself spiritually in tune with the universe also is incomprehensible to her. (Wives can get into big spiritual trouble too, but I am too tactful to bring that up.) Unfortunately there is no way to defend myself except by attacking back – her  “safe”, closed, restricted world of handmaiden to Dad, feeding and burnishing him like a racehorse, talking him “up” as if she were his sports coach, does not seem to me more inherently saintly. 

                              But to Mom self-loss is what “sainthood” is – you totally do not regard yourself in your care for someone else. The fact that you are puffing them up like a grampus, encouraging them to be completely selfish, is I guess too shockingly cruel to mention. So: I’m stuck in Patient Griselda mode with undeserved imprecations heaped on my innocent head. 

     I wonder if it would be too nasty to talk about how I am sacrificing myself for those poor lonely men who need to look upon a perfect feminine ideal while they swill beer?  Guess I better not. 

                              Mom is fond of saying that love doesn’t work unless 

    you open your heart to the other but you can’t do it without marriage!  

    I say Jervaze and I are “courting” which is a very different thing.  I don’t think I will ever open my heart again. I think perhaps it opens by itself –

     naturally. One might as well tear a flower open and complain about the quality of the bloom.

                              Interesting being here with Brett and Genevieve and 

    watching someone else’s marriage from the outside.  Does not look too enviable. Reading “Eclipse of the Hero in Victorian Fiction.”  He’s in eclipse everywhere else, too, I may add.

        Mon 27th Dec 77 11:00 AM

                              See Dracula on Broadway – pure pleasure with some 

    honest scares.  Frank Langella very sexy.  At Italian dinner Mom and Dad push the idea of the island hard, but I know the old people would never leave me alone.  They’d be worse than Ryder. Still, there’s something magical about being protected from the real world by the ferry – places you can’t get to easily are wonderful just for that reason. 

                              Mom and Dad say further I can’t be serious about my writing or I’d have a job in publishing or magazines!  I’m so rocked back on my heels its hard to even argue. It sounds so sane. But why won’t it result, really, in another “hostage taking” of my soul, which, so, so regrettably, appears to be so damn fragile? Becoming one’s self  is life’s greatest challenge – and so far it does seem necessary to abjure group (gang? Team?) endeavors. Writing doesn’t satisfy unless it comes out of the wild side of me – my secret side. There’s always the temptation to rip open the spider and get the silk out faster. Dad rolls his eyes – it’s the old “I’m an artist so I can do what I want” argument again. How to tell him yes, he’s right. Yes –

    I’m taking advantage of my education, my family, my “privileges”; it’s who they made me.  No going back to some invented Dust Bowl life of drudgery just so THEY can “feel superior & good”. They insist they don’t WANT to “feel good!” It’s about what’s “right!”  My turn to roll my eyes.

        Detroit, 11:05 PM, Thursday 29 Dec 77

                              At the adorably, impossibly 20’s Tudoresque manse my sister 

    Merrill is restoring – it’s lovely here. Merrill and her husband say dancing is “sex work” and “sex work” is “OK” if its “regulated so “sex workers aren’t exploited.”  I get annoyed that nobody can tell the difference between dancing and prostitution!  Lots of things cause “erotic titillation” – breathing for example. Still, I find I’m inclining toward taking a two-month break in March 

    and going to the island to write. Is this family management?  But one of the reasons I like dancing is because you can “pick it up and put it down.” 

    Well, we’ll see.

        Thurs night 29 Dec 77 9:30 PM

                              I find as I distance from Ryder I remember some good things and that makes me happy. He was so unique.  It was fun knowing him, watching him perform impromptu magic for street children and restaurant patrons. More extraordinary really than poor old Jervaze who in spite of his glamorous looks drinks way too much and hates his job. Also Ryder knew me as a “not dancer” which J doesn’t – maybe that persona obscures who I really am. I remember the excitement of watching Ryder make his television show – unexpectedly sweaty physical labor in choosing camera angles and shots –

    timing, music, close-ups – building the tape as the excitement was happening 

     – more in common with sports than some couch potato activity like editing.

                                        Greek Town for dinner after the Renaissance Center, so the night ended in a wild bouzouki.  Day occupied with antiquing – especially fun since I am reading Rumer Godden’s  China Court, which is basically a love song to things. It made me worry that there are not enough details in Demon – what should I add? Perhaps buy a Vogue to see.  

                                        Dreamed about Devon last night.  Wonder  what 

    he’s up to.  Maybe I’m being psychic again. Getting some peace of mind about him as well. Merrill’s daughter comes to read over my shoulder, then when I move to hide the diary says, “Don’t worry, I can’t read cursive. “

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                      12 Nov 77 6:25 PM Plush Palace

                              I finally called Ryder. (He’s been leaving me messages.)

     I said if we were going to have a relationship of any kind – the friendship that he wanted – we would have to have rules (I got the idea from Nancy Mitford.)  He said he was so glad I called, he’d been having the most awful 

    day.  He took my card out of his rolodex but couldn’t bring himself to destroy it so put it away in a drawer. What rules he said.  I said we’d have to think.  No idle calls?  No talk about past? He said, “Please forgive me” and I said 

    “Forgive me.”  He said there’s nothing to forgive,  

                              Dancing suddenly OK? I said we’re done with all 

    that stuff.  Starting over. But I’m very busy working a lot and writing a

     lot and he said he’s very busy working a lot. No expectations. We both said fine and I’m pretty sure he’s as relieved as I am. 

                              We’re going to Looking for Mr. Goodbar Thurs –

     I want to see it too.  He knows how I love movies.  It’s perfect 

    weather to pick up Avril at the airport and drive to Galesville tomorrow for brunch with Mom & Dad at the marina. There’s a big white 

    farmhouse on Old Annapolis Rd I always look at longingly. 

                              Plush Palace 4 PM Wed 15 Dec 1977

                                Shaking like a leaf. Ryder called the club saying he 

    was called early into work tonight – change of plans.  I called his work 

    immediately – “Mr. Arlen’s desk.” Left a message saying I got his 

    message but do not call the club. Hope this stymies him till after 

    Christmas but I know he is going to say we need each other’s workplace 

    # for last minute plan changes. I’d better have something to say – which

     I think is THIS IS NOT DATING.  WE ARE NOT DATING. You can’t be 

    trusted with my workplace #. 

                                Then I start looking desperately for Handsome Jervaze to come in. 

    He’s supplying me lately with that all-important fantasy vitamin of which I have been so deficient for so long. Can’t even THINK about R to the background of Disco Inferno.  

        Sat – 18 Dec 77 9:30 AM

                                Very dissatisfied with life and self and, as usual, in 

    complete confusion as to what to do about it. I suspect I should not be 

    making any big investment decisions, like buying a house and furnishing it but I am sick of being such a goddam wanderer. Avril has been 

    accepted at U of MD – my job is to finish this goddam novel. If I could finish it maybe March, then April and May could be my traveling months.

     I thought March skiing could be nice – in Devon’s back yard.

                                I am in danger of making an idiot of myself over Phil 

    Jervaze – “Adonis” as I privately call him .  He seems very attracted but is not making the first move. I’ll have to bring him along somehow. 

     Going tomorrow to Renaissance Music at the National Shrine.  

    Wear my rhinestones or can I restrain myself? Avril says I’m doing a good job taking her mind off of Dipstick,  (my name for Mason). Bought her $80 worth of clothes – she can pay me back when I need help with the January rent.

                                The Plush Palace 20 Dec 1977 – 4 PM                                                                               Avril called to say that Ryder called again – trying to find out my 

    holiday plans from her.  Says he might have to work. I am surprised to be so quivery about this. 

                      I am very unhappy about this level of communication.  

    I was actually hoping not to have to deal with him till after Christmas. 

    Would prefer not  to give him an opportunity to go into his act. I’ve learned if I call his work I always get his secretary. Left the message I will be “out of town”. 

                            Favor, Alysse., The trouble is, telling a game-player you don’t play games is all part of the game to them! There is absolutely nothing I can do to step 

    out of this thing except bore him to death. We will see each other fewer and fewer times, the emotional content will be constantly plummeting-

    and meanwhile, the chicks on the side he has summoned up for contrast and amusement will be clamoring for center stage. Let them have it.

                              And I have my own magic pill in reserve – Jervaze. 

    That anyone can drift through life so far unironically with shoulder length platinum hair, platinum mustache and a white cowboy hat, drive a 72 Shelby and work for the Pentagon titillates my Yankee soul. But that’s what’s so much fun about the fine commonwealth of Virginia.  

    It’s full of these people. Uh oh. I hear the rhythm of Disco Inferno, audience’s current favorite. Dust myself with body glitter and I’m up.

         9:30 AM – 22 Dec 77

                              Very annoyed with my life right now – trying to avoid

     making out of sheer boredom some kind of major financial mistake – 

    like buying a house and filling it with furniture.  Now that Avril has been accepted  as a “permanent student” at U of MD don’t see why we shouldn’t share a berth somewhere. One of our dancers is a student there and she says student housing is very expensive. Why couldn’t I make money renting out rooms?

                         But then what would happen to the three months of traveling I was promising myself ?  Wanted to spend March skiing in the White Mountains.

                              I need something more solid than Romance, that’s for sure. Jervaze cancelled our last date so now I’m freaking. It is vital that he makes the next move but my feminist soul revolts. Four months of celibacy appears to be my limit.

                              Sitting in the bay window drinking a third cup of coffee and watching a calico cat stalk the yard. Avril and I have been living rather high lately, buying clothes for Christmas.  Last night saw the movie Telefon –

     -very exciting but with an unbelievable ending – then watched Baryshnikov’s 

    delightful Nutcracker on TV. Avril says she’s finally starting to forget old What’s His Face.

                              I’m trying to get her interested in the religious and meditation books that have been such a help to me. She’s not that kind of a reader, alas.

                              No word from Ryder. My latest “daymare” is that he will just show up at the club.  Should I talk to Randy about this? Avril says Ryder’s asked her about it.  I made her promise to say “We don’t think you should have that information” even if he already knows.  I try comforting myself 

    with my knowledge of his vanity – he wouldn’t want other men to see Randy throw him out as an “unsuccessful suitor”.  (Angry exes show up at club routinely and aren’t allowed in no matter how they behave or how much money they have.  They get On The Bad List.) 

                               Let’s hope the sensitivity of his ”pride” protects both of us. But he probably would send a stooge – it is just like him – to spy out the land. Fortunately I look good and this classy place has the Shalimar beat so no disgrace.  

                              Jervaze and I are trying to keep people at the club from knowing that we date. But it’s impossible to really disguise favorites what with the tripping, 

    drinks, flowers and etc even if we aren’t allowed to sit with the customers. 

    Stooge could probably figure it out.  Maybe Ryder would “give up” at the sight  of him.  Search me.

                              I’m at the stage with Jervaze where I hunger for some 

    symbol of his caring, that he’s broken through the surface status and glamour of “dating a dancer” and has some deeper regard for me as a unique human being.  He buys copies of my book whenever he finds them, but of course that’s status and glamour too, even though it’s just a paperback. I have forbidden him to tell anyone at the club about my book – he finds that a little weird, but I don’t see how being “a dancing author” could do me any good. The thing I most love about this job is that you don’t have to talk. Gave him a book of my poems for his birthday: a declaration of erotic war.

        23 Dec 77 12:15PM

                              So in love I’m crazed. I’m at that stage where you can’t 

    honestly tell if the other person is even interested, you’re in such a delirium. Jealousy of all the other dancers because he looks at them.   

    Jervaze says he liked my poems, his favorite being Nocturne.

                              I thought that might do the trick. I possess wiles 

    unknown to other babes.  He mentioned that his brother’s going back to Alabama so he might be alone for Christmas – I invited him to New York City but I could tell from his expression he’ll never do it. He thinks Virginia is the north – calls the New Jersey Turnpike “undriveable” –  

    a lawless war zone. (If he could hear what we say about the South!)                                             

    We exchanged presents – he gave me a bottle of Southern Comfort and another one of my books (he keeps buying them for me) and I gave him a very small glamour shot in an antique frame – so he can do anything with it – hide it if he wants. Keep it in his car. He said he liked it but in the bar light he really couldn’t see. The we went to breakfast – 

    had a wonderful conversation about ghosts and WC Fields.  He believes in one but not the other. I was hoping he would kiss me – regret the first time when smelling of beer, he leaned forward to kiss me but I pulled away. 

                              But last night would have been completely unmanageable-

     – under yellowing lights and the stares of strangers (me in my stage 

    makeup) or out in the pouring rain. So we said goodbye, hopped in our cars.  We may not see each other for three weeks! I’ve got his address –

     (on his business card) so I can at least send him a card from NY.  

    Got to get up and face the day. Avril back from her final exam in ½ hour – then off to Landover Mall to see Saturday Night Fever.  

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                     4:20 PM Fri Oct 14 – 77

                              Blessed book!  The joy, the solidity, the security this diary has afforded me all my life can’t be measured.  Bizarre letter from my dentist thanking me for referring “Mr. Arlen” to them!  Apparently Ryder is stalking me. Now I have to wear makeup to the dentist!  Hope I don’t run into Ryder while wacked out on Novocain.  Usual day of quotidian pursuits, washing lingerie & hair, filing, letters.  Avril writes that Mason is moving in with a friend! He thinks it will be “better” for her. Bet the “friend” is female! Sure sounds like death knell to me – he dragged her all the way out there, ran busily through her money & lost his spark.  Still other’s relationships are always so much clearer!  Now we can be glad she’s not going to school – she needs to get out NOW. 

                              Plush Palace – Mon – 11:40 PM 17 Oct 77

                              4 Dancers on tonight but Cindy and Linda walked out, ticked about my raise (I didn’t tell them.) So more dancing (and $$).  Plus coffee machine broken and we need to order out so I treated myself to 2 Krispy Kremes. Ah, the simple joys.  Five-year plan guy is back.  His fave play? “Love is Alive” – unfortunately.

                              The most gorgeous autumn weather tonight driving here – my heart soared. ONE MORE SET! Then fling on fake fur “Shakespearean” coat, jump into El Diablo, off into the night. Bar deserted, tips unspeakable. Asked if I could cash a check with Randy he just handed me a $20 bill, so there’s gas. Kiki says she’s getting married, worked the whole evening on her guest list for Big Event in Fredericksburg. Reading Hardwick’s Seduction & Betrayal and appreciating it although something’s “off” about her. Why won’t the ventriloquist put down the dummy and just talk?  And she’s just flat wrong about Woolf and Plath.

                              I brood about letting R. know where I work. Brave or stupid?  Stupid, I think.  Better class him with “dead end relationships”. I have plenty of people I’d never want to see again – Bruce and Kyro springs to mind.  Other people I feel good about like Toss Sheffield. He’d be fun to see again. Could he handle my dancing? He had a fun “hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy” attitude in general towards effort & enterprise.

    Insomniac

    I can’t sleep

    Because you’re gone

    My muscles wake

    My mind goes spinning on

    And where your fingers

    Plied and pruned my face

    Night air is cold and

    Caustic in its place

    And where we turned and woke

    In complex rhyme, I’m left

    To face the music frayed by time

    A waltz which once we won

    Losing battle choreographed for one.

    None to explore or

    Appreciate my line though now at last

    It’s incontestably mine.

                              12:10 PM- Plush Palace – Wed 19 Oct 77

                              Dance night, then dance the next day kind of rough. And tips are bad when the weather’s good – no one comes in.  I seem to have a lot of bills – just turned on the heat – but I’m meeting them. Making some inroads today on Thomson’s Life of Frost. Randy fired Robin –

    Yvonne needs $300 immediately because she just bought a piano. Well good luck getting it out of this crowd is all I can say. Paz’s “on call” because she left her husband and moved into the motel across the street.  Let’s hope she shows up.  Last time I saw her she was pretty depressed; said she gave him “the best four years” of her life. I have to get this all down in case I need it someday.  Ryder used to be especially pissed when I got nostalgic for dancing.  But dancing is its own little world. 

                              7:30 PM- Plush Palace – Thu 20 Oct 77

                              This afternoon I was getting ready for work phone rang, I say hello and Ryder’s tight little voice says: (very meaningfully) Hello.  

    I turned the radio down (Lakmé) and said casually as I could, “How are you?”

                              He said he should enroll in FBI school after all the 

    trouble he’d had tracking me down. 

                              (It couldn’t have been that hard since Mom and Dad’s 

    house sitter has been giving my # to all and sundry.)  Said he was punished now for being a non-communicative procrastinator who should fling himself off the 14th St Bridge.  

    I told him I lived in Beltsville and danced in Virginia, refused to give further details. I didn’t let him get away with any of his garbage.  He said I’d been in town since Sept 8 without contacting him. I said he’d made it pretty plain he didn’t like what I had to offer. Then why did I come back?  I said, I like it here. Creep!  

    Like he owns the world!  

                              He said, will you eat with me?  Hmmm.  Something

    rattling in Pandora’s box. While I hesitated, he said don’t make me disguise myself 

    as a girl scout cookie salesman (he could get away with it, too.) He said he hasn’t gone out to dinner since our last night at Alfio’s!!! (I guess the Emmys don’t count but I said nothing.) Said he’s having to give back his furniture and sleep on an air mattress because he can’t make the payments. Aww.  

    This is the idiocy of buying furniture on time, but I still say nothing. So we’re meeting Babe’s Sun at 3:30.Sunday.  Seems fairly safe… Rushed to library and took out every true murder book I could find.  Just in case.

                               2 Nov – Plush Palace – 6:05 PM.

                              Ryder called this morning to “report in!” Just to chat about his day!  No more of that, I said.  I’m busy. Slam. I don’t chat and I’m not sorry and it’s too late to learn.  Actually, feeling amazingly happy.  Kiki showed me how to cut off my corn with an exacto knife.  Instantly better!  Still in Vol I of Life of Frost.  He was a repulsive human being, all right.  Nowhere near as fun as Agatha.  Precious equilibrium recovered. 

                              8:30 PM  8 Nov 77

                                I gave him the full treatment, poor guy. Red Italian boots, glittery eyeshadow, tight, tight jeans. Ho ho ho. Deliberately drove Connecticut Ave but no markers from the past reached out their claws.  Felt strong and blissful. 

    I was first there (of course) so could order carafe of wine and think. Thinking,

     I’ll just explain to him that my idea of friendship and intimacy requires a 

    degree of truth telling that appears to freak him out.

                              He wore his high heels, too. His hair is blonder, longer 

    and messier than I remembered and it suits him.  Off to the Bahamas next weekend, he says for a “dive”. He wore the pinky ring I gave him (he says he can’t get it off.) But that holy glow, that shine he used to have is gone for me. I get it that he doesn’t know the pain he caused – 

    shallow people can’t.  And that’s pitiable, really. He’s not just deaf in one ear, he’s deaf in his soul. 

                              He has a carefully worked out a “barstool rationale” for what happened to us; we became lovers before we became friends.

     I have no comment. Postponing sex would not have helped – and it might have made things worse dumping all the responsibility for timing on me. I think when he saw how easy it was to draw blood he couldn’t help doing it, and I was a fool and an idiot.  I ordered the fruit and cheese plate but left before it arrived. Realize how much I want all this to be in the past. No future of any kind exists for us.  Not even in fantasy. The future is what matters. Told him to give my regards to the folks at the Shalimar. He said he’d give me a buzz. 

                              Bet I can finish Demon by Thanksgiving. Avril coming. 

     Lucky I have a second bedroom.  Furnish it with Kliban posters, a 

    thrift shop bureau and a mattress on the floor.

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Plush Palace – 11:20 AM Sun 24 Sept – wrote a fourteen page letter to Avril tonight. There’s a very pretty blond here who looks just like Ryder – they could be mistaken for each other – but it’s not him. 

                              9:40 PM  – walls dry so I  could hang paintings. What a difference.  Reading Redinger’s bio of George Eliot, The Emergent Self. Like it very much. Turns out I love driving to work – 5Pm is rush hour on the Beltway – everyone’s coming home but I’m going out for the night!  Makes me feel weirdly close to all those people.  And apparently they feel close to me – though they could just be reacting to my bumper sticker (Colette was a Nudie Dancer). They don’t seem to get the literary reference.

        Mon 3 Oct 1977

                                I hear only from my sister Merrill who declares my book a “brilliant satire”.  She wants to know why I work?  Shouldn’t I tour with book? Sigh. Give me the money and leave me alone I say.

                              Spent the AM phoning around trying to find my book in all the stores. Only found it one place. Dropped note to publisher. 

                              Out for Courvoisier with Erika who lectured me on my book. I ended up defending the Victorians saying everyone now thinks “honesty and openness” are going to save them but we don’t know enough about ourselves for real honesty and our lives are still based on “smothered panic” as far as I can see.  (See Janet Case’s strictures to V. Woolf.) Well off to my double life. When I pull into the Plush Palace parking lot I have such a good feeling.  Everything coming together. Down the old runway.  

                              Bought the most wonderful gold stripper shoes that tie with ribbons and have clear Lucite six-inch heels. I finally have enough costumes to feel really professional – every set should be good. Randy always compliments me. I am slowly phasing my hair from red to blonde – seems to help with the tips. I can live on fruit and cream of wheat –  only buy groceries with tip money. Little man down front muttering “fuck me-fuck me-fuck me” over and over but not loud enough to be evicted. Randy said I am the best dancer in Washington area.

        Sat 8 Oct 1977

                              Giving a dinner party. Bought 8 old-fashioned glasses for 50 cents apiece, five floor pillows, peacock chairs and a glass dining table. Now I’m looking for a silk eiderdown (for my bed) in some violent color. Bought beautiful rose-lilac fabric for curtains. Randy gave me another raise without my even asking for one.  I love my body again!  After the long estrangement caused by Ryder…he deliberately tried to undermine my faith in my body. He would prefer bad sex with a slave as long as he can be boss. Wait – isn’t that the marriage he just got out of? Guess we all repeat ourselves.

                              7:30 PM Tues 11 Oct 77

                              I’m too fucking fragile.  All my problems come from pretending I’m not.  I look forward to old age when presumably throbbing metabolism, soaring hormones and plunging brain waves will have smoothed out. How to describe this scrambled day?  I’ve been vibrating like a cilia ever since I got up this morning.  Made dentist, gyno appts, shots for dogs, dog licenses, took angel puppies on an hour’s walk. Divorce lawyer on the 26th: “John Love”: seems appropriate. Clear the decks for writing.

                              My area of Beltsville very rural. Poetry in all directions. Reading Mildred Savage’s A Great Fall and getting lots of ideas. Vacuum cleaner to repair shop they say they can fix for under $15.  I hate errands, a disgusting dribble of irreplaceable time.  Rewarded myself by getting Sleeping Murder at the library. Already know Dr Kennedy is the murderer.

                              2PM Wed 12 Oct 77 – Plush Palace

                              Some men seem to interpret the fact that I’m a dancer as some sort of personal challenge to them.  You can feel the spike of hostility. “You’re making me think about sex again!”  Is it fear of rejection?  Any aura of professionalism bothers them also.  I always curtsy especially low to the hostile tables – they can never figure out whether I am mocking them or not AND THEY THINK I PROBABLY AM!  I save them a lot of money by getting them thrown out early.  One guy asked me how long it would take to get in bed with me. His erection was so obvious I almost asked, “And what is your little friend drinking?” but instead I said, “5 years.”  He showed up next night, saying, “Day one of the five year plan!”  I like those guys much better. 

                              Final R conclusion: What a JERK!  Jerk’s absolutely the right word – in instinctual reflex – no brain activity involved.  Will I ever find a gorgeous man (blond, please) whose soul is connected to his brain?  

                              9:20 PM Thurs 13 Oct 77

                              Shopping Loehmann’s yesterday with Maeve. 3 sweaters, silk jumpsuit with jacket & scarf, lime-colored silk jersey blouse, socks, boots, shoes, gloves – $140 cash. Nice. Saw a wonderful fake fur coat I’d like to come back for. It has a priceless air of Ken Russell camp. Buy it with my Folger money – Shakespeare would understand.  

                              Maeve bought nothing.  Couldn’t find one thing she liked, reading labels with the expression of Queen Victoria viewing a slum.  And the free-for all dressing rooms full of naked people just astonished her.  (Stuff I see every day.)  

                              She wants to know exactly why Wealthier People rejected this clothing at its first price?  They must know something we don’t.  (Wondrous rhinestone earrings to dance in, too.  M. expressed pious horror.)  People like this amaze me.  Why is your own taste of so little importance? Then went out to dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant – my choice – heavenly lamb shish kebab and a belly dancer! I loved it but Maeve had to rush out before dessert. But as it seems I can never be with ANYONE – even lovers – longer than 3 hrs it was just as well.

                              Folger morning started badly, hair looked mangy, face requires immediate skin graft. Dog hair even on NEW clothing (How is this possible?)  Running an hour behind schedule (compulsively early me).  May Miller gave me worst intro I ever hope to have, misquoted my poems and said I was a grad of the U of Minn. I thought I would sob with emotion 52 times during reading.  My “woodcunt” poem did not go down well (even though it is definitely my most Shakespearean). 

                              Damn.  Then I could have strangled Erika Gelbfisz  (at the after party) who is so scornful and cynical about everything you can’t even have an ordinary conversation with her. I felt like throwing my wine in her face saying, “Suppose you actually succeed in making us all feel rotten, what then?  Fighting in the streets?”                                            

    Nothing’s worth anything in her opinion, so why is she alive exactly? This is what gets my hostility going but because I am at a party I DON’T WANT TO GET INTO IT.  So I just growl and stew. I don’t care for Cocktail Party Standing Around – my right boot was trying to extinguish my left toe, a toe already threatened with extermination from dancing.  This is real Italian leather so SHOULD ultimately fit my feet – I can see each boot slowly outlining my toes – if I don’t come down with gangrene first. Will try Wet Washcloth Stuffing tonight. (Still, I looked ravishing, my dear, in a blue gaucho three-piece suit and my red, red, high-heeled boots.) Poet Usher Glayne seemed impressed with me – but he’s an old man. 

                              To bed with my main squeeze, Agatha Christie.  Thank God for that woman.  She has pulled me single handedly through the last three months. 

                              I was just drifting off when Marc Kramer called. We talked ½ hr.  He bought a sailboat and a BMW and wanted to be sure to let me know. I like the sailboat and the car but the desire to “impress” me diminishes him in my eyes.  Sad to say.  He’s presently at risk of being filed under “has no conversation”.   Well, he did talk about work.  They wanted to fire him from The Washington Project, then admitted he had been right all along. He’d love to have dinner sometime, “see how I live”.   Uh oh. Can I keep this relationship out of the sexual? I don’t want to go to bed, even experimentally with someone Lacking the Necessary Spark.  Could they make up for it by enthusiasm or step-by-step instructions?  I hesitate.  Is it ever possible to just date?  It was AWFUL with Keith.  Marc, however, has a gift of humor. And my parents like him.  “No expectations?” I finally say.   And he promises. 

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

        Chevy Chase, MD – 10:15 PM Thurs 8 Sept.

                              At Shoulder’s house. Not a bad drive down – (washing the dogs right before the ferry (I had to – they stank) put some time pressure on me – but I made the ferry anyway. Shoulders looks different – has a moustache. Talks about needing a roommate – does he mean me?  He doesn’t know where yet and I don’t want to live with him. His constant string of ignorant pickups would eventually get me down. 

                             He doesn’t mention Ryder and I don’t look up his TV show. 

    Promising stuff in the classifieds – a garden apt in Landover, a townhouse in Dale City, sharing a house in Kensington. Took the dogs on the old walk – they remembered the route. Huge construction at my old house. 

     L’Escargot closed.

        5 PM Sept 9

                              Kensington House hopeless. You have to join some

     kind of food co-op that’s like a cult religion and there’s a huge emphasis on kitchen and cooking duties. They all eat together. Seems like the worst of college and boarding school to me. I’m now sitting in a real estate office which is really a garage waiting for a guy who’s already an hour late. He’ll be here in 10 mins they say, then he’s going away for 2 weeks so I hope he will want to close the deal tonight, It’s described as an old apartment, high ceilings, fireplace. $210 a month. So I’m just praying  the neighborhood’s not too bad. 

        7:00 PM

                              Bleak. Too bleak. Tried to imagine myself doing my 

    exercises on that floor, standing in that kitchen waiting for water  to boil, etc. Couldn’t manage. Feeling very stressed. Do I even want to live in this city? It’s just that I know I can easily make a living if the 

    book doesn’t take off. Went to the library and loaded up on Agatha Christies to help handle the strain. It works.  Maybe I need to get a shag haircut  and spend the winter in Spain.  Now why don’t I do that, other than the obvious reason I can’t afford it and have already missed my dogs as much as I ever want to. Another guy says he has half of a house I might want.  With a fenced in yard.

        8:15 AM Wed 14 September – Powder Mill Road

                              Drinking coffee in my own kitchen from the mug that 

    was my present to myself last morning on the island.  The guy is 

    selling this house as a rental property and was amazingly cavalier – 

    needed a tenant – didn’t look up my refs or demand cosigner.  

    Absolutely cool when I described myself as a ”writer” so “dancer” 

    remains beneath the radar.  (Dad would say that proves I know 

    dancing’s “bad”! I refuse to be unsafe just to convince my own father I’m respect-worthy.) 

                             Yesterday very full day.  Got up at 8 and moved

     the dogs to their fenced in yard. Fetched the truck, loaded and 

    unloaded with Shoulders’ help – bookcases, boxes, mattress, 

    desk, sofa – had truck back by 3. A thousand robins on the weed-grown lawn. I wonder how long I will be looking at this peaceful green view.

        8:30 AM Thurs Sept 15 1977

                              Up early spending the last of my money on necessaries – hardware, lampshades, contact paper.

        Fri 16 September 1977

                              My books arrived at Larry’s!  I spent the morning sending them out. Then drove to the Landover Mall, bought two g-strings and pasties and off to the Plush Palace. Steve was there – (Randy the bouncer just hired) thrilled to see me. 

                              Wanted to know where I’d been but I turned that easily away. Vacay! Who wouldn’t!  Told me to come to work Saturday night and they’d give me my schedule.  So that’s settled. I don’t like trying to live without money.  Took the landlord my paint color selection – he buys the paint and I do the work. Probably will take me the next week. Every now and then am attacked by that claustrophobic feeling of restlessness and purposelessness but I am able to keep it at philosophical bay. Working at my poem index made me feel strong and soothed. 

                              Called Chloe to see if I can get on the radio – she was excited to hear from me, but unfortunately gave Erika the Pest my number. Erika called – I was nervous that she wanted me to rewrite her manuscripts, but she just invited me to breakfast.  After that she has another appointment so she can’t swallow up my day. Letter from Avril saying she is coming end of Oct.

    10:15 PM Sat 17 Sept 77 – The Plush Palace, Alexandria Virginia

                                Ego lift.  Nothing’s changed. I’m still the best dancer in the place. Four dancers on and I know two of them. The gossip, the Costume exchange, the curling irons, the dope in the dressing room – it’s all coming back to me. They’ve introduced some weird rules, like customers get to play the music, but it’s still a fun and relaxed place to be.  Steve the floor manager says I can have all the work I want so I might be able to put money away.

         Sun 18 Sept 77

                              Opal comes to over to say “hi” but really to complain about her incipient divorce.  Not the best company. Not the best climate for me either – I found myself sobbing over Ryder (fortunately was alone by then). Why does it seem a lost paradise?  So I can still get into that sort of mood. 

                              Nice phone call with Mom and dad, not too pressured.  They are coming to a boatyard in Annapolis  to look at a boat – will see me then.  One of the best things about this house is the month-to month lease.  Feel I can leave any time but if I behave well they won’t kick me out. Gorgeous location but forty-five minute highway commute to The Plush Palace.  Still wish I could live in Virginia.

                              Wed AM 20 Sept  77                                    Sent out a ton of poems. Replied to a woman who wants pieces for an anthology. Got a beautiful love-letter from Devon!  His usual length – both sides of one page.  Talked about how much fun we had in August, dressing up and going out and “afterwards…!” Made me smile. I said to hell with money and called Avril because I wanted to share – Mason is not there during the day.   She is in a bad place. Providential I called. He has taken to staying out at night without explanation – she is frantic. Thank God she is coming here. I told Randy since I’m your best dancer, how about a raise. He gave me one! Only flaw to this house – they need to fix hot water. I had to heat water to wash my hair. Bought 2 more costumes bringing my total up to six  – the bare minimum I’d say

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

            2:30 PM Dunkin Donuts, Eelsboro, Maine Fri. 26 Aug 77

                              Here I am again verging on home: have I changed? I like myself better, 

    I think I can say that. Thurs night was a big success. Devon came in with an IMMENSE bottle of white wine – he either needs it for himself or he’s trying to turn me into an alcoholic (with my full cooperation.) The clam and noodle thing I invented was quite good but he wasn’t ready to eat till nine and we didn’t get to bed till midnight where he revealed a sexually savage side to his nature that has been previously unseen.  So maybe he was nerving himself. (I loved it).  We finished the housecleaning and were off to the airport by 11. 

                              Fairly silent in the car, though he was tender.  When I 

    mentioned he might come down to DC he said he didn’t think there was much of a possibility – so now I’m worrying that I’ve been pushed ontoBad Girl Island while he pines for Pure Young Innocent English girl with who he would NEVER do those enjoyably awful things.          (She’s 21!!!! He knew her 24 hrs!!!) I shouldn’t be silly.  I really can’t ever “lose” him. I think he loves me and everything else is just scar tissue. Devastating airport goodbye – he asked me to “write soon”. I’m probably lucky he loves me as much as he does. I was looking damn good if I do so say so myself in backless red halter top and tight, tight jeans. I do want him to remember me as beautiful. 

                              11:30 AM Sat 27 Aug 77

                              Gobsmacked! Mom & Dad are on Ryder’s side!!! They 

    HATE him!  In other words, they will defend anybody rather than me.  They say of course R “behaves badly” if I am having an “affair” (don’t you love the archaic term?) 

    with Devon!  I say he doesn’t even know about Devon, plus we weren’t exclusive BY HIS CHOICE plus we were BROKEN UP.  But everything still seems to be my fault. Incredibly, they think I am not SUFFERING ENOUGH.  Here are people who have lectured me all my life to find any excuse for other people’s bad behavior – life has surely injured them somehow. They didn’t have Advantages!  According to them I am the only human being alive who doesn’t get an excuse – I should just “be different”.  

                      How, asks mom, can I meet “suitable young men” while dancing?  

    Suitable young men! (They like Marc Kramer who’s a complete horndog and a political troglodyte. But at least he can afford me!) Am I living in a Trollope novel? I am so annoyed I don’t want to accept their hospitality but I really don’t want to rent a room in the House of the Damned aka 

    Burnside Inn. which doesn’t take dogs – who wept to see me again like children – then immediately got over it. 

                              Dad’s a very restless retiree I must say but don’t ask me what to advise.  I’m too ignorant. My advice to everyone is “write”;

    Naturalists say, “Be alone in nature” and religious people say “Find God.”

     Reading Vol I. V. Woolf’s diary (so different from A Writer’s Diary)

     Hitting the gin.  Mom thinks I’m taking “bad” advice from messed up writers – “modeling” myself on failures and suicides – (Dad calls them “degenerates”) – because it’s “cool”. That’s why I need the gin. I need the gin the first minute I wake up.  Must try not to be such a limp limpet. Told Mom if R calls at night not to come get me. 

                              Sun 9:30 AM 28 Aug 77

                              Mom washing windows.  God – I think I am supposed to offer help but I Refuse. I need to get the hell out of here.  Mom says I can’t add my laundry to hers 9she sends it out)but have to go to the laundromat in town.  

    So the Battle is On. I’ll just go around smelling bad so there. Mom and Dad are sailing down the Inland Waterway but not till Oct. Have a horrible feeling I’m not out of the woods on this Ryder thing.  Maybe I can get established in Washington without him knowing. If I go back to him I will despise myself. Keep Devon in secret as my lucky talisman.

                              9;45 PM

                              Drunk, fat and exhausted.  Parents had cocktail party 

    inviting Island Poet.  (Published in The New Yorker.) Tried to give her the rundown on my summer but it sounds a complete waste – “Wrote half of a no-good book, got my other book rejected”. Of course my summer doesn’t sound like anything with the sex & love left out!!!   Am I trapped at the end of a cul de sac?  No; there is something there. I just can’t

    find it yet. 

                              Dad said he’s sure my life provides a lot of stories, but 

    maybe what I need is a PhD in Eng Lit!  Mom’s reaction to that is rigid disapproval.  (He’ll never make that mistake again.)  To explore the boundaries of one’s soul is Selfish. One Lives to Serve (or to Claim one is Serving. So, if you’re too stupid to know  you’re selfish its win-win for the small-minded!) 

                        Tried to read The Clocks but its Agatha Christie’s 

    worst.  Absolutely meaningless. Poor Virginia Woolf going through a very bad, painful period. Obviously sick, recording only weather & food. 

    Now theorists act like she was “mental” not liking to look at herself but 

    Vita Sackville-West felt the same way. Couldn’t look in a mirror, wouldn’t buy evening dresses or go to parties! (And she was on the sexual prowl, unlike poor VW.)  I think their era was actually worse about beauty than we are – they gave it a “magic” “classical” quality so it was very much restricted.  We see more beauty – and in weird places. 

    Otherwise how explain Leslie Caron? Jeanne Moreau? Charlotte Rampling?  

    Hardly classic beauties but wonderfully, rightfully worshipped as goddesses. I see hope for all of us.

                              8:00 AM Mon 29 Aug 77

                              It’s real Agatha Christie weather – fog so dense you

     can’t see the water.  Nevertheless the ferry’s running – Mom took 

    Dad down. I’m feeling successful, sober and sane. I’m doing exactly what I want and will find my own way.  I’m determined to be happy and not develop some kind of “rejection phobia.” Not knock out the props of 

    my own happiness. Accept the fact that my pride has been hardest hit.

    PHANTOMS

    The ghost awaits his chance

    Inside us all

    Revenge de-bodies –

    Anticipates the dark

    Impatience ill-concealed to

    Grasp our foot

    Beneath the turning of the stair

    Reveal a face as blank as

    Nightmare whose

    Icy, seaweed coils entwine mistrust

    Around our throats

    Suppress our breath

    While we dead live.

                              4:20 PM  Letter from the Folger Shakespeare Library 

    inviting me to read Oct 13!   Mom was impressed. 20 mins pays

     $50!  I’ve hit the big time!  Wish I’d known this when Island Poet

    asking me why I don’t just kill myself and get it over with. M & D

    very flush with money right now.  Got their $$ back

     from NY State bankruptcy but Dad always in a panic that we’ll figure out how rich he is.) 

                              9:00 PM Called Shoulders. He said dogs will be all right for a couple of days but he’s being evicted at the end of Sept!  Too bad!

     Such a nice house. (And in Chevy Chase!)  So I’m spared kennel 

    fees for 2 days at least.  Ryder must be back at work (if he still has a job). 

    Reading old NY Times Book Reviews in front of a roaring fire.  

    Dishwashing break – I said I’d do them. Pick up Agatha Christie afterwards –

    – the preferred reading for “shock cases”.  (She was a shock case herself.  

    Absent in the Spring is very fine). 

                               Island 10 PM Monday night, 5 Sept 77

                              In bed in the Barnacle drinking coffee, eating bread 

    with honey. Delicious solitude. Can’t go to the Main House because Genevieve’s friends from Boston are there – they no sooner arrived for this Fantasy vacation than they decided they need a divorce. Fortunately, they are quiet about it. The one thing they can’t deal with is their dog –

     tomorrow I have to drive him to the ferry. Oh well.  I’ve been enraptured by this delicious solitude – beachcombing is very healing.  I guess I am just a solitary sort – don’t really care for people at all, I fear. Last night a bad dream about Ryder – treating me cruelly and me, paralyzed. In the daytime – in my conscious mode – I remember everything good about him, his lips mouth and fingers – his constant air of playfulness. 

    The way we fit perfectly together like interlocking puzzle pieces  

    – nice that he was short – my mirror opposite, only male. My lost twin. 

    But nature abhors a balance, apparently. 

                              Must remind myself how he had to try to turn it to his 

    advantage, throwing the whole system off and spinning my world into 

    frozen space.  Now he doesn’t know where I am (although he might suspect.)  No phone in this building thank God. 

                              Tomorrow goodbye Maine – back to DC to house-hunt.  

    M & D have been good about not dragging me to things – enjoyed the Smythes sculpture show – parties not so much. Parties seem like 

    “consensus building events” where I’m fated to be perennially on the outs.  Ford Madox Ford made some kind of statement about how 

    people have to achieve a level of “ordinariness” to be “successful” –

     I can’t remember the exact quote. Plus I lack the patience to look it up.

                              Ryder felt I despised him intellectually, which of course, I did. 

    I don’t think of myself as stratified, but he is and when you’re with a stratified person, you become so.  Sometimes I am in mourning for the part of me that died. I wish I could get my letters back – but they were only love-letters.  Must seem now like the ravings of an insane person. 

    Well, there’s no reason to see him again. I think the casual relationship is beyond me.  I hope in the future I’ll be careful of men going mach one across the sexual barrier. I’ve got to stop looking at sex as a vitamin requiring periodic intravenous doses.  

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                              2PM Sun 14 Aug 77

                              Sitting on the deck even though it’s just about to rain – 

    back from long bike ride watching family barbecues.  Will I ever have children? I feel so exactly balanced between Ryder and Devon like a ball in the air 

    – but could fall at any moment.  Finished The Edwardians – made me long to read Trollope.  Vita Sackville-West’s work is like a death wish. 

    Maybe Pevensey Library can rise to some Trollope. Downy woodpecker 

    2 ft away.

                              Finished The Dark Island! An outrageous howl of 

    self-pity!  Mom & Dad called all worried about Avril. She & Mason had to borrow money after selling $4500 worth of stock in June! Dad wants to deal financially with Mason instead of his own daughter!  I was cool and stayed out of it.  

    I don’t even want to imagine what they say to the others about me. I sent Avril a letter that said I would buy her a round trip plane ticket any time she wanted – even for just a short visit. Talk about work and suffering!  I’m sure she feels stuck in every way with this guy. Down to a dinner of bouillon & smoked oysters. 

                              Tues 16 Aug 77

                              D’s & my relationship “plateaus.”  Each of us may have 

    given all we can spare. At least there’s no Mutual Punishment.  

    Womantried to get me into conversation at mailboxes – she’s an accountant whose boyfriend works on missiles.  God they both sounded like the dullest people imaginable.  Tried not to blanche.

                              6:00 PM  Couldn’t resist $10 phone call to Avril. She’s 

    hanging in there but doesn’t like Calif so far. She’s not going to school because Mason thinks he ought to be able to pay for it!  So, so sick after using her money to live on.  She’s looking for some clerk job. Still thinks 

    this guy might be The One, even though sex is once a week and she’s not satisfied.  After that I called Devon who should be back from psychomotor class but he wasn’t in. 

                              Midnight – Could get psychotic about D not returning my call – however I refuse. Let the poor man live. He lacks time for an ACTUAL other girl (although I know there are plenty of letters & phone calls with girls he cultivates.) 

                              10AM – Wed 17 Aug 77

                              Devon woke me up in the middle of the night, wondering if I was “psychic”.  He’d had a horrible day –  had to take a “pregnant friend” to the clinic for abortion (not his kid.) This is a new one. Can’t imagine him lying about something so bizarre – I didn’t ask for details –

    just told him it was a “sudden impulse” (true).  Called the bank – my money was in but only $987 (it’s never  as much as you expect.) From shit comes flowers, as they say. Called Marc Kramer and left message whether I can hitch a ride to Maine with him (he goes almost every weekend). 

    Finished Life of Waugh.  Cramps.

                              Sat 20 Aug 77 

                              Poor Devon!  He brought pizza and a very good brandy –

    (too good –  drinking it woke me up in the middle of the night) suggested a movie.  I said I wanted to Talk.  Told him all about my week; everything – 

    novel, phone call with Avril, breaking up (mentally) with Ryder because I “realized there’s another way”. Felt it was time to share. He asked if it had anything to do with him I said it did but he shouldn’t panic – it’s a good thing. He asked did I want to know about other girls? I said yes. Would I be jealous? 

    Maybe – but it wouldn’t impact on him.  He talked about his friend who had the abortion – she’s ready to take him on but his feelings for her are “clinical”.

     (Uh oh. She’s in trouble. He could be lying to me about Who’s the Daddy or lying to himself, most like.) She’s 2 yrs older than him.  

                              Then there’s a girl he met on the train – they’re just friends so far so he doesn’t know her well – but he’s curious.  Then there’s the English girl – he definitely wants to bring her over but neither of them can afford it so far. He seems to have a sex/romance dichotomy going so 

    I’m not jealous exactly – it would be like being jealous of someone’s fantasies. However, it doesn’t make me respect him more.  And he instinctively knows that – he can’t be the daring demon lover or swaggering ski coach 

    with me when I know too much about him. Fortunately, I suggested we bring the mattress up to the deck – we had a big, hilarious struggle through the house but it was worth it. Wonderful making love in the fresh night.  

    Gave him the full treatment making him yelp like a coyote. 

                              Cold in the AM like Maine – hard to get out of bed but he was worried someone would see us so we had to push mattress through 

    sliding doors to dining room floor at 6 AM.  Layers of secret lives!  He is SO DIFFERENT from the way he seems but aren’t we all!  Drove to the Idyllwild Mkt for breakfast – got lost as least six times but who cares it’s a glorious day – bought peaches, blueberries and mocha java beans.

     Then we went swimming – stopping after at the mailbox.  Rejection of Secaire from HBJ!  What a blow and in front of Devon of all people!  

    Worst of all was editor’s comment – I had fallen between 2 stools – “straight” and “gothic.”  Ugh.  Lowers my opinion of myself in my own eyes. 

    Fortunately, I didn’t cry.  

                              Devon did his best to comfort me. He compares it to 

    skiing which is 4,000 failures to one success. Said it’s ridiculous to consider myself a failure. I thanked him said he really cheered me up –

     he said it made him look forward to ministry!!!  (He can’t wait to get his hands on some “troubled young women”.) He’s going to a 3 day 

    retreat at Peterborough.  Period coming on. It doesn’t faze Devon. Reading Harold Nicolson’s diaries which are quite a treat.  I was afraid he would 

    be all Churchillian. 

                               2;30 PM Mon 22 Aug 77

                              Can’t write, so ready to return to Maine.  So desperate I 

    watched TV (Rhoda: Apotheosis of the Career Girl). Feeling crushed about Secaire and Demon is not far behind. When your mind is divided it’s hard to go on.  I always feel genre works actually have the potential for highest dramatic quality – mystery, discovery, transformation, revelation – telling the complete truth about everything but I just don’t know how to convey that. Also, I’m kind of worried that Devon will see my departure as  “because” we punctured the fantasy with honesty ; ie I’m “punishing” him –

    (that’s what Ryder would think, plus he would howl “I deserve it” then behave even worse) and of course it sort of is true . “New data” does affect everything.  But I miss the dogs & worry about them.  Dad has yet to figure out their gender (calls them both “boy”). 

                              Went clothes shopping got GOREGOUS skinny jeans! 

    Look so good.  Called Devon but had to leave an awkward message with Random Guy (ugh I hate that.) Thank God for diaries!   Best therapy 

    possible. So much cheaper than a shrink. Diagnosis? Sheer greed.   I always want everything.

  • Inspired Pleasure – the Dance Diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    8PM Sat 6 Aug 77

                                Be careful what you want in case you get it. Devon and I are suddenly in the midst of a very satisfying love affair. He called 5:30 yesterday – wish it had been earlier because I was in a psychic tailspin.

     Immediately tidied the place up, anointed my body, put on my black silk jumpsuit exploding with roses (last worn on date with R.)  He came in wearing tight jeans and a linen safari jacket – we had a very silly time over wine.  Christ he can look beautiful when he wants to.  Out to a restaurant – I ordered a “flaming volcano” and they had it! More silliness. 

     D. said, “Going out with you is an experience.” He couldn’t compliment me enough on my general gorgeousness (heh heh heh.)

                                We saw The Deep which was just what we both wanted – titillating glossy glop. D. kept initiating PDA’s (which he never used to –

      Wow has this guy grown up! He used to act like the Amherst PDA Police were everywhere!  He suggested we go to bed! 

     No loitering on couch!  Sexually he has all the time in the world –

    he’s all out for my pleasure – his orgasm of no importance.  He’s particularly good with my ass and I LOVE that. (He treats every sphincter like

     another pair of lips – I’m in a threesome with myself!) I always felt like he was “holding back” – not any more.

                              Tendernesses and confidences growing. Nice to be loved!

    He goes on and on about the beauty & sensuality of my body; my sexuality

     “like a storm!” (Like dancing.)

    Sun 12:30 PM Deck 7 Aug 77

                              Sitting over coffee, grits (to which Mrs. McManus has now addicted me) and Dorothy Eden. (The Sleeping Bride – very good!)

    Praying like mad for writing money. 

    Lucky things worked out the way they did – keeps me from obsessing 

    over R.

                                Bike ride! It’s a form of prayer.

                     6Pm  Hammering away – great scene – getting the good stuff –

    – typewriter ribbon gave out! Come on! At 6 PM!! It’s like having your horse shot out from under you. I was going to spend the evening writing. 

    Goddamit.

                       Starting to worry about R coming back from the Finger Lakes – he

    knows where I am – would he show up here? Aack!  No!  Impossible.  

    He can’t be alone. Wouldn’t drive that distance without a captive ear.

                                Reading Jane Aiken’s study of Jane Austen. Don’t feel a moment’s anxiety about D. Miss dancing terribly.

                                Mon 8 Aug 77

                              3 PM On deck loving the rising wind, reading The Scalpel 

    of Scotland Yard (Spilsbury). A perfect day. Trapped here for a few hours till the man shows up to fix trash masher – but at least I got my “naked exercises” out of the way. Today’s a scorcher – using air-conditioning for the first time. Cheated on my diet – ate a whole can of tuna. 

    Packed in water, fortunately. Body screaming for peaches and 

    almonds. Gutted the Pevensey library. They are running out of 

    books for me.

                                12:45 PM Tues Aug 9 – 77

                              Coming out of my coma to write agent a note.  

    After 3 months of not being “pushy” surely SOMETHING should 

    be happening.  I decide I am suffering from a disease that should 

    be called “Dickensitis” marked by severe self consciousness and 

    complicated by “Plath syndrome” (brutal social induction flashbacks). 

     Freezes me in my path. 

                              Loving  Solzhenitsyn’s article on Shakespeare & Tolstoy.  

    But do I love Devon?  Before all of this I would have said yes, very 

    casually but sometimes the better you get to know someone the less 

    you can love them.  He was at pains to explain his theology – but it doesn’t seem to involve God – it’s all interpersonal relations – which I

     have to say I think is just weird!  He wants to be “of service” to people and he’s aware – but suspicious about – the “mysticism” athletes get into. 

    I hate to say this but it reminds me of my mother.  Any  “be wary of people who have an inner life and try your best to get rid of yours” philosophy 

    is a major turnoff for me.  When we talk about “self-perfection” and “self-cultivation” we are talking about VERY different things.

                               I casually told him the more I get to know him the lessI know him – and he was very pleased!  (Relieved.) He didn’t say why –

    but I know he doesn’t want to be “easy”.  I didn’t tell him he’s still held fast in Sleeping Beauty’s overgrown castle, in my opinion.  Don’t think 

    I can get him out of there. I always try to plan my strategy if he tried 

    taking the relationship up a notch. But he can’t suggest we live together while he’s a divinity student.  Think I can relax about it and just enjoy his magnificent body.

                                 Take, eat. Old wounds between us are entirely healed. 

    If D is stuck in SB’s castle, where is R?  He is unborn, a baby 

    dreaming in the womb. “When I grow up I’m going to have lots

    LOTS of girlfriends but they will all be PERFECTLY RESPECTABLE 

    and SEXUALLY DYNAMIC but only when I say so!” 

                              I regret most working so hard to make him “certain” of

     me, to make sure he knew exactly what I was thinking and feeling.  

    I put my cards not only face-up on the table, I handed them to the guy!  

    Not many people would be mature enough to handle that. Never

    discuss what I am feeling with D – haven’t mentioned R after our 

    preliminary intros “what have you been up to”.  I’m not sure he even knows how I make money in Washington.

                              8:45 AM Wed 10 Aug 77

                              Like the alcoholics say, one day at a time!  Exercises, 

    diet, sunbathe, bike ride, swim, etc. Doing a good job at that – horrible 

    job at writing – because I don’t hear from agent.  Confidence completely collapsed.  Sitting on the deck feeding Ms. McManus’ Caesar salad

     croutons to a squirrel.  He really likes them.  Reading Berckmann’s A Thing That Happens To You. Finished Thalberg’s bio – ho hum.  

    No swimming – maybe bike ride in the rain (just a misting). 

                              3:30 PM 11 Aug 77 – Thurs

                              Depressing letter from Chloe – she wants my help 

    with her MSS.  I agree with Henry James – all I can do is My Thing

     My Way. But I have to seem really approachable if I want radio

     work.  Conundrum. Catatonia.  Devon called.  Do I want to get laid? 

     I think so! Reading about grave robbers produces a poem;

    RESURRECTIONIST

    Unearth me, lover

    I’m a jewel now

    Melted

    In that crevice you once loved so

    Well; it’s an ingot now,

    a socket

    For our mingled liquid

    Essence

    Suck it up with

    Dust-lathered lips

    Strip

    The flesh as you once did

    The clothes; I’m burning

    Cinder-hot –

    Let me astound you with

    My time-perfected skill

                              Sat. 13 Aug 77

                              7 good pages writing, then bad letter from Ryder asking is our “living together” a ”condition” of “my return”?  Where the hell did he get that?  He just wants something to react against.  He can’t imagine a relationship that isn’t controlled by implied threats. He believes in

     working and suffering so much then – let him work and suffer. What would annoy him most?  If I don’t respond!  Ha ha! Let the panic begin! 

    Need to become more private – simply to protect myself.  For all I know he’s relishing the torture he goes through.

                              Devon and I had a glorious date – splendid dinner (steak!) 

    then made love all over the floor. He played with my body until he got it roaring and pulsating like an express train.  The way he handled me, 

    gripped me, held me, crushed me even – made me ask about his other girlfriends.  He said no, he never gets as much “touch” as he wants.  I said, 

    “Except with me”.  He said, “Except with you.” Over dinner he said 

    matter-of-factly that we are so alike loving me has always felt “narcissistic” to him.  I bet!  Happy, happy, happy… Picked up The Edwardians –

    I can’t get into it.  Keep seeing Devon’s body plying me, bending me…I know somewhere out there lies perfect happiness, waiting to astonish me.