Alysse Aallyn

Category: Confessions

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Sun. 12 Mar 67


    Desperate for a really strong cup of tea but must wait for Miss Beeston to close her door. WHY does she keep it open? She isn’t actually concerned we might be throwing up or anything, it’s just morbid curiosity and vicarious excitement. What do they DO all night? Don’t dragons sleep? Ah here’s my chance. No such luck – ran right into the Gruesome Twosome – one tall and fat the other short and fat.


    “Was that your water we just turned off?” (They know it is, they’re the ones who confiscated my personal hotpot.)


    “Not tonight.”
    I waited for “See you in the Greenhouse for 2 hrs hard labor” but it didn’t happen. Must be feeling mellow. I scuttled back to my den.


    “THEY WRITE BY NIGHT – part 2 – Dancing In the Rain”
    When Brice and I got to Aiken’s apt he wasn’t even up. Wearing only a blue Chinese silk dressing gown with his curly chest hairs sprouting out. Just grab me and lay with me in his bed until Brice made coffee saying, “Enough of this orgy.” Jealous.


    Aiken nibbled my ear and said, “Look how we fit. Interlocking pieces.” I had noticed.


    The we got up for breakfast and Aiken took a shower. He came out looking magnificent in blue and white striped shirt and white levis. An astonishingly spring like day. Went to the park to play on the swings and seesaws. After that we ate pizza then Brice went to the library. Gentlemanly of him. I stripped down to my pettipants but refused to go further. I just don’t feel safe. I could tell Aiken was irritated but he doesn’t try to reassure me. There must be magic words but he doesn’t say them. I don’t want to be “operated” on and I don’t want to operate on him. I’m beginning to think babyish Reed Hambro, who is practically an idiot savant, may know more about satisfying a girl than this guy does. So we were Two People Separated by a Bed; very Saturday Night & Sunday Morning. Then Brice rang the buzzer and we had to get dressed fast.


    On the drive back Aiken said (right in front of Brice) that I thought sex would be “violent & cold.” I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t GET to say anything because Brice talked for a solid 40 mins about the biological Difference Between Men & Women, which I totally don’t agree with. He brought in Freud, he brought in Jung, he brought in Samoa & Masters and Johnson!


    Neither of them talked about “sex leading where” and I felt to say so would sound like I expected marriage! So I was completely flummoxed! The weird part is they both sound regretful about it as if it WOULD be a bad thing! That’s not a recommendation! So you can imagine the state I was in when I got back to school. How can you be both attracted to and repelled by the same person? If not “pre-coital tristesse” this is “pre-coital nausea” at the very least!


    I had 3 minutes to get dressed for Prom! Wore my Christmas dress with long sleeves & black cuffs of gold tissue brocade, tinsel in my hair. Reed is very relaxing. Comforting. Is it just because I know he can’t physically overwhelm me? If Aiken was long and thin – built like Trey, say, would I be less afraid? Stubbornly I still eel it is his attitude. Defective somehow. Honestly it reminds me of Beales whose every third word needed a face slap. Aiken isn’t so obviously unromantic but both he & Brice think there is no “mystery of sex” and are very utilitarian about the mating process. I don’t think ANY girl would be safe with them because it’s never a joint experience. It’s women letting men have sex (for whatever reason.) It seems so repulsive. They would make progress with me if I didn’t know history and literature so well. They think “modernism” is anti-Romance but of course, it isn’t.


    “Baby you and me
    We live this life
    From when we get up
    Till we got to sleep at night
    You and me we’re free
    We do as we please, yeah –
    From morning –
    Till the end of the day.”


    Aiken hates the Kinks. He prefers jazz because it is meaningless and goes deliberately nowhere. I am very spoiled I guess because I want MORE. I am beginning to think Aiken needs some old woman to satisfy him – dripping cigarette ash as she jerks him off.


    In spite of all this mess it was the best prom ever! Reed was so sweet I was close to actually LOVING him! He was getting high on me. He kisses so completely differently from Aiken it isn’t the same thing. Makes me feel it is really spring at last, and maybe I can leave my virginity behind as slowly and imperceptibly as we have escaped this harsh winter.


    Mon 13 Mar 67
    Developed a whole new theory during German class. Possibly my exam suffered (I rushed through it) but what are classes for but to provide intellectual stimulation?


    I’m thinking Aiken’s too domesticated. Am I mistaking youth for originality? (That I think would be his argument.) That everybody “gets over this” and romance is a function of youth. But history and literature prove that its not. Since, however, I’m “the kid” and he’s the “PhD” I will NEVER win an argument with him. Never! And I am accustomed to winning my arguments!


    Trying to write a story in which I construct the Perfect Man. Anyone over twenty’s too old. He’s tall and thin and golden and had most of his toes taken off my a lawnmower. Sadly the story races away from me – my heroine isn’t good enough for him – so I’m having her run off with someone else. Not quite halfway though Queen Victoria – Born to Succeed. Ugly period – the women in their heavy clothes look very depressed.

    Thurs 30 Mar 67
    Left a note at Aiken’s he wasn’t there (being satisfied by a glamorous – yet elderly brunette? No – working hard at the library to “gain a place in life”) and took the train to the new Penn St house. (It’s haunted!) The place was all lit up and Avril was playing the piano. The third floor has the most beautiful windows flush with the floor. Sending sunlight across the ancient, uneven boards. Delicious.


    Daddy not home so off to Bookbinder’s for dinner where I ordered soft shell crab. I got annoyed with Mom’s questions about Aiken so said he was a MauMau with a bad case of cradle cap. She laughed so hard she wept.


    Our phone not yet installed so I put a jackknife in my pocket and went out to the public booth. Aiken was in – sounded cranky but surprised me by inviting me to a party. I was certain I was going to be dismissed for being too “jejeune”. He seemed completely unimpressed y the risk I’d taken to call him – probably thinking if I got raped it might clear up some of his problems.
    Borrowing a blue velvet dress from Avril – it so short!! A classic baby doll! But she is a champion blabbermouth and told Mom who absolutely FORBIDS IT. We WILL BUY A DRESS! Uh oh. Madras and whalebone, mark my words.


    I bought a man’s shirt from the man who sells used clothes at the corner of Chelten & Chew. Pink chiffon with balloony sleeves! Indescribably flattering. Tight through the body. I already have a perfect black velvet skirt.

    Tues. 4 Apr 67
    My hand is shaking because I just left a heavy make-out session with Reed Hambro. I want to write about the awful party but the wonderful evening . I got out of the house without a problem because Mom wasn’t there. I showed Aiken all around the house – I could tell by his eyebrows he was confounded by the mixture of splendeurs et misères. I told him it was temporary and showed him my beautiful third floor where I sleep on a mattress on the floor so I can look out the windows but he was unimpressed.


    Oriental artifacts everywhere but they are shabby. Still he admitted OI looked beautiful.
    Horrible university party full of pregnant wives. Didn’t like the way they looked at me – decided to drink coke and say nothing. They seemed so doglike and uncomfortable. But I did get into a long discussion with a Prof Wylie who has a system of “personal anarchy” that sounds a lot like my own. He was drunk but funny. He kept saying “What this party needs is a little audience participation.”
    But everyone had to be on their best behavior because it was more like work. Strange Danish Oldern house with peek-a-boo architecture – how can you climb stairs – in a dress – that are only slats?


    When we got back to Penn St my mother was there. She said nothing about my clothes but she really gave poor Aiken the business while I made Earl Grey tea. She is the only person I have ever known who can lower the temperature of a room to freezing in seconds. At least she didn’t ask him his intentions.


    He behaved very well, just as if she was normal. He got her on the subject of Southeast Asia while I roll my eyes. Finally she had to go upstairs to get Avril to sleep. Avril’s afraid of Phila because of all the stabbing news and who can blame her?


    So Aiken and I were left alone…on the oriental rug in front of the fire.
    “I wish I could take you back to my place,” he muttered.


    “Why don’t we do it right here?” I suggested. To be funny. He said seriously,
    “Because you might bleed and we need some form of birth control.”


    Let’s go straight to the hospital and do it on a gurney!


    “I really have to go” he said. We could hear Mom creaking about upstairs. He gave me one last kiss – lifted me up completely! Bliss.


    When I got upstairs I saw my shirt was all torn and I had to throw it away. But it was definitely worth $9 even for only one evening.

    Mon 10 Apr 67
    Pretty sure the Aiken thing is shot to hell. Called him Sun morning but he had a woman with him! He really made me feel about twelve. Guess it’s finally time to stop waltzing with fire. At least I have a new interest. Trying to deepen my voice for Gertrude; Hamlet rehearsals starting in earnest. Wish I didn’t loathe Matt R (who plays Hamlet) so much. He spits when he declaims! At least Toss Sheffield plays my husband…Toss of the long blond hair. Unfortunately he is knee deep with Beth Donoghue.


    Coffee & Conversation VERY dull. D. H. Lawrence; “It makes me ill having people constantly stuff my ears with bits of chewed newspaper.”

    Mon 17 Apr 67
    To be or not to be? Chaste, I mean. Casey’s and my sole topic of conversation.
    Reading The Slender Reed about James K. Polk. I consider him the last president of any note at all.
    In Eng we are reading John Brown’s Body, which is surprisingly good. Anyone whose “favorite writers” are Emerson, Bret Harte and Melville the way Roach Face’s are is “colordeaf” in the matter of literature. But they’re not as bad as Steinbeck.


    Asked Reed if I was the first girl he ever kissed and he nodded. Brave to tell the truth! If it was me I’d lie!


    Thurs 20 Apr 67
    Interesting conversation with Shawn Kobler who walked me back from dinner. About mercy killing. I have a soft sport for it since Aallyns live forever, leaving their brains far, far behind. He used to be ugly ugly now he’s ugly interesting. Plus smart. He’s class pres, I’m VP so we have many excuses to meet. Hmmm. Negatives: Religious Life Committee, friends with Reed. Positives: Interesting athlete. He gets a lot of injuries ( hidden conflicts.) And he has curly blond hair and big shoulders. He plans to be Student Body Pres next year. Me – the Notorious Scofflaw – going out with Student Body President? It has a certain appeal.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Sun. 5 Feb 67


    Saw Georgy Girl yesterday. Kind of depressing that she’s supposed to be fat. She’s just not thin. It’s the best movie I’ve seen all year but it doesn’t solve any of my problems. There’s an inherent incredibility in a girl running away while Alan Bates is stripping and calling her name. I guess it’s like Brick telling Liz to keep that slip on. Will the customers buy such tosh? Never saw James Mason so horribly unappealing.


    Open dorms this AM but we had the times wrong – the boys were all running around in towels yelling, Get out of here! You’d think they’d be thrilled to show their wares! So we went back to our room and a good thing too – about 8 boys were going through our drawers!


    Ended up in Reed’s room listening to the Stones the only band we agree on. He says the “atmosphere” at Girls End is “intolerable!” At Boys End they make tents out of blankets – stack the beds – sometimes take the beds out entirely! Double standard! Miss Wienand expects tea & crumpets when she pops in for a surprise white-glove inspection!


    “What is that jug beneath your bed, Miss Aallyn?”


    “Nothing.”


    “What did it used to be?”


    We’ve got the past as well as the future to worry about! At least they’ve never found the hole in the wall carefully spackled with instant mashed potato mix. Miss Wienand’s lucky she isn‘t murdered. I’d throw her out the window myself but she’s too heavy to lift.


    Fair in Central before Vespers – I read palms. I gave everyone about three years to live. Reed was my last client. Told him I read faces too. My hands were cold his cheeks were burning hot. It felt strange dragging out my dusty tactics like a cashiered general!


    Eyes closed I gave him a long spiel about his intense love of privacy and his fear of getting close to anyone! He gasped like a fish! (The janitor probably knows this about him!)


    His cheeks are as soft as a girl’s. I told him to close his eyes – so I could open mine – but he couldn’t keep them closed. Eyelashes fluttering like a person fighting hypnotism! Our hearts connected – melted – for a full second.


    Alas Brent O’Bryon interrupted us. My single afternoon with Aiken seems pale and far away. Maybe he’s forgotten about eyelashes and seconds and hypnotism – or maybe he never knew – he went to a boy’s school! He thinks I don’t know about erotic intensity!
    Went to bed more satisfied than in weeks.

    Wed 8 Feb 67
    Reed is giving me the business. He thinks I don’t know! Mad about me one second – the eyes, the smile – then fleeing like I’ve got the plague. Wrote:
    :We mustn’t get into the rut of being together every night after dinner. Good way to ruin a relationship.”
    Can you imagine? What relationship?
    Trying to read The Beach at Falesa. Lousola.

    Fri Feb 10 – 67
    Latest entry in the And You Think You’ve Got Troubles Sweepstakes – from my math book – “The term group” was first used by 21 year old mathematician Evariste Galois in his feverishly scribbled will written the night before his death. The brief life of Galois, born in 1811, was one of continual frustration. Twice he tried entering the Ecole Polytechnique then the leading school for mathematicians only to fail the entrance examination.


    By the age of 17 he had made a number of notable mathematical discoveries, which he submitted to the Academy but through carelessness his paper was never presented and later lost. Two years later he submitted more significant work, which was never reviewed and probably lost. Discouraged with scholarly pursuits Galois became a radical opposed to the King Louis Philippe. He was imprisoned as a dangerous revolutionary on trumped up charges and later released only to be maneuvered by his enemies into a senseless duel in which he was killed.


    Before his death he said to a friend, “ Preserve my memory since fate has not given me enough life to learn my name.” Today Galois is remembered internationally for his work with groups and the conditions for solution of algebraic equations.” Makes you think, eh?

    Sun 12 Feb 67
    Word to the wise, Aiken, He who Hesitates is Lost. I may not be able to hang on much longer. Fri after dinner Reed and I cornered the French room of the lush, high-pile carpet. We barricaded ourselves behind chairs and stretched out. Either someone has beaten me to it and laid down the basics with this guy or he’s a fast learner. Spent a lot of time angling for an invite to the Valentine Dance. Success! I was really enjoying myself!


    It’s just another Dirty Old Dance in the School Gym but by dinner time every girl immured in this place is standing in the hall in pantyhose and curlers screaming uncontrollably. Yes I had to wear an old dress but hair down, filigree earrings, makeup and heels I looked pretty smashing. Reed stunned at the bottom of the stairs. Miss Womrath assuming “attack position” at the top of the stairs checking for bra, skirt length, not too much jewelry, etc. Check!


    Kind of a strain dancing with him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing there but I like his cold hands on my back. We decided to “Take a walk.” Who should we meet coming down the stairs but Beales! Staying with his old roommate (who lives nearby) thought he would visit the Alma Mater. I controlled myself and chatted animatedly, wondering if he recognized the dress. (Probably not.) Reed behaved impeccably, talking, smiling and never letting go of my hand! So the points I lost through Reed being a sophomore I gained with;
    a) His social elan
    b) Getting to wear heels.


    Take that Beales!


    “You look very fetching,” thus spake Bealesley, squinting up as if he were going to cry. He says he dislikes Harvard and skips a lot of classes. He was on his way “to see the dance” so we said good night, stepped outside and fell into each other’s arms! I think my dress fell down, I’m not 100% sure my nipples weren’t hanging out – we were biting each other’s necks like vampires! Made it back for the Last Dance, however. Beales gone.


    Reed gave me a chaste kiss goodnight (I didn’t mind already having plenty) and I threw on a pair of jeans and went back to help the cleanup crew. Tunnel of Love turned into an aging gym littered with tatty crepe paper and stepped-on doughnuts.


    Slept like the Grateful Dead.


    Aynsley put a mug of coffee in my hands, I shrugged into a trench coat to continue my beauty sleep at chapel. Back to bed with NY Times and Paris Match. Reed sat with me during dinner and what with running upstairs to get me The Blues Project we were both late to Vespers. Coming out waylaid by Beth Donoghue:


    “That man is here!”
    “What man?”
    “That friend of Mr. Harbreath!”


    Oh, my God, who would have thunk it! I rushed to Central and there he was, larger than life in all the splendor of his healthy, magnificent, oversized, overripe manhood! Go is he big! My stomach was churning like a cement mixer!


    “Did you get my Valentine?”
    “No!”
    “Well, I sent you one. “


    I didn’t send him one! I was still clutching my Blues Project record so he wanted to talk about it: “Is it danceable?” Teasing. But I hadn’t heard it yet.


    Took him on a walk because everyone was going through Central deliberately to goggle at us – some three or four times! His father is all right – he has had these episodes before. It was freezing out so he gave me his coat – it hung on me like a shroud (he’s got muscles & nicotine to keep him warm.) Told me all about his father – foreman of a road gang, then a bootlegger, worked his way up to stockbroking. I kept playing with his cigarette case, which is a beautiful Art Deco one of silver & blue enamel.


    We wound up in the East Room where I played him the old music boxes. I was laughing and at one point he said, “Don’t put your tongue out or I’ll bite it.”


    He asked me what my favorite flower is – I stupidly answered the thistle – because of Scotland – not realizing he wants to send me flowers! Dumkopf! Why couldn’t I say lemon lilies? Why am I so deranged? (Because I’m 17, that’s why.) Maybe I can repair this somehow.


    He said, “When will you visit me?”
    I said, “When will you invite me?”
    “Whenever you want.”


    Brice rushed in with a lateness pass for me because at this point it was really late.
    I went very slowly up the stairs, reluctantly leaving them alone. Will Brice be tacky enough to tell hi how I mauled a sophomore at the dance? Brice is tacky enough for anything, but telling him not to makes a worse point of it. “She told me not to say…” Who will I dream of tonight? Miss Wienand with my luck.

    Mon 13 Feb 67
    Capped a sleepless night with Aiken’s valentine. Not too mooshy unfortunately. Why can’t these guys just let themselves go? If they want US to “surrender” SO MUST THEY! Spent all morning drooling over him. I think I’m just in love with his “high gloss”. Because if we got married we’d skip all the “hard parts”. Tried picturing him getting fat like Henry VIII – strangely, that didn’t turn me off. Next I’ll try picturing him without hair and we’ll see what that does. He did sign the valentine “love”. It could be meaningful. Here boys are very careful NEVER to use the word unless they’ve really gone for the Long Jump.


    God my hair needs trimming. (I will NOT grow out my bangs.) Horns need clipping too.
    Beth Donoghue (only one link on my extensive spy chain) tells me Reed saw us together last night. Should I mention it to him? My natural cowardice and Bad Taste says Not. Serve him right for withholding on Complete Abjection.

    Tues 14 Feb 67 – Valentine’s Day
    Bare legs sticking out of frayed green gym tunic, inside-out peach colored sweatshirt, clodhopper shoes, ice cream cone. Ice cream in hair. Penny Mason yells I have a phone call. Brice’s flat dark voice: “Aiken’s coming from Princeton with my car at 3:30 and then I have to drive him to Philly. Want to come?”


    Do I ever!


    “I’ve got field but we’ll be done at four. Wait for me.”


    So, looking disgracefully Junior Varsity there I was running uphill and puffing silver clouds and HE saw me!


    “H, beautiful.”


    JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES!!!! Several girls turned to stare at me incredulously. “If she – why can’t we – “ etc.


    I didn’t have time for a shower so only pulled on jeans. I must have smelled pretty ripe but Aiken said he “liked” it. Disgusting or desirable? Decide later.


    We sat in the back seat holding hands. Mad with desire having my thigh against his but I am NOT making out in front of Brice (he wants it too much.) That Aiken is a hunk! So glowing, so clean, so freshly shaven.


    Very meaningful goodbye as he looked deep into my eyes – but no word of the weekend! Not a minute alone in fact! Brice simply turned the car around! I was so frustrated I burst into tears. VERY humiliating in front of Brice! I apologized: “It’s been a long day.”


    He said in that throbbing voice of his, “I still love you. If I didn’t love you when you’re sad I’d be cheating the other times.”


    Bizarre! Imagine! Wheels within wheels. Problem? Sickness? What?

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Mon. 23 Jan 67


    Matt had to leave the dance early – his leg bothered him – I got a message to go up to faculty play rehearsal and who should be there but Aiken Billings! He is so big and old and handsome! I fell into his arms! He thinks he’s too fat but I like every little bit. I am concerned about letting a man of that size lie on top of you! You’d have to do it standing up!


    I hung on his every word and every breath. He asked what my perfume was, I answered “Silk of Intimate.” Put it over my whole body! He says it’s the best he ever smelled. We sat on the balcony watching the faculty practice their play – I told him all of their little quirks & weaknesses, really made him laugh. Brice has a big part but he is not very good – he knew we were laughing at him. He has to kiss Miss Pampiono the Spanish teacher and Mr. Ensleigh the director made him do it again and again! All the student crewmembers shot me envious looks (prestige!)


    Aiken spent the night in Brice’s room and I sat next to him at breakfast. They had my favorite (last night’s dinner rolls covered with white icing) but I couldn’t eat because of the maleness Aiken exuded from every pore. I thought I would faint just looking at his big thighs. What must he look like naked? The Lincoln Memorial or something! Brice’s date turned out to be Miss Pampiono – she has a nice figure but pop-eyes and is very quiet. Brice tried to draw her out about the red light districts of Madrid but she refused to be drawn. I went upstairs to put on my short orange dress with the patterned white stockings.


    We spent a LONG time at the market buying the steaks – half a cow per person – Aiken is fussy about food. He showed me how he prepares them – rubbing them with mustard and basil and banging them with forks. He seemed to think I might want to take over but I told him I hate cooking and would rather explore his apt. It’s on St. Mark’s place with a lot of bay windows and high ceilings.


    Over dinner he confessed his desire to conduct the Boston Pops but somewhere in life he took a wrong turn and is now getting a PhD in political science. We started with vichyssoise and then the steaks with peas, mushrooms, salad and eight or nine glasses of Almaden. I’ve been drinking that stuff since I was 8 – it doesn’t affect me. Miss Pampiono insisted on doing the dishes so we let her.
    Aiken insisted on playing Ella Fitzgerald who is just awful. I must get him a Paul Revere & the Raiders album – something you can dance to. Miss Pampiono and Brice danced and Aiken extended a limp hand to me but I said I was too bloated and he gratefully told me all about Exeter.
    Miss Pampiono and Brice went to make out on Aiken’s bed – right in front of me! I can’t believe it! I could blackmail her big time. But I’m glad she did it because she certainly can’t say anything about me.


    I sat on Brice’s lap in the window and he did give me one devastating kiss. He told me to grow out my bangs! What is this thing men have for redesigning women’s hair I can’t imagine. I told him I’d think about it. Pulled back all my hair from my face but he said I looked like a “bomb victim”. He smokes filterless cigarettes and calls the others “tampax tips”.
    I warned him the music was undanceable but he picked me up and whirled me around and around! No boy at school could do that, believe me. (Maybe Crow.)


    Finally he threw me down on the couch and got on top of me! He was hard in a minute! I was starting to get a little worried – my First Time with the Spanish teacher moaning and sobbing to the speech coach across the room? Aiken kept telling me I had beautiful eyes while I subtly tried to disentangle my legs. The sweat was pouring off him. Finally he lit a cigarette all shaky-handed. I was relieved and ordered coffee. I had a feeling Brice was trying to take off Miss Pampiono’s dress across the room and she was trying to keep it on. Aiken said he’s been afraid to kiss me – I said “Did you think I didn’t know how?” he said, No, the age thing – and how he was dying to meet my Father!!! A bedraggled Miss Pampiono accepted a cup of coffee. Brice stood up and made a long speech from Thornton Wilder: “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love. The only survival, the only meaning.”


    So I put my hand over my heart and chimed in, “To thine own self be true.”
    End of date. Forty-five minutes to get back to school!


    Sun AM Brice met me at breakfast and said Aiken “likes” me and feels the Age Thing can be conquered. When I’m eighty-five he’ll be ninety-four! Pink cloud.


    Meal per with Aynsley fascinating and I am going to write a short story about it. Pewter Hill is gorgeous – old stone house in a big snowy park – and the grandmother has some elderly relative dying upstairs – moaning weirdly throughout lunch!! There was a nurse in a dress who looked like a man. Ghost story?


    Tues 24 Jan 67
    Sofy came up to me today and said, “I don’t want to take the wind out of your sails but you’ve been acting like a SNOT ever since you snared that Big, Handsome Older Man!”
    I’m in too good a mood to care. What she really means is I’ve Taken Myself Out of the Running and it makes the others gnash their teeth.


    Made a Serious Inventory of my Face. I may not be conventionally beautiful but I’m not conventionally ugly either. A dimple in your chin many hearts will you win. So there.
    Tried hard to write a poem about my emotions using thesaurus but the more I worked on it the more seemed I was smoothing a bedspread over an unmade bed. Have to admit I’m flying blind as a poet. Damn. Maybe Reed will write one for me. I get out my thesaurus.


    A-limp along the battlements they come
    Tenants of Byzantium
    The pimply priest, the queasy horde
    The Queen’s son
    Anoint the holy sores
    The king’s ache; the king’s men
    The bones assemble and attend
    Re-joint the shills; once shrill
    Now shillingless.
    The ague becomes the age.
    Squires of skulls webbed tightly in
    Mummydom.
    Incorporeal now
    In reticulum.

    I think I’m pretty lucky to have Aiken.  He’s very sensitive which you’d never know looking at his big luggly face. My favorite vision: Aiken puffing on a cigarette, eyes closed, intoning a passage from fave author Thomas Wolfe. Aaaah…I should avoid falling in love since there’s no guarantee he’ll join me there.
One thing’s for certain – he’s destroyed my datelife for a while.  How can any of these spindly kindergartners compare to him? 
Well, I have wasted all my study hall drinking Gunpowder and writing sideways.  Time to do something constructive like Letters to Family and Setting Hair.

    Wed Jan 25 – 67
    Brice says he will be seeing Aiken at a mixer for Southeast Asia students do I want to send him “my regards”. I said sure. “I’d rather send him me.”


    So what’s he doing at a Southeast Asia mixer? Connected to his degree or that Storm Center in his pants? Dark thoughts. Collapsing air castles.


    Sun Jan 29 – 67
    Really unsatisfactory Philly weekend with Aynsley and her visiting Claudia. Saw Fellini’s 81/2 and 10:30 PM Summer. Claudia’s boyfriend is a very unprepossessing vegetarian who plays the guitar. Feel Claudia – Swarthmore grad – has just “given up”. The second movie at least had one good sex scene. They transposed pictures over it but you could tell what was going on. Pretty serious eyestrain however. Afterwards the boyfriend wanted to play all Dylan’s songs about what bums women are so I conscientiously objected by going to bed.


    Mon 30 Jan 67
    Wrote a great story for RoachFace’s class entitled Run With the Fox. It’s too good for her. A girl is fleeing but you don’t find out who she is or why – just her physical reactions till she gets safe. This is a test RoachBottom is bound to fail. (Whereby failing ME.) Still I can’t resist – I like best the stories that make you a detective in someone else’s life. Maybe she’ll like it. She gave me an A on “Tree of Angels” about peasants who execute a priest for chopping down a tree they pray to. It was offbeat but it did have a ”we-them” thing she could feel smug about.


    Tues 31 Jan 67
    Just finished Eliz Gray Vining’s Take Heed of Loving Me. Much preferred Wife to Milton by Robt Graves. It’s a better book. But now I have plenty of evidence on what bad news it is to marry a genius. They’re selfish and they keep peculiar hours. Who will put up with MY selfishness and MY peculiar hours?


    Starting to get impatient with Aiken for using Brice as a go-between. Too Shakespearean! Brice’s natural oiliness coats everything he touches. Aiken hasn’t called me once so for all I know Brice is making everything up. According to him A wants to invite me to a movie. I try to play it cool but it’s hard with no one to practice on.


    Why not this weekend? Oh Aiken’s going to Princeton. Where he will presumably drink and fool around while I pine in this benighted teenybopper school.


    Thurs 2 Feb 67
    Hair smells like smoke, as if it is haunted! Unbelievably sex-starved tonight. Hanging out the window singing a dear little children’s rhyme: Here comes the candle to light you to bed AND HERE COMES THE CHOPPER TO CHOP OFF YOUR HEAD!”. Childhood such a time of innocence. Aynsley makes me close the window. See how I am constrained by the coldblooded conventionality of others.


    Brice called me BEFORE BREAKFAST to say Aiken had to rush down to S. Carolina where his father had a heart attack! Apparently his father is REALLY OLD – had Aiken when he was 70!


    4 Feb 67
    Asked Brice flat out why he likes me so much. He said because I am “deliciously cynical”. I was very surprised! I am raw and red and tender on the inside (like a good steak.) HE is the “cynical” one! (Hypocritical too.) He really likes me because I badmouth his Place of Employment. I am Well Informed simply because I read so much.


    Today felt like spring. Couldn’t resist playing around with Reed Hambro even though he’s so young. He keeps sending the most interesting KOBS. I wanted to see what he was made of so decoyed him into a classroom after dinner but I couldn’t even get my arms around him because HE WOULDN’T STOP TALKING. I am willing to go nine-tenths of the way but at that point I subside before the Law of My Ancestors.


    When I came upstairs Aynsley asked if I’d been making out. “Because your mouth is all smashed.” From sheer desire!


    If I get too focused on Reed there is always the danger Brice will find out and tell Aiken. The magazines are all for Honesty saying that its healthier. It may be healthier but privacy is yummier.
    Worked out mathematically:


    Either I will see Aiken or I won’t. Either he will encourage me or he won’t. Either I will get hot with Reed or I won’t.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Wed 4 Jan 67


    Back at school the horror continues. I refuse to write my New Year’s resolutions or I’ll have to keep them. A rotten vacation. Genevieve complains about Radcliffe where you have to take deportment class and march around with a book on your head! She says it’s not what she was expecting at all. Harvard won’t even let them use the library. Beales DID ask her out and she said yes because she couldn’t figure out what else to do but then a cool Harvard guy asked her so she told Beales she was sick. And who should she run into on the date but Beales – who looked at her with “disgust and horror.” She returned the look of horror at least.


    New Years’ alone babysitting at the Carnahans. They are teetotalers – nothing to drink at all – not even cooking sherry. Did find a bar of cooking chocolate which I tried mixing with sugar – disastrous results. Spent all night reading Kristin Lavransdatter. Really interesting! Six kids are definitely out for me, however.


    New speech coach offered to drive me to school and parents said yes! (Anything to get out of taking me themselves.) Wore extremely tight jeans, scratchy ski sweater hair in pigtails to be as unapproachable as possible. He took me out to dinner at the General Greene Inn! (Because he’s faculty he can give me an excuse for Vespers.) I had to get a dress out of my suitcase and change at a gas station! Let down my hair and wore the glittery hoop earrings my mother hates so much.


    Over clams & wine he told me to call him Brice and explained how he lost his virginity to a stewardess in the back seat of a car at the age of 14. (Not sure I believe him.) He spent the vacation getting drunk on bourbon and looking for a Rich Woman to Marry! That lets me off the hook! He ordered coffee and poured his cream over the spoon in the coolest way.


    I said I’m looking for a Rich Man and he said he’s got the perfect one, his friend Aiken. Actually met me at the school and compliments all over (I don’t remember him.) That I was so alive!


    Unfortunately he started inveighing against Today’s Mores and I began to see why our school hired him. He’s just as confused as anyone. Tells dirty jokes out of one side of his mouth and talks about Freedom VS License out of the other side.


    Told him if Aiken can get me out of school I would be willing to date him. Older mean are three times harder to resist. And presumably they’re not all stupid about V.D. & pregnancy. Aiken Billings looking better and better.


    Fri. 6 Jan 67
    Why remain a virgin? Why why why? The mags say to avoid Emotional Hurt & pregnancy. Aynsley insists if you use tampons you’re not a virgin anyway. Headmaster showed us a drink/drugs/sex/cigs movie and wanted our Honest Opinion what we thought of it. No takers. We still have to live in this place. These moves are invariably loathsome “case histories”. Should it be shown to sophs for “health class?” Sure, we say.
    Yes, Virginia, sex can be bad. So can fire, penicillin & coca cola.


    I think I am held back by Fear of the Unknown. Irrevocable steps make me nervous on principle.
    Mom and Dad say they are moving to Philadelphia! Better for me. They are renting a townhouse on Penn St to throw their furniture into until they find something permanent.


    Tues. 10 Jan 67
    Whenever I clean up my inner fog and become a functioning human being something happens to bushwhack me. I’m a brooding hermit and a mad spirit. Faculty thinks I’m just peculiar. Little do they know I’m the only one who tells them the Absolute Truth (I’ve often taken the heat for Teacher’s Pet Janet Hill.) She keeps a jug of sangria underneath her bed!


    “Janet’s room always smells so nice” warbles Miss Wienand. Aynsley’s and my room has bureaus on top of one another the moment you open the door so you can’t see what we’re doing behind it. We are “inhospitable” to Required Room Check and Random Police Powers. Imagine! Be careful Miss Wienand that one of those bureaus doesn’t fall on you and CRUSH YOU DEATH!


    “So I’ll continue to continue to pretend; That life will never end, and the flowers never bend with the rainfall.” Simon & Garfunkel


    Wed 11 Jan 67
    Finished Daisy Miller & Turn of the Screw – Rasputin the Holy Devil next followed by Chekhov. Thank God for literature is all I can say. I will worship Henry James until I die. His dialog is stuffy – his genius is revealed in his plots. Brice signed me out again and took me to the car wash where he carefully detailed his car so we could “chat”. Aynsley says the rumor mill is going into overdrive; are we having an Affair? Much as I like the IDEA of consorting with a faculty member I have to say Brice is not my type. There is something mysteriously slimy about him like he’s not quite coalesced. Alas, my handwriting degenerates LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE!


    Thurs 19 Jan 67
    A useless hour trying to paint a picture to Simon & Garfunckel’s Cloudy. We were supposed to paint to a piece of music but maybe I consider this song TOO perfect. I’ll have to choose something that doesn’t stir me so much – such as the Beach Boys’ Wendy. What I really want to do is finish up Chekhov (he’s not as funny as he thinks he is – apparently he laughed at sad things) so I can read A Raw Youth. Then I have to delve into Fitzgerald for Miss Lissome but feel slightly repelled.


    Writing a story (for fun) about a Danish boy who visits a famous neurosurgeon. So far so good except Aynsley keeps bugging me – her latest boyfriend wants her to dye her hair. (She’s been a blonde for YEARS) because it “isn’t natural.” I said once you start that stuff he will get the wrong idea about who’s in charge. But I’m afraid he really IS in charge because she cares more about him than he cares about her. She is so afraid of loneliness. I have conquered my fear of loneliness, mostly through books.


    Have been hanging out a lot with Casey these days. She is flat chested and stubby legged but a very pretty redhead. She is honest about planning to go to Pine Manor, marry a rich man and live in a house with white pillars where she can have affairs. You’ve got to admire a girl who knows what she wants! And here’s the craziest thing – she keeps a diary! Always has! I, a star in my own diary, am not used to being a bit player in someone else’s!
    Miss Womrath raked me over the coals today over my short skirt. Told her I am just a reflection of my times. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald.

    Fri. 20 Jan 66
    Writing in math class. Around me open mouthed concentration as fingers scribble bits of wisdom dropping from The Mighty Throne. They seem unawakened to me.
    John Van Dusen asked me out for Fri night. I said yes because he’s handsome, blond and very gentle. Unfortunately he’s also so fragile he makes me feel like a female gorilla. Why don’t these boys eat more? Is it wrestling? I could give them some pointers. Alas he has a broken leg so NO DANCING. Well, no one can say I didn’t do my part for The Disabled.
    Brice invited me to Aiken’s Phila apt this weekend for steaks & “messing around”. Double date. That settles the seduction question I feel pretty sure because who would want witnesses? Skating tonight – not much fun if you’re not going with anyone – just cold.


    11 PM
    Matt Romer (who calls love a “psychological maneuver”) asked me out for Sat but I had to tell him I’m going on a meal per with Aynsley and her grandmother. Too bad! Told him to try again! Although he’s only a sophomore he’s very intelligent. Word is out that I have a thing for penseurs.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Sun. Nov 20 – 66


    Sorry for the gap – life chewed me up and spat me out. I would be a lot better off without the amateur psychologists picking my brains. This place is determined to break me whatever it takes.
    No Mr. Dean I do not like your math course or your clumsy attempts to “civilize” me. Yesterday I was shaking with rage because he said I would need math when I am a housewife! I thought I’d pass out!


    Actually feeling a bit better today because of the movie we just saw – Sixteen in Webster Grove. It’s about the pressure adults put their kids under. You even worry in your sleep. I used to be so excited about every new day but no more. I am the same jittery mass of frenzied hostility as anyone else. My only defense is “to hell with it.” Nice to know it isn’t just me.
    After the film (in the East Room) there was a Discussion. What a travesty. It was all “they”. Why are “They” so bad? Why can’t they be wonderful and right-thinking and privileged like Marvellous Us? How we Pity Them!


    Tues. Nov 29 – 66
    Mr. Ensleigh agreed to be my advisor. He let him kick his desk and turn the lights off and on until I felt better. He asked me what I was reading and I told him Brideshead Revisited. He asked me to lend it to him when I was finished. He is at least a step in the right direction.
    Got a booklet in the mail from the Central School of Drama (London.) They listed all the ways you could get expelled! Sounds like another prison where they watch the inmates closely! Fortunately the future never comes. Today is all there is.

    Thurs. Dec 1 – 66
    Today I achieved a real understanding of people who throw their dreams away for a little security. Anything for Peace and Quiet. I signed up for Coffee & Conversation – Juniors & Seniors ONLY!!! as a Hobby (they are Required) and we sat around Mr. Ensleigh’s apt talking about juvenile delinquency while we devoured a whole chocolate cake. I imagined what it would be like to be married to him and when the bell rings and the Patients toddle out, I throw off my clothes and fling myself full length on the sofa to watch TV. (They do say he is queer, however.)
    In how short a time would THAT security seem another prison?
    Doug Bristow told me the rumor is I’m cold! Wow! How well I conceal my true self!


    Tues. Dec 13 – 66
    Reed Hambro asked me to the Christmas Dance and I said No. Aynsley (who favors him) said Why on Earth and I said because he needs someone to take care of HIM and I need someone to take care of ME!!


    The theme of the dance was An Old Fashioned Christmas so I took the job of barmaid handing around birch beer. For an old fashioned barmaid I did a lot of dancing (with Brice the new speech coach.)


    Next night was The Santa Clause Masque – a stupid play, if you ask me. My part goes, “Knowledge has taken love out of the world and the world is empty, empty, empty…”
    Do they HEAR themselves? I guess art is about other people – unfortunates we can feel smug about. We don’t NEED art because we’re perfect! 3 weeks work up in smoke.
    At least it’s snowing. I like snow. Beauty, strength silence – it has all the good qualities.

    Wed 14 Dec 66 – 2 PM
    Feeling sick after reading Rabbit Run. It’s a Forbidden Book which means they keep it in the Librarian’s office and you need your parents’ permission to read it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered.


    Character describes his wife as a “white, pliant machine for mating, hatching and feeding”. Yuck. I used to want six children but now I’m wondering. I’m starting too think women are worse off than Negroes. Negroes can go to Africa but women have no country.
    I am a Human Being. I intend to lead a full intellectual, artistic and emotional life. Those uninterested in the Entire Package need not apply.


    11PM
    Reed sent me such a sweet KOB.


    My heart leaps
    As a pebble will do after sitting two days
    In a glass of still water.
    For the legion of the sixties is clashing with its foes
    Marching to inevitability & failure.
    Rationalizing & nationalizing its ineptitudes
    Treading mercilessly on inferiors
    Leaping
    At the drop of a penny and
    Leaving a cavity gold could not fill.
    As I sit in my army blanket
    The torchbearers approach
    Glory heads, holding
    Exiled pedagogues captive with
    Their faithful frightful faces
    Whose drab accoutrements dissolve
    I know all and yet
    I will not speak out.
    Only the hues of night will know
    They are the base
    I am the apex. I could name
    A hundred faces in between.
    I must judge iniquities of façade & mind
    Doomed to live a life
    A hypocrite could recognize.
    Life goes one and
    Life goes on and
    Venus will never know.


    Wow! I will date any boy who writes poetry this good. Pebbles don’t leap but still. He uses the word “accoutrements”! However he No Longer Believes in Dating. Couldn’t we just Show Up somewhere at the Same Time? No, we could not.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Wed Aug 25 – 65


    M & D up sailing at six, we girls slept like hogs till 9. Loafed in the sack discussing M’s wedding.

    “I want a small wedding.”
    “You’ll never get it under 50 people,” I said.
    “You can all be bridesmaids! Gayle is maid of honor.”
    “I hope our dresses are full-length!” (me)
    “Avril will be flower girl,” suggests Genevieve.
    Now Merrill is threatening to get married BEFORE the actual ceremony because otherwise she’ll be too nervous! Yeah! She might fall in love with SOMEBODY ELSE and then what I think but don’t say.

    Reached Long Point, Canada by lunch. Half mile to shore, G and I certain we could swim it so we plunged in, Avril trailing us in the dinghy. It was gorgeous, water clear but green, not blue like Mediterranean. Bottom pure pale sand. Not actually tired when I reached shore but proud – boat looked so far away! Glorious sand beach, big light house. G found a dead seagull that hadn’t been dead very long so we got a good look at this magnificent bird. Close up they are so beautiful. No clue what killed it – did not look sick. We gave it a nice burial (it was so heavy I was surprised it could fly.) I recited Millay – I never miss a chance to be poetical, just part of Alysse’s Beachside Morgue Service. Avril cried.  Byron’s my favorite (strange since 19th cent makes me want to scream) but couldn’t recall any of his stuff. 1Jane Austen my favorite hist period. )  Could I have used his quote about Napoleon? What must be the madness of thy memory? I particularly love Don Juan. Also I like Keats. Frost is good but with him you don’t have to think. 

Back at the boat we had lunch and set sail for Berwell. Long, lazy afternoon.. I’ve finished all my books – heavy into spy literature – also poisoned chocolates case which I didn’t like as much as I thought I would. I thought it was Mrs Bendix all along. Also Anya Seton’s Katherine. “Eve of Destruction” playing on the radio. Great. I need several hours alone with the author of this song in order to straighten him out. I refuse to believe politics is anything but temporary madness.

    Thurs Aug 26 – 65
    Harshly awakened by pots, kettles & cans falling to the floor. Boat rocking wildly and me, in the lower starboard bunk, got entangled in my sleeping bag and almost thrown into the bilge. Then my roll-in bed slammed into the wall as far as it would go with me in it! Knives flying – I was in fear for my life!

    “This ketchup bottle almost hit my FACE” said Merrill. I rescued diary from floor and tried to lock it in books cupboard while books fell on my head. I heard the sound of the motor as M & D tried to straighten the boat. Avril was actually thrown out on the floor under a cascade of bottles. If you really thought about it you’d get seasick. Put on a lumberjack shirt – no time for  bra and climbed above to see Port Stanley heaving into view. Fat white gulls sitting on the black coal. Port Stanley itself looks like it was erected overnight for a Hitchcock film and will be pulled down next day. We had a lot of trouble docking. A cheerful idiot in a yachting cap kept offering directions that turned out to be wrong. Once docked a customs officer came aboard and stamped around. We were still cleaning up.  Dad said we looked like “a laundry scow.” The customs man kept  a cigarette in his mouth while the ash grew long and longer. Had to ask us the date. After he left we put up the awning and ate lunch, then went ashore looking very conspicuous. The natives seem harmless.  I bought 2 books – Nicholas Blake & Phyllis Whitney.

Mom found a good bakery so we are all in the cockpit munching cookies. Tough t-bone steaks for dinner with plenty of onions, then cards.

    News: that Johnson again. Married men no longer exempt.

    Wed. Sept 1, 65 2:40 AM
    Lie awake wondering why I want to be an actress. My reasons are all wrong. I simply want to be Somebody Else. Wouk’s Morningstar currently driving me up a tree. I refute his assumption that if you’re young, talented, beautiful you’re bound to make it. I have hit upon a Plan of Action. Genevieve thinks I should go to a WORK CAMP next summer. I need to find some non-exploitative training so I can enter RADA age 18. First goal: save $100 out of my allowance. (That’ll be hell. Out of $30/month!)

    Next summer I will be sixteen and can WORK so maybe I should do that. Genevieve says you can just go into the Inn and get a job. THEN THERE’S THAT MINNESOTA PROG I WAS TOO young for, Maybe should go there. I don’t want to be so parasitical. Genevieve says London will be s expensive as Wellesley! People advise me to try writing short stories but I’m not there yet – still learning – and I don’t want to rush things. 3:40 AM! I surprise myself sometimes.

    Thurs. June 9 – 66
    Yahoo! Summer is officially here and I am FREE! Mom & Dad aren’t coming till tomorrow night so I have noting to do but take walks, pack, and try to avoid Blair who is becoming a little much for me. He moves with such incredible slowness and he has to have all my ideas exhaustively explained to him. He likes to read Ezra Pound’s poetry out loud while I lie under a tree with my eyes shut. Since this is the only thing we share I’m afraid to tell him I just don’t like Ezra Pound. I don’t think he can stomach Millay. Oh dear. While he talks my inner music plays Let’s Get Lost on a Country Road by the Kit Kats and We Gotta Get Out of This Place by the Animals. Speaks to our condition as they say. Merrill’s wedding June 16 – we have nightmarishly ugly bridesmaid dresses to wear – Mom had them made by some disabled woman she took pity on. We are the ones deserving of pity for having to wear the damn things.

    Mon Jun 27 – 66
    Here I am at the University of Minnesota! I’ve hit the big time! I would not be writing at all but we are in the basement because of a tornado warning. Ah, the joys of the Midwest. Just us theatre students and a bunch of nuns who wear funny underwear and caps with strings. You wouldn’t think there would be an order of theatre nuns would you! Well there are! They are called the Franciscans and I must say they are making the idea of the convent look attractive. (Not the clothes though. But there is talk of fixing those.) They even have a swimming pool which Chassie my roommate and I sneak into – naked – in the middle of the night.

    A fat one named Sister Glory is praying out loud. They told us to bring “something valuable on our way down so of course I brought you!  Next time I will bring a blanket and pillows (the floor is very hard.)  Writing hard too because whatever I put down is played back in my brain very discouragingly.

I am studying Acting One, Fencing, Makeup and Fencing.  I love theatre people! (even uns.)But we don’t spend nearly as much time on those as on building theatre sets – obviously we are Slave Labor. This is even worse because the slaves didn’t pay to work. So far the only thing I’ve learned is how to mix “dope” to stiffen unbleached muslin into walls.  This will take me far in life.

As usual my intellectual life is alive.  Reading The Carpetbaggers in which sex warps into hate (Beales!) Turgenev’s Hunting Sketches (adore!) and The Prince, which is sort of a drag. I am Mrs. Smith in The Bald Soprano.  The director asked us when our periods are due before casting. (He is very superstitious.)

    Fri. July 22 – 66
    The fact that I am still a virgin’s not my fault. I am sitting in the coach of a New York Central Train headed (eventually) for Philadelphia – because there is an airline strike. I am headed to Charlaix to meet up with family aboard The Gryphon. It will be a long, laborious journey, which is good because I have had a monumental hangover (my first!) for three days. I am eating liverwurst & onions to keep away the sailors (it’s working.)

    I was dating this fantastic college student named Trey (Très très)!  I was too absorbed even to write about him!  He has the most glorious bod – how I wish I had a picture – and is very tan. Runs around Minneapolis St Paul in a little loincloth & flip-flops. He’s covered all over with a glittery platinum fuzz.  Alas he was just as interested in my roommate Georgy as he was in me but she was not interested in him. (Thank God.) He’s six feet six and has to wear coke bottle glasses but since I can’t really see as far as his face that doesn’t matter. He took me to see The Skin of Our Teeth at the Guthrie – fabulous.

(A sailor sits beside me. He grins. I grin. Blast of onionated liver.  He departs.)

    Trey gave a going away party for me at his house (parents away.) It’s a teensy little garage way out in the suburbs I’m surprised humans can fit in there. But it has a big back yard. I wore a bikini , sundress & sunglasses and brought my Village Fugs album – they loved it. Trey opened up the booze cabinet and started mixing whiskey sours while 4,000 of his closest friends trooped past scrutinizing and then ignoring me.


    Finally I announced I had to be going. (Early train!) He told me he would drive me. I said he didn’t have to – I could get some actor to do it – he said – “I want to” gazing deeply into my eyes. That gave us more time (all night!) together. Unfortunately. I was handling the whiskey sours, it was the Purple Jesus that did me in. Jesus! Never again! Nothing purple EVER! Trey went out cruising around for supplies leaving me alone with Leechy Friend who mixed me this awful drink and I was too drunk to turn it down. I threw up all over Leechy Friend who kept patting me and saying “Don’t worry, this happens all the time.” (Around HIM!) Trey came home and was quite upset by my condition. He got me a sleeping bag and put me to bed in his parent’ room.
    Later on I hear this noise like someone coming to bed with me.


    “Trey?”
    “No.”


    It was the Leechy Friend! I tried to escape from him but got stuck in the crevice between the twin beds and was still too drunk to escape! I yelled “Trey!” and didn’t my hero appear to rescue me! Minus his loincloth. I begged him to stay. He knew I was a virgin but he said, “There’s a lot of other things we can do” and there were. I had several “seizures” and I think he did too. If I had any criticism it would be that his penis is a little skinny- and ribbed – like a dog penis. But still! A night to remember! Life is no fun if there’s no one to play it with!

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Drama Camp – Bellfort LI Fri July 30 – 65


    After 4 days I am horribly homesick. The classes are wonderful, I am sure I will learn a lot, why am I so lonely? This is costing Mom & Dad a lot of money. You have to buy your own lightbulbs here and the teachers are alcoholic & temperamental – someone missed a diamond ring and all our quarters were searched (not found, either.) There’s nothing wrong with the kids – they aren’t the glamor girls I feared I’d get so what’s missing. None has the requirement of individuality I desire in a person. Maybe they’re pretending. Maybe they see our job here as pretending. Is acting imitation? Alysse doesn’t like that! The classes are good but the food is terrible and they give you so little you’re constantly starving. But at least there’s swimming. Should I rave about the place or lie to M & D? I’d betray myself when I see them again – burst out crying I love them so much. It was Thanksgiving before it hit me how much I love them. I love mom more than Dad if I’m confessing. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder to the point of hysteria?” It could be worse. I love everybody and I’ll write them every day. I’ll read Lord of the Flies, Le Morte D’Arthur – can’t wait to get started.

    Sun Aug 8, 65
    That went horribly. Was it a dream? Sadly, not. It went on and is still going on. Camp got better in some ways, worse in others. Found a good friend in Edie Jacoby. Danni Wisefield invited me to a beach party Wed night! This sounded exciting and it WAS. Guitars, beers, fires, BOYS! We built a sandcastle & sang! I met a boy named Rob (Victor Robinson Larsen) who goes to Oberlin College! (Class of 68.) Very nice person to talk to (never touched me.) He brought a book of poetry we read around the fire! They walked us back. The truth is I never thought about getting caught, I certainly didn’t think about getting EXPELLED. So shaming. I think I am a person who TRIES to be good. Mom and Dad didn’t even come to get me – sent a friend who brought me back to her Southampton estate. I feel cheated. I FELT cheated. It’s common knowledge that you rebel against those distrusted.

    Danni denied everything, I couldn’t. I did cry because I hate to be cross-examined. Mr. Pomeranz offered me a dirty choice. If I would say it was Danni’s idea and I didn’t know what I was getting into – but I couldn’t. I had to call home – only Genevieve was there. “A boy – AGAIN?” She asked. The worst injustice! She means sneaking out with Julie last summer. My parents never called back. Finally I put on my red boots & red corduroy dress and went to borrow a dime for a phone call.  “Your parents have been trying to reach you” says Mr. Sheldon. Pity no one bothered to tell me! Calling wasn’t a good idea – they were stern, I cried. Made myself feel better after by making up jokes: The Mr. Pomeranz windup doll- steals your money & expels you. I got a going away party – hamburgers & ringdings. Rob and his MOTHER showed up – tried to put in a good word to no avail! Sweet, though. I was happy to leave. At the last minute they offered to let me stay. I said No. 

This place is  rathole. Couldn’t talk honestly with Daddy because Mr. Pomeranz was there but he figured it out. The Hortons arrived in the middle of my going away party! I remembered Bill but had never met Leonie, a solid, freckled figure. They were very kind. They put up with all my emotions and rushing about. Mr. Pomeranz wouldn’t give me my plane ticket, refused to believe who the Hortons were, finally we got out of there. Isn’t it funny how things work out?

    Thurs. night Aug 12 – 65
    The Hortons house is a huge white estate on the water! Dripping with ivy & windows in unexpected places. Pretty much my dream house! I have a wing to myself! The bed is big but as hard as a rock. On the bedside table Eng short stories by Christopher Isherwood so they expect you to be wakeful. When I was twelve I had a crush on Christopher Isherwood! Children really are awfully strange. First I was at acting school, now I’m at a country estate for an Indefinite Stay. Sounds like the plot of a Passionflower Hotel book! Had a horrible nightmare about Mr Pomeranz.

    Woke late and helped Lee Horton fix lunch. She likes silent meals – she reads! Fine with me! Then we drove to the train station and picked up the cook, Georgia Clark, tall thin black woman who said, “I want some coffee as’ll do me some damage.” Apparently no one makes coffee strong enough for her. 

That night Leonie and I went to Prescott Horton’s house in St. James for dinner before the Smithtown Pageant. He’s Bill’s older brother. He looks like Commander Whitehead. I wore my Greek dress. He’s an official for Smithtown so we had to go – it’s a travelling co performing the Pageant. I sat there with an asinine smile on my face. Worst performance I have ever seen – pure canned corn. Called home after. Mom has not forgiven me yet. On Wed we went to Bellfort to see The King & I! The dancers were fabulous! Too bad I have no talent. Saw everyone during intermission! They were surprised! 

Thurs a beach day. Mr. Horton was late (he’s a lawyer in Manhattan) we didn’t have dinner till ten! Tomorrow I go. Hope there’s no yelling – I feel guilty enough.

    Fri. 13th Aug 65
    On the plane. Something wrong with landing gear, pilot circling while they figure. We may have to return to Kennedy. Almost hoping we crash; I don’t want to die but if I was a little mutilated my parents would go easier on me.


    This AM drove with Mr. Horton & Georgia into Manhattan; I slept most of the way. Left Georgia at bus station, then was delivered to Mr. H’s secretary at his office. She took me to the UN right across the street. Pretty cool but I hate guided tours! Hate being one of the masses. After that I was given a typewriter & office stationery to write letters until cab time. Now trying to think of Famous Last Words in case we crash (it IS Fri 13.)

    OBITUARY
    OUR whole community is sorrowing sorrowing SORROWING to hear of the death of Miss Alysse Aallyn, budding actress and writer, dearly, dearly DEARLY beloved of the entire Clark family (currently vacationing in Italy) nipped in the bud by a p
    L
    A
    N
    E
    Cra…..

    7:15 PM
    You’re not going to believe this. We DID have to land and have been waiting here ever since to find out why they gave us a broken plane. Luckily I bought duMaurier’s Parasites it is very good. Called home – only Clarice there of all people. They’re serving dinner – nice of them! I better eat it. Unfortunately the food is all sterilized, just like airplane food. I am so scared I am breaking out.

    Sun. Aug 22 -65
    Still alive. Very jumpy plane ride – a stewardess buckled in next to me and when she got scared I got scared!

    Whole family there to meet me! No reproaches – even hard looks except from Genevieve. After M & D have gone into a huddle they are Done – no more influencing them. It  was a mistake to write those glowing letters! I told them they read our mail but I was not believed. I am set for Plumly school which will straighten me out (G not too thrilled since she had it to herself. She is clucking away disgustedly.) Definitely Wellesley material (where she wants to go.)

Frankly it’s horrible being home. I should have stayed at camp. Why can’t I learn to fake it? My old friends seem cliquey and narrow minded. I go to library, run errands for Mom, read, write, sleep, keep to the house like  a hermit. I read in G’s diary about how she read my diary!  I said, ‘I forgive you.” Then we both burst into helpless laughter. 

Merrill called to say she’s coming home instead of meeting us on the cruise. Looking smaller, she arrived with Ted Damian in tow. He looks stupid to me. Merrill seemed a little sarcastic towards him. After he left, she said they broke up! Her eyes were shining, she seemed relieved and happy! She said she’s IN LOVE and ENGAGED  to a guy SHE MET A WEEK AGO! HIS NAME IS JULIAN Holt (she calls him Julio.) I decided this girl doesn’t know what true love is. But then, I don’t either so there you go. He wants to be a foreign correspondent and has given her an engagement ring which is more than Ted ever did.

Had to cram the station wagon with provisions and drive Merrill, Mom, Mouse & me to Mentor on the lake Ohio where Dad & Jay took the boat. Passed through Brunswick where the police checked every car in advance of the big KuKluxKlan rally. This plus Vietnam makes me want to cry or be ill. He’s a corn-mouthed, barbecue-eating ASS!  He’ll incinerate the world if he gets a chance.

Lovely cruising days (even without the sun.) First night at Ashtabula, next Conneaut. They were dirty & insignificant but now we are at Presque Ile which is glorious.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Thurs. Jun 10 – 65 On a plane somewhere over Cleveland.


    New diary, new paths on my journey. Stepped into a dark green taxi leaving five crying friends behind. Leaving behind the Age of Dreams and entering the Age of Doing. I’m not saying I haven’t got a past – I have – quite a past – but the future still holds all the excitement. In 45 mins I’ll be saying hello to mommy and whoever else she brings to greet me at the Cleveland International Grubport. This is a very jiggly plane and this writing could go wrong at any moment so think I’ll go back to my James Bond.

    Somewhere in Lake Erie between Toledo & Vermilion – Fri. Jun 18 – 65
    Just completed a week of inactivity – a century in Plumly time. I only needed the first three days, by Wed night I HAD A FIT OF THE WOLLIES. I’m either hysterically joyous or wretchedly depressed – which is the real me? Sobbed myself to sleep in sheer frustration. Daddy asked me if I wanted to go on the Mills Race so I said yes. He’s trying to make up for the time he got angry & said I didn’t care a goddam about anything. I’m taking the boat to Toledo (won’t be in the race). Dad dragged me out of bed after 5 hrs sleep 8:45. Ragged madras shorts & pink shirt & yellow beach bag, rubber bands in my hair, crammed into the Monza with crew member & his family. We were so packed in crew member kept shifting my knee. (Bill Capitan.)

    Stocky, amiable, running to fat (his face looks like a pudding) he is a prof of photog at the college. His wife plain, cheerful, cajoling 2 children. They were talking about last Wed’s race – Dad won! Dad said if he’d fallen in Dad would have kept going so it was a good thing he didn’t fall in. We stopped to lay in supplies of beer & vermouth. Goodbye to wife & kids, out towards channel by 10 Am. Me at helm (boat fought like spoiled child) and I fought back. Sails up, I was relieved (Bill’s no good as helmsman either.) 

Dad said between the two of us we were wandering all over the damn lake. We had lunch at 12:30 – to amuse myself I cleaned the galley even the medieval cubbyholes. Got to improve my pater’s opinion of me!  Read all afternoon –finished Flight of the Falcon started Payne’ s Gold of Troy. Falcon isn’t so good- I don’t like its overall feel. Gold more interesting though written in the passive style. Break for pretzels & coffee.

 Dad whispered “Bill thinks you’re the sweetest girl.” Aww. Dad then said, “Except when you’re being obstreperous.” We were outside the firing range at 4 had to stop & tether to the Fine Feather (beautiful yawl- very good looking boy on board) to let them finish and let us through.  We were a flotilla. Our wind failed, we had to motor though the range. (8 knots/hr!)  I took the helm for 2 hrs that was easier.  Water cool and smooth as glass. Bill excited about the herons, Dad playing w/chart & slide rule. 

The Toledo LightHouse is a Byzantine castle – I hope to build my own someday. It’s 20 to 9 – we’ll be in by 9:30. We fly four flags – Vermilion Boat Club, Great Lakes, Italy & France (Dad gave his Greek one to the Lagoon Boat Club.)

    Thurs. June 24 – 65
    Dinner at yacht club. Buffet, and the meat was terrible! Dad said it was “highway robbery” but they were having a party, celebrating start of the Mills. Dad promised I can race someday.

    Back at the boat Don Lennartson showed up with the hood jenny (the one Dad sent to be repaired.) He’s the one taking me home – we left at midnight. Don & I exchanged civilized pleasantries, then fell silent. We stopped at a gas station and I did make him laugh. He thought I was a drama major and he was too. He suggested books by Lawrence Durrell I ought to read, then we had a good long talk. I arrived home happy & sleepy. Mom awake – chatted with her & the hamsters then went to bed. Waked in the AM by Avril and Genevieve – we are driving into Cleveland – hooray!  We played the radio and were very sisterly. Mom forgot to give G the map so we got lost. We went to Mus of Art – I was sorry we would eat there because I hate the food. Poor sandwich, bad jello. We met Mom & her head start program at the museum. I love the Egyptian room – we feel the same about cats. Also the Modiglianis. Mom met us at 2:30 and took us shopping – I begged off to sleep in the car. Avril got lots of beautiful clothes and I was madly jealous. Went to a bookstore after that and I got a history of the silent screen. More shopping – I coaxed an orange dress out of Mumlet. Sirloin steaks with onion rings at Clark’s then thundered merrily home.

Sun was Father’s Day. Everyone forgot except me. G and I drove up with Mrs Capitain to bring boat back from Toledo with Daddy. She is a very bad driver. It was agony.  We were very late. Dad, G, Don & I shoved off.  Solid breeze made getting out of the channel a nightmare. Dad told a Satchelpuss story that made us all laugh. Poor Don got seasick, I felt wonderful.

    Tues. July 6 – 65
    Lovely weekend on boat with Clarice (Genevieve’s friend) Mom, Dad, and Genevieve. Dinner at the Twine House (shishkabob.) Parfait for dessert! Poor Clarice is so fat Dad thinks she should be hospitalized. Men are always that way about fat. She’s lovely – makes a point of being sure I’m “in” instead of trying to get rid of me (like G). I don’t want to be like G, I enjoy being different. This is the reason for Your existence, diary. I’m the “wondergirl” as G says.

    None of this fat problem can be Clarice’s fault, she is a really confident person. It’s no act. My matchstick confidence is always going CRASH!  I only feel “good” when I’m really done up. G. is writing in her diary too! Us diary keepers must stick together. “How long have you had one?”

    “Quite awhile.”
    “I didn’t know!”
    “I don’t advertise it like you do.”
    It’s probably about Me! Mine’s about her!

    Sun. July 11 – 65
    The stage is always stagey but movies are personal. They are at the same time a thought, a dream, or something happening outside your window. Hollywood doesn’t give people credit for their intelligence. The thrill of thought is a lot more potent than identification with some sex-goddess. Should I graduate from Plumly and storm RADA? I can only hope I have the talent.

    1 am Fri July 23, 65
    Can’t sleep. Tried exercising, counting things, pretending, even acting! Acting like I’m sleeping! “Alysse, my Girl,” I said to Me, “What you need is a Good Think.” So here I am. We have guests, so I’m in a sleeping bag on the floor. I’m reduced to a flashlight. It was an evening of Unexpected Phone Calls. Nightie…root beer…TV. RING! I jump up, knock over a table.
    “Hello?”
    ‘Nyello. Nye have a collect call for Anyone from Miss Merrill Aallyn. Will you accept?”
    “Sure thing!” I say, “Hi, Muff!”
    “Get everyone on the line!” demands Merrill.
    “I’m the only one here,” I apologize.
    “But I sent a LETTER that I would call TONITE!”
    “Well…” Bzzz. Cut off. Sure enough – RING!
    “H’lo?”
    “DID YOU HANG UP?”
    “NO. DID YOU?” (Hard to hear. We were having a storm.)
    “Let’s have some female gossip. You know Ted?”
    “Yeeesss…” (her latest guy.)
    “Well, you have to promise not to tell anyone BUT TED AND I ARE GETTING MARRIED!!”
    I screech jubilantly. Bzzz.
    I wait impatiently. RI-
    “Merrill, I’m so excited!”
    “YOU DO THAT ONCE MORE…”
    “Look, it isn’t me! I swear! When? Where? This is fabulous! My own sister!”
    “Sssh. I thought you didn’t LIKE Ted.”
    I DID say that. “Well, if he wants to marry you he can’t be all bad,” I say guiltily.
    “Promise you won’t tell. Mom & Dad don’t like him either.”
    “Married!” I couldn’t get over it. “Wow!”
    “Next year,” says Merrill glumly.
    “Well, don’t get married in June like everyone else does. When will you tell them?”
    “I’ll tell them SOMETIME.” Now SHE sounded guilty! “I won’t let you be a bridesmaid if you tell anybody!”
    “OK, Ok.”
    “Ted’s parents keep sending us these articles on premarital sex. They’re giving us ideas.”
    “So, have you premaritally sexed him yet?” I was WILD!
    “Yes. Once.”
    This was something! Merrill not a virgin? I felt separated by the gulf of human experience making her so changed. “What was it like?”
    “It was a lot of work. He had a towel with a bulls’ eye and I had to lie down on the target. There’s too much pressure! You want to get it over with.”
    I was scared to ask if she loved him – she HAS to say yes! Talk about pressure! But who could love Ted?
    “Did it hurt?”
    “I have to hang up now.”
    “Oh Merrill, it’s wonderful to hear from you, I’m so glad to hear about you & Ted! I’ll write a lot, I promise!”
    Poor girl! I romantically resolved to be her champion. RING!
    “HELLO?”
    “Hi. Is Genevieve there?”
    “Nope. Sailing.”
    “Is this Avril?”
    “Nope. Alysse. Who’s this?”
    “Bill Laughlin. You’re the one I REALLY wanted to see! Want to drive out and get a Coke?”
    “Are you serious!” I foresee a great future in the Diplomatic Corps.
    “Sure! What’s the matter? Going steady?”
    “Yeah, with Billy Stephens. I babysit for him.”
    “How old is he?”
    “About six.”
    “He won’t mind one coke.”
    “Genevieve might not like it.”
    “Genevieve’s just a kid! You’re the one I want!” (Amazing how good this feels.)
    “I need to get ready.”
    “Are you in your nightgown?”
    “Yeah, but I can change.”
    “Don’t bother. I’ll be right over.”
    This guy was hilarious! CLICK.
    Anyway, I put on a dress. I wrote a note – “Bill Laughlin taking me out to pump me about Genevieve. Be right back.”

    That ought to cover it! Bill at the door. We drove a gold Mustang with black leather. Gorgeous car. (He said it was his brother’s.) Went to the Dairy Queen, got small cokes & talked. It was a good conversation. I liked the way he tried to match my moods, serious to joking all at once. I said I’d been wanting this sign Youth Haven and he offered to get it for me but it was too high up. I showed him the mogul on the way to Kretchmar’s – he gunned it and we soared over it. Great fun. He never mentioned Genevieve at all!  Until in the driveway he said, “Do you think Jenny will go out with me Fri?”

    I said, “Sure, why not?”
    “Well. We had words.”
    “A fight?” This was exciting!
    “Something like that. Sort of “you can forget about Friday.”
    “Uhoh. She’s not a big mind-changer. But you should ask.”
    And don’t mention ME!
    “If she won’t, will you? I’ve already got the tickets.” Tactless.
    “I’m already going with Avril. Better ask Genevieve. Really.”
    No matter how second-hand I obviously was, I was flattered! Thank you, G’Bye, slam! He’s good looking and fun, I would definitely date him if Genevieve doesn’t want him.
    “Of course I’ll go,” she said condescendingly.

    LAKE ERIE AGAIN – Sunday July 25-1965
    One more day till drama camp! Sometimes I get so excited I want to jump up in the air screaming EEEEEEE! Reading DuMaurier’s Glassblowers I just learned something I already half-knew – “There is no such thing as time.” It’s what you want to do with it! A beautiful truth. The tree we climb may be cut down but the past is never gone. I can be any age I have ever been before.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Friday, May 28 1965


    I’m in a paper-wasting mood. I feel like joining some of the great paper-wasters of all time, such as the authors of The Spy, The Deerslayer and the Old Curiosity Shop got nothing on me as I natter on endlessly and speculate about my life. That’s all this school really teaches you – the Art of Hedging. Teachers love it. When what you really want to do is just give way to violent gusts of passionate hatred. My goal as a writer is to slowly seduce my readers into a hypnotic state from which they only gradually awaken wondering what time it is with numbed sensibilities and no memory of what has transpired. Heh heh.

    Saturday, May 29, 1965
    Diagnosis: summer sickness. The patient must get up, put on a gypsy dress, minimum of makeup and sit calmly in a bus for one hour. Then the patient boards a plane, cracks a book and rides to her destination, which is ANYWHERE NOT HERE. That’s if the patient is not too sick to make it through finals. If only I hadn’t used up my meal pers I could go into King of Prussia for shopping and make whoopee. But sometimes its fun to do something illegal. I could get someone to check me off at lunch. Of course I’m already in trouble for shiking into other people’s rooms at night. And then there’s the Hitchhiking Episode –which apparently I’m never going to be able to forget. The only people, apparently, who stop for hitchhikers are:


    1.Maniacs
    2.Little old ladies who want to give you a lecture and then drive recklessly
    3.Perverts – who travel in packs
    4.Escaped convicts who just stole this car and can’t figure out how to work the damned thing.


    All the escaped convicts I’ve ever known were deeply courteous people, but I guess I just have the inner light a little more than SOME people I could mention.

    Friday, June 4, 1965
    Beales invited me to Casper the Grasper’s (his real name is Bad Karl) for tea. He’s the elderly pornographer who has apparently fastened on our school for some reason it wouldn’t take a fortuneteller to figure out and either throws or goes to all the parties. When I was in the Shakespeare play I was standing right on the edge of the stage, emoting away, and then I saw him in the front row staring at me through binoculars. I mean, the man was looking down my pores. I forgot every line in that one moment. Debacle. However he has a fabulous house and apparently it’s a great honor to be invited there. So of course I’m curious.

    For a person who wants to be an actress and a writer I’m not very observant. I’m always in such a fog I’m the last person in the world to know what’s going on. Guess who turned out to be also going - sans date, of course. Rich!  And I could tell by the way he was looking at me that he still has feelings for me. Can a girl and a boy just be friends? Now I’ve got Beales and Krissy’s got Crow and Rich’s got nobody, which is no one’s fault but his own. 

Many lonely midnight violin solos at Boy’s End.  So I have to admit – I hate to admit – I tortured him a bit. The tormented must torture back. Beales was not pleased. But the sense of power does go to your head.  Actually I’m tempted to break up with Beales just because of this awful book he gave me.  He said it was the best book he ever read, and it turned out to be a real stinker – the meaning of which, apparently, is that nothing has any meaning. The girl treats the guy horribly and he gets back at her through some sci fi device that freezes her. I’m sorry I now know anything about the inside of Beales’ head.  It’s a horrible place. I’ll just stick with his lips, thank you.

So I should probably write about Casper’s. Casper has a wife but they have separate rooms. (I know because I snooped.)  So do Beales’ parents, I was shocked to discover. Maybe this is more common than I knew. (His parents worry Plumly is too liberal. If they only knew. What they really mean is its co-ed, which is undeniable, and there’s dating, which is a fact, and that whenever we get the chance we all pounce on each other like randy bunnies.  Which does happen occasionally.  But the teachers and the kitchen staff are the dangerous ones if you stay away from them you’re Ok. ) Beales says “everyone knows”  the way to kill sex is to get married. (This from a guy who was carded when he tried to order a crème de menthe parfait.) I’m not taking sex advice from a virgin who is afraid of trees and an incredibly bad canoeist. My father embarrassed his children horribly all across Europe by refusing to take single bedded rooms for him and Mom.  If they didn’t have a double, no matter if it was almost midnight, we had to look for another place.  But you see I’m having trouble describing Bad Karl’s place. What kind of a writer always talks about herself?

Ok. It smells bad.  That’s number one. You can’t put your finger on it. Whenever my mom smells something like that she says its drains, so that might be it. Casper can’t see and his wife can’t hear and they probably can’t smell, either. When one sense goes, the others can’t be far behind. The house is full of dusty books and bizarre engravings.  Bad Karl’s favorite kind of books are called Belles Lettres - the only category I’ve never heard of.  I’m sure the wall of books swivels around revealing a dank staircase going down down down if you press on it just right but the smell was too bad to remain in the house long. We spent most of our time in the rose-garden – they have beautiful roses – apparently Mrs. Grasper is a rosarian, which I thought, was either a religion or a men’s club. It may be that what’s bad news for drains is good news for roses.  The food was fabulous – Napoleons have always been my favorite – and although they had boring tea they had flavored coffees too. Conversation was a bit difficult – Beales mentioned his paper on euthanasia and we got a 20-minute discourse on their trip to China in the 1920’s so I think Mrs. Grasper thought he said Youth in Asia.  If it hadn’t been a blazingly hot, sunny afternoon they would have forced us to watch a slideshow. I got to listen to a description of Bad Casper’s alopecia, which – trust me – is not a plant. Then at the end each girl (there were three of us there and five guys) got to cut a rose.  

Of course we didn’t know that Casper was going to pin it on us. Here he comes at me,

    quivering hands holding a large pin and his eyes fixed on my bosom and Beales doing not one thing to protect me. Even Rich got into the act trying to hold my dress away from my skin so I wouldn’t get “pricked”. I’m telling you it was dangerous. And of course I chose a hugely overblown flower on its last gasp that was dead by nightfall. Like my respect for Beales, who tries to claim that Casper, who holds “sexuality seminars” at his house for senior boys is anything other than a dirty old man. And I mean dirty in all senses of the word. He’s given up ever changing his pants, for example. Prof. Grasper’s favorite word is “juice”. You wouldn’t want to catch whatever he’s got.

    It’s a good thing I’m going to camp. Preston has written me a letter wanting me to go to Valley Forge with him. Looks like I’ll have to discipline him somehow – if possible.

    Monday, June 7, 1965
    I was in the Tower (toilet) studying and I overheard quite an episode. Miss Lissome was talking to this girl who apparently slashed herself with a razor over another girl. Miss Lissome was very understanding – a little too understanding, if you ask me. This is probably why Beales’ parents think the school is too liberal, because they hide stuff like this. I kept completely quiet and they didn’t know I was there. Apparently they don’t think she needed stitches, but I never got to see her because she went home next day. That’s one way to get out of exams. So far I got a 95 in Bible, (I’m an expert on the Zealots if I do say so myself) a 98 in English (Steinbeck, Steinbeck, Steinbeck – the only A in the class) and I’m fourth from the bottom in Math (sigh). Krissy and I were in Girls’ Doubles and I came in second! Right now “Baby the Rain must Fall” is playing on the radio and I’m getting ready for the freshman-sophomore class party. Gotta go!

  • Wild With Possibility: the teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Plumly School – THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 1965


    Back at school – good to be back. Sunday in Washington we went to the Smithsonian and saw the Air Force and Space exhibits. They had Lindbergh’s and Wright’s first planes. Hard to believe anyone ever had the nerve to jump off a cliff in one of these plywood gliders. We also saw a spaceship and the Foucault pendulum. It always goes in a straight line but the earth is turning under it. Cool. Lots of people say the concept of space makes them feel small – it doesn’t have that effect on me. It makes me feel big to be a member of such an important species, even when I’m practically failing math. Attempting to explain this idea to Genevieve got me nicknamed “The Wonder Girl”. She is too sarcastic.

    We saw the First Ladies’ inaugural dresses – the one I wanted was Abigail Van Buren’s.  Daddy didn’t like the exhibit. He kept saying, “Boy, she was one big babe!” We all agreed Bess Truman’s was the absolute worst.

Genevieve called a friend from Plumly and we went on a double date (he isn’t really her boyfriend.) We got to drive around Washington in a convertible, and went to see The World of Henry Orient, which we thought, was supposed to be funny but was actually sad. Genevieve had to leave because she was bawling uncontrollably but apparently Jim didn’t mind because he wanted to be alone with her anyway. I didn’t mind my date, Dick.  He was all right. When we got back to the car we discovered someone had blocked us in and we had to drive several hundred yards on the sidewalk.  Fortunately there were no cops around. It was really late at that point and we had to get back to the Fairfax so we could wake up early and go to Plumly next morning.  Plumly!  How I’ve missed you!

    THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1965
    You probably thought I was dead it’s been so long since I’ve written. No such luck. Still imprisoned in this mortal coil. Phil broke up with me for no reason at all, and the boys who have asked me out since then are hardly a promising lot. Barry I turned down on principle (I don’t want to be seen with him) and Jed worries me. He’s just weird and I don’t think it’s a good weird. He’s like those guys who get arrested for shooting a lot of strangers. He’s obsessed with the military, which does not bode well. I can’t figure out why Phil broke up with me, although he said it wasn’t me. At least I don’t have to worry about his hair any more. He used to style it into a kind of dog-doo pile on his head and I just couldn’t get him to stop. It’s a shame when a girl has so little effect on a guy.

    Krissy and I aren’t speaking because we both want the same boy and at the Stone House pep rally last night it looked like I had him (we were having a balloon fight.)  Richard Johnson is English, he’s very good looking  (an especially good body, very manly) and he keeps coming to talk to me at my workjob, but he doesn’t ask me out so I think I’m going to have to sacrifice him to keep the peace on the home front.  He’s making me do too much work.  Some guys at Boys End don’t believe in dating – mostly the intellectuals – that makes it very hard. They want us to just sort of come together by suction, like amoebas.  Thank God for the jocks.  They like to know what the game is and the rules are – if it wasn’t for them we would fall into chaos. He also doesn’t send KOBS  and my parents have been making noises like I’m too young to go to the Junior/Senior.  So it’s probably hopeless anyway. I’ll have to do what all the other lovestruck idiots do - concentrate on English Lit.

    MONDAY APRIL 19, 1965
    Up to the minute report: I got a 91 in English History, which was a great relief. I don’t mean to sound conceited, but I’m the smartest one in that class (and I’m including the English teacher.) I got 100 in English grammar, which is truly amazing because I usually don’t do well in courses I have a serious philosophical beef with. (Much of English grammar is just plain ridiculous.)

    I know you want to know how the Rich race is going. Well, it’s a disaster. The more distant I get with Rich the more interested he gets. Not enough to ask me out, just incessant hanging around.  Krissy was asked to the Junior/Senior by Crow the sumo wrestler and she’s going with him because he’s a date. He pays her a lot of attention, sending her balloons, flowers, cards and good FOOD with which you could buy anything – I mean literally anything – at this school. It’s a tragic commentary on life in this mausoleum that a steady supply of English toffee ice cream could enslave the hardiest.

Still, Krissy refuses to give up on Rich but she doesn’t have a chance – I can see that now that I know him. She dimples up, talks baby talk and teases him in a too-obvious way. He’s very polite but there’s a distinct danger that she’ll get thrown up on if she keeps this up. I’ve discovered that Rich loves sailing. Obviously I have an edge in this department. Poor Krissy doesn’t know a stanchion from a stallion. We were both talking to him after dinner last night and I discovered she’s been sending him KOBs with bubble gum in them – was I surprised!  I think she’s making herself cheap and I’ve half a mind to tell her so.   I must say I was looking goddess like in white Levis and a red shell on my way to checkout. Krissy, alas, looked like the fifth Beatle. This Carnaby Street thing is not working for her.

This afternoon he was hanging around the pay phones when I went to call Mom and Dad. He always acts like he was waiting for me, but I’m starting to think it could just be an act. He was holding his violin because he was supposed to be having a lesson but for some reason it didn’t happen.  He played for me. I asked him why he doesn’t join orchestra but he said they were too brassy. He told me about how he’s been suspended from two schools (he never told Krissy this but I’m not surprised – Plumly is Last Chance Gulch for far too many persons of the male persuasion. He also told me he has a crush on his Big Sister (it’s Sydney Close) so not too surprising but still tactless of him to discuss it in front of me - another strike against him. As we were separating he took the red light bulb out of the exit sign and gave it to me as a kind of memento. I thought it was sort of cute but I guess I can see why he keeps getting suspended from places.

    WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 1965
    Krissy’s on a meal per and I’m skipping checkout which makes a deten but I’ve really let my work pile up so I’m just going to work through and catch up. Starting any minute now – soon as I finish this. My pictures came today – I can’t help wishing I didn’t look like that. One of my eyes is bigger than the other, my nose is crooked and I have a lopsided smile like an alligator. Still I was able to send one to Preston Pugh, he’s been begging me. I have to admit I am encouraging him because there’s a lot of status in getting mail and I was also worried I wouldn’t have a date to the Tennis Court dance and I would have to import him. (I would die rather than make the first move with that sly sunuva Rich.) Fortunately neither of these horrible eventualities came to pass – the junior class has just discovered I’m alive and four boys have been asking me out steadily. Still the most promising candidate is Beales – he’s going to be class president next year – senior class – so that’s cool. He’s clever and funny but somewhat lacking in the height department.

    Little does he know I ‘m attracted to big blonds with hairless chests (sigh.)  Beales is very hairy – he’s a tennis player and all this black hair is sprouting every which way out from under his whites. When I told Rich I was going to the tennis court dance with Beales I was hoping for a little jealousy but instead he told me Beales has the biggest you know what on campus.  I thought that was an odd remark and it makes me wonder a lot more about Rich than about Beales. (Krissy can have him. She may discover she’s bitten off a mouthful of cotton candy – precisely nothing.) Still, judging from slow dances with Beales, I think he may be right.  I really like Beales and he seems to be totally smitten with me (he always calls me “The Lady Alysse”) but I can’t wear really high heels with him. Tonight was a Turnabout dance - late dating at the Cabin.  Beales seemed to think I should ask him – so I did – and now we’re a Couple and nobody will ask em anywhere unless we have a Public Break Up.  Oh well. Fun so far.

I am writing a book report on The Way to the Lantern for French History – it is about an actor who said he takes comfort from history, that people were born, made love and died. I wish he hadn’t put the dying part immediately after the making love part – this is the kind of thing that worries us virgins. For fun I am reading a life of Fanny Kemble. She is a very interesting person although I find her comments on theatre and acting pretty hard to take. For a Victorian she was pretty wild – always knee deep in rushing brooks, climbing lofty crags and throwing herself full length on the hearthrug.  Very reminiscent of You Know Who.

When  she was an old lady toting up the experiences of wonder and joy that had been hers I got depressed trying to add up mine. Sadly few.  Then I remembered I’m only fifteen, not eighty and I cheered right up. Some time left.  Must remember to live abundantly with a  fiery heart so that I have some youthful glory too to warm me in my old age. Fifteen minutes to midnight and the tears are still drying on my cheeks.  I say goodbye to childhood.

    Thursday, May 13, 1965
    Class pictures. I call mine Lady Horseface (horseface with a flip) but Beales liked it so much he bought a frame for it. On the other hand Beales’ picture makes him look like a character in Wind and the Willows. I guess it’s all that hair. At 7:15 while I was under the hairdryer I got a call from my parents. I was accepted into theatre camp! I cried and told everyone. Even Krissy said she was happy for me – probably because I gave up Rich “The Impossible Dream”. I’ve been happy ever since – hard to contemplate a summer in Brockton.

    When I’m this happy it’s hard to write – I feel like an overgrown exclamation point. That’s probably why all great writers were miserable human beings.

    Sunday, May 16, 1965
    I’ve got my lamp on even though it’s lights out so I’ll probably get caught but I’m too excited to mess around with that cheap plastic flashlight. Besides, Krissy is up and messing around with her scrapbook — she flew home this weekend for her home Junior Senior. My parents would NEVER do that. Fortunately the Rez sounds like the German army whenever she makes a move – we’ll probably hear her coming. Krissy bought me an ice cream cone so I carried her luggage down to the racing shed which is where you catch the van. She said the school doesn’t look so bad when you’re leaving it. She sounded positively nostalgic. I think it looks like a Victorian insane asylum at the best of times. You can almost see the place where the Home for Incurables sign used to be. I was afraid all this nostalgia meant she was bound to be killed in a plane crash, but no such luck. I still have to share a room. When Heidi Weiss’ roommate was in a car accident they let her use the infirmary bathroom which is the only place where you can take baths. I heard she was furious when her roommate came home and now they’re not speaking.

    Saturday night was Camp Suppers. As usual the freshman girls were in every room but their own trying to find out what everyone else was going to wear.

    “I’m wearing white jeans and a red shell.”
    “I’m wearing my new green shorts.”
    “I’d wear shorts except they’re madras and they’re ripped.”

    It’s the little things like this that make us different from the animals. Fortunately for me (if not for Beales) I don’t care whether I’m in style or not.  I’m a trendsetter, rather than a follower. I wore my sweatshirt inside out because it has a really interesting pattern on the other side. 

“Camp Suppers” is basically a cookout down at the lake. I had three hamburgers and a hotdog but it’s not as much as it sounds like.  They stamp on the meat to get it as flat as possible and then they cut it with cookie cutters. Really!  I’ve seen it! Then there was oatmeal with raisin cookies and brownies and in and out canoe races. Once you’re out of a canoe it’s really hard to get back in. Beales was angry at me because I was laughing so hard we didn’t win. He says we didn’t win because I couldn’t get into the canoe because I was laughing and I think we didn’t win because he couldn’t get into the canoe because he was angry.  

This is why when summer comes I will just drift elegantly away. Men! Beales is too much work – dating him is like taking an extra class. Even Kip is starting to look good. Beales thinks he’s got me figured out (he’s a straight A student so he thinks he’s smart) but that’s my protection - like an armadillo shell or porcupine quills - I make myself deceptively simple. I got even with Beales by challenging him to a tree-climbing contest.  Trees love me. I couldn’t fall from a tree if I tried.  

Beales was afraid and he didn’t want me to know he was afraid. Tree-climbing is just not his sport (I’ve seen him throw discus with those huge hairy arms.) But when we got to the top I made it worth his while - we made out.   I have a psychic sense of when someone is going to kiss me. Beales turns out to be a shy but impassioned kisser – he kisses all over my face. You don’t have to worry how far a boy is going to go if you’re in a tree, so I could really  give myself to the experience. We didn’t go in till a quarter after ten and I spent the rest of the night in deep thought. Maybe Beales is bearable after all.