Category: Confessions

Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer
```
            Party Castle 8:20 PM Fri May 18 - 1979
            Fasting all day so feel much better. Two more sets. I am 
```
the only dancer willing to dance to Baker Street so they keep playing it for
me and it is a tiring song. However all that stretching is good for my muscles
probably. Reading A Time to Keep Silence. Secaire has got me on a
religious kick.
```
            Genevieve’s Apt. off the Park – NYC – Sun 20 May 79
```
It’s me laughing and joking and eating a whole box of
Entemann’s cookies – and it’s not me. Family. The constant ache of having
so little of myself accepted. It’s like being with people like Usher, really – they
want such a little piece of you. The worst part is, you get so used to the pain
you can’t imagine life without it. Thank God I am usually content to be alone.

Went to the Whitney – gave me some ideas to recast
Memory – unfortunately not ones people will like. I want to make it even
more choppy and episodic– rather than “telling the story –“ which is what
everyone seems to want. But that’s the only way I can get excited about it
– I would like reading it to be like visiting an art gallery.

Queen’s Chapel Rd – Tues 22 May 79
That trip helped. I feel better, more focused. My
new agent submitted Memory to Putnam who loved it but said they had
just published a book with incest theme! Goddamn it all to hell. But their
reaction cheered me up – they didn’t say anything about choppy, episodic, incomprehensible motives, etc. So maybe I’m a real novelist and not just
a bad poet hungry for money. Making plans for The Lives of the Dancers
– a poem for each one. Fun. More fun than novelizing with such a hideous plot
– can’t seem to get my people out of the airport.
```
            Write a haiku BECAUSE THEY’RE EASY. Relief.
```
Harness UP – ON WEARING A BRA

Two kinds of clothes –
Comfortable and un:
Two viewpoints:
Supportive and –

Fasting again today. So horribly fat right before my period
it would not surprise me to go into labor onstage. Apparently no one else has
noticed I have lost my waist. Have agreed to see Devon in Boston next month.
I am going off birth control so we will see what happens. I feel sure I can get
him into bed. But never telling him he is a father? Can I pull it off? I will try.
Getting past block in my novel by having different characters tell different
parts of the story.

I give up on Pamela Hansford Johnson. Holiday Friend
is The Perfectionists all over again– but not as good.
```
    Party Castle 12:35 AM – Fri 25 May 79
            Funny how it all comes together sometimes. Dancing 
```
tonight has been ecstasy – is it the fasting? I am cutting my schedule at the
Plush Palace – the audience here is so much better. They are really quiet
and intense. Probably because it’s so close to the FBI. They get the same
relaxation from watching us that you get from a tank of tropical fish. Except
of course with a sexual frisson that reminds you you’re alive. Read Laura
Hobson’s The Tenth Month – pretty shocked by a doctor who would prescribe Nembutal to a pregnant woman. But that’s the way they were back in the
Dark Ages.

Now I’m on Highsmith’s Edith’s Diary – which is
fabulous – the review in New York Times was downright immoral. Books
should not be reviewed by the stylistically tone deaf. Reviewer should be
open to many styles – I don’t think that’s too much to ask. The idiot. Went
on stage glittering with body jewelry – big stones. Big tips.
```
    Queen’s Chapel Rd – 28 May 79 – Memorial Day
                Very staid and old-lady weekend working on the 
```
house. We have a wonderful big backyard with gas grill – A. and I “broke it in” yesterday for shish kebab. Last week’s trip seems months ago already.

Thought about getting pregnant by poor D all day. Am I using him? Is it
wrong? Nah. I am giving him a chance to be more than he is – and he
doesn’t need to know if he can’t handle it. I haven’t even told Avril about this
– and I won’t unless it actually works. With my irritating body I might not be
able to get pregnant just because I want to.

A and I saw Peter Sellers in The Prisoner of Zenda
– just awful. Sun went back to the Unitarian Church – unfortunately it was
a downer. The worst memories of childhood surfaced as we were lectured
on current events as if we were a class of high school students. I would
rather hear about personal fascism than international fascism – that is the
real spiritual problem. Bullying a captive audience seems eminently fascist
to me. We recovered at Ms. K’s Toll House – such a fun place. Spent the
afternoon trying to write a poem about how beauty and finiteness are the
same thing – when we love someone’s beauty it’s their mortality we are
in love with. Not laying a glove on it.

Saw Alien in the eve – the treat of our lives – what
a rollercoaster ride! We both adored it. I’m now officially giving up on
reviewers – the Washington Post said it wasn’t as good as Star Wars.
What is wrong with people!!! Apparently reviewers have to pass some
sort of idiocy test.

The “cure” was completed when I crawled into bed with Bloomsbury Portraits. Fabulous people. These are the ones my father
refers to as the “sexual degenerates.” I adore their interior decorating.
Sex lives not so much. Going to ask Maureen to make me a dining room mural.
```
            By sheer good luck I don’t work till Wed.  So I get a 
```
real rest. That feeling of pressure negatively impacts my work. Slept
twelve whole hours – which means I may be up half the night – but I
don’t mind if it’s productive. I especially like walking the dogs in the
middle of the night so I can ignore the leash law. They are so good
about voice command.
```
    2pm 30 May 79
```
To my surprise novel goes well. Finished first
bloodletting scene. Reading Flannery O’Connor’s The Habit of Being –
love it. Dreading work tonight – not ready to get back.

1:15 AM 31 May 79
Hard night. Feel like I have had some protective
coating scraped off my eyes and I can see everybody’s pain. Everyone
is in pain. Not pleasant.

Plush Palace Fri night 1 June 79 7:50 PM
Had to stop at dance store to buy fishnet Danskins
on my way to work. (Kristi darns hers but I’m too lazy). Horrible traffic jam
coming and going – then they were out of the ones with the seams which
are the only kind that properly shape the buttocks. So I bought a black pair.
They only look good close-up. So I arrived in an automatic bad mood – put
on my black costume with the little mirrors. I’ll go to the Maryland Danskin’s
tomorrow. Feel better after a couple of bourbons. I can see how dancers
get into the booze not to mention the bute. I am trying to do too much.
Working, fasting, writing the Great American Novel
(it’s turning into the Great Canadian Novel) – something’s got to give.

Two bagels, two bourbons, then I’m cutting myself off. Zachary coming in
tonight. I feel I’ve had it with the purely recreational sex (with quarrelsome underpinnings) that is all he has to offer. At least I have a good excuse to turn him down till June 22 – I’m booked solid.
Idly reading George Weinberg’s Self-Creation. Ho hum.

Working with Kristi tonight. She has the most perfect
body I have ever seen but is totally neurotic about it. She can’t appreciate
it herself. I speak to her in monosyllables because I don’t want to get sucked
into her game of “How can we improve me” that she lays on other dancers.
She’s a “yes, but”, never pleased with anything. Fatima came in hawking
her used makeup. She is so bizarre. Claims she needs to sell everything
for an “important medical operation.” Won’t say what it is – she probably
just wants to ruin her breasts as is the fashion lately. Maggie’s breasts
are hard as stone. She’s destroyed her own body. The air is heavy
with female paranoia. Specific personal worries degenerate at a moment’s
notice into far-flung government conspiracies.
Nervous about upcoming visit with D – at least
twice a day I decide not to go. If he knows me better than I think he may
guess what I’m up to.

8:30 PM Sat 2 June 79
Rescued today – got four nights work instead of a
possible six. Thank God. Bought wonderful music on the way to work at
discount store – all Tchaikovsky’s orchestral music and Purcell’s Fairy Queen. Therapeutic listening after boogy-oogy-oogy.

My parents finished Memory – want to know who Oz
is based on. Uh oh. That rattled me. Should I tell? Decided not to and feel
like a coward. But they wouldn’t believe me any way and that would be way
too painful. They translate any vulnerability or sharing into “no wonder you’re
so sick”.

D’s most recent letter suggested canceling our date
– he’s about to be ordained and must “purify”. He wants to escape from
his past – which I’m a part of. Get it? He knows me so well he psychically
intuited where I’m at, or more likely he inhaled a whiff of neediness and we
can’t have that. He must be the needy one.

Zachary and I went out to breakfast after work last night.
For an “artist” (I use this term very loosely) he has less intuition than a stone.
His compliments are so over the top I am filled with disgust but he doesn’t
appear to notice. Had a horrible insight I now can’t get rid of. I am his Devon
– the Great White Whale. Horrors! Will he now try to get pregnant by me?
Thank God, the sexes AREN’T the same.

Feeling a little slowed up by O’Connor’s prejudices in
Habit. She seems too content to be a creature of her era. Tried to read
Caroline Gordon because of friendship with F – but not my cup of cappuccino.
She is Edith Wharton strained painfully through Somerset Maugham. Instead
I am branching into a self-help jag – brought a book tonight called The Gift
of Grief. Is this a gift anybody wants?

Avril and I trying Silver Spring Unitarians tomorrow.

Party Castle Tues 5 June 79 – 12:35 AM
Devon ordained Sunday. I blew up under all the pressure yesterday – sobbed and sobbed. Avril said she would go out, get a part time
job and just give me the money. I am so jealous of her for being a full-time
student I guess. What an idiot. I apologized. I am experimenting with giving
up writing. Why force myself to do it? I just won’t do it – enjoy life and job at
least for awhile – till I have to write. We’ll see when that is. Trying to read
bio of HP Lovecraft. There’s an object lesson wrapped around a cautionary
tale.

Thurs 7 June 79 2:40 PM
Foolishly agreed to go to the Belmont Stakes with Don,
my patent lawyer who is now a regular at the Castle. (He has forgiven
me for my hair.) Now I want to back out. He says we can have separate
rooms, he’ll pay for everything, etc – he is going up with a whole party of
people. I can’t believe I am going to get into this whole ordeal of having to
get to know someone again. What would he do if I said absolutely
nothing about myself? He doesn’t even know I’m a writer, for example. And
if I go to Belmont, can’t see Devon. It’s all too stupid – have to think of an excuse
to get out of this. If I ruin him as a big tipper what a dope I am. I guess this
means I have gone through the whole dating thing and emerged out
the other side. Ready for the next stage – whatever that is. Invited again to
present at the Writer’s Conference at Coltsville. Shall I tell them I’ve given up on
writing?

Castle – 11 PM – Thurs. 15 June 79
Don came in wearing tennis whites (purple in the
black light) complete with racket like a Noel Coward character. I told him
I was emotionally involved with someone else and just couldn’t go. He just
sort of nodded and left without getting a drink – or tipping me – so he probably
came in only to see me. Relief. Freedom beats money any day. I secretly
hope he never comes in again. I will live without the tips. I applied for a
MasterCard – hoping that will give me a backup way to manage emergencies. Dramatic scene with Jordana tonight – she came in sobbing – her boyfriend
wants her to marry him and go to Florida and she doesn’t know what to do.

I said what I always say, take the risk. So she quit. Managers are furious
with me.
```
    Queens Chapel Rd – Sun 17 June 79
            Exhausting weekend at seminar. I was supposed to 
```
give a reading from Blood Memory. I was a nervous wreck beforehand,
sweating, had to switch my breathing to manual – the works. It went fine.
There was so much silence and building tension – then at the end, the
release was cathartic. Bravos. That was the good part of the conference.
The classes were the bad part.

Students disappointed that I’ve had only one book
published and I’m still poor – they feel I might not be a “real” writer and I
don’t blame them. Lamely told them about switching agents. I could have
used some more stage presence or at least some bald-faced lies. My lack
of confidence was broadcast far and wide. Having my period. Damn.
```
    Starlight – Sat night – 23 June 79
            What a week! I have discussed it with Avril in depth 
```
but I still don’t understand it – I’ll just write it out and see what happens. Got
a letter from Toss Sheffield of all people – my blood-mate from high school – a wonderful letter. He read my poem in the Alumni Directory and noted I was
“divorced”. (Of course, technically I’m still just separated because of Bruce’s malfeasance.) Toss is working with Ralph Nader on Three Mile Island in DC all summer and wants to see me. The rest of the time he is a prizewinning
journalist studying law in Kentucky. Woo hoo!

Timing could not be better – my restlessness desperately
seeks somebody new – someone I don’t have to explain my childhood,
schooling and family to. The Boy Next Door! At the very least I could use
him as a cat o’nine tails on Devon (which he royally deserves). Last Wed
night Devon showed up in the middle of the night on his way out to California.
More push me – pull you. Very unsatisfying night as we finger each other
gingerly like priceless objects pre-smashed, badly glued and inexpertly set. He
invited me out to Calif. in Sept. Long wait, big ticket, which is the story of Any
Girlfriend of Devon’s Life. Might be able to manage if I get that MasterCard.
On the other hand said our parents were “hoping we’d get together” which is
major turnoff.

GiGi came in again. She obviously misses us. Said she
saw Buck the other day and he spoke of me fondly. There’s a load off my
mind. Leave ‘em sighing, that’s my motto.
Toss Sheffield put the phone number of the house
where he’s staying in his letter – I’ll call him tonight around ten. Wait till he finds
out what I do for a living. Or I might not tell him. It all depends on him.

He said he missed me at our tenth reunion – only went
because he thought I’d be there! I didn’t go because I didn’t want to “explain
my life” – and if I tell him, there’s a possibility everyone might know. Can I
handle that much exposure?

Struggling to read Joan Didion’s Slouching Toward
Bethlehem but she is pretty depressing. Read Millheiser’s The Mirror.
Absolutely stank. What was Putnam thinking of to choose that novel over
mine? Shows there’s a factor here I don’t understand. Wish I was a
multizillionaire with my own publishing co.
```
    Castle 26 June – Tues – 10:30 PM
            How to describe my ecstatic dinner with Toss? He 
```
opened himself up to me like a book. “Take. Read”. He loves the universe
but in a healthy way – vibrates to it and wants to be overwhelmed, then
empowered by it. Just like me! He explores the DC area with the zest of
one “learning” a foreign country – touchingly amazed that one eats the
whole of a fried crab – “Even the eyebrows!”

We discussed everything – politics, theology, my
marriage – his parents’ divorce – his horrifyingly determined Catholic virgin
of a high-maintenance girlfriend – he chose her because she reminds him
of his grandmother. And he admits it!

This is all scary but I feel I must ride with it. He is so
intelligent – such a relief to talk to someone who knows the difference
between a prodigal and a prodigy and can tell a scherzo from a schizo.
He showed up for dinner at Queens Chapel Road,
driving an immaculate yellow Rabbit. I was frightened to so much as look
out the window – I said to Avril – “Tell me what he’s like.” She said, He’s
exactly the same.

And he was. Gorgeous poet’s face (Rupert Brooke)
long blonde hair – wrestler’s body – maybe a little too thin. (He’s had a
rough hardworking year of self-denial following Bad Relationship.) He
wore a white cotton sweater and what looked to be the same corduroy
pants he wore throughout high school. I wore tight white capris and my
pink gauze blouse. He noticed my body immediately – how hard and
slender – asked if I was a runner. I told him my doctor says I have a
runner’s heart – but no, I’m a walker. I like taking my time to see all
there is to see.

We had swordfish prepared on my new gas grill.
We responded to each other in exactly the same way we did right before
he left for college – his eyes feasting all over me – so humbling and
overwhelming to realize someone loved me so deeply at such a painful
period of my life. We marked each other in every meaning of the verb. I feel chastened and grateful to have such an effect on another person. We
have so many similarities – both listened to Miss Goggins as children!
We can each quote whole skits, tossing back bourbon in brandy snifters.
As soon as I was drunk enough I declaimed my poem about how we spent
Class Day in the treehouse.

He didn’t remember the frickin’ treehouse! The
memories of people who don’t keep diaries are appallingly patchy. I showed
him the trunk under my bed – decorated with flowers and my childish
handwriting – and gave him the diary that described those nights!
He was open mouthed; he stared at me as if I were a witch.
Who knew diaries can come in so handily to resurrect the dead? He told me
I am a fabulous writer and should never give up. That the purpose of
existence is to find what you were born to do and do it. No one else in my
life talks like this!

There was no lingering hostility over our unfortunate
parting – our fundamentally dishonest Dear John – Dear Jane letters. No
game playing – none of that. I can’t even recall who touched who first –
my guess is we lunged at each other – it must have been mutual.
Well, if I’m a witch, he’s a knight in shining armor.

Only he can rescue me from this hellish situation I’ve fallen in with Devon –
with all of them. That he could make love to me that way and not want to
see me till Sept has been playing tricks with my mind. Devon uses me to
flagellate himself and I can be so much more than that.

It’s definitely fun to talk to someone who has
exactly the same background as me – someone who reads and gets
all my references. I was beginning to feel like an exotic (about to become
extinct) rarity. He wants to date me solidly the whole time he’s here –
(he leaves in Sept – that mystic date). Fri we’re going out – and
probably Sun and the fourth of July. He says he’s never gotten over me,
never loved anyone else the way he loved me. He wants me to come
to his family’s place in the Berkshires in August – where I last went at
18 years old – why not say yes? I turn down work joyously while the
managers gnash their teeth. It’s only money.
January 26, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer
```
3:30 PM – Dumbarton Oaks – Sat 14 Apr 79
            Enjoying a day of full sun. Beautiful carved stone bench
```
– azaleas in full bloom – peace. Woke up determined to finish taxes – offices
closed! When can people go if they work all week? Beats me. But it would take
more than a late filing to bother me – feel blissful. Approaching Plath from the question of her reputation. Determined to write and to learn to see movies alone.
Last night awful sets with Zach – I don’t like his new band.
He couldn’t seem to play guitar and sang off-key. Promises of a future have taken
his present away. My heart went out to him – ordered a bottle of champagne
to cheer him up. Late dinner – I ordered catfish in a spirit of adventure (not good) he ordered what he always has – chicken & fries. He told me about the times he’s
been mugged and his belief in magic – I didn’t believe any of it. He was
full of insecurities about Usher – I decided to act like we have a relationship
to make it easier to get rid of Z later on. He “retaliated” by describing his affair
with his friend’s 48 yr old divorced mother back on the coast. Sure, sure. Asked
to come home with me. I said no.
```
Plush Palace – Mon 23Apr 11PM
            God Malcolm Muggeridge is unpleasant (Jesus
```
Rediscovered) and not even Christian. Makes Waugh look like the author
of Sermon on the Mount. Trying to figure out how I would address God:
what would I say?
Beautiful note from Devon saying, “I love you dearly”.
Sweet. The silenter I am the more he adores me. Sent a copy of my Plath
essay to Usher – we’ll see what he says. Agent passed along a very flattering
rejection on Memory – I am “too much” of a poet! Since I have just concluded
(with Usher’s help) that I am no poet at all this cheered me up enormously.
Airborne today – dancing really well. It’s the fasting. Feel a shimmering force field all around me.
```
            Starlight – 12:45 AM – Thurs 25 Apr 79
            Dragging myself around this AM –  my own fault for indulging
```
in Irish coffee and caramel ice cream last night. 2nd anniversary party at the radio station and I thought, That might be fun! It was a disaster. I took Avril and we were immediately cornered by the club bore. (I had to give him a fake phone no just to get rid of him.) Plus they charged us for our drinks! Rod was there – tight and prim – fearful I would attack him about his nonexistent dance story – I put him at his ease.
Left after an hour and Avril and I “drowned our disappointment” in the usual way
(it felt good at the time.) Ross & Tom should be required reading for egomaniacs.
```
            Plush Palace 9 PM Mon 30 Apr 79
            Had my hair cut today and dyed platinum blonde – like the 
```
color not the cut. I wanted it all off – she asked to “try something” and if I didn’t
like it she would “fix it for free”. Of course, I don’t like it but I didn’t have the time
to stay and have it re-done. I think it’s almost too much trouble to go back – get somebody else to fix it. Everyone likes color however; I needed a boost. But it’s
not what I pictured – looks like a medieval “bowl” cut to me. Fistfight! Guy dragged
out of the club in handcuffs. Joselle says too bad; he was such a good tipper.
Feel too old tonight – I obviously need a vacation but the only
one I can take is in my own mind. I love the house but it always needs something.
I was perched on the edge of celibacy but Jervaze showed up
last night. Fabulous sex! Turned out to be worth it! 2 Hrs (I counted!) Oh, bliss. Reading very bad romantic suspense – A Relative Stranger. It’s a serious
problem that I hate everything popular.
```
            2:30 PM Wed May 2 79
            Perfect day at home. Worked on poems listening to Mozart. 
```
Got my “medieval bowl” changed to “little boy” haircut – it’s wonderful! Do nothing
to my hair anymore! Don’t have to wash it, brush it or even look at it! Of course, I have to deal with all the sobbing men at the clubs. Turns out long hair is a powerful masculine fetish. I consider pretending I’m a different person – but I have the same
old costumes. New stage name? Wonder if “Colette” is taken. Guess I didn’t plan
this very well.
Yesterday overeating so today it’s a fast – only coffee. Phone keeps ringing I refuse to answer. It’s probably Paz begging me to come in and sub
for some dancer who had an onstage breakdown. Reading Wagenknecht’s “psychograph” of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Interesting.
```
            Sun 6 May 79 -1:50 PM
            Avril and I drove to St Michaels yesterday – such a pleasure
```
– I remember sailing into that port. It’s so beautiful I fantasize about buying a
house and “retiring” there. I tell A, you get the country house, I’ll have the town
house we can go back and forth. She says she does not want to live with her
sister FOREVER! Why not when I’m so perfect?
Delicious lunch of soft-shelled crabs and homemade
coconut cream pie. Didn’t get to work till 6:40 and I was the only dancer till
9 PM! Apparently previous dancer unconscious in dressing room and
ambulance was called. Sorry I missed it. Eddy gave me extra $$ but told
me I can’t wear my black jade rosary on stage (too many complaints). Too
bad – it looks so good with white collar and cuffs. He says the place has
been sold again and we will be getting new management. Hope it’s not Tony.
```
            Plush Palace – 10:10 PM – Mon May 7 – 79
            Would like to break my 2 day fasting record but I got up 
```
at 5:30 AM this morning and was just too hungry. Cucumber sandwiches
with lots of pepper on whole wheat bread…mmmmm. Here’s my latest plan
– rewrite Secaire and Blood Memory – get pregnant Sept 1 1980, have baby
May 81! Father as yet unknown. Crazy, huh? Reading The Restless
Journey of James Agee.
```
            Tues 8 May 79 – 4:45 PM
            Great day’s work on Secaire.  Not “done” but better.  
```
Completely new scene showing why Hank and Nilssa are attracted to each
other. 10 P!!! Celebrated by going out to buy new notebooks. Sniff the paper
hungrily. New lighting at the Palace very bad – guess who came in to audition? Brandy! I told manager she was lying about her age so he wouldn’t hire her.
Nobody wants to work with her. She’s a grenade with the pin removed.
Interesting book by Louis Cassells about the differences between religious
faiths. So far I like Unitarianism best but want to expose my kids to as many
different ones as possible and let them choose. Joselle keeps asking me if
she’s going to be in my book. (I’m afraid she thinks I cut my hair for her.) I start
instead a poem beginning “the chaste warrior sleeps only with his prey…” Bad! Sad.
```
            3PM Thurs 10 May 79 – Plush Palace
            New manager Jasper comes in. Seems nice. I curtsy 
```
very low. Yesterday fasted till evening – wrote 7 pages – walked dogs then
Avril & I saw Truffaut’s Love on the Run and went out to dinner. White pizza
with plenty of garlic. Usher is reading at a NJ college – invites me to go with
him. Hmm. Needing a pair of hot pink pants to visit this college in.
```
    9:30 PM Fri night 11 May 1979
            No hot pink pants. Did find a nice pair of aqua polished 
```
cotton jeans and matching high-heeled shoes. Usher phoned and we
commiserated about publishing. Avril and I went to see the movie, A Little
Romance. Very good. Long walk with dogs, further exploring our new
neighborhood. People keep their lawns very tidy around here. Since I refuse
to do ovens, windows or lawns, house-pride like this could present a problem.
Must hire out. I’m bored with my job, but it pays the bills so well I don’t think
I can make changes till July. But who knows what lies just over the horizon? Reinventing oneself could be the greatest pleasure there is.
```
            Plush Palace – Sat night 12 May 1979
            Another exhausting goodbye with Jervaze.  I wore see-through 
```
chiffon bell-bottoms and flowered Qiana shirt – gratified to see they had
their effect. He said he will always feel the same about me, always be jealous
of the person I marry. I must say I now wish he would just go away. Which he’s supposed to do – off to Alabama. Again. I am not, shall we say, invited to this on-again, off again wedding. Awww. Feeling emotionally drained – only 30 short
hours till I see Usher and I want to be witty and “on.” As opposed to slack-jawed
and twitching.

Queen’s Chapel – 4:30 PM Sun May 13 -79
Dragged Avril to Unitarian church. There was a woman
minister. I found the service satisfying enough and the church (River Road)
very beautiful. They seem to have a lot going on – discussion groups, plays,
theology class. I could be interested if I had the time. Unfortunately everyone
seems old. Could I overcome my misanthropy to go alone? Remains to be
seen. The church has a bookstore – I bought an interesting book
on female contemplatives. I’m contemplating a future as a single parent.
Feel a faint hormonal stirring. (Avril says it’s the house.) Who’s the lucky guy?
Jervaze would have been perfect if it wasn’t for that alcoholic gene.
And I don’t think I could hide a baby from Devon for the rest of his life. Usher
probably has some impressive genes along with the vast millions to which he
constantly alludes. On the other hand, the kid he does have sounds defective.
Need to get clear about his marital status.

Queen’s Chapel – 9:30 PM May 15 -79
Bad visit to NJ with Usher. Thank God it wasn’t an
overnight. First he showed up in a Mercedes he described as “the color of Lena
Horne’s skin”. UGH! Next – brace yourself – he wanted to hide me from his
audience!! Dumped me at an antique bookstore (that part wasn’t a total waste
– bought the diaries of Cynthia Asquith) then took me out to an apologetic dinner.
I was so annoyed I commanded everything to be set on fire – fondue, oysters,
and 2 desserts. (He chose a very good wine. It was the least he could do.)
He didn’t want to talk about his reading – said if I had attended there would
have been “too many questions”. And as artists, aren’t we SCARED TO
DEATH of questions? Aren’t we?

Castle – Wed 1:15 AM 16 May – 79
Unspeakably rotten dinner at the Cosmo Club with
Usher. Forget him and his majestic New England genes. He is simply
“collecting” me as his latest oddity. He has “so many” “warm, women artist”
friends but no dancer yet (he’s way overdosed on poets) and he drifts from
one “presence” to another, sucking wattage like some radioactive swamp
monster. He and his wife have an “understanding” which probably means she
has no idea where the hell he ever is and nobody’s had sex in eons. Can’t I
do better than this?
In spite of the fact that I’m a degraded person who doesn’t
know where her next sexual or emotional meal is coming from I think I must
insist on a note from wifey before taking this matter further. According to his
poetry he associates sexuality with evil – not that I’m physically attracted to him,
it’s just so piquant to be with a man who gets a fresh barber’s shave right before
seeing you. (It’s been awhile). I don’t think he listened to a thing I said, just
gazed at me rapturously. I tried getting him interested in helping me write a
screenplay for Faulkner’s Mosquitoes – to me a completely ignored,
obviously filmable work. He dismisses, “It’s been done.”
Well it may have been “treated” BY SOMEBODY but the
point is, it hasn’t been treated by us and it hasn’t been filmed and it would be WONDERFUL. Couldn’t ignite him. He really doesn’t want to talk about writing
with me – I guess he has other people for that. I was so happy when our “date”
ended I could have wept for joy. On the other hand I am sorry to see these
millions slip away. My children could have used them, not to mention all my
fantasies of early retirement busted. Looks like I have no one to depend on but myself. Enjoying Monica Dickens’ enchanting The Moon was Low. But had
to buy a Quaalude from Maureen to get to sleep.
Finished V. Sackville-West’s The Devil at Westease.
I can’t figure out why she wrote it. She speaks entirely in lost codes.
I really dragged myself in to work today. That’s how
you know you’re working too much. Letter from Devon – he’s off to California
to “find himself.” What he really wants is any way to figure out how to be a
minister in a state of sexual abandon and he instinctively knows if the answer
is anywhere, it is in California. On the other hand, will this really turn out to
be what he wants? Not if I know him. The only good news about him is that
his genes are impeccable. Plus, I’m very depressed about my writing.
Spreading myself too thin – thinking about one project
while working on another. My St Secaire book is starting to get ridiculous,
but I want to follow up this “satanic rites” thing to see where it goes. Why did
I come up with it? What does it mean? Who knows? Cheap and derivative
everyone would probably say at this point. Yet it holds some interest for me.
Love and sex as hostage-taking. The question is, who’s the hostage and
who’s the keeper?
Could it be hours of research, prose and bitching produce
only a single poem? Lucky if so.

The Chaste Warrior Sleeps Only With His Prey

My sutures hurt; I’m
Completely unavailable,
You laced my body like a jerkin
Unsheathing your ambition;
Cut my breakfast with a corkscrew
Your secret spine
Doubled up and put away.

I’m fasting now
Bracing for the worst
I can’t eat anything that doesn’t
Look right at me
And want to know the truth;
who’s for real? And
What’s the state of play?
```
            I know it’s a mess.
```
Also miserable about money and my body. Buying the
house was a great idea – I love it – however, there are constant expenses
I can’t ignore that keep me chained to this goddam stage and dressing room.
My mortgage calls for my monthly payment to increase next year – I could
worry about that if I wanted to. And then I always respond to depression and
worry with a desire to eat which of course threatens my job. (Sigh.) Tips down
(maybe I should buy a wig.) And my face is all broken out so I have to use
heavy makeup – and my skin doesn’t like that.
January 25, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer
```
2 PM 15 Feb 79 – Thurs
            Sleeting out. Feeling restless the way I do before I write 
```
a new book. Hauled out Bride & Wolves for a rewrite – tremendously
impressed with my own talent! Development always was my problem (as in life).
Greene’s Human has an odd, unfinished feel. Reviews did not prepare me for it
in the least. I think they reviewed Greene rather than his book. More impressed
by Margot Ruddock’s letter to Yeats in Ah, Sweet Dancer (which could be
retitled Dirty Old Man.) She compares the “fickleness” of men to the fickleness
of God! Can’t blame her if God insists on being male. Read Howatch’s Call
In the Night as a purgative. Going to see Country Wife tonight at U. Of Md.
Usher sent me strange Valentine collage of Playboy photos, couples kissing, etc.
Avril says “I give up on him. It’ll be a miracle if he can ever say what he wants.”

Starlight Sat 18 Feb 79 – 11:10 AM
Waiting for my bangs to curl at the start of a
double. Had a nightmare where Devon performed marriage ceremony between
me and some other guy! Right up to the end I kept thinking he was going to
“rescue” me. Naturally he did not. “Psychic” about him as usual I got a letter
saying he’s busy with this year’s Ladies Ski Team meaning he’s got 12 girls
passionately in love with him and he plans to take his time to savor the field.
Vengeful poem results:

Cloverleaf
Some roads lead nowhere;
They’re my favorites.
I held my breath while
You drew my face in
Blinding strokes and
Creamed my mouth with curling lines
Destroyed one picture; then another.
Left at dawn while I
Ran downstairs in circles, calling
Raging, spending
Nights without you,
No blue thigh to guard
My sleeping heart while yours looks out
To gauge the coming storm.
Now I’m trapped in cloverleaves
Sentenced to school figures
By endless angry judges.
Every face I paint is yours; balked by
An enervating past
Of unlived lives.
Open up the chilly ruffles
Of my breasts
To beauty; yours and mine and your
Strange spine’s;
A body so much lighter
Than the mountain that you loved
The course you learned
Much better than you learned me.
Overconfident that
you’ll come back
I float across the powdered snow;
In bird-winged silence
all-enveloping
Unless I’m
Lost and frozen like my heart?
```
            2 PM – Jervaze came in!  Ducked away momentarily 
```
from his fiancée. Glad he didn’t bring her in as I am having my period and feeling
particularly fat and grumpy. My poor body’s been unloved for a month now and
is falling to pieces. Still it was an enormous pleasure to see him. Someone
for whom I apparently remain The Holy Grail.

Tues. 6:45 PM 20 Feb 79
Struggling against a vast undifferentiated depression.
Going to treat it with diet and meditation. Reading Tapie’s Richelieu and Louis XIII.
History a great cure for all who feel unlucky. Even being an aristo was
no picnic. Avril accepted for both of us to go to Aunt Frederica’s party on
the shore where she’s rented a house. Hitchman’s bio of Dorothy Sayers
very bad book. Sayers wasn’t “in love” with Lord Peter, she was him!
Will-to-power and dream logic. Trying to “bind” her two halves together
when she made him marry Harriet. Had to re-read Sayers’ wonderful
Unnatural Death (my favorite) to get the taste out of my mouth. Ah. Such
pleasure. Painting till I’m exhausted then long walks with dogs through pretty
Queens’ Chapel Manor. Haven’t seen a neighborhood this satisfying
since Chevy Chase.

Starlight Wed 21 Feb 79 – 11:45 AM
Going through a phase where work feels like
being beaten. Think it’s because no one is caring for my body. Will warmer
weather turn the tide? I love my house but Marc Kramer is wrong – home ownership
NOT the cure-all promised. The only difference I can see is I can no longer
mess around financially. Nose permanently to grindstone.
Reading John Dickson Carr’s Blind Barber. It is so
awful. Why does anyone like him? Pass my time sewing red rhinestone
buttons to my pink satin blouse. Yesterday clutch cable snapped – pedal
became a dummy. Fortunately I was right NEXT to a gas station. Had to
take a taxi home. Financial nightmare – more doubles to get my car out of
hock? Turns out it’s not expensive. A. gives me ride to work, Eddy gives
me ride to car. Leaning heavily on inner life. Efforts to live “outwardly” all
seemingly result in hideous failure. Shopping list: pasties, carpet tape, stockings,
cotton balls, liquid plumber, string bikini.

Sat. 24 Feb 79
Devon turned 30 today. Great house party at bungalow
Aunt F rented on Mulberry Island. Interesting artist named Stockley there
with an exciting mind but unworkable body. Fun to talk to though. He wears
a hard hat and welds. Avril asked out by handsome redhead named John.
Fingers crossed. Jervaze called to say he broke off his engagement. Uh oh.
Macmillan says my novel “not their cup of tea”. Very sneery.

Starlight Fri 2 Mar 79 – 2 PM
Bought a pair of yellow overalls to write in. Hadn’t realized
how thin I’ve gotten – I look fantastic. House (closing) magically lifts depression
when it cost $900 less than I expected. I was fully ready to write these nice people
a rubber check – Thank God that’s not necessary.
Instead of wasting away in debtor’s prison, I get to compare
myself to Sylvia Plath. What if in a panic, I married a party boy who fails to love T
he Real Me? Wait, I did that. But I didn’t stay to wrestle with him and now I’m free.
Could be much, much worse. Hang in there and go it alone. See it as a strength.
Trying to apply for grants. There’s an art form all by itself. Avril’s redhead working
out nicely. I don’t like his comments about his mother though. Is satisfactory
sex possible with men who hate their mothers? Could be massive Red Flag.

12:35 PM Tues Mar 6 – 79
Sit down to chat with diary over lunch – can’t eat
because scolding letter from agent gave me a stomachache. Didn’t I know it was
unethical to allow several agents to consider me at the same time? I do see
it’s a very beneficial for the agents to drag this process out so they end up
doing all the choosing and not you. But since she’s the one I want I can’t say so.
Play dumb, promise to Be Good in Future and throw my affairs entirely into
her hands and let her speak for me. Silence frees the artist from “servile
bondage to the world”, says Sontag.
Letter from Devon saying he really respects me for
buying a house (the opposite of what Mom thought would happen. He says
it makes me more interesting. Or he’s just less scared I will show up on his
doorstep.) Also he says “it’s been a bad ski season” and asking particularly
about the men in my life, closing, ”I love you Alysse. Our relationship is the
most important thing to me.” Whew! What are the odds that every girl on that
team would turn out to be a lesbian? Or were they fooled by his aura of untouchable
purity? Most girls would consider it a challenge but some lack the three hours
necessary to defrost him. Still, they’re all out of their minds not to give him a
whirl I must admit. Interesting how very much we each fear the other’s loss.

11PM Starlight Wed 7 Mar 79
Very down night. Only $70 so far. Need $600 to
keep my bills current. Bryony wailing because the state took her children away.
Sometimes seems like the pain of the helpless is smothering the world. Tony’s
the bouncer tonight and he’s all for letting the men stick their bills down the girls’
G-strings! No thank you. Wait till Gentleman Randy hears about this. Reading a bad
German mystery – the mystery being why he wrote it, how it got published and
why I’m reading it. Fantasizing celebrating spring by getting all my hair cut off.
Hmmm. Jean Seberg? Could be sexy. Wish I’d brought Kafka’s Letters. Making
huge floor pillows for my housewarming party. Longing to sink into classical music
& bubble bath, followed by Oleg Cassini sheets & cup of diet cocoa. Having my
own house really is a dream come true.

Mon 20 Feb 79 – 12:20 AM
Such a depressing party I got drunk just to be “out” of it. Avril
& Ben making out in a corner all evening. Usher brought me books and a bird of
paradise flower, Stockley gave me a beautifully framed tiny drawing of crustaceans
but then cancelled that by attempting to corner me all evening. He covers up the
soul he doesn’t believe in with a repellant fleshy brutality – life is kill and conquer –
eat or be eaten. Honestly, now I’m scared of him. Afraid to even argue with him
for fear of launching something irreversible. Luckily, he next fastened his lasers on
Yvonne. Poor Yvonne. Save yourself, I should say. Plan to ask Paz to schedule
me for just two nights. On a self-dare, I sent my poem about Rossetti’s model to Usher.

LIZZIE SIDDALL: The Woeful Victory

Be still or I can’t paint you.
It is evening and
I almost recognized you. Who are you
Fair one? Your mouth is stuffed
With poppy hair
Fate coils between your breasts
Like snakes. But
Your tongue’s torn out.
You must be the echo of my thoughts.

(I am the motionless cradle.)

Your flesh takes fire from my setting sun.
Can you free me, O Lady of the Sundial?
My eyes are growing dim.

(Perfect love’s not found this side of heaven.)

I shall paint you vermilion
Butcher nightingales and use their tongues for brushes
Melting foil & verdigris
To the tune of Canterbury bells.
Stay awhile, Fair one.
I almost thought you spoke.

(I am the face that rises from the pool
to drag the drinker deep.)

I will bury you in manuscripts, I will
Visit when there’s time. Someday
We might marry, but
I am not whole, dear lady.
I am not myself.
Who are You?

(I am thyself. What hast thou done?)
January 23, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer/Poet/Official Girlfriend
```
    Ferry Sat 26 Aug 78
            Made the ferry with nine cars to spare.

    Plush Palace Thurs 31 Aug 78
            Three sets down. Tonight I’m asking Eddy for only
```
three days – it’s hard to be constantly here – like living in a soap opera.
No writing – been sending out query letters. Rod called – had the nerve
to lecture me on publishing, “If you want to play in their league, you have
to wear their uniform.” Deeply annoying – makes me want to bite him.
I refuse to wear anyone’s “uniform”. Back to the unspeakable Constance
Heaven book that is the only thing I brought.
```
    Thurs 8:30 PM 7 Sept 78
            Day spent in the mundane, pricing wicker at Pier 1 with
```
Avril. Lots I wanted but can’t afford. Bought mugs and plant.

7:47 PM Plush Palace – Sat 9 Sept 78
Dinner with Rod. He is handsome, rational, helpful,
kind and forgiving. Unfortunately, he’s also some unknown Third Sex, a
complete zygote. If he’s gay he’ll be the last to know. After three glasses
of wine I found the nerve to say he must have noticed we have no sex life. He
talked sententiously about how we’re both cautious, both been burned before,
give it time, etc – it sounded good, but I knew it wasn’t true. Something’s
wrong with him. The last months of his marriage he slept sexlessly in same
bed with his wife – at the very end her boyfriend even joined them! (Nobody did anything.) Strange and unhealthy.

We went to watch his friend, Zachary play guitar in a coffee-
house at Tyson’s Corners. Now there’s a guy with a noticeably sparking
electrical overload. I was turned on to him and he was turned on to me but of
course nobody did anything.

Rod was absolutely serene, probably didn’t even
notice. But would he even mind? I can’t mention it because Zachary is basically
a sewer rat. It is not a sign of emotional health to even consider counting coup
with this guy. Pity Rod’s so perfect. Waitresses gaze at us adoringly. Mom
and Dad would love him. Wakened this AM by postman thumping on door
with package – turned out to be twenty copies of Flatiron with my
Resurrectionist poem spread – I’m going to send every one of them out.
Makes such a perfect gift and peace offering I may order 20 more.
Reading Nathanel West’s horrific Miss Lonelyhearts.
```
    Plush Palace 6:10 PM Wed 13 Sept 78
            Mon Avril and I went to the play Mrs. Cheyney – it was 
```
excellent – then to the Apple Tree after to dance but the volume of turkeys pitched
up way too high. We made a wonderful evening anyway – picked up effortlessly
right where we left off – complete with psychic communication like imperfectly
sundered Siamese twins. Then off to Rod’s in my black satin suit – he had a
bottle of champagne to celebrate Farrar, Straus & Giroux wanting to see my
novel (I know better than to celebrate a thing like that.)
```
    2:25 PM Thurs 14 Sept 78
            Wonderful letter from Devon affirming and reaffirming 
```
his love. Very healing. Asked to keep the photo I sent him of us when I was seventeen. Described me as “majestic, mature.” Ooooo. Reading Gore Vidal’s
Edgar Box stories.

Difficult letter from Mom. She doesn’t seem to realize she can’t “win”. Her will cannot prevail. If she keeps insisting we will only become more alienated. Good diet day – eggs, grapefruit, almonds. No booze. Lots of water.
```
    Powder Mill Road 20 Sept 78 2:00 PM
            Avril and I met for drinks and steaks, then to White Flint Mall
```
to see Rituals. Hal Holbrook surprisingly good. Trying to read The World of Somerset Maugham in bed – fell asleep at 11 – didn’t wake till nine!
Finished letter to Genevieve answering hers in which she
lectured me on wearing “tight pants”.

Groomed dogs, dishes, vacuuming. Sent Flatiron around – wrote letter to D. Re-read Mimsey. I think it’s a little gem but
can’t be pried out of its’ setting without destruction. Maybe I should send
it around anyway, even though it’s so short. Also found old MS of Secrets –
not bad. But the real eye opener was my writing teacher’s horrible editing –
suggested I change “opaque” to “grey green” – “pressed her eye against
the window” instead of “applied her eye”, which is what I had. Ugh and shiver. Counted up bills. Tight. I hate hand-to-mouthing. So will sell stock. Zachary
told Rod he is attracted to me. I don’t know where that will go – it surprised me.
He is ballsy. See them both at tonight’s party.
```
    Tues 26 Sept 78
            Strange party. Lots of people.  Zachary was there, 
```
visibly lusting. Rod seemed perfectly comfortable about Zachary and me.
He is the weirdest ever. Repressed gay? Asexual? Pod person? Put his arms
around us both. Z very effusive – he is “onstage” all the time. I stopped
myself from saying, “Show everybody your appendectomy scar.” Let him
reveal himself. What do I care? He produced dope but no one got high.
Rod told me I should allow Z to satisfy me – use upstairs bedroom. (Probably
wired for sound.) I was not happy with that – made him follow me home instead.
Good sex, but he hung around till 1. It’s true he made me breakfast – a delicious omelet. But it’s always a mistake to bring them home. When Rod called, Z was still here. That was uncomfortable for me – Rod said relax about it. Stock at 16 so
really can’t sell. Told Marc to watch it for a week but I will be needing the
money. Must unplug phone and work.

Quarter to 7 – Worked on childhood stuff till tension got too
much. Plugged phone back in, dinner, read NY Review of Books. Exercised
dogs. Went to library – got bio Hart Crane – a nice big one – bought huge
desk calendar for planning.

Plush Palace 27 Sept Wed 78
Sitting in dressing room all suited up, breasts taped up into
vertical position – might as well scribble. Good diet – yogurt, plums, apples,
eggs, tuna. Wrote. Scared I’ll arrive at p. 100 and be “finished” – pushed
thought away. Avril called upset – el Diablo died and she missed an exam.
I went to pick her up. She has date tonight with Mystery Man. I am reading
about Hart Crane’s relationship with his parents. Too familiar for comfort.
11:45 PM
Interesting night. My lighter schedule helps me have more
fun with the other dancers – I don’t feel so invaded by them. Avril phoned
about date. Fifty-fifty, she rated it. That’s not very good.
Letter from Devon inviting me up for Oct. I was amazed –
made reservations for Concord Inn. Went to see Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends
with A. We liked it – seemed extra poignant since Opal had to “drop” us
rapacious females on her remarriage.

Then to Warehouse to hear Z sing. Surprise – he was
tense to see me! His throat closed up. Finally sheer professionalism
carried him through – everyone seemed impressed. He never looked
straight at me but I could tell he was watching me out of the corner of his
eye – he flinched at my slightest movement. Flattering? Or scary? I don’t
know. I’m trying to feel flattered – why assume responsibility for everything? Shoulders and Peter P showed up with girlfriends – hello –
big surprise – all exchange new phone numbers. Everyone friendly. Avril
charmed by Shoulders all over again – said she didn’t think that girlfriend
looked serious.

Z descended from stage – I could tell he was having a
battle – should he be “aloof” like a “real performer” or effusive with me?
My unwillingness to seem needy saved us both – I was cool. He asked privately
if he could “stop by” I said yes. Could have kicked myself later.
Shadonna called – asked me to do a double. I forced myself to say no.
```
    Fri Oct 6 – 1:35 PM
            Who should come into the club but Rick Marl – he 
```
said he had just seen Ryder and Ryder told him things between us were
“still the same”!!! I haven’t spoken to R in weeks! Told Rick that. Rick
then showed a desire to “move in” on me – I didn’t squash it. Told him
“call me.” Starting to think the time for “instant honesty” in relationships
is passed. It’s way too dangerous. Make them earn the right for a tour
of my insides. A and I saw Steve Martin last night at College Park.
He skewers the Ryders of this world pretty brilliantly I thought. Specially
loved the skit where he feels “responsible” for his girlfriend’s death.
He shot her when she became annoying.

Fight with Zachary over sex – he thinks – I “take too
long to satisfy.” I was so annoyed I left at 3 in the morning to go to A’s
place. When I came back he was gone – left a note – “in your absence
your odds improve” in his odd little precise architect’s handwriting. Bastard.
He obviously doesn’t mean my odds of being satisfied. He thinks he’s such
hot stuff. He’s performing at The Mistral this weekend.
```
    10:35 PM Tues night 10 Oct 78
            Stock sold. There’s six months rent. Or I could go to 
```
England (I don’t give up easily.) Instead I do a little fun winterizing – new
electric blanket and bathroom rug. I’m enmeshed in an ego problem with
Zachary – this is the “hedonism” Dad is always worried about. I only want
to see him once a week for sex but my ego demands he fall in love with me.
He has invited me Home to Meet the Parents so perhaps I’ve succeeded.
Very handsome unkempt hunk at the club invited me to see him race his
motorcycle in Fredericksburg. This is a tempting piece of Americana I don’t
think I can refuse. He’s just a gorgeous mud puppy.

Spent $17 at the post office sending copies of To Drown
In Air around. Seemed like a lot to me. It’s not just men I’m jumping between.
Reading both Russell Kirk’s unctuous book on Eliot and Ross MacDonald.
Much prefer the latter: I’ll return to him now.
```
Sat 4 PM 14 Oct 78
        How did I get myself into a situation with men calling all
```
the time? It is supposed to be a girl’s fondest dream – in fact it is hell.
I am unplugging the phone for long stretches and not telling them either
or they might be tempted to come over. As Zachary did yesterday –
we ended up sixty-nining on sofa – I admit it was his best sex yet.
```
        Mon 11 PM 16 Oct 78
        Avril and I drove to Fredericksburg for the unkempt 
```
hunk’s race – gorgeous weather – spectators everywhere and I had a hard
time finding a place to park – then a guy in a blue and yellow racing outfit
and helmet appeared and banged on the hood of my car. I thought it was
someone telling me I couldn’t park there but it was Buck and I hadn’t
recognized him. So handsome!

The race was just about to start – he had a party of five or
six people to cheer him on. I didn’t quite get the names – we had to rush out
onto the course. Buck got a good start but his bike went wrong twice – once
he did a spectacular flip and it came down right on top of him. Brady, his friend,
said, “that happens all the time.” Buck was unhurt but had to leave the race.
He seemed relaxed about failure – opened a cooler – gave us all roast beef
sandwiches he had made himself and beer. (I hate beer.) was busily
finding out that Brady’s “unattached”. He’s a big shy handsome lunk too.
Buck put his arms around me and gave me a big hug – told me now I have
to come watch a better race. Ah, the fantasy – the mystery of Buck – who
is he and what is he – taking fire in me. Big, strong, unthreatened,
unthreatening male, bursting with muscles and apparently emotionally
undamaged by life. Why not horses, farm, children with such a one as this?
Could I get so lucky?

I cooked dinner for Avril – liver, onions, mushrooms, rice.
Plenty of bourbon. Still need to go to bed early. Colored and conditioned
my hair and wrote letters.
```
Powder Mill Road Wed – 18 Oct 78
        No poetry - Too much going on – I’m longing for my 
```
hermit days. I think: I ought to be able to date. I ought to be able to have
a little sex, a little love, a little affection – but what a can of worms!
Instantly it spins out of control! I thought Buck might show up at the
club – and indeed he did – after obviously making a special effort with
his appearance. Tight leather jacket, blond hair all puffed out, face
glowing. It was just like a date – only with me dancing onstage. He
stayed 2 and 1/2 hrs – I gave him my standard lecture about not
wasting his life hanging out there – come in say hi and leave. One
beer. Before I finished he said, What are you doing Fri night? I said,
“going out with you.” When I got home Rick called – spying for Ryder
I have no doubt. But I had to tell him I am booked solid through the 30th.
Truth to God.
```
    Powder Mill Rd Thurs 19 Oct 78
            Still balancing thank God. Had lunch with dancer 
```
Yvonne – she said she still wakes up having screaming nightmares
about Warren (he was killed in a car accident. Faced smashed in by a
coke bottle he was drinking at the time. He bled to death.) At least
I don’t have those worries. I sleep like a baby. Worked on costumes.
Waiting for Avril to go with me to Interiors. Reread
my stuff. Think there’s a great deal to be said for the short, short novel.
Maybe encapsulate them into short stories? But no money there.
I remain unappreciated because of refusal to hook
up with some “movement”. Drown rejected. Started dividing the novel into geographical locations – Hooks Lane, Paradise Road. Would make
good short stories.
11:30 PM
Awful, awful night. Dancing badly, shoes broke. Rushed
out and bought another pair in my break. Pasties fell off – carpet tape
of inferior quality or possibly I sweat too much.
```
    12:15 PM Oct 23
            Sitting by phone feeling illogical joy.  Wonderful date 
```
with Buck – restaurant with lots of wood and Tiffany lamps – just a
pleasant, free-flowing conversation. No sex at the end – hug and kiss
in doorway. “May I call you?’ I told him yes – invited him to be my date
Nov 5 at Shadonna’s wedding. He said he would.
```
    Fri 27 Oct 78
            Concord, Mass – the grave of Nathan Bond.&nbsp; 
```
Seems a good place to write – sitting on a gravestone in the sunlight.
So, what was last night like? I arrive to the theology college and another
student goes up to get Devon – I overhear him say “There’s a very
good looking girl here to see you and I mean very good looking.” He
came down looking so different with a new silky beard – exclaimed over
and over again about my gorgeousness. We went up to his room and
were making out on his narrow plank of a bed when the radio played Ambrosia
– How much I Feel. Too much for me! Started to cry and lost a lens!

Now Devon thinks I’m a psycho – which I am. Luckily (for him) and sadly
for me psychos are his specialty. Wish he wasn’t so unctuous about it.
When he attacked me with those eyes I had to get myself a drink – broke
out in shivers and hives – thought I was must black out. He was talking
in general ways about what he wants out of life – he seems to be expressing
fear he can’t find someone better than me. I did my best to get him back
to specifics – even saying a woman can’t propose to a man (Well she could,
but if she proposed to this man she’s never hold him.)

Obviously, he loves me. That question answered. But
there are more. But as much as I deserve? Seems like not. He’s incapable
of making the kind of statement I need him to make. He wants to get a clinical psychology degree and he hinted that I wouldn’t be such a disaster as wife
to a psychologist. (Flattering?)

I told him he has a fear of “emotional success” and
he agreed. He astonished me by making passionate love to me – I didn’t
have to do a thing (other than wear my short pink gauze peasant blouse
and the denim gauchos that show my bellybutton) – he couldn’t get my
clothes off fast enough. Very satisfying – wasn’t an inch of my body
he didn’t kiss – including my heels. I told him my heels had never been
kissed before – so he kissed them again – also sought out all the other
unkissed places. I do feel satisfied for at least a century. We went out
to a Greek restaurant for dinner, then to see The Deer Hunter. Powerful
movie. Crazy, just like life. Christopher Walken lovely.

Drove to Concord in pouring rain. Inn is no Night
at the Plaza – more like Early Hardy Boys. Read Violet Clay before
falling asleep. Dinner tonight with my cousin Tory – pumping him
about Hill School experiences to use in Paradise Road. Buy some
wine for tonight and celebrate my own existence.
```
    G’s place – NYC – Central Park West – 30 Oct 78
            Why do I do this to myself – visit Genevieve?&nbsp; 
```
I just realized the mirror in her hall is a fat mirror. I did eat a lot of
junk food on this trip but I don’t believe I look this bad. On top of that,
Genevieve’s life is a fat mirror to my life – that’s the truth. We just saw
Chabrol’s Violette – we both have a pash for him – but agreed this is not
his best – plus the only Chabrol we know of with absolutely no romantic
elements. It’s probably something I will end up thinking about a lot – and
rewriting in my head – so maybe it’s Ok after all. Wrote a poem for Devon
– Practice Cuts.

Practice Cuts

The dead gush cruelly after dying;
High time to change &
Get religion
Have yogic visions
See god or be a nun
That would be a self worth knowing.
Time is gunning for me
I can feel arthritic fingers
Scrabbling at my dreams
Playing the old tunes but
scratchier, less sensitive.
I’m a body in search of a car wreck
A crime scene consubstantial;
The old deus ex machina
Disaster;
Blood is so good
At erasing uncertainty
Bringing back
A taste for life.
Reduce me, silence
To the essential bones
Of my non essential self
Fortify some other ego
Mine is tired;
Peel from my eyes the thickened skin of grief
Unstop my ears from the dust of
My own consequence
Free my feet from the sharpened judging splinters
For life passes from my like a fever in which
I cry out and cry out and yet
No sound is made
Time to head on out
Like the tide &
Cauterize
the woof-warp of a pattern
So plain that even I can see it.
Teach me not to envy
The gulls their mirrored flight
unmeasured like my own
Reduce me to
unbending bones of my
Essential self
the dark sister;
she
The soul I was
before
I became me.
```
            Can’t turn it into a presentable poem – however, 
```
it did make me feel better writing it. I guess I don’t like being Devon’s
flirtation with damnation. Writing really is the best revenge.
```
    Plush Palace – Thurs 2 Nov 78 8:30 PM
            GiGi’s last night onstage.  She is very down. Charlie
```
is making her quit because “no wife of mine blah-blah-blah.” Eddy says
she’ll be back: can’t find these perks in any other job. I am dancing well.
Apparently, no one but me realizes how fat I’ve gotten.

Both a good and a bad day today. Worked hard on
Gift and Drown – sending out query letters – took pkgs to post office only
to be told a MS has to be bound to go mss rate. I made them look it up
in the manual so I won’t have to go through this again.

They treated me like this must be personal – I’m
trying to “catch” them in mistakes – forgetting I’m the customer entitled
to service who doesn’t want to pay extra for no reason at all. And the
book spells out what services I get – in case they forget. Apology
letter from Tory: his girlfriend “out of line” to be so jealous during our
paella dinner. She did seem strange but since she’s an artist I didn’t
question. I respond with a short note saying I think my questions were
just too personal for her ears so I really cannot blame her.
Reading Edmund Wilson’s life like watching a slow-
motion car wreck – horrible man.
```
    3PM Sat 4 Nov 78
            Trouble bouncing back from the most recent 
```
rejection of Gift. Wouldn’t be so bad if I felt they actually read it. My
agent compares me to Mallarmé – trouble is, no one likes Mallarmé.
My bank has charged me $24 for being $1.70 short on a check.
They did the same thing to Avril – since she has a $6,000 savings account,
she figures she’s paying them to lend out her money at 18% interest. And
whoever you talk to turns out to be a computer.
Buck and I are having a very interesting relationship.
I can hardly believe it’s happening. There’s no bickering over unmet needs –
it’s very restful. Sex could be a potentially explosive problem area –
can’t tell yet – so far so good – I think he’s a learner claiming a lot more
experience than he’s got. There are definitely problems associated with
having sex with a person who is obsessed with speed.

My period started today and it seems cruel to task a
beginner with this issue. At least Buck goes down nobly like Jacques
Cousteau. But he’s not much of a talker. The most amusing aspect is
how we’ve settled down socially – we have a lot of fun around other
people. I am contemplating writing a story called The Official Girlfriend
which will treat this from a sociological perspective. Tomorrow we are
meeting his parents at a restaurant – I hope its dark in there because
they are bound to think I am too old for him. Naturally we are keeping
my job a deep dark secret – I have to be a “hostess” which really blows.
A week from tomorrow he has another race – we’ll take a picnic. I love
these outings.

Plus Avril’s really getting along with Buck’s buddy Brady
– definite prospects of a dating foursome. Unfortunately, Brady left his wife
like two minutes ago and is not what you’d call “fully detached” as yet.
Fortunately: no kids.

Sun 11:15 PM Buck amazed me by confessing that
every time before he sees me he is “sick to his stomach” with worry
that he won’t come up to my expectations. I am a “high status date” and
all his friends are waiting for him to stumble. But then when we’re together
he says he just relaxes and we have a great time. I was really touched by
this. It is nice that in the car mechanic’s world dating an exotic dancer is
high status. I prefer that to being the Shameful Secret which I assume I
was in Rod’s world.

Next week I’m supposedly seeing Zachary twice –
haven’t told Buck – why am I doing this? Insurance? I think I don’t like
Zachary. Am I competitive – is it just thrilling to see him come off the stage
and touch me intimately? (Everyone’s jealous – the men as much as the
women. Rod wants Zachary more than he wants me I think.) But actually
I don’t like Zachary. The trouble with canceling is then it would be just
Buck and me. Me and Buck. Going steady.
```
    12:30 PM Mon 6 Nov 78
            Bizarrely warm day. Had a wonderful time yesterday 
```
at Shadonna’s wedding. Buck wore a marvelous blue suit with blue
suede patches. It was indescribable – sort of like country singer
performance-wear, and with his wispy moustaches and his motorcycle
boots I’m telling you he was a sight to behold. I wore my “slit to there”
diamanté rainbow dress and we danced for hours. Nobody paid us any
attention. We didn’t stand out at all, that’s what I’m telling you.
```
    Plush Palace – Tues – 9:35 PM 7 Nov 78
            Avril said to me this afternoon, “My life is completely 
```
out of control and I don’t care.” She has to drive Brady to his in-laws to
pick up his clothes today because his wife took the car. There’s bound to
be a glorious, satisfying, soap opera scene with a lot of screaming and
object throwing – just like there was the time she helped him extract his
clothes from his wife’s apartment. On top of this Brady is apparently
extremely jealous – in spite of the fact that he’s technically married and
she isn’t. She is seriously thinking of inviting him to Thanksgiving
because he won’t believe that she’s not secretly meeting a beau –
or six! However, he showers her with love, attention and sexual worship
so she says it’s worth every minute of it.

Went out last night with Zachary – we had a sandwich
and drink at Booeymonger’s and saw Animal House. He was driving his
mother’s car. He is assembling a band called Prairie Dust and he’s in
some kind of power struggle with the lead singer who is female. He needs
to be the prettiest person in any band. He says Rod – playing Daddy Big
Bucks – foisted her on him. Because Rod works in radio and is paying
for the tape mix he has Zachary right where he wants him. (She is a
fantastic singer.) Rod might just find his mojo after all.
Following the movie, I finally met the parents – now
that there’s no point in it. Got along like a house on fire with his Dad
because I knew all the obscure Giraudoux plays he had framed posters
of on his wall. I quoted: “And the sewers will be fragrant with jasmine…”
which was my line in Madwoman of Chaillot. I could tell I was a
considerable cut above the street people and space chicks Zachary
usually drags home.

They must be worried as hell that he’s gay – his
room is full of what can only be described as pinup pictures of himself.
Little do they know it’s worse than that – he’s into anything that would
be into him. Bestiality would be frankly appraised on its merits. “Is it a good
looking chicken?”) House full of unbelievably beautiful, unbelievably
uncomfortable furniture – striped satin Empire sofas – stained glass
windows – wrought iron candelabras – that sort of thing. His mother very wary – fiercely Catholic – thin with a long blonde pony-tail and a long horsey face –
but actually quite intelligent and attractive.

Zachary’s room is full of crosses and Gonzaga
pennants – I should have realized this boy has all the earmarks of being
terminally mauled by priests. Parents frantic: when will he get a “real” job.
College was such an unpleasant experience all shudder when it’s mentioned
and no one’s willing to discuss it. I’m betting drugs were involved.

Of course Zachary wanted to have sex in his narrow
twin bed – right beneath the picture of “The Holy Father” (he doesn’t even
have a lock on the door!) and I have to admit I found the Chabrolesque
aspects of the situation arousing. He seemed to lose track of the fact that
it was me – but his orgasms were more explosive than ever.
So there I am again; “The Official Girlfriend.”

Could I put an ad in the paper – some kind of specialized escort service? “Impress
your friends – terrify your parents!” Buck doesn’t know about Zachary and
since I don’t care who else Z does he must realize I’ve got a back burner
– but the truth of it is that between the two of them they’re barely one boyfriend.
One is charming, affectionate, trustworthy and dumb as ditchwater; the
other is upper class, complicated, interesting, artistic, totally untrustworthy
(and most likely a male whore.) It’s a damn shame it has to get like this. I
just don’t know how good at “keeping secrets” I can be. Need to go home
and get some sleep. If have to get down to Funkytown one more time tonight I
won’t be answerable for the consequences.
January 20, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer/Daughter/Poet
```
            Thurs Aug 10 -78 – 5:30 PM
            Feeling happy and serene – it’s been the loveliest visit.  
```
Many bike rides and explorations. Lovely dinner last night at the cottage – Devon asking Dad a lot of questions – then we lay in each other’s arms at the Barnacle
and he said Time to Discuss Our Relationship. Said “some French girl” dumped
him because he’s so incompetent with condoms; he’s so relieved not to have
that with me. I said, “Maybe we should be exclusive.” He said, ‘Could you manage that? I said gratefully, ‘Certainly”, He said, “Thank you for being honest” stripped
off my clothes and made mad, passionate love to me – all orifices massaged,
nipples chewed, armpits sucked – the works. It was really something – probably the most passionate satisfying sex I’ve ever had. He told me our coming together in Plympton after I left my husband was The Most Significant Event in his LIFE.

But does he see me as a Minister’s Wife? No one can. Me included. The Problem of which we do not speak. Drive him to the ferry today,
after that a sail to Brimstone Island.
```
    Shadowe Island - The Cottage – Sat 12 Aug 78
            Mom giggling about how sweet and pure Devon is.  She
```
is certain I’ve been dumped. If she only knew. If I in am suddenly in an Exclusive Relationship with this human will o’ the wisp wouldn’t it be the worst thing for
me? Am I like a Terrible Man who will now say anything to get sex?
Five good pages on novel. Working in omniscient third
person – a violently new departure. A few vague worried sensations that I am
“telling” too much about characters but the Victorians used to get away with
this on a regular basis. How I envy them. There I’ve said it, I envy Mrs. Henry
Wood.
One thing left out of Gardner’s On Moral Fiction is how
rarely we see the book the author wanted – instead we see the draft the

publisher agreed to buy & PROMOTE. Or am I cynical? On the whole I am appreciating Gardner’s ideas – but more than ready to get back to V Woolf’s
letters & diary. That is ecstasy – the “unstructured real.” Far prefer them to
her novels.

Nice long phone talk with Devon. Feeling freed since he
described to me his definition of a future wife; she is not me. In fact, she will
be a very unlucky girl who gets – by his deliberate plan – the least of him. It is comical that I, something of a contemporary expert on all things Victorian,
should even locate such a profoundly divided, deeply Victorian male; product
of such hideous religious and sexual mangling one would think barely possible
in this enlightened century. “Wife” seems to encompass for him some whole
new scary dimension that has nothing to do with sex. What mysteries people are! Bruce wanted a fount of approval and cash. Ryder wanted a mule. Jervaze
wanted a mommy who will bed him down with a bottle of Southern Comfort and
then drive him to the hospital. I can’t even figure out What Rod wants. But Devon seems to want someone whose holiness will “cancel out”
his “bad behavior”. All I know is I don’t want to be any of those people.

But what DO I want? I’m embarrassed to admit it out loud.
I want the spiritual and physical closeness – the “soulmate connection” – to
just keep on intensifying until we switch bodies (and I get to live two lives).
Castaneda says it can be done. (Good subject for novel.)

QUILTING

The scraps
The scraps
The bad acts
Bleed like madras
Over everything
Piecing penalties
Placating the portionless
Fabric cut to fit the frame or
The other way about?
This will all have to be redone
Till it makes some kind of sense.
Make the pieces smaller – ever
Smaller – in my
Empire of
Loneliness.
```
             Devon flat out admitted he is afraid of me –says I 
```
have too much power over him. I was too aggressive with him this time
and I think my “free agency” is where the trouble lies. It “wakes him up”
too much to the existence of another person and reminds him this isn’t all
happening in his head! I am too impatient to wait for him to get ready to
have an actual relationship. In the past, the better he got to know all his
girlfriends – and the more certain he became of them, the less he
wanted them. We are dancing on a knife-edge with our pleasure now. Psychologically he rules out “sexual fire” in long-term relationships. Everyone
but me (and Dad) seems to think sexual fire must burn out.
I look forward to getting back – change in seasons, change
in clothes – working, writing, even running around town with Rod is starting to
look fun. Cold day – sun hidden by clouds.

Burnside Inn – 10PM Sunday 13 Aug 78
Told my dad I took the room here because my typewriter
needs electricity – really of course I wanted privacy with Devon and then we
ended up at the Barnacle! But a public inn (with a handy bar) requires a lot of discipline. More than I have. I am recovering from a scandalous night – too
tired to take a bath I fell asleep in my clothes after cocktails with Marc Kramer
who tried first wooing me with his completely unfettered, unapologetic interest in money by showing me his new house then just flat out tried to get me drunk.
(I did get drunk but not enough to make him seem desirable. He is very hairy.) However, “investment banker” would be a good job to give to my character
Cloud if he ever grows up. If I can ever get him out of prep school.
No more hanging around the bar for me – I plan sit here
in my room every afternoon writing between three and six. Seems to be
all my social schedule will allow. Feel myself getting fat and should cut back
on food – tall order. I just need to go home and DANCE.
Stupid diary! One love problem after another. Well I can
always go back to poor Woolf… her talk of mushrooms, chair covers, butterflies…
```
    Mon 14 Aug 12 midnight -78
            Very unsatisfied with everything I’ve ever written.  The 
```
difficulty is I need to bring all my writing up to my current level of philosophical
maturity (such as it is.) But it keeps increasing exponentially! Never be
embarrassed to start over.

Dinner scene in Paradise Road (newly retitled) feels
shaky. Too many characters for me to handle. Maybe wedding next?
Trying to invest my characters with what I’ve just learned from Devon. Would choosing “the right person” come first (my Mom’s theory) and then the love
follows afterward? More convenient for everyone, certainly.
Almost rolled a poor pimply little fisherman down at the
docks this afternoon because I am such a sucker for gorgeous naked (hairless) shoulders. And the friendly, friendly innkeeper – but don’t get me started, he
has a “wife” or “wife substitute”. Mom’s been very cruel to me lately. At dinner
last night I discovered she RODE THE FERRY with poor shell-shocked Devon (explains his “freeing’ phone call) whom she apparently grilled the whole ride.
She sniffed – “He’ll never marry you.”

Too proud to tell her I just reached that conclusion myself
and it doesn’t elevate him in my estimation (the way it obviously does in hers!)
I could say I actually know Devon better now than he knows himself (he talks
in his sleep), and I can positively state that his stated intentions never bear ANY relationship to his actions. And it’s not a good thing.

He also told he could never become a minister (because
his mother wanted it too badly!) and yet here we all are. He keeps making rules
and I keep watching him break them. Plus, I’ve been taking responsibility for
“making” him do things he doesn’t “want” to for years. It’s a spiritual game of
Chinese checkers he insists on “losing”. I guess it’s just a matter of time before he starts holding it against me.

SUICIDE STREET
This is the street of suicides.
I orchestrated masterpieces in that house
  Third-from-left –
Getting my effects too cheaply I see now
  Unmindful of material
  That lay so close to hand
  New tenants slick the lawn that moats that
  Windowed grave. They repair
The chrysalis I shattered
  Getting out.
```
    10:20 AM Wed 16 Aug 78
            I am so excited by the “newness” of my novel – starting to 
```
feel confident; like I can make these people do anything. Can’t wait to go home
and spread all the versions out – play Max Perkins to my own Tom Wolfe. Might
be able to patch something together. Still my tone needs emergency assistance,
which dictates a massive overhaul. All this omniscience is just too painfully reminiscent of somebody like Balzac – “In the forbiddingly cold winter of 1863” or worse, Dragnet? Must read Speedboat to see how far one can go. Should I
throw everything out and start over again or leave it a 500 p hegira?

Rod sends me a letter every day. He is smart, witty and
culturally aware. His handwriting is perfect. Unfortunately, this does not feel
as good as it should. I have rejected him as a potential husband (or father)
because he is so totally lacking in Projection & Charisma. Unlike Devon I plan
to marry a person I can also have soul-shattering sex with. Even Rod’s myths
are sub-standard. He needs Tale of Genji and Kraft-Ebbing but all he has is
Beowulf. Still, this is not the kind of thing you can tell a person you don’t want
to get serious with.

According to him, Miss You by the Stones is “Our Song”.
My song is Urgent, by Foreigner, and time’s a-wastin’. I can struggle with this
goddam party scene or I can go out and buy toothpaste. Ferry coming in –
very foggy.

Came into Burnside Inn tonight and immediately lost a lens. Searched and searched. Would this be the bill that would break the poor fragile financial camel’s back? Then I found it – stuck to my hair. A miracle.

Mom took me on a walk after dinner – apologized in her
weird oblique way. For a woman who claims to have “given all for love” she
really is quite calculating and cynical about it. “Why buy the cow if the milk is
free?” sums up the whole of her philosophy. She wants me to marry Marc
Kramer and live in wretched discontent, the equivalent, as far as I can see,
to opening a dairy farm and sending out pricelists. Those are the options.
Has doing too much of the emotional scutwork fatally dimmed the stars in her
“love makes the world go round” eyes? “What if I’m not a market-based
economy?” I inquire. Another missed bonding opportunity.

Dad showed gorgeous slides of Fox Island. Every
frame a poem. Made me think I should read old diaries to see what I can get.
Not that Cloud would keep diaries – not reflective that way at all. But Suni
might keep them.
```
    9:30 AM Fri 18 Aug 78
            $100 honorarium from Coltsville Community College for 
```
my presentation – I can eat for a month off of that! Dare I get my dancing
down to 3 nights a week? Would be heaven.

Discussion with sisters about Mom. Here’s their advice: “Remember she’s crazy,” “Remember she’s old,” “Don’t give her any information”
and “Lie.” There it is! If only she could hear them! And I’m the one with the
“Bad Kid” reputation! Over dinner she lectured us on how costumes for the
ballet exalt the human body. Nothing like my combination of pasties,
fishnets and glitter! Hard to listen to after the contempt she has expressed
for my job! Said nothing. What they really hate is that I am my own
choreographer.

I was too dispirited even to point out that back when
ballet was “invented”, back in the dear old Dead Degas Days, dancers were
VERY “declassee” with damn near NO control over their own bodies: how
to express themselves sexually much less how they were viewed.
Looking back over it, my most serious depressions were all caused by attempts to conform. I’m so OVER it. Am I afraid of loneliness?

No. Stigma? Childlessness? Sexlessness? No. I confront all these fears, one
by one. Hard however to keep my head high around Mom and Dad’s evident
conviction that no one can ever be found to love me. They insist on giving me
money because I’m so pathetic . OK, I’ll take it (I’ve taken tips from fans
harboring worse thoughts) but insisted on giving them a poem in return.
Read Dawn Walk out loud looking for praise –

Dawn Walk

Thunder crusts a gelid sky
Is it light or is it rain feathering
my nest with longing
Stippling soul with flushed
new growth; bursting out
the steepled trees.
This is my world and I release it
Released for flying
Stelliform
Tough as spidersilk
Unrecognizable
Even to me who birthed it
Who spent my life creating it.
Released and
Blown away.
```
            They rolled their eyes.
```
I must be secretly determined to make them look bad! Need to get car in
line for the ferry tomorrow AM at nine. Good vacation this has been. Mostly.
Last letter from Rod mentions a big society wedding
we are invited to. He does get invited to the best parties.

1:45 AM
Horrible last dinner at the Mermaid Creek House.
Am I speaking a different language from everybody else? Uncle Clive
downgraded his current girlfriend right in front of her – “she’s got no skills –
she’s not too bright.” I agree – there must be something seriously wrong with
her to want to be around him. Genevieve wants to know how I can love men
who are “weak”. This would have more significance if her second marriage
wasn’t with a submissive. I defended that weak men are “doubters” and doubters
are interesting.

The opposite is arrogance and how attractive is that?
Marc K, for example, doubts nothing. He’s also not very interesting. It would be
easy to be swept along in his wake on autopilot. Maddens me to hear Mom and G discuss Avril’s “low self-esteem.” The nerve! I think they want to pretend that life “makes sense” and is not a dangerous lottery. According to them, A has too low
an opinion of herself and I have too high an opinion of myself. Hmmmm. What’s
wrong with this picture?
January 18, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer Sometimes Poet
```
    10:30 PM – Plush Palace – Mon night 10 April 78
            Two more sets. I’ll live. Finished study of Mary McCarthy 
```
by Doris Grumbach. Much prefer that to actually having to read McCarthy
who reminds me of Aldous Huxley – Is it possible to be too contemporary?
Trends of modern writing a little too sketchy for me. No book should feel
like flipping through a magazine. Sensory overload sans enlightenment.
As for Angus Wilson – we are parting forever. I read all but two stories in
Such Darling Dodos – back on the shelf he goes.

Wonderful day – up before 7, read New York Times,
sent out poems – magnificent walk with dogs – explored abandoned house.
Haunted by novel – so went back and got six pages – one good new idea.
Called publisher – ordered ten more books. Little self-promotion. While
working got call from the Plush Palace – would I come in two sets early
for Glory, who is sick? Love to. Just feeling bankrupted by the
drycleaners. I was justified too because first set got a big tip. ($300)!
Peter called – said he would have loved to go to the Raitt concert with
me but had to go to Vermont. He certainly talks differently when his girlfriend/housekeeper/telephone answerer person is not around.
He hinted that his love life is impossibly complex and
he doesn’t want his parents to know. I’m guessing that she is married.

He
promised to get in touch when he gets back. I’m in the ladies room
because the air-conditioning in dressing room not working – it is suffocating
in there. Yesterday evening thoroughly enjoyable – steaks wine and hot fudge sundaes at A’s then watched Richard Brooks Happy Ending which really
was a bomb. Trying to read Anthony Powell’s Venusberg but feeling
nothing yet. Tried Sarton’s Miss Pickthorn – a hash of all her other stuff –
very slight. Avril not home for past four hours – out on date with Jordan.
Can’t wait to hear how it went.
```
            11:45 PM – Thurs 13 Apr 78
            Safe & warm in my gilt-canopied bed, happy in spite 
```
of my cold. A & I got “El Diablo” inspected today – $70 – But at least she
can take it to the MVA tomorrow and have it put in her name. That great
feeling of “starting out fresh”. In spite of dribbles & wheezes, blissful dog
walk followed by deep-dish pizza & wine at Armand’s. No painful memories.
Cherry blossoms are out.

Saw Coming Home with Jon Voigt & Jane Fonda. Good, if somewhat
earnest. Bruce Dern acted like he was in a different movie. Rough part
deserves a hero’s commendation. I stare at the casually interdependent
couples – it’s been a year since I could lay a hand on another’s thigh with
that proprietary air. Poor A dissolved in tears towards the end – too
reminiscent of the “endless pain” of vets like Bruce and Mason.
I’d be more sympathetic if they didn’t take it out on
others. What they learned apparently is how to “stage a war”. The people
we love inflict the worst damage. A’s at the stage where she’s still
haunted by Mason but feels it’s “boring” to talk about him so she
bottles it up. I tell her get a diary. Hope to finish Powell’s
Agents & Patients tonight – but it is a little dull.
```
            Plush Palace –Fri 14 Apr 78 – 3:50 PM
            Only 3 more sets, with 4 dancers.  Still, made 
```
enough tips for groceries. Buy wild birdseed for the birds cavorting
outside my desk’s bay window. Daringly went on without stockings –
such a savings if we didn’t have to buy them but Eddie told me No Cigar.
Too bad – they’re hot in summer. Alvera says Yvonne’s back at Mother
Joe’s. I thought she wouldn’t be able to eat enough shit to stay in her
music clerk job. We goddesses areso spoiled by our pedestal. Called A
in the afternoon to see how she was doing – Shoulders was there flexing
his muscles at her and she is over the moon. Trying to be glad for her
but in spite of his obvious beauty I’m afraid he is a bit of a shit. (See testimony
past burnees plus eviction notices.)

I feel I must disappear deeper into solitude and see
what’s down there. Gift (new version of Courtney) coming along
interestingly but slowly. I’m afraid it has no plot other than my own life,
when what it needs is a couple of murders. (Same thing my life has always
required.) Poems easier instead:

MAN – FISH

My husband caught a walleye; I caught
A day-old baby
Trolling my Dalkon shield
On idle spinnerets I hooked him
He bore the wounds of other fishermen.
Through holes in his side I saw
His heart still beating
Shielded by a membrane tough
As duck’s egg.
I said I think I can save him
My husband said too small
And threw him back.

Tried to read Phyllis Bottome but she’s a fatal cross between a
didact and a pleaser; sort of like a barky little dog. Most unpleasant.
And that casual anti-Semitism pretty shocking.
```
            Plush Palace – Sat 5:50 PM 15 Apr 78
            Halfway through novel –  can’t figure out if I’m 
```
satisfied or not. All my discoveries so agonizingly slow. Can’t afford
fuckups – then I’ll have to go through it all AGAIN. Slept late, breakfast
at A’s. We did laundry together, then played gin.
I was the first one here thank God (means I’m the
first to leave). Got my schedule – 4 nights in a row, 2 days off. Good.
Congratulate myself on my intellectual freedom as I wrap black lace around
my throat, recalling all the put-downs suffered as the “architect’s helpmeet”.

Reread Alvarez’ description of Plath’s suicide – I don’t agree her death was
some “by-product.” Her mother raised her to be murdered by other people –
Nazis or husbands. There had to be a “bloodletting” – Mrs. Plath’s ulcer –
Sylvia’s “suicides”. If you don’t “accept” martyrdom someone will have to die
in your place. Kid yourself it’s” freedom” just because you choose time & place.
It bothers me terribly that they shared a bedroom during
Sylvia’s formative years. Death would seem inevitable just to get some privacy & distance. Poor Sylvia offered those magnificent poems to Alvarez and he
backed away terrified because Art is terrifying. $30 for lost contact that came
out when a necklace scraped my eyeball while I was hanging upside down.
Teach me to wear contacts onstage. Who needs to see the audience anyway?
```
            7:15 PM Sun 16 Apr 78
            Spent the day in bed eating oranges, coffee, peanut 
```
butter. A’s spending the night at Shoulders’ new place – then tomorrow we’re
going to the new Cassavetes film and I’m excited. Jervaze in for last set to
invite me to his going away party. I slept nine hours.
Horrifying Who Made the Lamb – author really lost
control of this one but I bet she would say she was just “reporting”. Books
do Furnish a Room much better than Powell’s previous – has a sense of
direction. “Trapnel himself always insisted that a novel is what its writer is”.
I would agree. Style follows taste, I think. Realize Dad and I don’t mean
the same thing by the word “intellectual”. He means a person who knows
specific things, (education) I mean a person who thinks a certain way (style).
Twain never meet. I am not respectful of an artificially acquired patina of
“points of view”. Wrote the infirmary scene – just what I wanted to say.
Maybe I need to give up sex and even male companionship
– just can’t afford them.
```
            Plush Palace – 6:45 PM Fri 21 Apr 78
            Wonderful walk along Powder Mill Road thinking 
```
about the mystique of money. I eternally fight a rearguard action. M & D
call at noon – Genevieve had little girl – Belinda. Avril delivers my new lens
– bounce notice in mail – I tear my hair in a frenzy. I get to dance 2 sets for
GiGi – $200 – she tells me about her night of sin with Louie. And she wants
another one. Life’s a soap opera. Management says there’s going to be
a drug raid with dressing room search warrant. Panic among the girls – but
not me. Check out the customers with a more intense interest. Are narcs here? Everyone planning to leave town except me. I offer to work tomorrow night.
Reading an interesting study of Iris Murdoch novels –
the Disciplined Heart. Too much coffee – I’m switching to tomato juice.
```
            Sat night – 22 Apr 78 8:30 PM
            My whole body hurts from dancing 5 nights in a row. 
```
It’s not good for tips, either. Poor May Sarton is trying to exorcise Eliz Bowen.
Good luck with that! Elizabeth so contemptuous of “schoolgirl crushes”!
Real love in EB’s world seems strangely synonymous with corruption &
loss. Old fashioned view and more male really – “ejaculate” and die. We
women get children, poems & novels out of it. Avril stood up for dinner by
Shoulders. Uh oh. Beginning of the end. Apparently saying “yes” is fatally
unsexy. She & I will be eating her pot roast tomorrow – fine with me.
Fatima came down early but Lori refused to go up,
pointing to her watch! Much excitement & hissing.
```
            7:45 PM – Mon. 24 Apr 78
            Good Gift scene – Miss Pruitt vs. Viv. Now I need a 
```
boathouse picnic. Every time you get to the mountaintop there’s just more
mountain. Then you’re supposed to “prune” at the end – if you have any
energy left. Trying to read A Literature of Their Own but Showalter too
hard on poor old Woolf. Women have always owned literature, it’s the
publishers, editors and critics we apparently can’t have. 60,000 words on
Gift tells me it’s time to celebrate. No novel could EVER be this hard again.
I demand a party.

Strange letter from Devon – he is involved with some
“Jewish woman” and it isn’t going well. She seems “inaccessibly foreign”
and he is “losing faith” in his “ability to pick a friend.” Is this a plea for help?
He specifically asked where I would be this summer. Said he loved me.
Took his glamour pic out of the bin where it has lain and put it up, then went
out with A and bought a bikini. She and Shoulders are so mired in excuses,
lies and expectations no new relationship seems possible. Intensive
sunbathing season starts tomorrow.
```
            1PM Thu May 4 -78
            Comparing lovers.  “It’s Devon in the stretch with
```
Jervaze fatally winded and Bruce fallen by the wayside”. Write poem:

The sideways smile

I heard you singing and remembered
things that you’ve forgotten
I see you clearly
Fish in a hailstone.
See your hands
Long for a man I always thought
And your upper lip too short
Like a lion’s in fact
You have an animal presence
Placing no trust in words
Placing no trust in love
Acting like you’d never met me
As you roll your joints with
private letters that I sent
islands undiscovered and
worlds unreachable.
You were the joke
I didn’t get; I recall
your sideways smile
blowing smoke between us
refusing to forgive the essential fragility that
Marks us humans;
Fated as you were
always to surrender
to the scornful cries of your
Invisible bystanders.
```
            Finished Gift last week.   Letting it “perk”.  It already feels “swallowed up” by the past.  Avril read it, disappointed by the ending.  Wants murder at the very least.  But is that real life?  I think I agree with her that it should be.  People should kill themselves when you are done with them. Sadly, in reality  they’re all whimper and no bang.  How to fix?
            When I’m not engaged on some important work my “real life” ceases.  Car to its “first service” Mon – involved ferrying each other around and jockeying with one car. Why don’t M & D appreciate this?  It’s like they want us to be ashamed of needing other people to survive. Mom staying in NYC with the new baby but then coming here Sat. to inspect our dissolute lives.  Uh oh.  I won’t have any trouble getting time off but I hate to.  Can’t work when she is here.  Living two weeks off one paycheck can be done. But I will feel obligated to battle Mom for financial freedom.  
            Finished Glendinning’s Bowen.  A life rich and strange but hardly enviable. I’m being pestered by old “college friend” but I am officially “not home”.  She sneaks around the house, sniffing. 
```
January 13, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer Who Happens to be a Poet
```
    11:30 AM Friday, 24 March 78
            Staggering down for my first cup of coffee when I 
```
heard Harvey’s voice in the kitchen. Thank God I heard it in time – if
he had seen me in my baby doll nighty I guess he would have considered
himself justified in pinning me immediately to the floor. He brought me a
hibiscus flower as a peace offering.
A more significant peace offering came from Mom
and Dad who gave us each 100 more shares of stock. I tried to refuse it
– they insisted. I warned them I’ll only sell it. Maybe I’ll be able to buy a
new car when I get back. I could use it.
Spent last night trying to read Welty’s Bride of Innisfallen, couldn’t get my mind around it. Read Faithful Are the Wounds instead.
Very like a stage play – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
```
    Powder Mill Road – home – 8:30 PM Sun 26 March 78
            Can’t describe the ecstasy of being in my own
```
place. On the island I am hideous – here I am beautiful. The loss of
confidence there is so severe as to actually induce delusions. Now that
I am back I am ready to tackle my existence brilliantly. As always.
We got in last night in the pouring rain – 11:30 PM
– A had coffee and left. I read a soppy love story and slept in my Own Bed.
Today we did laundry, went to see a bad movie – actors working madly
away to no effect. Tomorrow I get mail – hope there’s lots of it.
Did get a beautiful poem out of the island –
Peacock Pavement: The Poet on her walk – submit to Denver
Quarterly – which has been very polite about me lately. They’ve
shown an interest in my stuff though nothing has ever been exactly “right.

PEACOCK PAVEMENT: The Poet on Her Walk
Femininity has Everests I mount daily.
The crow’s belly’s is black, I
Envy his womb-less contentment as I stroll
Among the old wrappers, the used condoms;
Joints rolled tight as bedsheets
Adverts used – abused – discarded.
He envies me my
Zircon hair; my lunar map of freedom,
Battering-ram jaw, baroque nose, the
Greek depths through which
These eyes record their wanderings
Outside the convent walls, between
The stalls, corrals, chained-up lambs,
The leaf-filled swimming pools:
First act, second act, third act
Epilogue.
Numbering days by counting
Depth marks round your taproot
Sporadic questings
Belonging to a future all
Unknowing what anyone will
Ever make
Of these Portentous Pleiades:
Disparate sisters,
Me, myself and I.

Plush Palace – Mon night 27 Mar 78

So glad to be back. Really missed the old place.
Walked in and there was Jervaze, big as life. He was quite plastered
but acted very pleased to see me. I feel he has turned a definite corner.
He could have been somebody, could have made choices, but he
seems to have decided to live in an ever deepening blur. I am well
out of it. I asked him what happened to my ring. He promised to look
for it. He has a new plan of course. His brother is trying to talk him
into returning to school. He’ll talk that to death for a while till his kidneys
fail and his liver withers and his brain goes. Then it won’t matter anymore.
But I must get a picture of him now while he still looks good so I can
show my grandchildren. He was dressed all in white like an angel and
is letting his silver gilt hair grow long. I can hear it now: “You dated
Wild Bill Hickock?” Yes kids. And it was really wild.

LOVEWINGS

My aunt’s a dancer
She said “Feel my thighs
Ain’t they hard
They’re my love-wings
Hard as heartwood
I’m flying on ‘em half the time.
Practice making perfect I’m
Tightening up my style in case a valve
On this here pressure cooker blows
And splatters darkness like a
Damsel in a murder we might
Solve someday.”
She laughed and did an arabesque.
My aunt is thirty-five. I said
What beautiful thighs you’ve got

Called my agent and demanded to know how much
I am actually going to get from HBJ. The answer is $1993, so it’s a
good thing I got that stock which I sold today. April 5 I pick up my new
car – a Fiat. (A takes the Gremlin.) Money in the bank – need to settle in
for a long writing session. Trying to concentrate on my book – Bowen’s
The Last September – but it just feels too distant from my own life. I feel l
ike I’m slowly surfacing, like a corpse that has been in the water for three
days. Last night I finished Anne Tyler’s Searching for Caleb. Her most
beautiful novel in my estimation. Today A and I bought plants, put money
down on car. I’m exhausted and out of love with my own life – don’t
understand why I personally seem to need to do everything backwards.

4:30 PM Fri 31 Mar 78
Barrage of criticism from Mom and Dad that I
spent stock money on car. How do they expect us to live in two different
places and have one car? Doesn’t make sense. Avril has car today for
her eye appt – will pick me up in 45 mins. I am struggling with Bowen’s
The Little Girls. She uses writing for disguise. Last night A and I went
to dinner at an Italian restaurant – she had the clams, I had the shrimp,
we split a bottle of wine. Then we went to see what A described as
“one concentration camp film too many.” I bought tickets to Bonnie Raitt
concert – Mom and Dad suggested I “look up” their friends’ son Peter Pauley.
I may invite him, I do remember him as cool and handsome. But brunette.
Oh well, can’t have everything. Got check from agent – less her percentage –
which I forgot to calculate. So I hope I get paid enough Sat to have money
for car. My future emerges through a glass darkly – don’t know yet whether I like it or not.
```
    2:50 PM Sat ;April 1, 1978 &nbsp;- Starlight
            Working a double. My latest realization is: I can never 
```
have enough money. Curse you, Marc Kramer for suggesting I invest
in real estate. In spite of this I’ve decided not to take on doubles unless I’m
in a jam (as I am over this car.) Interesting new dancer – big hips and no
boobs but a wonderful attitude. Her laugh can be heard by fishing boats
on the distant Chesapeake. Alvera. She works in a lawyer’s office during
the day. I’m trying to imagine her in her suit typing briefs. The Little Girls
is Bowen’s worst written book. She’s not a narrative writer but a prose poet
– always falls down over narrative. Plus I feel a loss of joy in her art – maybe
because she “had” to write it? This is really a book about despair – which
To The North also was – but one book was good and the other isn’t. I think
writing is a lot like cooking – some ideas can’t be rescued through editing –
they just get worse and worse.

10:30 PM Tender is not the night thank God – three
more sets and it will all be over. The next one will be the worst – the last
two I won’t even notice. I called A – she’s despondent. Feeling chained
to the apt I’m sure. I agreed we’d see An Unmarried Woman tomorrow –
go out and have some fun. Mon after her classes we’ll watch The Oscars
at my place. Bought 3 costumes from Kerry that I can ill afford – but they
were a steal. Sent Harvey the Brownmiller book. There’s no excuse for such ignorance.

Plush Palace – 8:50 PM – Thurs night 6 April 78
So ends one of the happiest days of my life. Woke
this AM two minutes before clock radio – breakfast in bed reading –
good work at typewriter. Long walk with dogs – came back to find
Green’s Mag took my whole “suicide” series. A showed up helped me
play with my car – first and second tough to get into and out of until the
salesman professionally broke its little hymen. Seems all right now. Book
going well. Most of the time I feel I have the ideal existence – plenty of
sleep, plenty of exercise, plenty of time to write, plenty of privacy. Paradise.
J called. He is really going to Alabama this time. Said he loved me, thereby
proving my point that the less of a relationship we are having the more
important it is to him. If we never see each other again, I bet he will
remember me as the perfect girlfriend. All future women in his life will
curse my name.

Good letter from Mom and Dad apologizing for
their explosion about car. Part of the problem dealing with them is they
try to preserve a “united front” which means they have to frantically
whisper and negotiate behind the scenes, then speak awkwardly
together like an ill-rehearsed Greek chorus. I can kind of speculate
about who really thinks what – not that I want to.
A and I liked Unmarried Woman – much better
than Goodbye Girl. I tried Peter all day – no answer.

Reading
Storm Jameson’s Journey From the North – it’s like watching a
slo-mo car accident the way she beats up on herself. Why this sense
that honesty requires one must utterly disown all one’s earlier versions?
CS Forrester did exactly the same thing in Long Before 40 – will I feel
compelled to do the same some day about this life I am leading now?
Foolishness is youth’s necessary clothing methinks. Think I will dump
this book without finishing. Try Angus Wilson’s The Middle Age of
Mrs. Eliot.
```
    9:25 PM – Plush Palace – Sat night 8 April 78
            Beautiful day. Off to Columbia, testing my new car. 
```
A & I had lunch at Clyde’s – talked about what fun it would be if we each
had a full-time man – and they liked each other. We could double date.
Feels impossible. Walked around lake – bought baby clothes for Genevieve.
Home, walked dogs, then to work.
Boring evening. Few unenthusiastic customers.

GiGi brought in a bottle of champagne – I broke my rule and had some
out of sheer boredom. A father in with his 2 ½ yr old daughter – sent her
up to the stage with a tip for me. Depressing fact #2 – tried to read a short
story about rape in Fiction called The Intruder – it was awful – turned me
off the whole magazine. Angus Wilson’s Middle Age merely stupid. Will I
have a go at No Laughing Matter? Still no Peter and no explanation. If
he is away on vacation his parents don’t know about it. Feels suddenly
difficult to be independent and alone.

10:10 Pm – Sunday night 9 April 78
Avril met a guy she likes in one of her classes who
likes her. Fingers crossed. As a result I spent Saturday alone, which I
don’t mind. It would be OK with me if every day were the same, wake at 10,
write till 4, then off to work. On Sun we played in Adelphi Mill Park – swam
in the falls – wonderful picnic of brie and cherries – played with dogs. Wrote
poem about Devon:

SEX CADETS

I shall harmonize your life I say
Make your blood sing woodwind
Stretch my nerves harp-tight
Across your exo-shell
While you, heart racer
Put me through my paces –
Muscling through
The gates of my life
Forcing me past theory
Pluperfect post-poetical, ever
Reckless like a downhill artist
Speed devil
Speed demon
Speed dreamer.
```
            Phoned Peter – a girl answered!  He came on very
```
brisk and businesslike – had been in Venezuela. I asked if she was
“the housekeeper” – he hurried to get off phone – said he would drop by
club. Always wanted to see me perform. I told him my schedule. I figure
if he and she are seriously involved so that I shouldn’t move forward –
he’ll tell me. Chloe’s friend Dennis called and tried to make me feel guilty
enough to go out with him. Little does he know how far past that “Since I
can’t think of an excuse you’ll accept I guess I’ll just be forced to go out
with you” stage I am. He turned hostile – said I’d “led him on”. I refused to
rise to this, portraying self as a naturally friendly but also naturally private
person. I guess I’ll have more of this stuff with J gone. He was sort of protection. Everyone wants someone who doesn’t want them. Highly
entertaining if one were bored enough. I am not.

Interesting conversation with A where we discussed
the “courting rules” we’d learned. They were grim – we’ve had to ditch them completely. Got into another one of our “Is Satisfaction Possible”
marathon debates. I always say it is, she says, what if it’s not. I refuse
to consider this option. Mom’s advice to A is loiter around art galleries and art museums to get the right guy. This sounds expensive & time consuming.
Plus, I know too many artists to be in love with this idea. They are the worst.
I want someone stable.

I have to admit my chances of finding someone like
that in the job I’m in seem small. But I only need one guy. I’m special – so
would he be. A insists things were better in the past – “pre-liberation” but I’m
not buying it. Opal’s marriage very instructive on these points. They are both beautiful, can think and have work they love. So why do they fight and sulk nonstop?
Each feels the other does not truly “value them” and fusses for increased
respect. Each thinks the other is “holding them back.” So they claim. With any encouragement I think they would jump into a threesome. Non merci.
January 12, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Poet Who Happens. to be a Dancer
```
Tues, midnight, 9 Feb 78
        What a day. Lost a contact just before bed, which put 
```
me in a hideous temper. 1 ½ hrs sleep, drove A to Laundromat, did
laundry, bought cosmetics, picked her up, did lunch and visited broker.
Just like the other rich girls except for the Laundromat part. Then to
MVA, got MD license renewed, new address, not too horrible photo. Avril
flunked her test must retake Wed.
Back to house managed 2 more hrs of sleep. Woke
up feeling cheerful and streaked hair with L’Oreal. Still have a rotten
cough. The trouble with being sick is you can’t imagine yourself well.
Intimations of mortality. Ate lasagna with A, then off to work. J dropped
in second set, said his car was fixed, seemed cheerful, said his sister-in-law
(whom I suspect of being The Pirate Queen) is reading my book “to
figure out what kind of person I am” (uh oh). He left during my 3rd set
without saying goodbye. Should I drop in on him? Tempting.
He also asked to read Demon. Hmmmm. A of course
thinks I should clamor for “boundaries” “rights”, “clarity” and “definitions.”
I am embarrassed even to tell HER that this is all completely hopeless.
I’d have to set him on my knee and move his mouth. I’d end up defining
every term and he would immediately forget anyway. Anyway, in my
experience, the less “clarity”, the better the sex. Once things have
been completely defined you no longer want to touch each other.
Missing Devon of all people. He must be sick of
Gwynne by now. Where will he find another like me? But it’s always
a bad sign when I plunge into “default” mode. So, I dropped in on Ryder
to take him by surprise. He was there and it was worth it. Gave me a
gorgeous massage. I gave him my cold. We are at the wrong points in
our life trajectories to connect in any meaningful way. Picked up Holt’s
Lord of the Far Island which one of the other girls is reading. Unbelievably
crappy. Why do people prefer this stuff to mine? Oh well. Feeling better –
night almost over.

Sun. 12 Feb 78 – 10:20 PM
Psychic tremors driving home. But when I walked in the
door everything was fine. It’s so comforting to be surrounded with one’s
own stuff – it seems to assumes a personality – like a separate self. A
reassuring stand-in – someone who “goes on” for you when you’re tired.
Very busy weekend – A moving into her own place – sorting, packing,
cleaning, buying. Moving. Hard physical labor since we are doing it all.
“Mother Truckers.” Rushed on to work with my arms aching – J. showed up.
His body seemed solider, less fragile. I gave him a comforter for his birthday
– he seemed to like it – we went to his place to watch Harper – side by side
like an old couple on the couch. I’ve decided he reminds me most of some
wild animal. He always wakes up like a deer finding itself in a cage. He seems
to be just now comprehending that I’m there. He insisted on pleasuring me
so I just accept it. Said his body “hurt”. I wish I could convince him that
caffeine, junk food and alcohol are his enemies, but he is too stubborn to
believe it.  I fear a return of that kidney thing that felled him before. I’m
afraid our relationship belongs to the bar and his apartment, however.
Can’t get him to go anywhere with me; he is “tired” and he works enough
that it’s a believable excuse. He’s so beautiful you’d think he’d be more of an exhibitionist but it’s just the opposite. Three days off. I need it. But on the
whole I am pleased with my life.
```
    1:45 PM MON 13 Feb 78
            Lovely dog walk. My desk collapsed under piles of 
```
books, so I bought new furniture – unpainted. Cleaned, redecorated
spare room (A’s old room.) Looks good. Decided just thinking about J
is channeling my energies away from writing. We have a “sexual friendship”,
so there. That’s Hugh Hefner’s “highest good” so presumably some people
would be happy with it. But J has no influence on my life-plan. R called.
We had a decent conversation.
```
            5:45 PM Snow pouring down – four more inches 
```
expected so I decided not to go out. Last night was the first night I’ve
actually been unable to rouse J – so I just left – went home dirty and
sleepless to a couple of short-changed dogs. Now it turns out he’s in
the hospital undergoing tests because of “passing blood”. Medieval
sounding. Does he have those big black knobs under his armpits?
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. The sister in law phoned with this info,
also gave the brother’s number where J will go after tests.
```
    9PM Plush Palace – Wed 15 Feb 78
            J quite drunk when he came in this evening – said 
```
he’s turning in his notice and returning to the South. (I wondered if they
fired him but didn’t say it.) I was so upset I walked into the men’s room
by mistake! (No one in there.) He did say “or I could live with you.”
This does not sound good to me. My monogamous soul does not aspire
to a lifetime playing nursie.
```
    10PM – Plush Palace – Thurs 16 Feb 78
            3 sets done – I’m exhausted and my legs hurt but I’ll survive. Spent the afternoon with Chloe and Dennis Parks at WPFW, taping 
```
a vibrant show on paperback publishing. Really enjoyed myself. A came
over for dinner and helped me paint my new study furniture. Got a
frightening letter from the IRS – I phoned – turned out that they think I
owe them an extra $56! They can have it.   Electric bill $76.   Disappointed
by Noel Coward’s Future Indefinite, seeking escape instead in
Mona Farnsworth’s Dark Wood. I deserve escapism after all I’ve
been through.

               11:40PM – Plush Palace – Fri 17 Feb 78
Just finished Rosenberg’s bio of Dorothy Richardson.
She seems just like me – then when I get to the end of her life – poverty
& anguish! Oh dear!

4:00 PM Mon 21 Feb 78
Lying in bed – hair set – an hour to go before work.
Spent all day tidying study – including file drawers – if I was to die this
minute I would give everyone the impression of being a hardworking
artist and an astute businesswoman. Maybe I shouldn’t wreck it by ever
going in there again. Gregory’s book about Dorothy Richardson – lots left out.
Putting myself to sleep with Homage to Daniel Shays – I must have a
lready read this because all the essays seem so familiar.   Very unpleasant
Vidal attack on Anais Nin.
```
    Plush Palace – 7:45 PM
            Lots of comforts in this job. Inhale the pleasure 
```
of a messy dressing room, so full of life & hope. I was sitting down
taking out my curlers when GiGi asked me to do her last set – her knee
hurts – so I put on a gold G- string and did one set without makeup. That
paid my electric bill right there. Settle down with Anne Tyler. Comfortable.
```
    10:30PM – Plush Palace – Thurs 23 Feb 78
            Avril came to work with me – I’m having a great night. 
```
She met a guy here she likes who asked for her number – he seems nice,
but he must have the problems intrinsic to all who haunt this place – alcoholic
or druggy – or just unmotivated in some fatal, fatal way.
Paz’s been telling me her new honey’s too “big”
for her – makes her bleed. That can’t be right. This triggered an
avalanche of gynecological horror stories that ended up with all who
are interested examining Fatima’s hanging “meatus” left over from a
“botched childbirth”. She has trouble tucking it into her G-string!
I declined inspection. Missing an opportunity other writers would have
jumped at? Will I need to describe this someday?
```
    Sun. 26 Feb 78 – 9:45 PM
            J actually showed for dinner last night – while I was
```
stuffing the baked potatoes – we had a wonderful evening, played Clue,
very good sex. Said his sister read my “gothic” but called it Too Victorian.
Disguised praise? I decide to think so. He asked me to visit him in Alabama.
I’m sure there’s a novel in that but do I want to be the one to write it?
Then of course he had to leave early. I called A – had kind of a psychic
flash – a feeling of trepidation about the human condition – she said she
had been sobbing all night. Are we going no place? I asked her. Is it all an illusion? She said she feels she once had a home and family but somehow lost them and can’t adjust. She has a life others would envy – young college student with her own apartment in DC – but she wants back something she never had. “Neva vu” ex-husband Bruce and I used to call it. The unrecognized familiar. I am reading – very appropriately – The Troubled Helpmate. Misogyny in literature.

To Drown In Air

Were the world as simple as

At first it seems

I’d be sky-haunted

Lay my emblems end to end

Ever seeking upward.

Have a fine ambition;

Possibility becomes the future

Without the prodigal waste of past.

Turn your gawper turkey-wards;

Survey the clouds for nourishment

Breathe in all that

Oxygenated snow; be

Young

Be beautiful

Be dead.
January 10, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer
```
Mon midnight 6 Feb 78
        Fri night J was in the bar getting slowly snockered. Very
```
proud to take me home. We had our most passionate sex session yet
– 5 hours! Of course he couldn’t come. We finally quit because I was
exhausted. He told me the sexiest thing I do is play with my breasts
when we make love! I only do it because he doesn’t! The big lug.
He asked me what I would do if I accidentally got pregnant.
(He knows about IUD.) I said have the baby. Of course I didn’t
tell him that I might not inform him of the fact – depends on him
and the state of our relationship.

Which raises the important question: do I want
an alcoholic baby? Wouldn’t you be watching it throughout childhood
to see if it favored rum candy? He said he hoped we’d get married
because a child needs a father. I think this might be the way an
Alabamian proposes. Surprising how totally un-good it felt. I almost
got as depressed as he is. Jervaze, who has the beauty of an angel-god,
is no better than a drifter. Even I am shocked by my own taste. His life
is guaranteed to go from bad to worse because of his fatal Hamlet-like
inability to take charge. Clearly he needs to be the full time project of
some managing woman. This is bringing out all my masculine characteristics,
some of which, frankly, I was hoping never to see again. I am also
bothered by the fact that he can’t have serious conversations. I would
say he absolutely does not know me at all, and appears satisfied with that.
I probably also don’t know him, although I am beginning to face the fact
that there may be nothing to know.

The drama of my own existence is important to me.
There’s a full cast of characters and A LOT OF PLOT SURPRISES
and he hasn’t even opened the book. It’s frustrating because it makes
everything less meaningful. I feel I’m in a bind, though, because he’s
definitely the best of the bunch in all the bars I’ve danced. Most
attendees are married men looking for fun and excitement. They are
the dancers’ favorite because they’re established, generous and
sometimes they actually leave their wives. This happened with R
although he always insisted (and I believed) it wasn’t me, it was him.
(And her, presumably). The best you can do is “catch them on the cusp” of divorce. The “singles” men come in three kinds – total losers who can’t
manage a relationship and that’s what they’re doing in a bar like this, guys
who need you to quit the minute you start dating them because “no girlfriend
of mine” blah blah blah. (More R). The third is guys who are fine with you
dancing – in fact they want to be your manager. Several dancers have fallen
for these guys and often they marry them. He buys their costumes, drives
them to and fro, bargains with the club owner and even looks after the kids.
The good ones don’t just drain her money, date the competition or beat her up.
(Those are rare. But exist. I’ve met them.) Only now she can’t ever quit!
Take Lida for example. Lida’s in her 40’s and can’t be seen in
the light of day. Although she has a perfect body, she is real scary close up –
gets the worst clubs and shifts – here she is strictly a fill-in. One dancer and
her boyfriend live in a van, going from club to club. He sits in the bar for every
set and that has to be OK with the management.
This would seem to mean my parents are right that I can’t meet
nice men because of my job, and although I don’t want to go all apocalyptic, it
is hard to see how this can get better. I could meet someone through my writing
if I were a different kind of person but I just can’t seem to change. (I’m getting happier and happier Being Me.) Probably my best bet is to go back to college –
I’ve been wanting to – take a class here and there (a lot of dancers do this) and
date guys without letting them know what I do for work until I know them really well. Money is the problem there. More capital expense. I make good money and I should be able to afford it, however it doesn’t combine well with my plans to
take time off and travel. I would have to work constantly which so far I
have been too spoiled to do. A light schedule keeps dancing fresh for me
– it’s also good for my writing. So I should probably compromise and
take one class – something nice and cheap like adult ed at the community
college. I’ll think about it.

Sat night J was all withdrawn again. I don’t think he wants
me to coax out of him what the problem is; I think when he is in that mood
he really just wants me to go away. So I do. A says I’m being an idiot –
that he is clearly in love with me – in her definition, I’ve “arrived”. I could
get him to move in with me, structure his time and tell him what to do.
Maybe that’s what he wants but it certainly isn’t what I want. He seems
so depressed about his family — and it is too late to lie to them about what I do because his brother (whom I’ve still never met) “already knows”. Could I
change my name and get away with being someone else entirely? Tell me
again why should I go to those lengths?

He would just appall my parents. This would confirm every
bad thing about me they’ve ever said (and they’ve said a lot). It’s really one
of those tragic Victorian love stories (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) except that
we’re not from different classes – so maybe its more SCI fi because we’re from different PLANETS. I’m beginning to think he’s actually “cast off” by his family

that’s his deep dark secret. His alcoholic behavior “ruined” him in his
hometown somehow. (He did graduate high school. He says.) He’s the
horrible albatross from the Coleridge poem (or he’s trying to shift it off onto
me.) Under the apparently inexorable rules of sexual attraction, once again
he’s a weird mirror image of me. But instead of being a drunk (which my
parents would prefer) I’m a poet. Probably in the South it all comes to the
same thing. In the North it’s almost the same. Here we’ve got actual mental
illness thrown into the mix.)

Can’t say my advice which is he ought to write them off . He
totally buys into their rejection and who knows, maybe it will save him in the
end. “Dump your family” was my advice to my husband, so possibly it’s
me who has the problem.

Mom and Dad asked if J was an intellectual and I said,
“Well, he’s reading my book.” I didn’t tell them he’s been reading it for the
past two months with no end in sight. I don’t dare even comment on it
anymore. It snowed about 20 hours – that’s another thing I like about J
– he lives right next to the club. It’s hard on my dogs – but so would my
death on the roads be.

R. Called today – 3rd time in a month. He acted very loving
and considerate – I don’t believe it for a minute. Now he’s worried about
my health – wants to bring me homemade chicken soup, etc. I don’t rise
to these flies any more and it feels so good. Any desire I may have had to
see the flesh ripped from his bones with red-hot razorblades has ebbed.
I take that as progress. I look forward to seeing him again because I think
it would be great to feel nothing.

11:30 AM Tues. 7 Feb 1978
Mom and Dad called – there’s another apt available on
the island. What once seemed so attractive is now an obvious ploy to
make me over in their image. This is the same island Mom referred to
when she said, “Eyeshadow is not appropriate here.” (She gets to
decide how people should dress for parties.) When I mentioned this to
Genevieve, she said, “Well it’s not.” Way to back me up sister. So the
question really is, would I be ready to sacrifice eye shadow for a sinkhole
of safety?

Could I end up wearing shawls and baking bread
without any ability to save myself? If I can ever afford a “get-away”
(and my royalties say no) I think it should be on the Chesapeake. And if
I want to afford that I should try to “get the market” to work for me, i.e.
be F. Scott Fitzgerald instead of Sylvia Plath. Both died young but she
died younger.

But hey, I want to be myself and I can live on so little.
I ought to be able to pull this off. On the other hand, if Dad’s fish
recover from their anal calcification and his latest aquafarm project
takes off, maybe we’ll make millions. Still, he won’t let me have the stock certificates so possibly it’s all blather.

Worked listlessly on Demon. Cold, strange little book,
and NOT what my new editor wants me to write, but I find the protagonist
interesting. Maybe someone else will. It’s working out to top off at 30,000
words or the worst length ever. Unfortunately I like it this way. Introduce
subplot? Submit it with other short stories? Can’t decide. Erin is exactly
the same length. Between the two of them aren’t they a book? Unfortunately,
they are too similar which I guess ruins it for the reader who has to be taken
by surprise.

R called hearing I had sniffles (from his spy?) but didn’t come
by. Said he didn’t get sick at all. Favored by God, I guess. He always acts
like I am just about to dump him totally. Maybe I already have. We are as
formal as people who have never even met.

Reading Waugh’s diaries and thinking a lot about my own life.
I try thinking about my writing as if it were acting: “do what the part demands,
try what other actors have done.” But it doesn’t work. It is the pure eccentricity
of uniqueness that the universe demands and nothing less. You’re either part
of the pursuit of ultimate meaning or you’re “against” it. What a pity, too, the
universe is not “the world”.

MOON-SOULED

The moon & my soul have
Too much in common;
Retreating to
Eclipses
Abandoning natives
Screaming in panic:
“Come back, come back
We never notice
When you’re here yet
Who can bear this darkness
Now that you have gone?”
January 9, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer
```
Monday 8 Jan 78 – 6 PM
        Twenty-four hours ago I was sitting in my red dress over 
```
a glass of port, waiting for Jervaze to arrive. Anxiety level high. Somewhere
– I think from Mom – I got the impression that my needs are so automatically
repellent to any sane individual that they must be hidden. Therefore, I have
to carefully think my way through to any honest approach – and then it isn’t
really honest any more. But I can’t just be impulsive. Prepared myself for disappointment – that he would be late or perhaps not show – because there
is something weird about him. Some deep dark secret perhaps? But he was
right on time.
This time I took him to my nearest neighborhood restaurant

where the waiter put on quite a show with Irish coffee till flaming liquor rolled
down his sleeves! Jervaze came inside my house without hesitation – I
fretting about how to best establish physical contact while he sprawled
comfortably on the couch. I turned off the overhead light and lit candles –
took off my jacket – he rubbed his face against my breasts acting calm,
respectful and not neurotic. Must be my experience with R that makes me
fearful of being “shamed” every second.
Jervaze kissed and kissed my face so long – tears
automatically filled my eyes. But he did not get upset. Got up like a
perfect gentleman “when it was time to leave” and I managed to resist
attacking him. I did one very strange thing that is causing me anxiety now.
We showed each other our class rings – he always wears his. I slid mine
on his little finger and left it there. He wore it home. Uh oh. 11:30 AM Wed 11 Jan 78
Experiencing sharp attacks of fear all day long at “being in a relationship”. What the hell was I doing giving him my ring? See, I agree that everything’s my fault! Story of my life! Currently enjoying two quiet hours
while A is at the gynecologist. It will be great when she gets her own place.
Plenty of private time and space to panic in.
Today I got a phone call from R and a letter from Devon. So,
I was able to line my relationships up, so to speak, contrast and compare.
Even lumped together they are not one full relationship! R’s “gamesmanship”
is down from its zenith, but, owing to my total nonparticipation, also at its most exposed. Lengthy chat about our vacations, and then he spent probably a
half hour telling me his “insurance setup”. Why? So I can tell everyone
where to find the will and the important papers when he runs into a tree on
his next ski trip! I should be worried about him dying apparently!!!
I let him talk, I didn’t cut him off and I asked no questions,
largely because this makes him the craziest and he deserves it. I know he’s
comforting himself now that I still care about his finances if not about him. Devon thanked me for the glamorpic (described me as “so lovely” and said he feels
like he’s talking to me when he writes his letter) and then launched into a long description of his and Gwynne’s relationship.
They have an “understanding” which seems to involve “being
there for each other” without “demands”. “Why won’t he admit he’s gay?” howls
Avril when I read this to her.
But I don’t think sex is even that simple for him. His approach
is much more diffuse – a constantly vibrating choice between “being sexual”
and “not being sexual”. He and I had such good sex, but if it all has to happen
in a sort of coma, if there can’t be any planning or god forbid, discussion
then the hell with it.
As for Jervaze, he showed up for the last three hours of my
first night back at The Plush Palace from the Starlight. He was wearing my ring.
I asked him if my work bothered him. He said, no, he was cool with it, but was
glad I asked.
Whereupon we went back to his place and made love for 3 hours. Whoo-hoo! I’m not kidding! The first test – home design – alas he
failed. His furnishings are truly HORRIFIC Spanish Mediterranean dreck. His
shower curtain consists of festoons of blue chiffon – it is INCONCEIVABLE
that a male could purchase such a thing. Guess I am not asking the right
questions. Old girlfriend? Mom? Sister-in-law? Some woman raised exclusively
on pirate films had a hand in here somewhere.
As to the sex – that test he passed. He’s a prizewinner there. Everything takes forever and that doesn’t seem to bother him in the least. Is
he some kind of reptile, living in a time zone utterly different from us mammals?
It took him 20 minutes to get my pants off working steadily. I got enough
comments about the beauty of my body to satisfy my ego for life.
He went down on me without a flicker – so much for all those
rumors about Southern men – and when he goes down he stays down. On the
other hand – he never did come. Calms fears of premature ejaculation but
raises other ones. His uncircumcised penis stayed stiff for 3 hours. This is a
first for me, and I don’t know whether I like it. I really can’t give myself
permission to come under these circumstances yet clearly I will have to –
I’ll just have to say, “forget you – let’s concentrate on me.” That could work.
But as I say, it would certainly be different. When I left, he gave me his key.

7:45 Pm – Plush Palace – Thurs 12 Jan 78
Called Jervaze and suggested we do something tonight –
he acted enthusiastic. I said, “Should I be calling you? Wouldn’t want to
call too much,” and he said, “Call all the time.” R–induced horrors dropping
away one by one. It’s snowing – I’ll go straight to Jervaze’s. (He’s close to club.)
```
4PM Friday, Jan 13-78
        I think Jervaze may really be an angel; one of Milton’s 
```
sexed up angels who took a wrong turn to our planet by mistake. Some
anxiety is relieved. We never did get to go anywhere – stayed in bed. Bliss.
But if this doesn’t work I will damn well marry Devon whether he likes it or
not – I can’t take much more of this.

I’m at my desk hammering out letters – trying to answer one
from the island realtor. The studio apt has “no cooking facilities”. I don’t care
but the realtor does, she has a house on the pond for $175 “long lease” she
wants me to take. Says it has a Franklin stove and I could “bike to town.” I admit
I’m interested. Jervaze has offered to come to the island with me in March –
I really shudder at the thought of introducing him to my parents, how to tactfully
say, Please don’t ask him about Ideas and only offer him one drink. Last night
I let myself into his apt, took a shower, tried to use his sparkingly hazardous
blow dryer, gave that up, crawled in bed with him. I had lots of Ryder-induced
fears that he wouldn’t be there, in bed with another girl, etc. But no. There he was, nude, gorgeous, asleep – and when he woke up, happy to see me.

5:25 PM Plush Palace – Sat 14 Jan 78
Snakes dropping into paradise one by one. First, although
Jervaze is incredibly easygoing – it is impossible to get him to state a
preference about a movie or a restaurant, for example – (had to drag him to Eastwood’s Every Which Way But Loose) I can tell he is nervous about
introducing me to his brother and sister in law. Should I just suggest we
lie about what I do for a living? I guess that wouldn’t really solve anything.
Sartre is so right. Hell IS other people. Then there’s my mother – the
latest demon fondling my ear. Once a woman has made herself
vulnerable to a man, she’s through. Uncommitted sex brings out
the worst in men, blah blah blah. Because it’s “too perfect” from his
point of view. I am “causing him moral hazard”. Yes, I tell the voice,
and it would be perfect from MY POINT OF VIEW TOO IF YOU WOULD
JUST SHUT UP. WE ONLY STARTED DATING A COUPLE OF WEEKS
AGO. But one can’t shut out THAT voice so easily.   Mystified by Willard Gaylin’s irritating Caring.    He acts like mutual dependence or
interdependence is some “failure” of personal autonomy.

Powder Mill Road – 11 PM Sunday 15 Jan 78
Jervaze “dropped by” this afternoon. Since it’s such a
long way from his place to mine I was astonished. Is it that I can no
longer believe a man will climb mountains for me? Or is it just my
sensitivities to Jervaze’s strangely inchoate “disabilities” warning me
and sending up red flags? We had a nice talk – he seemed faintly down –
then he had to leave because he needs to get up extra early tomorrow.
I was in too good a mood to work on my novel, bought clothes instead.
3 pairs of pants, sweater coat, five pairs undies, one gauchos. All clothes
size 7. Packaged MSS when I came home so as not to feel too unproductive.


Coleridge poem taken by Virginia community college
screed. No money. (Natch.)

DEEPER INTO COLERIDGE

“Music is beneath me” wrote
the fat man, angering his wife by stealing
her broom for walking
scattering the straw. He loved to
pack a nightcap and declaim upon the moors.
“I would have married a servant girl
could I but be sure of her affection.”
But be sure!
Some men are never fated to be sure.
Amidst politicking, pregnancies and
penny-pinching, he found the time
to fall in love with the Wrong Woman.
No wonder he took opium to distract him
from the faceless fiend that follows after
most of us but specially him
who knew so well to court it.
In his mildewed study he sits alone
clutching his bad heart and writing
“Ours is not a logical age”
January 7, 2023