Duel between a stepmother and stepdaughter turns deadly.
Charmian: Chapter I – The Knight of Swords
My mother was bitten by a coachwhip while carrying me; that’s how I got my second sight. My stepfather, not a witness to the event but someone who always had the be the smartest person in any room he was in and the greatest living authority on everything, said it wasn’t a coachwhip but a blue runner and it never would have killed her anyhow. It wasn’t until I left home that I discovered they’re the same snake. So that argument, like most they had, was entirely pointless.
She would have killed me deader than any snakebite but she was too fat to even realize she was pregnant. So that was the first lucky thing in my lifetime string of magical good fortune, the second being that I didn’t drown in the toilet. Let’s say my “home birth” was quite a surprise.
To those blessed with second sight time is circular. There I was: an old soul born to pawns of fate just up from rats. When they come back it will be as cockroaches. I was seventeen when I came into my royal nature as Queen of Swords. The Queen ‘s blood is power, intuition is her oxygen, action is her throne. I am the only one who recognizes truth. My sword cauterizes like a laser. You might as well submit; you’ll feel better after. All living creatures, whether they know it or not, draw breath in fealty. I grant consciousness and unconsciousness; just as I choose.
This morning, I pulled a card, as is my daily custom. And there you were, my Knight of Swords, leaning down from your horse to penetrate a dragon’s proffered belly. I must have need of you because when I summoned; you came. My late husband used to say, “When the servant is ready, the master will appear.” He thought he knew who was the servant and who the master — a dangerous assumption to make when I’m around.
In my beautiful Doré deck this Knight is teen-mag handsome, with a carved-marble face, blocky jaw and a panther’s square nose. Luxuriant blonde hair, rippling into curls, is tied back for battle. His quiver contains a multitude of arrows unlike the poorly-equipped King of Swords. A “suicide king”; his blade is turned against himself.
This knight is also slightly cross-eyed, like a Siamese cat. Does it mean that, like me, you see forward and back? I almost feel I’m looking at an echo of my double-eyed face – one eye green and one eye blue. He is ready to launch himself on his heroic quest; but one eye still looks behind him.
There’s fate for you. Even when you don’t believe in it, it believes in you. Let this card inaugurate my new life. I have been feeling something missing. My ideal lover is out there waiting for me to find him. In a way, I feel I have invented you. Or perhaps you, lonely as only gods are lonely, have invented me. I rose up out of one of your nocturnal emissions in my most seductive guise. Blonde (of course), full-breasted (of course), boy-hipped, five feet eleven in stilettos. Come and get me. Since I can recall eternity I must have always been here. We are primal elements: archetypes. We are fated to meet maskless. History itself evolves to smooth my path. I will teach you mastery of the future. I inserted your card in a gilt display box and left exposed it to the consideration of the universe on my mother-of-pearl dressing table.
I live surrounded by beautiful objects, such as this suede book in which I write with my ivory pen. I too lived my early life as a beautiful object, much sought after by collectors. Beauty is my birthright, but conquest has leaves me lonely. Until now.
10:00 PM – Party Castle – Wed 27 Jun 79
The inevitable panic reaction has set in – am I out of
my friggin MIND? But it’s my battle and I’m dealing with it. I hear myself saying WAY too much around him as if tempting him to find something to be disgusted by and to reject me – why can’t I just shut up and enjoy this?
Because I can’t believe he really loves the real me – we haven’t seen each other in 10 years. I plunge gratified into the dizzying sensory experiences – he is very sexual and willing to talk about it – everything he says turns me so ON. Heavenly night of ecstatic sex. Trying to go SLOW, not empty out my bag of tricks all at once. I resent my own anxieties and my fear of being vulnerable. Here at work I wrote a poem about our past – The Duel. Will I ever be able to show him?
I even like his snobbishness – he’s more elitist I guess you’d say. He assumes we’re “up there” – and it’s others job to qualify, to climb up to “our level”! That’s so refreshing after Usher Glayne’s weirdness! He just takes it for granted we’re in a class by ourselves; special people trying to do special things. And our tastes are so similar. He doesn’t plan to stay in Kentucky – wants to live in New England with its fall, its woodstoves and frozen lakes. I can barely comprehend such confidence much less contain it. Imagine being free forever from the fear that the party’s happening elsewhere. We ARE the party.
I said I felt safe with him – he said he wasn’t sure that was justified – looked at me like a beast longing to rend, but restraining itself. Wild frissons! He must be horrified by how fast things are going – I have never met a man who wouldn’t be. But he’s driving this train. Told me he’s been so celibate lately – very upfront discussing his discouraging relationship with a virginal anorexic perfectionist frightened by everything who compensates by torturing herself and all the people around her. In a flash I realized, that’s exactly what Devon is also.
Toss says he feels “stormed” by me –dizzied – by who and what I am, the summit of my “magnificence”. Wow! Such flattery very scary. How can he possibly mean it? Yet he seems so honest, so open. What will he do when he finds out I am human after all – a creature of mud and sludge like everyone else?
Reading Margaret Drabble’s The Needle’s Eye – not so good as The Waterfall – beginning to be turned off by her towers of verbiage. My own life is so much more interesting. Good phone con- versations with Toss – I am beginning to trust him. When I told him what I do for a living he was totally unfazed. “I knew you couldn’t get that body walking!” Tomorrow we explore Annapolis.
Party Castle 12:05 am 2 July 79 Wrote D an angry farewell poem.
“HOW DID YOU MEET?”
You saw me naked I saw you too close- up. You hovered, teaching Between the green glimpses. You drank vodka, I drank wormwood. You cut mountains down to size; I’d no idea that one could take such charge of space. Now I’m a toad-dweller, Nostrils pierced by thorns I Fall face-first into every hole; You were the king the ghost pines saluted. How you dove and danced! Speeding through your love-drunk universe, you Infected me with your own whiteness Dizziness, till all my blood drained out. You challenged God; I was the echo following after. Yet here I am after all this time And nothing promised remains of you.
Or, “Good luck with Sleeping Beauty’s castle!” That’s what he gets for messing with my heart. Can’t show anyone – most certainly not him – and it isn’t really finished – and I don’t think it ever will be. But thank God for diaries. Diaries can be told anything. Reading Secrets in the Family – it is so superb I am going to buy copies for all my sisters. Looking forward to discussing it with Toss. I’m beginning to miss him now – he’s so deep and interesting to be around – so alive on many more levels than anyone else – challenging all my levels. Falling in love – happy, crazy.
Thurs 11:05 – Plush Palace – 5 July 79
Back at The Plush – its catch as catch can in my
present situation. I am alienating managers left and right. But I am happy crazy and who cares?
Because on the third of July Toss asked me to
marry him and I said yes! Here’s how it happened. On Monday night we ate white clam linguini and crenshaw melon while listening to Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert – then – came together in delicious, soul-freeing sex; two perfectly matched combatants recognizing each other not just from childhood and youth but school and dreams. He was eager to learn how I could best be pleased – so I surrendered to the inevitable. Fireworks!
He left me sleeping there in the AM – I heard thumping downstairs but I know he has roommates so didn’t think anything of it – when he came back for lunch he discovered the door broken in and my purse missing. Keys, wallet, everything. I had to call into work – had to call a locksmith to give me keys to my car.
Toss doesn’t know what else they stole because he doesn’t know what else is supposed to be in this house – called his roommates. They came, police came. So we spent a day of intense babbling and the worst kinds of petty annoyances – but none of it mattered because he was there. In fact, I welcomed it; it was an extra opportunity to be together.
At one point I said, you know, you’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a man. He said, if I believed that, I’d ask you to marry me. I said, if you did I’d say yes. So he said, “Do you want to get married?” I said, “I think so,” and there it was! He said I’m the only woman he has ever wanted to marry much less asked. We even chose the children’s names – there are going to be two of them – a boy and a girl of course; one named after Reed and one a combination of our addresses! Had to call Aunt Frederica to give her the good news because she’s the one who had to give the hospital permission to stitch me up ten years ago after our first unfortunate night together! (She was drunk of course.) Toss asked me to come back to Kentucky for his last year of law school. I “shouldn’t miss this part of his life.” Dogs too, natch – we are a package deal.
He has a house he’s rehabbing that has so many rooms it is known as the Hilton. When I said I would come that was more important to him than our engagement even. He says I can file f or divorce in Kentucky’s understanding Commonwealth. He ordered a case of Moet Chandon, saying now we have to drive up the coast and tell everybody. I am a little scared to tell my parents – this suddenness might only seem another strike against me. We told Avril and Maureen – they just stared – obviously thinking we both have lost our minds – it will take them awhile to believe in it. I told Avril about Kentucky – she says she can handle the house; she can always rent out my room to a college student if she feels pinched. I want to leave some money with her – at least $1000 – had the brilliant idea to sell my car. Wouldn’t want to be impoverished in Kentucky and I don’t want to be on “retainer” from T.
Last night I read Toss The Duel and his eyes filled with tears! He said the only flaw he sees in this arrangement is that one of us must surely predecease the other! Could it really happen? Could we grow old together? Could it be that I will never make love to another person? Wrote a short note to Bruce, telling him I will definitely be needing a divorce, sooner, rather than later. Now I am trying to write a short note to D; but honestly, what is there to say? Summing up our relationship seems only to dismiss it. He has already fallen far, far back into the past. Toss is my future.
The Duel
Europe without you Was a funeral feast. I recall the procession of your letters Far better than The stream of luckless suitors Trying to distract me. Virgins aren’t distractible. Your seductive missives stalked me. Your fatal ploy was that nude photo Adam lonely in his garden.
I came right home. I well recall the ceremonies Of that night! Your shyness My perfume Our ignorance Wild and hard A riderless horse. I did cry out as the candles burned. I swear there were some moments when We actually saw each other. But if this magic sword cuts both ways Why was I the only bleeder? They peeled me off And dropped me down a mile Of antiseptic hallway – A princess in a bucket. It could have ended there But at your school I haunted you A chilly-breasted demon. My daytime incarnation seemed mature: I fooled everyone; We chatted as you prepared the skin. I bit down hard and Tasted only Suture wire. You wrote and broke off Our association. Years groaned by Like convicts chained We served our terms with no time off For bad behavior. Lust had luster, Excrement was ecstasy.
The castaways the whirlwind Flung upon the sand Were calm, polite We knew our way around. But That look you gave me! Our unborn children shivered In their sausage skins Fully aware Their time had come. The tale was done The frog-mask Shivered off We saw: The you of you The me of me – Masks Unmirrored Scars Unscored Virgins not but Innocence Restored.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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 - 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.
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.
Alysse Aallyn 