Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Diaries

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Sun 21 Jan 68


    “We are but a moment’s sunlight fading in the grass…” Jesse Colin Young


    Casey & I took a 2-hour walk past the Granolithic into the orchards and fields. Now I sit at my wobbly desk looking out of the window at a world warped by radiator fumes. Where will I be a year from now when some other poor wretch sits chained to this piece of lumber? Already I’ve escaped, imagining its spring and hot, and I’m wearing a short blue dress. It’s the tea party at Master Gwill’s after Hamlet (I played Gertrude) and Shawn and I are in love. Ah, memories.


    McKenzie compliments me on my dress when I go into dinner – did I just buy it? God now, I said. I’ve had it 2 years.


    Lucky you, she says, to have a closetful of beautiful clothes you never wear. I remember when you used to pull out eight things and ask me what to wear for Beales…


    Shudder at THAT memory! Beales was constitutionally unpleasable. He used to get so angry! I now see that is a pathetic state of affairs.


    Wed 24 Jan 68
    Diaries are a horror. I could write and write and write and never get it all said. Plus I sometimes feel like a Current President forced to continue the policies of the Last President. Why can’ I be completely fresh & new? Original? Well, it wouldn’t be a diary, that’s why, it would just be a Notebook and guess what? I have plenty of those.

    Diaries

    I don’t remember anything
    I’m an amnesiac so
    I wrote it down
    Stuffed in my closet
    Among discarded ballgowns
    (smells much the same)
    utterly useless but
    too beautiful to throw away
    I only recall
    The act of writing
    An up and over downtime scrawl
    As I recall the surgeon
    Cutting at my face
    tugging splitting flesh
    he peeled the wastage out.
    I recall fierce
    Liftoff
    In the writing
    Too much dig is waste
    It’s only what remains that’s
    Valuable.

    Three tests in my next three classes. I don’t have to worry about French – no matter how poorly I do everyone will always do worse – but History – “Manifest Destiny” – I have not studied at all.

    Then there’s the outrage of philosophy where I have to pander to a lot of theories I can’t accept.

    Contrary to Plato there is no actual “truth”. Some things are just truer than other things. It is truer that I am at Plumly than In Paris, for example. Also, meaning changes – a fact that bothered Plato but does not bother me in the least. I mean, of course.


    Plato is deeply obnoxious. He says somewhere exists a “perfect” everything – a perfect cat for example – yet “beauty” is a matter of opinion. This makes my brain bubble. I suspect my perfect cat and Plato’s cat are different animals. My perfect cat would eat his perfect cat.

    Don’t even get me started about math; the only part I respect are Imaginary Numbers. Socrates said it best: to hell with the universe.


    Reading Huxley’s Point Counterpoint about which the only thing I like is its name. He falls into every literary trap there is; too many places, people, names. Everyone seems to want to write a Panorama of Modern Civilization. This is Tolstoy’s fault. Cakes & Ale made me gnash my teeth. Yesterday I finished Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (Shawn’s recommendation). Feel sorry for the guy; a brilliant boy suffering from over education. He seeks freedom, meaning and – women, who have to wear high heels while they make love. They HAVE to! Otherwise he’ll TANTRUM!


    Dinner at Master Gwill’s. The boys are punishing me for what I “did” to Dan. Except for Ed, Chip & Martin. They are always nice. Unfortunately my efforts to become a Noble Savage fail. Can think about nothing but food & sex. Worked Miss Lissome over at coffee, disagreeing with everything she said.


    Sat. 27 Jan 68 – Pewter Hill

    Movie orgy! Casey and I awake to NO bells, NO workjobs, NO faculty screams of abuse. Instead, peace, classical music, fresh grapefruit, good coffee, English muffins. (At Plumly only seniors are allowed to have coffee. You wait for four years lusting in you heart and then when you get it you realize it’s AWFUL. But you’re too proud and exhausted to tell the others.)


    Last night we saw The Graduate – true true true plus wild & romantic. (Dustin Hoffman dead ringer for Beales.) This afternoon How I Won the War with John Lennon. Then Casey wants to run around Rittenhouse Square Seeing and Being seen and I want to sit in a café and stare. I don’t get my identity back that fast, is all. “You always ruin my fun,” she pouts.


    Mon 29 Jan 68

    Listening to Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream Casey starts sobbing incoherently. She says she waits and waits but no one ever comes. I know what just what she means. Instead of protesting my fate I draw thirteen flowers on my upper thigh. Thirteen. “The thing of it is” – fine Pinteresque phrase – the thing of it is I should be DIETING but my only joy is food. Conundrum.


    Trying to do my senior thesis on Sex Offenders (Kinsey) but they are the dullest people you can possibly imagine. (Psychopathia Sexualis way more interesting.) “6% attempted intromission”. Learned one good word: “pudenda”. “Dearest Theobald, the spring pudenda are in full flower! How I wish you could be here to see them!” Or possibly, “Pudenda Pottencrest felt a premonitory shiver as she crossed the threshold of the old house…”

    Bertrand Russell says we need sex so we can concentrate on our studies but who listens to him? Insomnia. Ginger Man nauseatingly self-conscious. Tried Growing Up Absurd but Paul Goodman (author) told me it was only for boys because girls don’t have problems. News to me. He keeps wailing about advertising but in my view (judging from New York Times Mag & New Yorker) the ads are a lot more interesting (and subtler) than the articles.


    Several interesting letters from Devon in one envelope. The first, “written in a moment of weakness” looks like he was drunk. He’s romantic, I’ll give him that, in an Elvira Madigan kind of way. Dad was furious that those two committed suicide. He said if you really loved somebody you’d do anything to keep them alive and I think I prefer his philosophy. For Devon everything is Hopeless. Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. He is in search of Plato’s perfect mountain, perfect skis, perfect run, perfect physical conditioning and its nothing but failure, failure, failure. Cheery. Do I love him only because he’s beautiful? No, he’s intelligent, too. (Amherst.) But he’s TOO beautiful…I don’t need to pursue Plato’s Perfect Skier. Think I found him. But can a boy from an all-boy family and a girl from an all-girl family be friends? I think I want to love someone who knows nothing of my past. When I say, “I was such an ugly child,” I don’t want them chiming in, “You sure were.”


    I won’t write back. (Tactics.)


    Fri 2 Feb 68

    Silenced. No library “privileges”. Can’t ask Miss Womrath for a favor, my parents for money or discuss “college plans” with Miss Liveright. This school stopped being “the school for me” long about my sophomore year but my parents refuse to hear it. If only Mom were more like Daddy – if I got expelled he would just accept it. How to rip the lid off all this fake coziness? Plumly hates artists (on principle! “Self indulgent!”) Well, they can mete out punishment (detention hall) but my mind is mine alone. Genevieve hated this place by the time she left (attacked me for believing the very things she spent freshman – sophomore year drilling into me!) but she wasn’t honest about it (and she got into Wellesley) so M & D think it was “a big success”. (At Wellesley she studied psych; calls M & D “schizophrenic”. But not to their faces.)


    Just recovering from a long crying session (as you can probably tell.) Hate all my classes and slept through study hall. “We shouldn’t have all these warped people in charge of everything” says Casey. Amen, sister. Detention hall’s in the collecting room – no one can sleep in there. Rush hour at the Gare St Lazare.


    Mon. 5 Feb 68
    Pewter Hill Sunday lunch, Avril helping me learn Aston’s lobotomy speech. Acting like skiing, building from the inside out. Horrible cold bath – water-heating system not working (as usual which Mom the Masochist refuses to believe. “You need to let it run,” she says. Believe me I have let it run.) Marcel Marceau in town – we got to go. Some new pieces. Ran into Dr Gilmour on the way out, she said she was HOPING I would get to see this!!!


    Called into Miss Womrath’s office for cutting Vespers. She says the Student of Yesteryear would Never Have Dreamed, etc. She just wants me to grovel, which she won’t get. I am appalled that this place is run by these strange inhuman beings. (Miss Beeston is senile but since she “only teaches French” they don’t care.) Boys are suspended for long hair and thirty years ago they were suspended for crew cuts!! Finished Avalon – everybody settled for less than they had dreamed of in their youth. And Quiet Flows the Don next.


    Wed 7 Feb 68
    Liked Pinter’s The Basement so much I want to make a movie of it. Such insane simplicity!


    Sun 11 Feb 68
    Casey was babysitting for Master Gwill – went over to watch Jean Claude Killy ski in the Olympics. Exciting! Le Superman! Everyone comparing him and Karl Schranz but I say there’s no comparison. Sat NYC trip! Everything that COULD go wrong yesterday, WENT. Unfortunately station wagon had no heat and my feet were freezing. 12 degrees outside!!! Refused to sit with Peter who called me an “incorrigible bitch”. (Like all shy boys once you finally get them talking you can’t get in a word edgewise.)


    Toured the Met, saw all the Greek stuff and more medieval stuff than is good for me then met with the others for lunch. Bought two candy bars to beef up boxed lunch. Then the Ballet of Don Quixote. The plot is: Quixote & Panza watch everybody dance! I kid you not! Costumes pretty good, but bordering on Tyrolean as if extras wandered in from another show. Still, I’d go to the theatre every night if I could.


    Vol I of “The Don” NOT making me want to plunge into Vol II. Prefer Genet’s Our Lady of the Flowers (unreadable intro by Sartre. Turns out I am not an existentialist.)


    Mon 12 Feb 68
    2 Plumly students killed & 2 injured in bad accident on the turnpike yesterday – truck jumped the median. People I talked to are lying dead in a morgue someplace. First class was a “memorial” – we sat silent. I try to think holy thoughts — difficult looking right at the harpies on the facing bench.


    11:20 PM Fifty pages into The Golden Bough. Don’t see how his logic operates. And it’s the source of my Bible Independent Study!!


    Tues 13 Feb 1968
    Third period study hall. Struggling with Bible. Do not believe in God or an afterlife but if I was blind would I disbelieve in the world others tell me is there? But religion I reject utterly.


    Thurs 15 Feb 68
    A typical Thurs morning meeting – exercise in amateur rebellion & spiritual emptiness. Girls Collection seated first. On Sundays we can sit co-ed, on Thursdays we are segregated. Casey and I sit together (illegally- you’re supposed to sit the way you came in.) I guess we’re supposed to be grateful we don’t have to kneel on peas on the frozen flagstones.

    My “prosperity” Chinese medallion chain (probably not real gold) is in hundreds of knots so at least I have something interesting to occupy myself. (Usually I sleep). “No fingernails” I think disgustedly as I pick at the chain.


    DeeDee shoots to her feet; she wants to talk about Vietnam; has to get it right out or she’ll be too nervous. (She’s against it.) Drone, drone. Tries to tie the Viet Cong and our Recent Dead in some kind of incomprehensible pretzel.


    Deep silence follows. I finish the chain and put it on. Susie Thos ahead of me is pretending to be bent over in deep meditation but is secretly conversing with the girl next to her. People shuffle, sigh and scratch their necks.


    Maggie Brown drawing a flower on her leg while the harridans seethe. Sarah Gould leaps to her feet. She is a “kook” and dates “kooks”. Rambling question (to God?) about how “making out is an expression of love and how can love ever be wrong?”


    Miss Womrath tries to re-start her heart, discovers she doesn’t have one. I admire Sarah for laying herself open to attack. Also for her athletic body, which we are all, admiring. Somebody else stands up to distinguish between “kissing” and “making out.” Kissing good, making out bad. Lips good, hands worse.


    Charity Dellabrook vaults to her feet. She was all happy this morning she says but she feels guilty about being happy around all these somber faces.


    Fri 16 Feb 68
    Finished Our Lady over breakfast; turning it over in my mind. I think it’s one of the most exciting books I’ve ever read for it insights into the creative brain. Honesty and originality are the only words for Genet. I neither thought these characters depraved nor pitied them. I’d call Maggie of Mill on the Floss more “perverted” than Divine. Readers deserve to be trusted (Pinter is expert at this.) So exciting makes me want to rush to the typewriter and work on “Dr Stavanger.”

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Thursday, 30 Nov. 1967


    I am doing a bunch of special projects – Harold Pinter, American Foreign Policy and Konrad Lorenz. Probably ought to be a way to blend these so I can write the same paper for each. How about a play about the Vietnam War performed by ducks?


    Toiling on my poetry. Sneaking into the Tower at night to write poetry in black magic marker on the inside of the bathroom stalls. Something “cultural” to look at. (Mostly Millay and Frost but some John Lennon. Plus my Plumly poem sans attribution.) Krissy says everyone knows it’s me because my handwriting is so distinctive.


    Verb-Corseted
    The French teacher sweeps
    The cherry blossoms from the tennis court
    (As she would like to sweep the cherries)
    French them soundly beneath
    Spiked shoes; printing red marks
    Like kisses
    On their half-grown thighs
    While headmistress
    Cello-breasted
    Measures with her thumb
    The Bath Wife’s heft;
    Polishes graffiti carved upon her
    Coffin in Chaucerian High English
    And the girls,
    Nun – white
    Nun – blue
    Soar above the soccer fields
    Foul-mouthed angels
    High on fetal wings;
    Anticipated ecstasy locked in narrow hope chests
    Ripened on amphetamines
    Free love
    Bad dreams.


    1 Dec 67
    Cheering letter from penpal Dell Rynehardt, the one who saw me at the Stratford play and asked for an introduction because I was so beautiful! Reading Territorial Imperative and On Aggression. Interesting. So glad to find a valid argument against the conditioned reflex.


    Worry that I’m prostituting my mind in this place; Plumly Academy for Losers. My teachers may be well-meaning but they are trying to drag me down the wrong road. Their “good intentions” are dangerous for me. Reading Knut Hamsun’s Growth of the Soil for my “non American novel”. Good to be a senior: these days I do nothing but read which is all I ever did anyway.


    Nothing human is alien to me, says Terence. Doesn’t need to be human from my point of view. Fri. study hall, I’m in the library studying for test on the Constitution. Can’t wait for THAT to be over. Casey and I off to dinner at Pewter Hill.


    Wed 6 Dec 67
    Back at Plumly. Bad birthday – me, Mom & Avril all endlessly menstruating. Auntie Beulah creaking like a shutter in a gusty wind, probably jealous that she can’t menstruate too. I admired Mom’s bracelet and she took it off and handed it to me in an annoyed way! I don’t want it like that!


    Now I’m so high strung and bitchy these days it’s a wonder anyone can stand me. I bite my nails, claw my face, pick my hair and my hands shake. I trip over furniture. How will I make it till June? Prognosis: grim. I was SO looking forward to that Pewter Hill dinner, then missed two buses trying to get back to school. Mom kind but irritated underneath; I shot myself to pieces with mental recriminations.


    Received two bad shocks; first; Brice Harbreath will be along on our Christmas ski vacation. Ugh. His lewdness & diseased morality seep a constant vicious poison and since he talks a good line about “freedom vs license” M & D don’t realize it. It’s one of those things where you can’t expose him without making yourself look bad. I know he will cling to me like a limpet. Ugh! That laugh! I shiver at the thought. And he dumps ME for being “sexually inadequate” because I wouldn’t take it for granted that all dates should end with a hand job! Ugh, ugh, ugh. “Frigid,” my foot!


    Second shock; Mom offered me skis for my birthday and I said I didn’t need them. But when I reconsidered and said I thought new skis would be nice she snapped at me that I don’t need them! I thought it was my choice but guess not! “We’ll rent,” says Mom, “Or you can borrow from Devon.”


    Devon the ski coach! That would be great. Put me on the wrong track with him from the start; I was counting on him to protect me from Brice. Hell. The real joke is I’m the only member of this family who can actually ski! (Owing solely to Devon.)


    Thurs. 7 Dec 67
    Six girls received the same KOB last night – only difference is name printed in block letters on the outside. Inside in crayon: DOESN’T IT SEEM RATHER FOOLISH TO LET YOUR PRIDE BRING YOU DOWN?” One glance and I knew it was Shawn Kobler. Proved it to Casey from his writing sample in my notebook. Everyone else thinks it refers to the Christmas dance; the demand that the guys dress up, buy flowers and act decent. I think the others are camouflage and I am the real target.
    He has a point, but I’m not admitting it, because sometimes pride is all there is. Was dozing through meeting when Shawn spoke up at the end about how emotion embarrasses everyone. People worry about “self-revelation.” That was brave! But I’m not going to the dance without a date and just “meeting” him there. I would rather go with a guy I DON’T LIKE. So there.


    Reading The Man Who Was Thursday, which should definitely be called The Man Who Was Sunday.


    Wed. 13 Dec 1967
    Ate like a wolf at dinner – like a COVEN of wolves. What is to be done? Flirt with Blair Manteo till I saw Shawn staring at me. Decided to send him an “anonymous KOB” saying “Doesn’t it seem rather foolish to send anonymous KOBs?” Serves him right. But he already confessed to Aynsley so it would be beating a dead boyfriend.


    D & M in Vietnam and I’ve heard nothing for 2 weeks. I SUPPOSE they’re all right. Just read the most appalling Newsweek – all they get out of Dr Zhivago, Bonnie & Clyde and Darling is the cut of the clothes.


    Casey studying by the window. We were caught for Late Lights so have to study downstairs in the Monkey Cage. Discomfort (no tea) but plenty of company. This is a very Disrespectful Senior Class. Either that or it is unrealistic to expect ANYBODY to finish ANYTHING by 10 PM. Off to Girls’ Locker (to pee) I trip over Bob Burke & Susie Thomas all over the floor (and all over each other.) There may be snow on the ground but it’s spring in our hearts!


    On my way back I trip over Renda Swayne & Bill Johnson Doing the Likewise.
    It’s enough to drive one into the Girls’ Parlor to watch TV with the Uglies and the Morally Fucked Up Council Robots.


    I know what I want for Christmas. Print of Breughel’s Hunters in the Snow. As soon as the bell rings Casey and I are making soup.


    Tues. 19 Dec 67 – Pewter Hill
    Advanced state of 20th cent rot clearly observable on Johnny Carson show. I give up and come upstairs. Told Dad I’m thinking I want to be an actress but worry I’m not pretty enough. He says, “Judith Anderson is an actress!”


    Have you SEEN Judith Anderson? I have – (MacBeth.) Suicide is preferable. Thanks a lot, Dad!


    THINGS ACCOMPLISHED IN THE LAST 3 DAYS:
    1) Read Helen Bevington’s When Found Make a Verse of
    2) Taught Avril 3 French Christmas carols
    3) Took Phinney on 20 walks, brushed him, cleaned up 900 messes
    4) Washed every dish I could not talk my way out of
    5) Slept & ate continuously


    Something’s got to give!


    Fri 29 Dec 67 just after midnight – Pinkham Notch NH
    Past, present & future all mingle. Driving home from a party with Devon Duvall – he keeps kissing my hands. Can’t kiss mouths because we are laughing too hard.


    “Goddam it” I say and he says,
    “What kind of pillow talk is that?”


    The kind you have with someone who already has a girlfriend. (or 6.)


    Luckily skiing is good for sexual frustration.


    Mon. 1 Jan 68
    My sex life has nowhere to go but up. My dreams have been INCREDIBLE!! Writhe & pant all night. Reading Achilles His Armor in between doses of The Decline & Fall of Practically Everybody. Wonder if my life will ever be a joke someday to somebody. Left the New Year’s Eve party (Brice kept asking if I was a virgin); faced the fact there would be neither sex or champagne to be had; donned my golden caftan and cleaned my room.


    Ever been climbing stairs and you suddenly noticed what your body was doing and you couldn’t do it anymore? That’s what happened to me at the mountaintop, feeling cold and tired and hungry and I thought, what if I suddenly forget how to ski? Devon says beginners have to be taught not to sit on their heels – now the new racing theory is to sit on your heels, so NOBODY knows how to ski. And I don’t like things that work only when you DON’T think about them.


    Wed 3 Jan 68 1:10 AM
    Nietzsche was surely right when he said of all the treasures life unearths, self-knowledge is the last. I am nowhere near it. Find other people a whole lot easier to understand. Mother speaks of auditions and my liver freezes but I was the one who suggested it! Do I want to be endlessly “inspected”? Seems so repulsive. Plus I hate hassle and Plumly is working my last nerve. Do I want to bothered while laboriously constructing my house of cards? Imposserous. Maybe I should join the Peace Corps or lock myself in a room and Write a Novel.


    Somerset Maugham says only a writer is truly free and this book shows me how it can be done. As soon as I touch it I’m flushed back into the maelstrom and lost again.


    Philosophically I am closest to Hindu. (Dr. Gilmour says I’m a mystic.) That right there separates me hopelessly from Devon who was raised a Hysterical Christian so now has a bad case of Borderline Religious Disorder. He says I’m a Pantheist which is NOT technically true since I believe in the supernatural. Metaphysics are the ONLY physics I have time for.


    According to everybody I project confidence, which shows how blind everybody is. Avril told me she sees me rich & famous and herself a housewife married to a 9-5er. (She’s only 13.) She insists she has no talent, which I told her is UTTER BUNK. It’s the other way around: anything seen that young is a flashing pan for sure. Thurber obviously can’t draw and Basil Rathbone obviously can’t act but look at them!


    The challenge always is to deepen the imagination.


    Plumly Home for Incurables Mon 8 Jan 68
    School station wagon met me at Paoli and I was back in jail in time for Vespers. We all bow our heads and I pray to Sredni Vashtar The Magnificent . She answers my prayer; I get an excellent letter from Devon saying how much he misses me! This boy shows promise! And another from penpal Dave saying he can’t find anyone as beautiful as me. Heheheh. He sounds so lovelorn you’d never guess he hasn’t seen me for four years! What a nut! I’m just friendly, I’m not actually encouraging him. Let’s hope he’s not some kind of a serial killer. Help!


    In my jail cell complete with high chipped blue walls, iron bedstead and junk bureau I write a story called A Very Private Invasion. Spent a lot of time on it but now I can’t show it to anyone or use it for anything. It’s a fantasy about Devon and me after he gets killed by an avalanche (Heheheh.) It’s always a mistake to cross us writers.


    Reading Unicorn can’t figure out why they rave about Iris Murdoch so. Hackneyed plot. Horribly afraid “they” would tell me “That’s the point! Isn’t it a gas!” It’s a gothic so I suppose I should be pleased. Still, literary criticism feels like a moving target.


    Sat next to Master Gwill in meeting but didn’t have anything to say to him after. He’s so weird. What is he? Man? Woman? Floating hair? God only knows. Miss Cluny telling the whole junior class how REVOLTED she is by the IDEA of sex! And she’s like twenty-five! Should we be under the instruction of these mentally disabled people?


    Casey playing Francoise Hardy. The minute she went to the Tower to take a shower I put on good old honest Stones.


    Tues. 9 Jan 68
    Last Fr I slept from 7;30 to ll:15 AM! I was so tired I wrote “combinining” instead of “combining” on my poster! Slept through dinner and study hall – Casey covered for me with Wienand. Wienand unscary these days – she has troubles of her own. Senior class pretty certain she left Miss Womrath (who has a broken leg) stuck in the dumbwaiter behind Senior Stairs for an hour and a half. On purpose! As who would not, if given half a chance?


    Have to finish my five posters and do some French sentences but bed still looks inviting – as inviting as Plumly sheets will ever be when you’ve forgotten to pick up your laundry two weeks in a row.


    College boards an oppressive seal upon my future. Seems a grubby deal with the affluent race. Couldn’t I go to Geneva instead? You know, where there are snows, storms & sailboats? Blame my father for teaching me to be a noncooperator with life and blame Chocolates for Breakfast for teaching me to be a noncooperator with my dad. A little reading is a dangerous thing and a LOT of reading is profoundly liberating. Someday I will be dead and everything I touched and loved will be dead. What will college boards matter then? I’d rather have a boxed set of “Complete Works” so I’d better get started. I love the smell of ink.


    Finished Huxley’s Crome Yellow. A charming antique.


    Tues. 16 Jan 68
    Rather afraid of Colette. She is praised for her “humanity” but her impassivity doesn’t seem especially “human” to me. So the “corpse” of society has maggots! According to her, all relations between the sexes a disaster. Where is the perfect love of Joseph for Sidonie, of Sidonie for baby Sidonie? In her memoirs Colette’s more honest. I guess sometimes life doesn’t satisfy us by being as horrible as it has a right to be. Some salmon make it up the stream.


    Fatally shocked Mrs. Liveright by telling her I don’t want to take college boards because I only want to apply to theatre schools. Thought she’s die right there. Now I have to prepare auditions – ugh – 5 pieces in all, 3 contemp & 2 classical. Wonder if they’ll let me be a man in Pinter’s The Caretaker. I don’t think it matters what sex he is.


    Lovely letter from Devon worrying about whether we are soulmates! He’s always certain he’s missing some bus or other. I love his letters. Sweet, but confounding.


    Thurs 18 Jan 68
    Still shuddering from the spell of Colette. Chained to her mother’s fireside she heard the horses coming for her down the echoing road…what is the mystery? What is the secret? I try to get at it by writing a story, Death of a Great Actress. She basically wastes her deathbed trying to please her audience with one last show. Can’t submit it to any class so showed it to Toss Sheffield editor of the lit mag, ProSem. He says No. Why not a Real story about Real things like cows in a field? Shows me horrible photos of bums & train tracks. Says that’s art. I’m aghast. Is he reacting to being kicked off the Religious Life committee for his suggestion that a school bus parked sideways at a drive-in would be a Religious Outing? (He says he’s had his best orgasms – so far – in a school bus. Yet maintains he is a virgin.) Curses be upon them; their little gods are blind. The sooner I blow this dive the better.


    Casey & I going into King of Prussia to see Genevieve and shop on Saturday. I will wear my new fur hat & muff and buy a poster of The Rolling Stones. Anything to break the ennui. In the evening, the faculty play, Importance of Being Earnest. I tried to talk senior play committee into Strindberg’s Dream Play; Shawn voted me down! He is still angry about that dance in the marble tunnels under the school where the eyes of glass-caged birds stare us down. There I dared to dance with Blair: girls meant to be “strictly monogamous” here. (Boys are a different story.) Shawn says out loud I only want to be an actress so my “beauty” will be admired. Find a way to turn THAT into an insult!
    Casey comes in wet and panting from swimming, says her senior project’s been approved. Hope mine will be.


    Sat 20 Jan 68
    Give me the earth! Give me the world! Will there ever be a book in which I am born on the first page and die on the last? Where if I wanted to know what will happen to me I can just read ahead? Rattling back in the station wagon I was stupid with desire.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Just after midnight Fri 3 Nov 67


    Writing by candlelight on my desk’s dark blue blotter. Need to get to bed by one – 45 mins. Loafed hideously through study hall – did manage to finish Nick & Alex. Tried Gertrude Lawrence’s autobio but she is just too stupid – plucked every hair of her eyebrows and said “Darling” all the time ugh. Turned to Princess but got only as far as the annulment chapter before I realized she is just not leveling with us. All this “Dr. M” stuff. Dr. Mabuse? Sometimes there are things we won’t even admit to ourselves (Nietzsche says our own treasure is the last we dig up.)

    Poor Alexandra – what did she get for her icons and prayers? Rasputin! “Sunny” was married to “Bloody Nicholas”! We should neither envy nor condemn. Human beings are poor wet butterflies crawling along the grass, flapping useless wings in terror. Marie at least seemed to know she was a broodmare. Poor Marie, bruised by her cloth of silver corsets. Poor Grand Duchesses unprotected by their diamond armor… at least I have my privacy. Seems so precious now!

    20 short days we move into Pewter Hill! Can’t wait to sit at my desk at the top of the house watching dusk creep across the park! If the air is pregnant with snow I will have all that I need for Perfect Happiness.

    Sun 5 Nov 67
    Quite a weekend. Saw Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back and Bonnie and Clyde the latter leading to a very unpleasant date with Vincent Plevins where he lay with his head in my lap for an hour and a half and sobbed about his childhood. I’m ashamed & horrified & planning to never mention it again – hoping he feels the same.

    B & C is a work of art – Casey wept at the end – I controlled myself with Iron Will (I’m especially ugly when I cry.) Certainly puts the sting back into death. Warren Beatty forgot a couple times he wasn’t playing Splendor in the Grass but that woman who played Blanche was very good. Gnomish CW with his squirming mouth & elusive eyes. The film defies discussion. Violence turning people into animals. Master Gwill went on and on about guns being phallic symbols while I tried very hard not to listen.

    Didn’t like the opening – just another naked dissatisfied blonde – but at least the love scenes were beautifully controlled. “Hollywood” was resisted.  PM says no one will fall for “triumph over impotence” at the end. I’m not sure. Surely it represents their safety with each other rather than actual sex act. To me the most beautiful scene in the film is when Bonnie has “the blues” and Clyde puts his whole hand over her face. They need each other – love emanates from each desperate being.

    None of us agreed on The Final Look. PM = “panic”. Jack B = “We’ve got to keep driving”. I think they said different things – Clyde = “it’s over” and Bonnie = “I’m here with you. We’ll die together.”

    Master Gwill took us out for ice cream after the film but Jack couldn’t stop yammering. The Truth is SILENCE.

    Fri play rehearsal was cancelled so I hitched a ride to Media Station with Lindles. After a brisk walk from the Queen Lane Station I arrived at the house at 5:45. Dad immediately shoved a glass of wine into my hand.

    Matt Romer called me up – offered to drive me back and see Don’t Look Back. I really wanted to see it but Dan has taught me how miserable I can be with someone I don’t like. Still, Matt said a lot of kids were coming so I agreed. Hope Matt didn’t think I was avoiding him but I was. He asked why I was so silent: “Thinking about the movie.”

    We were late getting back – had to call Casey to check me in. I’ve got to stop being honest and start to LIE she warns me. She is probably right since all I get for my honor is a pile of detens.
    James Cleland of Duke U in chapel for Vespers. He was adorable – he’s all for “individualizing” religion says they’re all the same anyway! He ruefully observed that the older you get the more you need it.

    I think people over-estimate their own resiliency. B & C couldn’t see what they were getting into. We are never as free as we think we are. I used to not understand why people kill themselves when the world is so wonderful and you can always start over. But now I see it’s a question of the Rot – how far it has gotten. Once you have polluted your soul there may be no turning back.

    Mon. 6 Nov 67
    I tried to sleep. Finished Princess, checked a few references with N&A, then lay listening to the girls calling each other down the halls like lovebirds. The inner life of a private school.
    Closest to miserable depression today in quite awhile. My headache filed me with such agony my whole body shook. Recalling when M & D wouldn’t allow aspirin because “you don’t need to be all drugged up!” (They disapprove of throat drops also.)

    Out on the courts my hands were beet red and would not hold a racket. Hit the ball your racket spins. Felt like an animal on a treadmill! Nasty tennis. Run around the courts – a bit better – back in my room for orange tea. Reading about the Trials of the Russian Aristocracy. They were a bunch of idiots who don’t know where money comes from, sad to say.

    Tues. 7 Nov 67
    50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution! I was timer at hockey giving me the opportunity to write two letters while sitting hunched in a blanket. Not a bad job. Any job that allows writing is a good job. Also details of Eisenhower’s visit (he landed his helicopter on the lawn!) including movies seen & books read. Etc etc. Acquitted self of All Social Obligation.

    (Toss Sheffield asked Eisenhower what’s a soldier to do when asked to fight in an unjust war? Ex-Pres waffled.)

    How I wished that I’d brought YOU. You wouldn’t think an old paper notebook could affect one’s life so profoundly, would you? Yet you have. For example, I can’t write letters unless I haven’t written here! Not only do I hate repeating myself – I don’t know what I think until I see it written HERE. Maybe what I need is a piece of carbon paper…Note to Self…

    I remember being jealous of people who did NOT keep diaries I felt like such a slave. Breathed a sigh of relief as the SS France sailed past the statue of Liberty – certain I’d made my last entry ever. The Morocco diaries require an Iron Stomach to reread. But I spoke too soon – I was addicted! I have reached the supreme peak of egoism: nothing happens unless I write it down.

    Wed. 8 Nov 67
    Things never work out the way they are planned! This eve I was going to get so much done. Wash hair & set, do homework and reading. Instead I waste time talking to people. Suddenly got the idea for short story called To Bed In the Afternoon about a frigid woman. I tried to write it all down – typewriter ribbon all screwed up. I give her grandfather Granny’s bedroom, which I can clearly see.

    Matt Romer playing Husband #2 calls up to ask me to help him with his part. Put him off – grabbed Eva La Gallienne’s autobio put myself under the hairdryer and start to read. Awful. Dull in the Extreme. Mom & Dad off to NYC to see Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead the lucky devils. Nothing to show for 3 hrs but clean hair ad a foul temper. I could have worked on Christmas cards! When I break promises to myself I fear I am becoming flighty.

    Miss Cluny gave me & Casey a pineapple that made our mouths bleed. Now I am struggling with the correspondence of Mrs Patrick Campbell & GB Shaw but I am having trouble keeping the 900 characters straight. They would rather scald their souls then open them to one another. Much fashionably empty Evelyn Waugh double-talk.

    Sun 12 Nov 67
    Getting upset over people. Hate to see Aynsley turning into a bigoted old lady but she is. At dorm meeting we all plead for unlimited late lights and faculty shoots it down every time. Aynsley sides with them! She snapped at me “You yourself have acted terrible after getting what you want” right in front of everyone! Uh oh! This is my roommate!


    She told Casey she felt sorry for C if she roomed with me because I hadn’t “grown up.” Well I don’t plan to turn into Miss Womrath if that’s what growing up amounts to! I was just seething! Aynsley herself hasn’t an iota of personal discipline and always needs help to do her homework! (Which I don’t give her so she is constantly in Lindles’ or McKenzie’s rooms.)


    Certain Sarah Lawrence won’t let her in Casey also is a slave to convention (she has nightmares about college entrance exams) – kowtowing frantically to the sadistic old women who run this place. Makes me burn to even TRY to please these old bags. But they won’t let me room by myself! Damn.


    Tues 13 Nov 67
    Senior Play went remarkably well (although my mother commented loudly that I had never held a broom in my life which is NOT TRUE.) Fun driving around Philly after though Far from the Madding Crowd no good. Terence Stamp couldn’t save it.


    Today on the other hand was One of Those Days. Master Gwill insisted I rewrite my paper on The Lark misunderstanding every point I tried to make. (I thought it was funny to write my paper in the style of the play. He did not.) I don’t think I CAN write criticism. All his compliments were just sops to my disappointment. Had that awful, “I’m going to cry” feeling but I couldn’t get away from Master Gwill who kept stumbling after me still talking and making things worse.


    Tried to excuse myself saying I’d had a rough day – more compliments emptier and emptier – God it was awful. He obviously thinks I’m a helpless birdbrain. I was 20 mins late to History but he gave me a note.


    Everyone could tell I’d been crying! Awful. I am always morbidly ashamed and at war with myself after these outbursts. I guess I am insanely moody – one day all smiles and Tra la la the next deepest, darkest gloom. Guess I am too emotional to be a true intellectual. Maybe no creative person can look at reality in a dispassionate light. Why should we want to?


    A journal such as this presents the ridiculous side of life much as I try to embroider & give it meaning. Success? Failure? Only I can solve this conundrum.


    Thursday, 16 November 1967
    Oh wherefore in my heart that was so hard hast thou these tender places made to come? (For Kip. From me, courtesy of Shakespeare.)


    Senior Checkout in the New Gym. We stood around and bounced tennis balls while I thought, there must be more to life than this. Then we ran around the floor several times. If I had a scrap of honesty left in my being I would have walked out. But I’ve been too well indoctrinated. I gritted my teeth and thought, if I waited four years I can wait a half hour, but baby, mentally I’m already gone.
    In a Russian mood reading Clara Milich and Oblomov. Oblomov is delightful – the scenes between Zahar and his master make me laugh out loud.


    Kip and I have been on a collision course for the past few months. We keep colliding, veering off, going to other people. I stopped answering Bloy’s letters so he wrote to the school to find out where I am! Then he wrote me a really angry letter. Then he sent me a picture of him and his girlfriend dressed up for a dance. She’s the exact opposite of me in every known human way, so you go figure it out. I’m ”off “ relationships right now.


    Monday, 27 November 1967
    English next period – quel nightmare. That is an all Herman Melville class – love him or leave him, with a teacher who does not allow a “careful disorderliness” about the enterprise.


    Thanksgiving was wonderful. I gave thanks for my unorthodox family, my excellent education (I make up the deficits) my inquiring mind, interesting face and good figure. Avril and I went for a walk and locked ourselves out. I had to climb the rose trellis and get in the third-floor bathroom.


    I decided to kill sentimentality and destroyed all my love-letters – even from Dan who wrote the best ones so far. Not Reed’s KOBs though – they’re not really about me but they’re too good on their own to destroy. I’m sure he didn’t even keep copies, just tossed them off in free verse.


    I read the whole of To Die at Noone and Kip and Preston both “dropped in” to see what condition my condition was in – both unfortunately on the same night. So, it was duel a trois with neither of them wanting to be the first to leave and Kip talking about how he was going to Harvard early placement (wrestling scholarship) and trying to make Preston, who attends a high school so hopelessly progressive that they have no grades – feel bad.


    Finally Kip had to go first because he had his father’s car (Preston takes train.) So I made out with Preston till about two in the morning as a kind of frustration-revenge-rage thing. He said he loved me and I liked hearing it, but I couldn’t honestly say it back. Reading Easty’s Method Acting. If I did things his way I’d go insane.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Thurs. 19 Oct 67


    This is all I need: I’m in the infirmary with a fever and swollen glands. My throat making me super miserable! No sailing for me – parents suggested it instead of Parents’ Day. These blankets are so stingy; I have all the blankets they had in the blanket closet and still I’m shivering. Damn things are razor thin. It’s the same room I was in last time, The Alysse Aallyn Memorial Chamber. At least they have a bathtub (not that they let you use it enough.)


    I used to visit Shawn here when he had his shin splints. Back when he loved me. Snuck in an Andrew Garve – pretty thin plot. Begged Nostrils to let me call Aynsley for a copy of Fathers and Sons. She gave me pills instead – there’s everything wrong with modern science in a nutshell. (One of the pills is a charming turquoise.) I’m sure the Russians could cure whatever I have. (Freud would not be a good idea for a swollen gland sufferer.)

    Miss Wickersham in to say Shawn Kobler just arrived with a head injury from soccer! That boy is very accident prone. Will he open his eyes to find the year erased and think we are still dating! There’s a plot! When Miss Wickersham’s back was turned I used the office phone to call Mum – took some pleasure in alarming her. But I had to call because of the sailing. They don’t know what they’ll do now (I know. They’ll go sailing.) Avril has a boil she has to take penicillin for and they’re taking HER!

    Now I’m too warm but that beats an arctic fit. I don’t even need a book I’m so busy wondering who Shawn will be when he wakes up. Jekyll? Hyde?

    Fri. 20 Oct 67
    Accidentally woke the nurse prowling around trying to find out what time it was (5 AM.) Mom called at ten said they decided to go sailing without me. (Natch.) Mom offered to take me to tea (“show me off” was how she put it) at the Annual Service Committee Meeting. I suppose Casey and I could go before the play. She invited us to spend the night but we GAVE to get back here at 11PM at the latest – it’s Halloween Parties – what with the Tunnels & the Crypt the world’s queerest entertainment. I’m going as a wart – which ought to be effortless considering my swollen glands.

    Mom reported something weird – she USED that soap Robin sent me – it broke open and there’s a tiny switchblade inside! I begged her to SAVE it for me – she is dubious. Aren’t these illegal? It’s an inch long – press a button and the blade comes winging out. I won’t thank Robin but as he must have known I covet it tremendously. Avril was so taken with it she said, “Do we have to tell her?”

    Slept all day – Nostrils is going off and Mrs. Wickersham coming on. Bazarov so pitiful in Fathers & Sons. Paul Petrovich is the most sympathetic character; very finely drawn. “He strolled as far as the end of the garden…lifted his gaze to the sky. But his fine dark eyes reflected only the glimmer of the stars. He was not born a romantic and his soul, so dry and elegant, passionate and misanthropic in the French way, was incapable of reverie.” Bravo!

    Sun 22 Oct 67
    Slept through Vespers and what everyone tells me was a very fine sermon by Dr Elton Trueblood. Up on dorm wrote some godawful poetry, read 10 p of one book and 7 of another, then into Casey’s room to bother her. She won’t allow herself to be bothered, however. So here I am back, night and day all fatally screwed up.
    McKenzie’s parents pointed me out to her and said I was “the most beautiful girl” on campus. Tell the photographers is all I can say. Photos look like Mt Rushmore in a light drizzle.

    Thurs 26 Oct 67
    Easy to become lethargic and apathetic in a system depending on routine. Master Gwill doing me the honor of treating me like an adult, shaking me out of my coma. Tells me he has never seen so much “natural talent” blah blah blah. Now I’m embarrassed about all the mean things I’ve said about him. (He likes Steinbeck! So bourgeois!)

    He presented me with a ticket to see Marcel Marceau! He was a little crushed that I have already experienced this but OBVIOUSLY it will be different as that was YEARS AGO. I had to say I was seated behind a pillar at the Paris Opera and could barely see (although maybe that was Mme Butterfly.)

    When they let me out of the infirmary I knew I had an excuse to miss dinner so I put on ski pants and a ski sweater, tied my hair back and walked all the way through Girls’ Bounds and Boys’ Bounds down to the farm. Climbed a dead-looking tree and watched the horses eat and the sun set. Cleared my eyes and lungs.

    It occurred to me that it doesn’t matter who I am. As I sit in this tree I can be anybody! None of my failures or mistakes even matter because I don’t matter. What a relief! Felt I was in a state of grace. The pageant of the world’s beauty is the model of perfect giving.

    Bible class just ending. We are reading The Great Divorce. “So why desire truth if the truth hurts?” asked Biff Withers who is the only person in this class who ever asks an intelligent question.

    “Knowledge brings freedom and freedom is worth having” was the answer.

    Uh oh! Don’t tell the slaves about freedom. You could see the restless stirring. I nearly stood up and cheered. But of course I didn’t!

    I have far too much to read. 5 books in 2 weeks, 3 of them being over 300 p long. Insanity, that’s what it is! Rather read Polidori’s The Vampyre… Occasional flashes of Byron do come through, that magnificent pagan! He did become a sadistic, soulless, stupid fiend when in fact he was neither stupid nor soulless. Shows what can happen.

    I feel in Byron lies the secret of the world’s malaise. Must steal him for Lord Noone. When he broke bottles on the ceiling of the room below his wife accouchement I was his forever. It’s the Bad Boy Problem.

    Lindles came in and asked, “What’s that?”
    “I said, “Writer’s practice book”.
    “Are you writing about me?”
    “I am now!”

    Fri. 27 Oct 67
    Stunning day, warm for the end of Oct. I ought to be
    a) Sitting in my tree; or
    b) Fast asleep;
    c) Reading a ridiculously romantic novel and loving every minute of it

    Instead here I am in 214 with have a red sign on my door so I can read and eat brownies in peace and quiet. Take 3 aspirin; make a pot of Imperial Gunpowder. I am Insanely Happy. There is a man-made pond about thirty yards away – I could sit here forever just watching the cows come to drink. Who knows what the future holds? At this very moment the Lord of the Manor’s son may spy me through his telescope and say, “Who IS that girl! I like the cut of her jib!”

    Possibly dementia has set in. I promise to start work in JUST ONE MOMENT; first I must arrange clipboard, pens, pencils, Kleenex, script, all effluvia pertaining to my role. Also Master Gwill’s book on Method Acting. And an article on cinema verité stuffed into my mailbox by some kind hand.

    Tomorrow: the City of Brotherly Love. Last year I enjoyed the Annual Meeting very much; wagering with my sister about the storms raging beneath the participants’ mute and painted masks.

    Sun. 29 Oct 67
    Just saw Paul Newman in Hud. Don’t think it proves anything we didn’t know before. PN sexy, certainly, in an undershirt. It must be awfully exhausting to continually play alcoholics! Note: women do NOT want someone to rip their dresses off, unless it’s under laboratory conditions with us running the experiment.

    Beales used to say loneliness was being by yourself and having a plane pass overhead. I LOVE imagining the lives of others when they don’t know you’re looking in – don’t even know you exist. I’m quite a peeper as I drive thru the townhouse sections of Phila. Trying to write a poem about a man I saw wearing a blue turtleneck and standing under a Tiffany lamp. He was doing something with his hands – tearing up letters, I imagined.

    Casey asked me if I wanted to know why didn’t I ring the doorbell? Because that would WRECK it, I said. She said, “You have a lot of inhibitions.” Taking her to my tree this afternoon to see if she can climb it. We’ll see who has inhibitions.

    Casey and I stalk the streets of Phila in matching wool dresses, tights & hair bows. Tea with folks NOT FUN – they don’t like Casey and show it. They would like to believe everything bad about me is caused by Someone Else. (I’m sure Casey’s mother wishes to believe the same.) Homecoming magical, however. Love the pauses, the stares the silences. We did not talk about Dan!

    Mon. 30 Oct 67
    Just couldn’t manage Too Late In the Year – turned my poem into a story. I need to tell a story! I’ve got a first draft. Oddest sense when I’m writing that I’m telling my own future. You’d think I’d make it sparkly and happy like Casey’s stories but no – they end dreadfully – I can’t help myself. It’s Bluebeard’s wife, creeping along the corridor touching all the doorknobs. If she doesn’t open them she won’t really know. But of course, she does know. “Sus-tension.” That is what I’m looking for.

    Halloween 1967 (Tuesday)
    You dear battered, war-scarred, dog-eared book: I love you so! I know I must have delusions of grandeur refusing to destroy any of these books I have written. Containing plenty of things I’m ashamed of! As I look through this particular book it seems far more comprehensible than the fifteen or so volumes that preceded it. Yet I could not possibly destroy these tear-stained annals, much as I would like to. They are as embarrassing as a friend who heard all the confidences of a long dead love affair yet remains certain of her welcome.

    Not only journals but also stories, fantasies and ghastly, ghastly poems – each contain a seed that may someday sprout. Shall I someday sit at my desk, cynically accomplished yet utterly without ideas and chance upon one of these barely sane mementoes?

    Asked Miss Cluny what she thought of Too Late in the Year. She said she read it twice over before going to sleep and “wants to discuss every word with me.” I must have blanched because she said, “Not to cut it up.” So she must have liked it.

    Fifteen bucks for senior pictures! Sounds like highway robbery but I got the parents on the line.
    “Your father sends his love,” chirruped Mother, while I chomped hard on my cigar and said, “Hold the love and send the cash, sweetheart.”

    Aynsley wants to room with Lindles and I want to room with Casey – everyone would be happy but little Hitler – Aka Miss Womrath – is giving us trouble. She thinks it is Very Bad for us Ever to get what we Want.

    Wed. 1 Nov 67
    Here I sit in Senior Play Rehearsal (Under Milkwood) bored to shriek point.
    Served ½ my deten this AM sweeping out the lakehouse & scrubbing canoes. Then ran around the lake (because why not?)

    I am failing to get the measure of Mrs. Ogmore-Pritchard and wish I was a narrator like Toss Sheffield (Second Voice.) Master Gwill says he will work with me third period – ugh. I want to be very Freudian and invent something to account for her super-cleanliness but doubt if he’ll approve. I want to make it the grandfather’s and NOT the mother’s fault the way it usually is.


    Halfway through Nicholas & Alexandra; so replete with echoes of sights seen & persons known I feel like I lived it myself. Nobody knew what was coming but they should have (Fr revolution.) Next will read Grand-Duchess Marie’s Education of a Princess. Translated from the Danish, I assume? Or would it be French at the end of her life?


    Matt Romer just mounted the podium and delivered the most asinine speech about Taking the Play Seriously. That’s not the problem – the problem is stage fright. Half the class can’t get word out.

    Have a disturbance detention – means I have to study downstairs in Collection – a frozen, brilliantly lit chamber littered with desks designed for pygmy mutants. Just as well – have a paper to write on The Great Rehearsal and I haven’t started it yet.

    Here goes Matt with his Irish accent! Let’s just hope there are no Irish (or Welsh) people in the audience.

    Master Gwill is taking Casey & Jack B., me & Matt to see Bonnie & Clyde! After reading Pauline Kael’s in the New Yorker I am so excited! (I like her a lot better than Bosley Crowther who relentlessly seizes the obvious.)

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Friday 6 Oct 67


    My personal feeling about novels, poems & plays is you get out of them who you are. They are mirrors. Alas at this institution Art is seized as a Chance to Indoctrinate the Faithless in Someone Else’s Opinion. Which if you don’t regurgitate on test you get a “Z” and are sent to: “The Principal for Punishment. The Whole Class Will Remain Three Hours After School…Silence!” (Miss Goggins.) I guess Kafka (who lived at HOME and worked in insurance) knew what he was talking about.

    Mon 9 Oct 67
    “It’s really true that nothing matters…in coconut grove.”
    Any coconut groves left in this weary world? My usual answer to depression is to plunge myself into reading – psychoanalysis this time – Jung & Freud.

    Much more satisfying than poor Swinburne with his roster of pain& struggle. Novel I’m currently writing, To Die at Noone currently retitled As I Weave My Winding Sheet.

    Tues. 10 Oct 67
    I am going insane but I still don’t know whether I’m doing it on purpose or not. The thing I hate about insanity is its implication of weakness. Maybe it’s just my plan to get out of this place and be allowed to go home. I must be strong. I wouldn’t submit myself to Freud – I can’t imagine sharing the planet with any being who really knew me. Poor foolish girl with delusions of grandeur…

    Depression can be so subtle you don’t know it’s over until it’s gone. Currently lying in bed allowing its waves to wash over me. Every one of my nerves has a thousand split ends. Someone dropped books in the hall in front of me and I just stood there and screamed. Wept in the most degrading fashion in front of an ever-enlarging series of sympathetic fossils. Pre-menstrual distress was decided upon. Miss Beeston offered sleeping pills!!! Didn’t accept – who knows what she would do to me once I was in a helpless condition. She’s the one rumored to have murdered her lover with a javelin during the 1936 Olympics. Miss Cluny offered psychiatric help (also refused.)

    Master Gwill did one good and one bad thing today. He gave me a B+ on a paper I personally thought was trashy (Bad) and told me my writing showed “maturity”. (Good. There’s a new one.) As I Weave getting increasingly amaranthine soon to break down utterly. Alas. Simply don’t know how to manage transitions. Yet.

    Still hoping to date (I never learn.) Don’t want to be alone forever. Aynsley and I not getting along very well – she’s going through a bad period too. It’s Quits Again with Mr. Handsome. Plus she finds my insomnia very hard to handle (I don’t like it either.) Climbed a tree the night of the Fall Dance (I had to get away from Simon somehow) and fell in love with a voice I heard up there. Don’t know who it was. I was very nice at the dance. (I even danced with Scooter Obie!)

    Midnight, Fri 13 Oct 67
    If this is unreadable do not blame poor Little Me. Drank coffee till my hands jazzed. Tues. night was an all time depression low. From that point one can only rise. Reading Freud’s life by Ernest Jones has given me “neurasthenia”. Split completely into two personae, one speaking and one pretending to listen. Master Gwill took one of us aside (but which one?) and told us not to waste our talents and wither away. We looked at him owl-eyed.

    He told me to put on a “one woman show”. I don’t want to do THAT but it does suggest an Escape Route. Senior project at a Phila. Theatre would give me two weeks off! Must investigate.

    Strange letter from Dan including one ticket to The Homecoming! Hmm…if I went who would I meet there? I sent him a cold letter saying you broke up with ME and demanding the other ticket.

    Then called Mom all excited that I might be living at Pewter Hill during Senior Project I got a tart lecture about Changing My Ways and Not Roaming the Halls At Night. (But I’ll have my own floor!)

    Came a cropper with Aynsley too who wants to “clean together”. Ugh! It is bad enough doing it all without someone watching me! (We already have white glove inspections!) How will I make it to June? I was hoping to get TB but it looks like that’s not going to happen. Uh oh, burned my finger with an illegal candle and serve me right.

    Sun 15 Oct 67
    Cured myself with a meal per to Philly where Casey and I saw Pinter’s magnificent Accident! Bogarde, Seyrig, York, Knox. What can I say! We were both overcome! Every scene was a mini-movie – the abandoned dining table. The broken car. Remaining in memory forever.


    Master Gwill brought me a pile of theatre books. Yay! Realized even though I am not happy there is no reason to be depressed. Dinner with Casey at the Nichols’ (pizza) where she is babysitting.

    11:40 PM
    Weird phone calls from “IBM Computer Research.” Both Aynsley and I talked to them till we got angry. Fishy. Suspect Dan’s roommates.

    Mon. 16 Oct 67
    3 gory chapters of Amos in Bible. Ripped up pregnant women, disturbed bones & general acts of O.T. vandalism. Feeling annoyed that this is presented to us as “philosophy”. Wrote my Bible paper on “Freedom & Discipline” about psychoanalysis and submitted it with considerable relish. Ha! We’ll see what he has to say about that!


    Enjoying NY Times Book Review about Games People Play. Agreeing with Dr. Berne about behaviorism. Freud says “personal fulfillment” as a goal is naïve.

    Try to talk about theatre with Master Gwill. He is rather slick and shallow and trying to maneuver me into a “liberal arts college” because “it is a very good thing.” Feel I’m being “indulged” so I can be “managed.” But he has the good idea of starting a hobby called Actors Seminar. I promised him I’d join.

    Dan called me at lunch at his most pathetic. Promised to send the other ticket. Who would I go with? I said Casey, wouldn’t that be appropriate? His ex-girlfriends out for the evening together! He said only if we talk about him. I said that’s guaranteed. Hung up the phone to Dropped Jaws on Girls’ End. Am I a monster or a role model? Thoughts are divided – it is neck and neck with disapproval having a SLIGHT edge. Just the way I like it.

    Reed and I teamed up in English together. I continually underestimate that boy but I think he underestimates himself. I was so afraid he’d sneer at my poetic talents but he performed my dialog with respect (he has yet to write his own.) And it’s about him! Still, he refuses to join Actors Seminar. We tried walking out of class together but we were out of step. Invited him to tea with my parents Parents Day if his aren’t coming. He says, “I hate tea.”

    I said, “Now I remember.”
    He said, “You think it’s the cure for everything.”
    I said, “It is.”
    He said, “To each his own escape…” Uh oh.
    Is that a yes or no?

    A Good Acting Exercise for Actors Seminar would be…
    a) show you love someone without speaking or touching them.
    b) Same; someone you’re uncomfortable with


    Here’s my dialog:
    Girl: Persecuted recluse who likes to be nice to everyone in hopes of making friends. Plaintive.
    Boy: Young rebel caught up in the novelty of rebellion.
    Scene: The Varsity Hockey Field on Friday night. Girl’s attention drawn to Boy who is running around field whistling.
    G; Who’s that?
    B: What?
    G: Who are you, swooping around like that?
    B: It’s really fun. You should try it.
    G: Yes, but who are you?
    B: It’s only Clarence.
    G: Clarence do you feel all right?
    B: Yes.
    G: Then why are you swooping like that?
    B: Don’t call it swooping. Swooping is a coarse word.
    G: Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just the word that came to mind.
    B: If I don’t swoop it makes my head ache strangely.
    G: Maybe you should go to the infirmary.
    B: They can do nothing for me there.
    G: Oh well, then, I’ll leave you to you –
    B: Please don’t. Isn’t the moon wild tonight?
    G: You should see the lake! It looks like silver punch bowl of grape juice! And then when the moon went behind a cloud it looked like – I can’t remember what else it looked like. It was only seconds ago and yet I can’t remember.
    B: Maybe I should go look.
    G: No, it wouldn’t work.
    B: Why shouldn’t I look? I’ll go if you want.
    G: I’d rather swoop.
    (They swoop for a while.)
    G: I guess I just don’t have the technique.
    B: You look funny.
    G: Let’s go to the lake!
    B: No, it’s probably all gone by now.
    G: How could it be?
    B: Well, the part I didn’t tell you…
    G: Are you drunk?
    B: Have you ever seen a drunk person walk this straight?
    G: No.
    (They walk awhile.)
    G: I don’t feel right. It’s like we’re on different wavelengths.
    B: Or planets.
    G: You don’t seem all there.
    B: Is anybody all there? Don’t you find this place emotionally stifling? Every once in awhile you’ve just got to get away.
    G: I go for a lot of walks but I still feel chained down.
    B: Yeah, I know what you mean.
    G: I wish we could go to the top of the hill and just take off.
    B: Fly away! Yeah, yeah!
    G: I’m so glad you understand me.
    B: Isn’t it a groove?
    G: I’ve been looking all my life for someone to understand me.
    B: This is like The Early Show. I just want to have fun. I’m not one who wants to go around understanding people. This whole evening is starting to feel like a bad trip. I’ll take an 8×12 cell to a neurotic girl any day.
    (Girl bursts into tears.) END

    Wed 18 Oct 67
    Devouring Freud voraciously. I am on the last chapter. Now to The Interpretation of Dreams which I won’t rest until I read.


    I had a dream myself last night. It was more of a nightmare. I was at a party wearing my RA t-shirt talking loudly about how much I hated Robin and how I never wanted to see him again. So when he emerged from the crowd I was frightened! He had a skull like death – his eyes were black pits – he was garishly made up with lots of rouge on his yellow-powdered face. His hair seemed stiff and dyed – I was terrified but I didn’t want to take back what I’d said. I backed right up into a closet – the last thing I saw was his arrestingly ugly face. He never spoke, touched me or changed expression – he was like a wax figure in a horror museum. The closet was very small with sliding doors like I used to have in my room at Brockton. Genevieve wrote “Alysse is a nothing” inside it for lack of a better insult.

    I know the dream went on and on but I forget it at that point.

    Interesting about closets! We played a lot of games in that closet and my memory – the smell of the wood, the shoes, etc – was perfect. I used to read The, Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in there just in case…The dream reawakened the small and I can smell it right now.

    According to Freud dreams are wish fulfillment. I don’t think so.

    DREAM OF FREUD’S WOLFMAN

    The window opens of its own accord.
    He’s catapulted forward; waked.
    Outside, the walnut tree is hung with wolves
    Each to its branch; they watch him

    Blankly. Stillness has its
    Consequence. They are fat
    As lambs ready for castration; round
    As dogs; white as mother’s underdrawers.


    Such tails! Thick tails
    Perked and listening!
    Blue snow rumples up the bedclothes; stiffens
    Into plaster. This sky leads nowhere.


    The child’s eyes are frozen like the window
    They do not close; this tree
    Is butchered at the crown; it will
    Not grow.


    The wind that frosts the room is welcome
    Stirring like a scream and like a scream
    It alters what it sees.
    The wolves levitate.


    What they know the child
    Must discover.


    By the way, now that I know what neurasthenia is, give me depression any day. Speaking of Freud Casey says Genevieve “resents” our mother. Like Electra! Must confess I love Mom a little more than Dad. Genevieve has always been the opposite.

    Sat on the hearth in Dr. Gilmour’s East Room seminar, wild rain lashing and thrashing outside, my back to the dying fire, wearing one of my Scottish knit wool dresses, dreaming I was a little girl again wearing a white nightgown with Princess Alysse embroidered on the shoulder, when who should appear but Reed, wet from the rain, his skin glowing. Gave him my place. Have I wronged that boy? Everyone thinks so.

    “Do I keep falling in love just for the kick of it,
    Stammering through the thin and the thick of it
    Hating each old, tired trick of it
    Know what I am? I’m good and sick of it!” (Sweet Charity.)

    Senior pictures a frightful mistake. I really need someone else’s, but whose? Jean Harlow, by choice.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Wed 20 Sept 67


    There are people in the world who think I have potential. Dan, for one. I was so grateful to him for the good things he said I almost cried. He called me last night during dinner and I was glad to hear from him, wondering what he did when he was here (I took a sleepover.) Said he visited Master Gwill and they discussed ME. Master Gwill says the reason people think I’m not honest is that I’m so honest! Thank you very much! Usually I can’t be bothered to lie – it makes me feel they’ve won. (Using Artful Measures usually fails dismally anyway.)

    Dan says his sister Janie disapproves of our dating. (Of course she does – she rooms with Marnie.)

    I love love LOVE George Bernard Shaw such a charming, reasonable man. His preface to St Joan is so delightful! Are there any other dramatists skilled at the expository style?

    Fri 22 Sept 67
    Why spoil love by turning it into Valhalla? Valhalla is for dead people. Every time a magazine article appears about Sick Sex Morals of Today’s Youth there’s an answering barrage of letters from housewives who are so Sorry for us for “giving up” the Sacred Night of Love with your Eternal, Glorious, God-Mandated Virginal Husband. It bothers me that they don’t realize calling your wedding day “the happiest day of your life” sounds more like a sentence than a reward. It’s all downhill after that is hardly a recommendation!

    I’ve got enough rules thank you very much. “I can’t send him a KOB till he sends me one” I can’t ask him till he asks me” I can’t kiss him till he kisses me” and I CERTAINLY can’t say I love him until he says he loves me! I don’t blame the senior boys for their rage over this mess, the problem is, inertia’s not an answer.

    Dan called me Thurs the fiftieth time this week. I called him back as “Juanita Devereux” (he says his frat brother think he’s married.) He was VERY depressed. I couldn’t think what else to say when he said nobody cared anything about him, I said I LOVE YOU. The deadest silence. (What an idiot I am.) Finally I asked, “Have you committed suicide?”
    “Did you mean what you just said?”


    Uh oh. I love you, I love my dog – we’re both grasping at straws here. I tried telling him that the wonderful way he has treated me has made me love him. He’s very lovable. ANYBODY WOULD LOVE HIM. I could tell it’s not quite what he wanted to hear.

    In Bible class we discussed what a shock it is to discover there is a world apart from your perceptions. If your perceptions are screwed up YOU COULD BE COMPLETELY WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING. True, too true. But does it MATTER? (Think of Van Gogh.)

    Fri 23 Sept 67
    Dan asked me to sleep with him! He says he has a doctor who will “work” with me. Uh oh. You know I don’t like mixing work & play! Plus I’m scared of pills – read a hideous article in the Ladies Home Journal. On the other hand Liesl Cahill has taken them for her skin for two years and they work great. She always remembers. (She hasn’t had sex though.)

    I told him so far I like the idea of foam. Supposedly 100% effective if you use it every time! Dan said it would be like “screwing a cream puff.” Is that so bad?

    I could do worse than Dan and I know it. He is gentle, he has experience, he is insanely in love with me. Unfortunately the whole Casey thing still bothers me. And I wouldn’t be able to date here. I’d be “taken”. And we wouldn’t even be seeing each other all that much! There’s just an aura of doom hovering over the whole thing. Frankly I was hoping for something different. I don’t like the thought of being punctured like a beer can. I’m so afraid I will “belong” to him I some irritatingly final way.

    We talked to one am and he asked what I was wearing. Blue and white striped nightshirt, pieds nu – and you?

    Only a pair of levis. Aaahh…bare chested. (He has a very nice chest.) God men’s chests are beautiful. When I am not around him though I feel shivers of ice cold doubt. Is it because I’m afraid he could “get” to me? That I couldn’t stay free? Don’t know. Dithering. I am afraid of revealing myself. I find myself very unwilling to go to his college. Now why’s that? I don’t want to experience it as “a girlfriend”. What if I am attracted by his roommates? (I can hear them laughing in the background when he’s on the phone.)

    Senior Pictures – attempting to maintain a Spiritual Expression forty-five seconds at a time is foul.

    Senior Class Party a cattle market. Wore the gold wool dress that matches my hair. We inspect each other for weapons & wounds. Reed asked me to dance! I said sure! He danced poorly but with great concentration. I kept up a smile rictus the whole time but we were both glad it was over. Whew! Danced with Ed, Chip and the rosy-cheeked English exchange student Rob Severn who said he DISLIKED the Doors! Who could dislike Light My Fire? It’s like hating Shakespeare – our Shakespeare.


    Danced with Reed one more time which I thought was unbelievably brave (he must be high.) He clearly hated the whole thing. He and Marnie cast weird looks at each other like they’d cooked something up together but maybe I’m hypersensitive. I hope he thinks of the good times we had.

    Casey cornered me on the Senior Stairs demanding to know how far Dan and I have gone. NOWHERE I said. (Didn’t mention his offer.) She tried to get me angry but I was humble. She doesn’t want to hurt me she only wants to hurt herself and I can sympathize. We were interrupted by a cry of Phone Call!

    She said, “It’s probably for you. It’s probably Dan.”

    It was for me. It was Dan. He asked if he’d “pulled me out of a party” (very cute when he’s jealous) I said I was talking to Casey. He said, “Christ!”

    I’d just seen Dial M for Murder the 2nd time – such a lovely movie! How I love the glitter in Ray Milland’s eyes, the velvet in his voice! Talked to Dan about it. I think Hitchcock’s my favorite. Don’t like Psycho that much but Vertigo and Rear Window are fabulous.

    He was depressed again. Cheered him up by singing “Willst du mit mir schlaffen, schlaffen” to the music of Jacob’s Ladder. (But my German is bad so then I have to sing, “Soldiers of the Lord.”) He laughed.

    He said one nice thing. His roommates asked what I was like and he said, “Very, very, beautiful.” Aaahh… Way to a girl’s heart.

    I told him I would probably sleep with him “eventually”. It gave me such pleasure to say it. We can’t do it tomorrow or in NY so I have plenty of time to chicken out.

    1:00 AM
    I hug myself as I prowl the cold dark halls. Took two Copes but I don’t think they do anything. Aynsley’s bed is realistically stuffed with an Alibi since she has to be in McKenzie’s room or McKenzie would be alone. Blew through Norah Lofts’ The Concubine. I understand Anne so well – scheme and work for something for years, then undo it in a moment. If I walk enough, I can sleep.

    Mon 25 Sept 67
    Feeling constricted by my Insane Relationship with Dan. Couldn’t I choose a guy who gradated from a DIFFERENT prep school? This one knows everything about Him and me and seemingly by osmosis, Us. No, it isn’t very pretty what a town without pity etc. Freedom and pride, the two main things I’ve always worked for, seem completely absent. No pleasure either. This relationship can’t work because neither of us is willing to be the other’s “love toy.”


    I shouldn’t have told him I love him, it would have been truer to say I need him. Or would that be worse?


    I’d wish I had Casey’s amorality but I don’t want her memories. They torment her.
    Dan and I lay in the grass yesterday and I had to admit I didn’t want him. I didn’t WANT his body covering mine – I wanted to be alone in my bed reading the NY Times! I said, “Sorry, maybe I’m frigid.” Maybe I really am! (Definitely with him.) He said he felt like he’d been kicked in the crotch, lit a cigarette and tried to think. He wanted me to try anyway but No. I have to feel it. C’est moi, c’est tout.

    The truth is we aren’t as comfortable in each other’s presence as we are on the phone. It’s getting creepy now, him hanging around his alma mater. After lunch he talked to Casey half an hour but told me later, “Nothing is solved.”

    He said he’s been too abrupt, he needs to forget his own pain and he would wait for me “forever and ever.” This is NOT what I wanted to hear. I said, “I don’t think we’re right for each other” which was not what HE wanted to hear. Impasse. When he left he said whatever makes me happy makes him happy. Here’s the problem with that: I’m not happy.

    Vespers calculated to “lift me higher” – moody Germanic music. Reed came onstage with his usual purposeful lope. Spoke well – I was surprised. Must have forsworn the Evil Weed. Spoke about the ARTIFICIALITY of the PLUMLY DATING SCENE. He is very dismissive of artificial markers. KOBS are just “pieces of paper.” A grade is just a “piece of paper”. A driver’s license is just a “piece of paper”. A marriage license is…you guessed it. This does not cut much ice with Me, the Archivist! I whirl in paper most days like a gerbil in a nest and I like it that way. I think paper is REALER THAN WE ARE. (Because it outlives us.) So there.

    Dan called Mon, pulling me out of lunch. He always calls at meals, presumably to starve me into thinness. It won’t work – I can eat through nausea, interruptions, anything. I have a hoard of revolting “emergency” sugar cookies in a lockbox beneath my bed. I told him to call me at nine.
    He called me at nine. He just wants to be my friend and love me from a distance and give me things. I should NEVER have told him I loved him but I was wild for affection. Now our relationship is absolutely ruined. I made him promise to stop saying he loves me and stop saying I’m beautiful. Not how friends talk.

    He agreed! Wow! He really must love me. There is no kindness greater than the kindness of someone who eases your fear.

    Sun 1 Oct 67
    Revolution in the soul. The hurt we inflict on others is our own hurt, caused by our chains. Girls have been taught to make themselves as attractive as a dinner or a piece of jewelry and the number of broken men grasping after them is a mark of success. I can no longer look at fashion magazines. Glamour sickens me. Our souls are in rags. Feeling horribly guilty about Dan but I can’t imagine how to fix it. Angry that a perfectly healthy seventeen year old girl has to torment herself with the demon of frigidity just to make him feel better. (All the guys say I’m “cold’.)


    Poor Genevieve! Mom gave me her ruthless scorching letter in which she accused Mom & Dad of being “schizophrenic”. (She’s studying psychology at school.) I agreed with Mom that a daughter shouldn’t talk to her mother that way (it sounded like she was writing a paper) on the other hand Mom shouldn’t be showing it to ME! And they do want two PERFECTLY IMPOSSIBLE things from us. For instance I can’t get over the notion that Mom wants me to fail in order to prove herself right. (She says I go about everything the exactly wrong way. But if you want to run your own life what other way is there? Her argument seems to be shut down your brain and let others take over!

    Dan and I were in the train station Sat night surrounded by other couples. I felt you could judge the “success” of each of their dates simply by looking at them. Variations on hope & distance – trying to “feel together”. Bloody hard. Feel I’ll never have “a date” again. My mind will be rushing to “the ending”. How can I flirt and show myself off? I will be like a crone from a Depression era play moaning, Doom, doom! I don’t want reality any more!

    Reed in the infirmary. When I went down to have my TB shot checked I asked if I could say “hi” the nurse agreed but said darkly, “Be quick about it. And no carrying on!” She then said he NEEDS a visitor because he keeps his eyes shut and his lights off.

    I knocked on his door in case he was sleeping and he said, “Yes”.
    He has such a nice voice.


    “May I come in?”
    Didn’t identify myself.

    He looked so young and pathetic with his hair messed up wearing a hospital gown.

    I sat down on the other bed so nervous I was speechless. Kept remembering that horrible scene win the library with Shawn which answers the question YES you CAN make things worse!
    I ran my fingers over his guitar wishing I had the nerve to ask him to play. Asked if he was getting poetry out of this experience, he said he hadn’t thought about it. He was very polite – I was relieved – Shawn is a skilled cross-examiner and Reed is not. He is more natural. I said we were all worried about him. He thanked me for coming.

    I left feeling confident that he is not my enemy. Shawn on the other hand…


    Had to wait a whole hour for Dan at the 69th st. station but I had a book. Then we immediately went shopping. It is sad, I feel no desire for him at all. Where did it go? We both want to know.
    He bought champagne and cognac so he can make French 75s back at Villanova. Then said he wanted to go to the book dept where he was embarrassed to have me see him buying a book Mixing Drinks. He is shamed by not knowing everything! I say we don’t have to bother memorizing things if we have enough books!

    Arrived at the Penn St house 4 pm, Mom forgot to leave a key but the landlady was in. I made us bacon & eggs and tea with oranges, then left him downstairs with a magazine while I took a long, glorious bath. DID NOT WANT TO GET OUT OF THAT BATHTUB.


    Dressed in my “Thanksgiving dress” might as well – he might not get another chance to see it. Called Aynsley to see if my shike had gone as planned – she signed me in & out without a hitch. (She spent the whole day shiking in Media!)

    Dan and I took the train into Philly and saw Privilege. I love cinema verité! The principal actors were not extraordinary but the supporting cast was outstanding! “Britain in the Near Future” only 5 yrs from now! Not just possible but realistic.

    After the movie, dancing at the Trauma. Dan was so depressed I am starting to get irritated with him. People were packed in tight to hear the Youngbloods but Mandrake Memorial played first. I remembered them from Junior Wells days! They weren’t as bad as I recalled. Jesse Colin Young is electrifying! He has such a mellow, sleepy, hypnotic voice. I fell in love with him right there (I’m afraid Dan could tell.) “I hope he won’t look at you twice” he said nervously. (We were right up front.) They are as good as the Blues Project. But there were really too many people and we had to leave. I was getting claustrophobia from having Dan’s hands all over me.

    On the way home we talked it out well. Somehow I dredged up the courage to tell him I’m just not ready in my life. I didn’t say something about his life is putting me off because what good would that do? But he insisted on spending the night with me in the other twin bed.
    Very chaste! He still wanted to talk but I drank a glass of water and fell asleep immediately.
    The alarm woke us at 4:30. I pretended to be asleep in the subway so I wouldn’t have to make conversation. He liked having my head on his shoulder.

    At 69th street he didn’t expect me to kiss him so just a hurried goodbye. Brrr! Walking from Milltown to Plumly at 7:15 AM on a Sunday morning is a glorious experience! Birds singing, etc. I was on time for chapel. Noticed Reed was out of the infirmary. I gave a reading saying it is not the POINT that matters but the pursuit of the point while Miss Beeston nodded her head uncontrollably (she “agrees” with everything now.) Down to the Crypt to pick up my NY Times. Then slept the light week of the wicked. “We are but a moment’s sunlight, fading on the grass…”

    11:25 PM Wed 4 Oct 67
    Lonely. It’s feast or famine around here and what food there is, is none too good. Waves of contempt from Shawn & Reed whenever I run into them. But Ted, Kip and new student from Kenya Bob Burke being very nice to me.

    Aynsley HATES when I keep the lights on (and candles are illegal) so I’m under the covers with a flashlight again. I die for sleep all day then when night comes I could not be more awake.
    In two months I will be 18 – an adult. Called Mom last night (because I can’t call Dan) and said Cheer me up. (Dan called Casey to tell her to tell me not to call him any more! How you can misjudge people!) Mom didn’t do a very good job (she wants to hear my “plans”) but I was able to disguise my tears. I seem to have reached a jumping off place in my life. One shouldn’t have to apologize for change as if it was a weakness.


    Casey and I in detention together because we went for a walk bra-less to the lake! How we wanted to penetrate that smooth dark mirror! So we did…after a few moments in became quite warm. Then we lay on the dock with our soaking hair. Even shivers were welcome!


    When I got back a KOB from Simon Matthews asking me to Fall Dance. It’s imperative that I accept or I’m sunk around here. He’s in the Kobler-Hambro clique! So at least he has the ability to think for himself. He seems nice enough but I wish I could do the choosing. I wonder I it’s because I nominated him to be School Day Art Teacher (he’s good at art.) He got it too.


    Got a letter from Dan saying the exact reverse of what he said in his phone call to Casey – that he is getting tickets to The Homecoming (Pinter) because he knows I want to see it so much!
    So I don’t know what to do. I DO want to see it so much!

    “Je suis allé au marché aux a la feraille
    Et j’ai acheté des chaînes, les chaînes pour toi…”

    A weird sick letter from Robin! Says he will write again when he gets out of the Navy! Oh, please spare me his militarized self!

    Feel like maybe now I could sing myself to sleep… “I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in and keeps my mind from wandering…where it will go…” with my luck if I fall asleep there will be a fire drill.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Plumly School, Thurs. 14 Sept 67


    Some damn bell went off at 6:55 and I propped open my frozen eyes stuck fast with wedding cake. Having a horrible sex dream about George Hamilton. Who was I really dreaming about?

    “L’ombre parmi les ombres,
    D’être cent fois plus ombre que l’ombre
    D’être l’ombre qui viendra et reviendra…”

    Just like old times staggering to the Tower and standing in line for a washbasin. This being a senior business hasn’t helped me so far. Feel as if I’ve been here for 400 years. If I had a diamond I’d scratch on the window: Quoth Alysse, ye Prisonniere” but the best I’ve got is an amethyst.

    Come to think of it I could use my record needle. This is what geology teaches. Admit I enjoy senior stairs & bench in chapel.

    Dressed in old clothes – everyone wearing new so I couldn’t possibly outclass them. Best approach is build up slowly. New black tweed dress a bit too classy for ordinary day plus the skirt will give Miss Womrath her well-deserved heart attack. Seems only Christian to toughen the old bird up slowly before we spring the scary stuff.

    Miss Beeston wearing a LITERAL BEEHIVE (there’s something living in there) gave Collection but I forgot about my New Leaf and did not listen. I am sitting at Mrs. Kurtz’s table, which is very sad. She is the one who uses conversation cards and says We Must Hold Up Our End. Why, oh why? How can an eight-person dining table have so many ends? Can’t we take turns napping?
    Right after Grace I thundered over to the coffee table for the Mississippi Mud that is due me. It isn’t good but we have to pretend – “holding up our end” for the wide-eyed freshman who think we are all hard-drinking sluts. (Hope we are.)

    2nd cup of coffee who should I slam into but Reed! He is taller and much better looking. I could tell he knew it was me by the way his neck froze. I said Hi, he mumbled good morning and staggered away. He’s probably on drugs; that was always his Senior Plan. He’s doing his thesis on Aldous Huxley.

    Saw my little bro last night but little sis has yet to make an appearance. Probably slashed her wrists when she discovered her family’s plans to inter her here. And who can blame her? It’s true the place is co-ed but the only thing worse than dating is not dating. All part of their clever plan to break our spirit. Sent my little bro a KOB full of cryptic quotes for him to puzzle over.
    Aynsley & I had fun arranging our room. Looks less bad with tie-dyed bedspreads & Doors & Byrds posters. To everything there is a season…
    Little sis showed up, I gave her a door sign with a big wicker fan chair saying “Meet Maris Wicker” on it. Seems a good kid. She is very musical.

    Shawn said he had a great summer “spiritually.” Seems ominous. Dan is now saying he is in love with me, probably to keep me from dating. This is all my fault for playing footsie with him under the table when he had dinner at our house. His roommate asked him, “How much have you gotten?”

    “Nothing.”

    “Nothing! And you’re snowed already!”

    Junior Wells did the exact same show he did in Boston. At least he’s good to dance to.
    Prospects? Only Kip’s face lights up when I sit beside him on Senior Bench.

    Last night saw A Man and a Woman with Aynsley, her sister and her sister’s husband. It was just terrific! Music really gets under your skin!

    “Samba without sadness is a wine that can’t get you drunk,” says Pierre Barouh.

    Coffee afterwards with grads from Claudia’s year who have joined a cult called The Temple! They are sadly changed but think they are improved. I think if you look and act like you’ve had a lobotomy it is guaranteed not a good spiritual experience. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with Shawn. Must ask.

    Sat. 16 Sept 67
    Dr. Gilmour handed out axioms in philosophy and asked if they were true or false. Biff Withers & I are the only ones who said “true” to THE LAWS OF NATURE GOVERN EVERYTHING. I argued humans are “natural” ergo everything we think & do is “natural.” If there were Martians, they would be “natural” too. Screams all around. Dan says he is planning to sleep with me. I’m thinking about it. Aynsley says senior boys are Not Dating so I could be desperate. But things are getting a bit sticky with Casey, who should be “done” with Dan and also not caring because we haven’t technically “done” anything. She insists she doesn’t “want” him any more but she also insults my pride by saying he is only doing this because of her. To get back at her, I guess and I am too irritated to argue because anything I could say would only make things worse. I quote the Stones “Just tryin’ to make a connection” but she is not impressed.

    Dan, Dan, Dan, what am I going to do about you? It’s nice having someone “care” even if they are far away. But…he sent me a bottle of 4711 and a Racing America t-shirt. I like good presents a lot more than Playboy cards or letters where he talks about what an “ideal couple” we will be the “great novelist and the great actress.” What if I want to write novels? I don’t like being typecast!

    Speaking of connections I keep running into Shawn but I am waiting for him to make the first move (or I am guaranteed to disgrace myself.) Last night we had a Square Dance in the New Gym. Scavenger hunts (which we usually have) are more fun but I went anyway and lo and behold who should be there but Shawn. Reed looked in wearing his green plaid lumberjack coat – then left. (Trying not to be insulted.) Shawn was administering the ice cream table and I helped him, fantasizing about a pleasant, emotionally uninvolved yet friendly year. He tried to talk to me but faculty members kept coming up – it just wasn’t a good scene. Still I didn’t like his “air”. Felt repressive. He COULD send me a KOB and he hasn’t so I should read the writing on the wall and slip away. Stuck with Kip whose deep doggy eyes scare me. He is very smart; tall enough, a little on the thin side, handsome, blond – it ought to be cool. But there is a weirdness about him I feel screams “danger.” Could be I am seeing the reflection of my own weirdness in his eyes! Aren’t we in trouble then!

    Constant interruptions from underclassmen bringing in their door signs for my signature – making this hard to write. Think authors should remain unknown.

    Also spent all morning taking “Gramm’s tests” I think they are called which are horrendous “right answer” tests where you have to display, among other things, your knowledge of “correct” tennis court construction! This literally makes me foam at the mouth. It has nothing whatever to do with intelligence and really tests how meek, unquestioning and malleable you are. Shudder. Aynsley tells me not to get hysterical, give them what they want. If I gave them what they want would I be virgo intacta after all these months?

    Moving letter from Merrill about Mom, very wise and forgiving. She sets such high standards for herself, if we fall short she blames herself. Then why is she mean to us? Feels babyish to me but I get that Merrill is being understanding and generous. The more you love someone the more you want to struggle with them in my experience. Being “forgiven” is totally the kiss of death.

    Reading Kafka’s The Castle. Mann calls him a “religious humorist” which seems all wrong to me. This is a bureaucracy allegory.

    It’s now 2:30 and we seniors must rehearse our skit for Camp Suppers this evening. We are doing Ali Baba and the 40 thieves. Aujourd’hui c’est toi.

    Poem from Dan-

    Words Are Such Liars
    Sitting on the roof
    The other night
    wind ruffled my memories
    made my eyes wet.
    Trying to write a poem
    Definition destroys delight.
    Could speech ease the pressing thing within me
    Bridge the distance
    Or should I bribe the silent future
    Touch your silken skin & hair?

    This is the poem that made Casey cry. I tried to tell her one cannot feel
    complimented by a very bad poem.

    Sun 17 Sept 67 – 11 PM
    Definitely one of the worst days of my life. A sick, sad, whipped feeling. Feel like I may “give in” to Dan and say I love him if he wants me to say it. Evicted from tennis. Heard that “trying to be friendly” with Reed means “I want him back”. Says everyone. I can’t totally deny it. Do I? Depends how he acts! On everything! People being real for two seconds at a time!
    Sat night I sent him his Blues Project record back with short KOB.

    “You can call me from a snow white, starlit stairway
    I may hear and not be far away at all
    But the sounds of our winter’s love at night time
    They have vanished…they have silenced…” (Steve’s song)

    In chapel I sat directly across from Shawn on the Facing Bench. He looked so smugly beautiful, so big, magnificent and male. He has a perfect profile. Raincoat over pajamas, I sat muttering in my own filth. Picking my face. Boredom like an anguish. Back at the dorm Dan calls, tried to make me jealous with all the girls he took out this weekend, want to come next weekend. Here! I babbled that would be way too hard for me. Blaming Casey would be the easy way out. I don’t know what to do. I’ll have to take a sleepover.

    Read Blues for Mister Charlie. It ripped me up inside but we can’t perform it – write a “white” version? Possibly.

    Realized I am not a leader. Listening to them babble about rules and administration at senior play meeting in the library I see why Shawn and I can’t converse. I even hate team sports, so my loathing of the group dynamic runs deep. I used to be a Transcendentalist but now I think I am an anarchist. Shawn wanted to talk afterwards. I asked why he’s avoiding me! Said he’d met a girl this summer who showed how superficial our relationship had been! I flinch when he and Reed use exactly the same words about me!!! I know they’ve been talking!!! I asked him if a man feels like a success to himself but everyone else thinks he’s a failure, what is he?

    Shawn says “a success.”


    But if a girl thinks she’s not a bitch and everyone else thinks she is…


    “She’s a bitch.” He says.


    I cry unfair! Said I was sorry for the impression he has of me but I couldn’t correct it.
    He said, “What impression do I have of you?”

    Fortunately I was crying too hard to even ATTEMPT to answer that question.
    Tonight a “Thank you – buzz off” KOB from Reed!

    I should feel better “having” Dan, says Aynsley. But I don’t “have” him. People don’t have other people (especially me and Dan.) Made myself feel better by buying a Thanksgiving dress from McKenzie. $5. Barely used. Short, black velvet with exotic lace sleeves. Seemed more like “Dan’s dress” than mine; a weird experience of looking at myself from the outside-in – triggered by Shawn’s sarcastic, cruel expression. At least Dan doesn’t mind when I cry around him – if that’s how life makes me feel. Depend on NY Times & tea to right all wrongs.


    Casey talking angrily about me with the other girls. Miss Beeston insists, “You are what you seem.” That can’t be true. I know Thoreau & Emerson are on my side.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Gryphon – Gibson Island, Chesapeake – Sun 20 Aug 67


    Read two books today – Edmundo Desnos Inconsolable Memories and CS Lewis’ Perelandra. I am out of everything I WANT to read and just grimly working my way through the ship’s collection till we get to a bookstore. I’m not used to being a thousand miles from the nearest library. I shouldn’t read so fast but when the books are bad this is what happens.

    Dad and I had a long discussion about it over cocktails on the “ahfta-deck”. Dad says the Desnos book got very good reviews. Frankly, I’m surprised.

    Desnos thinks he is daring when he is merely boring. His lack of thought about Castro is disappointing. His visit to Hemingway’s house should be a short story all by itself. Since the problem is development of ideas and tone, let’s blame the translation. If only they had used Mark Twain’s friend who translated For to Visit a Sick. Oh well. I am too hungry for amusement. I will be forced to write my own book if this keeps up. CS Lewis somewhat better. He can still make my jaw drop with his masterly artistry. I rate it above Screwtape Letters, which had a tendency to turn into a list of Pet Peeves. Unfortunately the plot is ludicrous and the characters incomprehensible. His philosophy is strange. Why hate the stage? He gets upset over people who don’t appreciate romance poetry – it’s the same damn thing. And why isn’t he a pacifist? Why bomb people you can’t see for the benefit of those you don’t know? What if they’re all a bunch of Satanists? Sounds a lot more dangerous spiritually than going to the theatre. When Weston begged for mercy Ransom smashed his face in then prayed for him! I also don’t like this theory that we would all be happy all day long frolicking in a Biblical kindergarten! We want to research and build – CS Lewis above all.

    Waugh also hated pacifists and thought you would get in less trouble killing the wrong people than in refusing to kill at all. Weird.

    66 Phillips St, Beacon Hill, Boston – 2:20 AM Wed 23 Aug 67
    A most comfortable and peaceful morning in Genevieve & Kent’s apt. Genevieve went to sleep already because she has to get to her job at a dept. store candy counter in the city’s poorest section by 11:15 AM.

    Kent and I do no work at all, we loaf around the apt and get into endless, pointless philosophical discussions. We are currently on What Forms the Personality. He maintains the tabula rasa theory – if I was Gen Westmoreland’s daughter I would be a rabid militaristic chauvinist. Oh, so there are no ideas that are more inherently correct than other ideas. Yes, of course there are. So dot dot dot. I draw in constant counter-examples from history – Frederick the Great’s flute playing son – which he can’t refute because he doesn’t know. He’s not used to people putting up this much of an argument apparently.


    Genevieve seems well and happy. Kent is tender, imaginative and appears to care for her deeply. I can’t take “sides” – Mom thinks its hurtful to have a parent-less wedding – so she refused consent – Dad had to give it) and Genevieve thinks Mom treats casual guests better than the “trip” she laid on them that weekend. So who was wrong first? It does seem like parents are the chicken and kids are the eggs – therefore parents should keep what tempers they have.

    I’m now lying on my pullout couch trying to read Romain Gary’s The Ski Bum. I think I understand him too well. Am trying to construct a Gary novel in my head that is more interesting than this one. It would have at least one murder and a lot of Simenonesque interrogations:

    “How did you know he was a boy?”
    “From the way he walked.”
    “You are a very good witness. What was he wearing?”
    “I don’t remember.”

    The sky is just starting to lighten. Discovered that if you step to the end of the hall and lift the screen you can climb right out to the wet roof.

    I seem bothered by a lot of poltergeists, ghosts and flying saucers that never troubled me before. I’m afraid once they get a toehold they’re with you for good. Kent and I are 98% certain we saw a flying saucer over Boston Common. We gave chase it but it departed. (We may have been influenced by just seeing Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines.)

    Her ghost, according to Genevieve, is an earring thief. Well, he could climb that tree and get right in is all I’m saying. I should write about Dan Devereux but I am becoming incoherent. Seems like I’ve seen a lot of sunrises lately. Junior Wells tomorrow night!

    Approx. 1:30 AM Thurs, 31 Aug 67
    I always consider it my fault if a date is not a success but some dates don’t give you much to work with. My date with Dan started out the worst possible way – I missed my train and was an hour late. Had to walk down Penn St to the Queen Lane station in black Vanellis and rust and green chiffon through the worst neighborhood you can possibly think of but nobody did anything worse than catcalling. Then because I’d missed the train had to sit in the station alone! On the Main Line end found Dan peering up the stairwell like a little boy – looking so cute. We played Botticelli in the cab on the way to the restaurant – it was his idea! I was JP Morgan and although he is pretty quick he didn’t get it. So I should like this guy – why don’t I? Is it because he dated Casey? Maybe I know him too well (third hand!) Keep having visions of his & Casey’s elbows & underpants flying!

    The Tony George is a romantic restaurant with excellent food but we were almost alone – nobody came in. I am used to galloping in & out but we sat there at least 2 hours. I had clams, flounder stuffed with crabmeat and 5 cups of coffee. Anxiety poured off Dan – infecting me with its sticky mange – God knows why. Afterwards we walked along the river.


    Finally showed up at the movie – Citizen Kane. I didn’t care for it because I didn’t like Kane. I feel the movie doesn’t want you to like him so ho hum. The sled thing is idiotic like the punch line of an endless shaggy dog story. Afterwards we went to Dan’s townhouse on Society Hill – it was built 1801 and he is very worked up about it as if it was just about to vanish. All I can say is, you can’t buy taste.

    His parents and little sister were in bed. He fixed us both scotches but I said I preferred a gin and tonic.  He said they were out!  I will never get used to scotch. He worships John Coltrane, put on a record, took off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt.  Men look much handsomer partially undressed. He has a very pretty chest.  Then he started lecturing me about how I pick boys with no experience so I can dominate them. (Won’t Aiken be surprised to hear! )

    I said I really don’t know what I’m searching for – I’m young and I’m playing it by ear. Then Dan told me awful things about Reed! Said I almost destroyed him! I said that CAN’T be true and brought up Marnie. No, no, no, says Dan she’s nothing. I’d be flattered if he wasn’t trying to actually make me feel bad. Shawn also supposedly loved me – now that I DON’T believe! Me – galumphing me! Apparently the more boys like a girl the more they try to destroy her . This is giving me a new perspective on things. I am out of patience with being “liked”.

    Dan said I am eminently “watchable”. I explained how I danced all summer and am starting to feel like maybe I can actually do it. He couldn’t believe we cancaned for nuns! Life is strange. He talked me out of catching the 12:30 last train by saying he’d walk me from the all night trolley, got me a pair of his sister’s shirt and jeans and we went out to see the sunrise. (Mom and Dad not home – houseguests only. Why worry?) Rainy and overcast – no sunrise to see! So went to the Melrose Diner where we had steak for breakfast.

    What with the trolley, subway and train situation we didn’t reach Penn St till 10:30 AM and everyone had gone. I made hamburgers for lunch then I sent Dan home, had a boiling hot bath and went to bed.

    He held my hands ONCE and brushed my lips with his ONCE. This has to be part of a game. I wouldn’t expect anyone but you to believe it!! Houseguest Jeff came back – promised NEVER TO TELL – in fact to perjure his soul for me. Pretty sure he doesn’t believe nothing happened. However now Dan can tell everyone he spent the night with me!

    Is 19 hours a “first date” record?

    Mon 4 Sept 67
    Dan’s and my second date began EXACTLY THE SAME WAY. This is the problem between Germantown and the Main Line – the two are meant Never to cross. Lost my contacts and couldn’t find them. Absolutely gone! So I was late.


    Went to a restaurant called Café Lafitte of Drury Lane which I liked MUCH more than the first one. We sat practically in the fireplace! And this restaurant had people. Didn’t even make it to the movie.

    I was surprised by how much I wanted Dan. This dating stuff is definitely thawing me. Also he won’t be at Plumly so it feels like a “get out jail free” card. Plus Dan is interesting. He describes himself as the “bastard son of a bastard son.” Says his father wanted to be F. Scott Fitzgerald but had to go into business so whatever choice Dan makes will be wrong.

    We went back to his house for coffee – except I would rather have tea – and while he was making it I sat in an armchair so he couldn’t sit beside. He sat at my feet so I could admire his hair and his beautiful shoulders!

    I said the summer had made me a little afraid of myself because I had a “problem” with a fellow student. He said when someone is lucky enough to date a girl as interesting as me it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t get physical! That was the right thing to say so I kissed him. He has just the littlest bit of halitosis. Too bad. He said even if I “threw him over” it would be worth it. Uh oh.


    We had a marvelous time riding the subways and train home. We called each other Thomas and Virginia, spoke French and pretended to be a married couple having a tiff. I accused him of being homosexual and he accused me of sleeping with everyone I met. It was very funny. We fought about the children – who would get them – each trying to unload them on the other. So fun! He met mother and made outstanding conversation. She was very impressed. What shame I don’t like him more but the spark is wavering.

    Kissed goodbye at the gate, then went upstairs to read the Romain Gary he gave me. He just loves Romain Gary.

    He phoned this eve from Wisconsin said he sent me three letters and two cards! Said he’s writing me a haiku!

    Finally saw Bryan Forbes’ superb The Whisperers. Had his wife & daughter in the cast! “Is there a part for me, darling?” “Well, as it happens…” Ideal family set up. Edith Evans very good.
    Strange letter from Shawn. He apologized for being “cynical and bitter”; then criticized Plumly’s “pettiness” and “superficial values”. Amen! I was getting all excited about having someone to talk to next year but he seems to think once you’re “close” you CAN’T date. Is this “stay away and just be my friend?” Confusing! I know I’m playing with fire dating Dan – he is bound to talk behind my back and mess me up with the senior boys. A problem when dating younger is considered déclassée. I want a boy who wants to date me, is self-confident, and isn’t afraid of me. Then maybe I can stop being afraid of myself.

    Watched The Prisoner – excellent Guinness performance. Winning at cards with Kent & Genevieve.

    1:30 AM Sat 9 Sept 67
    Yet another Night Flight. If due to some totally unforeseen occurrence your oxygen mask should deploy, grab your neighbor’s knee and breathe normally.

    Disgusting letter from Robin made me grit my teeth. “You know I love you & want the best for you Alysse.” I DON”T know that. When he’s trying to put on a big act he is EXCRUCIATING. Luckily he enclosed a pic of me among the can can girls which I will cherish forever.

    Telling fake from real appears to be Life Job # 1 (think Hemingway said that.) Sent Robin a 4 p typed letter making it appear I am currently trying to decide between Dan & Shawn! Putting an end (I hope) to this misbegotten correspondence. I NEVER SAID ANYTHING THAT WASN’T THE TRUTH but I also didn’t expose my heart. It’s fun to pretend, isn’t it Robin? You’re pretending to be coy & manly & I am pretending to be a Wild Free Loner when I am just about to settle back in to Sensible Schoolgirl. Yecch.

    I think what I really wanted him to know was he didn’t MAKE ONE BIT OF DIFFERENCE to my life. Malicious, eh? Also, NOT the truth. Alas, I must confess. Well, we never pass up the chance to do a little acting, do we Robin?

    Went shopping Wed, bought 2 pairs earrings and a capacious suede bag. (Saleswoman did not know the meaning of “capacious.” She found out.) 2 pairs pattered stockings and a black tweed dress with huge white collar & cuffs! Big black patent leather belt. Pilgrim in a miniskirt! Perfect for Plumly! Also 1 pair John Romain shoes – $15. Now I’ve had it with shopping. I find I’m afraid to buy party clothes because it will look like I’m expecting to be asked to dances and I WON’T BE. Dan’s no use having graduated. Better keep my expectations low.

    Aynsley called from airport 5:45 – I rushed to meet her. She is SO THIN, so pretty, so blonde, had a good summer, her Southern accent so thick you have to guess at every other word. Good to see her again. Talked ourselves hoarse – looking forward to friends – NOT looking forward to Miss Womrath. Looking forward to classes, NOT looking forward to Collection. Looking forward to Camp Suppers, NOT looking forward to Vespers. (Even though I can sit in senior balcony where we are encouraged to look down upon the heads of our inferiors.) Looking forward to senior coffee (anything beats the Spinal Drainings of a Dead Hippopotamus the underclassmen have to drink) & senior stairs – but checkout (gym) – NO. Mom & I took Aynsley to dinner at Inn of the Four Falls and saw the Fantasticks. Recognized one actress from the Plumly show. Seemed sappier somehow. Felt personally offended by Mom’s sneers about “romance”. How stupid children are and how they don’t know anything! And she’s supposed to be the ONLY happily married one of all my friends’ parents! Presents a grim future.

    Fri. AM wakened at 10:30 AM by Dan! I was a sour crab! Agreed to date Sun night to see Junior Wells at the Trauma. I invited him to dinner. Lunch at the art museum with Uncle David who took me out to lunch. He is very entertaining. UNLIKE Dan Devereux who is raining letters & double entendre cards on me. I don’t quite like it. This is the most difficult part of dating – you want to “make an impression” but it’s also a game of tennis: how am I going to return all these serves? Much easier to rush off the court and hide in the woods.


    Went to the dentist who made me cry. “Ooops, I hit a nerve.” I couldn’t stop crying from the sheer indignity of it! Maybe Novocain doesn’t work on me. Next time I’m getting gas. Face all swollen STILL as I sit here at the kitchen table with the house asleep.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Delaware River aboard the Gryphon – Thurs 3 Aug 67


    I am in the worst mood ever! IMPOSSIBLE to write on a boat! Difficult to read – out of the question to THINK! Too damn much going on. Sails to put up and take down, dishes to get out and then wash. Our one day of “respite” we had to completely scrub the boat! (Dad said it looked like a “laundry scow” with all our panties flying in the breeze.)

    We finally seem to be into the “charming” part of the voyage but now I am depressed by the backlog of letters that I owe. I’d rather write here. I have enough for 100 pages but doubt I’ll ever get them down. Struggling with War & Peace but its not working. Not easy like Anna Karenina. At 36 feet this boat is too small! (No wonder Morgan the cat jumps in the water.) Damn flies are eating me!

    Hideous heat, humidity and flies. I will reread Sherlock Holmes and Sherrill’s Accidental President – can’t manage intellectual fare.

    Called Genevieve and Kent once. She very perky, Mom very sad; Dad very “hail fellow well met.” We are entering the Chesapeake. By sheerest chance we met up with Paul Carnahan in Brigantine (where his father lives.) He is adorable. He wanted to show off his father’s house (which he designed) Dad used the high-powered telescope while I took a HOT BATH! Bliss! Paul introduced us to his nephew John who seemed very interesting. He’s only 19 and already out of college! He rides a unicycle.

    Later – the awful day has ended as awful days must. I did cry once but only Avril saw me and she promised not to tell. Every day seems to contain so many failures.

    My goodbye with Robin was horrible. He cried! He told me I’d never loved anyone – I didn’t argue. He gave me a picture of us onstage together in Mousetrap but when he was gone I threw it away – it was just too painful. He also gave me a package I unwrapped on the plane – Khalil Gibran’s the Prophet! Awful stuff! The epitome of false philosophy. Some people are so intellectually desperate (but I have the sense NOT to tell them I despise them for it!!!)

    I think I HAVE loved someone but at the moment I can’t remember who! Sounds ridiculous I know but the problem is you keep growing up and then you’re a different person! For example, part of what I needed in love was wanting to feel protected (Shawn). It’s not that I don’t want that anymore, I just see it’s illusory. (I loved him until he was mean to me.) I loved Reed until I saw he was an idiot! I think I may have even loved Beales before I saw his limitations!


    So the problem isn’t that I CAN’T love but that I love TOO MUCH!


    I don’t like this reputation for cruelty I am getting but I can’t figure how to dodge it. Why do I HAVE to fall in with what someone else wants to do? With Robin it is particularly stark BECAUSE I DON’T EVEN LOVE HIM. But in the struggle of wills I AM SUPPOSED TO LOSE and its all I can do to resist! And I thought I was so strong!

    Now I am NOT looking forward to senior year. I can’t go through this again! Fortunately Plumly boys are too cagey to tell you they despise you for kissing them! But the emotional stakes keep going higher and so does MY need for love. I can be generous if the guy can be BUT THEY AREN’T RAISED TO BE GENEROUS! Phil was. Reed was but it may have just been his weakness.


    Received a card from Dan Devereux who’s already graduated offering to introduce me to the Villanova party scene! Wish I didn’t know about his shenanigans with Casey so I sent him a Diplomatic Letter. I think he’s just using me to get back at her.

    Wrote a long letter to Robin saying it was just too explosive a summer and everyone was on edge and overworked. He’s threatening to come see me in Philadelphia! I tried to pretend we get a “semester abroad!” (When desperate you can ONLY lie.) I’d like him to just can it on the love stuff. I said we still have to survive college (although he says he’s going to the Goodman Theatre School.)

    Thanked him for Khalil (who after all tells us to be SEPARATE STRINGS on the same instrument!!!) and moved on to disabuse him of the “glamours” of sailing. How glamorous is it having to fish curler pins out of the bilge pump?

    Said I was looking forward to hearing from John Carnahan who promised to write! Mom said of course he’s not going to contact me because I don’t wear a bra! He isn’t going to get into “that!!” Just when I was starting to like her again!

    Last night we saw Julius Caesar at Cape May Courthouse – excellent!

    121 W. Penn – Phila Pa – Sun Aug 13, 67
    Good cruise – SO glad it’s over. When I am too much around people my thinking clouds and I literally start to babble.

    Remember how my motto used to be Xaipe? Well, mere happiness will no longer do – you certainly don’t find it by looking for it. My new motto comes from the lips of Satan himself (cover your ears Sister Mary Rosycheeks) Non serviam.

    So there. It would look good on a coat of arms. (Crossed goose and dragon RAMPANT!)
    Sitting at my father’s desk – an ugly, cold Victorian secretary under a good shot of me wielding a boathook at Hydra. When Aiken said he didn’t like it I refused to agree with him – he was mean about everything – but he’s right! Still, in 10 short years he’ll be fat and bourgeois and this desk is where the stamps & envelopes are! This tea is no good (it’s the water.)

    Everyone hates Johnson – he is attacked on all sides but landlady told Dad she can’t rent to West Indians because it would “ruin” the neighborhood! She’s not prejudiced – it’s other people. Thank God we are only renting. Let’s get out of here to Pewter Hill as fast as possible! It looks like we will be having Thanksgiving and Christmas in that big, beautiful house. I would invite Aynsley but she’s not sure she can stand to see us in her grandmother’s house.
    Read Milne’s delightful Once On a Time and saw John Mills’ The Family Way. Reading Ceram’s Gods Graves & Scholars and wonder if I’ll ever finish it.

    2:00 AM Tues 15 Aug 67
    Saw Two For the Road – I mark it higher than To Sir With Love. Liked the clothes. Read a review of Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save Me The Waltz that was more of a study of Zelda herself. Saw that twisted logic so characteristic of me, feeling naked nerves barely holding intellect together. I also am a slave to violent reactions springing seemingly from nowhere! She describes herself sitting on the porch and watching her dates “rot”! But she couldn’t leave the porch the way I would have. She was stuck.

    Breathed a sigh of relief over an interested letter from Robin. In very interesting handwriting he informs me I am Never To Be Forgotten. I think he will be much more tolerable as a Literary Friend. Went shopping today and bought two-striped Scottish knit dresses (long sleeved, very clingy). Also beautiful gauze dress – pale orange. Mom doesn’t like it but it was $2! Now really!


    Back from an evening at the Carnahans where Mom and Dad announced they would give me a trip to Europe for graduation present. I think they are afraid I won’t make it otherwise! They also talked about how en route from Vermont they had a layover in Boston and saw Genevieve and Kent. Mom said they are serious about having me visit. Probably go four days next week. It would make a good novel – the sister invited on the honeymoon who refused to leave! Bring everybody to the brink! It may have been done before but not my way.

    We all saw Wait Until Dark (play) with Barbara Bel Geddes. Some good scares. A real sadist would have started carving her up long before this one did.

    Had tea, and talked about it with Avril – who is growing more intelligent daily – she says I can use the library at her school – then snuggled down in bed all warm and cozy. But I like to have a many-sided problem to turn over in my mind while I’m falling asleep so I said, “I’ll just pick up Marek’s book and read for a few minutes” – what a mistake! I immediately became so engrossed sleep was impossible! I wish I could go digging in Egypt or Syria.

    Seems like that’s harder and not as materially rewarding these days. But what do I care about this last? Still, I would fall in love with everything I uncovered and then I’d have to give it up. Love reading about the dark-skinned Champollion deciphering cuneiform! Some of the poetry he translated is as touching as Ecclesiastes.

    “My son, my avenger, I shine with love for you…how sweet is your friendship against my breast…I marvel at you…”
    I am so deeply interested in every human variation that has ever been played – we are so intrinsically similar, so devastatingly different.

    Wouldn’t it be great to keep this diary in Babylonian? Then nobody could read it!

    Aboard The Gryphon – Swan Creek Marina – Rock Hall, MD – Midnight – Sat 19 Aug 67 – written by flashlight
    Swan Creek is the most charming hurricane hole you ever saw. Almost all power boats, but very thoughtful management (they put ice in our refrigerator!) Some drunk guy singing baritone on another boat.

    Wish I knew Morse code – very cute blond boy not far away. And how do you say PS Muffle your oars? Would take all night to figure that out.

    Most awful dream last night. I was at my wedding – the groom combining the worst features of Dan Devereux and Robin! I recognized no attendants or guests – everyone very casually dressed lounging around the pews disrespectfully. I wore my new $2 dress (proof that people dream in colors.) It seemed totally real – never occurred to me it might be a dream. I began to get really frightened thinking, How am I getting out of this? Mom came into the church with a white wedding dress over her arm and held it up against me. She said it was Genevieve’s gown and I can use it. But Genevieve got married in a leather minidress and gladiator sandals.

    I tried just pulling on the dress but my orange gauze showed through so I went to change in an olive-green locker room. I looked out the windows to jump but it was too far down. I saw sightseer busses puling up for the wedding outside! My best man was Fran’s boyfriend John – I liked him but I never knew his last name. Anyway he came in, offered me a cigarette and said, You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. The relief! I woke up at that moment and realized it was all a dream.

    This evening Mom and Dad and I went to see Ulysses – bold movie but SO hard to follow! Still, stream of consciousness works better in film than writing.

    Re-read Prince Caspian for the first time since age 10! He shouldn’t have thrown in all the Christ allusions but I still liked it. Finally finished the Marek book it was so exciting! Now there’s nothing to read but Mom & Dad’s magazine Atlas. Still, looks interesting.

    Mom and I went to Pewter Hill to pick up a key – it is air-conditioned!!! Mom was excited to see a squad car in the park – makes it seem safe – but the officer was snoring away!
    I’m the cockpit where I’m going to try to sleep because Mom and Dad have been shaking the whole boat with their lovemaking. I’m sure they’re trying to keep it down – it just isn’t possible. When I started to feel white-hot I thought about Robin and went right down to refrigeration in no time.

    Tomorrow we go to St Michaels saving 14 miles by going through the Scary Narrows. Dad has consulted charts & books galore. He says not to worry, boat is Unsinkable (knock on Fiberglas.)
    Shaping up to be another sleepless night wondering when the earth will die. Probably soon, judging by pollution in Philly.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Sun 16 July 67


    Just a year ago I was leaving MN, assessing my theatre summer and its value! This was a better theatre experience but I’m not sure I can remain in the theatre if I dislike routine so much. Robin says I’m spoiled and lazy but I like surprises. Constant astonishment would be perfect. Robin says that is film acting but I photograph so horribly I could only play witches. I have a jaw like a boxing glove. I do feel more sure of myself and more determined in my philosophy. I’d consider dancing if every dancer alive weren’t better than me – I am not a “natural dancer” at ALL. But it’s fun!


    I learned to respect Catholicism but I see its danger: putting men in charge. They have crazy ideas! Robin for example, thinks I’m a “whore” because I WON’T have sex! I think my moral philosophy is pure and untainted but he says if I like passion without penises I must be a lesbian! (I better not tell him about Fleur. I’ve had my chance! ) Love is NOWHERE in this equation. He grabbed me backstage as I was going on for Act III and said I broke his heart. I told him to write a radio serial – I don’t think his heart ever came out to play. He was very insulted but Jodi and I have discussed this. She agrees his deepest feelings are not involved – this is a volcano of selfishness and anger and I should stay away. She says he wants to talk badly about me to everyone but they will see it for what it is. Jodi moved in a few days ago – I am liking having a roommate better than I thought I would.
    Looking forward to seeing Mom & Dad and cruising a new area. Play with my thirteen-year-old sister and catch up on my sleep.

    Mon 17 July 67
    Rehearsal bad this evening. I am gobbling aspirin. Whenever I see Robin talking to someone I know its about me. The orchestra is so pathetic there isn’t a beat to dance to! We get our counts mixed up. Left my black ballet slippers at the dorm and Mr. Johnson wouldn’t let me wear my pink ones – had to wear a pair that didn’t fit. The second act is definitely the worst – they put the summerhouse where I am supposed to be standing! I am literally dancing against a wall. I nearly killed Carrie in the cartwheel and then my bodice started to unlace. The only fun I have is in the cancan. And in the final act I have to waltz with Robin! That means I am wearing my ugliest costume for the meaningless finale.


    Miss Whalen delivered an ill-timed lecture. All those considering suicide will go ahead now and do it and the orchestra will be even smaller. Tea and sticky buns with Sister Mary Rosycheeks back at the dorm provide some relief. In a week I’ll be on the boat!

    Tues 18 July 67
    There is a serious drawback to having a roommate – I never get anything done! Mom and Dad called from Cape Cod I started crying and then we got cut off! I am ashamed of myself – they are never going to know I’m not miserable. I can’t explain about Robin obviously (Mom would take HIS side!!!) I get so homesick when I hear their voices! Avril was telling me about all the “psychedelic” boutiques on the shore.

    Thurs 20 July 67
    “Is the world a lunatic asylum then? Are we all courteous maniacs discreetly making allowances for everyone else’s derangement?”


    This from Muriel Spark’s wonderful The Comforters which I just this moment finished reading. So fabulous. So satisfying. Didn’t understand the title until I read that sentence! Halfway through I doubted I could survive the chaos (or the self-conscious writing. “Joe was feeling tired. “I’m feeling tired, said Joe.” There’s only so much of that you can stand.) The book jacket prints a nice quote from Evelyn Waugh and I will follow that man through thick and thin. It turned out to be worth it. Words blown out of context, motives ignored, manipulations misconstrued while people automatically say the opposite of whatever they really feel. Spark is enchanting. I will get all her other novels to read, but my next project is Waugh’s son Auberon’s Foxglove Saga.


    Sat with Chris Cahill during dinner. He is only 14 but painfully smart. No one can stand him but me – he wants to argue about art and/or history at every possible moment. With a male Alysse Aallyn on the loose how can I help but lend a hand. Spark backs me up that we are kinder toward those whose madness we recognize!


    Last night’s preview VERY successful – the nuns loved it. They are as sentimental as whores (according to Giraudoux!! ) Sister Mary Rosycheeks said the cancan girls have such cute bottoms! Our dancing was certainly the high point!
    Must get over to the theatre now in fact – it’s only ten to seven but I need ages making up.

    1:50 AM Fri 21 July 67
    Fierce rainstorm this afternoon – Jodi and I were DRENCHED! Had to dry my hair under the bathroom blower.

    Too much to eat! Jodi & I celebrating opening night with clove tea & orange peel (Alysse’s special recipe) chocolate cookies, apple and the rest of the orange. Who needs the dining hall? I’d better stay up while the tea takes its course – I hate being wakened in the middle of the night three feet off the bed on my bladder. Jodi looks so sweet over there – sleeping clutching her Kleenex box!

    Finished part I of Foxglove. Auberon’s nowhere near as biting as his father – but he is witty and entertaining. He’s certainly a lot more organized than Muriel! He’s also not a fatalist but maybe he’s too young (cover portrait handsome young man.) Hmmm. Don’t think I could ever marry a novelist. How would you ever know who was plagiarizing who?

    Opening night audience was packed. At first NOTHING could amuse them but by the beginning of the second act they were thawed and started applauding EVERYTHING!! Loved the cancan! Such a letdown when it’s over! I’m ecstatic when I’m dancing – sweat didn’t ruin my makeup – not a curl out of place – lost no feathers – not even an earring! Did not forget Sasha’s gloves or tights! Triumph! I am learning. (It was the first time I was EVER in the Green Room on time.)

    Some of these costume changes are TOO MUCH – once again Carrie forgot to double knot my bodice and it started to unravel!

    Called the travel agent – booked a flight for Wed. Get out of here 9:30 AM making only one change at Minneapolis. Get into Kennedy 3:30 PM their time. Then a train to Montauk. I wish Mom would meet me – I’d like to talk to her and it would do her good to get away. I’m sure she is afraid to talk honestly about Genevieve, but she’ll never feel better if she doesn’t. Her impulse is always to pretend it isn’t happening – I remember her stepping over dead drunk men in the street and being goosed by parking lot attendants in Morocco. All with regal hauteur.
    I bought her a green paisley cigarette case as a mark of a new Tolerance to let her know I love her – she knows I hate her smoking. At some point we have to step past all the frozen tears and kisses.

    Before the second act curtain when Robin and I were frozen in our places, him touching my bare back he begged me to go to the Black Hawk with him after the play. I said No. I said, ‘:Do you hate me Robin” and he said no but I can see he does.

    After the play I ran up the iron stairs to the dressing room, smeared cold cream on my face & eyelashes, put on my dress without a bra and rushed out before anyone could speak to me.
    Sweet, seven page letter from Genevieve July 15 –

    “This is a shamefully overdue letter and I apologize but all sorts of phenomena are happening in my life – I’m sorry I haven’t included you sooner..” Then she sprung her big surprise – she’s marrying Kent Winokur! Said she loves him because he’s like Daddy! Hmmm… Said she’s probably get married next weekend and I could come visit them! I wrote back saying I thought marriage was a hell of a contract and nineteen’s awfully young but I know she won’t listen to me! Enclosed penny candy as a wedding present!

    I do disapprove. It’s not Mom and Dad – I don’t think she can help feeling trapped because she WILL be trapped! I wouldn’t give up the excitement of independence so easily, that wild exhilaration. You never want to think you’ve missed the action. And what if she wants to be alone? I want to know that somewhere there is a single bed I can always return to. On the other hand, I haven’t met anyone who makes me want to give that up. I suppose it’s possible he exists. Sings Barbra:

    “I want to find my true love like all the lovesongs say
    I want to do what I want, I want to get my way.
    Wild dreams grow wise when sweet childhood flies
    Time waved her hand and the breeze
    Blew sand from my eyes…”

    But I may be making a mistake thinking what revolts me revolts her. Maybe she is the wife type. I better go to bed – Jodi and I have to clean the paint room tomorrow and I will look like Living Death. Is there no rest for the wicked?

    Sun 23 July 67
    Rudely awakened at 10:30 AM by Mater and Pater calling from Connecticut. Gave them my flight info.

    The day went blissfully, lazily. Robin came over insisting I help him with his NDEA lines, so I did. We hugged. He begged me to come for a drive. I was infused with physical longing but refused. Thank God I was strong enough! He claimed the pink ribbon from my hair. I wouldn’t let him have it unless he would give me his shirt on the spot. He wouldn’t so I refused to let him have the ribbon.

    Here’s the note he gave me:
    “If what you want is not to be together, if that will make it easier, I’ll try. Believe me, I’ve always tried to do everything your way.”
    Jesus I’ll be glad to get out of this place!

    Tues 25 July 67 4:30 AM
    Looks like I won’t be getting to bed tonight either! Didn’t get underway with my packing till 3;15 because I was saying goodbye to everyone in the smoker.

    Performance went great – ballet especially! Last applause rang in our ears. Black velvet curtains swung together and the major domo enfolded the cancan dancer in his arms. It’s a wrap! Strike! (Means something different in the theatre.)

    Felt so nostalgic taking off my satin & feathers!

    After strike cancan dancer eluded the majordomo, went back to the dorm to say goodbye to Jodie and meet her folks. Farm folk! I am so ashamed of my snobbishness! Robin insisted on a Last Walk. I’d actually believe he just had rotten luck to fall in love with me – if he hadn’t SAID he wants me because he can’t HAVE me! Sick! We sat on the stone steps and I stared into his crooked face (he is so much handsomer onstage!) He still doesn’t understand why I wouldn’t kiss him. What’s it matter to me?

    It mattered.

    He will NEVER understand but he insisted we correspond. He also demanded to drive me to the airport. Uh oh. What if he kidnaps me? My frugality will be the death of me!

    Swimming last night in the Lourdes pool – skinny dip! Just me & Jodi playing “Loch Ness monster!” Nice nuns caught us and showed us the door.
    All the cancan girls met in the smoker and munched cherries.

    Raced up to the fourth floor sundeck to watch the sun come up over the bluffs. Wake bring in huge breakfast – hot chocolate, mushroom omelet and doughnuts!

    Picked up my tickets from the travel agent – they are incredibly cheap – I don’t understand it at all. Three hours sleep in the afternoon. Parents called from Block Island where they are stranded by rough winds so Mom can’t come. I wasn’t depending on her so unsurprised.
    No point going to bed now! Second sunrise in a row! Shared with Joan Peska who suffers from an abscessed tooth.

    This summer’s been worth it.
    1) take bath
    2) clean room
    3) finish packing
    4) iron dress
    5) ?
    My tea is cold. I can sleep on the plane.