I’d no idea that one could take such charge of space.
You hovered, teaching –
Drinking vodka,
I drank wormwood –
Everything’s my fault.
Now I’m a toad-dweller,
Nostrils pierced by thorns
Falling face-first through every hole;
You were the king the ghost pines saluted.
How you dove and danced!
Speeding through your love-drunk universe, you
Infected me with your own whiteness
Dizziness, till all my blood drained out.
You challenged God;
I was just the echo following after.
Yet here I am after all this time
And nothing promised remains of you.
Or, “Good luck with Sleeping Beauty’s castle!” That’s what he gets for messing with my heart. Can’t show anyone – most certainly not him –
– and it isn’t really finished – and I don’t think it ever will be. But thank God for diaries. Diaries can be told anything.
Reading Secrets in the Family – it is so superb
I am going to buy copies for all my sisters. Looking forward to discussing it with Toss. I’m beginning to miss him now – he’s so deep and interesting to be around – so alive on many more levels than anyone else – challenging all my levels. Falling in love – happy, crazy.
Thurs 11:05 – Plush Palace – 5 July 79
Back at The Plush – it’s catch as catch can in my
present situation. I am alienating managers left and right. But I am happy crazy and who cares?
Because on the third of July Toss asked me to
marry him and I said yes! Here’s how it happened. On Monday night we ate white clam linguini and Crenshaw melon while listening to Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert – then – came together in delicious, soul-freeing sex; two perfectly matched combatants recognizing each other not just from childhood and youth but school and dreams. He was eager to learn how I could best be pleased – so I surrendered to the inevitable. Fireworks!
He left me sleeping there in the AM – I heard thumping downstairs but I know he has roommates so didn’t think anything of it –
– when he came back for lunch he discovered the door broken in and my purse missing. Keys, wallet, everything. I had to call into work – had to call a locksmith to give me keys to my car.
Toss doesn’t know what else they stole because he doesn’t know what else is supposed to be in this house – called his roommates. They came, police came. So we spent a day of intense babbling and the worst kinds of petty annoyances – but none of it mattered because he was there. In fact, I welcomed it; it was an extra opportunity to be together.
At one point I said, you know, you’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a man. He said, if I believed that, I’d ask you to marry me. I said, if you did I’d say yes.
So he said, “Do you want to get married?”
I said, “I think so,” and there it was! He said I’m the only woman he has ever wanted to marry much less asked. We even chose the children’s names – there are going to be two of them – a boy and a girl of course; a combination of our old addresses! Had to call Aunt Frederica to give her the good news because
she’s the one who had to give the hospital permission to stitch me up ten years ago after our first unfortunate night together! (She was drunk of course. Both times)
Toss asked me to come back to Kentucky for his
last year of law school. I “shouldn’t miss this part of his life.” Dogs too, natch – we are a package deal.
He has a house he’s rehabbing that has so many
rooms it is known as the Hilton. When I said I would come that was more important to him than our engagement even. He says I can file for
divorce in Kentucky’s understanding Commonwealth. He ordered a case of Moet Chandon, saying now we have to drive up the coast and
tell everybody. I am a little scared to tell my parents – this suddenness might only seem another strike against me. We told Avril and Maureen – they just stared – obviously thinking we both have lost our minds – it will take them awhile to believe in it. I told Avril about Kentucky –
she says she can handle the house; she can always rent out my
room to a college student if she feels pinched. I want to leave some money with her – at least $1000 – had the brilliant idea to sell my car.
Wouldn’t want to be impoverished in Kentucky and I don’t want to be on “retainer” from T.
Last night I read Toss The Duel and his eyes
filled with tears! He said the only flaw he sees in this arrangement is that one of us must surely predecease the other! Could it really happen? Could we grow old together? Could it be that I will never make love to another person? Wrote a short note to Bruce,
telling him I will definitely be needing a divorce, sooner, rather
than later. Now I am trying to write a letter to D; but honestly,
what is there to say? Summing up our relationship seems only
to dismiss it. He has already fallen far, far back into the past. Toss is my future.
house. We have a wonderful big backyard with gas grill – A. and I “broke it in” yesterday for shish kebab. Last week’s trip seems months ago already.
Thought about getting pregnant by poor D all day. Am I using him? Is it wrong? Nah. I am giving him a chance to be more than he is – and he doesn’t need to know if he can’t handle it. I haven’t even told Avril about this –
– and I won’t unless it actually works. With my irritating body I might not be able to get pregnant just because I want to.
A and I saw Peter Sellers in The Prisoner of Zenda –
– just awful. Sunday we went back to the Unitarian Church – unfortunately it was a downer. The worst memories of childhood surfaced as we were lectured on current events as if we were a class of high school students. I would rather hear about personal fascism than international fascism – that is the real spiritual problem. Bullying a captive audience seems eminently fascist to me.
We recovered at Ms. K’s Toll House – such a fun place. Spent the afternoon trying to write a poem about how beauty and finiteness are the same thing – when we love someone’s beauty it’s their mortality we are in love with. Not laying a glove on it.
Saw Alien in the eve – the treat of our lives – what a rollercoaster ride! We both adored it. I’m now officially giving up on reviewers – the Washington Post said it wasn’t as good as Star Wars.
What is wrong with people!!! Apparently reviewers have to pass some sort of idiocy test.
The “cure” was completed when I crawled into bed with Bloomsbury Portraits.Fabulous people. These are the ones my father refers to as the “sexual degenerates.” I adore their interior decorating.
Sex lives not so much. Going to ask Maureen to make me a dining room mural.
By sheer good luck I don’t work till Wed. So I get a real rest. That feeling of pressure negatively impacts my work.
Slept twelve whole hours – which means I may be up half the night – but I don’t mind if it’s productive. I especially like walking the dogs in the middle of the night so I can ignore the leash law. They are so good about voice command.
2pm 30 May 79
To my surprise novel goes well. Finished first
bloodletting scene. Reading Flannery O’Connor’s The Habit of Being– love it. Dreading work tonight – not ready to get back.
1:15 AM 31 May 79
Hard night. Feel like I have had some protective
coating scraped off my eyes and I can see everybody’s pain. Everyone is in pain. Not pleasant. Must armor up.
Plush Palace Fri night 1 June 79 7:50 PM
Had to stop at dance store to buy fishnet Danskins on my way to work. (Kristi darns hers but I’m too lazy). Horrible traffic jam coming and going – then they were out of the ones with the seams which are the only kind that properly shape the buttocks. So I bought a black pair.
They only look good close-up. So I arrived in an automatic bad mood – put on my black costume with the little mirrors. I’ll go to the Maryland Danskin’s tomorrow. Feel better after a couple of bourbons. Now I can see how dancers get into the booze not to mention the bute. Trying to do too much.
Working, fasting, writing the Great American Novel –
(it’s turning into the Great Canadian Novel) – something’s got to give.
Two bagels, after two bourbons, I’m cutting myself off. Zachary coming in tonight. I feel I’ve had it with the purely recreational sex (with quarrelsome underpinnings) that is all he can offer. At least I have a good excuse to turn him down till June 22 – I’m booked solid.
Idly reading George Weinberg’s Self-Creation. Ho hum.
Working with Kristi tonight. She has the most perfect body I have ever seen but is totally neurotic about it. She can’t appreciate it herself. I speak to her in monosyllables because I don’t want to get sucked into her game of “How can we improve me” that she lays on other dancers.
She’s a “yes, but” type; never pleased with anything.
Fatima came in hawking her used makeup. She is so bizarre. Claims she needs to sell everything for an “important medical operation.” Won’t say what it is – she probably just wants to ruin her breasts as is the fashion lately. Maggie’s breasts are hard as stone. She’s destroyed her own body. The air is heavy with female paranoia. Specific personal worries degenerate at a moment’s notice into far-flung government conspiracies.
Nervous about upcoming visit with Devon – at least twice a day I decide not to go. If he knows me better than I think he does, he may guess what I’m up to.
8:30 PM Sat 2 June 79
Rescued today – got four nights work instead of a possible six. Thank God. Bought wonderful music on the way to work at discount store – all Tchaikovsky’s orchestral music and Purcell’s Fairy Queen. Therapeutic listening after boogy-oogy-oogy.
My parents finished Memory – want to know who Oz is based on. Uh oh. That rattled me. Should I tell? Decided not to and feel like a coward. But they wouldn’t believe me any way and that would be way too painful. They translate any vulnerability or sharing into “no wonder you’re so sick”.
D’s most recent letter suggested canceling our date –
– he’s about to be ordained and must “purify”. He wants to escape from his past – which I’m a part of. Get it? He knows me so well he psychically intuited where I’m at, or more likely he inhaled a whiff of neediness and we can’t have that. He must be the needy one.
Zachary and I went out to breakfast after work last night.
For an “artist” (I use this term very loosely) he has less intuition than a stone.
His compliments are so over the top I am filled with disgust but he doesn’t
appear to notice. Had a horrible insight I now can’t get rid of. I am his Devon –
– the Great White Whale. Horrors! Will he now try to get pregnant by me?
Thank God, the sexes AREN’T the same.
Feeling a little slowed up by O’Connor’s prejudices in Habit. She seems too content to be a creature of her era. Tried to read Caroline Gordon because of friendship with F – but not my cup of cappuccino.
She is Edith Wharton strained painfully through Somerset Maugham. Instead
I am branching into a self-help jag – brought a book tonight called The Giftof Grief. Is this a gift anybody wants?
Avril and I trying Silver Spring Unitarians tomorrow.
Party Castle Tues 5 June 79 – 12:35 AM
Devon ordained Sunday. I blew up under all the pressure yesterday – sobbed and sobbed. Avril said she would go out, get a part time job and just give me the money. I am so jealous of her for being a full-time student I guess. What an idiot.
I apologized. I am experimenting with giving up writing. Why force myself to do it? I just won’t do it – enjoy life and job at least for awhile – till I have to write. We’ll see when that is. Trying to read bio of HP Lovecraft. There’s an object lesson wrapped around a cautionary tale.
Thurs 7 June 79 2:40 PM
Foolishly agreed to go to the Belmont Stakes with Don, my patent lawyer who is now a regular at the Castle. (He has forgiven me for my hair.) Now I want to back out. He says we can have separate rooms, he’ll pay for everything, etc – he is going up with a whole party of people. I can’t believe I am going to get into this whole ordeal of having to get to know someone again. What would he do if I said absolutely nothing about myself? He doesn’t even know I’m a writer, for example. And if I go to Belmont, can’t see Devon.
It’s all too stupid – have to think of an excuse to get out of this. If I ruin him as a big tipper what a dope I am. I guess this means I have gone through the whole dating thing and emerged out the other side. Ready for the next stage – whatever that is. Invited again to present at the Writer’s Conference at Coltsville. Shall I tell them I’ve given up on writing?
Castle – 11 PM – Thurs. 15 June 79
Don came in wearing tennis whites (purple in the
black light) complete with racket like a Noel Coward character. I told him I was emotionally involved with someone else and just couldn’t go. He just sort of nodded and left without getting a drink – or tipping me – so he probably came in only to see me. Relief. Freedom beats money any day. I secretly hope he never comes in again. I will live without the tips. I applied for a MasterCard – hoping that will give me a backup way to manage emergencies. Dramatic scene with Jordana tonight – she came in sobbing – her boyfriend wants her to marry him and go to Florida and she doesn’t know what to do.
I said what I always say, take the risk. So she quit. Managers are furious with me.
Queens Chapel Rd – Sun 17 June 79
Exhausting weekend at seminar. I was supposed to give a reading from Blood Memory. I was a nervous wreck beforehand, sweating, had to switch my breathing to manual – the works. It went fine.
There was so much silence and building tension – then at the end, the release was cathartic. Bravos. That was the good part of the conference.
The classes were the bad part.
Students disappointed that I’ve had only one book published and I’m still poor – they feel I might not be a “real” writer and I don’t blame them. Lamely told them about switching agents. I could have used some more stage presence or at least some bald-faced lies. My lack of confidence was broadcast far and wide. Having my period. Damn.
depressing reading. I wish “survivors” seemed more enviable, considering the alternative is Death at the Height of Glory. The good news about a long life is, you can accumulate quite a body of work – the bad news is your instrument
becomes increasingly deranged.
Dreadful schedule this week – 5 shifts including one double. Present of $2500 “house gift” from Dad means I don’t need to accept
but I would have to quit and I’m not ready. These are the best places to dance with the best managers – I don’t want to get thrown into some of the compromising situations I’ve heard tell of. Plus they just let me up and leave for vacation whenever I want. Can’t play that hole card too often.
Spent all day wandering the mazes of literature – look at Lillian Hellman – surely she’s getting very bizarre. She’s a “history fixer” and no one wants artists doing that.
3:20 PM Tues 27 Mar 79
A bad day doesn’t make a bad week thank God.
Got drunk with Maureen last night, (too much sherry in our tea) but with careful diet and lots of sleep I bounce back. Anne Lindbergh’s Flower &Nettle a great improvement on previous volumes. Tantalized by Rosamond Lehmann, who ought to be my next project. Pledge: I AM HAVING ALL MY HAIR CUT OFF MAY 1!!!
Starlight 8:30 PM Thurs 29 Mar 79
Joselle plies me with Chablis – I succumb to get her to spill her secrets – but her secret seems to be she’s thinking of turning lesbian and her gaze on me seems somewhat fixed. Or am I imagining things?
Two glasses of wine on an empty stomach and I’m a goner. God knows I long for the flesh – those “brown motherly furrows” as Plath calls them are in need of plowing. Would I have to exclaim over her body the way men exclaim over me?
It just doesn’t sound fun. If only she were less female. More boyish. Order a cheeseburger to snap myself back to reality. This is a dangerous world to be hungry in.
Reading Randall Jarrell’s Third Book of Criticism.
I enjoy him enormously.
11PM – Shank of the evening. I am dancing superbly but tips very bad. The approach of tax time or are they simply seeing too much of me? The latter, no doubt. Went to the health club today but I won’t renew when my experimental month is up. I was seduced by their sauna and masseur but need something closer to home.
Starlight 2:30 PM Sat 31 Mar 79
Hot day – sun behind clouds – the sky is violet and the air intense – looks like rain, but I’m overflowing with joy and luck and good fortune. Just ate an enormous chef’s salad and two cups of coffee.
All I needed for returned confidence was one big tipper and a non-suicidal letter from Devon. (He’s been depressed.)
Obviously, it will never work out between us. We would be in competition each trying to get the other to play caretaker. I need too damn much care. It would be madness. Discuss this over vod & tons with Avril. Invited back to Mulberry Island, but also got a card to the Bullets opening (which I prefer.) Reading The World, the Flesh and Father Smith. Dancing very well – what a pity I’m “sculpting in snow”. Feeling “in tune” opens a clear lens to the soul.
9PM Tues 3 Apr 79
Buying spree with A. Bought a pile of silk shirts and a satin whipcord coat & skirt (black). Immortal piece I should still be wearing thirty years from now. We had a lovely lunch at Third Edition – reminiscing about our lovers’ bodies – what we treasure most – I vote for the flock of milky-white scars above Devon’s buttocks. Aaah. Intimations of glorious, irreproducible mortality. I am also irate at not hearing from Usher and even more irate at myself for being irate. He is obviously a no go so what’s wrong with me? I think I may be like those explorers expiring for lack of vitamin C.
Need to force myself to eat raw blubber just to save my life. It’s a wonder anyone survives.
Reading 3rd vol David Garnett’s autobiog – what an unlikeable human being.
Car pooped out on us will cost $250 to fix.
Starlight 9:15 PM Wed 4 Apr 79
I hate wasted days. Drove all the way to White Flint Mall to pick up my rhinestone glasses – a pin broke on them – and all the way back. Grrr.
Not liking Robt Frost’s letters and Christina Stead’s House of Nations is even harder to get into. But things looking up on diet front. Fewer binges. 5 days of rain, and a power mogul in the audience who keeps instructing me on how to please him. I curtsy down to the floor very gracefully and pretend I don’t speak English.
Starlight 8:25 PM Sun 8 Apr 79
Burst of freedom rescues me from inertia. My best moments are intense enjoyment of the present: must write and examine everything. Revel in my own growth – including comprehension that Usher Glayne can’t be my crutch. Lost 4 lbs eating apples and feel good – refuse to take a guy’s tip because he licked his lips at me. Yuck.
Jervaze came into the bar last night, dragging his
shame-filled self across the floor. I couldn’t resist suggesting he come home with me – he was so excited – love poured
out of him like a dizzying force. I browsed greedily on his beautiful body. It was like plugging into an electric current. He moaned, “You’re so good to me” but when my orgasm came it was just a little pop – uncorking a bottle of stale champagne. So goodbye to all that. Masturbation is really a lot less trouble.
Out to China Syndrome movie tomorrow with Avril.
John Middleton Murray is a blubbering blabster. Usher sent me a poem entitled “I dream of starting off with you” which was obviously not written for me. Took her name out and slammed my name in. What could go wrong? What a pity we leave choice up to men when they so clearly have no idea what they are doing.
3:30 PM – Dumbarton Oaks – Sat 14 Apr 79
Enjoying a day of full sun. Beautiful carved stone bench –
– azaleas in full bloom – peace. Woke up determined to finish taxes – offices
closed! When can people go if they work all week? Beats me. But it would take more than a late filing to bother me – feel blissful. Approaching Plath from the question of her reputation. Determined to write and to learn to see movies alone.
Last night awful sets with Zach – I don’t like his new band.
He couldn’t seem to play guitar and sang off-key. Promises of a future have taken his present away. My heart went out to him – ordered a bottle of champagne to cheer him up. Late dinner – I ordered catfish in a spirit of adventure (not good) he ordered what he always has – chicken & fries.
He told me about the times he’s been mugged and his belief in magic – I didn’t believe any of it. He was full of insecurities about Usher – I decided to act like we have a relationship to make it easier to get rid of Z later on. He “retaliated” by describing his affair with his friend’s 48 yr old divorced mother back on the coast. Sure, sure. Asked to come home with me. I said no.
Plush Palace – Mon 23Apr 11PM
God Malcolm Muggeridge is unpleasant (Jesus
Rediscovered) and not even Christian. Makes Waugh look like the author of Sermon on the Mount. Trying to figure out how I would address God:
What would I say?
Beautiful note from Devon saying, “I love you dearly”.
Sweet. The silenter I am the more he adores me. Sent a copy of my Plath essay to Usher – we’ll see what he says. Agent passed along a very flattering rejection on Memory – I am “too much” of a poet! Since I have just concluded(with Usher’s help) that I am no poet at all this cheered me up enormously.
Airborne today – dancing really well. It’s the fasting. Feel a shimmering force field all around me.
Starlight – 12:45 AM – Thurs 25 Apr 79
Dragging myself around this AM – my own fault for indulging in Irish coffee and caramel ice cream last night. 2nd anniversary party at the PACIFICA radio station and I thought, That might be fun! It was a disaster. I took Avril and we were immediately cornered by the club bore. (I had to give him a fake phone no just to get rid of him.)
Plus they charged us for our drinks! Rod was there – tight and prim – probably fearful I would attack him about his nonexistent dance story – I put him at his ease. Left after an hour and Avril and I “drowned our disappointment” in the usual way (it felt good at the time.) Ross & Tom should be required reading for egomaniacs.
Plush Palace 9 PM Mon 30 Apr 79
Had my hair cut today and dyed platinum blonde – like the color not the cut. I wanted it all off – she asked to “try something” and if I didn’t like it she would “fix it for free”. Of course, I don’t like it but I didn’t have the time to stay and have it re-done. I think it’s almost too much trouble to go back – get somebody else to fix it. Everyone likes color however; I needed a boost. But it’s not what I pictured – looks like a medieval “bowl” cut to me.
Fistfight! Guy dragged out of the club in handcuffs. Joselle says too bad; he was such a good tipper.
Feel too old tonight – I obviously need a vacation but the only one I can take is in my own mind. I love the house but it always needs something.
I was perched on the edge of celibacy but Jervaze showed up last night. Fabulous sex! Turned out to be worth it! 2 Hrs (I counted!) Oh, bliss. Reading very bad romantic suspense – ARelative Stranger. It’s a serious problem that I hate everything popular.
2:30 PM Wed May 2 79
Perfect day at home. Worked on poems listening to Mozart.
Got my “medieval bowl” changed to “little boy” haircut – it’s wonderful! Do nothing to my hair anymore! Don’t have to wash it, brush it or even look at it! Of course, I have to deal with all the sobbing men at the clubs. Turns out long hair is a powerful masculine fetish. I consider pretending I’m a different person – but I have the same old costumes. New stage name? Wonder if “Colette” is taken. Guess I didn’t plan this very well.
Yesterday overeating so today it’s a fast – only coffee. Phone keeps ringing I refuse to answer. It’s probably Paz begging me to come in and sub for some dancer who had an onstage breakdown. Reading Wagenknecht’s “psychograph” of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Interesting.
Sun 6 May 79 -1:50 PM
Avril and I drove to St Michaels yesterday – such a pleasure –
– I remember sailing into that port. It’s so beautiful I fantasize about buying a house and “retiring” there. I tell A, you get the country house, I’ll have the town house we can go back and forth. She says she does not want to live with her sister FOREVER! Why not when I’m so perfect?
Delicious lunch of soft-shelled crabs and homemade coconut cream pie. Didn’t get to work till 6:40 and I was the only dancer till 9 PM! Apparently previous dancer unconscious in dressing room and ambulance was called. Sorry I missed it. Eddy gave me extra $$ but told me I can’t wear my black jade rosary on stage (too many complaints). Too bad – it looks so good with white collar and cuffs. He says the place has been sold again and we will be getting new management. Hope it’s not Tony.
Plush Palace – 10:10 PM – Mon May 7 – 79
Would like to break my 2 day fasting record but I got up at 5:30 AM this morning and was just too hungry. Cucumber sandwiches with lots of pepper on whole wheat bread…mmmmm. Here’s my latest plan –
– rewrite Secaire and Blood Memory – get pregnant Sept 1 1980, have baby May 81! Father as yet unknown. Certainly not Jervaze whose family is terrifying. Crazy, huh? Reading The Restless Journey of James Agee.
Tues 8 May 79 – 4:45 PM
Great day’s work on Secaire. Not “done” but better.
Completely new scene showing why Hank and Nilssa are attracted to each other. 10 P!!! Celebrated by going out to buy new notebooks. Sniff the paper hungrily. New lighting at the Palace very bad – guess who came in to audition? Brandy! I told manager she was lying about her age so he wouldn’t hire her.
Nobody wants to work with her. She’s a grenade with the pin removed.
Interesting book by Louis Cassells about the differences between religious faiths. So far I like Unitarianism best but want to expose my kids to as many different ones as possible and let them choose. Joselle keeps asking me if she’s going to be in my book. (I’m afraid she thinks I cut my hair for her.) I start instead a poem beginning “the chaste warrior sleeps only with his prey…” Bad! Sad.
3PM Thurs 10 May 79 – Plush Palace
New manager Jasper comes in. Seems nice. I curtsy very low. Yesterday fasted till evening – wrote 7 pages – walked dogs then Avril & I saw Truffaut’s Love on the Run and went out to dinner. White pizza with plenty of garlic. Usher is reading at a NJ college – invites me to go with him. Hmm. Needing a pair of hot pink pants to visit this college in.
9:30 PM Fri night 11 May 1979
No hot pink pants. Did find a nice pair of aqua polished cotton jeans and matching high-heeled shoes. Usher phoned and we commiserated about publishing. Avril and I went to see the movie, A LittleRomance. Very good. Long walk with dogs, further exploring our new neighborhood. People keep their lawns very tidy around here. Since I refuse to do ovens, windows or lawns, house-pride like this could present a problem.
Must hire out. I’m bored with my job, but it pays the bills so well I don’t think I can make changes till July. But who knows what lies just over the horizon? Reinventing oneself could be the greatest pleasure there is.
Plush Palace – Sat night 12 May 1979
Another exhausting goodbye with Jervaze. I wore see-through chiffon bell-bottoms and flowered Qiana shirt – gratified to see they had their effect. He said he will always feel the same about me, always be jealous of the person I marry. I must say I now wish he would just go away. Which he’s supposed to do – off to Alabama. Again. I am not, shall we say, invited to this on-again, off again wedding. Awww. Feeling emotionally drained – only 30 short hours till I see Usher and I want to be witty and “on.” As opposed to slack-jawed and twitching.
Queen’s Chapel – 4:30 PM Sun May 13 -79
Dragged Avril to Unitarian church. There was a woman minister. I found the service satisfying enough and the church (River Road) very beautiful. They seem to have a lot going on – discussion groups, plays, theology class. I could be interested if I had the time. Unfortunately everyone seems old. Could I overcome my misanthropy to go alone? Remains to be seen. The church has a bookstore – I bought an interesting book on female contemplatives. I’m contemplating a future as a single parent.
Feel a faint hormonal stirring. (Avril says it’s the house.) Who’s the lucky guy?
Jervaze would have been perfect if it wasn’t for that alcoholic gene.
And I don’t think I could hide a baby from Devon for the rest of his life. Usher probably has some impressive genes along with the vast millions to which he constantly alludes. On the other hand, the kid he does have sounds defective.
Need to get clear about his marital status.
Queen’s Chapel – 9:30 PM May 15 -79
Bad visit to NJ with Usher. Thank God it wasn’t an overnight. First he showed up in a Mercedes he described as “the color of Lena Horne’s skin”. UGH! Next – brace yourself – he wanted to hide me from his audience!! Dumped me at an antique bookstore (that part wasn’t a total waste –
– bought the diaries of Cynthia Asquith) then took me out to an apologetic dinner.
I was so annoyed I commanded everything to be set on fire – fondue, oysters,
and 2 desserts. (He chose a very good wine. It was the least he could do.)
He didn’t want to talk about his reading – said if I had attended there would have been “too many questions”. And as artists, aren’t we SCARED TO DEATH of questions? Aren’t we?
Mon 18 Dec 78 – Plush Palace 6:30 PM
Horrible day. Everything that can go wrong has.
Mailing off mss wildly expensive. Drove Avril around because the Gremlin is in the shop again. Reading Bodyguard of Lies– history having its usual soothing effect. (Everything much worse for everybody else.) It looks like I will have to work two jobs in Jan to pay for this house.
Maureen the costume designer wants to rent a room in our house – that would help. She wouldn’t be a problem – getting a masters in textiles at U. of M so not the usual flaky personality that finds itself onstage. Concluded I really have to break up with Z. It won’t be hard – just stop seeing him.
One good thing did happen – I was lying in bed at
1:30 AM nodding off over Bodyguard – phone rang. I almost didn’t answer it – how could it be anything good – but I thought it might be Avril with some emergency. It was Jervaze! He’s coming back. He’s been offered “crew leader” position in his old job at the Pentagon with a $5,000 bump. He wants to celebrate by taking me out – we can go to Clyde’s where we partied for his birthday last year. I hung up feeling good –
until I thought this will give me a reason to give up Buck. There’s no way Jervaze won’t find out about him. Ugh. Confrontations. Unless I can keep J out of club? Doesn’t seem possible that he is off the sauce. Must make sure he gets a place of his own – he will be living with his brother to start with. He sounded sober, I’ll say that for him.
Plush Palace Tues night 19 Dec 78 – 7:30 PM
Wiped out my savings account to pay bills – well,
that’s what it’s for. We got the Queens Chapel house! Target date for the move is March 1. Avril and Maureen very excited. (It really is huge. 5 beds, 3 bathrooms, divideable into 3 suites. Perfect. Huge kitchen, dining room and fenced in yard.) I contemplate writing a book of poems called The Lives of Dancers. Trouble is, I’d have to tone it down to make it believable. Got one poem already – Impure Women.
IMPURE WOMEN
Between my breath and your breath
Beneath the phallic philanthropic statues on
The volcanic dragstrip of my city
The wounded in the scorched earth policy
Of love
Muster, linger, await
Embodiment.
Pills to make their hearts race faster have
Stopped their faces dead as clocks
That witnessed crimes unspeakable
To mothers versed in tabloid gore.
Who will bring them
Absolution now that I am gone?
In the fresh wounds of a
Seconal summer
The stopped children meet
And kiss.
Is it the approach of Christmas that’s bringing all
the old boyfriends back to me like elephants to a boneyard? Ryder
called. Marc Kramer refers to me his “dream girl” and can’t get me out of his mind and we’ve been out what – three times? Buck gave me my present at the club – he looked adorable – bath goodies.
Don-the-Patent-Lawyer who’s been hanging around the club lately asked me out for New Year’s eve. I had to refuse because Merrill and husband will be in town but I told him to try later. He seems interesting –
– like to get to know him better. Mature. Always trolling for someone presentable to take Home to Mom.
Boston to Rockland shuttle 11:45 AM Fri Dec 22
Thank God I brought this diary in my purse. Bad flight feels like Week 7 of the flu and I need something to take my mind off stomach.
Love people-watching at the Downeast Gate – there’s a novel in that all by itself.
This flight goes straight up the coast. Avril is sleeping in the co-pilot’s seat – let’s hope she doesn’t have to assume the controls. She is trying to get a march on the insomnia she always gets around parents. We just missed Genevieve and Brett – they put 2 planes on this flight and they must be on the other one.
Christmas Day
Enmeshed in a family that’s not even close to changing age old patterns. Listening to Christmas music by the Oberlin Choir and roasting chestnuts. As always, food preparations take a disproportionate amount of time –
– one might as well just surrender and become a restaurant prep chef.
Family “scene” caused this time by me – I objected to Dad making the two older daughters executors – I guess that makes me and A “executees”? He says you can’t have four executors. A likely story. Well I felt I had to lodge a formal protest but of course it didn’t change a thing.
Plush Palace – midnight – Fri 29 Dec 78
Merrill and Julian came to watch me dance. I think
they were interested. Don The Lawyer came and sat at their table – he behaved himself. Good evening for tips. Don asked me out Wed – I explained I have a lot of demands on my time – just about to double my working schedule to buy this damn house – so it doesn’t look good. He passed that test by taking this news calmly. Having a sister makes me a Real Person at least.
Catching up on dancers – Jerrilee’s pregnant,
Fatima’s new boyfriend is obviously an ethnic gangster. (Armenian I’m guessing.) Jerrilee tried dancing at a club in DC where the girls “make lots of money” but just in tips – they have no salary. Rotten. I need extra hours but won’t audition there – prefer the protections offered by The Great Commonwealth of Virginia.
Plush Palace – 7:30 PM Tues 2 Jan 79
Horrifying letter from Scott Meredith demanding money to read my novel. His form letter didn’t acknowledge mine in which I said I was already the author of one book but went on and on about “unpublished writers new to the business.” They obviously didn’t even read my letter.
My father said, “Maybe he knows what he’s doing since he’s Norman Mailer’s agent” but I wrote back and said non merci. Auditioned at The Country Fair – they offered me $100 each three x a week. Call for my schedule. So that’s set. They have a good stage plus a barre and a pole.
Haven’t seen a barre since Shalimar.
Zachary unfortunately back from New York and in a mood to party. Claims to have provided drugs to SNL. Reads my novel and says it’s not commercial enough. I’m sure he’s right, which doesn’t cheer me up at all. Says it’s too brief – needs development which is also probably true. Trying to write a poem about funerals called TreadingPasture. Bad, bad, bad. Reading Tillie Olsen’s Silencesand that’s not cheering me up either.
Party Castle 11:15 AM Mon 8 Jan 79
I think I like this place better than Plush Palace or
Country Fair. The dancers are totally uninterested in their jobs – they are all busy being college students, musicians and models – they rush in, rush out, spend their time studying and on the phone and offering me cash to finish their sets. Fine with me. It’s very restful not having to make friends. I called J’s brother – he’s due Thurs. Probably the worst thing about this place is the commute – I need to take Rock Creek Parkway and sometimes traffic goes one way and sometimes it goes the other way. An unwary person could end up in a head-on collision.
The stage is way better than Plush Palace but the dressing room far worse – a miniature chamber behind the potato bins – très très très Colette. With me tonight are Phoebe, ex-stewardess with a degree in languages and Tasha, very silent black fashion model. She is gorgeous. Costumes are not big here – the idea is to wear one g-string all night – pasties small as possible.
Contac really works – has totally drained my sinuses but also made me very thirsty – I am drinking gallons of water which I am afraid will make me visibly sweat. (Then pasties slide off and the woman from the Alcohol & Tobacco Task Force rushes forth with ticket.)
Got my MS back from Scott Meredith. Zachary came to see me dance in
the new club. We had a tender moment on how tough and insensitive the world is – he is having a bitching time with his new band – wants to go solo but feels that will never get anywhere. The truth is it’s tough to go it alone.
Everybody thinks Giftis “unfinished’ – which – horrors – means I have to do more. The dog to her vomit. Absolutely NOT fun.
I want to start something totally, totally new. I suppose tolerating all this barfing and re-barfing is what separates the sheep from the goats – but which do I want to be? Sheep? Goat? Spare me the “fun” of wandering around blindfold trying to imagine what you are touching followed by the Inevitable Disillusionment of taking it off and seeing you’re locked in the Same Old Basement.
I think Buck has found another girlfriend. I am rather relieved to be let so painlessly off the hook – of course I miss the great parts of our relationship. It was starting to get unmanageable along with everything else. At least with Zachary I can level with him about my life. Tonight’s reading: Margaret Millar whether I like her or not – and I don’t like her.
Ordered a book on depression through the mail. Need all the help I can get. GiGi came in tonight – probably to gloat over my exhausted dancing. Even people who love it inevitably do too much. She’s enjoying being a trophy wife. She says.
Yvonne – she said she still wakes up having screaming nightmares about Warren (he was killed in a car accident. Faced smashed in by a coke bottle he was drinking at the time. He bled to death.) At least I don’t have those worries. I sleep like a baby. Worked on costumes.
Waiting for Avril to go with me to Interiors. Reread my stuff. Think there’s a great deal to be said for the short, short novel.
Maybe encapsulate them into short stories? But no money there.
I remain unappreciated because of refusal to hook up with some “movement”. Drownrejected. Started dividing the novel into geographical locations – Hooks Lane, Paradise Road. Would make good short stories.
out and bought another pair in my break. Pasties fell off – carpet tape of inferior quality or possibly I sweat too much.
12:15 PM Oct 23
Sitting by phone feeling illogical joy. Wonderful date with Buck – restaurant with lots of wood and Tiffany lamps – just a pleasant, free-flowing conversation. No sex at the end – hug and kiss in doorway. “May I call you?’ I told him yes – invited him to be my date Nov 5 at Shadonna’s wedding. He said he would.
Fri 27 Oct 78
Concord, Mass – the grave of Nathan Bond.
Seems a good place to write – sitting on a gravestone in the sunlight.
So, what was last night like? I arrive to the theology college and another student goes up to get Devon – I overhear him say “There’s a very good looking girl here to see you and I mean very good looking.” Hecame down looking so different with a new silky beard – exclaimed over and over again about my gorgeousness. We went up to his room and were making out on his narrow plank of a bed when the radio played Ambrosia –
– How much I feel. Too much for me! Started to cry and lost a lens!
Now Devon thinks I’m a psycho – which I am. Luckily (for him) and sadly for me psychos are his specialty. Wish he wasn’t so unctuous about it.
When he attacked me with those eyes I had to get myself a drink – broke out in shivers and hives – thought I must black out. He was talking in general ways about what he wants out of life – he seems to be expressing fear he can’t find someone better than me. I did my best to get him back to specifics – even saying a woman can’t propose to a man (Well she could,
But if she proposed to this man she’s never hold him.)
Obviously, he loves me. That question answered. But there are bigger questions. But as much as I deserve love? Seems like not. He’s incapable of making the kind of statement I need him to make. He wants to get a clinical psychology degree and he hinted that I wouldn’t be such a disaster as wife to a psychologist. (Flattering?)
I told him he has a fear of “emotional success” and he agreed. He astonished me by making passionate love to me – I didn’t have to do a thing (other than wear my short pink gauze peasant blouse and the denim gauchos that show my bellybutton) – he couldn’t get my clothes off fast enough. Very satisfying – wasn’t an inch of my body he didn’t kiss – including my heels. I told him my heels had never been kissed before – so he kissed them again – also sought out all the other unkissed places. I do feel satisfied for at least a century. We went out to a Greek restaurant for dinner, then to see TheDeer Hunter. Powerful movie. Crazy, just like life. Christopher Walken lovely.
Drove to Concord in pouring rain. Inn is no Night
at the Plaza – more like Early Hardy Boys. Read Violet Clay before falling asleep. Dinner tonight with my cousin Tory – pumping him about Hill School experiences to use in Paradise Road. Buy some wine for tonight and celebrate my own existence.
G’s place – NYC – Central Park West – 30 Oct 78
Why do I do this to myself – visit Genevieve?
I just realized the mirror in her hall is a fat mirror. I did eat a lot of
junk food on this trip but I don’t believe I look this bad. On top of that,
Genevieve’s life is a fat mirror to my life – that’s the truth. We just saw Chabrol’s Violette– we both have a pash for him – but agreed this is not his best – plus the only Chabrol we know of with absolutely no romantic elements. It’s probably something I will end up thinking about a lot – and rewriting in my head – so maybe it’s Ok after all. Wrote a poem for Devon
– Practice Cuts.
Practice Cuts
The dead gush cruelly after dying;
High time to change
Get religion
Have yogic visions
See god
Be a nun
Be a self worth knowing.
Time is gunning for me
Arthritic fingers
Scrabbling at my dreams
Playing old tunes
scratchier, less sensitive.
I’m a body in search of a car wreck
Crime scene consubstantial;
The old deus ex machina
Disaster;
Blood is so good
At erasing uncertainty
Bringing back
A taste for life.
Reduce me, silence
To the essential bones
Of my non essential self
Fortify some other ego
Mine’s tired;
Peel from my eyes the thickened skin of grief
Unstop my ears from the dust of
My own consequence
Free my feet from judging splinters
Life passes from my like a fever in which
I cry out and cry out and yet
No sound is made.
Out
Like the tide
Cauterize
The woof-warp pattern
So plain that even I can see it.
Teach me not to envy
The gulls their mirrored flight
Unmeasured unlike my own
Reduce me to
Unbending bones of my
Essential self
Dark sister;
She;
The soul I was
Before
I became me.
Can’t turn it into a presentable poem – yet – however, it did make me feel better writing it. I guess I don’t like being Devon’s flirtation with damnation. Writing really is the best revenge.
Plush Palace – Thurs 2 Nov 78 8:30 PM
GiGi’s last night onstage. She is very down. Charlie is making her quit because “no wife of mine blah-blah-blah.” Eddy says she’ll be back: can’t find these perks in any other job. I am dancing well.
Apparently, no one but me realizes how fat I’ve gotten.
Both a good and a bad day today. Worked hard on Giftand Drown – sending out query letters – took pkgs to post office –
only to be told a MS has to be bound to go mss rate. I made them look it up in the manual so I won’t have to go through this again.
They treated me like this must be personal – I’m
trying to “catch” them in mistakes – forgetting I’m the customer entitled to service who doesn’t want to pay extra for no reason at all. And the book spells out what services I get – in case they forget. Apology letter from Tory: his girlfriend “out of line” to be so jealous during our paella dinner. She did seem strange but since she’s an artist I didn’t question. I respond with a short note saying I think my questions were just too personal for her ears so I really cannot blame her.
Reading Edmund Wilson’s life like watching a slow-motion car wreck – horrible man.
Dinner with Rod. He is handsome, rational, helpful, kind and forgiving. Unfortunately, he’s also some unknown Third Sex, a complete zygote. If he’s gay he’ll be the last to know.
After three glasses of wine I found the nerve to say he must have noticed we have no sex life. He talked sententiously about how we’re both cautious, both been burned before,give it time, etc – it sounded good, but I knew it wasn’t true. Something’s wrongwith him. The last months of his marriage he slept sexlessly in same bed with his wife – at the very end her boyfriend even joined them! (Nobody did anything.) Strange and unhealthy.
We went to watch his protege, Zachary play guitar in a coffee -house at Tyson’s Corners.
Now there’s a guy with a noticeably sparking electrical overload. I was turned on to him and he was turned on to me but of course nobody did anything.
Rod was absolutely serene, probably didn’t even notice. But would he even mind? I can’t mention it because Zachary is basically a sewer rat. It is not a sign of emotional health to even considercounting coup with this guy. Pity Rod’s so perfect. Waitresses gaze at us adoringly. Mom and Dad would love him. Wakened this AM by postman thumping on door with package – turned out to be twenty copies of Flatironwith my Resurrectionistpoem spread – I’m going to send every one of them out.
Makes such a perfect gift and peace offering I may order 20 more.
Reading Nathanel West’s horrific Miss Lonelyhearts.
Plush Palace 6:10 PM Wed 13 Sept 78
Mon Avril and I went to the play Mrs. Cheyney – it was excellent – then to the Apple Tree after to dance but the volume of turkeys pitched up way too high. We made a wonderful evening anyway – picked up effortlessly right where we left off – complete with psychic communication like imperfectly sundered Siamese twins. Then off to Rod’s in my black satin suit – he had a bottle of champagne to celebrate Farrar, Straus & Giroux wanting to see my novel (I know better than to celebrate a thing like that.)
2:25 PM Thurs 14 Sept 78
Wonderful letter from Devon affirming and reaffirming his love. Very healing. Asked to keep the photo I sent him of us when I was seventeen. Described me as “majestic, mature.” Ooooo. Reading Gore Vidal’s Edgar Box stories. Difficult letter from Mom. She doesn’t seem to realize she can’t “win”. Her will cannot prevail. If she keeps insisting we will only become more alienated. Good diet day – eggs, grapefruit, almonds. No booze. Lots of water.
Powder Mill Road 20 Sept 78 2:00 PM
Avril and I met for drinks and steaks, then to White Flint Mall to see Rituals. Hal Holbrook surprisingly good. Trying to read The World of Somerset Maughamin bed – fell asleep at 11 – didn’t wake till nine!
Finished letter to Genevieve answering hers in which she lectured me on wearing “tight pants”. Groomed dogs, dishes, vacuuming. Sent Flatiron around – wrote letter to Devon. Re-read Mimsey. I think it’s a little gem but can’t be pried out of its’ setting without destruction. Maybe I should send it around anyway, even though it’s so short. Also found old MS of Secrets–
Not bad. But the real eye opener was my writing teacher’s horrible editing – suggested I change “opaque” to “grey green” – “pressed her eye against the window” instead of “applied her eye”, which is what I had. Ugh and shiver. Counted up my bills. Tight. I hate hand-to-mouthing. Will sell stock. Zachary told Rod he is attracted to me. I don’t know where that will go – it surprised me.
He is ballsy. See them both at tonight’s party.
Tues 26 Sept 78
Strange party. Lots of people. Zachary was there, visibly lusting. Rod seemed perfectly comfortable about Zachary and me.
He is the weirdest ever. Repressed gay? Asexual? Pod person? Put his arms around us both. Z very effusive – he is “onstage” all the time. I stopped myself from saying, “Show everybody your appendectomy scar.” Let him reveal himself. What do I care? He produced dope but no one got high.
Rod told me I should allow Z to satisfy me – use upstairs bedroom.
(Probably wired for sound.) I was not happy with that – made him follow me home instead.
Good sex, but he hung around till 1. It’s true he made me breakfast – a delicious omelet. But it’s alwaysa mistake to bring them home. When Rod called, Z was still here. That was uncomfortable for me – Rod said relax about it. Stock at 16 so really can’t sell. Told Marc to watch it for a week but I will be needing the money. Must unplug phone and work.
Quarter to 7 – Worked on childhood stuff till tension got too much. Plugged phone back in, dinner, read NY Review of Books. Exercised dogs. Went to library – got bio Hart Crane – a nice big one – bought huge desk calendar for planning.
Plush Palace 27 Sept Wed 78
Sitting in dressing room all suited up, breasts taped up into vertical position – might as well scribble. Good diet – yogurt, plums, apples, eggs, tuna. Wrote. Scared I’ll arrive at p. 100 and be “finished” – pushed thought away. Avril called upset – el Diablo died and she missed an exam. I went to pick her up.
She has date tonight with Mystery Man. I am reading about Hart Crane’s relationship with his parents. Too familiar for comfort.
11:45 PM
Interesting night. My lighter schedule helps me have more fun with the other dancers – I don’t feel so invaded by them. Avril phoned about date. Fifty-fifty, she rated it. That’s not very good.
Letter from Devon inviting me up for Oct. I was amazed – made reservations for Concord Inn. Went to see Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends with A. We liked it – seemed extra poignant since Opal had to “drop” us rapacious females on her remarriage.
Then to Warehouse to hear Z sing. Surprise – he was
tense to see me! His throat closed up. Finally sheer professionalism carried him through – everyone seemed impressed. He never looked straight at me but I could tell he was watching me out of the corner of his eye – he flinched at my slightest movement. Flattering? Or scary? I don’t know. I’m trying to feel flattered – why assume negative responsibility for everything? Shoulders and Peter P showed up with girlfriends – hello – big surprise – all exchange new phone numbers. Everyone friendly. Avril charmed by Shoulders all over again – said she didn’t think that girlfriend looked like a serious contender.
Z descended from stage – I could tell he was having a
battle – should he be “aloof” like a “real performer” or effusive with me?
My unwillingness to seem needy saved us both – I was cool. Asked privately if “he could stop by” I said yes. Could have kicked myself later.
Shadonna the new scheduler called – asked me to do a double. I forced myself to say no.
Fri Oct 6 – 1:35 PM
Who should come into the club but Rick Marl – Ryder’s spy – he said he had just seen Ryder and Ryder told him things between us were “still the same”!!! I haven’t spoken to R in weeks! Told Rick that. Rickthen showed a desire to “move in” on me – I didn’t squash it. Told him “call me.” Starting to think the time for “instant honesty” in relationships is passed. It’s way too dangerous. Make them earn the right for a tour of my insides. Avril and I saw Steve Martin last night at College Park.
He skewers the Ryders of this world pretty brilliantly I thought. Specially loved the skit where he feels “responsible” for his girlfriend’s death.
He shot her when she became annoying.
Fight with Zachary over sex – he thinks – I “take too long to satisfy.” I was so annoyed I left at 3 in the morning to go to A’s place. When I came back he was gone – left a note – “in your absence your odds improve” in his odd little precise architect’s handwriting. Bastard.
He obviously doesn’t mean my odds of being satisfied. He thinks he’s such hot stuff. He’s performing at The Mistral this weekend.
10:35 PM Tues night 10 Oct 78
Stock sold. There’s six months rent. Or I could go to England (I don’t give up easily.) Instead I do a little fun winterizing – new electric blanket and bathroom rug. I’m enmeshed in an ego problem withZachary – this is the “hedonism” Dad is always worried about. I only want to see him once a week for sex but my ego demands he fall in love with me.
Z has invited me Home to Meet the Parents so perhaps I’ve succeeded.
Very handsome unkempt hunk at the club invited me to see him race his motorcycle in Fredericksburg. This is a tempting piece of Americana I don’t think I can refuse. He’s just a gorgeous mud puppy.
Spent $17 at the post office sending copies of To DrownIn Air around. Seemed like a lot to me. It’s not just men I’m jumping between.
Reading both Russell Kirk’s unctuous book on Eliot and Ross MacDonald.
Much prefer the latter: I’ll return to him now.
Sat 4 PM 14 Oct 78
How did I get myself into a situation with men calling all the time? It is supposed to be a girl’s fondest dream – in fact it is hell.
I am unplugging the phone for long stretches and not telling them either or they might be tempted to come over. As Zachary did yesterday – we ended up on sofa – I admit it was his best sex yet.
Mon 11 PM 16 Oct 78
Avriland I drove to Fredericksburg for the unkempt
I had a hard time finding a place to park – then a guy in a blue and yellow racing outfit and helmet appeared and banged on the hood of my car. I thought it was someone telling me I couldn’t park there but it was Buck and I hadn’t recognized him in his racing gear. So handsome!
The race was just about to start – he had a party of five or six people to cheer him on. I didn’t quite get the names – we had to rush out onto the course. Buck got a good start but his bike went wrong twice – once he did a spectacular flip and it came down right on top of him. Brady, his friend, said, “that happens all the time.” Buck was unhurt but had to leave the race.
He seemed relaxed about failure – opened a cooler – gave us all roast beef sandwiches he had made himself and beer. (I hate beer.) Avril was busily finding out that Brady’s “unattached”. He’s a big shy handsome lunk too.
Buck put his arms around me and gave me a big hug – told me now I have to come watch a better race. Ah, the fantasy – the mystery of Buck – who is he and what is he – taking fire in me. Big, strong, unthreatened, unthreatening male, bursting with muscles and apparently emotionally undamaged by life. Why not horses, farm, children with such a one as this?
Could I get so lucky?
I cooked dinner for Avril – liver, onions, mushrooms, rice.
Plenty of bourbon. Still need to go to bed early. Colored and conditioned my hair and wrote letters.
Powder Mill Road Wed – 18 Oct 78
No poetry – Too much going on – I’m longing for my
hermit days. I think: I ought to be able to date. I ought to be able to have a little sex, a little love, a little affection – but what a can of worms!
Instantly it spins out of control! I thought Buck might show up at the club – and indeed he did – after obviously making a special effort with his appearance. Tight leather jacket, blond hair all puffed out, face glowing. It was just like a date – only with me dancing onstage. He stayed 2 and 1/2 hrs – I gave him my standard lecture about not
wasting his life hanging out there – come in say hi and leave. One
beer. Before I finished he said, What are you doing Fri night? I said, “going out with you.” When I got home Rick called – spying for Ryder I have no doubt. But I had to tell him I am booked solid through the 30th. Truth to God.
The island its usual immortal, eternal self. A ragged paradise. Avril and I came up through Boston – drove “The Freedom Trail” but couldn’t go to the Ritz Carlton bar because of the dogs. She is taking care of them down at the cottage.
Mom and Dad look great – thinner and very brown. When I checked in at the Burnside Inn Paul Morris offered me a drink and we chatted very enjoyably. Trying not to be attracted to him. This vacation might resolve its masturbatory throbbings when Devon shows up. He is driving down from Montreal – I am as nervous as a 14 yr old. That poor sawdust doll Rod called but phone connection (thankfully) very bad. Merrill arrived with children in tow and we had magnificent lobster dinner down at the shore. Rod sent me a copy of On Moral Fiction.
Burnside Inn – 5 Aug 78
Rod called – we talked 45 mins about Moral Fiction –
I feel an enormous pleasure in his intellect. He asks me if being a poet meansyou enjoy life more intensely. I say YES. Maybe we can transition this into a friendship.
11:30 PM – Devon just phoned – long conversation on power, authority and ambivalence. He is tormented by his family – can’t figure out how to escape them. He needs to move out of their town but of course they get him jobs SO HE CAN’T MOVE OUT OF THEIR TOWN. Says he’s bringing doughnuts tomorrow over on the ferry – what are my favorites.
That’s easy – anything chocolate. (Mom told Avril that when he gets off the ferry and sees how I’m dressed he’ll turn around and get back on! She doesn’t know him very well. Kind of like Rod – they both think this “minister” thing is overly determinative. Doesn’t in the least change who Devon really is.)
Midnight Tues 8 Aug 78
M & D both wrong and right. Devon DID NOT flee me at ferry but fell ecstatically into my arms. HE DID, however, painfully say he can’t express his love for me in “a fully integrated way” (because Parson!) and asked me first just to caress his nude body. He didn’t think he could have sex with someone he’s not in an exclusive relationship with. But guess what? Then we had blissful, magnificent sex. I didn’t tell him this is as integrated as it gets for me and a lot more integrated than it’s been lately! (Poor Rod.)
Thurs Aug 10 -78 – 5:30 PM
Feeling happy and serene – it’s been the loveliest visit.
Many bike rides and explorations. Lovely dinner last night at the cottage – Devon asking Dad a lot of questions – then we lay in each other’s arms at the Barnacle and he said Time to Discuss Our Relationship. Said “some French girl” dumped him because he’s so incompetent with condoms; he’s so relieved not to have that with me. I said, “Maybe we should be exclusive.”
He said, ‘Could you manage that? I said gratefully, ‘Certainly”, He said, “Thank you for being honest” stripped off my clothes and made mad, passionate love to me – all orifices massaged, nipples chewed, armpits sucked – the works. It was really something – probably the most passionate satisfying sex I’ve ever had. He told me our coming together in Plympton after I left my husband was The Most Significant Event in his LIFE.
But does he see me as a Minister’s Wife? No one can. Me included. The Problem of which we do not speak. Drive him to the ferry today, after that a sail to Brimstone Island.
Shadowe Island – The Cottage – Sat 12 Aug 78
Mom giggling about how sweet and pure Devon is. She is certain I’ve been dumped. If she only knew. If I in am suddenly in an Exclusive Relationship with this human will o’ the wisp wouldn’t it be the worst thing for me? Am I like a Terrible Man who will now say anything to get sex?
Five good pages on novel. Working in omniscient third person – a violently new departure. A few vague worried sensations that I am “telling” too much about characters but the Victorians used to get away with this on a regular basis. How I envy them. There I’ve said it, I envy Mrs. Henry Wood.
One thing left out of Gardner’s On Moral Fictionis how rarely we see the book the author wanted – instead we see the draft the publisher agreed to buy & PROMOTE. Or am I cynical? On the whole I am appreciating Gardner’s ideas – but more than ready to get back to V Woolf’s letters & diary. That is ecstasy – the “unstructured real.” Farprefer them to her novels.
Nice long phone talk with Devon. Feeling freed since he described to me his definition of a future wife; she is not me. In fact, she will be a very unlucky girl who gets – by his deliberate plan – the least of him.
It is comical that I, something of a contemporary expert on all things Victorian, should even locate such a profoundly divided, deeply Victorian male; product of such hideous religious and sexual mangling one would think barely possible in this enlightened century.
“Wife” seems to encompass for him some whole new scary dimension that has nothing to do with sex. Probably having to do with his mother. What mysteries people are! Bruce wanted a fount of approval and cash. Ryder wanted a mule. Jervaze wanted a mommy who will bed him down with a bottle of Southern Comfort and then drive him to the hospital. I can’t even figure out What Rod wants.
But Devon seems to want someone whose holiness will “cancel out” his “bad behavior”. All I know is I don’t want to be any of those people.
But what DO I want? I’m embarrassed to admit it out loud.
I want the spiritual and physical closeness – the “soulmate connection” – to just keep on intensifying until we switch bodies (and I get to live two lives). Castaneda says it can be done. (Good subject for novel.)
Devon flat out admitted he is afraid of me – says I “have too much power” over him. I was too aggressive with him this time and I think my “free agency” is where the trouble lies. It “wakes him up” too much to the full rights & existence of another person and reminds him this isn’t all happening in his head! I am too impatient to wait for him to get ready to have an actual relationship. In the past, the better he got to know all his girlfriends – and the more certain he became of them, the less hewanted them. We are dancing on a knife-edge with our pleasure now. Psychologically he rules out “sexual fire” in long-term relationships. Everyone but me (and Dad) seems to think sexual fire must burn out.
I look forward to getting back – change in seasons, change in clothes – working, writing, even running around town with Rod is starting to look fun. Cold day – sun hidden by clouds.
Burnside Inn – 10PM Sunday 13 Aug 78
Told my dad I took the room here because my typewriter needs electricity – really of course I wanted privacy with Devon and then we ended up at the Barnacle! But a public inn (with a handy bar) requires a lot of discipline. More than I have. I am recovering from a scandalous night – too tired to take a bath I fell asleep in my clothes after cocktails with Marc Kramer who tried first wooing me with his completely unfettered, unapologetic interest in money by showing me his new house then just flat out tried to get me drunk.
(I did get drunk but not enough to make him seem desirable. He is very hairy.) However, “investment banker” would be a good job to give to my character Cloud if he ever grows up. If I can ever get him out of prep school.
No more hanging around the bar for me – I plan sit here
in my room every afternoon writing between three and six. Seems to be all my social schedule will allow. Feel myself getting fat and should cut back on food – tall order. I just need to go home and DANCE.
Stupid diary! One love problem after another. Well I can always go back to poor Woolf… her talk of mushrooms, chair covers, butterflies…
Mon 14 Aug 12 midnight -78
Very unsatisfied with everything I’ve ever written. The
difficulty is I need to bring all my writing up to my current level of philosophical maturity (such as it is.) But that keeps increasing exponentially! Never be embarrassed to start over.
Dinner scene in Paradise Road (newly retitled) feels shaky. Too many characters for me to handle. Maybe wedding next?
Trying to invest my characters with what I’ve just learned from Devon. Would choosing “the right person” come first (my Mom’s theory) and then the love follows afterward? More convenient for everyone, certainly.
Almost rolled a poor pimply little fisherman down at the docks this afternoon because I am such a sucker for gorgeous naked (hairless) shoulders. And the friendly, friendly innkeeper – but don’t get me started, he has a “wife” or “wifely substitute”. Mom’s been very cruel to me lately. At dinner last night I discovered she RODE THE FERRY with poor shell-shocked Devon (explains his “freeing’ phone call) whom she apparently grilled the whole ride.
She sniffed – “He’ll never marry you.”
Too proud to tell her I just reached that conclusion myself and it doesn’t elevate him in my estimation (the way it obviously does in hers!)
I could say I actually know Devon better now than he knows himself (he talks in his sleep), and I can positively state that his stated intentions never bear ANY relationship to his actions. And that’s not a good thing.
He alsotold he could never become a minister (because his mother wanted it too badly!) and yet here we all are. He keeps making rules and I keep watching him break them. Plus, I’ve been taking responsibility for “making” him do things he doesn’t “want” to for years. It’s a spiritual game of Chinese checkers he insists on “losing”. I guess it’s just a matter of time before he starts holding it against me.
10:20 AM Wed 16 Aug 78
I am so excited by the “newness” of my novel – starting to feel confident; like I can make these people do anything. Can’t wait to go home and spread all the versions out – play Max Perkins to my own Tom Wolfe. Might be able to patch something together. Still my tone needs emergency assistance, which dictates a massive overhaul. All this omniscience is just too painfully reminiscent of somebody like Balzac – “In the forbiddingly cold winter of 1863” or worse, Dragnet? Must read Speedboatto see how far one can go. Should I throw everything out and start over again or leave it a 500 p hegira?
Rod sends me a letter every day. He is smart, witty and culturally aware. His handwriting is perfect. Unfortunately, this does not feel as good as it should. I have rejected him as a potential husband (or father) because he is so totally lacking in Projection & Charisma. Unlike Devon I plan to marry a person I can also have soul-shattering sex with. Even Rod’s myths are sub-standard. He needs Tale of Genji and Kraft-Ebbing but all he has is Beowulf. Still, this is not the kind of thing you can tell a person you don’t want to get serious with.
According to him, Miss You by the Stones is “Our Song”.
My song is Urgent, by Foreigner, and time’s a-wastin’. I can struggle with this goddam party scene or I can go out and buy toothpaste. Ferry coming in – very foggy.
Came into Burnside Inn tonight and immediately lost a lens. Searched and searched. Would this be the bill that would break the poor fragile financial camel’s back? Then I found it – stuck to my hair. A miracle.
Mom took me on a walk after dinner – apologized in her weird oblique way. For a woman who claims to have “given all for love” she really is quite calculating and cynical about it.
“Why buy the cow if the milk is free?” sums up the whole of her philosophy. She wants me to marry Marc Kramer and live in wretched discontent, the equivalent, as far as I can see, to opening a dairy farm and sending out pricelists. Those are the options.
Has doing too much of the emotional scutwork fatally dimmed the stars in her
“love makes the world go round” eyes? “What if I’m not a market-based economy?” I inquire. Another missed bonding opportunity.
Dad showed gorgeous slides of Fox Island. Every
frame a poem. Made me think I should read old diaries to see what I can get.
9:30 AM Fri 18 Aug 78
$100 honorarium from Coltsville Community College for my presentation – I can eat for a month off of that! Dare I get my dancing down to 3 nights a week? Would be heaven.
Discussion with sisters about Mom. Here’s their advice: “Remember she’s crazy,” “Remember she’s old,” “Don’t give her any information” and “Lie.” There it is! If only she could hear them! And I’mthe one with the
“Bad Kid” reputation! Over dinner she lectured us on how costumes for the ballet exaltthe human body. Nothing like my combination of pasties, fishnets and glitter! Hard to listen to after the contempt she has expressed for my job! Said nothing. What they really hate is that I am my own choreographer.
I was too dispirited even to point out that back when ballet was “invented”, back in the dear old Dead Degas Days, dancers were VERY “declassee” with damn near NO control over their own bodies: how to express themselves sexually much less how they were viewed.
Looking back over it, my most serious depressions were all caused by attempts to conform. I’m so OVER it. Am I afraid of loneliness?
No. Stigma? Childlessness? Sexlessness? No. I confront all these fears, one by one. Hard however to keep my head high around Mom and Dad’s evident conviction that no one can everbe found to love me. They insist on giving me money because I’m so pathetic . OK, I’ll take it (I’ve taken tips from fans harboring worse thoughts) but insisted on giving them a poem in return.
Read Dawn Walkout loud looking for praise –
Dawn walk
Thunder crusts a gelid sky
Is it light or is it rain feathering
my nest with longing
Stippling soul with flushed
new growth; bursting out
the steepled trees.
This is my world and I release it
Released for flying
Stelliform
Tough as spidersilk
Unrecognizable
Even to me who birthed it
Who spent my life creating it.
Released and
Blown away.
They rolled their eyes.
I must be secretly determined to make them look bad! Need to get car in line for the ferry tomorrow AM at nine. Good vacation this has been. Mostly.
Last letter from Rod mentions a big society wedding we are invited to. He does get invited to the best parties.
1:45 AM
Horrible last dinner at the Mermaid Creek House.
Am I speaking a different language from everybody else? Uncle Clive downgraded his current girlfriend right in front of her – “she’s got no skills –
she’s not too bright.” I agree – there must be something seriously wrong – with
her to want to be around him. Genevieve wants to know how I can love men who are “weak”. This would have more significance if her second marriage wasn’t with a submissive. I defended that weak men are “doubters” and doubters are interesting.
The opposite is arrogance and how attractive is that?
Marc K, for example, doubts nothing. He’s also not very interesting. It would be easy to be swept along in his wake on autopilot. Maddens me to hear Mom and G discuss Avril’s “low self-esteem.” The nerve! I think they want to pretend that life “makes sense” and is not a dangerous lottery. According to them, A has too low
an opinion of herself and I have too high an opinion of myself. Hmmmm. What’s wrong with this picture?
Ferry Sat 26 Aug 78
Made the ferry with nine cars to spare.
Plush Palace Thurs 31 Aug 78
Three sets down. Tonight I’m asking Eddy for only three days – it’s hard to be constantly here – like living in a soap opera.
No writing – been sending out query letters. Rod called – had the nerve to lecture me on publishing, “If you want to play in their league, you have to wear their uniform.” Deeply annoying – makes me want to bite him.
I refuse to wear anyone’s “uniform”. Back to the unspeakable Constance Heaven book that is the only thing I brought.
Rod and I engage in a little smoochy-smoochy hand -holding following Christie play. I make an effort not to get so drunk that I pull down his pants to view his namesake. Impatient to find out exactly where my next sexual meal is coming from. Tach it up buddy.
In Dancer News, GiGi says Charlie NEVER goes
down on her unless he’s absolutely plastered. I want to know, “And then what good is he?” She has to admit “not much.” Says he laps at her like she’s a melting ice cream cone.
Did like Pamela Hansford Johnson’s Helena trilogy.
(Impressions of childhood, though, painfully unreal.) Now struggling with Grahame Greene’s It’s A Battlefield. Diseased whores abound; women bear their 12th child in crowded rooms (and because he’s a Catholic that’s presumably All Right By Him) and a gay time is had by none.
Midnight Sun-Mon July 2-3 78
Taking Avril to Cellar Door for her birthday before she flies to Michigan to see Merrill. Gifts Dior dusting powder & wrap around dress.
Festive occasion demands dress-up. Avril & I saw Grease, Rod and I saw Heaven Can Wait. Just sweet enough but it didn’t “move” Rod as much as I hoped. What if he’s one of the “pod people” with nothing inside? Jury still out.
Thurs 4:15 – 6 July 78
Missing Avril so much! Boy, did I get dependent.
It’s just SO Fun to have someone to do things with who thinks ALMOST EXACTLY the same as you do but with interestingly nourishing differences.
Rod is no substitute. Still can’t figure him out. His apartment is
completely stark. Bare. Not ONE THING on any of the walls. The
closest I can get to understanding him is that there seems to be no feeling in his family. They don’t talk at meals. Father’s dead, mother still sends him clothes he hates and he still wears them. (They are perfectly presentable. But what would he wear if she did not dress him? We’ll never know. I’m not getting in the midst of that.)
He never suggests things to do. I suggest everything.
Charlie Byrd in Annapolis (just because I love Annapolis) was OK. On the other hand, when we went to Le Bistro he ordered Piper Heidseck champagne out of the clear blue sky! Because he said now he’s “finally dating.”
So that took initative. Right?
Nice letter from Devon who ‘feels veneration” for my talent.
Sweet. Reading Green’s The von Richthofen Sisters.
8:30 PM Fri – 7 July 78
Driving in to work in a haze of ecstasy after Perfect Day, heard an infuriating review of Heaven Can Wait by Penelope Gilliatt. Really the woman’s a moron. She says she would understand a movie about transmigration of souls in “wartime” but why now! Who GIVES these people a podium? How did she get this job with so little artistic sense? Bullied her way to the top, most likely.
Von Richthofen sisters turns out to be boring PhD thesis.
So hard to get it right. Therefore switched to Murder of My Aunt. Amusing.
(Richard Hull).
Big tipper in tonight. $138 so far! I feel like the pigeons in Avril’s class experiments. “Intermittent reinforcement!” I have to pick up Genevieve and Brett up at the airport tomorrow for Women’s March (we all wear white.)
Bringing them back to my place to eat first – I made a gorgeous salmon mousse. Invited Rod just to see if he’s cool.
Sun July 9 78 2 AM
He’s cool. Wore white, walked the whole march and
was so charming to Genevieve and Brett they were dazzled. I’m now feeling relief that I only have ten days till vacation – don’t think I can become “over involved” in that short period of time.
Adelphi Grist Mill Park – 11:15 AM Mon July 10 – 78
Sunbathing on my favorite rock. When I get hot
I’ll splash around (like the dogs are already doing). Hardly a dry spot left on this rock – but who cares – my diaries have seen worse. A year ago, the Last Act of the Romantic Psychodrama just beginning. Whew.
I think I came out of it all right. I’m starting to see a possible Harold-Nicolson/Vita Sackville-West thing developing with Rod. (He actually KNOWS WHO Harold Nicolson is!!!) Last night I almost raped him in his theatre seat but I am determined to let him make the first move. But I do need to know how long I’m going to have to wear Glamorous Lingerie every day (just in case). I am starting to run out of glamorous lingerie. But we are having a lovely time – he is witty, intelligent and aware. I “confessed” all about Devon – my longest relationship – but because he’s a “newly consecrated minister” I can see Rod’s not too worried. If he only knew!
A good development is I’m learning not to drink so much. If there isn’t sex right around the corner one must stay aware. Coffee “without dessert” so to speak. It’s good for me. I told him the whole plot of Secaire – weak points become immediately obvious. He tells me about his ex-wife.
2 PM – Back at home to ringing phone – new
croquet ball on the pitch! Marc Kramer coming into National – do I want
to have dinner and discuss My Finances. Hmm. Maybe. He knows I’m too poor to invest in anything. But I say Yes.
Fri. 8:05 Starlight Club Springfield, VA Fri 14 July 78
I hate this club. It’s a bitch of a drive so I rarely come here but the tips are good. Need the cash for vacation. Unfortunately, I am working with Danielle – the Brazilian lesbian who threatened to kill me. I’m hoping she won’t recall she threw boiling hot coffee at me. (Her aim is bad.)
She’s usually pretty much out of it. Got $100 tip already from a guy who wonders why I don’t dance at The Gaslight downtown. Because the dancers have to waitress there! Ugh! That place is legendary. I tried to be polite but really.
Anyway, Kramer was different from what I expected. We ate prime rib at The King’s Contrivance – he seemed a lot older and a lot sadder.
He says whenever he hears 10 CC’s “I’m Not In Love” he thinks of me.
I asked him what about finances – he said I should invest in real estate. Wants to “watch my stocks.” I was embarrassed to tell him there isn’t anything to watch what with Dad keeping such a closed fist on the shares, and me having to sell everything I get. I start to suspect Dad is CONFIDING in him about his estate planning and PRETENDING “our” investments are actually OURS.
This meant we didn’t have that much to talk about and the evening ended with a damp kiss when I turned down sex. I say I’m In a Relationship. He says he’s thinking of proposing to his red headed secretary –
who reminds him of me. I am kind of insulted but told him to Go For It. I guess
I had this built up in my mind – sort of like Chuck Kornowitz where you think it’s going to FINALLY be about SOMETHING ELSE. How my Mom would jeer!
(Wore my 3-piece suit, anyway. With eyeshadow.)
He says he has to come through on his way back
from Oklahoma, thank God, I could say I’ll be in Maine. Looks Like It’s Over.
2:15 AM Mon 17 July 78
Another fiasco. I should leave now while I’m behind.
This has certainly been Trial and Error Week. How did poor Rod – Desirable Husband Material become Inevitable Discard? I’m sick to death of the Hand Kissings and the Knee Pinchings, Goddamit. There is something seriously wrong with this man. We had dinner & drinks at the Peter Pan Inn, then drove up and down Price Distillery Rd until I assaulted him. I admit it. He is under
the impression that we “made love”. Trust me, one time was plenty. This is a man who does not “think” with his body. He gives nothing back, an absorptive rather than reflective surface.
I worked hard not to let him know how just how incompetent he is, because really, there’s no hope.
Some sad girl somewhere who hates sex is going to find her “dream man”.
I shouldn’t have pushed it, although seriously I don’t think he will even question if it never happens again.
Damn shame is all I can say. A cruel waste, when he’s so charming in every other respect. Life is brutal. Sigh. Enjoyed Pretty Baby so much I saw it twice. (Can’t pay close enough attention while Rod is talking.)xxx
I love Friday nights. They’re always exciting. Gay girl in tonight approaching the dancers (without success) you’d think that would happen more often. If she went a bit slower she might get lucky.
Unfortunately, she just asks us if we are gay. How can we know without any experience? With the right kind of situation I think we’d admit we’re all at least a little bit gay.
Avril came over to the house at noon – we had white wine, macaroni salad with ham and croissants. Eddy called me in 3 sets early – $265 extra. Irresistible – means I can go to NYC.
Carol tells us about her sexually sadistic husband – handcuffs and everything! She orders pancakes for dinner to “cheer up” even though maple syrup gives her hives! Jerrilee tells how hard it was to leave her husband. He held a gun to her baby’s head. Kristi found a new “wonderful” guy but gave him herpes and now she fears he’s “done” with her. What a waste since now they both have herpes! They’re perfect for each other!
This is all a lot more interesting than Ann Bridge’s
Emergency in the Pyrenees. (Even Mrs. Radcliffe was more fun that that).
Who should come in tonight but Peter’s brother Julian!
Thought he was in San Francisco. Apparently, I’m one of the Eight Wonders of DC – can’t pass through without getting a gander. Kissed me in a brotherly way. We had a nice reminisce about childhood till Eddy sent me back to dressing room. He saw one set – when I came out again he was gone.
11 PM Mon 15 May 78
Sun night got blind drunk on my day off through sheerfrustration and exhaustion; then couldn’t sleep. Intermittent nightmares that someone was trying to break into my car and throw acid in my face. Decided to kiss the novel off and let it go – just get an opinion. Concentrate on something else. Weather depressing – no sunbathing – four day monsoon!
Trying grumpily to live without booze. I can see myself becoming Lida, the Alcoholic.
2 AM Mon 22 May 78
Exhaustion follows mania. Yesterday couldn’t keep my
eyes open long enough to read the NY Times, but refusing to go to bed dragged out my notebooks to arrange beside my desk. Horrible old valentines, photos of Ryder, dreadful wailing screeds fall out. I have so many drafts of Flycatcher –
it’s ridiculous. Purging isn’t easy – I totally understand hoarding. How can you be certain you’ll never need something again? Must get to bed – tomorrow meet Avril at College Park Library to see Dear Detective and listen to Couperain.
Fri. Plush Palace – 26 May 78 – 7:20 PM
Dancing badly. Reduced to eating saltines (bad girl!)
Feel I can see the end of all this and it’s a cold cold chill. Apparently nothing pleasurable lasts forever – as soon as it’s a “job” it’s over. Poor me! What’s the next incarnation? Tending art gallery on windswept rainy isle? Living
drunken and obese in a trailer on the edge of the estate?
Lovely “date” with Avril. We went to Sea Fair
(corner Calvert & Conn) for drinks, scallops, mussels at the outside
café. She says Shoulders is a total washout. Looks like Mom succeeded all too well in convincing us romantic love is the most important thing in life – I say let’s blame her. A having horrible insomnia troubles so before movie we bought six classical records to soothe and stun. I really hesitate to go out with Peter – why cultivate new people when they’re so likely to turn out just as awful as the old people? I like him now but… he’s on his best behavior.
Really feeling shy and buried in myself. Instead of new man, start a new novel. Something crazy.
Avril tried Barbara Ellen (exercise studio) but was put off by their insulting sales techniques. It’s like being chained to a TV listening to a half hour of ring around the collar commercials. Too bad.
I say she’s got to stop telling prospective employers she has “no experience”. She worked for hotline, courier service, horrible fake gyno, etc. We need to construct a resume out of this – we are too damn honest. Better to project even a witless confidence. I don’t want to have to tell people about myself, either.
Dear Detective was superb! Followed it up with
gold rush sundae and coffee at Swensen’s. Trying to get into bestsellers
– reading Velda Johnson’s ghastly Etruscan Smile. Would rather read theology (and Secaire shows it. Alas.) My novel is terrible. It stinks.
It needs to be rewritten from the bottom UP. Plot beyond help.
10:45 AM Sat 29 May 78
Woke up this morning muttering about betrayal and failure. Seems my life separates into two phases: pre and post Bruce.
Pre-Bruce I was such an innocent – I think “goober” is the descriptive expression. Schools should not let these pathetic characters out – but we were so eager to roam free. There is no savagery to which people will not descend to protect their egos. On top of all this, we have to battle M & D who, of all people, SHOULD be in our corner. They’re pissed we’re not more successfully infantilized. Determine NOT to do this to my kids.
Reading Hodgson’s Carnacki The Ghost Hunter (1900) heartbreakingly dull. And it could have been so good – a combination of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Sherlock Holmes is just what the doctor ordered.
3 PM Tues 30 May 78
Struggled through 2 bad pages on Demon that will have to be rewritten, then finished Sylvia Townsend Warner’s tragic At the Stroke of Midnight. This beautiful short story almost finished me. Yesterday Italian food made me & Avril logy – we tried going dancing.
Horrible place, bad band. (Tramps). Predatory males (who spoke bad English) very difficult to get rid of.
Saw Greek Tycoon instead – worse even than we’d been led to believe. Came home and read two bad detective stories by “good” writers. Guilt-inducing cash from M & D – makes me feel inadequate but I need it. Means I can buy new vacuum cleaner AND summer dresses. Call Peter like a dutiful child – this whole affair is tinged with doom. Thank God he is “busy” with his Secret Married Woman (who turns out to Someone Big in the Democratic Committee)! His parents and my parents should just date each other. Dogs need walking and I need to check on vandalism at abandoned house.
2 PM Sat June 2 – 78
Trouble opening latest letter from Devon – I had
the weirdest premonition it would a marriage proposal! It was indeed very loving – he has hit a summit of boredom and restlessness for which I am doubtless not the cure. Praised my novel for its “mystical sense of altered consciousness.” Wow. I like that better than “brilliant satire”. Avril & I went to Dillards concert at Cellar Door – they are so charming. Reminiscences of seeing Bruce play there. First act was Scarlet Ribera and Black Rose Band –
liked her even better. Some attractive men, but casual sex seems to raise more problems than it solves. A & I agree that after the “healing” comes the “strengthening” period. Coltsville Community College asks me to teach seminar on gothic
novel – of course I said yes. Poor misbegotten bastards. But at least I like watching the birds stuffing themselves at my feeder.
Plush Palace Mon 5 June 78
Perfect day – interesting stirrings inside – feel I am on the edge of some sort of breakthrough. Yesterday fresh sweet corn and turkey salad at A’s, then we watched B Stanwyck’s Double Indemnity on TV. Classic Chandler. “Aren’t you going 75 in a 30 mph zone?”
After that I dressed up in my satin 3-piece suit to see Helmut Berger at the Kennedy Center. (Sigh). What a honey that man is.
Then sent Bruce a letter with the Unwelcome News that I am “estopped” from filing for divorce in the state of Maryland because he made me sign a “no contest” paperand then dropped his suit! Paralysis!
I know he was hoping to get out of this without paying –
(his last girlfriend proffered enough cash to get us this far then predictably abandoned him as soon as his True Colors became apparent.) Maybe –
I can establish residence in Virginia and start all over again.
Had an eye appt in Bethesda so went to that library where I’ve never been and got a TON of interesting books. Treasuring Patricia Beers’ Reader, I Married Him.
Plush Palace Mon 12 June 78 – 7:00 PM
Horrible experience last night at the Garland Dinner Theatre – we were seated with some couple where the male was obviously severely mentally ill –she fed him 1,000 pills throughout dinner to keep him from exploding. We could have “complained” and demanded to be seated elsewhere but it just seemed so cruel. Avril & I used every bit of our mother’s otherwise completely pernicious training and tried to act as if nothing was happening.
I’m trying to muster up the discipline to unplug my phone till six – I’m getting too involved in Avril’s job hunt. She told me to Butt Out. She’s right – I should just write. What the hell am I thinking being somebody’s “mother”? We have too much of a mother already –
for both of us. Martin Green’s Children of the Sun a survey rather than the illumination I’d hoped for. Now I need a real Brian Howard bio.
Yesterday excellent day – haven’t known such joy since April.
Sunbathing reading Ada Leverson & Her Circle – delicious. (Unfortunately she was a bit of an idiot.) Cleaned entire house yesterday so when I got back from dancing it was immaculate. (The dogs – who had been outside in the yard – messed it up again immediately.) Read Jane Rule’s excellent Lesbian Images at work. She’s dumb about Colette and Bowen but I agree with her that loneliness and bad experiences are the enemy, not homosexuality. But I don’t think I’m up for a lesbian experience – women too emotionally demanding. They do too much work (men do too little).
Hideously unsatisfactory choice – like having to choose between a ton of salt or none. Better to go without.
Peter called to say we “ought to get together”.
Seemed very halfhearted to me. Bet he wants to tell his mother he’d made
an effort. I doubt we can surmount this fundamental lack of attraction (we both prefer blondes) but Mom thinks just the opposite. Marry people you’re NOT attracted to so you won’t be “swept away” by “hormones” and you can make “reasoned decisions”! Is that pitiable or what? Avril says she’s LYING because EVERYBODY lies about sex. Suggested Mom handed Dad her wet underpants on their very first date. (At the ballet? I don’t see it.) Mom has also said the worse you are at sex the more likely you are to get a proposal.
Does this make sense to you? Ryder’s marriage (under these exact principles) lasted 2 yrs and he wanted to be anywhere but home.
Plush Palace – 22 June 78 – 3 PM
Second double this week. I hate them but I need
$80 for typewriter, $300 to pay back Avril, $100 to quiet the utilities people –
$200 Burnside Inn and at least $200 “Mad Money”. You know, in case I go mad. It could happen, especially the way things are going. Need extra cash for Vacation, which I approach as if it were a Sacrament. Secaire gets re-written NEVER under this regime. Oh well. There’s always poetry.
SYLVIA PLATH: The Festering Weight
I know you deceived me
With the bald-headed lady
My true kin;
My mother renounced
Your swollen giblets in my name.
See? I bleed tulips.
It’s happened twice before; I seed the earth
With children, little miracles.
I give them their inheritance – a
Carriage full of baby dung
Flung
Down the coal hole
To remind me of you.
Pearly maggots bee–like
Suck my lip to
Scent the fault that clings to me:
Heredity.
This enemy’s face shifts cleverly;
First male, then jew, then
blurred and unfamiliar, genitalia
like narcissi.
I reserve the right to reject
This choiceless life.
See? My body’s scarred by
Your refusals.
The blackbird sings out
Blackly.
Yesterday cleaned house, walked dogs, cooked fish stew. Avril & I read family letters, then went out to see A Different Story. Both liked it enormously.
8:45 PM Plush Palace – 24 Jun 78 – Sat
Bad mood. OD’d on junk food then lost my favorite hairbrush and other people’s plastic versions break my hair. Growl. I can
write it out. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it. Emotional roller coaster continues. Just when I declare myself a Celibate Slave to Art a very handsome –
(and very blond) man comes in tonight. He works in radio, considering story about dancers; wants to interview “somebody”.
“You hit pay dirt, my friend.” I tell him but I insist on pseudonym. I was wearing my silver lamé outfit with the see-through silver sleeves so looked tiptop if I do say so myself.
His name’s Rod Avery (I’m not kidding) and although he’s newly divorced he lacks the Rip Van Winkle leer. He works for a reputable national outlet. I can work with this. Mom would just eat him up. Bought tix to an Agatha Christie play – maybe I’ll invite him instead of Avril.
My whole body hurts from dancing 5 nights in a row.
It’s not good for tips, either.
Poor May Sarton is trying to exorcise Eliz Bowen.
Good luck with that! Elizabeth so contemptuous of “schoolgirl crushes”!
Real love in EB’s world seems strangely synonymous with corruption &
loss. Old fashioned view and more male really – “ejaculate” and die. We women get children, poems & novels out of it. Avril stood up for dinner by Shoulders. Uh oh. Beginning of the end. Apparently saying “yes” is fatally unsexy. She & I will be eating her pot roast tomorrow – fine with me.
Fatima came down early but Lori refused to go up,
Pointing to her watch! Much excitement & hissing.
7:45 PM – Mon. 24 Apr 78
Good scene in my novel – Miss Pruitt vs. Viv. Now I need a boathouse picnic. Every time you get to the mountaintop there’s just more mountain. Then you’re supposed to “prune” at the end – if you have any energy left. Trying to read A Literature of Their Own but Showalter too hard on poor old Woolf. Women have always owned literature, it’s the publishers, editors and critics we apparently can’t have. 60,000 words on my latest tells me it’s time to celebrate. No novel could EVER be this hard again.
I demand a party.
Strange letter from Devon – he is involved with some “Jewish woman” and it isn’t going well. She seems “inaccessibly foreign” –
and he is “losing faith” in his “ability to pick a friend.” Is this a plea for help?
He specifically asked where I would be this summer. Said he loved me.
Took his glamour pic out of the bin where it has lain and put it up, then went out with Avril and bought a hopeful bikini. She and Shoulders are so mired in excuses, lies and expectations no relationship seems possible.
Sunbathing season starts tomorrow.
1PM Thu May 4 -78
Comparing lovers. “It’s Devon in the stretch with
Jervaze fatally winded and Bruce fallen by the wayside”. Needs poetry.
Finished Gift last week. Letting it “perk”. It already feels “swallowed up” by the past. Avril read it, disappointed by the ending. Wants murder at the very least. But is that real life? I think I agree with her that it should be. People should kill themselves when you are done with them. Sadly, in reality they’re all whimper and no bang. How to fix?
When I’m not engaged on some important work my “real life” ceases. Car to its “first service” Mon – involved ferrying each other around and jockeying with one car. Why don’t Mom & Dad appreciate this? It’s like they want us to be ashamed of needing other people to survive. Mom staying in NYC with the new baby but then coming here Sat. to inspect our dissolute lives. Uh oh. I won’t have any trouble getting time off but I hate to. Certainly can’t work when she is here. Living two weeks off one paycheck canbe done. But I will feel obligated to battle Mom for financial freedom.
Finished Glendinning’s Bowen. A life rich and strange but hardly enviable. I’m being pestered by old “college friend” but I am officially “not home”. She sneaks around the house, sniffing.
Sat. 6 May 78 – 1:30 PM
Cleaned & waxed kitchen and bathroom floors, sitting with newly creamed hands and cup of coffee sunbathing in recliner. Muse time.
Emerge blinking like a ground hog into a new and spring-like world. A year ago, I was a rat in a cage. It’s critical never to let the “merchants of neurosis” trick me into limiting myself.
Tues. 9 May Plush Palace – 9:15 PM
Mom spent the last two nights at my place – sleeping in my bed since guest room has no bed. Me on sofa – doesn’t matter since I can’t sleep anyway when she’s around. Up at 7 to make breakfast get Mom to airport for 10 o’clock plane thank God. Avril came over with blueberry muffins and gazpacho to discuss the visit.
Everything Mom said felt like an attack. (She did give me $100 but I spent – and lost – more than that on her visit.) Avril says living on an island has been worse for Mom because she’s never confronted with a life
that would contradict her narrow-minded theories, so it’s all: “Why can’t people get smart and live exactly the way I do?” She tries to make her personal tastes “emotional law” – and if you don’t agree with her – or God forbid, want to explore something different you’re “the sick one”. Rough stuff.
We took her to our favorite Ellicott City restaurant – she wanted Avril to “explain” Mason and me to “explain” my clothes. She said my clothes trigger “weirdos” following us – it was completely in her imagination! She cries. No one decent man will “have” me, she wails! I say,
What if I don’t want to be “had”?
I’d ask her about her life but she isn’thonest – she doesn’t know Dad has already told us that her ideology is untrue. She insists when you find Mr. Right everything’s peachy, but Dad says she was uncomfortable and unwilling about sex at first – didn’t care for it. They had to “work hard”. I say we have more experience of actual pain
than Mom ever had – Avril says she “refuses to learn.” Creepy. Turns what pain she does have back on others somehow.
Can’t wait to resume my privacy and my routine,
reading book about Forster (The Cave & The Mountain) in my own bed.
I think realizing your mother’s limitations is part of maturity, and I’ve been slow because I’m unwilling to adopt Genevieve’s methods – “Don’t give her anything – just tell her what she wants to hear.”
I thought better of her than that but I’ve struck out so far. Since their definition of success
is so narrow, I don’t see how I can ever satisfy them.
Alysse Aallyn 