Category: #Gender

Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn
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    7:50 PM Sun 15 May 77 
    Justifiably proud –  paid ALL my bills and sent off my 
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galleys. Nothing like money! (Stupid car needs a new clutch.
It’s always something.) Able to refuse “help” from Mom and Dad
who are dithering about whether I need to be institutionalized.
```
    Told them I was working at a “restaurant” (Let them 
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assume waitressing. They know I can’t cook. PP does serve food;
State of Virginia makes people who serve alcohol serve something to sop it up with. Good old Virginia. ) Sent M & D a DEVLYN cover.

$57 left in my acct.; $100 in my purse. (Open a savings acct tomorrow).
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    Ordered a beautiful Vietnamese print ($80) for Genevieve’s 
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wedding gift (last time she got married I sent candy. Well, I wasn’t invited!) Horseback riding did make me horny however – Ryder & I made love like a pair of wild animals. He may be compact, but he’s beautiful.

Cleaned the entire house. Now darkness falls .– it’s
time to walk the dogs. How I love peering into people’s windows.
When I get back, strong tea with milk and the “splendeurs et misères”of Monica Dickens. Or will I succumb to that modern master of the Grimm fairytale, Agatha Christie? No poetry, but plenty of trolls.
```
    10PM Mon 16 May 77
    Finally got a reaction from agent to Secaire.  I was 
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physically sick when I opened it but she was full of praise. I could
teach Poe, Verlaine and Mallarme a thing or two! She’s sending it
to Harcourt but telling them it’s “too fine for a paperback”. Says it’s also readable, which is a thing more “precious than rubies”. I was really afraid of what she would say after our literary discussions and her poetry sneers.

So elated! Hit the library today and hit it hard – Nancy
Mitford’s novels, Hilaire Belloc’s Letters, life of Brontë. Delicious
dreaming.
```
    5:35 Pm Broadcast Agency – 17 May 77 
    Enjoyed Helen Bevington’s The House was Quiet 
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cuckoos and thrushes and loblolly pines.
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    Bored to tears with this stupid switchboard job but you can’t say 
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it’s “hard”. I’m the last happy dodo in a world of dinosaurs – all this
equipment about to be ripped out. In 5 mins I get to disconnect
phone, walk to Church St (parking’s free in Mafia territory). Drive
to Arlington. Fish sandwich for dinner, read about Unquiet Haworth while wearing G-string & stockings. (So appropriate.)

Expanding
my house hunt to Rt 450. (Towards Annapolis; might need Dad to co-sign.) Obviously I can handle 45 min commute. (Don’t like rain, however.) Aware El Diablo is nothing but a hunk of junk. Future of American literature is fragile on some of these May nights.
```
    Broadcast Agency Thurs May 19, 77
    Only $134 in my saving acct and $7 in checking, curse that 
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clutch. Crisis brewing with R. He is jealous and suspicious that I am out so much in the evening. He’s the one who wants to be non-exclusive so let him sweat. I have too many negative emotions about him – that he’s a coward, for example. Which would make him angrier – if I was dancing or screwing some other guy? (Which I have no desire to do and he should know me by now.) I think he sees my privacy and aloneness as infidelity. While he’s doubtless experimenting with “goofy chicks” who’ve “never been touched”; I’m only “unfaithful” with Shelley & Brontë.

But that’s STILL too much for him.) After all this time if he still doesn’t realize I’m the best, the hell with him.
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    Worry about the dangers of psychic scars. They can SEEM to heal, 
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but sometimes they re-shape the life beneath. All I know, is, contempt is the ultimate relationship killer. To love is to be happy with! Boy scout methods won’t work with me, the sabre-toothed tiger. Our relationship may already be fatally spoiled by resentment and revenge.
```
    Last night audience bored and hostile, but who cares? 
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Bouncers won’t let them show it! We are goddesses to be revered and if they won’t worship at the shrine they’re out. Compared to the Shalimar, Palace is sheer joy. We are never hassled. God forbid if they try to
touch us! They are bounced on their heads in the parking lot.
If I have plain grits when I wake up at 9:30 or 10 (also coffee and
orange juice) I can last till 4. Hunger peaks at 5. Salad, then rush
to work – when I get there I’m not hungry anymore. Would like to cut the burger habit.

Need to sew my G-strings but Merribeth can see me
through the glass and she won’t leave. Reading Robt Fish as an
antidote for poor Charlotte Brontë’s pain.
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    1:00 AM Plush Palace – 20 May 77
    Four dancers tonight. Less work, more intellect. (!) Fred, 
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the cook, insists I try his potato pancakes and they are DAMN good.

Can’t say no. Long wailing phone call from Maeve this afternoon. Why is it we can see other’s relationships so clearly? “Dump him”, I always say. Am I telling myself something? R & I make date tomorrow night.

Now wearing black velvet, smoky eyeshadow, black stockings and glitter I look in the mirror and am astonished by my own beauty. Take that, Ryder, you poor bastard. Eight mins and I’m up – One more dance and home. Front table of impressionable navy cadets eminently shockable.
```
    11:30 AM – Sun 22 May 77
    It’s all over, baby blue.  Getting up my strength for our date
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tonight by sunbathing in back yard – literally cooking in coconut oil.
R. complained on Fri he called me “all night long” and I wasn’t home.

Aww. Could have told him I was writing but lying just postpones the inevitable (because next time he’ll come over.) So told him I would explain on our date. A poem came suddenly : In the Butterfly Pavilion.

This evening you said you wished
I was more conventional.
I bowed my head. I did not speak.
Outside the animals leaned together,
Breathing lightly; waiting
For my answer.
Cats-tongue ferns
Swelled up like swords, pushed out a stink
Occluding fields of vision while
The rabbit-bloodied lawn curled away.
Phlox flamed
Sows littered in the cyclamen
Dwarf stars broke free as
Frazzled molten ore raced across a sky
Darkening to night.
Summoning my power
My hands stay folded in my sleeves.
Nighttime is my kingdom.
.

Exhaustion from the violent motions of the pendulum.
I made dinner, but he refused to eat. He said, “I think
I know what you’re going to tell me. “
I said, “I bet you don’t.”
“It’s another man.”
“No. I’m dancing again. I’m living here alone. I need the
money.” (I should have said “it nourishes me UNLIKE
SOME PEOPLE” but I’m a coward too.)
He said very dismissively, ”Well, if that’s all you think you can
do.”

He who read my novel! Bastard! He said, “Well, the ball’s
in my court.” So I guess, that means “Game on!” (Was it ever
off?) And he left! Put his dinner carefully away in the freezer
(I’m not made of money) and took the dogs on an hour’s walk.
Now I lie here again in Paradise – baking, basting, trying to recall
every detail of the last time we had sex. Because that’s all I’ll ever
get from him.

11:30 PM
Session this aft with Chloe at Pacifica and a young PBS guy
named John about writing a radio play for kids. I threw out some ideas.
Then out for dinner with Chloe who complained that her husband has a mental illness given to him by the Army .

And I think that I have problems. I reject “victim” AND “slut”. The
poet alone in her lofty palace. Feels like an abscess has been lanced.
Heard about a great apt in Takoma Pk that’s OK for dogs.
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    Broadcast Agency – 4:20 PM – Mon 23 May 77
    Present tenant says do not mention dogs so I am out of 
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love with Perfect Apt. Would rather have a house. Lots of calls today.

I seem to be getting fat – but I look so good – much too good for 128. How I hate to starve but it’s the only way. Need to be a fine-honed racing machine.

Considering entering Courtney in the Saxton fellowship.
Can I get a readable copy? Lack of sex keeping me awake at night.

Now I know why people take drugs. Devon writes to say he’ll be in
Maine on the island but not at Genevieve’s wedding for “financial
reasons”. I plan to do my best to seduce him. Reading Mitford’s
Wigs on the Green – not as funny as it is sad. Pastiche, really –
Wodehouse is better. But I feel that way about E Waugh’s humor
too – that it is basically tragic – “this is all we can expect”.

Asked me when I was moving, when going to wedding.
He couldn’t be hinting for an invite – if I show up with him my family will have me institutionalized for sure. They never could figure out what I was doing with this hysterical little man.

We’ve said our fond goodbyes. If the ball is in his court,
it died there. Need to buy a dress for wedding. Macy’s? My mother criticizes me for:
1) Making money
2) Caring about making money
3) Needing money AND
4) Buying inexpensive clothes. AND fake jewelry. A lady
never – etc.

You figure it out. Finished Farber’s essays – very bad book.
He seems to regard the female orgasm as some kind of personal insult –
“Now I’ve got this to contend with!” We’re not doing it to annoy you.

Hopelessness on the subject of sex a grave inadequacy in a philosopher I would say. Merribeth sent me to the bank today – I was thrilled to get outside – when I came back Keith called down to say he was having lunch at the Hyatt Regency and had seen me walking and wanted to say hi! Nothing to say after that. I thought of inviting him to the Palace but what would be the point? Everyone would think he’s my boyfriend and it’s a tips killer.
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    12:50 AM Plush Palace – exhausted and bathed in sweat. 
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Man tried to crawl onstage with me. He was in the mood to dance!

Every dancer (except me and I guess him) is using Darla’s overdose death (suicide or accident? I say why not murder?) as an excuse to not dance. I like dancing. Passes the time faster and the tips are better. Steve managing tonight – he looks just like Dylan Thomas.

I keep expecting a Welsh accent when he warns the old men with their balls hanging out. Great tales from new dancer Charmian –
she has toured the entire country. Just dancing. (She has the body of a seven year old. Plasters pasties on her completely flat chest. )

There’s a townhouse in New City I like the sound of but nobody
EVER answers that phone. Tomorrow dinner with poor Avril and that awful Mason whom I loathe and despise. Couldn’t get through Babs Deals’ The Walls Came Tumbling Down – and Crystal Mouse was so good. Fortunately I have Steven Marcus’ The Other Victorians which is excellent. Pornotopia, indeed! Should have $1000 in savings by the 24th June.

3PM Wed 25 May 77
Weighed myself – I shouldn’t have. Lost two pounds but I
can gain it back through thought alone. Reading Gore Vidal’s essays –like them better than his novels – unsettling man. Avril says Dad’s taken hotel rooms for everybody in NYC. New City townhouse a terrible shock – NOT to be thought of. R. called to invite me to the Emmys June 4. He had the nerve to say I’ll “always come back” to him. So I have to be careful not to, even when at night I howl like an animal.

I can’t trust him to “take care” of me.

7:45 PM Thurs May 26
Who knew the worst was yet to come? I was talking to
A at Broadcast Agency and a call came in and it was Ryder. “Hello
Broadcast Agency”. I said, “You’re on the wrong line.” He said, “Your private line is busy and I’ve got to talk to you. Need to come clean and beg your forgiveness.” Uh oh.

Yup. He invited another girl to the Emmys BEFORE me
(that’s his story) she said she couldn’t afford to come, he invited me,then she contacted him to say she managed to get a plane ticket.

So he’s disinviting me! I disconnected him immediately. He’ll be
lucky if I ever speak to him again. I ought to be glad it happened –
I was dithering. Needed a decision maker.

I said to Charmian this evening, “Are you happy? I’m
taking a poll.” She said, “Well, I feel all right. All that bothers me
are asshole men.”

So true! I think the pain is over if I decide it is. Struggling not
to be feel ashamed of ever loving that man. Distance is required.
Distance & discipline. Dancing makes me feel better. I kicked
really high. Audience enjoyed it.

3:10 AM
Home dreading Ryder would be here – if so I was prepared
to scream the place down. He wasn’t. Just a note – saying I was
“right to get rid” of him. Calling himself a worthless shit! He said
he’s “sinned” ever since he met me by refusing to admit how much I mean to him. The problem is it doesn’t matter. We are the wrong people for each other.

8:30 PM Fri. Plush Palace May 27 1977
The only place I can sleep is work, dozing off between
sets. Not even masturbation knocks me out. Tempting to make
Mon my last day but I should last out the week – I need the cash.
Still have so much packing to do. Keith in my office the last day of
Broadcast Agency work – I told him about the Emmys – he said it
didn’t sound like a deathblow. Men! I had considered inviting
him to the wedding – this decided me against it.

3 weeks alone in NYC house-sitting for Genevieve
while she’s on her honeymoon. Parents will take dogs. The Blessing is an awful book. Nancy Mitford not cut out to be a novelist; she’s really not interested in motivation. Only wants a forum for her retro opinions.

4:30 PM Sat 28 May 77 – Plush Palace
A girl left early so Laverne and I are splitting her sets.
Courtly Jim of the hush puppy body and the Elvis Presley hair
realizes he has to pay us more to keep someone onstage. Good tips –
holidays make people feel richer. Only 3 days left.

7:30 PM Sun 29 May 77
Packed for six straight hours, ate yogurt and chicken,
walked dogs now I’m lying on mattress more exhausted than
I’ve ever been. Shoulders has agreed to store my furniture –
we don’t need a van since his house is right across the street.
Told him he can use whatever pieces he wants. Jim will be in
to pay me Fri so I don’t need to trust the mails. Called phone,
gas, water, elec people.

Don’t think I like EM Forster
(where Angels Fear To Tread) – Henry James without the
Henry James. Edwardian didacticism makes me miss James’s
scrupulous objectivity. Why did he write this book? Because
he’s “The Literary Type”. Compare with Woolf’s Unwritten Novel.
Stagger about forcing myself to gulp Yuban. So enjoying throwing things away.

Wed. 1 June 77 – 8:30 PM Plush Palace
$770 to take off with – not bad I think. Ryder tells me
I am “fleeing.” Damn straight. Mom asked me what was going on –
I said I proposed to Ryder and he turned me down. She was
squeaking on the other end of the phone like a gerbil but I couldn’t help it. It’s almost true – I didn’t take her advice but showed him my true self! Too bad!

Reading Forster’s Longest Journey. Still feeling another story
trying to get through. Pretty sick of the glory that wasn’t Greece.
Everyone in book sanctimonious prig.

12:30PM
Forster so foul I reread this diary. Deeply shaming.
Maybe Forster is right: whatever you do, don’t write about what is actually going on – nobody may ever recover.

Opal took me out to lunch at Apple Tree – painless. Crab
quiche and 2 Brandy Alexanders. An elegant poem unspools in my head about the difference between hummingbirds and hawks.

Will I go round in circles? Or will I fly high like a bird up in the sky?

Like me the hummingbird
Transcribes inner space
Half wingtip pinwheel
Leaving outer reaches
To the ragged hawk that flies alone
The hawk is:
I am what shall be
July 30, 2025
Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

11:45 AM  Sun 1 May 77

                            Keith softened me up by calling to ask if I’d been in

his office. He smelled my perfume. (I hadn’t.) Agreed to go out with him

Sat night.  Just awful.  Awful. Keep wishing he was literally ANYONE

else. Dating someone who doesn’t interest you sexually is like trying

to diet by ordering food you dislike. (I actually tried this. Ordered tripe.)

Howlably stupid. Yet no one to howl to.

                            R. says he’d “hate” to think I “needed” him and didn’t

call. Am I the stupid one here? I think so. Sucker for punishment. Upstairs,

Downstairs cheers me up a little. Considering renting little house in the

wilds of Virginia. Or garden apt. utilities included. Dogs would like it –

close to clubs. Read Eliz Savage’s Good Confession – very minor.

Cleaning. Laundry, dishes, garbage.

                       Thinking about Sylvia Plath and the problem of panic

attacks. It’s all about learning to steer into the skid.

                    Wed May 4 – 77

                       Made illegal copies of novel at work, drove to Plush

Palace in Virginia to audition. (10 Mins down Rt 1 from Woodrow

Wilson bridge. 1 HR commute). VA pays better, mandates pasties

& stockings, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (I’m not kidding)

makes sure you don’t sit with or talk to clientele. Amen! I was hired

immediately $90 day plus tips.  So pleased.  Got a car appt Fri 13^th

so El Diablo won’t die on Beltway. Working Thurs, Fr. Sat and there’s

no holdback, they pay you immediately.  Buy G-strings & pasties

Landover mall.

                       Avril says R “betrayed” me.  But do you “betray” someone

by having a weak character? He can’t help it. A says he’s behaved

so badly there’s no hope for him.   I think he can’t make up his mind –

he wants me only if I don’t want him.  Plus if he finds out I’m dancing

again he’ll want to “convert” me.  (He’ll think I’m doing it just to torture

him. I don’t plan to tell.) Gave A a copy of my novel to read – feeling

insane – got to get reaction from SOMEBODY. Broadcast asks me to

stay “on call” so Mr. Pierce has forgiven me or is desperate.

                   Plush Palace – 9 PM Fri 6 May 77

                   Very nice dressing room. Girl I’m dancing with (Darla) is just

awful. Find the comparison very cheering. A gobbled my novel up, says

it’s “deep” but “obsessive”;  made me feel on right track.  How much can

I torture my audience? I‘ve GOT to stop blubbering and start fantasizing.

Who CARES about the pathos of my existence? Make something up.

                   Sat. 7 May 77

                 House is mine! Everyone moved out.  (A’s & Mason’s new

place just what they wanted – skyscraper urban nightmare.) Listening

to opera, reading NY Times, feeling like a Big Success. Dog across

my chest in blissful rapture. ($100 in tips last night!!!) R called to say

I “always have a place with him” and He “has never taken my heart

ring off”. Is he nuts or am I?

                 Realize for the first time he says things he KNOWS aren’t

true just to hear himself say them!!  Just like the Victorians –

mouthing something is halfway there!  Because you’re making an

effort! You could not imagine anyone more opposite from me. Hopeless,

hopeless, hopeless, as the rock musicians say.

                   Reading Bottle Factory Outing – so wonderful. (But liked

The Secret Glass better.) Trying to numb weird longings to write ghost

stories by eating chicken potpie (regression). Wrote first draft of a short

story about a grandmother telling her shocked granddaughter about

“the time I almost committed suicide”. Very matter of fact.  Feel I’m

recovering from “mono-soul-iosis” – not just R but my first marriage,

Devon and everyone between.   Shoulders asks to borrow lawnmower –

asked me if I want to watch him use it.  (He knows he’s pretty.)  I do.

                   7:15 PM 8 May 1977

                   Feeling much better, like I’ve passed a turning point.  Wasn’t

sure how much I could trust myself in the past, but if I’ve come through

this, my core must be solid, instead of the jelly mass I fear. Sitting in my

far-from-clean study beneath my poster of Blake’s God & the Angels

enjoying an after dinner cup of coffee. Sanity returns. A. is coming tonight

to get her flokati rugs – that will make the downstairs look empty.   Trying

to finish Household’s Courtesy of Death, so I can take all these silly books

to the library, dump them, and get a lifetime supply of Peter de Vries. The

only proven painkiller is laughter. My damn novel’s made a fool out of me.

Time to admit it.

                   3:15 PM 9 May 77

                   Called into Broadcast to sub for Loretta.  Working on Devlyn

galleys. The main scary thing about this place is that no one works

here willingly. “Morale” is a poisonous miasma.  Kind of like the

architects’ office.

                   Mom & Dad raise hell over A’s living with Mason.  I thought

they were so worked up about “commitment”!  Sharing an apt is a

commitment, isn’t it? Not according to them. Glad poor A is taking

the storm for once and not me. Couldn’t cope with them on top of

everything else. R. and I are trying to evolve into a “friendship”. It

sounds stupid but there has to be some third place between

attraction and avoidance because each of those is obsession.

When I ran this idea past R he said I was his “best friend”.  This is

why he is so impossible to deal with.  Best friend? He wouldn’t

treat a pet the way he’s treated me (the SPCA would come and get him.)

                   Speaking of Ryder, he just called. Finished my book,

found the Black Mass a little short otherwise liked it. Didn’t say a

word  about “who’s Hank based on.” Thank God. He did ask who

the baby’s father is – I said even Nilssa doesn’t know.  According

to R.  I have “no problems”. (He doesn’t know about the dancing.  If

he was REALLY my best friend I could tell him.) He says we have

the whole rest of our lives to talk.  He’s uncannily good at saying

what I want to hear (unfortunately).  Seeing him tonight.  Take the bus

home, buy wine, wash & set my hair.  If only we could get to the stage

where we no longer fear each other.

                   4:50 PM Tues 10 May 77

                   Well we’re not out of the woods yet but perhaps have

found a path.  Last night was like losing my virginity all over again

– we were both so shy. Slept wrapped up and embracing. Many

compliments on my body (no tell-tale glitter in the bed.)  He said he

was so upset by me breaking up with him at McDonald’s he can’t

go to any McD’s anymore.  Pledges of love somewhat ruined by

an argument during breakfast about whether a novel can be “good”

if no one will buy it. Uh oh. I tried keeping it philosophical, not

giving historical examples he wouldn’t recognize (which would be

“one-upping”.) Finally stopped when he got a call from a “goofy

chick.” Should I be worried, I ask, and he says no. But I can’t avoid

the sinking feeling that I don’t dare hitch my wagon to anyone

so dependent on mass psychology – even as a friend – without losing my way

July 29, 2025
Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

         Fri. 25 Feb 77

                   I fuss, I fume. I shriek and scream.  I circle my

desk warily. Cannot get into this awful novel. Stare hard at

the clutching sisters in the Victorian photo for inspiration.

None comes. Instead slapped together a first poetry collection

– In the Vein.

                   5:20 PM Sun 27 Feb 77

                   Ryder will be here any minute. Driving straight

through from Pittsburgh because he “misses me so much.”

Flank steak marinating, turnips, parsnips & parsley, tomatoes

& sour cream – everything ready but wine.  Too lazy to drive

to the Tick Tock. Day of ecstasy sorting books in new study.

Sections are: crime writing, Victorians, Great Novels, the Occult,

Women Writers, Cinema, Politics, Science, Children, History &

Murder Mysteries. (Move those downstairs.) Hating Orlando.

Why did Bowen write Afterword if she didn’t like the book?

                   Mon 28 Feb 77 – Broadcast Agency

                   Bad sex. Sore.  Feel like I’ve been run over. Something’s

up with him.  Mauled me again in the middle of the night. Guilt?

Surprise visit from landlord – heard about “violations” from

Montgomery County. Ha ha. Obviously only two people living here –

(nothing visible of Mason’s.) Landlord calmed.  Says he wants to

sell the place. Would we allow to be shown? I said sure. Everybody happy. Sorry to lose such a beautiful house but it is too expensive for one person anyway.

                   Thurs. 3 Mar 77

                   Long talk with Avril about Mason. He is a racist.

She says how is it possible to feel superior to and inferior to someone at the same time? Human condition, I say. Spring wind makes me long to shed my clothes! Poor Ryder! It’ll be halter tops and hot pants the minute temp hits 65. Finally got a V. Woolf poem –

VIRGINIA WOOLF:

The Membraned Sieve

O bliss to be red admiral afeast

Upon a rotten apple in the grass; she dreamed that guiltily

Woke to Leonard bringing milk

Nessa dancing bear-like on the lawn, woke

To pain; cylindrical as seasons

Burning white and burning blue like friends.

The words fell fast, the blood fell faster;

Split the membraned sieve.

She raced the whitecaps out to sea

Parting the waves with her mother’s hand.

       Keith and I still talk but he has made no moves. Relief.

      Mon 7 Mar 77

      Ryder says he talks so much about me associate director

Kerry’s asked to meet me. (He told Kerry he doesn’t deserve

me.  It’s the truth!)  I said he can’t come to our party at

The Plum – we have no room.

          Sex too rough. Experimenting or letting his anger

out? Maybe I’ve stopped lubricating – my body’s ready

to quit even if I’m not. Wants me to wake up and smell

the coffee. Lunch w/Maeve at Carmac’s, me splendid in

orange leather suit, boots, bracelets. Bloody Marys.

I gave her phone bill – also letter from collection agency

about plane bill she said boyfriend paid for. He’s obviously

running a scam on her.  She says she found a Bethesda

efficiency $180/month. Had to rush to get back to work –

then saw List of Adrian Messenger with A. Made up writing

schedule for Secaire. But the minute I start I get idea for

another work – story about father/ daughter/ stepmother war–

A Demon Roused. Who’s the demon? Reading The Ring,

the Book & The Poet.

11 Mar 77

          Sent home 3:30 because B’Nai B’rith under siege

by terrorists (3 blocks away). Police will tell us when to

come back. Real estate agent leads inspector thru house.

Bad letter from my agent telling me not to try to sell “old” stuff,

write in “new” vein – but she means “like Devlyn”.  No more

historicals for me!!!! Got to get out of this stalemated “love”

relationship – when I tax R with things he’s said, he

claims he “doesn’t remember” so we never advance

and I feel diminished. Had to tell him sex is over – I can

see he doesn’t believe me.  Must ask for his key back,

that should do it. Dragged Avril protesting to Freaky Friday –

it was worth it. Barbara Harris Chaplinesque. Told Broadcast

I will work only one full day per week – must go back to dancing.

        Read Ellen Glasgow’s The Woman Within. Trying to

rewrite Secaire in third person. Unsuccessful. Dreaming

about houses with deep, cool porches but tax people

giving me only $112. Avril crying over Mason’s “hideous brutality”

but she won’t break up with him. Ugh. (Feel my relationship mirrored.)

13 Mar 77

        Made love with R for what I hope was last time

(he brought lubricant.) His body no longer a key to mine.

Think I’m started on Secaire Final Draft. God I hope so.

R will sulk for a while, then we’ll “talk”.  Prayed for the first

time, to the “life source”. Pray away panic and disorder,

pray for clarity, purity, calm. Beautiful long walk. Heat like July.

Storm burst 4:30.  Coffee, orange slices, do my nails. Re-

read Great Gatsby, pitying Fitzgerald the while. Someone

should write this novel from Daisy’s point of view.  Exciting

way to get back into Courtney – but I don’t want to put it in the ‘20’s.

     Told R I’m dating so had to invite Keith to All Night Strut –

he was pleased. Says he’s not hung up on men paying for everything.

17 Mar 77

     Thank God for dancing. a fe moments of complete bliss each evening.

Everyone fussing about Scenes from a Marriage.  It is excellent.

Reading good bio Dorothy Thompson.  Novel going swimmingly –

suddenly feel fearless. Sex scene perfect. Why elaborate?

Why elucidate? Need to be out of this house June 1 – can do,

but should I return to dancing or take summer off? Undecided.

Mon. 21 Mar 77

                   Wish I hadn’t called Ryder but I did. He was very injured

by my sex comments.  I said I was very injured by the sex. (He says he fears me.) Goddamit feel like turning in my phone if this is how

I am going to behave. Watched Upstairs Downstairs, Monty Python.

Felt better. All Night Strut amusing – Keith invited me to Voyage of the Damned. (He pronounces it Dam – NED. In a class by himself after all?)

Unfortunately not feeling the chemistry.  Trying to take what pleasure I can in high heels and see through blouses. Could we just date? Secaire solid, beautiful, disturbing. Avril says its very exciting. Found a shack in Virginia for $200/month.  But maybe I have to flee this state to eradicate R from my soul.

                   23 Mar 77

                   Voyage classically awful. Majestically, stupendously awful.

Bad date. I talked too much. Goddamit dating’s awful.  Like those endless “teas” we suffered through in Girl Scouts.  Sex is less work (not that I indulged. He has a repellently gooey corpus.)  He took me to Alfio’s for dinner!  Scene of R’s & my first date!  Couldn’t resist telling him I used to dance at Shalimar next door. Keith invited me to his house in Potomac.  I said nix. Dumped on doorstep with closed mouth kiss.

Shudders of relief. Walked in on Mason in a rage over my “betrayal” of Ryder!! I said he’s dating other people. Mason said but he loves you!

I didn’t say his love is a septic condition. (Because Mason’s love is also a septic condition. Poor Avril.) Happily to bed with Becker’s Escape from Evil.

                   2 April 77

                   Crisis at work sending my first cablegram to France – Keith showed up looking extremely handsome.  Terrible suspicions novel is bad.

Off to splendiferous bash – literary party.  Met Chuck Kornowitz,

editor from Athenaeum.  Acted interested in my work – where can we have dinner? Took him to the Serbian Crown.  He is NOT interested in my work he is interested in me. Damn. Told me the most erotic encounter he has ever had was with a stranger in an elevator!  Feels sex with complete strangers has not yet been fully explored!!! Not by me that’s for sure.

                   He drove me home, insisted on walking dogs with me, holding my hand! Weird but I don’t want to turn him off entirely. (He’s old and ugly – looks like a Gila monster.) Fighting the impulse to call R and yell at him.  Boy am I sick. Poor Keith does not know I need him for a rabies shot. Against hair of the dog?

                  Fri. 8 Apr 77

                   Agency offers me over-time while files are reorganized.  More cash. We celebrate Avril‘s new job as fake nurse at urology office.  She hasto buy a nursing uniform so patients won’t know. (Doctor not willing to pay over minimum wage.)  Still, it looks classy. Went to Black Tahiti where I had sweet & sour shrimp. Turns out I need to stay away from booze because called You Know Who came right over and we indulged in mad passionate sex all night long. R was delicate and gentle – brought me to the edge several times before finally pushing me off cliff.  Showoff.

                   Talked about me like he’d read my work. (Praising it.

Thought I’d be pleased.) Then told me he’d “busy” this weekend.

Steeerike three!  Tragically I need a guardian, conservator AND a

bodyguard.  (Keith doesn’t have the build.)

                   Chloe apologized for bad writing workshop with dinner

after at Armand’s.  My advice to writers – learn what kind of writer

you need to be and get on with it. Found myself getting defensive about Devlyn – if I don’t want to write “that way” again it must mean there was “something wrong” with it!!!  Bad advice from Ted Hughes :

“When you find yourself using someone else’s voice, stop at once.”

Nothing ventured nothing gained under that theory.  This is not making me eager to hit the “literary events” as Chloe advised. The “noise” interferes with my working mind.

                   Hostile questioning from Mom and Dad who don’t know

why I don’t move closer to Devon!!!  They say “playing the field” is

cheapening my brand. Reading Mrs. Starr Lives Alone.

July 28, 2025
Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                   Fri. 24 Sept 76

                   Checked my acct – $54!! Don’t know where it came from

but I will spend it.  Sent poems to Chloe Aparo, borrow bike from

Shoulders. Ryder wants to go horseback riding, we went to see

The Tenant instead. (Cheaper).  R managed to discuss it intelligently.

Trying to research the occult for Secaire.  Reading bad suspense

novel – Geoffrey Turtons Devil’s Churchyard. I liked all his other

books. Dump it for Aleister Crowley’s Diary of a Drug Fiend. $10

to live on for 2 weeks. Mom & Dad sent emergency check.

                   6:25 PM – Sun 3 Oct 76

                   Fabulous dinner party last night. Steak tartare, crab

and cheese casserole, lots of wine. R and I fall asleep in each

other’s arms.  We have more sex “broken up” than when we were

dating. Got offered $3.50 an hour for 4 hr a day legal secretary!!!

Out of their minds.  Trying to sell my wedding dress for $150 –

got one porno call.

                   Tues 5 Oct 76

                   4pm appt with Environmental Defense Fund. Howard

Nemerov such a relief after Auden.

                   Thurs 11:30 PM 7 Oct 76

                   Typical Tyler St evening. Lying in bed (alone) powdered

and polished from bath. Maeve and Avril out on dates. R is working,

I’m reading Quest for Theseus. Got too depressed reading

Shirley Jackson. Her life solutions: food and cigarettes – plenty

of both.  Lost EDF job –  as soon as they turned me down I

decide I want it!  To WTTG to apply for “production asst” job –

200 people spilling into street!  Didn’t bother.  How write about

love if it’s impossible?

                   I owe Maeve money – she doesn’t like it and I don’t

like it. Tension almost unbearable waiting for my check.

                   R offered jobs in Pittsburgh & Detroit. (He says he

doesn’t ever want to leave though it’s the only way to make more $$.)

                   12:55 PM Wed 13 1976 These are the times that try

women’s souls. Desperately accepted switchboard job at Broadcasters Agency because it looks easy and I can think my own thoughts.

Replacing a girl going on maternity leave so I’m not stuck if I don’t

like it. Agent sent check told me not to cash it for a week!!! Thinking

they’re all scam artists. Reading Diane Johnson’s brilliant Lesser

Lives. Avril depressed over Mason. Maeve depressed over George.

I am buying diet pills because of sedentary job.

                   Switchboard – Broadcast Agency 9:15 AM – Fr. 18 Feb 77

                   New notebooks such a thrill. Always a fresh start:

I could almost become anyone. Worked 3 full days this week –

more $$ in the coffers. Avril coming in to Broadcasters Agency

to apply for Zelma’s old job – $8500/yr for 7 hr day.  Hope she

gets it. Brought in The Voyage Out today – I WILL finish it –

bring it to its knees. Perfect example of everything usually wrong

with first novels. Don’t like her novels as much as letters and diaries.

Talk about peering through a glass darkly. Oh well. Still drinking

coffee and picking the fuzz out of my eyes. Period’s arrived with its

usual exquisite timing. Once I’ve finished Secaire (needs a final burst)

can rewrite Find Courtney. Sort of a love story there.

                   10:30AM Sun 20 Feb 77

                   R and I went on ski weekend to Massanutten.

Didn’t work.  Never felt so far from him, and he realized it.

Opal & Garrett over for dinner last night – their relationship is

boring when I’m alone and don’t have R doing all the work for me.

                  Drank too much out of sheer boredom and because I was

depressed over R, then I get depressed over being depressed

and drink more.  Clearly he’s worthless and I must be too if I can

get depressed over him. No good work on novel. Filing, cleaning,

paying bills takes up all my time and my room still looks like a filthy hole.

Hermiting seems only option (cheaper, too). Must learn to roll

with the punches.

Fantasizing about Devon because 24th is his birthday. Bad sign.

                   1:00PM 21 Feb 77

                   Dizzy from dieting. Not dancing very bad for my body.

Current weight 122. (Opal says I have the perfect body. Glad

someone appreciates it.) Ryder suggested jogging – bad mistake.

Instantly attacked by colds & flu. Instead of eating go to library on

my lunch hr to take out books. Went to see The Sentinel somewhere

in the burbs with Avril and Mason, who drove like a crazy person

(“I’m not afraid of death!”) Never again. Ghastly flick. Mason moving in

– his money is good.  Another secret to be kept from landlord. A guy

at work (Keith Dalrymple) is courting me. He looks all right, though

he has receding hairline. Kind of old.  Asked to read my novel. I gave

him my poems instead. He needs to hit the ground running.

                   Tues. 22 Feb 77

                   Mason trying to talk A into moving to Calif with him. Uh oh.

Maeve also wants to move out because I’m critical of her

“dating” her married boss (they have sex in the supply closet).

She believes his tiredest lines.  “Drop him – he’s outrageous

and destructive,”  I say.  I’m one to talk. Will use her room for

my study.  Try to live without roommates. Sent Devon a long

grey silk scarf for his birthday.

                   3:40 PM Wed 23 Feb 77

                   Keith Dalrymple amazingly told me he loves my

poems. Wow. Having good literary taste definitely works with me!

Having a drink with him tonight.  Had to struggle to keep myself

from hurling cash at a gorgeous $50 suit in going-out-of-business

dress shop on Dupont Circle. Slogging through Mrs Dalloway –

it’s her best book. But all this blind struggle not my thing. Require

some consciousness. I guess we were reptiles in those days just turning amphibious.

                   Thurs. 24 Feb 77

                   Can’t seem to write poetry anymore. Cocktail bar buffet

with Keith (Avril calls him a “dim bulb”. We are very critical of each

other’s honeys.)  He’s a Woolf novel – smooth glossy surface,

violence and trauma beneath.  He is intelligent – quoted Frost –

38 yrs old – divorced (was married 15 years!!!) I sat swilling

Scotch and giving him the hairy eyeball – do I have the strength

for this? He blanched when I ordered escargots chablisienne.

                Wouldn’t even kiss him. I demand exceptionality and refuse to settle for less.  Whatever else you can say about Ryder, he’s definitely one of a kind. I am in a unique position compared to other women writers. Given the chance to rise above sexual

strictures.  Bought an exquisite pair of very high-heeled boots. I tower over Ryder – in more ways than one. Heheheh.

July 27, 2025
The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

6. ENTREGARME – SURRENDER

EVAN
I am utterly becalmed.
What I dread most is silence,
The latest form of impotence.
I need stringing up and tautening.
This is the
Revenge of love. Its revenge on me.

EVA
I am suffused with love because I am free.
My work becomes our child,
Our extension. Immortal. Still,
Something vanishes when you’re not there.

EVAN
Elayna broke her hip.
How irreplaceable she is to me.
Our brand of married happiness is entirely unsung.
I shrink to leave her even for a day.

EVA
I’m sorry it wasn’t fatal.
Am I so dispensable to you?
You love no one. If you turn against me
I’ll die in a week because
I have no one looking after me.

EVAN
Turn against you! Agonizing!
In spite of the hangover of humiliation
I broke down all reserves so we could be together.
A very happy day and I was sorry to leave you.

EVA
Wed & sad.
Past distress muffled by age & habit.
Today we meet formally as if at a garden party.
A promise unfulfilled.
Miracles happen but
The gift of love is guilt & pain.

EVAN
You looked so ill
I was nagged by fear I bored you.
I long for the happiness of old age,
Guilt free, pain free, fear free.

EVA
I invited Elayna to lunch.

EVAN
I am not best pleased.
Your ghost will haunt me till I die.
The day you come to like each other
It will be poison to our love.

Elayna rarely admits depression.
I have had not just love but loyalty.
You force ruthlessness.
It is a good thing your throat is sore
Or you would never stop talking.

EVA
Are you sending me your signet ring?
I want something solid to remember you by.
A last communion.
Dodging death, I fight off this
Paralyzing loneliness.

(EVA fades away. EVAN is alone.)

EVAN
Is the flaw in love a flaw in me?
I never should have married.
My heart jumps with pain like a hooked fish.
I am rudderless. Upon your death
My ring comes back,
All your contrivances revealed.

Now that you are gone, I find you everywhere.
It’s hard to take in the fact that
We will never see each other again;
Never, never, never.
You are gone from me forever.

I walk the streets and weep.
Is this delayed shock? Boredom or despair?
I will never cease to feel this pain till
I cease feeling anything.
For the last three nights, I dreamed of you.

Did I anger you, neglect you?
It’s too late to pray –
I await your final book with horror.
I need to know I was your life.
Please come back one last time
For just an hour.
If you ever thought you loved more than I
You are now
Revenged.

July 21, 2025
The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

4. CALESITA –THE MERRY GO ROUND

EVA
Did I leave my diary behind?
Don’t read it, not that you would.
It’s anaphrodisiac. I am filled with envious admiration
For the way you spend your time.
It’s an incentive to work, being alone.
Diplomats are never lonely.

EVAN
My bed gets so icy in the small hours of the morning –
I am losing interest in sex.
Perhaps I am already part of the spirit world.
I am in limbo and will never escape this place.

The teenager remains alive in me, I have a
Panic fear of conformity
So I cast myself as the elderly rake.
I fear I’m the bore –
Marriage gets me down.

EVA
When you go on and on about yourself
You’re a man I don’t recognize.
I prefer your adolescent self.
The man of the house should be a free agent.
A respected prowler
Never lonely, housebound,
Eating baked beans and drinking stewed tea.

EVAN
In other countries women
Are less bossy and more decorative.
You are jealous of my life –
I am jealous of yours.

EVA
Ah the pain of your reproach!
Not seeing you would kill me.
I live for the memory of our every moment.
I wouldn’t give a damn if I died tomorrow.

EVAN
This is the letter I would write you if I dared,
if I weren’t frightened by the cancer
Of your wife-hatred.
I am overworked, wrung out.
Possessed by you.

You make me live at the pitch of anguish.
Our love has roots in good and evil,
It lives in the darkest places of our natures
Shall we end by destroying each other?
You have the deadlier weapons.

EVA
I do have a bad effect on people.
Guilt, conspiracy, love,
I cannot breathe without them.

EVAN
Boredom, dissipation, remorse,
And apprehension– I can’t escape this obsessive cycle.
Beneath the controlled surface of my mind
Opportunities to be frenzied are endless.
I’m afraid of saying something ruthless which many stick.

EVA
This place is full of you.
I can no longer look at hyacinths
Gratitude for our happiness chokes me.
The restlessness of pleasure going to waste.
Missing you is like an illness.

EVAN
If there’s a worm in this bud
Who is the corruptor?
Your insights are so powerful they alter mine.

EVA
I believe we should exchange rings.
Is this a faux pas? Would your wife object?
I need something in case you die of your itch or
I fall out of an airplane.

I wonder why Elayna’s throat won’t heal?
I believe she is ice-bound.
Sealing you away from life.

EVAN
You witch, you have
Frozen poor Elayna’s throat.
I begged you not to. You make all
Suffering physical.

EVA
Elayna’s frozen her own throat –
I wish you’d see it.
Depression is hallucinatory.
Guilt and sorrow undermine my confidence,
I refuse to give them credence.

EVAN
I’m grateful when we talk calmly,
Our fearful scenes seem so long ago.
I’m sure the panic of youth has played its part.
I used to hope you would love me less over time
But now I think we love each other equally.

EVA You are so near me I feel we are one person.
I feel you now beside me.
I will make you real.

EVAN
I feel your longing
As I fear your signaling.
I owe you happiness
But I can’t express it.
We must believe life is as beautiful as music
Says it is.

EVA
The illusions we cultivate are
A form of courage.
Forget my deficiencies
Find amusement in the worldly game.

July 19, 2025
The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

3. LATIGAZO – WHIPPING

EVAN
Do you really love me?
Why should you?
I don’t any longer
Believe In friendship.

EVA
It is a horror, an outrage
That we should not be together. I struggle against
The wound of not knowing where you are each minute.
Everything you do is more important to me than my own life.
The whole of me is with you.
I see and feel you so distinctly,
Your beloved cold hand in mine
Your touch on the nape of my neck.

Joy and agony
– my insides torn by pincers.
A double goodbye would have been awful
– two bites on the bullet of pain.

This love is like something we have given birth to.
We must never blunt our imagination or tenderness.
Don’t get a cold in your soul.

EVAN
Are these abortive suicide attempts?
I disappoint everyone.
Cut the cable. Set me free.

I deliberately left one of your letters for Elayna to find.

With me love is linked with
A need to betray. I invite possessiveness.
She made me promise our love would never be physical.
I lied fluidly.

EVA
Even the thought of
Such a loss of pleasure tears at my heart
Like some medieval torture.

You harrow me unbearably.
My defenses are down.
I’m filled me with a sense of ghastly injury.
How I wish I were more beautiful –
It’s my mouth that ages me.
It reveals my greedy secrets.

I want you seeing all of me –
Even if it hurts. My work
Is my legacy –
You are your own child.
You preserve your youth with the harm
That you cause.

I feel I am dead and already
Interred – in you.
You are my eternity.

EVAN
Repressed boredom causes blocks
You can’t have everything.
I am kept aloft by the conflict of
Unbearables.
It makes me happy.

EVA
If our dancing life is over –
Should I enter a convent?
There’s no point in being alive
if we’re not together.
I show my deepest self to you alone.

EVAN
Please – no more shaming conversations
Over Irish whisky. Let’s cut our losses
And get some fun from life.
Your miraculous capacities awaken
My belief in myself.

EVA 

The gash in our love might close
But I’ll never forget it’s there.
Life with you is a remote happiness to which I cling

EVAN
And all this time you write such
Fantastic books. If you were as unhappy as you say,
You couldn’t write so well.
I’m proud to be
The whetstone on which you sharpen –
I should be thanked for all your works.

Writing to you
Makes me itch with a beastly itch –
Exhilarated, punch drunk
Feeling your enthrallment
Despite the day’s malaise.

I can’t put my heart back in the hollow
Where it used to be.
You force me to see
Myself.

At the peak of my ambition,
Beauty and power curdle within me.
People are so easily fooled, so
Satisfied with little
identify my performance with my Soul.

You’ve spoiled me for everything.
Stop warning me you’ll take a lover –
I don’t own your life and never aspired to.
There is heartbreak here, but is the ghost in the house
Or in me? We argue about who has the worst friends,
But our friends are all the same. Please
Send another psychic telegram, “You’re the One.”

EVA
Your last screed was a masterpiece.
I believe writing it
Creates that eczema from which
You say you suffer.
My friends at Tosca said it’s bad manners
To make a depressing fuss
And get other people down.

EVAN
Is the strength I draw from you a fairy tale?
I am appalled by the joint misery we feel.
Why should we not rebel?

EVA
You shed your light around me.
If only we could stand each other.
You’ll keep the blood
Running in my veins
Threatening to spill.

EVAN
Someone said I look ten years younger
From drinking your life, I’m sure.
I need my own room because I sleep badly and
I like to roam at night.

Tosca is too emotional to be good taste
But I’m happy you enjoyed it.
I feel far from you right now but
Underneath
I’m outrageously glad.

EVA
Your diplomacy fascinates me.
Your mettle is the stuff of history.
When young I resisted education
Like a fool – But
It makes everything comprehensible.
What kills me is having to deal with people.

I tie myself up writing
Imaginary conversations with you –
It’s possible you’re a creature of
My invention. Our pattern seems set –
Or is it?
If treachery can’t break it,
There is no death.

July 18, 2025
The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn
2 – Cadena – Enchainment
EVAN
A happy guilty day full of betrayals
Kept me in an extraordinary state
Of fascination. I’ve lied to everyone for
So long, I feel certain that truth
Is beyond me.

EVA
I’d rather see you dead at my feet
Than dead ON your feet.
That would be a mercy killing –
The last unbearable agony –
Wondering if you existed at all.

I have small talent for this.
I have disgraced my idealism,
Pretending boredom can be fruitful.
Waiting, waiting for you everywhere. I
Wake one day to find I’ve lost my looks, my hair,
fascination, brain – everything.

EVAN
You’re only waking up
In an empty hotel.
The light is always different
The morning after.
This is what middle-aged people do.
I love the brutality of your world.
You never fade. You are my word made flesh.

EVA
You are my religion.
Until In fell in love with you I was 25 inside.
I lived in a world of dreams and theories.
Your experiences seem realer to me than mine.

EVAN
Social instinct is my religion.
You have the bravery and intelligence
Men are supposed to have
But never do.
To have touched the same places
Is a bond between us.
I never think of my deficiencies –
Or how could I forgive myself?

EVA
Middle-aged people go to weddings
Out of perverse fascination for the bride.
I was that bride –
My day was all champagne.
Anaesthetized
It doesn’t hurt so much.
Such a sense of enormity came over me
I almost fainted. I gave Allen the dirtiest look: “You caused this.”

Without a wedding dress
I was a restless, dowdy snob.
People were falling in love left and right –
Even in decaying marriages.
I wanted that –
He read my subtext.
And I was caught.

EVAN
These dreary parties have a decaying effect.
My loneliness for you is like a whiplash.
Your absence is a bitter injury
But nothing can injure our love –
We’re too strong for them.
I’m silenced till I hear from you.

If I let myself go I would feel desperate.
I can’t bear you’re going to France without me –
But –
isn’t love our country?

EVA
I won’t say “I’ll die if you don’t come”
Because I know you would come if you possibly could.
What a skeleton in the cupboard a wife is.

EVAN
Don’t be jealous of Elayna. You are the only goal
Toward which my life is tending.
You are the meaning of my life.
I could never live for work alone.

EVA
You enlarge my soul.
In your mind is my existence.
You’re more real to me than me.
I’m in a peculiar psychic state.
It’s an atmosphere of illusion.
I envy Elayna all the time.
It drips like an irritant over my nerves.

EVAN
What of Allen? You
Have your worse half too.
I don’t waste my time
Being jealous of him.

EVA
Oh, Allen spends time lost in woods,
Falling in love with trees. He’s
No threat to anyone.

EVAN
To understand one’s destiny
One needs a framework for this mass of experience.
How can I live separated from you?
If I stopped caring for you
I couldn’t care for anything.

I need my wife, her whip-cracking organization.
I loathe living in the squalor I get to on my own.
Having breakfast OUT of bed is the last horror.
Miasmic feelings of impossibility and terror. Help me.

EVA
We help each other
By existing. Except for God I have no help but you.
Our love is growing more formidable as our unshakeable belief
Grows stronger. Like grace, it renews itself.
All yesterday I glowed. My inability to accept your wife
Is my deformity – help me with it.
The light of our love is the only light for me.
July 17, 2025
The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

THE DEMON LOVER

I. ABRAZO – THE EMBRACE

EVAN

I like women willful, late
For appointments,
fond of showy clothes and society, vague, drifting, dreamy,
yet of course all of that is tiresome.

Love mingles with irritation.
But I don’t like competence, intellectual honesty, intelligent sensuality.
Women who turn on me saying,
“You don’t love me.”

What good is it to have been so happy
when it ends so painfully?
I am a “crook”, a “torturer of women”,
“Murderer.” She makes me feel a monster.

Below the surface of the will
I feel deep animal distress, as if I had wives
Hidden away somewhere; perhaps
That is why I had to marry
My present wife.

EVA
If you start “trying to be good”
that will really come between us.
It’s too unattractive. What are you up to?

I dream of a small house in Burgundy but
You must help me pay the rent.
Having a home is a form of egotism.
My beautiful one, you could make me so happy.

Selfishly I want you here
So I don’t have to hallucinate your nearness.
What’s that wife of yours –
What do you call her –
Elayna –
Thinking in her frozen chamber?

I’m feeling sorrow at our growing separation.
Can’t we pull out of the world’s battle and live in retreat?
Grant me one last happiness
Before the sufferings of
Pain and old age.

EVAN
I can’t keep up with life’s ambiguous futility.
Is happiness just “freedom from pain”?
Life is unendurable without you.
People here are flirtatious but not sexy.
it’s so boring here
I’m hardening my heart to give up my home.

EVA
I find your misery gratifying.
This power of enjoyment comes from being an artist,
It is the secret of my strength.
When I was younger I used to
Accommodate everyone –
Now I’m recalcitrant.

It hurts because the sword runs through both of us.
You’re never out of my thoughts, but
Sadness dulls one.
Honestly, I always risk failing you,
Failing you in outstandingness.

You are extraordinary, I am extraordinary,
we have been extraordinary together.
Specimens under glass.

The agonizing force of missing you
Is sweeping over me.
We have eternity connecting us,
Backward & forward but I just
Can’t get anyone to believe it.

EVAN
Would my death simplify things?
My wife struggles with carrying the conversation
While I stare glumly at the rain.
We go to an expensive little restaurant
And pretend we are on a date to really talk.
My double life begins the moment
I say “Are you in love with me”?
And really mean “Am I in love with you?”

EVA
That woman’s killing you.
Imagine if you were dead and your wife
Wrote a book explaining you
To everyone! That’s true suffering –
Fodder for the mealy-mouthed.

EVAN
My wife won’t be writing any books
About me or about anything. You’re the one
To write the book. And
I feel safe in your witch-like hands.

EVA
Except I’ve told you over and over
You’ll outlive me. Because
You’re a killer.
Or your wife is.

You look younger than I’ve ever seen you.
Have you gone queer? I fear
I’ll die of my addiction –
We always do.
We prefer it.
Will you write about me?

July 16, 2025
Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

The Thistle – Resistance

If This Archetype Chooses You – Armor up. It’s coming. Are you feeling muzzled? Do you dream of battles? Do you wake up angry? Worried? Afraid? Do you gnash your teeth while you sleep? Do you love proving others wrong? When others speak are you eager to jump in and “set them right”? Is your favorite word, “No?”

Resistance is Never Futile – We become creatives for a reason. But what kind of creatives are we? After all, we can’t make our contribution unless we know who we are. Strangely, we get a lot of push-back on this seemingly basic investigation. First, there’s enormous cultural pressure against us defining ourselves while international corporate overlords compete, waging schemes to entrap us into fighting for them. It’s enough to gnash anyone’s teeth.

Creative Challenge – We must be protective of our special gifts. Specify under what circumstances you are relaxed, happy, creative and “In-Flow.” The ‘flow” state is “bliss” – your brain oozes alpha waves as you sink into some interesting exploration, losing any sense of time and feeling at one with the universe. Suddenly, we are experiencing the pleasures of “Eternity” while still very much a part of this sphere. Is “flow” achieved for you through music? Dance? Composition? Reading? Sex? Some lucky people access this state through meditation alone. It is certainly worth a try; meditation is very good for your brain.

Creative Danger – The danger of Eternal Resistance is that it becomes reflexive. Our Resistance must be chosen, carefully thought out and promoted by History and Fact.

Creative Opportunity – You are a work of art. Your whole life, your experiences, your very dreams, have brought you to this moment. Your resistance to invasion, to malformation, to co-option, to corruption, has blossomed into an individualized focus that must defeat their blander, blunter, self-serving opposition. You lose nothing – gain everything – by becoming yourself; a unique creative nonpareil who has never existed before and will never exist again. You are the opposite of a faceless soldier, you are rare, sui generis, customized for this moment of space and time but perfected for eternity. What fears are left to surmount? What can you dream?

Models & Mentors – ‘When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty” – Thomas Jefferson

“Every moment of resistance to temptation is a victory” – Frederick William Faber

“To fly we must have resistance” – Maya Lin

“The history of liberty is a history of resistance”
– Woodrow Wilson

“The more important an activity is to your soul’s evolution the more resistance you will feel” – Steven Pressfield

#Haiku: Counter-Pressure

First –
Relax;
Melt;
Slide;
Upend
Onslaught;
Be attacker’s
Banana peel

July 6, 2025