When You Wake Up This Morning – You realize, the future weighs on you. Will you be found wanting?
This is a Message from the Multiverse – these oppressive anxieties match with universal preoccupations. The planets slow when we don’t acknowledge their power. Let’s make friends with our anxieties. Uncertainly beleaguers us. Is there a way to divine the future?
Consult Your Dreams. The Number One question people have about dreams is, Are they prophetic? And the answer is of course YES. We KNOW the “truth’. We fear the truth. We don’t want to face the truth. We tremble at the continuing “losses” of age because the accretions are so hard to see. But our dreams – and the collective unconscious – KNOW what is going on. We are weaving straw into gold on a daily basis, transmuting the physical into the spiritual.
Dreams are also Art, and art – especially good art – is as forcefully mysterious, meaningful and evocative as any living thing. It changes as you change. It changes depending on how you look at it.
If Purrsons Need Truth.Purrsons Must Accept Revelation – Dreams tell us when to be afraid. Dreams warn when something is missing. Dreams uncover all the secrets you have been keeping from yourself.
The First Obligation : Purrsons Accept is that the truth will set you free. The second, is that although it can be terrifying, the truth is necessary. Purrsons spurn the hiding, lying, misrepresentation, that substitutes for truth.
Purrsons Can Handle the Truth – We are human, we are imperfect, and we need each other. Humans need governance and law to regulate our natural blindness and selfishness (which some would call original sin) into peaceful accord. The truth also is also that humans who lust only for power will eternally angle to get themselves into positions of control, exclusion and punishment. These impulses must be identified and weeded out and it is courageous, difficult, and really unwelcome work, because we Purrsons, we loving, generous Purrsons also have our own lives to live.
Purrson Danger –Our dreams notify us when one of these lethal persons is in our midst. Our maps & models offer a variety of plans for confrontation and escape, and a recipe for courage. At the present time, the Lethal Persons are banding together and hoarding weapons to give themselves even more guarantees for power and opportunities to welcome our despair.
Purrson Promise – Jesus said evil will not win. The challenge is to explore what ELSE he said, indeed, what is the message of all the great teachers? People who tell you to hate one another and go to war with one another are agents of evil. The first challenge is to create peace in our own hearts, peace in our own lives, peace in our own homes, and then start developing compassion for those who are not so lucky.
When Brutal Tactics and Empty Promises are Exposed as family destroyers, peace destroyers and community destroyers, we see clearly that efforts to spread and share despair come from an innate desire to surmount despair, but also that this has never worked and is not working. It allows the torturer (and the tortured) only the briefest respites. Only when the goal of increasing world suffering is finally given up can we welcome penitents back into the communion of equality.
Models & Mentors – “We write the future moment to moment” – Pema Chodron
“The best prophets lead you up to the curtain and leave you to peer through for yourself” – Frank Herbert
“The greatest thing a human soul can accomplish in this world is to see that poetry, prophecy & religion all are one”– John Ruskin
“The best way to predict the future is to create it”– Abraham Lincoln
“Yesterday has gone, tomorrow has not come, let us begin” – Mother Teresa
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.
Two more sets. I’ll live. Finished study of Mary McCarthy by Doris Grumbach. Much prefer that to actually having to read McCarthy who reminds me of Aldous Huxley – Is it possible to be toocontemporary? Trends of modern writing a little too sketchy for me. No book should feel like flipping through a magazine. Sensory overload sans enlightenment.
As for Angus Wilson – we are parting forever. I read all but two stories in Such Darling Dodos – back on the shelf he goes.
Wonderful day – up before 7, read New York Times, sent out poems – magnificent walk with dogs – explored abandoned house. Haunted by novel – so went back and got six pages – one good new idea.
Called publisher – ordered ten more books. Little self-promotion. While writing got call from the Plush Palace – would I come in two sets early for Glory, who is sick? Love to. Just feeling bankrupted by the drycleaners. I was justified too because first set got a big tip. ($300)!
Peter called – said he would have lovedto go to the Raitt concert with me but had to go to Vermont. He certainly talks differently when his girlfriend/housekeeper/telephone answerer person is not around.
He hinted that his love life is impossibly complex and he doesn’t want his parents to know. I’m guessing that she is married. He promised to get in touch when he gets back. I’m in the ladies room because the air-conditioning in dressing room not working – it is suffocating in there. Yesterday evening thoroughly enjoyable – steaks wine and hot fudge sundaes at A’s then watched Richard Brooks Happy Ending which really
was a bomb. Trying to read Anthony Powell’s Venusbergbut feeling nothing yet. Tried Sarton’s Miss Pickthorn– a hash of all her other stuff – very slight. Avril not home for past four hours – out on date with Jordan.
Can’t wait to hear the play by play.
11:45 PM – Thurs 13 Apr 78
Safe & warm in my gilt-canopied bed, happy in spite
of my cold. A & I got “El Diablo” inspected today – $70 – But at least she can take it to the MVA tomorrow and have it put in her name. That great feeling of “starting out fresh”. In spite of dribbles & wheezes, blissful dog walk followed by deep-dish pizza & wine at Armand’s. No painful memories.
Cherry blossoms are out.
Saw Coming Home with Jon Voigt & Jane Fonda. Good, if somewhat earnest. Bruce Dern acted like he was in a different movie. Rough role deserves a hero’s commendation. I stare at the casually interdependent couples – it’s been a year since I could lay a hand on another’s thigh with that proprietary air. Poor Avril dissolved in tears towards the end – too reminiscent of the “endless pain” of vets like Bruce and Mason.
I’d be more sympathetic if they didn’t take it out on others. What they learned apparently is how to “stage a war”. The people we love inflict the worst damage. Avril’s at the stage where she’s still haunted by Mason but feels it’s “boring” to talk about him so she bottles it up. I tell her get a diary. Hope to finish Powell’s
Agents & Patients tonight – but it is a little dull.
Plush Palace –Fri 14 Apr 78 – 3:50 PM
Only 3 more sets, with 4 dancers. Still, made
enough tips for groceries. Buy wild birdseed for the birds cavorting
outside my desk’s bay window. Daringly went on without stockings – such a savings if we didn’t have to buy them but Eddie told me No Cigar.
Too bad – they’re hot in summer. Alvera says Yvonne’s back at Mother Joe’s. I thought she wouldn’t be able to eat enough shit to stay in her music clerk job. We goddesses so spoiled by our pedestal. Called A in the afternoon to see how she was doing – Shoulders was there flexing his muscles at her and she is over the moon. Trying to be glad for her but in spite of his obvious beauty I’m afraid he is a bit of a shit. (See testimony of past burnees plus eviction notices.)
I feel I must disappear deeper into solitude and see what’s down there. Gift (new version of Courtney) coming along interestingly but slowly. I’m afraid it has no plot other than my own life, when what it needs is a couple of murders. (Same thing my life has always required.) Poems so much easier instead.
Tried to read Phyllis Bottome but she’s a fatal cross between a
didact and a pleaser; sort of like a barky little dog. Most unpleasant.
And that casual anti-Semitism pretty shocking.
Plush Palace – Sat 5:50 PM 15 Apr 78
Halfway through novel – can’t figure out if I’m
satisfied or not. All my discoveries so agonizingly slow. Can’t afford
fuckups – then I’ll have to go through it all AGAIN. Slept late, breakfast at Avril’s. We did laundry together, then played gin.
I was the first one here thank God (means I’m the
first to leave). Got my schedule – 4 nights in a row, 2 days off. Good.
Congratulate myself on my intellectual freedom as I wrap black lace around my throat, recalling all the put-downs I suffered back in the day when I was an “architect’s helpmeet”.
Reread Alvarez’ description of Plath’s suicide – I don’t agree her death was some “by-product.” Her mother raised her to be murdered by other people;
Nazis or husbands. There had to be a “bloodletting” – Mrs. Plath’s ulcer – Sylvia’s “suicides”. If you don’t “accept” martyrdom someone will have to die in your place. Kid yourself it’s” freedom” just because you choose time & place.
It bothers me terribly that Mom & Daughter shared a bedroom during Sylvia’s formative years. Death would seem inevitable just to get some privacy & distance. Poor Sylvia offered those magnificent poems to Alvarez and he
backed away terrified because Art is terrifying. $30 for lost contact that came out when a necklace scraped my eyeball while I was hanging upside down.
Teach me to wear contacts onstage. Who needs to see the audience anyway?
7:15 PM Sun 16 Apr 78
Spent the day in bed eating oranges, raisin bread, peanut butter. Avril’s spending the night at Shoulders’ new place – then tomorrow we’re going to the new Cassavetes film and I’m excited. Jervaze in for last set to invite me to his going away party. I slept nine hours.
Horrifying Who Made the Lamb – author really lost control of this one but I bet she would say she was just “reporting”. Books Do Furnish a Room much better than Powell’s previous – has a sense of direction. “Trapnel himself always insisted that a novel is what its writer is”. I would agree. Style follows taste, I think. Realize Dad and I don’t mean the same thing by the word “intellectual”. He means a person who knows specific things, (education) I mean a person who thinks a certain way (style).
Twain never meets. I am not respectful of artificially acquired patinas –
“points of view”. Wrote the infirmary scene – just what I wanted to say.
Maybe I need to give up sex and even male companionship –
– just can’t afford them.
Plush Palace – 6:45 PM Fri 21 Apr 78
Wonderful walk along Powder Mill Road thinking
about the mystique of money. I eternally fight a rearguard action. Mom & Dad call at noon – Genevieve had little girl – Belinda. Avril delivers my new lens– bounce notice in mail – I tear my hair in a frenzy. I get to dance 2 sets for GiGi – $200 – she tells me about her night of sin with Louie. And she wants another one. Life’s a soap opera. Management says there’s going to be a drug raid with dressing room search warrant. Panic among the girls – but not me. Check out the customers with a more intense interest. Are narcs here? Everyone planning to leave town except me. I offer to work tomorrow night.
Reading an interesting study of Iris Murdoch novels – the Disciplined Heart. Too much coffee – I’m switching to tomato juice.
Called Jervaze and suggested we do something tonight – he acted enthusiastic. I said, “Should I be calling you? Wouldn’t want to call too much,” and he said, “Call all the time.” Ryder–induced horrors dropping away one by one. It’s snowing – I’ll go straight to Jervaze’s. (He’s close to club.)
4PM Friday, Jan 13-78
I think Jervaze may really be an angel; one of Milton’s
sexed up angels who took a wrong turn to our planet by mistake. Some anxiety is relieved. We never did get to go anywhere – stayed in bed. Bliss.
But if this doesn’t work I will damn well marry Devon whether he likes it or not – I can’t take much more of this.
I’m at my desk hammering out letters – trying to answer one from the island realtor. The studio apt has “no cooking facilities”. I don’t care but the realtor does, she has a house on the pond for $175 “long lease” she wants me to take. Says it has a Franklin stove and I could “bike to town.” I admit I’m interested. Jervaze has offered to come to the island with me in March –
I really shudder at the thought of introducing him to my parents, how to tactfully say, Please don’t ask him about Ideas and only offer him one drink.
Last night I let myself into his apt, took a shower, tried to use his sparkingly hazardous blow dryer, gave that up, crawled in bed with him. I had lots of Ryder-induced fears that he wouldn’t be there, in bed with another girl, etc. But no. There he was, nude, gorgeous, asleep – and when he woke up, happy to see me.
5:25 PM Plush Palace – Sat 14 Jan 78
Snakes dropping into paradise one by one. First, although Jervaze is incredibly easygoing – it is impossible to get him to state a preference about a movie or a restaurant, for example – (had to drag him to Eastwood’s Every Which Way But Loose) I can tell he is nervous about introducing me to his brother and sister in law. Should I just suggest we lie about what I do for a living? I guess that wouldn’t really solve anything.
Sartre is so right. Hell IS other people. Then there’s my mother – the latest demon fondling my ear. Once a woman has made herself vulnerable to a man, she’s through. Uncommitted sex brings out the worst in men, blah blah blah. Because it’s “too perfect” ( his point of view). I am “causing him moral hazard”. Yes, I tell the voice,
and it would be perfect from MY POINT OF VIEW TOO IF YOU WOULD JUST SHUT UP. WE ONLY STARTED DATING A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO. But one can’t shut out THAT voice so easily. Mystified by Willard Gaylin’s irritating Caring. He acts like mutual dependence or interdependence is some “failure” of personal autonomy.
Powder Mill Road – 11 PM Sunday 15 Jan 78
Jervaze “dropped by” this afternoon. Since it’s such a
long way from his place to mine I was astonished. Is it that I can no longer believe a man will climb mountains for me? Or is it just my sensitivities to Jervaze’s strangely inchoate “disabilities” warning me and sending up red flags? We had a nice talk – he seemed faintly down –
then he had to leave because he needs to get up extra early tomorrow.
I was in too good a mood to work on my novel, bought clothes instead.
3 pairs of pants, sweater coat, five pairs undies, one pair gauchos. All clothes
size 7. Packaged MSS when I came home so as not to feel too unproductive.
Coleridge poem taken by Virginia community college
screed. No money. (Natch.)
11Am Tues 17 Jan 78
Reading Evelyn Waugh’s diaries over my third cup of coffee with open mouthed amazement. It seems almost a work of fiction. Try to imagine thesewhines and wails ever appearing in print! Imposserous as Bert Lahr would say. Thank God for The Victorian High Colonic: a pre-mortem bonfire. Highly recommended, my dear.
7:30 PM No word from J so I assume he is really coming to eat dinner here. The evening’s menu: sherry and smoked oysters, cheese and crackers, burgundy and manicotti stuffed with crab. French bread, banana nutbread and coffee for dessert, if we make it that far without attacking each other. Need to watch the drinking – had two glasses of sherry while cooking and am definitely feeling it.
2:15 AM Wed 19 Jan
J gone – he had to – no clothes here. I let him go
fairly gracefully – after hours of sex without anyone coming I was happy to be alone. He’s definitely an alcoholic. He gets away with it by never seeming drunk (only once in awhile. His “tell” is he wants to talk about Alabama.) But he’s also never notdrinking. He seems too young but it definitely explains the physical problem.
11Am
Avril came to consult about a bad date. Glad her classes start tomorrow – Limbo an unpleasant place to live. Need to walk dogs now
– going to AFI theatre tonight to see Next Stop, Greenwich Village.
Time keeps chewing us up and spitting us out.
1 PM Thurs 20 Jan 78
Excellent morning lying in bed reading Byron. It would
be lovely to be rich – it would not be lovely to be Byron.
Another deeply rooted legacy of Ryder’s is that I now expectothers to constantly lie (to themselves, above all) about their motivations.
You can only judge by what they actually do which throws all planning
into the crapper and means you’re stuck with a lot of confused, open mouthed standing around waiting for disaster. I don’t make promises either – I just don’t say anything – which fact apparently caused me to assume I’d really enjoy a relationship with a totally nonverbal type like J.
Turns out: noooooooo. I torture myself about what he must be thinking and feeling which – let’s face it – may not be much. Wish my royalties would arrive – I’ve spent them over in my mind a thousand different ways.
Can’t do anything about island property, travel, car, or self-publicity without them. Capital expenditures, all. I am making dinner for A at four thirty to hear all about her first day of classes – then I go to work. Love driving down the highway with the other “night shifters” – I always think I can pick them out. Our special sense of purpose makes us different.
Sunday 24 Jan 78 7:30 PM
Read Popcorn Venus, saw Julia, so alternately
depressed and cheered by turns. Thinking a lot about “impure relationships”.
How innocent to assume those are the ones with certain kinds of sex in them. In actuality, it is more the hostage taking mentality that is to be feared. Can one just “Glance in” so to speak and then hustle the hell out?
I’ve been so scared off, I am having a non-relationship.
When Jervaze is not in my bed, it’s as if he never existed. Would I be surprised
if I found out he had some secret life? Hell no, I’d be encouraged. I think the truth is he watches football alone, gets drunk, sleeps and works –
that’s all he does.
I liked Julia because I am interested in the question
of what repressed sexuality does to relationships – does it change them?
Seems it would have to. Well, you can fool some of the people… Starting to re-think Courtney. Worst novel ever written? If so, what can I do
about it? Is it too late? Tell it from the cat’s point of view – something radical like that. Write it in blank verse like Spoon River Anthology.
Jervaze is mystified that I read by choice. Avril says “Don’t you get it?
He’s a mud puppy.” What can I say? I’m such a sucker for male beauty.
Mon. 23 Jan 78
Enraptured by biography of John O’Hara. Starts brilliantly –
describing his study at the time of his death – framed awards, Cape Cod lighters, bound diaries. Everything just “perfect” the way poor F. Scott always dreamed. The novels were steppingstones to the study, not the other way around! I am feeling alienated from my study at the moment.
Have decided that my typewriter table – a board atop a wine rack – is all
wrong. A and I went to Hechinger’s and studied several “office systems”.
Plastic cubes $70 even for a looksee. I’ve set my heart on satinwood so I guess next stop antique stores. What would an antique typing table
look like? A dressing table is the right height? Sans mirror? Wouldn’t want to look at oneself while working! First step to madness!
When I work without interruption, time vanishes. Maybe it’s like riding without spurs: you become the horse (one’s deepest self).
J. showed up Sun night. We drank sherry, played cards. He is getting to like sherry, which I’m afraid, is my fault. Someone needs to go on the wagon and I don’t want it to be me. Heard via the rumor mill that Ryder broke his leg skiing! Ha ha! Did he get insurance for that? Maybe he wasn’t kidding and he was trying to kill himself. I just don’t understand people like him. He approaches everything as “it’s you or me” so the mountain let him have it although frankly I’m surprised it wasn’t someone else’s leg that got broken. Maybe he killed the other guy. Sent him a card – he’s “recuperating” at his parents’ house on a steady diet of Italian food.
Thurs 26 Jan 78
Jervaze came in the Plush Palace last night and I talked to him until Eddy got restive. Turns out he has horrendous financial problems –
including hospital bills for a kidney complaint. Probably will have to sell his car even though it is a part of him like his cowboy hat. I was feeling carefree and immortal and suggested he move in with me – he’s thinking about it. Now of course I’m aghast. What if I gave him Avril’s room and he started bringing girls home? I could listen to them making love for hours and hours and hours – no one ever coming. Would I be jealous or would I feel sorry for her? See, this relationship is complex – I am wanting to run like hell or place an ad for “Needed: Goal oriented individual – good at sex – not too inflexible.“ Hopeless. They have to get stiff and then hang loose at just the right times – “Impeccable timing”? A tall order, I know.
Today I had trip to the dentist and letter from Mom –
trip to the dentist was easier. (He told me I have a “runner’s heart”.
Did not tell him I was a dancer. Said I was a walker. True – since 10 mos old.) Mom says that if I really loved her I’d get a decent job. She and Dad offered to give me money so I don’t have to dance. Respectful endowment of course would be great. Unfortunately, they only mean, “till I get over my sickness.”
Happy to turn ‘em down flat. Mom keeps saying a
feminist wouldn’t allow men to look at her in a sexual way. This is my
mother of the “Marilyn Monroe dress” (still hers and Dad’s favorite.) My mother who has always turned heads and received accolades as a major
beauty, with drunken men pawing her in European restaurants, dazed Arab men following her down the beach, stoned college professors slobbering over her at parties. All “her fault” apparently!! It’s a critical component of hers and Dad’s relationship that he “captured” such a “prize”.
But all this must remain unsaid or “someone” will boo-hoo.
Who would bother to deny the roles of biology and
acculturation? I’d like to live off my writing – but it is rapidly becoming apparent that to do that you have to write to “their” taste. And they have such bad taste! Plus, I find I covet anonymity. In spite of my profession of “being stared at”, I feel like I am the observer. It’s a heady sense of power.
This is theatre, after all. They may think they sit in darkness, but I can still see them.
Off to visit Ryder and his broken leg. Took him cookies and magazines – cookies I did NOT bake myself. I wondered if I would end up telling him about Jervaze – flirted with the idea – he would be scared to death if he ever caught sight of that beautiful, beautiful man. That’s what J is best at.
But I would be doing it to hurt him and since he has always accused me of doing everything to hurt him (born on an island, sentenced to prep school, losing my virginity to someone else, writing) it seems as if actually doing it I would
be “giving in” to his worldview. I must remain a refusenik. In the end he never asked me about myself; but talked incessantly about him. Trying to impress me, like on a first date.
Looking back on it I think he’s just trying to stoke any hots I may still have for him. He’s never bought into his own “friendship bullshit”;
he doesn’t even believe it about same sex friends. The universe is fundamentally competitive and we’re all crabs in a barrel trying to step on each other’s heads to get a better view. Eat or be eaten, baby! He made allusions to the fact that “you” only value things you work hard for… or things you’ve lost. Ha ha – zinger! A grenade lobbed at me.
The visit left me feeling uncomfortable – frustrated –
vaguely “one down” – but unable to put my finger on it. From the way his sisters treated me I have a horrible feeling he tells people I was the love of his life but wouldn’t give up my selfishly immoral lifestyle. That’s what he would do, the bastard, act like hewas the victimized one. I hope his leg heals crooked.
Probably a good thing I didn’t mention Jervaze – he looks so good but he’s totally non-nutritious and collapses like a creampuff on scrutiny. We’d have to live in Alabama – he’s made that very clear. I can’t even imagine him having a conversation with another person in front of me.
He has nofamily pictures. I’d drop in on him at work just to catch a glimpse of him interacting with humans but it’s the Pentagon ! They wouldn’t let me in. He’s only a repairman, too, so he probably has a completely fictitious personality there.
Still working on Waugh’s diaries. Hard to avoid the
conclusion that he became Catholic to avoid giving up his pride.
Just another elegantly exclusive men’s club. Anything to get out of “becoming human”. You know. The way Jesus did.
Almost midnight – last costume change of the evening. Pink and black lace, pink gladioli in my hair. Black tassels, the works. Gentleman Jim – now a magnate with a string of clubs – was in earlier – I was dancing my absolute best – wild applause – the crowd was chanting my name. But when I went to find him to ask him for a raise he was gone. Next time.
This is the time of the evening Zombiehood sets in. Jervaze comes in earlier and earlier – he asks me to come over, I don’t have to bring it up.
Made me promise to wake him. I told him I would be “merciless” with him.
He wanted to know “how merciless”. He is pretty cute. He wasn’t wearing my ring – said he took it off at work because it was bothering him. Uh oh!
I can imagine. What an idiot I was to give it to him. Tips have been good –
– I think I’ll buy a steak on my way over. He doesn’t eat well at all. I am so hungry I have been stealing saltines from the kitchen.
No excitement here. Neither Gina nor Mary pregnant as they thought. Turns out both have flu. The new girl, Maggie, has been telling me she’s got $35,000 in parking tickets. She is one of those see-through thin girls who can’t dance at all – but has a great sense of humor. She injects bute directly into her knees, as if she was a racehorse.
Alysse Aallyn 