Alysse Aallyn

Category: #History

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

         24 Dec 77 – midnight – Plush Palace

                              The Big Day. Go home, sleep, wake up, do laundry, take dogs for shots, buy snow tires.  In a haze of infatuation – Jervaze was in for 5 hours tonight watching me dance with a sense of unmistakable pride.  

    He asked for my phone number so he could call me on Christmas Day – I gave him all of them.

        New York City Dec 25 77 – Fri night.

                                Life is so interesting, Wouldn’t miss it for the world.  

    Lovely intimate family talks – just what family should be doing for perspective on past and future. In two days Avril and I drive out to Michigan to see Merrill – 11 hour drive – tonight’s a dinner in the Village then an early night. 

    Heard of a studio apt on the island – winterized – going for $200/month. 

                          Of course I will have enough royalties for that…or won’t I?  Harcourt royalty dept uncooperative, editor Lauren very cagey.  But won’t the island kill my already comatose sex life?  Whenever I’m away from dancing I miss it. 

     It’s a great substitute for sex but not a complete one alas.   Physical activity vital to my peace of mind.

                              96th St off the Park- New York City –   26  Dec 77

                              Genevieve’s apartment is triggering horrible flashbacks to how sick I was over Ryder at the beginning of last summer. Scary that a man could do this to me. Don’t ever want to get that sick again.  

    Makes me sorry this diary exists – my trusty friend – because it gives misery an actual corporeal reality.

     Burn these sickening wails before I die.  The Victorians always did.

                              Well I’m raring to get back. Not only do I miss the dancing, I miss the bar.  Ah, the nightlife. Always a party atmosphere but I could feel superior for not drinking (or getting high).   I like our status and protections – I like getting paid for exercising, being admired and having fun. This pleasure just cannot be shared – Mom’s face crimps closed – and I am lost in the unredeemable beastliness and ugliness she feels certain it must be. 

                           The fact that I am a feminist and consider myself spiritually in tune with the universe also is incomprehensible to her. (Wives can get into big spiritual trouble too, but I am too tactful to bring that up.) Unfortunately there is no way to defend myself except by attacking back – her  “safe”, closed, restricted world of handmaiden to Dad, feeding and burnishing him like a racehorse, talking him “up” as if she were his sports coach, does not seem to me more inherently saintly. 

                              But to Mom self-loss is what “sainthood” is – you totally do not regard yourself in your care for someone else. The fact that you are puffing them up like a grampus, encouraging them to be completely selfish, is I guess too shockingly cruel to mention. So: I’m stuck in Patient Griselda mode with undeserved imprecations heaped on my innocent head. 

     I wonder if it would be too nasty to talk about how I am sacrificing myself for those poor lonely men who need to look upon a perfect feminine ideal while they swill beer?  Guess I better not. 

                              Mom is fond of saying that love doesn’t work unless 

    you open your heart to the other but you can’t do it without marriage!  

    I say Jervaze and I are “courting” which is a very different thing.  I don’t think I will ever open my heart again. I think perhaps it opens by itself –

     naturally. One might as well tear a flower open and complain about the quality of the bloom.

                              Interesting being here with Brett and Genevieve and 

    watching someone else’s marriage from the outside.  Does not look too enviable. Reading “Eclipse of the Hero in Victorian Fiction.”  He’s in eclipse everywhere else, too, I may add.

        Mon 27th Dec 77 11:00 AM

                              See Dracula on Broadway – pure pleasure with some 

    honest scares.  Frank Langella very sexy.  At Italian dinner Mom and Dad push the idea of the island hard, but I know the old people would never leave me alone.  They’d be worse than Ryder. Still, there’s something magical about being protected from the real world by the ferry – places you can’t get to easily are wonderful just for that reason. 

                              Mom and Dad say further I can’t be serious about my writing or I’d have a job in publishing or magazines!  I’m so rocked back on my heels its hard to even argue. It sounds so sane. But why won’t it result, really, in another “hostage taking” of my soul, which, so, so regrettably, appears to be so damn fragile? Becoming one’s self  is life’s greatest challenge – and so far it does seem necessary to abjure group (gang? Team?) endeavors. Writing doesn’t satisfy unless it comes out of the wild side of me – my secret side. There’s always the temptation to rip open the spider and get the silk out faster. Dad rolls his eyes – it’s the old “I’m an artist so I can do what I want” argument again. How to tell him yes, he’s right. Yes –

    I’m taking advantage of my education, my family, my “privileges”; it’s who they made me.  No going back to some invented Dust Bowl life of drudgery just so THEY can “feel superior & good”. They insist they don’t WANT to “feel good!” It’s about what’s “right!”  My turn to roll my eyes.

        Detroit, 11:05 PM, Thursday 29 Dec 77

                              At the adorably, impossibly 20’s Tudoresque manse my sister 

    Merrill is restoring – it’s lovely here. Merrill and her husband say dancing is “sex work” and “sex work” is “OK” if its “regulated so “sex workers aren’t exploited.”  I get annoyed that nobody can tell the difference between dancing and prostitution!  Lots of things cause “erotic titillation” – breathing for example. Still, I find I’m inclining toward taking a two-month break in March 

    and going to the island to write. Is this family management?  But one of the reasons I like dancing is because you can “pick it up and put it down.” 

    Well, we’ll see.

        Thurs night 29 Dec 77 9:30 PM

                              I find as I distance from Ryder I remember some good things and that makes me happy. He was so unique.  It was fun knowing him, watching him perform impromptu magic for street children and restaurant patrons. More extraordinary really than poor old Jervaze who in spite of his glamorous looks drinks way too much and hates his job. Also Ryder knew me as a “not dancer” which J doesn’t – maybe that persona obscures who I really am. I remember the excitement of watching Ryder make his television show – unexpectedly sweaty physical labor in choosing camera angles and shots –

    timing, music, close-ups – building the tape as the excitement was happening 

     – more in common with sports than some couch potato activity like editing.

                                        Greek Town for dinner after the Renaissance Center, so the night ended in a wild bouzouki.  Day occupied with antiquing – especially fun since I am reading Rumer Godden’s  China Court, which is basically a love song to things. It made me worry that there are not enough details in Demon – what should I add? Perhaps buy a Vogue to see.  

                                        Dreamed about Devon last night.  Wonder  what 

    he’s up to.  Maybe I’m being psychic again. Getting some peace of mind about him as well. Merrill’s daughter comes to read over my shoulder, then when I move to hide the diary says, “Don’t worry, I can’t read cursive. “

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                     4:20 PM Fri Oct 14 – 77

                              Blessed book!  The joy, the solidity, the security this diary has afforded me all my life can’t be measured.  Bizarre letter from my dentist thanking me for referring “Mr. Arlen” to them!  Apparently Ryder is stalking me. Now I have to wear makeup to the dentist!  Hope I don’t run into Ryder while wacked out on Novocain.  Usual day of quotidian pursuits, washing lingerie & hair, filing, letters.  Avril writes that Mason is moving in with a friend! He thinks it will be “better” for her. Bet the “friend” is female! Sure sounds like death knell to me – he dragged her all the way out there, ran busily through her money & lost his spark.  Still other’s relationships are always so much clearer!  Now we can be glad she’s not going to school – she needs to get out NOW. 

                              Plush Palace – Mon – 11:40 PM 17 Oct 77

                              4 Dancers on tonight but Cindy and Linda walked out, ticked about my raise (I didn’t tell them.) So more dancing (and $$).  Plus coffee machine broken and we need to order out so I treated myself to 2 Krispy Kremes. Ah, the simple joys.  Five-year plan guy is back.  His fave play? “Love is Alive” – unfortunately.

                              The most gorgeous autumn weather tonight driving here – my heart soared. ONE MORE SET! Then fling on fake fur “Shakespearean” coat, jump into El Diablo, off into the night. Bar deserted, tips unspeakable. Asked if I could cash a check with Randy he just handed me a $20 bill, so there’s gas. Kiki says she’s getting married, worked the whole evening on her guest list for Big Event in Fredericksburg. Reading Hardwick’s Seduction & Betrayal and appreciating it although something’s “off” about her. Why won’t the ventriloquist put down the dummy and just talk?  And she’s just flat wrong about Woolf and Plath.

                              I brood about letting R. know where I work. Brave or stupid?  Stupid, I think.  Better class him with “dead end relationships”. I have plenty of people I’d never want to see again – Bruce and Kyro springs to mind.  Other people I feel good about like Toss Sheffield. He’d be fun to see again. Could he handle my dancing? He had a fun “hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy” attitude in general towards effort & enterprise.

    Insomniac

    I can’t sleep

    Because you’re gone

    My muscles wake

    My mind goes spinning on

    And where your fingers

    Plied and pruned my face

    Night air is cold and

    Caustic in its place

    And where we turned and woke

    In complex rhyme, I’m left

    To face the music frayed by time

    A waltz which once we won

    Losing battle choreographed for one.

    None to explore or

    Appreciate my line though now at last

    It’s incontestably mine.

                              12:10 PM- Plush Palace – Wed 19 Oct 77

                              Dance night, then dance the next day kind of rough. And tips are bad when the weather’s good – no one comes in.  I seem to have a lot of bills – just turned on the heat – but I’m meeting them. Making some inroads today on Thomson’s Life of Frost. Randy fired Robin –

    Yvonne needs $300 immediately because she just bought a piano. Well good luck getting it out of this crowd is all I can say. Paz’s “on call” because she left her husband and moved into the motel across the street.  Let’s hope she shows up.  Last time I saw her she was pretty depressed; said she gave him “the best four years” of her life. I have to get this all down in case I need it someday.  Ryder used to be especially pissed when I got nostalgic for dancing.  But dancing is its own little world. 

                              7:30 PM- Plush Palace – Thu 20 Oct 77

                              This afternoon I was getting ready for work phone rang, I say hello and Ryder’s tight little voice says: (very meaningfully) Hello.  

    I turned the radio down (Lakmé) and said casually as I could, “How are you?”

                              He said he should enroll in FBI school after all the 

    trouble he’d had tracking me down. 

                              (It couldn’t have been that hard since Mom and Dad’s 

    house sitter has been giving my # to all and sundry.)  Said he was punished now for being a non-communicative procrastinator who should fling himself off the 14th St Bridge.  

    I told him I lived in Beltsville and danced in Virginia, refused to give further details. I didn’t let him get away with any of his garbage.  He said I’d been in town since Sept 8 without contacting him. I said he’d made it pretty plain he didn’t like what I had to offer. Then why did I come back?  I said, I like it here. Creep!  

    Like he owns the world!  

                              He said, will you eat with me?  Hmmm.  Something

    rattling in Pandora’s box. While I hesitated, he said don’t make me disguise myself 

    as a girl scout cookie salesman (he could get away with it, too.) He said he hasn’t gone out to dinner since our last night at Alfio’s!!! (I guess the Emmys don’t count but I said nothing.) Said he’s having to give back his furniture and sleep on an air mattress because he can’t make the payments. Aww.  

    This is the idiocy of buying furniture on time, but I still say nothing. So we’re meeting Babe’s Sun at 3:30.Sunday.  Seems fairly safe… Rushed to library and took out every true murder book I could find.  Just in case.

                               2 Nov – Plush Palace – 6:05 PM.

                              Ryder called this morning to “report in!” Just to chat about his day!  No more of that, I said.  I’m busy. Slam. I don’t chat and I’m not sorry and it’s too late to learn.  Actually, feeling amazingly happy.  Kiki showed me how to cut off my corn with an exacto knife.  Instantly better!  Still in Vol I of Life of Frost.  He was a repulsive human being, all right.  Nowhere near as fun as Agatha.  Precious equilibrium recovered. 

                              8:30 PM  8 Nov 77

                                I gave him the full treatment, poor guy. Red Italian boots, glittery eyeshadow, tight, tight jeans. Ho ho ho. Deliberately drove Connecticut Ave but no markers from the past reached out their claws.  Felt strong and blissful. 

    I was first there (of course) so could order carafe of wine and think. Thinking,

     I’ll just explain to him that my idea of friendship and intimacy requires a 

    degree of truth telling that appears to freak him out.

                              He wore his high heels, too. His hair is blonder, longer 

    and messier than I remembered and it suits him.  Off to the Bahamas next weekend, he says for a “dive”. He wore the pinky ring I gave him (he says he can’t get it off.) But that holy glow, that shine he used to have is gone for me. I get it that he doesn’t know the pain he caused – 

    shallow people can’t.  And that’s pitiable, really. He’s not just deaf in one ear, he’s deaf in his soul. 

                              He has a carefully worked out a “barstool rationale” for what happened to us; we became lovers before we became friends.

     I have no comment. Postponing sex would not have helped – and it might have made things worse dumping all the responsibility for timing on me. I think when he saw how easy it was to draw blood he couldn’t help doing it, and I was a fool and an idiot.  I ordered the fruit and cheese plate but left before it arrived. Realize how much I want all this to be in the past. No future of any kind exists for us.  Not even in fantasy. The future is what matters. Told him to give my regards to the folks at the Shalimar. He said he’d give me a buzz. 

                              Bet I can finish Demon by Thanksgiving. Avril coming. 

     Lucky I have a second bedroom.  Furnish it with Kliban posters, a 

    thrift shop bureau and a mattress on the floor.

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Plush Palace – 11:20 AM Sun 24 Sept – wrote a fourteen page letter to Avril tonight. There’s a very pretty blond here who looks just like Ryder – they could be mistaken for each other – but it’s not him. 

                              9:40 PM  – walls dry so I  could hang paintings. What a difference.  Reading Redinger’s bio of George Eliot, The Emergent Self. Like it very much. Turns out I love driving to work – 5Pm is rush hour on the Beltway – everyone’s coming home but I’m going out for the night!  Makes me feel weirdly close to all those people.  And apparently they feel close to me – though they could just be reacting to my bumper sticker (Colette was a Nudie Dancer). They don’t seem to get the literary reference.

        Mon 3 Oct 1977

                                I hear only from my sister Merrill who declares my book a “brilliant satire”.  She wants to know why I work?  Shouldn’t I tour with book? Sigh. Give me the money and leave me alone I say.

                              Spent the AM phoning around trying to find my book in all the stores. Only found it one place. Dropped note to publisher. 

                              Out for Courvoisier with Erika who lectured me on my book. I ended up defending the Victorians saying everyone now thinks “honesty and openness” are going to save them but we don’t know enough about ourselves for real honesty and our lives are still based on “smothered panic” as far as I can see.  (See Janet Case’s strictures to V. Woolf.) Well off to my double life. When I pull into the Plush Palace parking lot I have such a good feeling.  Everything coming together. Down the old runway.  

                              Bought the most wonderful gold stripper shoes that tie with ribbons and have clear Lucite six-inch heels. I finally have enough costumes to feel really professional – every set should be good. Randy always compliments me. I am slowly phasing my hair from red to blonde – seems to help with the tips. I can live on fruit and cream of wheat –  only buy groceries with tip money. Little man down front muttering “fuck me-fuck me-fuck me” over and over but not loud enough to be evicted. Randy said I am the best dancer in Washington area.

        Sat 8 Oct 1977

                              Giving a dinner party. Bought 8 old-fashioned glasses for 50 cents apiece, five floor pillows, peacock chairs and a glass dining table. Now I’m looking for a silk eiderdown (for my bed) in some violent color. Bought beautiful rose-lilac fabric for curtains. Randy gave me another raise without my even asking for one.  I love my body again!  After the long estrangement caused by Ryder…he deliberately tried to undermine my faith in my body. He would prefer bad sex with a slave as long as he can be boss. Wait – isn’t that the marriage he just got out of? Guess we all repeat ourselves.

                              7:30 PM Tues 11 Oct 77

                              I’m too fucking fragile.  All my problems come from pretending I’m not.  I look forward to old age when presumably throbbing metabolism, soaring hormones and plunging brain waves will have smoothed out. How to describe this scrambled day?  I’ve been vibrating like a cilia ever since I got up this morning.  Made dentist, gyno appts, shots for dogs, dog licenses, took angel puppies on an hour’s walk. Divorce lawyer on the 26th: “John Love”: seems appropriate. Clear the decks for writing.

                              My area of Beltsville very rural. Poetry in all directions. Reading Mildred Savage’s A Great Fall and getting lots of ideas. Vacuum cleaner to repair shop they say they can fix for under $15.  I hate errands, a disgusting dribble of irreplaceable time.  Rewarded myself by getting Sleeping Murder at the library. Already know Dr Kennedy is the murderer.

                              2PM Wed 12 Oct 77 – Plush Palace

                              Some men seem to interpret the fact that I’m a dancer as some sort of personal challenge to them.  You can feel the spike of hostility. “You’re making me think about sex again!”  Is it fear of rejection?  Any aura of professionalism bothers them also.  I always curtsy especially low to the hostile tables – they can never figure out whether I am mocking them or not AND THEY THINK I PROBABLY AM!  I save them a lot of money by getting them thrown out early.  One guy asked me how long it would take to get in bed with me. His erection was so obvious I almost asked, “And what is your little friend drinking?” but instead I said, “5 years.”  He showed up next night, saying, “Day one of the five year plan!”  I like those guys much better. 

                              Final R conclusion: What a JERK!  Jerk’s absolutely the right word – in instinctual reflex – no brain activity involved.  Will I ever find a gorgeous man (blond, please) whose soul is connected to his brain?  

                              9:20 PM Thurs 13 Oct 77

                              Shopping Loehmann’s yesterday with Maeve. 3 sweaters, silk jumpsuit with jacket & scarf, lime-colored silk jersey blouse, socks, boots, shoes, gloves – $140 cash. Nice. Saw a wonderful fake fur coat I’d like to come back for. It has a priceless air of Ken Russell camp. Buy it with my Folger money – Shakespeare would understand.  

                              Maeve bought nothing.  Couldn’t find one thing she liked, reading labels with the expression of Queen Victoria viewing a slum.  And the free-for all dressing rooms full of naked people just astonished her.  (Stuff I see every day.)  

                              She wants to know exactly why Wealthier People rejected this clothing at its first price?  They must know something we don’t.  (Wondrous rhinestone earrings to dance in, too.  M. expressed pious horror.)  People like this amaze me.  Why is your own taste of so little importance? Then went out to dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant – my choice – heavenly lamb shish kebab and a belly dancer! I loved it but Maeve had to rush out before dessert. But as it seems I can never be with ANYONE – even lovers – longer than 3 hrs it was just as well.

                              Folger morning started badly, hair looked mangy, face requires immediate skin graft. Dog hair even on NEW clothing (How is this possible?)  Running an hour behind schedule (compulsively early me).  May Miller gave me worst intro I ever hope to have, misquoted my poems and said I was a grad of the U of Minn. I thought I would sob with emotion 52 times during reading.  My “woodcunt” poem did not go down well (even though it is definitely my most Shakespearean). 

                              Damn.  Then I could have strangled Erika Gelbfisz  (at the after party) who is so scornful and cynical about everything you can’t even have an ordinary conversation with her. I felt like throwing my wine in her face saying, “Suppose you actually succeed in making us all feel rotten, what then?  Fighting in the streets?”                                            

    Nothing’s worth anything in her opinion, so why is she alive exactly? This is what gets my hostility going but because I am at a party I DON’T WANT TO GET INTO IT.  So I just growl and stew. I don’t care for Cocktail Party Standing Around – my right boot was trying to extinguish my left toe, a toe already threatened with extermination from dancing.  This is real Italian leather so SHOULD ultimately fit my feet – I can see each boot slowly outlining my toes – if I don’t come down with gangrene first. Will try Wet Washcloth Stuffing tonight. (Still, I looked ravishing, my dear, in a blue gaucho three-piece suit and my red, red, high-heeled boots.) Poet Usher Glayne seemed impressed with me – but he’s an old man. 

                              To bed with my main squeeze, Agatha Christie.  Thank God for that woman.  She has pulled me single handedly through the last three months. 

                              I was just drifting off when Marc Kramer called. We talked ½ hr.  He bought a sailboat and a BMW and wanted to be sure to let me know. I like the sailboat and the car but the desire to “impress” me diminishes him in my eyes.  Sad to say.  He’s presently at risk of being filed under “has no conversation”.   Well, he did talk about work.  They wanted to fire him from The Washington Project, then admitted he had been right all along. He’d love to have dinner sometime, “see how I live”.   Uh oh. Can I keep this relationship out of the sexual? I don’t want to go to bed, even experimentally with someone Lacking the Necessary Spark.  Could they make up for it by enthusiasm or step-by-step instructions?  I hesitate.  Is it ever possible to just date?  It was AWFUL with Keith.  Marc, however, has a gift of humor. And my parents like him.  “No expectations?” I finally say.   And he promises. 

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

        Chevy Chase, MD – 10:15 PM Thurs 8 Sept.

                              At Shoulder’s house. Not a bad drive down – (washing the dogs right before the ferry (I had to – they stank) put some time pressure on me – but I made the ferry anyway. Shoulders looks different – has a moustache. Talks about needing a roommate – does he mean me?  He doesn’t know where yet and I don’t want to live with him. His constant string of ignorant pickups would eventually get me down. 

                             He doesn’t mention Ryder and I don’t look up his TV show. 

    Promising stuff in the classifieds – a garden apt in Landover, a townhouse in Dale City, sharing a house in Kensington. Took the dogs on the old walk – they remembered the route. Huge construction at my old house. 

     L’Escargot closed.

        5 PM Sept 9

                              Kensington House hopeless. You have to join some

     kind of food co-op that’s like a cult religion and there’s a huge emphasis on kitchen and cooking duties. They all eat together. Seems like the worst of college and boarding school to me. I’m now sitting in a real estate office which is really a garage waiting for a guy who’s already an hour late. He’ll be here in 10 mins they say, then he’s going away for 2 weeks so I hope he will want to close the deal tonight, It’s described as an old apartment, high ceilings, fireplace. $210 a month. So I’m just praying  the neighborhood’s not too bad. 

        7:00 PM

                              Bleak. Too bleak. Tried to imagine myself doing my 

    exercises on that floor, standing in that kitchen waiting for water  to boil, etc. Couldn’t manage. Feeling very stressed. Do I even want to live in this city? It’s just that I know I can easily make a living if the 

    book doesn’t take off. Went to the library and loaded up on Agatha Christies to help handle the strain. It works.  Maybe I need to get a shag haircut  and spend the winter in Spain.  Now why don’t I do that, other than the obvious reason I can’t afford it and have already missed my dogs as much as I ever want to. Another guy says he has half of a house I might want.  With a fenced in yard.

        8:15 AM Wed 14 September – Powder Mill Road

                              Drinking coffee in my own kitchen from the mug that 

    was my present to myself last morning on the island.  The guy is 

    selling this house as a rental property and was amazingly cavalier – 

    needed a tenant – didn’t look up my refs or demand cosigner.  

    Absolutely cool when I described myself as a ”writer” so “dancer” 

    remains beneath the radar.  (Dad would say that proves I know 

    dancing’s “bad”! I refuse to be unsafe just to convince my own father I’m respect-worthy.) 

                             Yesterday very full day.  Got up at 8 and moved

     the dogs to their fenced in yard. Fetched the truck, loaded and 

    unloaded with Shoulders’ help – bookcases, boxes, mattress, 

    desk, sofa – had truck back by 3. A thousand robins on the weed-grown lawn. I wonder how long I will be looking at this peaceful green view.

        8:30 AM Thurs Sept 15 1977

                              Up early spending the last of my money on necessaries – hardware, lampshades, contact paper.

        Fri 16 September 1977

                              My books arrived at Larry’s!  I spent the morning sending them out. Then drove to the Landover Mall, bought two g-strings and pasties and off to the Plush Palace. Steve was there – (Randy the bouncer just hired) thrilled to see me. 

                              Wanted to know where I’d been but I turned that easily away. Vacay! Who wouldn’t!  Told me to come to work Saturday night and they’d give me my schedule.  So that’s settled. I don’t like trying to live without money.  Took the landlord my paint color selection – he buys the paint and I do the work. Probably will take me the next week. Every now and then am attacked by that claustrophobic feeling of restlessness and purposelessness but I am able to keep it at philosophical bay. Working at my poem index made me feel strong and soothed. 

                              Called Chloe to see if I can get on the radio – she was excited to hear from me, but unfortunately gave Erika the Pest my number. Erika called – I was nervous that she wanted me to rewrite her manuscripts, but she just invited me to breakfast.  After that she has another appointment so she can’t swallow up my day. Letter from Avril saying she is coming end of Oct.

    10:15 PM Sat 17 Sept 77 – The Plush Palace, Alexandria Virginia

                                Ego lift.  Nothing’s changed. I’m still the best dancer in the place. Four dancers on and I know two of them. The gossip, the Costume exchange, the curling irons, the dope in the dressing room – it’s all coming back to me. They’ve introduced some weird rules, like customers get to play the music, but it’s still a fun and relaxed place to be.  Steve the floor manager says I can have all the work I want so I might be able to put money away.

         Sun 18 Sept 77

                              Opal comes to over to say “hi” but really to complain about her incipient divorce.  Not the best company. Not the best climate for me either – I found myself sobbing over Ryder (fortunately was alone by then). Why does it seem a lost paradise?  So I can still get into that sort of mood. 

                              Nice phone call with Mom and dad, not too pressured.  They are coming to a boatyard in Annapolis  to look at a boat – will see me then.  One of the best things about this house is the month-to month lease.  Feel I can leave any time but if I behave well they won’t kick me out. Gorgeous location but forty-five minute highway commute to The Plush Palace.  Still wish I could live in Virginia.

                              Wed AM 20 Sept  77                                    Sent out a ton of poems. Replied to a woman who wants pieces for an anthology. Got a beautiful love-letter from Devon!  His usual length – both sides of one page.  Talked about how much fun we had in August, dressing up and going out and “afterwards…!” Made me smile. I said to hell with money and called Avril because I wanted to share – Mason is not there during the day.   She is in a bad place. Providential I called. He has taken to staying out at night without explanation – she is frantic. Thank God she is coming here. I told Randy since I’m your best dancer, how about a raise. He gave me one! Only flaw to this house – they need to fix hot water. I had to heat water to wash my hair. Bought 2 more costumes bringing my total up to six  – the bare minimum I’d say

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

            2:30 PM Dunkin Donuts, Eelsboro, Maine Fri. 26 Aug 77

                              Here I am again verging on home: have I changed? I like myself better, 

    I think I can say that. Thurs night was a big success. Devon came in with an IMMENSE bottle of white wine – he either needs it for himself or he’s trying to turn me into an alcoholic (with my full cooperation.) The clam and noodle thing I invented was quite good but he wasn’t ready to eat till nine and we didn’t get to bed till midnight where he revealed a sexually savage side to his nature that has been previously unseen.  So maybe he was nerving himself. (I loved it).  We finished the housecleaning and were off to the airport by 11. 

                              Fairly silent in the car, though he was tender.  When I 

    mentioned he might come down to DC he said he didn’t think there was much of a possibility – so now I’m worrying that I’ve been pushed ontoBad Girl Island while he pines for Pure Young Innocent English girl with who he would NEVER do those enjoyably awful things.          (She’s 21!!!! He knew her 24 hrs!!!) I shouldn’t be silly.  I really can’t ever “lose” him. I think he loves me and everything else is just scar tissue. Devastating airport goodbye – he asked me to “write soon”. I’m probably lucky he loves me as much as he does. I was looking damn good if I do so say so myself in backless red halter top and tight, tight jeans. I do want him to remember me as beautiful. 

                              11:30 AM Sat 27 Aug 77

                              Gobsmacked! Mom & Dad are on Ryder’s side!!! They 

    HATE him!  In other words, they will defend anybody rather than me.  They say of course R “behaves badly” if I am having an “affair” (don’t you love the archaic term?) 

    with Devon!  I say he doesn’t even know about Devon, plus we weren’t exclusive BY HIS CHOICE plus we were BROKEN UP.  But everything still seems to be my fault. Incredibly, they think I am not SUFFERING ENOUGH.  Here are people who have lectured me all my life to find any excuse for other people’s bad behavior – life has surely injured them somehow. They didn’t have Advantages!  According to them I am the only human being alive who doesn’t get an excuse – I should just “be different”.  

                      How, asks mom, can I meet “suitable young men” while dancing?  

    Suitable young men! (They like Marc Kramer who’s a complete horndog and a political troglodyte. But at least he can afford me!) Am I living in a Trollope novel? I am so annoyed I don’t want to accept their hospitality but I really don’t want to rent a room in the House of the Damned aka 

    Burnside Inn. which doesn’t take dogs – who wept to see me again like children – then immediately got over it. 

                              Dad’s a very restless retiree I must say but don’t ask me what to advise.  I’m too ignorant. My advice to everyone is “write”;

    Naturalists say, “Be alone in nature” and religious people say “Find God.”

     Reading Vol I. V. Woolf’s diary (so different from A Writer’s Diary)

     Hitting the gin.  Mom thinks I’m taking “bad” advice from messed up writers – “modeling” myself on failures and suicides – (Dad calls them “degenerates”) – because it’s “cool”. That’s why I need the gin. I need the gin the first minute I wake up.  Must try not to be such a limp limpet. Told Mom if R calls at night not to come get me. 

                              Sun 9:30 AM 28 Aug 77

                              Mom washing windows.  God – I think I am supposed to offer help but I Refuse. I need to get the hell out of here.  Mom says I can’t add my laundry to hers 9she sends it out)but have to go to the laundromat in town.  

    So the Battle is On. I’ll just go around smelling bad so there. Mom and Dad are sailing down the Inland Waterway but not till Oct. Have a horrible feeling I’m not out of the woods on this Ryder thing.  Maybe I can get established in Washington without him knowing. If I go back to him I will despise myself. Keep Devon in secret as my lucky talisman.

                              9;45 PM

                              Drunk, fat and exhausted.  Parents had cocktail party 

    inviting Island Poet.  (Published in The New Yorker.) Tried to give her the rundown on my summer but it sounds a complete waste – “Wrote half of a no-good book, got my other book rejected”. Of course my summer doesn’t sound like anything with the sex & love left out!!!   Am I trapped at the end of a cul de sac?  No; there is something there. I just can’t

    find it yet. 

                              Dad said he’s sure my life provides a lot of stories, but 

    maybe what I need is a PhD in Eng Lit!  Mom’s reaction to that is rigid disapproval.  (He’ll never make that mistake again.)  To explore the boundaries of one’s soul is Selfish. One Lives to Serve (or to Claim one is Serving. So, if you’re too stupid to know  you’re selfish its win-win for the small-minded!) 

                        Tried to read The Clocks but its Agatha Christie’s 

    worst.  Absolutely meaningless. Poor Virginia Woolf going through a very bad, painful period. Obviously sick, recording only weather & food. 

    Now theorists act like she was “mental” not liking to look at herself but 

    Vita Sackville-West felt the same way. Couldn’t look in a mirror, wouldn’t buy evening dresses or go to parties! (And she was on the sexual prowl, unlike poor VW.)  I think their era was actually worse about beauty than we are – they gave it a “magic” “classical” quality so it was very much restricted.  We see more beauty – and in weird places. 

    Otherwise how explain Leslie Caron? Jeanne Moreau? Charlotte Rampling?  

    Hardly classic beauties but wonderfully, rightfully worshipped as goddesses. I see hope for all of us.

                              8:00 AM Mon 29 Aug 77

                              It’s real Agatha Christie weather – fog so dense you

     can’t see the water.  Nevertheless the ferry’s running – Mom took 

    Dad down. I’m feeling successful, sober and sane. I’m doing exactly what I want and will find my own way.  I’m determined to be happy and not develop some kind of “rejection phobia.” Not knock out the props of 

    my own happiness. Accept the fact that my pride has been hardest hit.

    PHANTOMS

    The ghost awaits his chance

    Inside us all

    Revenge de-bodies –

    Anticipates the dark

    Impatience ill-concealed to

    Grasp our foot

    Beneath the turning of the stair

    Reveal a face as blank as

    Nightmare whose

    Icy, seaweed coils entwine mistrust

    Around our throats

    Suppress our breath

    While we dead live.

                              4:20 PM  Letter from the Folger Shakespeare Library 

    inviting me to read Oct 13!   Mom was impressed. 20 mins pays

     $50!  I’ve hit the big time!  Wish I’d known this when Island Poet

    asking me why I don’t just kill myself and get it over with. M & D

    very flush with money right now.  Got their $$ back

     from NY State bankruptcy but Dad always in a panic that we’ll figure out how rich he is.) 

                              9:00 PM Called Shoulders. He said dogs will be all right for a couple of days but he’s being evicted at the end of Sept!  Too bad!

     Such a nice house. (And in Chevy Chase!)  So I’m spared kennel 

    fees for 2 days at least.  Ryder must be back at work (if he still has a job). 

    Reading old NY Times Book Reviews in front of a roaring fire.  

    Dishwashing break – I said I’d do them. Pick up Agatha Christie afterwards –

    – the preferred reading for “shock cases”.  (She was a shock case herself.  

    Absent in the Spring is very fine). 

                               Island 10 PM Monday night, 5 Sept 77

                              In bed in the Barnacle drinking coffee, eating bread 

    with honey. Delicious solitude. Can’t go to the Main House because Genevieve’s friends from Boston are there – they no sooner arrived for this Fantasy vacation than they decided they need a divorce. Fortunately, they are quiet about it. The one thing they can’t deal with is their dog –

     tomorrow I have to drive him to the ferry. Oh well.  I’ve been enraptured by this delicious solitude – beachcombing is very healing.  I guess I am just a solitary sort – don’t really care for people at all, I fear. Last night a bad dream about Ryder – treating me cruelly and me, paralyzed. In the daytime – in my conscious mode – I remember everything good about him, his lips mouth and fingers – his constant air of playfulness. 

    The way we fit perfectly together like interlocking puzzle pieces  

    – nice that he was short – my mirror opposite, only male. My lost twin. 

    But nature abhors a balance, apparently. 

                              Must remind myself how he had to try to turn it to his 

    advantage, throwing the whole system off and spinning my world into 

    frozen space.  Now he doesn’t know where I am (although he might suspect.)  No phone in this building thank God. 

                              Tomorrow goodbye Maine – back to DC to house-hunt.  

    M & D have been good about not dragging me to things – enjoyed the Smythes sculpture show – parties not so much. Parties seem like 

    “consensus building events” where I’m fated to be perennially on the outs.  Ford Madox Ford made some kind of statement about how 

    people have to achieve a level of “ordinariness” to be “successful” –

     I can’t remember the exact quote. Plus I lack the patience to look it up.

                              Ryder felt I despised him intellectually, which of course, I did. 

    I don’t think of myself as stratified, but he is and when you’re with a stratified person, you become so.  Sometimes I am in mourning for the part of me that died. I wish I could get my letters back – but they were only love-letters.  Must seem now like the ravings of an insane person. 

    Well, there’s no reason to see him again. I think the casual relationship is beyond me.  I hope in the future I’ll be careful of men going mach one across the sexual barrier. I’ve got to stop looking at sex as a vitamin requiring periodic intravenous doses.  

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                              2PM Sun 14 Aug 77

                              Sitting on the deck even though it’s just about to rain – 

    back from long bike ride watching family barbecues.  Will I ever have children? I feel so exactly balanced between Ryder and Devon like a ball in the air 

    – but could fall at any moment.  Finished The Edwardians – made me long to read Trollope.  Vita Sackville-West’s work is like a death wish. 

    Maybe Pevensey Library can rise to some Trollope. Downy woodpecker 

    2 ft away.

                              Finished The Dark Island! An outrageous howl of 

    self-pity!  Mom & Dad called all worried about Avril. She & Mason had to borrow money after selling $4500 worth of stock in June! Dad wants to deal financially with Mason instead of his own daughter!  I was cool and stayed out of it.  

    I don’t even want to imagine what they say to the others about me. I sent Avril a letter that said I would buy her a round trip plane ticket any time she wanted – even for just a short visit. Talk about work and suffering!  I’m sure she feels stuck in every way with this guy. Down to a dinner of bouillon & smoked oysters. 

                              Tues 16 Aug 77

                              D’s & my relationship “plateaus.”  Each of us may have 

    given all we can spare. At least there’s no Mutual Punishment.  

    Womantried to get me into conversation at mailboxes – she’s an accountant whose boyfriend works on missiles.  God they both sounded like the dullest people imaginable.  Tried not to blanche.

                              6:00 PM  Couldn’t resist $10 phone call to Avril. She’s 

    hanging in there but doesn’t like Calif so far. She’s not going to school because Mason thinks he ought to be able to pay for it!  So, so sick after using her money to live on.  She’s looking for some clerk job. Still thinks 

    this guy might be The One, even though sex is once a week and she’s not satisfied.  After that I called Devon who should be back from psychomotor class but he wasn’t in. 

                              Midnight – Could get psychotic about D not returning my call – however I refuse. Let the poor man live. He lacks time for an ACTUAL other girl (although I know there are plenty of letters & phone calls with girls he cultivates.) 

                              10AM – Wed 17 Aug 77

                              Devon woke me up in the middle of the night, wondering if I was “psychic”.  He’d had a horrible day –  had to take a “pregnant friend” to the clinic for abortion (not his kid.) This is a new one. Can’t imagine him lying about something so bizarre – I didn’t ask for details –

    just told him it was a “sudden impulse” (true).  Called the bank – my money was in but only $987 (it’s never  as much as you expect.) From shit comes flowers, as they say. Called Marc Kramer and left message whether I can hitch a ride to Maine with him (he goes almost every weekend). 

    Finished Life of Waugh.  Cramps.

                              Sat 20 Aug 77 

                              Poor Devon!  He brought pizza and a very good brandy –

    (too good –  drinking it woke me up in the middle of the night) suggested a movie.  I said I wanted to Talk.  Told him all about my week; everything – 

    novel, phone call with Avril, breaking up (mentally) with Ryder because I “realized there’s another way”. Felt it was time to share. He asked if it had anything to do with him I said it did but he shouldn’t panic – it’s a good thing. He asked did I want to know about other girls? I said yes. Would I be jealous? 

    Maybe – but it wouldn’t impact on him.  He talked about his friend who had the abortion – she’s ready to take him on but his feelings for her are “clinical”.

     (Uh oh. She’s in trouble. He could be lying to me about Who’s the Daddy or lying to himself, most like.) She’s 2 yrs older than him.  

                              Then there’s a girl he met on the train – they’re just friends so far so he doesn’t know her well – but he’s curious.  Then there’s the English girl – he definitely wants to bring her over but neither of them can afford it so far. He seems to have a sex/romance dichotomy going so 

    I’m not jealous exactly – it would be like being jealous of someone’s fantasies. However, it doesn’t make me respect him more.  And he instinctively knows that – he can’t be the daring demon lover or swaggering ski coach 

    with me when I know too much about him. Fortunately, I suggested we bring the mattress up to the deck – we had a big, hilarious struggle through the house but it was worth it. Wonderful making love in the fresh night.  

    Gave him the full treatment making him yelp like a coyote. 

                              Cold in the AM like Maine – hard to get out of bed but he was worried someone would see us so we had to push mattress through 

    sliding doors to dining room floor at 6 AM.  Layers of secret lives!  He is SO DIFFERENT from the way he seems but aren’t we all!  Drove to the Idyllwild Mkt for breakfast – got lost as least six times but who cares it’s a glorious day – bought peaches, blueberries and mocha java beans.

     Then we went swimming – stopping after at the mailbox.  Rejection of Secaire from HBJ!  What a blow and in front of Devon of all people!  

    Worst of all was editor’s comment – I had fallen between 2 stools – “straight” and “gothic.”  Ugh.  Lowers my opinion of myself in my own eyes. 

    Fortunately, I didn’t cry.  

                              Devon did his best to comfort me. He compares it to 

    skiing which is 4,000 failures to one success. Said it’s ridiculous to consider myself a failure. I thanked him said he really cheered me up –

     he said it made him look forward to ministry!!!  (He can’t wait to get his hands on some “troubled young women”.) He’s going to a 3 day 

    retreat at Peterborough.  Period coming on. It doesn’t faze Devon. Reading Harold Nicolson’s diaries which are quite a treat.  I was afraid he would 

    be all Churchillian. 

                               2;30 PM Mon 22 Aug 77

                              Can’t write, so ready to return to Maine.  So desperate I 

    watched TV (Rhoda: Apotheosis of the Career Girl). Feeling crushed about Secaire and Demon is not far behind. When your mind is divided it’s hard to go on.  I always feel genre works actually have the potential for highest dramatic quality – mystery, discovery, transformation, revelation – telling the complete truth about everything but I just don’t know how to convey that. Also, I’m kind of worried that Devon will see my departure as  “because” we punctured the fantasy with honesty ; ie I’m “punishing” him –

    (that’s what Ryder would think, plus he would howl “I deserve it” then behave even worse) and of course it sort of is true . “New data” does affect everything.  But I miss the dogs & worry about them.  Dad has yet to figure out their gender (calls them both “boy”). 

                              Went clothes shopping got GOREGOUS skinny jeans! 

    Look so good.  Called Devon but had to leave an awkward message with Random Guy (ugh I hate that.) Thank God for diaries!   Best therapy 

    possible. So much cheaper than a shrink. Diagnosis? Sheer greed.   I always want everything.

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    1 July 77

                       Today I should start my new novel – always the worst 

    part.  Lauren called to APOLOGIZE for our dinner.  I said nothing

     to apologize for I had a wonderful time.  She said she had an

     “off” night and they are upping my print run from 100,000 to 

    110,000.. So I guess I’m “on” again in case I write another Eng 

    gothic historical paperback they like (don’t hold your breath).  

    Threw aside Berckman’s Crown Estate suddenly can’t stand 

    other people’s writing. 

                       Very disllusioning dinner with Chuck Kornowitz. My 

    piece de resistance crab manicotti in Newburg sauce turned out 

    exquisitely but he only cared about the booze. When I mentioned The Great American novel he said it’s been written and offered to send it to me.   He edited it!  He only laughed at one thing I said – 

    he called Athenaeum a “very, very small publishing house” and I 

    said, “More of a hut, really”. He obviously thought I was going to 

    have sex with him so that he would read my book. I turned him 

    down but offered to make up a bed for him on sofa (he really seemed incapacitated by drink but he blamed it on jetlag.) He insisted on leaving, looking very cranky. He did wonder aloud who the hell I think I am?  What’s a little sex between “friends” (or supplicants & donors?) 

                       Letter from Devon (I needed it) cheered me up extraordinarily.  

    Just in the nick of time. I’m a loner, he’s a loner too – do two loners

     make a party? Having a hard time feeling beautiful when I am not 

    dancing and 50 situps a day and one filthy bike ride are no substitute.

     But this seminarian writes a mean letter. Loved  my novel. Looks 

    forward to servicing – er surveying Boston in my company.  Four

     hours on novel produces 8 bad pages. It’s a start. 

                       Ms. MacManus foisting her probate lawyer nephew 

    Henry on me. He came over to invite me to the beach 

    (and help me walk the dogs.)  He’s a pale,

     pale Ryder (he’d have to be Peter Frampton to arouse me at 

    this stage) and I feared he’d get sunstroke but I said yes. Saw 

    Jabberwocky – very Monty Python. 

                       Wrote a long wailing, complaining letter to Avril.  Try to 

    read Women & Madness but it’s too poorly written and repels 

    every attempt.  Norah Lofts White Hell of Pity – very depressing. 

    But you’re pretty much asking for it if you pick up a book with that title. 

                       11:00 AM Sun 3 July 77

                       Had to walk Genevieve’s dogs all the way to Columbus 

    & Ninth to find NY Times.  Henry cancelled – I didn’t know why till 

    Ms MacManus told me he found out I wasn’t Jewish!  Now she tells 

    me! (She’s not Jewish either.)  Reading First Person Singular – 

    actually some helpful dating advice.  Is it too crass to count on 

    having sex with Devon July 20? (That’s as long a wait as I think

     I can stand.) 

                       12:45 PM Mon 4 July 77

                       Almost strangled the dogs today. Sam rolled in horseshit 

    in the park. Had to wash them both.  Then they bothered me so much

     during my exercises I had to lock them up.  They howled.  Penance all around. Ms. McManus invited me to see New York, New York

    . We enjoyed Unsung Cole last night – and she is going to Martha’s Vineyard so won’t be around to make me her new chew toy. 

                       11:25 PM  Wish I could read the future. New York, 

    New York none too reassuring about male/female relationships. 

    Reading Leonard Woolf’s depressing Downhill All the Way.  

    His mind so different from Virginia’s you could call it “antithetical”. 

    Tomorrow’s excitement – double feature of Shame and The

     Passion of Anna.

                       12:25 AM 9 July 77 

                       Ryder’s divorce final. His relationship with me?  Still in 

    “separation” phase.  Trying to hate him but it’s not working. Pity 

    the petty man who revels in bondage. Feeling sorry for all his 

    future lovers is the best I can do. He would respect me more if I 

    was less sexually excitable, and that’s the ugly truth. Totally 

    resigned that Harcourt will reject Secaire. Went to Patti Smith 

    concert with Brett’s brother.  Kind of fun the way she barks out

     her poetry; but little too butch for me. He is an incipient pedophile 

    remarking on every thirteen-year old he saw (or possibly he was

     just trying to annoy me.) 

                       11:45 PM Sun 10 July 77

                       Loved  Rhoda Lerman’s The Girl That He Marries

     – never were reviews so misleading! 

                       July 14, 1977

                       Power out in the whole city! Living by candles. No 

    elevator doesn’t affect us readers. Doorman up and down the 

    stairs with flashlights looking for old people.  Dogs poop on 

    balcony. I seize any excuse not to write.

                       9 PM Fri 22 July 1977 – Mrs. McManus’ condo 

    Pevensey Old Farms

                     New deal: all I have to do for luxe pad is write an 

    article for Mrs. McManus’ real estate mag. I think rich people 

    are masters of bait and switch – I was supposed to be doing HER a favor – but of course I say yes.  Contemplate novel about homicidal house-sitter called Other 

    People’s Houses  but I see from Books In Print it’s been taken.

                       Lying here making new breakthroughs in the art of 

    writing sideways; disinfecting my ear from swimming. Wanted 

    to write about Monica Dickens’ Man Overboard or N Ephron’s 

    Crazy Salad or at the very least make a New Plan for My Novel 

    but find I can’t. Was very “good” today – swam, bicycled, some 

    writing. Allowed to eat anything here luckily her food is not too 

    outrageous – hamburger and zucchini salad.  Marinated artichoke 

    hearts.  

                     Refuse to shred my nerves further by hating myself.  

    My body’s not perfect but I do feel on the home stretch to self-control.  

     Give me six weeks and I’ll be flying.  Emotionally, I’m a mess.  

    Devon brought up marriage and I am smotheringly certain that I 

    can’t live up to either of our expectations as a parson’s wife. 

    Might be fun to try – but that’s not the point.  I fear the idiot side of me that just keeps coming out. Can’t seem self-assured, playfully 

    grave instead sexually voracious and maniacally ridiculous. 

                     Anyway Intuition told me he would call tonight between 

    8-10. 

                     He called at 8:30. I cracked too many jokes – conversation 

    painfully bizarre.  He seemed calm and unfreaked. He got a new

     job that gives him more “room” (he’s a waiter- he’s sick of teaching 

    people) asked when he could “show up” and suggested tomorrow.

                     Moving a lot faster than I expected from my memories of 

    Shy Boy. Do I want to have my fantasies played fast and loose with in this way? (Am I over Ryder?) Do I want to get over him?  Or are mismatches of Time & Desire my Fate?

                       I am certainly NOT turning down D’s offer to see what 

    there can be for us. Companion? Lover? Second self? Brother?

    Alas he is too blindingly handsome for me to be rational.

                     If he comes tomorrow there won’t be time for more than 

    necking (has to get to new job by 4.)

                       Forget “July 20”, entered on my calendar as S Day. 

    I WILL NOT MAKE LOVE TO A SCHEDULE. We have to have 

    a night alone to make things happen.  I can be patient – can he? 

    Well, I can be honest.  Best anyone can do.

                       10:45 PM  Back from a walk, reliving my years as teenage 

    prowler. And peeper.  These walks are very informational as I spy 

    couples hanging plants & merrimekkos, having fights and pouring wine. 

    Macramé is de rigueur. Try to imagine Devon & me in similar situations. 

    Maybe he won’t be a parson forever.

              Celebrate my freedom from R. Nice to know I can go to parties without fearing R’s paranoia & restrictions mixed up in his exhibitionism & flamboyance. Freeing me maybe to be those things. Fantasize 

    pleasurably about long drives with D – my hand on his thigh – separate but equal thoughts unfolding with the journey.  My emotions a difficult horse to ride.

        11:50 PM

                                Interrupted by phone call from R. 

    Offered to send me money. What is wrong with him? 

    He said, “You were right the way you always are.  When are you 

    coming back to me?”  Loves me, misses me, wants me back. He’s 

    been sick – Emmys a complete bust – his TV show cancelled – 2 

    directors actually fired (25 people in total.) Today’s the first day he’s 

    been back to work, amazed not to get a pink slip. He’s taking a two

     week unpaid leave to go to the Finger Lakes and find his soul. If 

    they fire him so what. He refuses to take out of town job.

                                He really worked me over – gave me a bird’s eye 

    view of what life with him would be like.  For example, said, “his 

    place is my place.”  If he means “move in” he knows I’ll say no 

    because his skyscraper doesn’t take dogs.  He asked, “When 

    do you come down to get your furniture?” I don’t like him having 

    all this information.  Thank God for D.  Six weeks to decide 

    whether I even want to return to Washington. I write a poem for Devon. 

    Angel Clothes

    You are like a ripe peach

    Swollen in the summer of your life

    And as the peach surrounds its stone

    Your skeleton enwombs your soul

    But thinly.

    I often see it shining

    Through the hollows in your cheeks.

    I need your body

    Need to know its shadows

    Sound its pleasures

    But as the stone

    Though small at first

    Must grow; feed off the dying peach

    So your spirit must transhume your flesh

    Disgorge it in

    A thousand peaches a thousand summers a

    Thousand eternities more beautiful than

    You or i

  • 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. 

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    6:30 PM 9 Aug 76 – Shalimar

                     Writing carefully so as not to mess up my fresh 

    polish.  Got here early – Fessenden bus much better.  Rick 

    Marl in tonight talking about R’s divorce.  Said I should hear 

    his wife’s side of the story. (He’s met her.) I don’t want to hear 

    his wife’s side of the story – what would I do if I did know it. 

                    Sounds like they should get a divorce – she’s not resisting so 

    obviously she had as many problems with him as he had with her. 

    The fact that he spent so much time here is bad news for any marriage.

                     I was very impressed by his job – a TV news director 

    is a king – he sits in a the control booth with all the camera angles 

    in front of him and tells everyone what to do. I said nothing, but I 

    enjoyed the way they looked at me – very admiringly – where did 

    SHE come from. Little do they know – R won’t tell them. If they 

    dine at the Shalimar, they’ll find out. Fortunately, they’re all good 

    family men – eat lunch out of a cooler then rush home to fix the 

    automatic garage door opener and read a bedtime story to the 

    little ones. 

                     Reading Mortal Wounds and loving it. Fun to compare

     the George Sand period to the Notorious Woman TV series last year. 

    Went on a picnic with R. then saw Robert Shaw in Swashbuckler.

    Ghastly flick. I wasn’t too rude because R liked it. Told him he should 

    have seen Anne of the Thousand Days.

            Sent out 12 poems. But I’m trying to force myself to stop writing 

    poetry and concentrate on novel. There’s no financial point to poetry

     – Alas.

    11:35 am Thurs 12 Aug 76

                     I’d like to write but I must pack for the trip and it junks up my

     head. Mss, 2 ribbons (in case) correctype, The Romantic Egoists, 

    Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald’s Scrapbooks, and the wonderful 

    portrait by Julia Cameron of the two little girls clutching each other 

    which I see as the cover of my book. Sad to see the way Fitzgerald

     tried to force his wishes on the universe – force it to see things – 

    to be – his way.  No wonder he admired the rich – they’re the only 

    ones who sometimes – very infrequently –  get away with that. But 

    they are not enviable nevertheless – it’s always a naked emperor 

    situation.  Zelda’ s constant references to “not having a past” interest 

    me exceedingly – that way madness most definitely lies.  This is what 

    happens to people who insist on “living in the present”; they become amnesiacs.  Idea for a poem.

    F. SCOTT FITZGERALD:

    “To the Spoils Belong the Victor”

    The butler’s name is Gin;

    He never gets the girl.

    The Heart’s Café is terraced –

    Cantilevered exits exalt

    No core. At the Pony Bar

    Payment is upfront;

    Robert Service and Booth Tarkington

    Left prints on ice;

    The service is bad but

    There’s a reason for everything.

    Back at the Alhambra someone who might be Ernest

    Puts the moves on someone

    Who looks like Zelda or possibly it was

    The other way around.

    They never get these stories straight.

    Here’s the one they played last year:

    Sole is déclassé but at least

    There’s always caviar.

    Look on, look down, look it up or read

    The menu.

    Floorshow Tonight: Van Wyck Brooks &

    Edmund Wilson Debate:

    Artist = Self-destructive Sport?

    Or Fad? Or Fate?

                      I guess I’ll need  clothes – so I must do laundry.  I also should 

    clean house for poor A – it’s only fair.  No writing; circumstances militate. 

                     R working very hard to get to the point where he can take a 

    vacation – he didn’t get in till 2:45 AM.

    Shalimar – 3:30 PM –13 Aug 76

                     Was sitting on a box of Lite Beer sipping coffee and 

    reading Miss Read when Carmen warned me that the boss 

    might fire me for reading. Apparently writing he doesn’t mind 

    so much, probably because he can’t imagine anyone keeping 

    it up longer than 10 mins at a time. R. will be here soon, then 

    we hit the bank, pick up my stuff and we’re on the road for the 

    Finger Lakes.  Five hours alone in the car.  I find I have a lot 

    of inhibitions against voicing boundaries in our relationship – 

    mainly because I don’t want to be lied to.  I want to find out 

    how things really are. For example, he spent last night in 

    Gaithersburg with his wife. Now her I’m jealous of, because

     he used to love her, used to think she was a “catch” and 

    was surprised and gratified that she “descended” into 

    marriage with him.  

                     I probably won’t ask him if they had sex because 

    it would be making too much of it. He’s said before he wouldn’t,

     and she definitely wouldn’t. But I can’t believe a woman who 

    knows she’s losing a man might not change in her feelings – 

    just to see what power she has left. I would, if he wanted the 

    divorce and I didn’t. Will I be able to tell just by looking at him? 

    R feels the right to be jealous and possessive over me, which

     I don’t grudge him since I’m naturally monogamous. He feels 

    no discomfort making rules for me. But he should.

    6:00 PM Saturday 14 Aug 76 Finger Lakes

                     Lying on the bed in our tiny TINY two room cabin – 

    with just a curtain separating the rooms – I was going to write 

    here about how much I love my job (I really miss dancing so 

    much when I’m away from it – the ideal thing would be three 

    sets a day for life) – when R came in, threw himself on me,

     tore my clothes off, began kissing my breasts and exploring 

    my tan lines and pressing his beautiful valued body hard hard

     hard into mine – and you know what happened next.  If he turns 

    the fan on high I don’t think the other campers can hear our little 

    yips and screams.  At least I hope not. We spent last night in his

     grandmother’s house in Binghamton, New York. 

                     She bedded us down in separate rooms – he gave me a

     long lecture about how you have to respect the house rules of 

    whoever you’re staying with – and then who do you think showed 

    up in the middle of the night saying he couldn’t sleep. It is ecstatic 

    to have sex almost without moving – this must be what Tantra is like. 

    We were directly over her and the bed creaked so we didn’t move a 

    muscle – absorbed and shed each other like snakes. Wonderful.

                     Next stop was R’s cousins who own the cabins. I don’t know 

    what to say about them – plastic flowers and Sonny James. My state 

    of deep shock probably resembled mental retardation. Some people’s 

    houses are frighteningly ugly. Their clock has eyes,  they keep the 

    plastic on the lampshades. I just sat there while the ethnic and sex 

    jokes filtered around me.  Who could blame R’s first wife for 

    shunning this bunch? 

                     I would not choose them for buddies either. And the fact

     that they are renting us a cabin doesn’t appear to mean we will 

    also get privacy – so I have taken to wearing my glasses. Number 

    one – I don’t see as well – number two – it creates a kind of screen 

    between me and them.

                     The Lake is beautiful – but I don’t need to go in more than 

    twice a day – I also don’t have the patience for the fish-a-thons that 

    absorb the rest of them, dawn till dusk. 

                     Plus one time waterskiing was plenty.  Since dinner is a 

    vast barbecue down at the beach every night and we only have 

    sandwiches for lunch and cereal for breakfast there is not that 

    much to do, thank God. Sadly the dinners are followed by 

    hours of dancing, drinking and fighting.  I go to bed early to read 

    but R stays and plays “peacemaker”. Tonight he says he’s going 

    to let them kill each other and join me. Therefore I can set up my 

    typewriter on the kitchen table and get right to it. People keep 

    coming to bring me coffee and cookies – I think they really 

    want to see a writer “in action” – at the end of this trip I MAY 

    be 20 lbs heavier. The rest of my time is spent sunning and reading.  

                     Unfortunately St. Secaire going VERY badly. Complete

     horseshit, alas.

             I’ve started it four separate times. I think at this point I just 

    have to keep going and hope it’s possible to clean up the mess later.

                       Tuesday 17 Aug 76 7:30 PM

                     Outside a fair number of people, all high as kites, 

    revving their engines and swearing they’re leaving and never 

    coming back. I don’t know if anybody’s actually going to GO 

    or not but I wish they would.  No wonder R had nothing to do 

    with these people for four years – he may conveniently blame 

    his wife but the truth is none of them can stand each other. 

    Pack of wolverines. I’ve been left totally alone and am well 

    out of it – they may have forgotten I am even here. Last night R 

    was so depressed he just lay on the bed exhausted by them. I 

    tried to explain to him about resentment and the resulting succubae 

    and incubi thus created. (Subject of my novel, in fact.) 

                     He said something about “our next 25 years” that just 

    floored me. Even my husband didn’t talk like that.  Remember 

    saying to my father – I would be fine if I could only find a man who

     treated me as well as I treated him. Dad – so ready to take 

    anybody’s part over mine,  said, Has it ever occurred to you at 

    you might be hard to live with?  Such a typical Daddy remark – 

    the more you think about it the worse it gets.  

                     Well, R treats me better than anyone else so far. 

    He’s almost talked me into looking for a new job when I get back – 

    and that’s a lot. But if he wants to introduce me around, can’t lie 

    about what I do, etc etc. (This group – doesn’t know about my job –

     he says they’d eat me – and him – alive. I can scarcely believe 

    they would take the moral high ground with me but I suppose 

    anything’s possible.) 

                  Tried to read a Redbook someone brought – 

    shouldn’t do it.  So depressing.  Could never write like that or 

    be like that. If that’s the standard this whole thing is hopeless. 

    Then I picked up a book by Grace Livingston Hill.  I’m going to 

    include her in my article on female pornographers.

                       R told me he had the impression that if I didn’t have my 

    novel to write I would probably go bananas. I said probably. I tried 

    to prepare him for the very different kind of vacation he’s going to 

    get in Maine – where people very deliberately leave each other alone.

     If somebody sets off down the beach and you wanted also to walk 

    on the beach – you’d turn and go the opposite way. R says in his 

    family that would be grounds for a six-year grudge punctuated by 

    sobbing, screaming and threats of suicide.

    12:10 am

                       Went night fishing with R because he wanted me to.

     Wrote a wonderful poem about Coleridge – just came to me in 

    one piece. Couldn’t really share with R – he doesn’t know who 

    Coleridge is. So I showed him – Haunted Wedding. 

    HAUNTED WEDDING

    The pregnant car disgorges

    Only us. It’s winter.

    Drunk as silver fish

    We beat our gills as light

    As hummingbirds.

    In an amethyst ring

    Of drypoint trees 

    The half-built house

    Gapes and swells

    Its timbers stink of sap.

    Windrill fields occlude

    Our crossing, so you carry me

    High above the thorny osiers.

    We sleep aloft for safety

    Locked and levitating

    In this space of air 

    One season only,

    Unseen by angry outriders;

    Bloodless in our wedding robes

    Like the doubled membranes

    Of the frozen flowers

                     This triggered a fight because he says it wasn’t written 

    for him.  (If he jealously searches my work for other lovers 

    madness is assured.)  He almost talked me into thinking it a 

    bad poem.

                       I feel my mother’s disapproving stare on all of this – “

    don’t ruin what you have by trying to get something else” – as 

    if showing R this poem would  be a deliberate way of hurting him 

    by making him feel inferior – part of her larger accusation that I 

    channel so much energy into writing I’m no good with people and 

    that’s why my relationships suffer.  All I can say is, thank God for 

    my diary.  

                       Writing now with my feet in R’s lap while he plays cards. 

    He strokes my toes from time to time, as if I were a cat. We came in

     from fishing and he just took my pants down – such earthy 

    sexuality has never existed for him. He told me he’s never 

    been so happy.  And as for me? One side of my multi-prismed 

    personality is happy, but some of the other sides are complaining. 

    Difficult to contemplate an existence where I am not mentally alone 

    six hours a day. 

                       One of the reasons I like my job is that it leaves that part 

    of me remarkably intact – dancing is a lot like sleepwalking. If I get 

    another job there’s a strong chance I’ll have to interact with humans. 

    Hell. And we both know how humans can be. Then I might be too 

    exhausted emotionally and battered psychologically to have the 

    energy to write – it’s a serious risk.  Those architects ran roughshod 

    over me. 

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

        9:45 AM Wed July 28 76

                                Anniversary of Toss Sheffield relieving me of 

    my impacted virginity (as I relieved him of his.)  R came yesterday at 2 – 

    left at 3 – came back at 5.  Another watershed in our relationship – Fears. 

    He’s afraid to lose the hearing in his good ear. He speaks sign 

    language but doesn’t want to live in a world without sound. I made 

    him promise to go the doctor. He agreed to make an appointment no 

    later than Weds. 

                       Reading Christina Stead’s wonderful Dark Places of 

    the Heart. Considered inviting Ryder to live with us – rejected 

    the idea. I need too much alone time. So important to establish 

    amour proper. I am so impoverished from setting up the house 

    (though I’ve made enough in tips to pay my taxi ride home tonight) 

    I am barely going to make the rent. Need a windfall.

                       Sweaty and smelly. I think I’ve boogie –oogie-oogied 

    till I just can’t boogie no more.  

                       Club Shalimar– 30 July 76

                     Cookout at Ryder’s parents – I met his folks – two 

    roly-poly people who are nothing like him –  one sister who is

     a lot younger. 

                     We had glorious talks on our way there and back – 

    about having our own space – (we agreed he needs to live alone);  

    our hopes and dreams (he used to write music, wants to do that 

    again someday – I told him I have an agent shopping a novel around) 

     first impressions (I discovered he was in the bar when I auditioned! 

    Horrors!) He said what intrigues him most about me is that he 

    can’t figure me out – still can’t – everything about me is a surprise. 

    I guess I could say the same about him.  

                     Wonderful abandoned sex – just crazy stuff – I came and 

    came.  He told me he spent last night at his old house – he and 

    his wife had to have a “meeting”.   I was jealous until he told me 

    that his wife is sexually dead – and always has been. He didn’t 

    understand it when they married, assuming it was something you 

    get over.  I suggested she was probably molested as a child – 

    he didn’t want to believe it. He thinks some people are sexually

     just asexual. I thought – but didn’t say – there’s a self-protective 

    concept. He doesn’t want to think she is turned off of him but in

     my experience – such as it is – chemistry is a completely 

    mysterious yet crucial factor women have a tendency to discount 

    it when choosing a life partner.  So they end up married to the 

    “perfect” person, except they’re not sexually stirred. 

                     2:00 AM. He tucked me in – kissed me – left – then 

    I was wakened with his hands all over me. When he got to his 

    car he realized our clock had stopped and he didn’t have time 

    to go home before work. So he snuck back in the sliding door.

     We had sex again, and the whole night became a snake

     eating its own tail. This morning got a wonderful poem: 

    Love, the Magician.

    The Magician is a Capricorn

    Bleeding cock’s milk from nipples

    Pale like mine but

    Maler.

    Illusion, he says is memory

    Of things that should have been.

    Doves and rabbits he entices

    From sacred groves between my legs

    Placed by ruse, and freed by art.

    When he dies, passion turns his eyes

    To quarters.

    He hears the world but faintly

    Through his one good ear.

    The other turns to me,

    Safecracker’s daughter.

    Trust the magician, voices tell me

    He knows when to drop the dice.

    31 July 76 Shalimar

                       R came in but I managed to get rid of him. Sandy 

    brought in a huge bag of string beans, squash and tomatoes 

    from her garden – I told Ryder to take them home and cook them. 

    My job is turning into a source of tremendous conflict – he is the 

    snake in his own paradise.  Plus, tips really fall off when he is 

    here. I am already looking at a very tough month financially – 

    trying to take so much time off.  He said he’ll be back at the end 

    of the night to pick me up – he’s hurt when I’m “in need” and 

    don’t call him. So that saves cab fare anyhow.  

                       We took a walk between sets and talked about his 

    parents – second generation immigrants,  lifelong Army. He doesn’t 

    tell them anything (they obviously know his marriage broke up 

    and now he’s with me – but they don’t know about his deafness, 

    for example or about his classes at Gallaudet.)  He said to me, 

    can you believe I’ve only seen these people twice in the past 

    four years? And we live in the same state.  Wait till he meets 

    my parents – shudder. I’ll put it off as long as I possibly can.

                       Dancing tonight with Alicia. Poor Alicia. She’s a 

    “dripper” (constantly leaking pee) but blames it on hypoglycemia. 

    She hates dancing when there are so few people in here. 

    It’s kind of interesting.  She sort of has a whorish appearance and 

    doesn’t realize she’s trapped in a vicious cycle – audience thinks 

    she’s a loose woman, she thinks they’re perverts.

                     I’m trying not to fall into the super-loving, super-giving

     trap but Ryder is the first guy I’ve ever met who would obviously 

    be a wonderful father. Rare among men under thirty?  Or something.

                     Talked to Avril on the phone – she was bored to tears at home

     so I suggested she come in. We shared a burger basket and she 

    saw me dance for the first time. She wasn’t grossed out at all by 

    the semi-nudity – which is good – told me I’m a great dancer and 

    she really envies me my pelvic wiggle.  

                     Also told me I have a terrific body – which really cheered 

    me up because I still feel too hefty around Ryder.  (At his parents’ house 

    we went over his old scrapbooks – he was the star quarterback in 

    high school football.  They described him as 5’4”!  That’s a lot 

    shorter than he admits to these days. His boots have at least two

     inch heels.)  A left after one set because all the guys of course 

    came on to her. Obvious losers, alas, including the one who insists

     he’s a hitman for the CIA and another who claims to be giving 

    away government jobs. 

                     Unfortunately I’m dependent on the tips of these characters.  

    Ryder has been telling them all that I’m a writer (instead of a call girl,

     presumably) which gives me a lot of explaining to do.  

                     I wish I had money to buy things the house needs – 

    flashlights and fuses and drainers and shelving and all that stuff – 

    but I’m saving every bit for our trip to the Finger Lakes. Aug 5 will 

    mark one month in the house and six months since I quit the 

    architects. Seems like much longer than that. Where will I be 

    six months from now? 

                       Hope my gothic novel sells – I need an immediate 

    hundred grand. I really can’t write with R sucking up all my free time. 

    I’ve been struggling with another poem about him – even that isn’t 

    coming. Hopefully we’ll settle down into being able to work side 

    by side quietly – maybe after our vacation.

    6:00 PM, Chevy Chase Tyler St, 2 Aug 76

                     Across the street Shoulders, dressed in a skimpy football 

    undershirt, is mowing his lawn. He is a sight to behold.

                     Sitting over my repaired typewriter with a cup of hot tea 

    and a case of writer’s block. I could write a poem about Shoulders – 

    already R is interfering with my life. Beautiful day – a little chilly – 

    a little Maine edge to it.

                     Finished Stead’s Dark Places – which I adored – absolutely 

    one of a kind.  Another bothersome thing about R – he really doesn’t 

    read. He’s been dragging around a sleazy paperback “heist comedy”  

    he pretends to read from time to time. At this rate it will take him six 

    months.  I am struggling with All Authors are Equal but I may give 

    up on it and read Famous Washington Ghosts which R picked up 

    for me to add to my considerable collection of ghost stories (I must 

    have 50 vols.)

                       On the phone with Maeve my old Baltimore buddy – 

    she is behind in her rent but looking for a new job. In the meantime 

    borrowing from boyfriends.   I take a perverse pleasure that anyone

     is managing worse than me.

                       Shalimar – 10:20 PM

                     Called in tonight to replace another girl – great – that 

    means I work 5 times this week.  Just that small amount makes a 

    big difference. A is in the chips right now and I could owe her 

    but don’t want to.

                     When I came in they told me R had been in 30 mins

     before. That was a little unsettling – I didn’t realize he would come in 

    if I weren’t here. Of course it is really close to his job – but equally

     of course the food is more expensive here than just about 

    anywhere else he could choose.  I look at who was dancing 

    to see whether he would think she was in any way better than me –

     luckily it was the pisser Alicia instead of potentially scary 

    competition like, say, Gloria. He didn’t know I was coming in, 

    because Carmen didn’t tell him.  Reading the Ghosts of 

    Washington. Wonderful poem potential. 

    Shalimar Thurs 5 Aug 76

                     R dearer every day, in spite of the fact that he’s 

    been checking up on me. Called and called last night – wondered 

    where I was – I wasn’t too sure how to tell him A and I were 

    over at Shoulders’ drinking, so I just said we were visiting 

    the neighbors.  Standing in their yard, which wasn’t true. He is 

    jealous of Shoulders and I don’t blame him – such lush male 

    beauty makes women helpless. A is a complete mess over him. 

    He frequently wanders around the house in nothing but his 

    boxers –  we call them as his “huppa”.

                       R. finally got an apt and can stop “crashing” with

     friends –  one bedroom at the top of a Rockville skyscraper. 

    Sounds crazy expensive to me.  Wrote a good poem – 

    capitol ghosts – today from the book R gave me. 

    Trying to think where to send it. Tomorrow’s my day off – 

    R coming over at 2.

    CAPITOL GHOSTS

    Pale Guiteau

    slants his disappointed child’s face

    downwards; the better to study bloodstains left

    by assassins more accomplished than himself

    who required benefit of anonymous surgeons 

    specially qualified for skewering

    the muscles of the mighty.

    The guard who saw him

    claimed also to hear demon cats

    and could not be relied upon.

    these portents once were matters of

    congressional dispute; now

    no matter; caught within the marbled lurch

    of history, victims

    of the uninspired mad; 

    those who pursue the corpse from whom

    the ghost escaped. He haunts our history

    like the villainous barber who sings as he slits

    both throats and wombs, a pure tune

    some say, picked clean of tragedy

                                   which only the dying hear.

    Shalimar 7 Aug 76

                     Sitting here in a stupor of exhaustion. We had an 

    Al Green fan in here tonight – kept playing same song over 

    and over. Presumably working through some kind of 

    relationship crisis. They don’t realize coming here and blowing 

    their money kills any relationship – and I am not going to tell 

    them. Anyway I hate Al Green.  Missed my bus this AM so 

    took the Fessenden bus and walked across. A better way to go – 

    I like the walk – to hell with this transfer business. 

                     I have to admit R doesn’t seem to understand 

    poetry. He’s very suspicious of all ease, elegance, lightness. 

    Too much Nature!  “Work” should make you grit your teeth, 

    groan and bulge your forehead veins.   The easier it comes, 

    the less valuable it MUST be.  (He would hate Picasso’s very 

    best stuff!)  I’ve tried getting him to understand by comparing 

    art to athletics – it only looks easy – it’s the training beforehand 

    that’s so hard. The trick is to render training invisible. But he 

    seems to think modern poetry is a plot to make him look stupid. 

                     Really worried about money lately – everything at 

    Unibank is bouncing.  It doesn’t take much to set off a chain 

    reaction.  Guess I’ll have to borrow from Avril after all.

                     How true it is that before you can love you must 

    love yourself. My love for myself is wavering.  Just finished 

    Sean Stiles’ Occam’s Razor. I hate to see a good idea wasted. 

    Mostly I am depressed by the poor quality of the stories in 

    the Times Detective Story competition anthology.  This is 

    something I should aspire to?  I’m on a wonderful streak 

    of poetry – keep piling them up – got ophelia and 

    haunted house this eve.

    OPHELIA WAS A MAN

    The best revenge is growing up.

    Behold a street of suicides –

    Fringed lampshades &

    Mullioned windows where

    The dentist’s son grew dope

    From seed (they had eight bathrooms and

    The dentist couldn’t be everywhere)

    His wife was nowhere; we saw her leave

    With the cat in a suitcase clawing to get out.

    “Crazier than thou” averred my aunt.

    That boy blew the fruits of orthodontal science until

    The day he blew his mind –

    We traced the hissing-pissing-noise

    To the garage of the stockbroker’s son; he’s

    The one who stayed home from Yale to rewrite Hamlet

    (Made it better – put in people you could recognize)

    Type-cast himself – since he saw ghosts.

    Two fine boys married to each other

    Rosy-cheeked and sightless

    In their parents’ wedding clothes.

                     Tomorrow R is taking me on a tour of the television 

    station and out to lunch. This is a biggie – see where he works.  

                      So I had to buy a gorgeous black linen jumpsuit (size 5!) Should 

    be worn with high red heels – but needless to say, can’t around 

    R. So instead, flat sandals. Fortunately everything is on sale.  

     A and I have decided to ask Maeve to move in with us – we can’t 

    seem to manage alone and we do have three bedrooms, but 

    she’ll have to hide from the landlord. I hate to do it.  Letter from 

    D today – he’s in love with the 18 yr old virgin daughter of his minister. 

    Didn’t do a thing to me. God bless ‘em.

                     Rick the gambler in tonight. He’s a friend of R’s – cheered 

    me up by telling me I’ve done so much for R who was really “hurting” 

    over his divorce.

                     Ryder – I love you – but I don’t really know who you are.  Hope you are who you pretend to be.