#Haiku: Inspiration
Without composing we
Decompose;
Broken fountain –
Ruined garden
Category: #InnerLife
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The Book of You – Haiku Diary by Alysse Aallyn
#Haiku: The Lovers
Falling upwards
Into you
My other wing, my second
Clapping hand
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The Book of You – Haiku Diary by Alysse Aallyn
#Haiku: The Storm
Ionized
We spin;
Your upside down –
My right side’s up.
Teeth bared we…
Kiss?
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Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn
Party Castle – Mon 9 July 79 – 7:50 PM
26 hours without T. Spoke to him last night and
again this afternoon. His acceptance of me is total, but it comes from a position of strength and I have fears of being annihilated.
Last nightI experienced hallucinatory states – drove home the wrong way – felt something was happening to the car – re-experienced my swallowing problem. Resolved my panic by starting a poem.
Sat night Toss and I read the diary passages where we lost our “divinity” (his word) together. He cried and told me what he’d felt like from his “side”, wanting to be male & in control, feeling helpless & immature. Agreed if we had married then we’d be divorced now.
11:05PM Trying to read Oneness & Separateness. Not well suited to me right now! Much as I want to be a mother the thought of a demanding infant between me & T now is truly horrifying. Insane fears of rejection and abandonment – why on earth should I trust this man? Called T at work!
Complete craziness. He reassured me we will have private alone time –
-a real vacation in the Berkshires. He said champagne arrived.
Called A & we discussed Mom & Dad – how they rewarded “self-sufficiency” and responded to neediness coldly. Makes it hard to be honest now but
I hate this weirdly formal relationship with my own parents.
Avril says there is no retraining them.
Sat 14 July 79 – StormFall Farm – 11:15 PM
Oh, my God who would believe it – here I am 11
years later! Told T about my uncle last night as we made sexual
“confessions”. He was completely calm about it so it’s no longer a
Big Secret. He insisted I read his ex-girlfriend’s letters. She was a
Piper Cub to his Concorde, believe me. He kept carbons of his letters to her!!!! Not very loving letters – but downright fatherly. In a bad way.
T’s actual father and he smoked cigars last night
after dinner leaning against the mantel – they were so beautiful together I felt stunned. Wrote a poem:
MY HUSBAND SMOKES CIGARS WITH HIS FATHER
BY CANDLELIGHT
Your profiles cut my heart like glass.
Go ahead. I’m a bleeder, I’ll
Still be here when you look back.
Your father is a silver-headed
Walking-stick; his elongation glows with far less heat.
You’re his nemesis; and he’s used to it.
The wooden floors are washed cornelian
Perhaps by sunset
Perhaps by jealousy of girls who
Lost you; judged too soon the temper of your eyes
Wrote too many letters or
Not enough; the wrong kind
Addressed to the pale law student with
The cinderblock heart;
Traveling commentator with the hundred
Dollar bill rolled inside his shoe,
The long-haired Pinkerton guard.
You learned to suck the cherries
Scarless from the tree; it’s no mean art
Broke a few at first; we all did.
By what right am I the winner?
You chose me in thirty seconds leaving
enough time to smoke another cigar.
Everyone wants us to marry before May. But I feel I need some time in Kentucky first. Toss told me last night that on paper he is a millionaire. Here’s luck, because if I keep on keeping on, I’m a pauper!
Tom’s grandmother’s response was “I am not surprised.”
She committed herself to reading my published “thriller”.
At dinner he announced I’m the only woman he’s ever wanted to marry. Tom’s dad said he thought his son would be a bachelor forever.
Privately we affirmed absolute sexual fidelity forever. Will we be able to keep it?
Plush Palace – Wed 18 July 79 – 4:55 PM
Boring day but good tips. Magnificent party at
The Third Edition last night for Avril’s birthday. (I didn’t care for Avril’s latest “honey” Vigo but was secretly furious at myself – she should date as widely as possible.
Maybe I was affected by T who is a snob and a purist.) Drinks, fruit & cheese – then dinner at The Old Angler & Frank Langella in Dracula. (Not a good version.)
“Finances” discussion with T. He talked me out of selling my car. I worry about being dependent on him but he says it will be fine.
Sounds to me like he is living on a knife’s edge – working part time, going to law school, selling stock when he needs money (which he is loathe to do being naturally frugal.) Too tired to make love last night but we started up in the middle of the night – both asleep. Unknown doors keep opening – then there’s another one.
Castle – 1 PM – Thurs 19 July 79
So happy I can’t take it all in. Feel like someone
recovering from a long illness. Read Cheever’s Goodbye My Brother – as satisfying as a novel. Last night we made love for hours and hours but –
I just couldn’t come – kept holding his face saying, “Is it really you”? Dancing with Barbara the Kikuyu and blonde Joyce of the day-glo costumes that light up in the dark.
3 PM Party Castle – 24 July 79
First real friction last night – very predictably, about my job. I’m irritated over the assumption that its sordid and brutalizing. It is totally NOT the same as the dancers in DC!!! LIFE certainly CAN be sordid and brutalizing – but I like this club because it ISN’T and I’ve tried others. We discussed HIS job of muckraker/professional advocate which also has its sordid and corrupting aspects.
Duh. His last girlfriend gave him shit about it (and refused to read his newspaper!)
So it’s a sore point. He should really understand. There was a horrible moment when he felt foreign and alien – but I expected it – too much intimacy always causes a backlash. Trying to read Sisters & Strangers. The Victorian novel is not yet dead.
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Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn
Party Castle – 3 Feb 79 11:30 AM
We did it – moved into the Queens Chapel Road house though nothing is organized yet. My study is the nicest room in the house – a whole wall of huge windows – sunlight always blazing in. I covered the walls with my pictures and they fit perfectly – leaving one wall empty for a big corkboard.
Guess who showed up to help us move? Ryder!
He brought his “girlfriend”, plus a huge bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a large bottle of Irish Mist. Girlfriend a shocker – little nursy mousebird of a woman! After all the hell he gave me, this is who he ends up with.
His sexual revolution is over – single shot fired.
Went to see Corio play at Childe Harolde – he acted surprised to see me – introduced me to his date, Bev. I didn’t feel Bev is much of a threat – Avril says, “She’s a hot water bottle.” I said, “I’m not giving up”. Zachary didn’t help move – so when he showed up for sex I sent him away.
I was really annoyed – his excuse was he “wasn’t up to it.” Who is? Fortunately,
I have strong muscles. Carried a gold velvet sofa practically on my head.
Mon 5 Feb 79
Moments of pure joy while painting my bedroom shelves.
So adoring Sylvia Plath. Closer Look at Ariel & Letters. Her letters burst with plans, lists & preparations – like this diary. That’s how it goes. Feeling capable, independent – maybe strong enough to even rewrite Gift. There is pleasure to be had even at the start of a journey with no apparent end in sight. Back on my Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner diet. Feel house will be ready Sunday. Party?
8 Feb 79 Plush Palace
Surprise today – Usher Glayne came in to see me
dance. Curtsied low and slow. I felt intimidated by him but he said he liked poem I sent. Struggling with Boston Adventure – Me no likey.
I’m on p. 300 of Gift and if there’s a novel in this mess I can’t find it.
8PM Mon night 12 Feb 79
Snowed all night – didn’t feel guilty about calling the Plush Palace and saying I couldn’t make it. Used the time well – finished my study. It is perfect. Bedroom almost done – must unscramble my jewelry to put it away. Great having laundry in-house – I am washing all my costumes.
I give up on Boston Adventure. To think a critic compared her to the Brontës.
Well they did have under-functioning ovaries and the English language in common. Marc called – he will be in town and wants to have lunch at the Capitol. Which I would love to do. Told him I took his advice and bought a house. Roll my eyes while he complains about his horrible life investing other people’s money.
Maureen is never here so we hardly see her. And
she’s very neat, so far sharing a bathroom is no problem. Recovering
from my bout of restlessness over Gift, I managed two pages. But it was too hot to work up here last night (I can’t seem to control the temp.) Tomorrow buy fan.
Usher called. He wants to be “friends”.
Queens Chapel Rd – Wed 14 Feb 79
At last a comment from an agent who likes Blood Memory (latest incarnation of Gift). We now have one agent who likes it, one who didn’t, one close relative who likes it and two who didn’t, one lover who likes it (and two who didn’t.) I wish she would start a “sell job” with me but she’s just “dying to talk with me about it.” In other words, she wants to know, how crazy ARE you? Sadly, it depends on the day of the week.
Avril just phoned – invited me downstairs for an omelet.
I said no. Fasting today. (I like being somewhere the kitchen is not.) Later we’ll go out and try to find a pair of emerald pants for me to see my new agent in.
This is one of the ways Avril and I make do with living together – we respect each other’s privacy.
Yesterday at work who should be second dancer but Yvonne! We had so much fun catching up. She’s still dancing at Mother Joe’s, but needs all the work she can get. I feel a perverse satisfaction in the fact that even amazingly talented, flaming beauties can’t seem to struggle out of life’s junk pile. Her ex, whom she quit dancing for, went out with an “all nude” dancer the night after they broke up! A friend of Ryder’s came into the bar –
I pretended not to recognize him. I’m sure he’ll be running back with the story.
Dreamed I had open lesions in my face and you could see right through them.
Reading Greene’s The Human Factor.
2 PM 15 Feb 79 – Thurs
Sleeting out. Feeling restless the way I do before I write a new book. Hauled out Bride & Wolves for a rewrite – tremendously impressed with my own talent! Development always was my problem (as in life).
Greene’s Human has an odd, unfinished feel. Reviews did not prepare me for it in the least. I think they reviewed Greene rather than his book. More impressed by Margot Ruddock’s letter to Yeats in Ah, Sweet Dancer (which could be retitled Dirty Old Man.) She compares the “fickleness” of men to the fickleness of God! Can’t blame her if God insists on being male. Read Howatch’s Call In the Night as a purgative. Going to see Country Wife tonight at U. Of Md.
Usher sent me strange Valentine collage of Playboy photos, couples kissing, etc.
Avril says “I give up on him. It’ll be a miracle if he can ever say what he wants.”
Starlight Sat 18 Feb 79 – 11:10 AM
Waiting for my bangs to curl at the start of a
double. Had a nightmare where Devon performed marriage ceremony between me and some other guy! Right up to the end I kept thinking he was going to “rescue” me. Naturally he did not.
“Psychic” about him as usual, I got a letter saying he’s busy with this year’s Ladies Ski Team meaning he’s got 12 girls passionately in love with him and he plans to take his time to savor the field.
Vengeful poem results:
Cloverleaf
Some roads lead nowhere;
They’re my favorites.
I held my breath while
You drew my face in
Blinding strokes
Creamed my mouth with curling lines
Destroyed one picture; then another.
You
Left at dawn while I
Ran in circles, calling
Raging, spending
Nights & time
Without you,
No blue thigh guards
My sleeping heart while you – alertly
Gauge the coming storm.
Trapped in cloverleaves , I’m
Sentenced to perform
School figures endlessly
Disputed by a myriad angry judges.
Every face I paint
Resembles you; balked by
Our enervating past
Of unlived lives I
Open up the chilly ruffles
Of my breasts
To beauty; yours
And mine and your
Strange spine’s;
A body so much lighter
Than the mountain that you loved –
The course you learned
Much better than you learned me.
Overconfident as always
I tell myself that
you’ll come back &
Float across the powdered snow
In bird-winged silence –
all-enveloping
Unrepentant
Lost and frozen like my heart.
2 PM – Jervaze came into the club! Ducked away momentarily from his fiancée. Glad he didn’t bring her in as I am having my period and feeling particularly fat and grumpy. My poor body’s been unloved for a month now and is falling to pieces. Still it was an enormous pleasure to see him. Someone for whom I apparently remain The Holy Grail.
Tues. 6:45 PM 20 Feb 79
Struggling against a vast undifferentiated depression.
Going to treat it with diet and meditation. Reading Tapie’s Richelieu and Louis XIII.
History a great cure for all who feel unlucky. Even being an aristo was no picnic. Avril accepted for both of us to go to Aunt Frederica’s party on the shore where she’s rented a house. Hitchman’s bio of Dorothy Sayers very bad book. Sayers wasn’t “in love” with Lord Peter, she was him!
Will-to-power and dream logic. Trying to “bind” her two halves together when she made him marry Harriet. Had to re-read Sayers’ wonderful
Unnatural Death (my favorite) to get the taste out of my mouth. Ah. Such pleasure. Painting till I’m exhausted then long walks with dogs through pretty Queens’ Chapel Manor. Haven’t voyeured a neighborhood this satisfying since Chevy Chase.
Starlight Wed 21 Feb 79 – 11:45 AM
Going through a phase where work feels like
being beaten. Think it’s because no one is caring for my body. Will warmer
weather turn the tide? I love my house but Marc Kramer is wrong – home ownership NOT the cure-all promised. The only difference I can see is I can no longer mess around financially. Nose permanently to grindstone.
Reading John Dickson Carr’s Blind Barber. It is so awful. Why does anyone like him? Pass my time sewing red rhinestone buttons to my pink satin blouse. Yesterday clutch cable snapped – pedal became a dummy. Fortunately I was right NEXT to a gas station. Had to take a taxi home. Damn Fiat. Financial nightmare – more doubles to get my car out of hock? Turns out it’s not expensive. A. gives me ride to work, Eddy gives me ride to car.
Leaning heavily on inner life. Efforts to live “outwardly” all seemingly result in hideous failure. Shopping list: pasties, carpet tape, stockings, cotton balls, liquid plumber, string bikini.
Sat. 24 Feb 79
Devon turned 30 today. Great house party at bungalow Aunt F rented on Mulberry Island. Interesting artist named Stockley there with an exciting mind but unworkable body. Fun to talk to though. He wears a hard hat and welds sculpture. Avril asked out by handsome redhead named John.
Fingers crossed. Jervaze called to say he broke off his engagement. Uh oh.
Macmillan says my novel “not their cup of tea”. Very sneery.
Starlight Fri 2 Mar 79 – 2 PM
Bought a pair of yellow overalls to write in. Hadn’t realized how thin I’ve gotten – I look fantastic. House closing magically lifts depression when it cost $900 less than I expected. I was fully ready to write these nice people a rubber check – Thank God that’s not necessary.
Instead of wasting away in debtor’s prison, I get to compare myself to Sylvia Plath. What if in a panic, I married a party boy who fails to cherish The Real Me? Wait, I did that. But I didn’t stay to wrestle with him and now I’m free.
Could be much, much worse. Hang in there and go it alone. See it as a strength.
Trying to apply for grants. There’s an art form all by itself. Avril’s redhead working out nicely. I don’t like his comments about his mother though. Is satisfactory sex possible with men who hate their mothers? Could be massive Red Flag.
12:35 PM Tues Mar 6 – 79
Sit down to chat with diary over lunch – can’t eat
because scolding letter from agent gave me a stomachache. Didn’t I know it was
unethical to allow several agents to consider me at the same time? I do see it’s a very beneficial for the agents to drag this process out so they end up doing all the choosing and not you. But since she’s the one I want I can’t say so.
Play dumb, promise to Be Good in Future and throw my affairs entirely into her hands and let her speak for me. Silence frees the artist from “servile
bondage to the world”, says Sontag.
Letter from Devon saying he really respects me for buying a house (the opposite of what Mom thought would happen. He says it makes me more interesting. Or he’s just less scared I will show up on his doorstep.) Also, he says “it’s been a bad ski season” and asking particularly about the men in my life, closing, ”I love you Alysse. Our relationship is the most important thing to me.”
Whew! What are the odds that every girl on that ski team would turn out to be a lesbian? Or were they chilled by his aura of untouchable purity? Most girls would consider it a challenge but some lack the stamina necessary to defrost him. Still, they’re all out of their minds not to give him a whirl I must admit. Interesting how very much we each fear the other’s loss.
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Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn
Mon 13 Nov 78
Busted, wasted day. Avril called to borrow $90 so she can pick up el Diablo from Courtesy Motors – fortunately I had it so we went to bank, then car dealer. Then I tried to get an oil change but they don’t do Fiats. Took long enough to tell me they don’t have the right wrenches. Real estate agent phoned
to say I qualify for special FHA loan. I had to call my landlord because apparently I don’t have heat.
Avril is having lots of trouble with Brady who is alternately aggressive and suicidal. I think he is more trouble than he’s worth but admit he has very pretty, very long, long thighs. He and Buck went to high school then trade school together – Buck exhibits a grisly picture of them at their prom with their dates. Brady’s date is his soon to be ex-wife. Buck was also B’s best man but I was spared those photos.
Zachary asked me out next Fri night but I’d rather be with Buck – but if he doesn’t ask me in time I’ll tell him I’m ”going out with the girls.”
That’s what he tells me he does; “goin’ out with the guys” – so presumably this is an OK excuse. If he says what girls I’m in a bit of a pickle. But I’m a writer –
I‘ll invent some. It can’t be anyone he knows. Fortunately, he has no idea what a hermit I really am.
Still stuck in the childhood of my novel. Can’t wait for them to grow up. Re-read Le Ble en Herbe which helped a lot. (Aaaahhhhh…
Colette!) Off to Crown Books with A – then White Flint Mall for Christmas shopping – had coffee at The Perfect Cup. Nice outing. I bought wonderful rhinestone cat’s eye glasses. Saw Bergman’s Autumn Sonata – moving.
Mon 27 Nov 78 – 1:35 PM
Time to write in this neglected diary while waiting to have my snow tires mounted. This threatens to blow my entire day. They also had to replace a fuse that apparently blew in the middle of a rainstorm so that my wipers stopped working.
Visit with Mom and Dad very touchy. (They are staying with Peter’s mother Rita and everyone’s slightly angry I’m not dating him and I can’t narc on his Secret Relationship.) Mom casually accepted an
invitation for all of us to go out to dinner on a night I was going out with Zachary, so I said I would have to invite him and got a tirade on my thoughtlessness. Then I pointed out she was the thoughtless one assuming I didn’t have any plans. She apologized, I apologized. It blew over.
Then Avril had the nerve to ask Rita if she could
smoke – Mom exploded just as if it were her house. (Rita said No. She’s trying to quit.) M & D piled on me – I’m insane to contemplate buying a house – even if the mortgage would only cost what rent already costs.
Their real objection is that I might “choose wrong” – somehow encumber myself with a property that will make me even less attractive (if that were SOMEHOW possible) to A Decent Man. Not even dragging in Marc Kramer’s sacred name as Advisor helped at all.
Dad did come see a few houses with us. (We’ve seen 16 so far.) He had to admit it isn’t a bad deal as long as I can get that FHA loan. Zachary behaved very well around M and D – the “Official Boyfriend” –
– but of course he owed me. Fortunately the evening was over before they could find out too much about him (or he offered them drugs) so his cover wasn’t blown.
Conversation at dinner very boring. Psychology 101.
“Why don’t people say what they want?” “Why don’t people try to get what they want?” “Why do people lose interest in what they say they want?” (Rita’s going through her third divorce.) Since no one seems the least bit interested in the complexities of achieving Actual Gratification by attempting to mesh one’s constantly evolving desires with those of someone else I can only shake my head sagely and flee at the first opportunity.
Mom and Dad actually tackled these questions and struggled with them like a pair of marriage counselors. The truth is Rita’s ex has found somebody else and she shouldn’t be so surprised – they were both married when she hove onto his horizon.
Got a very stoned phone call from Zachary last night – he was over at Rod’s and “something” was making him horny. (I’ll bet I can guess.) Fortunately, I managed to convince him he was in no state to drive – leaving him prey to Rod, probably. Well, we all have to take our chances in this life.
Saturday night with Buck unsatisfying – he claimed his non-breathing nose is preventing him from going down on me. I let him know his account is in arrears and he will have to do something about it sooner or later. He chose later and fell immediately asleep. So, I left. I’m not sure I will ever get to Stage 2 with this guy. He made a point of tracking me down at Avril’s apt, calling to apologize. A and I saw 3 more unacceptable houses – but the real estate agent says there are plenty more. Fun to be in a buyer’s market for a change.
Sat 7 pm Plush Palace – 2 Dec 78
Just recovering from some tremendous bout of food poisoning – must have gotten it from the Sleazy Restaurant Around the Corner – but all I had there was a takeout salad. Still, it could have been the dressing.
No fever. I was throwing up all Wednesday. I called A to drop by after class but she was so worried she came right over. I finally was able to keep down some chicken soup. Then we went to Bethesda in the eve to see Zach’s Gordon Lightfoot impersonation – I had a little wine to make me feel better. (Free drinks always taste best.) Finally finished the childhood section but I don’t feel good about it. Novels don’t want you to do anything in life but write them all the time. I am only at p. 133.
I am already exhausted and needing a vacation.
Cheered myself up by wrapping Christmas gifts – baroque music and Victorian gift-wrap did it for me. I especially love those chubby Victorian cherubs who couldn’t become airborne without at least two brawny stagehands hauling on a mighty hawser. Reading My Mother/Myself in between boogie-oogie-oogying. Dinner party with A, Buck, and A’s old boyfriend who happened to be in town. We ate stuffed Cornish game hen, played Clue and went dancing at the Bastille.
Thurs night – Plush Palace – 11:30 PM – 7 Dec 78
Manic night – a dancer literally dragged off the stage by the police because her roommate is accusing her of stealing $3300 of furniture.
Thank God she came back so I only had to dance one extra set. Wed night we found a house! It has 5 bedrooms, 3 bath perfect in every way except that that it’s packed into a neighborhood of like houses so there are absolutely no vistas. But the price is right. We made an offer but they accepted another offer –
– ours is the “backup contract.” So, we still might get it.
Thurs am 1:07 14 Dec 78
Finished the novel in an insane burst of speed – 10 pages a day for four days. Now I have to calm down and see what I’ve got.
I still feel pretty good about it – but probably reading it will depress me.
And Devon will probably never speak to me again since he is in it. His Christmas card says I am a genius and he is in awe of me. Hey, it could be true. My publisher’s statement arrived. $50. $50. There goes that Feb vacation. Pretty sure I need a new agent. What did “stooping to genre” achieve exactly? I didn’t get a living wage. I didn’t get a publisher, agent or editor receptive to my work. It’s like I’m starting over – again.
On an up note: looks like we might get the house! It is SO perfect. Fenced in yard and everything.
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Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn
Plush Palace, Sat 1 July, 9 PM
Rod and I engage in a little smoochy-smoochy hand -holding following Christie play. I make an effort not to get so drunk that I pull down his pants to view his namesake. Impatient to find out exactly where my next sexual meal is coming from. Tach it up buddy.
In Dancer News, GiGi says Charlie NEVER goes
down on her unless he’s absolutely plastered. I want to know, “And then what good is he?” She has to admit “not much.” Says he laps at her like she’s a melting ice cream cone.
Did like Pamela Hansford Johnson’s Helena trilogy.
(Impressions of childhood, though, painfully unreal.) Now struggling with Grahame Greene’s It’s A Battlefield. Diseased whores abound; women bear their 12th child in crowded rooms (and because he’s a Catholic that’s presumably All Right By Him) and a gay time is had by none.
Midnight Sun-Mon July 2-3 78
Taking Avril to Cellar Door for her birthday before she flies to Michigan to see Merrill. Gifts Dior dusting powder & wrap around dress.
Festive occasion demands dress-up. Avril & I saw Grease, Rod and I saw Heaven Can Wait. Just sweet enough but it didn’t “move” Rod as much as I hoped. What if he’s one of the “pod people” with nothing inside? Jury still out.
Thurs 4:15 – 6 July 78
Missing Avril so much! Boy, did I get dependent.
It’s just SO Fun to have someone to do things with who thinks ALMOST EXACTLY the same as you do but with interestingly nourishing differences.
Rod is no substitute. Still can’t figure him out. His apartment is
completely stark. Bare. Not ONE THING on any of the walls. The
closest I can get to understanding him is that there seems to be no feeling in his family. They don’t talk at meals. Father’s dead, mother still sends him clothes he hates and he still wears them. (They are perfectly presentable. But what would he wear if she did not dress him? We’ll never know. I’m not getting in the midst of that.)
He never suggests things to do. I suggest everything.
Charlie Byrd in Annapolis (just because I love Annapolis) was OK. On the other hand, when we went to Le Bistro he ordered Piper Heidseck champagne out of the clear blue sky! Because he said now he’s “finally dating.”
So that took initative. Right?
Nice letter from Devon who ‘feels veneration” for my talent.
Sweet. Reading Green’s The von Richthofen Sisters.
8:30 PM Fri – 7 July 78
Driving in to work in a haze of ecstasy after Perfect Day, heard an infuriating review of Heaven Can Wait by Penelope Gilliatt. Really the woman’s a moron. She says she would understand a movie about transmigration of souls in “wartime” but why now! Who GIVES these people a podium? How did she get this job with so little artistic sense? Bullied her way to the top, most likely.
Von Richthofen sisters turns out to be boring PhD thesis.
So hard to get it right. Therefore switched to Murder of My Aunt. Amusing.
(Richard Hull).
Big tipper in tonight. $138 so far! I feel like the pigeons in Avril’s class experiments. “Intermittent reinforcement!” I have to pick up Genevieve and Brett up at the airport tomorrow for Women’s March (we all wear white.)
Bringing them back to my place to eat first – I made a gorgeous salmon mousse. Invited Rod just to see if he’s cool.
Sun July 9 78 2 AM
He’s cool. Wore white, walked the whole march and
was so charming to Genevieve and Brett they were dazzled. I’m now feeling relief that I only have ten days till vacation – don’t think I can become “over involved” in that short period of time.
Adelphi Grist Mill Park – 11:15 AM Mon July 10 – 78
Sunbathing on my favorite rock. When I get hot
I’ll splash around (like the dogs are already doing). Hardly a dry spot left on this rock – but who cares – my diaries have seen worse. A year ago, the Last Act of the Romantic Psychodrama just beginning. Whew.
I think I came out of it all right. I’m starting to see a possible Harold-Nicolson/Vita Sackville-West thing developing with Rod. (He actually KNOWS WHO Harold Nicolson is!!!) Last night I almost raped him in his theatre seat but I am determined to let him make the first move. But I do need to know how long I’m going to have to wear Glamorous Lingerie every day (just in case). I am starting to run out of glamorous lingerie. But we are having a lovely time – he is witty, intelligent and aware. I “confessed” all about Devon – my longest relationship – but because he’s a “newly consecrated minister” I can see Rod’s not too worried. If he only knew!
A good development is I’m learning not to drink so much. If there isn’t sex right around the corner one must stay aware. Coffee “without dessert” so to speak. It’s good for me. I told him the whole plot of Secaire – weak points become immediately obvious. He tells me about his ex-wife.
2 PM – Back at home to ringing phone – new
croquet ball on the pitch! Marc Kramer coming into National – do I want
to have dinner and discuss My Finances. Hmm. Maybe. He knows I’m too poor to invest in anything. But I say Yes.
Fri. 8:05 Starlight Club Springfield, VA Fri 14 July 78
I hate this club. It’s a bitch of a drive so I rarely come here but the tips are good. Need the cash for vacation. Unfortunately, I am working with Danielle – the Brazilian lesbian who threatened to kill me. I’m hoping she won’t recall she threw boiling hot coffee at me. (Her aim is bad.)
She’s usually pretty much out of it. Got $100 tip already from a guy who wonders why I don’t dance at The Gaslight downtown. Because the dancers have to waitress there! Ugh! That place is legendary. I tried to be polite but really.
Anyway, Kramer was different from what I expected. We ate prime rib at The King’s Contrivance – he seemed a lot older and a lot sadder.
He says whenever he hears 10 CC’s “I’m Not In Love” he thinks of me.
I asked him what about finances – he said I should invest in real estate. Wants to “watch my stocks.” I was embarrassed to tell him there isn’t anything to watch what with Dad keeping such a closed fist on the shares, and me having to sell everything I get. I start to suspect Dad is CONFIDING in him about his estate planning and PRETENDING “our” investments are actually OURS.
This meant we didn’t have that much to talk about and the evening ended with a damp kiss when I turned down sex. I say I’m In a Relationship. He says he’s thinking of proposing to his red headed secretary –
who reminds him of me. I am kind of insulted but told him to Go For It. I guess
I had this built up in my mind – sort of like Chuck Kornowitz where you think it’s going to FINALLY be about SOMETHING ELSE. How my Mom would jeer!
(Wore my 3-piece suit, anyway. With eyeshadow.)
He says he has to come through on his way back
from Oklahoma, thank God, I could say I’ll be in Maine. Looks Like It’s Over.
2:15 AM Mon 17 July 78
Another fiasco. I should leave now while I’m behind.
This has certainly been Trial and Error Week. How did poor Rod – Desirable Husband Material become Inevitable Discard? I’m sick to death of the Hand Kissings and the Knee Pinchings, Goddamit. There is something seriously wrong with this man. We had dinner & drinks at the Peter Pan Inn, then drove up and down Price Distillery Rd until I assaulted him. I admit it. He is under
the impression that we “made love”. Trust me, one time was plenty. This is a man who does not “think” with his body. He gives nothing back, an absorptive rather than reflective surface.
I worked hard not to let him know how just how incompetent he is, because really, there’s no hope.
Some sad girl somewhere who hates sex is going to find her “dream man”.
I shouldn’t have pushed it, although seriously I don’t think he will even question if it never happens again.
Damn shame is all I can say. A cruel waste, when he’s so charming in every other respect. Life is brutal. Sigh. Enjoyed Pretty Baby so much I saw it twice. (Can’t pay close enough attention while Rod is talking.)xxx
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Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn
Plush Palace – Midnight – Fri 12 May 78
I love Friday nights. They’re always exciting. Gay girl in tonight approaching the dancers (without success) you’d think that would happen more often. If she went a bit slower she might get lucky.
Unfortunately, she just asks us if we are gay. How can we know without any experience? With the right kind of situation I think we’d admit we’re all at least a little bit gay.
Avril came over to the house at noon – we had white wine, macaroni salad with ham and croissants. Eddy called me in 3 sets early – $265 extra. Irresistible – means I can go to NYC.
Carol tells us about her sexually sadistic husband – handcuffs and everything! She orders pancakes for dinner to “cheer up” even though maple syrup gives her hives! Jerrilee tells how hard it was to leave her husband. He held a gun to her baby’s head. Kristi found a new “wonderful” guy but gave him herpes and now she fears he’s “done” with her. What a waste since now they both have herpes! They’re perfect for each other!
This is all a lot more interesting than Ann Bridge’s
Emergency in the Pyrenees. (Even Mrs. Radcliffe was more fun that that).
Who should come in tonight but Peter’s brother Julian!
Thought he was in San Francisco. Apparently, I’m one of the Eight Wonders of DC – can’t pass through without getting a gander. Kissed me in a brotherly way. We had a nice reminisce about childhood till Eddy sent me back to dressing room. He saw one set – when I came out again he was gone.
11 PM Mon 15 May 78
Sun night got blind drunk on my day off through sheerfrustration and exhaustion; then couldn’t sleep. Intermittent nightmares that someone was trying to break into my car and throw acid in my face. Decided to kiss the novel off and let it go – just get an opinion. Concentrate on something else. Weather depressing – no sunbathing – four day monsoon!
Trying grumpily to live without booze. I can see myself becoming Lida, the Alcoholic.
2 AM Mon 22 May 78
Exhaustion follows mania. Yesterday couldn’t keep my
eyes open long enough to read the NY Times, but refusing to go to bed dragged out my notebooks to arrange beside my desk. Horrible old valentines, photos of Ryder, dreadful wailing screeds fall out. I have so many drafts of Flycatcher –
it’s ridiculous. Purging isn’t easy – I totally understand hoarding. How can you be certain you’ll never need something again? Must get to bed – tomorrow meet Avril at College Park Library to see Dear Detective and listen to Couperain.
Fri. Plush Palace – 26 May 78 – 7:20 PM
Dancing badly. Reduced to eating saltines (bad girl!)
Feel I can see the end of all this and it’s a cold cold chill. Apparently nothing pleasurable lasts forever – as soon as it’s a “job” it’s over. Poor me! What’s the next incarnation? Tending art gallery on windswept rainy isle? Living
drunken and obese in a trailer on the edge of the estate?
Lovely “date” with Avril. We went to Sea Fair
(corner Calvert & Conn) for drinks, scallops, mussels at the outside
café. She says Shoulders is a total washout. Looks like Mom succeeded all too well in convincing us romantic love is the most important thing in life – I say let’s blame her. A having horrible insomnia troubles so before movie we bought six classical records to soothe and stun. I really hesitate to go out with Peter – why cultivate new people when they’re so likely to turn out just as awful as the old people? I like him now but… he’s on his best behavior.
Really feeling shy and buried in myself. Instead of new man, start a new novel. Something crazy.
Avril tried Barbara Ellen (exercise studio) but was put off by their insulting sales techniques. It’s like being chained to a TV listening to a half hour of ring around the collar commercials. Too bad.
I say she’s got to stop telling prospective employers she has “no experience”. She worked for hotline, courier service, horrible fake gyno, etc. We need to construct a resume out of this – we are too damn honest. Better to project even a witless confidence. I don’t want to have to tell people about myself, either.
Dear Detective was superb! Followed it up with
gold rush sundae and coffee at Swensen’s. Trying to get into bestsellers
– reading Velda Johnson’s ghastly Etruscan Smile. Would rather read theology (and Secaire shows it. Alas.) My novel is terrible. It stinks.
It needs to be rewritten from the bottom UP. Plot beyond help.
10:45 AM Sat 29 May 78
Woke up this morning muttering about betrayal and failure. Seems my life separates into two phases: pre and post Bruce.
Pre-Bruce I was such an innocent – I think “goober” is the descriptive expression. Schools should not let these pathetic characters out – but we were so eager to roam free. There is no savagery to which people will not descend to protect their egos. On top of all this, we have to battle M & D who, of all people, SHOULD be in our corner. They’re pissed we’re not more successfully infantilized. Determine NOT to do this to my kids.
Reading Hodgson’s Carnacki The Ghost Hunter (1900) heartbreakingly dull. And it could have been so good – a combination of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Sherlock Holmes is just what the doctor ordered.
3 PM Tues 30 May 78
Struggled through 2 bad pages on Demon that will have to be rewritten, then finished Sylvia Townsend Warner’s tragic At the Stroke of Midnight. This beautiful short story almost finished me. Yesterday Italian food made me & Avril logy – we tried going dancing.
Horrible place, bad band. (Tramps). Predatory males (who spoke bad English) very difficult to get rid of.
Saw Greek Tycoon instead – worse even than we’d been led to believe. Came home and read two bad detective stories by “good” writers. Guilt-inducing cash from M & D – makes me feel inadequate but I need it. Means I can buy new vacuum cleaner AND summer dresses. Call Peter like a dutiful child – this whole affair is tinged with doom. Thank God he is “busy” with his Secret Married Woman (who turns out to Someone Big in the Democratic Committee)! His parents and my parents should just date each other. Dogs need walking and I need to check on vandalism at abandoned house.
2 PM Sat June 2 – 78
Trouble opening latest letter from Devon – I had
the weirdest premonition it would a marriage proposal! It was indeed very loving – he has hit a summit of boredom and restlessness for which I am doubtless not the cure. Praised my novel for its “mystical sense of altered consciousness.” Wow. I like that better than “brilliant satire”. Avril & I went to Dillards concert at Cellar Door – they are so charming. Reminiscences of seeing Bruce play there. First act was Scarlet Ribera and Black Rose Band –
liked her even better. Some attractive men, but casual sex seems to raise more problems than it solves. A & I agree that after the “healing” comes the “strengthening” period. Coltsville Community College asks me to teach seminar on gothic
novel – of course I said yes. Poor misbegotten bastards. But at least I like watching the birds stuffing themselves at my feeder.
Plush Palace Mon 5 June 78
Perfect day – interesting stirrings inside – feel I am on the edge of some sort of breakthrough. Yesterday fresh sweet corn and turkey salad at A’s, then we watched B Stanwyck’s Double Indemnity on TV. Classic Chandler. “Aren’t you going 75 in a 30 mph zone?”
After that I dressed up in my satin 3-piece suit to see Helmut Berger at the Kennedy Center. (Sigh). What a honey that man is.
Then sent Bruce a letter with the Unwelcome News that I am “estopped” from filing for divorce in the state of Maryland because he made me sign a “no contest” paperand then dropped his suit! Paralysis!
I know he was hoping to get out of this without paying –
(his last girlfriend proffered enough cash to get us this far then predictably abandoned him as soon as his True Colors became apparent.) Maybe –
I can establish residence in Virginia and start all over again.
Had an eye appt in Bethesda so went to that library where I’ve never been and got a TON of interesting books. Treasuring Patricia Beers’ Reader, I Married Him.
Plush Palace Mon 12 June 78 – 7:00 PM
Horrible experience last night at the Garland Dinner Theatre – we were seated with some couple where the male was obviously severely mentally ill –she fed him 1,000 pills throughout dinner to keep him from exploding. We could have “complained” and demanded to be seated elsewhere but it just seemed so cruel. Avril & I used every bit of our mother’s otherwise completely pernicious training and tried to act as if nothing was happening.
I’m trying to muster up the discipline to unplug my phone till six – I’m getting too involved in Avril’s job hunt. She told me to Butt Out. She’s right – I should just write. What the hell am I thinking being somebody’s “mother”? We have too much of a mother already –
for both of us. Martin Green’s Children of the Sun a survey rather than the illumination I’d hoped for. Now I need a real Brian Howard bio.
Yesterday excellent day – haven’t known such joy since April.
Sunbathing reading Ada Leverson & Her Circle – delicious. (Unfortunately she was a bit of an idiot.) Cleaned entire house yesterday so when I got back from dancing it was immaculate. (The dogs – who had been outside in the yard – messed it up again immediately.) Read Jane Rule’s excellent Lesbian Images at work. She’s dumb about Colette and Bowen but I agree with her that loneliness and bad experiences are the enemy, not homosexuality. But I don’t think I’m up for a lesbian experience – women too emotionally demanding. They do too much work (men do too little).
Hideously unsatisfactory choice – like having to choose between a ton of salt or none. Better to go without.
Peter called to say we “ought to get together”.
Seemed very halfhearted to me. Bet he wants to tell his mother he’d made
an effort. I doubt we can surmount this fundamental lack of attraction (we both prefer blondes) but Mom thinks just the opposite. Marry people you’re NOT attracted to so you won’t be “swept away” by “hormones” and you can make “reasoned decisions”! Is that pitiable or what? Avril says she’s LYING because EVERYBODY lies about sex. Suggested Mom handed Dad her wet underpants on their very first date. (At the ballet? I don’t see it.) Mom has also said the worse you are at sex the more likely you are to get a proposal.
Does this make sense to you? Ryder’s marriage (under these exact principles) lasted 2 yrs and he wanted to be anywhere but home.
Plush Palace – 22 June 78 – 3 PM
Second double this week. I hate them but I need
$80 for typewriter, $300 to pay back Avril, $100 to quiet the utilities people –
$200 Burnside Inn and at least $200 “Mad Money”. You know, in case I go mad. It could happen, especially the way things are going. Need extra cash for Vacation, which I approach as if it were a Sacrament. Secaire gets re-written NEVER under this regime. Oh well. There’s always poetry.
SYLVIA PLATH: The Festering Weight
I know you deceived me
With the bald-headed lady
My true kin;
My mother renounced
Your swollen giblets in my name.
See? I bleed tulips.
It’s happened twice before; I seed the earth
With children, little miracles.
I give them their inheritance – a
Carriage full of baby dung
Flung
Down the coal hole
To remind me of you.
Pearly maggots bee–like
Suck my lip to
Scent the fault that clings to me:
Heredity.
This enemy’s face shifts cleverly;
First male, then jew, then
blurred and unfamiliar, genitalia
like narcissi.
I reserve the right to reject
This choiceless life.
See? My body’s scarred by
Your refusals.
The blackbird sings out
Blackly.
Yesterday cleaned house, walked dogs, cooked fish stew. Avril & I read family letters, then went out to see A Different Story. Both liked it enormously.
8:45 PM Plush Palace – 24 Jun 78 – Sat
Bad mood. OD’d on junk food then lost my favorite hairbrush and other people’s plastic versions break my hair. Growl. I can
write it out. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it. Emotional roller coaster continues. Just when I declare myself a Celibate Slave to Art a very handsome –
(and very blond) man comes in tonight. He works in radio, considering story about dancers; wants to interview “somebody”.
“You hit pay dirt, my friend.” I tell him but I insist on pseudonym. I was wearing my silver lamé outfit with the see-through silver sleeves so looked tiptop if I do say so myself.
His name’s Rod Avery (I’m not kidding) and although he’s newly divorced he lacks the Rip Van Winkle leer. He works for a reputable national outlet. I can work with this. Mom would just eat him up. Bought tix to an Agatha Christie play – maybe I’ll invite him instead of Avril.
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Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn
10:30 PM – Plush Palace – Mon night 10 April 78
Two more sets. I’ll live. Finished study of Mary McCarthy by Doris Grumbach. Much prefer that to actually having to read McCarthy who reminds me of Aldous Huxley – Is it possible to be too contemporary? Trends of modern writing a little too sketchy for me. No book should feel like flipping through a magazine. Sensory overload sans enlightenment.
As for Angus Wilson – we are parting forever. I read all but two stories in Such Darling Dodos – back on the shelf he goes.
Wonderful day – up before 7, read New York Times, sent out poems – magnificent walk with dogs – explored abandoned house. Haunted by novel – so went back and got six pages – one good new idea.
Called publisher – ordered ten more books. Little self-promotion. While writing got call from the Plush Palace – would I come in two sets early for Glory, who is sick? Love to. Just feeling bankrupted by the drycleaners. I was justified too because first set got a big tip. ($300)!
Peter called – said he would have loved to go to the Raitt concert with me but had to go to Vermont. He certainly talks differently when his girlfriend/housekeeper/telephone answerer person is not around.
He hinted that his love life is impossibly complex and he doesn’t want his parents to know. I’m guessing that she is married. He promised to get in touch when he gets back. I’m in the ladies room because the air-conditioning in dressing room not working – it is suffocating in there. Yesterday evening thoroughly enjoyable – steaks wine and hot fudge sundaes at A’s then watched Richard Brooks Happy Ending which really
was a bomb. Trying to read Anthony Powell’s Venusberg but feeling nothing yet. Tried Sarton’s Miss Pickthorn – a hash of all her other stuff – very slight. Avril not home for past four hours – out on date with Jordan.
Can’t wait to hear the play by play.
11:45 PM – Thurs 13 Apr 78
Safe & warm in my gilt-canopied bed, happy in spite
of my cold. A & I got “El Diablo” inspected today – $70 – But at least she can take it to the MVA tomorrow and have it put in her name. That great feeling of “starting out fresh”. In spite of dribbles & wheezes, blissful dog walk followed by deep-dish pizza & wine at Armand’s. No painful memories.
Cherry blossoms are out.
Saw Coming Home with Jon Voigt & Jane Fonda. Good, if somewhat earnest. Bruce Dern acted like he was in a different movie. Rough role deserves a hero’s commendation. I stare at the casually interdependent couples – it’s been a year since I could lay a hand on another’s thigh with that proprietary air. Poor Avril dissolved in tears towards the end – too reminiscent of the “endless pain” of vets like Bruce and Mason.
I’d be more sympathetic if they didn’t take it out on others. What they learned apparently is how to “stage a war”. The people we love inflict the worst damage. Avril’s at the stage where she’s still haunted by Mason but feels it’s “boring” to talk about him so she bottles it up. I tell her get a diary. Hope to finish Powell’s
Agents & Patients tonight – but it is a little dull.
Plush Palace –Fri 14 Apr 78 – 3:50 PM
Only 3 more sets, with 4 dancers. Still, made
enough tips for groceries. Buy wild birdseed for the birds cavorting
outside my desk’s bay window. Daringly went on without stockings – such a savings if we didn’t have to buy them but Eddie told me No Cigar.
Too bad – they’re hot in summer. Alvera says Yvonne’s back at Mother Joe’s. I thought she wouldn’t be able to eat enough shit to stay in her music clerk job. We goddesses so spoiled by our pedestal. Called A in the afternoon to see how she was doing – Shoulders was there flexing his muscles at her and she is over the moon. Trying to be glad for her but in spite of his obvious beauty I’m afraid he is a bit of a shit. (See testimony of past burnees plus eviction notices.)
I feel I must disappear deeper into solitude and see what’s down there. Gift (new version of Courtney) coming along interestingly but slowly. I’m afraid it has no plot other than my own life, when what it needs is a couple of murders. (Same thing my life has always required.) Poems so much easier instead.
Tried to read Phyllis Bottome but she’s a fatal cross between a
didact and a pleaser; sort of like a barky little dog. Most unpleasant.
And that casual anti-Semitism pretty shocking.
Plush Palace – Sat 5:50 PM 15 Apr 78
Halfway through novel – can’t figure out if I’m
satisfied or not. All my discoveries so agonizingly slow. Can’t afford
fuckups – then I’ll have to go through it all AGAIN. Slept late, breakfast at Avril’s. We did laundry together, then played gin.
I was the first one here thank God (means I’m the
first to leave). Got my schedule – 4 nights in a row, 2 days off. Good.
Congratulate myself on my intellectual freedom as I wrap black lace around my throat, recalling all the put-downs I suffered back in the day when I was an “architect’s helpmeet”.
Reread Alvarez’ description of Plath’s suicide – I don’t agree her death was some “by-product.” Her mother raised her to be murdered by other people;
Nazis or husbands. There had to be a “bloodletting” – Mrs. Plath’s ulcer – Sylvia’s “suicides”. If you don’t “accept” martyrdom someone will have to die in your place. Kid yourself it’s” freedom” just because you choose time & place.
It bothers me terribly that Mom & Daughter shared a bedroom during Sylvia’s formative years. Death would seem inevitable just to get some privacy & distance. Poor Sylvia offered those magnificent poems to Alvarez and he
backed away terrified because Art is terrifying. $30 for lost contact that came out when a necklace scraped my eyeball while I was hanging upside down.
Teach me to wear contacts onstage. Who needs to see the audience anyway?
7:15 PM Sun 16 Apr 78
Spent the day in bed eating oranges, raisin bread, peanut butter. Avril’s spending the night at Shoulders’ new place – then tomorrow we’re going to the new Cassavetes film and I’m excited. Jervaze in for last set to invite me to his going away party. I slept nine hours.
Horrifying Who Made the Lamb – author really lost control of this one but I bet she would say she was just “reporting”. Books Do Furnish a Room much better than Powell’s previous – has a sense of direction. “Trapnel himself always insisted that a novel is what its writer is”. I would agree. Style follows taste, I think. Realize Dad and I don’t mean the same thing by the word “intellectual”. He means a person who knows specific things, (education) I mean a person who thinks a certain way (style).
Twain never meets. I am not respectful of artificially acquired patinas –
“points of view”. Wrote the infirmary scene – just what I wanted to say.
Maybe I need to give up sex and even male companionship –
– just can’t afford them.
Plush Palace – 6:45 PM Fri 21 Apr 78
Wonderful walk along Powder Mill Road thinking
about the mystique of money. I eternally fight a rearguard action. Mom & Dad call at noon – Genevieve had little girl – Belinda. Avril delivers my new lens– bounce notice in mail – I tear my hair in a frenzy. I get to dance 2 sets for GiGi – $200 – she tells me about her night of sin with Louie. And she wants another one. Life’s a soap opera. Management says there’s going to be a drug raid with dressing room search warrant. Panic among the girls – but not me. Check out the customers with a more intense interest. Are narcs here? Everyone planning to leave town except me. I offer to work tomorrow night.
Reading an interesting study of Iris Murdoch novels – the Disciplined Heart. Too much coffee – I’m switching to tomato juice.
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Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn
Wed Mar 22 78 – 4:15 PM
Waiting for cocktails, I discover a flaw in the divine Miss Elizabeth Bowen. She doesn’t like to admit that she is of the same clay as her characters. Those creatures based on the Mosleys she repudiated utterly as if creatures from another planet. I’ve got news for her. Creatures from another planet are
not that interesting.
Last night was one of the most traumatic family
Evenings I have ever experienced – I think my eyes are still puffy. I heard we would be having Island People to dinner – he used to be a university president/professor so presumably would be good company – they met because somebody was the bridesmaid of somebody else’s bridesmaid so there is a connection. It started with me wearing a green silk shirt, my denim gauchos and hardly any makeup (yes I wore eyeshadow) and being told by Mom that my “get-up” was “more suitable for a bar.” (All of a sudden she’s an expert on bars.)
Harvey and Edna turned out to have “heard of my job” –I gather in some commiseration session on Incredibly Unsatisfactory Children – however they refuse to accept that there is any difference between being an exotic dancer and being a stripper (hello! I don’t strip) and somehow Harvey
segued from castigating “exotic dancers who try to feel superior to strippers” to criticisms of “ total sexual freedom” which apparently means that “everybody should jump on everybody.”
I tried to dignify this mess by explaining that it is actually the reverse – in the “old days” under the “ancien regime sexuelle” a dancer could expect to be “jumped on” by “anybody” because of her job (like poor old Degas’ ladies) but that actual freedom for women would mean a world in which one could be a barely clothed dancer (I would think anyone would admit nudity is at least an equally valid way of expressing the art of muscle –
line and form as heavily costumed artificial approximations) without it becoming some sexual signal that one has “lost caste” and therefore privacy and choice. I recommended Susan Brownmiller’s book to this painfully ignorant male (God knows what he taught – he had never heard of Brownmiller – seems to have her confused with Ti-Grace Atkinson assuming she mustwrite books no self-respecting intellectual would read (maybe he was the type of university president who just brings in wads of cash).
He challenged my premise that the ultimate societal freedom would be for unattached females to not to be under the threat of rape every minute. Harvey insisted – with a perfect straight face that women rape men every bit as much as the reverse – “psychologically of course” which he says is just as terrible – and in fact probably even more so since we all know the “physical thing is no big deal” and often does people a “favor”.
I must say this does not reflect very well on his wife Edna but she was smiling smugly so I think she may have just been too obtuse to follow any of the arguments.
I really could not cope with this free-for-all avalanche of idiocy especially when my parents played their trump card – if bars where women sit in front of a drink and watch barely clothed men cavorting don’t exist, therefore this is an antifeminist exercise and my claim to be a feminist is a
sham. I think it was at that point that I burst into tears. Which of course was
totally demeaning. I sorely missed Avril’s assistance – she refused to jump in
but made peacemaking noises like “you both have a point” (untrue – their “points” are a disgrace). Ugly Harvey apologized – what a monster! but there could be no satisfaction in it for me at that point. Avril went walking with me until they left.
Alas, waiting till they were gone did not end the discussion. Mom and Dad pounced on us to drive home their point that the male animal is a violent dangerous creature barely contained by the civilizing influence of the female. (Guess they can’t get behind Harvey’s “female rapist” idea.) Of course they are going to rape any female who lets down
her guard for a second and it will all be her fault. (Didn’t Ryder make this case?
I’m ashamed to share a world with these people.) Any kind of a sexual display (I guess the beach would certainly qualify) is a declaration of :
“Jump in boys! It’s free today!” At least they recognized Harvey’s
behavior as extreme (“Two drinks and he’s lost” was Dad’s comment.)
Basically, as long as I work at “that bar” I’m the
“lost cause” and if any decent male finds out about it our relationship will be over in a trice. This kind of thing makes me wonder why I bother to visit them. Fortunately, I’m escaping soon, but the whole ferry reservation problem means one loses the right to fight irretrievably with one’s hosts on this island. Dad’s big mistake was giving me an example of a good marriage as Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett!
Did I blow my top! He probably thought I’d listen to him if he produced a literary example. He wasn’t aware that not only were they not married but Mr. Hammett was married to someone else and cheated on poor Hellman whenever he could manage to stay stiff long enough. (I really didn’t want to “get in” to the alcoholism problem. Lillian tried to make him seem like a “mentor” but honestly she was just his keeper and bail bondsman.)
11:30 AM Friday, 24 March 78
Staggering down for my first cup of coffee when I heard Harvey’s voice in the kitchen. Thank God I heard it in time – if he had seen me in my baby doll nighty I guess he would have considered himself justified in pinning me immediately to the floor. He brought me a hibiscus flower as a peace offering.
A more significant peace offering came from Mom and Dad who gave us each 100 more shares of stock. I tried to refuse it– they insisted. I warned them I’ll only sell it. Maybe I’ll be able to buy a new car when I get back. I could use it.
Spent last night trying to read Welty’s Bride of Innisfallen, couldn’t get my mind around it. Read Faithful Are the Wounds instead.
Very like a stage play – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Powder Mill Road – home – 8:30 PM Sun 26 March 78
Can’t describe the ecstasy of being in my own
place. On the island I am hideous – here I am beautiful. The loss of confidence there is so severe as to actually induce delusions. Now that I am back I am ready to tackle my existence brilliantly. As always.
We got in last night in the pouring rain – 11:30 PM
– Avril had coffee and left. I read a soppy love story and slept in my Own Bed.
Today we did laundry, went to see a bad movie – actors working madly away to no effect. Tomorrow I get mail – hope there’s lots of it.
Did get a beautiful poem out of the island –
Peacock Pavement: The Poet on her walk – submit to Denver
Quarterly – which has been very polite about me lately. They’ve shown an interest in my stuff though nothing has ever been exactly “right.
Alysse Aallyn 