Category: #InnerLife

                 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.