7:45 AM Mon 20 Sept 76
R’s latest accusation is that I fell in love first!! So weird.
Reminiscent of ex-husband. Some version of gaslighting? It’s a definite power grab. He said he was “embarrassed” by my emotional intensity! I have a feeling he’s trying to cobble together a story he can tell other people. As for me, I’m trying to figure out what really happened. Used to think R’s lack of experience wouldn’t affect us but I can see it really has. Got my hair cut; of course I think it’s too short. Dreading what Genevieve will say.
10:40 AM Wed 22 Sept. 76
Woke up after horrible nightmare in which Jacqueline
Susann showed me her cancer to have R drive me to the station. We’re in a financial nightmare – A’s rent check bounced twice so expenses going up. R says I have to start an exercise plan – since I can’t dance. He’s hilarious! Lunch with Ruby and my agent. Agent (Ruth) was euphoric. Starting to feel the book was written by a stranger. I tried so hard to make it English and Victorian – I NEVER want to do that again. Can’t say THAT, obviously, especially after Ruby remarked I was “so good looking we should make it a series.” Devlyn’s best gothic they’ve ever read! They both drank heavily while disagreeing with virtually everything I had to say about poetry and literature. Their recommendation: write a love story. Pity we don’t know what love is, isn’t it? I MIGHT be able to manage a sex story. Oh well. Genevieve full of secret divorce-and-getting-together-with-hush-hush-sweetie plans. Don’t tell Kent anything. He asks me what’s going on – I play dumb but not too well. He must know something’s up. Awkward! Walk to library and back thinking about St. Secaire. How make that a love story? Everyone’s a predator or an idiot.
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.
11:00 AM – Tues 24 Aug 76
Lying in the same bed where R and I made love five
hours ago – just finished Tyler’s Clockwinder. Puzzled by the lack of passion in her strange, sad, minor novels. Tonight R is picking me up and taking me “someplace” – I have my eye on a little restaurant – where we can talk it out. I hope he’s paying because I have exactly $177 to live on till Sept 7 and $125 of that is rent. I’m trying to look at the future calmly – I love him, he loves me – who knows what may happen? 2:40 PM Was feeling so much better I was going to work on sending out poems until I looked around at this place. A and I desperately need Maeve to live here to help out with expenses and she is not the tidiest person. A says she never cleaned her other place after the party and it smells like a dead body. I cleaned and now I feel better but not in the mood for literature – more in the mood to take my dishpan hands to the mall. However I won’t because it would just result in expenditures. 3:40 PM Obviously R doesn’t really respect me. Otherwise he wouldn’t manipulate me like this. I don’t think he cares about me being a writer at all. He would actually like it better if he could introduce me to people as “my girlfriend the insurance agent.” That makes sense in his little world. I could break up with him but I’d have to find another place to work anyway – he’s ruined Shalimar for me. One can understand and deplore and get mad, but the alternative is loneliness. All I want is to go out and have fun, have someone to play and smooch with. Finding and then cultivating such a person is incredibly exhausting – and aren’t 99% of them only going to have the same (or worse) reactions he’s having anyway?
10:40 AM Thurs 26 Aug –76 – Club Shalimar Yesterday morning Maeve and I lingering over coffee and chat – no one wanting to return to their life – and the phone rang. It was editor Ruby Jenkins at Pyramid wanting to make an offer on my book. She says it has a lot of wit and depth and is really extraordinary and if they don’t take it someone else will. Two editors on my side. Asked all about me – so I told what I was doing, schools, what I’d had published – that Harcourt just turned down Find Courtney. She’d called Maine because she couldn’t get in touch with my agent but left a message. I just put the phone down and screamed for 20 solid minutes. Then went to Shalimar and quit – gave them a week’s notice. Didn’t tell them about book – Carmen guessed about Ryder – narrowed her eyes into slits and tried to tell me a lot of terrible stuff about him, about how he always pursued dancers – although she admits, after me, not any more. She said if I ever need the job again, they’d give it to me. That was nice. Randy the bouncer had tears in his eyes because he says I’m so amusing and no one else can make him laugh. R’s “celebration” was to take me to Garfinckel’s at the Montgomery Mall to buy me underwear. He takes it strangely personally that I don’t wear a bra or underpants half the time. This could have been a fun, even erotic experience but he was so weird I almost had a nervous breakdown – so bizarrely controlling like he doesn’t know what presents are. The missionary purchasing fig leaves for the natives! Felt offensively “managed”. If he had bought me lingerie and given it to me that would have been one thing. I could take them back if I didn’t like them. This was if he were my parent or something – I really can’t explain why it was so insulting. I let him buy me a pink silk robe, which I refused to try on – of course it will fit. Duh. We should have been celebrating. Not only can I quit dancing but they’ve put him on the eleven pm news and now we could have mornings together. But at the Japanese steakhouse he really acted wooden headed. I think it’s some sort of a gender problem – men understand that their self-respect is tied up with autonomy but they seem to think the opposite must be true about women. I’m trying too hard not to despise him. Anything I could say sounds hurtful. At the very same time he’s trying to “tether” me he’s trying to free himself. He said, what if I want to take another girl out? And I said, well you can but you have to tell me about it before hand. He said, I know how I’d feel if you said that to me. I told him he probably doesn’t have to worry – I can’t imagine wanting another man. Now he’s “scared” I’m going to become a famous writer! So we went back to my place and made love for three hours and it was very satisfying. He was all over me and it felt like the last time in some critical way. To me he seems less like a man getting out of a marriage than some kind of shipwreck victim who has never seen or imagined our society and is becoming increasingly excited about the sexually liberated possibilities. How can we avoid breaking up over this? Can’t I just get a fat check from my book and be a young writer about town? I sincerely hope that’s the way it will go. Reading Rose, my years in Service about Lady Astor’s maid.
Sat 28 Aug 76 Shalimar
Ryder tried to pressure me not to go to work by
saying “we shouldn’t be seeing each other”. I remind him we have a dinner party coming up and a vacation in Maine! Why the hysteria? Reading Henri Peyre’s The Failures of Criticism. Last set.
3PM Mon 30 Aug 76
Wakened by air-conditioner going on – Ryder
climbing in bed with me fully clothed so there would be “no sex” – of course that didn’t work. He is very upset about my sense of physical freedom – said wouldn’t “let” me be painted in the nude by Andrew Wyeth! I pointed out that his wife was his ideal woman – totally restrained and untrained and ignorant and unavailable in every way he wanted – and he hated it. Can’t understand why he has to be such a jackass when all his dreams are coming true.
3 Sept 76
Just back from the worst vacation of my life. Both
Avril and I took completely unacceptable men to our parents’ island – alas, my man was the most unacceptable – doing nothing but fighting and sulking. He finally said such unforgiveable things I had to drive him to the ferry and push him off into space. His last words were “I love you.” Day late and a dollar short. The worst things he said were that I dress like a slut, anyone looking at me would instantly assume I was a prostitute. This was said to me while I was wearing my gorgeous emerald scarf tied around my breasts and my long denim skirt and Nefertiti necklace and looking like a goddess for parents’ dinner party. He said if I don’t start wearing a bra my breasts will be “ruined” and he doesn’t want to wake up age 35 married to only a “mind”. (The mind is in fact quite unimportant in his world.) His wife, he assured me, always dressed most tastefully – nobody desiring her ever. Didn’t cross his mind that the fact that she was dead-on-arrival in the sack and her inability to enjoy and celebrate her own body could be in any way connected. He told me my poems are awful and self-indulgent and I live entirely in my own head. I was finally forced to tell him that what with his long hair, leisure suits, stacked heels and man-purse most people just assume he’s gay. But who cares what “most people” think – and would we even know? He really got on my bad side seemingly justifying rape – women “ask for it” with their clothing, male self control not an issue. I said if a crazy girl escaped from an institution and ran down the street naked would men be “ justified” raping her? He said yes so obviously it was over between us from that moment. The truth, of course, is that he was overwhelmingly jealous from the moment he arrived on the island – possibly earlier – by the fact that I am a separate human being, who has ever existed out of his sight.
17 Sept 76
It really is over with R. My fault for going so fast.
R leaving messages on my answering machine every day, trying to make me jealous with “don’t call back tonight I won’t be in”. Finally decided I owe it to him to tell him where I’m working – I know he thinks I returned to dancing – the scum. Sent him a card saying we should meet for dinner in a couple of months. Appt. with Georgetown Employment Agency 10;30 AM tomorrow. 12;25 PM Ryder came by to pick up his jackets. He said, “You’re the most valuable person in the world to me.” Trying not to goad him into pyrotechnics, so, showed nothing. He was calm, played with the dog, kissed me on the cheek and said “I love you” and left. He is worthy of a hefty Freudian tome all to himself. I want to send him a copy of The Intimate Enemy but he wouldn’t (couldn’t) read it. He’s totally about not wanting what he has, having what he doesn’t want, wanting something else and hating himself into the bargain. I pity anyone involved with him – mainly I pity me – still fixated on his worthlessness apparently. Washing the dishes in floods of tears. I bragged to him that I didn’t want to change him – that isn’t true. I don’t feel I have the right to change people while he wants to specify every detail about me. The worst is I know how he would exult in his power over me. Still wearing his black coral diver’s cross as a charm. When R says dismissively “Be free” he means “Be alone”.
Sun. 12 Sept 76 – 12:05 PM
Yesterday turned down job at art gallery that would
have been wonderful but paid dirt. They say I “might” get commissions on sales. Have a feeling Mom and Dad would push for it – it was very upscale – just didn’t feel right to me. FINALLY letter from agent; Pyramid offering $2500 advance, 6% to 150,000 copies, 8% thereafter, a few minor revisions. Always less than you think but not as bad as the gallery – I say hells yes. Still have to find job; something that lets me write. I called Ryder with info, left message. Have to go to NY to sign contract so job hunt suspended for now.
Mon 13 Sept 76
Avril and Mike met me and Ryder at The Royal
Warrant for drinks to celebrate my book. I wore long sexy purple lace-up dress – nothing he’d object to however. (Royal Warrant because their drinks are huge.) Wore sandals with kitten heels and I was still taller than him. I wonder if that’s what this is about. I invited him home after and he accepted. He concentrated on making me come. Said he can’t consider dating a girl who doesn’t wear a bra. I said I might wear one in my first pregnancy. Gave him my copy of Intimate Enemy when he left. Reading Brownmiller’s excellent Against our Will.
11:45 AM 14 Sept 76 – Tues. Boiling hot. I need a full-time psychiatric nurse, vicious guard dog and a secretary. Phone ringing off the hook. Agent called reversing charges. Ryder wants to celebrate his salary bump. How can two people who despise each other as much as we do want to have sex all the time? Beats me. Ryder’s latest charge is that I wrote a novel for money. Get it? I’m a prostitute! Then he marches off to his yessir, nosir job whistling. You can’t win with him. Cheered myself up reading old diaries about my marriage. At least it’s not as bad as that. I used to lock myself in the bathroom to howl. Reading Simenon’s Venice Train. He is too mannered. Ryder forced me to look at his island pictures – I am the ugliest beautiful woman in the world. He tries to use this against me but of course we were fighting the whole time. No one can be lovely under such conditions. Does “love” entail not just “sacrifice” but loss of identity? Went out and bought a pair of six inch heels. When I am with Ryder, I love him but when I’m away, the cloud lifts. Attempting to seduce Devon by sending him a copy of the poem Cedarwood Chest.
Cedarwood Chest
Grandpa died young that’s why Grandma never opened The Cedarwood chest Till my twelve years unlocked The scent of dreams preserved Like mullet in red wine.
Never used the wilting nightgowns Featherstitched sheets Between whose coffee-colored creases Bay leaves crumbled (Like my reserve when you laid hands Upon it) how it Comes back that mossy sad Perfume! I want to lay You away in darkness and tissue but I can’t I must use you and risk Your wearing out
God knows what he’ll think but I know he’ll give a better
reaction than R. Lunch in NY 12:30 Tues – have to take the 7 AM
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 A 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 a
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 A 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.
Fri 23 July 76 - Tyler St, Chevy Chase, Maryland
R and I have seen each other every day since Fri –
I think he’s in love. I could fall if I let myself but something holds me back. I like our relationship now – he drops by the house after work and we’re both in jeans. I think tonight’s the night for sex – first time – I’m nervous but since I love his body I expect to be all right. Adore these slow working mornings. I get up with A (depending on when her first run is – she’s now working courier) to have time to set my hair before leaving at 10. Beautiful walks up Tyler St. Early AM at the Shalimar such a pleasure – sitting at the bar with my diary balanced on my hipbones, watching the barmaids get ready, feeling like a character out of Toulouse Lautrec. Yesterday we met our across the street neighbors – one of them is a gorgeous guy named Larry getting a degree in Hospital Administration. Among ourselves we call him “Shoulders” because he has such a gorgeous pair. To see them dimpled with sweat on his way back from a run is to be in heaven. Invited Larry and roommates Garrett and Opal to dinner tomorrow night – if they can come.
Thurs 22 July 76 – 9:25 PM God I’m in love. I love his fragile, tense blond body – love holding it. Love looking at his Lorenzo diMedici face. Those blond Italians! He wouldn’t like to hear me say it – he has a black belt in karate and thinks he’s so tough – but he probably only outweighs me by 20 lbs. Made love all afternoon – he is very skilful – obsessed with my pleasure. Says he doesn’t care if he ever comes – wants to see what gives a woman pleasure. We fit together exactly – interlocking puzzle pieces even upside down. I can feel his feet with my feet – his knees with my knees – it’s like having a mirror body – only with a hard chest and penis. After the first time the relief of the orgasm was so great I wept. I fell asleep with him inside me. Wrote a poem about him but don’t know if I want to show him. If I learned anything from Bruce it’s that people misrepresent. He could be shockable and its early days yet. Today I want to buy a bookcase. Love equals, unfortunately, anxiety attacks – could he possibly love me as much as I love him? Yesterday walking in the park I expressed fear about him going straight from one serious relationship right into another – but he says he refuses to limit the experience. Which of course was exactly the right answer. The worst part is his trouble with my job. He says he knows he can’t ask me to quit because he can’t support me – I pointed out he wants me to go on the Divers World expedition, and then to Cozumel, and I want to take him to Maine, all of which would be impossible if I had a regular job. He says he can deal with it only by avoiding the Shalimar – OK by me as long as I see him outside. He came in today – I got rid of him after a half hour, before my set.
11:05 AM – Shalimar Tues 27 July 76 Feel like throwing out all my diaries. Driveling gush broken up by gushing drivel. But I go right ahead and produce some more. Randy throwing ice and cases of beer, Bobbi cleaning trays, Carmen checking paper towels and me writing. Perfect. We were lying in bed – me and Ryder – I have to lie on his right side because he only has one good ear – and he told me a long purposeless allegory about bullfighting. Can’t tell which of us is the supposed to be the matador. I’m the only one with a poetic license in this relationship.) He said I should just write, and he’s going to see to it. I said fine by me. I love this job but not as much as writing, love and freedom. Then he said, I love you.
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.
1:15 AM – Sat 3 July 76
We’re supposed to “wait” in the dressing room
but they don’t seem to care if you don’t so I spend all my time talking to Ryder. He says he’s just separating from his wife and it’s extremely traumatic. They have been together since high school. He’s a tad hyper – always on the go, but very entertaining He usually brings me gifts – flowers, magazines, stuffed toys and cards. Also he’s a diver and underwater photog. Today he brought pink roses. Avril warns me not to fall in love. Just date. Easy to say! I want security, privacy, ecstasy, exclusivity… and love. It’s a problem! The oilman came to the house today says he’s shocked we have no credit references and will have to pay COD! Fortunately I had just got off work and I had the cash on me but I don’t like it at all. Guess we won’t need much oil till winter. Let’s hope. Ryder gave me a long spiel about how he gave another dancer a ride home (Darlene) and she expected him to go to bed with her and he said, I don’t do that. I could tell he was sounding me out! I said, I don’t either! No sex, ever! Sex, bad. He laughed till it hurt and he begged for mercy. Poor Avril had a long hard day – 7:30 AM to 6:30! I promised to take her out to eat at Steak & Egg if she picks me up. She said make it Bob’s and it’s a deal.
10:30 AM Tues 6 July 76
Sitting on a mattress on the floor of my Tyler St
bedroom surrounded by a jumble of stuff. So exciting starting a New Life. This time I am waiting for the gasman – if he doesn’t come by 1 pm I have to leave. 9:25 PM – sitting in the Shalimar dressing room eating a plum. Last night A and I saw Antonioni’s The Passenger. Goes down with La Prisonniere, Persona, Pierrot Le Fou and Weekend as one of my favorite all-time films. So perfectly constructed it was like a series of Canalettos. Ryder just asked me if I wanted to go to dinner some- time. I said sure. He asked me about a lot of Italian food I didn’t recognize – I said I like everything. Covered with sweat from dancing to ”No one knows what its like to be the bad man…” have to take it really slow, freezing in a series of poses. Then suddenly I meet someone’s eyes and he drops his drink.
Sat 10 July 76 – 9 pm – Shalimar
7 hours packing at Zevin Towers before I showed up
here so I was already exhausted. I hate packing. Getting to be a bit of a trial having Ryder in the bar all the time. His expressions embarrass me to dance around him. I said I thought this place was full of stories. He said, don’t stay here just to pick up stories. He said he would “subsidize” me to keep me from “doing this.” Hmmmm. Right after talking about how little money he’ll have when he splits with his wife! He’s been offered a job in Detroit for a lot more money – that’s how they get ahead in his business – jump from station to station. I told him he should take it – turned out that was the “wrong thing” because he hoped I’d want him here. But I told him, I’m a citizen of the world. I can go anywhere. Fear only empty experiences. So he says, why are you doing this? I said, to meet you. Otherwise he is perfect. So charming, smart and funny, with so much ambition, spirituality and humility. 4 sets left – then 2 days off. Just bought 3 costumes from Sunny for $30. Feeling personally confident in a way I haven’t for years. R invites me out to dinner next week. Have to buy special shoes so I won’t be too tall. Today marks year and a half since my separation from Bruce.
Fri 16 July 76 – Club Shalimar
A & I hung living room paintings today, and last piece
was moved in. Half an hour till my date with Ryder. Will his name mean anything to me in twenty years? Brought blow dryer, change of clothes and unguents sufficient to slap me back into shape after 7 hrs dancing. Idly listening to gossip of Randy (bouncer), Jinx (dancer) and Bobbi (bartender). A and I had pleasant evening last night – wild storm and the power failed. So we went out walking afterwards with dogs & flashlights. Fun looking into people’s houses, seeing them move about with candles. What does the future hold? I worry both that Ryder will be there and that he won’t be there. Margery Sharp’s The Faithful Servants has a lot of charm.
17 July 76
Interesting date. I want to write about it but first I have
to say today has been a TERRIBLE day – I had to follow ex-stripper named Edie who wore a black lace corset and gloves and carried a whip onstage – everything but a donkey, as one of the other dancers remarked. Then I had to listen to loud speculation on how I got the bruise on my ass when it was my turn. But Ryder Arlen. We had a wonderful dinner. He ordered in Italian. The weirdest thing about him is that he doesn’t like mushrooms. Long dinner, then over to the Gangplank for Irish coffee. He insisted upon carrying me across two puddles – he’s not very big and I was sure he’d get a hernia – but he made it. We got back to Chevy Chase the house looked wonderful – A had obviously slaved for hours. We had her down for a glass of wine, then she went back upstairs. We ended up reading my poetry I didn’t show him the erotic stuff because I didn’t feel the time was right. He liked valentine the best –
Valentine I sent myself in a letter Heart-creased Like a glove Too much folded An anecdote Too much told Dear stranger don’t Lose me I forgot the rule (Hold back a copy)
Then we made out for hours. He was deliciously passionate. I said, “You don’t want to end up in bed on the first date, do you?” He said, “You pick the time and the place but I hope it’s inevitable.” I said it was certainly feeling that way but I’d have to get to know him better. I wouldn’t let him take down the top of my dress either. He left at 2:45 AM. He seems to really care for me – so my worry that I’m just a first experiment after leaving wife seems baseless. He invited me to go crabbing tomorrow, then on a four day cruise sometime in August.
My books have sold over 100,000 copies so YES except – I’ve made very little money BUT… Devlyn has a brisk re-sale so readers must like it BUT… Even though Find Courtney got excellent reviews hardly anyone read it BUT… Come to think of it, I’ve only ever had good reviews. (Many raves.) Only one bad one I know of. BUT… The people who are closest to me seem untouched & unimpressed BUT Several strangers appreciated exactly what I was doing and called me their “favorite author” BUT Wasn’t able to get an agent because I didn’t have a big enough “following” or “platform” BUT transitioned easily to plays, wrote 8 with much pleasure, won three prizes, had a small New York opening BUT… I had a horrible director who didn’t understand the play BUT… I thoroughly enjoyed working with and learning from the actors BUT… Felt silenced & stymied by the pandemic BUT… Have been working on transcribing my diaries, (Inspired Pleasure) am NOT intimidated by getting old – so –
Am I a success?
It really depends on your definition of success. My definition of success is to:
1) Never stop writing 2) Draw joy from writing 3) Achieve “flow” while writing (i.e. a blissful state) 4) Feel I am advancing in my spiritual path 5) Using art to connect with others.
Alysse Aallyn 