Category: #Literature

6:30 PM 9 Aug 76 – Shalimar

                 Writing carefully so as not to mess up my fresh 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

automatic garage door opener and read a bedtime story to the 

little ones. 

                 Reading Mortal Wounds and loving it. Fun to compare

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

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

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

have seen Anne of the Thousand Days.

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

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

 – Alas.

11:35 am Thurs 12 Aug 76

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

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

Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald’s Scrapbooks, and the wonderful 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD:

“To the Spoils Belong the Victor”

The butler’s name is Gin;

He never gets the girl.

The Heart’s Café is terraced –

Cantilevered exits exalt

No core. At the Pony Bar

Payment is upfront;

Robert Service and Booth Tarkington

Left prints on ice;

The service is bad but

There’s a reason for everything.

Back at the Alhambra someone who might be Ernest

Puts the moves on someone

Who looks like Zelda or possibly it was

The other way around.

They never get these stories straight.

Here’s the one they played last year:

Sole is déclassé but at least

There’s always caviar.

Look on, look down, look it up or read

The menu.

Floorshow Tonight: Van Wyck Brooks &

Edmund Wilson Debate:

Artist = Self-destructive Sport?

Or Fad? Or Fate?

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

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

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

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

Shalimar – 3:30 PM –13 Aug 76

                 Was sitting on a box of Lite Beer sipping coffee and 

reading Miss Read when Carmen warned me that the boss 

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

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

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

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

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

of inhibitions against voicing boundaries in our relationship – 

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

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

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

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

was surprised and gratified that she “descended” into 

marriage with him.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

no discomfort making rules for me. But he should.

6:00 PM Saturday 14 Aug 76 Finger Lakes

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

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

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

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

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

 tore my clothes off, began kissing my breasts and exploring 

my tan lines and pressing his beautiful valued body hard hard

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

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

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

 grandmother’s house in Binghamton, New York. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

shunning this bunch? 

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

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

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

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

between me and them.

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

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

absorb the rest of them, dawn till dusk. 

                 Plus one time waterskiing was plenty.  Since dinner is a 

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

sandwiches for lunch and cereal for breakfast there is not that 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                 Unfortunately St. Secaire going VERY badly. Complete

 horseshit, alas.

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

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

                   Tuesday 17 Aug 76 7:30 PM

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

revving their engines and swearing they’re leaving and never 

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

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

with these people for four years – he may conveniently blame 

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

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

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

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

tried to explain to him about resentment and the resulting succubae 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the more you think about it the worse it gets.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

anything’s possible.) 

              Tried to read a Redbook someone brought – 

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

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

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

include her in my article on female pornographers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

sobbing, screaming and threats of suicide.

12:10 am

                   Went night fishing with R because he wanted me to.

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

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

Coleridge is. So I showed him – Haunted Wedding. 

HAUNTED WEDDING

The pregnant car disgorges

Only us. It’s winter.

Drunk as silver fish

We beat our gills as light

As hummingbirds.

In an amethyst ring

Of drypoint trees 

The half-built house

Gapes and swells

Its timbers stink of sap.

Windrill fields occlude

Our crossing, so you carry me

High above the thorny osiers.

We sleep aloft for safety

Locked and levitating

In this space of air 

One season only,

Unseen by angry outriders;

Bloodless in our wedding robes

Like the doubled membranes

Of the frozen flowers

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

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

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

bad poem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

my diary.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

Difficult to contemplate an existence where I am not mentally alone 

six hours a day. 

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

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

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

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

exhausted emotionally and battered psychologically to have the 

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

over me.