Alysse Aallyn

Category: Memoir

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Mon 26 Jun 67


    So much has happened! I covet every moment! Screwtape Letters remind me every day is a gift and warn me against reverting to self-pity. CS Lewis amusing & cultured. Unfortunately his God demands belief and I do not believe in a jealous God. Jealousy’s a sin! Also don’t care for “forcing” prayer. Is it a tribute? I pray to my inner resources every day!


    Finished Quennell’s Byron – Years of Fame and started Miss Bigland’s Lord Byron; sheer plagiarism!


    Reading Waugh’s Men at Arms instead. He is a genius! I think we would look like his stumbling, bumbling characters if we could view ourselves objectively. The weird part is Waugh LIKES the army! I guess he makes fun of everybody.


    The Madwoman of Chaillot is a failure because everyone knows going in that rag pickers with daisies are Good and Presidents in tall black hats are bad. But we don’t live life like that!


    Spent half an hour putting on my gypsy makeup. Jodi very worried that I don’t do it the same way every night! Looking forward to Tiplady’s party – having someone interesting to talk to makes everything worthwhile.

    Tues. 27 June 67
    Everyone got drunk on beer at Tiplady’s party. I hate beer! I guess I should be glad there weren’t whisky sours or Purple Jesuses. I cold-shouldered Robin and he grabbed me and kissed me in front of everybody! Told him I forgive him. I’m the forgiving type. We danced and sat around. He stroked my thigh beneath the table.


    Horrible letter from Shawn – a more prosaic and fatherly epistle cannot be imagined. Why do all boys flunk writing? If they knew the power it confers! Maybe Robin will do better.


    Shawn is a Victorian – working hard to separate girls into “types”. (He’s the “Victorian type!”) This is the boy who bit my breast! I ran right up to dorm after and refused to talk to him until he apologized over and over. Obviously to his way of thinking it’s somehow subtly my fault! His bad letter had the good result of keeping me from missing him so much. I let Robin stroke my belly, even though if he was Shawn it would have given him “dangerous ideas”.


    Got a coveted part of Dodo in The Merry Widow – a Maxim’s dancer! I didn’t even want to try out I was so convinced of my own inferiority but Mr. Johnson made me! Abject humility! Mr. Dolan was very polite about my reading – he is the best of the professional actors here. (He completely saved the last play.)


    Alas the play is hopelessly insipid. But we do get a lot of fun costume changes. (I run right up to the audience, throw my skirts over my head and show them my backside! This will be especially fun with a theatre full of nuns!)


    We have been working so hard I am a living bruise. Back to the dorm to boil myself pink, enjoying Gladys Schmitt’s very well-written Rembrandt. It’s full of trivia but LIFE is trivia. She’s latched onto a great theme – birthright sold for a mess of pottage. Of course if you need pottage, what are you going to do?


    Solitude is as refreshing as a meal. Starting to feel bad for Casey – she doesn’t know what she’s getting into. I must be a trial to live with.

    Wed Jun 28 67
    The girls here are a really good bunch. I am sorry I was such a snob. Outward differences really are skin deep. Shows how prejudice can be defensive.


    I am happy, struggling to achieve the balance between solitude and group endeavor. Carrie Benoit, Jeannie Morrison and Kathy Knoop are all the dancing girls – we have such fun together. We have to lace each other into ridiculous children’s tutus that barely cover our backs!

    Thurs. June 29 – 67
    Today was the sorest I’ve ever been. I am cross-eyed with exhaustion and half way through the ballet I was shot. I can’t believe they picked me for this! They must be crazy! The worst part is doing it over and over. I can see all sorts of shortcuts but I am not allowed to take them (I’m already faking a split beneath my skirt.) Ballet is a punishing discipline. I think it may have been made up originally as a punishment. Sleep without dinner (two oranges and iced tea) my jeans are HANGING on me.
    Mr. Johnson says the soreness goes away and leaves fine muscle. I hope so. I think I’ve just about stretched myself out.


    Robin invited me out but I didn’t want to be alone with him so we went to the Black Hawk. Fran and John sat with us – I think they have the ideal relationship (they live together but it’s a secret.) Fran’s a dancer now that poor Jeannie threw her knee out. Occupational hazard of cancan dancers! Feeling indestructible (fingers crossed.) Think I am finally growing up – I hate it when Casey or Aynsley say they wish they were children again! UGH! To be my own mistress at last is all of my dream.
    Letter from Casey that she 69’d with Dan! Shudder. I can’t visualize it – what do you do with your knees? Letter I longed for from Mom I didn’t get.

    Tues 4 July 67
    Coldest July fourth in history! No tan possible under these conditions. Last year I had to rub my body with ice cubes and 4711 to get the fever down, now I lie beneath 2 blankets and a spread, swilling tea. Sooner or later all this tannic acid is going to catch up with me. On the other hand Mr. Nichols says tea’s the reason the Brits conquered the world – their insides had turned to leather and they could tolerate anything.


    First day we’ve had off! Washed my hair, did my laundry, finished Waugh’s Men At Arms. His Catholic confusion really starting to show. He hates everybody for not following the rules, on the other hand they think they ARE following “the rules”. Constantly changing the rules is not helping. Also finished The Killing of Sister George, which reminded me of A Thousand Clowns. Preferred George for technical reasons, Clowns as a play. Study of the individual floundering in a cage a lot more interesting than the cage myself, if you get my meaning.


    Reading Sean O’Faolain’s tales with occasional snacks of Shelley and Baudelaire, when I get bored which happens often because he’s no Chekhov or Henry James. The Darling and Europe still stand alone. Luckily Baudelaire comes with the original French. Would you translate:


    “Des costumes qui sont pour les yeux une ivresse
    Des femmes don’t les dent et les ongles son teints
    Et des jongleurs savants qui le serpent caresse”


    As


    “we have seen wonder-striking robes and dresses
    women whose nails and teeth the betel stains
    and jugglers whom the rearing snake caresses”
    sacrificing beauty for rhyme?


    Makes me wonder what’s really going on when I read Yevtushenko.


    My feelings for Robin are a wild seesaw through indifference, unaffected affection and outright rudeness. Had it out with him on our walk. I hate this “game” – can I get my hand up her thigh? Will she let me touch both breasts? It pushes us apart.


    He said “Do you realize after three weeks we may never meet again?”


    I said, “If we stand long enough in Piccadilly Circus they say we’re bound to see each other.”
    He was very huffy: “I’m not going to Piccadilly Circus!”


    He called me a “prick teaser” so I called him a bastard. There’s even less in it for me than there was with Aiken! I refuse to walk with him any more, will only see him at The Black Hawk.


    My diet of One Meal a Day (can’t be bothered to leave my room) plus constant dancing has exposed all my ribs. I’d like to be even more emaciated but have no will power (two ice creams for dinner!)


    Frannie’s having a party tonight and Robin WON’T be there! A welcome change.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Sun. 12 Mar 67


    Desperate for a really strong cup of tea but must wait for Miss Beeston to close her door. WHY does she keep it open? She isn’t actually concerned we might be throwing up or anything, it’s just morbid curiosity and vicarious excitement. What do they DO all night? Don’t dragons sleep? Ah here’s my chance. No such luck – ran right into the Gruesome Twosome – one tall and fat the other short and fat.


    “Was that your water we just turned off?” (They know it is, they’re the ones who confiscated my personal hotpot.)


    “Not tonight.”
    I waited for “See you in the Greenhouse for 2 hrs hard labor” but it didn’t happen. Must be feeling mellow. I scuttled back to my den.


    “THEY WRITE BY NIGHT – part 2 – Dancing In the Rain”
    When Brice and I got to Aiken’s apt he wasn’t even up. Wearing only a blue Chinese silk dressing gown with his curly chest hairs sprouting out. Just grab me and lay with me in his bed until Brice made coffee saying, “Enough of this orgy.” Jealous.


    Aiken nibbled my ear and said, “Look how we fit. Interlocking pieces.” I had noticed.


    The we got up for breakfast and Aiken took a shower. He came out looking magnificent in blue and white striped shirt and white levis. An astonishingly spring like day. Went to the park to play on the swings and seesaws. After that we ate pizza then Brice went to the library. Gentlemanly of him. I stripped down to my pettipants but refused to go further. I just don’t feel safe. I could tell Aiken was irritated but he doesn’t try to reassure me. There must be magic words but he doesn’t say them. I don’t want to be “operated” on and I don’t want to operate on him. I’m beginning to think babyish Reed Hambro, who is practically an idiot savant, may know more about satisfying a girl than this guy does. So we were Two People Separated by a Bed; very Saturday Night & Sunday Morning. Then Brice rang the buzzer and we had to get dressed fast.


    On the drive back Aiken said (right in front of Brice) that I thought sex would be “violent & cold.” I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t GET to say anything because Brice talked for a solid 40 mins about the biological Difference Between Men & Women, which I totally don’t agree with. He brought in Freud, he brought in Jung, he brought in Samoa & Masters and Johnson!


    Neither of them talked about “sex leading where” and I felt to say so would sound like I expected marriage! So I was completely flummoxed! The weird part is they both sound regretful about it as if it WOULD be a bad thing! That’s not a recommendation! So you can imagine the state I was in when I got back to school. How can you be both attracted to and repelled by the same person? If not “pre-coital tristesse” this is “pre-coital nausea” at the very least!


    I had 3 minutes to get dressed for Prom! Wore my Christmas dress with long sleeves & black cuffs of gold tissue brocade, tinsel in my hair. Reed is very relaxing. Comforting. Is it just because I know he can’t physically overwhelm me? If Aiken was long and thin – built like Trey, say, would I be less afraid? Stubbornly I still eel it is his attitude. Defective somehow. Honestly it reminds me of Beales whose every third word needed a face slap. Aiken isn’t so obviously unromantic but both he & Brice think there is no “mystery of sex” and are very utilitarian about the mating process. I don’t think ANY girl would be safe with them because it’s never a joint experience. It’s women letting men have sex (for whatever reason.) It seems so repulsive. They would make progress with me if I didn’t know history and literature so well. They think “modernism” is anti-Romance but of course, it isn’t.


    “Baby you and me
    We live this life
    From when we get up
    Till we got to sleep at night
    You and me we’re free
    We do as we please, yeah –
    From morning –
    Till the end of the day.”


    Aiken hates the Kinks. He prefers jazz because it is meaningless and goes deliberately nowhere. I am very spoiled I guess because I want MORE. I am beginning to think Aiken needs some old woman to satisfy him – dripping cigarette ash as she jerks him off.


    In spite of all this mess it was the best prom ever! Reed was so sweet I was close to actually LOVING him! He was getting high on me. He kisses so completely differently from Aiken it isn’t the same thing. Makes me feel it is really spring at last, and maybe I can leave my virginity behind as slowly and imperceptibly as we have escaped this harsh winter.


    Mon 13 Mar 67
    Developed a whole new theory during German class. Possibly my exam suffered (I rushed through it) but what are classes for but to provide intellectual stimulation?


    I’m thinking Aiken’s too domesticated. Am I mistaking youth for originality? (That I think would be his argument.) That everybody “gets over this” and romance is a function of youth. But history and literature prove that its not. Since, however, I’m “the kid” and he’s the “PhD” I will NEVER win an argument with him. Never! And I am accustomed to winning my arguments!


    Trying to write a story in which I construct the Perfect Man. Anyone over twenty’s too old. He’s tall and thin and golden and had most of his toes taken off my a lawnmower. Sadly the story races away from me – my heroine isn’t good enough for him – so I’m having her run off with someone else. Not quite halfway though Queen Victoria – Born to Succeed. Ugly period – the women in their heavy clothes look very depressed.

    Thurs 30 Mar 67
    Left a note at Aiken’s he wasn’t there (being satisfied by a glamorous – yet elderly brunette? No – working hard at the library to “gain a place in life”) and took the train to the new Penn St house. (It’s haunted!) The place was all lit up and Avril was playing the piano. The third floor has the most beautiful windows flush with the floor. Sending sunlight across the ancient, uneven boards. Delicious.


    Daddy not home so off to Bookbinder’s for dinner where I ordered soft shell crab. I got annoyed with Mom’s questions about Aiken so said he was a MauMau with a bad case of cradle cap. She laughed so hard she wept.


    Our phone not yet installed so I put a jackknife in my pocket and went out to the public booth. Aiken was in – sounded cranky but surprised me by inviting me to a party. I was certain I was going to be dismissed for being too “jejeune”. He seemed completely unimpressed y the risk I’d taken to call him – probably thinking if I got raped it might clear up some of his problems.
    Borrowing a blue velvet dress from Avril – it so short!! A classic baby doll! But she is a champion blabbermouth and told Mom who absolutely FORBIDS IT. We WILL BUY A DRESS! Uh oh. Madras and whalebone, mark my words.


    I bought a man’s shirt from the man who sells used clothes at the corner of Chelten & Chew. Pink chiffon with balloony sleeves! Indescribably flattering. Tight through the body. I already have a perfect black velvet skirt.

    Tues. 4 Apr 67
    My hand is shaking because I just left a heavy make-out session with Reed Hambro. I want to write about the awful party but the wonderful evening . I got out of the house without a problem because Mom wasn’t there. I showed Aiken all around the house – I could tell by his eyebrows he was confounded by the mixture of splendeurs et misères. I told him it was temporary and showed him my beautiful third floor where I sleep on a mattress on the floor so I can look out the windows but he was unimpressed.


    Oriental artifacts everywhere but they are shabby. Still he admitted OI looked beautiful.
    Horrible university party full of pregnant wives. Didn’t like the way they looked at me – decided to drink coke and say nothing. They seemed so doglike and uncomfortable. But I did get into a long discussion with a Prof Wylie who has a system of “personal anarchy” that sounds a lot like my own. He was drunk but funny. He kept saying “What this party needs is a little audience participation.”
    But everyone had to be on their best behavior because it was more like work. Strange Danish Oldern house with peek-a-boo architecture – how can you climb stairs – in a dress – that are only slats?


    When we got back to Penn St my mother was there. She said nothing about my clothes but she really gave poor Aiken the business while I made Earl Grey tea. She is the only person I have ever known who can lower the temperature of a room to freezing in seconds. At least she didn’t ask him his intentions.


    He behaved very well, just as if she was normal. He got her on the subject of Southeast Asia while I roll my eyes. Finally she had to go upstairs to get Avril to sleep. Avril’s afraid of Phila because of all the stabbing news and who can blame her?


    So Aiken and I were left alone…on the oriental rug in front of the fire.
    “I wish I could take you back to my place,” he muttered.


    “Why don’t we do it right here?” I suggested. To be funny. He said seriously,
    “Because you might bleed and we need some form of birth control.”


    Let’s go straight to the hospital and do it on a gurney!


    “I really have to go” he said. We could hear Mom creaking about upstairs. He gave me one last kiss – lifted me up completely! Bliss.


    When I got upstairs I saw my shirt was all torn and I had to throw it away. But it was definitely worth $9 even for only one evening.

    Mon 10 Apr 67
    Pretty sure the Aiken thing is shot to hell. Called him Sun morning but he had a woman with him! He really made me feel about twelve. Guess it’s finally time to stop waltzing with fire. At least I have a new interest. Trying to deepen my voice for Gertrude; Hamlet rehearsals starting in earnest. Wish I didn’t loathe Matt R (who plays Hamlet) so much. He spits when he declaims! At least Toss Sheffield plays my husband…Toss of the long blond hair. Unfortunately he is knee deep with Beth Donoghue.


    Coffee & Conversation VERY dull. D. H. Lawrence; “It makes me ill having people constantly stuff my ears with bits of chewed newspaper.”

    Mon 17 Apr 67
    To be or not to be? Chaste, I mean. Casey’s and my sole topic of conversation.
    Reading The Slender Reed about James K. Polk. I consider him the last president of any note at all.
    In Eng we are reading John Brown’s Body, which is surprisingly good. Anyone whose “favorite writers” are Emerson, Bret Harte and Melville the way Roach Face’s are is “colordeaf” in the matter of literature. But they’re not as bad as Steinbeck.


    Asked Reed if I was the first girl he ever kissed and he nodded. Brave to tell the truth! If it was me I’d lie!


    Thurs 20 Apr 67
    Interesting conversation with Shawn Kobler who walked me back from dinner. About mercy killing. I have a soft sport for it since Aallyns live forever, leaving their brains far, far behind. He used to be ugly ugly now he’s ugly interesting. Plus smart. He’s class pres, I’m VP so we have many excuses to meet. Hmmm. Negatives: Religious Life Committee, friends with Reed. Positives: Interesting athlete. He gets a lot of injuries ( hidden conflicts.) And he has curly blond hair and big shoulders. He plans to be Student Body Pres next year. Me – the Notorious Scofflaw – going out with Student Body President? It has a certain appeal.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Thurs 16 Feb 67

    RoachFace didn’t like my story. “I” for INCOMPLETE. Guess the whole Modern trend in literature has passed her by completely. She says she can’t “figure out what’s going on.” Ask Mrs. Dalloway! Read it aloud to Casey who said, “It does make you want to know more.” I call that a success! Anyway I can afford an incomplete since I run Junior English.


    Working on an appropriate revenge. How about an incredibly ugly old lady with an empty love life and a non-existent sex life who falls hopelessly in love with 16 yr old pupil? Death in English Class. Unsubtle, ye thinks? “I’ve never seen a mind so tangled, a girl so strangled” as the Stones would say.


    I may give her a pass. I’m in a very good mood, listening to the Stones and writing pornography. Even the discovery that Brice is “against” my relationship with Aiken can’t harm me! He wrote me a long KOB last night – “You’re everything a man could want – beautiful & clever” but goes downhill from there! “I am in love with both of you, trying to solve problems by bringing my “forbidden territories” together I’ve created Frankenstein.”


    No he hasn’t! Leave us alone! Imagine his “conscience” acting up at THIS point! I have to find out how much of this he’s said to Aiken. If I were Aiken I would drop him like a hot potato but do I want that? If Brice withdraws support does our house of cards fall down?


    This is all Aiken’s fault for allowing an intermediary like something out of Cyrano de Bergerac. It devalues him.


    Took my own trip to Princeton yesterday to see Hamlet. Unfortunately a box lunch and a bus ride brings out the four year old in teenage boys. All the girls sat in the back watching transfixed while they bounced and screamed and threw chicken bones! This is why they have single sex schools, to preserve enough Healthy Mystery so we can Mate, already! We feel like sane people sentenced to the looney bin!


    Should I tell this to Bloy the Boy Next Door? He was so envious of the whole Boys’ End, Girls’ End thing – when I told him The Legend of the Girl Who Sent Herself in a KOB I thought he’d die. The truth is so discouraging I would turn to Fleur the HalfBack if I didn’t have Aiken! (Alas Fleur is more of a FullBack these days.)


    But I don’t have Aiken and that’s the point. In the arras scene I suddenly realized he’s Not My Type. Very Polonius (with a hint of Bolonius.) He’s just too staid. Do I want to be lectured lifelong on Southeast Asian Politics? Like marrying Daddy!


    You also should never marry someone till you find out what they expect. I get the distinct impression that although I wouldn’t have to do housework for Aiken he would expect other Old Fashioned Disgusting Chores. You now like tending his Requirements. I can tell by the way he asks me to hook the cufflinks on his French cuffs he thinks he’s the racehorse and I’m the groom. Non merci! I’ve got races of my own to run!


    But he has SUCH A NICE BOD! I wish I was seeing him this weekend. Damn. I’m too poor to go into Philly on my own – things are so bad I had to sell my alarm clock to afford ice cream.
    And we have to leave – there have been blackouts and Power Outages lately. Looks like Scarface down in the PowerHouse is revenging for his minimum wage.


    That will teach the headmaster to hire ex-cons.

    Tues 21 Feb 67
    I’m in the throes of some Fatal Disease. I’ve got bumps on my thighs, sores in my mouth and a headache running all the way down my lower back. Miss Cluny says “gargle with salt water!” My collapse is a defense mechanism against a pernicious environment. Failed a math test – 31 out of 61! Parabolas not my strong point! Now trying to create a map of Portuguese holdings in the sixteenth century but just can’t find Ormuz. Why do we need to know this stuff? Get me out of here! I’m MUCH more interested in anatomy and the human psyche – and the anatomy OF the human psyche – but they never let you study that stuff here. Our “health” text says picking pimples causes brain damage.


    Still struggling with Simmons’ Chekhov. Not nearly as exciting as Pushkin. Hemorrhoids, pets and love affairs all treated exactly the same. He so feared happiness. I like his letters though. Next I’m trying da Vinci.


    Roach Face daring us to read Moby Dick but the book stone dead beneath her pudgy fingers.
    In French we are plagued by Miserables. Taught by a Miserable, studied by Miserables. All French to me!


    Stukey FINALLY paid me the $2 he owes me so I am slowly getting together cash plotting a jailbreak. Last night after Die Fliedermaus rehearsal I planted myself in front of Brice and said I was going on a meal per to see Aiken OFF MY OWN BAT. He was nice about it gave me $5 and the phone no. He is a fickle guy. Maybe I could sell him his letters back.


    After setting my hair and donning my day-glo nightshirt I commandeered The Senior Phone Booth, sitting on floor instead of seat for Utmost Privacy. Dialed he number trembling with eagerness to hear his voice. Would he even be in?


    HE ANSWERED RIGHT AWAY! “Hello?”


    I didn’t even recognize his voice, it was so impersonal! The next few seconds fraught with drama! I mean, I knew it was me but he didn’t! Gives one an appreciation of the difference just a few seconds can make.


    “Hi. It’s Alysse.”


    “A-leeeeeeeessssss…” drawling in the familiar way! Yes, he has a special voice he uses only with me! So exciting!


    “I could come visit you for lunch on Saturday. Brice says you might be writing a paper though.”


    “I think I’ll be done by then,” he says. “I’d love to see you.” Then he gave me complex directions how to get to his place by subway which I had to memorize stupidly having no pen!!!


    “Your time is up” droned a nerdy voice.


    “Give me your number and I’ll call you back,” he said. So I did. Then I screamed, “Lindles! Get me a PEN!”


    He called right back and we had a lovely chat. Our first. Maybe he’s my type after all.

    Sun 26 Feb 67
    Wearing tights, purple corduroy miniskirt, wide belt and boots I found his apt without trouble. I was bouncing with excitement but he left a note saying he went to borrow a car – “Make myself at home in the vestibule!” So I did, borrowing somebody’s Inquirer to read. A luscious blond exited. We eyed each other. Then I tried to figure out who he was from the nameplates. Cooper Fowler? Fowler Cooper? Great name!


    After only a few minutes Aiken came bounding up and gave me a kiss — on the forehead. He was wearing a blue sweater and some khaki pants – eyes blazing out like sapphires. I just sucked him in, gulping like a guppy. He opened his mailbox – one letter. Said it was a check of his that bounced!


    I told him I could stay then fearful I’d outstay my welcome but he seemed thrilled and offered to drive me back! We went to a smoky place next door where he always has lunch and I ordered the most appalling beef stew – worse eve that the school’s! Muffins, salad, coffee. We talked about Russian writers – I extracted a promise from him to read Gogol. He was very sneery about my acting aspirations – just like my father. They seem to think it’s all outer presentation with no inner work involved and I just can’t explain my attraction. I believe the word “exhibitionist” – horribly – was used. Brice, who worships the theatre, wouldn’t do that. I talked him into the 5:30 show of Blow Up, which I’ve been dying to see.


    Then back to his apt where he put on some Cannonball Adderly. I must say it’s just awful, awful stuff. At least I coaxed him to turn it down, then I made things very easy for him by sitting on his lap. In moments we were making out furiously. Dizzying heights! I’m not so crazy about the “grinding” though. (You know what I mean!)


    Then we got into a “shadow” conversation about whether it was better to be “partially” frustrated or “thoroughly” frustrated. Felt he was asking me something else – unspecified. Like I know what I’m doing! I love just being touched – like a concentration camp victim.


    At a certain point we had to stop or we’d be late to the movie. I could tell he was grumpy. But he was so much fun in the movie line, pulling me inside of his coat, touching and grabbing me. Ate it up!


    Blow Up is as magnetic and gorgeous as I’d heard. I fell in love with Jesus-eyed David Hemmings. Aiken too was stunned. He seemed to admire it — said it was like an extended dream. I loved especially that the mystery wasn’t solved but Aiken argued we were supposed to see something in the blowup and the resolution wasn’t good. I said we aren’t supposed to solve the mystery and he said very rudely “Where did you read that?” as if I can’t come up with my own ideas. I couldn’t remember whether I’d read it or not but at least I could say I’d seen L’Avventura and I know that mystery isn’t solvable. I prefer making up my own solutions but Aiken says that’s “unfinished” art.


    There was one horribly embarrassing scene where David Hemmings plays with two teenagers who are all elbows, hair and knees. I winced but Aiken made no remark. At least I’m not child/skinny and when we got back to his apartment I proved it by taking off my top like Vanessa Redgrave. He complimented my “amazingly pale areolas” – palest he had ever seen! He touched my breast and an electric shock went through him! In moments we were making out passionately. He took off his shirt so we were skin to skin. Best feeling in the world! After a few moments he rolled over, took my face in his hands and said, “I have to finish.”


    I said, “It would be my first time.”


    He said, “Did you think I meant intercourse?”


    “Didn’t you?”


    “No,” he said. “God, I thought girls talked about these things on dorm!”


    He mistook Plumly for a “finishing school?” He’d be better off with the girls from Wilton who wear eye makeup like raccoons and play hockey like them, too. I said, “We talk about nothing else but we don’t know what we’re talking about!”


    Then followed the most excruciating fifteen minutes of my life. He wanted “me” to “finish him!” Eeeew! I mean, I did it with Trey but he was doing me at the same time! I don’t even know how to ask for what I want! I just bubbled purposelessly like a landed trout! He got up and made himself a drink – offered me one but I don’t like vodka.


    “Don’t you have anything else?”


    (Very annoyed) “No”.


    So I guess he didn’t get to “finish”. Very, very hairy blue balls presumably! I’m frustrated too but that doesn’t seem to count – he assumes whatever I get is what I want and it’s true I’ve learned to roll with the punches (hem hem.)


    I don’t even LIKE the word “finish” – it seems so unnecessarily terminal and I can’t quite picture it. Trey and I, after all, were rolling around nude in a bed – but this would presumably be me giving Aiken a hand job! Would I need a washcloth? Sounds so prostitutional! Inner visions of a fire hydrant coming loose and spraying everything in sight! Would we both need a shower after? Two showers? Am I frigid for not wanting to do this?


    I did discover he WEARS SOCK GARTERS and this is the first real turnoff I’ve had with him. They look like slingshots! What baldness and fatness couldn’t do, sock garters have achieved. Ugh. There must be times he DOESN’T wear them! Surely they’re an artifact of some sort like collar studs.
    He could read revulsion on my face. For a good actress, I’m a bad actress. I said, “Are you mad at me?”


    He said, “Don’t say silly things” and bolted the rest of the vodka! Incipient alcoholism? I was sort of in a state of shock on the way back to school. I finally said, “Maybe this is post-coital tristesse.” I was joking but he said, “Without the coitus part.” Kissed me goodbye very affectionately. Should I stop being a virgin with a guy who wears sock garters? Can’t decide.


    Fortunately I have Pushkin to come home to! “I was in love with you it seemed…I lost the kingdom of my dreams.”

    Sun Mar 5 – 67
    Incomprehensible greeting card from Aiken covered with Japanese writing. But at east it says inside, “je pense à toi” which I can understand.


    Showdown with Reed Hambro Friday. I had just come back from performing detention in the Costume Room (I was sorting bats from fairies – I’ll have to go back to do peasants vs. nobility.) He dragged me into the Trunk Room to ask me, “Would you be disillusioned if I took wyamine!”
    It’s that inhaler drug they’re all taking. Reportedly keeps you high for three days.
    I said, “I don’t like the word “disillusioned”. Mad is what I’d be.”


    “Well I took it after lunch.”


    I felt manipulated! I said, “Have a nice oblivion!”


    He said, “What if I have a bad trip?” All puppy eyes.


    I said Bon Voyage! And left him there in the trunk room. At dinner refused to sit with him till his roommate Brent came over, all mad at me for being one of those Dylanesque blonds put on earth to ruin Man’s Good Time. The usual druggy spiel. “He thinks rabbits are devouring his insides! He thinks his skin is alive!”


    “It is alive!” But I sat next to him and ate a few pretzels and tried to pretend I didn’t think he’s a dope. (I even let him put his arm around me). But for a good actress I’m a bad actress. I haven’t seen him since.


    Sat. I called Aiken. He had such a bad hangover he could hardly speak. He said Brice was passed out cold on the floor. (“Finished” each other?)


    He said he’s “trying” to have me “up for the weekend.” I said my parents rented a townhouse on Penn St and when they get back from Europe I can take weekends there. He sounded unenthusiastic. He promised to call me. I said “I’d better give you a time – I’m hard to get ahold of”.


    “But very nice to get ahold of.”


    Aww. Am I forgiven? (Particularly if I’ve got Brice doing the “wetwork”.)


    “It’s best at night.”


    “Particularly at night.” When his garters are off…


    “After ten?”


    “Wed after ten.”


    Got this note in my box from Reed to ponder as I sucked down milk & crackers: “How to say I am sorry when you seem so sure I am not. I never pretended it would be a substitute for you…” (Like that’s what gets me. Jealousy!) Quite a double-edged sword it’s been this weekend for more than a few people. The disadvantage of your current frame of mind is I can’t put on paper how I feel. Would you reconsider Prom?”


    I would. Because otherwise no date. I even apologized for hurting his feelings! I’m so sorry the rabbits ate up his insides! If nobody can produce that “special feeling” in you I guess you can always produce it in someone else. His eyes really lit up. Soon we were hugging and kissing. He is so different from Aiken! But at least I feel safe which is very emboldening – he is just going to pet me FOREVER. Soon I was huffing and puffing like a steam engine!
    Isn’t life peculiar? The next voice you hear…

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Sun. 5 Feb 67


    Saw Georgy Girl yesterday. Kind of depressing that she’s supposed to be fat. She’s just not thin. It’s the best movie I’ve seen all year but it doesn’t solve any of my problems. There’s an inherent incredibility in a girl running away while Alan Bates is stripping and calling her name. I guess it’s like Brick telling Liz to keep that slip on. Will the customers buy such tosh? Never saw James Mason so horribly unappealing.


    Open dorms this AM but we had the times wrong – the boys were all running around in towels yelling, Get out of here! You’d think they’d be thrilled to show their wares! So we went back to our room and a good thing too – about 8 boys were going through our drawers!


    Ended up in Reed’s room listening to the Stones the only band we agree on. He says the “atmosphere” at Girls End is “intolerable!” At Boys End they make tents out of blankets – stack the beds – sometimes take the beds out entirely! Double standard! Miss Wienand expects tea & crumpets when she pops in for a surprise white-glove inspection!


    “What is that jug beneath your bed, Miss Aallyn?”


    “Nothing.”


    “What did it used to be?”


    We’ve got the past as well as the future to worry about! At least they’ve never found the hole in the wall carefully spackled with instant mashed potato mix. Miss Wienand’s lucky she isn‘t murdered. I’d throw her out the window myself but she’s too heavy to lift.


    Fair in Central before Vespers – I read palms. I gave everyone about three years to live. Reed was my last client. Told him I read faces too. My hands were cold his cheeks were burning hot. It felt strange dragging out my dusty tactics like a cashiered general!


    Eyes closed I gave him a long spiel about his intense love of privacy and his fear of getting close to anyone! He gasped like a fish! (The janitor probably knows this about him!)


    His cheeks are as soft as a girl’s. I told him to close his eyes – so I could open mine – but he couldn’t keep them closed. Eyelashes fluttering like a person fighting hypnotism! Our hearts connected – melted – for a full second.


    Alas Brent O’Bryon interrupted us. My single afternoon with Aiken seems pale and far away. Maybe he’s forgotten about eyelashes and seconds and hypnotism – or maybe he never knew – he went to a boy’s school! He thinks I don’t know about erotic intensity!
    Went to bed more satisfied than in weeks.

    Wed 8 Feb 67
    Reed is giving me the business. He thinks I don’t know! Mad about me one second – the eyes, the smile – then fleeing like I’ve got the plague. Wrote:
    :We mustn’t get into the rut of being together every night after dinner. Good way to ruin a relationship.”
    Can you imagine? What relationship?
    Trying to read The Beach at Falesa. Lousola.

    Fri Feb 10 – 67
    Latest entry in the And You Think You’ve Got Troubles Sweepstakes – from my math book – “The term group” was first used by 21 year old mathematician Evariste Galois in his feverishly scribbled will written the night before his death. The brief life of Galois, born in 1811, was one of continual frustration. Twice he tried entering the Ecole Polytechnique then the leading school for mathematicians only to fail the entrance examination.


    By the age of 17 he had made a number of notable mathematical discoveries, which he submitted to the Academy but through carelessness his paper was never presented and later lost. Two years later he submitted more significant work, which was never reviewed and probably lost. Discouraged with scholarly pursuits Galois became a radical opposed to the King Louis Philippe. He was imprisoned as a dangerous revolutionary on trumped up charges and later released only to be maneuvered by his enemies into a senseless duel in which he was killed.


    Before his death he said to a friend, “ Preserve my memory since fate has not given me enough life to learn my name.” Today Galois is remembered internationally for his work with groups and the conditions for solution of algebraic equations.” Makes you think, eh?

    Sun 12 Feb 67
    Word to the wise, Aiken, He who Hesitates is Lost. I may not be able to hang on much longer. Fri after dinner Reed and I cornered the French room of the lush, high-pile carpet. We barricaded ourselves behind chairs and stretched out. Either someone has beaten me to it and laid down the basics with this guy or he’s a fast learner. Spent a lot of time angling for an invite to the Valentine Dance. Success! I was really enjoying myself!


    It’s just another Dirty Old Dance in the School Gym but by dinner time every girl immured in this place is standing in the hall in pantyhose and curlers screaming uncontrollably. Yes I had to wear an old dress but hair down, filigree earrings, makeup and heels I looked pretty smashing. Reed stunned at the bottom of the stairs. Miss Womrath assuming “attack position” at the top of the stairs checking for bra, skirt length, not too much jewelry, etc. Check!


    Kind of a strain dancing with him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing there but I like his cold hands on my back. We decided to “Take a walk.” Who should we meet coming down the stairs but Beales! Staying with his old roommate (who lives nearby) thought he would visit the Alma Mater. I controlled myself and chatted animatedly, wondering if he recognized the dress. (Probably not.) Reed behaved impeccably, talking, smiling and never letting go of my hand! So the points I lost through Reed being a sophomore I gained with;
    a) His social elan
    b) Getting to wear heels.


    Take that Beales!


    “You look very fetching,” thus spake Bealesley, squinting up as if he were going to cry. He says he dislikes Harvard and skips a lot of classes. He was on his way “to see the dance” so we said good night, stepped outside and fell into each other’s arms! I think my dress fell down, I’m not 100% sure my nipples weren’t hanging out – we were biting each other’s necks like vampires! Made it back for the Last Dance, however. Beales gone.


    Reed gave me a chaste kiss goodnight (I didn’t mind already having plenty) and I threw on a pair of jeans and went back to help the cleanup crew. Tunnel of Love turned into an aging gym littered with tatty crepe paper and stepped-on doughnuts.


    Slept like the Grateful Dead.


    Aynsley put a mug of coffee in my hands, I shrugged into a trench coat to continue my beauty sleep at chapel. Back to bed with NY Times and Paris Match. Reed sat with me during dinner and what with running upstairs to get me The Blues Project we were both late to Vespers. Coming out waylaid by Beth Donoghue:


    “That man is here!”
    “What man?”
    “That friend of Mr. Harbreath!”


    Oh, my God, who would have thunk it! I rushed to Central and there he was, larger than life in all the splendor of his healthy, magnificent, oversized, overripe manhood! Go is he big! My stomach was churning like a cement mixer!


    “Did you get my Valentine?”
    “No!”
    “Well, I sent you one. “


    I didn’t send him one! I was still clutching my Blues Project record so he wanted to talk about it: “Is it danceable?” Teasing. But I hadn’t heard it yet.


    Took him on a walk because everyone was going through Central deliberately to goggle at us – some three or four times! His father is all right – he has had these episodes before. It was freezing out so he gave me his coat – it hung on me like a shroud (he’s got muscles & nicotine to keep him warm.) Told me all about his father – foreman of a road gang, then a bootlegger, worked his way up to stockbroking. I kept playing with his cigarette case, which is a beautiful Art Deco one of silver & blue enamel.


    We wound up in the East Room where I played him the old music boxes. I was laughing and at one point he said, “Don’t put your tongue out or I’ll bite it.”


    He asked me what my favorite flower is – I stupidly answered the thistle – because of Scotland – not realizing he wants to send me flowers! Dumkopf! Why couldn’t I say lemon lilies? Why am I so deranged? (Because I’m 17, that’s why.) Maybe I can repair this somehow.


    He said, “When will you visit me?”
    I said, “When will you invite me?”
    “Whenever you want.”


    Brice rushed in with a lateness pass for me because at this point it was really late.
    I went very slowly up the stairs, reluctantly leaving them alone. Will Brice be tacky enough to tell hi how I mauled a sophomore at the dance? Brice is tacky enough for anything, but telling him not to makes a worse point of it. “She told me not to say…” Who will I dream of tonight? Miss Wienand with my luck.

    Mon 13 Feb 67
    Capped a sleepless night with Aiken’s valentine. Not too mooshy unfortunately. Why can’t these guys just let themselves go? If they want US to “surrender” SO MUST THEY! Spent all morning drooling over him. I think I’m just in love with his “high gloss”. Because if we got married we’d skip all the “hard parts”. Tried picturing him getting fat like Henry VIII – strangely, that didn’t turn me off. Next I’ll try picturing him without hair and we’ll see what that does. He did sign the valentine “love”. It could be meaningful. Here boys are very careful NEVER to use the word unless they’ve really gone for the Long Jump.


    God my hair needs trimming. (I will NOT grow out my bangs.) Horns need clipping too.
    Beth Donoghue (only one link on my extensive spy chain) tells me Reed saw us together last night. Should I mention it to him? My natural cowardice and Bad Taste says Not. Serve him right for withholding on Complete Abjection.

    Tues 14 Feb 67 – Valentine’s Day
    Bare legs sticking out of frayed green gym tunic, inside-out peach colored sweatshirt, clodhopper shoes, ice cream cone. Ice cream in hair. Penny Mason yells I have a phone call. Brice’s flat dark voice: “Aiken’s coming from Princeton with my car at 3:30 and then I have to drive him to Philly. Want to come?”


    Do I ever!


    “I’ve got field but we’ll be done at four. Wait for me.”


    So, looking disgracefully Junior Varsity there I was running uphill and puffing silver clouds and HE saw me!


    “H, beautiful.”


    JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES!!!! Several girls turned to stare at me incredulously. “If she – why can’t we – “ etc.


    I didn’t have time for a shower so only pulled on jeans. I must have smelled pretty ripe but Aiken said he “liked” it. Disgusting or desirable? Decide later.


    We sat in the back seat holding hands. Mad with desire having my thigh against his but I am NOT making out in front of Brice (he wants it too much.) That Aiken is a hunk! So glowing, so clean, so freshly shaven.


    Very meaningful goodbye as he looked deep into my eyes – but no word of the weekend! Not a minute alone in fact! Brice simply turned the car around! I was so frustrated I burst into tears. VERY humiliating in front of Brice! I apologized: “It’s been a long day.”


    He said in that throbbing voice of his, “I still love you. If I didn’t love you when you’re sad I’d be cheating the other times.”


    Bizarre! Imagine! Wheels within wheels. Problem? Sickness? What?

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Mon. 23 Jan 67


    Matt had to leave the dance early – his leg bothered him – I got a message to go up to faculty play rehearsal and who should be there but Aiken Billings! He is so big and old and handsome! I fell into his arms! He thinks he’s too fat but I like every little bit. I am concerned about letting a man of that size lie on top of you! You’d have to do it standing up!


    I hung on his every word and every breath. He asked what my perfume was, I answered “Silk of Intimate.” Put it over my whole body! He says it’s the best he ever smelled. We sat on the balcony watching the faculty practice their play – I told him all of their little quirks & weaknesses, really made him laugh. Brice has a big part but he is not very good – he knew we were laughing at him. He has to kiss Miss Pampiono the Spanish teacher and Mr. Ensleigh the director made him do it again and again! All the student crewmembers shot me envious looks (prestige!)


    Aiken spent the night in Brice’s room and I sat next to him at breakfast. They had my favorite (last night’s dinner rolls covered with white icing) but I couldn’t eat because of the maleness Aiken exuded from every pore. I thought I would faint just looking at his big thighs. What must he look like naked? The Lincoln Memorial or something! Brice’s date turned out to be Miss Pampiono – she has a nice figure but pop-eyes and is very quiet. Brice tried to draw her out about the red light districts of Madrid but she refused to be drawn. I went upstairs to put on my short orange dress with the patterned white stockings.


    We spent a LONG time at the market buying the steaks – half a cow per person – Aiken is fussy about food. He showed me how he prepares them – rubbing them with mustard and basil and banging them with forks. He seemed to think I might want to take over but I told him I hate cooking and would rather explore his apt. It’s on St. Mark’s place with a lot of bay windows and high ceilings.


    Over dinner he confessed his desire to conduct the Boston Pops but somewhere in life he took a wrong turn and is now getting a PhD in political science. We started with vichyssoise and then the steaks with peas, mushrooms, salad and eight or nine glasses of Almaden. I’ve been drinking that stuff since I was 8 – it doesn’t affect me. Miss Pampiono insisted on doing the dishes so we let her.
    Aiken insisted on playing Ella Fitzgerald who is just awful. I must get him a Paul Revere & the Raiders album – something you can dance to. Miss Pampiono and Brice danced and Aiken extended a limp hand to me but I said I was too bloated and he gratefully told me all about Exeter.
    Miss Pampiono and Brice went to make out on Aiken’s bed – right in front of me! I can’t believe it! I could blackmail her big time. But I’m glad she did it because she certainly can’t say anything about me.


    I sat on Brice’s lap in the window and he did give me one devastating kiss. He told me to grow out my bangs! What is this thing men have for redesigning women’s hair I can’t imagine. I told him I’d think about it. Pulled back all my hair from my face but he said I looked like a “bomb victim”. He smokes filterless cigarettes and calls the others “tampax tips”.
    I warned him the music was undanceable but he picked me up and whirled me around and around! No boy at school could do that, believe me. (Maybe Crow.)


    Finally he threw me down on the couch and got on top of me! He was hard in a minute! I was starting to get a little worried – my First Time with the Spanish teacher moaning and sobbing to the speech coach across the room? Aiken kept telling me I had beautiful eyes while I subtly tried to disentangle my legs. The sweat was pouring off him. Finally he lit a cigarette all shaky-handed. I was relieved and ordered coffee. I had a feeling Brice was trying to take off Miss Pampiono’s dress across the room and she was trying to keep it on. Aiken said he’s been afraid to kiss me – I said “Did you think I didn’t know how?” he said, No, the age thing – and how he was dying to meet my Father!!! A bedraggled Miss Pampiono accepted a cup of coffee. Brice stood up and made a long speech from Thornton Wilder: “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love. The only survival, the only meaning.”


    So I put my hand over my heart and chimed in, “To thine own self be true.”
    End of date. Forty-five minutes to get back to school!


    Sun AM Brice met me at breakfast and said Aiken “likes” me and feels the Age Thing can be conquered. When I’m eighty-five he’ll be ninety-four! Pink cloud.


    Meal per with Aynsley fascinating and I am going to write a short story about it. Pewter Hill is gorgeous – old stone house in a big snowy park – and the grandmother has some elderly relative dying upstairs – moaning weirdly throughout lunch!! There was a nurse in a dress who looked like a man. Ghost story?


    Tues 24 Jan 67
    Sofy came up to me today and said, “I don’t want to take the wind out of your sails but you’ve been acting like a SNOT ever since you snared that Big, Handsome Older Man!”
    I’m in too good a mood to care. What she really means is I’ve Taken Myself Out of the Running and it makes the others gnash their teeth.


    Made a Serious Inventory of my Face. I may not be conventionally beautiful but I’m not conventionally ugly either. A dimple in your chin many hearts will you win. So there.
    Tried hard to write a poem about my emotions using thesaurus but the more I worked on it the more seemed I was smoothing a bedspread over an unmade bed. Have to admit I’m flying blind as a poet. Damn. Maybe Reed will write one for me. I get out my thesaurus.


    A-limp along the battlements they come
    Tenants of Byzantium
    The pimply priest, the queasy horde
    The Queen’s son
    Anoint the holy sores
    The king’s ache; the king’s men
    The bones assemble and attend
    Re-joint the shills; once shrill
    Now shillingless.
    The ague becomes the age.
    Squires of skulls webbed tightly in
    Mummydom.
    Incorporeal now
    In reticulum.

    I think I’m pretty lucky to have Aiken.  He’s very sensitive which you’d never know looking at his big luggly face. My favorite vision: Aiken puffing on a cigarette, eyes closed, intoning a passage from fave author Thomas Wolfe. Aaaah…I should avoid falling in love since there’s no guarantee he’ll join me there.
One thing’s for certain – he’s destroyed my datelife for a while.  How can any of these spindly kindergartners compare to him? 
Well, I have wasted all my study hall drinking Gunpowder and writing sideways.  Time to do something constructive like Letters to Family and Setting Hair.

    Wed Jan 25 – 67
    Brice says he will be seeing Aiken at a mixer for Southeast Asia students do I want to send him “my regards”. I said sure. “I’d rather send him me.”


    So what’s he doing at a Southeast Asia mixer? Connected to his degree or that Storm Center in his pants? Dark thoughts. Collapsing air castles.


    Sun Jan 29 – 67
    Really unsatisfactory Philly weekend with Aynsley and her visiting Claudia. Saw Fellini’s 81/2 and 10:30 PM Summer. Claudia’s boyfriend is a very unprepossessing vegetarian who plays the guitar. Feel Claudia – Swarthmore grad – has just “given up”. The second movie at least had one good sex scene. They transposed pictures over it but you could tell what was going on. Pretty serious eyestrain however. Afterwards the boyfriend wanted to play all Dylan’s songs about what bums women are so I conscientiously objected by going to bed.


    Mon 30 Jan 67
    Wrote a great story for RoachFace’s class entitled Run With the Fox. It’s too good for her. A girl is fleeing but you don’t find out who she is or why – just her physical reactions till she gets safe. This is a test RoachBottom is bound to fail. (Whereby failing ME.) Still I can’t resist – I like best the stories that make you a detective in someone else’s life. Maybe she’ll like it. She gave me an A on “Tree of Angels” about peasants who execute a priest for chopping down a tree they pray to. It was offbeat but it did have a ”we-them” thing she could feel smug about.


    Tues 31 Jan 67
    Just finished Eliz Gray Vining’s Take Heed of Loving Me. Much preferred Wife to Milton by Robt Graves. It’s a better book. But now I have plenty of evidence on what bad news it is to marry a genius. They’re selfish and they keep peculiar hours. Who will put up with MY selfishness and MY peculiar hours?


    Starting to get impatient with Aiken for using Brice as a go-between. Too Shakespearean! Brice’s natural oiliness coats everything he touches. Aiken hasn’t called me once so for all I know Brice is making everything up. According to him A wants to invite me to a movie. I try to play it cool but it’s hard with no one to practice on.


    Why not this weekend? Oh Aiken’s going to Princeton. Where he will presumably drink and fool around while I pine in this benighted teenybopper school.


    Thurs 2 Feb 67
    Hair smells like smoke, as if it is haunted! Unbelievably sex-starved tonight. Hanging out the window singing a dear little children’s rhyme: Here comes the candle to light you to bed AND HERE COMES THE CHOPPER TO CHOP OFF YOUR HEAD!”. Childhood such a time of innocence. Aynsley makes me close the window. See how I am constrained by the coldblooded conventionality of others.


    Brice called me BEFORE BREAKFAST to say Aiken had to rush down to S. Carolina where his father had a heart attack! Apparently his father is REALLY OLD – had Aiken when he was 70!


    4 Feb 67
    Asked Brice flat out why he likes me so much. He said because I am “deliciously cynical”. I was very surprised! I am raw and red and tender on the inside (like a good steak.) HE is the “cynical” one! (Hypocritical too.) He really likes me because I badmouth his Place of Employment. I am Well Informed simply because I read so much.


    Today felt like spring. Couldn’t resist playing around with Reed Hambro even though he’s so young. He keeps sending the most interesting KOBS. I wanted to see what he was made of so decoyed him into a classroom after dinner but I couldn’t even get my arms around him because HE WOULDN’T STOP TALKING. I am willing to go nine-tenths of the way but at that point I subside before the Law of My Ancestors.


    When I came upstairs Aynsley asked if I’d been making out. “Because your mouth is all smashed.” From sheer desire!


    If I get too focused on Reed there is always the danger Brice will find out and tell Aiken. The magazines are all for Honesty saying that its healthier. It may be healthier but privacy is yummier.
    Worked out mathematically:


    Either I will see Aiken or I won’t. Either he will encourage me or he won’t. Either I will get hot with Reed or I won’t.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Wed 4 Jan 67


    Back at school the horror continues. I refuse to write my New Year’s resolutions or I’ll have to keep them. A rotten vacation. Genevieve complains about Radcliffe where you have to take deportment class and march around with a book on your head! She says it’s not what she was expecting at all. Harvard won’t even let them use the library. Beales DID ask her out and she said yes because she couldn’t figure out what else to do but then a cool Harvard guy asked her so she told Beales she was sick. And who should she run into on the date but Beales – who looked at her with “disgust and horror.” She returned the look of horror at least.


    New Years’ alone babysitting at the Carnahans. They are teetotalers – nothing to drink at all – not even cooking sherry. Did find a bar of cooking chocolate which I tried mixing with sugar – disastrous results. Spent all night reading Kristin Lavransdatter. Really interesting! Six kids are definitely out for me, however.


    New speech coach offered to drive me to school and parents said yes! (Anything to get out of taking me themselves.) Wore extremely tight jeans, scratchy ski sweater hair in pigtails to be as unapproachable as possible. He took me out to dinner at the General Greene Inn! (Because he’s faculty he can give me an excuse for Vespers.) I had to get a dress out of my suitcase and change at a gas station! Let down my hair and wore the glittery hoop earrings my mother hates so much.


    Over clams & wine he told me to call him Brice and explained how he lost his virginity to a stewardess in the back seat of a car at the age of 14. (Not sure I believe him.) He spent the vacation getting drunk on bourbon and looking for a Rich Woman to Marry! That lets me off the hook! He ordered coffee and poured his cream over the spoon in the coolest way.


    I said I’m looking for a Rich Man and he said he’s got the perfect one, his friend Aiken. Actually met me at the school and compliments all over (I don’t remember him.) That I was so alive!


    Unfortunately he started inveighing against Today’s Mores and I began to see why our school hired him. He’s just as confused as anyone. Tells dirty jokes out of one side of his mouth and talks about Freedom VS License out of the other side.


    Told him if Aiken can get me out of school I would be willing to date him. Older mean are three times harder to resist. And presumably they’re not all stupid about V.D. & pregnancy. Aiken Billings looking better and better.


    Fri. 6 Jan 67
    Why remain a virgin? Why why why? The mags say to avoid Emotional Hurt & pregnancy. Aynsley insists if you use tampons you’re not a virgin anyway. Headmaster showed us a drink/drugs/sex/cigs movie and wanted our Honest Opinion what we thought of it. No takers. We still have to live in this place. These moves are invariably loathsome “case histories”. Should it be shown to sophs for “health class?” Sure, we say.
    Yes, Virginia, sex can be bad. So can fire, penicillin & coca cola.


    I think I am held back by Fear of the Unknown. Irrevocable steps make me nervous on principle.
    Mom and Dad say they are moving to Philadelphia! Better for me. They are renting a townhouse on Penn St to throw their furniture into until they find something permanent.


    Tues. 10 Jan 67
    Whenever I clean up my inner fog and become a functioning human being something happens to bushwhack me. I’m a brooding hermit and a mad spirit. Faculty thinks I’m just peculiar. Little do they know I’m the only one who tells them the Absolute Truth (I’ve often taken the heat for Teacher’s Pet Janet Hill.) She keeps a jug of sangria underneath her bed!


    “Janet’s room always smells so nice” warbles Miss Wienand. Aynsley’s and my room has bureaus on top of one another the moment you open the door so you can’t see what we’re doing behind it. We are “inhospitable” to Required Room Check and Random Police Powers. Imagine! Be careful Miss Wienand that one of those bureaus doesn’t fall on you and CRUSH YOU DEATH!


    “So I’ll continue to continue to pretend; That life will never end, and the flowers never bend with the rainfall.” Simon & Garfunkel


    Wed 11 Jan 67
    Finished Daisy Miller & Turn of the Screw – Rasputin the Holy Devil next followed by Chekhov. Thank God for literature is all I can say. I will worship Henry James until I die. His dialog is stuffy – his genius is revealed in his plots. Brice signed me out again and took me to the car wash where he carefully detailed his car so we could “chat”. Aynsley says the rumor mill is going into overdrive; are we having an Affair? Much as I like the IDEA of consorting with a faculty member I have to say Brice is not my type. There is something mysteriously slimy about him like he’s not quite coalesced. Alas, my handwriting degenerates LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE!


    Thurs 19 Jan 67
    A useless hour trying to paint a picture to Simon & Garfunckel’s Cloudy. We were supposed to paint to a piece of music but maybe I consider this song TOO perfect. I’ll have to choose something that doesn’t stir me so much – such as the Beach Boys’ Wendy. What I really want to do is finish up Chekhov (he’s not as funny as he thinks he is – apparently he laughed at sad things) so I can read A Raw Youth. Then I have to delve into Fitzgerald for Miss Lissome but feel slightly repelled.


    Writing a story (for fun) about a Danish boy who visits a famous neurosurgeon. So far so good except Aynsley keeps bugging me – her latest boyfriend wants her to dye her hair. (She’s been a blonde for YEARS) because it “isn’t natural.” I said once you start that stuff he will get the wrong idea about who’s in charge. But I’m afraid he really IS in charge because she cares more about him than he cares about her. She is so afraid of loneliness. I have conquered my fear of loneliness, mostly through books.


    Have been hanging out a lot with Casey these days. She is flat chested and stubby legged but a very pretty redhead. She is honest about planning to go to Pine Manor, marry a rich man and live in a house with white pillars where she can have affairs. You’ve got to admire a girl who knows what she wants! And here’s the craziest thing – she keeps a diary! Always has! I, a star in my own diary, am not used to being a bit player in someone else’s!
    Miss Womrath raked me over the coals today over my short skirt. Told her I am just a reflection of my times. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald.

    Fri. 20 Jan 66
    Writing in math class. Around me open mouthed concentration as fingers scribble bits of wisdom dropping from The Mighty Throne. They seem unawakened to me.
    John Van Dusen asked me out for Fri night. I said yes because he’s handsome, blond and very gentle. Unfortunately he’s also so fragile he makes me feel like a female gorilla. Why don’t these boys eat more? Is it wrestling? I could give them some pointers. Alas he has a broken leg so NO DANCING. Well, no one can say I didn’t do my part for The Disabled.
    Brice invited me to Aiken’s Phila apt this weekend for steaks & “messing around”. Double date. That settles the seduction question I feel pretty sure because who would want witnesses? Skating tonight – not much fun if you’re not going with anyone – just cold.


    11 PM
    Matt Romer (who calls love a “psychological maneuver”) asked me out for Sat but I had to tell him I’m going on a meal per with Aynsley and her grandmother. Too bad! Told him to try again! Although he’s only a sophomore he’s very intelligent. Word is out that I have a thing for penseurs.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Sun. Nov 20 – 66


    Sorry for the gap – life chewed me up and spat me out. I would be a lot better off without the amateur psychologists picking my brains. This place is determined to break me whatever it takes.
    No Mr. Dean I do not like your math course or your clumsy attempts to “civilize” me. Yesterday I was shaking with rage because he said I would need math when I am a housewife! I thought I’d pass out!


    Actually feeling a bit better today because of the movie we just saw – Sixteen in Webster Grove. It’s about the pressure adults put their kids under. You even worry in your sleep. I used to be so excited about every new day but no more. I am the same jittery mass of frenzied hostility as anyone else. My only defense is “to hell with it.” Nice to know it isn’t just me.
    After the film (in the East Room) there was a Discussion. What a travesty. It was all “they”. Why are “They” so bad? Why can’t they be wonderful and right-thinking and privileged like Marvellous Us? How we Pity Them!


    Tues. Nov 29 – 66
    Mr. Ensleigh agreed to be my advisor. He let him kick his desk and turn the lights off and on until I felt better. He asked me what I was reading and I told him Brideshead Revisited. He asked me to lend it to him when I was finished. He is at least a step in the right direction.
    Got a booklet in the mail from the Central School of Drama (London.) They listed all the ways you could get expelled! Sounds like another prison where they watch the inmates closely! Fortunately the future never comes. Today is all there is.

    Thurs. Dec 1 – 66
    Today I achieved a real understanding of people who throw their dreams away for a little security. Anything for Peace and Quiet. I signed up for Coffee & Conversation – Juniors & Seniors ONLY!!! as a Hobby (they are Required) and we sat around Mr. Ensleigh’s apt talking about juvenile delinquency while we devoured a whole chocolate cake. I imagined what it would be like to be married to him and when the bell rings and the Patients toddle out, I throw off my clothes and fling myself full length on the sofa to watch TV. (They do say he is queer, however.)
    In how short a time would THAT security seem another prison?
    Doug Bristow told me the rumor is I’m cold! Wow! How well I conceal my true self!


    Tues. Dec 13 – 66
    Reed Hambro asked me to the Christmas Dance and I said No. Aynsley (who favors him) said Why on Earth and I said because he needs someone to take care of HIM and I need someone to take care of ME!!


    The theme of the dance was An Old Fashioned Christmas so I took the job of barmaid handing around birch beer. For an old fashioned barmaid I did a lot of dancing (with Brice the new speech coach.)


    Next night was The Santa Clause Masque – a stupid play, if you ask me. My part goes, “Knowledge has taken love out of the world and the world is empty, empty, empty…”
    Do they HEAR themselves? I guess art is about other people – unfortunates we can feel smug about. We don’t NEED art because we’re perfect! 3 weeks work up in smoke.
    At least it’s snowing. I like snow. Beauty, strength silence – it has all the good qualities.

    Wed 14 Dec 66 – 2 PM
    Feeling sick after reading Rabbit Run. It’s a Forbidden Book which means they keep it in the Librarian’s office and you need your parents’ permission to read it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered.


    Character describes his wife as a “white, pliant machine for mating, hatching and feeding”. Yuck. I used to want six children but now I’m wondering. I’m starting too think women are worse off than Negroes. Negroes can go to Africa but women have no country.
    I am a Human Being. I intend to lead a full intellectual, artistic and emotional life. Those uninterested in the Entire Package need not apply.


    11PM
    Reed sent me such a sweet KOB.


    My heart leaps
    As a pebble will do after sitting two days
    In a glass of still water.
    For the legion of the sixties is clashing with its foes
    Marching to inevitability & failure.
    Rationalizing & nationalizing its ineptitudes
    Treading mercilessly on inferiors
    Leaping
    At the drop of a penny and
    Leaving a cavity gold could not fill.
    As I sit in my army blanket
    The torchbearers approach
    Glory heads, holding
    Exiled pedagogues captive with
    Their faithful frightful faces
    Whose drab accoutrements dissolve
    I know all and yet
    I will not speak out.
    Only the hues of night will know
    They are the base
    I am the apex. I could name
    A hundred faces in between.
    I must judge iniquities of façade & mind
    Doomed to live a life
    A hypocrite could recognize.
    Life goes one and
    Life goes on and
    Venus will never know.


    Wow! I will date any boy who writes poetry this good. Pebbles don’t leap but still. He uses the word “accoutrements”! However he No Longer Believes in Dating. Couldn’t we just Show Up somewhere at the Same Time? No, we could not.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Friday, May 28 1965


    I’m in a paper-wasting mood. I feel like joining some of the great paper-wasters of all time, such as the authors of The Spy, The Deerslayer and the Old Curiosity Shop got nothing on me as I natter on endlessly and speculate about my life. That’s all this school really teaches you – the Art of Hedging. Teachers love it. When what you really want to do is just give way to violent gusts of passionate hatred. My goal as a writer is to slowly seduce my readers into a hypnotic state from which they only gradually awaken wondering what time it is with numbed sensibilities and no memory of what has transpired. Heh heh.

    Saturday, May 29, 1965
    Diagnosis: summer sickness. The patient must get up, put on a gypsy dress, minimum of makeup and sit calmly in a bus for one hour. Then the patient boards a plane, cracks a book and rides to her destination, which is ANYWHERE NOT HERE. That’s if the patient is not too sick to make it through finals. If only I hadn’t used up my meal pers I could go into King of Prussia for shopping and make whoopee. But sometimes its fun to do something illegal. I could get someone to check me off at lunch. Of course I’m already in trouble for shiking into other people’s rooms at night. And then there’s the Hitchhiking Episode –which apparently I’m never going to be able to forget. The only people, apparently, who stop for hitchhikers are:


    1.Maniacs
    2.Little old ladies who want to give you a lecture and then drive recklessly
    3.Perverts – who travel in packs
    4.Escaped convicts who just stole this car and can’t figure out how to work the damned thing.


    All the escaped convicts I’ve ever known were deeply courteous people, but I guess I just have the inner light a little more than SOME people I could mention.

    Friday, June 4, 1965
    Beales invited me to Casper the Grasper’s (his real name is Bad Karl) for tea. He’s the elderly pornographer who has apparently fastened on our school for some reason it wouldn’t take a fortuneteller to figure out and either throws or goes to all the parties. When I was in the Shakespeare play I was standing right on the edge of the stage, emoting away, and then I saw him in the front row staring at me through binoculars. I mean, the man was looking down my pores. I forgot every line in that one moment. Debacle. However he has a fabulous house and apparently it’s a great honor to be invited there. So of course I’m curious.

    For a person who wants to be an actress and a writer I’m not very observant. I’m always in such a fog I’m the last person in the world to know what’s going on. Guess who turned out to be also going - sans date, of course. Rich!  And I could tell by the way he was looking at me that he still has feelings for me. Can a girl and a boy just be friends? Now I’ve got Beales and Krissy’s got Crow and Rich’s got nobody, which is no one’s fault but his own. 

Many lonely midnight violin solos at Boy’s End.  So I have to admit – I hate to admit – I tortured him a bit. The tormented must torture back. Beales was not pleased. But the sense of power does go to your head.  Actually I’m tempted to break up with Beales just because of this awful book he gave me.  He said it was the best book he ever read, and it turned out to be a real stinker – the meaning of which, apparently, is that nothing has any meaning. The girl treats the guy horribly and he gets back at her through some sci fi device that freezes her. I’m sorry I now know anything about the inside of Beales’ head.  It’s a horrible place. I’ll just stick with his lips, thank you.

So I should probably write about Casper’s. Casper has a wife but they have separate rooms. (I know because I snooped.)  So do Beales’ parents, I was shocked to discover. Maybe this is more common than I knew. (His parents worry Plumly is too liberal. If they only knew. What they really mean is its co-ed, which is undeniable, and there’s dating, which is a fact, and that whenever we get the chance we all pounce on each other like randy bunnies.  Which does happen occasionally.  But the teachers and the kitchen staff are the dangerous ones if you stay away from them you’re Ok. ) Beales says “everyone knows”  the way to kill sex is to get married. (This from a guy who was carded when he tried to order a crème de menthe parfait.) I’m not taking sex advice from a virgin who is afraid of trees and an incredibly bad canoeist. My father embarrassed his children horribly all across Europe by refusing to take single bedded rooms for him and Mom.  If they didn’t have a double, no matter if it was almost midnight, we had to look for another place.  But you see I’m having trouble describing Bad Karl’s place. What kind of a writer always talks about herself?

Ok. It smells bad.  That’s number one. You can’t put your finger on it. Whenever my mom smells something like that she says its drains, so that might be it. Casper can’t see and his wife can’t hear and they probably can’t smell, either. When one sense goes, the others can’t be far behind. The house is full of dusty books and bizarre engravings.  Bad Karl’s favorite kind of books are called Belles Lettres - the only category I’ve never heard of.  I’m sure the wall of books swivels around revealing a dank staircase going down down down if you press on it just right but the smell was too bad to remain in the house long. We spent most of our time in the rose-garden – they have beautiful roses – apparently Mrs. Grasper is a rosarian, which I thought, was either a religion or a men’s club. It may be that what’s bad news for drains is good news for roses.  The food was fabulous – Napoleons have always been my favorite – and although they had boring tea they had flavored coffees too. Conversation was a bit difficult – Beales mentioned his paper on euthanasia and we got a 20-minute discourse on their trip to China in the 1920’s so I think Mrs. Grasper thought he said Youth in Asia.  If it hadn’t been a blazingly hot, sunny afternoon they would have forced us to watch a slideshow. I got to listen to a description of Bad Casper’s alopecia, which – trust me – is not a plant. Then at the end each girl (there were three of us there and five guys) got to cut a rose.  

Of course we didn’t know that Casper was going to pin it on us. Here he comes at me,

    quivering hands holding a large pin and his eyes fixed on my bosom and Beales doing not one thing to protect me. Even Rich got into the act trying to hold my dress away from my skin so I wouldn’t get “pricked”. I’m telling you it was dangerous. And of course I chose a hugely overblown flower on its last gasp that was dead by nightfall. Like my respect for Beales, who tries to claim that Casper, who holds “sexuality seminars” at his house for senior boys is anything other than a dirty old man. And I mean dirty in all senses of the word. He’s given up ever changing his pants, for example. Prof. Grasper’s favorite word is “juice”. You wouldn’t want to catch whatever he’s got.

    It’s a good thing I’m going to camp. Preston has written me a letter wanting me to go to Valley Forge with him. Looks like I’ll have to discipline him somehow – if possible.

    Monday, June 7, 1965
    I was in the Tower (toilet) studying and I overheard quite an episode. Miss Lissome was talking to this girl who apparently slashed herself with a razor over another girl. Miss Lissome was very understanding – a little too understanding, if you ask me. This is probably why Beales’ parents think the school is too liberal, because they hide stuff like this. I kept completely quiet and they didn’t know I was there. Apparently they don’t think she needed stitches, but I never got to see her because she went home next day. That’s one way to get out of exams. So far I got a 95 in Bible, (I’m an expert on the Zealots if I do say so myself) a 98 in English (Steinbeck, Steinbeck, Steinbeck – the only A in the class) and I’m fourth from the bottom in Math (sigh). Krissy and I were in Girls’ Doubles and I came in second! Right now “Baby the Rain must Fall” is playing on the radio and I’m getting ready for the freshman-sophomore class party. Gotta go!

  • Wild With Possibility: the teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Plumly School – THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 1965


    Back at school – good to be back. Sunday in Washington we went to the Smithsonian and saw the Air Force and Space exhibits. They had Lindbergh’s and Wright’s first planes. Hard to believe anyone ever had the nerve to jump off a cliff in one of these plywood gliders. We also saw a spaceship and the Foucault pendulum. It always goes in a straight line but the earth is turning under it. Cool. Lots of people say the concept of space makes them feel small – it doesn’t have that effect on me. It makes me feel big to be a member of such an important species, even when I’m practically failing math. Attempting to explain this idea to Genevieve got me nicknamed “The Wonder Girl”. She is too sarcastic.

    We saw the First Ladies’ inaugural dresses – the one I wanted was Abigail Van Buren’s.  Daddy didn’t like the exhibit. He kept saying, “Boy, she was one big babe!” We all agreed Bess Truman’s was the absolute worst.

Genevieve called a friend from Plumly and we went on a double date (he isn’t really her boyfriend.) We got to drive around Washington in a convertible, and went to see The World of Henry Orient, which we thought, was supposed to be funny but was actually sad. Genevieve had to leave because she was bawling uncontrollably but apparently Jim didn’t mind because he wanted to be alone with her anyway. I didn’t mind my date, Dick.  He was all right. When we got back to the car we discovered someone had blocked us in and we had to drive several hundred yards on the sidewalk.  Fortunately there were no cops around. It was really late at that point and we had to get back to the Fairfax so we could wake up early and go to Plumly next morning.  Plumly!  How I’ve missed you!

    THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1965
    You probably thought I was dead it’s been so long since I’ve written. No such luck. Still imprisoned in this mortal coil. Phil broke up with me for no reason at all, and the boys who have asked me out since then are hardly a promising lot. Barry I turned down on principle (I don’t want to be seen with him) and Jed worries me. He’s just weird and I don’t think it’s a good weird. He’s like those guys who get arrested for shooting a lot of strangers. He’s obsessed with the military, which does not bode well. I can’t figure out why Phil broke up with me, although he said it wasn’t me. At least I don’t have to worry about his hair any more. He used to style it into a kind of dog-doo pile on his head and I just couldn’t get him to stop. It’s a shame when a girl has so little effect on a guy.

    Krissy and I aren’t speaking because we both want the same boy and at the Stone House pep rally last night it looked like I had him (we were having a balloon fight.)  Richard Johnson is English, he’s very good looking  (an especially good body, very manly) and he keeps coming to talk to me at my workjob, but he doesn’t ask me out so I think I’m going to have to sacrifice him to keep the peace on the home front.  He’s making me do too much work.  Some guys at Boys End don’t believe in dating – mostly the intellectuals – that makes it very hard. They want us to just sort of come together by suction, like amoebas.  Thank God for the jocks.  They like to know what the game is and the rules are – if it wasn’t for them we would fall into chaos. He also doesn’t send KOBS  and my parents have been making noises like I’m too young to go to the Junior/Senior.  So it’s probably hopeless anyway. I’ll have to do what all the other lovestruck idiots do - concentrate on English Lit.

    MONDAY APRIL 19, 1965
    Up to the minute report: I got a 91 in English History, which was a great relief. I don’t mean to sound conceited, but I’m the smartest one in that class (and I’m including the English teacher.) I got 100 in English grammar, which is truly amazing because I usually don’t do well in courses I have a serious philosophical beef with. (Much of English grammar is just plain ridiculous.)

    I know you want to know how the Rich race is going. Well, it’s a disaster. The more distant I get with Rich the more interested he gets. Not enough to ask me out, just incessant hanging around.  Krissy was asked to the Junior/Senior by Crow the sumo wrestler and she’s going with him because he’s a date. He pays her a lot of attention, sending her balloons, flowers, cards and good FOOD with which you could buy anything – I mean literally anything – at this school. It’s a tragic commentary on life in this mausoleum that a steady supply of English toffee ice cream could enslave the hardiest.

Still, Krissy refuses to give up on Rich but she doesn’t have a chance – I can see that now that I know him. She dimples up, talks baby talk and teases him in a too-obvious way. He’s very polite but there’s a distinct danger that she’ll get thrown up on if she keeps this up. I’ve discovered that Rich loves sailing. Obviously I have an edge in this department. Poor Krissy doesn’t know a stanchion from a stallion. We were both talking to him after dinner last night and I discovered she’s been sending him KOBs with bubble gum in them – was I surprised!  I think she’s making herself cheap and I’ve half a mind to tell her so.   I must say I was looking goddess like in white Levis and a red shell on my way to checkout. Krissy, alas, looked like the fifth Beatle. This Carnaby Street thing is not working for her.

This afternoon he was hanging around the pay phones when I went to call Mom and Dad. He always acts like he was waiting for me, but I’m starting to think it could just be an act. He was holding his violin because he was supposed to be having a lesson but for some reason it didn’t happen.  He played for me. I asked him why he doesn’t join orchestra but he said they were too brassy. He told me about how he’s been suspended from two schools (he never told Krissy this but I’m not surprised – Plumly is Last Chance Gulch for far too many persons of the male persuasion. He also told me he has a crush on his Big Sister (it’s Sydney Close) so not too surprising but still tactless of him to discuss it in front of me - another strike against him. As we were separating he took the red light bulb out of the exit sign and gave it to me as a kind of memento. I thought it was sort of cute but I guess I can see why he keeps getting suspended from places.

    WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 1965
    Krissy’s on a meal per and I’m skipping checkout which makes a deten but I’ve really let my work pile up so I’m just going to work through and catch up. Starting any minute now – soon as I finish this. My pictures came today – I can’t help wishing I didn’t look like that. One of my eyes is bigger than the other, my nose is crooked and I have a lopsided smile like an alligator. Still I was able to send one to Preston Pugh, he’s been begging me. I have to admit I am encouraging him because there’s a lot of status in getting mail and I was also worried I wouldn’t have a date to the Tennis Court dance and I would have to import him. (I would die rather than make the first move with that sly sunuva Rich.) Fortunately neither of these horrible eventualities came to pass – the junior class has just discovered I’m alive and four boys have been asking me out steadily. Still the most promising candidate is Beales – he’s going to be class president next year – senior class – so that’s cool. He’s clever and funny but somewhat lacking in the height department.

    Little does he know I ‘m attracted to big blonds with hairless chests (sigh.)  Beales is very hairy – he’s a tennis player and all this black hair is sprouting every which way out from under his whites. When I told Rich I was going to the tennis court dance with Beales I was hoping for a little jealousy but instead he told me Beales has the biggest you know what on campus.  I thought that was an odd remark and it makes me wonder a lot more about Rich than about Beales. (Krissy can have him. She may discover she’s bitten off a mouthful of cotton candy – precisely nothing.) Still, judging from slow dances with Beales, I think he may be right.  I really like Beales and he seems to be totally smitten with me (he always calls me “The Lady Alysse”) but I can’t wear really high heels with him. Tonight was a Turnabout dance - late dating at the Cabin.  Beales seemed to think I should ask him – so I did – and now we’re a Couple and nobody will ask em anywhere unless we have a Public Break Up.  Oh well. Fun so far.

I am writing a book report on The Way to the Lantern for French History – it is about an actor who said he takes comfort from history, that people were born, made love and died. I wish he hadn’t put the dying part immediately after the making love part – this is the kind of thing that worries us virgins. For fun I am reading a life of Fanny Kemble. She is a very interesting person although I find her comments on theatre and acting pretty hard to take. For a Victorian she was pretty wild – always knee deep in rushing brooks, climbing lofty crags and throwing herself full length on the hearthrug.  Very reminiscent of You Know Who.

When  she was an old lady toting up the experiences of wonder and joy that had been hers I got depressed trying to add up mine. Sadly few.  Then I remembered I’m only fifteen, not eighty and I cheered right up. Some time left.  Must remember to live abundantly with a  fiery heart so that I have some youthful glory too to warm me in my old age. Fifteen minutes to midnight and the tears are still drying on my cheeks.  I say goodbye to childhood.

    Thursday, May 13, 1965
    Class pictures. I call mine Lady Horseface (horseface with a flip) but Beales liked it so much he bought a frame for it. On the other hand Beales’ picture makes him look like a character in Wind and the Willows. I guess it’s all that hair. At 7:15 while I was under the hairdryer I got a call from my parents. I was accepted into theatre camp! I cried and told everyone. Even Krissy said she was happy for me – probably because I gave up Rich “The Impossible Dream”. I’ve been happy ever since – hard to contemplate a summer in Brockton.

    When I’m this happy it’s hard to write – I feel like an overgrown exclamation point. That’s probably why all great writers were miserable human beings.

    Sunday, May 16, 1965
    I’ve got my lamp on even though it’s lights out so I’ll probably get caught but I’m too excited to mess around with that cheap plastic flashlight. Besides, Krissy is up and messing around with her scrapbook — she flew home this weekend for her home Junior Senior. My parents would NEVER do that. Fortunately the Rez sounds like the German army whenever she makes a move – we’ll probably hear her coming. Krissy bought me an ice cream cone so I carried her luggage down to the racing shed which is where you catch the van. She said the school doesn’t look so bad when you’re leaving it. She sounded positively nostalgic. I think it looks like a Victorian insane asylum at the best of times. You can almost see the place where the Home for Incurables sign used to be. I was afraid all this nostalgia meant she was bound to be killed in a plane crash, but no such luck. I still have to share a room. When Heidi Weiss’ roommate was in a car accident they let her use the infirmary bathroom which is the only place where you can take baths. I heard she was furious when her roommate came home and now they’re not speaking.

    Saturday night was Camp Suppers. As usual the freshman girls were in every room but their own trying to find out what everyone else was going to wear.

    “I’m wearing white jeans and a red shell.”
    “I’m wearing my new green shorts.”
    “I’d wear shorts except they’re madras and they’re ripped.”

    It’s the little things like this that make us different from the animals. Fortunately for me (if not for Beales) I don’t care whether I’m in style or not.  I’m a trendsetter, rather than a follower. I wore my sweatshirt inside out because it has a really interesting pattern on the other side. 

“Camp Suppers” is basically a cookout down at the lake. I had three hamburgers and a hotdog but it’s not as much as it sounds like.  They stamp on the meat to get it as flat as possible and then they cut it with cookie cutters. Really!  I’ve seen it! Then there was oatmeal with raisin cookies and brownies and in and out canoe races. Once you’re out of a canoe it’s really hard to get back in. Beales was angry at me because I was laughing so hard we didn’t win. He says we didn’t win because I couldn’t get into the canoe because I was laughing and I think we didn’t win because he couldn’t get into the canoe because he was angry.  

This is why when summer comes I will just drift elegantly away. Men! Beales is too much work – dating him is like taking an extra class. Even Kip is starting to look good. Beales thinks he’s got me figured out (he’s a straight A student so he thinks he’s smart) but that’s my protection - like an armadillo shell or porcupine quills - I make myself deceptively simple. I got even with Beales by challenging him to a tree-climbing contest.  Trees love me. I couldn’t fall from a tree if I tried.  

Beales was afraid and he didn’t want me to know he was afraid. Tree-climbing is just not his sport (I’ve seen him throw discus with those huge hairy arms.) But when we got to the top I made it worth his while - we made out.   I have a psychic sense of when someone is going to kiss me. Beales turns out to be a shy but impassioned kisser – he kisses all over my face. You don’t have to worry how far a boy is going to go if you’re in a tree, so I could really  give myself to the experience. We didn’t go in till a quarter after ten and I spent the rest of the night in deep thought. Maybe Beales is bearable after all.

  • Wild With Possibility: the teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Thurs Oct 8, 64


    Got a “social warning” for “lights out” with a boy! It was only six o’clock for heaven’s sake! I have much to learn about the Art of Shiking. Things are rough for the Prisoners of the Tower. We were talking about hobbies. His is photography. I said mine is philosophy. Social philosophy. Like why people are so very, very strange.

    Also got a warning for not wearing a “covering” on my curlers in the upstairs Girls’ End Hall!  What is this, Moulay Idris? What a place!

Favorite song this week – “I like it” by Gerry & the Pacemakers.

    “I like it! I like it!
    I like the way you run your fingers through my hair…”
    Exactly.

    Doggerel for English:

    “To laugh and love and run and sing
    Are gifts beyond all price.
    And when I die for die I will
    I’ll feel no pain or strife.
    It is enough for me to know I’ve sipped the wine of life!
    In a way I’ll always live
    In all I’ve loved and seen
    The whirling whiteness of the snow
    The emerald spring of green.
    A rock that’s round and hard and smooth
    The restless roaring sea
    The pale blank beauty of the moon
    All have a piece of me.
    So I can die without a qualm
    ‘Cause death is never mean.
    Dying too is part of life –
    Remember – dirt is clean!

    Eng teacher gave me a B MINUS and asked me to write it again without rhyme!  But since it’s in the past, why would I?  Life rushes on, Master Gwill! Better get moving!
I recited it at the dinner table (maybe it is more of a recitation piece) and – Miss Womrath liked it so much she gave me her notebook from a Trip to France in 18 BC.  It is full of sketches of fishermen and birds – the poems are unbelievably bad. There are a surprising number of breasts – even men had breasts in those days!  Maybe she is a nympho-lesbo.

    TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1965 – Brockton, Ohio

    Tonight Mom and Genevieve and Avril and I went to a concert at Avril’s school – my old school. It was like walking smack into the past—a nightmare come to life. Old Miss Quinn came lurching toward us like Boris Karloff in the Mummy – she was even trailing some sort of torn drapery. I stared disbelieving at the puniness of the drinking fountain –more like an animal watering device than any kind of implement to be used by human beings – was I EVER that small? The halls were narrow and grimy but I remember them in my dreams as vast and spacious with the edges seeming to drop away like unmapped territory. The children’s faces even seemed familiar – as if I grew up and they didn’t – maybe children’s faces are indistinguishable.

     The Auditorium was pathetic.  It had a tiny stage – made of wretched splintered boards. I felt my rear end itch in memory.  I imagined myself, old and famous, donating  decent drapes to replace those ratty dust catchers. But probably it would be better to deny any association with this place. Of course Avril performed horribly. Years of relentless babying have softened that poor child’s brain.  

Genevieve and I walked home so as to avoid the reception afterwards.  I don’t recall my mother going to a single one of my concerts – and Genevieve doesn’t remember it either. This mothering thing is something she’s only recently discovered – twenty years into the job.  Oh well.  

As  Genevieve says, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. When we got home we watched The Man from Uncle, (naturally Avril gets a TV!) then  I worked on my novel about teenage stardom while Genevieve set her hair with beer cans. That’s because we were going to the movies - the second showing of 36 Hours and she might see someone. Genevieve had already seen it and couldn’t help giving me a running commentary. I need all the help I can get in war movies. My favorite part was when Pike and Anna were in the hole and  the German soldier, looking in sees a nest of baby birds instead  of them and whistles to the birds. I thought it was very mature of the scriptwriter to resist the urge to have him murder the baby birds.

    When I got home Daddy called me into the study where he had an application for summer theatre camp! I can go! Off to sleep in a haze of bliss.

    Wednesday, March 31, 1965
    Sure is hellish trying to write in a car. It’s 4:12 pm and we’re in the Shenandoah Valley. So far we’ve traveled through five states. I have a feeling this is going to be a short entry because I’m feeling carsick. Avril has been carsick twice already.

    We got up at nine and left at nine thirty. Call last night to Phil - saying goodbye was rather a greasy experience. I wish he had a sort of brake control. I promised him I would write.  He will probably be back at school by the time I return. 

The countryside is all the same, dark woods, yellow grass and ridiculous road signs. We had lunch in a bone-chilling wind at 12:30 and now I’m starving again. We ate at Howard Johnson’s and Dad embarrassed us about the food. He always complains but I like the clams. Mom’s scarf blew out of the window so we are turning back to get it.

    FRIDAY APRIL 2, 1965
    At last a moment! We have really been having fun. We ended up in Front Royal Virginia the last time I wrote you at The Colonial Motor Court. Dad said it was about as colonial as a TV dinner. We went to see Goldfinger after dinner and Dad pretended to be Oddjob in the parking lot. Mom was rigid and disapproving but whether of murderous Oddjob or boisterous Pussy Galore I couldn’t say.

    Next day we went to Monticello. I could spend a lifetime there! We made it to Williamsburg by late afternoon and went straight to the Candlelight Concert at the Governor’s Palace. Concert mediocre.  Then we went to the Sheraton, which was a pretty cool place except the pool is shut.  

We ate at Chowney’s and I had Brunswick stew and apple pie.  Dad rousted us out at an ungodly hour so we could see all of Williamsburg.  First place we saw was Bruton Parish where I liked the graveyard.  I found a small stone with just the initials B.S. on it. That’s the way to go – keep everyone guessing.  Then we saw the George Wythe House. Rough way to live.  I preferred the Palace, where we got lost in the maze. I said I was sure I had been an aristocrat I in an earlier life and Dad said everyone thinks that.  I found the middle of the maze all by myself, but it began to rain and so we ducked into the Brush-Everard house.  We had lunch at Christiana Campbell’s.  I had potpie and stoked myself quite full. After lunch we hit the shops: I bought a blank book, a thistle seal (Mary Queen of Scots) and a gingerbread man.  I was so sleepy I slept in the car on the way to Washington, but I woke up when we got to our hotel, the Fairfax.

    The Fairfax is a rather doubtful looking place – Dad has a tendency to choose hotels that look like the owner just died. Our rooms are on the eighth floor. We went to dinner at an Italian place called Nino’s. The food was good, but you can get better pizza at Benet’s. We drove around after dinner and Dad said this is the second most beautiful American city (after San Francisco.) Mom said its No. 1. All I could see was huge monuments looming at me through the gloaming.

    SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1965
    I was rudely awakened by someone trying to strangle me – it was Daddy. And yet nobody’s allowed to make noise while he’s trying to sleep – just one of the many inequities between parents and kids. Genevieve called me a sloth and I reminded her that it takes a sloth three hours to drown because of their generally superior construction. They probably experience things more deeply too. I know I was having a wonderful dream, I just can’t remember what it was. It was six a.m. – earlier than I get up at school. We drove around looking for somewhere to eat, finally stopping at the Ambassador where I had strawberries and coffee. (You’ve gotta start sometime.)
    We decided to climb the Washington monument but a surprise awaited us: to be exact, a line that stretched as far as the eye could see, comprising:
    Girl scouts
    Brownies
    Old ladies
    Fat ladies
    Dead ladies
    Dead girl scouts
    Hoboes hired to stand in line for somebody smarter.

    What to do? Fortunately Dad decided to pretend to be a tour guide and just walked in front, talking and waving his arms, something about how the building was built of pennies collected by Brownies and some statue, covered with pigeon poo, was a memorial to a man who invented a way of cleaning pigeon poo off statues.  At one point we had at least thirty people in our group – everyone was riveted. Of course all that climbing was pointless and not worthwhile.  Genevieve said the monument looked like a giant planeria, which is a repulsive image.

Other deathless thoughts from the day’s experience: The White House does not look like it would be fun to live in. I failed to catch a glimpse of Luci Baines who has probably gratefully gone somewhere else. Dad made us stand in front of the Treasury Building for what seemed like an eternity (“because we owe them so much money”) and then we went to see our Congressman.  Although he is a Republican he seemed like a good fellow. Daddy called him Chuck and he talked to us for quite awhile as if he wasn’t really busy.  He gave us passes to the next session of the 89th Congress which I thought was nice until Dad pointed out that we’re paying for everything. So we trudged over to the Capitol. I liked the classy pillars and noticed the meander design everywhere (matching my sweater – which my mother knit while I studied the Greeks.)  I also liked the chandeliers.  They have a lot of them.  There was one hall where each state had put two statues of famous men – one of ours was Garfield (who I’ve heard of) and the other one was Allen (who nobody’s heard of.)   The tour guy said Garfield’s assassin is one of the Capitol ghosts and the guards see him occasionally.  The best statue was Will Rogers.

    Then we went to see the Supreme Court. I wish they had been in session but they weren’t so I actually saw more of the ladies’ john. There were a lot more steps. I was beginning to get a rubbery sensation in the knees.

        We went out to lunch at Hogate’s where I had crab imperial and Dad lost his air travel card. Then we drove to the Pentagon because Daddy wanted to see it.  Not interesting. We went to Arlington, which was very depressing. You wouldn’t want to live your whole life just so you could be seventh from the end in the thirty-ninth row of Section A.  

    The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was not as impressive as the one in France. Daddy was angry at us for giggling but I don’t think it was the kind of place to make you want to be quiet.  The French know how to do these things right. I was taken out of my mood by the Jefferson Memorial. It’s adorable. I would like one in my yard. I think it’s my favorite thing I’ve seen. “I have sworn on the Altar of God Eternal Hostility Against Every Form of Tyranny over the Mind of Man.” Wonder what he would have said if they added “woman”  to that. 

    Back at the hotel Avril and I hung out in her room, Genevieve went shopping and Mom and Dad went to an art museum nobody else wanted to see. I washed and dried my hair and at six-thirty we all walked to a Japanese restaurant called Tokyo Sukiyaki, which Dad said, would be like opening a restaurant in Tokyo and calling it New York Steak and Potatoes.  I must say we are eating well. Dad said it was the most authentic Japanese restaurant he’d ever been to in the States.  They painted the walls to look like paper and we had to take off our shoes. The tables were low and there was nowhere to put your feet. We all ate with chopsticks. Dad said you’re a pro when you can pick up three peas I in a line.  He can do it – I can’t – and Genevieve pretends she can.  

    After that we tried to see Zorba the Greek but it was all sold out. So we went to Lord Jim instead. And guess what? Sold out too.  Lots of parents would have been stymied at this point but Dad said he had just begun to fight.  We went to a discotheque called Le Bistro where everyone was dressed to the teeth but there wasn’t any dancing. Dad bought us all beers (except a coke for Avril.  I hate beer, as it turns out) and we waited around but we didn’t want to be the only ones dancing so we went back to the hotel and played Hearts.  I got the Queen of Spades twice, which is definitely a sign of something.