Be careful what you want in case you get it. Devon and I are suddenly in the midst of a very satisfying love affair. He called 5:30 yesterday – wish it had been earlier because I was in a psychic tailspin.
Immediately tidied the place up, anointed my body, put on my black silk jumpsuit exploding with roses (last worn on date with R.) He came in wearing tight jeans and a linen safari jacket – we had a very silly time over wine. Christ he can look beautiful when he wants to. Out to a restaurant – I ordered a “flaming volcano” and they had it! More silliness.
D. said, “Going out with you is an experience.” He couldn’t compliment me enough on my general gorgeousness (heh heh heh.)
We saw The Deep which was just what we both wanted – titillating glossy glop. D. kept initiating PDA’s (which he never used to –
Wow has this guy grown up! He used to act like the Amherst PDA Police were everywhere! He suggested we go to bed!
No loitering on couch! Sexually he has all the time in the world –
he’s all out for my pleasure – his orgasm of no importance. He’s particularly good with my ass and I LOVE that. (He treats every sphincter like
another pair of lips – I’m in a threesome with myself!) I always felt like he was “holding back” – not any more.
Tendernesses and confidences growing. Nice to be loved!
He goes on and on about the beauty & sensuality of my body; my sexuality
“like a storm!” (Like dancing.)
Sun 12:30 PM Deck 7 Aug 77
Sitting over coffee, grits (to which Mrs. McManus has now addicted me) and Dorothy Eden. (The Sleeping Bride – very good!)
Praying like mad for writing money.
Lucky things worked out the way they did – keeps me from obsessing
over R.
Bike ride! It’s a form of prayer.
6Pm Hammering away – great scene – getting the good stuff –
– typewriter ribbon gave out! Come on! At 6 PM!! It’s like having your horse shot out from under you. I was going to spend the evening writing.
Goddamit.
Starting to worry about R coming back from the Finger Lakes – he
knows where I am – would he show up here? Aack! No! Impossible.
He can’t be alone. Wouldn’t drive that distance without a captive ear.
Reading Jane Aiken’s study of Jane Austen. Don’t feel a moment’s anxiety about D. Miss dancing terribly.
Mon 8 Aug 77
3 PM On deck loving the rising wind, reading The Scalpel
of Scotland Yard (Spilsbury). A perfect day. Trapped here for a few hours till the man shows up to fix trash masher – but at least I got my “naked exercises” out of the way. Today’s a scorcher – using air-conditioning for the first time. Cheated on my diet – ate a whole can of tuna.
Packed in water, fortunately. Body screaming for peaches and
almonds. Gutted the Pevensey library. They are running out of
books for me.
12:45 PM Tues Aug 9 – 77
Coming out of my coma to write agent a note.
After 3 months of not being “pushy” surely SOMETHING should
be happening. I decide I am suffering from a disease that should
be called “Dickensitis” marked by severe self consciousness and
complicated by “Plath syndrome” (brutal social induction flashbacks).
Freezes me in my path.
Loving Solzhenitsyn’s article on Shakespeare & Tolstoy.
But do I love Devon? Before all of this I would have said yes, very
casually but sometimes the better you get to know someone the less
you can love them. He was at pains to explain his theology – but it doesn’t seem to involve God – it’s all interpersonal relations – which I
have to say I think is just weird! He wants to be “of service” to people and he’s aware – but suspicious about – the “mysticism” athletes get into.
I hate to say this but it reminds me of my mother. Any “be wary of people who have an inner life and try your best to get rid of yours” philosophy
is a major turnoff for me. When we talk about “self-perfection” and “self-cultivation” we are talking about VERY different things.
I casually told him the more I get to know him the lessI know him – and he was very pleased! (Relieved.) He didn’t say why –
but I know he doesn’t want to be “easy”. I didn’t tell him he’s still held fast in Sleeping Beauty’s overgrown castle, in my opinion. Don’t think
I can get him out of there. I always try to plan my strategy if he tried
taking the relationship up a notch. But he can’t suggest we live together while he’s a divinity student. Think I can relax about it and just enjoy his magnificent body.
Take, eat. Old wounds between us are entirely healed.
If D is stuck in SB’s castle, where is R? He is unborn, a baby
dreaming in the womb. “When I grow up I’m going to have lots
LOTS of girlfriends but they will all be PERFECTLY RESPECTABLE
and SEXUALLY DYNAMIC but only when I say so!”
I regret most working so hard to make him “certain” of
me, to make sure he knew exactly what I was thinking and feeling.
I put my cards not only face-up on the table, I handed them to the guy!
Not many people would be mature enough to handle that. Never
discuss what I am feeling with D – haven’t mentioned R after our
preliminary intros “what have you been up to”. I’m not sure he even knows how I make money in Washington.
8:45 AM Wed 10 Aug 77
Like the alcoholics say, one day at a time! Exercises,
diet, sunbathe, bike ride, swim, etc. Doing a good job at that – horrible
job at writing – because I don’t hear from agent. Confidence completely collapsed. Sitting on the deck feeding Ms. McManus’ Caesar salad
croutons to a squirrel. He really likes them. Reading Berckmann’s A Thing That Happens To You. Finished Thalberg’s bio – ho hum.
No swimming – maybe bike ride in the rain (just a misting).
3:30 PM 11 Aug 77 – Thurs
Depressing letter from Chloe – she wants my help
with her MSS. I agree with Henry James – all I can do is My Thing
My Way. But I have to seem really approachable if I want radio
work. Conundrum. Catatonia. Devon called. Do I want to get laid?
I think so! Reading about grave robbers produces a poem;
RESURRECTIONIST
Unearth me, lover
I’m a jewel now
Melted
In that crevice you once loved so
Well; it’s an ingot now,
a socket
For our mingled liquid
Essence
Suck it up with
Dust-lathered lips
Strip
The flesh as you once did
The clothes; I’m burning
Cinder-hot –
Let me astound you with
My time-perfected skill
Sat. 13 Aug 77
7 good pages writing, then bad letter from Ryder asking is our “living together” a ”condition” of “my return”? Where the hell did he get that? He just wants something to react against. He can’t imagine a relationship that isn’t controlled by implied threats. He believes in
working and suffering so much then – let him work and suffer. What would annoy him most? If I don’t respond! Ha ha! Let the panic begin!
Need to become more private – simply to protect myself. For all I know he’s relishing the torture he goes through.
Devon and I had a glorious date – splendid dinner (steak!)
then made love all over the floor. He played with my body until he got it roaring and pulsating like an express train. The way he handled me,
gripped me, held me, crushed me even – made me ask about his other girlfriends. He said no, he never gets as much “touch” as he wants. I said,
“Except with me”. He said, “Except with you.” Over dinner he said
matter-of-factly that we are so alike loving me has always felt “narcissistic” to him. I bet! Happy, happy, happy… Picked up The Edwardians –
I can’t get into it. Keep seeing Devon’s body plying me, bending me…I know somewhere out there lies perfect happiness, waiting to astonish me.
Devon and I went for a long walk today, had a great
talk. He told me all about his passionate relationship with
English girl – asking “Do you really want to know?” I did – I managed to
be very hands off. Said he’d written her “lyrical love-letters” and
she is saving money to come to US at Christmas.
Bit of a downer to find other people have split
minds like me. I told him a little about Ryder and even more about my husband. I had to hope he wouldn’t see it “retaliation” for what he’d told me. (R would have.) Fantasies can be ugly if they prevent you from experiencing reality.
We hugged – he left – I know he thinks I’m too
“intense”. I was stupid enough to read him my peach poem. On
the other hand, if a guy can’t handle my poetry where am I? R only likes poems he knows are about him.
Wrote a whiny letter to Avril (who usually can handle
whiny letters). Good today – bike, swimming, plus my walk with D. Long letter to Mom and Dad.
Reading Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm –
can’t stay grumpy – laughing too hard. Settling into my spaceship –
my own body – first day of the rest of my life. Listening to wonderfully crazy modern opera on the radio.
Sun 24 July 77
4PM
Wrote 4 pages of A Demon Roused. Horribly
dissatisfied. Patricia Highsmith on the suspense novel no damn
help at all. Everything I’ve ever written pure dunder written by a
dunderhead. Restrained myself from calling Ryder to yell at him.
Face facts. Left DC June 4. This coming
month has to be gotten through. Feel I my “breakdown” I suffered last spring was a crisis of identity. Attacked by the writing thing
(no money, no approval, no relationships) attacked by the relationship thing (R too critical, wanting to “change” me.) Starving myself. Long mad midnight walks rampaging thru Chevy Chase with dogs. The ENDLESS Devon situation only explicable when seen in this light.
(He’s TOO good looking – too much fantasy.)
Now about my book. New beginning ALL wrong and
I couldn’t figure out why. The characters seem alive.
First Person Difficult. My husband always said
omniscient narrator no longer possible, making
me want to do it. However, I have to admit you
need to be somebody – an extra character and that’s a
bigger pain in the neck.
2) Scene Problematic. I’ve GOT to get these people out of England.
It’s artificial. How about if I don’t say where it is? Will the specificity cops come after me?
3) Format (Suspense novel) rough because I have to be
the one who knows what’s going on and I want to write my first draft in a narcoleptic state. Means I have to be happy making a huge ness with a million
false starts and then write the thing ALL OVER when I know what’s going on.
But I feel time running out on me. Goddam it.
I should be happy to explore. Why all this pressure? Two novels unaccepted, why write a fourth? Am I deliberately trying to drive myself to the
brink of insanity? Also I HATE Sunday because the pool is packed, no stores are open, and there’s no mail.
Devon and his roommates Blair & Brian drop by and I
struggle to appear sane. Hard for me.
6PM
Called R. to yell at him. He wasn’t there – thank GOD.
Maybe I just want to punish him. He certainly deserves it.
1:30 PM Mon 25 July 77
Dark night of the soul finally over. Very athletic today –
feel deliciously tired. Decide I should go back to Washington no
matter what. My choices are my choices. My happiness can’t be dependent on how people treat me. I plan to use my time to become powerful – to be the person I’m supposed to be. In the drugstore line I was reading up on the showbiz personalities – nobody interesting before 30 and I have a few years yet.
Forget about weight – just follow & learn to love
“virtuous routine”. (I’m a size seven – that’s pretty good.) Today it
POURED rain – night baseball Devon wanted to attend out of the
question. He suggested we switch to a movie when he called this am.
Still feel stilted with him unfortunately.
Assault on library. Planning to ransack the place.
Leafed through Helen Hayes (poor woman); enjoying Thurber’s
My World and Welcome To It .
Tues. 26 July 77 9:40 AM
Sitting on stonewall in full sunlight in my black bikini
waiting for pool to open. Swim and sunbathe till ll:30 when mail comes.
After 7 pm I can return – that way I miss the crowds.
Exercise, coffee, 3 glasses water. The Regime.
I’m down to $4. Embarrassing to be taken out last night
by Devon & his roommates. (We saw Star Wars. Childish, but they were into it.) Sent letter to Mom & D asking for stock certificates. They
won’t like it.
Dinner should have been nice but barbecue very messy.
Wore my tightest jeans and my pink French “Trés chic” t-shirt. Devon surprised me by talking on and on about how beautiful I am. Started to get stoked – in fact I was horny as hell. I would have taken the three seminary students on if I could have avoided the interpersonal madness that would result. They all have beautifully athletic bodies. But I’m starting to get a feeling that if I just sit in my deer blind a bit longer Devon will come to me.
Every now and then I get a bad “Ryder – flashback”, like some synaptic slipup. What will I think of this years from now? Mirror images ache, then fade.
Cold Comfort Farmexactly 100 pages too long (but I
think most books are). Take a long hot Jean Nate bubble bath and read The Thornbirds.
2:30 PM Wed July 27 – 77
Masturbation is the better part of valor. Don’t make
decisions ruled by sex. Bike ride combined with cold shower doesn’t work.
Must husband my wattage (joke). Too bad sex is
such a fast way to get to know someone.
First draft of Demon so far bony and spare. Neatly
boxed “components” = “write your own novel”. Trying to exterminate “dead” patches. Wish I had done this with The Mass at St. Secaire –
but in those days I was in the “throw in everything you think of and
take it out later” school. I like constructing this awkward armature better. Lean and mean superior to flagellate and winnow.
Will I ever let Ryder see my new body, my new confidence?
He will hang on for dear life and I don’t want that. I want to go back to dancing but Ryder prefers I have neither security NOR money.) Think I’ll look for a sublet – easier to impress a private owner than a credit union.
I prefer living alone. Painstaking cultivation of intense privacy in the midst of a crowd has always been my forte.
Mom and Dad called – acting all worried. Apologizing
for giving Ryder my number. I put on a good show of being completely ”over” him but I can see they don’t want me moving back to Washington and prefer Mrs. Duvall’s ski chalet option. (My cynical side tells me it’s just cheaper.) I act like I have connections to the literary life in DC and they don’t know any better.
Thornbirds is teaching me the great unpleasantness of
what publishers define as “a good read”. Contrary to my previous belief unfortunately the Victorian period has not ended. Forced to skip the war, potted history and scenery descriptions just to keep going.
7:30 PMFinished Thornbirds. Neither Dane’s death nor Justine’s love affair rang true for me. Uh oh. Danger signs. My taste thoroughly out of kilter with the market.
Couldn’t swim – 3,000 spectators at some sort of race
in the pool. So went to library – checked out twelve books – bio, history murder mysteries. Alec Waugh, Somerset Maugham, Vyvyan Holland, –
Hugh Walpole. Evelyn Waugh, of course. At this very moment R is
doing his very last show of 7:30 Live. Will they have a party or wake?
Probably go out drinking at the Shalimar, try to pick up dancers he can hector and assault. Time for me to go walking and see how the other (99%) live.
HOT PROWL
Don’t wake up.
I surveil by night
Your chiseled torso
Slacken with exhaustion.
Touching things that once
You touched,
Listing to your apnea –
I turn away before you turn.
Making peace with all my choices.
It’s worth everything;
Winning in divorce a
Hard-won superpower:
Invisibility
2:45 PM Thurs 28 July 77
Loving myself today. I am very tan. Hair strawberry
blond and my stretchmarks look like silk moiré. Any sense of inadequacy must be pounced upon and shored up – work like a beaver at his dam.
No worries, few fears. Daddy sent $ which I deposit in my acct. Since I can’t cash a check anywhere I eat what’s here; pickled beets and plain grits. Gallons of water to even it all out. Shake the old body out after 26 years.
Decide two people create love – I refuse to do it alone.
Reading Ford Madox Ford and grooving on his Violet versus Elsie
problems. Schadenfreude. Years later poor Elsie says, “I should have ignored everybody and divorced him.” Alas, Ford is a self-centered fool.
Not a simpatico character. However the period is a favorite with me. Mail hideously dull. Nothing from Harcourt. Will my “Westerns” editor have thenerve to turn down an author they’ve got 105,000 copies of? Yes. They’re all a bunch of weenies, frankly. Bike ride.
8:45 PM Finished article for the McManus mag about
Shadowe – “Island in Common” – 750 words – sent it off with letter.
Mission accomplished. Thinking of substituting a night ride for my walk.
Triggers fewer yearnings.
Ford’s moved to the US and I’m at the end of my tether with him. Tried
reading Jane Novak’s Razor Edge of Balance on V. Woolf – but she’s no threat –
– Lingo Academico virtually impenetrable.
Loved reading Fowles on the Fr Lt’s Woman – even though he has a “tin ear” about the Victorians – their “failure” to depict “a man and woman in bed together” ! (How about My Secret Life!!!) He’s the real thing all right even though he launched 1st draft without any research. (It shows.)
I’m going to stop freaking out about how little I know London.
Full of joy & life & strength & immortality & pep. Now thinking fondly of DC. Resist the impulse to call myself a turkey for even MENTIONING living together to R. (I said in my phone message I had to have a house for dogs.)
I can see him crying over his beer at the strip club. Insisting his wussdom is independence. I feel and look mighty thin – but refuse the temptation to weigh
myself. Size seven is good enough. Took my walk looking indulgently at couples with children thinking, “This too is within my reach.”
Mail full of dull rejections NO interest or acceptances. But the UNITY MITFORD I’d ordered came which I’m reading now. Must write about sisters someday. It’s a trip.
11:12 AM Sat 30 Jul 77
Going out tonight with Devon to see Annie Hall, that laff riot he hasn’t seen. This is one of the things I love about life – it’s so unpredictable! Give these guys space to stew they will eventually DO something. We had a nice phone conversation. I can tell he has “traumatized” himself by thinking he “lured” me fruitlessly here. I tell him hardly, I’m writing 8 p. a day (of course it will all have to be thrown out) getting a tan and reading piles of books. (All true.) Too cold & overcast today for pool though and now its raining.
Starting to get a feeling D and I will end up in bed.
It’s inevitable. How I crave that tight young flesh…Bet you $5. Will
wear my faded cerise linen jumpsuit, high heels and Nefertiti necklace.
Stoking!
4:15 PM Sun 31 July 77 Deck
Devon found Annie Hall so painful it took awhile for him to speak. I was surprised but patient. I couldn’t have dreamed up a movie more likely to focus all our reservations. The scene where Annie tells Alvy she misses him made me think of poor Ryder – the separate fragile uniqueness of each human soul – and I could tell Devon was “feeling” his memories too.
We sneaked a pizza (a whole pizza) into the theatre
so we could come right back here for wine and coffee and more wine –
took three hours to get to the point of making love.
In a fairly daring move D opened the buttons of my jumpsuit and stroked my stomach pulling down first one shoulder and then another to play with my breasts. Lovely feeling our bodies surge together. He’s good with his hands and has the most sensitive nipples of any man I’ve been with. At last I suggested we go to bed – the couch was really too uncomfortable. D went down on me – his body is the most gorgeous since the history of time – mountains, valleys, crevasses
– it’s like rock climbing making love to this man. He insisted on coming outside me which startled me somewhat, but after asking about my “protection” (IUD) fortunately abandoned this technique the second time.
He looks at me in a funny way like he wants to say
something but he doesn’t say it. I tried to tell him I’ve learned so much from our 5 year friendship – he seemed unable to take it in. He obviously fears the future and his memory is so bad – after the terrors of his childhood he thinks the whole past is all bad news. It’s like he’s afraid to remember ANYTHING. That would be the worst thing for a writer.
You dare not fear the past. Rhythms can’t evolve from longing alone.
We woke up, grapenuts & coffee, went swimming, sat on deck, watched tennis on TV. Every time I changed clothes he said “the sight of you naked turns me on” and we made love again.
Tomorrow is the first of August – whole new beginning.
Try to see myself at 33, with a lawn and a bra and a trash compactor.
Freedom is key. No mail. Reading Geo Woodcock’s critical study of Orwell.
6:45 PM Dark as night and pouring rain. Obsessing
about D’s body – can’t get it out of my mind and our 22 hours together.
Welcome obsessions; R’s slate cleared. Did I use him? Is he “Brand X?”
Thinking of all the things I wish I’d said to Devon. He’s so intellectual yet so impermeable. Strange delicate kisses – as impossible to get inside his mouth as his mind. Loud thunder, lightning.
Today I should start my new novel – always the worst
part. Lauren called to APOLOGIZE for our dinner. I said nothing
to apologize for I had a wonderful time. She said she had an
“off” night and they are upping my print run from 100,000 to
110,000.. So I guess I’m “on” again in case I write another Eng
gothic historical paperback they like (don’t hold your breath).
Threw aside Berckman’s Crown Estate suddenly can’t stand
other people’s writing.
Very disllusioning dinner with Chuck Kornowitz. My
piece de resistance crab manicotti in Newburg sauce turned out
exquisitely but he only cared about the booze. When I mentioned The Great American novel he said it’s been written and offered to send it to me. He edited it! He only laughed at one thing I said –
he called Athenaeum a “very, very small publishing house” and I
said, “More of a hut, really”. He obviously thought I was going to
have sex with him so that he would read my book. I turned him
down but offered to make up a bed for him on sofa (he really seemed incapacitated by drink but he blamed it on jetlag.) He insisted on leaving, looking very cranky. He did wonder aloud who the hell I think I am? What’s a little sex between “friends” (or supplicants & donors?)
Letter from Devon (I needed it) cheered me up extraordinarily.
Just in the nick of time. I’m a loner, he’s a loner too – do two loners
make a party? Having a hard time feeling beautiful when I am not
dancing and 50 situps a day and one filthy bike ride are no substitute.
But this seminarian writes a mean letter. Loved my novel. Looks
forward to servicing – er surveying Boston in my company. Four
hours on novel produces 8 bad pages. It’s a start.
Ms. MacManus foisting her probate lawyer nephew
Henry on me. He came over to invite me to the beach
(and help me walk the dogs.) He’s a pale,
pale Ryder (he’d have to be Peter Frampton to arouse me at
this stage) and I feared he’d get sunstroke but I said yes. Saw
Jabberwocky – very Monty Python.
Wrote a long wailing, complaining letter to Avril. Try to
read Women & Madness but it’s too poorly written and repels
every attempt. Norah Lofts White Hell of Pity – very depressing.
But you’re pretty much asking for it if you pick up a book with that title.
11:00 AM Sun 3 July 77
Had to walk Genevieve’s dogs all the way to Columbus
& Ninth to find NY Times. Henry cancelled – I didn’t know why till
Ms MacManus told me he found out I wasn’t Jewish! Now she tells
me! (She’s not Jewish either.) Reading First Person Singular –
actually some helpful dating advice. Is it too crass to count on
having sex with Devon July 20? (That’s as long a wait as I think
I can stand.)
12:45 PM Mon 4 July 77
Almost strangled the dogs today. Sam rolled in horseshit
in the park. Had to wash them both. Then they bothered me so much
during my exercises I had to lock them up. They howled. Penance all around. Ms. McManus invited me to see New York, New York
. We enjoyed Unsung Cole last night – and she is going to Martha’s Vineyard so won’t be around to make me her new chew toy.
11:25 PM Wish I could read the future. New York,
New York none too reassuring about male/female relationships.
Reading Leonard Woolf’s depressing Downhill All the Way.
His mind so different from Virginia’s you could call it “antithetical”.
Tomorrow’s excitement – double feature of Shame and The
Passion of Anna.
12:25 AM 9 July 77
Ryder’s divorce final. His relationship with me? Still in
“separation” phase. Trying to hate him but it’s not working. Pity
the petty man who revels in bondage. Feeling sorry for all his
future lovers is the best I can do. He would respect me more if I
was less sexually excitable, and that’s the ugly truth. Totally
resigned that Harcourt will reject Secaire. Went to Patti Smith
concert with Brett’s brother. Kind of fun the way she barks out
her poetry; but little too butch for me. He is an incipient pedophile
remarking on every thirteen-year old he saw (or possibly he was
just trying to annoy me.)
11:45 PM Sun 10 July 77
Loved Rhoda Lerman’s The Girl That He Marries
– never were reviews so misleading!
July 14, 1977
Power out in the whole city! Living by candles. No
elevator doesn’t affect us readers. Doorman up and down the
stairs with flashlights looking for old people. Dogs poop on
balcony. I seize any excuse not to write.
9 PM Fri 22 July 1977 – Mrs. McManus’ condo
Pevensey Old Farms
New deal: all I have to do for luxe pad is write an
article for Mrs. McManus’ real estate mag. I think rich people
are masters of bait and switch – I was supposed to be doing HER a favor – but of course I say yes. Contemplate novel about homicidal house-sitter called Other
People’s Houses but I see from Books In Print it’s been taken.
Lying here making new breakthroughs in the art of
writing sideways; disinfecting my ear from swimming. Wanted
to write about Monica Dickens’ Man Overboard or N Ephron’s
Crazy Salador at the very least make a New Plan for My Novel
but find I can’t. Was very “good” today – swam, bicycled, some
writing. Allowed to eat anything here luckily her food is not too
outrageous – hamburger and zucchini salad. Marinated artichoke
hearts.
Refuse to shred my nerves further by hating myself.
My body’s not perfect but I do feel on the home stretch to self-control.
Give me six weeks and I’ll be flying. Emotionally, I’m a mess.
Devon brought up marriage and I am smotheringly certain that I
can’t live up to either of our expectations as a parson’s wife.
Might be fun to try – but that’s not the point. I fear the idiot side of me that just keeps coming out. Can’t seem self-assured, playfully
grave instead sexually voracious and maniacally ridiculous.
Anyway Intuition told me he would call tonight between
8-10.
He called at 8:30. I cracked too many jokes – conversation
painfully bizarre. He seemed calm and unfreaked. He got a new
job that gives him more “room” (he’s a waiter- he’s sick of teaching
people) asked when he could “show up” and suggested tomorrow.
Moving a lot faster than I expected from my memories of
Shy Boy. Do I want to have my fantasies played fast and loose with in this way? (Am I over Ryder?) Do I want to get over him? Or are mismatches of Time & Desire my Fate?
I am certainly NOT turning down D’s offer to see what
there can be for us. Companion? Lover? Second self? Brother?
Alas he is too blindingly handsome for me to be rational.
If he comes tomorrow there won’t be time for more than
necking (has to get to new job by 4.)
Forget “July 20”, entered on my calendar as S Day.
I WILL NOT MAKE LOVE TO A SCHEDULE. We have to have
a night alone to make things happen. I can be patient – can he?
Well, I can be honest. Best anyone can do.
10:45 PM Back from a walk, reliving my years as teenage
prowler. And peeper. These walks are very informational as I spy
couples hanging plants & merrimekkos, having fights and pouring wine.
Macramé is de rigueur. Try to imagine Devon & me in similar situations.
Maybe he won’t be a parson forever.
Celebrate my freedom from R. Nice to know I can go to parties without fearing R’s paranoia & restrictions mixed up in his exhibitionism & flamboyance. Freeing me maybe to be those things. Fantasize
pleasurably about long drives with D – my hand on his thigh – separate but equal thoughts unfolding with the journey. My emotions a difficult horse to ride.
11:50 PM
Interrupted by phone call from R.
Offered to send me money. What is wrong with him?
He said, “You were right the way you always are. When are you
coming back to me?” Loves me, misses me, wants me back. He’s
been sick – Emmys a complete bust – his TV show cancelled – 2
directors actually fired (25 people in total.) Today’s the first day he’s
been back to work, amazed not to get a pink slip. He’s taking a two
week unpaid leave to go to the Finger Lakes and find his soul. If
they fire him so what. He refuses to take out of town job.
He really worked me over – gave me a bird’s eye
view of what life with him would be like. For example, said, “his
place is my place.” If he means “move in” he knows I’ll say no
because his skyscraper doesn’t take dogs. He asked, “When
do you come down to get your furniture?” I don’t like him having
all this information. Thank God for D. Six weeks to decide
whether I even want to return to Washington. I write a poem for Devon.
Walked around corner of my parents Cape Cod house to
The deck – there’s Devon sitting with his Mom and my Mom and Dad.
Waiting for me. He is still dreamily beautiful; cut glass profile,
muscles shining through clothes; a star. The understanding
between us electric as always – hope I did not gape too
obviously.
I felt a “reaching-out” from this shy man bubbling up
from the deep wells of his most secret personality.
Seemingly uncertain of his power and frightened by his own beauty,
Utterly obliterating poor hopeless, impossible Ryder, which is just what
The doctor recommended.
I must have babbled something as they gave
me a huge Tanqueray gin and tonic. Mom has that
wrinkle between her eyes whenever she looks at me
like there is no book I can publish, job I can take, no man
I can marry to iron out that wrinkle.
We hear them talking about us as if we weren’t there:
“1972 was such an important year for them, that Winter
Carnival;” “Why don’t they get together if they love each
other?” “Kids these days think marriage just a piece of
paper.” Just a piece of paper? You won’t get a rise out
of me over that. I pass my life in a blizzard of papers,
which may (or not) survive me. May (or not) bear any
ultimate meaning.
His Mom offers me studio apt in their ski chalet –
$125 month utilities included. Staking an early claim to
any progeny I may produce. I say, No thank you, I need
a city. Still, it gives one furiously to think.
When Devon left he lifted up my chin to kiss
me – tight familiar “everyone’s watching” mouth and
prickly blond moustache. He says he’s going to England
for a week. Invited me to Boston after. I imagine us
unpeeling at the station, two nude souls confronting one
another. Rank terror. The body reacts first, hands trembling
violently. All I could do to keep from just savaging him in
front of everybody. I could hardly hold my drink.
I am an easy catch, too. He quoted from my poem
“the one you wrote on the bus” when I visited him at Amherst –
I had completely forgotten about that one. Quote to me from
my own work and I become your slave.
Poor Ryder! He never thought of that! I know he will “feel”
This moment, the moment I lose interest in him; he will lift his head – wherever he is and whatever he’s doing – and come after me. Just when I don’t want him any more.
(The quote: “memories like stones I’m free to choose and
in life’s rivers, eventually lose”)
Still true.
Barnacle Cabin – Sat June 25 – 77
I can tell it’s early by the light but can’t find out what time
it is without waking someone. Health complete. Walked the dogs all over Heath Island, ran into Paul Morris who just bought the Burnside Inn. He invited me back for coffee and brandy, to show me the changes he has made. He sneered when he asked me if I thought “exotic dancing” was “art”. I said Sure, why not.? It can be. He read Boston Globe “exposé” on “strippers who are just little girls. They were all molested by their fathers.” I told him they get better tips by calling people “Daddy”.
Paul has a mysterious live-in girlfriend who refers to herself as The Sinister Chambermaid. Helping him renovate the place, traveling with him from Boston where he is a university professor. Since they are not married I wonder about their “financial deal”. Let me guess, she invests her labor, you own title and cash? But now I have a good excuse to stay at the Inn and I am considering it. They have electricity for my typewriter and the Barnacle doesn’t.
New York City, 96th off the Park Sat June 25 77 ll PM
Suffered through my sister’s wedding – a day of hideous
rain forcing us out from the rooftop garden to huddle in the restaurant.
I wore a gray silk backless tuxedo pantsuit – halter-top and bare midriff
– Mom did NOT approve. (Looked ravishing if I do say so myself.)
Someone asked Dad – about me – “How many of you are redheads?
And Dad answered, “Hardly any of us.” Bride tells me she chose Brett because he would make a good father. Says she’s coming back pregnant from this honeymoon if it kills them both (they take temp, every morn, etc.) Mom all dewy eyed. I feel like replaying a few “deleted” scenes from Genevieve’s past of which Mom is blissfully unaware but loyally refrain, thus retaining my title as Official Bad Daughter. Hey, it’s a pivotal job.
NYC 10:45 PM Sun26 June 77
Last night Avril came into my hotel room to stop my wailing and we talked till 2:30 AM. We both agree “fireplug sex” – you stand there while I spray you – is out of the question. She says women
who expect nurturing from men are always disappointed because men lack the nurturing gene. Hmm. This is not true of Ryder OR
Devon (it was true of Bruce.) If we’re going to talk about “nurturing”
we have to face the fact that plenty of mothers seem to lack the
gene too – they don’t care what you want or who you are they are just trying to smack you into “shape”. That’s the kind Ryder is.
Devon? Remains to be seen but the way he talked about my novel –
seeing me inside it – gives me hope.
Went to see 3 Women tonight with Best Man (Brett’s
brother) on the Doobie Bros principle of “why you in such a hurry to be lonely one more night?” But he is still in college. Immature frat
boy. Any relationship speculative at best. There’s Genevieve’s bike to ride when the physical becomes overwhelming on my 3 wk housesit (while they are on their honeymoon & Devon is in Eng) will pass fast.
Hearing I was “house-sitting” in NYC parents’ friend at wedding offers me another outside Boston – perfect for seeing Devon whose theological
college is nearby. That’s a definite yes.
I REALLY miss dancing. Yet creativity heals all. Conquers
my fear of ultimate impotence. The act of creation – even if others don’t agree – has a purifying effect. After all, we can’t live in other people’s heads
(it’s dangerous to try).
Tues. 28 Jun 77
Walk Genevieve’s miniature dogs, tend fish & plants, take bike
ride, wash hair, see Swedish flick Man on a Roof (long Lincoln Mercury
ad).Bought huge-brimmed red sun hat with single rose in Greenwich Village.
Walked HUNDREDS of blocks to NY Pub Lib but they won’t let me take anything out.
Planning next novel, A Demon Roused. Need to give Jewell some past
crime. Infanticide? But under sympathetic circumstances. Or maybe murder
of Stephen Ward-like pimp. Bad news at publisher: Harcourt acquires Pyramid and my editor dumped (lunch with her Thurs). Could be good news for me (lunch with new editor tomorrow). Trying not to feel
dragged in to dumped editor’s hysteria.
Out to dinner at Fiorello’s last night with Brett’s brother,
then Altman’s Images (which he knew I wanted to see.) He is trying to figure “a way in”. There is no way in. Images exquisite. Much better than 3 Women. Transitions so elegant they hardly existed.
Wish I could do that. Didn’t want to ruin it by talking about it. Very
reminiscent of La Prisonniere. My previous all-time favorite. Sent R. my Pevensey Old Farms address so he won’t harass M & D. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
Listening to Vivaldi and reading Haskell’s From Reverence to Rape –anything I can find around here. Genevieve likes novels andI HATE other novelists writing (usually). New editor Lauren changed our Monk’s Inn lunch to dinner.
Chuck Kornowitz offered to read Secaire – I invited him to dinner here.
Wed 29 June 77
Disappointing meeting with “editor”. I guess dinner went
as well as it could on the surface – but Lauren doesn’t like me and
eager to wash her hands of me. Damned if I know why. Trying not to take it personally. She is furious at being in “paperback division” (subtext: “throwaways” ) and says my new novel being read by someone else – guy promoted over her who used to edit Westerns.
Think she enjoyed my panic at this news.
Tried entertaining her with usually reliable Tales of Childhood but she was not amused. Probably considered it all bragging. She was what I expected, mousy bun, tortoise shell earrings, presumably raging hormones. Dinner with me was something she had to “go through”.
Work, not fun. Said she is forced to read two novels a day but prefers memoirs! That’s what she reads for pleasure. I ate snails with lots of garlic and I think she was a bit disgusted.
I conjectured you could take out an eyeball with those special snail tongs. Since she was not turned on by this idea I could see she is not the editor for me.
Snails were delicious, however. Anyone who loves mushrooms
would adore snails.
Lunch with on-the-way-out-editor Ruby a scary experience. She made me meet her at a laundromat where her clothes were in drier! Went to a Mexican restaurant around the corner, I ordered Sangria. She wore old jeans, ill-fitting shirt, had a price list in hand.
Trying to get me to hire her as freelance editor! She showed me
her poetry collection (awful: title “Twitterings”.) Says she has a
novel ¼ done. Praised me awkwardly by saying I am “a real writer”.
When I tell her I just want to find out what I need to write by patiently building house of cards in my head she tells me people like me are trampled underfoot by the thousand and I need her to make my novels acceptable.
Her qualifications are that she has been fired by all the big publishers (they are “consolidating”!) But she also expresses disgust with them. She is probably right on facts but she needs to work on her presentation.
I was horrified. Wanted to be friendly because she bought my book, but when I say why pay someone to rewrite your book in a way you might hate she say there are no guarantees in life. You have to go with whatever “works”. That she is notworking seems too rude to point out. I agree the world’s a dark wood but I need to find my way out alone. She drank 3 bullshots, I order coffee frantically afraid I’ll have to drag her and her laundry home. We split the tab both probably thinking the other should have treated (last time out was on Harcourt’s dime). I tried to act like I might be thinking about it but I don’t have a good face for hiding when I am absolutely appalled.
Purged my mind at Visconti’s Conversation Piece.
Especially reveled in the beauty of our modern Dorian Gray
Helmut Berger and the “footsteps of death” in apt. overhead.
Very Edith Wharton. Dinner at Old Ms. McManus’ Sutton Place apt. (whose Boston house I will sit next.) She shows off her latest antique acquisitions.
7:50 PM Sun 15 May 77
Justifiably proud – paid ALL my bills and sent off my
galleys. Nothing like money! (Stupid car needs a new clutch. It’s always something.) Able to refuse “help” from Mom and Dad who are dithering about whether I need to be institutionalized.
Told them I was working at a “restaurant” (Let them
assume waitressing. They know I can’t cook. PP does serve food; State of Virginia makes people who serve alcohol serve something to sop it up with. Good old Virginia. ) Sent M & D a DEVLYN cover.
$57 left in my acct.; $100 in my purse. (Open a savings acct tomorrow).
Ordered a beautiful Vietnamese print ($80) for Genevieve’s
wedding gift (last time she got married I sent candy. Well, I wasn’t invited!) Horseback riding did make me horny however – Ryder & I made love like a pair of wild animals. He may be compact, but he’s beautiful.
Cleaned the entire house. Now darkness falls .– it’s time to walk the dogs. How I love peering into people’s windows. When I get back, strong tea with milk and the “splendeurs et misères”of Monica Dickens. Or will I succumb to that modern master of the Grimm fairytale, Agatha Christie? No poetry, but plenty of trolls.
10PM Mon 16 May 77
Finally got a reaction from agent to Secaire. I was
physically sick when I opened it but she was full of praise. I could teach Poe, Verlaine and Mallarme a thing or two! She’s sending it to Harcourt but telling them it’s “too fine for a paperback”. Says it’s also readable, which is a thing more “precious than rubies”. I was really afraid of what she would say after our literary discussions and her poetry sneers.
So elated! Hit the library today and hit it hard – Nancy Mitford’s novels, Hilaire Belloc’s Letters, life of Brontë. Delicious dreaming.
5:35 Pm Broadcast Agency – 17 May 77
Enjoyed Helen Bevington’s The House was Quiet
cuckoos and thrushes and loblolly pines.
Bored to tears with this stupid switchboard job but you can’t say
it’s “hard”. I’m the last happy dodo in a world of dinosaurs – all this equipment about to be ripped out. In 5 mins I get to disconnect phone, walk to Church St (parking’s free in Mafia territory). Drive to Arlington. Fish sandwich for dinner, read about Unquiet Haworth while wearing G-string & stockings. (So appropriate.)
Expanding my house hunt to Rt 450. (Towards Annapolis; might need Dad to co-sign.) Obviously I can handle 45 min commute. (Don’t like rain, however.) Aware El Diablo is nothing but a hunk of junk. Future of American literature is fragile on some of these May nights.
Broadcast Agency Thurs May 19, 77
Only $134 in my saving acct and $7 in checking, curse that
clutch. Crisis brewing with R. He is jealous and suspicious that I am out so much in the evening. He’s the one who wants to be non-exclusive so let him sweat. I have too many negative emotions about him – that he’s a coward, for example. Which would make him angrier – if I was dancing or screwing some other guy? (Which I have no desire to do and he should know me by now.) I think he sees my privacy and aloneness as infidelity. While he’s doubtless experimenting with “goofy chicks” who’ve “never been touched”; I’m only “unfaithful” with Shelley & Brontë.
But that’s STILL too much for him.) After all this time if he still doesn’t realize I’m the best, the hell with him.
Worry about the dangers of psychic scars. They can SEEM to heal,
but sometimes they re-shape the life beneath. All I know, is, contempt is the ultimate relationship killer. To love is to be happy with! Boy scout methods won’t work with me, the sabre-toothed tiger. Our relationship may already be fatally spoiled by resentment and revenge.
Last night audience bored and hostile, but who cares?
Bouncers won’t let them show it! We are goddesses to be revered and if they won’t worship at the shrine they’re out. Compared to the Shalimar, Palace is sheer joy. We are never hassled. God forbid if they try to touch us! They are bounced on their heads in the parking lot. If I have plain grits when I wake up at 9:30 or 10 (also coffee and orange juice) I can last till 4. Hunger peaks at 5. Salad, then rush to work – when I get there I’m not hungry anymore. Would like to cut the burger habit.
Need to sew my G-strings but Merribeth can see me through the glass and she won’t leave. Reading Robt Fish as an antidote for poor Charlotte Brontë’s pain.
1:00 AM Plush Palace – 20 May 77
Four dancers tonight. Less work, more intellect. (!) Fred,
the cook, insists I try his potato pancakes and they are DAMN good.
Can’t say no. Long wailing phone call from Maeve this afternoon. Why is it we can see other’s relationships so clearly? “Dump him”, I always say. Am I telling myself something? R & I make date tomorrow night.
Now wearing black velvet, smoky eyeshadow, black stockings and glitter I look in the mirror and am astonished by my own beauty. Take that, Ryder, you poor bastard. Eight mins and I’m up – One more dance and home. Front table of impressionable navy cadets eminently shockable.
11:30 AM – Sun 22 May 77
It’s all over, baby blue. Getting up my strength for our date
tonight by sunbathing in back yard – literally cooking in coconut oil. R. complained on Fri he called me “all night long” and I wasn’t home.
Aww. Could have told him I was writing but lying just postpones the inevitable (because next time he’ll come over.) So told him I would explain on our date. A poem came suddenly : In the Butterfly Pavilion.
This evening you said you wished I was more conventional. I bowed my head. I did not speak. Outside the animals leaned together, Breathing lightly; waiting For my answer. Cats-tongue ferns Swelled up like swords, pushed out a stink Occluding fields of vision while The rabbit-bloodied lawn curled away. Phlox flamed Sows littered in the cyclamen Dwarf stars broke free as Frazzled molten ore raced across a sky Darkening to night. Summoning my power My hands stay folded in my sleeves. Nighttime is my kingdom. .
Exhaustion from the violent motions of the pendulum. I made dinner, but he refused to eat. He said, “I think I know what you’re going to tell me. “ I said, “I bet you don’t.” “It’s another man.” “No. I’m dancing again. I’m living here alone. I need the money.” (I should have said “it nourishes me UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE” but I’m a coward too.) He said very dismissively, ”Well, if that’s all you think you can do.”
He who read my novel! Bastard! He said, “Well, the ball’s in my court.” So I guess, that means “Game on!” (Was it ever off?) And he left! Put his dinner carefully away in the freezer (I’m not made of money) and took the dogs on an hour’s walk. Now I lie here again in Paradise – baking, basting, trying to recall every detail of the last time we had sex. Because that’s all I’ll ever get from him.
11:30 PM Session this aft with Chloe at Pacifica and a young PBS guy named John about writing a radio play for kids. I threw out some ideas. Then out for dinner with Chloe who complained that her husband has a mental illness given to him by the Army .
And I think that I have problems. I reject “victim” AND “slut”. The poet alone in her lofty palace. Feels like an abscess has been lanced. Heard about a great apt in Takoma Pk that’s OK for dogs.
Broadcast Agency – 4:20 PM – Mon 23 May 77
Present tenant says do not mention dogs so I am out of
love with Perfect Apt. Would rather have a house. Lots of calls today.
I seem to be getting fat – but I look so good – much too good for 128. How I hate to starve but it’s the only way. Need to be a fine-honed racing machine.
Considering entering Courtney in the Saxton fellowship. Can I get a readable copy? Lack of sex keeping me awake at night.
Now I know why people take drugs. Devon writes to say he’ll be in Maine on the island but not at Genevieve’s wedding for “financial reasons”. I plan to do my best to seduce him. Reading Mitford’s Wigs on the Green – not as funny as it is sad. Pastiche, really – Wodehouse is better. But I feel that way about E Waugh’s humor too – that it is basically tragic – “this is all we can expect”.
Asked me when I was moving, when going to wedding. He couldn’t be hinting for an invite – if I show up with him my family will have me institutionalized for sure. They never could figure out what I was doing with this hysterical little man.
We’ve said our fond goodbyes. If the ball is in his court, it died there. Need to buy a dress for wedding. Macy’s? My mother criticizes me for: 1) Making money 2) Caring about making money 3) Needing money AND 4) Buying inexpensive clothes. AND fake jewelry. A lady never – etc.
You figure it out. Finished Farber’s essays – very bad book. He seems to regard the female orgasm as some kind of personal insult – “Now I’ve got this to contend with!” We’re not doing it to annoy you.
Hopelessness on the subject of sex a grave inadequacy in a philosopher I would say. Merribeth sent me to the bank today – I was thrilled to get outside – when I came back Keith called down to say he was having lunch at the Hyatt Regency and had seen me walking and wanted to say hi! Nothing to say after that. I thought of inviting him to the Palace but what would be the point? Everyone would think he’s my boyfriend and it’s a tips killer.
12:50 AM Plush Palace – exhausted and bathed in sweat.
Man tried to crawl onstage with me. He was in the mood to dance!
Every dancer (except me and I guess him) is using Darla’s overdose death (suicide or accident? I say why not murder?) as an excuse to not dance. I like dancing. Passes the time faster and the tips are better. Steve managing tonight – he looks just like Dylan Thomas.
I keep expecting a Welsh accent when he warns the old men with their balls hanging out. Great tales from new dancer Charmian – she has toured the entire country. Just dancing. (She has the body of a seven year old. Plasters pasties on her completely flat chest. )
There’s a townhouse in New City I like the sound of but nobody EVER answers that phone. Tomorrow dinner with poor Avril and that awful Mason whom I loathe and despise. Couldn’t get through Babs Deals’ The Walls Came Tumbling Down – and Crystal Mouse was so good. Fortunately I have Steven Marcus’ The Other Victorians which is excellent. Pornotopia, indeed! Should have $1000 in savings by the 24th June.
3PM Wed 25 May 77 Weighed myself – I shouldn’t have. Lost two pounds but I can gain it back through thought alone. Reading Gore Vidal’s essays –like them better than his novels – unsettling man. Avril says Dad’s taken hotel rooms for everybody in NYC. New City townhouse a terrible shock – NOT to be thought of. R. called to invite me to the Emmys June 4. He had the nerve to say I’ll “always come back” to him. So I have to be careful not to, even when at night I howl like an animal.
I can’t trust him to “take care” of me.
7:45 PM Thurs May 26 Who knew the worst was yet to come? I was talking to A at Broadcast Agency and a call came in and it was Ryder. “Hello Broadcast Agency”. I said, “You’re on the wrong line.” He said, “Your private line is busy and I’ve got to talk to you. Need to come clean and beg your forgiveness.” Uh oh.
Yup. He invited another girl to the Emmys BEFORE me (that’s his story) she said she couldn’t afford to come, he invited me,then she contacted him to say she managed to get a plane ticket.
So he’s disinviting me! I disconnected him immediately. He’ll be lucky if I ever speak to him again. I ought to be glad it happened – I was dithering. Needed a decision maker.
I said to Charmian this evening, “Are you happy? I’m taking a poll.” She said, “Well, I feel all right. All that bothers me are asshole men.”
So true! I think the pain is over if I decide it is. Struggling not to be feel ashamed of ever loving that man. Distance is required. Distance & discipline. Dancing makes me feel better. I kicked really high. Audience enjoyed it.
3:10 AM Home dreading Ryder would be here – if so I was prepared to scream the place down. He wasn’t. Just a note – saying I was “right to get rid” of him. Calling himself a worthless shit! He said he’s “sinned” ever since he met me by refusing to admit how much I mean to him. The problem is it doesn’t matter. We are the wrong people for each other.
8:30 PM Fri. Plush Palace May 27 1977 The only place I can sleep is work, dozing off between sets. Not even masturbation knocks me out. Tempting to make Mon my last day but I should last out the week – I need the cash. Still have so much packing to do. Keith in my office the last day of Broadcast Agency work – I told him about the Emmys – he said it didn’t sound like a deathblow. Men! I had considered inviting him to the wedding – this decided me against it.
3 weeks alone in NYC house-sitting for Genevieve while she’s on her honeymoon. Parents will take dogs. The Blessing is an awful book. Nancy Mitford not cut out to be a novelist; she’s really not interested in motivation. Only wants a forum for her retro opinions.
4:30 PM Sat 28 May 77 – Plush Palace A girl left early so Laverne and I are splitting her sets. Courtly Jim of the hush puppy body and the Elvis Presley hair realizes he has to pay us more to keep someone onstage. Good tips – holidays make people feel richer. Only 3 days left.
7:30 PM Sun 29 May 77 Packed for six straight hours, ate yogurt and chicken, walked dogs now I’m lying on mattress more exhausted than I’ve ever been. Shoulders has agreed to store my furniture – we don’t need a van since his house is right across the street. Told him he can use whatever pieces he wants. Jim will be in to pay me Fri so I don’t need to trust the mails. Called phone, gas, water, elec people.
Don’t think I like EM Forster (where Angels Fear To Tread) – Henry James without the Henry James. Edwardian didacticism makes me miss James’s scrupulous objectivity. Why did he write this book? Because he’s “The Literary Type”. Compare with Woolf’s Unwritten Novel. Stagger about forcing myself to gulp Yuban. So enjoying throwing things away.
Wed. 1 June 77 – 8:30 PM Plush Palace $770 to take off with – not bad I think. Ryder tells me I am “fleeing.” Damn straight. Mom asked me what was going on – I said I proposed to Ryder and he turned me down. She was squeaking on the other end of the phone like a gerbil but I couldn’t help it. It’s almost true – I didn’t take her advice but showed him my true self! Too bad!
Reading Forster’s Longest Journey. Still feeling another story trying to get through. Pretty sick of the glory that wasn’t Greece. Everyone in book sanctimonious prig.
12:30PM Forster so foul I reread this diary. Deeply shaming. Maybe Forster is right: whatever you do, don’t write about what is actually going on – nobody may ever recover.
Opal took me out to lunch at Apple Tree – painless. Crab quiche and 2 Brandy Alexanders. An elegant poem unspools in my head about the difference between hummingbirds and hawks.
Will I go round in circles? Or will I fly high like a bird up in the sky?
Like me the hummingbird Transcribes inner space Half wingtip pinwheel Leaving outer reaches To the ragged hawk that flies alone The hawk is: I am what shall be
& sour cream – everything ready but wine. Too lazy to drive
to the Tick Tock. Day of ecstasy sorting books in new study.
Sections are: crime writing, Victorians, Great Novels, the Occult,
Women Writers, Cinema, Politics, Science, Children, History &
Murder Mysteries. (Move those downstairs.) Hating Orlando.
Why did Bowen write Afterword if she didn’t like the book?
Mon 28 Feb 77 – Broadcast Agency
Bad sex. Sore. Feel like I’ve been run over. Something’s
up with him. Mauled me again in the middle of the night. Guilt?
Surprise visit from landlord – heard about “violations” from
Montgomery County. Ha ha. Obviously only two people living here –
(nothing visible of Mason’s.) Landlord calmed. Says he wants to
sell the place. Would we allow to be shown? I said sure. Everybody happy. Sorry to lose such a beautiful house but it is too expensive for one person anyway.
Thurs. 3 Mar 77
Long talk with Avril about Mason. He is a racist.
She says how is it possible to feel superior to and inferior to someone at the same time? Human condition, I say. Spring wind makes me long to shed my clothes! Poor Ryder! It’ll be halter tops and hot pants the minute temp hits 65. Finally got a V. Woolf poem –
VIRGINIA WOOLF:
The Membraned Sieve
O bliss to be red admiral afeast
Upon a rotten apple in the grass; she dreamed that guiltily
Woke to Leonard bringing milk
Nessa dancing bear-like on the lawn, woke
To pain; cylindrical as seasons
Burning white and burning blue like friends.
The words fell fast, the blood fell faster;
Split the membraned sieve.
She raced the whitecaps out to sea
Parting the waves with her mother’s hand.
Keith and I still talk but he has made no moves. Relief.
Mon 7 Mar 77
Ryder says he talks so much about me associate director
Kerry’s asked to meet me. (He told Kerry he doesn’t deserve
me. It’s the truth!) I said he can’t come to our party at
The Plum – we have no room.
Sex too rough. Experimenting or letting his anger
out? Maybe I’ve stopped lubricating – my body’s ready
to quit even if I’m not. Wants me to wake up and smell
the coffee. Lunch w/Maeve at Carmac’s, me splendid in
I gave her phone bill – also letter from collection agency
about plane bill she said boyfriend paid for. He’s obviously
running a scam on her. She says she found a Bethesda
efficiency $180/month. Had to rush to get back to work –
then saw List of Adrian Messenger with A. Made up writing
schedule for Secaire. But the minute I start I get idea for
another work – story about father/ daughter/ stepmother war–
A Demon Roused. Who’s the demon? Reading The Ring,
the Book & The Poet.
11 Mar 77
Sent home 3:30 because B’Nai B’rith under siege
by terrorists (3 blocks away). Police will tell us when to
come back. Real estate agent leads inspector thru house.
Bad letter from my agent telling me not to try to sell “old” stuff,
write in “new” vein – but she means “like Devlyn”. No more
historicals for me!!!! Got to get out of this stalemated “love”
relationship – when I tax R with things he’s said, he
claims he “doesn’t remember” so we never advance
and I feel diminished. Had to tell him sex is over – I can
see he doesn’t believe me. Must ask for his key back,
that should do it. Dragged Avril protesting to Freaky Friday –
it was worth it. Barbara Harris Chaplinesque. Told Broadcast
I will work only one full day per week – must go back to dancing.
Read Ellen Glasgow’s The Woman Within. Trying to
rewrite Secaire in third person. Unsuccessful. Dreaming
about houses with deep, cool porches but tax people
giving me only $112. Avril crying over Mason’s “hideous brutality”
but she won’t break up with him. Ugh. (Feel my relationship mirrored.)
13 Mar 77
Made love with R for what I hope was last time
(he brought lubricant.) His body no longer a key to mine.
Think I’m started on Secaire Final Draft. God I hope so.
R will sulk for a while, then we’ll “talk”. Prayed for the first
time, to the “life source”. Pray away panic and disorder,
pray for clarity, purity, calm. Beautiful long walk. Heat like July.
Storm burst 4:30. Coffee, orange slices, do my nails. Re-
read Great Gatsby, pitying Fitzgerald the while. Someone
should write this novel from Daisy’s point of view. Exciting
way to get back into Courtney – but I don’t want to put it in the ‘20’s.
Told R I’m dating so had to invite Keith to All Night Strut –
he was pleased. Says he’s not hung up on men paying for everything.
17 Mar 77
Thank God for dancing. a fe moments of complete bliss each evening.
Everyone fussing about Scenes from a Marriage. It is excellent.
Reading good bio Dorothy Thompson. Novel going swimmingly –
suddenly feel fearless. Sex scene perfect. Why elaborate?
Why elucidate? Need to be out of this house June 1 – can do,
but should I return to dancing or take summer off? Undecided.
Mon. 21 Mar 77
Wish I hadn’t called Ryder but I did. He was very injured
by my sex comments. I said I was very injured by the sex. (He says he fears me.) Goddamit feel like turning in my phone if this is how
I am going to behave. Watched Upstairs Downstairs, Monty Python.
Felt better. All Night Strut amusing – Keith invited me to Voyage of the Damned. (He pronounces it Dam – NED. In a class by himself after all?)
Unfortunately not feeling the chemistry. Trying to take what pleasure I can in high heels and see through blouses. Could we just date? Secaire solid, beautiful, disturbing. Avril says its very exciting. Found a shack in Virginia for $200/month. But maybe I have to flee this state to eradicate R from my soul.
Bad date. I talked too much. Goddamit dating’s awful. Like those endless “teas” we suffered through in Girl Scouts. Sex is less work (not that I indulged. He has a repellently gooey corpus.) He took me to Alfio’s for dinner! Scene of R’s & my first date! Couldn’t resist telling him I used to dance at Shalimar next door. Keith invited me to his house in Potomac. I said nix. Dumped on doorstep with closed mouth kiss.
Shudders of relief. Walked in on Mason in a rage over my “betrayal” of Ryder!! I said he’s dating other people. Mason said but he loves you!
I didn’t say his love is a septic condition. (Because Mason’s love is also a septic condition. Poor Avril.) Happily to bed with Becker’s Escape from Evil.
2 April 77
Crisis at work sending my first cablegram to France – Keith showed up looking extremely handsome. Terrible suspicions novel is bad.
Off to splendiferous bash – literary party. Met Chuck Kornowitz,
editor from Athenaeum. Acted interested in my work – where can we have dinner? Took him to the Serbian Crown. He is NOT interested in my work he is interested in me. Damn. Told me the most erotic encounter he has ever had was with a stranger in an elevator! Feels sex with complete strangers has not yet been fully explored!!! Not by me that’s for sure.
He drove me home, insisted on walking dogs with me, holding my hand! Weird but I don’t want to turn him off entirely. (He’s old and ugly – looks like a Gila monster.) Fighting the impulse to call R and yell at him. Boy am I sick. Poor Keith does not know I need him for a rabies shot. Against hair of the dog?
Fri. 8 Apr 77
Agency offers me over-time while files are reorganized. More cash. We celebrate Avril‘s new job as fake nurse at urology office. She hasto buy a nursing uniform so patients won’t know. (Doctor not willing to pay over minimum wage.) Still, it looks classy. Went to Black Tahiti where I had sweet & sour shrimp. Turns out I need to stay away from booze because called You Know Who came right over and we indulged in mad passionate sex all night long. R was delicate and gentle – brought me to the edge several times before finally pushing me off cliff. Showoff.
Talked about me like he’d read my work. (Praising it.
Thought I’d be pleased.) Then told me he’d “busy” this weekend.
Steeerike three! Tragically I need a guardian, conservator AND a
bodyguard. (Keith doesn’t have the build.)
Chloe apologized for bad writing workshop with dinner
after at Armand’s. My advice to writers – learn what kind of writer
you need to be and get on with it. Found myself getting defensive about Devlyn – if I don’t want to write “that way” again it must mean there was “something wrong” with it!!! Bad advice from Ted Hughes :
“When you find yourself using someone else’s voice, stop at once.”
Nothing ventured nothing gained under that theory. This is not making me eager to hit the “literary events” as Chloe advised. The “noise” interferes with my working mind.
Hostile questioning from Mom and Dad who don’t know
why I don’t move closer to Devon!!! They say “playing the field” is
cheapening my brand. Reading Mrs. Starr Lives Alone.
Checked my acct – $54!! Don’t know where it came from
but I will spend it. Sent poems to Chloe Aparo, borrow bike from
Shoulders. Ryder wants to go horseback riding, we went to see
The Tenant instead. (Cheaper). R managed to discuss it intelligently.
Trying to research the occult for Secaire. Reading bad suspense
novel – Geoffrey Turtons Devil’s Churchyard. I liked all his other
books. Dump it for Aleister Crowley’s Diary of a Drug Fiend. $10
to live on for 2 weeks. Mom & Dad sent emergency check.
6:25 PM – Sun 3 Oct 76
Fabulous dinner party last night. Steak tartare, crab
and cheese casserole, lots of wine. R and I fall asleep in each
other’s arms. We have more sex “broken up” than when we were
dating. Got offered $3.50 an hour for 4 hr a day legal secretary!!!
Out of their minds. Trying to sell my wedding dress for $150 –
got one porno call.
Tues 5 Oct 76
4pm appt with Environmental Defense Fund. Howard
Nemerov such a relief after Auden.
Thurs 11:30 PM 7 Oct 76
Typical Tyler St evening. Lying in bed (alone) powdered
and polished from bath. Maeve and Avril out on dates. R is working,
I’m reading Quest for Theseus. Got too depressed reading
Shirley Jackson. Her life solutions: food and cigarettes – plenty
of both. Lost EDF job – as soon as they turned me down I
decide I want it! To WTTG to apply for “production asst” job –
200 people spilling into street! Didn’t bother. How write about
love if it’s impossible?
I owe Maeve money – she doesn’t like it and I don’t
like it. Tension almost unbearable waiting for my check.
R offered jobs in Pittsburgh & Detroit. (He says he
doesn’t ever want to leave though it’s the only way to make more $$.)
12:55 PM Wed 13 1976 These are the times that try
women’s souls. Desperately accepted switchboard job at Broadcasters Agency because it looks easy and I can think my own thoughts.
Replacing a girl going on maternity leave so I’m not stuck if I don’t
like it. Agent sent check told me not to cash it for a week!!! Thinking
they’re all scam artists. Reading Diane Johnson’s brilliant Lesser
Lives. Avril depressed over Mason. Maeve depressed over George.
I am buying diet pills because of sedentary job.
Switchboard – Broadcast Agency 9:15 AM – Fr. 18 Feb 77
New notebooks such a thrill. Always a fresh start:
I could almost become anyone. Worked 3 full days this week –
more $$ in the coffers. Avril coming in to Broadcasters Agency
to apply for Zelma’s old job – $8500/yr for 7 hr day. Hope she
gets it. Brought in The Voyage Out today – I WILL finish it –
bring it to its knees. Perfect example of everything usually wrong
with first novels. Don’t like her novels as much as letters and diaries.
Talk about peering through a glass darkly. Oh well. Still drinking
coffee and picking the fuzz out of my eyes. Period’s arrived with its
usual exquisite timing. Once I’ve finished Secaire (needs a final burst)
can rewrite Find Courtney. Sort of a love story there.
10:30AM Sun 20 Feb 77
R and I went on ski weekend to Massanutten.
Didn’t work. Never felt so far from him, and he realized it.
Opal & Garrett over for dinner last night – their relationship is
boring when I’m alone and don’t have R doing all the work for me.
Drank too much out of sheer boredom and because I was
depressed over R, then I get depressed over being depressed
and drink more. Clearly he’s worthless and I must be too if I can
get depressed over him. No good work on novel. Filing, cleaning,
paying bills takes up all my time and my room still looks like a filthy hole.
Hermiting seems only option (cheaper, too). Must learn to roll
with the punches.
Fantasizing about Devon because 24th is his birthday. Bad sign.
1:00PM 21 Feb 77
Dizzy from dieting. Not dancing very bad for my body.
Current weight 122. (Opal says I have the perfect body. Glad
someone appreciates it.) Ryder suggested jogging – bad mistake.
Instantly attacked by colds & flu. Instead of eating go to library on
my lunch hr to take out books. Went to see The Sentinel somewhere
in the burbs with Avril and Mason, who drove like a crazy person
(“I’m not afraid of death!”) Never again. Ghastly flick. Mason moving in
– his money is good. Another secret to be kept from landlord. A guy
at work (Keith Dalrymple) is courting me. He looks all right, though
he has receding hairline. Kind of old. Asked to read my novel. I gave
him my poems instead. He needs to hit the ground running.
Tues. 22 Feb 77
Mason trying to talk A into moving to Calif with him. Uh oh.
Maeve also wants to move out because I’m critical of her
“dating” her married boss (they have sex in the supply closet).
She believes his tiredest lines. “Drop him – he’s outrageous
and destructive,” I say. I’m one to talk. Will use her room for
my study. Try to live without roommates. Sent Devon a long
grey silk scarf for his birthday.
3:40 PM Wed 23 Feb 77
Keith Dalrymple amazingly told me he loves my
poems. Wow. Having good literary taste definitely works with me!
Having a drink with him tonight. Had to struggle to keep myself
from hurling cash at a gorgeous $50 suit in going-out-of-business
dress shop on Dupont Circle. Slogging through Mrs Dalloway –
it’s her best book. But all this blind struggle not my thing. Require
some consciousness. I guess we were reptiles in those days just turning amphibious.
Thurs. 24 Feb 77
Can’t seem to write poetry anymore. Cocktail bar buffet
with Keith (Avril calls him a “dim bulb”. We are very critical of each
other’s honeys.) He’s a Woolf novel – smooth glossy surface,
violence and trauma beneath. He is intelligent – quoted Frost –
38 yrs old – divorced (was married 15 years!!!) I sat swilling
Scotch and giving him the hairy eyeball – do I have the strength
for this? He blanched when I ordered escargots chablisienne.
Wouldn’t even kiss him. I demand exceptionality and refuse to settle for less. Whatever else you can say about Ryder, he’s definitely one of a kind. I am in a unique position compared to other women writers. Given the chance to rise above sexual
strictures. Bought an exquisite pair of very high-heeled boots. I tower over Ryder – in more ways than one. Heheheh.
time with one good idea: Manage transitions by IGNORING them.
Just start abruptly somewhere else and worry about it later! Outside
R sits in a lawn chair playing the guitar. When he falls silent he’s writing
down notes. He says I have a good effect on him, getting him writing again.
In the meantime, I made a list of literary essays I want to
write and to my surprise there were more than 20. When I get back I
will make a folder for each one and start collecting notes and ideas,
beginning when I feel I have enough. How to finish a book of poems,
finish and send out a novel, write 20 literary essays while working a
45 hr week? My heart quavers. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get a job
that isn’t straight typing – then having to type when I come home.
Balzac could have done it. Trollope could have done it – I don’t
think I can do it. But I certainly don’t want to lose R – he is a rare
being. I need a deus ex machina of some kind. Maybe my gothic
will sell.
So glad this is our last day at Summer Camp. Couldn’t say that to R –
he would think I hadn’t enjoyed myself. Last night he stretched
me out naked on his lap and played me like a guitar – most
delicious thing. Waves of ecstasy bulging, rolling and crashing
inside me. He says I’m so fun to please. Talks about how he
would like to adopt deaf children. This means I would have to
learn sign. Sounds good but I feel lazy and stubborn. Feel like
a fledgling – flight pattern undetermined.
R. wrote a song called Blue Lake Blues. Bad. I wrote a
poem called Diaries. Don’t know what I think of it.
Diaries
I don’t remember anything –
I’m an amnesiac so
I write everything down
Stuffed in my closet
Beneath discarded ball gowns
utterly useless but
too beautiful to throw away.
Recollect & treasure
Acts of writing
An up and over downtime scrawl;
Recall a surgeon
Cutting flesh
Tugging, swearing, splitting ,sweating
peeling waste from want.
Fierce liftoff –
Airborne I’m granted
Hawk’s-eye vision
Backwards , forwards
Past & future.
Too much dig is spoilage-
Freedom mined
Invaluable.
Club Shalimar, Mon 23 Aug 76
Should be glad to be back but I’m so depressed.
Everything so mixed up. Promised R I’d get another job so
now I have to look for one, which won’t be pleasant. God
knows what I’ll have to say I was doing. Once when I was
married I tried to get a loan and of course they wouldn’t give me
one without “collateral” – something of which I’d never heard.
Dad said tell them I had a basement filled with gold bullion.
I guess I could just tell employers the bullion ran out.
Then I walk up to the club and whose car should be
there – but R’s. He had told me he wouldn’t come in as long as
I was working there. He said he just needed to talk to Rick because
Rick is helping him feel better.
I think what will happen is that I won’t work there any
more but R will drop in when he feels like it. I want to “ban” him
but I even more don’t want to be having these conversations.
He says I just do it for the money and because it’s easy and of
course that’s perfectly true. If I got $500 a week from writing I
probably wouldn’t dance.
The fact that something feels natural and pleasurable
and doesn’t leave you feeling depleted at the end of each day
isn’t a point against it to my way of thinking. He’s just an old
fashioned sexist pig. On the other hand he is a special person
and I definitely don’t want to dance forever.
Sometimes I think the whole problem is that he’s
getting a divorce and he’s so unready for a relationship he’s
giving me hoops to jump through. But even if we got married
I’d have to be at financially independent – he’s just too different
from me for me to trust that he will agree with me about what’s
right for me. My theory is it doesn’t hurt to look for a job. Maybe
I’ll find something special or interesting.
11:20 PM – Avril called – R staggered in dead drunk,
said “Call Alysse and tell her I’m here and set the alarm for 5:30”
and then passed out on the sofa. I told them to hide his car keys
in case he wakes up and tries to go someplace. I’m glad he’s safe,
on the other hand I’m annoyed that he’s been touring the bars.
He plainly didn’t go to his apartment, drink and then go to my
house. My guess is total strangers up and down Wisconsin
Avenue have been hearing his heartrending saga of the misery of
dating an exotic dancer.
11:00 AM – Tues 24 Aug 76
Lying in the same bed where R and I made love five
hours ago – just finished Tyler’s Clockwinder. Puzzled by the
lack of passion in her strange, sad, minor novels. Tonight R is
picking me up and taking me “someplace” – I have my eye on
a little restaurant – where we can talk it out. I hope he’s paying
because I have exactly $177 to live on till Sept 7 and $125 of
that is rent. I’m trying to look at the future calmly – I love him,
he loves me – who knows what may happen?
2:40 PMWas feeling so much better I was going
to work on sending out poems until I looked around at this place.
A and I desperately need Maeve to live here to help out with
expenses and she is not the tidiest person. A says she never
cleaned her other place after the party and it smells like a
dead body. I cleaned and now I feel better but not in the mood
for literature – more in the mood to take my dishpan hands to
the mall. However I won’t because it would just result in
expenditures.
3:40 PM Obviously R doesn’t really respect me.
Otherwise he wouldn’t manipulate me like this. I don’t think
he cares about me being a writer at all. He would actually
like it better if he could introduce me to people as “my girlfriend
the insurance agent.” That makes sense in his little world. I
could break up with him but I’d have to find another place to
work anyway – he’s ruined Shalimar for me. One can understand
and deplore and get mad, but the alternative is loneliness. All I want
is to go out and have fun, have someone to play and smooch with.
Finding and then cultivating such a person is incredibly exhausting –
and aren’t 99% of them only going to have the same (or worse)
reactions he’s having anyway?
10:40 AM Thurs 26 Aug –76 – Club Shalimar
Yesterday morning Maeve and I lingering over coffee
and chat – no one wanting to return to their life – and the phone
rang. It was editor Ruby Jenkins at Pyramid wanting to make an
offer on my book. She says it has a lot of wit and depth and is
really extraordinary and if they don’t take it someone else will.
That’s two editors on my side. Asked all about me – so I told what I was
doing, schools, what I’d had published – that Harcourt just turned down Find Courtney.
She’d called my parents in Maine because she couldn’t
get in touch with my agent but left a message. I just put the
phone down and screamed for 20 solid minutes. Then went to
Shalimar and quit – gave them a week’s notice.
Didn’t tell them about book – Carmen guessed about
Ryder – narrowed her eyes into slits and tried to tell me a
lot of terrible stuff about him, about how he always pursued
dancers – although she admits, after me, not any more. She
said if I ever need the job again, they’d give it to me. That
was nice. Randy the bouncer had tears in his eyes because
he says I’m so amusing and no one else can make him laugh.
R’s “celebration” was to take me to Garfinckel’s at
the Montgomery Mall to buy me underwear. He takes it
strangely personally that I don’t wear a bra or underpants
half the time. This could have been a fun, even erotic experience
but he was so weird I almost had a nervous breakdown – so
bizarrely controlling like he doesn’t know what presents are.
The missionary purchasing fig leaves for the natives! Felt
offensively “managed”.
If he had bought me lingerie and given it to me
that would have been one thing. I could take them back if I
didn’t like them. This was if he were my parent or something –
I really can’t explain why it was so insulting. I finally allowed him buy me
a pink silk robe, which I refused to try on – of course it will fit.
Duh.
We should have been celebrating. Not only can I
quit dancing but they’ve put him on the eleven pm news and
now we could have mornings together. But at the Japanese
steakhouse he really acted wooden headed. I think it’s some
sort of a gender problem – men understand that their self-respect
is tied up with autonomy but they seem to think the opposite
must be true about women. I’m trying too hard not to despise
him. Anything I could say sounds hurtful.
At the very same time he’s trying to “tether” me he’s
trying to free himself. He said, what if I want to take another girl
out? And I said, well you can but you have to tell me about it
before hand. He said, I know how I’d feel if you said that to me.
I told him he probably doesn’t have to worry – I can’t imagine
wanting another man. Now he’s “scared” I’m going to become
a famous writer! So we went back to my place and made love
for three hours and it was very satisfying. He was all over me
and it felt like the last time in some critical way.
To me he seems less like a man getting out of a
marriage than some kind of shipwreck victim who has never
seen or imagined our society and is becoming increasingly
excited about the sexually liberated possibilities. How can
we avoid breaking up over this? Can’t I just get a fat check
from my book and be a young writer about town? I sincerely
hope that’s the way it will go. Reading Rose, my years in
Service about Lady Astor’s maid.
Sat 28 Aug 76 Shalimar
Ryder tried to pressure me not to go to work by
saying “we shouldn’t be seeing each other if you’re dancing”. I remind him
we have a dinner party coming up and a vacation in Maine!
Why the hysteria? Reading Henri Peyre’s The Failures of
Criticism. Last set.
3PM Mon 30 Aug 76
Wakened by air-conditioner going on – Ryder
climbing in bed with me fully clothed so there would be “no sex”
– of course that didn’t work. He is very upset about my sense
of physical freedom – said wouldn’t “let” me be painted in the
nude by Andrew Wyeth! I pointed out that his wife was his
ideal woman – totally restrained and untrained and ignorant
and unavailable in every way he wanted – and he hated it.
Can’t understand why he has to be such a jackass when all
his dreams are coming true.
3 Sept 76
Just back from the worst vacation of my life. Both
Avril and I took completely unacceptable men to our parents’ island –
alas, my man was the most unacceptable – doing nothing but
fighting and sulking. He finally said such unforgiveable things I had
to drive him to the ferry and push him off into space. His last
words were “I love you.” Day late and a dollar short. The worst
things he said were that I dress like a slut, anyone looking at
me would instantly assume I was a prostitute. This was said to me
while I was wearing my gorgeous emerald scarf tied around my
breasts and my long denim skirt and Nefertiti necklace and looking
like a goddess for parents’ dinner party.
He said if I don’t start wearing a bra my breasts will
be “ruined” and he doesn’t want to wake up age 35 married to
only a “mind”. (The mind is in fact quite unimportant in his world.)
His wife, he assured me, always dressed most tastefully –
nobody desiring her ever. Didn’t cross his mind that the fact
that she was dead-on-arrival in the sack and her inability to
enjoy and celebrate her own body could be in any way connected.
He told me my poems are awful and self-indulgent and I
live entirely in my own head. I was finally forced to tell him
that what with his long hair, leisure suits, stacked heels and
man-purse most people just assume he’s gay.
But who cares what “most people” think – and
would we even ever know? He reallygot on my bad side seemingly
justifying rape – women “ask for it” with their clothing, male
self control not an issue. I said if a crazy girl escaped from an
institution and ran down the street naked would men be “ justified”
raping her? He said yes so obviously it was over between
us from that moment. The truth, of course, is that he was
overwhelmingly jealous from the second he arrived on the island
– possibly earlier – by the fact that I am a separate human being,
who has ever existed out of his sight.
17 Sept 76
It really is over with R. My fault for going so fast.
R leaving messages on my answering machine every day,
trying to make me jealous with “don’t call back tonight I won’t
be in”. Finally decided I owe it to him to tell him where I’m
working – I know he thinks I returned to dancing – the
scum. Sent him a card saying we should meet for dinner
in a couple of months. Appt. with Georgetown Employment
Agency 10;30 AM tomorrow.
12;25 PM
Ryder came by to pick up his jackets. He said,
“You’re the most valuable person in the world to me.” Trying not
to goad him into pyrotechnics, so, showed nothing. He was calm,
played with the dog, kissed me on the cheek and said, “I love you”
and left. He is worthy of a hefty Freudian tome all to himself. I want to send him a copy of The Intimate Enemy but he wouldn’t
(couldn’t) read it. He’s totally about not wanting what he has,
having what he doesn’t want, wanting something else and
hating himself into the bargain. I pity anyone involved with him –
mainly I pity me – still fixated on his worthlessness apparently.
Washing the dishes in floods of tears. I bragged to him that I didn’t want to change him – that isn’t true. I don’t feel I have the right to change people while he wants to specify every detail about me.
The worst is I know how he would exult in his power over me.
Still wearing his black coral diver’s cross as a charm. When R
says dismissively “Be free” he means “Be alone”.
Sun. 12 Sept 76 – 12:05 PM
Yesterday turned down job at art gallery that would
have been wonderful but paid dirt. They say I “might” get
commissions on sales. Have a feeling Mom and Dad would
push for it – it was very upscale – just didn’t feel right to me.
FINALLY letter from agent; Pyramid offering $2500
advance, 6% to 150,000 copies, 8% thereafter, a few minor revisions.
Always less than you think but not as bad as the gallery – I say
hells yes. Still have to find job; something that lets me write.
I called Ryder with info, left message. Have to go
to NY to sign contract so job hunt suspended for now.
Mon 13 Sept 76
Avril and Mike met me and Ryder at The Royal
Warrant for drinks to celebrate my book. I wore long sexy
purple lace-up dress – nothing he’d object to however.
(Royal Warrant because their drinks are huge.) Wore
sandals with kitten heels and I was still taller than him.
I wonder if that’s what this is about. I invited him home after
and he accepted. He concentrated on making me come. Said
he can’t consider dating a girl who doesn’t wear a bra. I said I
might wear one in my first pregnancy. Gave him my copy of
Intimate Enemy when he left. Reading Brownmiller’s excellent
Against our Will.
11:45 AM 14 Sept 76 – Tues. Boiling hot.
I need a full-time psychiatric nurse, vicious guard dog
and a secretary. Phone ringing off the hook. Agent called
reversing charges. Ryder wants to celebrate his salary bump.
How can two people who despise each other as much as we do
want to have sex all the time? Beats me. Ryder’s latest charge is
that I wrote a novel for money. Get it? I’m a prostitute! Then he
marches off to his yessir, nosir job whistling. You can’t win with him.
Cheered myself up reading old diaries about my marriage. At least it’s not as bad as that. I used to lock myself in the bathroom to howl.
Reading Simenon’s Venice Train. He is too mannered.
Ryder forced me to look at his island pictures – I am the
ugliest beautiful woman in the world. He tries to use this against me
but of course we were fighting the whole time. No one can be lovely under such conditions. Does “love” entail not just “sacrifice” but loss of identity? Went out and bought a pair of six inch heels. When I am with Ryder, I love him but when I’m away, the cloud lifts.
Attempting to seduce Devon by sending him a copy of the poem Cedarwood Chest.
Cedarwood Chest
Grandpa died young that’s why
Grandma never opened
The Cedarwood chest
Till my twelve years unlocked
The scent of dreams preserved
Like mullet in red wine.
Never used the wilting nightgowns
Featherstitched sheets
Between whose coffee-colored creases
Bay leaves crumbled
(Like my reserve when you laid hands
Upon it) how it
Comes back that mossy sad
Perfume! I want to lay
You away in darkness and tissue but
I can’t
I must use you and risk
Your wearing out
God knows what he’ll think but I know he’ll give a better
reaction than R. Lunch in NY 12:30 Tues – have to take the 7 AM
train to make it work!
7:45 AM Mon 20 Sept 76
R’s latest accusation is that I fell in love first!! So weird.
Reminiscent of Bruce. Some version of gaslighting? It’s a definite
power grab. He said he was “embarrassed” by my emotional intensity!
I have a feeling he’s trying to cobble together a story he can tell other
people. As for me, I’m trying to figure out what really happened. Used
to think R’s lack of experience wouldn’t affect us but I can see it really
has. Got my hair cut; of course I think it’s too short. Dreading what
Genevieve will say.
10:40 AM Wed 22 Sept. 76
Woke up after horrible nightmare in which Jacqueline
Susann showed me her cancer to have R drive me to the station.
We’re in a financial nightmare – A’s rent check bounced twice so
expenses going up. R says I have to start an exercise plan –
since I can’t dance. He’s hilarious!
Lunch with Ruby and my agent. Agent (Ruth) was euphoric.
Starting to feel the book was written by a stranger. I tried so hard to
make it English and Victorian – I NEVER want to do that again.
Can’t say THAT, obviously, especially after Ruby remarked I was
“so good looking we should make it a series.” Devlyn’s best gothic
they’ve ever read! They both drank heavily while disagreeing with
virtually everything I had to say about poetry and literature. Their
recommendation: write a love story. Pity we don’t know what love is,
isn’t it? I MIGHT be able to manage a sex story. Oh well. Genevieve
full of secret divorce-and-getting-together-with-hush-hush-sweetie
plans. Don’t tell her husband Kent anything. He asks me what’s going on –
I play dumb but not too well. He must know something’s up.
Awkward! Walk to library and back thinking about St. Secaire.
How make that a love story? Everyone’s a predator or an idiot.
Alysse Aallyn 