7:45 Pm – Plush Palace – Thurs 12 Jan 78

                          Called Jervaze and suggested we do something tonight – he acted enthusiastic.  I said, “Should I be calling you?  Wouldn’t want to call too much,” and he said, “Call all the time.” Ryder–induced horrors dropping away one by one.  It’s snowing – I’ll go straight to Jervaze’s. (He’s close to club.)

    4PM Friday, Jan 13-78

                          I think Jervaze may really be an angel; one of Milton’s 

sexed up angels who took a wrong turn to our planet by mistake.  Some anxiety is relieved. We never did get to go anywhere – stayed in bed. Bliss. 

But if this doesn’t work I will damn well marry Devon whether he likes it or not – I can’t take much more of this.

                          I’m at my desk hammering out letters – trying to answer one from the island realtor. The studio apt has “no cooking facilities”. I don’t care but the realtor does, she has a house on the pond for $175  “long lease” she wants me to take. Says it has a Franklin stove and I could “bike to town.” I admit I’m interested. Jervaze has offered to come to the island with me in March –

 I really shudder at the thought of introducing him to my parents, how to tactfully say, Please don’t ask him about Ideas and only offer him one drink.  

                          Last night I let myself into his apt, took a shower, tried to use his sparkingly hazardous blow dryer, gave that up, crawled in bed with him. I had lots of Ryder-induced fears that he wouldn’t be there, in bed with another girl, etc.  But no. There he was, nude, gorgeous, asleep – and when he woke up, happy to see me.

    5:25 PM Plush Palace  – Sat 14 Jan 78 

                          Snakes dropping into paradise one by one. First, although Jervaze is incredibly easygoing – it is impossible to get him to state a preference about a movie or a restaurant, for example – (had to drag him to Eastwood’s Every Which Way But Loose)  I can tell he is nervous about introducing me to his brother and sister in law. Should I just suggest we lie about what I do for a living? I guess that wouldn’t really solve anything.  

Sartre is so right.  Hell IS other people.  Then there’s my mother – the latest demon fondling my ear.  Once a woman has made herself vulnerable to a man, she’s through.  Uncommitted sex brings out the worst in men, blah blah blah.  Because it’s “too perfect” ( his point of view).  I am “causing him moral hazard”. Yes, I tell the voice, 

and it would be perfect from MY POINT OF VIEW TOO IF YOU WOULD JUST SHUT UP.  WE ONLY STARTED DATING A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO. But one can’t shut out THAT voice so easily.   Mystified by Willard Gaylin’s  irritating Caring.    He acts like mutual dependence or interdependence is some “failure” of personal autonomy.   

Powder Mill Road – 11 PM Sunday 15 Jan 78

                          Jervaze “dropped by” this afternoon.  Since it’s such a 

long way from his place to mine I was astonished.  Is it that I can no longer believe a man will climb mountains for me? Or is it just my sensitivities to Jervaze’s strangely inchoate “disabilities” warning me and sending up red flags?  We had a nice talk – he seemed faintly down –

then he had to leave because he needs to get up extra early tomorrow.

 I was in too good a mood to work on my novel, bought clothes instead. 

3 pairs of pants, sweater coat, five pairs undies, one pair gauchos. All clothes 

size 7. Packaged MSS when I came home so as not to feel too unproductive.      

                          Coleridge poem taken by Virginia community college 

screed. No money. (Natch.)

                          11Am Tues 17 Jan 78

                          Reading Evelyn Waugh’s diaries over my third cup of coffee with open mouthed amazement.  It seems almost a work of fiction. Try to imagine these whines and wails ever appearing in print! Imposserous as Bert Lahr would say. Thank God for The Victorian High Colonic: a pre-mortem bonfire. Highly recommended, my dear.

                            7:30 PM No word from J so I assume he is really coming to eat dinner here.  The evening’s menu: sherry and smoked oysters, cheese and crackers, burgundy and manicotti stuffed with crab.  French bread, banana nutbread and coffee for dessert, if we make it that far without attacking each other.  Need to watch the drinking – had two glasses of sherry while cooking and am definitely feeling it.

    2:15 AM Wed 19 Jan

                          J gone – he had to – no clothes here.  I let him go

 fairly gracefully – after hours of sex without anyone coming I was happy to be alone. He’s definitely an alcoholic. He gets away with it by never seeming drunk (only once in awhile. His “tell” is he wants to talk about Alabama.) But he’s also never not drinking. He seems too young but it definitely explains the physical problem.

    11Am

                          Avril came to consult about a bad date. Glad her classes start tomorrow – Limbo an unpleasant place to live. Need to walk dogs now 

– going to AFI theatre tonight to see Next Stop, Greenwich Village.  

Time keeps chewing us up and spitting us out.

    1 PM Thurs 20 Jan 78

                          Excellent morning lying in bed reading Byron. It would 

be lovely to be rich – it would not be lovely to be Byron. 

Another deeply rooted legacy of Ryder’s is that I now expect others to constantly lie (to themselves, above all)  about their motivations.  

You can only judge by what they actually do which throws all planning 

into the crapper and means you’re stuck with a lot of confused, open mouthed standing around waiting for disaster. I don’t make promises either – I just don’t say anything – which fact apparently caused me to assume I’d really enjoy a relationship with a totally nonverbal type like J. 

                            Turns out: noooooooo.   I torture myself about what he must be thinking and feeling which – let’s face it – may not be much.     Wish my royalties would arrive – I’ve spent them over in my mind a thousand different ways. 

Can’t do anything about island property, travel, car, or self-publicity without them.  Capital expenditures, all. I am making dinner for A at four thirty to hear all about her first day of classes – then I go to work.  Love driving down the highway with the other “night shifters” – I always think I can pick them out.  Our special sense of purpose makes us different.

    Sunday 24 Jan 78  7:30 PM

                          Read Popcorn Venus, saw Julia, so alternately 

depressed and cheered by turns. Thinking a lot about “impure relationships”. 

How innocent to assume those are the ones with certain kinds of sex in them. In actuality, it is more the hostage taking mentality that is to be feared.  Can one just “Glance in” so to speak and then hustle the hell out? 

                          I’ve been so scared off,  I am having a non-relationship. 

When Jervaze is not in my bed, it’s as if he never existed. Would I be surprised 

if I found out he had some secret life?  Hell no, I’d be encouraged. I think the truth is he watches football alone, gets drunk, sleeps and works – 

that’s all he does. 

                         I liked Julia because I am interested in the question 

of what repressed sexuality does to relationships – does it change them?  

Seems it would have to. Well, you can fool some of the people… Starting to re-think Courtney.  Worst novel ever written?  If so, what can I do 

about it?  Is it too late?  Tell it from the cat’s point of view – something radical like that. Write it in blank verse like Spoon River Anthology.  

Jervaze is mystified that I read by choice. Avril says “Don’t you get it? 

He’s a mud puppy.” What can I say?  I’m such a sucker for male beauty. 

    Mon. 23 Jan 78

                          Enraptured by biography of John O’Hara.  Starts brilliantly – 

describing his study at the time of his death – framed awards, Cape Cod lighters, bound diaries. Everything just “perfect” the way poor F. Scott always dreamed. The novels were steppingstones to the study, not the other way around!  I am feeling alienated from my study at the moment. 

Have decided that my typewriter table – a board atop a wine rack – is all 

wrong.  A and I went to Hechinger’s and studied several “office systems”. 

 Plastic cubes $70 even for a looksee. I’ve set my heart on satinwood so I guess next stop antique stores. What would an antique typing table

 look like?  A dressing table is the right height?  Sans mirror?  Wouldn’t want to look at oneself while working! First step to madness! 

                           When I work without interruption, time vanishes.  Maybe it’s like riding without spurs: you become the horse (one’s deepest self). 

 J. showed up Sun night.  We drank sherry, played cards. He is getting to like sherry, which I’m afraid, is my fault.  Someone needs to go on the wagon and I don’t want it to be me.  Heard via the rumor mill that Ryder broke his leg skiing!  Ha ha! Did he get insurance for that?   Maybe he wasn’t kidding and he was trying to kill himself.  I just don’t understand people like him.  He approaches everything as “it’s you or me” so the mountain let him have it although frankly I’m surprised it wasn’t someone else’s leg that got broken. Maybe he killed the other guy. Sent him a card – he’s “recuperating” at his parents’ house on a steady diet of Italian food.

    Thurs 26 Jan 78

                          Jervaze came in the Plush Palace last night and I talked to him until Eddy got restive. Turns out he has horrendous financial problems – 

including hospital bills for a kidney complaint. Probably will have to sell his car even though it is a part of him like his cowboy hat. I was feeling carefree and immortal and suggested he move in with me – he’s thinking about it. Now of course I’m aghast. What if I gave him Avril’s room and he started bringing girls home? I could listen to them making love for hours and hours and hours – no one ever coming. Would I be jealous or would I feel sorry for her? See, this relationship is complex – I am wanting to run like hell or place an ad for “Needed: Goal oriented individual – good at sex – not too inflexible.“  Hopeless.  They have to get stiff and then hang loose at just the right times – “Impeccable timing”? A tall order, I know. 

                          Today I had trip to the dentist and letter from Mom –

 trip to the dentist was easier.  (He told me I have a “runner’s heart”.  

Did not tell him I was a dancer.  Said I was a walker.  True – since 10 mos old.)  Mom says that if I really loved her I’d get a decent job. She and Dad offered to give me money so I don’t have to dance.  Respectful endowment of course would be great.  Unfortunately, they only mean, “till I get over my sickness.”

                          Happy to turn ‘em down flat.  Mom keeps saying a 

feminist wouldn’t allow men to look at her in a sexual way. This is my 

mother of the “Marilyn Monroe dress” (still hers and Dad’s favorite.) My mother who has always turned heads and received accolades as a major

 beauty, with drunken men pawing her in European restaurants, dazed Arab men following her down the beach, stoned college professors slobbering over her at parties.  All “her fault” apparently!!  It’s a critical component of hers and Dad’s relationship that he “captured” such a “prize”.  

But all this must remain unsaid or “someone” will boo-hoo.

                          Who would bother to deny the roles of biology and 

acculturation?  I’d like to live off my writing – but it is rapidly becoming apparent that to do that you have to write to “their” taste. And they have such bad taste!  Plus, I find I covet anonymity.  In spite of my profession of “being stared at”, I feel like I am the observer. It’s a heady sense of power.  

This is theatre, after all. They may think they sit in darkness, but I can still see them.

                          Off to visit Ryder and his broken leg.  Took him cookies and magazines – cookies I did NOT bake myself.  I wondered if I would end up telling him about Jervaze – flirted with the idea – he would be scared to death if he ever caught sight of that beautiful, beautiful man.  That’s what J is best at.

 But I would be doing it to hurt him and since he has always accused me of doing everything to hurt him (born on an island, sentenced to prep school, losing my virginity to someone else, writing) it  seems as if actually doing it I would 

be “giving in” to his worldview.  I must remain a refusenik. In the end he never asked me about myself;  but talked incessantly about him.  Trying to impress me, like on a first date. 

                          Looking back on it I think he’s just trying to stoke any hots I may still have for him.  He’s never bought into his own “friendship bullshit”;

 he doesn’t even believe it about same sex friends. The universe is fundamentally competitive and we’re all crabs in a barrel trying to step on each other’s heads to get a better view. Eat or be eaten, baby!  He made allusions to the fact that  “you” only value things you work hard for… or things you’ve lost.  Ha ha – zinger!   A grenade lobbed at me. 

                          The visit left me feeling uncomfortable – frustrated – 

 vaguely “one down” –  but unable to put my finger on it. From the way his sisters treated me I have a horrible feeling he tells people I was the love of his life but wouldn’t give up my selfishly immoral lifestyle.  That’s what he would do, the bastard, act like he was the victimized one.  I hope his leg heals crooked.  

                          Probably a good thing I didn’t mention Jervaze – he looks so good but he’s totally non-nutritious and collapses like a creampuff on scrutiny. We’d have to live in Alabama – he’s made that very clear. I can’t even imagine him having a conversation with another person in front of me. 

He has no family pictures. I’d drop in on him at work just to catch a glimpse of him interacting with humans but it’s the Pentagon ! They wouldn’t let me in. He’s only a repairman, too, so he probably has a completely fictitious personality there.  

                          Still working on Waugh’s diaries.  Hard to avoid the 

conclusion that he became Catholic to avoid giving up his pride.  

Just another elegantly exclusive men’s club.  Anything to get out of “becoming human”.  You know.  The way Jesus did.

                          Almost midnight – last costume change of the evening. Pink and black lace, pink gladioli in my hair.  Black tassels, the works. Gentleman Jim – now a magnate with a string of clubs  – was in earlier – I was dancing my absolute best – wild applause – the crowd was chanting  my name.  But when I went to find him to ask him for a raise he was gone. Next time. 

                          This is the time of the evening Zombiehood sets in.  Jervaze comes in earlier and earlier – he asks me to come over, I don’t have to bring it up.  

Made me promise to wake him.  I told him I would be “merciless” with him. 

 He wanted to know “how merciless”.  He is pretty cute.  He wasn’t wearing my ring – said he took it off at work because it was bothering him. Uh oh!

 I can imagine. What an idiot I was to give it to him.  Tips have been good –

– I think I’ll buy a steak on my way over.  He doesn’t eat well at all. I am so hungry I have been stealing saltines from the kitchen.

                          No excitement here. Neither Gina nor Mary pregnant as they thought. Turns out both have flu.   The new girl, Maggie, has been telling me she’s got $35,000 in parking tickets.  She is one of those see-through thin girls who can’t dance at all – but has a great sense of humor.  She injects bute directly into her knees, as if she was a racehorse.