Waiting for cocktails, I discover a flaw in the divine Miss Elizabeth Bowen. She doesn’t like to admit that she is of the same clay as her characters. Those creatures based on the Mosleys she repudiated utterly as if creatures from another planet. I’ve got news for her. Creatures from another planet are
not that interesting.
Last night was one of the most traumatic family
Evenings I have ever experienced – I think my eyes are still puffy. I heard we would be having Island People to dinner – he used to be a university president/professor so presumably would be good company – they met because somebody was the bridesmaid of somebody else’s bridesmaid so there is a connection. It started with me wearing a green silk shirt, my denim gauchos and hardly any makeup (yes I wore eyeshadow) and being told by Mom that my “get-up” was “more suitable for a bar.” (All of a sudden she’s an expert on bars.)
Harvey and Edna turned out to have “heard of my job” –I gather in some commiseration session on Incredibly Unsatisfactory Children – however they refuse to accept that there is any difference between being an exotic dancer and being a stripper (hello! I don’t strip) and somehow Harvey
segued from castigating “exotic dancers who try to feel superior to strippers” to criticisms of “ total sexual freedom” which apparently means that “everybody should jump on everybody.”
I tried to dignify this mess by explaining that it is actually the reverse – in the “old days” under the “ancien regime sexuelle” a dancer could expect to be “jumped on” by “anybody” because of her job (like poor old Degas’ ladies) but that actual freedom for women would mean a world in which one could be a barely clothed dancer (I would think anyone would admit nudity is at least an equally valid way of expressing the art of muscle –
line and form as heavily costumed artificial approximations) without it becoming some sexual signal that one has “lost caste” and therefore privacy and choice. I recommended Susan Brownmiller’s book to this painfully ignorant male (God knows what he taught – he had never heard of Brownmiller – seems to have her confused with Ti-Grace Atkinson assuming she mustwrite books no self-respecting intellectual would read (maybe he was the type of university president who just brings in wads of cash).
He challenged my premise that the ultimate societal freedom would be for unattached females to not to be under the threat of rape every minute. Harvey insisted – with a perfect straight face that women rape men every bit as much as the reverse – “psychologically of course” which he says is just as terrible – and in fact probably even more so since we all know the “physical thing is no big deal” and often does people a “favor”.
I must say this does not reflect very well on his wife Edna but she was smiling smugly so I think she may have just been too obtuse to follow any of the arguments.
I really could not cope with this free-for-all avalanche of idiocy especially when my parents played their trump card – if bars where women sit in front of a drink and watch barely clothed men cavorting don’t exist, therefore this is an antifeminist exercise and my claim to be a feminist is a
sham. I think it was at that point that I burst into tears. Which of course was
totally demeaning. I sorely missed Avril’s assistance – she refused to jump in
but made peacemaking noises like “you both have a point” (untrue – their “points” are a disgrace). Ugly Harvey apologized – what a monster! but there could be no satisfaction in it for me at that point. Avril went walking with me until they left.
Alas, waiting till they were gone did not end the discussion. Mom and Dad pounced on us to drive home their point that the male animal is a violent dangerous creature barely contained by the civilizing influence of the female. (Guess they can’t get behind Harvey’s “female rapist” idea.) Of course they are going to rape any female who lets down
her guard for a second and it will all be her fault. (Didn’t Ryder make this case?
I’m ashamed to share a world with these people.) Any kind of a sexual display (I guess the beach would certainly qualify) is a declaration of :
“Jump in boys! It’s free today!” At least they recognized Harvey’s
behavior as extreme (“Two drinks and he’s lost” was Dad’s comment.)
Basically, as long as I work at “that bar” I’m the
“lost cause” and if any decent male finds out about it our relationship will be over in a trice. This kind of thing makes me wonder why I bother to visit them. Fortunately, I’m escaping soon, but the whole ferry reservation problem means one loses the right to fight irretrievably with one’s hosts on this island. Dad’s bigmistake was giving me an example of a good marriage as Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett!
Did I blow my top! He probably thought I’d listen to him if he produced a literary example. He wasn’t aware that not only were they not married but Mr. Hammett was married to someone else and cheated on poor Hellman whenever he could manage to stay stiff long enough. (I really didn’t want to “get in” to the alcoholism problem. Lillian tried to make him seem like a “mentor” but honestly she was just his keeper and bail bondsman.)
11:30 AM Friday, 24 March 78
Staggering down for my first cup of coffee when I heard Harvey’s voice in the kitchen. Thank God I heard it in time – if he had seen me in my baby doll nighty I guess he would have considered himself justified in pinning me immediately to the floor. He brought me a hibiscus flower as a peace offering.
A more significant peace offering came from Mom and Dad who gave us each 100 more shares of stock. I tried to refuse it– they insisted. I warned them I’ll only sell it. Maybe I’ll be able to buy a new car when I get back. I could use it.
Spent last night trying to read Welty’s Bride of Innisfallen, couldn’t get my mind around it. Read Faithful Are the Wounds instead.
Very like a stage play – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Powder Mill Road – home – 8:30 PM Sun 26 March 78
Can’t describe the ecstasy of being in my own
place. On the island I am hideous – here I am beautiful. The loss of confidence there is so severe as to actually induce delusions. Now that I am back I am ready to tackle my existence brilliantly. As always.
We got in last night in the pouring rain – 11:30 PM
– Avril had coffee and left. I read a soppy love story and slept in my Own Bed.
Today we did laundry, went to see a bad movie – actors working madly away to no effect. Tomorrow I get mail – hope there’s lots of it.
Did get a beautiful poem out of the island –
Peacock Pavement: The Poet on her walk – submit to Denver
Quarterly – which has been very polite about me lately. They’ve shown an interest in my stuff though nothing has ever been exactly “right.
Very tired. Shouldn’t keep working with this intensity but my new discovery of shaky financial position means I have to. When I “have to” do anything it makes me feel soiled. Wild idea of getting pregnant by Jervaze. He’s pretty enough. But what would that fix? Only my biological clock and my finances – permanently. Fixed in a downward direction if you get my drift. Finished Sarton’s Mermaids,startingTyler’s Caleb.
6:30PM – Plush Palace – Tues 7 Mar 78
A triumphant day. Like some manic-depressive,
I am in my high cycle. Probably from reading Elizabeth Bowen –
The Cat Jumps. Amazed at how much I like it – much better than Death of the Heart. She leaves me feeling a writer can do anything. I see my book now as thirteen short, sharp, clear scenes. Why can’t I do it any way I want? Tonight I have To The North to look forward to.
Plush Palace – 11:PM Fri Mar 10 – 78
Wednesday I broke up with Jervaze to make him finally go home. Thursday he called me. I got the impression that in the South it’s when you break up that things reallystart to get interesting. Apparently if I wanted wild declarations I should have done this long ago. Fortunately, I can handle this
on the phone. It’s that glorious body dipped in platinum dust that I can’t say no to.
Finished Bowen’ s World of Love and To the North.
I can’t believe she was ever popular – I like her too much. She suits me exactly. What a stylist. OK, forget plot, character, those little appurtenances.
She makes them seem so unimportant. Imagine recasting Courtney in this light. I guess her style is too forties, but would that be necessarily a bad thing?
Avril called. She and I are crutches to one another, but I like her better than any man I have ever met. Watched Monty Python, steak dinner, then she helped me paint my new four-poster bed. (Gilt, of course. Gives me a new title – The Gilty Bed.) Watched La Femme Infidele sur le television while consuming an appropriate wine.
Plush Palace – 11:PM Sat Mar 11 – 78
I was in too good a mood today. Bought a new costume from Maureen just when I AM JUST ABOUT TO LEAVE FOR THREE WEEKS, but it is yellow velvet and fake sapphires with armbands and everything – a beauty. Good work on novel, ate hamburgers (and eclairs) with Avril, wrote a good letter to Devon
– in answer to his weird one to me. Struggling with Eva Trout and The Ponder Heart. Nix on both. Fortunately, also have a June Thomson murder mystery for a chaser.
Avril and I assembled my bed – canopy and everything, it looks smashing with its hangings of brown lace. Then she called Mason in Calif to see why he isn’t sending her stuff – he said he’s seeking another estimate – they had a rational discussion but she was obviously very shaken when she hung up. I teased her that he is wearing her clothes and probably looks good in them.
Plush Palace – Wed/Thu Mar 15 – 78
No London in my future. I’ve accepted it. I need
affordable breaks from this life – two weeks in Maine, one week in Boston, etc. A and I going to Maine tomorrow. Avril spent the weekend comforting Opal who is upset about the failure of her marriage – it’s the old story – when it’s the woman’sturn to be babied man withdraws, making frightened, threatening noises.
Finished Sarton’s Kinds of Love. I can see why
some people like it. It kind of has a “National Geographic” feel to it – here’s a guide to the “foreigners”. But it is not a good novel – it’s Faith Baldwin through and through. Reading Sarton is like attending writing class – she never loses the miasma of the eager student and she has a lot of interesting ideas. But, remarkably for a poet, she is deficient on the mystery end. Perhaps she doesn’t understand that a novel is another kind of poem. Lots of Ructions here tonight: Gina and Jerrilee fighting and I have to play peacemaker (because there’s nowhere to go from the dressing room other than the alley or the ladies room and no guarantee rabid fans will stay away.) I haven’t packed – will be up till 4.
2PM – Shadowe Island Sat Mar 18 – 78
Every time I come back to this beautiful island I wonder why I ever leave. Dogs are in paradise. Mom and Dad relaxed, involved, charming. Avril all defensive about the “failure” of her life with Mason so I am off the hook – temporarily.
I’m reading The House InParis – restores my high estimation of Bowen. The trouble with this island is that the rest of existence vanishes totally when I am here. I am eating too much but the food is so fabulous it would seem immoral to resist – roast lamb, new potatoes, spinach quiche, sour cream gravy, stuffed mushrooms, strawberry trifle. We stayed up late reading Ruth Rendell’s mystery stories aloud, then I fell asleep and I had the most delicious erotic dream about J – much better than the real thing.
Felt what it would be like to be a deep-throated cello vibrating endlessly.
Mon Mar 20 7:00 PM -78
Why is it around my parents my self-confidence takes a nosedive? Every fingernail becomes deciduous. I had better call Plush Palace and get put on next week’s schedule. Finished House and began Heat of the Day. My mother asks questions that reveal her to be jealous of all the reading I do. Her delicate hint – she would feel “lazy” doing so much readingbecause there must be something that she would be neglecting. I tell her I, on the other hand, if I were not reading, would feel guilty. (As well as deprived.) Thus we must differ. The great thing about Eliz B –
– she writes like no one else.To criticize her would be like saying the plumed flycatcher has a little too much plume.
Managed to prevent Mom from inviting “young people” to a “weenie roast on the shore” for me and A. We are here to HIDE. She was very nice about it. Do imagine I could live here. Listening right now to Haydn’s Clock Symphony. Now that would be a great title for a short story about an unattached woman in her late twenties…
Avril and I have wonderful conversations in our twin beds like a pair of teenagers home on holiday from school, listening to the distant waves crash on the dark shore. I realize we could still be feeling like thiseven when we are a pair of decrepit old maids – which is probably why families like to stay together. You are timeless for each other. She asked me which of my boyfriends had known me best. I think Toss Sheffield –
certainly better than my own husband. But this is not a flattering conclusion since he seems to have run wildly in the opposite direction
What a day. Lost a contact just before bed, which put
me in a hideous temper. 1 ½ hrs sleep, drove Avril to the Laundromat, did laundry, bought cosmetics, picked her up, went to lunch and visited broker.
Just like the other rich girls except for the Laundromat part. Then to MVA, got MD license renewed, new address, not too horrible photo. Avril flunked her test must retake Wed.
Back to house managed 2 more hrs of sleep. Woke
up feeling cheerful and streaked hair with L’Oreal. Still have a rotten cough. The trouble with being sick is you can’t imagine yourself well.
Intimations of mortality. Ate lasagna with Avril, then off to work. Jervaze dropped in second set, said his car was fixed, seemed cheerful, said his sister-in-law (whom I suspect of being The Pirate Queen) is reading my book “to figure out what kind of person I am” (uh oh). He left during my 3rd set without saying goodbye. Should I drop in on him? Tempting.
He also asked to read Demon. Hmmmm. Avril of course thinks I should clamor for “boundaries” “rights”, “clarity” and “definitions.”
I am embarrassed even to tell HER that this is all completely hopeless.
I’d have to set him on my knee and move his mouth. I’d end up defining every term and he would immediately forget anyway. Anyway, in my experience, the less “clarity”, the better the sex. Once things have been completely defined you no longer want to touch each other.
Missing Devon of all people. He must be sick of
Gwynne by now. Where will he find another like me? But it’s always a bad sign when I plunge into “default” mode. So, I dropped in on Ryder to take him by surprise. He was there and it was worth it. Gave me a gorgeous massage. I gave him my cold. We are at the wrong points in our life trajectories to connect in any meaningful way. Picked up Holt’s Lord of theFar Islandwhich one of the other girls is reading. Unbelievably
crappy. Why do people prefer this stuff to mine? Oh well. Feeling better –night almost over.
Sun. 12 Feb 78 – 10:20 PM
Psychic tremors driving home. But when I walked in the door everything was fine. It’s so comforting to be surrounded with one’s own stuff – it seems to assumes a personality – like a separate self.
A reassuring stand-in – someone who “goes on” for you when you’re tired.
Very busy weekend – Avril moving into her own place – sorting, packing, cleaning, buying. Moving. Hard physical labor since we are doing it all.
“Mother Truckers.”
Rushed on to work with my arms aching – J. showed up.
His body seemed solider, less fragile. I gave him a comforter for his birthday
– he seemed to like it – we went to his place to watch Harper– side by side like an old couple on the couch. I’ve decided he reminds me most of some wild animal. He always wakes up like a deer finding itself in a cage. He seems to be just now comprehending that I’m there. He insisted on pleasuring me –
I just accept it. Said his body “hurt”. I wish I could convince him that caffeine, junk food and alcoholare his enemies, but he is too stubborn to believe it.
I fear a return of that kidney thing that felled him before. I’m afraid our relationship belongs to the bar and his apartment, however.
Can’t get him to go anywhere with me; he is “tired” and he works enough that it’s a believable excuse. He’s so beautiful you’d think he’d be more of an exhibitionist but it’s just the opposite. Three days off. I need it. But on the whole I am pleased with my life.
1:45 PM MON 13 Feb 78
Lovely dog walk. My desk collapsed under piles of books, so I bought new furniture – unpainted. Cleaned, redecorated spare room (A’s old room.) Looks good. Decided just thinking about Jervaze is channeling myenergies away from writing. We have a “sexual friendship” –
so there. That’s Hugh Hefner’s “highest good” so presumably some people would be happy with it. But Jervaze has no influence on my life-plan. Ryder called.
We had a decent conversation.
5:45 PM Snow pouring down – four more inches
expected so I decided not to go out. Last night was the first night I’ve actually been unable to rouse Jervaze – so I just left – went home dirty and sleepless to a couple of short-changed dogs. Now it turns out he’s in the hospital undergoing tests because of “passing blood”. Medieval sounding. Does he have those big black knobs under his armpits?
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. The sister in law phoned with this info, also gave the brother’s number where Jervaze will go after tests.
9PM Plush Palace – Wed 15 Feb 78
Jervaze quite drunk when he came into the club this evening – said he’s turning in his notice and returning to the South. (I wondered if they
fired him but didn’t ask.) I was so upset I walked into the men’s room by mistake! (No one in there.) He did say “or I could live with you.”
This does not sound good to me. My monogamous soul does not aspire to a lifetime playing nursie.
10PM – Plush Palace – Thurs 16 Feb 78
3 sets done – I’m exhausted and my legs hurt but I’ll survive. Spent the afternoon with Chloe and Dennis Parks at WPFW taping a vibrant show on paperback publishing. Really enjoyed myself. Avril came over for dinner and helped me paint my new study furniture. Got a frightening letter from the IRS– I phoned – turned out that they think I owe them an extra $56! They can have it.Electric bill $76. Disappointed by Noel Coward’s Future Indefinite, seeking escape instead in Mona Farnsworth’s Dark Wood. I deserve escapism after all I’ve been through.
11:40PM – Plush Palace – Fri 17 Feb 78
Just finished Rosenberg’s bio of Dorothy Richardson. She seems just like me – then when I get to the end of her life – poverty & anguish! Oh dear!
4:00 PM Mon 21 Feb 78
Lying in bed – hair set – an hour to go before work.
Spent all day tidying study – including file drawers – if I was to die this minute I would give everyone the impression of being a hardworking artist and an astute businesswoman. Maybe I shouldn’t wreck it by ever going in there again. Gregory’s book about Dorothy Richardson – lots left out.
Putting myself to sleep with Homage to Daniel Shays –I must have already read this because all the essays seem so familiar.Very unpleasant Gore Vidal attack on Anais Nin.
Plush Palace – 7:45 PM
Lots of comforts in this job. Inhale the pleasure
of a messy dressing room, so full of life & hope. I was sitting down taking out my curlers when GiGi asked me to do her last set – her knee hurts – so I put on a gold G- string and did one setwithout makeup.That paid my electric bill right there. Settle down with Anne Tyler. Comfortable.
10:30PM – Plush Palace – Thurs 23 Feb 78
Avril came to work with me – I’m having a great night.
She met a guy here she likes who asked for her number – he seems nice, but he must have the problems intrinsic to all who haunt this place – alcoholic or druggy – or just unmotivated in some fatal, fatal way.
Paz’s been telling me her new honey’s too “big”
for her – makes her bleed. That can’t be right. This triggered an
avalanche of gynecological horror stories that ended up with all who
are interested examining Fatima’s hanging “meatus” left over from a “botched childbirth”. She has trouble tucking it into her G-string!
I declined inspection. Missing an opportunity other writers would have
jumped at? Will I need to describe this someday?
Sun. 26 Feb 78 – 9:45 PM
Jervaze actually showed for dinner last night – while I was stuffing the baked potatoes – we had a wonderful evening, played Clue, very good sex. Said his sister read my “gothic” but called it Too Victorian.
Disguised praise? I decide to think so. He asked me to visit him in Alabama.
I’m sure there’s a novel in that but do I want to be the one to write it?
Then of course he had to leave early. I called Avril – had kind of a psychic flash – a feeling of trepidation about the human condition – she said she had been sobbing all night. Are we going no place? I asked her. Is it all an illusion?
She said she feels she once hada home and family but somehow lost them and now can’t adjust.She has a life others would envy – young college student with her own apartment in DC – but she wants back something she never really had. “Neva vu” ex-husband Bruce and I used to call it. The unrecognized familiar. I am reading – very appropriately – The Troubled Helpmate. Misogyny in literature.
9:30 PM Mon 27 Feb 78
Love the drive between my place and Avril’s – taking not New Hampshire Ave but Riggs Road. Blind turns and non-sequential lights give me that old country feeling. We had just seen The Parradine Case. Interesting. Good jumping off place for other ideas. I like the form.
Could I manage novelistically the “outsides revealing insides” that film so confidently assumes? Day started badly with non-working electric blanket
and slowly building headache – probably from finishing reading Helpmate –
– what a chronicle of lacerations.
Tues. Feb 28 1:15 PM
Left message with agent – why no check? I was
thinking of going to England in two weeks, according to my old timeline.
Doesn’t seem possible now.
9:50PM – Plush Palace – Wed 1 Mar 78
Jervaze in to say goodbye – off to Alabama for a
few days to set things up for moving there. I did wonder if it was
the last time I would ever see him – but from the way he clutched
my hand and kissed the air (illegal to kiss here) that can’t
be true. But remember the way Devon carried on about me and then disappeared for years? Men are strange. So who the hell knows.
3 sets down. Dancing superbly if I do say so myself. Ticking like a clock.
Friday Mar 3 – Plush Palace – 9:15 PM
I am forcing myself to write this. Jervaze came in tonight, very drunk and crying. (Sold the Shelby. They gave him some kind of middle of the road muscle car in return.) Would he carry on like this about me? Now that he has the money to go to Alabama he doesn’t want to. What made me think he would actually complete something just because he acted so definite? I am hampered by my physical passion for him – he is so gorgeous. Those dents in his thighs alone are worth everything. But I can’t start mothering him – it would be the end of the Life as We Know It.
Finished Tyler’s Tin Can Tree – I see why she
likes it least. Characters blurred. Reading Wm Trevor’s Elizabeth Alone
– too many curlicues.
6:55PM – Plush Palace – Mon 6 Mar 78
Eventually everyone in this job gets bad knees –
something to do with dancing in six-inch heels. I would be better off if I just walked around like some of the other girls, but my narcissism demands I be the best. I can see guys in the audience poking each other when I come out – “that’s her” and that alone makes it worth it for me.
On the other hand the presence of Jervaze seriously diminishes tips – he needs to go away so I can make some money.
A and I were restless after dinner last night and
went out dancing. Big mistake. Defensive, boring, hostile men who count like drill sergeants while pretending to “dance”. “Do the hustle!”
Much expense – no pleasure – after three brandy and sodas I was content to rack out on Avril’s bed at 3 AM. I need to up my writing to 10 p a day – I do NOT need to party.
Amazing letter from Devon about how lovely
and precious and gifted I am but he can’t see me because he’s too deep in his own life. He’s still searching for the perfect lover and has no clues. Well, I guess that’s honest. Should be flattered he’s trying to preserve our relationship at all. London is beginning to ebb away – looks like I’ll only get a few hundred dollars. There’s a downer. So why aren’t I writing?
Reading Crucial Conversations by May Sarton.
You’d swear it was written by an eighteen year old with no experience of life whatever. However, its very brashness gives me the courage to jump back into my own book.
Jervaze and I were supposed to go out Sat night – I had the day shift and he said he’d pick me up. I waited 20 mins before going to his apt.
There he was with a little blond beard on his chin – lying on the sofa very depressed. Told me to go to the concert without him. By myself?
Wouldn’t that be fun! I was aghast – tried arguing with him – he said he wasn’t leaving the apt. So I said I’d stay with him. Went out and bought fish and chips and beer. We watched Sahara, then Saturday Night Live.
Pitiable. Made love in the shower. In the AM he refused to come out to breakfast with me, and I really had to go home to the dogs. He gave me a good hug when I left but do I want to drag this inert man through all the stages of intimacy?
Called him today, he was very blue. Homesick as
always. Takes alcohol for depression! Can’t figure out whether to go over there or leave him alone. I really need a better invitation – my choice is to stay away.
I don’t think he’s actually SUICIDAL although if he stopped drinking, he might be. And how could I tell? He still has his car so he’s either asking too much for it or he’s doing nothing about his problems. I bet the latter’s the case. Reading The Letters of Charles Dickens in conjunction with the Life. Decorated A’s old room with Dad’s old charts –
– looks pretty good.
Dancing well – I can’t give a bad set. Remembering what Devon said about skiing – the body does the right thing – if you “get out“ of its way. J came in – in a much better mood. (Some new “magic” elixir, no doubt.) He must have called to get my schedule because I didn’t tell him. Asked him if he wanted me to “drop by” after work – he said it was “up to me”. A question of wanting what you get.
I think the traditional male female role thing may be reversed in our case. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of those pretty guys who’s always been pursued and as a result he feels like a “thing”. Never developed a self, so to speak. This is what comes of being so hung up on beauty. But when I look at the assemblage of clowns, predators and weirdos soliciting for my hand my heart fails me.
Wrote a difficult letter to Devon in which I answered
(long overdue) his about Gwynne and frankly (but with masterful subtlety) –
went all out to make him jealous of J. Cheap of me, but I have to have somefun. He started it: we are reduced to bragging about our dance cards.
I don’t think you can truly have a “passionate” relationship with a guy who doesn’t want exclusivity because of then of necessity you’re required to hold something back. Dad called, says he’s sending me more stock “for tax reasons” (I.e. it’s really mine and they’re making him.) Then said in a very depressed way, “I suppose you want to sell it.” I wanted to surprise him by saying NO but that would leave me feeling manipulated so I said it depends on my royalty statement (which it does.) Due in 3 weeks.
Mon midnight 6 Feb 78
Fri night J was in the bar getting slowly snockered. Very proud to take me home. We had our most passionate sex session yet –
– 5 hours! Of course he couldn’t come. We finally quit because I was exhausted. I am out of love with Tantric sex. He told me the sexiest thing I do is play with my breasts when we make love! I only do it because he doesn’t! The big lug.
He asked me what I would do if I accidentally got pregnant.
(He knows about IUD.) I said have the baby. Of course I didn’t
tell him that I might not inform him of the fact – depends on him
and the state of our relationship.
Which raises the important question: do I want
an alcoholic baby? Wouldn’t you be watching it throughout childhood to see if it favored rum candy? He said he hoped we’d get married because a child needs a father. I think this might be the way an Alabamian proposes. Surprising how totally un-good it felt. I almost got as depressed as he is. Jervaze, who has the beauty of an angel-god, is no better than a drifter. Even I am shocked by my own taste. His life is guaranteed to go from bad to worse because of his fatal Hamlet-like inability to take charge. Clearly he needs to be the full time project of some managing woman. This is bringing out all my masculine characteristics, some of which, frankly, I was hoping never to see again. I am also bothered by the fact that he can’t have serious conversations. I would say he absolutely does not know me at all, and appears satisfied with that.
I probably also don’t know him, although I am beginning to face the fact that there may be nothing to know.
The drama of my own existence is important to me.
There’s a full cast of characters and A LOT OF PLOT SURPRISES
and he hasn’t even opened the book. It’s frustrating because it makes everything less meaningful. I feel I’m in a bind, though, because he’s definitely the best of the bunch in all the bars I’ve danced. Most attendees are married men looking for fantasy, fun and excitement. They are the dancers’ favorite because they’re established, generous and sometimes they actually leave their wives. This happened with Ryder –
– although he always insisted (and I believed) it wasn’t me, it was him.
(And her, presumably). The best you can do is “catch them on the cusp” of divorce. The “singles” men come in three kinds – total losers who can’t manage a relationship and that’s what they’re doing in a bar like this, guys who need you to quit the minute you start dating them because “no girlfriend of mine” blah blah blah. (More R). The third is guys who are fine with you dancing – in fact they want to be your manager. Several dancers have fallen for these guys and often they marry them. He buys their costumes, drives them to and fro, bargains with the club owner and even looks after the kids.
The good ones don’t just drain her money, date the competition or beat her up.
(Those are rare. But exist. I’ve met them.) Only now she can’t ever quit!
Take Lida for example. Lida’s in her 40’s and can’t be seen in the light of day. Although she has a perfect body, she is real scary in close up –
– gets the worst clubs and shifts – here she is strictly a fill-in. One dancer and her boyfriend live in a van, going from club to club. He sits in the bar for every set and that has to be OK with the management.
This would seem to mean my parents are right that I can’t meet nice men because of my job, and although I don’t want to go all apocalyptic, it is hard to see how this can get better. I could meet someone through my writing –
if I were a different kind of more public person but I just can’t seem to change. (I’m getting happier and happier Being Me.) Probably my best bet is to go back to college –
– I’ve been wanting to – take a class here and there (a lot of dancers do this) and
date guys without letting them know what I do for work until I know them really well. Money is the problem there. More capital expense. I make good money and I should be able to afford it, however it doesn’t combine well with my plans to take time off and travel. I would have to work constantly which so far I have been too spoiled to do. A light schedule keeps dancing fresh for me –
– it’s also good for my writing. So I should probably compromise and
take one class – something nice and cheap like adult ed at the community college. I’ll think about it.
Sat night J was all withdrawn again. I don’t think he wants me to coax out of him what the problem is; I think when he is in that mood he really just wants me to go away. So I do. Avril says I’m being an idiot – that he is clearly in love with me – in her definition, I’ve “arrived”. I could get him to move in with me, structure his time and tell him what to do.
Maybe that’s what he wants but it certainly isn’t what I want.
He’s so depressed about his family — and it is too late to lie to them about what I do because his brother (whom I’ve still never met) “already knows”. Could I change my name and get away with being someone else entirely? Tell me again why should I go to those lengths?
He would just appall my parents. This would confirm every bad thing about me they’ve ever said (and they’ve said a lot). It’s really one of those tragic Victorian love stories (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) except that maybe its more SCI fi because we’re from different PLANETS. I’m beginning to think he’s actually “cast off” by his family –
– that’s his deep dark secret. His alcoholic behavior “ruined” him in his
hometown somehow. (He did graduate high school. He says.) He’s the horrible albatross from the Coleridge poem (or he’s trying to shift it off onto me.) Under the apparently inexorable rules of sexual attraction, once again he’s a weird mirror image of me. But instead of being a drunk (which my parents would prefer) I’m a poet. Probably in the South it all comes to the same thing. In the North it’s almost the same. Here we’ve got actual mental illness thrown into the mix.)
Can’t say my advice which is heought to write them off . He totally buys into their rejection and who knows, maybe it will save him in the end. “Dump your family” was my advice to my ex-husband, so possibly it’s mewho has the problem.
Mom and Dad asked if Jervaze was an intellectual and I said,
“Well, he’s reading my book.” I didn’t tell them he’s been reading it for the past two months with no end in sight. I don’t dare even comment on it.
It snowed about 20 hours – that’s another thing I like about J –
– he lives right next to the club. It’s hard on my dogs – but so would my death on the roads be.
Ryder called today – 3rd time in a month. He acted very loving and considerate – I don’t believe it for a minute. Now he’s worried about my health – wants to bring me homemade chicken soup, etc. I don’t rise to these flies any more and it feels so good. Any desire I may have had to see the flesh ripped from his bones with red-hot razorblades has ebbed.
I take that as progress. I look forward to seeing him again because I think it would be great to feel nothing.
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 thesewhines 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 notdrinking. 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 expectothers 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 hewas 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 nofamily 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.
Back at work. Can’t concentrate on The Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey, which is the book I brought – because I keep thinking Jervaze will drop by. Dead silence from him – no call on Christmas. I sent him one card but of course I only got back yesterday.
I can’t bear to take all the initiative. Oddly (especially after my dream about him) had a card waiting from Devon. Maybe I AM psychic. Evidently he regrets that love-letter – encourages me to “hang loose”. Quotes from Sister Goldenhair. In other words, don’t try to get him to planto meet skiing, that’s just way more planning than he can handle. Kind of a pathetic specimen.
Plush Palace – 10:05 pm Thurs 5 Jan 1978
Jervaze came in Tues after my 10:00 set – with lots of little presents for me, perfume, bears, cards, pins – in a Christmas stocking. He wore a gold-banded black cowboy hat covered with snow and a shiny black down parka, his platinum hair swinging around his face – like a visit from an angel. Or possibly a Chippendale dancer. He is toopretty; mine eyes dazzle.
He stayed till I got off at 1 then walked me to my car – one kiss – asked me out very formally for Saturday night. I gave him directions to my place and he wrote them in a book – tipped his hat, climbed into his Shelby and vanished.
Leaving me wondering, is he gay? Is he even real? I continue to struggle reading The Young Romantics – artists in 1840’s Paris.
Avril and I found a perfect black sequin tube top while
we were out promenading yesterday – I’m going to wear it with my black silk trouser suit. She thinks she found herself the perfect apartment too – a studio in a skyscraper with a great kitchen, huge closets, only $216 month utilities included, says she is going to look for another week before she decides. Financial fount M & D don’t want her living with me because I am a “harmful influence.” We saw Armon in a bit part on TV last night – there weren’t any credits, but I knew it was him.
Listening out of one ear to gossip – Gina says the bartender at the Starlight is bisexual and that Tony the bagman is her male lover.
I can’t imagine them together. He is called the “bagman” because he runs between the clubs in a Lincoln filled with bags of money. Gina also says that she is a priest in a mail order religion and that her breasts are real and her ex-husband raped her nine-year-old daughter. I can tell for a fact those hard breasts are fake so it does make it tough to believe anything she says.
Last night went out with Erika to see the new Bunuel
(in spite of her claims to revere him she failed to notice he used different actors for the same part) and to eat at Chateau Gesundheit. Depressing conversation about how terrible men are – she says her ex-husband is a cross
between a psychopath and a momma’s boy – she naturally assumed because of Ryder that this would be my favorite subject. She also says all exotic dancers and showgirls were molested as children and as a result are lesbians who hate men. I say is that alllittle girls have some unpleasant memories of Adult Men but this is just a chip on her breeze. A breeze I think I better stay out of in future, perhaps. I also get tired of hearing the Marxist slant on Life. Love doesn’t exist, people do everything for “self-interest”, etc. etc. If that is true they are doing a piss-poor job of it. I think people live for fantasy and some people’s fantasies are very, very cheap.
Hoping drinks with Maeve will be more fun.
Midnight – 6 Jan- 78
Crazy with love. Jervaze and I had one of those unforgettable dates last night – Took him to my favorite restaurant in Ellicott City – Coco Lane and we talked for hours. He loves dogs – wants to raise Grand Pyrenees. His favorite cats are English blues. Wanted to be a vet except he always hated school, so that’s how he got into working with his hands and he thinks there’s no way back now. He loves WC Fields and horror movies.
The thing I love about him most (apart from his astonishing beauty) is his natural courtesy, his dignity (he is very polite to anyone in a service position – the exact opposite of status-focused Ryder who acted as if being exigent was the same thing as being discriminating.) He has such an aura of gentleness and calm, just like those big dogs he loves so much. His isolation, I like too – he’s the only male I’ve met in quite awhile who doesn’t travel in a pack. He has a brother in the same job locally – that’s why he came up from Alabama – but he plainly thinks suburban Virginia is the “fast lane” and I don’t disabuse him.
He eats seafood by preference and wants to live on the water.
He probably drinks too much and could be an incipient alcoholic. My parents would be totally, totally appalled but of course it doesn’t take much to appall them. Alas, he hasn’t finished my book – claims he’s “working on it”. I am waiting for him to outright say he doesn’t understand it – maybe when he knows me better.
When he kissed me goodnight he only kissed me – a relief at the time, since it was one less worry. Now of course I wish I had some clearer indication from him that he finds me even attractive. Is he polite or am I resistible? Don’t want to be resistible – we’ll have to change that.
Sat -1 pm 7 Jan- 78
I’m at the Starlight – our club owner owns this one too – it’s huge.
How I hate this stage. It isn’t a true stage but a runway winding through the audience, which means you must keep walking all the time – and they try to fill it by having several girls up at once. One can’t build any audience hypnosis – people pay less attention and have more business meetings – and tips really take a nosedive. The bartender is a grizzled old lesbian who stares right up my crotch – supposedly to see if my stocking seams are straight (they aren’t. Fortunately she doesn’t offer to do them for me – but she still watches.) Four of the other girls tried to get me to let them smoke dope in the dressing room – I told them no. They’ll have to go out back with the alley cats.
Thank God Glee – who has a lot of class – backed me up. So –
the two of us had the dressing room to ourselves, which made a pleasant change from watching the others trying to disguise the scars from their breast operations. Book I brought – The Pleasure of Ruins – does not go with this atmosphere – in spite of its title.
Ryder called me here – says he found me thru Randy who was impressed because Ryder’s on TV! I flatly told him he is scaring the life of out me with this behavior.
But he seems to know just how far to push things, so, amazingly we had a wonderful talk! Gentleman Jim lets us talk in his office: very respectful of our “privacy”. He obviously thinks we are dating. Wonder if he will tip R to the fact that I have a “honey on the side” at the Plush Palace? Jesus!
I told R I am sick of his “psychotic twin brother” (good idea for a novel, actually) and he really laughed – admitted he has “a Jekyll-Hyde” thing going on. (It’s actually worse than that – it’s really Hyde and Mr. Nastier Hyde – but didn’t say that. Keep conversation light.) He promised to stop calling me at work.
Monday 8 Jan 78 – 6 PM
Twenty-four hours ago I was sitting in my red dress over a glass of port, waiting for Jervaze to arrive. Anxiety level high. Somewhere –
– I think from Mom – I got the impression that my needs are so automatically repellent to any sane individual that they must be hidden. Therefore, I have to carefully think my way through to any honest approach – and then it isn’t really honest any more. But I can’t just be impulsive. Prepared myself for disappointment – that he would be late or perhaps not show – because there issomething weird about him. Some deep dark secret perhaps? But he was right on time.
This time I took him to my nearest neighborhood restaurant
– where the waiter put on quite a show with Irish coffee till flaming liquor rolled down his sleeves! Jervaze came inside my house without hesitation –
Me fretting about how to best establish physical contact while he sprawled comfortably on the couch. I turned off the overhead light and lit candles – took off my jacket – he rubbed his face against my breasts acting calm, respectful and not neurotic. Must be my experience with R that makes me fearful of being “shamed” every second.
Jervaze kissed and kissed my face so long – tears
automatically filled my eyes. But he did not get upset. Got up like aperfect gentleman “when it was time to leave” and I managed to resist attacking him. I did one very strange thing that is causing me anxiety now.
We showed each other our class rings – he always wears his. I slid mine on his little finger and left it there. He wore it home. Uh oh.
11:30 AM Wed 11 Jan 78
Experiencing sharp attacks of fear all day long at “being in a relationship”. What the hell was I doing giving him my ring? See, I agree that everything’s my fault! Story of my life! Currently enjoying two quiet hours while Avril is at the gynecologist. It will be great when she gets her own place.
Plenty of private time and space to panic in.
Today I got a phone call from Ryder and a letter from Devon. So –
I was able to line my relationships up, so to speak, contrast and compare.
Even lumped together they are not one full relationship! R’s “gamesmanship” is down from its zenith, but, owing to my total nonparticipation, also at its most exposed. Lengthy chat about our vacations, and then he spent probably a half hour telling me his “insurance setup”. Why? So I can tell everyone where to find the will and the important papers when he runs into a tree on his next ski trip! I should be worried about him dying apparently!!!
I let him talk, I didn’t cut him off and I asked no questions, largely because this makes him the craziest and he deserves it. I know he’s comforting himself now that I at least care about his finances if not about him. Devon thanked me for the glamorpic (described me as “so lovely” and said he feels like he’s talking to me when he writes his letter) and then launched into a long description of his and Gwynne’s relationship.
They have an “understanding” which seems to involve “being there for each other” without “demands”. “Why won’t he admit he’s gay?” howls Avril when I read this to her.
But I don’t think sex is even that simple for him. His approach is much more diffuse – a constantly vibrating choice between “being sexual” and “not being sexual”. He and I had such good sex, but if it all has to happen in a sort of coma, if there can’t be any planning or god forbid, discussion then the hell with it.
As for Jervaze, he showed up for the last three hours of my first night back at The Plush Palace from the Starlight. He was wearing my ring. I asked him if my work bothered him. He said, no, he was cool with it, but was glad I asked.
Whereupon we went back to his place and made love for 3 hours. Whoo-hoo! I’m not kidding! The first test – home design – alas he failed. His furnishings are truly HORRIFIC Spanish Mediterranean dreck. His shower curtain consists of festoons of blue chiffon – it is INCONCEIVABLE that a male could purchase such a thing. Guess I am not asking the right questions. Old girlfriend? Mom? Sister-in-law? Some woman raised exclusively on pirate films had a hand in here somewhere.
As to the sex – that test he passed. He’s a prizewinner there. Everything takes forever and that doesn’t seem to bother him in the least. Is he some kind of reptile, living in a time zone utterly different from us mammals?
It took him 20 minutes to get my pants off working steadily. I got enough comments about the beauty of my body to satisfy my ego for life.
He went down on me without a flicker – so much for all those rumors about Southern men – and when he goes down he stays down. On the other hand – he never did come. Calms fears of premature ejaculation but –
The Big Day. Go home, sleep, wake up, do laundry, take dogs for shots, buy snow tires. In a haze of infatuation – Jervaze was in for 5 hours tonight watching me dance with a sense of unmistakable pride.
He asked for my phone number so he could call me on Christmas Day – I gave him all of them.
New York City Dec 25 77 – Fri night.
Life is so interesting, Wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Lovely intimate family talks – just what family should be doing for perspective on past and future. In two days Avril and I drive out to Michigan to see Merrill – 11 hour drive – tonight’s a dinner in the Village then an early night.
Heard of a studio apt on the island – winterized – going for $200/month.
Of course I will have enough royalties for that…or won’t I? Harcourt royalty dept uncooperative, editor Lauren very cagey. But won’t the island kill my already comatose sex life? Whenever I’m away from dancing I miss it.
It’s a great substitute for sex but not a complete one alas. Physical activity vital to my peace of mind.
96th St off the Park- New York City – 26 Dec 77
Genevieve’s apartment is triggering horrible flashbacks to how sick I was over Ryder at the beginning of last summer. Scary that a man could do this to me. Don’t ever want to get that sick again.
Makes me sorry this diary exists – my trusty friend – because it gives misery an actual corporeal reality.
Burn these sickening wails before I die. The Victorians always did.
Well I’m raring to get back. Not only do I miss the dancing, I miss the bar. Ah, the nightlife. Always a party atmosphere but I could feel superior for not drinking (or getting high). I like our status and protections – I like getting paid for exercising, being admired and having fun. This pleasure just cannot be shared – Mom’s face crimps closed – and I am lost in the unredeemable beastliness and ugliness she feels certain it must be.
The fact that I am a feminist and consider myself spiritually in tune with the universe also is incomprehensible to her. (Wives can get into big spiritual trouble too, but I am too tactful to bring that up.) Unfortunately there is no way to defend myself except by attacking back – her “safe”, closed, restricted world of handmaiden to Dad, feeding and burnishing him like a racehorse, talking him “up” as if she were his sports coach, does not seem to me more inherently saintly.
But to Mom self-loss is what “sainthood” is – you totally do not regard yourself in your care for someone else. The fact that you are puffing them up like a grampus, encouraging them to be completely selfish, is I guess too shockingly cruel to mention. So: I’m stuck in Patient Griselda mode with undeserved imprecations heaped on my innocent head.
I wonder if it would be too nasty to talk about how I am sacrificing myself for those poor lonely men who need to look upon a perfect feminine ideal while they swill beer? Guess I better not.
Mom is fond of saying that love doesn’t work unless
you open your heart to the other but you can’t do it without marriage!
I say Jervaze and I are “courting” which is a very different thing. I don’t think I will ever open my heart again. I think perhaps it opens by itself –
naturally. One might as well tear a flower open and complain about the quality of the bloom.
Interesting being here with Brett and Genevieve and
watching someone else’s marriage from the outside. Does not look too enviable. Reading “Eclipse of the Hero in Victorian Fiction.” He’s in eclipse everywhere else, too, I may add.
Mon 27th Dec 77 11:00 AM
See Dracula on Broadway – pure pleasure with some
honest scares. Frank Langella very sexy. At Italian dinner Mom and Dad push the idea of the island hard, but I know the old people would never leave me alone. They’d be worse than Ryder. Still, there’s something magical about being protected from the real world by the ferry – places you can’t get to easily are wonderful just for that reason.
Mom and Dad say further I can’t be serious about my writing or I’d have a job in publishing or magazines! I’m so rocked back on my heels its hard to even argue. It soundsso sane. But why won’t it result, really, in another “hostage taking” of my soul, which, so, so regrettably, appears to be so damn fragile? Becoming one’s self is life’s greatest challenge – and so far it does seem necessary to abjure group (gang? Team?) endeavors. Writing doesn’t satisfy unless it comes out of the wild side of me – my secret side. There’s always the temptation to rip open the spider and get the silk out faster. Dad rolls his eyes – it’s the old “I’m an artist so I can do what I want” argument again. How to tell him yes, he’s right. Yes –
I’m taking advantage of my education, my family, my “privileges”; it’s who they made me. No going back to some invented Dust Bowl life of drudgery just so THEY can “feel superior & good”. They insist they don’t WANT to “feel good!” It’s about what’s “right!” My turn to roll my eyes.
Detroit, 11:05 PM, Thursday 29 Dec 77
At the adorably, impossibly 20’s Tudoresque manse my sister
Merrill is restoring – it’s lovely here. Merrill and her husband say dancing is “sex work” and “sex work” is “OK” if its “regulated so “sex workers aren’t exploited.” I get annoyed that nobody can tell the difference between dancing and prostitution! Lots of things cause “erotic titillation” – breathing for example. Still, I find I’m inclining toward taking a two-month break in March
and going to the island to write. Is this family management? But one of the reasons I like dancing is because you can “pick it up and put it down.”
Well, we’ll see.
Thurs night 29 Dec 77 9:30 PM
I find as I distance from Ryder I remember some good things and that makes me happy. He was so unique. It was fun knowing him, watching him perform impromptu magic for street children and restaurant patrons. More extraordinary really than poor old Jervaze who in spite of his glamorous looks drinks way too much and hates his job. Also Ryder knew me as a “not dancer” which J doesn’t – maybe that persona obscures who I really am. I remember the excitement of watching Ryder make his television show – unexpectedly sweaty physical labor in choosing camera angles and shots –
timing, music, close-ups – building the tape as the excitement was happening
– more in common with sports than some couch potato activity like editing.
Greek Town for dinner after the Renaissance Center, so the night ended in a wild bouzouki. Day occupied with antiquing – especially fun since I am reading Rumer Godden’s China Court, which is basically a love song to things. It made me worry that there are not enough details in Demon– what should I add? Perhaps buy a Vogue to see.
Dreamed about Devon last night. Wonder what
he’s up to. Maybe I’m being psychic again. Getting some peace of mind about him as well. Merrill’s daughter comes to read over my shoulder, then when I move to hide the diary says, “Don’t worry, I can’t read cursive. “
I finally called Ryder. (He’s been leaving me messages.)
I said if we were going to have a relationship of any kind – the friendship that he wanted – we would have to have rules (I got the idea from Nancy Mitford.) He said he was so glad I called, he’d been having the most awful
day. He took my card out of his rolodex but couldn’t bring himself to destroy it so put it away in a drawer. What rules he said. I said we’d have to think. No idle calls? No talk about past? He said, “Please forgive me” and I said
“Forgive me.” He said there’s nothing to forgive,
Dancing suddenly OK? I said we’re done with all
that stuff. Starting over. But I’m very busy working a lot and writing a
lot and he said he’s very busy working a lot. No expectations. We both said fine and I’m pretty sure he’s as relieved as I am.
We’re going to Looking forMr. Goodbar Thurs –
I want to see it too. He knows how I love movies. It’s perfect
weather to pick up Avril at the airport and drive to Galesville tomorrow for brunch with Mom & Dad at the marina. There’s a big white
farmhouse on Old Annapolis Rd I always look at longingly.
Plush Palace 4 PM Wed 15 Dec 1977
Shaking like a leaf. Ryder called the club saying he
was called early into work tonight – change of plans. I called his work
immediately – “Mr. Arlen’s desk.” Left a message saying I got his
message but do not call the club. Hope this stymies him till after
Christmas but I know he is going to say we need each other’s workplace
# for last minute plan changes. I’d better have something to say – which
I think is THIS IS NOT DATING. WE ARE NOT DATING. You can’t be
trusted with my workplace #.
Then I start looking desperately for Handsome Jervaze to come in.
He’s supplying me lately with that all-important fantasy vitamin of which I have been so deficient for so long. Can’t even THINK about R to the background of Disco Inferno.
Sat – 18 Dec 77 9:30 AM
Very dissatisfied with life and self and, as usual, in
complete confusion as to what to do about it. I suspect I should not be
making any big investment decisions, like buying a house and furnishing it but I am sick of being such a goddam wanderer. Avril has been
accepted at U of MD – my job is to finish this goddam novel. If I could finish it maybe March, then April and May could be my traveling months.
I thought March skiing could be nice – in Devon’s back yard.
I am in danger of making an idiot of myself over Phil
Jervaze – “Adonis” as I privately call him . He seems very attracted but is not making the first move. I’ll have to bring him along somehow.
Going tomorrow to Renaissance Music at the National Shrine.
Wear my rhinestones or can I restrain myself? Avril says I’m doing a good job taking her mind off of Dipstick, (my name for Mason). Bought her $80 worth of clothes – she can pay me back when I need help with the January rent.
The Plush Palace 20 Dec 1977 – 4 PM Avril called to say that Ryder called again – trying to find out my
holiday plans from her. Says he might have to work. I am surprised to be so quivery about this.
I am very unhappy about this level of communication.
I was actually hoping not to have to deal with him till after Christmas.
Would prefer not to give him an opportunity to go into his act. I’ve learned if I call his work I always get his secretary. Left the message I will be “out of town”.
Favor, Alysse., The trouble is, telling a game-player you don’t play games is all part of the game to them! There is absolutely nothing I can do to step
out of this thing except bore him to death. We will see each other fewer and fewer times, the emotional content will be constantly plummeting-
and meanwhile, the chicks on the side he has summoned up for contrast and amusement will be clamoring for center stage. Let them have it.
And I have my own magic pill in reserve – Jervaze.
That anyone can drift through life so far unironically with shoulder length platinum hair, platinum mustache and a white cowboy hat, drive a 72 Shelby and work for the Pentagon titillates my Yankee soul. But that’s what’s so much fun about the fine commonwealth of Virginia.
It’s full of these people. Uh oh. I hear the rhythm of Disco Inferno, audience’s current favorite. Dust myself with body glitter and I’m up.
9:30 AM – 22 Dec 77
Very annoyed with my life right now – trying to avoid
making out of sheer boredom some kind of major financial mistake –
like buying a house and filling it with furniture. Now that Avril has been accepted as a “permanent student” at U of MD don’t see why we shouldn’t share a berth somewhere. One of our dancers is a student there and she says student housing is very expensive. Why couldn’t I make money renting out rooms?
But then what would happen to the three months of traveling I was promising myself ? Wanted to spend March skiing in the White Mountains.
I need something more solid than Romance, that’s for sure. Jervaze cancelled our last date so now I’m freaking. It is vital that he makes the next move but my feminist soul revolts. Four months of celibacy appears to be my limit.
Sitting in the bay window drinking a third cup of coffee and watching a calico cat stalk the yard. Avril and I have been living rather high lately, buying clothes for Christmas. Last night saw the movie Telefon –
-very exciting but with an unbelievable ending – then watched Baryshnikov’s
delightful Nutcracker on TV. Avril says she’s finally starting to forget old What’s His Face.
I’m trying to get her interested in the religious and meditation books that have been such a help to me. She’s not that kind of a reader, alas.
No word from Ryder. My latest “daymare” is that he will just show up at the club. Should I talk to Randy about this? Avril says Ryder’s asked her about it. I made her promise to say “We don’t think you should have that information” even if he already knows. I try comforting myself
with my knowledge of his vanity – he wouldn’t want other men to see Randy throw him out as an “unsuccessful suitor”. (Angry exes show up at club routinely and aren’t allowed in no matter how they behave or how much money they have. They get On The Bad List.)
Let’s hope the sensitivity of his ”pride” protects both of us. But he probably would send a stooge – it is just like him – to spy out the land. Fortunately I look good and this classy place has the Shalimar beat so no disgrace.
Jervaze and I are trying to keep people at the club from knowing that we date. But it’s impossible to reallydisguise favorites what with the tripping,
drinks, flowers and etc even if we aren’tallowed to sit with the customers.
Stooge could probably figure it out. Maybe Ryder would “give up” at the sight of him. Search me.
I’m at the stage with Jervaze where I hunger for some
symbol of his caring, that he’s broken through the surface status and glamour of “dating a dancer” and has some deeper regard for me as a unique human being. He buys copies of my book whenever he finds them, but of course that’s status and glamour too, even though it’s just a paperback. I have forbidden him to tell anyone at the club about my book – he finds that a little weird, but I don’t see how being “a dancing author” could do me any good. The thing I most love about this job is that you don’t have to talk. Gave him a book of my poems for his birthday: a declaration of erotic war.
23 Dec 77 12:15PM
So in love I’m crazed. I’m at that stage where you can’t
honestly tell if the other person is even interested, you’re in such a delirium. Jealousy of all the other dancers because he looks at them.
Jervaze says he liked my poems, his favorite being Nocturne.
I thought that might do the trick. I possess wiles
unknown to other babes. He mentioned that his brother’s going back to Alabama so he might be alone for Christmas – I invited him to New York City but I could tell from his expression he’ll never do it. He thinks Virginia is the north – calls the New Jersey Turnpike “undriveable” –
a lawless war zone. (If he could hear what we say about the South!)
We exchanged presents – he gave me a bottle of Southern Comfort and another one of my books (he keeps buying them for me) and I gave him a very small glamour shot in an antique frame – so he can do anything with it – hide it if he wants. Keep it in his car. He said he liked it but in the bar light he really couldn’t see. The we went to breakfast –
had a wonderful conversation about ghosts and WC Fields. He believes in one but not the other. I was hoping he would kiss me – regret the first time when smelling of beer, he leaned forward to kiss me but I pulled away.
But last night would have been completely unmanageable-
– under yellowing lights and the stares of strangers (me in my stage
makeup) or out in the pouring rain. So we said goodbye, hopped in our cars. We may not see each other for three weeks! I’ve got his address –
(on his business card) so I can at least send him a card from NY.
Got to get up and face the day. Avril back from her final exam in ½ hour – then off to Landover Mall to see Saturday Night Fever.
Blessed book! The joy, the solidity, the security this diary has afforded me all my life can’t be measured. Bizarre letter from my dentist thanking me for referring “Mr. Arlen” to them! Apparently Ryder is stalking me. Now I have to wear makeup to the dentist! Hope I don’t run into Ryder while wacked out on Novocain. Usual day of quotidian pursuits, washing lingerie & hair, filing, letters. Avril writes that Mason is moving in with a friend! He thinks it will be “better” for her. Bet the “friend” is female! Sure sounds like death knell to me – he dragged her all the way out there, ran busily through her money & lost his spark. Still other’s relationships are always so much clearer! Now we can be glad she’s not going to school – she needs to get out NOW.
Plush Palace – Mon – 11:40 PM 17 Oct 77
4 Dancers on tonight but Cindy and Linda walked out, ticked about my raise (I didn’t tell them.) So more dancing (and $$). Plus coffee machine broken and we need to order out so I treated myself to 2 Krispy Kremes. Ah, the simple joys. Five-year plan guy is back. His fave play? “Love is Alive” – unfortunately.
The most gorgeous autumn weather tonight driving here – my heart soared. ONE MORE SET! Then fling on fake fur “Shakespearean” coat, jump into El Diablo, off into the night. Bar deserted, tips unspeakable. Asked if I could cash a check with Randy he just handed me a $20 bill, so there’s gas. Kiki says she’s getting married, worked the whole evening on her guest list for Big Event in Fredericksburg. Reading Hardwick’s Seduction & Betrayal and appreciating it although something’s “off” about her. Why won’t the ventriloquist put down the dummy and just talk? And she’s just flat wrong about Woolf and Plath.
I brood about letting R. know where I work. Brave or stupid? Stupid, I think. Better class him with “dead end relationships”. I have plenty of people I’d never want to see again – Bruce and Kyro springs to mind. Other people I feel good about like Toss Sheffield. He’d be fun to see again. Could he handle my dancing? He had a fun “hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy” attitude in general towards effort & enterprise.
Insomniac
I can’t sleep
Because you’re gone
My muscles wake
My mind goes spinning on
And where your fingers
Plied and pruned my face
Night air is cold and
Caustic in its place
And where we turned and woke
In complex rhyme, I’m left
To face the music frayed by time
A waltz which once we won
Losing battle choreographed for one.
None to explore or
Appreciate my line though now at last
It’s incontestably mine.
12:10 PM- Plush Palace – Wed 19 Oct 77
Dance night, then dance the next day kind of rough. And tips are bad when the weather’s good – no one comes in. I seem to have a lot of bills – just turned on the heat – but I’m meeting them. Making some inroads today on Thomson’s Life of Frost. Randy fired Robin –
Yvonne needs $300 immediately because she just bought a piano. Well good luck getting it out of this crowd is all I can say. Paz’s “on call” because she left her husband and moved into the motel across the street. Let’s hope she shows up. Last time I saw her she was pretty depressed; said she gave him “the best four years” of her life. I have to get this all down in case I need it someday. Ryder used to be especially pissed when I got nostalgic for dancing. But dancing is its own little world.
7:30 PM- Plush Palace – Thu 20 Oct 77
This afternoon I was getting ready for work phone rang, I say hello and Ryder’s tight little voice says: (very meaningfully) Hello.
I turned the radio down (Lakmé) and said casually as I could, “How are you?”
He said he should enroll in FBI school after all the
trouble he’d had tracking me down.
(It couldn’t have been that hard since Mom and Dad’s
house sitter has been giving my # to all and sundry.) Said he was punished now for being a non-communicative procrastinator who should fling himself off the 14th St Bridge.
I told him I lived in Beltsville and danced in Virginia, refused to give further details. I didn’t let him get away with any of his garbage. He said I’d been in town since Sept 8 without contacting him. I said he’d made it pretty plain he didn’t like what I had to offer. Then why did I come back? I said, I like it here. Creep!
Like he owns the world!
He said, will you eat with me? Hmmm. Something
rattling in Pandora’s box. While I hesitated, he said don’t make me disguise myself
as a girl scout cookie salesman (he could get away with it, too.) He said he hasn’t gone out to dinner since our last night at Alfio’s!!! (I guess the Emmys don’t count but I said nothing.) Said he’s having to give back his furniture and sleep on an air mattress because he can’t make the payments. Aww.
This is the idiocy of buying furniture on time, but I still say nothing. So we’re meeting Babe’s Sun at 3:30.Sunday. Seems fairly safe… Rushed to library and took out every true murder book I could find. Just in case.
2 Nov – Plush Palace – 6:05 PM.
Ryder called this morning to “report in!” Just to chat about his day! No more of that, I said. I’m busy. Slam. I don’t chat and I’m not sorry and it’s too late to learn. Actually, feeling amazingly happy. Kiki showed me how to cut off my corn with an exacto knife. Instantly better! Still in Vol I of Life of Frost. He was a repulsive human being, all right. Nowhere near as fun as Agatha. Precious equilibrium recovered.
8:30 PM 8 Nov 77
I gave him the full treatment, poor guy. Red Italian boots, glittery eyeshadow, tight, tight jeans. Ho ho ho. Deliberately drove Connecticut Ave but no markers from the past reached out their claws. Felt strong and blissful.
I was first there (of course) so could order carafe of wine and think. Thinking,
I’ll just explain to him that my idea of friendship and intimacy requires a
degree of truth telling that appears to freak him out.
He wore his high heels, too. His hair is blonder, longer
and messier than I remembered and it suits him. Off to the Bahamas next weekend, he says for a “dive”. He wore the pinky ring I gave him (he says he can’t get it off.) But that holy glow, that shine he used to have is gone for me. I get it that he doesn’t know the pain he caused –
shallow people can’t. And that’s pitiable, really. He’s not just deaf in one ear, he’s deaf in his soul.
He has a carefully worked out a “barstool rationale” for what happened to us; we became lovers before we became friends.
I have no comment. Postponing sex would not have helped – and it might have made things worse dumping all the responsibility for timing on me. I think when he saw how easy it was to draw blood he couldn’t help doing it, and I was a fool and an idiot. I ordered the fruit and cheese plate but left before it arrived. Realize how much I want all this to be in the past. No future of any kind exists for us. Not even in fantasy. The future is what matters. Told him to give my regards to the folks at the Shalimar. He said he’d give me a buzz.
Bet I can finish Demon by Thanksgiving. Avril coming.
Lucky I have a second bedroom. Furnish it with Kliban posters, a
Plush Palace – 11:20 AM Sun 24 Sept – wrote a fourteen page letter to Avril tonight. There’s a very pretty blond here who looks just like Ryder – they could be mistaken for each other – but it’s not him.
9:40 PM – walls dry so I could hang paintings. What a difference. Reading Redinger’s bio of George Eliot, The Emergent Self. Like it very much. Turns out I love driving to work – 5Pm is rush hour on the Beltway – everyone’s coming home but I’m going out for the night! Makes me feel weirdly close to all those people. And apparently they feel close to me – though they could just be reacting to my bumper sticker (Colette was a Nudie Dancer). They don’t seem to get the literary reference.
Mon 3 Oct1977
I hear only from my sister Merrill who declares my book a “brilliant satire”. She wants to know why I work? Shouldn’t I tour with book? Sigh. Give me the money and leave me alone I say.
Spent the AM phoning around trying to find my book in all the stores. Only found it one place. Dropped note to publisher.
Out for Courvoisier with Erika who lectured me on my book. I ended up defending the Victorians saying everyone now thinks “honesty and openness” are going to save them but we don’t know enough about ourselves for real honesty and our lives are still based on “smothered panic” as far as I can see. (See Janet Case’s strictures to V. Woolf.) Well off to my double life. When I pull into the Plush Palace parking lot I have such a good feeling. Everything coming together. Down the old runway.
Bought the most wonderful gold stripper shoes that tie with ribbons and have clear Lucite six-inch heels. I finally have enough costumes to feel really professional – every set should be good. Randy always compliments me. I am slowly phasing my hair from red to blonde – seems to help with the tips. I can live on fruit and cream of wheat – only buy groceries with tip money. Little man down front muttering “fuck me-fuck me-fuck me” over and over but not loud enough to be evicted. Randy said I am the best dancer in Washington area.
Sat 8 Oct 1977
Giving a dinner party. Bought 8 old-fashioned glasses for 50 cents apiece, five floor pillows, peacock chairs and a glass dining table. Now I’m looking for a silk eiderdown (for my bed) in some violent color. Bought beautiful rose-lilac fabric for curtains. Randy gave me another raise without my even asking for one. I love my body again! After the long estrangement caused by Ryder…he deliberately tried to undermine my faith in my body. He would prefer bad sex with a slave as long as he can be boss. Wait – isn’t that the marriage he just got out of? Guess we all repeat ourselves.
7:30 PM Tues 11 Oct 77
I’m too fucking fragile. All my problems come from pretending I’m not. I look forward to old age when presumably throbbing metabolism, soaring hormones and plunging brain waves will have smoothed out. How to describe this scrambled day? I’ve been vibrating like a cilia ever since I got up this morning. Made dentist, gyno appts, shots for dogs, dog licenses, took angel puppies on an hour’s walk. Divorce lawyer on the 26th: “John Love”: seems appropriate. Clear the decks for writing.
My area of Beltsville very rural. Poetry in all directions. Reading Mildred Savage’s A Great Fall and getting lots of ideas. Vacuum cleaner to repair shop they say they can fix for under $15. I hate errands, a disgusting dribble of irreplaceable time. Rewarded myself by getting Sleeping Murder at the library. Already know Dr Kennedy is the murderer.
2PM Wed 12 Oct 77 – Plush Palace
Some men seem to interpret the fact that I’m a dancer as some sort of personal challenge to them. You can feel the spike of hostility. “You’re making me think about sex again!” Is it fear of rejection? Any aura of professionalism bothers them also. I always curtsy especially low to the hostile tables – they can never figure out whether I am mocking them or not AND THEY THINK I PROBABLY AM! I save them a lot of money by getting them thrown out early. One guy asked me how long it would take to get in bed with me. His erection was so obvious I almost asked, “And what is your little friend drinking?” but instead I said, “5 years.” He showed up next night, saying, “Day one of the five year plan!” I like those guys much better.
Final R conclusion: What a JERK! Jerk’s absolutely the right word – in instinctual reflex – no brain activity involved. Will I ever find a gorgeous man (blond, please) whose soul is connected to his brain?
9:20 PM Thurs 13 Oct 77
Shopping Loehmann’s yesterday with Maeve. 3 sweaters, silk jumpsuit with jacket & scarf, lime-colored silk jersey blouse, socks, boots, shoes, gloves – $140 cash. Nice. Saw a wonderful fake fur coat I’d like to come back for. It has a priceless air of Ken Russell camp. Buy it with my Folger money – Shakespeare would understand.
Maeve bought nothing. Couldn’t find one thing she liked, reading labels with the expression of Queen Victoria viewing a slum. And the free-for all dressing rooms full of naked people just astonished her. (Stuff I see every day.)
She wants to know exactly why Wealthier People rejected this clothing at its first price? They must know something we don’t. (Wondrous rhinestone earrings to dance in, too. M. expressed pious horror.) People like this amaze me. Why is your own taste of so little importance? Then went out to dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant – my choice – heavenly lamb shish kebab and a belly dancer! I loved it but Maeve had to rush out before dessert. But as it seems I can never be with ANYONE – even lovers – longer than 3 hrs it was just as well.
Folger morning started badly, hair looked mangy, face requires immediate skin graft. Dog hair even on NEW clothing (How is this possible?) Running an hour behind schedule (compulsively early me). May Miller gave me worst intro I ever hope to have, misquoted my poems and said I was a grad of the U of Minn. I thought I would sob with emotion 52 times during reading. My “woodcunt” poem did not go down well (even though it is definitely my most Shakespearean).
Damn. Then I could have strangled Erika Gelbfisz (at the after party) who is so scornful and cynical about everything you can’t even have an ordinary conversation with her. I felt like throwing my wine in her face saying, “Suppose you actually succeed in making us all feel rotten, what then? Fighting in the streets?”
Nothing’s worth anything in her opinion, so why is she alive exactly? This is what gets my hostility going but because I am at a party I DON’T WANT TO GET INTO IT. So I just growl and stew. I don’t care for Cocktail Party Standing Around – my right boot was trying to extinguish my left toe, a toe already threatened with extermination from dancing. This is real Italian leather so SHOULD ultimately fit my feet – I can see each boot slowly outlining my toes – if I don’t come down with gangrene first. Will try Wet Washcloth Stuffing tonight. (Still, I looked ravishing, my dear, in a blue gaucho three-piece suit and my red, red, high-heeled boots.) Poet Usher Glayne seemed impressed with me – but he’s an old man.
To bed with my main squeeze, Agatha Christie. Thank God for that woman. She has pulled me single handedly through the last three months.
I was just drifting off when Marc Kramer called. We talked ½ hr. He bought a sailboat and a BMW and wanted to be sure to let me know. I like the sailboat and the car but the desire to “impress” me diminishes him in my eyes. Sad to say. He’s presently at risk of being filed under “has no conversation”. Well, he did talk about work. They wanted to fire him from The Washington Project, then admitted he had been right all along. He’d love to have dinner sometime, “see how I live”. Uh oh. Can I keep this relationship out of the sexual? I don’t want to go to bed, even experimentally with someone Lacking the Necessary Spark. Could they make up for it by enthusiasm or step-by-step instructions? I hesitate. Is it ever possible to just date? It was AWFUL with Keith. Marc, however, has a gift of humor. And my parents like him. “No expectations?” I finally say. And he promises.
Alysse Aallyn 