Alysse Aallyn

Tag: Memoir

  • Wild With Possibility:

    Alysse Aallyn’s Teen Diary

    Thurs. Jun 18 – 64


    You have to forgive my writing – it’s hard to write on a jiggling bus! I snuck out one more time before I left. Andrea and Chase threw candy at my window – Bookie was easier to rouse because he sleeps on his porch. Andrea’s parents were already gone so she opened their liquor cabinet and Chase got drunk. (He is a problem. He steals things from cars. I think this is why he was kicked out of Eastern. ) Bookie and I didn’t have anything – we just wanted to slow dance. We kissed! He promised he will write! Andrea and Chase were making out like mad but Bookie walked me home.

    4:30 AM!
    Up at quarter to seven – too late to have breakfast – off to Toledo! We are getting to know everyone on the Trailblazers bus. I am working on a Trailblazers song to the tune of “Oh It Was Sad When the Great Ship Went Down”.


    Stu & Shavonne are the leaders. They are nice – especially Stu. He wanted a few kids who could speak French and Andrea volunteered me! Let’s hope I can understand enough to manage.


    I slept all morning; we stopped at 1 to each lunch (tinned food) in a motel parking lot. Maybe I can lose some poundage. Looked at a map and selected a park to stay in, (Gettysburg) in Pennsylvania. We slept in sleeping bags on the ground! It was hard as cement. I slept in my cute pink nightshirt. Walking around the park all day looking at monuments. Every now and then you get a whiff of history. Names like “Valley of Death” and “Bloody Run.” Stu posed us dying over a fence for a picture!


    Left Gettysburg driving too fast, the trailer broke free and we had to go to town to get a part. We need to travel tonight to get to the World’s Fair on Saturday.

    Fri Jun 19 – 64
I’ve decided to work on a third person account of my life. (Everybody wonders why I am writing all the time.) Look at myself from the outside in.  Obviously I have to change all the names – for me, chose the name Melantha Clenn. The title is “Dark Flower” which is what Melantha means.  Whew! That was enough work for one day!  My poor brain is exhausted! 
 Last night we reached Valley Forge very late and decided to sleep there.  There was nowhere to camp but thought it would not be too much to sleep by the side of the road.  We no sooner had out sleeping bags out then up comes a fuzz car!  (Stu referred to him later as Officer Remedial.)  No amount of pleading would work; he ordered us to “follow” him.  I guess he thought he was on Dragnet or something.  We weren’t even told where we were going!  Straight to the Valley Forge Police Station! Shavonne and Stu were led inside and the rest of us just sat there arguing about whether our camp counselors would be arrested for contributing to the delinquency of minors! 
But when they came out they said we would be allowed to sleep on some rocks behind the fire station!
I do miss Bookie but for some reason think mostly of Mark!  I’ll send him a postcard from Gettysburg: North Carolina memorial is a good one.

Sun Jun 21 – 64 – YMCA Camp in Poughkeepsie, New York
Can’t believe we’ve been on this trip four days only! For such a motley crew of sixteen girls and two counselors we are very compatible.  Two of the girls are childish which I actually don’t like. 
Shavonne is a sweet person. She is plain though with a very bad figure. She is certainly not distracting Stu from thinking about his girlfriend who he says we will all meet!  Shavonne is reading The Agony and the Ecstasy, says its very good and will lend it to me when she’s finished. (It’s a big fat book and she seems to read onl8 4 pages at a time! She was impressed that I’ve seen the Sistine Chapel.)

    Michelangelo says: “the promises of this world are phantoms and to have faith in oneself and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course”.


    Stu is broadminded – I think Daddy would approve. But he does have fits of anger and bursts of gloom. He’s a Catholic and says we should all get a chance to attend mass! I found the sermon interesting and the hymns beautiful but the Latin is annoying. Andrea and I left early because we had signed up for horseback riding at eleven thirty and when we returned for lunch Stu was furious! Said we were rude! We offered to be waitresses to get back into his good graces.
    Andrea and I have a room to ourselves in the South Barn. Boys in the North Barn!


    The World’s Fair is no Disneyland but it was interesting. Andrea and I pretended to be French! I got an ID bracelet with a big A on it. (I got another for Avril’s birthday.) I love it and I never take it off. Andrea and I saw Peter and Gordon who were performing – all the girls screamed and we screamed right along with them. I hadn’t heard of them before but I like their Willow song. Also the Eggheads and the Esquires. We were separated from the performers by a pool and a lot of kids jumped in! Andrea and I danced instead while 3 men filmed us with movie cameras! The only performer whose autograph we got was Danny Taylor. He was very nice, says he’s been doing this since he was 13.

    Mon. Jun 22 - 64
Thinking strange powerful thoughts.  I guess it is another mood coming.  How can I think of Bookie and death in the same thought?  Probably because I feel bad about Mark. I didn’t say the things he wanted and I didn’t want him to say the things I thought I wanted!  Bookie is outgoing and clever but less scary somehow.  Do I like being the one who cares more? I don’t think I want to be in this boat alone!  I hate myself for complicating my life! 
Now, meeting so many new people I am having to worry whether people like me.  Andrea called me “ugly” several times yesterday.  She was trying to hit a tender spot but I think she was really feeling the opposite! So there goes that relationship! 
I would rather not be hideous. 
Dark Flower coming along pretty well.

Mystic Seaport, CT – Tues June 23 – 64
Awful night!  Laura stole my diary and read it!  Made me so mad!  And that’s not all. We were sitting around the camp fire singing songs and I saw Laura and Andrea  planning something in the woods.  Said they are sneaking out to meet four boys and did I want to come!  I was all for it!  Laura, Chris, Andrea and that awful Julie who keeps tagging along. 
Unfortunately the minute I saw the boys I wanted to leave! They looked like hoods to me, but I couldn’t talk anyone else into leaving. Andrea started making out with a complete stranger immediately!  I talked to an ugly lug named Ralph, but when I told him about Bookie he kept his hands off. Then who should appear but Stu!  He knew all about it!
I told him nothing happened and he was very sweet.  Said he gives me credit for a  lot of common sense, says I am one of “the most intelligent fourteen year olds he’s ever met!  Others not so much. This AM when I woke up my eyelids were swollen: gnats bit them almost shut!
Really liked Mystic Seaport.  We toured the beautifully restored ships. Here’s a picture of the Charles Morgan. Bought ships-in-a-bottle for all family members and sent postcards to everyone.
Stu staged another of his “movies”.  I was a barmaid! 

Mass & N. H – Fr. Jun 26 – 64
Having a ball! We are in Hanover NH at Dartmouth College. What a pity its not co-ed or I would go there.  We went to Boston and rode the MTA – saw a lot of Harvard!  Met Stu’s girlfriend who is a waitress at an ice cream store! They just stare at each other adoringly.  Luckily she gave us free ice cream because now I have exactly seven cents to my name.  Writing home desperately for money.  I owe Vicky 5¢, Sally 10¢ and Chris 5¢.
Stu goes to Dartmouth and he was eager to show it off.  Not having seen boys for DAYS Andrea and I were principally interested in finding one or two or FOUR THOUSAND. 
It didn’t take long!  The few girls we’ve seen are nothing much so the Trailblazers bus is getting a lot of attention!   At Hopkins Hall we picked up seven eligible males, all of them cute who promised to visit our campsite and say hi.  Stu is not too sure about this.  A particularly cute boy named Tom Morris said, “We can’t help it if we sleepwalk, can we?”
I was Head Cook that night and while stirring the ravioli was not too surprised to see the bushes rustling.  When we sat down to eat they jumped out to say hi!  Stu made them go away.  They kept loitering around making it hard to go to the bathroom.   
When I climbed into my sleeping bag Morris scared me to death jumping out from behind a tree!  We talked for hours, promising to write each other. We have a lot in common (He is 5’11’!) but I don’t see how we can be more than friends. 

Percé on the Gaspé – June 28 – 64
I seem to be in an awfully good mood right now!  Probably because we’re on the move, singing our latest camp song to the tune of 500 Miles, “If you miss the bus we’re on, You will know where we have gone

    You will see the garçons trailing on behind…”


    Who would guess an all-girl trip would be so much fun!


    Poor Alain! He is a French boy from Montreal that I met here. He is cool. MARK, BOOKIE, MORRIS and now ALAIN. I’ve “got” them except I haven’t got any of them! It’s either sheer starvation or crowd control? You can see I really do have problems! The question is: which of them do I want? The $64,000 question!

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer – Last Post

    Party Castle – Mon 9 July 79 – 7:50 PM

    26 hours without T. Spoke to him last night and
    again this afternoon. His acceptance of me is total, but it comes from
    a position of strength and I have fears of being annihilated. Last night
    I experienced hallucinatory states – drove home the wrong way – felt
    something was happening to the car – re-experienced my swallowing
    problem. Resolved my panic by starting a poem.

                Sat night Toss and I read the diary passages where

    we lose our “divinity” (his word) together. He cried and told me what he’d
    felt like from his “side”, wanting to be male & in control, feeling helpless
    & immature. Agreed if we had married then we’d be divorced now.

    11:05PM Trying to read Oneness & Separateness. Not well suited to me
    right now! Much as I want to be a mother the thought of a demanding
    infant between me & T truly horrifying. Insane fears of rejection and
    abandonment – why on earth should I trust this man? Called T at work!
    Complete craziness. He reassured me we will have private alone time
    a real vacation in the Berkshires. He said champagne arrived.
    Called A & we discussed Mom & Dad – how they rewarded “self-sufficiency”
    and responded to neediness coldly. Makes it hard to be honest now but
    I hate this weirdly formal relationship with my own parents. Avril says there
    is no retraining them.

    Sat 14 July 79 – StormFall Farm – 11:15 PM
    Oh, my God who would believe it – here I am 11
    years later! Told T about my uncle last night as we made sexual
    “confessions”. He was completely calm about it so it’s no longer a
    Big Secret. He insisted I read his ex-girlfriend’s letters. She was a
    Piper Cub to his Concorde, believe me. He kept carbons of his letters
    to her!!!! Not very loving – downright fatherly. In a bad way.

            T’s actual father and he smoked cigars last night

    after dinner leaning against the mantel – they were so beautiful together
    I felt stunned. Wrote a poem:


    MY HUSBAND SMOKES CIGARS WITH HIS FATHER
    BY CANDLELIGHT

    Your profiles cut my heart like glass.
    Go ahead. I’m a bleeder, I’ll
    Still be here when you look back.
    Your father is a silver-headed
    Walking-stick; his elongation glows with far less heat.
    You’re his nemesis; and he’s used to it.
    The wooden floors washed cornelian
    Perhaps by sunset
    Perhaps by jealousy of girls who
    Lost you; judged too soon the temper of your eyes
    Wrote too many letters or
    Not enough; the wrong kind
    Addressed to the pale law student with
    The cinderblock heart
    Traveling commentator with the hundred
    Dollar bill rolled inside his shoe,
    The long-haired Pinkerton guard.
    You learned to suck the cherries
    Scarless from the tree; it’s no mean art
    Broke a few at first; we all did.
    By what right am I the winner?
    You chose me in thirty seconds leaving
    enough time to smoke another cigar.

                Everyone wants us to marry before May. But I feel

    I need some time in Kentucky first. Toss told me last night that on paper
    he is a millionaire. Here’s luck, because if I keep on keeping on, I’m a pauper!
    Tom’s grandmother’s response was “I am not surprised.”
    She committed herself to reading my “thriller”.
    At dinner he announced I’m the only woman he’s ever
    wanted to marry. Tom’s dad said he thought he’d be a bachelor forever.
    Privately we affirmed absolute sexual fidelity forever. Will we be able to keep it?

    Plush Palace – Wed 18 July 79 – 4:55 PM
    Boring day but good tips. Magnificent party at
    The Third Edition last night for Avril’s birthday. (I didn’t care for Avril’s latest
    “honey” Vigo but was furious at myself – she should date as widely as possible.
    Maybe I was affected by T who is a snob and a purist.) Drinks, fruit & cheese –
    then dinner at The Old Angler & Frank Langella in Dracula. (Not a good version.)
    “Finances” discussion with T. He talked me out of
    selling my car. I worry about being dependent on him but he says it will be fine.
    Sounds to me like he is living on a knife’s edge – working part time, going to
    law school, selling stock when he needs money (which he is loathe to do being
    naturally frugal.) Too tired to make love last night but we started up in the
    middle of the night – both asleep. Doors keep opening – then there’s
    another one.

    Castle – 1 PM – Thurs 19 July 79
    So happy I can’t take it all in. Feel like someone
    recovering from a long illness. Read Cheever’s Goodbye My Brother –
    as satisfying as a novel. Last night we made love for hours and hours but
    I just couldn’t come – kept holding his face saying, “Is it really you”? Dancing
    with Barbara the Kikuyu and blonde Joyce of the day-glo costumes.

    3 PM Party Castle – 24 July 79
    First real friction last night – very predictably, about
    my job. I’m irritated over the assumption that its sordid and brutalizing.
    It is totally NOT the same as the dancers in DC!!! LIFE can be sordid and
    brutalizing – I like this club because it ISN’T and I’ve tried others. We
    discussed HIS job which also has its sordid and corrupting aspects.
    Duh. His last girlfriend gave him shit about it (and refused to read the paper!)
    so it’s a sore point. He should get it. There was a horrible moment when
    he felt foreign and alien – but I expected it – too much intimacy always
    causes a backlash. Trying to read Sisters & Strangers. The Victorian
    novel is not dead.

    Castle – 2 Aug 79 – Wed
    Seems hopeless to TRY writing in this book – things
    happen so fast – a month is an eternity. Last night celebrated our 11th
    “divinity loss” anniversary – and a difficult anniv. It was. T came to see
    me dance for the first time – with Avril so it wouldn’t be so bad but had
    to leave he was so upset. He didn’t like me smiling! Like I’m ENJOYING
    myself! The PLACE didn’t bother him (“reverent & reserved” were his
    words) just my pleasure in movement beauty & freedom! Uh oh! He goes
    back to my parents’ argument: IT’S TURNING MEN ON. So what? I get
    impatient with that – that way lurks the “hajib”.


    We have to educate each other. At the end the
    atmosphere seemed cleared and we both cried with relief. Even though I
    know my love is in the larval stage, I’ve never loved anyone the way I love
    him. We had our last dinner at 641 E street – steak and wine, fruit, cream,
    brandy. He asked me if there were any boyfriends’ the report of whose marriage “depressed” me (he was referring to my marriage) and I had to say no.


    He opened a letter from Mindy, ex-girlfriend he was
    thinking of re-starting a relationship with except she went to Nepal. A letter
    I would have thought perfectly reasonable two months ago now strikes me as
    ridiculous – an ounce of love is worth more than all these pages of barter.


    I got a wonderful letter from Devon – he’s found
    “another girl” (with three more in reserve I’m betting) and wishes me the best.
    But T was upset because he closed with “I love you” a word NOT thrown
    around in his world! (Mindy and Cindy don’t say it!) He says it’s the only
    part of the letter he believes – “the guy is a total phony.” I said his only victim
    is himself. We then made love on the floor on top of all our exes’ letters.
    Gloriously. Got a poem out of it.

    The Bridesmaid
    Yes, I know everything
    You’re my poor
    Relation.
    I know of your daddy’s desk where you
    Fucked with formaldehyde fingers
    I know of your lonely
    Rosary of abortions
    I repeat, I know everything.
    We made love on your letters undisturbed
    As two icons.
    She’s imperfect
    He told me.
    Unseated by mortality
    We must take our place
    With the king’s crazy mistresses;
    Brewing menstrual blood coffee
    And mandrake root tea.
    Swim away, little bridesmaid,
    You’re too young
    I’m in love
    We’ve got
    Too much in common ever to meet.
    Need to see dentist & gyno, overhaul bike,
    pay bills. T. meets Ralph Nader at 6. Lucky me snagging someone so
    ambitious and competent.

    Castle Mon 6 Aug 79
                God I need Maine. I love T but I need to get away

    from him. I am used to being alone 4-5 hours a day. Starving for that.
    Wonder how many otherwise perfect relationships break up for this reason!
    T. is a little TOO driven. A little TOO single-minded. Makes me argue with him
    – I can’t help it. For example: he talked about the “ugliness of the desert
    landscape.” It’s not my “thing” either – because I grew up somewhere else
    – but O’Keeffe taught me to see the beauty of it. What he REALLY meant was
    “I don’t like it” but he raises it to a religious principle “New England is better.” That’s embarrassing.

    I constantly feel he’s trying to “re-educate” me
    – for example he didn’t like my turquoise silk pants because he “doesn’t like colors
    that don’t appear in nature.” When shown an aquarium of tropical fish he doesn’t “count” them, their colors are “cultivated” and somehow “wrong.” The truth is bright colors make him nervous. So say THAT.


    Sat night we went to an office party of his people (to
    which I wore the aforementioned pants) and praised the house over-
    extravagantly. (He does NOT like my yellow velvet furniture. I’m giving it
    to Maureen.) “One good picture” per wall, beige Danish oldern furniture –
    unbelievably boring and sterile. A chipped china frog would have done
    the place a world of good. Could warn of decorating problems ahead.
    His younger brother Dominic in town – when I
    complimented his Mazda sports car and said I’d love to have one someday
    Toss said “we’ll see” as if I could never buy one for myself! These
    flare-ups are important signs. Must work on my self-value.


    8 Aug 79
    Packing for Maine came across D’s letters. Not a
    “good” one among them. “Phoniness” is NOT his problem – that’s not
    the right word – he’s not even “tone deaf” which was Bruce’s disorder.
    I think it’s a “temperature” thing – he WANTS all passion sexualized
    (not that he would ever admit it) and doesn’t trust intimacy, closeness –
    as if he doesn’t believe – doesn’t want to believe it exists. He fears never
    freeing himself from the physical so he cultivates a lonely “spirituality” but
    he’s mired HIMSELF in it. So that’s pathetic. I take responsibility – he
    probably felt hounded by my love. Thank God I escaped is all I can say. I’m
    betting he was geared up to torture me for a lifetime.
    I let T read my short story about his mother. That was
    probably a mistake. (In it he’s planning her death!) He made some idiotic
    writing class comments – I said it wasn’t THAT far along – but there’s
    something appealingly mythic about this undigested mass. Worry about
    it in ten years!

    Shadowe Island ME – Mon 7:30 AM 12 Aug 79
            Toss just left on the ferry so I can relax. Wish this

    diary ended here – I need a New Life. But Not Yet. Rainy with a gray sea. Dogs stretched out snoring on the Greek carpet.
    This visit has been everything I wanted, but the first
    night was classic in its ghastliness. Guests showed up at cocktails and stayed
    through dinner – unexpectedly – this mob scene making our announcement
    a bit tougher.
    Toss whispered, “Want to go through with it?”
    I said, “Sure.”


    We opened the champagne. The guests loved it
    – Mom & Dad really surprised. Dad started talking about his difficult
    father-in-law and how things would be different but flat out calling me a
    liar when I chimed in about how Wilbur returned his prison mail (he told
    me this story HIMSELF last Christmas!) I kept my temper – oh I must have
    got it wrong. (I didn’t. We’d discussed it later ad nauseam.) Avril attacked
    me later for bringing it up and “embarrassing” Dad – but he’d been TALKING
    ABOUT HIS DIFFICULT FATHER IN LAW. Toss was surprised at Avril’s hostility
    – used to her as an ally. He said, “They obviously think you’re invulnerable.”
    Probably. If so they’re all idiots! I thought A was upset
    about her own out-of-his-depth boyfriend, Vigo.
    Anyway T rescued the evening bringing tears to Mom’s
    eyes by talking about how he’d always loved me. M & D apologized &
    congratulated us.


    Sunday the four of us toured the island – trying to
    get along with Vigo. (A says he has just one testicle as if that’s all that’s
    wrong with him.) At dinner watched slides of my growing up – T tremendously
    moved – then lobster dinner.

    Tues 13 Aug 79 – 5 PM
    T called last night on his WATS line and we talked ½
    an hour. Says he used to play an “airport game” of “Looking for his future
    wife” but thought “I AM married!” Wow!

    Sun. 19 Aug 79
    T’s letter came! Glorious. I do not feel worthy.
    Tension between A & V – he teases her too much – we all try to ignore it –
    tough to figure out how to call him on it without opening up hostilities. Hope
    she dumps him. T on phone!
    Ex-island boyfriend visits. A says he acts like he wants to knock me to
    the floor and French kiss me to death. Seems accurate. Glad T missed him.

    Party Castle – 11 PM 22 Aug 79
    Glad to go to Maine and thrilled to leave it. Mary &
    Debby dancing. Today’s been eventful – T got my letters and was
    enormously moved. He says the worst mistake he ever made was burning
    my teenage letters. We should try to exist without this phoning but can’t
    help ourselves. Diet going well: I feel good. Struggling with a pile of thank
    you letters.

    Castle – 7 PM Fri 25 Aug 79
    T. and I separated 11 days already – feels like
    eternity. Avril announces she wants her own apt so I should put house
    on the market. Maybe its easier. Flooding small publishers with Blood
    Memory     – feel pessimistic however. 3 poems accepted – 2 by Colorado
    Woman, 1 by Friends Journal. Doesn’t feel as good as I’d hoped.
    Struggling with new novel where I try to tell the truth about Devon. But
    why should anyone want THAT God knows. Moving costs $400. I still think
    I should sell my Fiat. Rotten crowd. Bored and jerking like a marionette.
    Dancing with crazy Robin and Anne who never stops talking. She says
    June’s in the hospital in a full body cast – will never dance again. 2 more
    sets – praise God.
    Trying to read about Lewis Carroll. A says Zach
    threatening to show up. Don’t show up, Zach. I have a headache.

    2:30 AM Sun 27 Aug 79 –
    There is a God. Zach didn’t show. Long phone call
    w/T then walk dogs to think about it. He is such a powerful person
    it’s a little disturbing. Said he read my poem (The Duel) to his most
    erudite friend who was very impressed. We wound up in another
    argument about my dancing. I can’t bear his slurs so I referred to his
    past drug use – WE’VE BOTH EXPERIMENTED, ALL RIGHT? He
    wants me to live without money then complains about selling stock. I told
    him it’s a “schizophrenic bind.” Didn’t mention how I have to PRY my stock
    (that’s in my name) out of Mom and Dad.


    Reading an idiotic romance – its very idiocy is refreshing.
    I see why people get addicted to these. Like looking at maps when you’re lost.
    Ok they’re only two dimensional but its SOMETHING!

    Party Castle Tues 28 Aug 79
    Last night dancing. Celebrate with chocolates but I’m too
    enervated to appreciate it. Finished I’m Radcliffe, Fly Me. Ultimately a failure.
    Fails to explore the inherent corruption of institutional structures. Horrible
    night. $5 in tips – they are sick of the sight of me and I refuse to buy new
    costumes. I am scared to death of being dependent on T. I think he could
    reassure me but doesn’t know how because if I really needed him would I
    be so desirable? Is a puzzlement.


    I feel like I’m unfastening my suckers from Avril and grabbing
    onto T! Up here without a net! Then I get mad at myself for being so infantile.
    Can I just write and feel powerful? We’ll see! Doubts creeping in! This time
    next week I’ll be in Kentucky! Well, I’ve written some good poems lately.
    Self-confidence atrocity attack. Feel & look rotten. Realizing
    the extent to which I was fertile soil for my parents’ anxieties.


    3:30 Thurs 30 Aug 79
    Everything done, ready to leave. I’m in shock. Crawled
    into the bath with a vodka tonic and now I’m feeling better. Trying to figure
    out how to approach parents for money. Maybe they could give me my own
    stock as engagement present? Feel I won’t be able to disguise my rage.
    This “I’m All Right Jack” no matter WHAT – is mighty convenient for them.
    I realize its any sense of helplessness that triggers all this
    rage NOT a good sign for T’s and my relationship. He can’t “make” me
    independent! I must not succumb, or Plath-ize. (She sacrificed herself
    to the gods of rage.) I’m doing this guy no favors handing him a woman
    on the edge of breakdown.

    4:25PM – My darling just called! Relief! He borrowed a truck from
    somebody so although we’ll have to drive separately we won’t have
    movers or returns to cope with. He’s driving it out here so I can sleep as
    late as I like which I really need. Impossibly intense happiness. Peace & joy. Feel we have been standing in a dinghy trying to balance. Equilibrium is everything. The irrevocableness of marriage. My children mutely regard my choice. The hopelessness of explaining myself to any of T’s friends. Rain. Any excuse not to take a walk (T lives in bad neighborhood.) Feel like a girl in a gothic novel except for the constant sex which makes it a different kind of novel. Break with the past.

    Reading Robert Ludlum’s perfectly ludicrous Matarese Circle. In 100 yrs people will wonder how we stomached this stuff. A. and I going to Olney theatre to see The Bat tonight.

    TOMORROW STARTS WOMAN INTO WOLF Alysse Aallyn’s thriller about difficult marriages & split identities

    …a thrill-ride, unique and highly recommended reading.” –Entrepreneur.com
    “deceit, rape, fertility, imprisonment and a mother’s grief…as each piece of the tightly coiled fiction was loosed I waited for the revelation to come…she couldn’t imagine the extent of the deception until it was spelled out. Neither could I.” –MyShelf.com
    “one of the most unusual mysteries I have ever read…I loved reading Woman Into Wolf … kept me on the edge of my seat right through the end…I highly recommend this novel to fans of crime mysteries that also
    enjoy some extra spice in their stories.” – Readerviews.com
    “a very fine psychological thriller…
    the characters in this book are as bright
    as crystal and as sharp as shattered glass. Aallyn not only can describe them to a neo-noun, she can make them speak
    true to those characters.
    Quite a talent…a novel every bit as worthy as her first.” ArmchairInterviews.com

    “Satisfying as hell.” -Quoth the Raven

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

    3:30 PM – Dumbarton Oaks – Sat 14 Apr 79
            Enjoying a day of full sun. Beautiful carved stone bench

    – azaleas in full bloom – peace. Woke up determined to finish taxes – offices
    closed! When can people go if they work all week? Beats me. But it would take
    more than a late filing to bother me – feel blissful. Approaching Plath from the question of her reputation. Determined to write and to learn to see movies alone.
    Last night awful sets with Zach – I don’t like his new band.
    He couldn’t seem to play guitar and sang off-key. Promises of a future have taken
    his present away. My heart went out to him – ordered a bottle of champagne
    to cheer him up. Late dinner – I ordered catfish in a spirit of adventure (not good) he ordered what he always has – chicken & fries. He told me about the times he’s
    been mugged and his belief in magic – I didn’t believe any of it. He was
    full of insecurities about Usher – I decided to act like we have a relationship
    to make it easier to get rid of Z later on. He “retaliated” by describing his affair
    with his friend’s 48 yr old divorced mother back on the coast. Sure, sure. Asked
    to come home with me. I said no.

    Plush Palace – Mon 23Apr 11PM
            God Malcolm Muggeridge is unpleasant (Jesus

    Rediscovered) and not even Christian. Makes Waugh look like the author
    of Sermon on the Mount. Trying to figure out how I would address God:
    what would I say?
    Beautiful note from Devon saying, “I love you dearly”.
    Sweet. The silenter I am the more he adores me. Sent a copy of my Plath
    essay to Usher – we’ll see what he says. Agent passed along a very flattering
    rejection on Memory – I am “too much” of a poet! Since I have just concluded
    (with Usher’s help) that I am no poet at all this cheered me up enormously.
    Airborne today – dancing really well. It’s the fasting. Feel a shimmering force field all around me.

                Starlight – 12:45 AM – Thurs 25 Apr 79
            Dragging myself around this AM –  my own fault for indulging

    in Irish coffee and caramel ice cream last night. 2nd anniversary party at the radio station and I thought, That might be fun! It was a disaster. I took Avril and we were immediately cornered by the club bore. (I had to give him a fake phone no just to get rid of him.) Plus they charged us for our drinks! Rod was there – tight and prim – fearful I would attack him about his nonexistent dance story – I put him at his ease.
    Left after an hour and Avril and I “drowned our disappointment” in the usual way
    (it felt good at the time.) Ross & Tom should be required reading for egomaniacs.

                Plush Palace 9 PM Mon 30 Apr 79
            Had my hair cut today and dyed platinum blonde – like the

    color not the cut. I wanted it all off – she asked to “try something” and if I didn’t
    like it she would “fix it for free”. Of course, I don’t like it but I didn’t have the time
    to stay and have it re-done. I think it’s almost too much trouble to go back – get somebody else to fix it. Everyone likes color however; I needed a boost. But it’s
    not what I pictured – looks like a medieval “bowl” cut to me. Fistfight! Guy dragged
    out of the club in handcuffs. Joselle says too bad; he was such a good tipper.
    Feel too old tonight – I obviously need a vacation but the only
    one I can take is in my own mind. I love the house but it always needs something.
    I was perched on the edge of celibacy but Jervaze showed up
    last night. Fabulous sex! Turned out to be worth it! 2 Hrs (I counted!) Oh, bliss. Reading very bad romantic suspense – A Relative Stranger. It’s a serious
    problem that I hate everything popular.

                2:30 PM Wed May 2 79
            Perfect day at home. Worked on poems listening to Mozart.

    Got my “medieval bowl” changed to “little boy” haircut – it’s wonderful! Do nothing
    to my hair anymore! Don’t have to wash it, brush it or even look at it! Of course, I have to deal with all the sobbing men at the clubs. Turns out long hair is a powerful masculine fetish. I consider pretending I’m a different person – but I have the same
    old costumes. New stage name? Wonder if “Colette” is taken. Guess I didn’t plan
    this very well.
    Yesterday overeating so today it’s a fast – only coffee. Phone keeps ringing I refuse to answer. It’s probably Paz begging me to come in and sub
    for some dancer who had an onstage breakdown. Reading Wagenknecht’s “psychograph” of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Interesting.

                Sun 6 May 79 -1:50 PM
            Avril and I drove to St Michaels yesterday – such a pleasure

    – I remember sailing into that port. It’s so beautiful I fantasize about buying a
    house and “retiring” there. I tell A, you get the country house, I’ll have the town
    house we can go back and forth. She says she does not want to live with her
    sister FOREVER! Why not when I’m so perfect?
    Delicious lunch of soft-shelled crabs and homemade
    coconut cream pie. Didn’t get to work till 6:40 and I was the only dancer till
    9 PM! Apparently previous dancer unconscious in dressing room and
    ambulance was called. Sorry I missed it. Eddy gave me extra $$ but told
    me I can’t wear my black jade rosary on stage (too many complaints). Too
    bad – it looks so good with white collar and cuffs. He says the place has
    been sold again and we will be getting new management. Hope it’s not Tony.

                Plush Palace – 10:10 PM – Mon May 7 – 79
            Would like to break my 2 day fasting record but I got up

    at 5:30 AM this morning and was just too hungry. Cucumber sandwiches
    with lots of pepper on whole wheat bread…mmmmm. Here’s my latest plan
    – rewrite Secaire and Blood Memory – get pregnant Sept 1 1980, have baby
    May 81! Father as yet unknown. Crazy, huh? Reading The Restless
    Journey of James Agee.

                Tues 8 May 79 – 4:45 PM
            Great day’s work on Secaire.  Not “done” but better.

    Completely new scene showing why Hank and Nilssa are attracted to each
    other. 10 P!!! Celebrated by going out to buy new notebooks. Sniff the paper
    hungrily. New lighting at the Palace very bad – guess who came in to audition? Brandy! I told manager she was lying about her age so he wouldn’t hire her.
    Nobody wants to work with her. She’s a grenade with the pin removed.
    Interesting book by Louis Cassells about the differences between religious
    faiths. So far I like Unitarianism best but want to expose my kids to as many
    different ones as possible and let them choose. Joselle keeps asking me if
    she’s going to be in my book. (I’m afraid she thinks I cut my hair for her.) I start
    instead a poem beginning “the chaste warrior sleeps only with his prey…” Bad! Sad.

                3PM Thurs 10 May 79 – Plush Palace
            New manager Jasper comes in. Seems nice. I curtsy

    very low. Yesterday fasted till evening – wrote 7 pages – walked dogs then
    Avril & I saw Truffaut’s Love on the Run and went out to dinner. White pizza
    with plenty of garlic. Usher is reading at a NJ college – invites me to go with
    him. Hmm. Needing a pair of hot pink pants to visit this college in.

        9:30 PM Fri night 11 May 1979
            No hot pink pants. Did find a nice pair of aqua polished

    cotton jeans and matching high-heeled shoes. Usher phoned and we
    commiserated about publishing. Avril and I went to see the movie, A Little
    Romance.     Very good. Long walk with dogs, further exploring our new
    neighborhood. People keep their lawns very tidy around here. Since I refuse
    to do ovens, windows or lawns, house-pride like this could present a problem.
    Must hire out.  I’m bored with my job, but it pays the bills so well I don’t think
    I can make changes till July. But who knows what lies just over the horizon? Reinventing oneself could be the greatest pleasure there is.

                Plush Palace – Sat night 12 May 1979
            Another exhausting goodbye with Jervaze.  I wore see-through

    chiffon bell-bottoms and flowered Qiana shirt – gratified to see they had
    their effect. He said he will always feel the same about me, always be jealous
    of the person I marry. I must say I now wish he would just go away. Which he’s supposed to do – off to Alabama. Again. I am not, shall we say, invited to this on-again, off again wedding. Awww. Feeling emotionally drained – only 30 short
    hours till I see Usher and I want to be witty and “on.” As opposed to slack-jawed
    and twitching.

      Queen’s Chapel – 4:30 PM Sun May 13 -79
    Dragged Avril to Unitarian church. There was a woman
    minister. I found the service satisfying enough and the church (River Road)
    very beautiful. They seem to have a lot going on – discussion groups, plays,
    theology class. I could be interested if I had the time.  Unfortunately everyone
    seems old. Could I overcome my misanthropy to go alone?  Remains to be
    seen.  The church has a bookstore – I bought an interesting book
    on female contemplatives. I’m contemplating a future as a single parent.
    Feel a faint hormonal stirring. (Avril says it’s the house.) Who’s the lucky guy?
    Jervaze would have been perfect if it wasn’t for that alcoholic gene.
    And I don’t think I could hide a baby from Devon for the rest of his life. Usher
    probably has some impressive genes along with the vast millions to which he
    constantly alludes. On the other hand, the kid he does have sounds defective.
    Need to get clear about his marital status.


    Queen’s Chapel – 9:30 PM May 15 -79
    Bad visit to NJ with Usher. Thank God it wasn’t an
    overnight. First he showed up in a Mercedes he described as “the color of Lena
    Horne’s skin”. UGH! Next – brace yourself – he wanted to hide me from his
    audience!! Dumped me at an antique bookstore (that part wasn’t a total waste
    – bought the diaries of Cynthia Asquith) then took me out to an apologetic dinner.
    I was so annoyed I commanded everything to be set on fire – fondue, oysters,
    and 2 desserts. (He chose a very good wine. It was the least he could do.)
    He didn’t want to talk about his reading – said if I had attended there would
    have been “too many questions”. And as artists, aren’t we SCARED TO
    DEATH of questions? Aren’t we?


      Castle – Wed 1:15 AM 16 May – 79
    Unspeakably rotten dinner at the Cosmo Club with
    Usher. Forget him and his majestic New England genes. He is simply
    “collecting” me as his latest oddity. He has “so many” “warm, women artist”
    friends but no dancer yet (he’s way overdosed on poets) and he drifts from
    one “presence” to another, sucking wattage like some radioactive swamp
    monster. He and his wife have an “understanding” which probably means she
    has no idea where the hell he ever is and nobody’s had sex in eons. Can’t I
    do better than this?
    In spite of the fact that I’m a degraded person who doesn’t
    know where her next sexual or emotional meal is coming from I think I must
    insist on a note from wifey before taking this matter further. According to his
    poetry he associates sexuality with evil – not that I’m physically attracted to him,
    it’s just so piquant to be with a man who gets a fresh barber’s shave right before
    seeing you. (It’s been awhile).  I don’t think he listened to a thing I said, just
    gazed at me rapturously. I tried getting him interested in helping me write a
    screenplay for Faulkner’s Mosquitoes – to me a completely ignored,
    obviously filmable work. He dismisses, “It’s been done.” 
    Well it may have been “treated” BY SOMEBODY but the
    point is, it hasn’t been treated by us and it hasn’t been filmed and it would be WONDERFUL. Couldn’t ignite him. He really doesn’t want to talk about writing
    with me – I guess he has other people for that. I was so happy when our “date”
    ended I could have wept for joy. On the other hand I am sorry to see these
    millions slip away. My children could have used them, not to mention all my
    fantasies of early retirement busted. Looks like I have no one to depend on but myself.  Enjoying Monica Dickens’ enchanting The Moon was Low. But had
    to buy a Quaalude from Maureen to get to sleep.  
    Finished  V. Sackville-West’s The Devil at Westease.
    I can’t figure out why she wrote it. She speaks entirely in lost codes.
    I really dragged myself in to work today. That’s how
    you know you’re working too much. Letter from Devon – he’s off to California
    to “find himself.” What he really wants is any way to figure out how to be a
    minister in a state of sexual abandon and he instinctively knows if the answer
    is anywhere, it is in California. On the other hand, will this really turn out to
    be what he wants? Not if I know him. The only good news about him is that
    his genes are impeccable. Plus, I’m very depressed about my writing.
    Spreading myself too thin – thinking about one project
    while working on another. My St Secaire book is starting to get ridiculous,
    but I want to follow up this “satanic rites” thing to see where it goes. Why did
    I come up with it? What does it mean? Who knows? Cheap and derivative
    everyone would probably say at this point. Yet it holds some interest for me.
    Love and sex as hostage-taking. The question is, who’s the hostage and
    who’s the keeper?
    Could it be hours of research, prose and bitching produce
    only a single poem? Lucky if so.

    The Chaste Warrior Sleeps Only With His Prey

    My sutures hurt; I’m
    Completely unavailable,
    You laced my body like a jerkin
    Unsheathing your ambition;
    Cut my breakfast with a corkscrew
    Your secret spine
    Doubled up and put away.

    I’m fasting now
    Bracing for the worst
    I can’t eat anything that doesn’t
    Look right at me
    And want to know the truth;
    who’s for real? And
    What’s the state of play?

                I know it’s a mess.

      Also miserable about money and my body. Buying the
    house was a great idea – I love it – however, there are constant expenses
    I can’t ignore that keep me chained to this goddam stage and dressing room.
    My mortgage calls for my monthly payment to increase next year – I could
    worry about that if I wanted to.  And then I always respond to depression and
    worry with a desire to eat which of course threatens my job. (Sigh.) Tips down
    (maybe I should buy a wig.) And my face is all broken out so I have to use
    heavy makeup – and my skin doesn’t like that.

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

     9:30 AM – 22 Dec 77
        Very dissatisfied 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 rent 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 R. My latest “daymare” is that he will just
    show up at the club. Should I talk to Randy? A 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 ”face” 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 really disguise favorites what with the tripping,
    drinks, flowers and etc even if we aren’t allowed to sit with the customers.
    Stooge could probably figure it out. Maybe R 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.

    NOCTURNE

    Reveal

    Yourself to me

    To my inner palate

    An artist’s palette

    Moth-winged hands

    Fluttering

    Crescent thighs surging

    Urging

    Union undivided

    Prickly venus flytrap hairs that guard

    Your anis scented anus

    Fleshy mandibles

    Trembling sheaves

    Snouting for your smoky-salted dinner

    Double-snouted cock stiffening

    My mango halves

    O I will baste you when its time

    Angelspit,

    Lovespawn

    Dipin my styx of roe your

    Musky caviar

    Sensate wanderer you

    Suck

    Ubus –

    I dreamed you

    Open me.

            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 Irish Mist 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 – regretted the
    first time when “rocked out” on 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.

     24 Dec 77 - midnight – Plush Palace
        The Big Day. Go home, sleep, wake up, do laundry, take

    dogs for shots, buy snow tires.  In a haze of infatuation – J 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 hours – tonight’s 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? This is the longest time I’ve been away
    from dancing and 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 – Dec 77

      This apt is triggering horrible flashbacks to how sick I was
    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 now misery has 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.

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

            12:10 PM- Plush Palace – Wed 19 Oct 77
        Dance night, then dance the next day kind of rough. And

    days 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. R 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 aft 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. 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.
        R 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
    it’s too late to learn. Actually feeling amazingly happy. Kiki showed me
    how to cut off my corn with an exacto knife. All 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. Deliberately drove Conn 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
    thrift shop bureau and a mattress on the floor.

             12 Nov 77 6:25 PM Plush Palace
        I finally called R. (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. Took my card out of his rolodex but couldn’t bring himself to destroy it
    and 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” but of course I can’t. 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 for Mr. 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. Called his work
    immediately – “Mr. Arlen’s desk.” Left her 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 say is THIS IS NOT DATING. WE ARE NOT DATING. You can’t be
    trusted with my workplace #.


    Then I start looking desperately for 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, 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. Should
    I 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 shaking so much. 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 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.

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

    8:30 AM Thurs Sept 15 1977
        Up early spending the last of my money on necessaries – hardware, lampshades, contact paper.

Fri 16 September 1977
        My books arrived at Larry’s!  I spent the morning sending them out. Then drove to the Landover Mall, bought two g-strings and pasties and off to the Plush Palace. Steve was there – (Randy the bouncer just hired) thrilled to see me. 
        Wanted to know where I’d been but I turned that easily away.Vacay! Who wouldn’t!  Told me to come to work Saturday night and they’d give me my schedule. So that’s settled. I don’t like trying to live without money. Took the landlord my paint color selection – he buys the paint and I do the work. Probably will take me the next week. Every now and then am attacked by that claustrophobic feeling of restlessness and purposelessness but I am able to keep it at philosophical bay. Working at my poem index made me feel strong and soothed.

    PREPPY

    Corseted with verbs
    French teacher sweeps
    Cherry blossoms from the tennis court
    As she would like to french
    The cherries, squelch them soundly
    Beneath her soccer-spiking shoes

    While the headmistress
    Cello-breasted
    Polishes graffiti carved upon her coffin
    In Chaucerian High English,
    And the girls –
    Nun-white, nun-blue

    Soar above the hockey fields like
    Foul-mouthed angels, anticipated ecstasy locked
    In narrow hope chests ripening on
    Amphetamines
    Free Love
    Bad dreams.

            Called Chloe to see if I can get on the radio – she was excited to hear from me, but unfortunately gave Erika my number. Erika called – I was nervous that she wanted me to rewrite her manuscripts, but she just invited me to breakfast.  After that she has another appointment so she can’t swallow up my day. Letter from Avril saying she is coming end of Oct.

    10:15 PM Sat 17 Sept 77 – The Plush Palace, Alexandria Virginia
    Ego lift. Nothing’s changed. I’m still the best dancer in the place. Four dancers on and I know two of them. The gossip, the Costume exchange, the curling irons, the dope in the dressing room – it’s all coming back to me. They’ve introduced some weird rules, like customers get to play the music, but it’s still a fun and relaxed place to be.  Steve the floor manager says I can have all the work I want so I might be able to put money away.


     Sun 18 Sept 77
    Opal comes to over to say “hi” but really to complain about her incipient divorce. Not the best company. Not the best climate for me either – I found myself sobbing over Ryder (fortunately was alone by then). Why does it seem a lost paradise? So I can still get into that sort of mood.
    Nice phone call with Mom and dad, not too pressured.  They are coming to a boatyard in Annapolis  to look at a boat – will see me then.  One of the best things about this house is the month-to month lease. Feel I can leave any time but if I behave well they won’t kick me out. Gorgeous location but forty-five minute highway commute to The Plush Palace. Still wish I could live in Virginia.


    Wed AM 20 Sept  77
    Sent out a ton of poems. Replied to a woman who wants pieces for an anthology. Got a beautiful love-letter from Devon! His usual length – both sides of one page. Talked about how much fun we had in August, dressing up and going out and “afterwards…!” Made me smile. I said to hell with money and called Avril because I wanted to share – Mason is not there during the day. She is in a bad place. Providential I called. He has taken to staying out at night without explanation – she is frantic. Thank God she is coming here. I told Randy since I’m your best dancer, how about a raise. He gave me one! Only flaw to this house – they need to fix hot water. I had to heat water to wash my hair. Bought 2 more costumes bringing my total up to six  – the bare minimum I’d say.
    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 R – 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 Oct 1977
    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 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. Vac 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 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 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. 
        4:20 PM Fri Oct 14 – 77
        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 he 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.

    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
    A losing battle choreographed for one.
    None to explore or
    Appreciate my line though now at last
    It’s incontestably mine.

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

            2:30 PM Dunkin Donuts, Eelsboro, Maine Fri. 26 Aug 77
        Here I am again: have I changed? I like myself better,

    I think I can say that. Thurs night was a big success. Devon came in with
    an IMMENSE bottle of white wine – he either needs it for himself or he’s
    trying to turn me into an alcoholic (with my full cooperation.) The clam
    and noodle thing I invented was quite good but he wasn’t ready to eat till
    nine and we didn’t get to bed till midnight where he revealed a sexually
    savage side to his nature that has been previously unseen. So maybe
    he was nerving himself. (I loved it). We finished the housecleaning and
    were off to the airport by 11.
    Fairly silent in the car, though he was tender. When I
    mentioned he might come down to DC he said he didn’t think there was
    much of a possibility – so now I’m worrying that I’ve been pushed onto
    Bad Girl Island while he pines for Pure Young Innocent Eng girl with who
    he would NEVER do those enjoyably awful things. (She’s 21!!!! He knew
    her 24 hrs!!!) I shouldn’t be silly. I really can’t ever “lose” him. I think he
    loves me and everything else is just scar tissue. Devastating airport
    goodbye – he asked me to “write soon”. I’m probably lucky he loves me
    as much as he does. I was looking damn good if I do so say so myself in
    backless red halter top and tight, tight jeans. I do want him to remember
    me as beautiful.


    11:30 AM Sat 27 Aug 77
    M & D are on Ryder’s side!!! And they HATE him! In other
    words, they will line up with anybody rather than me. They say of course R
    “behaves badly” if I am having an “affair” (don’t you love the archaic term?)
    with Devon! I say he doesn’t even know about Devon, plus we weren’t
    exclusive BY HIS CHOICE plus we were BROKEN UP. All still seems to be
    my fault. Incredibly, they think I am not SUFFERING ENOUGH. Here are
    people who have lectured me all my life to find any excuse for other
    people’s bad behavior – life has surely injured them somehow. They
    didn’t have Advantages! According to them I am the only human being
    alive who doesn’t get an excuse – I should just “be different”. How,
    asks mom, can I meet “suitable young men” while dancing? Suitable
    young men! (They like Marc Kramer who’s a complete horndog and a
    political troglodyte. But at least he can afford me!) Am I living in a
    Trollope novel? I am so annoyed I don’t want to accept their hospitality
    but I really don’t want to rent a room in the House of the Damned aka
    Burnside Inn. which doesn’t take dogs – who wept to see me again like
    children – then immediately got over it.


    Dad’s a very restless retiree I must say but don’t ask me
    what to advise. I’m too ignorant. My advice to everyone is “write”; like
    naturalists say “Be alone in nature” and religious people say “Find God.”
    Reading Vol I. V. Woolf’s diary (so different from A Writer’s Diary) and
    hitting the gin. Mom thinks I’m taking “bad” advice from messed up writers – “modeling” myself on failures and suicides – (Dad calls them “degenerates”)
    – because it’s “cool”. That’s why I need the gin. I need the gin the first
    minute I wake up. Must try not to be such a limp limpet. Told Mom if R
    calls at night not to come get me.

            Sun 9:30 AM 28 Aug 77
        Mom washing windows.  God - I think I am supposed to

    offer help but I Refuse. I need to get the hell out of here. Mom says I
    can’t add my laundry to hers but have to go to the laundromat in town.
    So the Battle is On. I’ll just go around smelling bad so there. Mom and
    Dad are sailing down the Inland Waterway but not till Oct. Have a horrible
    feeling I’m not out of the woods on this Ryder thing. Maybe I can get
    established in Wash without him knowing. If I go back to him I will despise
    myself. Keep D as my lucky talisman.


    9:45 PM
    Drunk, fat and exhausted. Parents had cocktail party
    inviting Island Poet. (Published in The New Yorker.) Tried to give her
    the rundown on my summer but it sounds a complete waste – “Wrote
    half of a no-good book, got my other book rejected”. Of course my summer
    doesn’t sound like anything with the sex & love left out!!! Am I trapped
    at the end of a cul de sac? No; there is something there. I just can’t
    find it yet.


    Dad said he’s sure my life provides a lot of stories, but
    maybe what I need is a PhD in Eng Lit! Mom’s reaction to that is rigid
    disapproval. (He’ll never make that mistake again.) To explore the
    boundaries of one’s soul is Selfish. One Lives to Serve (or to Claim one
    is Serving. So, if you’re too stupid to know you’re selfish its win-win for
    the small-minded!) Tried to read The Clocks but its Agatha Christie’s
    worst. Absolutely meaningless. Poor Virginia Woolf going through a
    very bad, painful period. Obviously sick, recording only weather & food.
    Now theorists act like she was “mental” not liking to look at herself but
    Vita Sackville-West felt the same way. Couldn’t look in a mirror,
    wouldn’t buy evening dresses or go to parties! (And she was on the
    sexual prowl, unlike poor VW.) I think their era was actually worse
    about beauty than we are – they gave it a “magic” “classical” quality so
    it was very much restricted. We see more beauty – and in weird places.
    Otherwise how explain Leslie Caron? Jeanne Moreau? Charlotte Rampling?
    Hardly classic beauties but wonderfully, rightfully worshipped as
    goddesses. I see hope for all of us.

            8:00 AM Mon 29 Aug 77
        It’s real Agatha Christie weather – fog so dense you

    can’t see the water. Nevertheless the ferry’s running – Mom took
    Dad down. I’m feeling successful, sober and sane. I’m doing exactly
    what I want and will find my own way. I’m determined to be happy and
    not develop some kind of “rejection phobia.” Not knock out the props of
    my own happiness. Accept the fact that my pride has been hardest hit.

    PHANTOMS

    The ghost awaits his chance
    Inside us all
    Revenge de-bodies –
    Anticipates the dark
    Impatience ill-concealed
    Grasps our foot
    Beneath the turning of the stair
    Reveals a face as blank as
    Nightmare whose
    Icy, seaweed coils entwine mistrust
    Around our throats
    Suppress our breath
    While we dead live.

            4:20 PM Letter from the Folger Shakespeare Library

    inviting me to read Oct 13! Even Mom was impressed. 20 mins pays
    $50! I’ve hit the big time! Wish I’d known this when Island Poet was
    asking me why I don’t just kill myself and get it over with. M & D can’t
    argue with me going back to DC now (they tell me Berthe Slaughter’s
    condo is for sale on the cutest little road. Right on the waterfront. I say
    I would rather have the art gallery next to the Atlantic Grocery $5000,
    no bath or kitchen. In case they’re buyin’. They aren’t, in spite of the
    fact that they are very flush with money right now. Got their $$ back
    from
    NY State bankruptcy but Dad always in a panic that we’ll figure out
    how rich he is.)


    9:00 PM Called Shoulders. He said dogs will be all right
    for a couple of days but he’s being evicted at the end of Sept! Too bad,
    such a nice house. (And in Chevy Chase!) So I’m spared kennel
    fees for 2 days at least. R must be back at work (if he still has a job).
    Reading old NY Times Book Reviews in front of a roaring fire.
    Dishwashing break – I said I’d do them. Pick up Agatha Christie afterwards
    – the preferred reading for “shock cases”. (She was a shock case herself.
    Absent in the Spring is very fine).

              Island 10 PM Monday night, 5 Sept 77
            In bed in the Barnacle drinking coffee, eating bread

    with honey. Delicious solitude. Can’t go to the Main House because
    Genevieve’s friends from Boston are there – they no sooner arrived for
    this Fantasy vacation than they decided they need a divorce. Fortunately, 
    they are quiet about it. The one thing they can’t deal with is their dog –
    tomorrow I have to drive him to the ferry. Oh well.  I’ve been enraptured
    by this delicious solitude – beachcombing is very healing. I guess I am
    just a solitary sort – don’t really care for people at all, I fear. Last night
    a bad dream about Ryder – treating me cruelly and me, paralyzed. In
    the daytime – in my conscious mode – I remember everything good
    about him, his lips mouth and fingers – his constant air of playfulness.
    The way we fit perfectly together like interlocking puzzle pieces made
    it nice that he was short – my mirror opposite, only male. My lost twin.
    But nature abhors a balance, apparently.
    Must remind myself how he had to try to turn it to his
    advantage, throwing the whole system off and spinning my world into
    frozen space.  Now he doesn’t know where I am (although he might
    suspect.)  No phone in this building thank God.
    Tomorrow goodbye Maine – back to DC to house-hunt. 
    M & D have been good about not dragging me to things – enjoyed the
    Smythes sculpture show – parties not so much. Parties seem like
    “consensus building events” where I’m fated to be perennially on the
    outs. Ford Madox Ford made some kind of statement about how
    people have to achieve a level of “ordinariness” to be “successful” –
    I can’t remember the exact quote. Plus I lack the patience to look it up.
    R felt I despised him intellectually, which of course, I did.
    I don’t think of myself as stratified, but he is and when you’re with a
    stratified person, you become so. Sometimes I am in mourning for the
    part of me that died. I wish I could get my letters back – but they were
    only love-letters. Must seem now like the ravings of an insane person.
    Well, there’s no reason to see him again. I think the casual relationship
    is beyond me.  I hope in the future I’ll be careful of men going mach
    one across the sexual barrier. I’ve got to stop looking at sex as a vitamin
    requiring periodic intravenous doses.  

    Chevy Chase, MD - 10:15 PM Thurs 8 Sept.
        At Shoulder’s house. Not a bad drive down – (washing the

    dogs right before the ferry (I had to – they stank) put some time
    pressure on me – but I made the ferry anyway. Larry – Shoulders –
    looks different – has a moustache. Talks about needing a roommate –
    does he mean me? He doesn’t know where yet and I don’t want to live
    with him. His constant string of ignorant pickups would eventually get
    me down. He doesn’t mention Ryder and I don’t look up his TV show.
    Promising stuff in the classifieds – a garden apt in Landover, a townhouse
    in Dale City, sharing a house in Kensington. Took the dogs on the old
    walk – they remembered the route. Huge construction at my old house.
    L’Escargot closed.

    CURATRIX

    Cold lonely core I was
    Before you found me
    Freed me from
    Ambition’s boundary.
    Now I’m a single facet on your stone
    Most myself when I’m alone. But
    Memories like stones I’m free to choose
    And in life’s river,
    Eventually, lose.

    5 PM Sept 9
        Kensington House hopeless. You have to join some

    kind of food co-op that’s like a cult religion and there’s a huge emphasis
    on kitchen and cooking duties. They all eat together. Seems like
    the worst of college and boarding school to me. I’m now sitting in a
    real estate office which is really a garage waiting for a guy who’s already
    an hour late. He’ll be here in 10 mins they say, then he’s going away for
    2 weeks so I hope he will want to close the deal tonight, It’s described
    as an old apartment, high ceilings, fireplace. $210 a month. So I’m just
    praying the neighborhood’s not too bad. 
    7:00 PM
    Bleak. Too bleak. Tried to imagine myself doing my
    exercises on that floor, standing in that kitchen waiting for water  to
    boil, etc. Couldn’t manage. Feeling very stressed. Do I even want to
    live in this city? It’s just that I know I can easily make a living if the
    book doesn’t take off. Went to the library and loaded up on Agatha
    Christies to help handle the strain. It works.  Maybe I need to get a
    shag haircut  and spend the winter in Spain. Now why don’t I do that,
    other than the obvious reason I can’t afford it and have missed my
    dogs as much as I want to. Another guy says he has half of a house
    I might want.  With a fenced in yard.

    8:15 AM Wed 14 September – Powder Mill Road
        Drinking coffee in my own kitchen from the mug that

    was my present to myself last morning on the island. The guy is
    selling this house as a rental property and was amazingly cavalier –
    needed a tenant – didn’t look up my refs or demand cosigner.
    Absolutely cool when I described myself as a ”writer” so “dancer”
    remains beneath the radar. (Dad would say that proves I know
    dancing’s “bad”! I refuse to be unsafe just to convince my own father
    I’m respect-worthy.) Yesterday very full day.  Got up at 8 and moved
    the dogs to their fenced in yard. Fetched the truck, loaded and
    unloaded with Larry The Shoulders’ help – bookcases, boxes, mattress,
    desk, sofa – had truck back by 3. A thousand robins on the weed-grown
    lawn. I wonder how long I will be looking at this peaceful green view.

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

    1:45 PM Tues 2 Aug 77
    No damn mail for THREE DAYS.  No stock certificate,
    nothing from my agent. And I made sure she had my right address.
    I think diets brew self-hatred. Reading about Simenon and
    having trouble with sentences like “50 of his novels date from this period.”
    Shouldn’t read about this guy.
    Starting to dream about Dupont Circle.
    10PM
    Just back from a long bike trip down interesting country
    road.  Felt I was visiting my future self.  Glimpsing dark houses,
    lighted bow windows, Canada geese as tame as ducks.
    Alice Crimmins – did she do it?  Rorech’s theory pure
    hogwash. I think there are people who can “talk themselves into”
    feeling innocent. I’ve met lots of amnesiacs.
    Plan to buy silk shirts (in Washington) and read all the newspapers. 
    Emerge from my cocoon. Read Graham Greene section of Dangerous
    Edge.

        7 PM Wed Aug 3 77
        Sitting out on deck well pleased with self. Stock cert arrived

    today.  Called Chevy Chase Bank and Trust got girl who didn’t know anything
    but relayed instructions shouted at her by someone else.  Signed stock,
    climbed in Volvo, sent the whole thing off certified mail. Money should be in
    by 10th. Surely Inzar can’t drop below 9.  I can manage on $900.
    Long bike ride had me puffing like a grampus; feeling
    extra hungry so had a bowl of plain grits. Orwell’s letters. Kipling
    too boring. Never been able to stand anything he’s written. Reading
    trashy gothic The Room Beneath The Stairs makes me think I can
    do something with my old The Bride and the Wolves.
    Conditioned my hair (oleocap.)  Looks good in spite of sun
    & chlorine and it’s nice & long.
    Maybe R’s been fired.  He’s a coward and that would shut
    him up. Shouldn’t even think about it.  I’m a nail biter looking for a
    nail to bite. There’s a lot to be said for the joys of starting over.
    Stomach shrinking & all that.

    10:30 AM – Poolside – Thurs 4 Aug 77
    Watching the kiddie swimming lessons while reading
    Hog Tied in Babylon (That’s what it SHOULD be
    called. Overpraised Hollywood reminiscences. It’s
    like reading a “talk show”.) Had to return a Michael
    Innes unread it was so ghastly. Critical look at body in
    the mirror this AM. Losing my hips makes my waist disappear.
    Hmm. Legs OK. Open swim!


    5PM Boring, annoying mail. Threatening letter from
    Motor Vehicle Admin. They are upset because name on license and
    name on registry not the same. Blame my marriage when I used to be
    Vill-Aallyn. Sort it out when I get down there. Nothing from R so I refuse
    to write to him ever again. Two weeks since he phoned me.  (He should
    be used to this – he and his wife used to get into the long competitive sulking matches.)


    10:26 PM
    Lousy bike ride.  I was so hungry and it seemed such
    hard work. Maigret & The Loner senile yapping.

    ANOREXIC

    i long to be myself
    without interference from
    the likes of you; a
    spindle of bone encased in lurex
    or some pure substance;
    an angel, a flame, a shadow of clear
    fire; you have weighed me down
    for years, encumbering me
    with blood and collagen, depriving me
    of my god-given right to become a sundial
    on which is writ:
    “it’s later than you think”

    1PM Fr. 5 Aug 77
    Woke up feeling so lousy made myself soup. Swimming
    and coffee did make me feel better.  Read Margaret Millar’s
    Listening Walls – first half superb. Ruthless abuse of detective conventions – she misleads us left and right. The character of the Author
    that is built up is that of a viciously uncaring person.  Orwell’s
    war years dull.

    8PM Sat 6 Aug 77
    Be careful what you want in case you get it. D and I are
    suddenly in the midst of a very satisfying love affair. He called 5:30
    yesterday – wish it had been earlier because I was in a psychic tailspin.
    Immediately tidied the place up, anointed my body, put on my black silk
    jumpsuit exploding with roses (last worn on date with R.)  He came in
    wearing tight jeans and a linen safari jacket – we had a very silly time
    over wine. Christ he can look beautiful when he wants to.  Out to a
    restaurant – I ordered a “flaming volcano” and they had it! More silliness. 
    D. said, “Going out with you is an experience.” He couldn’t compliment
    me enough on my general gorgeousness (heh heh heh.)
    We saw The Deep which was just what we both wanted –
    titillating glossy glop. D. kept initiating PDA’s (which he never used to
    be able to do. Wow has this guy grown up! He used to act like the
    Amherst PDA Police were everywhere! He suggested we go to bed!
    No loitering on couch! Sexually he has all the time in the world and
    he’s all out for my pleasure – his orgasm of no importance.  He’s particularly
    good with my ass and I LOVE that. (He treats every sphincter like
    another pair of lips – I’m in a threesome with myself!) I always felt like
    he was “holding back” – not any more.
    Tendernesses and confidences growing. Nice to be loved!
    He goes on and on about the beauty & sensuality of my body; my sexuality
    “like a storm!”

    Sun 12:30 PM Deck 7 Aug 77
    Sitting over coffee, grits (to which Mrs. McManus has now
    addicted me) and Dorothy Eden. (The Sleeping Bride – very good!)
    Praying like mad for writing money. I could afford to get a divorce!
    Lucky things worked out the way they did – keeps me from obsessing
    over R.
    Bike ride! It’s a form of prayer.
    6Pm Hammering away – great scene – getting the good stuff
    – typewriter ribbon gave out! Come on! At 6 PM!! It’s like having your
    horse shot out from under you. I was going to spend the evening writing
    Goddamit.
    Starting to worry about R coming back from the Finger Lakes – he
    knows where I am – would he show up here? Aack! No! Impossible. 
    He can’t be alone. Wouldn’t drive that distance without a captive ear.
    Reading Jane Aiken’s study of Jane Austen. Don’t feel
    a moment’s anxiety about D.

            Mon 8 Aug 77
        3 PM On deck loving the rising wind, reading The Scalpel

    of Scotland Yard (Spilsbury). A perfect day. Trapped here for a few
    hours till the man shows up to fix trash masher – but at least I got my
    “naked exercises” out of the way. Today’s a scorcher – using air-conditioning
    for the first time. Cheated on my diet – ate a whole can of tuna.
    Packed in water, fortunately. Body screaming for peaches and
    almonds. Gutted the Pevensey library. They are running out of
    books for me.


    12:45 PM Tues Aug 9 – 77
    Coming out of my coma to write agent a note.
    After 3 months of not being “pushy” surely SOMETHING should
    be happening.  I decide I am suffering from a disease that should
    be called “Dickensitis” marked by severe self consciousness and
    complicated by “Plath syndrome” (brutal social induction flashbacks).
    Freezes me in my path.
    Loving Solzhenitsyn’s article on Shakespeare & Tolstoy.
    But do I love Devon? Before all of this I would have said yes, very
    casually but sometimes the better you get to know someone the less
    you can love them. He was at pains to explain his theology – but it
    doesn’t seem to involve God – it’s all interpersonal relations – which I
    have to say I think is just weird! He wants to be “of service” to people
    and he’s aware – but suspicious about – the “mysticism” athletes get into.
    I hate to say this but it reminds me of my mother. Any “be wary of people
    who have an inner life and try your best to get rid of yours” philosophy
    is a major turnoff for me. When we talk about “self-perfection” and
    “self-cultivation” we are talking about VERY different things.
    I casually told him the more I get to know him the less
    I know him – and he was very pleased! (Relieved.) He didn’t say why
    but I know he doesn’t want to be “easy”. I didn’t tell him he’s still held
    fast in Sleeping Beauty’s overgrown castle, in my opinion. Don’t think
    I can get him out of there. I always try to plan my strategy if he tried
    taking the relationship up a notch. But he can’t suggest we live together
    while he’s a divinity student. Think I can relax about it and just enjoy his
    magnificent body.
    Take, eat. Old wounds between us are entirely healed.
    If D is stuck in SB’s castle, where is R? He is unborn, a baby
    dreaming in the womb. “When I grow up I’m going to have lots and
    LOTS of girlfriends but they will all be PERFECTLY RESPECTABLE
    and SEXUALLY DYNAMIC when I say so!”
    I regret most working so hard to make him “certain” of
    me, to make sure he knew exactly what I was thinking and feeling.
    I put my cards not only face-up on the table, I handed them to the guy!
    Not many people would be mature enough to handle that. Never
    discuss what I am feeling with D – haven’t mentioned R after our
    preliminary intros “what have you been up to”. I’m not sure he even
    knows how I make money in Washington.


    8:45 AM Wed 10 Aug 77
    Like the alcoholics say, one day at a time! Exercises,
    diet, sunbathe, bike ride, swim, etc. Doing a good job at that – horrible
    job at writing – because I don’t hear from agent. Confidence completely
    collapsed. Sitting on the deck feeding Ms. McManus’ Caesar salad
    croutons to a squirrel. He really likes them. Reading Berckmann’s
    A Thing That Happens To You. Finished Thalberg’s bio – ho hum.
    No swimming – maybe bike ride in the rain (just a misting).

            3:30 PM 11 Aug 77 - Thurs
        Depressing letter from Chloe – she wants my help

    with her MSS. I agree with Henry James – all I can do is My Thing
    My Way. But I have to seem really approachable if I want radio
    work. Conundrum. Catatonia. Devon called. Do I want to get laid?
    I think so! Reading about grave robbers produces a poem;

    RESURRECTIONIST

    Unearth me, lover
    I’m a jewel now
    Melted
    In that crevice you once loved so
    Well; it’s an ingot now,
    a socket
    For our mingled liquid
    Essence
    Suck it up with
    Dust-lathered lips
    Strip
    The flesh as you once did
    The clothes; I’m burning
    Cinder-hot –
    Let me astound you with
    My time-perfected skill

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

    12:50 AM Plush Palace – exhausted and bathed in sweat.
    Man tried to crawl onstage with me. He was in the mood to dance!
    Every dancer (except me and I guess him) is using Darla’s overdose
    death (suicide or accident? I say why not murder?) as an excuse to
    not dance. I like dancing. Passes the time faster and the tips are
    better. Steve managing tonight – he looks just like Dylan Thomas.
    I keep expecting a Welsh accent when he warns the old men with
    their balls hanging out. Great tales from new dancer Charmian –
    she has toured the entire country. Just dancing. (She has the body
    of a seven year old. Plasters pasties on her completely flat chest. )
    There’s a townhouse in New City I like the sound of but nobody
    EVER answers that phone. Tomorrow dinner with poor A and that
    awful Mason whom I loathe and despise. Couldn’t get through Babs
    Deals’ The Walls Came Tumbling Down – and Crystal Mouse was
    so good. Fortunately I have Steven Marcus’ The Other Victorians
    which is excellent. Pornotopia, indeed! Should have $1000 in savings
    by the 24th June.


    3PM Wed 25 May 77
    Weighed myself – I shouldn’t have. Lost two pounds but I
    can gain it back through thought alone. Reading Gore Vidal’s essays –
    like them better than his novels – unsettling man. A says Dad’s taken
    hotel rooms for everybody in NYC. New City townhouse a terrible
    shock – NOT to be thought of. R. called to invite me to the Emmys
    June 4. He had the nerve to say I’ll “always come back” to him. So
    I have to be careful not to, even when at night I howl like an animal.
    I can’t trust him to “take care” of me.


    7:45 PM Thurs May 26
    Who knew the worst was yet to come? I was talking to
    A at Broadcast Agency and a call came in and it was Ryder. “Hello
    Broadcast Agency”. I said, “You’re on the wrong line.” He said, “Your
    private line is busy and I’ve got to talk to you. Need to come clean
    and beg your forgiveness.” Uh oh.
    Yup. He invited another girl to the Emmys BEFORE me
    (that’s his story) she said she couldn’t afford to come, he invited me,
    then she contacted him to say she managed to get a plane ticket.
    So he’s disinviting me! I disconnected him immediately. He’ll be
    lucky if I ever speak to him again. I ought to be glad it happened –
    I was dithering. Needed a decision maker.
    I said to Charmian this evening, “Are you happy? I’m
    taking a poll.” She said, “Well, I feel all right. All that bothers me
    are asshole men.”
    So true! I think the pain is over if I decide it is. Struggling not
    to be feel ashamed of ever loving that man. Distance is required.
    Distance & discipline. Dancing makes me feel better. I kicked
    really high. Audience enjoyed it.


    3:10 AM
    Home dreading he would be here – if so I was prepared
    to scream the place down. He wasn’t. Just a note – saying I was
    “right to get rid” of him. Calling himself a worthless shit! He said
    he’s “sinned” ever since he met me by refusing to admit how much
    I mean to him. The problem is it doesn’t matter. We are the wrong
    people for each other.


    8:30 PM Fri. Plush Palace May 27 1977
    The only place I can sleep is work, dozing off between
    sets. Not even masturbation knocks me out. Tempting to make
    Mon my last day but I should last out the week – I need the cash.
    Still have so much packing to do. Keith in my office the last day of
    Broadcast Agency work – I told him about the Emmys – he said it
    didn’t sound like a deathblow. Men! I had considered inviting
    him to the wedding – this decided me against it.
    3 weeks alone in NYC house-sitting for Genevieve
    while she’s on her honeymoon. Parents will take dogs. The Blessing
    is an awful book. Nancy Mitford not cut out to be a novelist; she’s
    really not interested in motivation. Only wants a forum for her retro opinions.


    4:30 PM Sat 28 May 77 – Plush Palace
    A girl left early so Laverne and I are splitting her sets.
    Courtly Jim of the hush puppy body and the Elvis Presley hair
    realizes he has to pay us more to keep someone onstage. Good tips –
    holidays make people feel richer. Only 3 days left.


    7:30 PM Sun 29 May 77
    Packed for six straight hours, ate yogurt and chicken,
    walked dogs now I’m lying on mattress more exhausted than
    I’ve ever been. Shoulders has agreed to store my furniture –
    we don’t need a van since his house is right across the street.
    Told him he can use whatever pieces he wants. Jim will be in
    to pay me Fri so I don’t need to trust the mails. Called phone,
    gas, water, elec people. Don’t think I like EM Forster
    (where Angels Fear To Tread) – Henry James without the
    Henry James. Edwardian didacticism makes me miss James’s
    scrupulous objectivity. Why did he write this book? Because
    he’s “The Literary Type”. Compare with Woolf’s Unwritten Novel.
    Stagger about forcing myself to gulp Yuban. So enjoying throwing
    things away.


    Wed. 1 June 77 – 8:30 PM Plush Palace
    $770 to take off with – not bad I think. Ryder tells me
    I am “fleeing.” Damn straight. Mom asked me what was going on –
    I said I proposed to Ryder and he turned me down. She was
    squeaking on the other end of the phone like a gerbil but I couldn’t
    help it. It’s almost true – I didn’t take her advice but showed him
    my true self! Too bad!
    Reading Forster’s Longest Journey. Still feeling another story
    trying to get through. Pretty sick of the glory that wasn’t Greece.
    Everyone in book sanctimonious prig.


    12:30PM
    Forster so foul I reread this diary. Deeply shaming.
    Maybe Forster is right: whatever you do, don’t write about what is
    actually going on – nobody may ever recover.
    Opal took me out to lunch at Apple Tree – painless. Crab
    quiche and 2 Brandy Alexanders. An elegant poem unspools in my
    head about the difference between hummingbirds and hawks.
    Will I go round in circles? Or will I fly high like a bird up in the sky?

    Like me the hummingbird
    Transcribes inner space
    Half wingtip pinwheel
    Leaving outer reaches
    To the ragged hawk that flies alone
    The hawk is:
    I am what shall be

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

    10PM Mon 16 May 77
    Finally got a reaction from agent to Secaire. I was
    physically sick when I opened it but she was full of praise. I could
    teach Poe, Verlaine and Mallarme a thing or two! She’s sending it
    to Harcourt but telling them it’s “too fine for a paperback”. Says it’s
    also readable, which is a thing more “precious than rubies”. I was
    really afraid of what she would say after our literary discussions
    and her poetry sneers.


    So elated! Hit the library today and hit it hard – Nancy
    Mitford’s novels, Hilaire Belloc’s Letters, life of Brontë. Delicious
    dreaming.

        5:35 Pm Broadcast Agency – 17 May 77 
    Enjoyed Helen Bevington’s The House was Quiet and

    the World Was Calm. In my bloodthirsty way would have preferred
    a better description of her husband’s death. Must make do with
    cuckoos and thrushes and loblolly pines.

        Bored to tears with this stupid job but you can’t say

    it’s “hard”. I’m the last happy dodo in a world of dinosaurs – all this
    equipment about to be ripped out. In 5 mins I get to disconnect
    phone, walk to Church St (parking’s free in Mafia territory). Drive
    to Arlington. Fish sandwich for dinner, read about Unquiet Haworth
    while wearing G-string & stockings. (So appropriate.) Expanding
    my house hunt to Rt 450. (Towards Annapolis; might need Dad to
    co-sign.) Obviously I can handle 45 min commute. (Don’t like rain,
    however.) Aware El Diablo is nothing but a hunk of junk. Future of
    American literature is fragile on some of these May nights.

        Broadcast Agency Thurs May 19, 77
    Only $134 in my saving acct and $7 in checking, curse that

    clutch. Crisis brewing with R. He is jealous and suspicious that I am out
    so much in the evening. He’s the one who wants to be non-exclusive
    so let him sweat. I have too many negative emotions about him – that
    he’s a coward, for example. Which would make him angrier – if I was
    dancing or screwing some other guy? (Which I have no desire to do and
    he should know me by now.) I think he sees my privacy and aloneness
    as infidelity. While he’s doubtless experimenting with “goofy chicks”
    who’ve “never been touched”; I’m only “unfaithful” with Shelley & Brontë.
    But that’s STILL too much for him.) After all this time if he still doesn’t
    realize I’m the best, the hell with him.

        Worry about the dangers of scars. They can seem to heal,

    but sometimes they re-shape the life beneath. All I know, is, contempt
    is the ultimate relationship killer. To love is to be happy with! Boy scout
    methods won’t work with me, the sabre-toothed tiger. Our relationship
    may already be fatally spoiled by resentment and revenge.

        Last night audience bored and hostile, but who cares?

    Bouncers won’t let them show it! We are goddesses to be revered and
    if they won’t worship at the shrine they’re out. Compared to the Shalimar,
    Palace is sheer joy. We are never hassled. God forbid if they try to
    touch us! They are bounced on their heads in the parking lot.
    If I have plain grits when I wake up at 9:30 or 10 (also coffee and
    orange juice) I can last till 4. Hunger peaks at 5. Salad, then rush
    to work – when I get there I’m not hungry anymore. Would like to cut
    the burger habit.
    Need to sew my G-strings but Merribeth can see me
    through the glass and she won’t leave. Reading Robt Fish as an
    antidote for poor Charlotte Brontë’s pain.

        1:00 AM Plush Palace – 20 May 77
    Four dancers tonight. Less work, more intellect. (!) Fred,

    the cook, insists I try his potato pancakes and they are DAMN good.
    Can’t say no. Long wailing phone call from Maeve this afternoon. Why
    is it we can see other’s relationships so clearly? “Dump him”, I always
    say. Am I telling myself something? R & I make date tomorrow night.
    Now wearing black velvet, smoky eyeshadow, black stockings and
    glitter I look in the mirror and am astonished by my own beauty. Take
    that, Ryder, you poor bastard. Eight mins and I’m up – One more
    dance and home. Front table of impressionable navy cadets eminently
    shockable.

        11:30 AM – Sun 22 May 77
    It’s all over, baby blue.  Getting up my strength for our date

    tonight by sunbathing in back yard – literally cooking in coconut oil.
    R. complained on Fri he called me “all night long” and I wasn’t home.
    Aww. Could have told him I was writing but lying just postpones the
    inevitable (because next time he’ll come over.) So told him I would
    explain on our date. A poem came suddenly :In the Butterfly Pavilion.

    This evening you said you wished
    I was more conventional.
    I bowed my head. I did not speak.
    Outside the animals leaned together,
    Breathing lightly; waiting
    For my answer.
    Cats-tongue ferns
    Swelled up like swords, pushed out a stink
    Occluding fields of vision while
    The rabbit-bloodied lawn curled away. 
    Phlox flamed  
      Sows littered in the cyclamen
    Dwarf stars broke free as
    Frazzled molten ore raced across a sky
    Darkening to night.
    Summoning my power
    My hands stay folded in my sleeves.
    Nighttime is my kingdom.
    .

    Exhaustion from the violent motions of the pendulum.
    I made dinner, but he refused to eat. He said, “I think
    I know what you’re going to tell me. “
    I said, “I bet you don’t.”
    “It’s another man.”
    “No. I’m dancing again. I’m living here alone. I need the
    money.” (I should have said “it nourishes me UNLIKE
    SOME PEOPLE” but I’m a coward too.)
    He said very dismissively, ”Well, if that’s all you think you can
    do.”
    He who read my novel! Bastard! He said, “Well, the ball’s
    in my court.” So I guess, that means “Game on!” (Was it ever
    off?) And he left! Put his dinner carefully away in the freezer
    (I’m not made of money) and took the dogs on an hour’s walk.
    Now I lie here again in Paradise – baking, basting, trying to recall
    every detail of the last time we had sex. Because that’s all I’ll ever
    get from him.
    11:30 PM
    Session this aft with Chloe at Pacifica and a young PBS guy
    named John about writing a radio play for kids. I threw out some ideas.
    Then out for dinner with Chloe who complained that her husband has a
    mental illness given to him by the Army – he only wants to fuck never
    kiss. He fantasizes about “swinging” with another couple. I stolidly
    drink red wine and eat bad doughy pizza. She says he’s always on
    the verge of suicide, but she would never leave him. Play around,
    OK, but never leave.
    And I think that I have problems. I reject “victim” AND “slut”. The
    poet alone in her lofty palace. Feels like an abscess has been lanced.
    Heard about a great apt in Takoma Pk that’s OK for dogs.

        Broadcast Agency – 4:20 PM – Mon 23 May 77
    Present tenant says do not mention dogs so I am out of

    love with Perfect Apt. Would rather have a house. Lots of calls today.
    I seem to be getting fat – but I look so good – much too good for 128.
    How I hate to starve but it’s the only way. Need to be a fine-honed
    racing machine.
    Considering entering Courtney in the Saxton fellowship.
    Can I get a readable copy? Lack of sex keeping me awake at night.
    Now I know why people take drugs. Devon writes to say he’ll be in
    Maine on the island but not at Genevieve’s wedding for “financial
    reasons”. I plan to do my best to seduce him. Reading Mitford’s
    Wigs on the Green – not as funny as it is sad. Pastiche, really –
    Wodehouse is better. But I feel that way about E Waugh’s humor
    too – that it is basically tragic – “this is all we can expect”. R. called
    this AM as I was rushing to get ready – I said I was surprised to hear
    from him, he said he “knew I was upset”. We could have had a little
    argument about who’s more upset but I said what have you been up to?
    Horseback riding out in Sperryville. (Doubtless not alone. What would
    be the point of that? He is such a pain.)
    Asked me when I was moving, when going to wedding.
    He couldn’t be hinting for an invite – if I show up with him my family
    will have me institutionalized for sure. They never could figure out
    what I was doing with this hysterical little man.
    We’ve said our fond goodbyes. If the ball is in his court,
    it died there. Need to buy a dress for wedding. Macy’s? My mother
    criticizes me for:


    1) Making money
    2) Caring about making money
    3) Needing money AND
    4) Buying inexpensive clothes. AND fake jewelry. A lady
    never – etc.


    You figure it out. Finished Farber’s essays – very bad book.
    He seems to regard the female orgasm as some kind of personal insult –
    “Now I’ve got this to contend with!” We’re not doing it to annoy you.
    Hopelessness on the subject of sex a grave inadequacy in a philosopher
    I would say. Merribeth sent me to the bank today – I was thrilled to get
    outside – when I came back Keith called down to say he was having
    lunch at the Hyatt Regency and had seen me walking and wanted to say
    hi! Nothing to say after that. I thought of inviting him to the Palace
    but what would be the point? Everyone would think he’s my boyfriend
    and it’s a tips killer.