Tag: #Poetry

Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer
```
    10:00 PM – Party Castle – Wed 27 Jun 79
            The inevitable panic reaction has set in – am I out of 
```
my friggin MIND? But it’s my battle and I’m dealing with it. I hear myself
saying WAY too much around him as if tempting him to find something to
be disgusted by and to reject me – why can’t I just shut up and enjoy this?

Because I can’t believe he really loves the real me – we haven’t seen
each other in 10 years. I plunge gratified into the dizzying sensory
experiences – he is very sexual and willing to talk about it – everything
he says turns me so ON. Heavenly night of ecstatic sex. Trying to
go SLOW, not empty out my bag of tricks all at once. I resent my own
anxieties and my fear of being vulnerable. Here at work I wrote a poem
about our past – The Duel. Will I ever be able to show him?

I even like his snobbishness – he’s more elitist
I guess you’d say. He assumes we’re “up there” – and it’s others job to
qualify, to climb up to “our level”! That’s so refreshing after Usher Glayne’s
weirdness! He just takes it for granted we’re in a class by ourselves; special
people trying to do special things. And our tastes are so similar. He doesn’t
plan to stay in Kentucky – wants to live in New England with its fall, its
woodstoves and frozen lakes. I can barely comprehend such confidence
much less contain it. Imagine being free forever from the fear that the
party’s happening elsewhere. We ARE the party.

I said I felt safe with him – he said he wasn’t sure
that was justified – looked at me like a beast longing to rend, but restraining
itself. Wild frissons! He must be horrified by how fast things are going –
I have never met a man who wouldn’t be. But he’s driving this train. Told
me he’s been so celibate lately – very upfront discussing his discouraging
relationship with a virginal anorexic perfectionist frightened by everything
who compensates by torturing herself and all the people around her. In a
flash I realized, that’s exactly what Devon is also.

Toss says he feels “stormed” by me –dizzied – by who
and what I am, the summit of my “magnificence”. Wow! Such flattery very
scary. How can he possibly mean it? Yet he seems so honest, so open.
What will he do when he finds out I am human after all – a creature of mud
and sludge like everyone else?

Reading Margaret Drabble’s The Needle’s Eye –
not so good as The Waterfall – beginning to be turned off by her towers
of verbiage. My own life is so much more interesting. Good phone con-
versations with Toss – I am beginning to trust him. When I told him what
I do for a living he was totally unfazed. “I knew you couldn’t get that body
walking!” Tomorrow we explore Annapolis.

Party Castle 12:05 am 2 July 79
Wrote D an angry farewell poem.

“HOW DID YOU MEET?”

You saw me naked
I saw you too close- up.
You hovered, teaching
Between the green glimpses.
You drank vodka,
I drank wormwood.
You cut mountains down to size;
I’d no idea that one could take such charge of space.
Now I’m a toad-dweller,
Nostrils pierced by thorns I
Fall face-first into every hole;
You were the king the ghost pines saluted.
How you dove and danced!
Speeding through your love-drunk universe, you
Infected me with your own whiteness
Dizziness, till all my blood drained out.
You challenged God;
I was the echo following after.
Yet here I am after all this time
And nothing promised remains of you.

Or, “Good luck with Sleeping Beauty’s castle!” That’s what he gets for
messing with my heart. Can’t show anyone – most certainly not him –
and it isn’t really finished – and I don’t think it ever will be. But thank
God for diaries. Diaries can be told anything.
Reading Secrets in the Family – it is so superb
I am going to buy copies for all my sisters. Looking forward to discussing
it with Toss. I’m beginning to miss him now – he’s so deep and interesting
to be around – so alive on many more levels than anyone else – challenging
all my levels. Falling in love – happy, crazy.
```
    Thurs 11:05 – Plush Palace – 5 July 79
            Back at The Plush – its catch as catch can in my 
```
present situation. I am alienating managers left and right. But I am happy
crazy and who cares?
```
            Because on the third of July Toss asked me to 
```
marry him and I said yes! Here’s how it happened. On Monday night
we ate white clam linguini and crenshaw melon while listening to Keith
Jarrett’s Koln Concert – then – came together in delicious, soul-freeing
sex; two perfectly matched combatants recognizing each other not just
from childhood and youth but school and dreams. He was eager to learn
how I could best be pleased – so I surrendered to the inevitable. Fireworks!

He left me sleeping there in the AM – I heard thumping
downstairs but I know he has roommates so didn’t think anything of it –
when he came back for lunch he discovered the door broken in and my
purse missing. Keys, wallet, everything. I had to call into work – had to
call a locksmith to give me keys to my car.

Toss doesn’t know what else they stole because he
doesn’t know what else is supposed to be in this house – called his
roommates. They came, police came. So we spent a day of intense
babbling and the worst kinds of petty annoyances – but none of it mattered
because he was there. In fact, I welcomed it; it was an extra opportunity to be together.

At one point I said, you know, you’re everything I’ve
ever wanted in a man. He said, if I believed that, I’d ask you to marry
me. I said, if you did I’d say yes. So he said, “Do you want to get married?”
I said, “I think so,” and there it was! He said I’m the only woman he
has ever wanted to marry much less asked. We even chose the
children’s names – there are going to be two of them – a boy and a
girl of course; one named after Reed and one a combination of our
addresses! Had to call Aunt Frederica to give her the good news because
she’s the one who had to give the hospital permission to stitch me up
ten years ago after our first unfortunate night together! (She was drunk
of course.) Toss asked me to come back to Kentucky for his last year
of law school. I “shouldn’t miss this part of his life.” Dogs too, natch –
we are a package deal.

He has a house he’s rehabbing that has so many
rooms it is known as the Hilton. When I said I would come that was
more important to him than our engagement even. He says I can file f
or divorce in Kentucky’s understanding Commonwealth. He ordered
a case of Moet Chandon, saying now we have to drive up the coast and
tell everybody. I am a little scared to tell my parents – this suddenness
might only seem another strike against me. We told Avril and Maureen
– they just stared – obviously thinking we both have lost our minds –
it will take them awhile to believe in it. I told Avril about Kentucky –
she says she can handle the house; she can always rent out my
room to a college student if she feels pinched. I want to leave some
money with her – at least $1000 – had the brilliant idea to sell my car.
Wouldn’t want to be impoverished in Kentucky and I don’t want to
be on “retainer” from T.

Last night I read Toss The Duel and his eyes
filled with tears! He said the only flaw he sees in this arrangement
is that one of us must surely predecease the other! Could it really
happen? Could we grow old together? Could it be that I will never
make love to another person? Wrote a short note to Bruce,
telling him I will definitely be needing a divorce, sooner, rather
than later. Now I am trying to write a short note to D; but honestly,
what is there to say? Summing up our relationship seems only
to dismiss it. He has already fallen far, far back into the past. Toss is my future.

The Duel

Europe without you
Was a funeral feast.
I recall the procession of your letters
Far better than
The stream of luckless suitors
Trying to distract me.
Virgins aren’t distractible.
Your seductive missives stalked me.
Your fatal ploy was that nude photo
Adam lonely in his garden.

I came right home.
I well recall the ceremonies
Of that night!
Your shyness
My perfume
Our ignorance
Wild and hard
A riderless horse.
I did cry out as the candles burned.
I swear there were some moments when
We actually saw each other.
But if this magic sword cuts both ways
Why was I the only bleeder?
They peeled me off
And dropped me down a mile
Of antiseptic hallway –
A princess in a bucket.
It could have ended there
But at your school I haunted you
A chilly-breasted demon.
My daytime incarnation seemed mature:
I fooled everyone;
We chatted as you prepared the skin.
I bit down hard and
Tasted only
Suture wire.
You wrote and broke off
Our association.
Years groaned by
Like convicts chained
We served our terms with no time off
For bad behavior.
Lust had luster,
Excrement was ecstasy.

The castaways the whirlwind
Flung upon the sand
Were calm, polite
We knew our way around. But
That look you gave me!
Our unborn children shivered
In their sausage skins
Fully aware
Their time had come.
The tale was done
The frog-mask
Shivered off
We saw:
The you of you
The me of me –
Masks
Unmirrored
Scars
Unscored
Virgins not but
Innocence
Restored.
January 27, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer
```
2 PM 15 Feb 79 – Thurs
            Sleeting out. Feeling restless the way I do before I write 
```
a new book. Hauled out Bride & Wolves for a rewrite – tremendously
impressed with my own talent! Development always was my problem (as in life).
Greene’s Human has an odd, unfinished feel. Reviews did not prepare me for it
in the least. I think they reviewed Greene rather than his book. More impressed
by Margot Ruddock’s letter to Yeats in Ah, Sweet Dancer (which could be
retitled Dirty Old Man.) She compares the “fickleness” of men to the fickleness
of God! Can’t blame her if God insists on being male. Read Howatch’s Call
In the Night as a purgative. Going to see Country Wife tonight at U. Of Md.
Usher sent me strange Valentine collage of Playboy photos, couples kissing, etc.
Avril says “I give up on him. It’ll be a miracle if he can ever say what he wants.”

Starlight Sat 18 Feb 79 – 11:10 AM
Waiting for my bangs to curl at the start of a
double. Had a nightmare where Devon performed marriage ceremony between
me and some other guy! Right up to the end I kept thinking he was going to
“rescue” me. Naturally he did not. “Psychic” about him as usual I got a letter
saying he’s busy with this year’s Ladies Ski Team meaning he’s got 12 girls
passionately in love with him and he plans to take his time to savor the field.
Vengeful poem results:

Cloverleaf
Some roads lead nowhere;
They’re my favorites.
I held my breath while
You drew my face in
Blinding strokes and
Creamed my mouth with curling lines
Destroyed one picture; then another.
Left at dawn while I
Ran downstairs in circles, calling
Raging, spending
Nights without you,
No blue thigh to guard
My sleeping heart while yours looks out
To gauge the coming storm.
Now I’m trapped in cloverleaves
Sentenced to school figures
By endless angry judges.
Every face I paint is yours; balked by
An enervating past
Of unlived lives.
Open up the chilly ruffles
Of my breasts
To beauty; yours and mine and your
Strange spine’s;
A body so much lighter
Than the mountain that you loved
The course you learned
Much better than you learned me.
Overconfident that
you’ll come back
I float across the powdered snow;
In bird-winged silence
all-enveloping
Unless I’m
Lost and frozen like my heart?
```
            2 PM – Jervaze came in!  Ducked away momentarily 
```
from his fiancée. Glad he didn’t bring her in as I am having my period and feeling
particularly fat and grumpy. My poor body’s been unloved for a month now and
is falling to pieces. Still it was an enormous pleasure to see him. Someone
for whom I apparently remain The Holy Grail.

Tues. 6:45 PM 20 Feb 79
Struggling against a vast undifferentiated depression.
Going to treat it with diet and meditation. Reading Tapie’s Richelieu and Louis XIII.
History a great cure for all who feel unlucky. Even being an aristo was
no picnic. Avril accepted for both of us to go to Aunt Frederica’s party on
the shore where she’s rented a house. Hitchman’s bio of Dorothy Sayers
very bad book. Sayers wasn’t “in love” with Lord Peter, she was him!
Will-to-power and dream logic. Trying to “bind” her two halves together
when she made him marry Harriet. Had to re-read Sayers’ wonderful
Unnatural Death (my favorite) to get the taste out of my mouth. Ah. Such
pleasure. Painting till I’m exhausted then long walks with dogs through pretty
Queens’ Chapel Manor. Haven’t seen a neighborhood this satisfying
since Chevy Chase.

Starlight Wed 21 Feb 79 – 11:45 AM
Going through a phase where work feels like
being beaten. Think it’s because no one is caring for my body. Will warmer
weather turn the tide? I love my house but Marc Kramer is wrong – home ownership
NOT the cure-all promised. The only difference I can see is I can no longer
mess around financially. Nose permanently to grindstone.
Reading John Dickson Carr’s Blind Barber. It is so
awful. Why does anyone like him? Pass my time sewing red rhinestone
buttons to my pink satin blouse. Yesterday clutch cable snapped – pedal
became a dummy. Fortunately I was right NEXT to a gas station. Had to
take a taxi home. Financial nightmare – more doubles to get my car out of
hock? Turns out it’s not expensive. A. gives me ride to work, Eddy gives
me ride to car. Leaning heavily on inner life. Efforts to live “outwardly” all
seemingly result in hideous failure. Shopping list: pasties, carpet tape, stockings,
cotton balls, liquid plumber, string bikini.

Sat. 24 Feb 79
Devon turned 30 today. Great house party at bungalow
Aunt F rented on Mulberry Island. Interesting artist named Stockley there
with an exciting mind but unworkable body. Fun to talk to though. He wears
a hard hat and welds. Avril asked out by handsome redhead named John.
Fingers crossed. Jervaze called to say he broke off his engagement. Uh oh.
Macmillan says my novel “not their cup of tea”. Very sneery.

Starlight Fri 2 Mar 79 – 2 PM
Bought a pair of yellow overalls to write in. Hadn’t realized
how thin I’ve gotten – I look fantastic. House (closing) magically lifts depression
when it cost $900 less than I expected. I was fully ready to write these nice people
a rubber check – Thank God that’s not necessary.
Instead of wasting away in debtor’s prison, I get to compare
myself to Sylvia Plath. What if in a panic, I married a party boy who fails to love T
he Real Me? Wait, I did that. But I didn’t stay to wrestle with him and now I’m free.
Could be much, much worse. Hang in there and go it alone. See it as a strength.
Trying to apply for grants. There’s an art form all by itself. Avril’s redhead working
out nicely. I don’t like his comments about his mother though. Is satisfactory
sex possible with men who hate their mothers? Could be massive Red Flag.

12:35 PM Tues Mar 6 – 79
Sit down to chat with diary over lunch – can’t eat
because scolding letter from agent gave me a stomachache. Didn’t I know it was
unethical to allow several agents to consider me at the same time? I do see
it’s a very beneficial for the agents to drag this process out so they end up
doing all the choosing and not you. But since she’s the one I want I can’t say so.
Play dumb, promise to Be Good in Future and throw my affairs entirely into
her hands and let her speak for me. Silence frees the artist from “servile
bondage to the world”, says Sontag.
Letter from Devon saying he really respects me for
buying a house (the opposite of what Mom thought would happen. He says
it makes me more interesting. Or he’s just less scared I will show up on his
doorstep.) Also he says “it’s been a bad ski season” and asking particularly
about the men in my life, closing, ”I love you Alysse. Our relationship is the
most important thing to me.” Whew! What are the odds that every girl on that
team would turn out to be a lesbian? Or were they fooled by his aura of untouchable
purity? Most girls would consider it a challenge but some lack the three hours
necessary to defrost him. Still, they’re all out of their minds not to give him a
whirl I must admit. Interesting how very much we each fear the other’s loss.

11PM Starlight Wed 7 Mar 79
Very down night. Only $70 so far. Need $600 to
keep my bills current. Bryony wailing because the state took her children away.
Sometimes seems like the pain of the helpless is smothering the world. Tony’s
the bouncer tonight and he’s all for letting the men stick their bills down the girls’
G-strings! No thank you. Wait till Gentleman Randy hears about this. Reading a bad
German mystery – the mystery being why he wrote it, how it got published and
why I’m reading it. Fantasizing celebrating spring by getting all my hair cut off.
Hmmm. Jean Seberg? Could be sexy. Wish I’d brought Kafka’s Letters. Making
huge floor pillows for my housewarming party. Longing to sink into classical music
& bubble bath, followed by Oleg Cassini sheets & cup of diet cocoa. Having my
own house really is a dream come true.

Mon 20 Feb 79 – 12:20 AM
Such a depressing party I got drunk just to be “out” of it. Avril
& Ben making out in a corner all evening. Usher brought me books and a bird of
paradise flower, Stockley gave me a beautifully framed tiny drawing of crustaceans
but then cancelled that by attempting to corner me all evening. He covers up the
soul he doesn’t believe in with a repellant fleshy brutality – life is kill and conquer –
eat or be eaten. Honestly, now I’m scared of him. Afraid to even argue with him
for fear of launching something irreversible. Luckily, he next fastened his lasers on
Yvonne. Poor Yvonne. Save yourself, I should say. Plan to ask Paz to schedule
me for just two nights. On a self-dare, I sent my poem about Rossetti’s model to Usher.

LIZZIE SIDDALL: The Woeful Victory

Be still or I can’t paint you.
It is evening and
I almost recognized you. Who are you
Fair one? Your mouth is stuffed
With poppy hair
Fate coils between your breasts
Like snakes. But
Your tongue’s torn out.
You must be the echo of my thoughts.

(I am the motionless cradle.)

Your flesh takes fire from my setting sun.
Can you free me, O Lady of the Sundial?
My eyes are growing dim.

(Perfect love’s not found this side of heaven.)

I shall paint you vermilion
Butcher nightingales and use their tongues for brushes
Melting foil & verdigris
To the tune of Canterbury bells.
Stay awhile, Fair one.
I almost thought you spoke.

(I am the face that rises from the pool
to drag the drinker deep.)

I will bury you in manuscripts, I will
Visit when there’s time. Someday
We might marry, but
I am not whole, dear lady.
I am not myself.
Who are You?

(I am thyself. What hast thou done?)
January 23, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Poet Who Happens. to be a Dancer
```
Tues, midnight, 9 Feb 78
        What a day. Lost a contact just before bed, which put 
```
me in a hideous temper. 1 ½ hrs sleep, drove A to Laundromat, did
laundry, bought cosmetics, picked her up, did lunch and visited broker.
Just like the other rich girls except for the Laundromat part. Then to
MVA, got MD license renewed, new address, not too horrible photo. Avril
flunked her test must retake Wed.
Back to house managed 2 more hrs of sleep. Woke
up feeling cheerful and streaked hair with L’Oreal. Still have a rotten
cough. The trouble with being sick is you can’t imagine yourself well.
Intimations of mortality. Ate lasagna with A, then off to work. J dropped
in second set, said his car was fixed, seemed cheerful, said his sister-in-law
(whom I suspect of being The Pirate Queen) is reading my book “to
figure out what kind of person I am” (uh oh). He left during my 3rd set
without saying goodbye. Should I drop in on him? Tempting.
He also asked to read Demon. Hmmmm. A of course
thinks I should clamor for “boundaries” “rights”, “clarity” and “definitions.”
I am embarrassed even to tell HER that this is all completely hopeless.
I’d have to set him on my knee and move his mouth. I’d end up defining
every term and he would immediately forget anyway. Anyway, in my
experience, the less “clarity”, the better the sex. Once things have
been completely defined you no longer want to touch each other.
Missing Devon of all people. He must be sick of
Gwynne by now. Where will he find another like me? But it’s always
a bad sign when I plunge into “default” mode. So, I dropped in on Ryder
to take him by surprise. He was there and it was worth it. Gave me a
gorgeous massage. I gave him my cold. We are at the wrong points in
our life trajectories to connect in any meaningful way. Picked up Holt’s
Lord of the Far Island which one of the other girls is reading. Unbelievably
crappy. Why do people prefer this stuff to mine? Oh well. Feeling better –
night almost over.

Sun. 12 Feb 78 – 10:20 PM
Psychic tremors driving home. But when I walked in the
door everything was fine. It’s so comforting to be surrounded with one’s
own stuff – it seems to assumes a personality – like a separate self. A
reassuring stand-in – someone who “goes on” for you when you’re tired.
Very busy weekend – A moving into her own place – sorting, packing,
cleaning, buying. Moving. Hard physical labor since we are doing it all.
“Mother Truckers.” Rushed on to work with my arms aching – J. showed up.
His body seemed solider, less fragile. I gave him a comforter for his birthday
– he seemed to like it – we went to his place to watch Harper – side by side
like an old couple on the couch. I’ve decided he reminds me most of some
wild animal. He always wakes up like a deer finding itself in a cage. He seems
to be just now comprehending that I’m there. He insisted on pleasuring me
so I just accept it. Said his body “hurt”. I wish I could convince him that
caffeine, junk food and alcohol are his enemies, but he is too stubborn to
believe it.  I fear a return of that kidney thing that felled him before. I’m
afraid our relationship belongs to the bar and his apartment, however.
Can’t get him to go anywhere with me; he is “tired” and he works enough
that it’s a believable excuse. He’s so beautiful you’d think he’d be more of an exhibitionist but it’s just the opposite. Three days off. I need it. But on the
whole I am pleased with my life.
```
    1:45 PM MON 13 Feb 78
            Lovely dog walk. My desk collapsed under piles of 
```
books, so I bought new furniture – unpainted. Cleaned, redecorated
spare room (A’s old room.) Looks good. Decided just thinking about J
is channeling my energies away from writing. We have a “sexual friendship”,
so there. That’s Hugh Hefner’s “highest good” so presumably some people
would be happy with it. But J has no influence on my life-plan. R called.
We had a decent conversation.
```
            5:45 PM Snow pouring down – four more inches 
```
expected so I decided not to go out. Last night was the first night I’ve
actually been unable to rouse J – so I just left – went home dirty and
sleepless to a couple of short-changed dogs. Now it turns out he’s in
the hospital undergoing tests because of “passing blood”. Medieval
sounding. Does he have those big black knobs under his armpits?
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. The sister in law phoned with this info,
also gave the brother’s number where J will go after tests.
```
    9PM Plush Palace – Wed 15 Feb 78
            J quite drunk when he came in this evening – said 
```
he’s turning in his notice and returning to the South. (I wondered if they
fired him but didn’t say it.) I was so upset I walked into the men’s room
by mistake! (No one in there.) He did say “or I could live with you.”
This does not sound good to me. My monogamous soul does not aspire
to a lifetime playing nursie.
```
    10PM – Plush Palace – Thurs 16 Feb 78
            3 sets done – I’m exhausted and my legs hurt but I’ll survive. Spent the afternoon with Chloe and Dennis Parks at WPFW, taping 
```
a vibrant show on paperback publishing. Really enjoyed myself. A came
over for dinner and helped me paint my new study furniture. Got a
frightening letter from the IRS – I phoned – turned out that they think I
owe them an extra $56! They can have it.   Electric bill $76.   Disappointed
by Noel Coward’s Future Indefinite, seeking escape instead in
Mona Farnsworth’s Dark Wood. I deserve escapism after all I’ve
been through.

               11:40PM – Plush Palace – Fri 17 Feb 78
Just finished Rosenberg’s bio of Dorothy Richardson.
She seems just like me – then when I get to the end of her life – poverty
& anguish! Oh dear!

4:00 PM Mon 21 Feb 78
Lying in bed – hair set – an hour to go before work.
Spent all day tidying study – including file drawers – if I was to die this
minute I would give everyone the impression of being a hardworking
artist and an astute businesswoman. Maybe I shouldn’t wreck it by ever
going in there again. Gregory’s book about Dorothy Richardson – lots left out.
Putting myself to sleep with Homage to Daniel Shays – I must have a
lready read this because all the essays seem so familiar.   Very unpleasant
Vidal attack on Anais Nin.
```
    Plush Palace – 7:45 PM
            Lots of comforts in this job. Inhale the pleasure 
```
of a messy dressing room, so full of life & hope. I was sitting down
taking out my curlers when GiGi asked me to do her last set – her knee
hurts – so I put on a gold G- string and did one set without makeup. That
paid my electric bill right there. Settle down with Anne Tyler. Comfortable.
```
    10:30PM – Plush Palace – Thurs 23 Feb 78
            Avril came to work with me – I’m having a great night. 
```
She met a guy here she likes who asked for her number – he seems nice,
but he must have the problems intrinsic to all who haunt this place – alcoholic
or druggy – or just unmotivated in some fatal, fatal way.
Paz’s been telling me her new honey’s too “big”
for her – makes her bleed. That can’t be right. This triggered an
avalanche of gynecological horror stories that ended up with all who
are interested examining Fatima’s hanging “meatus” left over from a
“botched childbirth”. She has trouble tucking it into her G-string!
I declined inspection. Missing an opportunity other writers would have
jumped at? Will I need to describe this someday?
```
    Sun. 26 Feb 78 – 9:45 PM
            J actually showed for dinner last night – while I was
```
stuffing the baked potatoes – we had a wonderful evening, played Clue,
very good sex. Said his sister read my “gothic” but called it Too Victorian.
Disguised praise? I decide to think so. He asked me to visit him in Alabama.
I’m sure there’s a novel in that but do I want to be the one to write it?
Then of course he had to leave early. I called A – had kind of a psychic
flash – a feeling of trepidation about the human condition – she said she
had been sobbing all night. Are we going no place? I asked her. Is it all an illusion? She said she feels she once had a home and family but somehow lost them and can’t adjust. She has a life others would envy – young college student with her own apartment in DC – but she wants back something she never had. “Neva vu” ex-husband Bruce and I used to call it. The unrecognized familiar. I am reading – very appropriately – The Troubled Helpmate. Misogyny in literature.

To Drown In Air

Were the world as simple as

At first it seems

I’d be sky-haunted

Lay my emblems end to end

Ever seeking upward.

Have a fine ambition;

Possibility becomes the future

Without the prodigal waste of past.

Turn your gawper turkey-wards;

Survey the clouds for nourishment

Breathe in all that

Oxygenated snow; be

Young

Be beautiful

Be dead.
January 10, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer

11Am Tues 17 Jan 78
Reading Evelyn Waugh’s diaries over my third cup of coffee
with open mouthed amazement. It seems almost a work of fiction. Try to
imagine these whines and wails ever appearing in print! Imposserous Bert
Lahr would say. Thank God for The Victorian High Colonic: a pre-mortem
bonfire. Highly recommended, my dear.

7:30 PM No word from J so I assume he is really coming to
eat dinner here. The evening’s menu: sherry and smoked oysters, cheese and crackers, burgundy and manicotti stuffed with crab. French bread, banana
nutbread and coffee for dessert, if we make it that far without attacking each other. Need to watch the drinking – had two glasses of sherry while
cooking and am definitely feeling it.
```
2:15 AM Wed 19 Jan
        J gone – he had to – no clothes here.&nbsp; I let him go
```
fairly gracefully – after hours of sex without anyone coming I was
happy to be alone. He’s definitely an alcoholic. He gets away with it by
never seeming drunk (only once in awhile. His “tell” is he wants to talk
about Alabama.) But he’s also never not drinking. He seems too young
but it definitely explains the physical problem.
```
11Am
        A came home from a bad date. Glad her classes start 
```
tomorrow – Limbo an unpleasant place to live. Need to walk dogs now
– going to AFI theatre tonight to see Next Stop, Greenwich Village.
Time keeps chewing us up and spitting us out.
```
1 PM Thurs 20 Jan 78
        Excellent morning lying in bed reading Byron. It would 
```
be lovely to be rich – it would not be lovely to be Byron.

HAVING SEX WITH LORD BYRON
or
“Or, if you can’t have love, you can always have relatives”

Lord Byron took his lady on the sofa
Before the wedding dinner;
He considered sex a “hostile act” and
Liked to get it over with.
Afterwards both parties sued for rape.
“Poor me”, quoth his lordship,
“Nobody’s been so ravished since the Trojan War.”
Some truth there was; the stampede
Of countesses was considerable.
This poet who fell upon chambermaids
Like a “thunderbolt”
Confounded all by falling in love with
Foolish Gussie, his half-sister.
Ain’t that the way;
Perhaps the wealthy
Overwhelmed by choice, cherish
That forced card.

Another deeply rooted legacy of R’s is that I now expect others to
constantly lie (to themselves, above all) about their motivations.
You can only judge by what they actually do which throws all planning
into the crapper and means you’re stuck with a lot of confused, open
mouthed standing around waiting for disaster. I don’t make promises
either – I just don’t say anything – which fact apparently caused me to
assume I’d really enjoy a relationship with a totally nonverbal type like J.
Turns out: noooooooo. I torture myself about what he must be thinking
and feeling which – let’s face it – may not be much. Wish my royalties
would arrive – I’ve spent them over in my mind a thousand different ways.
Can’t do anything about island property, travel, car, or self-publicity without them. Capital expenditures, all. I am making dinner for A at four thirty to
hear all about her first day of classes – then I go to work. Love driving
down the highway with the other “night shifters” – I always think I can
pick them out. Our special sense of purpose makes us different.
```
Sunday 24 Jan 78  7:30 PM
        Read Popcorn Venus, saw Julia, so alternately
```
depressed and cheered by turns. Thinking a lot about “impure relationships”.
How innocent to assume those are the ones with certain kinds of sex
in them. In actuality, it is more the hostage taking mentality that is to be
feared. Can one just “Glance in” so to speak and then hustle the hell out?
I’ve been so scared off, I am having a non-relationship.
When Jervaze is not in my bed, it’s as if he never existed. Would I surprised
if I found out he had some secret life? Hell no, I’d be encouraged. I think
the truth is he watches football alone, gets drunk, sleeps and works –
that’s all he does. I liked Julia because I am interested in the question
of what repressed sexuality does to relationships – does it change them?
Seems it would have to. Well, you can fool some of the people… Starting
to re-think Courtney. Worst novel ever written? If so, what can I do
about it? Is it too late? Tell it from the cat’s point of view – something
radical like that. Write it in blank verse like Spoon River Anthology.
Jervaze is mystified that I read by choice. A says “Don’t you get it?
He’s a mud puppy.” What can I say? I’m such a sucker for male beauty.
```
Mon. 23 Jan 78
        Enraptured by biography of John O’Hara.  Starts brilliantly, 
```
describing his study at the time of his death – framed awards, Cape Cod
lighters, bound diaries. Everything just “perfect” the way poor F. Scott
always dreamed. The novels were steppingstones to the study, not
the other way around! I am feeling alienated from my study at the moment.
Have decided that my typewriter table – a board atop a wine rack – is all
wrong. A and I went to Hechinger’s and studied several “office systems”.
Plastic cubes $70 even for a looksee. I’ve set my heart on satinwood so
I guess next stop antique stores. What would an antique typing table
look like? A dressing table is the right height? Sans mirror? Wouldn’t
want to look at oneself while working! First step to madness!

When I work without interruption, time vanishes. Maybe
it’s like riding without spurs: you become the horse (one’s deepest self).
J. showed up Sun night. We drank sherry, played cards. He is getting to
like sherry, which I’m afraid, is my fault. Someone needs to go on the
wagon and I don’t want it to be me. Heard via the rumor mill that R broke
his leg skiing! Ha ha! Did he get insurance for that? Maybe he wasn’t
kidding and he was trying to kill himself. I just don’t understand people
like that. He approaches everything as “it’s you or me” so the mountain
let him have it although frankly I’m surprised it wasn’t someone else’s leg
that got broken. Maybe he killed the other guy. Sent him a card – he’s
“recuperating” at his parents’ house on a steady diet of Italian food.
```
Thurs 26 Jan 78
        J came in the Plush Palace last night and I talked to him 
```
until Eddy got restive. Turns out he has horrendous financial problems,
including hospital bills for a kidney complaint. Probably will have to sell
his car even though it is a part of him like his cowboy hat. I was feeling
carefree and immortal and suggested he move in with me – he’s thinking
about it. Now of course I’m aghast. What if I gave him A’s room and he
started bringing girls home? I could listen to them making love for hours
and hours and hours – no one ever coming. Would I be jealous or would
I feel sorry for her? See, this relationship is complex – I am wanting to
run like hell or place an ad for “Needed: Goal oriented individual – good
at sex – not too inflexible.“ Hopeless. They have to get stiff and then
hang loose at just the right times – “Impeccable timing”? A tall order, I know.
Today I had trip to the dentist and letter from Mom –
trip to the dentist was easier. (He told me I have a “runner’s heart”.
Did not tell him I was a dancer. Said I was a walker. True – since 10
mos old.) Mom says that if I really loved her I’d get a decent job. She a
nd Dad offered to give me money so I don’t have to dance. Respectful
endowment of course would be great. Unfortunately, they only mean,
“till I get over my sickness.”

Happy to turn ‘em down flat. Mom keeps saying a
feminist wouldn’t allow men to look at her in a sexual way. This is my
mother of the “Marilyn Monroe dress” (still hers and Dad’s favorite.) My
mother who has always turned heads and received accolades as a major
beauty, with drunken men pawing her in European restaurants, dazed
Arab men following her down the beach, stoned college professors
slobbering over her at parties. All “her fault” apparently!! It’s a critical
component of hers and Dad’s relationship that he “captured” such a “prize”.
But all this must remain unsaid or “someone” will boo-hoo.
Who would bother to deny the roles of biology and
acculturation? I’d like to live off my writing – but it is rapidly becoming
apparent that to do that you have to write to “their” taste. And they have
such bad taste! Plus, I find I covet anonymity. In spite of my profession of
“being stared at”, I feel like I am the observer. It’s a heady sense of power.
This is theatre, after all. They may think they sit in darkness, but I can still
see them.

Off to visit R and his broken leg. Took him cookies and
magazines – cookies I did NOT bake myself. I wondered if I would end
up telling him about J – flirted with the idea – he would be scared to death
if he ever caught sight of that beautiful, beautiful man. That’s what J is best at.
But I would be doing it to hurt him and since he has always accused me of doing everything to hurt him (being born on an island, going to a prep school, losing my virginity to someone else, writing) it seems as if actually doing it I would
be “giving in” to his worldview. I must remain a refusenik. In the end he
never asked me about myself; but talked incessantly about him. Trying to
impress me, like on a first date.

Looking back on it I think he’s just trying to stoke any hots
I may still have for him. He’s never bought into his own “friendship bullshit”;
he doesn’t even believe it about same sex friends. The universe is
fundamentally competitive and we’re all crabs in a barrel trying to step
on each other’s heads to get a better view. Eat or be eaten, baby! He
made allusions to the fact that “you” only value things you work hard for
… or things you’ve lost. Ha ha – zinger! A grenade lobbed at me.
The visit left me feeling uncomfortable – frustrated –
vaguely “one down” but unable to put my finger on it. From the way
his sisters treated me I have a horrible feeling he tells people I was the
love of his life but wouldn’t give up my selfishly immoral lifestyle. That’s
what he would do, the bastard, act like he was the victimized one. I hope
his leg heals crooked.

Probably a good thing I didn’t mention Jervaze – he looks
so good but he’s totally non-nutritious and collapses like a creampuff on
scrutiny. We’d have to live in Alabama – he’s made that very clear. I can’t
even imagine him having a conversation with another person in front of me.
He has no family pictures. I’d drop in on him at work just to catch a glimpse
of him interacting with humans but it’s the Pentagon !!! They wouldn’t let
me in. He’s only a repairman, too, so he probably has a completely fictitious
personality there.

Still working on Waugh’s diaries. Hard to avoid the
conclusion that he became Catholic in order to avoid giving up his pride.
Just another elegantly exclusive men’s club. Anything to get out of “becoming
human”. You know. The way Jesus did.
Almost midnight – last costume change of the evening. Pink
and black lace, pink gladioli in my hair. Black tassels, the works. Gentleman
Jim – now a magnate with a string of clubs – was in earlier – I was dancing my absolute best – wild applause – the crowd was chanting my name.

But when
I went to find him to ask him for a raise he was gone. Next time.
This is the time of the evening Zombiehood sets in. J comes
in earlier and earlier – he asks me to come over, I don’t have to bring it up.
Made me promise to wake him. I told him I would be “merciless” with him.
He wanted to know “how merciless”. He is pretty cute. He wasn’t wearing
my ring – said he took it off at work because it was bothering him. Uh oh!
I can imagine. What an idiot I was to give it to him. Tips have been good
– I think I’ll buy a steak on my way over. He doesn’t eat well at all. I am
so hungry I have been stealing saltines from the kitchen.

No excitement here. Neither Gina nor Mary pregnant as
they thought. Both have flu. The new girl, Maggie, has been telling me
she’s got $35,000 in parking tickets. She is one of those see-through
thin girls who can’t dance at all – but has a great sense of humor. She
injects bute directly into her knees, as if she were a racehorse.
```
Mon 30 Jan 78
        J and I were supposed to go out Sat night – I had the day 
```
shift and he said he’d pick me up. I waited 20 mins before going to his apt.
There he was with a little blond beard on his chin – lying on the sofa very
depressed. Told me to go to the concert without him. By myself?
Wouldn’t that be fun! I was aghast – tried arguing with him – he said he
wasn’t leaving the apt. So I said I’d stay with him. Went out and bought
fish and chips and beer. We watched Sahara, then Saturday Night Live.
Pitiable. Made love in the shower. In the AM he refused to come out
to breakfast with me, and I really had to go home to the dogs. He gave
me a good hug when I left but do I want to drag this inert man through
all the stages of intimacy?

Called him today, he was very blue. Homesick as
always. Takes alcohol for depression! Can’t figure out whether to go
over there or leave him alone. I really need a better invitation – my choice
is to stay away. I don’t think he’s actually SUICIDAL although if he stopped
drinking, he might be. And how could I tell? He still has his car so he’s
either asking too much for it or he’s doing nothing about his problems.
I bet the latter’s the case. Reading The Letters of Charles Dickens in
conjunction with the Life. Decorated A’s old room with Dad’s old charts
– looks pretty good.

Dancing well – I can’t give a bad set. Remembering what
Devon said about skiing – the body does the right thing – if you “get out“
of its way. J came in – in a much better mood. (Some new “magic”
elixir, no doubt.) He must have called to get my schedule because I didn’t
tell him. Asked him if he wanted me to “drop by” after work – he said it
was “up to me”. I think the traditional male female role thing may be
reversed in our case. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of those
pretty guys who’s always been pursued and as a result he feels like a
“thing”. Never developed a self, so to speak. This is what comes of being
so hung up on beauty. But when I look at the assemblage of clowns,
predators and weirdos soliciting for my hand my heart fails me.

TWO LOVERS CONTEMPLATE THE SEAWRACK

He lost her
Spoke too soon
As men are wont
Affinity flew overhead
Danced with gulls
A jazz-mad snowflake.
His words
Freighted by their inner logic
Fell to earth and lay
Prey to busy bristle-footed worms
Who tidily dismantle
Subject, verb & predicate;
Sucked out the sense and left
The elegiac bones to rot
Amid kelp-wigged rock & glass-rope sponge
Cheek by jowl with
Long dead fishermen’s wives
Punished now for ill-set dough and
Worse-set hair
Mouths agape in imitation of
The badly sutured wounds of childbirth.
Secrets told; corpses left to nourish
Nature’s counting-house
One season only; sharing space
With shattered petrels
Feathers spewed like pillow-stuffing
Frenzied passade of love-struck boys –
Strewn among the shavings of these once great ships
Built by hearts & backs of men
Who loved their daughters far too well
Losing them to sailors
Crueler than the great sea-god himself;
He who stirs our sleep these nights
With grief-crazed cries of loons
Casting on the waters for their
Far-flung children
Lost forever now
As we are lost as
He lost her.
```
        Wrote a difficult letter to Devon in which I answered
```
(long overdue) his about Gwynne and frankly (but with masterful subtlety)
went all out to make him jealous of J. Cheap of me, but I have to have
some fun. He started it: we are reduced to bragging about our dance cards.
I don’t think you can truly have a “passionate” relationship with a guy who
doesn’t want exclusivity because of then of necessity you’re required to hold

something back. Dad called, says he’s sending me more stock “for tax
reasons” (I.e. it’s really mine and they’re making him.) Then said in
a very depressed way, “I suppose you want to sell it.” I wanted to surprise
him by saying NO but that would leave me feeling manipulated so I said it
depends on my royalty statement (which it does.) Due in 3 weeks.
January 8, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer

Tues. 26 July 77 9:40 AM
Sitting on stonewall in full sunlight in my black bikini
waiting for pool to open. Swim and sunbathe till ll:30 when mail comes.
After 7 I can return – that way I miss the crowds.
Exercise, coffee, 3 glasses water. The Regime.
I’m down to $4. Embarrassing to be taken out last night
by Devon & his roommates. (We saw Star Wars. Childish, but they
were into it.) Sent letter to Mom & D asking for stock certificates. They
won’t like it.

Dinner should have been nice but barbecue very messy.
Wore my tightest jeans and my pink French “Trés chic” t-shirt. Devon
surprised me by talking on and on about how beautiful I am. Started
to get stoked – in fact I was horny as hell. I would have taken the three
of them on if I could have avoided the interpersonal madness that would
result. They all have beautifully athletic bodies. But I’m starting to get a
feeling that if I just sit in my deer blind a bit longer Devon will come to me.
Every now and then I get an “R – flash”, like some synaptic
slipup. What will I think of this years from now? Mirror images ache, then fade.
Cold Comfort Farm exactly 100 pages too long (but I
think most books are). Take a long hot Jean Nate bubble bath and read The Thornbirds.
```
2:30 PM Wed July 27 – 77
        Masturbation is the better part of valor. Don’t make 
```
decisions ruled by sex. Husband my wattage (joke). Too bad sex is
such a fast way to get to know someone.

First draft of Demon so far bony and spare. Neatly
boxed “components” = “write your own novel”. Trying to exterminate
“dead” patches. Wish I had done this with The Mass at St. Secaire –
but in those days I was in the “throw in everything you think of and
take it out later” school. I like constructing this awkward armature
better. Lean and mean superior to flagellate and winnow.
Will I let R see this new body, this new confidence?

He will hang on for dear life and I don’t want that. I want to go back
to dancing but R prefers I have neither security NOR money.) Think
I’ll look for a sublet – easier to impress a private owner than a
credit union. I’m not afraid of living alone. Painstaking cultivation
of intense privacy in the midst of a crowd has always been my forte.

Mom and Dad called – acting all worried. Apologizing
for giving R my number. I put on a good show of being completely
”over” him but I can see they don’t want me moving back to Washington
and prefer Mrs. McManus’ ski chalet option. (My cynical side tells me
it’s just cheaper.) I act like I have connections to the literary life in DC
and they don’t know any better.

Thornbirds is teaching me the great unpleasantness of
what publishers define as “a good read”. Contrary to my belief the
Victorian period has not ended. Forced to skip the war, potted history
and scenery descriptions just to keep going.
7:30 PM Finished Thornbirds. Neither Dane’s death nor
Justine’s love affair rang true for me. Uh oh. Danger signs. My taste
thoroughly out of kilter with the market.

Couldn’t swim – 3,000 spectators at some sort of race
in the pool. So went to library – checked out twelve books – bio, history
murder mysteries. Alec Waugh, Somerset Maugham, Vyvyan Holland,
High Walpole. Evelyn Waugh, of course. At this very moment R is
doing his very last show of 7:30 Live. Will they have a party or wake?
Probably go out drinking at the Shalimar, try to pick up dancers he can
hector and assault. Time for me to go walking and see how the
other (99%) live.

HOT PROWL

Don’t wake up.
I surveil by night
Your chiseled torso
Slackened with exhaustion.
Touching things that once
You touched,
Listening to your apnea –
I turn away before you turn.
Making peace with all my choices.
It’s worth everything;
Winning in divorce my
Hard-won superpower:
Invisibility
```
2:45 PM Thurs 28 July 77
        Loving myself today. I am very tan.  Hair strawberry 
```
blond and my stretchmarks look like silk moiré. Any sense of inadequacy
must be pounced upon and shored up – work like a beaver at his dam.
No worries, few fears. Daddy sent $ which I deposit in my acct. Since
I can’t cash a check anywhere I eat what’s here; pickled beets and plain
grits. Gallons of water to even it all out. Shake the old body out after 26
years.

Decide two people create love – I refuse to do it alone.
Reading Ford Madox Ford and grooving on his Violet versus Elsie
problems. Schadenfreude. Years later poor Elsie says, “I should have
ignored everybody and divorced him.” Alas, Ford is a self-centered fool.
Not simpatico character. However the period is a favorite with me. Mail
hideously dull. Nothing from Harcourt. Will my “Westerns” editor have the
nerve to turn down an author they’ve got 105,000 copies of? Yes. They’re
all a bunch of weenies, frankly. Bike ride.

8:45 PM Finished article for the McManus mag about
Shadowe – “Island in Common” – 750 words – sent it off with letter.
Mission accomplished. Thinking of substituting a night ride for my walk.
Trigger fewer yearnings.
Ford’s moved to the US and I’m at the end of my tether with him. Tried
reading Jane Novak’s Razor Edge of Balance on V. Woolf – she’s no threat
– Lingo Academico virtually impenetrable.
Loved reading Fowles on the Fr Lt’s Woman – even though
he has a “tin ear” about the Victorians – their “failure” to depict “a man and
woman in bed together” ! (How about My Secret Life!!!) He’s the real thing
all right even though he launched 1st draft without any research. (It shows.)
I’m going to stop freaking out about how little I know London.
Full of joy & life & strength & immortality & pep. Now thinking
fondly of DC. Resist the impulse to call myself a turkey for even MENTIONING
living together to R. (I said in my phone message I had to have a house for dogs.)
I can see him crying over his beer at the strip club. Insisting his wussdom is independence. I feel and look mighty thin – but refuse the temptation to weigh
myself. Size seven is good enough. Took my walk looking indulgently at
couples with children thinking, “This too is within my reach.”
Mail full of dull rejections NO interest or acceptances. But
the UNITY MITFORD I’d ordered came which I’m reading now. Must write about sisters someday. It’s a trip.
11:12 AM Sat 30 Jul 77
Going out tonight with Devon to see Annie Hall, that laff riot
he hasn’t seen. This is one of the things I love about life – it’s so fucking
unpredictable! Give these guys space to stew they will eventually DO
something. We had a nice phone conversation. I can tell he has
“traumatized” himself by “luring” me here. I tell him hardly, I’m writing
8 p. a day (of course it will all have to be thrown out) getting a tan and
reading piles of books. (All true.) Too cold & overcast today for pool
though and now its raining.
Starting to get a feeling D and I will end up in bed.
It’s inevitable. How I crave that tight young flesh…Bet you $5. Will
wear my faded cerise linen jumpsuit, high heels and Nefertiti necklace.
Stoking! Bike ride combined with cold shower doesn’t work.
```
4:15 PM Sun 31 July 77 Deck
        D found Annie Hall so painful it took awhile for him 
```
to speak. I was surprised but patient. I couldn’t have dreamed up a
movie more likely to focus all our reservations. The scene where
Annie tells Alvy she misses him made me think of R – the separate
fragile uniqueness of each human soul – and I could tell Devon was
“feeling” his memories too.
We sneaked a pizza (a whole pizza) into the theatre
so we could come right back here for wine and coffee and more wine –
took three hours to get to the point of making love.
In a fairly daring move D opened the buttons of my
jumpsuit and stroked my stomach pulling down first one shoulder and
then another to play with my breasts. Lovely feeling our bodies surge
together. He’s good with his hands and has the most sensitive nipples
of any man I’ve been with. At last I suggested we go to bed – the couch
was really too uncomfortable. D went down on me – his body is the
most gorgeous since the history of time – mountains, valleys, crevasses
– it’s like rock climbing making love to this man. He insisted on coming
outside me which startled me somewhat, but after asking about my
“protection” (IUD) fortunately abandoned this technique the second time.
(When he comes he makes a little crying noise).

He looks at me in a funny way like he wants to say
something but he doesn’t say it. I tried to tell him I’ve learned so much
from our 5 year friendship – he seemed unable to take it in. He obviously
fears the future and his memory is so bad – after the terrors of his
childhood he thinks the whole past is all bad news. It’s like he’s afraid
to remember ANYTHING. That would be the worst thing for a writer.
You dare not fear the past. Rhythms can’t evolve from longing alone.
We woke up, grapenuts & coffee, went swimming, sat on
deck, watched tennis on TV. Every time I changed clothes he said
“the sight of you naked turns me on” and we made love again.
Tomorrow is the first of August – whole new beginning.
Try to see myself at 33, with a lawn and a bra and a trash compactor.
Freedom is key. No mail. Reading Geo Woodcock’s critical study of Orwell.

6:45 PM Dark as night and pouring rain. Obsessing
about D’s body – can’t get it out of my mind and our 22 hours together.
Welcome obsessions; R’s slate cleared. Did I use him? Is he “Brand X?”
Thinking of all the things I wish I’d said to Devon. He’s so intellectual
yet so impermeable. Strange delicate kisses – as impossible to get
inside his mouth as his mind. Loud thunder, lightning.
D. Eden’s Deadly Travelers supposed to be fun but falls
apart totally at the end. Disappointed by thoroughness of
Gavin Lambert’s Conan Doyle study – he said everything –
nothing left for me to do. (The Dangerous Edge.)
Disenchanted with suspense mode. Maybe Demon should
just be a series of short, sharp scenes. I don’t like intrusively
officious writers – sacrificing character to story “You can’t let
your characters get away from you”. Not only can you – you
must. See where they run.

Just finished scene between Fawn and Deere’s cast-off “maitresse
en titre”. Needing a scene between Jewel and Fawn, Fawn and Del. Let them
accumulate like raindrops.

Dinner rice, chicken broth, onions. Coffee. Shouldn’t read true
crime in bed. (Shiver.) But I will. 2 months since I’ve seen R.
10PM Black Dahlia almost did me in, too! That poor girl!
The writing style in Infamous Murders is the most infamous thing
about it. Wm. Roughhead I adore. Soothe my insomnia with art books.

PLAYING HIDE & SEEK IN THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

hide & seek. It’s
my game but
you started it.
you be a cop and
I’ll be a museum – a
swollen storehouse
where even the walls are open
to more than one interpretation.
that’s me in dark glasses
waiting
round the corner for
the whick of teeth on bended elbow
the fateful kiss
where the blood lies gathered. So
lies rally; scars; a wound,
a bruise – a cut – a fever
a thing to call my own.
“You imagined it, lady”
there’s no one here.
powder burn
without the bullet.
December 29, 2022
Inspired Pleasure
The Diary of a Dancer
```
    1 July 77
    Today I should start my new novel – always the worst 
```
part. Lauren called to APOLOGIZE for our dinner. I said nothing
to apologize for I had a wonderful time. She said she had an
“off” night and they are upping my print run from 100,000 to
110,000.. So I guess I’m “on” again in case I write another Eng
gothic historical paperback they like (don’t hold your breath).
Threw aside Berckman’s Crown Estate suddenly can’t stand
other people’s writing.

Very disllusioning dinner with Chuck Kornowitz. My
piece de resistance crab manicotti in Newburg sauce turned out
exquisitely but he only cared about the booze. When I mentioned
The Great American novel he said it’s been written and offered to
send it to me. He edited it! He only laughed at one thing I said –
he called Athenaeum a “very, very small publishing house” and I
said, “More of a hut, really”. He obviously thought I was going to
have sex with him so that he would read my book. I turned him
down but offered to make up a bed for him on sofa (he really seemed
incapacitated by drink but he blamed it on jetlag.) He insisted on
leaving, looking very cranky. Did wonder aloud who the hell I think
I am? What’s a little sex between “friends” (or supplicants & donors?)

Letter from Devon (I needed it) cheered me up extraordinarily.
Just in the nick of time. I’m a loner, he’s a loner too – do two loners
make a party? Having a hard time feeling beautiful when I am not
dancing and 50 situps a day and one filthy bike ride are no substitute.
But this seminarian writes a mean letter. Loved my novel. Looks
forward to servicing – er surveying Boston in my company. Four
hours on novel produces 8 bad pages. It’s a start. Ms. MacManus
foisting her probate lawyer nephew Henry on me. He came over
to invite me to the beach (and help me walk the dogs.) He’s a pale,
pale Ryder (he’d have to be Peter Frampton to arouse me at
this stage) and I feared he’d get sunstroke but I said yes. Saw
Jabberwocky – very Monty Python.

Wrote a long wailing, complaining letter to Avril. Try to
read Women & Madness but it’s too poorly written and repels
every attempt. Norah Lofts White Hell of Pity – very depressing.
You’re pretty much asking for it if you pick up a book with that title.

11:00 AM Sun 3 July 77
Had to walk Genevieve’s dogs all the way to Columbus
& Ninth to find NY Times. Henry cancelled – I didn’t know why till
Ms MacManus told me he found out I wasn’t Jewish! Now she tells
me! (She’s not Jewish either.) Reading First Person Singular –
actually some helpful dating advice. Is it too crass to count on
having sex with Devon July 20? (That’s as long a wait as I think
I can stand.)
```
    12:45 PM Mon 4 July 77
    Almost strangled the dogs today. Sam rolled in horseshit 
```
in the park. Had to wash them both. Then they bothered me so much
during my exercises I had to lock them up. They howled. Penance
all around. Ms. McManus invited me to see New York, New York
. We enjoyed Unsung Cole last night – and she is going to Martha’s
Vineyard so won’t be around to make me her new chew toy.

11:25 PM Wish I could read the future. New York,
New York none too reassuring about male/female relationships.
Reading Leonard Woolf’s depressing Downhill All the Way.
His mind so different from Virginia’s you could call it “antithetical”.
Tomorrow’s excitement – double feature of Shame and The
Passion of Anna.
```
    12:25 AM 9 July 77 
    Ryder’s divorce final. His relationship with me?  Still in 
```
“separation” phase. Trying to hate him but it’s not working. Pity
the petty man who revels in bondage. Feeling sorry for all his
future lovers is the best I can do. He would respect me more if I
was less sexually excitable, and that’s the ugly truth. Totally
resigned that Harcourt will reject Secaire. Went to Patti Smith
concert with Brett’s brother. Kind of fun the way she barks out
her poetry; a little too butch for me. He is an incipient pedophile
remarking on every thirteen-year old he saw (or possibly he was
just trying to annoy me.)
```
    11:45 PM Sun 10 July 77
    Loved Rhoda Lerman’s The Girl That He Marries
```
– never were reviews so misleading!
```
    July 14, 1977
    Power out in the whole city! Living by candles. No 
```
elevator doesn’t affect us readers. Doorman up and down the
stairs with flashlights looking for old people. Dogs poop on
balcony. I seize any excuse not to write.
```
    9 PM Fri 22 July 1977 – Mrs. McManus’ condo 
```
Pevensey Old Farms
New deal: all I have to do for luxe pad is write an
article for Mrs. McManus’ real estate mag. I think rich people
are masters of bait and switch but of course I say yes.
Contemplate novel about homicidal house-sitter called Other
People’s Houses but I see from Books In Print it’s been taken.

Lying here making new breakthroughs in the art of
writing sideways; disinfecting my ear from swimming. Wanted
to write about Monica Dickens’ Man Overboard or N Ephron’s
Crazy Salad or at the very least make a New Plan for My Novel
but find I can’t. Was very “good” today – swam, bicycled, some
writing. Allowed to eat anything here luckily her food is not too
outrageous – hamburger and zucchini salad. Marinated artichoke
hearts.

Refuse to shred my nerves further by hating myself.
My body’s not perfect but I do feel on the home stretch to self-control.
Give me six weeks and I’ll be flying. Emotionally, I’m a mess.
Devon brought up marriage and I am smotheringly certain that I
can’t live up to either of our expectations or be parson’s wife.
Be fun to try – but that’s not the point. I fear the idiot side of me
that just keeps coming out. Can’t seem self-assured, playfully
grave instead sexually voracious and maniacally ridiculous.
Anyway Intuition told me he would call tonight between
8-10 as soon as he could be reasonably sure the Oldsters are out
of the way (he is visiting his parents who have “lights out” – i.e.
are blitzed – by nine pm). However Experience says if I expect the
call, he won’t call. (Learned this from Ryder).

He called at 8:30. I cracked too many jokes – conversation
painfully bizarre. He seemed calm and unfreaked. He got a new
job that gives him more “room” (he’s a waiter- he’s sick of teaching
people) asked when he could “show up” and suggested tomorrow.
Moving a lot faster than I expected from my memories of
Shy Boy. Do I want to have my fantasies played fast and loose with
in this way? (Am I over Ryder?) Do I want to get over him? Or
are mismatches of Time & Desire my Fate?

I am certainly NOT turning down D’s offer to see what
there can be for us. Companion? Lover? Second self? Brother?
Alas he is too blindingly handsome for me to be rational.
If he comes tomorrow there won’t be time for more than
necking (has to get to new job by 4.)

Forget “July 20”, entered on my calendar as S Day.
I WILL NOT MAKE LOVE TO A SCHEDULE. We have to have
a night alone to make things happen. I can be patient – can he?
Well, I can be honest. Best anyone can do.

10:45 PM Back from a walk, reliving my years as teenage
prowler. And peeper. These walks are very informational as I spy
couples hanging plants & merrimekkos, having fights and pouring wine.
Macramé is de rigueur. Try to imagine Devon & me in similar situations.
Maybe he won’t be a parson forever.

Celebrate my freedom from R. Nice to know I can go to parties
without fearing R’s paranoia & restrictions mixed with his exhibitionism
& flamboyance. Freeing me maybe to be those things. Fantasize
pleasurably about long drives with D – my hand on his thigh – separate
but equal thoughts unfolding with the journey. My emotions a difficult
horse to ride.

11:50 PM
Interrupted by phone call from R. (got this # from my
parents.) Offered to send me money. What is wrong with him?
He said, “You were right the way you always are. When are you
coming back to me?” Loves me, misses me, wants me back. He’s
been sick – Emmys a complete bust – his TV show cancelled – 2
directors actually fired (25 people in total.) Today’s the first day he’s
been back to work, amazed not to get a pink slip. He’s taking a two
week unpaid leave to go to the Finger Lakes and find his soul. If
they fire him so what. He refuses to take out of town job.
He really worked me over – gave me a bird’s eye
view of what life with him would be like. For example, said, “his
place is my place.” If he means “move in” he knows I’ll say no
because his skyscraper doesn’t take dogs. He asked, “When
do you come down to get your furniture?” I don’t like him having
all this information. Thank God for D. Six weeks to decide
whether I even want to return to Washington. I write a poem for Devon.

Angel Clothes

You are like a ripe peach
Swollen in the summer of your life
And as the peach surrounds its stone
Your skeleton enwombs your soul
But thinly.
I often see it shining
Through the hollows in your cheeks.
I need your body
Need to know its shadows
Sound its pleasures
But as the stone
Though small at first
Must grow; feed off the dying peach
So your spirit must transhume your flesh
Disgorge it in
A thousand peaches a thousand summers a
Thousand eternities more beautiful than
You or i
```
7PM – Sat 23 July 77
        D and I went for a long walk today, had a great 
```
talk. He told me all about his passionate relationship with English
girl – asking “Do you really want to know?” I did – I managed to
be very hands off. Said he’d written her “lyrical love-letters” and
she is saving money to come to US at Christmas.
Bit of a downer to find other people have split
minds like me. I told him a little about R and more about my
husband. I had to hope he wouldn’t see it “retaliation” for what he’d
told me. (R would have.) Fantasies can be ugly if they prevent you
from experiencing reality.

We hugged – he left – I know he thinks I’m too
“intense”. I was stupid enough to read him my peach poem. On
the other hand, if a guy can’t handle my poetry where am I? R only
likes poems he knows are about him.
Wrote a whiny letter to Avril (who usually can handle
whiny letters). Good today – bike, swimming, walk with D. Long letter
to Mom and Dad.

Reading Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm –
can’t stay grumpy – laughing too hard. Settling into my spaceship –
my own body – first day of the rest of my life. Listening to wonderfully
crazy modern opera on the radio.

Sun 24 July 77
Reading E. Ogilvie’s Theme for Reason. How can
people still write novels interspersed with long nature descriptions – the pert chickadees and the blue moiré sea. I think it’s immoral for a writer of
any talent to inflict this stuff on an overstuffed world. Shape now the
key (used to be all about time-wasting.) I pledge to concentrate on
making each day a triumph.
The First Word
The First Page.
The First Day.

4PM
Wrote 4 pages of A Demon Roused. Horribly
dissatisfied. Patricia Highsmith on the suspense novel no damn
help at all. Everything I’ve ever written pure dunder written by a
dunderhead. Restrained myself from calling R.
Face facts. Left DC June 4. This coming
month has to be gotten through. Feel I suffered my “breakdown”
last spring was a crisis of identity. Attacked by the writing thing
(no money, no approval, no relationships) attacked by the relationship
thing (R too critical, wanting to “change” me.) Starving myself. Long
mad midnight walks rampaging thru Chevy Chase with dogs. The
ENDLESS Devon situation only explicable when seen in this light.
(He’s TOO good looking – it’s like a fantasy.)

Now about my book. New beginning ALL wrong and
I couldn’t figure out why. The characters seem alive.
1) First Person Difficult. My husband always said
2) omniscient narrator no longer possible, making
3) me want to do it. However, I have to admit you
4) need to be somebody – an extra character and that’s a
5) bigger pain in the neck.
2) Scene Problematic. I’ve GOT to get out of England.
It’s artificial. How about if I don’t say where it is? Will the specificity
cops come after me?
3) Format (Suspense novel) rough because I have to be
the one who knows what’s going on and I want to write my first draft in a
narcoleptic state. Means I have to be happy making a huge ness with a million
false starts and then write the thing ALL OVER when I know what’s going on.
But I feel time running out on me. Goddam it.
I should be happy to explore. Why all this pressure? Two novels
unaccepted, why write a fourth? Am I deliberately trying to drive myself to the
brink of insanity? Also I HATE Sunday because the pool is packed, no stores
are open, and there’s no mail.
Devon and his roommates Blair & Brian drop by and I
struggle to appear sane. Hard for me.

6PM
Called R. to yell at him. He wasn’t there – thank GOD.
Maybe I just want to punish him. He certainly deserves it.
```
         1:30 PM Mon 25 July 77
        Dark night of the soul finally over. Very athletic today – 
```
feel deliciously tired. Decide I should go back to Washington no
matter what. My choices are my choices. My happiness can’t be
dependent on how people treat me. I plan to use my time to become
powerful – to be the person I’m supposed to be. In the drugstore line
I was reading up on the showbiz personalities – nobody interesting
before 30 and I have a few years yet.

Forget about weight – just follow & learn to love
“virtuous routine”. (I’m a size seven – that’s pretty good.) Today it
POURED rain – night baseball Devon wanted to attend out of the
question. He suggested we switch to a movie when he called this am.

Still feel stilted with him unfortunately.
Theme for Reason’s sole interest is that it was
written by a lesbian. Still, she isn’t very forthcoming. “Marriage of
convenience?” Really?

Assault on library. Planning to ransack the place.
Leafed through Helen Hayes (poor woman); enjoying Thurber’s
My World and Welcome To It .
December 28, 2022
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer
```
    10 PM Sun 24 Apr 77
    Very good day working "critic" at Pacifica radio. Worrying if I get 2nd job 
```
novel will suffer. Maybe Mr. Pierce will take care of that. Finished
Shelley – why is Triumph of Life always the Triumph of Death?
Nothing left to read – Natural Hist of Vampire; ho hum, Beyond
Belief is a yawn, Spoor of Spooks holds some interest but grating
tone. Finished scene between Nilssa and Labarraz – not really happy
with it. Total collapse of self-confidence a real problem for an artist.
```
    Tues 26 Apr 77
    Keith Dalrymple came in to place a call and unfortunately 
```
asked me how I was. Threw myself sobbing into his arms. Scary bad
news.
R. called last night to say, “I’ll take care of you.” Then said
I should move to Maine and get an apt I can “afford”!!! Then said he’d
been comparing everyone in Boston with me – no one stacked up.
Whiplash. “Taking care… isn’t that what hit men say? Butchers?
Garbage men? He is schizo. The unspoken message is I have to be
what he expects – clearly impossible. So why am I stuck? Why can’t
I just move on?
```
    Sexually he’s spoiled me, alas. Must finish this goddam novel 
```
but I need to run around town in a G-string auditioning. Wish there
was anyone I trust to show novel to but everyone’s taste is so weird.
They don’t see what I’m trying to do and they don’t see any point in
getting there. Must learn to please myself but I’m bone tired, dammit.
Making a list of Sources of joy:
Art
Writing
Sisters
Dogs
Nature
The Beauty of Everything
Friends
Love?
```
    11:45 AM  Sun 1 May 77
    Keith softened me up by calling to ask if I’d been in 
```
his office. He smelled my perfume. (I hadn’t.) Agreed to go out with him
Sat night. Just awful. Awful. Keep wishing he was literally ANYONE
else. Dating someone who doesn’t interest you sexually is like trying
to diet by ordering food you dislike. (I actually tried this. Ordered tripe.)
Howlably stupid. Yet no one to howl to.
R. says he’d “hate” to think I “needed” him and didn’t
call. Am I the stupid one here? I think so. Sucker for punishment. Upstairs,
Downstairs cheers me up a little. Considering renting little house in the
wilds of Virginia. Or garden apt. utilities included. Dogs would like it –
close to clubs. Read Eliz Savage’s Good Confession – very minor.
Cleaning. Laundry, dishes, garbage.
Thinking about Sylvia Plath and the problem of panic
attacks. It’s all about learning to steer into the skid.
```
           Wed May 4 - 77
              Made illegal copies of novel at work, drove to Plush 
```
Palace in Virginia to audition. (10 Mins down Rt 1 from Woodrow
Wilson bridge. 1 HR commute). VA pays better, mandates pasties
& stockings, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (I’m not kidding)
makes sure you don’t sit with or talk to clientele. Amen! I was hired
immediately $90 day plus tips. So pleased. Got a car appt Fri 13th
so El Diablo won’t die on Beltway. Working Thurs, Fr. Sat and there’s
no holdback, they pay you immediately. Buy G-strings & pasties
Landover mall.
Avril says R “betrayed” me. But do you “betray” someone
by having a weak character? He can’t help it. A says he’s behaved
so badly there’s no hope for him. I think he can’t make up his mind –
he wants me only if I don’t want him. Plus if he finds out I’m dancing
again he’ll want to “convert” me. (He’ll think I’m doing it just to torture
him. I don’t plan to tell.) Gave A a copy of my novel to read – feeling
insane – got to get reaction from SOMEBODY. Broadcast asks me to
stay “on call” so Mr. Pierce has forgiven me or is desperate.
```
    Plush Palace – 9 PM Fri 6 May 77
    Very nice dressing room. Girl I’m dancing with (Darla) is just 
```
awful. Find the comparison very cheering. A gobbled my novel up, says
it’s “deep” but “obsessive”; made me feel on right track. How much can
I torture my audience? I‘ve GOT to stop blubbering and start fantasizing.
Who CARES about the pathos of my existence? Make something up.
```
    Sat. 7 May 77
    House is mine! Everyone moved out.  (A’s & Mason’s new 
```
place just what they wanted – skyscraper urban nightmare.) Listening
to opera, reading NY Times, feeling like a Big Success. Dog across
my chest in blissful rapture. ($100 in tips last night!!!) R called to say
I “always have a place with him” and He “has never taken my heart
ring off”. Is he nuts or am I?
```
    Realize for the first time he says things he KNOWS aren’t 
```
true just to hear himself say them!! Just like the Victorians –
mouthing something is halfway there! Because you’re making an
effort! You could not imagine anyone more opposite from me. Hopeless,
hopeless, hopeless, as the rock musicians say.
```
    Reading Bottle Factory Outing – so wonderful. (But liked 
```
The Secret Glass better.) Trying to numb weird longings to write ghost
stories and eat chicken potpie (regression). Wrote first draft of a short
story about a grandmother telling her shocked granddaughter about
“the time I almost committed suicide”. Very matter of fact. Feel I’m
recovering from “mono-soul-iosis” – not just R but my first marriage,
Devon and everyone between. Shoulders asks to borrow lawnmower –
asked me if I want to watch him use it. (He knows he’s pretty.) I do.
```
    7:15 PM 8 May 1977
    Feeling much better, like I’ve passed a turning point.  Wasn’t 
```
sure how much I could trust myself in the past, but if I’ve come through
this, my core must be solid, instead of the jelly mass I fear. Sitting in my
far-from-clean study beneath my poster of Blake’s God & the Angels
enjoying an after dinner cup of coffee. Sanity returns. A. is coming tonight
to get her flicati rugs – that will make the downstairs look empty. Trying
to finish Household’s Courtesy of Death, so I can take all these silly books
to the library, dump them, and get a lifetime supply of Peter de Vries. The
only proven painkiller is laughter. My damn novel’s made a fool out of me.
Time to admit it.
```
    3:15 PM 9 May 77
    Called into Broadcast to sub for Loretta.  Working on Devlyn 
```
galleys. The main scary thing about this place is that no one works
here willingly. “Morale” is a poisonous miasma. Kind of like the
architects’ office.
Mom & Dad raise hell over A’s living with Mason. I thought
they were so worked up about “commitment”! Sharing an apt is a
commitment, isn’t it? Not according to them. Glad poor A is taking
the storm for once and not me. Couldn’t cope with them on top of
everything else. R. and I are trying to evolve into a “friendship”. I know
it sounds stupid but there has to be some third place between
attraction and avoidance because each of those is obsession.
When I ran this idea past R he said I was his “best friend”. This is
why he is so impossible to deal with. Best friend? He wouldn’t
treat a pet the way he’s treated me (the SPCA would come and get him.)
Speaking of Ryder, he just called. Finished my book,
found the Black Mass a little short otherwise liked it. Didn’t say a
word about “who’s Hank based on.” Thank God. He did ask who
the baby’s father is – I said even Nilssa doesn’t know. According
to R. I have “no problems”. (He doesn’t know about the dancing. I
f he was REALLY my best friend I could tell him.) He says we have
the whole rest of our lives to talk. He’s uncannily good at saying
what I want to hear (unfortunately). Seeing him tonight. Take the bus
home, buy wine, wash & set my hair. If only we could get to the stage
where we no longer fear each other.
```
    4:50 PM Tues 10 May 77
    Well we’re not out of the woods yet but perhaps have 
```
found a path. Last night was like losing my virginity all over again
– we were both so shy. Slept wrapped up and embracing. Many
compliments on my body (no tell-tale glitter in the bed.) He said he
was so upset by me breaking up with him at McDonald’s he can’t
go to any McD’s anymore. Pledges of love somewhat ruined by
an argument during breakfast about whether a novel can be “good”
if no one will buy it. Uh oh. I tried keeping it philosophical, not
giving historical examples he wouldn’t recognize (which would be
“one-upping”.) Finally stopped when he got a call from a “goofy
chick.” Should I be worried, I ask, and he says no. But I can’t avoid
the sinking feeling that I don’t dare hitch my wagon to anyone
so dependent on mass psychology – even as a friend – without
losing my way.
```
    8:20 PM Plush Palace
    Getting ready for my 2nd set. Thinking hard I decide
```
I need 8 months in Maine. I should quit Broadcast Agency right
away (I think they need two weeks, poor bastards. No one wants
to work there. When you have to quit a job that allows you to read
you know its bad. This job lets me read and it’s a lot more interesting.)
Stay there the summer at the very least. Just writing. The problem
is, if I’ve got Mom and Dad working on my one side and R working
the other, I’m like a chew toy.
Horrible realization that if I told R I was dancing he would
demand I quit and I might do it. So when I realize the person I need
to be afraid of is me, it’s a Mary Shelley-like horrific moment. Trying
to read Household’s Three Sentinels but all I can think of is those
awful Juan Carlos coffee commercials; “harvesting de beans wid de
donkeys”. My own life way more interesting.
10 PM – It’s my diary that’s my best friend – tell you
anything. Household’s women are unspeakable. Just got to the
place where he describes being “turned on” by the hair on a woman’s
upper lip. Doesn’t do a thing for me. Hungry, but maybe when I get
home I’ll have a yogurt. Trying to save $1000. And stay away from
the 12¢ donuts.
12:55 PM In an hour I’ll be on the road and not a moment
too soon. Fall into the arms of empty house & importunate dogs.
Just ate a whole plate of cold French fries (not good). Boredom’s
my worst enemy. Food at least feels like excitement. Such pathos.
Gentleman Jim just gave me Thurs night, which is welcome.
```
    Broadcast Agency – Wed – 11 May 77 5:35 PM
    R. says his latest philosophy is “To Love is to Be 
```
Happy With.” He’s all worked up about snowshoeing and horseback
riding as the cure-alls for anything that ails us; says he’s budgeting
money to spend on me every week. I do not find this appealing.
He’s a warm puppy, all right, but I’ve already got two of those. In
spite of that I fall into a reverie where we buy an old house outside of
Annapolis, slowly fill it up with precious junk and love each other to
death. Need to go home, eat rice & vegetables, and give dogs a
good long walk. Reading Martha in Paris but thinking about Alysse
in Annapolis…
```
    7:50 PM Sun 15 May 77 
    Justifiably proud –  paid ALL my bills and sent off my 
```
galleys. Nothing like money! (Stupid car needs a new clutch.
It’s always something.) Able to refuse “help” from Mom and Dad
who are dithering about whether I need to be institutionalized.
```
    Told them I was working at a “restaurant” (Let them 
```
assume waitressing. They know I can’t cook. PP does serve food;
State of Virginia makes people who serve alcohol serve something
to sop it up with. Good old Virginia. ) Sent M & D a DEVLYN cover.
$57 left in my acct.; $100 in my purse. (Open a savings acct tomorrow).
```
    Ordered a beautiful Vietnamese print ($80) for Genevieve’s 
```
wedding gift (last time she got married I sent candy. Well, I wasn’t
invited!) Horseback riding did make me horny however – Ryder & I
made love like a pair of wild animals. He may be compact, but he’s
beautiful. Cleaned the entire house. Now darkness falls – means it’s
time to walk the dogs. How I love peering into people’s windows.
When I get back, strong tea with milk and the “splendeurs et misères”
of Monica Dickens. Or will I succumb to that modern master of
the Grimm fairytale, Agatha Christie? No poetry, but plenty of trolls.
December 23, 2022
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer

Shalimar – 3:30 PM –13 Aug 76
Was sitting on a box of Lite Beer sipping coffee

reading Miss Read when Carmen warned me that the boss

might fire me for reading. Apparently writing he doesn’t mind

so much, probably because he can’t imagine anyone keeping

it up longer than 10 mins at a time. R. will be here soon, then

we hit the bank, pick up my stuff and we’re on the road for the

Finger Lakes. Five hours alone in the car. I find I have a lot

of inhibitions against voicing boundaries in our relationship –

mainly because I don’t want to be lied to. I want to find out

how things really are. For example, he spent last night in

Gaithersburg with his wife. Now her I’m jealous of, because

he used to love her, used to think she was a “catch” and

was surprised and gratified that she “descended” into

marriage with him.

I probably won’t ask him if they had sex because

it would be making too much of it. He’s said before he wouldn’t,

and she definitely wouldn’t. But I can’t believe a woman who

knows she’s losing a man might not change in her feelings –

just to see what power she has left. I would, if he wanted the

divorce and I didn’t. Will I be able to tell just by looking at him?

R feels the right to be jealous and possessive over me, which

I don’t grudge him since I’m naturally monogamous. He feels

no discomfort making rules for me. But he should.

6:00 PM Saturday 14 Aug 76 Finger Lakes
Lying on the bed in our tiny TINY two room cabin –

with just a curtain separating the rooms – I was going to write

here about how much I love my job (I really miss dancing so

much when I’m away from it – the ideal thing would be three

sets a day for life) – when R came in, threw himself on me,

tore my clothes off, began kissing my breasts and exploring

my tan lines and pressing his beautiful valued body hard hard

hard into mine – and you know what happened next. If he turns

the fan on high I don’t think the other campers can hear our little

yips and screams. At least I hope not. We spent last night in his

grandmother’s house in Binghamton, New York.

She bedded us down in separate rooms – he gave me a

long lecture about how you have to respect the house rules of

whoever you’re staying with – and then who do you think showed

up in the middle of the night saying he couldn’t sleep. It is ecstatic

to have sex almost without moving – this must be what Tantra is like.

We were directly over her and the bed creaked so we didn’t move a

muscle – absorbed and shed each other like snakes. Wonderful.

Next stop was R’s cousins who own the cabins. I don’t know

what to say about them – plastic flowers and Sonny James. My state

of deep shock probably resembled mental retardation. Some people’s

houses are frighteningly ugly. Their clock has eyes, they keep the

plastic on the lampshades. I just sat there while the ethnic and sex

jokes filtered around me. Who could blame R’s first wife for

shunning this bunch?

I would not choose them for buddies either. And the fact

that they are renting us a cabin doesn’t appear to mean we will

also get privacy – so I have taken to wearing my glasses. Number

one – I don’t see as well – number two – it creates a kind of screen

between me and them.

The Lake is beautiful – but I don’t need to go in more than

twice a day – I also don’t have the patience for the fish-a-thons that

absorb the rest of them, dawn till dusk.

Plus one time waterskiing was plenty. Since dinner is a

vast barbecue down at the beach every night and we only have

sandwiches for lunch and cereal for breakfast there is not that

much to do, thank God. Sadly the dinners are followed by

hours of dancing, drinking and fighting. I go to bed early to read

but R stays and plays “peacemaker”. Tonight he says he’s going

to let them kill each other and join me. Therefore I can set up my

typewriter on the kitchen table and get right to it. People keep

coming to bring me coffee and cookies – I think they really

want to see a writer “in action” – at the end of this trip I MAY

be 20 lbs heavier. The rest of my time is spent sunning and reading.

Unfortunately St. Secaire going VERY badly. Complete

horseshit, alas.

I’ve started it four separate times. I think at this point I just

have to keep going and hope it’s possible to clean up the mess later.

Tuesday 17 Aug 76 7:30 PM
Outside a fair number of people, all high as kites,

revving their engines and swearing they’re leaving and never

coming back. I don’t know if anybody’s actually going to GO

or not but I wish they would. No wonder R had nothing to do

with these people for four years – he may conveniently blame

his wife but the truth is none of them can stand each other.

Pack of wolverines. I’ve been left totally alone and am well

out of it – they may have forgotten I am even here. Last night R

was so depressed he just lay on the bed exhausted by them. I

tried to explain to him about resentment and the resulting succubae

and incubi thus created. (Subject of my novel, in fact.)

He said something about “our next 25 years” that just

floored me. Even my husband didn’t talk like that. Remember

saying to my father – I would be fine if I could only find a man who

treated me as well as I treated him. Dad – so ready to take

anybody’s part over mine, said, Has it ever occurred to you that

you might be hard to live with? Such a typical Daddy remark –

the more you think about it the worse it gets.

Well, R treats me better than anyone else so far.

He’s almost talked me into looking for a new job when I get back –

and that’s a lot. But if he wants to introduce me around, can’t lie

about what I do, etc etc. (This group – doesn’t know about my job –

he says they’d eat me – and him – alive. I can scarcely believe

they would take the moral high ground with me but I suppose

anything’s possible.) Tried to read a Redbook someone brought

–
shouldn’t do it. So depressing. Could never write like that or

be like that. If that’s the standard this whole thing is hopeless.

Then I picked up a book by Grace Livingston Hill. I’m going to

include her in my article on female pornographers.

R told me he had the impression that if I didn’t have my

novel to write I would probably go bananas. I said probably. I tried

to prepare him for the very different kind of vacation he’s going to

get in Maine – where people very deliberately leave each other alone.

If somebody sets off down the beach and you wanted also to walk

on the beach – you’d turn and go the opposite way. R says in his

family that would be grounds for a six-year grudge punctuated by

sobbing, screaming and threats of suicide.

12:10 am
Went night fishing with R because he wanted me to.

Wrote a wonderful poem about Coleridge – just came to me in

one piece. Couldn’t really share with R – he doesn’t know who

Coleridge is. So I showed him – Haunted Wedding.

HAUNTED WEDDING
The pregnant car disgorges
Only us. It’s winter.
Drunk as silver fish
We beat our gills as light
As hummingbirds.
In an amethyst ring
Of drypoint trees
The half-built house
Gapes and swells
Its timbers stink of sap.
Windrill fields occlude
Our crossing, so you carry me
High above the thorny osiers.
We sleep aloft for safety
Locked and levitating
In this space of air
One season only,
Unseen by angry outriders;
Bloodless in our wedding robes
Like the doubled membranes
Of the frozen flowers
```
    This triggered a fight because he says it wasn’t written 
```
for him. If he jealously searches my work for other lovers

madness is assured.) He almost talked me into thinking it a

bad poem.

I feel my mother’s disapproving stare on all of this – “

don’t ruin what you have by trying to get something else” – as

if showing R this poem would be a deliberate way of hurting him

by making him feel inferior – part of her larger accusation that I

channel so much energy into writing I’m no good with people and

that’s why my relationships suffer. All I can say is, thank God for

my diary.

Writing now with my feet in R’s lap while he plays cards.

He strokes my toes from time to time, as if I were a cat. We came in

from fishing and he just took my pants down – such earthy

sexuality has never existed for him. He told me he’s never

been so happy. And as for me? One side of my multi-prismed

personality is happy, but some of the other sides are complaining.

Difficult to contemplate an existence where I am not mentally alone

six hours a day.

One of the reasons I like my job is that it leaves that part

of me remarkably intact – dancing is a lot like sleepwalking. If I get

another job there’s a strong chance I’ll have to interact with humans.

Hell. And we both know how humans can be. Then I might be too

exhausted emotionally and battered psychologically to have the

energy to write – it’s a serious risk. Those architects ran roughshod

over me.
December 16, 2022
Inspired Pleasure

Diary of a Dancer

31 July 76 Shalimar

R came in but I managed to get rid of him. Sandy

brought in a huge bag of string beans, squash and tomatoes

from her garden – I told Ryder to take them home and cook them.

My job is turning into a source of tremendous conflict – he is the

snake in his own paradise. Plus tips really fall off when he is

here. I am already looking at a very tough month financially –

trying to take so much time off. He said he’ll be back at the end

of the night to pick me up – he’s hurt when I’m “in need” and

don’t call him. So that saves cab fare anyhow.

We took a walk between sets and talked about his

parents – second generation immigrants, lifelong Army. He doesn’t

tell them anything (they obviously know his marriage broke up

and now he’s with me – but they don’t know about his deafness,

for example or about his classes at Gallaudet.) He said to me,

can you believe I’ve only seen these people twice in the past

four years? And we live in the same state. Wait till he meets

my parents – shudder. I’ll put it off as long as I possibly can.

      Dancing tonight with Alicia. Poor Alicia. She’s a

“dripper”(constantly leaking pee) but blames it on hypoglycemia.

She hates dancing when there are so few people in here.

It’s kind of interesting. She sort of has a whorish appearance and

doesn’t realize she’s trapped in a vicious cycle – audience thinks

she’s a loose woman, she thinks they’re perverts.

      I’m trying not to fall into the super-loving, super-giving

trap but Ryder is the first guy I’ve ever met who would obviously

be a wonderful father. Rare among men under thirty? Or something.

      Talked to A on the phone – she was bored to tears at home

so I suggested she come in. We shared a burger basket and she

saw me dance for the first time. She wasn’t grossed out at all by

the semi-nudity – which is good – told me I’m a great dancer and

she really envies me my pelvic wiggle.

Also told me I have a terrific body – which really cheered

me up because I still feel too hefty around Ryder. (At his parents’ house

we went over his old scrapbooks – he was the star quarterback in

high school football. They described him as 5’4”! That’s a lot

shorter than he admits to these days. His boots have at least two

inch heels.) A left after one set because all the guys of course

came on to her. Obvious losers, alas, including the one who insists

he’s a hitman for the CIA and another who claims to be giving

away government jobs.

Unfortunately I’m dependent on the tips of these characters.

Ryder has been telling them all that I’m a writer (instead of a call girl,

presumably) which gives me a lot of explaining to do.

I wish I had money to buy things the house needs –

flashlights and fuses and drainers and shelving and all that stuff –

but I’m saving every bit for our trip to the Finger Lakes. Aug 5 will

mark one month in the house and six months since I quit the

architects. Seems like much longer than that. Where will I be

six months from now?

Hope my gothic novel sells – I need an immediate

hundred grand. I really can’t write with R sucking up all my free time.

I’ve been struggling with another poem about him – even that isn’t

coming. Hopefully we’ll settle down into being able to work side

by side quietly – maybe after our vacation.

6:00 PM, Chevy Chase Tyler St, 2 Aug 76

Across the street Shoulders, dressed in a skimpy football

undershirt, is mowing his lawn. He is a sight to behold.

Sitting over my repaired typewriter with a cup of hot tea

and a case of writer’s block. I could write a poem about Shoulders –

already R is interfering with my life. Beautiful day – a little chilly –

a little Maine edge to it.

Finished Stead’s Dark Places – which I adored – absolutely

one of a kind. Another bothersome thing about R – he really doesn’t

read. He’s been dragging around a sleazy paperback “heist comedy”

he pretends to read from time to time. At this rate it will take him six

months. I am struggling with All Authors are Equal but I may give

up on it and read Famous Washington Ghosts which R picked up

for me to add to my considerable collection of ghost stories (I must

have 50 vols.)

On the phone with Maeve my old Baltimore buddy –

she is behind in her rent but looking for a new job. In the meantime

borrowing from boyfriends.   I take a perverse pleasure that anyone

is managing worse than me.

Shalimar – 10:20 PM

Called in tonight to replace another girl – great – that

means I work 5 times this week. Just that small amount makes a

big difference. A is in the chips right now and I could owe her

but don’t want to.

When I came in they told me R had been in 30 mins

before. That was a little unsettling – I didn’t realize he would come in

if I weren’t here. Of course it is really close to his job – but equally

of course the food is more expensive here than just about

anywhere else he could choose. I look at who was dancing

to see whether he would think she was in any way better than me –

luckily it was the pisser Alicia instead of potentially scary

competition like, say, Gloria. He didn’t know I was coming in,

because Carmen didn’t tell him. Reading the Ghosts of

Washington. Wonderful poem potential.

Shalimar Thurs 5 Aug 76

R dearer every day, in spite of the fact that he’s

been checking up on me. Called and called last night – wondered

where I was – I wasn’t too sure how to tell him A and I were

over at Shoulders’ drinking, so I just said we were visiting

the neighbors. Standing in their yard, which wasn’t true. He is

jealous of Shoulders and I don’t blame him – such lush male

beauty makes women helpless. A is a complete mess over him.

He frequently wanders around the house in nothing but his

boxers – we call them as his “huppa”.

      R. finally got an apt and can stop “crashing” with

friends – one bedroom at the top of a Rockville skyscraper.

Sounds crazy expensive to me. Wrote a good poem –

capitol ghosts – today from the book R gave me.

Trying to think where to send it. Tomorrow’s my day off –

R coming over at 2.

CAPITOL GHOSTS

Pale Guiteau
slants his disappointed child’s face
downwards; the better to study bloodstains left
by assassins more accomplished than himself
who required benefit of anonymous surgeons
specially qualified for skewering
the muscles of the mighty.

The guard who saw him
claimed also to hear demon cats
and could not be relied upon.
these portents once were matters of
congressional dispute; now
no matter; caught within the marbled lurch
of history, victims

of the uninspired mad;
those who pursue the corpse from whom
the ghost escaped. He haunts our history
like the villainous barber who sings as he slits
both throats and wombs, a pure tune
some say, picked clean of tragedy
which only the dying hear.

Shalimar 7 Aug 76

Sitting here in a stupor of exhaustion. We had an

Al Green fan in here tonight – kept playing same song over

and over. Presumably working through some kind of a

relationship crisis. They don’t realize coming here and blowing

their money kills any relationship – and I am not going to tell

them. Anyway I hate Al Green. Missed my bus this AM so

took the Fessenden bus and walked across. A better way to go –

I like the walk – to hell with this transfer business.

I have to admit R doesn’t seem to understand

poetry. He’s very suspicious of all ease, elegance, lightness.

Too much Nature! “Work” should make you grit your teeth,

groan and bulge your forehead veins. The easier it comes,

the less valuable it MUST be. (He would hate Picasso’s very

best stuff!) I’ve tried getting him to understand by comparing

art to athletics – it only looks easy – it’s the training beforehand

that’s so hard. The trick is to render training invisible. But he

seems to think modern poetry is a plot to make him look stupid.

Really worried about money lately – everything at

Unibank is bouncing. It doesn’t take much to set off a chain

reaction. Guess I’ll have to borrow from A after all.

      How true it is that before you can love you must

love yourself. My love for myself is wavering. Just finished

Sean Stiles’ Occam’s Razor. I hate to see a good idea wasted.

Mostly I am depressed by the poor quality of the stories in

the Times Detective Story competition anthology. This is

something I should aspire to? I’m on a wonderful streak

of poetry – keep piling them up – got ophelia and

haunted house this eve.

OPHELIA WAS A MAN
The best revenge is growing up.
Behold a street of suicides –
Fringed lampshades &
Mullioned windows where
The dentist’s son grew dope
From seed (they had eight bathrooms and
The dentist couldn’t be everywhere)
His wife was nowhere; we saw her leave
With the cat in a suitcase clawing to get out.
“Crazier than thou” averred my aunt.
That boy blew the fruits of orthodontal science until
The day he blew his mind –
We traced the hissing-pissing-noise
To the garage of the stockbroker’s son; he’s
The one who stayed home from Yale to rewrite Hamlet
(Made it better – put in people you could recognize)
Type-cast himself – since he saw ghosts.
Two fine boys married to each other
Rosy-cheeked and sightless
In their parents’ wedding clothes.

      Tomorrow R is taking me on a tour of the television

station and out to lunch. This is a biggie – see where he works.

So I had to buy a gorgeous black linen jumpsuit (size 5!) Should

be worn with high red heels – but needless to say, can’t around

R. So instead, flat sandals. Fortunately everything is on sale.

A and I have decided to ask Maeve to move in with us – we can’t

seem to manage alone and we do have three bedrooms, but

she’ll have to hide from the landlord. I hate to do it. Letter from

D today – he’s in love with the 18 yr old virgin daughter of his minister.

Didn’t do a thing to me. God bless ‘em.

      Rick the gambler in tonight. He’s a friend of R’s – cheered

me up by telling me I’ve done so much for R who was really “hurting”

over his divorce.

Ryder – I love you – but I don’t really know who you are.

Hope you are who you pretend to be.

December 15, 2022
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer
```
    Fri 23 July 76 - Tyler St, Chevy Chase, Maryland 
    R and I have seen each other every day since Fri – 
```
I think he’s in love. I could fall if I let myself but something holds me back.
I like our relationship now – he drops by the house after work
and we’re both in jeans. I think tonight’s the night for sex –
first time – I’m nervous but since I love his body I expect
to be all right.
Adore these slow working mornings. I get up
with A (depending on when her first run is – she’s now
working courier) to have time to set my hair before leaving
at 10. Beautiful walks up Tyler St. Early AM at the Shalimar
such a pleasure – sitting at the bar with my diary balanced
on my hipbones, watching the barmaids get ready, feeling
like a character out of Toulouse Lautrec.
Yesterday we met our across the street neighbors –
one of them is a gorgeous guy named Larry getting a degree
in Hospital Administration. Among ourselves we call him
“Shoulders” because he has such a gorgeous pair. To see
them dimpled with sweat on his way back from a run is to be
in heaven. Invited Larry and roommates Garrett and Opal to
dinner tomorrow night – if they can come.

Thurs 22 July 76 – 9:25 PM
God I’m in love. I love his fragile, tense blond body –
love holding it. Love looking at his Lorenzo diMedici face.
Those blond Italians! He wouldn’t like to hear me say it –
he has a black belt in karate and thinks he’s so tough – but
he probably only outweighs me by 20 lbs. Made love all afternoon –
he is very skilful – obsessed with my pleasure. Says he doesn’t
care if he ever comes – wants to see what gives a woman pleasure.
We fit together exactly – interlocking puzzle pieces even
upside down. I can feel his feet with my feet – his knees
with my knees – it’s like having a mirror body – only with a
hard chest and penis. After the first time the relief of the orgasm
was so great I wept. I fell asleep with him inside me. Wrote
a poem about him but don’t know if I want to show him. If I
learned anything from Bruce it’s that people misrepresent.
He could be shockable and its early days yet. Today I want
to buy a bookcase.
Love equals, unfortunately, anxiety attacks – could
he possibly love me as much as I love him? Yesterday walking
in the park I expressed fear about him going straight from one
serious relationship right into another – but he says he refuses to
limit the experience. Which of course was exactly the right answer.
The worst part is his trouble with my job.
He says he knows he can’t ask me to quit because
he can’t support me – I pointed out he wants me to go on the Divers
World expedition, and then to Cozumel, and I want to take him to Maine,
all of which would be impossible if I had a regular job. He says he
can deal with it only by avoiding the Shalimar – OK by me as long as
I see him outside. He came in today – I got rid of him after a half hour,
before my set.

11:05 AM – Shalimar Tues 27 July 76
Feel like throwing out all my diaries. Driveling gush broken
up by gushing drivel. But I go right ahead and produce some more.
Randy throwing ice and cases of beer, Bobbi cleaning trays, Carmen
checking paper towels and me writing. Perfect.
We were lying in bed – me and Ryder – I have to lie on his
right side because he only has one good ear – and he told me a long
purposeless allegory about bullfighting. Can’t tell which of us is the
supposed to be the matador. I’m the only one with a poetic license
in this relationship.) He said I should just write, and he’s going
to see to it. I said fine by me. I love this job but not as much
as writing, love and freedom. Then he said, I love you.
```
9:45 AM Wed July 28 76
        Anniversary of Toss Sheffield relieving me of 
```
my impacted virginity (as I relieved him of his.) R came yesterday at 2 –
left at 3 – came back at 5. Another watershed in our relationship – Fears.
He’s afraid to lose the hearing in his good ear. He speaks sign
language but doesn’t want to live in a world without sound. I made
him promise to go the doctor. He agreed to make an appointment no
later than Weds.
Reading Christina Stead’s wonderful Dark Places of
the Heart. Considered inviting Ryder to live with us – rejected
the idea. I need too much alone time. So important to establish
amour proper. I am so impoverished from setting up the house
(though I’ve made enough in tips to pay my taxi ride home tonight)
I am barely going to make the rent. Need a windfall.
Sweaty and smelly. I think I’ve boogie –oogie-oogied
till I just can’t boogie no more.

Club Shalimar– 30 July 76
Cookout at Ryder’s parents – I met his folks – two
roly-poly people who are nothing like him – one sister who is
a lot younger.
We had glorious talks on our way there and back –
about having our own space – (we agreed he needs to live alone);
our hopes and dreams (he used to write music, wants to do that
again someday – I told him I have an agent shopping a novel around)
first impressions (I discovered he was in the bar when I auditioned!
Horrors!) He said what intrigues him most about me is that he
can’t figure me out – still can’t – everything about me is a surprise.
I guess I could say the same about him.
Wonderful abandoned sex – just crazy stuff – I came and
came. He told me he spent last night at his old house – he and
his wife had to have a “meeting”. I was jealous until he told me
that his wife is sexually dead – and always has been. He didn’t
understand it when they married, assuming it was something you
get over. I suggested she was probably molested as a child –
he didn’t want to believe it. He thinks some people are sexually
just asexual. I thought – but didn’t say – there’s a self-protective
concept. He doesn’t want to think she is turned off of him but in
my experience – such as it is – chemistry is a completely
mysterious yet crucial factor women have a tendency to discount
it when choosing a life partner. So they end up married to the
“perfect” person, except they’re not sexually stirred.
2:00 AM. He tucked me in – kissed me – left – then
I was wakened with his hands all over me. When he got to his
car he realized our clock had stopped and he didn’t have time
to go home before work. So he snuck back in the sliding door.
We had sex again, and the whole night became a snake
eating its own tail. This morning got a wonderful poem:
Love, the Magician.

The Magician is a Capricorn
Bleeding cock’s milk from nipples
Pale like mine but
Maler.
Illusion, he says is memory
Of things that should have been.
Doves and rabbits he entices
From sacred groves between my legs
Placed by ruse, and freed by art.
When he dies, passion turns his eyes
To quarters.
He hears the world but faintly
Through his one good ear.
The other turns to me,
Safecracker’s daughter.
Trust the magician, voices tell me
He knows when to drop the dice.
December 14, 2022