Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #Poetry

  • Haiku Diary of Alysse Aallyn

    #Haiku: Ego

    Pry:

    Beneath Eye:

    Compare

    My Shy

    Inside

    To your

    Wry outside. Cry.

    Why?

  • Diary of a Spiritual Journey – Haiku by Alysse Aallyn

    #Haiku: Dear Jane Austen

    Formalized play

    Plumbs nature’s

    Riot;

    Edit

    Emote:

    Judge

    Love

    Rewrite

  • A Thousand Haiku – selections of poetry by Alysse Aallyn

    #Haiku: Poetry

    Poetry

    Is  words;

    Splashing

    Flailing

    Soaking

    Blinding

    Drowning –

    Swimming

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                 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.

    Between the green glimpses

    You cut mountains down to size;

    I’d no idea that one could take such charge of space.

    You hovered, teaching –

    Drinking vodka,

    I drank wormwood –

    Everything’s my fault. 

    Now I’m a toad-dweller,  

    Nostrils pierced by thorns 

    Falling face-first through 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 just 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 – it’s 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; a combination of our old 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. Both times) 

                                     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 for 

    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 letter 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.

    A 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

    Innocents Restored. 

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                       Castle – Wed 1:15 AM 16 May – 79

                                        Unspeakably rotten dinner at the Cosmo Club with Usher Glayne.  Forget him and his majestic New England genes. He is simply “collecting” me as his latest oddity.  He has “so many warm, women artist” friends but no dancer yet (he’s way overdosed on poets) and he drifts from one “presence” to another, sucking wattage like some radioactive swamp monster. He and his wife have an “understanding” which probably means she has no idea where the hell he ever is and nobody’s had sex in eons.  Can’t I do better than this?

                                         In spite of the fact that I’m a declassee person who doesn’t know where her next sexual or emotional meal is coming from I think I must insist on a note from wifey before taking this matter further. According to his poetry he associates sexuality with evil – not that I’m physically attracted to him –

    – it’s just so piquant to be with a man who gets a fresh barber’s shave right before seeing you. (It’s been awhile). 

                                    I don’t think he listened to a thing I said, just 

    gazed at me rapturously. I tried getting him interested in helping me write a screenplay for Faulkner’s Mosquitoes – to me a completely ignored, obviously filmable work. He dismisses, “It’s been done.”  

                                        Well it may have been “treated” BY SOMEBODY but the point is, it hasn’t been treated by us and it hasn’t been filmed  and it would be WONDERFUL. Couldn’t ignite him. He really doesn’t want to talk about writing with me – I guess he has other people for that. I was so happy when our “date” ended I could have wept for joy. On the other hand I am sorry to see these millions slip away.  My children could have used them, not to mention all my fantasies of early retirement busted. Looks like I have no one to depend on but myself.  Enjoying Monica Dickens’ enchanting The Moon was Low. But had to buy a Quaalude from Maureen to get to sleep.  

                                        Finished  V. Sackville-West’s The Devil at Westease. 

     I can’t figure out why she wrote it. She speaks entirely in lost codes.

                                         I really dragged myself in to work today. That’s how you know you’re working too much. Letter from Devon – he’s off to California to “find himself.” What he really wants is any way to figure out how to be a minister in a state of sexual abandon and he instinctively knows if the answer is anywhere, it is in California.  

    On the other hand, will this really turn out to be what he wants?  Not if I know him. The only good news about him is that his genes are impeccable.  Plus, I’m very depressed about my writing. 

                                        Spreading myself too thin – thinking about one project while working on another. My Secaire book is starting to get ridiculous, but I want to follow up this “satanic rites” thing to see where it goes. Why did I come up with it? What does it mean? Who knows? Cheap and derivative everyone would probably say at this point. Yet it holds some interest for me. 

    Love and sex as hostage-taking. The question is, who’s the hostage and who’s the keeper? 

                                        Could it be hours of research, prose and bitching produce only a single poem? Lucky if so.

                                        Even if it’s a mess.

                                        Also miserable about money and my body. Buying the house was a great idea – I love it – however, there are constant expenses I can’t ignore that keep me chained to this goddam stage and dressing room. 

    My mortgage calls for my monthly payment to increase next year – I could worry about that if I wanted to.  And then I always respond to depression and worry with a desire to eat which of course threatens my job. (Sigh.) Tips down –

    (maybe I should buy a wig.) And my face is all broken out so I have to use heavy makeup – and my skin doesn’t like that.

                                         Party Castle 8:20 PM Fri  May 18 – 1979

                                        Fasting all day so feel much better. Two more sets. I am the only dancer willing to dance to Baker Street so they keep playing it for me and it is a tiring song. However all that stretching is good for my muscles probably. Reading  A Time to Keep Silence.  Secaire has got me on a religious kick.

                                                          Genevieve’s Apt. off the Park – NYC – Sun 20 May 79

                                       It’s me laughing and joking and eating a whole box of Entemann’s cookies – and it’s not me. Family. The constant ache of having so little of myself accepted. It’s like being with people like Usher, really – they want such a little piece of you. The worst part is, you get so used to the pain you can’t imagine life without it. Thank God I am usually content to be alone.

                                        Went to the Whitney – gave me some ideas to recast Memory – unfortunately not ideas people will like. I want to make it even more choppy and episodic– rather than “telling the story –“ which is what everyone seems to want. But that’s the only way I can get excited about it.

    Reading it would be like visiting an art gallery.

                 Queen’s Chapel Rd – Tues 22 May 79

                                       That trip helped. I feel better, more focused. My 

    new agent submitted Memory to Putnam who loved it but said they had 

    just published a book with incest theme!  Goddamn it all to hell. But theirreaction cheered me up – they didn’t say anything about choppy, episodic, incomprehensible motives, etc.  So maybe I’m a real novelist and not just a bad poet hungry for money. Making plans for The Lives of the Dancers–

    – a poem for each one. Fun. More fun than novelizing with such a hideous plot –

    – can’t seem to get my people out of the airport.

                                        Write a haiku BECAUSE THEY’RE EASY. Relief.

    Harness UP – ON WEARING A BRA

    Two kinds of clothes –

    Comfortable and un:

    Two viewpoints:

    Supportive and –

                                        Fasting again today. So horribly fat right before my period

     it would not surprise me to go into labor onstage. Apparently no one else has noticed I have lost my waist.  Have agreed to see Devon in Boston next month. 

    I am going off birth control so we will see what happens. I feel sure I can get him into bed. But never telling him he is a father? Can I pull it off? I might try. 

    Getting past block in my novel by having different characters tell different parts of the story.

                                        I give up on Pamela Hansford Johnson. Holiday Friend is The Perfectionists all over again– but not as good. 

                 Party Castle 12:35 AM – Fri 25 May 79

                                        Funny how it all comes together sometimes. Dancing tonight has been ecstasy – is it the fasting? I am cutting my schedule at the Plush Palace – the audience here is so much better. They are really quiet and intense. Probably because it’s so close to the FBI. They get the same relaxation from watching us that you get from a tank of tropical fish. Except of course with that sexual frisson reminding you you’re alive. Read Laura Hobson’s The Tenth Month – pretty shocked by a doctor who would prescribe Nembutal to a pregnant woman. But that’s the way they were back in the Dark Ages. 

                                        Now I’m on Highsmith’s Edith’s Diary – which is 

    fabulous – the review in New York Times was downright immoral. Books should not be reviewed by the stylistically tone deaf. Reviewer should be open to many styles –  I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

    Went on stage tonight glittering with body jewelry – big stones. Big tips. FBI very supportive of the warrior look.

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                             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 but was relieved to be off target. 

    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 knew you.  Who are you

    Fair one?  Your mouth is stuffed 

    With poppy hair 

    Fate coils between your breasts

    A snake –

    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 grow 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 rising 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 to me?”)

                                                Tues 28 Mar 78

                                                Extraordinary spiritual experience.  A haunting.  Someone standing behind me in the empty house. I turned and no one was there but power only increased.  At first I was afraid – then felt a melting richness of love –

    – coming at me, into me from outside of me.  I realized it was Jesus.  Relief.  Followed by –

    Confidence.

                                                Of course, afterwards I question it all over the place.  

    How could I be so certain?  Maybe just an ordinary haunting by a peculiarly loving ghost?  Maybe a thing in my head?  But I do have that memory of certainty and bliss to cling to.  Very powerful.  It’s out there – somewhere.

                                                Starlight Thu 14 Mar 79 – 10:00 PM

                                                Started out as a very bad night – trying to dance myself exhausted – then some guy tipped me a $50 and I ate an orange and now –

    I feel better. (Feeling so unbearably fat I bought diet pills.  Then “dinner” of cashews and wine.) Finished Prayerbook for a Skeptic – I liked it. Fortunately, I brought along a ton of reading. Had to dump Joyce Carol Oates’ Do With Me What you Will when I became disgusted with zombie heroine. NOT as good as The Hungry Ghosts (but reminiscent of McCarthy’s Groves of Academe.)   I’m in the mood for something different.  Not, however, C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves which is deeply annoying. Women are “unqualified” to be “true friends”. Isn’t that the “know your place” argument?

                                                Maybe what I need is Thos Merton’s, Seeds of 

    Contemplation.               How to switch the physical into the spiritual – that’s what I can’t figure out.  Sexual longings intense – my body on fire. 

                                           No wonder monks beat themselves. Peace and

     concentration in the dressing room – we are all doing doubles. Yvonne is fine.  She is more than a match for Stockley – saw through him without a problem. She just acts interested in all men regardless. On principle. 

    She says if you want to choose, you’ll have to compare offers. So sensible. 

    Tomorrow a day of cleaning & working in my study.

                                                Sun. 18 Mar 1:50 PM.

                                                Terrible nightmare about Usher Glayne. His face 

    melted showing the skull underneath – two hideous holes of darkness.  The world is fierce, cruel, we are all hobbled. Wake to astonishingly gorgeous day. 

                                             Worked on expanding short story Erin – cleaning away deadwood –

    –  it’s only going to be 30,000 words but the hell with it. Can’t “produce” to “compete”.  Want to find the intrinsic shape buried within. The secret meaning.  Letting it speak for itself makes me happy.

                                                Adoring Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. (Wish I had written it.) 

     Then it’s off to the library á la bicyclette for more theology books to understand my haunting. 

    Apparently lots of people have had it. 

                                           Obviously, I should worry more about Success and the fact that I’m dirt poor but I am interested in a different kind of immortality. 

    I have arranged my life so carefully to do exactly what I want.  

    Seems a shame to ruin it now. 

                                                12:30 PM Mon 19 Mar 78

                                                It’s a problem that I don’t like Usher’s poetry. At least he talks about sperm and chastity so presumably is not yet dead from the waist down. He’s successful and I am not, so criticism from me sounds like sour grapes. I call to thank him for the books he send me; a woman who is probably his wife answers. Should I be embarrassed?  We are NOT having A Thing. So, why?

    Out in the yard with dogs trying to read Teilhard de Chardin.  Hot sun.

                                                Café Rabelais, Wed 21 Mar 79 3:25 PM

                                                Pleasant 3 hr lunch with Usher discussing literature

     – he had to run away leaving me with my coffee. Tried to get me to pretendto be willing to date his friend who is wheelchair bound.  I have a feeling this was the whole point of the lunch. I want to talk about literature, he wants to give me away to his friends. I said No. But couldn’t I just make nice? I said no. 

    I’m not that kind of nice. 

                                           I took revenge by asking if he lives with his wife. 

    He said “sort of”.  Their child is “a problem”.  No one can write within a mile of this child.  (Poor wife. Luckily her life doesn’t matter!)  Usher seemed taken aback by my questions so maybe I won’t hear from him again. 

    Good lunch, though. Very cuisine minceur – lots of different dishes and you don’t feel full afterwards. (Rabelais would have been very disappointed.) I top off my coffee with a glass of blond chartreuse. 

                                     At the Phillips, I saw a Goya that made me want to burst into tears. 

    Note to self: reorganize Courtney entirely around paintings. But which artist would be perfect to express my anti-heroine?

                                        4:20 PM Thurs 22 Mar 79

                                        Today a model for what all days should be.  

    I’ve passed unscathed through the financial hysteria of closing on a house, even have money in the bank.  Sparkling weather; spring is definitely here.

    A day of sunbathing – the first are always the worst – skin a white blubbery mass. 

                                     Reading Kroll’s book on Plath symbols – gives one furiously to think.  She wants to find everything in the poems themselves – and of course – that’s exactly where it all is. Plath controlled by potency symbols.

                                        I am sick of Devon’s letters – he must “shield his eyes against my radiance”.  Come on. I can’t believe he doesn’t want exactly the life he’s got. Always hard for me to believe that one can reject the sprinkles, the cherries, the walnuts on the sundae.  My family always lectured me for being attention-seeking and voracious – so it makes me shy to advance myself into anyone’s purview. Plath seemed prepared to be loved for her accomplishments rather than her being – a scary compromise.

                                        Although I do recognize that I am trying to 

    experience my own “wholeness” through the eyes of another with all 

    the danger that implies. Currently trying to kick my sugar cravings.

                                        11:30 AM Fri 23 Mar 79

                                        More sunbathing – my own skin smells 

    intoxicating to me. Like pool water, like beach sand, childhood. 

    Dixie – “God’s lioness” stretches out beside me, wind ruffling her fur. 

    I write a poem about dogs.

    Sticks

    Peter’s dog

    Went on fetching sticks

    Long after it was dead.

    We’d find them on the stoop

    Arranged In patterns

    Pete would sigh and say

    That’s poor old Monk all right

    Still missing the people games

    Heaven won’t allow

                                        Add it to my ghost story book.

                                        Unexpected tear sheets in the mail from Usher 

    – his reviews of Plath. He says he didn’t think it “professional” to disclose

     that he knew her – that seems unprofessional to me.  Makes his comments seem underhanded: pale. He says diplomatically about my poetry that I’m a “rare being.” Hmmm. 

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                 Shadowe Island – Burnside Inn – 31 July 78

                                         The island its usual immortal, eternal self.    A ragged paradise. Avril and I came up through Boston – drove “The Freedom Trail” but couldn’t go to the Ritz Carlton bar because of the dogs.  She is taking care of them down at the cottage.  

                                         Mom and Dad look great – thinner and very brown.  When I checked in at the Burnside Inn Paul Morris offered me a drink and we chatted very enjoyably. Trying not to be attracted to him.  This vacation might resolve its masturbatory throbbings when Devon shows up.  He is driving down from Montreal – I am as nervous as a 14 yr old. That poor sawdust doll Rod called but phone connection (thankfully) very bad.  Merrill arrived with children in tow and we had magnificent lobster dinner down at the shore. Rod sent me a copy of On Moral Fiction.

                                         Burnside Inn – 5 Aug 78 

                                         Rod called – we talked 45 mins about Moral Fiction – 

    I feel an enormous pleasure in his intellect.  He asks me if being a poet meansyou enjoy life more intensely. I say YES. Maybe we can transition this into a friendship.

                                         11:30 PM – Devon just phoned – long conversation on power, authority and ambivalence. He is tormented by his family – can’t figure out how to escape them.  He needs to move out of their town but of course they get him jobs SO HE CAN’T MOVE OUT OF THEIR TOWN. Says he’s bringing doughnuts tomorrow over on the ferry – what are my favorites.  

    That’s easy – anything chocolate. (Mom told Avril that when he gets off the ferry and sees how I’m dressed he’ll turn around and get back on!  She doesn’t know him very well.  Kind of like Rod – they both think this “minister” thing is overly determinative.  Doesn’t in the least change who Devon really is.)

                                         Midnight Tues 8 Aug 78

                                         M & D both wrong and right. Devon DID NOT flee me at ferry but fell ecstatically into my arms. HE DID, however, painfully say he can’t express his love for me in “a fully integrated way” (because Parson!) and asked me first just to caress his nude body. He didn’t think he could have sex with someone he’s not in an exclusive relationship with.  But guess what? Then we had blissful, magnificent sex.  I didn’t tell him this is as integrated as it gets for me and a lot more integrated than it’s been lately!  (Poor Rod.) 

                                         Thurs Aug 10 -78 – 5:30 PM

                                         Feeling happy and serene – it’s been the loveliest visit.  

    Many bike rides and explorations.  Lovely dinner last night at the cottage – Devon asking Dad a lot of questions – then we lay in each other’s arms at the Barnacle and he said Time to Discuss Our Relationship.  Said “some French girl” dumped him because he’s so incompetent with condoms; he’s so relieved not to have that with me.  I said, “Maybe we should  be exclusive.”

    He said, ‘Could you manage that? I said gratefully, ‘Certainly”, He said, “Thank you for being honest” stripped off my clothes and made mad, passionate love to me – all orifices massaged, nipples chewed, armpits sucked –  the works. It was really something – probably the most passionate satisfying sex I’ve ever had.  He told me our coming together in Plympton after I left my husband was The Most Significant Event in his LIFE.

                                         But does he see me as a Minister’s Wife?  No one can.  Me included.  The Problem of which we do not speak. Drive him to the ferry today, after that a sail to Brimstone Island.

                 Shadowe Island – The Cottage – Sat 12 Aug 78

                                        Mom giggling about how sweet and pure Devon is.  She is certain I’ve been dumped. If she only knew. If I in am suddenly in an Exclusive Relationship with this human will o’ the wisp wouldn’t it be the worst thing for me?  Am I like a Terrible Man who will now say anything to get sex?

                                         Five good pages on novel.  Working in omniscient third person – a violently new departure. A few vague worried sensations that I am “telling” too much about characters but the Victorians used to get away with this on a regular basis. How I envy them. There I’ve said it, I envy Mrs. Henry Wood.

                                        One thing left out of Gardner’s On Moral Fiction is how rarely we see the book the author wanted – instead we see the draft the publisher agreed to buy & PROMOTE. Or am I cynical?  On the whole I am appreciating Gardner’s ideas – but more than ready to get back to V Woolf’s letters & diary. That is ecstasy – the “unstructured real.” Far prefer them to her novels.

                                        Nice long phone talk with Devon. Feeling freed since he described to me his definition of a future wife; she is not me.  In fact, she will be a very unlucky girl who gets – by his deliberate plan – the least of him.  

    It is comical that I, something of a contemporary expert on all things Victorian, should even locate such a profoundly divided, deeply Victorian male; product of such hideous religious and sexual mangling  one would think barely possible in this enlightened century.  

    “Wife” seems to encompass for him some whole new scary dimension that has nothing to do with sex.  Probably having to do with his mother. What mysteries people are! Bruce wanted a fount of approval and cash.  Ryder wanted a mule.  Jervaze wanted a mommy who will bed him down with a bottle of Southern Comfort and then drive him to the hospital.  I can’t even figure out What Rod wants.                                                            

                                   But Devon seems to want someone whose holiness  will “cancel out” his “bad behavior”.  All I know is I don’t want to be any of those people.

                                        But what DO I want?  I’m embarrassed to admit it out loud. 

     I want the spiritual and physical closeness – the “soulmate connection” – to just keep on intensifying until we switch bodies (and I get to live two lives). Castaneda says it can be done. (Good subject for novel.)

                                         Devon flat out admitted he is afraid of me – says I  “have too much power” over him.  I was too aggressive with him this time and I think my “free agency” is where the trouble lies.  It “wakes him up” too much to the full rights & existence of another person and reminds him this isn’t all happening in his head!   I am too impatient to wait for him to get ready to have an actual relationship.  In the past, the better he got to know all his girlfriends  –  and the more certain he became of them, the less he wanted  them.  We are dancing on a knife-edge with our pleasure now.  Psychologically he rules out “sexual fire” in long-term relationships. Everyone but me (and Dad) seems to think sexual fire must burn out.

                                       I look forward to getting back – change in seasons, change in clothes – working, writing, even running around town with Rod is starting to look fun.  Cold day – sun hidden by clouds.

                 Burnside Inn – 10PM Sunday 13 Aug 78

                                        Told my dad I took the room here because my typewriter needs electricity – really of course I wanted privacy with Devon and then we ended up at the Barnacle!  But a public inn (with a handy bar) requires a lot of discipline.   More than I have.  I am recovering from a scandalous night – too tired to take a bath I fell asleep in my clothes after cocktails with Marc Kramer who tried first wooing me with his completely unfettered, unapologetic interest in money by showing me his new house then just flat out tried to get me drunk. 

                                   (I did get drunk but not enough to make him seem desirable.  He is very hairy.)   However, “investment banker” would be a good job to give to my character Cloud if he ever grows up.  If I can ever get him out of prep school.  

                                        No more hanging around the bar for me – I plan sit here

     in my room every afternoon writing between three and six.   Seems to be all my social schedule will allow. Feel myself getting fat and should cut back on food – tall order. I just need to go home and DANCE.

                                         Stupid diary! One love problem after another. Well I can always go back to poor Woolf… her talk of mushrooms, chair covers, butterflies…

                 Mon 14 Aug 12 midnight -78

                                        Very unsatisfied with everything I’ve ever written.  The 

    difficulty is I need to bring all my writing up to my current level of philosophical maturity (such as it is.)  But that keeps increasing exponentially!  Never be embarrassed to start over. 

                                        Dinner scene in Paradise Road (newly retitled) feels shaky.  Too many characters for me to handle.  Maybe wedding next? 

     Trying to invest my characters with what I’ve just learned from Devon.  Would choosing “the right person” come first (my Mom’s theory) and then the love follows afterward?  More convenient for everyone, certainly. 

                                         Almost rolled a poor pimply little fisherman down at the docks this afternoon because I am such a sucker for gorgeous naked (hairless) shoulders. And the friendly, friendly innkeeper – but don’t get me started, he has a “wife” or “wifely substitute”.  Mom’s been very cruel to me lately.  At dinner last night I discovered she RODE THE FERRY with poor shell-shocked Devon (explains his “freeing’ phone call) whom she apparently grilled the whole ride. 

     She sniffed – “He’ll never marry you.”  

                                        Too proud to tell her I just reached that conclusion myself and it doesn’t elevate him in my estimation (the way it obviously does in hers!) 

     I could say I actually know Devon better now than he knows himself (he talks in his sleep), and I can positively state that his stated intentions never bear ANY relationship to his actions. And that’s not a good thing. 

                                        He also told he could never become a minister (because his mother wanted it too badly!) and yet here we all are.  He keeps making rules and I keep watching him break them.  Plus, I’ve been taking responsibility for “making” him do things he doesn’t “want” to for years. It’s a spiritual game of Chinese checkers he insists on “losing”. I guess it’s just a matter of time before he starts holding it against me. 

                 10:20 AM Wed 16 Aug 78

                                        I am so excited by the “newness” of my novel – starting to feel confident; like I can make these people do anything. Can’t wait to go home and spread all the versions out – play Max Perkins to my own Tom Wolfe.  Might be able to patch something together.  Still my tone needs emergency assistance, which dictates a massive overhaul.  All this omniscience is just too painfully reminiscent of somebody like Balzac – “In the forbiddingly cold winter of 1863” or worse, Dragnet?  Must read Speedboat to see how far one can go. Should I throw everything out and start over again or leave it a 500 p hegira? 

                                        Rod sends me a letter every day. He is smart, witty and culturally aware. His handwriting is perfect.  Unfortunately, this does not feel as good as it should. I have rejected him as a potential husband (or father) because he is so totally lacking in Projection & Charisma.  Unlike Devon I plan to marry a person I can also have soul-shattering sex with.  Even Rod’s myths are sub-standard. He needs Tale of Genji and Kraft-Ebbing but all he has is Beowulf.  Still, this is not the kind of thing you can tell a person you don’t want to get serious with. 

                                        According to him, Miss You by the Stones is “Our Song”.  

    My song is Urgent, by Foreigner, and time’s a-wastin’. I can struggle with this goddam party scene or I can go out and buy toothpaste.  Ferry coming in – very foggy.

                                        Came into Burnside Inn tonight and immediately lost a lens. Searched and searched. Would this be the bill that would break the poor fragile financial camel’s back? Then I found it – stuck to my hair.  A miracle.

                                        Mom took me on a walk after dinner – apologized in her weird oblique way. For a woman who claims to have “given all for love” she really is quite calculating and cynical about it.

    “Why buy the cow if the milk is free?” sums up the whole of her philosophy. She wants me to marry Marc Kramer and live in wretched discontent, the equivalent, as far as I can see, to opening a dairy farm and sending out pricelists.  Those are the options. 

    Has doing too much of the emotional scutwork fatally dimmed the stars in her

     “love makes the world go round” eyes?  “What if I’m not a market-based economy?” I inquire. Another missed bonding opportunity.

                                        Dad showed gorgeous slides of Fox Island. Every 

    frame a poem. Made me think I should read old diaries to see what I can get. 

                 9:30 AM Fri 18 Aug 78

                                        $100 honorarium from Coltsville Community College for my presentation – I can eat for a month off of that!  Dare I get my dancing down to 3 nights a week?  Would be heaven.

                                        Discussion with sisters about Mom. Here’s their advice: “Remember she’s crazy,” “Remember she’s old,” “Don’t give her any information” and “Lie.”  There it is!  If only she could hear them! And I’m the one with the

     “Bad Kid” reputation!  Over dinner she lectured us on how costumes for the ballet exalt the human body. Nothing like my combination of pasties, fishnets and glitter! Hard to listen to after the contempt she has expressed for my job!   Said nothing.  What they really hate is that I am my own choreographer.

                                        I was too dispirited even to point out that back when ballet was “invented”, back in the dear old Dead Degas Days, dancers were VERY “declassee” with damn near NO control over their own bodies: how to express themselves sexually much less how they were viewed. 

                                         Looking back over it, my most serious depressions were all caused by attempts to conform. I’m so OVER it. Am I afraid of loneliness? 

    No.  Stigma? Childlessness? Sexlessness? No. I confront all these fears, one by one. Hard however to keep my head high around Mom and Dad’s evident conviction that no one can ever be found to love me. They insist on giving me money because I’m so pathetic .  OK, I’ll take it (I’ve taken tips from fans harboring worse thoughts)  but insisted on giving them  a poem in return.  

    Read Dawn Walk out loud looking for praise –

    Dawn walk

    Thunder crusts a gelid sky

    Is it light or is it rain feathering

    my nest with longing

    Stippling soul with flushed

    new growth; bursting out

    the steepled trees.

    This is my world and I release it

    Released for flying

    Stelliform

    Tough as spidersilk

    Unrecognizable

    Even to me who birthed it

    Who spent my life creating it.

    Released and

    Blown away.

                                        They rolled their eyes.

     I must be secretly determined to make them look bad!  Need to get car in line for the ferry tomorrow AM at nine. Good vacation this has been.  Mostly. 

                                        Last letter from Rod mentions a big society wedding we are invited to. He does get invited to the best parties.  

                 1:45 AM

                                        Horrible last dinner at the Mermaid Creek House.  

    Am I speaking a different language from everybody else?   Uncle Clive downgraded his current girlfriend right in front of her – “she’s got no skills – 

    she’s not too bright.” I agree – there must be something seriously wrong – with 

    her to want to be around him. Genevieve wants to know how I can love men who are “weak”.  This would have more significance if her second marriage wasn’t with a submissive. I defended that weak men are “doubters” and doubters are interesting. 

                                        The opposite is arrogance and how attractive is that?  

    Marc K, for example, doubts nothing. He’s also not very interesting.  It would be easy to be swept along in his wake on autopilot.  Maddens me to hear Mom and G discuss Avril’s “low self-esteem.” The nerve! I think they want to pretend that life “makes sense” and is not a dangerous lottery. According to them, A has too low

    an opinion of herself and I have too high an opinion of myself. Hmmmm. What’s wrong with this picture?

                 Ferry Sat 26 Aug 78

                                        Made the ferry with nine cars to spare.

                 Plush Palace Thurs 31 Aug 78

                                        Three sets down. Tonight I’m asking Eddy for only three days – it’s hard to be constantly here – like living in a soap opera.

     No writing – been sending out query letters. Rod called – had the nerve to lecture me on publishing, “If you want to play in their league, you have to wear their uniform.” Deeply annoying – makes me want to bite him. 

    I refuse to wear anyone’s “uniform”.  Back to the unspeakable Constance Heaven book that is the only thing I brought. 

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

            Sat night – 22 Apr 78 8:30 PM

                                        My whole body hurts from dancing 5 nights in a row. 

    It’s not good for tips, either.  

                                      Poor May Sarton is trying to exorcise Eliz Bowen.

    Good luck with that!  Elizabeth so contemptuous of “schoolgirl crushes”!  

    Real love in EB’s world seems strangely synonymous with corruption & 

    loss.  Old fashioned view and more male really – “ejaculate” and die.  We women get children, poems & novels out of it.  Avril stood up for dinner by Shoulders.  Uh oh.  Beginning of the end.  Apparently saying “yes” is fatally unsexy.  She & I will be eating her pot roast tomorrow – fine with me. 

                                        Fatima came down early but Lori refused to go up,

     Pointing to her watch!  Much excitement & hissing. 

                                        7:45 PM – Mon. 24 Apr 78

                                        Good scene in my novel – Miss Pruitt vs. Viv. Now I need a boathouse picnic. Every time you get to the mountaintop there’s just more mountain.  Then you’re supposed to “prune” at the end – if you have any energy left.  Trying to read A Literature of Their Own but Showalter too hard on poor old Woolf.  Women have always owned literature, it’s the publishers, editors and critics we apparently can’t have.  60,000 words on my latest tells me it’s time to celebrate.  No novel could EVER be this hard again.  

    I demand a party. 

                                        Strange letter from Devon – he is involved with some “Jewish woman” and it isn’t going well. She seems “inaccessibly foreign” –

    and he is “losing faith” in his “ability to pick a friend.”   Is this a plea for help?  

    He specifically asked where I would be this summer.  Said he loved me.  

    Took his glamour pic out of the bin where it has lain and put it up, then went out with Avril and bought a hopeful bikini.  She and Shoulders are so mired in excuses, lies and expectations no relationship seems possible.   

    Sunbathing season starts tomorrow. 

                                        1PM Thu May 4 -78

                                        Comparing lovers.  “It’s Devon in the stretch with

     Jervaze fatally winded and Bruce fallen by the wayside”.  Needs poetry.

                                        Finished Gift last week.   Letting it “perk”.  It already feels “swallowed up” by the past.  Avril read it, disappointed by the ending.  Wants murder at the very least.  But is that real life?  I think I agree with her that it should be.  People should kill themselves when you are done with them. Sadly, in reality they’re all whimper and no bang.  How to fix?

                                        When I’m not engaged on some important work my “real life” ceases.  Car to its “first service” Mon – involved ferrying each other around and jockeying with one car. Why don’t Mom & Dad appreciate this?  It’s like they want us to be ashamed of needing other people to survive. Mom staying in NYC with the new baby but then coming here Sat. to inspect our dissolute lives.  Uh oh.  I won’t have any trouble getting time off but I hate to.  Certainly can’t work when she is here.  Living two weeks off one paycheck canbe done. But I will feel obligated to battle Mom for financial freedom.  

                                        Finished Glendinning’s Bowen.  A life rich and strange but hardly enviable. I’m being pestered by old “college friend” but I am officially “not home”.  She sneaks around the house, sniffing. 

                                        Sat. 6 May 78 – 1:30 PM

                                        Cleaned & waxed kitchen and bathroom floors, sitting with newly creamed hands and cup of coffee sunbathing in recliner.  Muse time.  

    Emerge blinking like a ground hog into a new and spring-like world.  A year ago, I was a rat in a cage.  It’s critical never to let the “merchants of neurosis” trick me into limiting myself.  

                                        Tues. 9 May Plush Palace – 9:15 PM

                                        Mom spent the last two nights at my place – sleeping in my bed since guest room has no bed.  Me on sofa – doesn’t matter since I can’t sleep anyway when she’s around.  Up at 7 to make breakfast get Mom to airport for 10 o’clock plane thank God.  Avril came over with blueberry muffins and gazpacho to discuss the visit.

                                        Everything Mom said felt like an attack. (She did give me $100 but I spent – and lost – more than that on her visit.)  Avril says living on an island has been worse for Mom because she’s never confronted with a life

     that would contradict her narrow-minded theories, so it’s all: “Why can’t people get smart and live exactly the way I do?”      She tries to make her personal tastes “emotional law” – and if you don’t agree with her – or God forbid, want to explore something different you’re “the sick one”.  Rough stuff.  

                                        We took her to our favorite Ellicott City restaurant – she wanted Avril to “explain” Mason and me to “explain” my clothes.  She said my clothes trigger “weirdos” following us – it was completely in her imagination!  She cries.  No one decent man will “have” me, she wails!  I say, 

    What if I don’t want to be “had”? 

                                        I’d ask her about her life but she isn’t honest – she doesn’t know Dad has already told us that her ideology is untrue. She insists when you find Mr. Right everything’s peachy, but Dad says she was uncomfortable and unwilling about sex at first –  didn’t care for it.  They had to “work hard”.  I say we have more experience of actual pain 

    than Mom ever had – Avril says she “refuses to learn.”  Creepy.  Turns what pain she does have back on others somehow. 

                     Can’t wait to resume my privacy and my routine, 

    reading book about Forster (The Cave & The Mountain) in my own bed.

                                        I think realizing your mother’s limitations is part of maturity, and I’ve been slow because I’m unwilling to adopt Genevieve’s methods – “Don’t give her anything – just tell her what she wants to hear.”  

    I thought better of her than that but I’ve struck out so far.  Since their definition of success

    is so narrow, I don’t see how I can ever satisfy them.

                                        The best revenge? Always: write a poem:

    THE RIGHT PART OF TOWN

    We run through life

    She thinks

    Dancing lightly on high heels

    Past disemboweled sofas

    Skirting

    Drunks & drains.

    Taut veins serve as

    Toque of manners

    High & proud, worn

    For company.

    This house displays

    Her purpose;

    New red brick

    Virgin stickers swearing

    She’s the first.

    Processed air admits her

    Grudgingly:

    “You look like one of us.”

    Mentally she sweeps up sun;

    Plans daisies, cashmere

    Overnight guests

    The roar from the street soon turns

    This air to poison –

    She counts to ten

    And breaks a nail in locking up.

    She sees it won’t do after all

    Too close to stink & squalor;

    Doormen, dogs, police locks;

    Balconies with lightning rods.

    She’ll choose new paths this time

    Avoid electronics that have lost

    Their parts,

    Flexing knees

    She summons cabs; closer –

    Closer – always –

    To death;

    The constant suitor never accountable

    For gentlemanly behavior.  

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Plush Palace – 11:20 AM Sun 24 Sept – wrote a fourteen page letter to Avril tonight. There’s a very pretty blond here who looks just like Ryder – they could be mistaken for each other – but it’s not him. 

                              9:40 PM  – walls dry so I  could hang paintings. What a difference.  Reading Redinger’s bio of George Eliot, The Emergent Self. Like it very much. Turns out I love driving to work – 5Pm is rush hour on the Beltway – everyone’s coming home but I’m going out for the night!  Makes me feel weirdly close to all those people.  And apparently they feel close to me – though they could just be reacting to my bumper sticker (Colette was a Nudie Dancer). They don’t seem to get the literary reference.

        Mon 3 Oct 1977

                                I hear only from my sister Merrill who declares my book a “brilliant satire”.  She wants to know why I work?  Shouldn’t I tour with book? Sigh. Give me the money and leave me alone I say.

                              Spent the AM phoning around trying to find my book in all the stores. Only found it one place. Dropped note to publisher. 

                              Out for Courvoisier with Erika who lectured me on my book. I ended up defending the Victorians saying everyone now thinks “honesty and openness” are going to save them but we don’t know enough about ourselves for real honesty and our lives are still based on “smothered panic” as far as I can see.  (See Janet Case’s strictures to V. Woolf.) Well off to my double life. When I pull into the Plush Palace parking lot I have such a good feeling.  Everything coming together. Down the old runway.  

                              Bought the most wonderful gold stripper shoes that tie with ribbons and have clear Lucite six-inch heels. I finally have enough costumes to feel really professional – every set should be good. Randy always compliments me. I am slowly phasing my hair from red to blonde – seems to help with the tips. I can live on fruit and cream of wheat –  only buy groceries with tip money. Little man down front muttering “fuck me-fuck me-fuck me” over and over but not loud enough to be evicted. Randy said I am the best dancer in Washington area.

        Sat 8 Oct 1977

                              Giving a dinner party. Bought 8 old-fashioned glasses for 50 cents apiece, five floor pillows, peacock chairs and a glass dining table. Now I’m looking for a silk eiderdown (for my bed) in some violent color. Bought beautiful rose-lilac fabric for curtains. Randy gave me another raise without my even asking for one.  I love my body again!  After the long estrangement caused by Ryder…he deliberately tried to undermine my faith in my body. He would prefer bad sex with a slave as long as he can be boss. Wait – isn’t that the marriage he just got out of? Guess we all repeat ourselves.

                              7:30 PM Tues 11 Oct 77

                              I’m too fucking fragile.  All my problems come from pretending I’m not.  I look forward to old age when presumably throbbing metabolism, soaring hormones and plunging brain waves will have smoothed out. How to describe this scrambled day?  I’ve been vibrating like a cilia ever since I got up this morning.  Made dentist, gyno appts, shots for dogs, dog licenses, took angel puppies on an hour’s walk. Divorce lawyer on the 26th: “John Love”: seems appropriate. Clear the decks for writing.

                              My area of Beltsville very rural. Poetry in all directions. Reading Mildred Savage’s A Great Fall and getting lots of ideas. Vacuum cleaner to repair shop they say they can fix for under $15.  I hate errands, a disgusting dribble of irreplaceable time.  Rewarded myself by getting Sleeping Murder at the library. Already know Dr Kennedy is the murderer.

                              2PM Wed 12 Oct 77 – Plush Palace

                              Some men seem to interpret the fact that I’m a dancer as some sort of personal challenge to them.  You can feel the spike of hostility. “You’re making me think about sex again!”  Is it fear of rejection?  Any aura of professionalism bothers them also.  I always curtsy especially low to the hostile tables – they can never figure out whether I am mocking them or not AND THEY THINK I PROBABLY AM!  I save them a lot of money by getting them thrown out early.  One guy asked me how long it would take to get in bed with me. His erection was so obvious I almost asked, “And what is your little friend drinking?” but instead I said, “5 years.”  He showed up next night, saying, “Day one of the five year plan!”  I like those guys much better. 

                              Final R conclusion: What a JERK!  Jerk’s absolutely the right word – in instinctual reflex – no brain activity involved.  Will I ever find a gorgeous man (blond, please) whose soul is connected to his brain?  

                              9:20 PM Thurs 13 Oct 77

                              Shopping Loehmann’s yesterday with Maeve. 3 sweaters, silk jumpsuit with jacket & scarf, lime-colored silk jersey blouse, socks, boots, shoes, gloves – $140 cash. Nice. Saw a wonderful fake fur coat I’d like to come back for. It has a priceless air of Ken Russell camp. Buy it with my Folger money – Shakespeare would understand.  

                              Maeve bought nothing.  Couldn’t find one thing she liked, reading labels with the expression of Queen Victoria viewing a slum.  And the free-for all dressing rooms full of naked people just astonished her.  (Stuff I see every day.)  

                              She wants to know exactly why Wealthier People rejected this clothing at its first price?  They must know something we don’t.  (Wondrous rhinestone earrings to dance in, too.  M. expressed pious horror.)  People like this amaze me.  Why is your own taste of so little importance? Then went out to dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant – my choice – heavenly lamb shish kebab and a belly dancer! I loved it but Maeve had to rush out before dessert. But as it seems I can never be with ANYONE – even lovers – longer than 3 hrs it was just as well.

                              Folger morning started badly, hair looked mangy, face requires immediate skin graft. Dog hair even on NEW clothing (How is this possible?)  Running an hour behind schedule (compulsively early me).  May Miller gave me worst intro I ever hope to have, misquoted my poems and said I was a grad of the U of Minn. I thought I would sob with emotion 52 times during reading.  My “woodcunt” poem did not go down well (even though it is definitely my most Shakespearean). 

                              Damn.  Then I could have strangled Erika Gelbfisz  (at the after party) who is so scornful and cynical about everything you can’t even have an ordinary conversation with her. I felt like throwing my wine in her face saying, “Suppose you actually succeed in making us all feel rotten, what then?  Fighting in the streets?”                                            

    Nothing’s worth anything in her opinion, so why is she alive exactly? This is what gets my hostility going but because I am at a party I DON’T WANT TO GET INTO IT.  So I just growl and stew. I don’t care for Cocktail Party Standing Around – my right boot was trying to extinguish my left toe, a toe already threatened with extermination from dancing.  This is real Italian leather so SHOULD ultimately fit my feet – I can see each boot slowly outlining my toes – if I don’t come down with gangrene first. Will try Wet Washcloth Stuffing tonight. (Still, I looked ravishing, my dear, in a blue gaucho three-piece suit and my red, red, high-heeled boots.) Poet Usher Glayne seemed impressed with me – but he’s an old man. 

                              To bed with my main squeeze, Agatha Christie.  Thank God for that woman.  She has pulled me single handedly through the last three months. 

                              I was just drifting off when Marc Kramer called. We talked ½ hr.  He bought a sailboat and a BMW and wanted to be sure to let me know. I like the sailboat and the car but the desire to “impress” me diminishes him in my eyes.  Sad to say.  He’s presently at risk of being filed under “has no conversation”.   Well, he did talk about work.  They wanted to fire him from The Washington Project, then admitted he had been right all along. He’d love to have dinner sometime, “see how I live”.   Uh oh. Can I keep this relationship out of the sexual? I don’t want to go to bed, even experimentally with someone Lacking the Necessary Spark.  Could they make up for it by enthusiasm or step-by-step instructions?  I hesitate.  Is it ever possible to just date?  It was AWFUL with Keith.  Marc, however, has a gift of humor. And my parents like him.  “No expectations?” I finally say.   And he promises. 

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

        Chevy Chase, MD – 10:15 PM Thurs 8 Sept.

                              At Shoulder’s house. Not a bad drive down – (washing the dogs right before the ferry (I had to – they stank) put some time pressure on me – but I made the ferry anyway. Shoulders looks different – has a moustache. Talks about needing a roommate – does he mean me?  He doesn’t know where yet and I don’t want to live with him. His constant string of ignorant pickups would eventually get me down. 

                             He doesn’t mention Ryder and I don’t look up his TV show. 

    Promising stuff in the classifieds – a garden apt in Landover, a townhouse in Dale City, sharing a house in Kensington. Took the dogs on the old walk – they remembered the route. Huge construction at my old house. 

     L’Escargot closed.

        5 PM Sept 9

                              Kensington House hopeless. You have to join some

     kind of food co-op that’s like a cult religion and there’s a huge emphasis on kitchen and cooking duties. They all eat together. Seems like the worst of college and boarding school to me. I’m now sitting in a real estate office which is really a garage waiting for a guy who’s already an hour late. He’ll be here in 10 mins they say, then he’s going away for 2 weeks so I hope he will want to close the deal tonight, It’s described as an old apartment, high ceilings, fireplace. $210 a month. So I’m just praying  the neighborhood’s not too bad. 

        7:00 PM

                              Bleak. Too bleak. Tried to imagine myself doing my 

    exercises on that floor, standing in that kitchen waiting for water  to boil, etc. Couldn’t manage. Feeling very stressed. Do I even want to live in this city? It’s just that I know I can easily make a living if the 

    book doesn’t take off. Went to the library and loaded up on Agatha Christies to help handle the strain. It works.  Maybe I need to get a shag haircut  and spend the winter in Spain.  Now why don’t I do that, other than the obvious reason I can’t afford it and have already missed my dogs as much as I ever want to. Another guy says he has half of a house I might want.  With a fenced in yard.

        8:15 AM Wed 14 September – Powder Mill Road

                              Drinking coffee in my own kitchen from the mug that 

    was my present to myself last morning on the island.  The guy is 

    selling this house as a rental property and was amazingly cavalier – 

    needed a tenant – didn’t look up my refs or demand cosigner.  

    Absolutely cool when I described myself as a ”writer” so “dancer” 

    remains beneath the radar.  (Dad would say that proves I know 

    dancing’s “bad”! I refuse to be unsafe just to convince my own father I’m respect-worthy.) 

                             Yesterday very full day.  Got up at 8 and moved

     the dogs to their fenced in yard. Fetched the truck, loaded and 

    unloaded with Shoulders’ help – bookcases, boxes, mattress, 

    desk, sofa – had truck back by 3. A thousand robins on the weed-grown lawn. I wonder how long I will be looking at this peaceful green view.

        8:30 AM Thurs Sept 15 1977

                              Up early spending the last of my money on necessaries – hardware, lampshades, contact paper.

        Fri 16 September 1977

                              My books arrived at Larry’s!  I spent the morning sending them out. Then drove to the Landover Mall, bought two g-strings and pasties and off to the Plush Palace. Steve was there – (Randy the bouncer just hired) thrilled to see me. 

                              Wanted to know where I’d been but I turned that easily away. Vacay! Who wouldn’t!  Told me to come to work Saturday night and they’d give me my schedule.  So that’s settled. I don’t like trying to live without money.  Took the landlord my paint color selection – he buys the paint and I do the work. Probably will take me the next week. Every now and then am attacked by that claustrophobic feeling of restlessness and purposelessness but I am able to keep it at philosophical bay. Working at my poem index made me feel strong and soothed. 

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

    10:15 PM Sat 17 Sept 77 – The Plush Palace, Alexandria Virginia

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

         Sun 18 Sept 77

                              Opal comes to over to say “hi” but really to complain about her incipient divorce.  Not the best company. Not the best climate for me either – I found myself sobbing over Ryder (fortunately was alone by then). Why does it seem a lost paradise?  So I can still get into that sort of mood. 

                              Nice phone call with Mom and dad, not too pressured.  They are coming to a boatyard in Annapolis  to look at a boat – will see me then.  One of the best things about this house is the month-to month lease.  Feel I can leave any time but if I behave well they won’t kick me out. Gorgeous location but forty-five minute highway commute to The Plush Palace.  Still wish I could live in Virginia.

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