Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #Relationships

  •              Mon 18 Dec 78 – Plush Palace 6:30 PM

                                        Horrible day. Everything that can go wrong has. 

    Mailing off mss wildly expensive.  Drove Avril around because the Gremlin is in the shop again. Reading Bodyguard of Lies – history having its usual soothing effect.  (Everything much worse for everybody else.) It looks like I will have to work two jobs in Jan to pay for this house.

    Maureen the costume designer wants to rent a room in our house – that would help.  She wouldn’t be a problem – getting a masters in textiles at U. of M so not the usual flaky personality that finds itself onstage. Concluded I really have to break up with Z. It won’t be hard – just stop seeing him. 

                                        One good thing did happen – I was lying in bed at 

    1:30 AM nodding off over Bodyguard – phone rang. I almost didn’t answer it – how could it be anything good – but I thought it might be Avril with some emergency. It was Jervaze! He’s coming back. He’s been offered “crew leader” position in his old job at the Pentagon with a $5,000 bump.  He wants to celebrate by taking me out – we can go to Clyde’s where we partied for his birthday last year.  I hung up feeling good – 

    until I thought this will give me a reason to give up Buck. There’s no way Jervaze won’t find out about him. Ugh. Confrontations. Unless I can keep J out of club? Doesn’t seem possible that he is off the sauce. Must make sure he gets a place of his own – he will be living with his brother to start with. He sounded sober, I’ll say that for him.

                 Plush Palace Tues night 19 Dec 78 – 7:30 PM

                                        Wiped out my savings account to pay bills – well, 

    that’s what it’s for.  We got the Queens Chapel house!  Target date for the move is March 1. Avril  and Maureen very excited. (It really is huge. 5 beds, 3 bathrooms, divideable into 3 suites. Perfect. Huge kitchen, dining room and fenced in yard.) I contemplate writing a book of poems called The Lives of Dancers.  Trouble is, I’d have to tone it down to make it believable. Got one poem already – Impure Women.

    IMPURE WOMEN

    Between my breath and your breath

    Beneath the phallic philanthropic statues on

    The volcanic dragstrip of my city

    The wounded in the scorched earth policy

    Of love

    Muster, linger, await

    Embodiment.

    Pills to make their hearts race faster have

    Stopped their faces dead as clocks

    That witnessed crimes unspeakable

    To mothers versed in tabloid gore.

    Who will bring them

    Absolution now that I am gone?

    In the fresh wounds of a

    Seconal summer

    The stopped children meet

    And kiss.

                                        Is it the approach of Christmas that’s bringing all 

    the old boyfriends back to me like elephants to a boneyard? Ryder

    called. Marc Kramer refers to me his “dream girl” and can’t get me out of his mind and we’ve been out what – three times?  Buck gave me my present at the club – he looked adorable – bath goodies. 

    Don-the-Patent-Lawyer who’s been hanging around the club lately asked me out for New Year’s eve.  I had to refuse because Merrill and husband will be in town but I told him to try later.  He seems interesting –

    – like to get to know him better. Mature. Always trolling for someone presentable to take Home to Mom.

                 Boston to Rockland shuttle 11:45 AM Fri Dec 22

                                         Thank God I brought this diary in my purse. Bad flight feels like Week 7 of the flu and I need something to take my mind off stomach. 

    Love people-watching at the Downeast Gate – there’s a novel in that all by itself. 

    This flight goes straight up the coast.  Avril is sleeping in the co-pilot’s seat – let’s hope she doesn’t have to assume the controls.  She is trying to get a march on the insomnia she always gets around parents.  We just missed Genevieve and Brett – they put 2 planes on this flight and they must be on the other one.

                 Christmas Day

                                        Enmeshed in a family that’s not even close to changing age old patterns. Listening to Christmas music by the Oberlin Choir and roasting chestnuts. As always, food preparations take a disproportionate amount of time –

    – one might as well just surrender and become a restaurant prep chef.  

    Family “scene” caused this time by me – I objected to Dad making the two older daughters executors – I guess that makes me and A “executees”? He says you can’t have four executors.  A likely story. Well I felt I had to lodge a formal protest but of course it didn’t change a thing.

                 Plush Palace – midnight – Fri 29 Dec 78

                                         Merrill and Julian came to watch me dance. I think 

    they were interested. Don The Lawyer came and sat at their table – he behaved himself.  Good evening for tips. Don asked me out Wed – I explained I have a lot of demands on my time – just about to double my working schedule to buy this damn house  – so it doesn’t look good.  He passed that test by taking this news calmly. Having a sister makes me a Real Person at least.

                                          Catching up on dancers – Jerrilee’s  pregnant, 

    Fatima’s new boyfriend  is obviously an ethnic gangster. (Armenian I’m guessing.)  Jerrilee tried dancing at a club in DC where the girls “make lots of money” but just in tips – they have no salary. Rotten. I need extra hours but won’t audition there – prefer the protections offered by The Great Commonwealth of Virginia.

                 Plush Palace – 7:30 PM Tues 2 Jan 79

                                        Horrifying letter from Scott Meredith demanding money to read my novel.  His form letter didn’t acknowledge mine in which I said I was already the author of one book but went on and on about “unpublished writers new to the business.”  They obviously didn’t even read  my letter.  

    My father said,  “Maybe he knows what he’s doing since he’s Norman Mailer’s agent” but I wrote back and said non merci.  Auditioned at The Country Fair – they offered me $100 each three x a week.  Call for my schedule.  So that’s set. They have a good stage plus a barre and a pole.  

    Haven’t seen a barre since Shalimar.

                                        Zachary unfortunately back from New York and in a mood to party. Claims to have provided drugs to SNL.  Reads my novel and says it’s not commercial enough.  I’m sure he’s right, which doesn’t cheer me up at all.  Says it’s too brief – needs development which is also probably true.  Trying to write a poem about funerals called Treading Pasture.  Bad, bad, bad.  Reading Tillie Olsen’s Silences and that’s not cheering me up either.

                 Party Castle 11:15 AM Mon 8 Jan 79

                                        I think I like this place better than Plush Palace or 

    Country Fair. The dancers are totally uninterested in their jobs – they are all busy being college students, musicians and models – they rush in, rush out, spend their time studying and on the phone and offering me cash to finish their sets.  Fine with me. It’s very restful not having to make friends.  I called J’s brother – he’s due Thurs.  Probably the worst thing about this place is the commute – I need to take Rock Creek Parkway and sometimes traffic goes one way and sometimes it goes the other way. An unwary person could end up in a head-on collision. 

                                        The stage is way better than Plush Palace but the dressing room far worse – a miniature chamber behind the potato bins – très très très Colette.  With me tonight are Phoebe, ex-stewardess with a degree in languages and Tasha, very silent black fashion model.  She is gorgeous.  Costumes are not big here – the idea is to wear one g-string all night – pasties small as possible. 

    Contac really works – has totally drained my sinuses but also made me very thirsty – I am drinking gallons of water which I am afraid will make me visibly sweat. (Then pasties slide off and the woman from the Alcohol & Tobacco Task Force rushes forth with ticket.) 

    Got my MS back from Scott Meredith.  Zachary came to see me dance in 

    the new club. We had a tender moment on how tough and insensitive the world is – he is having a bitching time with his new band – wants to go solo but feels that will never get anywhere. The truth is it’s tough to go it alone.  

    Everybody thinks Gift is “unfinished’ – which – horrors – means I have to do more. The dog to her vomit. Absolutely NOT fun. 

                                        I want to start something totally, totally new.  I suppose tolerating all this barfing and re-barfing is what separates the sheep from the goats – but which do I want to be?  Sheep? Goat? Spare me the “fun” of wandering around blindfold trying to imagine what you are touching followed by the Inevitable Disillusionment of taking it off and seeing you’re locked in the Same Old Basement. 

                                        I think Buck has found another girlfriend. I am rather relieved to be let so painlessly off the hook – of course I miss the great parts of our relationship. It was starting to get unmanageable along with everything else. At least with Zachary I can level with him about my life. Tonight’s reading: Margaret Millar whether I like her or not – and I don’t like her. 

                                        Ordered a book on depression through the mail.  Need all the help I can get.  GiGi came in tonight – probably to gloat over my exhausted dancing. Even people who love it inevitably do too much. She’s enjoying being a trophy wife. She says.

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                 Mon 13 Nov 78

                                        Busted, wasted day. Avril called to borrow $90 so she can pick up el Diablo from Courtesy Motors – fortunately I had it so we went to bank, then car dealer.  Then I tried to get an oil change but they don’t do Fiats. Took long enough to tell me they don’t have the right wrenches. Real estate agent phoned 

    to say I qualify for special FHA loan.  I had to call my landlord because apparently I don’t have heat.  

                                        Avril is having lots of trouble with Brady who is alternately aggressive and suicidal. I think he is more trouble than he’s worth but admit he has very pretty, very long, long thighs. He and Buck went to high school then trade school together – Buck exhibits a grisly picture of them at their prom with their dates. Brady’s date is his soon to be ex-wife. Buck was also B’s best man but I was spared those photos.

                                        Zachary asked me out next Fri night but I’d rather be with Buck – but if he doesn’t ask me in time I’ll tell him I’m ”going out with the girls.” 

    That’s what he tells me he does; “goin’ out with the guys” –  so presumably this is an OK excuse. If he says what girls I’m in a bit of a pickle. But I’m a writer – 

     I‘ll invent some. It can’t be anyone he knows. Fortunately, he has no idea what a hermit I really am.

                                        Still stuck in the childhood of my novel. Can’t wait for them to grow up. Re-read Le Ble en Herbe which helped a lot. (Aaaahhhhh…

    Colette!)  Off to Crown Books with A – then White Flint Mall for Christmas shopping – had coffee at The Perfect Cup. Nice outing.  I bought wonderful rhinestone cat’s eye glasses.  Saw Bergman’s Autumn Sonata – moving. 

                 Mon 27 Nov 78 – 1:35 PM

                                        Time to write in this neglected diary while waiting to have my snow tires mounted. This threatens to blow my entire day. They also had to replace a fuse that apparently blew in the middle of a rainstorm so that my wipers stopped working. 

                                        Visit with Mom and Dad very touchy. (They are staying with Peter’s mother Rita and everyone’s slightly angry I’m not dating him and I can’t narc on his Secret Relationship.)  Mom casually accepted an

     invitation for all of us to go out to dinner on a night I was going out with Zachary, so I said I would have to invite him and got a tirade on my thoughtlessness. Then I pointed out she was the thoughtless one assuming I didn’t have any plans. She apologized, I apologized.  It blew over. 

                                        Then Avril had the nerve to ask Rita if she could 

    smoke – Mom exploded just as if it were her house. (Rita said No. She’s trying to quit.)  M & D piled on me –  I’m insane to contemplate buying a house – even if the mortgage would only cost what rent already costs. 

    Their real objection is that I might “choose wrong” – somehow encumber myself with a property that will make me even less attractive (if that were SOMEHOW possible) to A Decent Man. Not even dragging in Marc Kramer’s sacred name as Advisor helped at all. 

                                         Dad did come see a few houses with us. (We’ve seen 16 so far.) He had to admit it isn’t a bad deal as long as I can get that FHA loan. Zachary behaved very well around M and D – the “Official Boyfriend” –

    – but of course he owed me. Fortunately the evening was over before they could find out too much about him (or he offered them drugs) so his cover wasn’t blown.

                                        Conversation at dinner very boring.  Psychology 101.  

    “Why don’t people say what they want?” “Why don’t people try to get what they want?” “Why do people lose interest in what they say they want?” (Rita’s going through her third divorce.)  Since no one seems the least bit interested in the complexities of achieving Actual Gratification by attempting to mesh one’s constantly evolving desires with those of someone else I can only shake my head sagely and flee at the first opportunity. 

                                        Mom and Dad actually tackled these questions and struggled with them like a pair of marriage counselors. The truth is Rita’s ex has found somebody else and she shouldn’t be so surprised – they were both married when she hove onto his horizon.

                                        Got a very stoned phone call from Zachary last night – he was over at Rod’s and “something” was making him horny.  (I’ll bet I can guess.) Fortunately, I managed to convince him he was in no state to drive – leaving him prey to Rod, probably.  Well, we all have to take our chances in this life.

                                         Saturday night with Buck unsatisfying – he claimed his non-breathing nose is preventing him from going down on me. I let him know his account is in arrears and he will have to do something about it sooner or later. He chose later and fell immediately asleep. So, I left.  I’m not sure I will ever get to Stage 2 with this guy.  He made a point of tracking me down at Avril’s apt, calling to apologize.  A and I saw 3 more unacceptable houses – but the real estate agent says there are plenty more. Fun to be in a buyer’s market for a change.

                 Sat 7 pm Plush Palace – 2 Dec 78

                                        Just recovering from some tremendous bout of food poisoning – must have gotten it from the Sleazy Restaurant Around the Corner – but all I had there was a takeout salad.  Still, it could have been the dressing.  

    No fever.  I was throwing up all Wednesday. I called A to drop by after class but she was so worried she came right over. I finally was able to keep down some chicken soup. Then we went to Bethesda in the eve to see Zach’s Gordon Lightfoot impersonation – I had a little wine to make me feel better. (Free drinks always taste best.)  Finally finished the childhood section but I don’t feel good about it. Novels don’t want you to do anything in life but write them all the time. I am only at p. 133.  

                                        I am already exhausted and needing a vacation. 

    Cheered myself up by wrapping Christmas gifts – baroque music and Victorian gift-wrap did it for me. I especially love those chubby Victorian cherubs who couldn’t become airborne without at least two brawny stagehands hauling on a mighty hawser. Reading My Mother/Myself in between boogie-oogie-oogying.  Dinner party with A, Buck, and A’s old boyfriend who happened to be in town. We ate stuffed Cornish game hen, played Clue and went dancing at the Bastille.

                 Thurs night – Plush Palace – 11:30 PM – 7 Dec 78

                                         Manic night – a dancer literally dragged off the stage by the police because her roommate is accusing her of stealing $3300 of furniture.  

    Thank God she came back so I only had to dance one extra set.  Wed night we found a house!  It has 5 bedrooms, 3 bath perfect in every way except that that it’s packed into a neighborhood of like houses so there are absolutely no vistas. But the price is right. We made an offer but they accepted another offer –

    – ours is the “backup contract.” So, we still might get it.

                 Thurs am 1:07 14 Dec 78

                                        Finished the novel in an insane burst of speed – 10 pages a day for four days. Now I have to calm down and see what I’ve got.

     I still feel pretty good about it – but probably reading it will depress me.  

    And Devon will probably never speak to me again since he is in it. His Christmas card says I am a genius and he is in awe of me.  Hey, it could be true.  My publisher’s statement arrived. $50. $50. There goes that Feb vacation. Pretty sure I need a new agent.  What did “stooping to genre” achieve exactly? I didn’t get a living wage. I didn’t get a publisher, agent or editor receptive to my work. It’s like I’m starting over – again.  

    On an up note: looks like we might get the house! It is SO perfect. Fenced in yard and everything. 

  • Inspired Pleasure – The dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                 3PM Sat 4 Nov 78

                                        Trouble bouncing back from the most recent 

    rejection of Gift. Wouldn’t be so bad if I felt they actually read it. My agent compares me to Mallarmé – trouble is, no one likes Mallarmé.  

    My bank has charged me $24 for being $1.70 short on a check.  

    They did the same thing to Avril – and since she has a $6,000 savings account, 

    she figures she’s paying them to lend out her money at 18% interest. And whoever you talk to turns out to be a computer.

                                        Buck and I are having a very interesting relationship. I can hardly believe it’s happening.  There’s no bickering over unmet needs –it’s very restful.  Sex could be a potentially explosive problem area – can’t tell yet – so far so good – I think he’s a learner claiming a lot more experience than he’s got. But there are potential problems associated with having sex with a person who is obsessed with speed. 

                                        My period started today and it seems cruel to task a beginner with this issue. At least Buck goes down nobly like Jacques Cousteau. But he’s not much of a talker. The most amusing aspect is how we’ve settled down socially – we have a lot of fun around other people. I am contemplating writing a story called The Official Girlfriend which will treat this from a sociological perspective. Tomorrow we are meeting his parents at a restaurant – I hope it’s dark in there because they are bound to think I am too old for him. Naturally we are keeping my job a deep dark secret – I have to be a “hostess” which really blows. 

    A week from tomorrow he has another race – we’ll take a picnic.  I love these outings.

                                        Plus Avril’s really getting along with Buck’s buddy Brady – definite prospects of a dating foursome. Unfortunately, Brady left his wife like two minutes ago and is not what you’d call “fully detached” as yet. 

    Fortunately: no kids.

                                        Sun 11:15 PM Buck amazed me by confessing that every time before he sees me he is “sick to his stomach” with worry that he won’t come up to my expectations. I am a “high status date” – 

    all his friends are waiting for him to stumble. But then when we’re together he says he just relaxes and we have a great time. I was really touched by this. It is nice that in the car mechanic’s world dating an exotic dancer is high status. I prefer that to being the Shameful Secret which I assume I was in Devon’s world. 

                                        Next week I’m supposedly seeing Zachary twice – haven’t told Buck – why am I doing this? Insurance? I think I don’t like Zachary. Am I competitive – is it just thrilling to see him come off the stage and touch me intimately? (Everyone’s jealous – the men as much as the women. Rod wants Zachary more than he wants me I think.)  But actually I don’t like Zachary. The trouble with canceling is then it would be just Buck and me.  Me and Buck. Going steady.

                 12:30 PM Mon 6 Nov 78

                                        Bizarrely warm day. Had a wonderful time yesterday at Shadonna’s wedding. Buck wore a marvelous blue suit with blue suede patches. It was indescribable – sort of like country singer performance-wear, and with his wispy moustaches and his motorcycle boots I’m telling you he was a sight to behold.   I wore my “slit to there” diamanté rainbow dress and we danced for hours. Nobody paid us any attention. We didn’t stand out at all, that’s what I’m telling you.

                 Plush Palace – Tues – 9:35 PM 7 Nov 78

                                        Avril said to me this afternoon, “My life is completely out of control and I don’t care.”  She has to drive Brady to his in-laws to pick up his clothes today because his wife took the car. There’s bound to be a glorious, satisfying, soap opera scene with a lot of screaming and object throwing – just like there was the time she helped him extract his clothes from his wife’s apartment. On top of this Brady is apparently extremely jealous – in spite of the fact that he’s technically married and Avril isn’t.  She is seriously thinking of inviting him to Thanksgiving because he won’t believe that she’s not secretly meeting a beau – 

    Or six!  However, he showers her with love, attention and sexual worship! 

    She says the gorgeous deep dents on the sides of his thighs are worth every minute of it.  

                                        Went out last night with Zachary – we had a sandwich and drink at Booeymonger’s and saw Animal House.  He was driving his mother’s car.  He is assembling a band called Prairie Dust and he’s in some kind of power struggle with the lead singer who is female. He needs to be the prettiest person in any band.  He says Rod – playing Daddy Big Bucks – foisted this woman on him.  Combination of protégées. 

                                      Because Rod works in radio and is paying 

    for the tape mix he has Zachary right where he wants him.  (She is a fantastic singer.)  Rod might just find his mojo after all. 

                                        Following the movie, I finally met the Zachary Folks – now that there’s no point in it.  Got along like a house on fire with his Dad because I knew all the obscure Giraudoux plays he had framed posters of on his wall.  I quoted:  “And the sewers will be fragrant with jasmine…”  

    which was my line in Madwoman of Chaillot.  I could tell I was a 

    considerable cut above the street people and space chicks Zachary usually drags home. 

                                        They must be worried as hell that he’s gay – his 

    room is full of what can only be described as pinup pictures of himself. 

     Little do they know it’s worse than that – he’s into anything that would be into him.  Bestiality would be frankly appraised on its merits. “Is it a good looking chicken?”) House full of unbelievably beautiful, unbelievably uncomfortable furniture – striped satin Empire sofas – stained glass windows – wrought iron candelabras – that sort of thing. His mother very wary – fiercely Catholic – thin with a long blonde pony-tail and a long horsey face –but actually quite intelligent and attractive.

                                        Zachary’s room is full of crosses and Gonzaga 

    pennants – I should have realized this boy has all the earmarks of being terminally mauled by priests. Parents frantic:  when will he get a “real” job. 

    College was such an unpleasant experience all shudder when it’s mentioned and no one’s willing to discuss it.   I’m betting drugs were involved.  

                                        Of course Zachary wanted to have sex in his narrow twin bed – right beneath the picture of  “The Holy Father” (he doesn’t even have a lock on the door!)  and  I have to admit I found the Chabrolesque aspects of the situation arousing. He seemed to lose track of the fact thatit was me – but his orgasms were more explosive than ever. 

                                        So there I am again;  “The Official Girlfriend.”  Could I put an ad in the paper – some kind of specialized escort service?  “Impress your friends – terrify your parents!” 

                                    Buck doesn’t know about Zachary and since I don’t care who else Z does he must realize I’ve got a back burner – but the truth of it is that between the two of them they’re barely one boyfriend. 

    One is charming, affectionate, trustworthy and dumb as ditchwater; the other is upper class, complicated, interesting, artistic, totally untrustworthy (most likely a male whore.)  It’s a damn shame things have to get like this. I just don’t know how good at “keeping secrets” I can be. Need to go home and get some sleep. If have to get down to Funkytown one more time tonight I won’t be answerable for the consequences.

                 1:45 PM Wed Nov 9 –78

                                        I’m in need of a “carte d’identite” so I can look at it and figure out who I am. Read the first draft of The Speechless and the accompanying comments of my college writing teacher. She bollixed it up.  Her deconstructive destruction seems purposeful – I don’t believe she didn’t know  how good it was. Can I save it?  I know I should work on one thing at a time but apparently my mind doesn’t operate that way. 

                                        In the mail a letter from a publisher offering to read my poetry – for $50.00. Took me longer after that to sink to the necessary depth to get some writing done. And it still probably wasn’t any good.

                 Thurs night – Plush Palace – Nov 9 – 78

                                        Working tonight with Roulette and Jerrilee – wonderfully hilarious old hands.  We laugh until we fall over. 

                                        “How Deep Is Your Love “ is throbbing through the walls, Maureen’s got me in a costume-trading whirl and Roulette is so heavily into the Jack Daniels she is showing everyone pictures of her dog. (A Doberman.  Who looks exactly like every other Doberman I have ever seen.) 

    Suddenly I’ve acquired a whole new dancing wardrobe. But will it make me a new person?  That’s what I want to know.

                                        With a view to listening to Marc Kramer for once in my life because he’s rich and I’m not Avril and I went house-hunting.  The trigger –

    – wonderful broken down old house in College Park (complete with white pillars) – I called to ask the price.  Real estate agent sucked me effortlessly in, entering into our quest with gusto. I am almost 28 years old and although I don’t make much money – apparently I make enough.  The house was hopeless. It needs $50,000 on the roof alone. But the agent has plenty others to show us.

                                        Bizarro letter from Ryder.  He said “after that visit I thought you’d never trust me again” and  “I bow down to you.”  Which visit? 

    The one where I allowed him to give me a massage? I refuse to inquire further because that’s exactly what he wants me to do. He is just needled that I have so obviously given up on him.   Why am I attracted to these weirdos? I know the problem between us is that I want a mutual relationship and he wants a pack animal.  I want to be with the person I love and “love” makes him want to run away (because it makes him feel “out of control”).  But where is the fun in telling him this? He couldn’t use the maze clue even if I gave it to him. 

     So I write a short note telling him I’m busy with Zach and Buck.  That should fix his jealous wagon.

                                        I didn’t tell him about the hours of sexual bliss Buck and I shared last night!  Buck is warming up nicely – invited me to his parents’ house for the weekend – they will be away. Unfortunately, he snores horribly – sounds like he’s strangling.  By-product of motorcycle racing. Needs that cartilage cleared out with a vacuum hose.  Trying to read Rumer Godden’s Breath of Air. Boring and unctuous. Put it down for Dear Scott/Dear Max, which is of course delightful. 

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                 Powder Mill Rd  Thurs 19 Oct 78

                                        Still balancing thank God. Had lunch with dancer 

    Yvonne – she said she still wakes up having screaming nightmares about Warren (he was killed in a car accident. Faced smashed in by a coke bottle he was drinking at the time. He bled to death.) At least I don’t have those worries.  I sleep like a baby. Worked on costumes. 

                                        Waiting for Avril to go with me to Interiors. Reread my stuff. Think there’s a great deal to be said for the short, short novel. 

    Maybe encapsulate them into short stories? But no money there.

                                        I remain unappreciated because of refusal to hook up with some “movement”.  Drown rejected.  Started dividing the novel into geographical locations – Hooks Lane, Paradise Road.  Would make good short stories. 

                 11:30 PM

                                        Awful, awful night. Dancing badly, shoes broke. Rushed 

    out and bought another pair in my break. Pasties fell off –  carpet tape of inferior quality or possibly I sweat too much.

                 12:15 PM Oct 23

                                        Sitting by phone feeling illogical joy.  Wonderful date with Buck – restaurant with lots of wood and Tiffany lamps – just a pleasant, free-flowing conversation.  No sex at the end – hug and kiss in doorway.  “May I call you?’ I told him yes – invited him to be my date Nov 5 at Shadonna’s wedding.  He said he would.

                 Fri 27 Oct 78

                                        Concord, Mass – the grave of Nathan Bond.  

    Seems a good place to write – sitting on a gravestone in the sunlight. 

    So, what was last night like? I arrive to the theology college and another student goes up to get Devon – I overhear him say “There’s a very good looking girl here to see you and I mean very good looking.”  Hecame down looking so different with a new silky beard – exclaimed over and over again about my gorgeousness.  We went up to his room and were making out on his narrow plank of a bed when the radio played Ambrosia –

    – How much I feel. Too much for me!  Started to cry and lost a lens!  

    Now Devon thinks I’m a psycho – which I am. Luckily (for him) and sadly for me psychos are his specialty. Wish he wasn’t so unctuous about it. 

    When he attacked me with those eyes I had to get myself a drink – broke out in shivers and hives – thought I must black out.  He was talking in general ways about what he wants out of life – he seems to be expressing fear he can’t find someone better than me. I did my best to get him back to specifics – even saying a woman can’t propose to a man (Well she could,

     But if she proposed to this man she’s never hold him.) 

                                        Obviously, he loves me. That question answered. But there are bigger questions. But as much as I deserve love? Seems like not. He’s incapable of making the kind of statement I need him to make. He wants to get a clinical psychology degree and he hinted that I wouldn’t be such a disaster as wife to a psychologist. (Flattering?) 

                                        I told him he has a fear of “emotional success” and he agreed.  He astonished me by making passionate love to me – I didn’t have to do a thing (other than wear my short pink gauze peasant blouse and the denim gauchos that show my bellybutton) –  he couldn’t get my clothes off fast enough. Very satisfying – wasn’t an inch of my body he didn’t kiss – including my heels. I told him my heels had never been kissed before – so he kissed them again – also sought out all the other unkissed places.  I do feel satisfied for at least a century.  We went out to a Greek restaurant for dinner, then to see The Deer Hunter. Powerful movie. Crazy, just like life. Christopher Walken lovely. 

                                        Drove to Concord in pouring rain.  Inn is no Night 

    at the Plaza – more like Early Hardy Boys.  Read Violet Clay before falling asleep. Dinner tonight with my cousin Tory – pumping him about Hill School experiences to use in Paradise Road.   Buy some wine for tonight and celebrate my own existence.

                 G’s place – NYC – Central Park West – 30 Oct 78

                                        Why do I do this to myself – visit Genevieve?  

    I just realized the mirror in her hall is a fat mirror. I did eat a lot of 

    junk food on this trip but I don’t believe I look this bad.  On top of that,

    Genevieve’s life is a fat mirror to my life – that’s the truth.  We just saw Chabrol’s Violette – we both have a pash for him – but agreed this is not his best – plus the only Chabrol we know of with absolutely no romantic elements.  It’s probably something I will end up thinking about a lot – and rewriting in my head – so maybe it’s Ok after all. Wrote a poem for Devon 

    – Practice Cuts.

    Practice Cuts

    The dead gush cruelly after dying;

    High time to change 

    Get religion

    Have yogic visions

    See god 

    Be a nun

    Be a self worth knowing.

    Time is gunning for me

    Arthritic fingers

    Scrabbling at my dreams

    Playing old tunes 

    scratchier, less sensitive.

    I’m a body in search of a car wreck

    Crime scene consubstantial;

    The old deus ex machina

    Disaster;

    Blood is so good

    At erasing uncertainty

    Bringing back

    A taste for life.

    Reduce me, silence

    To the essential bones

    Of my non essential self

    Fortify some other ego

    Mine’s tired;

    Peel from my eyes the thickened skin of grief

    Unstop my ears from the dust of

    My own consequence

    Free my feet from judging splinters

    Life passes from my like a fever in which

    I cry out and cry out and yet

    No sound is made.

    Out

    Like the tide 

    Cauterize

    The woof-warp pattern

    So plain that even I can see it.

    Teach me not to envy

    The gulls their mirrored flight

    Unmeasured unlike my own

    Reduce me to

    Unbending bones of my

    Essential self

    Dark sister;

    She;

    The soul I was

    Before

    I became me.

                                        Can’t turn it into a presentable poem – yet – however, it did make me feel better writing it.  I guess I don’t like being Devon’s flirtation with damnation. Writing really is the best revenge.

                 Plush Palace – Thurs 2 Nov 78 8:30 PM

                                        GiGi’s last night onstage.  She is very down. Charlie is making her quit because “no wife of mine blah-blah-blah.”  Eddy says she’ll be back: can’t find these perks in any other job. I am dancing well. 

    Apparently, no one but me realizes how fat I’ve gotten.

                                        Both a good and a bad day today. Worked hard on Gift and Drown – sending out query letters – took pkgs to post office – 

    only to be told a MS has to be bound to go mss rate. I made them look it up in the manual so I won’t have to go through this again. 

                                        They treated me like this must be personal – I’m 

    trying to “catch” them in mistakes – forgetting I’m the customer entitled to service who doesn’t want to pay extra for no reason at all.  And the book spells out what services I get – in case they forget.  Apology letter from Tory: his girlfriend “out of line” to be so jealous during our paella dinner.  She did seem strange but since she’s an artist I didn’t question. I respond with a short note saying I think my questions were just too personal for her ears so I really cannot blame her.

                                        Reading Edmund Wilson’s life like watching a slow-motion car wreck – horrible man. 

  • 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

                                         Plush Palace, Sat 1 July, 9 PM

                                         Rod and I engage in a little smoochy-smoochy hand -holding following Christie play.  I make an effort not to get so drunk that I pull down his pants to view his namesake. Impatient to find out exactly where my next sexual meal is coming from. Tach it up buddy. 

                                         In Dancer News, GiGi says Charlie NEVER goes 

    down on her unless he’s absolutely plastered. I want to know, “And then what good is he?”  She has to admit “not much.”  Says he laps at her like she’s a melting ice cream cone. 

                                         Did like Pamela Hansford Johnson’s Helena trilogy. 

    (Impressions of childhood, though, painfully unreal.)  Now struggling with Grahame Greene’s It’s A Battlefield. Diseased whores abound; women bear their 12th child in crowded rooms (and because he’s a Catholic that’s presumably All Right By Him) and a gay time is had by none.

                                         Midnight Sun-Mon July 2-3 78

                                         Taking Avril to Cellar Door for her birthday before she flies to Michigan to see Merrill.  Gifts Dior dusting powder & wrap around dress.  

    Festive occasion demands dress-up. Avril & I saw Grease, Rod and I saw Heaven Can Wait.  Just sweet enough but it didn’t “move” Rod as much as I hoped. What if he’s one of the “pod people” with nothing inside?  Jury still out.

                                Thurs 4:15 – 6 July 78

                                         Missing Avril so much!  Boy, did I get dependent. 

     It’s just SO Fun to have someone to do things with who thinks ALMOST EXACTLY the same as you do but with interestingly nourishing differences.

     Rod is no substitute.  Still can’t figure him out.  His apartment is 

    completely stark.  Bare.  Not ONE THING on any of the walls. The

     closest I can get to understanding him is that there seems to be no feeling in his family.  They don’t talk at meals. Father’s dead, mother still sends him clothes he hates and he still wears them. (They are perfectly presentable. But what would he wear if she did not dress him?  We’ll never know. I’m not getting in the midst of that.) 

                                         He never  suggests things to do.  I suggest everything. 

     Charlie Byrd in Annapolis (just because I love Annapolis) was OK.  On the other hand, when we went to Le Bistro he ordered Piper Heidseck champagne out of the clear blue sky! Because he said now he’s “finally dating.” 

    So that took initative. Right?

                                         Nice letter from Devon who ‘feels veneration”  for my talent.  

    Sweet. Reading Green’s The von Richthofen Sisters. 

                                         8:30 PM Fri – 7 July 78

                                         Driving in to work in a haze of ecstasy after Perfect Day, heard an infuriating review of Heaven Can Wait  by Penelope Gilliatt.  Really the woman’s a moron. She says she would understand a movie about transmigration of souls in “wartime” but why now!  Who GIVES these people a podium? How did she get this job with so little artistic sense? Bullied her way to the top, most likely.

                                         Von Richthofen sisters turns out to be boring PhD thesis. 

    So hard to get it right.  Therefore switched to Murder of My Aunt.  Amusing.

     (Richard Hull).

                                         Big tipper in tonight.  $138 so far!  I feel like the pigeons in Avril’s class experiments. “Intermittent reinforcement!”  I have to pick up Genevieve and Brett up at the airport tomorrow for Women’s March (we all wear white.) 

     Bringing them back to my place to eat first – I made a gorgeous salmon mousse. Invited Rod just to see if he’s cool.

                                         Sun July 9 78 2 AM

                                         He’s cool.  Wore white, walked the whole march and 

    was so charming to Genevieve and Brett they were dazzled. I’m now feeling relief that I only have ten days till vacation – don’t think I can become “over involved” in that short period of time. 

                                         Adelphi Grist Mill Park – 11:15 AM Mon July 10 – 78

                                         Sunbathing on my favorite rock.  When I get hot

     I’ll splash around (like the dogs are already doing).  Hardly a dry spot left on this rock – but who cares – my diaries have seen worse.  A year ago, the Last Act of the Romantic Psychodrama just beginning.  Whew. 

     I think I came out of it all right.  I’m starting to see a possible Harold-Nicolson/Vita Sackville-West thing developing with Rod.  (He actually KNOWS WHO Harold Nicolson is!!!)  Last night I almost raped him in his theatre seat but I am determined to let him make the first move.  But I do need to know how long I’m going to have to wear Glamorous Lingerie every day (just in case).  I am starting to run out of glamorous lingerie.  But we are having a lovely time – he is witty, intelligent and aware.  I “confessed” all about Devon – my longest relationship – but because he’s a “newly consecrated minister” I can see Rod’s not too worried.  If he only knew! 

                                         A good development is I’m learning not to drink so much. If there isn’t sex right around the corner one must stay aware.  Coffee “without dessert” so to speak.  It’s good for me.  I told him the whole plot of Secaire – weak points become immediately obvious.  He tells me about his ex-wife.

                                         2 PM – Back at home to ringing phone – new 

    croquet ball on the pitch!  Marc Kramer coming into National – do I want

     to have dinner and discuss My Finances. Hmm. Maybe. He knows I’m too poor to invest in anything. But I say Yes.

                                         Fri. 8:05 Starlight Club Springfield, VA Fri 14 July 78

                                         I hate this club. It’s a bitch of a drive so I rarely come here but the tips are good.  Need the cash for vacation.  Unfortunately, I am working with Danielle – the Brazilian lesbian who threatened to kill me.  I’m hoping she won’t recall she threw boiling hot coffee at me.  (Her aim is bad.) 

    She’s usually pretty much out of it. Got $100 tip already from a guy who wonders why I don’t dance at The Gaslight downtown.  Because the dancers have to waitress  there!  Ugh! That place is legendary.  I tried to be polite but really.

                                         Anyway, Kramer was different from what I expected.  We ate prime rib at The King’s Contrivance – he seemed a lot older and a lot sadder. 

     He says whenever he hears 10 CC’s “I’m Not In Love” he thinks of me. 

                                         I asked him what about finances – he said I should invest in real estate.  Wants to “watch my stocks.”  I was embarrassed to tell him there isn’t anything to watch what with Dad keeping such a closed fist on the shares, and me having to sell everything I get. I start to suspect Dad is CONFIDING in him about his estate planning and PRETENDING “our” investments are actually OURS.

                                         This meant we didn’t have that much to talk about and the evening ended with a damp kiss when I turned down sex.  I say I’m In a Relationship.  He says he’s thinking of proposing to his red headed secretary –

    who reminds him of me.  I am kind of insulted but told him to Go For It. I guess 

    I had this built up in my mind – sort of like Chuck Kornowitz where you think it’s going to FINALLY be about SOMETHING ELSE.  How my Mom would jeer!  

    (Wore my 3-piece suit, anyway. With eyeshadow.)

                                         He says he has to come through on his way back

     from Oklahoma, thank God, I could say I’ll be in Maine.  Looks Like It’s Over.  

                                         2:15 AM Mon 17 July 78

                                         Another fiasco.  I should leave now while I’m behind. 

    This has certainly been Trial and Error Week. How did poor Rod – Desirable Husband Material become Inevitable Discard?  I’m sick to death of the Hand Kissings and the Knee Pinchings, Goddamit.  There is something seriously wrong with this man. We had dinner & drinks at the Peter Pan Inn, then drove up and down Price Distillery Rd until I assaulted him.  I admit it.  He is under 

    the impression that we “made love”.   Trust me, one time was plenty.   This is a man who does not “think” with his body.  He gives nothing back, an absorptive rather than reflective surface. 

                                      I worked hard not to let him know how just how incompetent he is, because really, there’s no hope.  

    Some sad girl somewhere who hates sex is going to find her “dream man”. 

     I shouldn’t have pushed it, although seriously I don’t think he will even question if it never happens again.

                                         Damn shame is all I can say.  A cruel waste, when he’s so charming in every other respect. Life is brutal. Sigh. Enjoyed Pretty Baby so much I saw it twice. (Can’t pay close enough attention while Rod is talking.)xxx

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Plush Palace – Mon night 27 Mar 78      

                                                                    So glad to be back. Really missed the old place. 

    Walked in and there was Jervaze, big as life, clearly NOT in Alabama at all.. He was quite plastered but acted very pleased to see me.  I feel he has turned a definite corner.  He could have been somebody, could have made choices, but he seems to have decided to live in an ever deepening blur.  I am well out of it.  I asked him what happened to my ring.  He promised to look for it.  He has a new plan of course.  His brother is trying to talk him into returning to school.  He’ll talk that to death for a while till his kidneys fail and his liver withers and his brain goes.  Then it won’t matter anymore.But I must get a picture of him now while he still looks good so I can show my grandchildren.  He was dressed all in white like an angel and is letting his silver gilt hair grow long.  I can hear it now: “You dated Wild Bill Hickok?” Yes kids. And it was really wild.

                                        Called my agent and demanded to know how much I am actually going to get from HBJ. The answer is $1993, so it’s a good thing I got that stock which I sold today.  April 5 I pick up my new car – a Fiat. (Avril takes the Gremlin.) Money in the bank – need to settle in for a long writing session.  Trying to concentrate on my book – Bowen’s 

    The Last September – but it just feels too distant from my own life.  Feels like I’m slowly surfacing, like a corpse that has been in the water for three days.  Last night I finished Anne Tyler’s Searching for Caleb. Her most beautiful novel in my estimation. Today A and I bought plants, put money down on car.  I’m exhausted and out of love with my own life – don’t understand why I personally seem to need to do everything the hard way and backwards.

                 4:30 PM Fri 31 Mar 78

                                        Barrage of criticism from Mom and Dad that I 

    spent stock money on car.  How do they expect us to live in two different places and have one car? Doesn’t make sense.  Avril has car today for her eye appt – will pick me up in 45 mins.  I am struggling with Bowen’s The Little Girls.  She uses writing for disguise.  Last night A and I went to dinner at an Italian restaurant – she had the clams, I had the shrimp, we split a bottle of wine. Then we went to see what A described as “one concentration camp film too many.”  I bought tickets to Bonnie Raitt concert – Mom and Dad suggested I “look up” their friends’ son Peter Pauley. 

    I may invite him, I do remember him as cool and handsome. But brunette. 

    Oh well, can’t have everything.   Got check from agent – less her percentage – 

    which I forgot to calculate. So I hope I get paid enough Sat to have money for car.  My future emerges through a glass darkly – don’t know yet whether I like it or not.

                 2:50 PM Sat  April 1, 1978  – Starlight

                                        Working a double. My latest realization is: I can never have enough money.  Curse you, Marc Kramer for suggesting I invest in real estate. In spite of this I’ve decided not to take on doubles unless I’m in a jam (as I am over this car.)  Interesting new dancer – big hips and no boobs but a wonderful attitude.  Her laugh can be heard by fishing boats on the distant Chesapeake.  Alvera.  She works in a lawyer’s office during the day. I’m trying to imagine her in her suit typing briefs.  

                                    The Little Girls is Bowen’s worst written book.  She’s not a narrative writer but a prose poet – always falls down over narrative.  Plus I feel a loss of joy in her art – maybe because she “had” to write it?  This is really a book about despair – which To The North also was – but one book was good and the other isn’t.  I think writing is a lot like cooking – some ideas can’t be rescued through editing – they just get worse and worse. 

                                        10:30 PM Tender is not the night thank God – three 

    more sets and it will all be over. The next one will be the worst – the last two I won’t even notice. I called A – she’s despondent. Feeling chained to the apt I’m sure. I agreed we’d see An Unmarried Woman tomorrow – go out and have some fun.   Monday after her classes we’ll watch The Oscars at my place. Bought 3 costumes from Kerry that I can ill afford – but they were a steal.  Sent Harvey the Brownmiller book, Against Our Will.  There’s no excuse for such ignorance.

                 Plush Palace – 8:50 PM – Thurs night 6 April 78

                                        So ends one of the happiest days of my life. Woke

     this AM two minutes before clock radio – breakfast in bed reading – good work at typewriter.  Long walk with dogs – came back to find Green’s Mag took my whole “suicide” series. Avril showed up helped me play with my new car – first and second tough to get into and out of until the salesman professionally broke its little hymen. Seems all right now.  

                                  Book going well.  Most of the time I feel I have the ideal existence – plenty of sleep, plenty of exercise, plenty of time to write, plenty of privacy. Paradise. 

     Jervaze called.  He is really going to Alabama this time. Said he loved me, thereby proving my point that the less of a relationship we are having the more important it is to him. If we never see each other again, I bet he will remember me as the perfect girlfriend. All future women in his life will curse my name.  

                                        Good letter from Mom and Dad apologizing for 

    their explosion about car.  Part of the problem dealing with them is theytry to preserve a “united front” which means frantically 

    whispering and negotiating behind the scenes, then speaking awkwardly together like an ill-rehearsed Greek chorus. I can kind of speculate about who really thinks what – not that I want to.

                                         A and I liked Unmarried Woman – much better 

    than Goodbye Girl.  I tried Peter all day – no answer.  Reading 

    Storm Jameson’s Journey From the North – it’s like watching  a 

    slo-mo car accident the way she beats up on herself.  Why this sense that honesty requires one must utterly disown all one’s earlier versions?  

    CS Forrester did exactly the same thing in Long Before 40 – will I feel compelled to do the same some day about this life I am leading now?  

    Foolishness is youth’s necessary clothing methinks.  Think I will dump this book without finishing.  Try Angus Wilson’s The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot.

                 9:25 PM – Plush Palace – Sat night 8 April 78

                                        Beautiful day. Off to Columbia, testing my new car. 

     A & I had lunch at Clyde’s – talked about what fun it would be if we each had a full-time man – and they liked each other.  We could double date.  

    Feels impossible. Walked around lake – bought baby clothes for Genevieve.  

    Home, walked dogs, then to work.

                                        Boring evening. Few unenthusiastic customers. 

    GiGi brought in a bottle of champagne – I broke my rule and had some out of sheer boredom.  A father in with his 2 ½ yr old daughter – sent her up to the stage with a tip for me. Depressing fact #2 – tried to read a short story about rape in Fiction called The Intruder – it was awful – turned me off the whole magazine. Angus Wilson’s Middle Age merely stupid. Will I have a go at No Laughing Matter?  Still no Peter and no explanation.  If he is away on vacation his parents don’t know about it.  Feels suddenly difficult to be independent and alone. 

                 10:10 Pm – Sunday night 9 April 78

                                        Avril met a guy she likes in one of her classes who likes her.  Fingers crossed.  As a result I spent Saturday alone, which I don’t mind. It would be OK with me if every day were the same, wake at 10, 

    write till 4, then off to work.  On Sun we played in Adelphi Mill Park – swam in the falls – wonderful picnic of brie and cherries – played with dogs.  Wrote poem about Devon.

                                        Phoned Peter – a girl answered!  He came on very brisk and businesslike – had been in Venezuela. I asked if she was “the housekeeper” – he hurried to get off phone – said he would drop by club.  Always wanted to see me perform.  I told him my schedule.  I figure if he and she are seriously involved so that I shouldn’t move forward – he’ll tell me.  Chloe’s friend Dennis called and tried to make me feel guilty enough to go out with him.  Little does he know how far past that “Since I can’t think of an excuse you’ll accept I guess I’ll just be forced to go out with you” stage I am.  He turned hostile – said I’d “led him on”.  I refused to rise to this, portraying self as a naturally friendly but also naturally private person. I guess I’ll have more of this stuff with J gone.  He was sort of protection.  Everyone wants someone who doesn’t want them. Highly entertaining if one were bored enough. I am not. 

                                        Interesting conversation with Avril where we discussed the “courting rules” we’d learned. They were grim – we’ve had to ditch them completely.  Got into another one of our “Is Satisfaction Possible” marathon debates.  I always say it is, she says, what if it’s not.  I refuse to consider this option.  Mom’s advice to A is loiter around art galleries and art museums to get the right guy. This sounds expensive & time consuming.  

    Plus, I know too many artists to be in love with this idea.  They are the worst. 

    I want someone stable. 

                                        I have to admit my chances of finding someone like that in the job I’m in seem small. But I only need one guy. I’m special –

    so would he be. Avril insists things were better in the past – “pre-liberation” but I’m not buying it.  Opal’s marriage very instructive on these points.  They are both beautiful, can think and have work they love. So why do they fight and sulk nonstop?  

    Each feels the other does not truly “value them” and fusses for increased respect. Each thinks the other is “holding them back.”  So they claim. With any encouragement I think they would jump into a threesome. Non merci. 

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

        Mon 30 Jan 78

                              Jervaze and I were supposed to go out Sat night – I had the day shift and he said he’d pick me up. I waited 20 mins before going to his apt. 

    There he was with a little blond beard on his chin – lying on the sofa very depressed. Told me to go to the concert without him.  By myself?   

    Wouldn’t that be fun!  I was aghast – tried arguing with him – he said he wasn’t leaving the apt.  So I said I’d stay with him. Went out and bought fish and chips and beer. We watched Sahara, then Saturday Night Live.

     Pitiable.  Made love in the shower. In the AM he refused to come out to breakfast with me, and I really had to go home to the dogs. He gave me a good hug when I left but do I want to drag this inert man through all the stages of intimacy?  

                              Called him today, he was very blue.  Homesick as

    always.  Takes alcohol for depression!  Can’t figure out whether to go over there or leave him alone.  I really need a better invitation – my choice is to stay away.

    I don’t think he’s actually SUICIDAL although if he stopped drinking, he might be.  And how could I tell?  He still has his car so he’s either asking too much for it or he’s doing nothing about his problems. I bet the latter’s the case. Reading The Letters of Charles Dickens in conjunction with the Life. Decorated A’s old room with Dad’s old charts –

     – looks pretty good.

                              Dancing well – I can’t give a bad set. Remembering what Devon said about skiing – the body does the right thing – if you “get out“ of its way.    J came in – in a much better mood. (Some new “magic” elixir, no doubt.)  He must have called to get my schedule because I didn’t tell him. Asked him if he wanted me to “drop by” after work – he said it was “up to me”. A question of wanting what you get.

    I think the traditional male female role thing may be reversed in our case.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of those pretty guys who’s always been pursued and as a result he feels like a “thing”.  Never developed a self, so to speak. This is what comes of being so hung up on beauty. But when I look at the assemblage of clowns, predators and weirdos soliciting for my hand my heart fails me.

                              Wrote a difficult letter to Devon in which I answered

     (long overdue) his about Gwynne and frankly (but with masterful subtlety) –

    went all out to make him jealous of J.  Cheap of me, but I have to have 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.

        Mon midnight 6 Feb 78

                              Fri night J was in the bar getting slowly snockered. Very proud to take me home. We had our most passionate sex session yet –

    – 5 hours! Of course he couldn’t come. We finally quit because I was exhausted. I am out of love with Tantric sex. He told me the sexiest thing I do is play with my breasts when we make love! I only do it because he doesn’t!  The big lug.  

    He asked me what I would do if I accidentally got pregnant.

     (He knows about IUD.)  I said have the baby.  Of course I didn’t

     tell him that I might not inform him of the fact – depends on him 

    and the state of our relationship. 

                              Which raises the important question: do I want

    an alcoholic baby? Wouldn’t you be watching it throughout childhood to see if it favored rum candy?  He said he hoped we’d get married because a child needs a father.  I think this might be the way an Alabamian proposes.  Surprising how totally un-good it felt.  I almost got as depressed as he is.  Jervaze, who has the beauty of an angel-god, is no better than a drifter.  Even I am shocked by my own taste.  His life is guaranteed to go from bad to worse because of his fatal Hamlet-like inability to take charge.  Clearly he needs to be the full time project of some managing woman. This is bringing out all my masculine characteristics, some of which, frankly, I was hoping never to see again.  I am also bothered by the fact that he can’t have serious conversations.  I would say he absolutely does not know me at all, and appears satisfied with that. 

    I probably also don’t know him, although I am beginning to face the fact that there may be nothing to know. 

                              The drama of my own existence is important to me.

     There’s a full cast of characters and  A LOT OF PLOT SURPRISES

     and he hasn’t even opened the book. It’s frustrating because it makes everything less meaningful.  I feel I’m in a bind, though, because he’s definitely the best of the bunch in all the bars I’ve danced.  Most attendees are married men looking for fantasy, fun and excitement.  They are the dancers’ favorite because they’re established, generous and sometimes they actually leave their wives. This happened with Ryder –

    – although he always insisted (and I believed) it wasn’t me, it was him. 

     (And her, presumably).  The best you can do is “catch them on the cusp” of divorce.  The “singles” men come in three kinds – total losers who can’t manage a relationship and that’s what they’re doing in a bar like this, guys who need you to quit the minute you start dating them because “no girlfriend of mine” blah blah blah.  (More R).  The third is guys who are fine with you dancing – in fact they want to be your manager. Several dancers have fallen for these guys and often they marry them. He buys their costumes, drives them to and fro, bargains with the club owner and even looks after the kids. 

    The good ones don’t just drain her money, date the competition or beat her up. 

     (Those are rare. But exist.  I’ve met them.)  Only now she can’t ever quit!  

                              Take Lida for example. Lida’s in her 40’s and can’t be seen in the light of day.  Although she has a perfect body, she is real scary in close up – 

    – gets the worst clubs and shifts – here she is strictly a fill-in.  One dancer and her boyfriend live in a van, going from club to club. He sits in the bar for every set and that has to be OK with the management.

                               This would seem to mean my parents are right that I can’t meet nice men because of my job, and although I don’t want to go all apocalyptic, it is hard to see how this can get better.  I could meet someone through my writing –

    if I were a different kind of more public person but I just can’t seem to change. (I’m getting happier and happier Being Me.) Probably my best bet is to go back to college –

     – I’ve been wanting to – take a class here and there (a lot of dancers do this) and 

    date guys without letting them know what I do for work until I know them really well.          Money is the problem there.  More capital expense. I make good money and I should be able to afford it, however it doesn’t combine well with my plans to take time off and travel. I would have to work constantly which so far I have been too spoiled to do.  A light schedule keeps dancing fresh for me –

     – it’s also good for my writing.  So I should probably compromise and 

    take one class – something nice and cheap like adult ed at the community college. I’ll think about it.

                              Sat night J was all withdrawn again. I don’t think he wants me to coax out of him what the problem is; I think when he is in that mood he really just wants me to go away.  So I do.  Avril says I’m being an idiot – that he is clearly in love with me – in her definition, I’ve “arrived”.  I could get him to move in with me, structure his time and tell him what to do. 

    Maybe that’s what he wants but it certainly isn’t what I want.

    He’s so depressed about his family — and it is too late to lie to them about what I do because his brother (whom I’ve still never met) “already knows”. Could I change my name and get away with being someone else entirely? Tell me again why should I go to those lengths? 

                              He would just appall my parents. This would confirm every bad thing about me they’ve ever said (and they’ve said a lot).  It’s really one of those tragic Victorian love stories (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) except that maybe its more SCI fi because we’re from different PLANETS.  I’m beginning to think he’s actually “cast off” by his family –

     – that’s his deep dark secret.  His alcoholic behavior “ruined” him in his 

    hometown somehow.  (He did graduate high school.  He says.) He’s  the horrible albatross from the Coleridge poem (or he’s trying to shift it off onto me.)  Under the apparently inexorable rules of sexual attraction, once again he’s a weird mirror image of me.  But instead of being a drunk  (which my parents would prefer) I’m a poet.  Probably in the South it all comes to the same thing.  In the North it’s almost the same.  Here we’ve got actual mental illness thrown into the mix.) 

                              Can’t say my advice which is he ought to write them off .  He totally buys into their rejection and who knows, maybe it will save him in the end.  “Dump your family” was my advice to my ex-husband, so possibly it’s me who has the problem. 

                              Mom and Dad asked if Jervaze was an intellectual and I said,  

    “Well, he’s reading my book.”  I didn’t tell them he’s been reading it for the past two months with no end in sight.  I don’t dare even comment on it.

    It snowed about 20 hours – that’s another thing I like about J –

    – he lives right next to the club. It’s hard on my dogs – but so would my death on the roads be.

                                Ryder called today – 3rd time in a month. He acted very loving and considerate – I don’t believe it for a minute.  Now he’s worried about my health – wants to bring me homemade chicken soup, etc.  I don’t rise to these flies any more and it feels so good.  Any desire I may have had to see the flesh ripped from his bones with red-hot razorblades has ebbed. 

     I take that as progress. I look forward to seeing him again because I think it would be great to feel nothing.

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

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

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

        4PM Friday, Jan 13-78

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

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

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

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

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

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

        5:25 PM Plush Palace  – Sat 14 Jan 78 

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

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

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

    Powder Mill Road – 11 PM Sunday 15 Jan 78

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

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

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

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

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

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

                              Coleridge poem taken by Virginia community college 

    screed. No money. (Natch.)

                              11Am Tues 17 Jan 78

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

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

        2:15 AM Wed 19 Jan

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

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

        11Am

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

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

    Time keeps chewing us up and spitting us out.

        1 PM Thurs 20 Jan 78

                              Excellent morning lying in bed reading Byron. It would 

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Sunday 24 Jan 78  7:30 PM

                              Read Popcorn Venus, saw Julia, so alternately 

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

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

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

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

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

    that’s all he does. 

                             I liked Julia because I am interested in the question 

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

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

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

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

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

        Mon. 23 Jan 78

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Thurs 26 Jan 78

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                              Who would bother to deny the roles of biology and 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                              The visit left me feeling uncomfortable – frustrated – 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                 Plush Palace – Tuesday, January 3, 1978 – 9:25 PM

                                        Back at work. Can’t concentrate on The Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey, which is the book I brought – because I keep thinking Jervaze will drop by. Dead silence from him – no call on Christmas.  I sent him one card but of course I only got back yesterday.

    I can’t bear to take all the initiative. Oddly (especially after my dream about him) had a card waiting from Devon. Maybe I AM psychic. Evidently he regrets that love-letter – encourages me to “hang loose”. Quotes from Sister Goldenhair.  In other words, don’t try to get him to plan to meet skiing, that’s just way more planning than he can handle. Kind of a pathetic specimen.

        Plush Palace – 10:05 pm Thurs 5 Jan 1978

                              Jervaze came in Tues after my 10:00 set – with lots of little presents for me, perfume, bears, cards, pins – in a Christmas stocking. He wore a gold-banded black cowboy hat covered with snow and a shiny black down parka, his platinum hair swinging around his face – like a visit from an angel.  Or possibly a Chippendale dancer.  He is too pretty; mine eyes dazzle. 

                            He stayed till I got off at 1 then walked me to my car – one kiss – asked me out very formally for Saturday night.  I gave him directions to my place and he wrote them in a book – tipped his hat, climbed into his Shelby and vanished.

    Leaving me wondering, is he gay? Is he even real?  I continue to struggle reading The Young Romantics – artists in 1840’s Paris.

                              Avril and I found a perfect black sequin tube top while

     we were out promenading yesterday – I’m going to wear it with my black silk trouser suit.  She thinks she found herself the perfect apartment too – a studio in a skyscraper with a great kitchen, huge closets, only $216 month utilities included, says she is going to look for another week before she decides. Financial fount M & D don’t want her living with me because I am a “harmful influence.” We saw Armon in a bit part on TV last night – there weren’t any credits, but I knew it was him.

                              Listening out of one ear to gossip – Gina says the bartender at the Starlight is bisexual and that Tony the bagman is her male lover. 

    I can’t imagine them together. He is called the “bagman” because he runs between the clubs in a Lincoln filled with bags of money. Gina also says that she is a priest in a mail order religion and that her breasts are real and her ex-husband raped her nine-year-old daughter. I can tell for a fact those hard breasts are fake so it does make it tough to believe anything she says. 

                              Last night went out with Erika to see the new Bunuel

     (in spite of her claims to revere him she failed to notice he used different actors for the same part) and to eat at Chateau Gesundheit. Depressing conversation about how terrible men are – she says her ex-husband is a cross 

    between a psychopath and a momma’s boy – she naturally assumed because of Ryder that this would be my favorite subject. She also says all exotic dancers and showgirls were molested as children and as a result are lesbians who hate men. I say is that alllittle girls have some unpleasant memories of Adult Men but this is just a chip on her breeze.  A breeze I think I better stay out of in future, perhaps. I also get tired of hearing the Marxist slant on Life. Love doesn’t exist, people do everything for “self-interest”, etc. etc. If that is true they are doing a piss-poor job of it. I think people live for fantasy and some people’s fantasies are very, very cheap.

                              Hoping drinks with Maeve will be more fun.

                              Midnight – 6 Jan- 78

                              Crazy  with love.  Jervaze and I had one of those unforgettable dates last night – Took him to my favorite restaurant in Ellicott City – Coco Lane and we talked for hours. He loves dogs – wants to raise Grand Pyrenees. His favorite cats are English blues. Wanted to be a vet except he always hated school, so that’s how he got into working with his hands and he thinks there’s no way back now. He loves WC Fields and horror movies.  

                              The thing I love about him most (apart from his astonishing beauty) is his natural courtesy, his dignity (he is very polite to anyone in a service position – the exact opposite of status-focused Ryder who acted as if being exigent was the same thing as being discriminating.) He has such an aura of gentleness and calm, just like those big dogs he loves so much. His isolation, I like too – he’s the only male I’ve met in quite awhile who doesn’t travel in a pack. He has a brother in the same job locally – that’s why he came up from Alabama – but he plainly thinks suburban Virginia is the “fast lane” and I don’t disabuse him. 

                              He eats seafood by preference and wants to live on the water.

     He probably drinks too much and could be an incipient alcoholic. My parents would be totally, totally appalled but of course it doesn’t take much to appall them.  Alas, he hasn’t finished my book – claims he’s “working on it”. I am waiting for him to outright say he doesn’t understand it – maybe when he knows me better.

                              When he kissed me goodnight he only kissed me – a relief at the time, since it was one less worry. Now of course I wish I had some clearer indication from him that he finds me even attractive. Is he polite or am I resistible? Don’t want to be resistible – we’ll have to change that.  

        Sat -1 pm 7 Jan- 78

                              I’m at the Starlight – our club owner owns this one too – it’s huge.  

    How I hate this stage. It isn’t a true stage but a runway winding through the audience, which means you must keep walking all the time – and they try to fill it by having several girls up at once. One can’t build any audience hypnosis – people pay less attention and have more business meetings – and tips really take a nosedive. The bartender is a grizzled old lesbian who stares right up my crotch – supposedly to see if my stocking seams are straight (they aren’t. Fortunately she doesn’t offer to do them for me – but she still watches.) Four of the other girls tried to get me to let them smoke dope in the dressing room – I told them no. They’ll have to go out back with the alley cats. 

                              Thank God Glee – who has a lot of class – backed me up. So –

    the two of us had the dressing room to ourselves, which made a pleasant change from watching the others trying to disguise the scars from their breast operations. Book I brought – The Pleasure of Ruins – does not go with this atmosphere – in spite of its title.

                              Ryder called me here – says he found me thru Randy who was impressed because Ryder’s on TV!  I flatly told him he is scaring the life of out me with this behavior. 

                               But he seems to know just how far to push things, so, amazingly we had a wonderful talk!  Gentleman Jim lets us talk in his office: very respectful of our “privacy”.   He obviously thinks we are dating.  Wonder if he will tip R to the fact that I have a “honey on the side” at the Plush Palace?  Jesus!

     I told R I am sick of his “psychotic twin brother” (good idea for a novel, actually) and he really laughed – admitted he has “a Jekyll-Hyde” thing going on.  (It’s actually worse than that – it’s really Hyde and Mr. Nastier Hyde – but didn’t say that. Keep conversation light.)  He promised to stop calling me at work. 

        Monday 8 Jan 78 – 6 PM

                                Twenty-four hours ago I was sitting in my red dress over a glass of port, waiting for Jervaze to arrive. Anxiety level high.  Somewhere –

     – I think from Mom – I got the impression that my needs are so automatically repellent to any sane individual that they must be hidden. Therefore, I have to carefully think my way through to any honest approach – and then it isn’t really honest any more.  But I can’t just be impulsive.  Prepared myself for disappointment – that he would be late or perhaps not show – because there is something weird about him.  Some deep dark secret perhaps? But he was right on time.

                              This time I took him to my nearest neighborhood restaurant 

    –  where the waiter put on quite a show with Irish coffee till flaming liquor rolled down his sleeves!  Jervaze  came inside my house without hesitation – 

    Me fretting about how to best establish physical contact while he sprawled comfortably on the couch.  I turned off the overhead light and lit candles – took off my jacket – he rubbed his face against my breasts acting calm, respectful and not neurotic. Must be my experience with R that makes me fearful of being “shamed” every second.  

                              Jervaze kissed and kissed my face so long – tears 

    automatically filled my eyes.   But he did not get upset. Got up like aperfect gentleman “when it was time to leave” and I managed to resist attacking him.  I did one very strange thing that is causing me anxiety now. 

    We showed each other our class rings – he always wears his. I slid mine on his little finger and left it there. He wore it home. Uh oh.

        11:30  AM Wed 11 Jan 78

                              Experiencing sharp attacks of fear all day long at “being in a relationship”.  What the hell was I doing giving him my ring?  See, I agree that everything’s my fault!  Story of my life! Currently enjoying two quiet hours while Avril is at the gynecologist.  It will be great when she gets her own place. 

    Plenty of private time and space to panic in.  

                              Today I got a phone call from Ryder and a letter from Devon. So –

     I was able to line my relationships up, so to speak, contrast and compare. 

    Even lumped together they are not one full relationship!  R’s “gamesmanship” is down from its zenith, but, owing to my total nonparticipation, also at its most exposed.  Lengthy chat about our vacations, and then he spent probably a half hour telling me his “insurance setup”. Why? So I can tell everyone where to find the will and the important papers when he runs into a tree on his next ski trip!  I should be worried about him dying apparently!!!  

                              I let him talk, I didn’t cut him off and I asked no questions, largely because this makes him the craziest and he deserves it. I know he’s comforting himself now that I at least care about his finances if not about him. Devon thanked me for the glamorpic (described me as “so lovely” and said he feels like he’s talking to me when he writes his letter) and then launched into a long description of his and Gwynne’s relationship. 

                              They have an “understanding” which seems to involve “being there for each other” without “demands”.  “Why won’t he admit he’s gay?” howls Avril when I read this to her. 

                              But I don’t think sex is even that simple for him. His approach is much more diffuse – a constantly vibrating choice between “being sexual” and “not being sexual”. He and I had such good sex, but if it all has to happen in a sort of coma, if there can’t be any planning or god forbid, discussion then the hell with it.

                              As for Jervaze, he showed up for the last three hours of my first night back at The Plush Palace from the Starlight. He was wearing my ring. I asked him if my work bothered him. He said, no, he was cool with it, but was glad I asked.  

                              Whereupon we went back to his place and made love for 3 hours.  Whoo-hoo!  I’m not kidding!  The first test – home design – alas he failed. His furnishings are truly HORRIFIC Spanish Mediterranean dreck.  His shower curtain consists of festoons of blue chiffon – it is INCONCEIVABLE that a male could purchase such a thing. Guess I am not asking the right questions. Old girlfriend? Mom? Sister-in-law? Some woman raised exclusively on pirate films had a hand in here somewhere.  

                              As to the sex – that test he passed. He’s a prizewinner there. Everything takes forever and that doesn’t seem to bother him in the least. Is he some kind of reptile, living in a time zone utterly different from us mammals? 

    It took him 20 minutes to get my pants off working steadily.  I got enough comments about the beauty of my body to satisfy my ego for life.  

                              He went down on me without a flicker – so much for all those rumors about Southern men – and when he goes down he stays down.  On the other hand – he never did come. Calms fears of premature ejaculation but –

    raises other ones. 

    When I left, he gave me his key.