Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #Sexuality

  • The Book of You – Haiku Diary by Alysse Aallyn

    #Haiku: The Lovers

    Falling upwards

    Into you

    My other wing, my second

    Clapping hand

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

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

                                         26 hours without T. Spoke to him last night and 

    again this afternoon. His acceptance of me is total, but it comes from a position of strength and I have fears of being annihilated.

    Last nightI experienced hallucinatory states – drove home the wrong way – felt something was happening to the car – re-experienced my swallowing problem. Resolved my panic by starting a poem.

                                         Sat night Toss and I read the diary passages where we lost our “divinity” (his word) together. He cried and told me what he’d felt like from his “side”, wanting to be male & in control, feeling helpless & immature. Agreed if we had married then we’d be divorced now. 

    11:05PM  Trying to read Oneness & Separateness. Not well suited to me right now! Much as I want to be a mother the thought of a demanding infant between me & T now is truly horrifying. Insane fears of rejection and abandonment – why on earth should I trust this man? Called T at work! 

     Complete craziness. He reassured me we will have private alone time –

    -a real vacation in the Berkshires. He said champagne arrived. 

    Called A & we discussed Mom & Dad – how they rewarded “self-sufficiency” and responded to neediness coldly. Makes it hard to be honest now but 

    I hate this weirdly formal relationship with my own parents.

    Avril says there is no retraining them.

    Sat 14 July 79 – StormFall Farm – 11:15 PM

                                         Oh, my God who would believe it – here I am 11 

    years later!  Told T about my uncle last night as we made sexual 

    “confessions”. He was completely calm about it so it’s no longer a 

    Big Secret. He insisted I read his ex-girlfriend’s letters.  She was a 

    Piper Cub to his Concorde, believe me. He kept carbons of his letters to her!!!! Not very loving letters – but downright fatherly. In a bad way.

                                        T’s actual father and he smoked cigars last night 

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

    MY HUSBAND SMOKES CIGARS WITH HIS FATHER 

    BY CANDLELIGHT

    Your profiles cut my heart like glass.

    Go ahead. I’m a bleeder, I’ll

    Still be here when you look back.

    Your father is a silver-headed

    Walking-stick; his elongation glows with far less heat.

    You’re his nemesis; and he’s used to it.

    The wooden floors are washed cornelian

    Perhaps by sunset

    Perhaps by jealousy of girls who

    Lost you; judged too soon the temper of your eyes

    Wrote too many letters or

    Not enough; the wrong kind

    Addressed to the pale law student with

    The cinderblock heart;

    Traveling commentator with the hundred

    Dollar bill rolled inside his shoe,

    The long-haired Pinkerton guard.

    You learned to suck the cherries

    Scarless from the tree; it’s no mean art

    Broke a few at first; we all did.

    By what right am I the winner?

    You chose me in thirty seconds leaving

     enough time to smoke another cigar.

                                         Everyone wants us to marry before May. But I feel I need some time in Kentucky first. Toss told me last night that on paper he is a millionaire. Here’s luck, because if I keep on keeping on, I’m a pauper! 

                                         Tom’s grandmother’s response was “I am not surprised.” 

     She committed herself to reading my  published “thriller”. 

                                         At dinner he announced I’m the only woman he’s ever wanted to marry. Tom’s dad said he thought his son would be a bachelor forever. 

    Privately we affirmed absolute sexual fidelity forever. Will we be able to keep it?

    Plush Palace – Wed 18 July 79 – 4:55 PM

                                                  Boring day but good tips. Magnificent party at 

    The Third Edition last night for Avril’s birthday. (I didn’t care for Avril’s latest “honey” Vigo but was secretly furious at myself – she should date as widely as possible. 

    Maybe I was affected by T who is a snob and a purist.) Drinks, fruit & cheese – then dinner at The Old Angler & Frank Langella in Dracula. (Not a good version.)

                                                  “Finances” discussion with T. He talked me out of selling my car. I worry about being dependent on him but he says it will be fine. 

    Sounds to me like he is living on a knife’s edge – working part time, going to law school, selling stock when he needs money (which he is loathe to do being naturally frugal.) Too tired to make love last night but we started up in the middle of the night – both asleep. Unknown doors keep opening – then there’s another one.

    Castle – 1 PM – Thurs 19 July 79

                                         So happy I can’t take it all in. Feel like someone 

    recovering from a long illness. Read Cheever’s Goodbye My Brother – as satisfying as a novel. Last night we made love for hours and hours but –

    I just couldn’t come – kept holding his face saying, “Is it really you”? Dancing with Barbara the Kikuyu and blonde Joyce of the day-glo costumes that light up in the dark. 

    3 PM Party Castle – 24 July 79

                                         First real friction last night – very predictably, about my job. I’m irritated over the assumption that its sordid and brutalizing. It is totally NOT the same as the dancers in DC!!! LIFE certainly CAN be sordid and brutalizing – but I like this club because it ISN’T and I’ve tried others. We discussed HIS job of muckraker/professional advocate which also has its sordid and corrupting aspects. 

    Duh. His last girlfriend gave him shit about it (and refused to read his newspaper!)

    So it’s a sore point. He should really understand. There was a horrible moment when he felt foreign and alien – but I expected it – too much intimacy always causes a backlash. Trying to read Sisters & Strangers.  The Victorian novel is not yet dead.  

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                 Party Castle 12:05 am 2 July 79

                            Wrote D an angry farewell poem.

    “HOW DID YOU MEET?”

    You saw me naked

    I saw you too close- up.

    Between the green glimpses

    You cut mountains down to size;

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

    You hovered, teaching –

    Drinking vodka,

    I drank wormwood –

    Everything’s my fault. 

    Now I’m a toad-dweller,  

    Nostrils pierced by thorns 

    Falling face-first through every hole;

    You were the king the ghost pines saluted.

    How you dove and danced!

    Speeding through your love-drunk universe, you

    Infected me with your own whiteness

    Dizziness, till all my blood drained out.

    You challenged God;

    I was just the echo following after.

    Yet here I am after all this time

    And nothing promised remains of you.

    Or, “Good luck with Sleeping Beauty’s castle!” That’s what he gets for messing with my heart. Can’t show anyone – most certainly not him – 

    – and it isn’t really finished – and I don’t think it ever will be. But thank God for diaries. Diaries can be told anything.

                                         Reading Secrets in the Family – it is so superb

     I am going to buy copies for all my sisters. Looking forward to discussing it with Toss. I’m beginning to miss him now – he’s so deep and interesting to be around – so alive on many more levels than anyone else – challenging all my levels. Falling in love – happy, crazy.

                 Thurs 11:05 – Plush Palace – 5 July 79

                                        Back at The Plush – it’s catch as catch can in my 

    present situation. I am alienating managers left and right. But I am happy crazy and who cares?  

                                        Because on the third of July Toss asked me to 

    marry him and I said yes!  Here’s how it happened. On Monday night we ate white clam linguini and Crenshaw melon while listening to Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert  – then – came together in delicious, soul-freeing sex; two perfectly matched combatants recognizing each other not just from childhood and youth but school and dreams.  He was eager to learn how I could best be pleased – so I surrendered to the inevitable. Fireworks!

                                        He left me sleeping there in the AM – I heard thumping downstairs but I know he has roommates so didn’t think anything of it – 

    – when he came back for lunch he discovered the door broken in and my purse missing. Keys, wallet, everything. I had to call into work – had to call a locksmith to give me keys to my car. 

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

                                        At one point I said, you know, you’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a man.  He said, if I believed that, I’d ask you to marry me. I said, if you did I’d say yes. 

                                         So he said, “Do you want to get married?” 

    I said, “I think so,” and there it was!  He said I’m the only woman he has ever wanted to marry much less asked. We even chose the children’s names – there are going to be two of them – a boy and a girl of course; a combination of our old addresses! Had to call Aunt Frederica to give her the good news because 

    she’s the one who had to give the hospital permission to stitch me up ten years ago after our first unfortunate night together!  (She was drunk of course. Both times) 

                                     Toss asked me to come back to Kentucky for his

    last year of law school.  I “shouldn’t miss this part of his life.” Dogs too, natch – we are a package deal.  

                                        He has a house he’s rehabbing that has so many 

    rooms it is known as the Hilton.  When I said I would come that was more important to him than our engagement even.  He says I can file for 

    divorce in Kentucky’s understanding Commonwealth. He ordered a case of Moet Chandon, saying now we have to drive up the coast and

     tell everybody. I am a little scared to tell my parents – this suddenness might only seem another strike against me.  We told Avril and Maureen – they just stared – obviously thinking we both have lost our minds – it will take them awhile to believe in it.  I told Avril about Kentucky – 

    she says she can handle the house; she can always rent out my 

    room to a college student if she feels pinched. I want to leave some money with her – at least $1000 – had the brilliant idea to sell my car. 

    Wouldn’t want to be impoverished in Kentucky and I don’t want to be on “retainer” from T.

                         Last night I read Toss The Duel and his eyes 

    filled with tears!  He said the only flaw he sees in this arrangement is that one of us must surely predecease the other!  Could it really happen?  Could we grow old together? Could it be that I will never make love to another person?  Wrote a short note to Bruce, 

    telling him I will definitely be needing a divorce, sooner, rather 

    than later.  Now I am trying to write a letter to D; but honestly, 

    what is there to say?   Summing up our relationship seems only

     to dismiss it.  He has already fallen far, far back into the past.  Toss is my future.

    The Duel

    Europe without you

    Was a funeral feast.

    I recall the procession of your letters

    Far better than 

    The stream of luckless suitors

    Trying to distract me.

    Virgins aren’t distractible.

    Your seductive missives stalked me.

    A fatal ploy was that nude photo

    Adam lonely in his garden.

    I came right home.

    I well recall the ceremonies

    Of that night!

    Your shyness

    My perfume

    Our ignorance

    Wild and hard 

    A riderless horse.

    I did cry out as the candles burned.

    I swear there were some moments when

    We actually saw each other.

    But if this magic sword cuts both ways

    Why was I the only bleeder?

    They peeled me off

    And dropped me down a mile

    Of antiseptic hallway –

    A princess in a bucket.

    It could have ended there

    But at your school I haunted you

    A chilly-breasted demon.

    My daytime incarnation seemed mature:

    I fooled everyone;

    We chatted as you prepared the skin.

    I bit down hard and 

    Tasted  only

    Suture wire.

    You wrote and broke off 

    Our association.

    Years groaned by

    Like convicts chained

    We served our terms with no time off

    For bad behavior.

    Lust had luster,

    Excrement was ecstasy.

    The castaways the whirlwind 

    Flung upon the sand

    Were calm, polite

    We knew our way around. But

    That look you gave me!

    Our unborn children shivered

    In their sausage skins 

    Fully aware

    Their time had come.

    The tale was done

    The frog-mask

    Shivered off

    We saw:

    The you of you

    The me of me –

    Masks 

    Unmirrored

    Scars 

    Unscored

    Virgins not but

    Innocents Restored. 

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                     Party Castle – 3 Feb 79 11:30 AM

                                         We did it – moved into the Queens Chapel Road house though nothing is organized yet.  My study is the nicest room in the house – a whole wall of huge windows – sunlight always blazing in.   I covered the walls with my pictures and they fit perfectly – leaving one wall empty for a big corkboard.

                                        Guess who showed up to help us move?  Ryder! 

    He brought his “girlfriend”,  plus a huge bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a large bottle of Irish Mist. Girlfriend a shocker – little nursy mousebird of a woman!   After all the hell he gave me, this is who he ends up with.  

    His sexual revolution is over – single shot fired.

                                         Went to see Corio play at Childe Harolde –  he acted surprised to see me – introduced me to his date, Bev.  I didn’t feel Bev is much of a threat – Avril says, “She’s a hot water bottle.”  I said, “I’m not giving up”. Zachary didn’t help move – so when he showed up for sex I sent him away.

     I was really annoyed – his excuse was he “wasn’t up to it.” Who is? Fortunately,

     I have strong muscles. Carried a gold velvet sofa practically on my head.

                 Mon 5 Feb 79

                                         Moments of pure joy while painting my bedroom shelves.  

    So adoring Sylvia Plath. Closer Look at Ariel & Letters.  Her letters burst with plans, lists & preparations – like this diary. That’s how it goes.  Feeling capable, independent – maybe strong enough to even rewrite Gift. There is pleasure to be had even at the start of a journey with no apparent end in sight. Back on my Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner diet. Feel house will be ready Sunday. Party?

                 8 Feb 79 Plush Palace

                                        Surprise today – Usher Glayne came in to see me 

    dance. Curtsied low and slow. I felt intimidated by him but he said he liked poem I sent. Struggling with Boston Adventure – Me no likey.  

    I’m on p. 300 of Gift and if there’s a novel in this mess I can’t find it.

                 8PM Mon night 12 Feb 79

                                         Snowed all night – didn’t feel guilty about calling the Plush Palace and saying I couldn’t make it.  Used the time well – finished my study.  It is perfect. Bedroom almost done – must unscramble my jewelry to put it away. Great having laundry in-house – I am washing all my costumes. 

    I give up on Boston Adventure. To think a critic compared her to the Brontës. 

    Well they did have under-functioning ovaries and the English language in common. Marc called – he will be in town and wants to have lunch at the Capitol. Which I would love to do.  Told him I took his advice and bought a house.  Roll my eyes while he complains about his horrible life investing other people’s money.

                                       Maureen is never here so we hardly see her. And 

    she’s very neat, so far sharing a bathroom is no problem. Recovering 

    from my bout of restlessness over Gift, I managed two pages. But it was too hot to work up here last night (I can’t seem to control the temp.) Tomorrow buy fan. 

    Usher called.  He wants to be “friends”.

                                                Queens Chapel Rd – Wed 14 Feb 79

                                                At last a comment from an agent who likes Blood Memory (latest incarnation of Gift).   We now have one agent who likes it, one who didn’t, one close relative who likes it and two who didn’t, one lover who likes it (and two who didn’t.)  I wish she would start a “sell job” with me but she’s just “dying to talk with me about it.”  In other words, she wants to know, how crazy ARE you? Sadly, it depends on the day of the week. 

                                       Avril just phoned – invited me downstairs for an omelet.

     I said no. Fasting today. (I like being somewhere the kitchen is not.) Later we’ll go out and try to find a pair of emerald pants for me to see my new agent in. 

    This is one of the ways Avril and I make do with living together – we respect each other’s privacy. 

                                       Yesterday at work who should be second dancer but Yvonne!  We had so much fun catching up. She’s still dancing at Mother Joe’s, but needs all the work she can get.  I feel a perverse satisfaction in the fact that even amazingly talented, flaming beauties can’t seem to struggle out of life’s junk pile. Her ex, whom she quit dancing for, went out with an “all nude” dancer the night after they broke up!  A friend of Ryder’s came into the bar – 

    I pretended not to recognize him.  I’m sure he’ll be running back with the story. 

     Dreamed I had open lesions in my face and you could see right through them. 

     Reading Greene’s The Human Factor. 

                                       2 PM 15 Feb 79 – Thurs

                                       Sleeting out. Feeling restless the way I do before I write a new book.  Hauled out Bride & Wolves for a rewrite – tremendously impressed with my own talent!  Development always was my problem (as in life). 

    Greene’s Human has an odd, unfinished feel.  Reviews did not prepare me for it in the least. I think they reviewed Greene rather than his book.  More impressed by Margot Ruddock’s letter to Yeats in Ah, Sweet Dancer (which could be retitled Dirty Old Man.) She compares the “fickleness” of men to the fickleness of God! Can’t blame her if God insists on being male.  Read Howatch’s Call In the Night as a purgative. Going to see Country Wife tonight at U. Of Md. 

    Usher sent me strange Valentine collage of Playboy photos, couples kissing, etc. 

    Avril says “I give up on him.  It’ll be a miracle if he can ever say what he wants.”

                                                Starlight Sat 18 Feb 79 – 11:10 AM

                                                 Waiting for my bangs to curl at the start of a 

    double. Had a nightmare where Devon performed marriage ceremony between me and some other guy!  Right up to the end I kept thinking he was going to “rescue” me.  Naturally he did not.

    “Psychic” about him as usual, I  got a letter saying he’s busy with this year’s Ladies Ski Team meaning he’s got 12 girls passionately in love with him and he plans to take his time to savor the field. 

    Vengeful poem results:

    Cloverleaf

    Some roads lead nowhere;

    They’re my favorites.

    I held my breath while

    You drew my face in

    Blinding strokes 

    Creamed my mouth with curling lines

    Destroyed one picture; then another.

    You

    Left at dawn while I

     Ran in circles, calling

    Raging, spending

     Nights & time

    Without you,

    No blue thigh guards

    My sleeping heart while you – alertly

    Gauge the coming storm.

    Trapped in cloverleaves , I’m

    Sentenced to perform

    School figures endlessly

    Disputed by a myriad angry judges.

    Every face I paint 

    Resembles you; balked by

     Our enervating past

    Of unlived lives I

    Open up the chilly ruffles 

    Of my breasts

    To beauty; yours 

    And mine and your

    Strange spine’s;

     A body so much lighter

    Than the mountain that you loved –

     The course you learned

    Much better than you learned me.

    Overconfident as always

    I tell myself that

     you’ll come back &

    Float across the powdered snow

    In bird-winged silence –

    all-enveloping

    Unrepentant

    Lost and frozen like my heart.

                                                2 PM – Jervaze came into the club!  Ducked away momentarily from his fiancée.  Glad he didn’t bring her in as I am having my period and feeling particularly fat and grumpy. My poor body’s been unloved for a month now and is falling to pieces.  Still it was an enormous pleasure to see him. Someone for whom I apparently remain The Holy Grail.

                                       Tues. 6:45 PM  20 Feb 79

                                       Struggling against a vast undifferentiated depression.  

    Going to treat it with diet and meditation.  Reading Tapie’s Richelieu and Louis XIII.

     History a great cure for all who feel unlucky.  Even being an aristo was no picnic. Avril accepted for both of us to go to Aunt Frederica’s party on the shore where she’s rented a house.  Hitchman’s bio of Dorothy Sayers very bad book. Sayers wasn’t “in love” with Lord Peter, she was him!  

    Will-to-power and dream logic.  Trying to “bind” her two halves together when she made him marry Harriet. Had to re-read Sayers’ wonderful 

    Unnatural Death (my favorite) to get the taste out of my mouth. Ah.  Such pleasure.  Painting till I’m exhausted then long walks with dogs through pretty Queens’ Chapel Manor.  Haven’t voyeured a neighborhood this satisfying since Chevy Chase. 

                                                Starlight Wed 21 Feb 79 – 11:45 AM

                                       Going through a phase where work feels like 

    being beaten. Think it’s because no one is caring for my body. Will warmer 

    weather turn the tide? I love my house but Marc Kramer is wrong – home ownership NOT the cure-all promised.  The only difference I can see is I can no longer mess around financially. Nose permanently to grindstone.

                                                Reading John Dickson Carr’s Blind Barber.  It is so awful.  Why does anyone like him? Pass my time sewing red rhinestone buttons to my pink satin blouse. Yesterday clutch cable snapped – pedal became a dummy.  Fortunately I was right NEXT to a gas station. Had to take a taxi home. Damn Fiat.  Financial nightmare – more doubles to get my car out of hock?  Turns out it’s not expensive.  A. gives me ride to work, Eddy gives me ride to car.

    Leaning heavily on inner life. Efforts to live “outwardly” all seemingly result in hideous failure. Shopping list: pasties, carpet tape, stockings, cotton balls, liquid plumber, string bikini.

                                                Sat. 24 Feb 79

                                       Devon turned 30 today. Great house party at bungalow Aunt F rented on Mulberry Island.  Interesting artist named Stockley there with an exciting mind but unworkable body. Fun to talk to though. He wears a hard hat and welds sculpture. Avril asked out by handsome redhead named John.  

    Fingers crossed.  Jervaze called to say he broke off his engagement.  Uh oh. 

    Macmillan says my novel “not their cup of tea”.  Very sneery.

                                                Starlight Fri 2 Mar 79 – 2 PM

                                       Bought a pair of yellow overalls to write in.  Hadn’t realized how thin I’ve gotten – I look fantastic.  House closing magically lifts depression when it cost $900 less than I expected.  I was fully ready to write these nice people a rubber check – Thank God that’s not necessary.

                                       Instead of wasting away in debtor’s prison, I get to compare myself to Sylvia Plath.  What if in a panic, I married a party boy who fails to cherish The Real Me? Wait, I did that. But I didn’t stay to wrestle with him and now I’m free.  

    Could be much, much worse. Hang in there and go it alone. See it as a strength. 

    Trying to apply for grants. There’s an art form all by itself. Avril’s redhead working out nicely.  I don’t like his comments about his mother though.  Is satisfactory sex possible with men who hate their mothers? Could be massive Red Flag.  

                                                12:35 PM Tues Mar 6 – 79

                                       Sit down to chat with diary over lunch – can’t eat 

    because scolding letter from agent gave me a stomachache. Didn’t I know it was 

    unethical to allow several agents to consider me at the same time? I do see it’s a very beneficial for the agents to drag this process out so they end up doing all the choosing and not you. But since she’s the one I want I can’t say so. 

    Play dumb, promise to Be Good in Future and throw my affairs entirely into her hands and let her speak for me. Silence frees the artist from “servile 

    bondage to the world”, says Sontag. 

                                       Letter from Devon saying he really respects me for buying a house (the opposite of what Mom thought would happen.  He says it makes me more interesting. Or he’s just less scared I will show up on his doorstep.)  Also, he says “it’s been a bad ski season” and asking particularly about the men in my life, closing, ”I love you Alysse. Our relationship is the most important thing to me.” 

                                       Whew! What are the odds that every girl on that ski team would turn out to be a lesbian?  Or were they chilled by his aura of untouchable purity? Most girls would consider it a challenge but some lack the stamina necessary to defrost him. Still, they’re all out of their minds not to give him a whirl I must admit. Interesting how very much we each fear the other’s loss.

  • 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

                 7:47 PM Plush Palace – Sat 9 Sept 78

                                        Dinner with Rod. He is handsome, rational, helpful, kind and forgiving.  Unfortunately, he’s also some unknown Third Sex, a complete zygote.  If he’s gay he’ll be the last to know.  

    After three glasses of wine I found the nerve to say he must have noticed we have no sex life. He talked sententiously about how we’re both cautious, both been burned before,give it time, etc – it sounded good, but I knew it wasn’t true. Something’s wrong with him. The last months of his marriage he slept sexlessly in same bed with his wife – at the very end her boyfriend even joined them! (Nobody did anything.)  Strange and unhealthy.  

                                        We went to watch his protege, Zachary play guitar in a coffee -house at Tyson’s Corners.

    Now there’s a guy with a noticeably sparking electrical overload. I was turned on to him and he was turned on to me but of course nobody did anything. 

                                                 Rod was absolutely serene, probably didn’t even notice. But would he even mind?  I can’t mention it because Zachary is basically a sewer rat.  It is not a sign of emotional health to even consider  counting coup with this guy. Pity Rod’s so perfect. Waitresses gaze at us adoringly.  Mom and Dad would love him. Wakened this AM by postman thumping on door with package – turned out to be twenty copies of Flatiron with my Resurrectionist poem spread – I’m going to send every one of them out. 

    Makes such a perfect gift and peace offering I may order 20 more. 

                                        Reading Nathanel West’s horrific Miss Lonelyhearts.

                 Plush Palace 6:10 PM Wed 13 Sept 78

                                         Mon Avril and I went to the play Mrs. Cheyney – it was excellent –  then to the Apple Tree after to dance but the volume of turkeys pitched up way too high. We made a wonderful evening anyway – picked up effortlessly right where we left off  – complete with psychic communication like imperfectly sundered Siamese twins.  Then off to Rod’s in my black satin suit – he had a bottle of champagne to celebrate Farrar, Straus & Giroux wanting to see my novel (I know better than to celebrate a thing like that.)

                 2:25 PM Thurs 14 Sept 78

                                        Wonderful letter from Devon affirming and reaffirming his love.  Very healing. Asked to keep the photo I sent him of us when I was seventeen. Described me as “majestic, mature.” Ooooo. Reading Gore Vidal’s Edgar Box stories. Difficult letter from Mom.  She doesn’t seem to realize she can’t “win”.  Her will cannot prevail.  If she keeps insisting we will only become more alienated. Good diet day – eggs, grapefruit, almonds. No booze. Lots of water.

                 Powder Mill Road 20 Sept 78 2:00 PM

                                        Avril and I met for drinks and steaks, then to White Flint Mall to see Rituals.  Hal Holbrook surprisingly good. Trying to read The World of Somerset Maugham  in bed – fell asleep at 11 – didn’t wake till nine!

                                        Finished letter to Genevieve answering hers in which she lectured me on wearing “tight pants”.  Groomed dogs, dishes, vacuuming.  Sent Flatiron around – wrote letter to Devon.  Re-read Mimsey. I think it’s a little gem but can’t be pried out of its’ setting without destruction.  Maybe I should send it around anyway, even though it’s so short.  Also found old MS of Secrets – 

    Not bad. But the real eye opener was my writing teacher’s horrible editing – suggested I change “opaque” to “grey green” – “pressed her eye against the window” instead of “applied her eye”, which is what I had. Ugh and shiver. Counted up my bills. Tight. I hate hand-to-mouthing. Will sell stock. Zachary told Rod he is attracted to me. I don’t know where that will go – it surprised me.

      He is ballsy. See them both at tonight’s party.

                 Tues 26 Sept 78

                                         Strange party. Lots of people.  Zachary was there, visibly lusting. Rod seemed perfectly comfortable about Zachary and me.  

    He is the weirdest ever. Repressed gay? Asexual? Pod person?  Put his arms around us both.  Z very effusive –  he is “onstage” all the time.  I stopped myself from saying, “Show everybody your appendectomy scar.”  Let him reveal himself. What do I care?  He produced dope but no one got high. 

    Rod told me I should allow Z to satisfy me – use upstairs bedroom.

    (Probably wired for sound.) I was not happy with that – made him follow me home instead. 

    Good sex, but he hung around till 1. It’s true he made me breakfast – a delicious omelet. But it’s always a mistake to bring them home. When Rod called, Z was still here. That was uncomfortable for me – Rod said relax about it. Stock at 16 so really can’t sell. Told Marc to watch it for a week but I will be needing the money. Must unplug phone and work.

                                Quarter to 7 – Worked on childhood stuff till tension got too much. Plugged phone back in, dinner, read NY Review of Books. Exercised dogs. Went to library – got bio Hart Crane – a nice big one – bought huge desk calendar for planning.

        Plush Palace 27 Sept Wed 78

                                Sitting in dressing room all suited up, breasts taped up into vertical position – might as well scribble.  Good diet – yogurt, plums, apples, eggs, tuna. Wrote. Scared I’ll arrive at p. 100 and be “finished” – pushed thought away.  Avril called upset – el Diablo died and she missed an exam. I went to pick her up.

    She has date tonight with Mystery Man. I am reading about Hart Crane’s relationship with his parents. Too familiar for comfort.

        11:45 PM

                              Interesting night. My lighter schedule helps me have more fun with the other dancers – I don’t feel so invaded by them. Avril phoned about date. Fifty-fifty, she rated it. That’s not very good.

                              Letter from Devon inviting me up for Oct. I was amazed – made reservations for Concord Inn. Went to see Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends with A. We liked it – seemed extra poignant since Opal had to “drop” us rapacious females on her remarriage.

                              Then to Warehouse to hear Z sing. Surprise – he was 

    tense to see me!   His throat closed up.  Finally sheer professionalism carried him through – everyone seemed impressed. He never looked straight at me but I could tell he was watching me out of the corner of his eye – he flinched at my slightest movement. Flattering? Or scary? I don’t know. I’m trying to feel flattered – why assume negative responsibility for everything?  Shoulders and Peter P showed up with girlfriends – hello –  big surprise –  all exchange new phone numbers. Everyone friendly.  Avril charmed by Shoulders all over again – said she didn’t think that girlfriend looked like a serious contender. 

                              Z descended from stage – I could tell he was having a 

    battle – should he be “aloof” like a “real performer” or effusive with me?  

    My unwillingness to seem needy saved us both – I was cool. Asked privately if “he could stop by” I said yes. Could have kicked myself later.  

    Shadonna the new scheduler called – asked me to do a double. I forced myself to say no.

                 Fri Oct 6 – 1:35 PM

                                        Who should come into the club but Rick Marl – Ryder’s spy – he said he had just seen Ryder and Ryder told him things between us were “still the same”!!!  I haven’t spoken to R in weeks!  Told Rick that. Rickthen showed a desire to “move in” on me –   I didn’t squash it. Told him “call me.”  Starting to think the time for “instant honesty” in relationships is passed. It’s way too dangerous.  Make them earn the right for a tour of my insides.           Avril and I saw Steve Martin last night at College Park. 

    He skewers the Ryders of this world pretty brilliantly I thought.  Specially loved the skit where he feels “responsible” for his girlfriend’s death. 

      He shot her when she became annoying.  

                                        Fight with Zachary over sex – he thinks – I “take too long to satisfy.”  I was so annoyed I left at 3 in the morning to go to A’s place. When I came back he was gone – left a note – “in your absence your odds improve” in his odd little precise architect’s handwriting. Bastard. 

    He obviously doesn’t mean my odds of being satisfied. He thinks he’s such hot stuff.  He’s performing at The Mistral this weekend.

                 10:35 PM Tues night 10 Oct 78

                                        Stock sold. There’s six months rent. Or I could go to England (I don’t give up easily.)  Instead I do a little fun winterizing – new electric blanket and bathroom rug.  I’m enmeshed in an ego problem withZachary – this is the “hedonism” Dad is always worried about. I only want to see him once a week for sex but my ego demands he fall in love with me. 

    Z has invited me Home to Meet the Parents so perhaps I’ve succeeded. 

    Very handsome unkempt hunk at the club invited me to see him race his motorcycle in Fredericksburg. This is a tempting piece of Americana I don’t think I can refuse. He’s just a gorgeous mud puppy. 

                                        Spent $17 at the post office sending copies of To Drown In Air around. Seemed like a lot to me.  It’s not just men I’m jumping between. 

    Reading both Russell Kirk’s unctuous book on Eliot and Ross MacDonald. 

    Much prefer the latter: I’ll return to him now.

        Sat 4 PM 14 Oct 78

                              How did I get myself into a situation with men calling all the time?  It is supposed to be a girl’s fondest dream – in fact it is hell. 

    I am unplugging the phone for long stretches and not telling them either or they might be tempted to come over. As Zachary did yesterday – we ended up on sofa – I admit it was his best sex yet.

                              Mon 11 PM 16 Oct 78

                                Avril and I drove to Fredericksburg for the unkempt 

    hunk’s race – gorgeous weather – spectators everywhere –

    I had a hard time finding a place to park –  then a guy in a blue and yellow racing outfit and helmet appeared and banged on the hood of my car. I thought it was someone telling me I couldn’t park there but it was Buck and I hadn’t recognized him in his racing gear. So handsome! 

                                The race was just about to start – he had a party of five or six people to cheer him on. I didn’t quite get the names – we had to rush out onto the course. Buck got a good start but his bike went wrong twice – once he did a spectacular flip and it came down right on top of him. Brady, his friend, said, “that happens all the time.”  Buck was unhurt but had to leave the race. 

    He seemed relaxed about failure – opened a cooler – gave us all roast beef sandwiches he had made himself and beer. (I hate beer.) Avril was busily finding out that Brady’s “unattached”. He’s a big shy handsome lunk too. 

                               Buck put his arms around me and gave me a big hug – told me now I have to come watch a better race. Ah, the fantasy – the mystery of Buck – who is he and what is he – taking fire in me.  Big, strong, unthreatened, unthreatening male, bursting with muscles and apparently emotionally undamaged by life. Why not horses, farm, children with such a one as this? 

    Could I get so lucky?

                              I cooked dinner for Avril – liver, onions, mushrooms, rice. 

    Plenty of bourbon. Still need to go to bed early. Colored and conditioned my hair and wrote letters.

        Powder Mill Road Wed – 18 Oct 78

                              No poetry – Too much going on – I’m longing for my 

    hermit days. I think: I ought to be able to date.  I ought to be able to have a little sex, a little love, a little affection – but what a can of worms! 

      Instantly it spins out of control!  I thought Buck might show up at the club – and indeed he did – after obviously making a special effort with his appearance. Tight leather jacket, blond hair all puffed out, face glowing. It was just like a date – only with me dancing onstage. He stayed 2 and 1/2 hrs – I gave him my standard lecture about not 

    wasting his life hanging out there – come in say hi and leave. One 

    beer. Before I finished he said, What are you doing Fri night? I said, “going out with you.” When I got home Rick called – spying for Ryder I have no doubt.  But I had to tell him I am booked solid through the 30th.  Truth to God. 

  • 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