My whole body hurts from dancing 5 nights in a row.
It’s not good for tips, either.
Poor May Sarton is trying to exorcise Eliz Bowen.
Good luck with that! Elizabeth so contemptuous of “schoolgirl crushes”!
Real love in EB’s world seems strangely synonymous with corruption &
loss. Old fashioned view and more male really – “ejaculate” and die. We women get children, poems & novels out of it. Avril stood up for dinner by Shoulders. Uh oh. Beginning of the end. Apparently saying “yes” is fatally unsexy. She & I will be eating her pot roast tomorrow – fine with me.
Fatima came down early but Lori refused to go up,
Pointing to her watch! Much excitement & hissing.
7:45 PM – Mon. 24 Apr 78
Good scene in my novel – Miss Pruitt vs. Viv. Now I need a boathouse picnic. Every time you get to the mountaintop there’s just more mountain. Then you’re supposed to “prune” at the end – if you have any energy left. Trying to read A Literature of Their Own but Showalter too hard on poor old Woolf. Women have always owned literature, it’s the publishers, editors and critics we apparently can’t have. 60,000 words on my latest tells me it’s time to celebrate. No novel could EVER be this hard again.
I demand a party.
Strange letter from Devon – he is involved with some “Jewish woman” and it isn’t going well. She seems “inaccessibly foreign” –
and he is “losing faith” in his “ability to pick a friend.” Is this a plea for help?
He specifically asked where I would be this summer. Said he loved me.
Took his glamour pic out of the bin where it has lain and put it up, then went out with Avril and bought a hopeful bikini. She and Shoulders are so mired in excuses, lies and expectations no relationship seems possible.
Sunbathing season starts tomorrow.
1PM Thu May 4 -78
Comparing lovers. “It’s Devon in the stretch with
Jervaze fatally winded and Bruce fallen by the wayside”. Needs poetry.
Finished Gift last week. Letting it “perk”. It already feels “swallowed up” by the past. Avril read it, disappointed by the ending. Wants murder at the very least. But is that real life? I think I agree with her that it should be. People should kill themselves when you are done with them. Sadly, in reality they’re all whimper and no bang. How to fix?
When I’m not engaged on some important work my “real life” ceases. Car to its “first service” Mon – involved ferrying each other around and jockeying with one car. Why don’t Mom & Dad appreciate this? It’s like they want us to be ashamed of needing other people to survive. Mom staying in NYC with the new baby but then coming here Sat. to inspect our dissolute lives. Uh oh. I won’t have any trouble getting time off but I hate to. Certainly can’t work when she is here. Living two weeks off one paycheck canbe done. But I will feel obligated to battle Mom for financial freedom.
Finished Glendinning’s Bowen. A life rich and strange but hardly enviable. I’m being pestered by old “college friend” but I am officially “not home”. She sneaks around the house, sniffing.
Sat. 6 May 78 – 1:30 PM
Cleaned & waxed kitchen and bathroom floors, sitting with newly creamed hands and cup of coffee sunbathing in recliner. Muse time.
Emerge blinking like a ground hog into a new and spring-like world. A year ago, I was a rat in a cage. It’s critical never to let the “merchants of neurosis” trick me into limiting myself.
Tues. 9 May Plush Palace – 9:15 PM
Mom spent the last two nights at my place – sleeping in my bed since guest room has no bed. Me on sofa – doesn’t matter since I can’t sleep anyway when she’s around. Up at 7 to make breakfast get Mom to airport for 10 o’clock plane thank God. Avril came over with blueberry muffins and gazpacho to discuss the visit.
Everything Mom said felt like an attack. (She did give me $100 but I spent – and lost – more than that on her visit.) Avril says living on an island has been worse for Mom because she’s never confronted with a life
that would contradict her narrow-minded theories, so it’s all: “Why can’t people get smart and live exactly the way I do?” She tries to make her personal tastes “emotional law” – and if you don’t agree with her – or God forbid, want to explore something different you’re “the sick one”. Rough stuff.
We took her to our favorite Ellicott City restaurant – she wanted Avril to “explain” Mason and me to “explain” my clothes. She said my clothes trigger “weirdos” following us – it was completely in her imagination! She cries. No one decent man will “have” me, she wails! I say,
What if I don’t want to be “had”?
I’d ask her about her life but she isn’thonest – she doesn’t know Dad has already told us that her ideology is untrue. She insists when you find Mr. Right everything’s peachy, but Dad says she was uncomfortable and unwilling about sex at first – didn’t care for it. They had to “work hard”. I say we have more experience of actual pain
than Mom ever had – Avril says she “refuses to learn.” Creepy. Turns what pain she does have back on others somehow.
Can’t wait to resume my privacy and my routine,
reading book about Forster (The Cave & The Mountain) in my own bed.
I think realizing your mother’s limitations is part of maturity, and I’ve been slow because I’m unwilling to adopt Genevieve’s methods – “Don’t give her anything – just tell her what she wants to hear.”
I thought better of her than that but I’ve struck out so far. Since their definition of success
is so narrow, I don’t see how I can ever satisfy them.
Walked in and there was Jervaze, big as life, clearly NOT in Alabama at all.. He was quite plastered but acted very pleased to see me. I feel he has turned a definite corner. He could have been somebody, could have made choices, but he seems to have decided to live in an ever deepening blur. I am well out of it. I asked him what happened to my ring. He promised to look for it. He has a new plan of course. His brother is trying to talk him into returning to school. He’ll talk that to death for a while till his kidneys fail and his liver withers and his brain goes. Then it won’t matter anymore.But I must get a picture of him now while he still looks good so I can show my grandchildren. He was dressed all in white like an angel and is letting his silver gilt hair grow long. I can hear it now: “You dated Wild Bill Hickok?” Yes kids. And it was really wild.
Called my agent and demanded to know how much I am actually going to get from HBJ. The answer is $1993, so it’s a good thing I got that stock which I sold today. April 5 I pick up my new car – a Fiat. (Avril takes the Gremlin.) Money in the bank – need to settle in for a long writing session. Trying to concentrate on my book – Bowen’s
The Last September– but it just feels too distant from my own life. Feels like I’m slowly surfacing, like a corpse that has been in the water for three days. Last night I finished Anne Tyler’s Searching for Caleb. Her most beautiful novel in my estimation. Today A and I bought plants, put money down on car. I’m exhausted and out of love with my own life – don’t understand why I personally seem to need to do everything the hard way and backwards.
4:30 PM Fri 31 Mar 78
Barrage of criticism from Mom and Dad that I
spent stock money on car. How do they expect us to live in two different places and have one car? Doesn’t make sense. Avril has car today for her eye appt – will pick me up in 45 mins. I am struggling with Bowen’s The Little Girls. She uses writing for disguise. Last night A and I went to dinner at an Italian restaurant – she had the clams, I had the shrimp, we split a bottle of wine. Then we went to see what A described as “one concentration camp film too many.” I bought tickets to Bonnie Raitt concert – Mom and Dad suggested I “look up” their friends’ son Peter Pauley.
I may invite him, I do remember him as cool and handsome. But brunette.
Oh well, can’t have everything. Got check from agent – less her percentage –
which I forgot to calculate. So I hope I get paid enough Sat to have money for car. My future emerges through a glass darkly – don’t know yet whether I like it or not.
2:50 PM Sat April 1, 1978 – Starlight
Working a double. My latest realization is: I can never have enough money. Curse you, Marc Kramer for suggesting I invest in real estate. In spite of this I’ve decided not to take on doubles unless I’m in a jam (as I am over this car.) Interesting new dancer – big hips and no boobs but a wonderful attitude. Her laugh can be heard by fishing boats on the distant Chesapeake. Alvera. She works in a lawyer’s office during the day. I’m trying to imagine her in her suit typing briefs.
The Little Girlsis Bowen’s worst written book. She’s not a narrative writer but a prose poet – always falls down over narrative. Plus I feel a loss of joy in her art – maybe because she “had” to write it? This is really a book about despair – which To The North also was – but one book was good and the other isn’t. I think writing is a lot like cooking – some ideas can’t be rescued through editing – they just get worse and worse.
10:30 PMTender is not the night thank God – three
more sets and it will all be over. The next one will be the worst – the last two I won’t even notice. I called A – she’s despondent. Feeling chained to the apt I’m sure. I agreed we’d see AnUnmarried Woman tomorrow – go out and have some fun. Monday after her classes we’ll watch The Oscars at my place. Bought 3 costumes from Kerry that I can ill afford – but they were a steal. Sent Harvey the Brownmiller book, Against Our Will. There’s no excuse for such ignorance.
Plush Palace – 8:50 PM – Thurs night 6 April 78
So ends one of the happiest days of my life. Woke
this AM two minutes before clock radio – breakfast in bed reading – good work at typewriter. Long walk with dogs – came back to find Green’s Mag took my whole “suicide” series. Avril showed up helped me play with my new car – first and second tough to get into and out of until the salesman professionally broke its little hymen. Seems all right now.
Bookgoing well. Most of the time I feel I have the ideal existence – plenty of sleep, plenty of exercise, plenty of time to write, plenty of privacy. Paradise.
Jervaze called. He is really going to Alabama this time. Said he loved me, thereby proving my point that the less of a relationship we are having the more important it is to him. If we never see each other again, I bet he will remember me as the perfect girlfriend. All future women in his life will curse my name.
Good letter from Mom and Dad apologizing for
their explosion about car. Part of the problem dealing with them is theytry to preserve a “united front” which means frantically
whispering and negotiating behind the scenes, then speaking awkwardly together like an ill-rehearsed Greek chorus. I can kind of speculate about who really thinks what – not that I want to.
A and I liked Unmarried Woman – much better
than Goodbye Girl. I tried Peter all day – no answer. Reading
Storm Jameson’s Journey From the North– it’s like watching a
slo-mo car accident the way she beats up on herself. Why this sense that honesty requires one must utterly disown all one’s earlier versions?
CS Forrester did exactly the same thing in Long Before 40– will I feel compelled to do the same some day about this life I am leading now?
Foolishness is youth’s necessary clothing methinks. Think I will dump this book without finishing. Try Angus Wilson’s The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot.
9:25 PM – Plush Palace – Sat night 8 April 78
Beautiful day. Off to Columbia, testing my new car.
A & I had lunch at Clyde’s – talked about what fun it would be if we each had a full-time man – and they liked each other. We could double date.
Feels impossible. Walked around lake – bought baby clothes for Genevieve.
Home, walked dogs, then to work.
Boring evening. Few unenthusiastic customers.
GiGi brought in a bottle of champagne – I broke my rule and had some out of sheer boredom. A father in with his 2 ½ yr old daughter – sent her up to the stage with a tip for me. Depressing fact #2 – tried to read a short story about rape in Fictioncalled The Intruder – it was awful – turned me off the whole magazine. Angus Wilson’s Middle Agemerely stupid. Will I have a go at No Laughing Matter? Still no Peter and no explanation. If he is away on vacation his parents don’t know about it. Feels suddenly difficult to be independent and alone.
10:10 Pm – Sunday night 9 April 78
Avril met a guy she likes in one of her classes who likes her. Fingers crossed. As a result I spent Saturday alone, which I don’t mind. It would be OK with me if every day were the same, wake at 10,
write till 4, then off to work. On Sun we played in Adelphi Mill Park – swam in the falls – wonderful picnic of brie and cherries – played with dogs. Wrote poem about Devon.
Phoned Peter – a girl answered! He came on very brisk and businesslike – had been in Venezuela. I asked if she was “the housekeeper” – he hurried to get off phone – said he would drop by club. Always wanted to see me perform. I told him my schedule. I figure if he and she are seriously involved so that I shouldn’t move forward – he’ll tell me. Chloe’s friend Dennis called and tried to make me feel guilty enough to go out with him. Little does he know how far past that “Since I can’t think of an excuse you’ll accept I guess I’ll just be forced to go out with you” stage I am. He turned hostile – said I’d “led him on”. I refused to rise to this, portraying self as a naturally friendly but also naturally private person. I guess I’ll have more of this stuff with J gone. He was sort of protection. Everyone wants someone who doesn’t want them. Highly entertaining if one were bored enough. I am not.
Interesting conversation with Avril where we discussed the “courting rules” we’d learned. They were grim – we’ve had to ditch them completely. Got into another one of our “Is Satisfaction Possible” marathon debates. I always say it is, she says, what if it’s not. I refuse to consider this option. Mom’s advice to A is loiter around art galleries and art museums to get the right guy. This sounds expensive & time consuming.
Plus, I know too many artists to be in love with this idea. They are the worst.
I want someone stable.
I have to admit my chances of finding someone like that in the job I’m in seem small. But I only need one guy. I’m special –
so would he be. Avril insists things were better in the past – “pre-liberation” but I’m not buying it. Opal’s marriage very instructive on these points. They are both beautiful, can think and have work they love. So why do they fight and sulk nonstop?
Each feels the other does not truly “value them” and fusses for increased respect. Each thinks the other is “holding them back.” So they claim. With any encouragement I think they would jump into a threesome. Non merci.
Waiting for cocktails, I discover a flaw in the divine Miss Elizabeth Bowen. She doesn’t like to admit that she is of the same clay as her characters. Those creatures based on the Mosleys she repudiated utterly as if creatures from another planet. I’ve got news for her. Creatures from another planet are
not that interesting.
Last night was one of the most traumatic family
Evenings I have ever experienced – I think my eyes are still puffy. I heard we would be having Island People to dinner – he used to be a university president/professor so presumably would be good company – they met because somebody was the bridesmaid of somebody else’s bridesmaid so there is a connection. It started with me wearing a green silk shirt, my denim gauchos and hardly any makeup (yes I wore eyeshadow) and being told by Mom that my “get-up” was “more suitable for a bar.” (All of a sudden she’s an expert on bars.)
Harvey and Edna turned out to have “heard of my job” –I gather in some commiseration session on Incredibly Unsatisfactory Children – however they refuse to accept that there is any difference between being an exotic dancer and being a stripper (hello! I don’t strip) and somehow Harvey
segued from castigating “exotic dancers who try to feel superior to strippers” to criticisms of “ total sexual freedom” which apparently means that “everybody should jump on everybody.”
I tried to dignify this mess by explaining that it is actually the reverse – in the “old days” under the “ancien regime sexuelle” a dancer could expect to be “jumped on” by “anybody” because of her job (like poor old Degas’ ladies) but that actual freedom for women would mean a world in which one could be a barely clothed dancer (I would think anyone would admit nudity is at least an equally valid way of expressing the art of muscle –
line and form as heavily costumed artificial approximations) without it becoming some sexual signal that one has “lost caste” and therefore privacy and choice. I recommended Susan Brownmiller’s book to this painfully ignorant male (God knows what he taught – he had never heard of Brownmiller – seems to have her confused with Ti-Grace Atkinson assuming she mustwrite books no self-respecting intellectual would read (maybe he was the type of university president who just brings in wads of cash).
He challenged my premise that the ultimate societal freedom would be for unattached females to not to be under the threat of rape every minute. Harvey insisted – with a perfect straight face that women rape men every bit as much as the reverse – “psychologically of course” which he says is just as terrible – and in fact probably even more so since we all know the “physical thing is no big deal” and often does people a “favor”.
I must say this does not reflect very well on his wife Edna but she was smiling smugly so I think she may have just been too obtuse to follow any of the arguments.
I really could not cope with this free-for-all avalanche of idiocy especially when my parents played their trump card – if bars where women sit in front of a drink and watch barely clothed men cavorting don’t exist, therefore this is an antifeminist exercise and my claim to be a feminist is a
sham. I think it was at that point that I burst into tears. Which of course was
totally demeaning. I sorely missed Avril’s assistance – she refused to jump in
but made peacemaking noises like “you both have a point” (untrue – their “points” are a disgrace). Ugly Harvey apologized – what a monster! but there could be no satisfaction in it for me at that point. Avril went walking with me until they left.
Alas, waiting till they were gone did not end the discussion. Mom and Dad pounced on us to drive home their point that the male animal is a violent dangerous creature barely contained by the civilizing influence of the female. (Guess they can’t get behind Harvey’s “female rapist” idea.) Of course they are going to rape any female who lets down
her guard for a second and it will all be her fault. (Didn’t Ryder make this case?
I’m ashamed to share a world with these people.) Any kind of a sexual display (I guess the beach would certainly qualify) is a declaration of :
“Jump in boys! It’s free today!” At least they recognized Harvey’s
behavior as extreme (“Two drinks and he’s lost” was Dad’s comment.)
Basically, as long as I work at “that bar” I’m the
“lost cause” and if any decent male finds out about it our relationship will be over in a trice. This kind of thing makes me wonder why I bother to visit them. Fortunately, I’m escaping soon, but the whole ferry reservation problem means one loses the right to fight irretrievably with one’s hosts on this island. Dad’s bigmistake was giving me an example of a good marriage as Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett!
Did I blow my top! He probably thought I’d listen to him if he produced a literary example. He wasn’t aware that not only were they not married but Mr. Hammett was married to someone else and cheated on poor Hellman whenever he could manage to stay stiff long enough. (I really didn’t want to “get in” to the alcoholism problem. Lillian tried to make him seem like a “mentor” but honestly she was just his keeper and bail bondsman.)
11:30 AM Friday, 24 March 78
Staggering down for my first cup of coffee when I heard Harvey’s voice in the kitchen. Thank God I heard it in time – if he had seen me in my baby doll nighty I guess he would have considered himself justified in pinning me immediately to the floor. He brought me a hibiscus flower as a peace offering.
A more significant peace offering came from Mom and Dad who gave us each 100 more shares of stock. I tried to refuse it– they insisted. I warned them I’ll only sell it. Maybe I’ll be able to buy a new car when I get back. I could use it.
Spent last night trying to read Welty’s Bride of Innisfallen, couldn’t get my mind around it. Read Faithful Are the Wounds instead.
Very like a stage play – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Powder Mill Road – home – 8:30 PM Sun 26 March 78
Can’t describe the ecstasy of being in my own
place. On the island I am hideous – here I am beautiful. The loss of confidence there is so severe as to actually induce delusions. Now that I am back I am ready to tackle my existence brilliantly. As always.
We got in last night in the pouring rain – 11:30 PM
– Avril had coffee and left. I read a soppy love story and slept in my Own Bed.
Today we did laundry, went to see a bad movie – actors working madly away to no effect. Tomorrow I get mail – hope there’s lots of it.
Did get a beautiful poem out of the island –
Peacock Pavement: The Poet on her walk – submit to Denver
Quarterly – which has been very polite about me lately. They’ve shown an interest in my stuff though nothing has ever been exactly “right.
Very tired. Shouldn’t keep working with this intensity but my new discovery of shaky financial position means I have to. When I “have to” do anything it makes me feel soiled. Wild idea of getting pregnant by Jervaze. He’s pretty enough. But what would that fix? Only my biological clock and my finances – permanently. Fixed in a downward direction if you get my drift. Finished Sarton’s Mermaids,startingTyler’s Caleb.
6:30PM – Plush Palace – Tues 7 Mar 78
A triumphant day. Like some manic-depressive,
I am in my high cycle. Probably from reading Elizabeth Bowen –
The Cat Jumps. Amazed at how much I like it – much better than Death of the Heart. She leaves me feeling a writer can do anything. I see my book now as thirteen short, sharp, clear scenes. Why can’t I do it any way I want? Tonight I have To The North to look forward to.
Plush Palace – 11:PM Fri Mar 10 – 78
Wednesday I broke up with Jervaze to make him finally go home. Thursday he called me. I got the impression that in the South it’s when you break up that things reallystart to get interesting. Apparently if I wanted wild declarations I should have done this long ago. Fortunately, I can handle this
on the phone. It’s that glorious body dipped in platinum dust that I can’t say no to.
Finished Bowen’ s World of Love and To the North.
I can’t believe she was ever popular – I like her too much. She suits me exactly. What a stylist. OK, forget plot, character, those little appurtenances.
She makes them seem so unimportant. Imagine recasting Courtney in this light. I guess her style is too forties, but would that be necessarily a bad thing?
Avril called. She and I are crutches to one another, but I like her better than any man I have ever met. Watched Monty Python, steak dinner, then she helped me paint my new four-poster bed. (Gilt, of course. Gives me a new title – The Gilty Bed.) Watched La Femme Infidele sur le television while consuming an appropriate wine.
Plush Palace – 11:PM Sat Mar 11 – 78
I was in too good a mood today. Bought a new costume from Maureen just when I AM JUST ABOUT TO LEAVE FOR THREE WEEKS, but it is yellow velvet and fake sapphires with armbands and everything – a beauty. Good work on novel, ate hamburgers (and eclairs) with Avril, wrote a good letter to Devon
– in answer to his weird one to me. Struggling with Eva Trout and The Ponder Heart. Nix on both. Fortunately, also have a June Thomson murder mystery for a chaser.
Avril and I assembled my bed – canopy and everything, it looks smashing with its hangings of brown lace. Then she called Mason in Calif to see why he isn’t sending her stuff – he said he’s seeking another estimate – they had a rational discussion but she was obviously very shaken when she hung up. I teased her that he is wearing her clothes and probably looks good in them.
Plush Palace – Wed/Thu Mar 15 – 78
No London in my future. I’ve accepted it. I need
affordable breaks from this life – two weeks in Maine, one week in Boston, etc. A and I going to Maine tomorrow. Avril spent the weekend comforting Opal who is upset about the failure of her marriage – it’s the old story – when it’s the woman’sturn to be babied man withdraws, making frightened, threatening noises.
Finished Sarton’s Kinds of Love. I can see why
some people like it. It kind of has a “National Geographic” feel to it – here’s a guide to the “foreigners”. But it is not a good novel – it’s Faith Baldwin through and through. Reading Sarton is like attending writing class – she never loses the miasma of the eager student and she has a lot of interesting ideas. But, remarkably for a poet, she is deficient on the mystery end. Perhaps she doesn’t understand that a novel is another kind of poem. Lots of Ructions here tonight: Gina and Jerrilee fighting and I have to play peacemaker (because there’s nowhere to go from the dressing room other than the alley or the ladies room and no guarantee rabid fans will stay away.) I haven’t packed – will be up till 4.
2PM – Shadowe Island Sat Mar 18 – 78
Every time I come back to this beautiful island I wonder why I ever leave. Dogs are in paradise. Mom and Dad relaxed, involved, charming. Avril all defensive about the “failure” of her life with Mason so I am off the hook – temporarily.
I’m reading The House InParis – restores my high estimation of Bowen. The trouble with this island is that the rest of existence vanishes totally when I am here. I am eating too much but the food is so fabulous it would seem immoral to resist – roast lamb, new potatoes, spinach quiche, sour cream gravy, stuffed mushrooms, strawberry trifle. We stayed up late reading Ruth Rendell’s mystery stories aloud, then I fell asleep and I had the most delicious erotic dream about J – much better than the real thing.
Felt what it would be like to be a deep-throated cello vibrating endlessly.
Mon Mar 20 7:00 PM -78
Why is it around my parents my self-confidence takes a nosedive? Every fingernail becomes deciduous. I had better call Plush Palace and get put on next week’s schedule. Finished House and began Heat of the Day. My mother asks questions that reveal her to be jealous of all the reading I do. Her delicate hint – she would feel “lazy” doing so much readingbecause there must be something that she would be neglecting. I tell her I, on the other hand, if I were not reading, would feel guilty. (As well as deprived.) Thus we must differ. The great thing about Eliz B –
– she writes like no one else.To criticize her would be like saying the plumed flycatcher has a little too much plume.
Managed to prevent Mom from inviting “young people” to a “weenie roast on the shore” for me and A. We are here to HIDE. She was very nice about it. Do imagine I could live here. Listening right now to Haydn’s Clock Symphony. Now that would be a great title for a short story about an unattached woman in her late twenties…
Avril and I have wonderful conversations in our twin beds like a pair of teenagers home on holiday from school, listening to the distant waves crash on the dark shore. I realize we could still be feeling like thiseven when we are a pair of decrepit old maids – which is probably why families like to stay together. You are timeless for each other. She asked me which of my boyfriends had known me best. I think Toss Sheffield –
certainly better than my own husband. But this is not a flattering conclusion since he seems to have run wildly in the opposite direction
Jervaze and I were supposed to go out Sat night – I had the day shift and he said he’d pick me up. I waited 20 mins before going to his apt.
There he was with a little blond beard on his chin – lying on the sofa very depressed. Told me to go to the concert without him. By myself?
Wouldn’t that be fun! I was aghast – tried arguing with him – he said he wasn’t leaving the apt. So I said I’d stay with him. Went out and bought fish and chips and beer. We watched Sahara, then Saturday Night Live.
Pitiable. Made love in the shower. In the AM he refused to come out to breakfast with me, and I really had to go home to the dogs. He gave me a good hug when I left but do I want to drag this inert man through all the stages of intimacy?
Called him today, he was very blue. Homesick as
always. Takes alcohol for depression! Can’t figure out whether to go over there or leave him alone. I really need a better invitation – my choice is to stay away.
I don’t think he’s actually SUICIDAL although if he stopped drinking, he might be. And how could I tell? He still has his car so he’s either asking too much for it or he’s doing nothing about his problems. I bet the latter’s the case. Reading The Letters of Charles Dickens in conjunction with the Life. Decorated A’s old room with Dad’s old charts –
– looks pretty good.
Dancing well – I can’t give a bad set. Remembering what Devon said about skiing – the body does the right thing – if you “get out“ of its way. J came in – in a much better mood. (Some new “magic” elixir, no doubt.) He must have called to get my schedule because I didn’t tell him. Asked him if he wanted me to “drop by” after work – he said it was “up to me”. A question of wanting what you get.
I think the traditional male female role thing may be reversed in our case. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of those pretty guys who’s always been pursued and as a result he feels like a “thing”. Never developed a self, so to speak. This is what comes of being so hung up on beauty. But when I look at the assemblage of clowns, predators and weirdos soliciting for my hand my heart fails me.
Wrote a difficult letter to Devon in which I answered
(long overdue) his about Gwynne and frankly (but with masterful subtlety) –
went all out to make him jealous of J. Cheap of me, but I have to have somefun. He started it: we are reduced to bragging about our dance cards.
I don’t think you can truly have a “passionate” relationship with a guy who doesn’t want exclusivity because of then of necessity you’re required to hold something back. Dad called, says he’s sending me more stock “for tax reasons” (I.e. it’s really mine and they’re making him.) Then said in a very depressed way, “I suppose you want to sell it.” I wanted to surprise him by saying NO but that would leave me feeling manipulated so I said it depends on my royalty statement (which it does.) Due in 3 weeks.
Mon midnight 6 Feb 78
Fri night J was in the bar getting slowly snockered. Very proud to take me home. We had our most passionate sex session yet –
– 5 hours! Of course he couldn’t come. We finally quit because I was exhausted. I am out of love with Tantric sex. He told me the sexiest thing I do is play with my breasts when we make love! I only do it because he doesn’t! The big lug.
He asked me what I would do if I accidentally got pregnant.
(He knows about IUD.) I said have the baby. Of course I didn’t
tell him that I might not inform him of the fact – depends on him
and the state of our relationship.
Which raises the important question: do I want
an alcoholic baby? Wouldn’t you be watching it throughout childhood to see if it favored rum candy? He said he hoped we’d get married because a child needs a father. I think this might be the way an Alabamian proposes. Surprising how totally un-good it felt. I almost got as depressed as he is. Jervaze, who has the beauty of an angel-god, is no better than a drifter. Even I am shocked by my own taste. His life is guaranteed to go from bad to worse because of his fatal Hamlet-like inability to take charge. Clearly he needs to be the full time project of some managing woman. This is bringing out all my masculine characteristics, some of which, frankly, I was hoping never to see again. I am also bothered by the fact that he can’t have serious conversations. I would say he absolutely does not know me at all, and appears satisfied with that.
I probably also don’t know him, although I am beginning to face the fact that there may be nothing to know.
The drama of my own existence is important to me.
There’s a full cast of characters and A LOT OF PLOT SURPRISES
and he hasn’t even opened the book. It’s frustrating because it makes everything less meaningful. I feel I’m in a bind, though, because he’s definitely the best of the bunch in all the bars I’ve danced. Most attendees are married men looking for fantasy, fun and excitement. They are the dancers’ favorite because they’re established, generous and sometimes they actually leave their wives. This happened with Ryder –
– although he always insisted (and I believed) it wasn’t me, it was him.
(And her, presumably). The best you can do is “catch them on the cusp” of divorce. The “singles” men come in three kinds – total losers who can’t manage a relationship and that’s what they’re doing in a bar like this, guys who need you to quit the minute you start dating them because “no girlfriend of mine” blah blah blah. (More R). The third is guys who are fine with you dancing – in fact they want to be your manager. Several dancers have fallen for these guys and often they marry them. He buys their costumes, drives them to and fro, bargains with the club owner and even looks after the kids.
The good ones don’t just drain her money, date the competition or beat her up.
(Those are rare. But exist. I’ve met them.) Only now she can’t ever quit!
Take Lida for example. Lida’s in her 40’s and can’t be seen in the light of day. Although she has a perfect body, she is real scary in close up –
– gets the worst clubs and shifts – here she is strictly a fill-in. One dancer and her boyfriend live in a van, going from club to club. He sits in the bar for every set and that has to be OK with the management.
This would seem to mean my parents are right that I can’t meet nice men because of my job, and although I don’t want to go all apocalyptic, it is hard to see how this can get better. I could meet someone through my writing –
if I were a different kind of more public person but I just can’t seem to change. (I’m getting happier and happier Being Me.) Probably my best bet is to go back to college –
– I’ve been wanting to – take a class here and there (a lot of dancers do this) and
date guys without letting them know what I do for work until I know them really well. Money is the problem there. More capital expense. I make good money and I should be able to afford it, however it doesn’t combine well with my plans to take time off and travel. I would have to work constantly which so far I have been too spoiled to do. A light schedule keeps dancing fresh for me –
– it’s also good for my writing. So I should probably compromise and
take one class – something nice and cheap like adult ed at the community college. I’ll think about it.
Sat night J was all withdrawn again. I don’t think he wants me to coax out of him what the problem is; I think when he is in that mood he really just wants me to go away. So I do. Avril says I’m being an idiot – that he is clearly in love with me – in her definition, I’ve “arrived”. I could get him to move in with me, structure his time and tell him what to do.
Maybe that’s what he wants but it certainly isn’t what I want.
He’s so depressed about his family — and it is too late to lie to them about what I do because his brother (whom I’ve still never met) “already knows”. Could I change my name and get away with being someone else entirely? Tell me again why should I go to those lengths?
He would just appall my parents. This would confirm every bad thing about me they’ve ever said (and they’ve said a lot). It’s really one of those tragic Victorian love stories (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) except that maybe its more SCI fi because we’re from different PLANETS. I’m beginning to think he’s actually “cast off” by his family –
– that’s his deep dark secret. His alcoholic behavior “ruined” him in his
hometown somehow. (He did graduate high school. He says.) He’s the horrible albatross from the Coleridge poem (or he’s trying to shift it off onto me.) Under the apparently inexorable rules of sexual attraction, once again he’s a weird mirror image of me. But instead of being a drunk (which my parents would prefer) I’m a poet. Probably in the South it all comes to the same thing. In the North it’s almost the same. Here we’ve got actual mental illness thrown into the mix.)
Can’t say my advice which is heought to write them off . He totally buys into their rejection and who knows, maybe it will save him in the end. “Dump your family” was my advice to my ex-husband, so possibly it’s mewho has the problem.
Mom and Dad asked if Jervaze was an intellectual and I said,
“Well, he’s reading my book.” I didn’t tell them he’s been reading it for the past two months with no end in sight. I don’t dare even comment on it.
It snowed about 20 hours – that’s another thing I like about J –
– he lives right next to the club. It’s hard on my dogs – but so would my death on the roads be.
Ryder called today – 3rd time in a month. He acted very loving and considerate – I don’t believe it for a minute. Now he’s worried about my health – wants to bring me homemade chicken soup, etc. I don’t rise to these flies any more and it feels so good. Any desire I may have had to see the flesh ripped from his bones with red-hot razorblades has ebbed.
I take that as progress. I look forward to seeing him again because I think it would be great to feel nothing.
Called Jervaze and suggested we do something tonight – he acted enthusiastic. I said, “Should I be calling you? Wouldn’t want to call too much,” and he said, “Call all the time.” Ryder–induced horrors dropping away one by one. It’s snowing – I’ll go straight to Jervaze’s. (He’s close to club.)
4PM Friday, Jan 13-78
I think Jervaze may really be an angel; one of Milton’s
sexed up angels who took a wrong turn to our planet by mistake. Some anxiety is relieved. We never did get to go anywhere – stayed in bed. Bliss.
But if this doesn’t work I will damn well marry Devon whether he likes it or not – I can’t take much more of this.
I’m at my desk hammering out letters – trying to answer one from the island realtor. The studio apt has “no cooking facilities”. I don’t care but the realtor does, she has a house on the pond for $175 “long lease” she wants me to take. Says it has a Franklin stove and I could “bike to town.” I admit I’m interested. Jervaze has offered to come to the island with me in March –
I really shudder at the thought of introducing him to my parents, how to tactfully say, Please don’t ask him about Ideas and only offer him one drink.
Last night I let myself into his apt, took a shower, tried to use his sparkingly hazardous blow dryer, gave that up, crawled in bed with him. I had lots of Ryder-induced fears that he wouldn’t be there, in bed with another girl, etc. But no. There he was, nude, gorgeous, asleep – and when he woke up, happy to see me.
5:25 PM Plush Palace – Sat 14 Jan 78
Snakes dropping into paradise one by one. First, although Jervaze is incredibly easygoing – it is impossible to get him to state a preference about a movie or a restaurant, for example – (had to drag him to Eastwood’s Every Which Way But Loose) I can tell he is nervous about introducing me to his brother and sister in law. Should I just suggest we lie about what I do for a living? I guess that wouldn’t really solve anything.
Sartre is so right. Hell IS other people. Then there’s my mother – the latest demon fondling my ear. Once a woman has made herself vulnerable to a man, she’s through. Uncommitted sex brings out the worst in men, blah blah blah. Because it’s “too perfect” ( his point of view). I am “causing him moral hazard”. Yes, I tell the voice,
and it would be perfect from MY POINT OF VIEW TOO IF YOU WOULD JUST SHUT UP. WE ONLY STARTED DATING A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO. But one can’t shut out THAT voice so easily. Mystified by Willard Gaylin’s irritating Caring. He acts like mutual dependence or interdependence is some “failure” of personal autonomy.
Powder Mill Road – 11 PM Sunday 15 Jan 78
Jervaze “dropped by” this afternoon. Since it’s such a
long way from his place to mine I was astonished. Is it that I can no longer believe a man will climb mountains for me? Or is it just my sensitivities to Jervaze’s strangely inchoate “disabilities” warning me and sending up red flags? We had a nice talk – he seemed faintly down –
then he had to leave because he needs to get up extra early tomorrow.
I was in too good a mood to work on my novel, bought clothes instead.
3 pairs of pants, sweater coat, five pairs undies, one pair gauchos. All clothes
size 7. Packaged MSS when I came home so as not to feel too unproductive.
Coleridge poem taken by Virginia community college
screed. No money. (Natch.)
11Am Tues 17 Jan 78
Reading Evelyn Waugh’s diaries over my third cup of coffee with open mouthed amazement. It seems almost a work of fiction. Try to imagine thesewhines and wails ever appearing in print! Imposserous as Bert Lahr would say. Thank God for The Victorian High Colonic: a pre-mortem bonfire. Highly recommended, my dear.
7:30 PM No word from J so I assume he is really coming to eat dinner here. The evening’s menu: sherry and smoked oysters, cheese and crackers, burgundy and manicotti stuffed with crab. French bread, banana nutbread and coffee for dessert, if we make it that far without attacking each other. Need to watch the drinking – had two glasses of sherry while cooking and am definitely feeling it.
2:15 AM Wed 19 Jan
J gone – he had to – no clothes here. I let him go
fairly gracefully – after hours of sex without anyone coming I was happy to be alone. He’s definitely an alcoholic. He gets away with it by never seeming drunk (only once in awhile. His “tell” is he wants to talk about Alabama.) But he’s also never notdrinking. He seems too young but it definitely explains the physical problem.
11Am
Avril came to consult about a bad date. Glad her classes start tomorrow – Limbo an unpleasant place to live. Need to walk dogs now
– going to AFI theatre tonight to see Next Stop, Greenwich Village.
Time keeps chewing us up and spitting us out.
1 PM Thurs 20 Jan 78
Excellent morning lying in bed reading Byron. It would
be lovely to be rich – it would not be lovely to be Byron.
Another deeply rooted legacy of Ryder’s is that I now expectothers to constantly lie (to themselves, above all) about their motivations.
You can only judge by what they actually do which throws all planning
into the crapper and means you’re stuck with a lot of confused, open mouthed standing around waiting for disaster. I don’t make promises either – I just don’t say anything – which fact apparently caused me to assume I’d really enjoy a relationship with a totally nonverbal type like J.
Turns out: noooooooo. I torture myself about what he must be thinking and feeling which – let’s face it – may not be much. Wish my royalties would arrive – I’ve spent them over in my mind a thousand different ways.
Can’t do anything about island property, travel, car, or self-publicity without them. Capital expenditures, all. I am making dinner for A at four thirty to hear all about her first day of classes – then I go to work. Love driving down the highway with the other “night shifters” – I always think I can pick them out. Our special sense of purpose makes us different.
Sunday 24 Jan 78 7:30 PM
Read Popcorn Venus, saw Julia, so alternately
depressed and cheered by turns. Thinking a lot about “impure relationships”.
How innocent to assume those are the ones with certain kinds of sex in them. In actuality, it is more the hostage taking mentality that is to be feared. Can one just “Glance in” so to speak and then hustle the hell out?
I’ve been so scared off, I am having a non-relationship.
When Jervaze is not in my bed, it’s as if he never existed. Would I be surprised
if I found out he had some secret life? Hell no, I’d be encouraged. I think the truth is he watches football alone, gets drunk, sleeps and works –
that’s all he does.
I liked Julia because I am interested in the question
of what repressed sexuality does to relationships – does it change them?
Seems it would have to. Well, you can fool some of the people… Starting to re-think Courtney. Worst novel ever written? If so, what can I do
about it? Is it too late? Tell it from the cat’s point of view – something radical like that. Write it in blank verse like Spoon River Anthology.
Jervaze is mystified that I read by choice. Avril says “Don’t you get it?
He’s a mud puppy.” What can I say? I’m such a sucker for male beauty.
Mon. 23 Jan 78
Enraptured by biography of John O’Hara. Starts brilliantly –
describing his study at the time of his death – framed awards, Cape Cod lighters, bound diaries. Everything just “perfect” the way poor F. Scott always dreamed. The novels were steppingstones to the study, not the other way around! I am feeling alienated from my study at the moment.
Have decided that my typewriter table – a board atop a wine rack – is all
wrong. A and I went to Hechinger’s and studied several “office systems”.
Plastic cubes $70 even for a looksee. I’ve set my heart on satinwood so I guess next stop antique stores. What would an antique typing table
look like? A dressing table is the right height? Sans mirror? Wouldn’t want to look at oneself while working! First step to madness!
When I work without interruption, time vanishes. Maybe it’s like riding without spurs: you become the horse (one’s deepest self).
J. showed up Sun night. We drank sherry, played cards. He is getting to like sherry, which I’m afraid, is my fault. Someone needs to go on the wagon and I don’t want it to be me. Heard via the rumor mill that Ryder broke his leg skiing! Ha ha! Did he get insurance for that? Maybe he wasn’t kidding and he was trying to kill himself. I just don’t understand people like him. He approaches everything as “it’s you or me” so the mountain let him have it although frankly I’m surprised it wasn’t someone else’s leg that got broken. Maybe he killed the other guy. Sent him a card – he’s “recuperating” at his parents’ house on a steady diet of Italian food.
Thurs 26 Jan 78
Jervaze came in the Plush Palace last night and I talked to him until Eddy got restive. Turns out he has horrendous financial problems –
including hospital bills for a kidney complaint. Probably will have to sell his car even though it is a part of him like his cowboy hat. I was feeling carefree and immortal and suggested he move in with me – he’s thinking about it. Now of course I’m aghast. What if I gave him Avril’s room and he started bringing girls home? I could listen to them making love for hours and hours and hours – no one ever coming. Would I be jealous or would I feel sorry for her? See, this relationship is complex – I am wanting to run like hell or place an ad for “Needed: Goal oriented individual – good at sex – not too inflexible.“ Hopeless. They have to get stiff and then hang loose at just the right times – “Impeccable timing”? A tall order, I know.
Today I had trip to the dentist and letter from Mom –
trip to the dentist was easier. (He told me I have a “runner’s heart”.
Did not tell him I was a dancer. Said I was a walker. True – since 10 mos old.) Mom says that if I really loved her I’d get a decent job. She and Dad offered to give me money so I don’t have to dance. Respectful endowment of course would be great. Unfortunately, they only mean, “till I get over my sickness.”
Happy to turn ‘em down flat. Mom keeps saying a
feminist wouldn’t allow men to look at her in a sexual way. This is my
mother of the “Marilyn Monroe dress” (still hers and Dad’s favorite.) My mother who has always turned heads and received accolades as a major
beauty, with drunken men pawing her in European restaurants, dazed Arab men following her down the beach, stoned college professors slobbering over her at parties. All “her fault” apparently!! It’s a critical component of hers and Dad’s relationship that he “captured” such a “prize”.
But all this must remain unsaid or “someone” will boo-hoo.
Who would bother to deny the roles of biology and
acculturation? I’d like to live off my writing – but it is rapidly becoming apparent that to do that you have to write to “their” taste. And they have such bad taste! Plus, I find I covet anonymity. In spite of my profession of “being stared at”, I feel like I am the observer. It’s a heady sense of power.
This is theatre, after all. They may think they sit in darkness, but I can still see them.
Off to visit Ryder and his broken leg. Took him cookies and magazines – cookies I did NOT bake myself. I wondered if I would end up telling him about Jervaze – flirted with the idea – he would be scared to death if he ever caught sight of that beautiful, beautiful man. That’s what J is best at.
But I would be doing it to hurt him and since he has always accused me of doing everything to hurt him (born on an island, sentenced to prep school, losing my virginity to someone else, writing) it seems as if actually doing it I would
be “giving in” to his worldview. I must remain a refusenik. In the end he never asked me about myself; but talked incessantly about him. Trying to impress me, like on a first date.
Looking back on it I think he’s just trying to stoke any hots I may still have for him. He’s never bought into his own “friendship bullshit”;
he doesn’t even believe it about same sex friends. The universe is fundamentally competitive and we’re all crabs in a barrel trying to step on each other’s heads to get a better view. Eat or be eaten, baby! He made allusions to the fact that “you” only value things you work hard for… or things you’ve lost. Ha ha – zinger! A grenade lobbed at me.
The visit left me feeling uncomfortable – frustrated –
vaguely “one down” – but unable to put my finger on it. From the way his sisters treated me I have a horrible feeling he tells people I was the love of his life but wouldn’t give up my selfishly immoral lifestyle. That’s what he would do, the bastard, act like hewas the victimized one. I hope his leg heals crooked.
Probably a good thing I didn’t mention Jervaze – he looks so good but he’s totally non-nutritious and collapses like a creampuff on scrutiny. We’d have to live in Alabama – he’s made that very clear. I can’t even imagine him having a conversation with another person in front of me.
He has nofamily pictures. I’d drop in on him at work just to catch a glimpse of him interacting with humans but it’s the Pentagon ! They wouldn’t let me in. He’s only a repairman, too, so he probably has a completely fictitious personality there.
Still working on Waugh’s diaries. Hard to avoid the
conclusion that he became Catholic to avoid giving up his pride.
Just another elegantly exclusive men’s club. Anything to get out of “becoming human”. You know. The way Jesus did.
Almost midnight – last costume change of the evening. Pink and black lace, pink gladioli in my hair. Black tassels, the works. Gentleman Jim – now a magnate with a string of clubs – was in earlier – I was dancing my absolute best – wild applause – the crowd was chanting my name. But when I went to find him to ask him for a raise he was gone. Next time.
This is the time of the evening Zombiehood sets in. Jervaze comes in earlier and earlier – he asks me to come over, I don’t have to bring it up.
Made me promise to wake him. I told him I would be “merciless” with him.
He wanted to know “how merciless”. He is pretty cute. He wasn’t wearing my ring – said he took it off at work because it was bothering him. Uh oh!
I can imagine. What an idiot I was to give it to him. Tips have been good –
– I think I’ll buy a steak on my way over. He doesn’t eat well at all. I am so hungry I have been stealing saltines from the kitchen.
No excitement here. Neither Gina nor Mary pregnant as they thought. Turns out both have flu. The new girl, Maggie, has been telling me she’s got $35,000 in parking tickets. She is one of those see-through thin girls who can’t dance at all – but has a great sense of humor. She injects bute directly into her knees, as if she was a racehorse.
Blessed book! The joy, the solidity, the security this diary has afforded me all my life can’t be measured. Bizarre letter from my dentist thanking me for referring “Mr. Arlen” to them! Apparently Ryder is stalking me. Now I have to wear makeup to the dentist! Hope I don’t run into Ryder while wacked out on Novocain. Usual day of quotidian pursuits, washing lingerie & hair, filing, letters. Avril writes that Mason is moving in with a friend! He thinks it will be “better” for her. Bet the “friend” is female! Sure sounds like death knell to me – he dragged her all the way out there, ran busily through her money & lost his spark. Still other’s relationships are always so much clearer! Now we can be glad she’s not going to school – she needs to get out NOW.
Plush Palace – Mon – 11:40 PM 17 Oct 77
4 Dancers on tonight but Cindy and Linda walked out, ticked about my raise (I didn’t tell them.) So more dancing (and $$). Plus coffee machine broken and we need to order out so I treated myself to 2 Krispy Kremes. Ah, the simple joys. Five-year plan guy is back. His fave play? “Love is Alive” – unfortunately.
The most gorgeous autumn weather tonight driving here – my heart soared. ONE MORE SET! Then fling on fake fur “Shakespearean” coat, jump into El Diablo, off into the night. Bar deserted, tips unspeakable. Asked if I could cash a check with Randy he just handed me a $20 bill, so there’s gas. Kiki says she’s getting married, worked the whole evening on her guest list for Big Event in Fredericksburg. Reading Hardwick’s Seduction & Betrayal and appreciating it although something’s “off” about her. Why won’t the ventriloquist put down the dummy and just talk? And she’s just flat wrong about Woolf and Plath.
I brood about letting R. know where I work. Brave or stupid? Stupid, I think. Better class him with “dead end relationships”. I have plenty of people I’d never want to see again – Bruce and Kyro springs to mind. Other people I feel good about like Toss Sheffield. He’d be fun to see again. Could he handle my dancing? He had a fun “hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy” attitude in general towards effort & enterprise.
Insomniac
I can’t sleep
Because you’re gone
My muscles wake
My mind goes spinning on
And where your fingers
Plied and pruned my face
Night air is cold and
Caustic in its place
And where we turned and woke
In complex rhyme, I’m left
To face the music frayed by time
A waltz which once we won
Losing battle choreographed for one.
None to explore or
Appreciate my line though now at last
It’s incontestably mine.
12:10 PM- Plush Palace – Wed 19 Oct 77
Dance night, then dance the next day kind of rough. And tips are bad when the weather’s good – no one comes in. I seem to have a lot of bills – just turned on the heat – but I’m meeting them. Making some inroads today on Thomson’s Life of Frost. Randy fired Robin –
Yvonne needs $300 immediately because she just bought a piano. Well good luck getting it out of this crowd is all I can say. Paz’s “on call” because she left her husband and moved into the motel across the street. Let’s hope she shows up. Last time I saw her she was pretty depressed; said she gave him “the best four years” of her life. I have to get this all down in case I need it someday. Ryder used to be especially pissed when I got nostalgic for dancing. But dancing is its own little world.
7:30 PM- Plush Palace – Thu 20 Oct 77
This afternoon I was getting ready for work phone rang, I say hello and Ryder’s tight little voice says: (very meaningfully) Hello.
I turned the radio down (Lakmé) and said casually as I could, “How are you?”
He said he should enroll in FBI school after all the
trouble he’d had tracking me down.
(It couldn’t have been that hard since Mom and Dad’s
house sitter has been giving my # to all and sundry.) Said he was punished now for being a non-communicative procrastinator who should fling himself off the 14th St Bridge.
I told him I lived in Beltsville and danced in Virginia, refused to give further details. I didn’t let him get away with any of his garbage. He said I’d been in town since Sept 8 without contacting him. I said he’d made it pretty plain he didn’t like what I had to offer. Then why did I come back? I said, I like it here. Creep!
Like he owns the world!
He said, will you eat with me? Hmmm. Something
rattling in Pandora’s box. While I hesitated, he said don’t make me disguise myself
as a girl scout cookie salesman (he could get away with it, too.) He said he hasn’t gone out to dinner since our last night at Alfio’s!!! (I guess the Emmys don’t count but I said nothing.) Said he’s having to give back his furniture and sleep on an air mattress because he can’t make the payments. Aww.
This is the idiocy of buying furniture on time, but I still say nothing. So we’re meeting Babe’s Sun at 3:30.Sunday. Seems fairly safe… Rushed to library and took out every true murder book I could find. Just in case.
2 Nov – Plush Palace – 6:05 PM.
Ryder called this morning to “report in!” Just to chat about his day! No more of that, I said. I’m busy. Slam. I don’t chat and I’m not sorry and it’s too late to learn. Actually, feeling amazingly happy. Kiki showed me how to cut off my corn with an exacto knife. Instantly better! Still in Vol I of Life of Frost. He was a repulsive human being, all right. Nowhere near as fun as Agatha. Precious equilibrium recovered.
8:30 PM 8 Nov 77
I gave him the full treatment, poor guy. Red Italian boots, glittery eyeshadow, tight, tight jeans. Ho ho ho. Deliberately drove Connecticut Ave but no markers from the past reached out their claws. Felt strong and blissful.
I was first there (of course) so could order carafe of wine and think. Thinking,
I’ll just explain to him that my idea of friendship and intimacy requires a
degree of truth telling that appears to freak him out.
He wore his high heels, too. His hair is blonder, longer
and messier than I remembered and it suits him. Off to the Bahamas next weekend, he says for a “dive”. He wore the pinky ring I gave him (he says he can’t get it off.) But that holy glow, that shine he used to have is gone for me. I get it that he doesn’t know the pain he caused –
shallow people can’t. And that’s pitiable, really. He’s not just deaf in one ear, he’s deaf in his soul.
He has a carefully worked out a “barstool rationale” for what happened to us; we became lovers before we became friends.
I have no comment. Postponing sex would not have helped – and it might have made things worse dumping all the responsibility for timing on me. I think when he saw how easy it was to draw blood he couldn’t help doing it, and I was a fool and an idiot. I ordered the fruit and cheese plate but left before it arrived. Realize how much I want all this to be in the past. No future of any kind exists for us. Not even in fantasy. The future is what matters. Told him to give my regards to the folks at the Shalimar. He said he’d give me a buzz.
Bet I can finish Demon by Thanksgiving. Avril coming.
Lucky I have a second bedroom. Furnish it with Kliban posters, a
Plush Palace – 11:20 AM Sun 24 Sept – wrote a fourteen page letter to Avril tonight. There’s a very pretty blond here who looks just like Ryder – they could be mistaken for each other – but it’s not him.
9:40 PM – walls dry so I could hang paintings. What a difference. Reading Redinger’s bio of George Eliot, The Emergent Self. Like it very much. Turns out I love driving to work – 5Pm is rush hour on the Beltway – everyone’s coming home but I’m going out for the night! Makes me feel weirdly close to all those people. And apparently they feel close to me – though they could just be reacting to my bumper sticker (Colette was a Nudie Dancer). They don’t seem to get the literary reference.
Mon 3 Oct1977
I hear only from my sister Merrill who declares my book a “brilliant satire”. She wants to know why I work? Shouldn’t I tour with book? Sigh. Give me the money and leave me alone I say.
Spent the AM phoning around trying to find my book in all the stores. Only found it one place. Dropped note to publisher.
Out for Courvoisier with Erika who lectured me on my book. I ended up defending the Victorians saying everyone now thinks “honesty and openness” are going to save them but we don’t know enough about ourselves for real honesty and our lives are still based on “smothered panic” as far as I can see. (See Janet Case’s strictures to V. Woolf.) Well off to my double life. When I pull into the Plush Palace parking lot I have such a good feeling. Everything coming together. Down the old runway.
Bought the most wonderful gold stripper shoes that tie with ribbons and have clear Lucite six-inch heels. I finally have enough costumes to feel really professional – every set should be good. Randy always compliments me. I am slowly phasing my hair from red to blonde – seems to help with the tips. I can live on fruit and cream of wheat – only buy groceries with tip money. Little man down front muttering “fuck me-fuck me-fuck me” over and over but not loud enough to be evicted. Randy said I am the best dancer in Washington area.
Sat 8 Oct 1977
Giving a dinner party. Bought 8 old-fashioned glasses for 50 cents apiece, five floor pillows, peacock chairs and a glass dining table. Now I’m looking for a silk eiderdown (for my bed) in some violent color. Bought beautiful rose-lilac fabric for curtains. Randy gave me another raise without my even asking for one. I love my body again! After the long estrangement caused by Ryder…he deliberately tried to undermine my faith in my body. He would prefer bad sex with a slave as long as he can be boss. Wait – isn’t that the marriage he just got out of? Guess we all repeat ourselves.
7:30 PM Tues 11 Oct 77
I’m too fucking fragile. All my problems come from pretending I’m not. I look forward to old age when presumably throbbing metabolism, soaring hormones and plunging brain waves will have smoothed out. How to describe this scrambled day? I’ve been vibrating like a cilia ever since I got up this morning. Made dentist, gyno appts, shots for dogs, dog licenses, took angel puppies on an hour’s walk. Divorce lawyer on the 26th: “John Love”: seems appropriate. Clear the decks for writing.
My area of Beltsville very rural. Poetry in all directions. Reading Mildred Savage’s A Great Fall and getting lots of ideas. Vacuum cleaner to repair shop they say they can fix for under $15. I hate errands, a disgusting dribble of irreplaceable time. Rewarded myself by getting Sleeping Murder at the library. Already know Dr Kennedy is the murderer.
2PM Wed 12 Oct 77 – Plush Palace
Some men seem to interpret the fact that I’m a dancer as some sort of personal challenge to them. You can feel the spike of hostility. “You’re making me think about sex again!” Is it fear of rejection? Any aura of professionalism bothers them also. I always curtsy especially low to the hostile tables – they can never figure out whether I am mocking them or not AND THEY THINK I PROBABLY AM! I save them a lot of money by getting them thrown out early. One guy asked me how long it would take to get in bed with me. His erection was so obvious I almost asked, “And what is your little friend drinking?” but instead I said, “5 years.” He showed up next night, saying, “Day one of the five year plan!” I like those guys much better.
Final R conclusion: What a JERK! Jerk’s absolutely the right word – in instinctual reflex – no brain activity involved. Will I ever find a gorgeous man (blond, please) whose soul is connected to his brain?
9:20 PM Thurs 13 Oct 77
Shopping Loehmann’s yesterday with Maeve. 3 sweaters, silk jumpsuit with jacket & scarf, lime-colored silk jersey blouse, socks, boots, shoes, gloves – $140 cash. Nice. Saw a wonderful fake fur coat I’d like to come back for. It has a priceless air of Ken Russell camp. Buy it with my Folger money – Shakespeare would understand.
Maeve bought nothing. Couldn’t find one thing she liked, reading labels with the expression of Queen Victoria viewing a slum. And the free-for all dressing rooms full of naked people just astonished her. (Stuff I see every day.)
She wants to know exactly why Wealthier People rejected this clothing at its first price? They must know something we don’t. (Wondrous rhinestone earrings to dance in, too. M. expressed pious horror.) People like this amaze me. Why is your own taste of so little importance? Then went out to dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant – my choice – heavenly lamb shish kebab and a belly dancer! I loved it but Maeve had to rush out before dessert. But as it seems I can never be with ANYONE – even lovers – longer than 3 hrs it was just as well.
Folger morning started badly, hair looked mangy, face requires immediate skin graft. Dog hair even on NEW clothing (How is this possible?) Running an hour behind schedule (compulsively early me). May Miller gave me worst intro I ever hope to have, misquoted my poems and said I was a grad of the U of Minn. I thought I would sob with emotion 52 times during reading. My “woodcunt” poem did not go down well (even though it is definitely my most Shakespearean).
Damn. Then I could have strangled Erika Gelbfisz (at the after party) who is so scornful and cynical about everything you can’t even have an ordinary conversation with her. I felt like throwing my wine in her face saying, “Suppose you actually succeed in making us all feel rotten, what then? Fighting in the streets?”
Nothing’s worth anything in her opinion, so why is she alive exactly? This is what gets my hostility going but because I am at a party I DON’T WANT TO GET INTO IT. So I just growl and stew. I don’t care for Cocktail Party Standing Around – my right boot was trying to extinguish my left toe, a toe already threatened with extermination from dancing. This is real Italian leather so SHOULD ultimately fit my feet – I can see each boot slowly outlining my toes – if I don’t come down with gangrene first. Will try Wet Washcloth Stuffing tonight. (Still, I looked ravishing, my dear, in a blue gaucho three-piece suit and my red, red, high-heeled boots.) Poet Usher Glayne seemed impressed with me – but he’s an old man.
To bed with my main squeeze, Agatha Christie. Thank God for that woman. She has pulled me single handedly through the last three months.
I was just drifting off when Marc Kramer called. We talked ½ hr. He bought a sailboat and a BMW and wanted to be sure to let me know. I like the sailboat and the car but the desire to “impress” me diminishes him in my eyes. Sad to say. He’s presently at risk of being filed under “has no conversation”. Well, he did talk about work. They wanted to fire him from The Washington Project, then admitted he had been right all along. He’d love to have dinner sometime, “see how I live”. Uh oh. Can I keep this relationship out of the sexual? I don’t want to go to bed, even experimentally with someone Lacking the Necessary Spark. Could they make up for it by enthusiasm or step-by-step instructions? I hesitate. Is it ever possible to just date? It was AWFUL with Keith. Marc, however, has a gift of humor. And my parents like him. “No expectations?” I finally say. And he promises.
2:30 PM Dunkin Donuts, Eelsboro, Maine Fri. 26 Aug 77
Here I am again verging on home: have I changed? I like myself better,
I think I can say that. Thurs night was a big success. Devon came in with an IMMENSE bottle of white wine – he either needs it for himself or he’s trying to turn me into an alcoholic (with my full cooperation.) The clam and noodle thing I invented was quite good but he wasn’t ready to eat till nine and we didn’t get to bed till midnight where he revealed a sexually savage side to his nature that has been previously unseen. So maybe he was nerving himself. (I loved it). We finished the housecleaning and were off to the airport by 11.
Fairly silent in the car, though he was tender. When I
mentioned he might come down to DC he said he didn’t think there was much of a possibility – so now I’m worrying that I’ve been pushed ontoBad Girl Island while he pines for Pure Young Innocent English girl with who he would NEVER do those enjoyably awful things. (She’s 21!!!! He knew her 24 hrs!!!) I shouldn’t be silly. I really can’t ever “lose” him. I think he loves me and everything else is just scar tissue. Devastating airport goodbye – he asked me to “write soon”. I’m probably lucky he loves me as much as he does. I was looking damn good if I do so say so myself in backless red halter top and tight, tight jeans. I do want him to remember me as beautiful.
11:30 AM Sat 27 Aug 77
Gobsmacked! Mom & Dad are on Ryder’s side!!! They
HATE him! In other words, they will defend anybody rather than me. They say of course R “behaves badly” if I am having an “affair” (don’t you love the archaic term?)
with Devon! I say he doesn’t even know about Devon, plus we weren’t exclusive BY HIS CHOICE plus we were BROKEN UP. But everything still seems to be my fault. Incredibly, they think I am not SUFFERING ENOUGH. Here are people who have lectured me all my life to find any excuse for other people’s bad behavior – life has surely injured them somehow. They didn’t have Advantages! According to them I am the only human being alive who doesn’t get an excuse – I should just “be different”.
How, asks mom, can I meet “suitable young men” while dancing?
Suitable young men! (They like Marc Kramer who’s a complete horndog and a political troglodyte. But at least he can afford me!) Am I living in a Trollope novel? I am so annoyed I don’t want to accept their hospitality but I really don’t want to rent a room in the House of the Damned aka
Burnside Inn. which doesn’t take dogs – who wept to see me again like children – then immediately got over it.
Dad’s a very restless retiree I must say but don’t ask me what to advise. I’m too ignorant. My advice to everyone is “write”;
Naturalists say, “Be alone in nature” and religious people say “Find God.”
Reading Vol I. V. Woolf’s diary (so different from A Writer’s Diary)
Hitting the gin. Mom thinks I’m taking “bad” advice from messed up writers – “modeling” myself on failures and suicides – (Dad calls them “degenerates”) – because it’s “cool”. That’s why I need the gin. I need the gin the first minute I wake up. Must try not to be such a limp limpet. Told Mom if R calls at night not to come get me.
Sun 9:30 AM 28 Aug 77
Mom washing windows. God – I think I am supposed to offer help but I Refuse. I need to get the hell out of here. Mom says I can’t add my laundry to hers 9she sends it out)but have to go to the laundromat in town.
So the Battle is On. I’ll just go around smelling bad so there. Mom and Dad are sailing down the Inland Waterway but not till Oct. Have a horrible feeling I’m not out of the woods on this Ryder thing. Maybe I can get established in Washington without him knowing. If I go back to him I will despise myself. Keep Devon in secret as my lucky talisman.
9;45 PM
Drunk, fat and exhausted. Parents had cocktail party
inviting Island Poet. (Published in The New Yorker.) Tried to give her the rundown on my summer but it sounds a complete waste – “Wrote half of a no-good book, got my other book rejected”. Of course my summer doesn’t sound like anything with the sex & love left out!!! Am I trapped at the end of a cul de sac? No; there is something there. I just can’t
find it yet.
Dad said he’s sure my life provides a lot of stories, but
maybe what I need is a PhD in Eng Lit! Mom’s reaction to that is rigid disapproval. (He’ll never make that mistake again.) To explore the boundaries of one’s soul is Selfish. One Lives to Serve (or to Claim one is Serving. So, if you’re too stupid to know you’re selfish its win-win for the small-minded!)
Tried to read The Clocks but its Agatha Christie’s
worst. Absolutely meaningless. Poor Virginia Woolf going through a very bad, painful period. Obviously sick, recording only weather & food.
Now theorists act like she was “mental” not liking to look at herself but
Vita Sackville-West felt the same way. Couldn’t look in a mirror, wouldn’t buy evening dresses or go to parties! (And she was on the sexual prowl, unlike poor VW.) I think their era was actually worse about beauty than we are – they gave it a “magic” “classical” quality so it was very much restricted. We see more beauty – and in weird places.
Otherwise how explain Leslie Caron? Jeanne Moreau? Charlotte Rampling?
Hardly classic beauties but wonderfully, rightfully worshipped as goddesses. I see hope for all of us.
8:00 AM Mon 29 Aug 77
It’s real Agatha Christie weather – fog so dense you
can’t see the water. Nevertheless the ferry’s running – Mom took
Dad down. I’m feeling successful, sober and sane. I’m doing exactly what I want and will find my own way. I’m determined to be happy and not develop some kind of “rejection phobia.” Not knock out the props of
my own happiness. Accept the fact that my pride has been hardest hit.
PHANTOMS
The ghost awaits his chance
Inside us all
Revenge de-bodies –
Anticipates the dark
Impatience ill-concealedto
Grasp our foot
Beneath the turning of the stair
Reveal a face as blank as
Nightmare whose
Icy, seaweed coils entwine mistrust
Around our throats
Suppress our breath
While we dead live.
4:20 PM Letter from the Folger Shakespeare Library
inviting me to read Oct 13! Mom was impressed. 20 mins pays
$50! I’ve hit the big time! Wish I’d known this when Island Poet
asking me why I don’t just kill myself and get it over with. M & D
very flush with money right now. Got their $$ back
from NY State bankruptcy but Dad always in a panic that we’ll figure out how rich he is.)
9:00 PM Called Shoulders. He said dogs will be all right for a couple of days but he’s being evicted at the end of Sept! Too bad!
Such a nice house. (And in Chevy Chase!) So I’m spared kennel
fees for 2 days at least. Ryder must be back at work (if he still has a job).
Reading old NY Times Book Reviews in front of a roaring fire.
Dishwashing break – I said I’d do them. Pick up Agatha Christie afterwards –
– the preferred reading for “shock cases”. (She was a shock case herself.
Absent in the Spring is very fine).
Island 10 PM Monday night, 5 Sept 77
In bed in the Barnacle drinking coffee, eating bread
with honey. Delicious solitude. Can’t go to the Main House because Genevieve’s friends from Boston are there – they no sooner arrived for this Fantasy vacation than they decided they need a divorce. Fortunately, they are quiet about it. The one thing they can’t deal with is their dog –
tomorrow I have to drive him to the ferry. Oh well. I’ve been enraptured by this delicious solitude – beachcombing is very healing. I guess I am just a solitary sort – don’t really care for people at all, I fear. Last night a bad dream about Ryder – treating me cruelly and me, paralyzed. In the daytime – in my conscious mode – I remember everything good about him, his lips mouth and fingers – his constant air of playfulness.
The way we fit perfectly together like interlocking puzzle pieces
– nice that he was short – my mirror opposite, only male. My lost twin.
But nature abhors a balance, apparently.
Must remind myself how he had to try to turn it to his
advantage, throwing the whole system off and spinning my world into
frozen space. Now he doesn’t know where I am (although he might suspect.) No phone in this building thank God.
Tomorrow goodbye Maine – back to DC to house-hunt.
M & D have been good about not dragging me to things – enjoyed the Smythes sculpture show – parties not so much. Parties seem like
“consensus building events” where I’m fated to be perennially on the outs. Ford Madox Ford made some kind of statement about how
people have to achieve a level of “ordinariness” to be “successful” –
I can’t remember the exact quote. Plus I lack the patience to look it up.
Ryder felt I despised him intellectually, which of course, I did.
I don’t think of myself as stratified, but heis and when you’re with a stratified person, you become so. Sometimes I am in mourning for the part of me that died. I wish I could get my letters back – but they were only love-letters. Must seem now like the ravings of an insane person.
Well, there’s no reason to see him again. I think the casual relationship is beyond me. I hope in the future I’ll be careful of men going mach one across the sexual barrier. I’ve got to stop looking at sex as a vitamin requiring periodic intravenous doses.
Sitting on the deck even though it’s just about to rain –
back from long bike ride watching family barbecues. Will I ever have children? I feel so exactly balanced between Ryder and Devon like a ball in the air
– but could fall at any moment. Finished The Edwardians – made me long to read Trollope. Vita Sackville-West’s work is like a death wish.
Maybe Pevensey Library can rise to some Trollope. Downy woodpecker
2 ft away.
Finished The Dark Island! An outrageous howl of
self-pity! Mom & Dad called all worried about Avril. She & Mason had to borrow money after selling $4500 worth of stock in June! Dad wants to deal financially with Mason instead of his own daughter! I was cool and stayed out of it.
I don’t even want to imagine what they say to the others about me. I sent Avril a letter that said I would buy her a round trip plane ticket any time she wanted – even for just a short visit. Talk about work and suffering! I’m sure she feels stuck in every way with this guy. Down to a dinner of bouillon & smoked oysters.
Tues 16 Aug 77
D’s & my relationship “plateaus.” Each of us may have
given all we can spare. At least there’s no Mutual Punishment.
Womantried to get me into conversation at mailboxes – she’s an accountant whose boyfriend works on missiles. God they both sounded like the dullest people imaginable. Tried not to blanche.
6:00 PM Couldn’t resist $10 phone call to Avril. She’s
hanging in there but doesn’t like Calif so far. She’s not going to school because Mason thinks he ought to be able to pay for it! So, so sick after using her money to live on. She’s looking for some clerk job. Still thinks
this guy might be The One, even though sex is once a week and she’s not satisfied. After that I called Devon who should be back from psychomotor class but he wasn’t in.
Midnight – Could get psychotic about D not returning my call – however I refuse. Let the poor man live. He lacks time for an ACTUAL other girl (although I know there are plenty of letters & phone calls with girls he cultivates.)
10AM – Wed 17 Aug 77
Devon woke me up in the middle of the night, wondering if I was “psychic”. He’d had a horrible day – had to take a “pregnant friend” to the clinic for abortion (not his kid.) This is a new one. Can’t imagine him lying about something so bizarre – I didn’t ask for details –
just told him it was a “sudden impulse” (true). Called the bank – my money was in but only $987 (it’s never as much as you expect.) From shit comes flowers, as they say. Called Marc Kramer and left message whether I can hitch a ride to Maine with him (he goes almost every weekend).
Finished Life of Waugh. Cramps.
Sat 20 Aug 77
Poor Devon! He brought pizza and a very good brandy –
(too good – drinking it woke me up in the middle of the night) suggested a movie. I said I wanted to Talk. Told him all about my week; everything –
novel, phone call with Avril, breaking up (mentally) with Ryder because I “realized there’s another way”. Felt it was time to share. He asked if it had anything to do with him I said it did but he shouldn’t panic – it’s a good thing. He asked did I want to know about other girls? I said yes. Would I be jealous?
Maybe – but it wouldn’t impact on him. He talked about his friend who had the abortion – she’s ready to take him on but his feelings for her are “clinical”.
(Uh oh. She’s in trouble. He could be lying to me about Who’s the Daddy or lying to himself, most like.) She’s 2 yrs older than him.
Then there’s a girl he met on the train – they’re just friends so far so he doesn’t know her well – but he’s curious. Then there’s the English girl – he definitely wants to bring her over but neither of them can afford it so far. He seems to have a sex/romance dichotomy going so
I’m not jealous exactly – it would be like being jealous of someone’s fantasies. However, it doesn’t make me respect him more. And he instinctively knows that – he can’t be the daring demon lover or swaggering ski coach
with me when I know too much about him. Fortunately, I suggested we bring the mattress up to the deck – we had a big, hilarious struggle through the house but it was worth it. Wonderful making love in the fresh night.
Gave him the full treatment making him yelp like a coyote.
Cold in the AM like Maine – hard to get out of bed but he was worried someone would see us so we had to push mattress through
sliding doors to dining room floor at 6 AM. Layers of secret lives! He is SO DIFFERENT from the way he seems but aren’t we all! Drove to the Idyllwild Mkt for breakfast – got lost as least six times but who cares it’s a glorious day – bought peaches, blueberries and mocha java beans.
Then we went swimming – stopping after at the mailbox. Rejection of Secaire from HBJ! What a blow and in front of Devon of all people!
Worst of all was editor’s comment – I had fallen between 2 stools – “straight” and “gothic.” Ugh. Lowers my opinion of myself in my own eyes.
Fortunately, I didn’t cry.
Devon did his best to comfort me. He compares it to
skiing which is 4,000 failures to one success. Said it’s ridiculous to consider myself a failure. I thanked him said he really cheered me up –
he said it made him look forward to ministry!!! (He can’t wait to get his hands on some “troubled young women”.) He’s going to a 3 day
retreat at Peterborough. Period coming on. It doesn’t faze Devon. Reading Harold Nicolson’s diaries which are quite a treat. I was afraid he would
be all Churchillian.
2;30 PM Mon 22 Aug 77
Can’t write, so ready to return to Maine. So desperate I
watched TV (Rhoda: Apotheosis of the Career Girl). Feeling crushed about Secaire and Demon isnot far behind. When your mind is divided it’s hard to go on. I always feel genre works actually have the potential for highest dramatic quality – mystery, discovery, transformation, revelation – telling the complete truth about everything but I just don’t know how to convey that. Also, I’m kind of worried that Devon will see my departure as “because” we punctured the fantasy with honesty ; ie I’m “punishing” him –
(that’s what Ryder would think, plus he would howl “I deserve it” then behave even worse) and of course it sort of is true . “New data” does affect everything. But I miss the dogs & worry about them. Dad has yet to figure out their gender (calls them both “boy”).
Went clothes shopping got GOREGOUS skinny jeans!
Look so good. Called Devon but had to leave an awkward message with Random Guy (ugh I hate that.) Thank God for diaries! Best therapy
possible. So much cheaper than a shrink. Diagnosis? Sheer greed. I always want everything.
Alysse Aallyn 