Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #WorldsLongestDiary

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Thurs. 19 Oct 67


    This is all I need: I’m in the infirmary with a fever and swollen glands. My throat making me super miserable! No sailing for me – parents suggested it instead of Parents’ Day. These blankets are so stingy; I have all the blankets they had in the blanket closet and still I’m shivering. Damn things are razor thin. It’s the same room I was in last time, The Alysse Aallyn Memorial Chamber. At least they have a bathtub (not that they let you use it enough.)


    I used to visit Shawn here when he had his shin splints. Back when he loved me. Snuck in an Andrew Garve – pretty thin plot. Begged Nostrils to let me call Aynsley for a copy of Fathers and Sons. She gave me pills instead – there’s everything wrong with modern science in a nutshell. (One of the pills is a charming turquoise.) I’m sure the Russians could cure whatever I have. (Freud would not be a good idea for a swollen gland sufferer.)

    Miss Wickersham in to say Shawn Kobler just arrived with a head injury from soccer! That boy is very accident prone. Will he open his eyes to find the year erased and think we are still dating! There’s a plot! When Miss Wickersham’s back was turned I used the office phone to call Mum – took some pleasure in alarming her. But I had to call because of the sailing. They don’t know what they’ll do now (I know. They’ll go sailing.) Avril has a boil she has to take penicillin for and they’re taking HER!

    Now I’m too warm but that beats an arctic fit. I don’t even need a book I’m so busy wondering who Shawn will be when he wakes up. Jekyll? Hyde?

    Fri. 20 Oct 67
    Accidentally woke the nurse prowling around trying to find out what time it was (5 AM.) Mom called at ten said they decided to go sailing without me. (Natch.) Mom offered to take me to tea (“show me off” was how she put it) at the Annual Service Committee Meeting. I suppose Casey and I could go before the play. She invited us to spend the night but we GAVE to get back here at 11PM at the latest – it’s Halloween Parties – what with the Tunnels & the Crypt the world’s queerest entertainment. I’m going as a wart – which ought to be effortless considering my swollen glands.

    Mom reported something weird – she USED that soap Robin sent me – it broke open and there’s a tiny switchblade inside! I begged her to SAVE it for me – she is dubious. Aren’t these illegal? It’s an inch long – press a button and the blade comes winging out. I won’t thank Robin but as he must have known I covet it tremendously. Avril was so taken with it she said, “Do we have to tell her?”

    Slept all day – Nostrils is going off and Mrs. Wickersham coming on. Bazarov so pitiful in Fathers & Sons. Paul Petrovich is the most sympathetic character; very finely drawn. “He strolled as far as the end of the garden…lifted his gaze to the sky. But his fine dark eyes reflected only the glimmer of the stars. He was not born a romantic and his soul, so dry and elegant, passionate and misanthropic in the French way, was incapable of reverie.” Bravo!

    Sun 22 Oct 67
    Slept through Vespers and what everyone tells me was a very fine sermon by Dr Elton Trueblood. Up on dorm wrote some godawful poetry, read 10 p of one book and 7 of another, then into Casey’s room to bother her. She won’t allow herself to be bothered, however. So here I am back, night and day all fatally screwed up.
    McKenzie’s parents pointed me out to her and said I was “the most beautiful girl” on campus. Tell the photographers is all I can say. Photos look like Mt Rushmore in a light drizzle.

    Thurs 26 Oct 67
    Easy to become lethargic and apathetic in a system depending on routine. Master Gwill doing me the honor of treating me like an adult, shaking me out of my coma. Tells me he has never seen so much “natural talent” blah blah blah. Now I’m embarrassed about all the mean things I’ve said about him. (He likes Steinbeck! So bourgeois!)

    He presented me with a ticket to see Marcel Marceau! He was a little crushed that I have already experienced this but OBVIOUSLY it will be different as that was YEARS AGO. I had to say I was seated behind a pillar at the Paris Opera and could barely see (although maybe that was Mme Butterfly.)

    When they let me out of the infirmary I knew I had an excuse to miss dinner so I put on ski pants and a ski sweater, tied my hair back and walked all the way through Girls’ Bounds and Boys’ Bounds down to the farm. Climbed a dead-looking tree and watched the horses eat and the sun set. Cleared my eyes and lungs.

    It occurred to me that it doesn’t matter who I am. As I sit in this tree I can be anybody! None of my failures or mistakes even matter because I don’t matter. What a relief! Felt I was in a state of grace. The pageant of the world’s beauty is the model of perfect giving.

    Bible class just ending. We are reading The Great Divorce. “So why desire truth if the truth hurts?” asked Biff Withers who is the only person in this class who ever asks an intelligent question.

    “Knowledge brings freedom and freedom is worth having” was the answer.

    Uh oh! Don’t tell the slaves about freedom. You could see the restless stirring. I nearly stood up and cheered. But of course I didn’t!

    I have far too much to read. 5 books in 2 weeks, 3 of them being over 300 p long. Insanity, that’s what it is! Rather read Polidori’s The Vampyre… Occasional flashes of Byron do come through, that magnificent pagan! He did become a sadistic, soulless, stupid fiend when in fact he was neither stupid nor soulless. Shows what can happen.

    I feel in Byron lies the secret of the world’s malaise. Must steal him for Lord Noone. When he broke bottles on the ceiling of the room below his wife accouchement I was his forever. It’s the Bad Boy Problem.

    Lindles came in and asked, “What’s that?”
    “I said, “Writer’s practice book”.
    “Are you writing about me?”
    “I am now!”

    Fri. 27 Oct 67
    Stunning day, warm for the end of Oct. I ought to be
    a) Sitting in my tree; or
    b) Fast asleep;
    c) Reading a ridiculously romantic novel and loving every minute of it

    Instead here I am in 214 with have a red sign on my door so I can read and eat brownies in peace and quiet. Take 3 aspirin; make a pot of Imperial Gunpowder. I am Insanely Happy. There is a man-made pond about thirty yards away – I could sit here forever just watching the cows come to drink. Who knows what the future holds? At this very moment the Lord of the Manor’s son may spy me through his telescope and say, “Who IS that girl! I like the cut of her jib!”

    Possibly dementia has set in. I promise to start work in JUST ONE MOMENT; first I must arrange clipboard, pens, pencils, Kleenex, script, all effluvia pertaining to my role. Also Master Gwill’s book on Method Acting. And an article on cinema verité stuffed into my mailbox by some kind hand.

    Tomorrow: the City of Brotherly Love. Last year I enjoyed the Annual Meeting very much; wagering with my sister about the storms raging beneath the participants’ mute and painted masks.

    Sun. 29 Oct 67
    Just saw Paul Newman in Hud. Don’t think it proves anything we didn’t know before. PN sexy, certainly, in an undershirt. It must be awfully exhausting to continually play alcoholics! Note: women do NOT want someone to rip their dresses off, unless it’s under laboratory conditions with us running the experiment.

    Beales used to say loneliness was being by yourself and having a plane pass overhead. I LOVE imagining the lives of others when they don’t know you’re looking in – don’t even know you exist. I’m quite a peeper as I drive thru the townhouse sections of Phila. Trying to write a poem about a man I saw wearing a blue turtleneck and standing under a Tiffany lamp. He was doing something with his hands – tearing up letters, I imagined.

    Casey asked me if I wanted to know why didn’t I ring the doorbell? Because that would WRECK it, I said. She said, “You have a lot of inhibitions.” Taking her to my tree this afternoon to see if she can climb it. We’ll see who has inhibitions.

    Casey and I stalk the streets of Phila in matching wool dresses, tights & hair bows. Tea with folks NOT FUN – they don’t like Casey and show it. They would like to believe everything bad about me is caused by Someone Else. (I’m sure Casey’s mother wishes to believe the same.) Homecoming magical, however. Love the pauses, the stares the silences. We did not talk about Dan!

    Mon. 30 Oct 67
    Just couldn’t manage Too Late In the Year – turned my poem into a story. I need to tell a story! I’ve got a first draft. Oddest sense when I’m writing that I’m telling my own future. You’d think I’d make it sparkly and happy like Casey’s stories but no – they end dreadfully – I can’t help myself. It’s Bluebeard’s wife, creeping along the corridor touching all the doorknobs. If she doesn’t open them she won’t really know. But of course, she does know. “Sus-tension.” That is what I’m looking for.

    Halloween 1967 (Tuesday)
    You dear battered, war-scarred, dog-eared book: I love you so! I know I must have delusions of grandeur refusing to destroy any of these books I have written. Containing plenty of things I’m ashamed of! As I look through this particular book it seems far more comprehensible than the fifteen or so volumes that preceded it. Yet I could not possibly destroy these tear-stained annals, much as I would like to. They are as embarrassing as a friend who heard all the confidences of a long dead love affair yet remains certain of her welcome.

    Not only journals but also stories, fantasies and ghastly, ghastly poems – each contain a seed that may someday sprout. Shall I someday sit at my desk, cynically accomplished yet utterly without ideas and chance upon one of these barely sane mementoes?

    Asked Miss Cluny what she thought of Too Late in the Year. She said she read it twice over before going to sleep and “wants to discuss every word with me.” I must have blanched because she said, “Not to cut it up.” So she must have liked it.

    Fifteen bucks for senior pictures! Sounds like highway robbery but I got the parents on the line.
    “Your father sends his love,” chirruped Mother, while I chomped hard on my cigar and said, “Hold the love and send the cash, sweetheart.”

    Aynsley wants to room with Lindles and I want to room with Casey – everyone would be happy but little Hitler – Aka Miss Womrath – is giving us trouble. She thinks it is Very Bad for us Ever to get what we Want.

    Wed. 1 Nov 67
    Here I sit in Senior Play Rehearsal (Under Milkwood) bored to shriek point.
    Served ½ my deten this AM sweeping out the lakehouse & scrubbing canoes. Then ran around the lake (because why not?)

    I am failing to get the measure of Mrs. Ogmore-Pritchard and wish I was a narrator like Toss Sheffield (Second Voice.) Master Gwill says he will work with me third period – ugh. I want to be very Freudian and invent something to account for her super-cleanliness but doubt if he’ll approve. I want to make it the grandfather’s and NOT the mother’s fault the way it usually is.


    Halfway through Nicholas & Alexandra; so replete with echoes of sights seen & persons known I feel like I lived it myself. Nobody knew what was coming but they should have (Fr revolution.) Next will read Grand-Duchess Marie’s Education of a Princess. Translated from the Danish, I assume? Or would it be French at the end of her life?


    Matt Romer just mounted the podium and delivered the most asinine speech about Taking the Play Seriously. That’s not the problem – the problem is stage fright. Half the class can’t get word out.

    Have a disturbance detention – means I have to study downstairs in Collection – a frozen, brilliantly lit chamber littered with desks designed for pygmy mutants. Just as well – have a paper to write on The Great Rehearsal and I haven’t started it yet.

    Here goes Matt with his Irish accent! Let’s just hope there are no Irish (or Welsh) people in the audience.

    Master Gwill is taking Casey & Jack B., me & Matt to see Bonnie & Clyde! After reading Pauline Kael’s in the New Yorker I am so excited! (I like her a lot better than Bosley Crowther who relentlessly seizes the obvious.)

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Friday 6 Oct 67


    My personal feeling about novels, poems & plays is you get out of them who you are. They are mirrors. Alas at this institution Art is seized as a Chance to Indoctrinate the Faithless in Someone Else’s Opinion. Which if you don’t regurgitate on test you get a “Z” and are sent to: “The Principal for Punishment. The Whole Class Will Remain Three Hours After School…Silence!” (Miss Goggins.) I guess Kafka (who lived at HOME and worked in insurance) knew what he was talking about.

    Mon 9 Oct 67
    “It’s really true that nothing matters…in coconut grove.”
    Any coconut groves left in this weary world? My usual answer to depression is to plunge myself into reading – psychoanalysis this time – Jung & Freud.

    Much more satisfying than poor Swinburne with his roster of pain& struggle. Novel I’m currently writing, To Die at Noone currently retitled As I Weave My Winding Sheet.

    Tues. 10 Oct 67
    I am going insane but I still don’t know whether I’m doing it on purpose or not. The thing I hate about insanity is its implication of weakness. Maybe it’s just my plan to get out of this place and be allowed to go home. I must be strong. I wouldn’t submit myself to Freud – I can’t imagine sharing the planet with any being who really knew me. Poor foolish girl with delusions of grandeur…

    Depression can be so subtle you don’t know it’s over until it’s gone. Currently lying in bed allowing its waves to wash over me. Every one of my nerves has a thousand split ends. Someone dropped books in the hall in front of me and I just stood there and screamed. Wept in the most degrading fashion in front of an ever-enlarging series of sympathetic fossils. Pre-menstrual distress was decided upon. Miss Beeston offered sleeping pills!!! Didn’t accept – who knows what she would do to me once I was in a helpless condition. She’s the one rumored to have murdered her lover with a javelin during the 1936 Olympics. Miss Cluny offered psychiatric help (also refused.)

    Master Gwill did one good and one bad thing today. He gave me a B+ on a paper I personally thought was trashy (Bad) and told me my writing showed “maturity”. (Good. There’s a new one.) As I Weave getting increasingly amaranthine soon to break down utterly. Alas. Simply don’t know how to manage transitions. Yet.

    Still hoping to date (I never learn.) Don’t want to be alone forever. Aynsley and I not getting along very well – she’s going through a bad period too. It’s Quits Again with Mr. Handsome. Plus she finds my insomnia very hard to handle (I don’t like it either.) Climbed a tree the night of the Fall Dance (I had to get away from Simon somehow) and fell in love with a voice I heard up there. Don’t know who it was. I was very nice at the dance. (I even danced with Scooter Obie!)

    Midnight, Fri 13 Oct 67
    If this is unreadable do not blame poor Little Me. Drank coffee till my hands jazzed. Tues. night was an all time depression low. From that point one can only rise. Reading Freud’s life by Ernest Jones has given me “neurasthenia”. Split completely into two personae, one speaking and one pretending to listen. Master Gwill took one of us aside (but which one?) and told us not to waste our talents and wither away. We looked at him owl-eyed.

    He told me to put on a “one woman show”. I don’t want to do THAT but it does suggest an Escape Route. Senior project at a Phila. Theatre would give me two weeks off! Must investigate.

    Strange letter from Dan including one ticket to The Homecoming! Hmm…if I went who would I meet there? I sent him a cold letter saying you broke up with ME and demanding the other ticket.

    Then called Mom all excited that I might be living at Pewter Hill during Senior Project I got a tart lecture about Changing My Ways and Not Roaming the Halls At Night. (But I’ll have my own floor!)

    Came a cropper with Aynsley too who wants to “clean together”. Ugh! It is bad enough doing it all without someone watching me! (We already have white glove inspections!) How will I make it to June? I was hoping to get TB but it looks like that’s not going to happen. Uh oh, burned my finger with an illegal candle and serve me right.

    Sun 15 Oct 67
    Cured myself with a meal per to Philly where Casey and I saw Pinter’s magnificent Accident! Bogarde, Seyrig, York, Knox. What can I say! We were both overcome! Every scene was a mini-movie – the abandoned dining table. The broken car. Remaining in memory forever.


    Master Gwill brought me a pile of theatre books. Yay! Realized even though I am not happy there is no reason to be depressed. Dinner with Casey at the Nichols’ (pizza) where she is babysitting.

    11:40 PM
    Weird phone calls from “IBM Computer Research.” Both Aynsley and I talked to them till we got angry. Fishy. Suspect Dan’s roommates.

    Mon. 16 Oct 67
    3 gory chapters of Amos in Bible. Ripped up pregnant women, disturbed bones & general acts of O.T. vandalism. Feeling annoyed that this is presented to us as “philosophy”. Wrote my Bible paper on “Freedom & Discipline” about psychoanalysis and submitted it with considerable relish. Ha! We’ll see what he has to say about that!


    Enjoying NY Times Book Review about Games People Play. Agreeing with Dr. Berne about behaviorism. Freud says “personal fulfillment” as a goal is naïve.

    Try to talk about theatre with Master Gwill. He is rather slick and shallow and trying to maneuver me into a “liberal arts college” because “it is a very good thing.” Feel I’m being “indulged” so I can be “managed.” But he has the good idea of starting a hobby called Actors Seminar. I promised him I’d join.

    Dan called me at lunch at his most pathetic. Promised to send the other ticket. Who would I go with? I said Casey, wouldn’t that be appropriate? His ex-girlfriends out for the evening together! He said only if we talk about him. I said that’s guaranteed. Hung up the phone to Dropped Jaws on Girls’ End. Am I a monster or a role model? Thoughts are divided – it is neck and neck with disapproval having a SLIGHT edge. Just the way I like it.

    Reed and I teamed up in English together. I continually underestimate that boy but I think he underestimates himself. I was so afraid he’d sneer at my poetic talents but he performed my dialog with respect (he has yet to write his own.) And it’s about him! Still, he refuses to join Actors Seminar. We tried walking out of class together but we were out of step. Invited him to tea with my parents Parents Day if his aren’t coming. He says, “I hate tea.”

    I said, “Now I remember.”
    He said, “You think it’s the cure for everything.”
    I said, “It is.”
    He said, “To each his own escape…” Uh oh.
    Is that a yes or no?

    A Good Acting Exercise for Actors Seminar would be…
    a) show you love someone without speaking or touching them.
    b) Same; someone you’re uncomfortable with


    Here’s my dialog:
    Girl: Persecuted recluse who likes to be nice to everyone in hopes of making friends. Plaintive.
    Boy: Young rebel caught up in the novelty of rebellion.
    Scene: The Varsity Hockey Field on Friday night. Girl’s attention drawn to Boy who is running around field whistling.
    G; Who’s that?
    B: What?
    G: Who are you, swooping around like that?
    B: It’s really fun. You should try it.
    G: Yes, but who are you?
    B: It’s only Clarence.
    G: Clarence do you feel all right?
    B: Yes.
    G: Then why are you swooping like that?
    B: Don’t call it swooping. Swooping is a coarse word.
    G: Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just the word that came to mind.
    B: If I don’t swoop it makes my head ache strangely.
    G: Maybe you should go to the infirmary.
    B: They can do nothing for me there.
    G: Oh well, then, I’ll leave you to you –
    B: Please don’t. Isn’t the moon wild tonight?
    G: You should see the lake! It looks like silver punch bowl of grape juice! And then when the moon went behind a cloud it looked like – I can’t remember what else it looked like. It was only seconds ago and yet I can’t remember.
    B: Maybe I should go look.
    G: No, it wouldn’t work.
    B: Why shouldn’t I look? I’ll go if you want.
    G: I’d rather swoop.
    (They swoop for a while.)
    G: I guess I just don’t have the technique.
    B: You look funny.
    G: Let’s go to the lake!
    B: No, it’s probably all gone by now.
    G: How could it be?
    B: Well, the part I didn’t tell you…
    G: Are you drunk?
    B: Have you ever seen a drunk person walk this straight?
    G: No.
    (They walk awhile.)
    G: I don’t feel right. It’s like we’re on different wavelengths.
    B: Or planets.
    G: You don’t seem all there.
    B: Is anybody all there? Don’t you find this place emotionally stifling? Every once in awhile you’ve just got to get away.
    G: I go for a lot of walks but I still feel chained down.
    B: Yeah, I know what you mean.
    G: I wish we could go to the top of the hill and just take off.
    B: Fly away! Yeah, yeah!
    G: I’m so glad you understand me.
    B: Isn’t it a groove?
    G: I’ve been looking all my life for someone to understand me.
    B: This is like The Early Show. I just want to have fun. I’m not one who wants to go around understanding people. This whole evening is starting to feel like a bad trip. I’ll take an 8×12 cell to a neurotic girl any day.
    (Girl bursts into tears.) END

    Wed 18 Oct 67
    Devouring Freud voraciously. I am on the last chapter. Now to The Interpretation of Dreams which I won’t rest until I read.


    I had a dream myself last night. It was more of a nightmare. I was at a party wearing my RA t-shirt talking loudly about how much I hated Robin and how I never wanted to see him again. So when he emerged from the crowd I was frightened! He had a skull like death – his eyes were black pits – he was garishly made up with lots of rouge on his yellow-powdered face. His hair seemed stiff and dyed – I was terrified but I didn’t want to take back what I’d said. I backed right up into a closet – the last thing I saw was his arrestingly ugly face. He never spoke, touched me or changed expression – he was like a wax figure in a horror museum. The closet was very small with sliding doors like I used to have in my room at Brockton. Genevieve wrote “Alysse is a nothing” inside it for lack of a better insult.

    I know the dream went on and on but I forget it at that point.

    Interesting about closets! We played a lot of games in that closet and my memory – the smell of the wood, the shoes, etc – was perfect. I used to read The, Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in there just in case…The dream reawakened the small and I can smell it right now.

    According to Freud dreams are wish fulfillment. I don’t think so.

    DREAM OF FREUD’S WOLFMAN

    The window opens of its own accord.
    He’s catapulted forward; waked.
    Outside, the walnut tree is hung with wolves
    Each to its branch; they watch him

    Blankly. Stillness has its
    Consequence. They are fat
    As lambs ready for castration; round
    As dogs; white as mother’s underdrawers.


    Such tails! Thick tails
    Perked and listening!
    Blue snow rumples up the bedclothes; stiffens
    Into plaster. This sky leads nowhere.


    The child’s eyes are frozen like the window
    They do not close; this tree
    Is butchered at the crown; it will
    Not grow.


    The wind that frosts the room is welcome
    Stirring like a scream and like a scream
    It alters what it sees.
    The wolves levitate.


    What they know the child
    Must discover.


    By the way, now that I know what neurasthenia is, give me depression any day. Speaking of Freud Casey says Genevieve “resents” our mother. Like Electra! Must confess I love Mom a little more than Dad. Genevieve has always been the opposite.

    Sat on the hearth in Dr. Gilmour’s East Room seminar, wild rain lashing and thrashing outside, my back to the dying fire, wearing one of my Scottish knit wool dresses, dreaming I was a little girl again wearing a white nightgown with Princess Alysse embroidered on the shoulder, when who should appear but Reed, wet from the rain, his skin glowing. Gave him my place. Have I wronged that boy? Everyone thinks so.

    “Do I keep falling in love just for the kick of it,
    Stammering through the thin and the thick of it
    Hating each old, tired trick of it
    Know what I am? I’m good and sick of it!” (Sweet Charity.)

    Senior pictures a frightful mistake. I really need someone else’s, but whose? Jean Harlow, by choice.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Wed 20 Sept 67


    There are people in the world who think I have potential. Dan, for one. I was so grateful to him for the good things he said I almost cried. He called me last night during dinner and I was glad to hear from him, wondering what he did when he was here (I took a sleepover.) Said he visited Master Gwill and they discussed ME. Master Gwill says the reason people think I’m not honest is that I’m so honest! Thank you very much! Usually I can’t be bothered to lie – it makes me feel they’ve won. (Using Artful Measures usually fails dismally anyway.)

    Dan says his sister Janie disapproves of our dating. (Of course she does – she rooms with Marnie.)

    I love love LOVE George Bernard Shaw such a charming, reasonable man. His preface to St Joan is so delightful! Are there any other dramatists skilled at the expository style?

    Fri 22 Sept 67
    Why spoil love by turning it into Valhalla? Valhalla is for dead people. Every time a magazine article appears about Sick Sex Morals of Today’s Youth there’s an answering barrage of letters from housewives who are so Sorry for us for “giving up” the Sacred Night of Love with your Eternal, Glorious, God-Mandated Virginal Husband. It bothers me that they don’t realize calling your wedding day “the happiest day of your life” sounds more like a sentence than a reward. It’s all downhill after that is hardly a recommendation!

    I’ve got enough rules thank you very much. “I can’t send him a KOB till he sends me one” I can’t ask him till he asks me” I can’t kiss him till he kisses me” and I CERTAINLY can’t say I love him until he says he loves me! I don’t blame the senior boys for their rage over this mess, the problem is, inertia’s not an answer.

    Dan called me Thurs the fiftieth time this week. I called him back as “Juanita Devereux” (he says his frat brother think he’s married.) He was VERY depressed. I couldn’t think what else to say when he said nobody cared anything about him, I said I LOVE YOU. The deadest silence. (What an idiot I am.) Finally I asked, “Have you committed suicide?”
    “Did you mean what you just said?”


    Uh oh. I love you, I love my dog – we’re both grasping at straws here. I tried telling him that the wonderful way he has treated me has made me love him. He’s very lovable. ANYBODY WOULD LOVE HIM. I could tell it’s not quite what he wanted to hear.

    In Bible class we discussed what a shock it is to discover there is a world apart from your perceptions. If your perceptions are screwed up YOU COULD BE COMPLETELY WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING. True, too true. But does it MATTER? (Think of Van Gogh.)

    Fri 23 Sept 67
    Dan asked me to sleep with him! He says he has a doctor who will “work” with me. Uh oh. You know I don’t like mixing work & play! Plus I’m scared of pills – read a hideous article in the Ladies Home Journal. On the other hand Liesl Cahill has taken them for her skin for two years and they work great. She always remembers. (She hasn’t had sex though.)

    I told him so far I like the idea of foam. Supposedly 100% effective if you use it every time! Dan said it would be like “screwing a cream puff.” Is that so bad?

    I could do worse than Dan and I know it. He is gentle, he has experience, he is insanely in love with me. Unfortunately the whole Casey thing still bothers me. And I wouldn’t be able to date here. I’d be “taken”. And we wouldn’t even be seeing each other all that much! There’s just an aura of doom hovering over the whole thing. Frankly I was hoping for something different. I don’t like the thought of being punctured like a beer can. I’m so afraid I will “belong” to him I some irritatingly final way.

    We talked to one am and he asked what I was wearing. Blue and white striped nightshirt, pieds nu – and you?

    Only a pair of levis. Aaahh…bare chested. (He has a very nice chest.) God men’s chests are beautiful. When I am not around him though I feel shivers of ice cold doubt. Is it because I’m afraid he could “get” to me? That I couldn’t stay free? Don’t know. Dithering. I am afraid of revealing myself. I find myself very unwilling to go to his college. Now why’s that? I don’t want to experience it as “a girlfriend”. What if I am attracted by his roommates? (I can hear them laughing in the background when he’s on the phone.)

    Senior Pictures – attempting to maintain a Spiritual Expression forty-five seconds at a time is foul.

    Senior Class Party a cattle market. Wore the gold wool dress that matches my hair. We inspect each other for weapons & wounds. Reed asked me to dance! I said sure! He danced poorly but with great concentration. I kept up a smile rictus the whole time but we were both glad it was over. Whew! Danced with Ed, Chip and the rosy-cheeked English exchange student Rob Severn who said he DISLIKED the Doors! Who could dislike Light My Fire? It’s like hating Shakespeare – our Shakespeare.


    Danced with Reed one more time which I thought was unbelievably brave (he must be high.) He clearly hated the whole thing. He and Marnie cast weird looks at each other like they’d cooked something up together but maybe I’m hypersensitive. I hope he thinks of the good times we had.

    Casey cornered me on the Senior Stairs demanding to know how far Dan and I have gone. NOWHERE I said. (Didn’t mention his offer.) She tried to get me angry but I was humble. She doesn’t want to hurt me she only wants to hurt herself and I can sympathize. We were interrupted by a cry of Phone Call!

    She said, “It’s probably for you. It’s probably Dan.”

    It was for me. It was Dan. He asked if he’d “pulled me out of a party” (very cute when he’s jealous) I said I was talking to Casey. He said, “Christ!”

    I’d just seen Dial M for Murder the 2nd time – such a lovely movie! How I love the glitter in Ray Milland’s eyes, the velvet in his voice! Talked to Dan about it. I think Hitchcock’s my favorite. Don’t like Psycho that much but Vertigo and Rear Window are fabulous.

    He was depressed again. Cheered him up by singing “Willst du mit mir schlaffen, schlaffen” to the music of Jacob’s Ladder. (But my German is bad so then I have to sing, “Soldiers of the Lord.”) He laughed.

    He said one nice thing. His roommates asked what I was like and he said, “Very, very, beautiful.” Aaahh… Way to a girl’s heart.

    I told him I would probably sleep with him “eventually”. It gave me such pleasure to say it. We can’t do it tomorrow or in NY so I have plenty of time to chicken out.

    1:00 AM
    I hug myself as I prowl the cold dark halls. Took two Copes but I don’t think they do anything. Aynsley’s bed is realistically stuffed with an Alibi since she has to be in McKenzie’s room or McKenzie would be alone. Blew through Norah Lofts’ The Concubine. I understand Anne so well – scheme and work for something for years, then undo it in a moment. If I walk enough, I can sleep.

    Mon 25 Sept 67
    Feeling constricted by my Insane Relationship with Dan. Couldn’t I choose a guy who gradated from a DIFFERENT prep school? This one knows everything about Him and me and seemingly by osmosis, Us. No, it isn’t very pretty what a town without pity etc. Freedom and pride, the two main things I’ve always worked for, seem completely absent. No pleasure either. This relationship can’t work because neither of us is willing to be the other’s “love toy.”


    I shouldn’t have told him I love him, it would have been truer to say I need him. Or would that be worse?


    I’d wish I had Casey’s amorality but I don’t want her memories. They torment her.
    Dan and I lay in the grass yesterday and I had to admit I didn’t want him. I didn’t WANT his body covering mine – I wanted to be alone in my bed reading the NY Times! I said, “Sorry, maybe I’m frigid.” Maybe I really am! (Definitely with him.) He said he felt like he’d been kicked in the crotch, lit a cigarette and tried to think. He wanted me to try anyway but No. I have to feel it. C’est moi, c’est tout.

    The truth is we aren’t as comfortable in each other’s presence as we are on the phone. It’s getting creepy now, him hanging around his alma mater. After lunch he talked to Casey half an hour but told me later, “Nothing is solved.”

    He said he’s been too abrupt, he needs to forget his own pain and he would wait for me “forever and ever.” This is NOT what I wanted to hear. I said, “I don’t think we’re right for each other” which was not what HE wanted to hear. Impasse. When he left he said whatever makes me happy makes him happy. Here’s the problem with that: I’m not happy.

    Vespers calculated to “lift me higher” – moody Germanic music. Reed came onstage with his usual purposeful lope. Spoke well – I was surprised. Must have forsworn the Evil Weed. Spoke about the ARTIFICIALITY of the PLUMLY DATING SCENE. He is very dismissive of artificial markers. KOBS are just “pieces of paper.” A grade is just a “piece of paper”. A driver’s license is just a “piece of paper”. A marriage license is…you guessed it. This does not cut much ice with Me, the Archivist! I whirl in paper most days like a gerbil in a nest and I like it that way. I think paper is REALER THAN WE ARE. (Because it outlives us.) So there.

    Dan called Mon, pulling me out of lunch. He always calls at meals, presumably to starve me into thinness. It won’t work – I can eat through nausea, interruptions, anything. I have a hoard of revolting “emergency” sugar cookies in a lockbox beneath my bed. I told him to call me at nine.
    He called me at nine. He just wants to be my friend and love me from a distance and give me things. I should NEVER have told him I loved him but I was wild for affection. Now our relationship is absolutely ruined. I made him promise to stop saying he loves me and stop saying I’m beautiful. Not how friends talk.

    He agreed! Wow! He really must love me. There is no kindness greater than the kindness of someone who eases your fear.

    Sun 1 Oct 67
    Revolution in the soul. The hurt we inflict on others is our own hurt, caused by our chains. Girls have been taught to make themselves as attractive as a dinner or a piece of jewelry and the number of broken men grasping after them is a mark of success. I can no longer look at fashion magazines. Glamour sickens me. Our souls are in rags. Feeling horribly guilty about Dan but I can’t imagine how to fix it. Angry that a perfectly healthy seventeen year old girl has to torment herself with the demon of frigidity just to make him feel better. (All the guys say I’m “cold’.)


    Poor Genevieve! Mom gave me her ruthless scorching letter in which she accused Mom & Dad of being “schizophrenic”. (She’s studying psychology at school.) I agreed with Mom that a daughter shouldn’t talk to her mother that way (it sounded like she was writing a paper) on the other hand Mom shouldn’t be showing it to ME! And they do want two PERFECTLY IMPOSSIBLE things from us. For instance I can’t get over the notion that Mom wants me to fail in order to prove herself right. (She says I go about everything the exactly wrong way. But if you want to run your own life what other way is there? Her argument seems to be shut down your brain and let others take over!

    Dan and I were in the train station Sat night surrounded by other couples. I felt you could judge the “success” of each of their dates simply by looking at them. Variations on hope & distance – trying to “feel together”. Bloody hard. Feel I’ll never have “a date” again. My mind will be rushing to “the ending”. How can I flirt and show myself off? I will be like a crone from a Depression era play moaning, Doom, doom! I don’t want reality any more!

    Reed in the infirmary. When I went down to have my TB shot checked I asked if I could say “hi” the nurse agreed but said darkly, “Be quick about it. And no carrying on!” She then said he NEEDS a visitor because he keeps his eyes shut and his lights off.

    I knocked on his door in case he was sleeping and he said, “Yes”.
    He has such a nice voice.


    “May I come in?”
    Didn’t identify myself.

    He looked so young and pathetic with his hair messed up wearing a hospital gown.

    I sat down on the other bed so nervous I was speechless. Kept remembering that horrible scene win the library with Shawn which answers the question YES you CAN make things worse!
    I ran my fingers over his guitar wishing I had the nerve to ask him to play. Asked if he was getting poetry out of this experience, he said he hadn’t thought about it. He was very polite – I was relieved – Shawn is a skilled cross-examiner and Reed is not. He is more natural. I said we were all worried about him. He thanked me for coming.

    I left feeling confident that he is not my enemy. Shawn on the other hand…


    Had to wait a whole hour for Dan at the 69th st. station but I had a book. Then we immediately went shopping. It is sad, I feel no desire for him at all. Where did it go? We both want to know.
    He bought champagne and cognac so he can make French 75s back at Villanova. Then said he wanted to go to the book dept where he was embarrassed to have me see him buying a book Mixing Drinks. He is shamed by not knowing everything! I say we don’t have to bother memorizing things if we have enough books!

    Arrived at the Penn St house 4 pm, Mom forgot to leave a key but the landlady was in. I made us bacon & eggs and tea with oranges, then left him downstairs with a magazine while I took a long, glorious bath. DID NOT WANT TO GET OUT OF THAT BATHTUB.


    Dressed in my “Thanksgiving dress” might as well – he might not get another chance to see it. Called Aynsley to see if my shike had gone as planned – she signed me in & out without a hitch. (She spent the whole day shiking in Media!)

    Dan and I took the train into Philly and saw Privilege. I love cinema verité! The principal actors were not extraordinary but the supporting cast was outstanding! “Britain in the Near Future” only 5 yrs from now! Not just possible but realistic.

    After the movie, dancing at the Trauma. Dan was so depressed I am starting to get irritated with him. People were packed in tight to hear the Youngbloods but Mandrake Memorial played first. I remembered them from Junior Wells days! They weren’t as bad as I recalled. Jesse Colin Young is electrifying! He has such a mellow, sleepy, hypnotic voice. I fell in love with him right there (I’m afraid Dan could tell.) “I hope he won’t look at you twice” he said nervously. (We were right up front.) They are as good as the Blues Project. But there were really too many people and we had to leave. I was getting claustrophobia from having Dan’s hands all over me.

    On the way home we talked it out well. Somehow I dredged up the courage to tell him I’m just not ready in my life. I didn’t say something about his life is putting me off because what good would that do? But he insisted on spending the night with me in the other twin bed.
    Very chaste! He still wanted to talk but I drank a glass of water and fell asleep immediately.
    The alarm woke us at 4:30. I pretended to be asleep in the subway so I wouldn’t have to make conversation. He liked having my head on his shoulder.

    At 69th street he didn’t expect me to kiss him so just a hurried goodbye. Brrr! Walking from Milltown to Plumly at 7:15 AM on a Sunday morning is a glorious experience! Birds singing, etc. I was on time for chapel. Noticed Reed was out of the infirmary. I gave a reading saying it is not the POINT that matters but the pursuit of the point while Miss Beeston nodded her head uncontrollably (she “agrees” with everything now.) Down to the Crypt to pick up my NY Times. Then slept the light week of the wicked. “We are but a moment’s sunlight, fading on the grass…”

    11:25 PM Wed 4 Oct 67
    Lonely. It’s feast or famine around here and what food there is, is none too good. Waves of contempt from Shawn & Reed whenever I run into them. But Ted, Kip and new student from Kenya Bob Burke being very nice to me.

    Aynsley HATES when I keep the lights on (and candles are illegal) so I’m under the covers with a flashlight again. I die for sleep all day then when night comes I could not be more awake.
    In two months I will be 18 – an adult. Called Mom last night (because I can’t call Dan) and said Cheer me up. (Dan called Casey to tell her to tell me not to call him any more! How you can misjudge people!) Mom didn’t do a very good job (she wants to hear my “plans”) but I was able to disguise my tears. I seem to have reached a jumping off place in my life. One shouldn’t have to apologize for change as if it was a weakness.


    Casey and I in detention together because we went for a walk bra-less to the lake! How we wanted to penetrate that smooth dark mirror! So we did…after a few moments in became quite warm. Then we lay on the dock with our soaking hair. Even shivers were welcome!


    When I got back a KOB from Simon Matthews asking me to Fall Dance. It’s imperative that I accept or I’m sunk around here. He’s in the Kobler-Hambro clique! So at least he has the ability to think for himself. He seems nice enough but I wish I could do the choosing. I wonder I it’s because I nominated him to be School Day Art Teacher (he’s good at art.) He got it too.


    Got a letter from Dan saying the exact reverse of what he said in his phone call to Casey – that he is getting tickets to The Homecoming (Pinter) because he knows I want to see it so much!
    So I don’t know what to do. I DO want to see it so much!

    “Je suis allé au marché aux a la feraille
    Et j’ai acheté des chaînes, les chaînes pour toi…”

    A weird sick letter from Robin! Says he will write again when he gets out of the Navy! Oh, please spare me his militarized self!

    Feel like maybe now I could sing myself to sleep… “I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in and keeps my mind from wandering…where it will go…” with my luck if I fall asleep there will be a fire drill.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Plumly School, Thurs. 14 Sept 67


    Some damn bell went off at 6:55 and I propped open my frozen eyes stuck fast with wedding cake. Having a horrible sex dream about George Hamilton. Who was I really dreaming about?

    “L’ombre parmi les ombres,
    D’être cent fois plus ombre que l’ombre
    D’être l’ombre qui viendra et reviendra…”

    Just like old times staggering to the Tower and standing in line for a washbasin. This being a senior business hasn’t helped me so far. Feel as if I’ve been here for 400 years. If I had a diamond I’d scratch on the window: Quoth Alysse, ye Prisonniere” but the best I’ve got is an amethyst.

    Come to think of it I could use my record needle. This is what geology teaches. Admit I enjoy senior stairs & bench in chapel.

    Dressed in old clothes – everyone wearing new so I couldn’t possibly outclass them. Best approach is build up slowly. New black tweed dress a bit too classy for ordinary day plus the skirt will give Miss Womrath her well-deserved heart attack. Seems only Christian to toughen the old bird up slowly before we spring the scary stuff.

    Miss Beeston wearing a LITERAL BEEHIVE (there’s something living in there) gave Collection but I forgot about my New Leaf and did not listen. I am sitting at Mrs. Kurtz’s table, which is very sad. She is the one who uses conversation cards and says We Must Hold Up Our End. Why, oh why? How can an eight-person dining table have so many ends? Can’t we take turns napping?
    Right after Grace I thundered over to the coffee table for the Mississippi Mud that is due me. It isn’t good but we have to pretend – “holding up our end” for the wide-eyed freshman who think we are all hard-drinking sluts. (Hope we are.)

    2nd cup of coffee who should I slam into but Reed! He is taller and much better looking. I could tell he knew it was me by the way his neck froze. I said Hi, he mumbled good morning and staggered away. He’s probably on drugs; that was always his Senior Plan. He’s doing his thesis on Aldous Huxley.

    Saw my little bro last night but little sis has yet to make an appearance. Probably slashed her wrists when she discovered her family’s plans to inter her here. And who can blame her? It’s true the place is co-ed but the only thing worse than dating is not dating. All part of their clever plan to break our spirit. Sent my little bro a KOB full of cryptic quotes for him to puzzle over.
    Aynsley & I had fun arranging our room. Looks less bad with tie-dyed bedspreads & Doors & Byrds posters. To everything there is a season…
    Little sis showed up, I gave her a door sign with a big wicker fan chair saying “Meet Maris Wicker” on it. Seems a good kid. She is very musical.

    Shawn said he had a great summer “spiritually.” Seems ominous. Dan is now saying he is in love with me, probably to keep me from dating. This is all my fault for playing footsie with him under the table when he had dinner at our house. His roommate asked him, “How much have you gotten?”

    “Nothing.”

    “Nothing! And you’re snowed already!”

    Junior Wells did the exact same show he did in Boston. At least he’s good to dance to.
    Prospects? Only Kip’s face lights up when I sit beside him on Senior Bench.

    Last night saw A Man and a Woman with Aynsley, her sister and her sister’s husband. It was just terrific! Music really gets under your skin!

    “Samba without sadness is a wine that can’t get you drunk,” says Pierre Barouh.

    Coffee afterwards with grads from Claudia’s year who have joined a cult called The Temple! They are sadly changed but think they are improved. I think if you look and act like you’ve had a lobotomy it is guaranteed not a good spiritual experience. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with Shawn. Must ask.

    Sat. 16 Sept 67
    Dr. Gilmour handed out axioms in philosophy and asked if they were true or false. Biff Withers & I are the only ones who said “true” to THE LAWS OF NATURE GOVERN EVERYTHING. I argued humans are “natural” ergo everything we think & do is “natural.” If there were Martians, they would be “natural” too. Screams all around. Dan says he is planning to sleep with me. I’m thinking about it. Aynsley says senior boys are Not Dating so I could be desperate. But things are getting a bit sticky with Casey, who should be “done” with Dan and also not caring because we haven’t technically “done” anything. She insists she doesn’t “want” him any more but she also insults my pride by saying he is only doing this because of her. To get back at her, I guess and I am too irritated to argue because anything I could say would only make things worse. I quote the Stones “Just tryin’ to make a connection” but she is not impressed.

    Dan, Dan, Dan, what am I going to do about you? It’s nice having someone “care” even if they are far away. But…he sent me a bottle of 4711 and a Racing America t-shirt. I like good presents a lot more than Playboy cards or letters where he talks about what an “ideal couple” we will be the “great novelist and the great actress.” What if I want to write novels? I don’t like being typecast!

    Speaking of connections I keep running into Shawn but I am waiting for him to make the first move (or I am guaranteed to disgrace myself.) Last night we had a Square Dance in the New Gym. Scavenger hunts (which we usually have) are more fun but I went anyway and lo and behold who should be there but Shawn. Reed looked in wearing his green plaid lumberjack coat – then left. (Trying not to be insulted.) Shawn was administering the ice cream table and I helped him, fantasizing about a pleasant, emotionally uninvolved yet friendly year. He tried to talk to me but faculty members kept coming up – it just wasn’t a good scene. Still I didn’t like his “air”. Felt repressive. He COULD send me a KOB and he hasn’t so I should read the writing on the wall and slip away. Stuck with Kip whose deep doggy eyes scare me. He is very smart; tall enough, a little on the thin side, handsome, blond – it ought to be cool. But there is a weirdness about him I feel screams “danger.” Could be I am seeing the reflection of my own weirdness in his eyes! Aren’t we in trouble then!

    Constant interruptions from underclassmen bringing in their door signs for my signature – making this hard to write. Think authors should remain unknown.

    Also spent all morning taking “Gramm’s tests” I think they are called which are horrendous “right answer” tests where you have to display, among other things, your knowledge of “correct” tennis court construction! This literally makes me foam at the mouth. It has nothing whatever to do with intelligence and really tests how meek, unquestioning and malleable you are. Shudder. Aynsley tells me not to get hysterical, give them what they want. If I gave them what they want would I be virgo intacta after all these months?

    Moving letter from Merrill about Mom, very wise and forgiving. She sets such high standards for herself, if we fall short she blames herself. Then why is she mean to us? Feels babyish to me but I get that Merrill is being understanding and generous. The more you love someone the more you want to struggle with them in my experience. Being “forgiven” is totally the kiss of death.

    Reading Kafka’s The Castle. Mann calls him a “religious humorist” which seems all wrong to me. This is a bureaucracy allegory.

    It’s now 2:30 and we seniors must rehearse our skit for Camp Suppers this evening. We are doing Ali Baba and the 40 thieves. Aujourd’hui c’est toi.

    Poem from Dan-

    Words Are Such Liars
    Sitting on the roof
    The other night
    wind ruffled my memories
    made my eyes wet.
    Trying to write a poem
    Definition destroys delight.
    Could speech ease the pressing thing within me
    Bridge the distance
    Or should I bribe the silent future
    Touch your silken skin & hair?

    This is the poem that made Casey cry. I tried to tell her one cannot feel
    complimented by a very bad poem.

    Sun 17 Sept 67 – 11 PM
    Definitely one of the worst days of my life. A sick, sad, whipped feeling. Feel like I may “give in” to Dan and say I love him if he wants me to say it. Evicted from tennis. Heard that “trying to be friendly” with Reed means “I want him back”. Says everyone. I can’t totally deny it. Do I? Depends how he acts! On everything! People being real for two seconds at a time!
    Sat night I sent him his Blues Project record back with short KOB.

    “You can call me from a snow white, starlit stairway
    I may hear and not be far away at all
    But the sounds of our winter’s love at night time
    They have vanished…they have silenced…” (Steve’s song)

    In chapel I sat directly across from Shawn on the Facing Bench. He looked so smugly beautiful, so big, magnificent and male. He has a perfect profile. Raincoat over pajamas, I sat muttering in my own filth. Picking my face. Boredom like an anguish. Back at the dorm Dan calls, tried to make me jealous with all the girls he took out this weekend, want to come next weekend. Here! I babbled that would be way too hard for me. Blaming Casey would be the easy way out. I don’t know what to do. I’ll have to take a sleepover.

    Read Blues for Mister Charlie. It ripped me up inside but we can’t perform it – write a “white” version? Possibly.

    Realized I am not a leader. Listening to them babble about rules and administration at senior play meeting in the library I see why Shawn and I can’t converse. I even hate team sports, so my loathing of the group dynamic runs deep. I used to be a Transcendentalist but now I think I am an anarchist. Shawn wanted to talk afterwards. I asked why he’s avoiding me! Said he’d met a girl this summer who showed how superficial our relationship had been! I flinch when he and Reed use exactly the same words about me!!! I know they’ve been talking!!! I asked him if a man feels like a success to himself but everyone else thinks he’s a failure, what is he?

    Shawn says “a success.”


    But if a girl thinks she’s not a bitch and everyone else thinks she is…


    “She’s a bitch.” He says.


    I cry unfair! Said I was sorry for the impression he has of me but I couldn’t correct it.
    He said, “What impression do I have of you?”

    Fortunately I was crying too hard to even ATTEMPT to answer that question.
    Tonight a “Thank you – buzz off” KOB from Reed!

    I should feel better “having” Dan, says Aynsley. But I don’t “have” him. People don’t have other people (especially me and Dan.) Made myself feel better by buying a Thanksgiving dress from McKenzie. $5. Barely used. Short, black velvet with exotic lace sleeves. Seemed more like “Dan’s dress” than mine; a weird experience of looking at myself from the outside-in – triggered by Shawn’s sarcastic, cruel expression. At least Dan doesn’t mind when I cry around him – if that’s how life makes me feel. Depend on NY Times & tea to right all wrongs.


    Casey talking angrily about me with the other girls. Miss Beeston insists, “You are what you seem.” That can’t be true. I know Thoreau & Emerson are on my side.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Delaware River aboard the Gryphon – Thurs 3 Aug 67


    I am in the worst mood ever! IMPOSSIBLE to write on a boat! Difficult to read – out of the question to THINK! Too damn much going on. Sails to put up and take down, dishes to get out and then wash. Our one day of “respite” we had to completely scrub the boat! (Dad said it looked like a “laundry scow” with all our panties flying in the breeze.)

    We finally seem to be into the “charming” part of the voyage but now I am depressed by the backlog of letters that I owe. I’d rather write here. I have enough for 100 pages but doubt I’ll ever get them down. Struggling with War & Peace but its not working. Not easy like Anna Karenina. At 36 feet this boat is too small! (No wonder Morgan the cat jumps in the water.) Damn flies are eating me!

    Hideous heat, humidity and flies. I will reread Sherlock Holmes and Sherrill’s Accidental President – can’t manage intellectual fare.

    Called Genevieve and Kent once. She very perky, Mom very sad; Dad very “hail fellow well met.” We are entering the Chesapeake. By sheerest chance we met up with Paul Carnahan in Brigantine (where his father lives.) He is adorable. He wanted to show off his father’s house (which he designed) Dad used the high-powered telescope while I took a HOT BATH! Bliss! Paul introduced us to his nephew John who seemed very interesting. He’s only 19 and already out of college! He rides a unicycle.

    Later – the awful day has ended as awful days must. I did cry once but only Avril saw me and she promised not to tell. Every day seems to contain so many failures.

    My goodbye with Robin was horrible. He cried! He told me I’d never loved anyone – I didn’t argue. He gave me a picture of us onstage together in Mousetrap but when he was gone I threw it away – it was just too painful. He also gave me a package I unwrapped on the plane – Khalil Gibran’s the Prophet! Awful stuff! The epitome of false philosophy. Some people are so intellectually desperate (but I have the sense NOT to tell them I despise them for it!!!)

    I think I HAVE loved someone but at the moment I can’t remember who! Sounds ridiculous I know but the problem is you keep growing up and then you’re a different person! For example, part of what I needed in love was wanting to feel protected (Shawn). It’s not that I don’t want that anymore, I just see it’s illusory. (I loved him until he was mean to me.) I loved Reed until I saw he was an idiot! I think I may have even loved Beales before I saw his limitations!


    So the problem isn’t that I CAN’T love but that I love TOO MUCH!


    I don’t like this reputation for cruelty I am getting but I can’t figure how to dodge it. Why do I HAVE to fall in with what someone else wants to do? With Robin it is particularly stark BECAUSE I DON’T EVEN LOVE HIM. But in the struggle of wills I AM SUPPOSED TO LOSE and its all I can do to resist! And I thought I was so strong!

    Now I am NOT looking forward to senior year. I can’t go through this again! Fortunately Plumly boys are too cagey to tell you they despise you for kissing them! But the emotional stakes keep going higher and so does MY need for love. I can be generous if the guy can be BUT THEY AREN’T RAISED TO BE GENEROUS! Phil was. Reed was but it may have just been his weakness.


    Received a card from Dan Devereux who’s already graduated offering to introduce me to the Villanova party scene! Wish I didn’t know about his shenanigans with Casey so I sent him a Diplomatic Letter. I think he’s just using me to get back at her.

    Wrote a long letter to Robin saying it was just too explosive a summer and everyone was on edge and overworked. He’s threatening to come see me in Philadelphia! I tried to pretend we get a “semester abroad!” (When desperate you can ONLY lie.) I’d like him to just can it on the love stuff. I said we still have to survive college (although he says he’s going to the Goodman Theatre School.)

    Thanked him for Khalil (who after all tells us to be SEPARATE STRINGS on the same instrument!!!) and moved on to disabuse him of the “glamours” of sailing. How glamorous is it having to fish curler pins out of the bilge pump?

    Said I was looking forward to hearing from John Carnahan who promised to write! Mom said of course he’s not going to contact me because I don’t wear a bra! He isn’t going to get into “that!!” Just when I was starting to like her again!

    Last night we saw Julius Caesar at Cape May Courthouse – excellent!

    121 W. Penn – Phila Pa – Sun Aug 13, 67
    Good cruise – SO glad it’s over. When I am too much around people my thinking clouds and I literally start to babble.

    Remember how my motto used to be Xaipe? Well, mere happiness will no longer do – you certainly don’t find it by looking for it. My new motto comes from the lips of Satan himself (cover your ears Sister Mary Rosycheeks) Non serviam.

    So there. It would look good on a coat of arms. (Crossed goose and dragon RAMPANT!)
    Sitting at my father’s desk – an ugly, cold Victorian secretary under a good shot of me wielding a boathook at Hydra. When Aiken said he didn’t like it I refused to agree with him – he was mean about everything – but he’s right! Still, in 10 short years he’ll be fat and bourgeois and this desk is where the stamps & envelopes are! This tea is no good (it’s the water.)

    Everyone hates Johnson – he is attacked on all sides but landlady told Dad she can’t rent to West Indians because it would “ruin” the neighborhood! She’s not prejudiced – it’s other people. Thank God we are only renting. Let’s get out of here to Pewter Hill as fast as possible! It looks like we will be having Thanksgiving and Christmas in that big, beautiful house. I would invite Aynsley but she’s not sure she can stand to see us in her grandmother’s house.
    Read Milne’s delightful Once On a Time and saw John Mills’ The Family Way. Reading Ceram’s Gods Graves & Scholars and wonder if I’ll ever finish it.

    2:00 AM Tues 15 Aug 67
    Saw Two For the Road – I mark it higher than To Sir With Love. Liked the clothes. Read a review of Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save Me The Waltz that was more of a study of Zelda herself. Saw that twisted logic so characteristic of me, feeling naked nerves barely holding intellect together. I also am a slave to violent reactions springing seemingly from nowhere! She describes herself sitting on the porch and watching her dates “rot”! But she couldn’t leave the porch the way I would have. She was stuck.

    Breathed a sigh of relief over an interested letter from Robin. In very interesting handwriting he informs me I am Never To Be Forgotten. I think he will be much more tolerable as a Literary Friend. Went shopping today and bought two-striped Scottish knit dresses (long sleeved, very clingy). Also beautiful gauze dress – pale orange. Mom doesn’t like it but it was $2! Now really!


    Back from an evening at the Carnahans where Mom and Dad announced they would give me a trip to Europe for graduation present. I think they are afraid I won’t make it otherwise! They also talked about how en route from Vermont they had a layover in Boston and saw Genevieve and Kent. Mom said they are serious about having me visit. Probably go four days next week. It would make a good novel – the sister invited on the honeymoon who refused to leave! Bring everybody to the brink! It may have been done before but not my way.

    We all saw Wait Until Dark (play) with Barbara Bel Geddes. Some good scares. A real sadist would have started carving her up long before this one did.

    Had tea, and talked about it with Avril – who is growing more intelligent daily – she says I can use the library at her school – then snuggled down in bed all warm and cozy. But I like to have a many-sided problem to turn over in my mind while I’m falling asleep so I said, “I’ll just pick up Marek’s book and read for a few minutes” – what a mistake! I immediately became so engrossed sleep was impossible! I wish I could go digging in Egypt or Syria.

    Seems like that’s harder and not as materially rewarding these days. But what do I care about this last? Still, I would fall in love with everything I uncovered and then I’d have to give it up. Love reading about the dark-skinned Champollion deciphering cuneiform! Some of the poetry he translated is as touching as Ecclesiastes.

    “My son, my avenger, I shine with love for you…how sweet is your friendship against my breast…I marvel at you…”
    I am so deeply interested in every human variation that has ever been played – we are so intrinsically similar, so devastatingly different.

    Wouldn’t it be great to keep this diary in Babylonian? Then nobody could read it!

    Aboard The Gryphon – Swan Creek Marina – Rock Hall, MD – Midnight – Sat 19 Aug 67 – written by flashlight
    Swan Creek is the most charming hurricane hole you ever saw. Almost all power boats, but very thoughtful management (they put ice in our refrigerator!) Some drunk guy singing baritone on another boat.

    Wish I knew Morse code – very cute blond boy not far away. And how do you say PS Muffle your oars? Would take all night to figure that out.

    Most awful dream last night. I was at my wedding – the groom combining the worst features of Dan Devereux and Robin! I recognized no attendants or guests – everyone very casually dressed lounging around the pews disrespectfully. I wore my new $2 dress (proof that people dream in colors.) It seemed totally real – never occurred to me it might be a dream. I began to get really frightened thinking, How am I getting out of this? Mom came into the church with a white wedding dress over her arm and held it up against me. She said it was Genevieve’s gown and I can use it. But Genevieve got married in a leather minidress and gladiator sandals.

    I tried just pulling on the dress but my orange gauze showed through so I went to change in an olive-green locker room. I looked out the windows to jump but it was too far down. I saw sightseer busses puling up for the wedding outside! My best man was Fran’s boyfriend John – I liked him but I never knew his last name. Anyway he came in, offered me a cigarette and said, You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. The relief! I woke up at that moment and realized it was all a dream.

    This evening Mom and Dad and I went to see Ulysses – bold movie but SO hard to follow! Still, stream of consciousness works better in film than writing.

    Re-read Prince Caspian for the first time since age 10! He shouldn’t have thrown in all the Christ allusions but I still liked it. Finally finished the Marek book it was so exciting! Now there’s nothing to read but Mom & Dad’s magazine Atlas. Still, looks interesting.

    Mom and I went to Pewter Hill to pick up a key – it is air-conditioned!!! Mom was excited to see a squad car in the park – makes it seem safe – but the officer was snoring away!
    I’m the cockpit where I’m going to try to sleep because Mom and Dad have been shaking the whole boat with their lovemaking. I’m sure they’re trying to keep it down – it just isn’t possible. When I started to feel white-hot I thought about Robin and went right down to refrigeration in no time.

    Tomorrow we go to St Michaels saving 14 miles by going through the Scary Narrows. Dad has consulted charts & books galore. He says not to worry, boat is Unsinkable (knock on Fiberglas.)
    Shaping up to be another sleepless night wondering when the earth will die. Probably soon, judging by pollution in Philly.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Wed 26 Apr 67


    Dammit, flunked another math quiz. Had to ask what R stood for (radius). If this keeps up will need a tutor. Who ever heard of the radius of a SQUARE? It is wrong that it should have one, but it does. If I fail I have to retake as a senior and that WILL NOT HAPPEN. Will memorize the damn textbook if that’s what it takes. Coming up: Gertrude spouts equations in Hamlet death scene. “To fail or not to fail…”

    Fri 28 Apr 67
    They show Rashomon after dinner and Reed and I got into a stupid argument about it. He blames the whole thing on the poor woman, which is not the filmmaker’s point at all. I really think he is going to force me to break up with him and his beestung mouth.

    Sat 29 Apr 67
    I hate everybody. Miss Wienand had the nerve to tell me I would never be a writer because I have “no feel for literature.” She did not like my Wordless Play. Hideous struggles with CP Snow and Isak Dinesen. Trying to write a poem in French that is a takeoff on Rimbaud – reflections of sweaty men in a wineglass by firelight. The soul heaves! You know the sort of thing. The tap dancing of an amputee.


    Having my mother show up for Parents Day a VERY good thing however. She is so gracious and beautiful I am raised in everyone’s estimation. I sit in the East Room eating 2,000 macaroons while she is making lifelong friends. She did sleep through the lecture on careers! Then she took me & Aynsley to lunch at the Media Inn saying she is thinking of buying Pewter Hill, Aynsley’s grandmother’s beautiful house. That would be lovely. Avril and I would get a whole floor. Unfortunately Auntie Beulah would have to come live with us. I ate prime rib, fondue and Cherries jubilee. I really am a fire-eater.


    Now I have to write a paper about whether Lincoln could have avoided the Civil War. (NO!) Paper doomed unfortunately. Miss Cluny said Lincoln’s letter was the model sympathy letter and I said it was a disgrace to humanity.

    Mon 1 May 67
    Brice came up to me after lunch to break up with me! From Aiken! Due to Differences in Lifestyle & Libido, blah blah blah (the nerve!) He OBVIOUSLY expected me to fall sobbing into his arms, which I refused to do. Said it was a pity Aiken was such an Old Man while still in his twenties! I like my generation! Not One Tear will I shed on or for either of Those Men.


    There is NO PLANET in the stratosphere where this mess of a Cyrano breakup would be OK. I was so annoyed I broke up with Reed! Not very nicely either. I do feel guilty but new horizons, etc.
    New horizons may be Shawn Kobler. He keeps casting me Unfathomable Glances. Getting the distinct impression I represent Bad Girls to him – don’t like that at all. Didn’t know if he would “forgive” me for Reed – fortunately he doesn’t approve of drugs either. He usually doesn’t date – he is too busy running the school. Did invite me to put in an appearance at a dance he will be “working”. That’s not quite good enough for me.


    Reed’s KOBS (he’s still sending them) are poems as-screechy-violin-psycho music; Shawn’s complicated screeds fear “stuffy domesticity” and wonder if the “call of the wild” is dead. I can answer that: No.

    Sun, 11 Jun 67 – Wyriga, MN
    Back for more with the Theatre Nuns! What is it I like so much about the Sisters of St. Hilarious? Is it that fierce battle of Inner vs. Outer? Must be. The students on the other hand, give me the creeps. Long skirts, weirdly puffed hair and old fashioned makeup makes me feel they’ve stepped out of the pages of Little House on the Prairie. In fact we are putting on Giraudoux’s Madwoman of Chaillot – too modern for them if anything. They are worried whether the audience will “get” it. How can they miss it?


    I hate finding out I’m such a snob but I might as well be honest.


    Picked up at the airport by Dr. Magnus and driven to the just completed dorms –smells like the mortar is still drying – where the other students claim to “adore” my “accent”. Didn’t know I had one but presumably they can’t hear their own nasal twang. Fortunately I have my own room – the senior I was supposed to room with – Josephine – has taken an apt! Yay! Now I can stay up all night if I want to.


    First class is Ballet (!!!) where I am forced to admit I am starting from rock bottom. Imitating a leaf in Miss Pleverer’s modern dance class when I was six has apparently not helped me at all. (She was another Misbegotten Wretch Mom wanted to support.) The only direction I have to go is Up.
    After that, Voice. Stress makes me screech – we are trying to lower my high whine.


    After that, casting for our play – I got cast as The Spanish Dancer because the director (with whom all the girls are in love) did not see me in Ballet. He selected me to lead the mazurka! Uh oh! Here’s hoping I pick it up.


    There’s a very good actor named Robin (didn’t get his last name) blond hair, long nose, tall and thin, poor posture but a terrific actor. He can imitate anyone – he is electric onstage! He’s also charming and funny and seems to like me.


    I’m trying out for one of the leads in The Mousetrap. I wouldn’t have the nerve if the others weren’t so hopeless.


    Tried calling home – was feeling homesick which Mom cured by lecturing me. The office chose that moment to cut us off. When I finally got her back I discovered she thought I hung up on her. I don’t think she really believes that I didn’t. Wish we were closer but she is going through a Bad Period. She is very angry that Genevieve wants to leave Radcliffe and go to Boston College with the rest of the rabble. She thinks she’s doing it for “some boy” but even if she were I don’t see why that invalidates her dislike of Radcliffe. It is a snooty, stupid place.


    I think she’s really upset because every time we talk about Africa, I cry! It’s automatic at this point and she thinks I’m doing it just to make her feel bad. “Mom, you took me to a war.” Neither Mom nor Dad want to know what we REALLY think which is especially awkward since all our friends praise them for their Honesty and Involvement in our lives! Our job now seems to be to tell them over and over again, You’ve Been Perfect but they raised us to be honest, analyze Problems and Problem-Solve. But only for the Benighted , apparently, which by definition our parents can’t be.


    For example, they are furious at Merrill’s husband for joining the Air Force. But if he JOINS as opposed to being drafted, he gets to take Merrill with him to Meteorology School in Athens, Greece! This sounds better to them than the jungles of Vietnam and I concur! (Wish I was there.) I HAVE to defend my sisters. Cried fiercely in my room afterwards – a girl came to be nice but I was old and proud.


    Slept till one PM Sunday. So great not having a roommate. Napoleon says “a man needs six hours of sleep, a woman seven and a fool eight”. A theatre student needs nine! I keep missing meals so bought lemonade and cottage cheese with pineapple and just got full on that. The lemonade I keep in my room, and there’s a kitchen with a fridge down the hall for my cottage cheese. LOVE that stuff!


    Rehearsals lasted till ten pm! My part is insignificant so I sit in the audience reading. Finished Genet’s The Maids (love it!!) starting Deathwatch. Almost completed Markham’s Napoleon and Dostoevsky’s The Idiot but left them in my room. Love Prince Myshkin and Jacques Louis David.
    Robin offered me a ride to the Black Hawk – the local night club. My high hopes were dashed. Sleazy dive with a juke box. Made me even MORE homesick. Missing Shawn.


    Tues 13 June 67
    Finished The Idiot, then speed-read The Blight on the Ivy by “The Gordons”. I was hoping to sound well informed on student suicide rates in my next argument. But what a terrible book! Authors condescending to their readers fall between three stools: lurid Sat. Eve Post article, useful survey or Ma Gordon’s Common Sense Advice. No opportunity for moralizing missed. They told me to read their other book entitled The Split Level Trap. No thank you! I saw the movie (No Down Payment.)


    Really didn’t understand Deathwatch. Trying to read Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey – to my surprise, I haven’t read her before but I enjoy it.

    12:50 AM Fri 16 June 67
    Trying to keep away from Robin or I think The Inevitable will happen. Three months without love can’t be borne! He keeps following me around and joking with me. He elbowed into being my partner in ballet! He lifts me up with a smooth flat hand, right beneath my rib cage. He may look spindly and sick but he is strong and lightning sensitive. He always catches me in the “trust falls”.
    During rehearsal I was writing to Shawn and Robin came and sat by me and said, Is that a letter to your boyfriend? I told him it was and nobody writes long letters the way I do! Robin said HE DOES! We can write each other after we leave – or starting now of I want! Uh oh. Dangerous to ask me what I want! Shawn didn’t ask me for my address – I’m putting it on the envelope but I might hear nothing. Feeling very down right now and not seeing a single lovable quality in myself. I am one of those insecure people needing constant reassurance – like a spaniel. Do I have patience for The Endless Games?
    I prefer erotic dreams…

    Thurs 22 June 67
    I am in the smoker listening to Barbra Streisand who always brings my emotionalism to the surface. Lost the part of Mollie in the Mousetrap – my own fault. Robin is so good – (he is Giles) perfect accent and everything – I just can’t manage it. Said I’d learn it – overconfident as usual. Now I’m just a stagehand. Robin is worried he will be stereotyped in villain roles because he does them so well! (It’s that thin, sinister face.)


    I got stuck with Julie Haydon after the preview performance. She talked endlessly about how bad she’d been and it didn’t matter how many times I said she was fine – it didn’t register. Robin was dragged into a passing car to go to the party, I’m stuck Helping the Star Take off her Makeup. I wanted to talk about George Jean Nathan and New York City in the 20’s – (she says their anniversary’s in a few days) but she wanted to talk about her wrinkles. And when I said the part needed wrinkles that was NOT the right thing to say. She did tell me about her wedding aboard a Caribbean cruise liner and their conversion to Catholicism. Finally a car arrived for her from the hotel and I walked back to the dorm by myself. Pathetic!


    When I got to the dorm I was told it’s Illegal for girls to walk alone after dark! Great! Then my purse broke and my stuff went everywhere. Fortunately the nuns are very kind – they really control the atmosphere of this place and work hard to seem human and not just institutions. I feel most sorry for them having to wear such cloddy shoes. Oh, well, they’re not out to satisfy my aesthetic tastes!
    Up till 2:30 AM reading Byron.

    Dressed in my blue and white polka dot voile culotte dress with the white collar and cuffs to perform for the NDEA reception. My drama piece is Shelley’s Letter to Maria Gisborne, which kept the teachers mesmerized while nuns played violins & harps.


    Robin said, “You look cool and pretty.” He looked good, too in a green madras coat. Of course he wanted to now why I wasn’t at the party! He said Jodi is making a huge play for him but he doesn’t like her. Says the party was depressing – the director yelled at everyone. Says we better hope the reviewer from the Minn Star doesn’t come – don’t get false hope – our all-nun preview house will laugh at anything.


    After dinner we walked out on the golf course under the stars. He said, “You’re the strangest person I’ve ever met.”


    I was genuinely surprised. “Me?”
    “You don’t like it here, do you?”


    I said all my failures are bringing out my stubbornness then HE was surprised. He didn’t think I felt like a failure but I’m so BAD at EVERYTHING! He said he would “help” me, which doesn’t make me feel better. I’m used to being good at things! He was also surprised that I don’t consider myself beautiful. But really! My face is all misshapen and lumpy! He said I had “a good face for makeup” and I could tell he meant it as a compliment instead of “cover yourself up” which most girls would think.


    He wanted to hear all about my friends and family – said I obviously came from money, has a chip on his shoulder as a “poor boy”.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Sun. 12 Mar 67


    Desperate for a really strong cup of tea but must wait for Miss Beeston to close her door. WHY does she keep it open? She isn’t actually concerned we might be throwing up or anything, it’s just morbid curiosity and vicarious excitement. What do they DO all night? Don’t dragons sleep? Ah here’s my chance. No such luck – ran right into the Gruesome Twosome – one tall and fat the other short and fat.


    “Was that your water we just turned off?” (They know it is, they’re the ones who confiscated my personal hotpot.)


    “Not tonight.”
    I waited for “See you in the Greenhouse for 2 hrs hard labor” but it didn’t happen. Must be feeling mellow. I scuttled back to my den.


    “THEY WRITE BY NIGHT – part 2 – Dancing In the Rain”
    When Brice and I got to Aiken’s apt he wasn’t even up. Wearing only a blue Chinese silk dressing gown with his curly chest hairs sprouting out. Just grab me and lay with me in his bed until Brice made coffee saying, “Enough of this orgy.” Jealous.


    Aiken nibbled my ear and said, “Look how we fit. Interlocking pieces.” I had noticed.


    The we got up for breakfast and Aiken took a shower. He came out looking magnificent in blue and white striped shirt and white levis. An astonishingly spring like day. Went to the park to play on the swings and seesaws. After that we ate pizza then Brice went to the library. Gentlemanly of him. I stripped down to my pettipants but refused to go further. I just don’t feel safe. I could tell Aiken was irritated but he doesn’t try to reassure me. There must be magic words but he doesn’t say them. I don’t want to be “operated” on and I don’t want to operate on him. I’m beginning to think babyish Reed Hambro, who is practically an idiot savant, may know more about satisfying a girl than this guy does. So we were Two People Separated by a Bed; very Saturday Night & Sunday Morning. Then Brice rang the buzzer and we had to get dressed fast.


    On the drive back Aiken said (right in front of Brice) that I thought sex would be “violent & cold.” I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t GET to say anything because Brice talked for a solid 40 mins about the biological Difference Between Men & Women, which I totally don’t agree with. He brought in Freud, he brought in Jung, he brought in Samoa & Masters and Johnson!


    Neither of them talked about “sex leading where” and I felt to say so would sound like I expected marriage! So I was completely flummoxed! The weird part is they both sound regretful about it as if it WOULD be a bad thing! That’s not a recommendation! So you can imagine the state I was in when I got back to school. How can you be both attracted to and repelled by the same person? If not “pre-coital tristesse” this is “pre-coital nausea” at the very least!


    I had 3 minutes to get dressed for Prom! Wore my Christmas dress with long sleeves & black cuffs of gold tissue brocade, tinsel in my hair. Reed is very relaxing. Comforting. Is it just because I know he can’t physically overwhelm me? If Aiken was long and thin – built like Trey, say, would I be less afraid? Stubbornly I still eel it is his attitude. Defective somehow. Honestly it reminds me of Beales whose every third word needed a face slap. Aiken isn’t so obviously unromantic but both he & Brice think there is no “mystery of sex” and are very utilitarian about the mating process. I don’t think ANY girl would be safe with them because it’s never a joint experience. It’s women letting men have sex (for whatever reason.) It seems so repulsive. They would make progress with me if I didn’t know history and literature so well. They think “modernism” is anti-Romance but of course, it isn’t.


    “Baby you and me
    We live this life
    From when we get up
    Till we got to sleep at night
    You and me we’re free
    We do as we please, yeah –
    From morning –
    Till the end of the day.”


    Aiken hates the Kinks. He prefers jazz because it is meaningless and goes deliberately nowhere. I am very spoiled I guess because I want MORE. I am beginning to think Aiken needs some old woman to satisfy him – dripping cigarette ash as she jerks him off.


    In spite of all this mess it was the best prom ever! Reed was so sweet I was close to actually LOVING him! He was getting high on me. He kisses so completely differently from Aiken it isn’t the same thing. Makes me feel it is really spring at last, and maybe I can leave my virginity behind as slowly and imperceptibly as we have escaped this harsh winter.


    Mon 13 Mar 67
    Developed a whole new theory during German class. Possibly my exam suffered (I rushed through it) but what are classes for but to provide intellectual stimulation?


    I’m thinking Aiken’s too domesticated. Am I mistaking youth for originality? (That I think would be his argument.) That everybody “gets over this” and romance is a function of youth. But history and literature prove that its not. Since, however, I’m “the kid” and he’s the “PhD” I will NEVER win an argument with him. Never! And I am accustomed to winning my arguments!


    Trying to write a story in which I construct the Perfect Man. Anyone over twenty’s too old. He’s tall and thin and golden and had most of his toes taken off my a lawnmower. Sadly the story races away from me – my heroine isn’t good enough for him – so I’m having her run off with someone else. Not quite halfway though Queen Victoria – Born to Succeed. Ugly period – the women in their heavy clothes look very depressed.

    Thurs 30 Mar 67
    Left a note at Aiken’s he wasn’t there (being satisfied by a glamorous – yet elderly brunette? No – working hard at the library to “gain a place in life”) and took the train to the new Penn St house. (It’s haunted!) The place was all lit up and Avril was playing the piano. The third floor has the most beautiful windows flush with the floor. Sending sunlight across the ancient, uneven boards. Delicious.


    Daddy not home so off to Bookbinder’s for dinner where I ordered soft shell crab. I got annoyed with Mom’s questions about Aiken so said he was a MauMau with a bad case of cradle cap. She laughed so hard she wept.


    Our phone not yet installed so I put a jackknife in my pocket and went out to the public booth. Aiken was in – sounded cranky but surprised me by inviting me to a party. I was certain I was going to be dismissed for being too “jejeune”. He seemed completely unimpressed y the risk I’d taken to call him – probably thinking if I got raped it might clear up some of his problems.
    Borrowing a blue velvet dress from Avril – it so short!! A classic baby doll! But she is a champion blabbermouth and told Mom who absolutely FORBIDS IT. We WILL BUY A DRESS! Uh oh. Madras and whalebone, mark my words.


    I bought a man’s shirt from the man who sells used clothes at the corner of Chelten & Chew. Pink chiffon with balloony sleeves! Indescribably flattering. Tight through the body. I already have a perfect black velvet skirt.

    Tues. 4 Apr 67
    My hand is shaking because I just left a heavy make-out session with Reed Hambro. I want to write about the awful party but the wonderful evening . I got out of the house without a problem because Mom wasn’t there. I showed Aiken all around the house – I could tell by his eyebrows he was confounded by the mixture of splendeurs et misères. I told him it was temporary and showed him my beautiful third floor where I sleep on a mattress on the floor so I can look out the windows but he was unimpressed.


    Oriental artifacts everywhere but they are shabby. Still he admitted OI looked beautiful.
    Horrible university party full of pregnant wives. Didn’t like the way they looked at me – decided to drink coke and say nothing. They seemed so doglike and uncomfortable. But I did get into a long discussion with a Prof Wylie who has a system of “personal anarchy” that sounds a lot like my own. He was drunk but funny. He kept saying “What this party needs is a little audience participation.”
    But everyone had to be on their best behavior because it was more like work. Strange Danish Oldern house with peek-a-boo architecture – how can you climb stairs – in a dress – that are only slats?


    When we got back to Penn St my mother was there. She said nothing about my clothes but she really gave poor Aiken the business while I made Earl Grey tea. She is the only person I have ever known who can lower the temperature of a room to freezing in seconds. At least she didn’t ask him his intentions.


    He behaved very well, just as if she was normal. He got her on the subject of Southeast Asia while I roll my eyes. Finally she had to go upstairs to get Avril to sleep. Avril’s afraid of Phila because of all the stabbing news and who can blame her?


    So Aiken and I were left alone…on the oriental rug in front of the fire.
    “I wish I could take you back to my place,” he muttered.


    “Why don’t we do it right here?” I suggested. To be funny. He said seriously,
    “Because you might bleed and we need some form of birth control.”


    Let’s go straight to the hospital and do it on a gurney!


    “I really have to go” he said. We could hear Mom creaking about upstairs. He gave me one last kiss – lifted me up completely! Bliss.


    When I got upstairs I saw my shirt was all torn and I had to throw it away. But it was definitely worth $9 even for only one evening.

    Mon 10 Apr 67
    Pretty sure the Aiken thing is shot to hell. Called him Sun morning but he had a woman with him! He really made me feel about twelve. Guess it’s finally time to stop waltzing with fire. At least I have a new interest. Trying to deepen my voice for Gertrude; Hamlet rehearsals starting in earnest. Wish I didn’t loathe Matt R (who plays Hamlet) so much. He spits when he declaims! At least Toss Sheffield plays my husband…Toss of the long blond hair. Unfortunately he is knee deep with Beth Donoghue.


    Coffee & Conversation VERY dull. D. H. Lawrence; “It makes me ill having people constantly stuff my ears with bits of chewed newspaper.”

    Mon 17 Apr 67
    To be or not to be? Chaste, I mean. Casey’s and my sole topic of conversation.
    Reading The Slender Reed about James K. Polk. I consider him the last president of any note at all.
    In Eng we are reading John Brown’s Body, which is surprisingly good. Anyone whose “favorite writers” are Emerson, Bret Harte and Melville the way Roach Face’s are is “colordeaf” in the matter of literature. But they’re not as bad as Steinbeck.


    Asked Reed if I was the first girl he ever kissed and he nodded. Brave to tell the truth! If it was me I’d lie!


    Thurs 20 Apr 67
    Interesting conversation with Shawn Kobler who walked me back from dinner. About mercy killing. I have a soft sport for it since Aallyns live forever, leaving their brains far, far behind. He used to be ugly ugly now he’s ugly interesting. Plus smart. He’s class pres, I’m VP so we have many excuses to meet. Hmmm. Negatives: Religious Life Committee, friends with Reed. Positives: Interesting athlete. He gets a lot of injuries ( hidden conflicts.) And he has curly blond hair and big shoulders. He plans to be Student Body Pres next year. Me – the Notorious Scofflaw – going out with Student Body President? It has a certain appeal.

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Thurs 16 Feb 67

    RoachFace didn’t like my story. “I” for INCOMPLETE. Guess the whole Modern trend in literature has passed her by completely. She says she can’t “figure out what’s going on.” Ask Mrs. Dalloway! Read it aloud to Casey who said, “It does make you want to know more.” I call that a success! Anyway I can afford an incomplete since I run Junior English.


    Working on an appropriate revenge. How about an incredibly ugly old lady with an empty love life and a non-existent sex life who falls hopelessly in love with 16 yr old pupil? Death in English Class. Unsubtle, ye thinks? “I’ve never seen a mind so tangled, a girl so strangled” as the Stones would say.


    I may give her a pass. I’m in a very good mood, listening to the Stones and writing pornography. Even the discovery that Brice is “against” my relationship with Aiken can’t harm me! He wrote me a long KOB last night – “You’re everything a man could want – beautiful & clever” but goes downhill from there! “I am in love with both of you, trying to solve problems by bringing my “forbidden territories” together I’ve created Frankenstein.”


    No he hasn’t! Leave us alone! Imagine his “conscience” acting up at THIS point! I have to find out how much of this he’s said to Aiken. If I were Aiken I would drop him like a hot potato but do I want that? If Brice withdraws support does our house of cards fall down?


    This is all Aiken’s fault for allowing an intermediary like something out of Cyrano de Bergerac. It devalues him.


    Took my own trip to Princeton yesterday to see Hamlet. Unfortunately a box lunch and a bus ride brings out the four year old in teenage boys. All the girls sat in the back watching transfixed while they bounced and screamed and threw chicken bones! This is why they have single sex schools, to preserve enough Healthy Mystery so we can Mate, already! We feel like sane people sentenced to the looney bin!


    Should I tell this to Bloy the Boy Next Door? He was so envious of the whole Boys’ End, Girls’ End thing – when I told him The Legend of the Girl Who Sent Herself in a KOB I thought he’d die. The truth is so discouraging I would turn to Fleur the HalfBack if I didn’t have Aiken! (Alas Fleur is more of a FullBack these days.)


    But I don’t have Aiken and that’s the point. In the arras scene I suddenly realized he’s Not My Type. Very Polonius (with a hint of Bolonius.) He’s just too staid. Do I want to be lectured lifelong on Southeast Asian Politics? Like marrying Daddy!


    You also should never marry someone till you find out what they expect. I get the distinct impression that although I wouldn’t have to do housework for Aiken he would expect other Old Fashioned Disgusting Chores. You now like tending his Requirements. I can tell by the way he asks me to hook the cufflinks on his French cuffs he thinks he’s the racehorse and I’m the groom. Non merci! I’ve got races of my own to run!


    But he has SUCH A NICE BOD! I wish I was seeing him this weekend. Damn. I’m too poor to go into Philly on my own – things are so bad I had to sell my alarm clock to afford ice cream.
    And we have to leave – there have been blackouts and Power Outages lately. Looks like Scarface down in the PowerHouse is revenging for his minimum wage.


    That will teach the headmaster to hire ex-cons.

    Tues 21 Feb 67
    I’m in the throes of some Fatal Disease. I’ve got bumps on my thighs, sores in my mouth and a headache running all the way down my lower back. Miss Cluny says “gargle with salt water!” My collapse is a defense mechanism against a pernicious environment. Failed a math test – 31 out of 61! Parabolas not my strong point! Now trying to create a map of Portuguese holdings in the sixteenth century but just can’t find Ormuz. Why do we need to know this stuff? Get me out of here! I’m MUCH more interested in anatomy and the human psyche – and the anatomy OF the human psyche – but they never let you study that stuff here. Our “health” text says picking pimples causes brain damage.


    Still struggling with Simmons’ Chekhov. Not nearly as exciting as Pushkin. Hemorrhoids, pets and love affairs all treated exactly the same. He so feared happiness. I like his letters though. Next I’m trying da Vinci.


    Roach Face daring us to read Moby Dick but the book stone dead beneath her pudgy fingers.
    In French we are plagued by Miserables. Taught by a Miserable, studied by Miserables. All French to me!


    Stukey FINALLY paid me the $2 he owes me so I am slowly getting together cash plotting a jailbreak. Last night after Die Fliedermaus rehearsal I planted myself in front of Brice and said I was going on a meal per to see Aiken OFF MY OWN BAT. He was nice about it gave me $5 and the phone no. He is a fickle guy. Maybe I could sell him his letters back.


    After setting my hair and donning my day-glo nightshirt I commandeered The Senior Phone Booth, sitting on floor instead of seat for Utmost Privacy. Dialed he number trembling with eagerness to hear his voice. Would he even be in?


    HE ANSWERED RIGHT AWAY! “Hello?”


    I didn’t even recognize his voice, it was so impersonal! The next few seconds fraught with drama! I mean, I knew it was me but he didn’t! Gives one an appreciation of the difference just a few seconds can make.


    “Hi. It’s Alysse.”


    “A-leeeeeeeessssss…” drawling in the familiar way! Yes, he has a special voice he uses only with me! So exciting!


    “I could come visit you for lunch on Saturday. Brice says you might be writing a paper though.”


    “I think I’ll be done by then,” he says. “I’d love to see you.” Then he gave me complex directions how to get to his place by subway which I had to memorize stupidly having no pen!!!


    “Your time is up” droned a nerdy voice.


    “Give me your number and I’ll call you back,” he said. So I did. Then I screamed, “Lindles! Get me a PEN!”


    He called right back and we had a lovely chat. Our first. Maybe he’s my type after all.

    Sun 26 Feb 67
    Wearing tights, purple corduroy miniskirt, wide belt and boots I found his apt without trouble. I was bouncing with excitement but he left a note saying he went to borrow a car – “Make myself at home in the vestibule!” So I did, borrowing somebody’s Inquirer to read. A luscious blond exited. We eyed each other. Then I tried to figure out who he was from the nameplates. Cooper Fowler? Fowler Cooper? Great name!


    After only a few minutes Aiken came bounding up and gave me a kiss — on the forehead. He was wearing a blue sweater and some khaki pants – eyes blazing out like sapphires. I just sucked him in, gulping like a guppy. He opened his mailbox – one letter. Said it was a check of his that bounced!


    I told him I could stay then fearful I’d outstay my welcome but he seemed thrilled and offered to drive me back! We went to a smoky place next door where he always has lunch and I ordered the most appalling beef stew – worse eve that the school’s! Muffins, salad, coffee. We talked about Russian writers – I extracted a promise from him to read Gogol. He was very sneery about my acting aspirations – just like my father. They seem to think it’s all outer presentation with no inner work involved and I just can’t explain my attraction. I believe the word “exhibitionist” – horribly – was used. Brice, who worships the theatre, wouldn’t do that. I talked him into the 5:30 show of Blow Up, which I’ve been dying to see.


    Then back to his apt where he put on some Cannonball Adderly. I must say it’s just awful, awful stuff. At least I coaxed him to turn it down, then I made things very easy for him by sitting on his lap. In moments we were making out furiously. Dizzying heights! I’m not so crazy about the “grinding” though. (You know what I mean!)


    Then we got into a “shadow” conversation about whether it was better to be “partially” frustrated or “thoroughly” frustrated. Felt he was asking me something else – unspecified. Like I know what I’m doing! I love just being touched – like a concentration camp victim.


    At a certain point we had to stop or we’d be late to the movie. I could tell he was grumpy. But he was so much fun in the movie line, pulling me inside of his coat, touching and grabbing me. Ate it up!


    Blow Up is as magnetic and gorgeous as I’d heard. I fell in love with Jesus-eyed David Hemmings. Aiken too was stunned. He seemed to admire it — said it was like an extended dream. I loved especially that the mystery wasn’t solved but Aiken argued we were supposed to see something in the blowup and the resolution wasn’t good. I said we aren’t supposed to solve the mystery and he said very rudely “Where did you read that?” as if I can’t come up with my own ideas. I couldn’t remember whether I’d read it or not but at least I could say I’d seen L’Avventura and I know that mystery isn’t solvable. I prefer making up my own solutions but Aiken says that’s “unfinished” art.


    There was one horribly embarrassing scene where David Hemmings plays with two teenagers who are all elbows, hair and knees. I winced but Aiken made no remark. At least I’m not child/skinny and when we got back to his apartment I proved it by taking off my top like Vanessa Redgrave. He complimented my “amazingly pale areolas” – palest he had ever seen! He touched my breast and an electric shock went through him! In moments we were making out passionately. He took off his shirt so we were skin to skin. Best feeling in the world! After a few moments he rolled over, took my face in his hands and said, “I have to finish.”


    I said, “It would be my first time.”


    He said, “Did you think I meant intercourse?”


    “Didn’t you?”


    “No,” he said. “God, I thought girls talked about these things on dorm!”


    He mistook Plumly for a “finishing school?” He’d be better off with the girls from Wilton who wear eye makeup like raccoons and play hockey like them, too. I said, “We talk about nothing else but we don’t know what we’re talking about!”


    Then followed the most excruciating fifteen minutes of my life. He wanted “me” to “finish him!” Eeeew! I mean, I did it with Trey but he was doing me at the same time! I don’t even know how to ask for what I want! I just bubbled purposelessly like a landed trout! He got up and made himself a drink – offered me one but I don’t like vodka.


    “Don’t you have anything else?”


    (Very annoyed) “No”.


    So I guess he didn’t get to “finish”. Very, very hairy blue balls presumably! I’m frustrated too but that doesn’t seem to count – he assumes whatever I get is what I want and it’s true I’ve learned to roll with the punches (hem hem.)


    I don’t even LIKE the word “finish” – it seems so unnecessarily terminal and I can’t quite picture it. Trey and I, after all, were rolling around nude in a bed – but this would presumably be me giving Aiken a hand job! Would I need a washcloth? Sounds so prostitutional! Inner visions of a fire hydrant coming loose and spraying everything in sight! Would we both need a shower after? Two showers? Am I frigid for not wanting to do this?


    I did discover he WEARS SOCK GARTERS and this is the first real turnoff I’ve had with him. They look like slingshots! What baldness and fatness couldn’t do, sock garters have achieved. Ugh. There must be times he DOESN’T wear them! Surely they’re an artifact of some sort like collar studs.
    He could read revulsion on my face. For a good actress, I’m a bad actress. I said, “Are you mad at me?”


    He said, “Don’t say silly things” and bolted the rest of the vodka! Incipient alcoholism? I was sort of in a state of shock on the way back to school. I finally said, “Maybe this is post-coital tristesse.” I was joking but he said, “Without the coitus part.” Kissed me goodbye very affectionately. Should I stop being a virgin with a guy who wears sock garters? Can’t decide.


    Fortunately I have Pushkin to come home to! “I was in love with you it seemed…I lost the kingdom of my dreams.”

    Sun Mar 5 – 67
    Incomprehensible greeting card from Aiken covered with Japanese writing. But at east it says inside, “je pense à toi” which I can understand.


    Showdown with Reed Hambro Friday. I had just come back from performing detention in the Costume Room (I was sorting bats from fairies – I’ll have to go back to do peasants vs. nobility.) He dragged me into the Trunk Room to ask me, “Would you be disillusioned if I took wyamine!”
    It’s that inhaler drug they’re all taking. Reportedly keeps you high for three days.
    I said, “I don’t like the word “disillusioned”. Mad is what I’d be.”


    “Well I took it after lunch.”


    I felt manipulated! I said, “Have a nice oblivion!”


    He said, “What if I have a bad trip?” All puppy eyes.


    I said Bon Voyage! And left him there in the trunk room. At dinner refused to sit with him till his roommate Brent came over, all mad at me for being one of those Dylanesque blonds put on earth to ruin Man’s Good Time. The usual druggy spiel. “He thinks rabbits are devouring his insides! He thinks his skin is alive!”


    “It is alive!” But I sat next to him and ate a few pretzels and tried to pretend I didn’t think he’s a dope. (I even let him put his arm around me). But for a good actress I’m a bad actress. I haven’t seen him since.


    Sat. I called Aiken. He had such a bad hangover he could hardly speak. He said Brice was passed out cold on the floor. (“Finished” each other?)


    He said he’s “trying” to have me “up for the weekend.” I said my parents rented a townhouse on Penn St and when they get back from Europe I can take weekends there. He sounded unenthusiastic. He promised to call me. I said “I’d better give you a time – I’m hard to get ahold of”.


    “But very nice to get ahold of.”


    Aww. Am I forgiven? (Particularly if I’ve got Brice doing the “wetwork”.)


    “It’s best at night.”


    “Particularly at night.” When his garters are off…


    “After ten?”


    “Wed after ten.”


    Got this note in my box from Reed to ponder as I sucked down milk & crackers: “How to say I am sorry when you seem so sure I am not. I never pretended it would be a substitute for you…” (Like that’s what gets me. Jealousy!) Quite a double-edged sword it’s been this weekend for more than a few people. The disadvantage of your current frame of mind is I can’t put on paper how I feel. Would you reconsider Prom?”


    I would. Because otherwise no date. I even apologized for hurting his feelings! I’m so sorry the rabbits ate up his insides! If nobody can produce that “special feeling” in you I guess you can always produce it in someone else. His eyes really lit up. Soon we were hugging and kissing. He is so different from Aiken! But at least I feel safe which is very emboldening – he is just going to pet me FOREVER. Soon I was huffing and puffing like a steam engine!
    Isn’t life peculiar? The next voice you hear…

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Sun. 5 Feb 67


    Saw Georgy Girl yesterday. Kind of depressing that she’s supposed to be fat. She’s just not thin. It’s the best movie I’ve seen all year but it doesn’t solve any of my problems. There’s an inherent incredibility in a girl running away while Alan Bates is stripping and calling her name. I guess it’s like Brick telling Liz to keep that slip on. Will the customers buy such tosh? Never saw James Mason so horribly unappealing.


    Open dorms this AM but we had the times wrong – the boys were all running around in towels yelling, Get out of here! You’d think they’d be thrilled to show their wares! So we went back to our room and a good thing too – about 8 boys were going through our drawers!


    Ended up in Reed’s room listening to the Stones the only band we agree on. He says the “atmosphere” at Girls End is “intolerable!” At Boys End they make tents out of blankets – stack the beds – sometimes take the beds out entirely! Double standard! Miss Wienand expects tea & crumpets when she pops in for a surprise white-glove inspection!


    “What is that jug beneath your bed, Miss Aallyn?”


    “Nothing.”


    “What did it used to be?”


    We’ve got the past as well as the future to worry about! At least they’ve never found the hole in the wall carefully spackled with instant mashed potato mix. Miss Wienand’s lucky she isn‘t murdered. I’d throw her out the window myself but she’s too heavy to lift.


    Fair in Central before Vespers – I read palms. I gave everyone about three years to live. Reed was my last client. Told him I read faces too. My hands were cold his cheeks were burning hot. It felt strange dragging out my dusty tactics like a cashiered general!


    Eyes closed I gave him a long spiel about his intense love of privacy and his fear of getting close to anyone! He gasped like a fish! (The janitor probably knows this about him!)


    His cheeks are as soft as a girl’s. I told him to close his eyes – so I could open mine – but he couldn’t keep them closed. Eyelashes fluttering like a person fighting hypnotism! Our hearts connected – melted – for a full second.


    Alas Brent O’Bryon interrupted us. My single afternoon with Aiken seems pale and far away. Maybe he’s forgotten about eyelashes and seconds and hypnotism – or maybe he never knew – he went to a boy’s school! He thinks I don’t know about erotic intensity!
    Went to bed more satisfied than in weeks.

    Wed 8 Feb 67
    Reed is giving me the business. He thinks I don’t know! Mad about me one second – the eyes, the smile – then fleeing like I’ve got the plague. Wrote:
    :We mustn’t get into the rut of being together every night after dinner. Good way to ruin a relationship.”
    Can you imagine? What relationship?
    Trying to read The Beach at Falesa. Lousola.

    Fri Feb 10 – 67
    Latest entry in the And You Think You’ve Got Troubles Sweepstakes – from my math book – “The term group” was first used by 21 year old mathematician Evariste Galois in his feverishly scribbled will written the night before his death. The brief life of Galois, born in 1811, was one of continual frustration. Twice he tried entering the Ecole Polytechnique then the leading school for mathematicians only to fail the entrance examination.


    By the age of 17 he had made a number of notable mathematical discoveries, which he submitted to the Academy but through carelessness his paper was never presented and later lost. Two years later he submitted more significant work, which was never reviewed and probably lost. Discouraged with scholarly pursuits Galois became a radical opposed to the King Louis Philippe. He was imprisoned as a dangerous revolutionary on trumped up charges and later released only to be maneuvered by his enemies into a senseless duel in which he was killed.


    Before his death he said to a friend, “ Preserve my memory since fate has not given me enough life to learn my name.” Today Galois is remembered internationally for his work with groups and the conditions for solution of algebraic equations.” Makes you think, eh?

    Sun 12 Feb 67
    Word to the wise, Aiken, He who Hesitates is Lost. I may not be able to hang on much longer. Fri after dinner Reed and I cornered the French room of the lush, high-pile carpet. We barricaded ourselves behind chairs and stretched out. Either someone has beaten me to it and laid down the basics with this guy or he’s a fast learner. Spent a lot of time angling for an invite to the Valentine Dance. Success! I was really enjoying myself!


    It’s just another Dirty Old Dance in the School Gym but by dinner time every girl immured in this place is standing in the hall in pantyhose and curlers screaming uncontrollably. Yes I had to wear an old dress but hair down, filigree earrings, makeup and heels I looked pretty smashing. Reed stunned at the bottom of the stairs. Miss Womrath assuming “attack position” at the top of the stairs checking for bra, skirt length, not too much jewelry, etc. Check!


    Kind of a strain dancing with him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing there but I like his cold hands on my back. We decided to “Take a walk.” Who should we meet coming down the stairs but Beales! Staying with his old roommate (who lives nearby) thought he would visit the Alma Mater. I controlled myself and chatted animatedly, wondering if he recognized the dress. (Probably not.) Reed behaved impeccably, talking, smiling and never letting go of my hand! So the points I lost through Reed being a sophomore I gained with;
    a) His social elan
    b) Getting to wear heels.


    Take that Beales!


    “You look very fetching,” thus spake Bealesley, squinting up as if he were going to cry. He says he dislikes Harvard and skips a lot of classes. He was on his way “to see the dance” so we said good night, stepped outside and fell into each other’s arms! I think my dress fell down, I’m not 100% sure my nipples weren’t hanging out – we were biting each other’s necks like vampires! Made it back for the Last Dance, however. Beales gone.


    Reed gave me a chaste kiss goodnight (I didn’t mind already having plenty) and I threw on a pair of jeans and went back to help the cleanup crew. Tunnel of Love turned into an aging gym littered with tatty crepe paper and stepped-on doughnuts.


    Slept like the Grateful Dead.


    Aynsley put a mug of coffee in my hands, I shrugged into a trench coat to continue my beauty sleep at chapel. Back to bed with NY Times and Paris Match. Reed sat with me during dinner and what with running upstairs to get me The Blues Project we were both late to Vespers. Coming out waylaid by Beth Donoghue:


    “That man is here!”
    “What man?”
    “That friend of Mr. Harbreath!”


    Oh, my God, who would have thunk it! I rushed to Central and there he was, larger than life in all the splendor of his healthy, magnificent, oversized, overripe manhood! Go is he big! My stomach was churning like a cement mixer!


    “Did you get my Valentine?”
    “No!”
    “Well, I sent you one. “


    I didn’t send him one! I was still clutching my Blues Project record so he wanted to talk about it: “Is it danceable?” Teasing. But I hadn’t heard it yet.


    Took him on a walk because everyone was going through Central deliberately to goggle at us – some three or four times! His father is all right – he has had these episodes before. It was freezing out so he gave me his coat – it hung on me like a shroud (he’s got muscles & nicotine to keep him warm.) Told me all about his father – foreman of a road gang, then a bootlegger, worked his way up to stockbroking. I kept playing with his cigarette case, which is a beautiful Art Deco one of silver & blue enamel.


    We wound up in the East Room where I played him the old music boxes. I was laughing and at one point he said, “Don’t put your tongue out or I’ll bite it.”


    He asked me what my favorite flower is – I stupidly answered the thistle – because of Scotland – not realizing he wants to send me flowers! Dumkopf! Why couldn’t I say lemon lilies? Why am I so deranged? (Because I’m 17, that’s why.) Maybe I can repair this somehow.


    He said, “When will you visit me?”
    I said, “When will you invite me?”
    “Whenever you want.”


    Brice rushed in with a lateness pass for me because at this point it was really late.
    I went very slowly up the stairs, reluctantly leaving them alone. Will Brice be tacky enough to tell hi how I mauled a sophomore at the dance? Brice is tacky enough for anything, but telling him not to makes a worse point of it. “She told me not to say…” Who will I dream of tonight? Miss Wienand with my luck.

    Mon 13 Feb 67
    Capped a sleepless night with Aiken’s valentine. Not too mooshy unfortunately. Why can’t these guys just let themselves go? If they want US to “surrender” SO MUST THEY! Spent all morning drooling over him. I think I’m just in love with his “high gloss”. Because if we got married we’d skip all the “hard parts”. Tried picturing him getting fat like Henry VIII – strangely, that didn’t turn me off. Next I’ll try picturing him without hair and we’ll see what that does. He did sign the valentine “love”. It could be meaningful. Here boys are very careful NEVER to use the word unless they’ve really gone for the Long Jump.


    God my hair needs trimming. (I will NOT grow out my bangs.) Horns need clipping too.
    Beth Donoghue (only one link on my extensive spy chain) tells me Reed saw us together last night. Should I mention it to him? My natural cowardice and Bad Taste says Not. Serve him right for withholding on Complete Abjection.

    Tues 14 Feb 67 – Valentine’s Day
    Bare legs sticking out of frayed green gym tunic, inside-out peach colored sweatshirt, clodhopper shoes, ice cream cone. Ice cream in hair. Penny Mason yells I have a phone call. Brice’s flat dark voice: “Aiken’s coming from Princeton with my car at 3:30 and then I have to drive him to Philly. Want to come?”


    Do I ever!


    “I’ve got field but we’ll be done at four. Wait for me.”


    So, looking disgracefully Junior Varsity there I was running uphill and puffing silver clouds and HE saw me!


    “H, beautiful.”


    JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES!!!! Several girls turned to stare at me incredulously. “If she – why can’t we – “ etc.


    I didn’t have time for a shower so only pulled on jeans. I must have smelled pretty ripe but Aiken said he “liked” it. Disgusting or desirable? Decide later.


    We sat in the back seat holding hands. Mad with desire having my thigh against his but I am NOT making out in front of Brice (he wants it too much.) That Aiken is a hunk! So glowing, so clean, so freshly shaven.


    Very meaningful goodbye as he looked deep into my eyes – but no word of the weekend! Not a minute alone in fact! Brice simply turned the car around! I was so frustrated I burst into tears. VERY humiliating in front of Brice! I apologized: “It’s been a long day.”


    He said in that throbbing voice of his, “I still love you. If I didn’t love you when you’re sad I’d be cheating the other times.”


    Bizarre! Imagine! Wheels within wheels. Problem? Sickness? What?

  • Wild With Possibility: teen diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    Mon. 23 Jan 67


    Matt had to leave the dance early – his leg bothered him – I got a message to go up to faculty play rehearsal and who should be there but Aiken Billings! He is so big and old and handsome! I fell into his arms! He thinks he’s too fat but I like every little bit. I am concerned about letting a man of that size lie on top of you! You’d have to do it standing up!


    I hung on his every word and every breath. He asked what my perfume was, I answered “Silk of Intimate.” Put it over my whole body! He says it’s the best he ever smelled. We sat on the balcony watching the faculty practice their play – I told him all of their little quirks & weaknesses, really made him laugh. Brice has a big part but he is not very good – he knew we were laughing at him. He has to kiss Miss Pampiono the Spanish teacher and Mr. Ensleigh the director made him do it again and again! All the student crewmembers shot me envious looks (prestige!)


    Aiken spent the night in Brice’s room and I sat next to him at breakfast. They had my favorite (last night’s dinner rolls covered with white icing) but I couldn’t eat because of the maleness Aiken exuded from every pore. I thought I would faint just looking at his big thighs. What must he look like naked? The Lincoln Memorial or something! Brice’s date turned out to be Miss Pampiono – she has a nice figure but pop-eyes and is very quiet. Brice tried to draw her out about the red light districts of Madrid but she refused to be drawn. I went upstairs to put on my short orange dress with the patterned white stockings.


    We spent a LONG time at the market buying the steaks – half a cow per person – Aiken is fussy about food. He showed me how he prepares them – rubbing them with mustard and basil and banging them with forks. He seemed to think I might want to take over but I told him I hate cooking and would rather explore his apt. It’s on St. Mark’s place with a lot of bay windows and high ceilings.


    Over dinner he confessed his desire to conduct the Boston Pops but somewhere in life he took a wrong turn and is now getting a PhD in political science. We started with vichyssoise and then the steaks with peas, mushrooms, salad and eight or nine glasses of Almaden. I’ve been drinking that stuff since I was 8 – it doesn’t affect me. Miss Pampiono insisted on doing the dishes so we let her.
    Aiken insisted on playing Ella Fitzgerald who is just awful. I must get him a Paul Revere & the Raiders album – something you can dance to. Miss Pampiono and Brice danced and Aiken extended a limp hand to me but I said I was too bloated and he gratefully told me all about Exeter.
    Miss Pampiono and Brice went to make out on Aiken’s bed – right in front of me! I can’t believe it! I could blackmail her big time. But I’m glad she did it because she certainly can’t say anything about me.


    I sat on Brice’s lap in the window and he did give me one devastating kiss. He told me to grow out my bangs! What is this thing men have for redesigning women’s hair I can’t imagine. I told him I’d think about it. Pulled back all my hair from my face but he said I looked like a “bomb victim”. He smokes filterless cigarettes and calls the others “tampax tips”.
    I warned him the music was undanceable but he picked me up and whirled me around and around! No boy at school could do that, believe me. (Maybe Crow.)


    Finally he threw me down on the couch and got on top of me! He was hard in a minute! I was starting to get a little worried – my First Time with the Spanish teacher moaning and sobbing to the speech coach across the room? Aiken kept telling me I had beautiful eyes while I subtly tried to disentangle my legs. The sweat was pouring off him. Finally he lit a cigarette all shaky-handed. I was relieved and ordered coffee. I had a feeling Brice was trying to take off Miss Pampiono’s dress across the room and she was trying to keep it on. Aiken said he’s been afraid to kiss me – I said “Did you think I didn’t know how?” he said, No, the age thing – and how he was dying to meet my Father!!! A bedraggled Miss Pampiono accepted a cup of coffee. Brice stood up and made a long speech from Thornton Wilder: “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love. The only survival, the only meaning.”


    So I put my hand over my heart and chimed in, “To thine own self be true.”
    End of date. Forty-five minutes to get back to school!


    Sun AM Brice met me at breakfast and said Aiken “likes” me and feels the Age Thing can be conquered. When I’m eighty-five he’ll be ninety-four! Pink cloud.


    Meal per with Aynsley fascinating and I am going to write a short story about it. Pewter Hill is gorgeous – old stone house in a big snowy park – and the grandmother has some elderly relative dying upstairs – moaning weirdly throughout lunch!! There was a nurse in a dress who looked like a man. Ghost story?


    Tues 24 Jan 67
    Sofy came up to me today and said, “I don’t want to take the wind out of your sails but you’ve been acting like a SNOT ever since you snared that Big, Handsome Older Man!”
    I’m in too good a mood to care. What she really means is I’ve Taken Myself Out of the Running and it makes the others gnash their teeth.


    Made a Serious Inventory of my Face. I may not be conventionally beautiful but I’m not conventionally ugly either. A dimple in your chin many hearts will you win. So there.
    Tried hard to write a poem about my emotions using thesaurus but the more I worked on it the more seemed I was smoothing a bedspread over an unmade bed. Have to admit I’m flying blind as a poet. Damn. Maybe Reed will write one for me. I get out my thesaurus.


    A-limp along the battlements they come
    Tenants of Byzantium
    The pimply priest, the queasy horde
    The Queen’s son
    Anoint the holy sores
    The king’s ache; the king’s men
    The bones assemble and attend
    Re-joint the shills; once shrill
    Now shillingless.
    The ague becomes the age.
    Squires of skulls webbed tightly in
    Mummydom.
    Incorporeal now
    In reticulum.

    I think I’m pretty lucky to have Aiken.  He’s very sensitive which you’d never know looking at his big luggly face. My favorite vision: Aiken puffing on a cigarette, eyes closed, intoning a passage from fave author Thomas Wolfe. Aaaah…I should avoid falling in love since there’s no guarantee he’ll join me there.
One thing’s for certain – he’s destroyed my datelife for a while.  How can any of these spindly kindergartners compare to him? 
Well, I have wasted all my study hall drinking Gunpowder and writing sideways.  Time to do something constructive like Letters to Family and Setting Hair.

    Wed Jan 25 – 67
    Brice says he will be seeing Aiken at a mixer for Southeast Asia students do I want to send him “my regards”. I said sure. “I’d rather send him me.”


    So what’s he doing at a Southeast Asia mixer? Connected to his degree or that Storm Center in his pants? Dark thoughts. Collapsing air castles.


    Sun Jan 29 – 67
    Really unsatisfactory Philly weekend with Aynsley and her visiting Claudia. Saw Fellini’s 81/2 and 10:30 PM Summer. Claudia’s boyfriend is a very unprepossessing vegetarian who plays the guitar. Feel Claudia – Swarthmore grad – has just “given up”. The second movie at least had one good sex scene. They transposed pictures over it but you could tell what was going on. Pretty serious eyestrain however. Afterwards the boyfriend wanted to play all Dylan’s songs about what bums women are so I conscientiously objected by going to bed.


    Mon 30 Jan 67
    Wrote a great story for RoachFace’s class entitled Run With the Fox. It’s too good for her. A girl is fleeing but you don’t find out who she is or why – just her physical reactions till she gets safe. This is a test RoachBottom is bound to fail. (Whereby failing ME.) Still I can’t resist – I like best the stories that make you a detective in someone else’s life. Maybe she’ll like it. She gave me an A on “Tree of Angels” about peasants who execute a priest for chopping down a tree they pray to. It was offbeat but it did have a ”we-them” thing she could feel smug about.


    Tues 31 Jan 67
    Just finished Eliz Gray Vining’s Take Heed of Loving Me. Much preferred Wife to Milton by Robt Graves. It’s a better book. But now I have plenty of evidence on what bad news it is to marry a genius. They’re selfish and they keep peculiar hours. Who will put up with MY selfishness and MY peculiar hours?


    Starting to get impatient with Aiken for using Brice as a go-between. Too Shakespearean! Brice’s natural oiliness coats everything he touches. Aiken hasn’t called me once so for all I know Brice is making everything up. According to him A wants to invite me to a movie. I try to play it cool but it’s hard with no one to practice on.


    Why not this weekend? Oh Aiken’s going to Princeton. Where he will presumably drink and fool around while I pine in this benighted teenybopper school.


    Thurs 2 Feb 67
    Hair smells like smoke, as if it is haunted! Unbelievably sex-starved tonight. Hanging out the window singing a dear little children’s rhyme: Here comes the candle to light you to bed AND HERE COMES THE CHOPPER TO CHOP OFF YOUR HEAD!”. Childhood such a time of innocence. Aynsley makes me close the window. See how I am constrained by the coldblooded conventionality of others.


    Brice called me BEFORE BREAKFAST to say Aiken had to rush down to S. Carolina where his father had a heart attack! Apparently his father is REALLY OLD – had Aiken when he was 70!


    4 Feb 67
    Asked Brice flat out why he likes me so much. He said because I am “deliciously cynical”. I was very surprised! I am raw and red and tender on the inside (like a good steak.) HE is the “cynical” one! (Hypocritical too.) He really likes me because I badmouth his Place of Employment. I am Well Informed simply because I read so much.


    Today felt like spring. Couldn’t resist playing around with Reed Hambro even though he’s so young. He keeps sending the most interesting KOBS. I wanted to see what he was made of so decoyed him into a classroom after dinner but I couldn’t even get my arms around him because HE WOULDN’T STOP TALKING. I am willing to go nine-tenths of the way but at that point I subside before the Law of My Ancestors.


    When I came upstairs Aynsley asked if I’d been making out. “Because your mouth is all smashed.” From sheer desire!


    If I get too focused on Reed there is always the danger Brice will find out and tell Aiken. The magazines are all for Honesty saying that its healthier. It may be healthier but privacy is yummier.
    Worked out mathematically:


    Either I will see Aiken or I won’t. Either he will encourage me or he won’t. Either I will get hot with Reed or I won’t.