Tag: #WorldsLongestDiary

Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer
```
            Party Castle 8:20 PM Fri May 18 - 1979
            Fasting all day so feel much better. Two more sets. I am 
```
the only dancer willing to dance to Baker Street so they keep playing it for
me and it is a tiring song. However all that stretching is good for my muscles
probably. Reading A Time to Keep Silence. Secaire has got me on a
religious kick.
```
            Genevieve’s Apt. off the Park – NYC – Sun 20 May 79
```
It’s me laughing and joking and eating a whole box of
Entemann’s cookies – and it’s not me. Family. The constant ache of having
so little of myself accepted. It’s like being with people like Usher, really – they
want such a little piece of you. The worst part is, you get so used to the pain
you can’t imagine life without it. Thank God I am usually content to be alone.

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

Queen’s Chapel Rd – Tues 22 May 79
That trip helped. I feel better, more focused. My
new agent submitted Memory to Putnam who loved it but said they had
just published a book with incest theme! Goddamn it all to hell. But their
reaction cheered me up – they didn’t say anything about choppy, episodic, incomprehensible motives, etc. So maybe I’m a real novelist and not just
a bad poet hungry for money. Making plans for The Lives of the Dancers
– a poem for each one. Fun. More fun than novelizing with such a hideous plot
– can’t seem to get my people out of the airport.
```
            Write a haiku BECAUSE THEY’RE EASY. Relief.
```
Harness UP – ON WEARING A BRA

Two kinds of clothes –
Comfortable and un:
Two viewpoints:
Supportive and –

Fasting again today. So horribly fat right before my period
it would not surprise me to go into labor onstage. Apparently no one else has
noticed I have lost my waist. Have agreed to see Devon in Boston next month.
I am going off birth control so we will see what happens. I feel sure I can get
him into bed. But never telling him he is a father? Can I pull it off? I will try.
Getting past block in my novel by having different characters tell different
parts of the story.

I give up on Pamela Hansford Johnson. Holiday Friend
is The Perfectionists all over again– but not as good.
```
    Party Castle 12:35 AM – Fri 25 May 79
            Funny how it all comes together sometimes. Dancing 
```
tonight has been ecstasy – is it the fasting? I am cutting my schedule at the
Plush Palace – the audience here is so much better. They are really quiet
and intense. Probably because it’s so close to the FBI. They get the same
relaxation from watching us that you get from a tank of tropical fish. Except
of course with a sexual frisson that reminds you you’re alive. Read Laura
Hobson’s The Tenth Month – pretty shocked by a doctor who would prescribe Nembutal to a pregnant woman. But that’s the way they were back in the
Dark Ages.

Now I’m on Highsmith’s Edith’s Diary – which is
fabulous – the review in New York Times was downright immoral. Books
should not be reviewed by the stylistically tone deaf. Reviewer should be
open to many styles – I don’t think that’s too much to ask. The idiot. Went
on stage glittering with body jewelry – big stones. Big tips.
```
    Queen’s Chapel Rd – 28 May 79 – Memorial Day
                Very staid and old-lady weekend working on the 
```
house. We have a wonderful big backyard with gas grill – A. and I “broke it in” yesterday for shish kebab. Last week’s trip seems months ago already.

Thought about getting pregnant by poor D all day. Am I using him? Is it
wrong? Nah. I am giving him a chance to be more than he is – and he
doesn’t need to know if he can’t handle it. I haven’t even told Avril about this
– and I won’t unless it actually works. With my irritating body I might not be
able to get pregnant just because I want to.

A and I saw Peter Sellers in The Prisoner of Zenda
– just awful. Sun went back to the Unitarian Church – unfortunately it was
a downer. The worst memories of childhood surfaced as we were lectured
on current events as if we were a class of high school students. I would
rather hear about personal fascism than international fascism – that is the
real spiritual problem. Bullying a captive audience seems eminently fascist
to me. We recovered at Ms. K’s Toll House – such a fun place. Spent the
afternoon trying to write a poem about how beauty and finiteness are the
same thing – when we love someone’s beauty it’s their mortality we are
in love with. Not laying a glove on it.

Saw Alien in the eve – the treat of our lives – what
a rollercoaster ride! We both adored it. I’m now officially giving up on
reviewers – the Washington Post said it wasn’t as good as Star Wars.
What is wrong with people!!! Apparently reviewers have to pass some
sort of idiocy test.

The “cure” was completed when I crawled into bed with Bloomsbury Portraits. Fabulous people. These are the ones my father
refers to as the “sexual degenerates.” I adore their interior decorating.
Sex lives not so much. Going to ask Maureen to make me a dining room mural.
```
            By sheer good luck I don’t work till Wed.  So I get a 
```
real rest. That feeling of pressure negatively impacts my work. Slept
twelve whole hours – which means I may be up half the night – but I
don’t mind if it’s productive. I especially like walking the dogs in the
middle of the night so I can ignore the leash law. They are so good
about voice command.
```
    2pm 30 May 79
```
To my surprise novel goes well. Finished first
bloodletting scene. Reading Flannery O’Connor’s The Habit of Being –
love it. Dreading work tonight – not ready to get back.

1:15 AM 31 May 79
Hard night. Feel like I have had some protective
coating scraped off my eyes and I can see everybody’s pain. Everyone
is in pain. Not pleasant.

Plush Palace Fri night 1 June 79 7:50 PM
Had to stop at dance store to buy fishnet Danskins
on my way to work. (Kristi darns hers but I’m too lazy). Horrible traffic jam
coming and going – then they were out of the ones with the seams which
are the only kind that properly shape the buttocks. So I bought a black pair.
They only look good close-up. So I arrived in an automatic bad mood – put
on my black costume with the little mirrors. I’ll go to the Maryland Danskin’s
tomorrow. Feel better after a couple of bourbons. I can see how dancers
get into the booze not to mention the bute. I am trying to do too much.
Working, fasting, writing the Great American Novel
(it’s turning into the Great Canadian Novel) – something’s got to give.

Two bagels, two bourbons, then I’m cutting myself off. Zachary coming in
tonight. I feel I’ve had it with the purely recreational sex (with quarrelsome underpinnings) that is all he has to offer. At least I have a good excuse to turn him down till June 22 – I’m booked solid.
Idly reading George Weinberg’s Self-Creation. Ho hum.

Working with Kristi tonight. She has the most perfect
body I have ever seen but is totally neurotic about it. She can’t appreciate
it herself. I speak to her in monosyllables because I don’t want to get sucked
into her game of “How can we improve me” that she lays on other dancers.
She’s a “yes, but”, never pleased with anything. Fatima came in hawking
her used makeup. She is so bizarre. Claims she needs to sell everything
for an “important medical operation.” Won’t say what it is – she probably
just wants to ruin her breasts as is the fashion lately. Maggie’s breasts
are hard as stone. She’s destroyed her own body. The air is heavy
with female paranoia. Specific personal worries degenerate at a moment’s
notice into far-flung government conspiracies.
Nervous about upcoming visit with D – at least
twice a day I decide not to go. If he knows me better than I think he may
guess what I’m up to.

8:30 PM Sat 2 June 79
Rescued today – got four nights work instead of a
possible six. Thank God. Bought wonderful music on the way to work at
discount store – all Tchaikovsky’s orchestral music and Purcell’s Fairy Queen. Therapeutic listening after boogy-oogy-oogy.

My parents finished Memory – want to know who Oz
is based on. Uh oh. That rattled me. Should I tell? Decided not to and feel
like a coward. But they wouldn’t believe me any way and that would be way
too painful. They translate any vulnerability or sharing into “no wonder you’re
so sick”.

D’s most recent letter suggested canceling our date
– he’s about to be ordained and must “purify”. He wants to escape from
his past – which I’m a part of. Get it? He knows me so well he psychically
intuited where I’m at, or more likely he inhaled a whiff of neediness and we
can’t have that. He must be the needy one.

Zachary and I went out to breakfast after work last night.
For an “artist” (I use this term very loosely) he has less intuition than a stone.
His compliments are so over the top I am filled with disgust but he doesn’t
appear to notice. Had a horrible insight I now can’t get rid of. I am his Devon
– the Great White Whale. Horrors! Will he now try to get pregnant by me?
Thank God, the sexes AREN’T the same.

Feeling a little slowed up by O’Connor’s prejudices in
Habit. She seems too content to be a creature of her era. Tried to read
Caroline Gordon because of friendship with F – but not my cup of cappuccino.
She is Edith Wharton strained painfully through Somerset Maugham. Instead
I am branching into a self-help jag – brought a book tonight called The Gift
of Grief. Is this a gift anybody wants?

Avril and I trying Silver Spring Unitarians tomorrow.

Party Castle Tues 5 June 79 – 12:35 AM
Devon ordained Sunday. I blew up under all the pressure yesterday – sobbed and sobbed. Avril said she would go out, get a part time
job and just give me the money. I am so jealous of her for being a full-time
student I guess. What an idiot. I apologized. I am experimenting with giving
up writing. Why force myself to do it? I just won’t do it – enjoy life and job at
least for awhile – till I have to write. We’ll see when that is. Trying to read
bio of HP Lovecraft. There’s an object lesson wrapped around a cautionary
tale.

Thurs 7 June 79 2:40 PM
Foolishly agreed to go to the Belmont Stakes with Don,
my patent lawyer who is now a regular at the Castle. (He has forgiven
me for my hair.) Now I want to back out. He says we can have separate
rooms, he’ll pay for everything, etc – he is going up with a whole party of
people. I can’t believe I am going to get into this whole ordeal of having to
get to know someone again. What would he do if I said absolutely
nothing about myself? He doesn’t even know I’m a writer, for example. And
if I go to Belmont, can’t see Devon. It’s all too stupid – have to think of an excuse
to get out of this. If I ruin him as a big tipper what a dope I am. I guess this
means I have gone through the whole dating thing and emerged out
the other side. Ready for the next stage – whatever that is. Invited again to
present at the Writer’s Conference at Coltsville. Shall I tell them I’ve given up on
writing?

Castle – 11 PM – Thurs. 15 June 79
Don came in wearing tennis whites (purple in the
black light) complete with racket like a Noel Coward character. I told him
I was emotionally involved with someone else and just couldn’t go. He just
sort of nodded and left without getting a drink – or tipping me – so he probably
came in only to see me. Relief. Freedom beats money any day. I secretly
hope he never comes in again. I will live without the tips. I applied for a
MasterCard – hoping that will give me a backup way to manage emergencies. Dramatic scene with Jordana tonight – she came in sobbing – her boyfriend
wants her to marry him and go to Florida and she doesn’t know what to do.

I said what I always say, take the risk. So she quit. Managers are furious
with me.
```
    Queens Chapel Rd – Sun 17 June 79
            Exhausting weekend at seminar. I was supposed to 
```
give a reading from Blood Memory. I was a nervous wreck beforehand,
sweating, had to switch my breathing to manual – the works. It went fine.
There was so much silence and building tension – then at the end, the
release was cathartic. Bravos. That was the good part of the conference.
The classes were the bad part.

Students disappointed that I’ve had only one book
published and I’m still poor – they feel I might not be a “real” writer and I
don’t blame them. Lamely told them about switching agents. I could have
used some more stage presence or at least some bald-faced lies. My lack
of confidence was broadcast far and wide. Having my period. Damn.
```
    Starlight – Sat night – 23 June 79
            What a week! I have discussed it with Avril in depth 
```
but I still don’t understand it – I’ll just write it out and see what happens. Got
a letter from Toss Sheffield of all people – my blood-mate from high school – a wonderful letter. He read my poem in the Alumni Directory and noted I was
“divorced”. (Of course, technically I’m still just separated because of Bruce’s malfeasance.) Toss is working with Ralph Nader on Three Mile Island in DC all summer and wants to see me. The rest of the time he is a prizewinning
journalist studying law in Kentucky. Woo hoo!

Timing could not be better – my restlessness desperately
seeks somebody new – someone I don’t have to explain my childhood,
schooling and family to. The Boy Next Door! At the very least I could use
him as a cat o’nine tails on Devon (which he royally deserves). Last Wed
night Devon showed up in the middle of the night on his way out to California.
More push me – pull you. Very unsatisfying night as we finger each other
gingerly like priceless objects pre-smashed, badly glued and inexpertly set. He
invited me out to Calif. in Sept. Long wait, big ticket, which is the story of Any
Girlfriend of Devon’s Life. Might be able to manage if I get that MasterCard.
On the other hand said our parents were “hoping we’d get together” which is
major turnoff.

GiGi came in again. She obviously misses us. Said she
saw Buck the other day and he spoke of me fondly. There’s a load off my
mind. Leave ‘em sighing, that’s my motto.
Toss Sheffield put the phone number of the house
where he’s staying in his letter – I’ll call him tonight around ten. Wait till he finds
out what I do for a living. Or I might not tell him. It all depends on him.

He said he missed me at our tenth reunion – only went
because he thought I’d be there! I didn’t go because I didn’t want to “explain
my life” – and if I tell him, there’s a possibility everyone might know. Can I
handle that much exposure?

Struggling to read Joan Didion’s Slouching Toward
Bethlehem but she is pretty depressing. Read Millheiser’s The Mirror.
Absolutely stank. What was Putnam thinking of to choose that novel over
mine? Shows there’s a factor here I don’t understand. Wish I was a
multizillionaire with my own publishing co.
```
    Castle 26 June – Tues – 10:30 PM
            How to describe my ecstatic dinner with Toss? He 
```
opened himself up to me like a book. “Take. Read”. He loves the universe
but in a healthy way – vibrates to it and wants to be overwhelmed, then
empowered by it. Just like me! He explores the DC area with the zest of
one “learning” a foreign country – touchingly amazed that one eats the
whole of a fried crab – “Even the eyebrows!”

We discussed everything – politics, theology, my
marriage – his parents’ divorce – his horrifyingly determined Catholic virgin
of a high-maintenance girlfriend – he chose her because she reminds him
of his grandmother. And he admits it!

This is all scary but I feel I must ride with it. He is so
intelligent – such a relief to talk to someone who knows the difference
between a prodigal and a prodigy and can tell a scherzo from a schizo.
He showed up for dinner at Queens Chapel Road,
driving an immaculate yellow Rabbit. I was frightened to so much as look
out the window – I said to Avril – “Tell me what he’s like.” She said, He’s
exactly the same.

And he was. Gorgeous poet’s face (Rupert Brooke)
long blonde hair – wrestler’s body – maybe a little too thin. (He’s had a
rough hardworking year of self-denial following Bad Relationship.) He
wore a white cotton sweater and what looked to be the same corduroy
pants he wore throughout high school. I wore tight white capris and my
pink gauze blouse. He noticed my body immediately – how hard and
slender – asked if I was a runner. I told him my doctor says I have a
runner’s heart – but no, I’m a walker. I like taking my time to see all
there is to see.

We had swordfish prepared on my new gas grill.
We responded to each other in exactly the same way we did right before
he left for college – his eyes feasting all over me – so humbling and
overwhelming to realize someone loved me so deeply at such a painful
period of my life. We marked each other in every meaning of the verb. I feel chastened and grateful to have such an effect on another person. We
have so many similarities – both listened to Miss Goggins as children!
We can each quote whole skits, tossing back bourbon in brandy snifters.
As soon as I was drunk enough I declaimed my poem about how we spent
Class Day in the treehouse.

He didn’t remember the frickin’ treehouse! The
memories of people who don’t keep diaries are appallingly patchy. I showed
him the trunk under my bed – decorated with flowers and my childish
handwriting – and gave him the diary that described those nights!
He was open mouthed; he stared at me as if I were a witch.
Who knew diaries can come in so handily to resurrect the dead? He told me
I am a fabulous writer and should never give up. That the purpose of
existence is to find what you were born to do and do it. No one else in my
life talks like this!

There was no lingering hostility over our unfortunate
parting – our fundamentally dishonest Dear John – Dear Jane letters. No
game playing – none of that. I can’t even recall who touched who first –
my guess is we lunged at each other – it must have been mutual.
Well, if I’m a witch, he’s a knight in shining armor.

Only he can rescue me from this hellish situation I’ve fallen in with Devon –
with all of them. That he could make love to me that way and not want to
see me till Sept has been playing tricks with my mind. Devon uses me to
flagellate himself and I can be so much more than that.

It’s definitely fun to talk to someone who has
exactly the same background as me – someone who reads and gets
all my references. I was beginning to feel like an exotic (about to become
extinct) rarity. He wants to date me solidly the whole time he’s here –
(he leaves in Sept – that mystic date). Fri we’re going out – and
probably Sun and the fourth of July. He says he’s never gotten over me,
never loved anyone else the way he loved me. He wants me to come
to his family’s place in the Berkshires in August – where I last went at
18 years old – why not say yes? I turn down work joyously while the
managers gnash their teeth. It’s only money.
January 26, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer

Tues 28 Mar 78
Extraordinary spiritual experience. A haunting. Someone
standing behind me in the empty house. I turned and no one was there but
power only increased. At first I was afraid – then felt a melting richness of love
– coming at me, into me from outside of me. I realized it was Jesus. Relief.
Confidence.
Of course afterwards I question it all over the place.
How could I be so certain? Maybe just an ordinary haunting by a peculiarly
loving ghost? Maybe a thing in my head? But I do have that memory of certainty
and bliss to cling to. Very powerful. It’s out there – somewhere.

Starlight Thu 14 Mar 79 – 10:00 PM
Started out as a very bad night – trying to dance myself
exhausted – then some guy tipped me a $50 and I ate an orange and now
I feel better. (Feeling so unbearably fat I bought diet pills. Then “dinner” of
cashews and wine.) Finished Prayerbook for a Skeptic – I liked it. Fortunately,
I brought along a ton of reading. Had to dump Joyce Carol Oates’ Do With Me
What you Will when I became disgusted with zombie heroine. NOT as good as
The Hungry Ghosts (but reminiscent of McCarthy’s Groves of Academe.) I’m
in the mood for something different. Not, however, C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves
which is deeply annoying. Women are “unqualified” to be “true friends”. Isn’t that
the “know your place” argument?

Maybe what I need is Thos Merton’s, Seeds of
Contemplation. How to switch the physical into the spiritual
– that’s what I can’t figure out. Sexual longings intense – my body on fire.
No wonder monks beat themselves. Peace and concentration in the dressing room
– we are all doing doubles. Yvonne is fine. She is more than a match for
Stockley – saw through him without a problem. She just acts interested in all
men regardless. On principle. She says if you want to choose, you’ll have to
compare offers. So sensible. Tomorrow a day of cleaning & working in my study.

Sun. 18 Mar 1:50 PM.
Terrible nightmare about Usher Glayne. His face
melted showing the skull underneath – two hideous holes of darkness. The
world is fierce, cruel, we are all hobbled. Wake to astonishingly gorgeous day.
Worked on expanding short story Erin – cleaning away deadwood – it’s only
going to be 30,000 words but the hell with it. Can’t “produce” to “compete”. Want
to find the intrinsic shape buried within. The secret meaning. Letting it speak for
itself makes me happy.

Adoring Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. (Wish I had written it.)
Then it’s off to the library á la bicyclette for more theology books. Obviously,
I should worry more about Success and the fact that I’m dirt poor. But I have
arranged my life so carefully to do exactly what I want. Seems a shame to ruin it now.

12:30 PM Mon 19 Mar 78
It’s a problem that I don’t like Usher’s poetry. At least
he talks about sperm and chastity so presumably is not yet dead from the waist
down. He’s successful and I am not, so criticism from me sounds like sour
grapes. I call to thank him for the books; a woman who is probably his wife
answers. Should I be embarrassed? We are NOT having A Thing. Out in the
yard with dogs trying to read Teilhard de Chardin. Hot sun.

Café Rabelais, Wed 21 Mar 79 3:25 PM
Pleasant 3 hr lunch with Usher discussing literature
– he had to run away leaving me with my coffee. Tried to get me to pretend
to date his friend who is wheelchair bound. I have a feeling this was the
whole point of the lunch. I want to talk about literature, he wants to give
me away to his friends. I said No. But couldn’t I just make nice? I said no.
I’m not that kind of nice. I took revenge by asking if he lives with his wife.
He said “sort of”. Their child is “a problem”. No one can write within a mile
of this child. (Poor wife. Luckily her life doesn’t matter!) Usher seemed
taken aback by my questions so maybe I won’t hear from him again.
Good lunch, though. Very cuisine minceur – lots of different dishes and
you don’t feel full afterwards. (Rabelais would have been very
disappointed.) I top off my coffee with a glass of blond chartreuse.
At the Phillips, I saw a Goya that made me want to burst into tears.
Note to self: reorganize Courtney entirely around paintings. But which
artist would be perfect to express my anti-heroine?

4:20 PM Thurs 22 Mar 79
Today a model for what all days should be.
I’ve passed unscathed through the financial hysteria of closing, even
have money in the bank. Sparkling weather; spring is definitely here.
A day of sunbathing – the first are always the worst – skin a white blubbery
mass. Reading Kroll’s book on Plath – gives one furiously to think. She
wants to find everything in the poems themselves – and of course – that’s
exactly where it all is. Plath controlled by potency symbols.

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

Although I do recognize that I am trying to
experience my own “wholeness” through the eyes of another with all
the danger that implies. Trying to kick my sugar cravings.
```
            11:30 AM Fri 23 Mar 79
            More sunbathing – my own skin smells 
```
intoxicating to me. Like pool water, like beach sand, childhood.
Dixie – “God’s lioness” stretches out beside me, wind ruffling her fur.
I write a poem about dogs.

Sticks

Peter’s dog
Went on fetching sticks
Long after it was dead.
We’d find them on the stoop
Arranged In patterns
Pete would sigh and say
That’s poor old Monk all right
Still missing people games
Heaven won’t allow
```
            Add it to my ghost story book.
            Unexpected tear sheets in the mail from Usher 
```
– his reviews of Plath. He says he didn’t think it “professional” to disclose
that he knew her – that seems unprofessional to me. Makes his comments
seem underhanded: pale. He says diplomatically about my poetry that I’m a “rare being.” Hmmm.
```
            11:40 AM Mon 26 Mar 79
            Ezra Pound’s last years (Nigel Stock) make very 
```
depressing reading. I wish “survivors” seemed more enviable, considering the alternative is Death at the Height of Glory. The good news about a long life
is, you can accumulate quite a body of work – the bad news is your instrument
is increasingly deranged.
Dreadful schedule this week – 5 shifts including one
double. Present of $2500 “house gift” from Dad means I don’t need to accept
but I would have to quit and I’m not ready. These are the best places to dance
with the best managers – I don’t want to get thrown into some of the compromising situations I’ve heard tell of. Plus they just let me up and leave for vacation
whenever I want. Can’t play that hole card too often.
Spent all day wandering the mazes of literature
– look at Lillian Hellman – surely she’s getting very bizarre. She’s a “history
fixer” and no one wants artists doing that.
```
                3:20 PM Tues 27 Mar 79
                A bad day doesn’t make a bad week thank God.  
```
Got drunk with Maureen last night, (too much sherry in our tea) but with
careful diet and lots of sleep I bounce back. Anne Lindbergh’s Flower &
Nettle a great improvement on previous volumes. Tantalized by Rosamond
Lehmann, who ought to be my next project. I AM HAVING ALL MY HAIR CUT OFF MAY 1!!!

Starlight 8:30 PM Thurs 29 Mar 79
Joselle plies me with Chablis – I succumb to get her
to spill her secrets – but her secret seems to be she’s thinking of turning
lesbian and her gaze on me seems somewhat fixed. Or am I imagining things?
Two glasses of wine on an empty stomach and I’m a goner. God knows I long
for the flesh – those “brown motherly furrows” as Plath calls them are in need of plowing. Would I have to exclaim over her body the way men exclaim over me?
It just doesn’t sound fun. If only she were less female. More boyish. Order a cheeseburger to snap myself back to reality. This is a dangerous world to be
hungry in.

Reading Randall Jarrell’s Third Book of Criticism.
I enjoy him enormously.

11PM – Shank of the evening. I am dancing superbly
but tips very bad. The approach of tax time or are they simply seeing too much
of me? The latter, no doubt. Went to the health club today but I won’t renew
when my experimental month is up. I was seduced by their sauna and masseur but need something closer to home.
```
                Starlight 2:30 PM Sat 31 Mar 79
                Hot day – sun behind clouds – the sky is violet 
```
and the air intense – looks like rain, but I’m overflowing with joy and luck
and good fortune. Just ate an enormous chef’s salad and two cups of coffee.
All I needed for returned confidence was one big tipper and a non-suicidal letter
from Devon. (He’s been depressed, is all.) Obviously it will never work out
between us. We would be in competition each trying to get the other to play
caretaker. I need too damn much care. It would be madness. Discuss this over
vod & tons with Avril. Invited back to Mulberry Island, but also got a card to the
Bullets opening (which I prefer.) Reading The World, the Flesh and Father
Smith. Dancing very well – what a pity I’m “sculpting in snow”. Feeling in
tune opens a clear lens to the soul.
```
            9PM Tues 3 Apr 79
            Buying spree with A.  Bought a pile of silk shirts and 
```
a satin whipcord coat & skirt (black). Immortal piece I should still be wearing
thirty years from now. We had a lovely lunch at Third Edition – reminiscing
about our lovers’ bodies – what we treasure most – I vote for the flock of
milky-white scars above Devon’s buttocks. Aaah. Intimations of glorious,
irreproducible mortality. I am also irate at not hearing from Usher and even
more irate at myself for being irate. He is obviously a no go so what’s wrong
with me? I think I may be like those explorers expiring for lack of vitamin C.
Need to force myself to eat raw blubber just to save my life. It’s a wonder anyone survives.
Reading 3rd vol David Garnett’s autobiog – what an
unlikeable human being.
Car pooped out on us will cost $250 to fix.
```
            Starlight 9:15 PM Wed 4 Apr 79
            I hate wasted days.  Drove all the way to White Flint 
```
Mall to pick up my rhinestone glasses – a pin broke on them – and all
the way back. Grrr.
Not liking Robt Frost’s letters and Christina Stead’s
House of Nations is even harder to get into. But things looking up on
diet front. Fewer binges. 5 days of rain, and a power mogul in the
audience who keeps instructing me on how to please him. I curtsy down
to the floor very gracefully and pretend I don’t speak English.
```
            Starlight 8:25 PM Sun 8 Apr 79
            Burst of freedom rescues me from inertia. My best 
```
moments are intense enjoyment of the present: must write and examine
everything. Revel in my own growth – including comprehension that Usher
Glayne can’t be my crutch. Lost 4 lbs eating apples and feel good – refuse
to take a guy’s tip because he licked his lips at me. Yuck. Jervaze came into
the bar last night, dragging his shame-filled self across the floor. I couldn’t
resist suggesting he come home with me – he was so excited – love poured
out of him like a dizzying force. I browsed greedily on his beautiful body. It
was like plugging into an electric current. He moaned, “You’re so good to
me” but when my orgasm came it was just a little pop – uncorking a bottle of
stale champagne. So goodbye to all that. Masturbation is really a lot less
trouble.

Out to China Syndrome movie tomorrow with Avril.
John Middleton Murray is a blubberer. Usher sent me a poem entitled “I
dream of starting off with you” which was obviously not written for me. Took
her name out and slammed my name in. What could go wrong? What a pity
we leave choice up to men when they so clearly have no idea what they are
doing.
January 24, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a. Dancer
```
1:45 PM Wed Nov 9 –78
            I’m in need of a “carte d’identite” so I can look at it 
```
and figure out who I am. Read the first draft of The Speechless and the
accompanying comments of my college writing teacher. She bollixed it
up. Her deconstructive destruction seems purposeful – I don’t believe she
didn’t know how good it was. Can I save it? I know I should work on one
thing at a time but apparently my mind doesn’t operate that way.
In the mail a letter from a publisher offering to read
my poetry – for $50.00. Took me longer after that to sink to the necessary
depth to get some writing done. And it still probably wasn’t any good.
```
    Thurs night – Plush Palace – Nov 9 - 78
            Working tonight with Roulette and Jerry – wonderfully 
```
hilarious old hands. We laugh until we fall over.
“How Deep Is Your Love “ is throbbing through the walls, Maureen’s got me in a costume-trading whirl and Roulette is so heavily
into the Jack Daniels she is showing everyone pictures of her dog. (A
Doberman. Who looks exactly like every other Doberman I have ever seen.)
Suddenly I’ve acquired a whole new dancing wardrobe. But will it make me a
new person? That’s what I want to know.
With a view to listening to Marc Kramer for once in my
life because he’s rich and I’m not. Avril and I went house-hunting. The trigger
was a wonderful broken down old house in College Park (complete with
white pillars) so I called to ask the price. Real estate agent sucked me
effortlessly in, entering into our quest with gusto. I am almost 28 years old
and although I don’t make much money – apparently I make enough. The
house was hopeless. It needs $50,000 on the roof alone. But the agent has
plenty others to show us.
Bizarro letter from Ryder. He said “after that visit I
thought you’d never trust me again” and “I bow down to you.” Which visit?
The one where I allowed him to give me a massage? I refuse to inquire further because that’s exactly what he wants me to do. He is just needled that I have so obviously given up on him. Why am I attracted to these weirdos? I know the
problem between us is that I want a mutual relationship and he wants a pack
animal. I want to be with the person I love and “love” makes him want to
run away (because it makes him feel “out of control”). But where is the
fun in telling him this? He couldn’t use the maze clue even if I gave it to him.
So I write a short note telling him I’m busy with Zach and Buck. That should
fix his jealous wagon.
I didn’t tell him about the hours of sexual bliss Buck and
I shared last night! Buck is warming up nicely – invited me to his parents’ house
for the weekend – they will be away. Unfortunately, he snores horribly – sounds
like he’s strangling. A by-product of motorcycle racing. Needs that cartilage
cleared out with a vacuum hose. Trying to read Rumer Godden’s Breath of Air. Boring and unctuous. Put it down for Dear Scott/Dear Max, which is of course delightful.
```
    Mon 13 Nov 78
            Busted, wasted day. Avril called to borrow $90 so she can 
```
pick up el Diablo from Courtesy Motors – fortunately I had it so we went to bank,
then car dealer. Then I tried to get an oil change but they don’t do Fiats. Took long enough to tell me they don’t have the right wrenches. Real estate agent phoned
to say I qualify for special FHA loan. I had to call my landlord because apparently I don’t have heat.
Avril is having lots of trouble with Brady who is alternately
aggressive and suicidal. I think he is more trouble than he’s worth but admit he has very pretty, very long, long thighs. He and Buck went to high school then trade
school together – Buck exhibits a grisly picture of them at their prom with their
dates. B’s date is his soon to be ex-wife. Buck was also B’s best man but I was
spared those photos.
Zachary asked me out next Fri night but I’d rather be with
Buck – but if he doesn’t ask me in time I’ll tell him I’m ”going out with the girls.”
That’s what he tells me he does; “goin’ out with the guys” – so presumably this
is an OK excuse. If he says what girls I’m in a bit of a pickle. But I’m a writer –
I‘ll invent some. It can’t be anyone he knows. Fortunately he has no idea what
a hermit I really am.
Still stuck in the childhood of my novel. Can’t wait for
them to grow up. Re-read Le Ble en Herbe which helped a lot. (Aaaahhhhh…
Colette!) Off to Crown Books with A – then White Flint Mall for Christmas
shopping – had coffee at The Perfect Cup. Nice outing. I bought wonderful
rhinestone cat’s eye glasses. Saw Bergman’s Autumn Sonata – moving.
```
    Mon 27 Nov 78 - 1:35 PM
            Time to write in this neglected diary while waiting to have 
```
my snow tires mounted. This threatens to blow my entire day. They also had
to replace a fuse that apparently blew in the middle of a rainstorm so that my
wipers stopped working.
Visit with Mom and Dad very touchy. (They are staying
with Peter’s mother Rita and everyone’s slightly angry I’m not dating him
and I can’t narc on his Secret Relationship.) Mom casually accepted an
invitation for all of us to go out to dinner on a night I was going out with
Zachary, so I said I would have to invite him and got a tirade on my thought-
lessness. Then I pointed out she was the thoughtless one assuming I didn’t
have any plans. She apologized, I apologized. It blew over.
Then Avril had the nerve to ask Rita if she could
smoke – Mom exploded just as if it were her house. (Rita said No. She’s
trying to quit.) M & D piled on me – I’m insane to contemplate buying a
house – even if the mortgage would only cost what rent already costs.
Their real objection is that I might “choose wrong” – somehow encumber
myself with a property that will make me even less attractive (if that were
EVEN possible) to A Decent Man. Not even dragging in Marc Kramer’s
sacred name as Advisor helped at all.
Dad did come see a few houses with us. (We’ve seen
16 so far.) He had to admit it isn’t a bad deal as long as I can get that FHA
loan. Zachary behaved very well around M and D – the “Official Boyfriend”
– but of course he owed me. Fortunately the evening was over before they
could find out too much about him (or he offered them drugs) so his
cover wasn’t blown.
Conversation at dinner very boring. Psychology 101.
“Why don’t people say what they want?” “Why don’t people try to get what
they want?” “Why do people lose interest in what they say they want?” (Rita’s
going through her third divorce.) Since no one seems the least bit interested
in the complexities of achieving Actual Gratification by attempting to mesh one’s constantly evolving desires with those of someone else I can only shake my head sagely and flee at the first opportunity.
Mom and Dad actually tackled these questions and
struggled with them like a pair of marriage counselors. The truth is Rita’s ex
has found somebody else and she shouldn’t be so surprised – they were both
married when she hove onto his horizon.
Got a very stoned phone call from Zachary last night – he
was over at Rod’s and “something” was making him horny. (I’ll bet I can guess.) Fortunately, I managed to convince him he was in no state to drive – leaving him
prey to Rod, probably. Well, we all have to take our chances in this life.
Saturday night with Buck unsatisfying – he claimed his
non-breathing nose is preventing him from going down on me. I let him know his account is in arrears and he will have to do something about it sooner or later. He
chose later and fell immediately asleep. So I left. I’m not sure I will ever get to
Stage 2 with this guy. He made a point of tracking me down at Avril’s apt, calling to apologize. A and I saw 3 more unacceptable houses – but the real estate agent
says there are plenty more. Fun to be in a buyer’s market for a change.
```
    Sat 7 pm Plush Palace – 2 Dec 78
            Just recovering from some tremendous bout of food 
```
poisoning – must have gotten it from the Sleazy Restaurant Around the Corner
– but all I had there was a takeout salad. Still, it could have been the dressing.
No fever. I was throwing up all Wednesday. I called A to drop by after class but
she was so worried she came right over. I finally was able to keep down some
chicken soup. Then we went to Bethesda in the eve to see Zach’s Gordon
Lightfoot impersonation – I had a little wine to make me feel better. (Free
drinks always taste best.) Finally finished the childhood section but I don’t
feel good about it. Novels don’t want you to do anything in life but write
them all the time. I am only at p. 133.

I am already exhausted and needing a vacation.
Cheered myself up by wrapping Christmas gifts – baroque music and Victorian
gift-wrap did it for me. I especially love those chubby Victorian cherubs who
couldn’t become airborne without at least two brawny stagehands hauling
on a mighty hawser. Reading My Mother/Myself in between boogie-oogie-oogying. Dinner party with A, Buck, and A’s old boyfriend who happened to be in town. We ate stuffed Cornish game hen, played Clue and went dancing at
the Bastille.
```
    Thurs night – Plush Palace – 11:30 PM – 7 Dec 78
            Manic night – a dancer literally dragged off the stage by 
```
the police because her roommate is accusing her of stealing $3300 of furniture.
Thank God she came back so I only had to dance one extra set. Wed night
we found a house! It has 5 bedrooms, 3 bath perfect in every way except that
that it’s packed into a neighborhood of like houses so there are absolutely no
vistas. But the price is right. We made an offer but they accepted another offer
– ours is the “backup contract.” So, we still might get it.
```
    Thurs am 1:07 14 Dec 78
            Finished the novel in an insane burst of speed – 10 
```
pages a day for four days. Now I have to calm down and see what I’ve got.
I still feel pretty good about it – but probably reading it will depress me.
And Devon will probably never speak to me again since he is in it. His
Christmas card says I am a genius and he is in awe of me. Hey, it could
be true. My publisher’s statement arrived. $50. $50. There goes that Feb
vacation. Pretty sure I need a new agent. What did “stooping to genre”
achieve exactly? I didn’t get a living wage. I didn’t get a publisher,
agent or editor receptive to my work. It’s like I’m starting over – again.
On an up note: looks like we might get the house! It is SO perfect.
Fenced in yard and everything.
```
    Mon 18 Dec 78 – Plush Palace 6:30 PM
            Horrible day. Everything that can go wrong has. 
```
Mailing off mss wildly expensive. Drove Avril around because the Gremlin is
in the shop again. Reading Bodyguard of Lies – history having its usual
soothing effect. (Everything much worse for everybody else.) It looks like
I will have to work two jobs in Jan to pay for this house. Maureen the
costume designer wants to rent a room in our house – that would help.
She wouldn’t be a problem – getting a masters in textiles at U. of M so
not the usual flaky personality that finds itself onstage. Concluded I really
have to break up with Z. It won’t be hard – just stop seeing him.
One good thing did happen – I was lying in bed at
1:30 AM nodding off over Bodyguard – phone rang. I almost didn’t
answer it – how could it be anything good – but I thought it might be Avril
with some emergency. It was Jervaze! He’s coming back. He’s been
offered “crew leader” position in his old job at the Pentagon with a $5,000
bump. He wants to celebrate by taking me out – we can go to Clyde’s
where we partied for his birthday last year. I hung up feeling good –
until I thought this will give me a reason to give up Buck. There’s no way
Jervaze won’t find out about him. Ugh. Confrontations. Unless I can keep
J out of club? Doesn’t seem possible that he is off the sauce. Must make
sure he gets a place of his own – he will be living with his brother to start
with. He sounded sober, I’ll say that for him.
```
    Plush Palace Tues night 19 Dec 78 - 7:30 PM
                Wiped out my savings account to pay bills – well, 
```
that’s what it’s for. We got the Queens Chapel house! Target date
for the move is March 1. Avril and Maureen very excited. (It really is
huge. 5 beds, 3 bathrooms, divideable into 3 suites. Perfect. Huge
kitchen, dining room and fenced in yard.) I contemplate writing a book
of poems called The Lives of Dancers. Trouble is, I’d have to tone it
down to make it believable. Got one poem already – Impure Women.

IMPURE WOMEN

Between my breath and your breath
Beneath the phallic philanthropic statues on
The volcanic dragstrip of my city
The wounded in the scorched earth policy
Of love
Muster, linger, await
Embodiment.
Pills to make their hearts race faster have
Stopped their faces dead as clocks
That witnessed crimes unspeakable
To mothers versed in tabloid gore.
Who will bring them
Absolution now that I am gone?
In the fresh wounds of a
Seconal summer
The stopped children meet
And kiss.

Is it the approach of Christmas that’s bringing all
the old boyfriends back to me like elephants to a boneyard? Ryder
called. Marc Kramer refers to me his “dream girl” and can’t get me
out of his mind and we’ve been out what – three times? Buck gave
me my present at the club – he looked adorable – bath goodies.
Don-the-Patent-Lawyer who’s been hanging around the club lately
asked me out for New Year’s eve. I had to refuse because Merrill
and husband will be in town but I told him to try later. He seems interesting
– like to get to know him better. Mature. Always trolling for someone
presentable to take Home to Mom.
January 21, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer Poet
```
            8:45 PM Plush Palace – 24 Jun 78 – Sat
            Bad mood. OD’d on junk food then lost my favorite 
```
hairbrush and other people’s plastic versions break my hair. Growl. I can
write it out. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it. Emotional roller coaster
continues. Just when I declare myself a Celibate Slave to Art a very handsome
(and very blond) man comes in tonight. He works in radio, considering story
about dancers; wants to interview “somebody”.

“You hit pay dirt, my friend.” I tell him but I insist on
pseudonym. I was wearing my silver lamé outfit with the see-through silver
sleeves so looked tiptop if I do say so myself.

His name’s Rod Avery (I’m not kidding) and although
he’s newly divorced he lacks the Rip Van Winkle leer. He works for a reputable
national outlet. I can work with this. Mom would just eat him up. Bought tix to
an Agatha Christie play – maybe I’ll invite him instead of Avril.
```
            Plush Palace, Sat 1 July, 9 PM
            Rod and I engage in a little smoochy-smoochy hand 
```
holding following Christie play. I make an effort not to get so drunk that I
pull down his pants to view his namesake. Impatient to find out exactly
where my next sexual meal is coming from. Tach it up buddy.
In Dancer News, GiGi says Charlie NEVER goes
down on her unless he’s absolutely plastered. I want to know, “And then
what good is he?” She has to admit “not much.” Says he laps at her like
she’s a melting ice cream cone.
```
            Did like Pamela Hansford Johnson’s Helena trilogy. 
```
(Impressions of childhood, though, painfully unreal.) Now struggling with
Grahame Greene’s It’s A Battlefield. Diseased whores abound; women
bear their 12th child in crowded rooms (and because he’s a Catholic that’s
presumably All Right By Him) and a gay time is had by none.
```
            Midnight Sun-Mon July 2-3 78
            Taking Avril to Cellar Door for her birthday before she 
```
flies to Mich to see Merrill. Gifts Dior dusting powder & wrap around dress.
Festive occasion demands dress-up. A & I saw Grease, Rod and I saw
Heaven Can Wait. Just sweet enough but it didn’t “move” Rod as
much as I hoped. What if he’s one of the “pod people” with nothing
inside? Jury still out.
```
        Thurs 4:15 – 6 July 78
            Missing Avril so much!  Boy, did I get dependent. 
```
It’s just SO Fun to have someone to do things with who thinks ALMOST
EXACTLY the same as you do but with interestingly nourishing differences.
Rod is no substitute. Still can’t figure him out. His apartment is
completely stark. Bare. Not ONE THING on any of the walls. The
closest I can get to understanding him is that there seems to be no
feeling in his family. They don’t talk at meals. Father’s dead, mother
still sends him clothes he hates and he still wears them. (They are perfectly presentable. But what would he wear if she did not dress him? We’ll never
know. I’m not getting in the midst of that.)

He never suggests things to do. I suggest everything.
Charlie Byrd in Annapolis (just because I love Annapolis) was OK. On the
other hand, when we went to Le Bistro he ordered Piper Heidseck
champagne out of the clear blue sky! Because he said now he’s “finally dating.”
So that took initative. Right?

Nice letter from Devon who ‘feels veneration” for my talent.
Sweet. Reading Green’s The von Richthofen Sisters.
```
            8:30 PM Fri – 7 July 78
            Driving in to work in a haze of ecstasy after Perfect Day, 
```
heard an infuriating review of Heaven Can Wait by Penelope Gilliatt. Really the woman’s a moron. She says she would understand a movie about transmigration
of souls in “wartime” but why now! Who GIVES these people a podium? How did
she get this job with so little artistic sense? Bullied her way to the top, most likely.
Von Richthofen Sisters turns out to be boring PhD thesis.
So hard to get it right. Therefore switched to Murder of My Aunt. Amusing.
(Richard Hull).

Big tipper in tonight. $138 so far! I feel like the pigeons
in A’s experiments. “Intermittent reinforcement!” I have to pick up Genevieve
and Brett up at the airport tomorrow for Women’s March (we all wear white.)
Bringing them back to my place to eat first – I made a gorgeous salmon mousse. Invited Rod just to see if he’s cool.
```
            Sun July 9 78 2 AM
            He’s cool.  Wore white, walked the whole march and 
```
was so charming to Genevieve and Brett they were dazzled. I’m now
feeling relief that I only have ten days till vacation – don’t think I can
become “over involved” in that short period of time.
```
            Adelphi Grist Mill Park – 11:15 AM Mon July 10 – 78
            Sunbathing on my favorite rock.  When I get hot
```
I’ll splash around (like the dogs are already doing). Hardly a dry spot
left on this rock – but who cares – my diaries have seen worse. A year
ago, the Last Act of the Romantic Psychodrama just beginning. Whew.
I think I came out of it all right. I’m starting to see a possible Harold-Nicolson/
Vita Sackville-West thing developing with Rod. (He actually KNOWS WHO
Harold Nicolson is!!!) Last night I almost raped him in his theatre seat but I am determined to let him make the first move. But I do need to know how long
I’m going to have to wear Glamorous Lingerie every day (just in case). I am
starting to run out of glamorous lingerie. But we are having a lovely time – he
is witty, intelligent and aware. I “confessed” all about Devon – my longest
relationship – but because he’s a “newly consecrated minister” I can see
Rod’s not too worried. If he only knew!

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

2 PM – Back at home to ringing phone – new
croquet ball on the pitch! Marc Kramer coming into National – do I want
to have dinner and discuss My Finances. Hmm. Maybe. He knows I’m too
poor to invest in anything. But I say Yes.
```
            Fri. 8:05 Starlight Club Springfield, Fri 14 July 78
            I hate this club. It’s a bitch of a drive so I rarely come 
```
here but the tips are good. Need the cash for vacation. Unfortunately, I am
working with Danielle – the Brazilian lesbian who threatened to kill me. I’m
hoping she won’t recall she threw boiling hot coffee at me. (Her aim is bad.)
She’s usually pretty much out of it. Got $100 tip already from a guy who wonders
why I don’t dance at The Gaslight downtown. Because the dancers have to
waitress there! Ugh! That place is legendary. I tried to be polite but really.
Anyway, Kramer was different from what I expected. We
ate prime rib at The King’s Contrivance – he seemed a lot older and a lot sadder.
He says whenever he hears 10 CC’s “I’m Not In Love” he thinks of me.
I asked him what about finances – he said I should invest
in real estate. Wants to “watch my stocks.” I was embarrassed to tell him
there isn’t anything to watch what with Dad keeping such a closed fist on the
shares, and me having to sell everything I get. I start to suspect Dad is
CONFIDING in him about his estate planning and PRETENDING “our”
investments are actually OURS.
This meant we didn’t have that much to talk about and
the evening ended with a damp kiss when I turned down sex. I say I’m In a Relationship. He says he’s thinking of proposing to his red headed secretary
who reminds him of me. I am kind of insulted but told him to Go For It. I guess
I had this built up in my mind – sort of like Chuck Kornowitz where you think
it’s going to FINALLY be about SOMETHING ELSE. How my Mom would jeer!
(Wore my 3-piece suit, anyway. With eyeshadow.)
He says he has to come through on his way back
from Oklahoma, thank God, I could say I’ll be in Maine. Looks Like It’s Over.

SUNBATHER

Poor periwinkle hides
within the final
spiny spiral of his shell, no
stronghold that from
hungry file-worms’ whippet tongues nor
sun-mad amateur biologists nor
ten year olds; while I
more evolved, lie
among the oval-jointed shells, the
sheepswool sponges, camouflage
my breasts as comb-jellies, hair
as seaweed, fooling none yet
impressing those
I can’t deceive.
```
            2:15 AM Mon 17 July 78
            Another fiasco.  I should leave now while I’m behind. 
```
This has certainly been Trial and Error Week. How did poor Rod – Desirable
Husband become Inevitable Discard? I’m sick to death of the Hand Kissings
and the Knee Pinchings, Goddamit. There is something seriously wrong
with this man. We had dinner & drinks at the Peter Pan Inn, then drove up
and down Price Distillery Rd until I assaulted him. I admit it. He is under
the impression that we “made love”. Trust me, one time was plenty. This
is a man who does not “think” with his body. He gives nothing back, an
absorptive rather than reflective surface. I was just able to prevent myself
from rushing to the bathroom to masturbate. I worked hard not to let him
know how just how incompetent he is, because really, there’s no hope.
Some sad girl somewhere who hates sex is going to find her “dream man”.
I shouldn’t have pushed it, although seriously I don’t think he will even question
if it never happens again.
Damn shame is all I can say. A cruel waste, when he’s
so charming in every other respect. Life is brutal. Sigh. Enjoyed Pretty Baby
so much I saw it twice. (Can’t pay close enough attention while Rod is talking.)
```
            Wed 19 July 78 - 3:20 PM
            Unbelievably hot. Woke up sluggish, ate last night’s 
```
macaroni, felt worse. Ate grapefruit, felt better. Eddy called me for a double,
I refused. Read Mary Kelly’s Cold Corse. Interesting. Gave me new ending
for Secaire. Off to the creek to play in the naturally freezing Jacuzzi. Must buy
Perrier, fruit and yogurt. Reading Jessica Mitford’s A Fine Old Conflict. Charming.
```
    Shadowe Island – Burnside Inn – 31 July 78
            The island its usual immortal, eternal self.    A ragged
```
paradise. Avril and I came up through Boston – drove “The Freedom Trail”
but couldn’t go to the Ritz Carlton bar because of the dogs. She is taking care
of them down at the cottage.
```
            Mom and Dad look great – thinner and very brown.  When I checked in at the Burnside Inn Paul Morris offered me a drink and we chatted
```
very enjoyably. Trying not to be attracted to him. This vacation might resolve
its masturbatory throbbings when Devon shows up. He is driving down from
Montreal – I am as nervous as a 14 yr old. That poor sawdust doll Rod called
but phone connection (thankfully) very bad. Merrill arrived with children in tow
and we had magnificent lobster dinner down at the shore. Rod sent me a copy of
On Moral Fiction.
```
            Burnside Inn – 5 Aug 78 
            Rod called – we talked 45 mins about Moral Fiction – 
```
I feel an enormous pleasure in his intellect. He asks me if being a poet means
you enjoy life more intensely. I say YES. Maybe we can transition this into a
friendship.
```
            11:30 PM – Devon just phoned – long conversation 
```
on power, authority and ambivalence. He is tormented by his family – can’t
figure out how to escape them. He needs to move out of their town but of
course they get him jobs SO HE CAN’T MOVE OUT OF THEIR TOWN. Says
he’s bringing doughnuts tomorrow over on the ferry – what are my favorites.
That’s easy – anything chocolate. (Mom told A that when he gets off the ferry
and sees how I’m dressed he’ll turn around and get back on! She doesn’t
know him very well. Kind of like Rod – they both think this “minister” thing is
overly determinative. Doesn’t in the least change who he really is.)
```
            Midnight Tues 8 Aug 78
            M & D both wrong and right. Devon DID NOT flee me 
```
at ferry but fell ecstatically into my arms. HE DID, however, painfully said he
can’t express his love for me in “a fully integrated way” (because parson!) and
asked me first just to caress his nude body. He didn’t think he could have sex
with someone he’s not in an exclusive relationship with. But guess what? Then
we had blissful, magnificent sex. I didn’t tell him this is as integrated as it gets
for me and a lot more integrated than it’s been lately! (Poor Rod.)
January 17, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer/Poet
```
            Sat. 6 May 78 – 1:30 PM
            Cleaned & waxed kitchen and bathroom floors, sitting 
```
with newly creamed hands and cup of coffee in recliner. Muse time.
Emerge blinking like a ground hog into a new and spring-like world. A year
ago, I was a rat in a cage. It’s critical never to let the “merchants of neurosis”
trick me into limiting myself.
```
            Tues. 9 May Plush Palace – 9:15 PM
            Mom spent the last two nights at my place – sleeping
```
in my bed since guest room has no bed. Me on sofa – doesn’t matter
since I can’t sleep anyway when she’s around. Up at 7 to make breakfast get
Mom to airport for 10 o’clock plane thank God. Avril came over with blueberry
muffins and gazpacho to discuss the visit.
Everything Mom said felt like an attack. (She did give
me $100 but I spent – and lost – more than that on her visit.) Avril says the
island has been worse for Mom because she’s never confronted with a life
that would contradict her narrow-minded theories, so it’s all: “Why can’t
people get smart and live exactly the way I do?” She tries to make her
personal tastes “emotional law” – and if you don’t agree with her – or God
forbid, want to explore something different you’re “the sick one”. Rough stuff.
We took her to our favorite Ellicott City restaurant – she
wanted Avril to “explain” Mason and me to “explain” my clothes. She said
my clothes trigger “weirdos” following us – it was completely in her
imagination! She cries. No one decent will “have” me, she wails! I say,
what if I don’t want to be “had”? I’d ask her about her life but she isn’t
honest – she doesn’t know Dad has already told us that her ideology is
untrue. She insists when you find Mr. Right everything’s peachy, but Dad
says she was uncomfortable and unwilling about sex at first – didn’t care
for it. They had to “work hard”. I say we have more experience of pain
than Mom ever had – Avril says she “refuses to learn.” Creepy. Turns
what pain she does have back on others somehow.
```
            The best revenge? Write a poem:
```
THE RIGHT PART OF TOWN

We run through life
She thinks
Dancing lightly on high heels
Past disemboweled sofas
Skirting
Drunks & drains.
Taut veins serve as
Toque of manners
High & proud, worn
For company.
This house displays
Her purpose;
New red brick
Virgin stickers swearing
She’s the first.
Processed air admits her
Grudgingly:
“You look like one of us.”
Mentally she sweeps up sun;
Plans daisies, cashmere
Overnight guests
The roar from the street soon turns
This air to poison –
She counts to ten
And breaks a nail in locking up.
She sees it won’t do after all
Too close to stink & squalor;
Doormen, dogs, police locks;
Balconies with lightning rods.
She’ll choose new paths this time
Avoid electronics that have lost
Their parts,
Flexing knees
As always; she
Summons a cab; closer –
Closer to her death;
That suitor never accused
Of gentlemanly behavior.
```
            Can’t wait to resume my privacy and my routine, 
```
reading book about Forster (The Cave & The Mountain) in my own bed.
I think realizing your mother’s limitations is part of
maturity, and I’ve been slow because I’m unwilling to adopt Genevieve’s
methods – “Don’t give her anything – tell her what she wants to hear.”
I thought better of her than that but I struck out. Since their definition of
success is so narrow, I don’t see how I can ever satisfy them.
```
            Plush Palace – 11:30 PM – Wed  10 May 78
            Wonderful day – up at nine to play Frisbee with dogs.  
```
Eddy asked me to come in tonight and although A and I planned a movie
I accepted – that’s my new policy – say yes to everything except doubles
or driving all the way to Springfield. A & I had late lunch together at
Ponderosa – she’s says she’ll study all night. We’ll do laundry together
tomorrow and have drinks Sunday on some sundrenched terrace.
J. came in tonight depressing the hell out of me. I
had nothing to say to him – it would be like using a 12 gauge on a mouse.
Please, just go away and live your life and don’t bother me.
```
            Plush Palace – Midnight – Fri 12 May 78
            I love Friday nights.  They’re always exciting.  Gay girl 
```
in tonight approaching the dancers (without success) you’d think that would
happen more often. If she went a bit slower she might get lucky.
Unfortunately, she just asks us if we are gay. How can we know without
any experience? With the right kind of situation I think we’d admit we’re all
at least a little bit gay.
Avril came over to the house at noon – we had white
wine, macaroni salad with ham and croissants. Eddy called me in 3 sets
early – $265 extra. Irresistible – means I can go to NYC. Carol tells us
about her sexually sadistic husband – handcuffs and everything! She
orders pancakes for dinner to “cheer up” even though maple syrup gives
her hives! Jerrilee tells how hard it was to leave her husband. He held
a gun to her baby’s head. Kristi found a new “wonderful” guy but gave him
herpes and now she fears he’s “done” with her. What a waste since now
they both have herpes! They’re perfect for each other!
This is all a lot more interesting than Ann Bridge’s
Emergency in the Pyrenees. (Even Mrs. Radcliffe was more fun that that).
Who should come in tonight but Peter’s brother Julian!
Thought he was in San Francisco. Apparently I’m one of the Eight Wonders
of DC – can’t pass through without getting a gander. Kissed me in a brotherly
way. We had a nice reminisce about childhood till Eddy sent me back to
dressing room. He saw one set – when I came out again he was gone.
```
            11 PM Mon 15 May 78 
            Sun night got blind drunk on my day off through sheer 
```
frustration and exhaustion; then couldn’t sleep. Intermittent nightmares that
someone was trying to break into my car and throw acid in my face. Decided
to kiss the novel off and let it go – just get an opinion. Concentrate on
something else. Weather depressing – no sunbathing – four day monsoon!
Trying grumpily to live without booze. I can see myself becoming Lida.

2 AM Mon 22 May 78
Exhaustion follows mania. Yesterday couldn’t keep my
eyes open long enough to read the NY Times, but refusing to go to bed dragged
out my notebooks to arrange beside my desk. Horrible old valentines, photos
of Ryder, dreadful wailing screeds fall out. I have so many drafts of Flycatcher
it’s ridiculous. Purging isn’t easy – I totally understand hoarding. How can you
be certain you’ll never need something again? Must get to bed – tomorrow
meet A at College Park Library to see Dear Detective and listen to Couperain.
```
            Fri. Plush Palace – 26 May 78 – 7:20 PM
            Dancing badly.  Reduced to eating saltines (bad girl!) 
```
Feel I can see the end of all this and it’s a cold cold chill. Apparently nothing pleasurable lasts forever – as soon as it’s a “job” it’s over. Poor me! What’s
the next incarnation? Tending art gallery on windswept rainy isle? Living
drunken and obese in a trailer on the edge of the estate?

HORROR STORY

With age lubricity
Darkens into sweat;
We face each other
Across the cooling dinner,
Night by night
Stiff as andirons
Masterpieces best seen by candlelight
To hide the cracks,
Well-meant improvements by
Another’s hand.
A well-matched pair.
Gardens edged perennially with stone
Are called unkillable;
One fountain singing
This tune only. What oracle?
It didn’t look this way
Going forward
Backward is a different view.

I could have sworn that we’d last longer.
I think I caught it from my mother,
Who played a role in Wuthering Heights;
The crone who preaches doom
In guise of cheer.
I requested light enough
To read my tarot; instead recycling
Murky tea brewed
From your used bathwater.
These leaves are dark and do not speak.
I shiver with cold and you
With anger; a well-matched pair, a
Brace of disappointments.
There’s still too much
We can’t admit.
```
            Lovely “date” with Avril.  We went to Sea Fair 
```
(corner Calvert & Conn) for drinks, scallops, mussels at the outside
café. She says Shoulders is a total washout. Looks like Mom succeeded
all too well in convincing us romantic love is the most important thing in life
– I say let’s blame her. A having horrible insomnia troubles so before movie
we bought six classical records to soothe and stun. I really hesitate to go
out with Peter – why cultivate new people when they’re so likely to turn out
just as awful as the old people? I like him now but… he’s on his best behavior.
Really feeling shy and buried in myself. Instead of new man, start a new novel. Something crazy.
A tried Barbara Ellen (exercise studio) but was put off
by their insulting sales techniques. It’s like being chained to a TV listening
to a half hour of ring around the collar commercials. Too bad.
I say she’s got to stop telling prospective employers
she has “no experience”. She worked for hotline, courier service, horrible
fake gyno, etc. We need to construct a resume out of this – we are too damn
honest. Better to project even a witless confidence. I don’t want to have to
tell people about myself, either.

Dear Detective was superb! Followed it up with
gold rush sundae and coffee at Swensen’s. Trying to get into bestsellers
– reading Velda Johnson’s ghastly Etruscan Smile. Would rather read
theology (and Secaire shows it. Alas.) My novel is terrible. It stinks.
It needs to be rewritten from the bottom UP. Plot beyond help.
January 15, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Poet Who Happens to be a Dancer
```
    9:30 PM Mon 27 Feb 78
            Love the drive between my place and A’s – taking 
```
not New Hampshire Ave but Riggs Road. Blind turns and nonsequential
lights give me that old country feeling. We had just seen The Parradine
Case. Interesting. Good jumping off place for other ideas. I like the form.
Could I manage novelistically the “outsides revealing insides” that film so
confidently assumes? Day started badly with non-working electric blanket
and slowly building headache – probably from finishing reading Helpmate
– what
a chronicle of lacerations.
```
    Tues. Feb 28 1:15 PM
            Left message with agent – why no check? I was 
```
thinking of going to England in two weeks, according to my old timeline.
Doesn’t seem possible now.

GOTHIC NOVEL

A woman alone is open and gaping, a
Button hole without a button hook.
She carries her muff held stiffly
Out before her like an offering
Flic, flic! The eyes of strangers
Slit the pause like razors.
This railway carriage stinks of creosote, wet fur.
“I prefer the window up, thank you”
“I prefer it down”.
She lights a Sobranie to remind her
Of Devon in the haying; the gentlemen
Lean forward, reading the initials
On her morocco case.
```
    9:50PM – Plush Palace – Wed 1 Mar 78
            J in to say goodbye – going to Alabama for a
```
few days to set things up for moving there. I did wonder if it was
the last time I would ever see him – but from the way he clutched
my hand and kissed the air (illegal to kiss customers here) that can’t
be true. But remember the way Devon carried on about me and then
disappeared for years? Men are strange. So who the hell knows.
3 sets down. Dancing superbly if I do say so myself. Ticking like a clock.

Friday Mar 3 – Plush Palace – 9:15 PM
I am forcing myself to write this. J came in tonight,
very drunk and crying. (Sold the Shelby. They gave him some kind of
middle of the road muscle car in return.) Would he carry on like this
about me? Now that he has the money to go to Alabama he doesn’t
want to. What made me think he would actually complete something
just because he acted so definite? I am hampered by my physical
passion for him – he is so gorgeous. Those dents in his thighs alone
are worth everything. But I can’t start mothering him – it would be the
end of the Life as We Know It.
Finished A Tyler’s Tin Can Tree – I see why she
likes it least. Characters blurred. Reading Wm Trevor’s Elizabeth Alone
– too many curlicues.
```
    6:55PM – Plush Palace – Mon 6 Mar 78
            Eventually everyone in this job gets bad knees – 
```
something to do with dancing in six-inch heels. I would be better off if
I just walked around like some of the other girls, but my narcissism
demands I be the best. I can see guys in the audience poking each other
when I come out – “that’s her” and that alone makes it worth it for me.
On the other hand the presence of J seriously diminishes tips – he needs
to go away so I can make some money.
A and I were restless after dinner last night and
went out dancing. Big mistake. Defensive boring, hostile men who
count like drill sergeants while pretending to “dance”. “Do the hustle!”
Much expense – no pleasure – after three brandy and sodas I was
content to rack out on A’s bed at 3 AM. I need to up my writing to 10 p
a day – I do NOT need to party.
Amazing letter from Devon about how lovely
and precious and gifted I am but he can’t see me because he’s too
deep in his own life. He’s still searching for the perfect lover and has
no clues. Well, I guess that’s honest. Should be flattered he’s trying
to preserve our relationship at all. London is beginning to ebb away –
looks like I’ll only get a few hundred dollars. There’s a downer. So
why aren’t I writing?
Reading Crucial Conversations by May Sarton.
You’d swear it was written by an eighteen year old with no experience
of life whatever. However, its very brashness gives me the courage
to jump back into my own book.
```
    12:55 PM
            Very tired. Shouldn’t keep working with this intensity 
```
but my new discovery of shaky financial position means I have to.
When I “have to” do anything it makes me feel soiled. Wild idea of getting
pregnant by J. He’s pretty enough. But what would that fix? Only my
biological clock and my finances – permanently. Fixed in a downward
direction if you get my drift. Finished Sarton’s Mermaids, starting
Tyler’s Caleb.

6:30PM – Plush Palace – Tues 7 Mar 78
A triumphant day. Like some manic-depressive,
I am in my high cycle. Probably from reading Elizabeth Bowen –
The Cat Jumps. Amazed at how much I like it – much better than
Death of the Heart. She leaves me feeling a writer can do anything.
I see my book now as thirteen short, sharp, clear scenes. Why can’t
I do it any way I want? Tonight I have To The North to look forward to.

Plush Palace – 11:PM Fri Mar 10 – 78
Wednesday I broke up with Jervaze. Thursday he
called me. I got the impression that in the South it’s when you break
up that things really start to get interesting. Apparently if I wanted wild
declarations I should have done this long ago. Fortunately, I can handle this
on the phone. It’s that glorious body dipped in platinum dust that I can’t
say no to.
Finished Bowen’ s World of Love and To the North.
I can’t believe she was ever popular – I like her too much. She suits me
exactly. What a stylist. OK, forget plot, character, those little appurtenances.
She makes them seem so unimportant. Imagine recasting Courtney in this
light. I guess her style is too forties, but would that be necessarily a bad thing?
A called. She and I are crutches to one another, but I like her better than any
man I have ever met. Watched Monty Python, steak dinner, then she helped
me paint my new four-poster bed. (Gilt, of course. Gives me a new title –
The Gilty Bed.) Watched La Femme Infidele sur le television while consuming
an appropriate wine.
```
    Plush Palace – 11:PM Sat Mar 11 – 78
            I was in too good a mood today. Bought a new costume from Maureen just when I AM JUST ABOUT TO LEAVE FOR THREE WEEKS, but it is yellow velvet and fake sapphires with armbands and everything – a beauty. Good work on novel, ate hamburgers (and eclairs) with A, wrote a good letter to Devon
```
in answer to his weird one to me. Struggling with Eva Trout and The Ponder
Heart. Nix on both. Fortunately, also have a June Thomson murder mystery
for a chaser.
A and I assembled my bed – canopy and everything, it
looks smashing with its hangings of brown lace. Then she called Mason in
Calif to see why he isn’t sending her stuff – he said he’s seeking another
estimate – they had a rational discussion but she was obviously very shaken
when she hung up. I teased her that he is wearing her clothes and probably
looks good in them.
```
    Plush Palace – Wed/Thu Mar 15 – 78
            No London in my future. I’ve accepted it. I need 
```
affordable breaks from this life – two weeks in Maine, one week in Boston,
etc. A and I going to Maine tomorrow. A spent the weekend comforting Opal
who is upset about the failure of her marriage – it’s the old story – when it’s the woman’s turn to be babied man withdraws, making frightened, threatening
noises.
Finished Sarton’s Kinds of Love. I can see why
some people like it. It kind of has a “National Geographic” feel to it – here’s
a guide to the “foreigners”. But it is not a good novel – it’s Faith Baldwin
through and through. Reading Sarton is like attending writing class – she
never loses the miasma of the eager student and she has a lot of interesting
ideas. But, remarkably for a poet, she is deficient on the mystery end. Perhaps
she doesn’t understand that a novel is another kind of poem. Lots of Ructions
here tonight: Gina and Jerrilee fighting and I have to play peacemaker (because
there’s nowhere to go from the dressing room other than the alley or the ladies
room and no guarantee rabid fans will stay away.) I haven’t packed – will be up
till 4.
```
    2PM – Shadowe Island Sat Mar 18 – 78
            Every time I come back to this beautiful island I wonder 
```
why I ever leave. Dogs are in paradise. Mom and Dad relaxed, involved,
charming. A all defensive about the “failure” of her life with Mason so I am
off the hook – temporarily.
I’m reading The House In Paris – restores my high
estimation of Bowen. The trouble with this island is that the rest of existence
vanishes totally when I am here. I am eating too much but the food is so
fabulous it would seem immoral to resist – roast lamb, new potatoes, spinach
quiche, sour cream gravy, stuffed mushrooms, strawberry trifle. We stayed
up late reading Ruth Rendell’s mystery stories aloud, then I fell asleep and I
had the most delicious erotic dream about J – much better than the real thing.
Felt what it would be like to be a deep-throated cello vibrating endlessly.
```
    Mon Mar 20 7:00 PM -78
            Why is it around my parents my self-confidence takes 
```
a nosedive? Every fingernail becomes deciduous. I had better call Plush
Palace and get put on next week’s schedule. Finished House and began
Heat of the Day. My mother asks questions that reveal her to be jealous
of all the reading I do. Her delicate hint – she would feel “lazy” doing so
much reading because there must be something that she would be
neglecting. I tell her I, on the other hand, if I were not reading, would feel
guilty. (As well as deprived.) Thus we must differ. The great thing about Eliz B
– she writes like no one else. To criticize her would be like saying the
plumed flycatcher has a little too much plume.
Managed to prevent Mom from inviting “young people”
to a “weenie roast on the shore” for me and A. We are here to HIDE. She
was very nice about it. Do imagine I could live here. Listening right now to
Haydn’s Clock Symphony. Now that would be a great title for a short story
about an unattached woman in her late twenties…
A and I have wonderful conversations in our twin beds
like a pair of teenagers home on holiday from school, listening to the distant
waves crash on the dark shore. I realize we could still be feeling like this
even when we are a pair of decrepit old maids – which is probably why
families like to stay together. You are timeless for each other. She asked
me which of my boyfriends had known me best. I think Toss Sheffield –
certainly better than my own husband. But this is not a flattering conclusion
since he seems to have run wildly in the opposite direction.

THE CENSOR’S CENSOR

Our childhoods were different. My
Parents didn’t believe in medicine
Yours worshipped Wall Street. You
Took ex-lax to reduce for wrestling, LSD
To see God, smoked Queen Anne’s Lace for lack
Of something better –
Rejected poetry that I wrote. I
Rewrote Melville, shiked to
The observatory – you
Tucked the bedsheets in so tight
I had to sleep with someone else.
You combed your hair to imitate Dick Diver
And were soon out of school. Looks like
I’ll be stuck in here forever.
For me it’s Leap Year every year
That seems to mean I do things backwards
Proposing to the boys and coming upside down.
I forget why I tried so hard to please you.
Save me a seat in the tobacco-brown Mercedes
Do you think you could forgive me now?
```
    Wed Mar 22 78 – 4:15 PM
            Waiting for cocktails, I discover a flaw in the divine Miss 
```
E B. She doesn’t like to admit that she is of the same clay as her characters.
Those creatures based on the Mosleys she repudiated utterly as if creatures
from another planet. I’ve got news for her. Creatures from another planet are
not that interesting.
Last night was one of the most traumatic family
eveningsI have ever experienced – I think my eyes are still puffy. I heard we
would be having Island People to dinner – he used to be a university president/professor so presumably would be good company – they met
because somebody was the bridesmaid of somebody else’s bridesmaid so
there is a connection. It started with me wearing a green silk shirt, my denim
gauchos and hardly any makeup (yes I wore eyeshadow) and being told by
Mom that my “get-up” was “more suitable for a bar.” (All of a sudden she’s
an expert on bars.) Harvey and Edna turned out to have “heard of my job” –
I gather in some commiseration session on Incredibly Unsatisfactory Children – however they refuse to accept that there is any difference between being an
exotic dancer and being a stripper (hello! I don’t strip) and somehow Harvey
segued from castigating “exotic dancers who try to feel superior to strippers” to criticisms of “ total sexual freedom” which apparently means that “everybody
should jump on everybody.”
I tried to dignify this mess by explaining that it is actually
the reverse – in the “old days” under the “ancien regime sexuelle” a dancer
could expect to be “jumped on” by “anybody” because of her job (like poor old
Degas’ ladies) but that actual freedom for women would mean a world in
which one could be a barely clothed dancer (I would think anyone would
admit nudity is at least an equally valid way of expressing the art of muscle,
line and form as heavily costumed artificial approximations) without it
becoming some sexual signal that one has “lost caste” and therefore privacy
and choice. I recommended Susan Brownmiller’s book to this painfully ignorant
male (God knows what he taught – he had never heard of Brownmiller –
seems to have her confused with Ti-Grace Atkinson assuming she must
write books no self-respecting intellectual would read (maybe he was the
type of university president who just brings in wads of cash).
He challenged my premise that the ultimate societal
freedom would be for unattached females to not to be under the threat of
rape every minute. Harvey insisted – with a perfect straight face that women
rape men every bit as much as the reverse – “psychologically of course”
which he says is just as terrible – and in fact probably even more so since
we all know the “physical thing is no big deal” and often does people a “favor”.
I must say this does not reflect very well on his wife Edna but she was smiling
smugly so I think she may have just been too obtuse to follow any of the
arguments.
I really could not cope with this free-for-all avalanche
of idiocy especially when my parents played their trump card – if bars where
women sit in front of a drink and watch barely clothed men cavorting don’t exist, therefore this is an antifeminist exercise and my claim to be a feminist is a
sham. I think it was at that point that I burst into tears. Which of course was
totally demeaning. I sorely missed Avril’s assistance – she refused to jump in
but made peacemaking noises like “you both have a point” (untrue – their
“points” are a disgrace). Ugly Harvey apologized – what a monster! but there
could be no satisfaction in it for me at that point. Avril went walking with me
until they left.
Alas, waiting till they were gone did not end the discussion.
Mom and Dad pounced on us to drive home their point that the male animal
is a violent dangerous creature barely contained by the civilizing
influence of the female. (Guess they can’t get behind Harvey’s “female
rapist” idea.) Of course they are going to rape any female who lets down
her guard for a second and it will all be her fault. (Didn’t R make this case?
I’m ashamed to share a world with these people.) Any kind of a sexual
display (I guess the beach would certainly qualify) is a declaration of
“Jump in boys! It’s free today!” At least they recognized Harvey’s
behavior as extreme (“Two drinks and he’s lost” was Dad’s comment.)
Basically as long as I work at “that bar” I’m the
“lost cause” and if any decent male finds out about it our relationship
will be over in a trice. This kind of thing makes me wonder why I bother
to visit them. Fortunately, I’m escaping soon, but the whole ferry
reservation problem means one loses the right to fight irretrievably
with one’s hosts on this island. Dad’s big mistake was giving me an
example of a good marriage as Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett!
Did I blow my top! He probably thought I’d listen to him if he produced a
literary example. He wasn’t aware that not only were they not married
but Mr. Hammett was married to someone else and cheated on poor
Hellman whenever he could manage to stay stiff long enough. (I really
didn’t want to “get in” to the alcoholism problem. Lillian tried to make
him seem like a “mentor” but honestly she was just his keeper and bail
bondsman.)
January 11, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer

11Am Tues 17 Jan 78
Reading Evelyn Waugh’s diaries over my third cup of coffee
with open mouthed amazement. It seems almost a work of fiction. Try to
imagine these whines and wails ever appearing in print! Imposserous Bert
Lahr would say. Thank God for The Victorian High Colonic: a pre-mortem
bonfire. Highly recommended, my dear.

7:30 PM No word from J so I assume he is really coming to
eat dinner here. The evening’s menu: sherry and smoked oysters, cheese and crackers, burgundy and manicotti stuffed with crab. French bread, banana
nutbread and coffee for dessert, if we make it that far without attacking each other. Need to watch the drinking – had two glasses of sherry while
cooking and am definitely feeling it.
```
2:15 AM Wed 19 Jan
        J gone – he had to – no clothes here.&nbsp; I let him go
```
fairly gracefully – after hours of sex without anyone coming I was
happy to be alone. He’s definitely an alcoholic. He gets away with it by
never seeming drunk (only once in awhile. His “tell” is he wants to talk
about Alabama.) But he’s also never not drinking. He seems too young
but it definitely explains the physical problem.
```
11Am
        A came home from a bad date. Glad her classes start 
```
tomorrow – Limbo an unpleasant place to live. Need to walk dogs now
– going to AFI theatre tonight to see Next Stop, Greenwich Village.
Time keeps chewing us up and spitting us out.
```
1 PM Thurs 20 Jan 78
        Excellent morning lying in bed reading Byron. It would 
```
be lovely to be rich – it would not be lovely to be Byron.

HAVING SEX WITH LORD BYRON
or
“Or, if you can’t have love, you can always have relatives”

Lord Byron took his lady on the sofa
Before the wedding dinner;
He considered sex a “hostile act” and
Liked to get it over with.
Afterwards both parties sued for rape.
“Poor me”, quoth his lordship,
“Nobody’s been so ravished since the Trojan War.”
Some truth there was; the stampede
Of countesses was considerable.
This poet who fell upon chambermaids
Like a “thunderbolt”
Confounded all by falling in love with
Foolish Gussie, his half-sister.
Ain’t that the way;
Perhaps the wealthy
Overwhelmed by choice, cherish
That forced card.

Another deeply rooted legacy of R’s is that I now expect others to
constantly lie (to themselves, above all) about their motivations.
You can only judge by what they actually do which throws all planning
into the crapper and means you’re stuck with a lot of confused, open
mouthed standing around waiting for disaster. I don’t make promises
either – I just don’t say anything – which fact apparently caused me to
assume I’d really enjoy a relationship with a totally nonverbal type like J.
Turns out: noooooooo. I torture myself about what he must be thinking
and feeling which – let’s face it – may not be much. Wish my royalties
would arrive – I’ve spent them over in my mind a thousand different ways.
Can’t do anything about island property, travel, car, or self-publicity without them. Capital expenditures, all. I am making dinner for A at four thirty to
hear all about her first day of classes – then I go to work. Love driving
down the highway with the other “night shifters” – I always think I can
pick them out. Our special sense of purpose makes us different.
```
Sunday 24 Jan 78  7:30 PM
        Read Popcorn Venus, saw Julia, so alternately
```
depressed and cheered by turns. Thinking a lot about “impure relationships”.
How innocent to assume those are the ones with certain kinds of sex
in them. In actuality, it is more the hostage taking mentality that is to be
feared. Can one just “Glance in” so to speak and then hustle the hell out?
I’ve been so scared off, I am having a non-relationship.
When Jervaze is not in my bed, it’s as if he never existed. Would I surprised
if I found out he had some secret life? Hell no, I’d be encouraged. I think
the truth is he watches football alone, gets drunk, sleeps and works –
that’s all he does. I liked Julia because I am interested in the question
of what repressed sexuality does to relationships – does it change them?
Seems it would have to. Well, you can fool some of the people… Starting
to re-think Courtney. Worst novel ever written? If so, what can I do
about it? Is it too late? Tell it from the cat’s point of view – something
radical like that. Write it in blank verse like Spoon River Anthology.
Jervaze is mystified that I read by choice. A says “Don’t you get it?
He’s a mud puppy.” What can I say? I’m such a sucker for male beauty.
```
Mon. 23 Jan 78
        Enraptured by biography of John O’Hara.  Starts brilliantly, 
```
describing his study at the time of his death – framed awards, Cape Cod
lighters, bound diaries. Everything just “perfect” the way poor F. Scott
always dreamed. The novels were steppingstones to the study, not
the other way around! I am feeling alienated from my study at the moment.
Have decided that my typewriter table – a board atop a wine rack – is all
wrong. A and I went to Hechinger’s and studied several “office systems”.
Plastic cubes $70 even for a looksee. I’ve set my heart on satinwood so
I guess next stop antique stores. What would an antique typing table
look like? A dressing table is the right height? Sans mirror? Wouldn’t
want to look at oneself while working! First step to madness!

When I work without interruption, time vanishes. Maybe
it’s like riding without spurs: you become the horse (one’s deepest self).
J. showed up Sun night. We drank sherry, played cards. He is getting to
like sherry, which I’m afraid, is my fault. Someone needs to go on the
wagon and I don’t want it to be me. Heard via the rumor mill that R broke
his leg skiing! Ha ha! Did he get insurance for that? Maybe he wasn’t
kidding and he was trying to kill himself. I just don’t understand people
like that. He approaches everything as “it’s you or me” so the mountain
let him have it although frankly I’m surprised it wasn’t someone else’s leg
that got broken. Maybe he killed the other guy. Sent him a card – he’s
“recuperating” at his parents’ house on a steady diet of Italian food.
```
Thurs 26 Jan 78
        J came in the Plush Palace last night and I talked to him 
```
until Eddy got restive. Turns out he has horrendous financial problems,
including hospital bills for a kidney complaint. Probably will have to sell
his car even though it is a part of him like his cowboy hat. I was feeling
carefree and immortal and suggested he move in with me – he’s thinking
about it. Now of course I’m aghast. What if I gave him A’s room and he
started bringing girls home? I could listen to them making love for hours
and hours and hours – no one ever coming. Would I be jealous or would
I feel sorry for her? See, this relationship is complex – I am wanting to
run like hell or place an ad for “Needed: Goal oriented individual – good
at sex – not too inflexible.“ Hopeless. They have to get stiff and then
hang loose at just the right times – “Impeccable timing”? A tall order, I know.
Today I had trip to the dentist and letter from Mom –
trip to the dentist was easier. (He told me I have a “runner’s heart”.
Did not tell him I was a dancer. Said I was a walker. True – since 10
mos old.) Mom says that if I really loved her I’d get a decent job. She a
nd Dad offered to give me money so I don’t have to dance. Respectful
endowment of course would be great. Unfortunately, they only mean,
“till I get over my sickness.”

Happy to turn ‘em down flat. Mom keeps saying a
feminist wouldn’t allow men to look at her in a sexual way. This is my
mother of the “Marilyn Monroe dress” (still hers and Dad’s favorite.) My
mother who has always turned heads and received accolades as a major
beauty, with drunken men pawing her in European restaurants, dazed
Arab men following her down the beach, stoned college professors
slobbering over her at parties. All “her fault” apparently!! It’s a critical
component of hers and Dad’s relationship that he “captured” such a “prize”.
But all this must remain unsaid or “someone” will boo-hoo.
Who would bother to deny the roles of biology and
acculturation? I’d like to live off my writing – but it is rapidly becoming
apparent that to do that you have to write to “their” taste. And they have
such bad taste! Plus, I find I covet anonymity. In spite of my profession of
“being stared at”, I feel like I am the observer. It’s a heady sense of power.
This is theatre, after all. They may think they sit in darkness, but I can still
see them.

Off to visit R and his broken leg. Took him cookies and
magazines – cookies I did NOT bake myself. I wondered if I would end
up telling him about J – flirted with the idea – he would be scared to death
if he ever caught sight of that beautiful, beautiful man. That’s what J is best at.
But I would be doing it to hurt him and since he has always accused me of doing everything to hurt him (being born on an island, going to a prep school, losing my virginity to someone else, writing) it seems as if actually doing it I would
be “giving in” to his worldview. I must remain a refusenik. In the end he
never asked me about myself; but talked incessantly about him. Trying to
impress me, like on a first date.

Looking back on it I think he’s just trying to stoke any hots
I may still have for him. He’s never bought into his own “friendship bullshit”;
he doesn’t even believe it about same sex friends. The universe is
fundamentally competitive and we’re all crabs in a barrel trying to step
on each other’s heads to get a better view. Eat or be eaten, baby! He
made allusions to the fact that “you” only value things you work hard for
… or things you’ve lost. Ha ha – zinger! A grenade lobbed at me.
The visit left me feeling uncomfortable – frustrated –
vaguely “one down” but unable to put my finger on it. From the way
his sisters treated me I have a horrible feeling he tells people I was the
love of his life but wouldn’t give up my selfishly immoral lifestyle. That’s
what he would do, the bastard, act like he was the victimized one. I hope
his leg heals crooked.

Probably a good thing I didn’t mention Jervaze – he looks
so good but he’s totally non-nutritious and collapses like a creampuff on
scrutiny. We’d have to live in Alabama – he’s made that very clear. I can’t
even imagine him having a conversation with another person in front of me.
He has no family pictures. I’d drop in on him at work just to catch a glimpse
of him interacting with humans but it’s the Pentagon !!! They wouldn’t let
me in. He’s only a repairman, too, so he probably has a completely fictitious
personality there.

Still working on Waugh’s diaries. Hard to avoid the
conclusion that he became Catholic in order to avoid giving up his pride.
Just another elegantly exclusive men’s club. Anything to get out of “becoming
human”. You know. The way Jesus did.
Almost midnight – last costume change of the evening. Pink
and black lace, pink gladioli in my hair. Black tassels, the works. Gentleman
Jim – now a magnate with a string of clubs – was in earlier – I was dancing my absolute best – wild applause – the crowd was chanting my name.

But when
I went to find him to ask him for a raise he was gone. Next time.
This is the time of the evening Zombiehood sets in. J comes
in earlier and earlier – he asks me to come over, I don’t have to bring it up.
Made me promise to wake him. I told him I would be “merciless” with him.
He wanted to know “how merciless”. He is pretty cute. He wasn’t wearing
my ring – said he took it off at work because it was bothering him. Uh oh!
I can imagine. What an idiot I was to give it to him. Tips have been good
– I think I’ll buy a steak on my way over. He doesn’t eat well at all. I am
so hungry I have been stealing saltines from the kitchen.

No excitement here. Neither Gina nor Mary pregnant as
they thought. Both have flu. The new girl, Maggie, has been telling me
she’s got $35,000 in parking tickets. She is one of those see-through
thin girls who can’t dance at all – but has a great sense of humor. She
injects bute directly into her knees, as if she were a racehorse.
```
Mon 30 Jan 78
        J and I were supposed to go out Sat night – I had the day 
```
shift and he said he’d pick me up. I waited 20 mins before going to his apt.
There he was with a little blond beard on his chin – lying on the sofa very
depressed. Told me to go to the concert without him. By myself?
Wouldn’t that be fun! I was aghast – tried arguing with him – he said he
wasn’t leaving the apt. So I said I’d stay with him. Went out and bought
fish and chips and beer. We watched Sahara, then Saturday Night Live.
Pitiable. Made love in the shower. In the AM he refused to come out
to breakfast with me, and I really had to go home to the dogs. He gave
me a good hug when I left but do I want to drag this inert man through
all the stages of intimacy?

Called him today, he was very blue. Homesick as
always. Takes alcohol for depression! Can’t figure out whether to go
over there or leave him alone. I really need a better invitation – my choice
is to stay away. I don’t think he’s actually SUICIDAL although if he stopped
drinking, he might be. And how could I tell? He still has his car so he’s
either asking too much for it or he’s doing nothing about his problems.
I bet the latter’s the case. Reading The Letters of Charles Dickens in
conjunction with the Life. Decorated A’s old room with Dad’s old charts
– looks pretty good.

Dancing well – I can’t give a bad set. Remembering what
Devon said about skiing – the body does the right thing – if you “get out“
of its way. J came in – in a much better mood. (Some new “magic”
elixir, no doubt.) He must have called to get my schedule because I didn’t
tell him. Asked him if he wanted me to “drop by” after work – he said it
was “up to me”. I think the traditional male female role thing may be
reversed in our case. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of those
pretty guys who’s always been pursued and as a result he feels like a
“thing”. Never developed a self, so to speak. This is what comes of being
so hung up on beauty. But when I look at the assemblage of clowns,
predators and weirdos soliciting for my hand my heart fails me.

TWO LOVERS CONTEMPLATE THE SEAWRACK

He lost her
Spoke too soon
As men are wont
Affinity flew overhead
Danced with gulls
A jazz-mad snowflake.
His words
Freighted by their inner logic
Fell to earth and lay
Prey to busy bristle-footed worms
Who tidily dismantle
Subject, verb & predicate;
Sucked out the sense and left
The elegiac bones to rot
Amid kelp-wigged rock & glass-rope sponge
Cheek by jowl with
Long dead fishermen’s wives
Punished now for ill-set dough and
Worse-set hair
Mouths agape in imitation of
The badly sutured wounds of childbirth.
Secrets told; corpses left to nourish
Nature’s counting-house
One season only; sharing space
With shattered petrels
Feathers spewed like pillow-stuffing
Frenzied passade of love-struck boys –
Strewn among the shavings of these once great ships
Built by hearts & backs of men
Who loved their daughters far too well
Losing them to sailors
Crueler than the great sea-god himself;
He who stirs our sleep these nights
With grief-crazed cries of loons
Casting on the waters for their
Far-flung children
Lost forever now
As we are lost as
He lost her.
```
        Wrote a difficult letter to Devon in which I answered
```
(long overdue) his about Gwynne and frankly (but with masterful subtlety)
went all out to make him jealous of J. Cheap of me, but I have to have
some fun. He started it: we are reduced to bragging about our dance cards.
I don’t think you can truly have a “passionate” relationship with a guy who
doesn’t want exclusivity because of then of necessity you’re required to hold

something back. Dad called, says he’s sending me more stock “for tax
reasons” (I.e. it’s really mine and they’re making him.) Then said in
a very depressed way, “I suppose you want to sell it.” I wanted to surprise
him by saying NO but that would leave me feeling manipulated so I said it
depends on my royalty statement (which it does.) Due in 3 weeks.
January 8, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer
```
Monday 8 Jan 78 – 6 PM
        Twenty-four hours ago I was sitting in my red dress over 
```
a glass of port, waiting for Jervaze to arrive. Anxiety level high. Somewhere
– I think from Mom – I got the impression that my needs are so automatically
repellent to any sane individual that they must be hidden. Therefore, I have
to carefully think my way through to any honest approach – and then it isn’t
really honest any more. But I can’t just be impulsive. Prepared myself for disappointment – that he would be late or perhaps not show – because there
is something weird about him. Some deep dark secret perhaps? But he was
right on time.
This time I took him to my nearest neighborhood restaurant

where the waiter put on quite a show with Irish coffee till flaming liquor rolled
down his sleeves! Jervaze came inside my house without hesitation – I
fretting about how to best establish physical contact while he sprawled
comfortably on the couch. I turned off the overhead light and lit candles –
took off my jacket – he rubbed his face against my breasts acting calm,
respectful and not neurotic. Must be my experience with R that makes me
fearful of being “shamed” every second.
Jervaze kissed and kissed my face so long – tears
automatically filled my eyes. But he did not get upset. Got up like a
perfect gentleman “when it was time to leave” and I managed to resist
attacking him. I did one very strange thing that is causing me anxiety now.
We showed each other our class rings – he always wears his. I slid mine
on his little finger and left it there. He wore it home. Uh oh. 11:30 AM Wed 11 Jan 78
Experiencing sharp attacks of fear all day long at “being in a relationship”. What the hell was I doing giving him my ring? See, I agree that everything’s my fault! Story of my life! Currently enjoying two quiet hours
while A is at the gynecologist. It will be great when she gets her own place.
Plenty of private time and space to panic in.
Today I got a phone call from R and a letter from Devon. So,
I was able to line my relationships up, so to speak, contrast and compare.
Even lumped together they are not one full relationship! R’s “gamesmanship”
is down from its zenith, but, owing to my total nonparticipation, also at its most exposed. Lengthy chat about our vacations, and then he spent probably a
half hour telling me his “insurance setup”. Why? So I can tell everyone
where to find the will and the important papers when he runs into a tree on
his next ski trip! I should be worried about him dying apparently!!!
I let him talk, I didn’t cut him off and I asked no questions,
largely because this makes him the craziest and he deserves it. I know he’s
comforting himself now that I still care about his finances if not about him. Devon thanked me for the glamorpic (described me as “so lovely” and said he feels
like he’s talking to me when he writes his letter) and then launched into a long description of his and Gwynne’s relationship.
They have an “understanding” which seems to involve “being
there for each other” without “demands”. “Why won’t he admit he’s gay?” howls
Avril when I read this to her.
But I don’t think sex is even that simple for him. His approach
is much more diffuse – a constantly vibrating choice between “being sexual”
and “not being sexual”. He and I had such good sex, but if it all has to happen
in a sort of coma, if there can’t be any planning or god forbid, discussion
then the hell with it.
As for Jervaze, he showed up for the last three hours of my
first night back at The Plush Palace from the Starlight. He was wearing my ring.
I asked him if my work bothered him. He said, no, he was cool with it, but was
glad I asked.
Whereupon we went back to his place and made love for 3 hours. Whoo-hoo! I’m not kidding! The first test – home design – alas he
failed. His furnishings are truly HORRIFIC Spanish Mediterranean dreck. His
shower curtain consists of festoons of blue chiffon – it is INCONCEIVABLE
that a male could purchase such a thing. Guess I am not asking the right
questions. Old girlfriend? Mom? Sister-in-law? Some woman raised exclusively
on pirate films had a hand in here somewhere.
As to the sex – that test he passed. He’s a prizewinner there. Everything takes forever and that doesn’t seem to bother him in the least. Is
he some kind of reptile, living in a time zone utterly different from us mammals?
It took him 20 minutes to get my pants off working steadily. I got enough
comments about the beauty of my body to satisfy my ego for life.
He went down on me without a flicker – so much for all those
rumors about Southern men – and when he goes down he stays down. On the
other hand – he never did come. Calms fears of premature ejaculation but
raises other ones. His uncircumcised penis stayed stiff for 3 hours. This is a
first for me, and I don’t know whether I like it. I really can’t give myself
permission to come under these circumstances yet clearly I will have to –
I’ll just have to say, “forget you – let’s concentrate on me.” That could work.
But as I say, it would certainly be different. When I left, he gave me his key.

7:45 Pm – Plush Palace – Thurs 12 Jan 78
Called Jervaze and suggested we do something tonight –
he acted enthusiastic. I said, “Should I be calling you? Wouldn’t want to
call too much,” and he said, “Call all the time.” R–induced horrors dropping
away one by one. It’s snowing – I’ll go straight to Jervaze’s. (He’s close to club.)
```
4PM Friday, Jan 13-78
        I think Jervaze may really be an angel; one of Milton’s 
```
sexed up angels who took a wrong turn to our planet by mistake. Some
anxiety is relieved. We never did get to go anywhere – stayed in bed. Bliss.
But if this doesn’t work I will damn well marry Devon whether he likes it or
not – I can’t take much more of this.

I’m at my desk hammering out letters – trying to answer one
from the island realtor. The studio apt has “no cooking facilities”. I don’t care
but the realtor does, she has a house on the pond for $175 “long lease” she
wants me to take. Says it has a Franklin stove and I could “bike to town.” I admit
I’m interested. Jervaze has offered to come to the island with me in March –
I really shudder at the thought of introducing him to my parents, how to tactfully
say, Please don’t ask him about Ideas and only offer him one drink. Last night
I let myself into his apt, took a shower, tried to use his sparkingly hazardous
blow dryer, gave that up, crawled in bed with him. I had lots of Ryder-induced
fears that he wouldn’t be there, in bed with another girl, etc. But no. There he was, nude, gorgeous, asleep – and when he woke up, happy to see me.

5:25 PM Plush Palace – Sat 14 Jan 78
Snakes dropping into paradise one by one. First, although
Jervaze is incredibly easygoing – it is impossible to get him to state a
preference about a movie or a restaurant, for example – (had to drag him to Eastwood’s Every Which Way But Loose) I can tell he is nervous about
introducing me to his brother and sister in law. Should I just suggest we
lie about what I do for a living? I guess that wouldn’t really solve anything.
Sartre is so right. Hell IS other people. Then there’s my mother – the
latest demon fondling my ear. Once a woman has made herself
vulnerable to a man, she’s through. Uncommitted sex brings out
the worst in men, blah blah blah. Because it’s “too perfect” from his
point of view. I am “causing him moral hazard”. Yes, I tell the voice,
and it would be perfect from MY POINT OF VIEW TOO IF YOU WOULD
JUST SHUT UP. WE ONLY STARTED DATING A COUPLE OF WEEKS
AGO. But one can’t shut out THAT voice so easily.   Mystified by Willard Gaylin’s irritating Caring.    He acts like mutual dependence or
interdependence is some “failure” of personal autonomy.

Powder Mill Road – 11 PM Sunday 15 Jan 78
Jervaze “dropped by” this afternoon. Since it’s such a
long way from his place to mine I was astonished. Is it that I can no
longer believe a man will climb mountains for me? Or is it just my
sensitivities to Jervaze’s strangely inchoate “disabilities” warning me
and sending up red flags? We had a nice talk – he seemed faintly down –
then he had to leave because he needs to get up extra early tomorrow.
I was in too good a mood to work on my novel, bought clothes instead.
3 pairs of pants, sweater coat, five pairs undies, one gauchos. All clothes
size 7. Packaged MSS when I came home so as not to feel too unproductive.


Coleridge poem taken by Virginia community college
screed. No money. (Natch.)

DEEPER INTO COLERIDGE

“Music is beneath me” wrote
the fat man, angering his wife by stealing
her broom for walking
scattering the straw. He loved to
pack a nightcap and declaim upon the moors.
“I would have married a servant girl
could I but be sure of her affection.”
But be sure!
Some men are never fated to be sure.
Amidst politicking, pregnancies and
penny-pinching, he found the time
to fall in love with the Wrong Woman.
No wonder he took opium to distract him
from the faceless fiend that follows after
most of us but specially him
who knew so well to court it.
In his mildewed study he sits alone
clutching his bad heart and writing
“Ours is not a logical age”
January 7, 2023
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer

Tues. 26 July 77 9:40 AM
Sitting on stonewall in full sunlight in my black bikini
waiting for pool to open. Swim and sunbathe till ll:30 when mail comes.
After 7 I can return – that way I miss the crowds.
Exercise, coffee, 3 glasses water. The Regime.
I’m down to $4. Embarrassing to be taken out last night
by Devon & his roommates. (We saw Star Wars. Childish, but they
were into it.) Sent letter to Mom & D asking for stock certificates. They
won’t like it.

Dinner should have been nice but barbecue very messy.
Wore my tightest jeans and my pink French “Trés chic” t-shirt. Devon
surprised me by talking on and on about how beautiful I am. Started
to get stoked – in fact I was horny as hell. I would have taken the three
of them on if I could have avoided the interpersonal madness that would
result. They all have beautifully athletic bodies. But I’m starting to get a
feeling that if I just sit in my deer blind a bit longer Devon will come to me.
Every now and then I get an “R – flash”, like some synaptic
slipup. What will I think of this years from now? Mirror images ache, then fade.
Cold Comfort Farm exactly 100 pages too long (but I
think most books are). Take a long hot Jean Nate bubble bath and read The Thornbirds.
```
2:30 PM Wed July 27 – 77
        Masturbation is the better part of valor. Don’t make 
```
decisions ruled by sex. Husband my wattage (joke). Too bad sex is
such a fast way to get to know someone.

First draft of Demon so far bony and spare. Neatly
boxed “components” = “write your own novel”. Trying to exterminate
“dead” patches. Wish I had done this with The Mass at St. Secaire –
but in those days I was in the “throw in everything you think of and
take it out later” school. I like constructing this awkward armature
better. Lean and mean superior to flagellate and winnow.
Will I let R see this new body, this new confidence?

He will hang on for dear life and I don’t want that. I want to go back
to dancing but R prefers I have neither security NOR money.) Think
I’ll look for a sublet – easier to impress a private owner than a
credit union. I’m not afraid of living alone. Painstaking cultivation
of intense privacy in the midst of a crowd has always been my forte.

Mom and Dad called – acting all worried. Apologizing
for giving R my number. I put on a good show of being completely
”over” him but I can see they don’t want me moving back to Washington
and prefer Mrs. McManus’ ski chalet option. (My cynical side tells me
it’s just cheaper.) I act like I have connections to the literary life in DC
and they don’t know any better.

Thornbirds is teaching me the great unpleasantness of
what publishers define as “a good read”. Contrary to my belief the
Victorian period has not ended. Forced to skip the war, potted history
and scenery descriptions just to keep going.
7:30 PM Finished Thornbirds. Neither Dane’s death nor
Justine’s love affair rang true for me. Uh oh. Danger signs. My taste
thoroughly out of kilter with the market.

Couldn’t swim – 3,000 spectators at some sort of race
in the pool. So went to library – checked out twelve books – bio, history
murder mysteries. Alec Waugh, Somerset Maugham, Vyvyan Holland,
High Walpole. Evelyn Waugh, of course. At this very moment R is
doing his very last show of 7:30 Live. Will they have a party or wake?
Probably go out drinking at the Shalimar, try to pick up dancers he can
hector and assault. Time for me to go walking and see how the
other (99%) live.

HOT PROWL

Don’t wake up.
I surveil by night
Your chiseled torso
Slackened with exhaustion.
Touching things that once
You touched,
Listening to your apnea –
I turn away before you turn.
Making peace with all my choices.
It’s worth everything;
Winning in divorce my
Hard-won superpower:
Invisibility
```
2:45 PM Thurs 28 July 77
        Loving myself today. I am very tan.  Hair strawberry 
```
blond and my stretchmarks look like silk moiré. Any sense of inadequacy
must be pounced upon and shored up – work like a beaver at his dam.
No worries, few fears. Daddy sent $ which I deposit in my acct. Since
I can’t cash a check anywhere I eat what’s here; pickled beets and plain
grits. Gallons of water to even it all out. Shake the old body out after 26
years.

Decide two people create love – I refuse to do it alone.
Reading Ford Madox Ford and grooving on his Violet versus Elsie
problems. Schadenfreude. Years later poor Elsie says, “I should have
ignored everybody and divorced him.” Alas, Ford is a self-centered fool.
Not simpatico character. However the period is a favorite with me. Mail
hideously dull. Nothing from Harcourt. Will my “Westerns” editor have the
nerve to turn down an author they’ve got 105,000 copies of? Yes. They’re
all a bunch of weenies, frankly. Bike ride.

8:45 PM Finished article for the McManus mag about
Shadowe – “Island in Common” – 750 words – sent it off with letter.
Mission accomplished. Thinking of substituting a night ride for my walk.
Trigger fewer yearnings.
Ford’s moved to the US and I’m at the end of my tether with him. Tried
reading Jane Novak’s Razor Edge of Balance on V. Woolf – she’s no threat
– Lingo Academico virtually impenetrable.
Loved reading Fowles on the Fr Lt’s Woman – even though
he has a “tin ear” about the Victorians – their “failure” to depict “a man and
woman in bed together” ! (How about My Secret Life!!!) He’s the real thing
all right even though he launched 1st draft without any research. (It shows.)
I’m going to stop freaking out about how little I know London.
Full of joy & life & strength & immortality & pep. Now thinking
fondly of DC. Resist the impulse to call myself a turkey for even MENTIONING
living together to R. (I said in my phone message I had to have a house for dogs.)
I can see him crying over his beer at the strip club. Insisting his wussdom is independence. I feel and look mighty thin – but refuse the temptation to weigh
myself. Size seven is good enough. Took my walk looking indulgently at
couples with children thinking, “This too is within my reach.”
Mail full of dull rejections NO interest or acceptances. But
the UNITY MITFORD I’d ordered came which I’m reading now. Must write about sisters someday. It’s a trip.
11:12 AM Sat 30 Jul 77
Going out tonight with Devon to see Annie Hall, that laff riot
he hasn’t seen. This is one of the things I love about life – it’s so fucking
unpredictable! Give these guys space to stew they will eventually DO
something. We had a nice phone conversation. I can tell he has
“traumatized” himself by “luring” me here. I tell him hardly, I’m writing
8 p. a day (of course it will all have to be thrown out) getting a tan and
reading piles of books. (All true.) Too cold & overcast today for pool
though and now its raining.
Starting to get a feeling D and I will end up in bed.
It’s inevitable. How I crave that tight young flesh…Bet you $5. Will
wear my faded cerise linen jumpsuit, high heels and Nefertiti necklace.
Stoking! Bike ride combined with cold shower doesn’t work.
```
4:15 PM Sun 31 July 77 Deck
        D found Annie Hall so painful it took awhile for him 
```
to speak. I was surprised but patient. I couldn’t have dreamed up a
movie more likely to focus all our reservations. The scene where
Annie tells Alvy she misses him made me think of R – the separate
fragile uniqueness of each human soul – and I could tell Devon was
“feeling” his memories too.
We sneaked a pizza (a whole pizza) into the theatre
so we could come right back here for wine and coffee and more wine –
took three hours to get to the point of making love.
In a fairly daring move D opened the buttons of my
jumpsuit and stroked my stomach pulling down first one shoulder and
then another to play with my breasts. Lovely feeling our bodies surge
together. He’s good with his hands and has the most sensitive nipples
of any man I’ve been with. At last I suggested we go to bed – the couch
was really too uncomfortable. D went down on me – his body is the
most gorgeous since the history of time – mountains, valleys, crevasses
– it’s like rock climbing making love to this man. He insisted on coming
outside me which startled me somewhat, but after asking about my
“protection” (IUD) fortunately abandoned this technique the second time.
(When he comes he makes a little crying noise).

He looks at me in a funny way like he wants to say
something but he doesn’t say it. I tried to tell him I’ve learned so much
from our 5 year friendship – he seemed unable to take it in. He obviously
fears the future and his memory is so bad – after the terrors of his
childhood he thinks the whole past is all bad news. It’s like he’s afraid
to remember ANYTHING. That would be the worst thing for a writer.
You dare not fear the past. Rhythms can’t evolve from longing alone.
We woke up, grapenuts & coffee, went swimming, sat on
deck, watched tennis on TV. Every time I changed clothes he said
“the sight of you naked turns me on” and we made love again.
Tomorrow is the first of August – whole new beginning.
Try to see myself at 33, with a lawn and a bra and a trash compactor.
Freedom is key. No mail. Reading Geo Woodcock’s critical study of Orwell.

6:45 PM Dark as night and pouring rain. Obsessing
about D’s body – can’t get it out of my mind and our 22 hours together.
Welcome obsessions; R’s slate cleared. Did I use him? Is he “Brand X?”
Thinking of all the things I wish I’d said to Devon. He’s so intellectual
yet so impermeable. Strange delicate kisses – as impossible to get
inside his mouth as his mind. Loud thunder, lightning.
D. Eden’s Deadly Travelers supposed to be fun but falls
apart totally at the end. Disappointed by thoroughness of
Gavin Lambert’s Conan Doyle study – he said everything –
nothing left for me to do. (The Dangerous Edge.)
Disenchanted with suspense mode. Maybe Demon should
just be a series of short, sharp scenes. I don’t like intrusively
officious writers – sacrificing character to story “You can’t let
your characters get away from you”. Not only can you – you
must. See where they run.

Just finished scene between Fawn and Deere’s cast-off “maitresse
en titre”. Needing a scene between Jewel and Fawn, Fawn and Del. Let them
accumulate like raindrops.

Dinner rice, chicken broth, onions. Coffee. Shouldn’t read true
crime in bed. (Shiver.) But I will. 2 months since I’ve seen R.
10PM Black Dahlia almost did me in, too! That poor girl!
The writing style in Infamous Murders is the most infamous thing
about it. Wm. Roughhead I adore. Soothe my insomnia with art books.

PLAYING HIDE & SEEK IN THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

hide & seek. It’s
my game but
you started it.
you be a cop and
I’ll be a museum – a
swollen storehouse
where even the walls are open
to more than one interpretation.
that’s me in dark glasses
waiting
round the corner for
the whick of teeth on bended elbow
the fateful kiss
where the blood lies gathered. So
lies rally; scars; a wound,
a bruise – a cut – a fever
a thing to call my own.
“You imagined it, lady”
there’s no one here.
powder burn
without the bullet.
December 29, 2022
Inspired Pleasure
The Diary of a Dancer
```
    1 July 77
    Today I should start my new novel – always the worst 
```
part. Lauren called to APOLOGIZE for our dinner. I said nothing
to apologize for I had a wonderful time. She said she had an
“off” night and they are upping my print run from 100,000 to
110,000.. So I guess I’m “on” again in case I write another Eng
gothic historical paperback they like (don’t hold your breath).
Threw aside Berckman’s Crown Estate suddenly can’t stand
other people’s writing.

Very disllusioning dinner with Chuck Kornowitz. My
piece de resistance crab manicotti in Newburg sauce turned out
exquisitely but he only cared about the booze. When I mentioned
The Great American novel he said it’s been written and offered to
send it to me. He edited it! He only laughed at one thing I said –
he called Athenaeum a “very, very small publishing house” and I
said, “More of a hut, really”. He obviously thought I was going to
have sex with him so that he would read my book. I turned him
down but offered to make up a bed for him on sofa (he really seemed
incapacitated by drink but he blamed it on jetlag.) He insisted on
leaving, looking very cranky. Did wonder aloud who the hell I think
I am? What’s a little sex between “friends” (or supplicants & donors?)

Letter from Devon (I needed it) cheered me up extraordinarily.
Just in the nick of time. I’m a loner, he’s a loner too – do two loners
make a party? Having a hard time feeling beautiful when I am not
dancing and 50 situps a day and one filthy bike ride are no substitute.
But this seminarian writes a mean letter. Loved my novel. Looks
forward to servicing – er surveying Boston in my company. Four
hours on novel produces 8 bad pages. It’s a start. Ms. MacManus
foisting her probate lawyer nephew Henry on me. He came over
to invite me to the beach (and help me walk the dogs.) He’s a pale,
pale Ryder (he’d have to be Peter Frampton to arouse me at
this stage) and I feared he’d get sunstroke but I said yes. Saw
Jabberwocky – very Monty Python.

Wrote a long wailing, complaining letter to Avril. Try to
read Women & Madness but it’s too poorly written and repels
every attempt. Norah Lofts White Hell of Pity – very depressing.
You’re pretty much asking for it if you pick up a book with that title.

11:00 AM Sun 3 July 77
Had to walk Genevieve’s dogs all the way to Columbus
& Ninth to find NY Times. Henry cancelled – I didn’t know why till
Ms MacManus told me he found out I wasn’t Jewish! Now she tells
me! (She’s not Jewish either.) Reading First Person Singular –
actually some helpful dating advice. Is it too crass to count on
having sex with Devon July 20? (That’s as long a wait as I think
I can stand.)
```
    12:45 PM Mon 4 July 77
    Almost strangled the dogs today. Sam rolled in horseshit 
```
in the park. Had to wash them both. Then they bothered me so much
during my exercises I had to lock them up. They howled. Penance
all around. Ms. McManus invited me to see New York, New York
. We enjoyed Unsung Cole last night – and she is going to Martha’s
Vineyard so won’t be around to make me her new chew toy.

11:25 PM Wish I could read the future. New York,
New York none too reassuring about male/female relationships.
Reading Leonard Woolf’s depressing Downhill All the Way.
His mind so different from Virginia’s you could call it “antithetical”.
Tomorrow’s excitement – double feature of Shame and The
Passion of Anna.
```
    12:25 AM 9 July 77 
    Ryder’s divorce final. His relationship with me?  Still in 
```
“separation” phase. Trying to hate him but it’s not working. Pity
the petty man who revels in bondage. Feeling sorry for all his
future lovers is the best I can do. He would respect me more if I
was less sexually excitable, and that’s the ugly truth. Totally
resigned that Harcourt will reject Secaire. Went to Patti Smith
concert with Brett’s brother. Kind of fun the way she barks out
her poetry; a little too butch for me. He is an incipient pedophile
remarking on every thirteen-year old he saw (or possibly he was
just trying to annoy me.)
```
    11:45 PM Sun 10 July 77
    Loved Rhoda Lerman’s The Girl That He Marries
```
– never were reviews so misleading!
```
    July 14, 1977
    Power out in the whole city! Living by candles. No 
```
elevator doesn’t affect us readers. Doorman up and down the
stairs with flashlights looking for old people. Dogs poop on
balcony. I seize any excuse not to write.
```
    9 PM Fri 22 July 1977 – Mrs. McManus’ condo 
```
Pevensey Old Farms
New deal: all I have to do for luxe pad is write an
article for Mrs. McManus’ real estate mag. I think rich people
are masters of bait and switch but of course I say yes.
Contemplate novel about homicidal house-sitter called Other
People’s Houses but I see from Books In Print it’s been taken.

Lying here making new breakthroughs in the art of
writing sideways; disinfecting my ear from swimming. Wanted
to write about Monica Dickens’ Man Overboard or N Ephron’s
Crazy Salad or at the very least make a New Plan for My Novel
but find I can’t. Was very “good” today – swam, bicycled, some
writing. Allowed to eat anything here luckily her food is not too
outrageous – hamburger and zucchini salad. Marinated artichoke
hearts.

Refuse to shred my nerves further by hating myself.
My body’s not perfect but I do feel on the home stretch to self-control.
Give me six weeks and I’ll be flying. Emotionally, I’m a mess.
Devon brought up marriage and I am smotheringly certain that I
can’t live up to either of our expectations or be parson’s wife.
Be fun to try – but that’s not the point. I fear the idiot side of me
that just keeps coming out. Can’t seem self-assured, playfully
grave instead sexually voracious and maniacally ridiculous.
Anyway Intuition told me he would call tonight between
8-10 as soon as he could be reasonably sure the Oldsters are out
of the way (he is visiting his parents who have “lights out” – i.e.
are blitzed – by nine pm). However Experience says if I expect the
call, he won’t call. (Learned this from Ryder).

He called at 8:30. I cracked too many jokes – conversation
painfully bizarre. He seemed calm and unfreaked. He got a new
job that gives him more “room” (he’s a waiter- he’s sick of teaching
people) asked when he could “show up” and suggested tomorrow.
Moving a lot faster than I expected from my memories of
Shy Boy. Do I want to have my fantasies played fast and loose with
in this way? (Am I over Ryder?) Do I want to get over him? Or
are mismatches of Time & Desire my Fate?

I am certainly NOT turning down D’s offer to see what
there can be for us. Companion? Lover? Second self? Brother?
Alas he is too blindingly handsome for me to be rational.
If he comes tomorrow there won’t be time for more than
necking (has to get to new job by 4.)

Forget “July 20”, entered on my calendar as S Day.
I WILL NOT MAKE LOVE TO A SCHEDULE. We have to have
a night alone to make things happen. I can be patient – can he?
Well, I can be honest. Best anyone can do.

10:45 PM Back from a walk, reliving my years as teenage
prowler. And peeper. These walks are very informational as I spy
couples hanging plants & merrimekkos, having fights and pouring wine.
Macramé is de rigueur. Try to imagine Devon & me in similar situations.
Maybe he won’t be a parson forever.

Celebrate my freedom from R. Nice to know I can go to parties
without fearing R’s paranoia & restrictions mixed with his exhibitionism
& flamboyance. Freeing me maybe to be those things. Fantasize
pleasurably about long drives with D – my hand on his thigh – separate
but equal thoughts unfolding with the journey. My emotions a difficult
horse to ride.

11:50 PM
Interrupted by phone call from R. (got this # from my
parents.) Offered to send me money. What is wrong with him?
He said, “You were right the way you always are. When are you
coming back to me?” Loves me, misses me, wants me back. He’s
been sick – Emmys a complete bust – his TV show cancelled – 2
directors actually fired (25 people in total.) Today’s the first day he’s
been back to work, amazed not to get a pink slip. He’s taking a two
week unpaid leave to go to the Finger Lakes and find his soul. If
they fire him so what. He refuses to take out of town job.
He really worked me over – gave me a bird’s eye
view of what life with him would be like. For example, said, “his
place is my place.” If he means “move in” he knows I’ll say no
because his skyscraper doesn’t take dogs. He asked, “When
do you come down to get your furniture?” I don’t like him having
all this information. Thank God for D. Six weeks to decide
whether I even want to return to Washington. I write a poem for Devon.

Angel Clothes

You are like a ripe peach
Swollen in the summer of your life
And as the peach surrounds its stone
Your skeleton enwombs your soul
But thinly.
I often see it shining
Through the hollows in your cheeks.
I need your body
Need to know its shadows
Sound its pleasures
But as the stone
Though small at first
Must grow; feed off the dying peach
So your spirit must transhume your flesh
Disgorge it in
A thousand peaches a thousand summers a
Thousand eternities more beautiful than
You or i
```
7PM – Sat 23 July 77
        D and I went for a long walk today, had a great 
```
talk. He told me all about his passionate relationship with English
girl – asking “Do you really want to know?” I did – I managed to
be very hands off. Said he’d written her “lyrical love-letters” and
she is saving money to come to US at Christmas.
Bit of a downer to find other people have split
minds like me. I told him a little about R and more about my
husband. I had to hope he wouldn’t see it “retaliation” for what he’d
told me. (R would have.) Fantasies can be ugly if they prevent you
from experiencing reality.

We hugged – he left – I know he thinks I’m too
“intense”. I was stupid enough to read him my peach poem. On
the other hand, if a guy can’t handle my poetry where am I? R only
likes poems he knows are about him.
Wrote a whiny letter to Avril (who usually can handle
whiny letters). Good today – bike, swimming, walk with D. Long letter
to Mom and Dad.

Reading Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm –
can’t stay grumpy – laughing too hard. Settling into my spaceship –
my own body – first day of the rest of my life. Listening to wonderfully
crazy modern opera on the radio.

Sun 24 July 77
Reading E. Ogilvie’s Theme for Reason. How can
people still write novels interspersed with long nature descriptions – the pert chickadees and the blue moiré sea. I think it’s immoral for a writer of
any talent to inflict this stuff on an overstuffed world. Shape now the
key (used to be all about time-wasting.) I pledge to concentrate on
making each day a triumph.
The First Word
The First Page.
The First Day.

4PM
Wrote 4 pages of A Demon Roused. Horribly
dissatisfied. Patricia Highsmith on the suspense novel no damn
help at all. Everything I’ve ever written pure dunder written by a
dunderhead. Restrained myself from calling R.
Face facts. Left DC June 4. This coming
month has to be gotten through. Feel I suffered my “breakdown”
last spring was a crisis of identity. Attacked by the writing thing
(no money, no approval, no relationships) attacked by the relationship
thing (R too critical, wanting to “change” me.) Starving myself. Long
mad midnight walks rampaging thru Chevy Chase with dogs. The
ENDLESS Devon situation only explicable when seen in this light.
(He’s TOO good looking – it’s like a fantasy.)

Now about my book. New beginning ALL wrong and
I couldn’t figure out why. The characters seem alive.
1) First Person Difficult. My husband always said
2) omniscient narrator no longer possible, making
3) me want to do it. However, I have to admit you
4) need to be somebody – an extra character and that’s a
5) bigger pain in the neck.
2) Scene Problematic. I’ve GOT to get out of England.
It’s artificial. How about if I don’t say where it is? Will the specificity
cops come after me?
3) Format (Suspense novel) rough because I have to be
the one who knows what’s going on and I want to write my first draft in a
narcoleptic state. Means I have to be happy making a huge ness with a million
false starts and then write the thing ALL OVER when I know what’s going on.
But I feel time running out on me. Goddam it.
I should be happy to explore. Why all this pressure? Two novels
unaccepted, why write a fourth? Am I deliberately trying to drive myself to the
brink of insanity? Also I HATE Sunday because the pool is packed, no stores
are open, and there’s no mail.
Devon and his roommates Blair & Brian drop by and I
struggle to appear sane. Hard for me.

6PM
Called R. to yell at him. He wasn’t there – thank GOD.
Maybe I just want to punish him. He certainly deserves it.
```
         1:30 PM Mon 25 July 77
        Dark night of the soul finally over. Very athletic today – 
```
feel deliciously tired. Decide I should go back to Washington no
matter what. My choices are my choices. My happiness can’t be
dependent on how people treat me. I plan to use my time to become
powerful – to be the person I’m supposed to be. In the drugstore line
I was reading up on the showbiz personalities – nobody interesting
before 30 and I have a few years yet.

Forget about weight – just follow & learn to love
“virtuous routine”. (I’m a size seven – that’s pretty good.) Today it
POURED rain – night baseball Devon wanted to attend out of the
question. He suggested we switch to a movie when he called this am.

Still feel stilted with him unfortunately.
Theme for Reason’s sole interest is that it was
written by a lesbian. Still, she isn’t very forthcoming. “Marriage of
convenience?” Really?

Assault on library. Planning to ransack the place.
Leafed through Helen Hayes (poor woman); enjoying Thurber’s
My World and Welcome To It .
December 28, 2022