Tues Mar 29 – 66 – 12:30 AM
Bugged at the world. My parents went into a tizzy that I was invited to Beales’ house. I got the Birth Control Lecture: (“Don’t do it”) disguised as Information it is really Fear Tactics. To tease him I said, “I heard whipped cream is good” only to be screamed at for 30 hours. I meant foam of course (everyone calls it whipped cream.) Too bad I am a member of the Pill Generation – they think the pill is just AWFUL. People might have intercourse without even THINKING of babies! Imagine the ghastliness of that! I’m still a virgin so what are they worrying about? If only they knew Beales! He is a SUPER virgin. He too is in a state of high anxiety about this approaching Summit Conference. He has called me TWICE (Beales the cheap! Probably charges it to his father). He lays down the law: school clothes – NO JEANS. Nice slacks are OK, but I am under NO CIRCULSTANCES to make fun of his relatives or compare ANYBODY to characters from Wind in the Willows. (Still smarting from being told he looks like Toad. A very hairy Toad.) Guess I should write about My Big Night. Standing in nothing but stockings and garters I was called to the phone. An irate Beales wanted to know: “How fast can you dress?” “I don’t know,” I said. “Is it a contest?” (Other boys want to know how fast you can UN dress. I WOULD get stuck with Beales! “We have to be in the receiving line. Get down here right away.” Click. Here’s the downside of dating a Bigwig Senior. I haven’t worn White Gloves since Dance Class back in Wantage, Massachusetts. “Lindles!” I screamed. “Fix me! You have to do my hair RIGHT AWAY!” Then Aynsley and I could NOT figure out the strapless bra! Far from being strapless it had thousands of straps going in all directions, around your head, etc. We tried it all ways – finally gave up and went without. (Empire dresses grabs your boobs anyway.) But there is the Fallout Problem so I took a safety pin to convert my corsage to PIN ON and use to it tuck myself in at the same time. I was looking ravishing I must say, even in low heels. It was all worth it just to see Beales’ face. He WAS impressed! Handed me my plastic box (Yup, green-dyed carnations just as I thought) and I gave him his boutonniere. Arab through the ceiling right on schedule. We had to go into a classroom to argue since all the other couples were staring at us. Meltdown averted when I brought out my pin, discarded his Fake Butterfly, gave him one green dyed carnation and pinned the rest and the orchid on me. (He got compliments on it all night and never said a thing. Is this my fate? Buying my own self orchids?) Crisis #2 came when we had our first slow dance and he felt around for my bra. He gasped and almost fainted. You would have thought my breasts were going to attack him. “Listen, I tried,” I explained. “It just didn’t work out.” He almost fainted that he’d invited this houri home to meet his mother but I swore up and down I’d wear a bra to SLEEP IN. In the SHOWER. EVERYWHERE. This seemed to calm him down somewhat but he refused to fast-dance to Barbara Ann (one of my all-time favorites.) What a fogey. Spent most of my time at his house with his mother whose head – let me say this in the nicest way I can – is filed with whipped green jello. The very first night she showed me a bracelet made of her own gallstones I thought Beales would collapse. I was nice about it and offered up the cyst on my head. The next day Bill and his father went somewhere and his mother and I arranged flowers all day. I was on my Absolute Best Behavior (I told Beales I was wearing two bras.) My room had only a shower! I was so disappointed that I couldn’t have a bath, but Beales calls baths “floating in your own slime.” He’s so glad we’re too modern for that. I say it bodes ill having a boyfriend who doesn’t understand total immersion. Went to The Lion in Winter on Broadway in the eve – I loved it, Beales hated it. Fell asleep in the car on the way home so I wouldn’t molest him. Honestly we are so cold to each other I think his parents are amazed we’re still together. They drove us back to school stopping by his married sister’s house – she breast-fed her baby right in front of us. Ha ha! When I complained about our empty weekend (we didn’t even take walks like we do at school) he said deprivation is the only thing keeping me interested. Honestly it was a relief to get back to school and sink in the morass. Wed May 4 – 66 Last night I had an out-of-body experience! I was leaning out the window thinking of nothing but the beautiful soft spring night when the electrical connections between living things that you can hardly feel during the day became so obviously savage and real that the clouds became a giant that sucked me up overhead and rolled me over the top, then back down again till my feet dragged in the wet leaves, then over the top another time. When I was back with my elbows on the stone windowsill it felt as real as if I’d really done it! Amazing! Now I think I understand the exalted crazy mood that makes people fall out of their own windows (we’ve had two so far this year). Today Beales and I had another meaningless fight. He is so childish I’m tired of humoring his bad moods. He was accepted at every college he applied to – all Ivy League of course – but of course he’s going to Harvard. I tried complimenting him and he said, “Shut up, you don’t know anything about it!” Later that night he wanted to make out but I insisted on watching The Man From Uncle. Who’s deprived now? He can’t see that life’s beauty lies in its IMPERFECTIONS. He thinks WAY too much about “education” which can be a soul murderer in my experience. I believe there’s “good education” out there I just haven’t run into any. Whenever I try to explain my philosophy to him he tells me I’m advocating chaos. He won’t listen that things work themselves out NATURALLY. The weirdest thing about Beales is that he is MISERABLE ALL THE TIME and he does absolutely NOTHING to fix matters! It’s not his fault entirely. Happiness has a bad name at this school. They are very stern about it. If you are having a good time CLEARLY you are doing something wrong. I tried to explain to my father that this school’s definition of “progressive” is that we should be depressed and anxious all the time. (The best students are the most depressed.) My father says they want you to understand the issues so of course you’re depressed. But I don’t buy it. And if I ever get out of this place I’ll prove it.
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Alysse Aallyn
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