30th St Station – Phila 5 Dec 71
Meeting B in NYC to see Liv Taylor – Beloved Bruce! The gears mesh fine at the other end – we’ll have to run. Very successful day shopping with Mom – though it was an uphill battle – she kept reading to me from Germaine Greer’s Female Eunuch which I totally do not get. Women are neutered? Not allowed to be feminine? I think we are drowning in femininity if anything – seems the opposite of the Feminine Mystique but Mom really enjoying being the Trendy One talking about how weddings are so hopelessly old fashioned, rigid, ritualistic, etc. and I am embracing a Dying Form. We went to two horrifying wedding dress stores where they treat the whole operation like you’re buying a casket to inter yourself in – finally Mom suggested Ann Pakadrooni in Bryn Mawr – perfect. I bought a copy of an Edwardian wedding dress with exploding sleeves and big medallions of lace on the most beautiful off-white watered moiré – and I didn’t stop there. I bought a Victorian brown velvet riding habit for Avril’s maid of honor dress and a gorgeous “mother of the bride” dress for Mom – sapphire velvet top and gold brocade skirt. Very Russian. She kept complaining it was “not her” and she’s going to give it to me after the ceremony – I said Fine. At least that’s done and she won’t show up in a gray suit looking like she’s going to the airport. Reading Delderfield’s Green Gauntlet. Pretty sure I won’t finish. And I was so looking forward to it – falling into a long novel like a stone into a well. Makes me long for Trollope. This writer is way too obvious. I don’t like being pushed and manipulated. I reject your mug preachery, Mr. Delderfield. (It’s not that a sexist can’t write good novel. Look at Tolstoy.) Fri. Night 10 Dec 71 I’m in Chap 5 of Shirley Jackson’s Road through the Wall and I still don’t get it. Very thankful not to be living in the 30’s. I know what Shirley Jackson can do. I can feel her holding back, trying to make this impersonal. Feeling tense and unfulfilled in my personal life. Can’t write. Just want to get this over with. I’m convinced when I’m finally Alysse Vill-Aallyn I’ll be a different person. Bruce wants me to read The Bell Jar, says Plath is just like me. Had her hymen ripped and everything. Yeah, but she committed suicide, I say. I’m much more likely to murder someone. He says, you’re not as strong as you think. Haunting words. We’re writing a film script together – The Plastic Bag. 5:30 AM Sat 18 Dec 71 Been up all this horrible night. Long day of having Bs suit fitted – we had it made (red velvet) because he couldn’t find anything he liked. Complex stuff: lace shirt, lace jabot, gold satin brocade vest. With his long dark hair in a ponytail he’s a vision. Just falling asleep when Mrs V calls cancelling her airfare, Bud’s airfare, the rehearsal dinner. She’s upset because she told Bud he would have to stay home and take care of Old Mrs E and couldn’t be best man and Bruce told her the best man was more important to the wedding than the mother of the groom. So now nobody’s coming. Bud can’t afford to come himself and he wants to bring his hunting dogs. What is it with these people that there’s no one in the universe who can look after their Treasures for 48 Hours. Bruce is trying to unsnarl it but its OK with me if it stays snarled. They seem like an awful family. Subjected Bruce to a battery of tests from The Open & Closed Mind and he comes out sane. Tried reading The Red House Mystery but rejected it when I figured out main gimmick by p. 40 – why do Eng books told from servants point of view only show how mean, vulgar, scatty and superstitious they are? Why is this “entertainment”? Too too Kiplingesque.
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Alysse Aallyn
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