Sat 16 Apr 77
Told R no more phone conversations. They are not good for me. (He told me he cannot “allow” me to go to a male gyno!!! Just evil.) He countered, What if I need you? And I just started shivering. His seeming “tenderness” while he makes his attacks fools my brain (and heart) but not my body. I said let’s give it a month. Please. See what happens. I didn’t want to say why I’m trying so hard to live without him – but it’s because he makes me feel impotent. Pretty sure he hasn’t guessed. So I can still hold up my head a little bit. But he’ll figure it out fast if this goes on. He asked can he break the silence if he can’t bear it? I said yes. He wrote down the date of the reunion and that was it. Trying to read a disgusting student novel for Chloe – called her needing reassurance I don’t have to read the whole thing. It is AWFUL. Sex among art students. Bad sex, bad art. Out with Keith I got contact dislodged and started muttering about the fact that makeup and contacts don’t mix. I said to him, “You don’t wear much makeup do you?’ He said, “Just some base and a little color.” Funny. Mon 18 Apr 77 Feel like I’m recovering from some awful disease. The slightest effort depletes me. Thinking about Keith; I don’t want a relationship without sex. It’s the staff of life. Going without is like dieting - attending parties where you watch everyone else partake. But I don’t want to have sex with him, and I don’t want a relationship that’s only sex, which appears to be what’s on offer from the attaché of Trinidad-Tobago. He invited me to the International Hotel for dinner – turned out to be in his room!! Room service! No thank you! I said. He says, “Nobody thinks anything of it on the “Continent” (which is ridiculous.) He is married, used a false name, please. I said No thank you. He had the grace to apologize mightily, take me to my favorite restaurant L’Escargot, and gave me a case of bitters from the trunk of his car ! How “break up” with Keith when we are not an item? I guess I just have to start turning him down. Chloe sicced some horrible poet on me who wants me to read her memoir. I don’t think I like the “literary life”. Tues 19 Apr 77 Forcing myself not to call R. Starting to suffer sexually. Gotta have something. But I don’t want to see what lies beneath Keith’s suit. Wed 20 Apr 77 Beginning the novel AGAIN in accordance with my latest idea. Reading Shelley at work. Chloe’s latest find, Erika is lesbian poet with a fetish for black girls. She picks them up at clubs. Kicks them out without breakfast. Ryder called. He doesn’t want to wait until the twenty-second because he will be in Boston for a job interview! I was polite but distant, listening to his tales of “growth”. Said he’s been “comforting” his friend Sherry who sounds like a poor wretch. I know I was supposed to get jealous but she sounded sexually unborn; “No one has ever really “touched” her. I know I was supposed to ask if he’d assumed the job. Refused. Did get kind of excited about Boston, however, telling him how wonderful it is. Bliss to shed all of this and just start over. 23 Apr 77 Mason and Avril borrowing $500 from Dad so they can move to Calif! Sounds definite. I’m sad. Don’t think he’s good for her but in my experience there’s only one way to find that out. If she goes I inherit a quantity of very nice furniture (including cute little rolltop desk.) Got 3 free bottles of wine from Amis des Vins so invited Shoulders over to celebrate. He is beautiful but has far too roving an eye for my comfort. (The Master of One Night Stands.) I need to rely on knowing where my next sexual/emotional meal is coming from. Or you can blame my compulsive need to be worshipped. Broadcast Agency – Wash DC – 21 Apr 77 4:55PM Peaceful job bordering on narcosis. Sitting in my own little office, feet up on windowsill till something happens – staff places most of their calls themselves. Switching over to newer system means my recently acquired talents soon will be obsolete and I am so backward in my thinking that this is just fine with me as long as they leave me alone for now. Reading more Woolf; her interesting artist/critic fusion. Avril called asking about R: Am I kicking and screaming sufficiently against my fate? No. I want him to show his real self to me in all its horror so I know where I am. Seems like he is good at saying he loves me and wants me when I am not around. No use to me. I demand constant growth & rebirth and he doesn’t like that. So, not a healthy state of affairs. Endless diet of vegetables & yogurt, yogurt & vegetables. To think I used to believe “being published” made all the difference! Instead, screaming madness is just a shot away. How can you trust anyone who doesn’t know who they are (much less care who you are!) Walk myself to exhaustion at night through darkened Chevy Chase, remembering the old days when A. & I used to slip into people’s pools. Ah youth. Bus – 12:25 PM Fri 22 Apr 77 Hot day, dreamy and content. Secaire at 40,000 words coming along just fine. Reading Rosalind Ashe’s Moths. 100 degrees out.
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Alysse Aallyn
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