11:45 PM – Thurs 13 Apr 78
Safe & warm in my gilt-canopied bed, happy in spite of my cold. A & I got “El Diablo” inspected today - $70 – But at least she can take it to the MVA tomorrow and have it put in her name. That great feeling of “starting out fresh”. In spite of dribbles & wheezes, blissful dog walk followed by deep-dish pizza & wine at Armand’s. No painful memories. Cherry blossoms are out. Saw Coming Home with Jon Voigt & Jane Fonda. Good, if somewhat earnest. Bruce Dern acted like he was in a different movie. Rough part deserves a hero’s commendation. I stare at the casually interdependent couples – it’s been a year since I could lay a hand on another’s thigh with that proprietary air. Poor A dissolved in tears towards the end – too reminiscent of the “endless pain” of vets like Bruce and Mason. I’d be more sympathetic if they didn’t take it out on others. What they learned apparently is how to “stage a war”. The people we love inflict the worst damage. A’s at the stage where she’s still haunted by Mason but feels it’s “boring” to talk about him so she bottles it up. I tell her get a diary. Hope to finish Powell’s Agents & Patients tonight – but it is a little dull. Plush Palace –Fri 14 Apr 78 – 3:50 PM Only 3 more sets, with 4 dancers. Still, made enough tips for groceries. Buy wild birdseed for the birds cavorting outside my desk’s bay window. Daringly went on without stockings – such a savings if we didn’t have to buy them but Eddie told me No Cigar. Too bad – they’re hot in summer. Alvera says Yvonne’s back at Mother Joe’s. I thought she wouldn’t be able to eat enough shit to stay in her music clerk job. We goddesses spoiled by our pedestal. Called A in the afternoon to see how she was doing – Shoulders was there flexing his muscles at her and she is over the moon. Trying to be glad for her but in spite of his obvious beauty I’m afraid he is a bit of a shit. (See testimony past burnees plus eviction notices.) I feel I must disappear deeper into solitude and see what’s down there. Gift (new version of Courtney) coming along interestingly but slowly. I’m afraid it has no plot other than my own life, when what it needs is a couple of murders. (Same thing my life has always required.) Tried to read Phyllis Bottome but she’s a fatal cross between a didact and a pleaser; sort of like a barky little dog. Most unpleasant. And that casual anti-Semitism pretty shocking. Plush Palace – Sat 5:50 PM 15 Apr 78 Halfway through novel – can’t figure out if I’m satisfied or not. All my discoveries so agonizingly slow. Can’t afford fuckups – then I’ll have to go through it all AGAIN. Slept late, breakfast at A’s. We did laundry together, then played gin. I was the first one here thank God (means I’m the first to leave). Got my schedule – 4 nights in a row, 2 days off. Good. Congratulate myself on my intellectual freedom as I wrap black lace around my throat, recalling all the put-downs suffered as the “architect’s helpmeet”. Reread Alvarez’ description of Plath’s suicide – I don’t agree her death was some “by-product.” Her mother raised her to be murdered by other people – Nazis or husbands. There had to be a “bloodletting” – Mrs. Plath’s ulcer – Sylvia’s “suicides”. If you don’t “accept” martyrdom someone will have to die in your place. Kid yourself it’s” freedom” if you choose time & place. It bothers me terribly that they shared a bedroom during Sylvia’s formative years. Death would seem inevitable just to get some privacy & distance. Poor Sylvia offered those magnificent poems to Alvarez and he backed away terrified because Art is terrifying. $30 for lost contact that came out when a necklace scraped my eyeball while I was hanging upside down. Teach me to wear contacts onstage. Who needs to see the audience anyway? 7:15 PM Sun 16 Apr 78 Spent the day in bed eating oranges, coffee, peanut butter. A’s spending the night at Shoulders’ new place – then tomorrow we’re going to the new Cassavetes film and I’m excited. Jervaze in for last set to invite me to his going away party. I slept nine hours. Horrifying Who Made the Lamb – author really lost control of this one but I bet she would say she was just “reporting”. Books do Furnish a Room much better than Powell’s previous – has a sense of direction. “Trapnel himself always insisted that a novel is what its writer is”. I would agree. Style follows taste, I think. Realize Dad and I don’t mean the same thing by the word “intellectual”. He means a person who knows specific things, (education) I mean a person who thinks a certain way (style). Twain never meet. I am not respectful of an artificially acquired patina of “points of view”. Wrote the infirmary scene – just what I wanted to say. Maybe I need to give up sex and even male companionship – just can’t afford them.
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Alysse Aallyn
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