Sun 12 Nov 67
Getting upset over people. Hate to see Aynsley turning into a bigoted old lady but she is. At dorm meeting we all plead for unlimited late lights and faculty shoots it down eery time. Aynsley sides with them! She snapped at me “You yourself have acted terrible after getting what you want” right in front of everyone! Uh oh! This is my roommate! She told Casey she felt sorry for C if she roomed with me because I hadn’t “grown up.” Well I don’t plan to turn into Miss Wormrest if that’s what growing up amounts to! I was just seething! Aynsley herself hasn’t an iota of personal discipline and always needs help to do her homework! (Which I don’t give her so she is constantly in Lindles’ or McKenzie’s rooms.) Certain Sarah Lawrence won’t let her in Casey also is a slave to convention (she has nightmares about college entrance exams) – kowtowing frantically to the sadistic old women who run this place. Makes me burn to even TRY to please these old bags. But they won’t let me room by myself! Damn. Tues 13 Nov 67 Senior Play went remarkably well (although my mother commented loudly that I had never held a broom in my life which is NOT TRUE.) Fun driving around Philly after though Far from the Madding Crowd no good. Terence Stamp couldn’t save it. Today on the other hand was One of Those Days. Master Gwill insisted I rewrite my paper on The Lark misunderstanding every point I tried to make. (I thought it was funny to write my paper in the style of the play. He did not.) I don’t think I CAN write criticism. All his compliments were just sops to my disappointment. Had that awful, “I’m going to cry” feeling but I couldn’t get away from Master Gwill who kept stumbling after me still talking and making things worse. Tried to excuse myself saying I’d had a rough day – more compliments emptier and emptier – God it was awful. He obviously thinks I’m a helpless birdbrain. I was 20 mins late to History but he gave me a note. Everyone could tell I’d been crying! Awful. I am always morbidly ashamed on at war with myself after these outbursts. I guess I am insanely moody – one day all smiles and Tra la la the next deepest, darkest gloom. Guess I am too emotional to be a true intellectual. Maybe no creative person can look at reality in a dispassionate light. Why should we want to? A journal such as this presents the ridiculous side of life much as I try to embroider & give it meaning. Success? Failure? Only I can solve this conundrum. Thursday, 16 November 1967 Oh wherefore in my heart that was so hard hast thou these tender places made to come? (For Kip. From me, courtesy of Shakespeare.) Senior Checkout in the New Gym. We stood around and bounced tennis balls while I thought, there must be more to life than this. Then we ran around the floor several times. If I had a scrap of honesty left in my being I would have walked out. But I’ve been too well indoctrinated. I gritted my teeth and thought, if I waited four years I can wait a half hour, but baby, mentally I’m already gone. In a Russian mood reading Clara Milich and Oblomov. Oblomov is delightful – the scenes between Zahar and his master make me laugh out loud. Kip and I have been on a collision course for the past few months. We keep colliding, veering off, going to other people. I stopped answering Avery’s letters so he wrote to the school to find out where I am! Then he wrote me a really angry letter. Then he sent me a picture of him and his girlfriend dressed up for a dance. She’s the exact opposite of me in every known human way, so you go figure it out. I’m ”off “ relationships right now. Monday, 27 November 1967 English next period – quel nightmare. That is an all Herman Melville class - love him or leave him, with a teacher who does not allow a “careful disorderliness” about the enterprise. Thanksgiving was wonderful. I gave thanks for my unorthodox family, my excellent education (I make up the deficits) my inquiring mind, interesting face and good figure. Avril and I went for a walk and locked ourselves out. I had to climb the rose trellis and get in the third floor bathroom. I decided to kill sentimentality and destroyed all my loveletters – even from Dan who wrote the best ones so far. Not Reed’s KOBs though – they’re not really about me but they’re too good on their own to destroy. I’m sure he didn’t even keep copies, just tossed them off in free verse. I read the whole of To Die at Noone and Kip and Preston both “dropped by” to see me – unfortunately the same night. So it was duel a trois with neither of them wanting to be the first to leave and Kip talking about how he was going to Harvard early placement (wrestling scholarship) and trying to make Preston, who attends a high school so hopelessly progressive that they have no grades - feel bad. Finally Kip had to go first because he had his father’s car (Preston takes train.) So I made out with Preston till about two in the morning as a kind of frustration-revenge-rage thing. He said he loved me and I liked hearing it, but I couldn’t honestly say it back. Reading Easty’s Method Acting. If I did things his way I’d go insane.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Alysse Aallyn
Archives
September 2022
Categories |