Wed. 22 Sept 71
Depressing weekend at Pewter Hill. Dad – already irate because Chevenix has decided grades are inherently fascistic, now wants me to give him a budget. I gave him the basics – rent, car, food – that ought to be enough. (The band is all on food stamps and I’m too proud. As a result, I get identified as “the rich one” when its really my fathers cash, not mine.) Bruce is perfectly willing to oblige with any figure Dad wants to see (he wants Dad to buy the band a van) and I don’t know how to tell my father he shouldn’t trust my fiancé. Don’t encourage him. Dad definitely wouldn’t understand marrying someone you don’t want to encourage, but it’s all about shaping behaviors that you want (says psychology.) But my father doesn’t even want to imagine a marriage where the man isn’t in total control or he would lose his erection permanently. At the moment he’s acting a lot more excited about giving money to Bruce rather than to me, because Bruce gives him (seems to give him) what he “wants”. Much behind the scenes hissing that I should not queer this pitch. I try to explain to Bruce that in the long run it’s more trouble than it’s worth. He does not know how to play my family’s game and I am too dispirited to instruct. It’s hard accepting money from people who don’t respect you. But maybe Dad respects Bruce since he turned refusenik in Vietnam and was brought home in handcuffs. Still, at our blood test Bruce fainted, so I wonder it got as far as Vietnam… Sun. 26 Sept. 71 Depressing rainy day. Struggling with my gothic novel – will I ever write a good one? Tamsin says “don’t do it” and the rest of the class says “don’t sell out.” But I love gothics and feel there is a place for “my special one.” It has to be English because America is not gothic enough - this creates all sorts of problems and I have hared off in a Dickensian direction with notes of Trollope and Bronte. Now I am afraid to show any of it to the class so brought in instead my story about St. Julian. You’d think we shouldn’t have to all write the same thing but they are all telling me it’s time to “get my gothic ass in gear.” Tamsin goes on and on offensively about what a genius Bruce is, the best poet, the best artist, the best writer, the best musician, the best composer – so clever of him to make a poem in the shape of a gun! In the shape of a tree! And he’s so good looking. (Incontestable.) I roll my eyes and it is hard not to take this the wrong way, i.e I am Dullsville. (Bruce thinks Tamsin is a Butterball turkey.) Worse – lost my Theatre Downstairs job after just a few weeks in the 20% budget cuts! Dr. Plage says he may be able to find me some “slush” fund money but the way he looks at me when he says it tells me to run in the opposite direction. He all but smacks his lips. Rather write full time anyhow. Reading E. Nesbit’s The Wouldbegoods – I like her supernatural stories better. This one just a tad too cute. Think I ought not to use the supernatural myself – but I may not be able to help myself. In this treacherous hour after dinner I should be making a survey of current gothics instead of falling asleep. Trying to read D. Eden’s Brooding Lake – cast it aside when the “cruel beaks of the keas” remind me of Gerald Durrell. (He called keas nature’s clowns.) Margaret Erskine’s Graveyard Plot has no plot – or the publisher gives away what plot it has in the blurb! So I cast them aside and make a wedding invitation list instead (85 people.) Dad has amazed me by giving Bruce $10,000 – this will end in tears (he expects to be paid back.) Bruce is elated – rushes out to buy a dobro and cowboy boots, reserving a pair for me. I don’t want them – not my thing. I’m bribeable however. Engraved stationary; that’s my meat. Aaahhh…red and gold with entwined names & initials. Bruce has agreed to combine last names – Bruce and Alysse Vill-Aallyn sounds especially pretty. The engraver gives me the heavy silver die in a plush bag. Would make a perfect murder weapon. The band resents our prosperity. Bruce wants to go to the Senators game but the rest of the band votes it down – must rehearse for their Fri. job. Fine by me. Almost midnight – Sun 3 Oct 71 Tell me to stop reading these gothics. You know they enrage me. Finished Eyre’s Monk’s Court tonight – if they take that, they’ll take anything. Tamsin says I can’t turn my novel into a detective story since gothics rely on “mental confusion”. I think she’s making up rules to slow me down. What it should be about is ordinary relationships turning extraordinary. Isolation and paradox. 2:15 AM – Sun 10 Oct - 71 Brain churning from Deborah Kerr’s Turn of the Screw. She was insane from the beginning, which damps the excitement somewhat. Played Miles’ death flawlessly however. Enjoying classes though graduation seems farther away, if anything. Bruce has dropped out – if the government won’t pay (they keep sending him threatening letters) he doesn’t want to “waste” his money. Tamsin says I love Bruce too much and it’s going to ruin my artistic life. All feel free to lecture me on my romantic fallibility. Went to a party at Dr. Plage’s – his wife Honey, who in spite of her stripper name has long dark hair, glasses and is a French scholar, took me aside and told me never to get married. Says it’s a complete disaster and I’ll be sorry. Much talk of Sylvia Plath, heads, and ovens. I backed away saying Bruce and I only want to pledge our lives to each other. She snorted in a disbelief not very complimentary to Dr. Plage. But he is pretty handsy. I’d feel cheated married to him, too.
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Alysse Aallyn
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