Tues. 10 Jan 1972
Here I am married and all. Not sure if I can go into it I have such conflicting feelings about it. Can’t believe it’s been three weeks since I wrote here last. It’s like a Diary Freeze is settling in. Must break it, but some things can only be handled as fiction and I have a horrible feeling my wedding is one of those things. Fiction has design and meaning; real lie is just a mess. Maybe I should start backwards. Today Bruce and I went to see a dilapidated house we might want to live in, in a forgotten neighborhood off Edmondson Ave. 5 bedrooms $300 a month utilities included. Hmm. Definitely have to leave this place – must conserve our cash if we want European honeymoon on top of album (which costs more like 17,18 thousand.) Landlords raising the rates $200. Is this even legal? I feel like I have all responsibility, no actual power. Dad has involved a college friend who assembles songbooks to ask his opinion – he said you just have to play and play in coffee houses till someone notices you, making an album would be the worst thing in the world. Thanks a lot. Dad went all the way into NYC to talk to the production engineer – who insists we can sell the finished master to a record company. No Problemo. Dad’s getting Over-involved (he LIKED the engineer) and I hear the music from Psycho playing repetitively in my head. I am NOT the one with the knife. We came back from a Completely Unsatisfactory Honeymoon last Thurs. about noon. Bruce carried me across the threshold and I immediately burst into tears. Naturally he was concerned. Was it the pile of thank you notes I have to write for such bizarre presents? Was it the mold on the refrigerator, the dust on the walls? Was it the latest story rejection saying my story IS NOT FINISHED? OK, maybe it was that. The “honeymoon” was staying in Tristan Eckles’ father’s ski chalet in Vermont. Except we didn’t have it to ourselves! Tristan was there with a passel of his druggie acquaintances. He was sure this would be the “finishing touch” that would launch him from roadie to agent (which he pines to be.) Instead he is now my enemy for life. Bruce says he has to take “just a social sip”. So I spend my “honeymoon” stumbling through the snow alone. Bruce promises me we will go to Europe this summer – he did a music tour of the Brit Isles and has many connections, contacts, fond memories. The wedding itself just had to be suffered through. My harpsichordist got snowed in and I had to use a pianist instead. The meetinghouse was candlelit so no pictures came out. Genevieve’s husband lectured Mom that she should not let the caterers serve veal (it was delicious.) It was New Year’s Day so everyone wanted to spend dinner watching football. My hair looked stupid although the rest of me was pretty. Bruce looked magnificent but he muffed his vows and I have the unsettling feeling I’ve made all the promises here. I got drunk on white port and the weather was appalling. Other than that, everything’s peachy. Johnson’s Life of Scott very sad. He needed money so badly and was in so much pain at the end – made everyone he knew promise not to read his books because they were trash! Even Johnson apologizes for them. Unbearable. Mon. 17 Jan 72 – St. Petersburg Fla. Here’s a place we didn’t expect to be. Bruce’s mother DIED. Neighbors heard nothing for days – police finally broke in Thurs night to find Mrs. Vill dead in bed and grandmother unconscious on bathroom floor. (She is still in hospital but has not regained consciousness and is NOT going to pull through. She is over 90 so no one is surprised.) We heard the news at 11 pm – got a 1:15 plane from Dulles – met Bud and his girlfriend Honor at Bay Front Med Center. Everyone is mystified and in a state of shock – Mr. V projected such an impression of strength & health. Grabbed the first book I could find – unfortunately it is Julian Franklin’s Death by Enchantment in which he insists modern witchcraft is a Real Thing and women do it to men all the time. (And to him, apparently – he died 1970 the moment this was published.) He says men can be witches but doesn’t offer examples of any. If men are the Dominant Group why are they so afraid of us? Is a puzzle. I think the death of Mrs. Vill absolutely disproves Franklin’s theory – a real witch she would have lasted longer (and she tried so hard). Honor and I cleaned the bathroom floor (ugh – crime scene) while Bud and Bruce went through their mother’s valuables – an old green ammunition case. No funeral instructions and a will dated 1962! No will for Nana and no insurance policy. (Bruce very surprised – his dad sold insurance and left his Mom a hefty sum and Mrs. V lectured EVERYONE to buy insurance.) A Mrs. Hopkins came over with coffeecake and made coffee for everybody, which Honor found much fault with. (It was delicious – very gloppy the way I like it.) Honor is a disgruntled hippie chick with an obesity problem – nobody lives their lives well enough to suit her so she has to take precious moments out of her busy day to correct us all the time. (She is graduating in “Interior Design”.) She promised to show Mrs. Hopkins how to make Decent Health Food if she ever has a moment. She must have been more than a match for the Evil Mrs. V – I’m sorry I never had the delight of observing them together. (She says Mrs. V gave her giant underpants for Christmas, she gave Mrs. V Sex After Sixty!!! Har har.) Bruce found an unwitnessed, unsigned will in the jewelry box – unclear whether this is legal. Hospital called. Nana died – blood clot in the bowel. Mrs. V had “massive heart attack” nothing could have stopped. In a bureau drawer B found an early attempt at pornography he’d written at age 13. She’d worked him over about it but kept it through 5 moves!!! Interesting. I wanted just one item – a gorgeously huge steel art deco pin of a hart leaping through a circle. A scarf pin I guess. Very pretty. Thurs night – 20 Jan – airborne Will is legal but there’s a worse problem. Mrs. V combined all hers and Nan’s assets so she wouldn’t have to “bother” with probate when Nana died – but she died first – so Nana is her heir! And Nana – who died intestate – has more heirs than Mrs. V had, who designated just the two sons. So not clear what they will get. But boys put house & furniture up for sale – they will get something. I made B promise to pay Dad back. Get him off my case. Reading Thurber & White’s Is Sex Necessary hoping for a laugh but it’s not funny at all. More men “trapped” by women. They’re obviously intensely jealous of us. I think it’s just so weird.
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Alysse Aallyn
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