Pewter Hill - Tues. Aug 6, 1968
Turns out this does NOT happen to everyone. Is it a curse put on me by Aiken, I wonder? Toss arrived in the car of his friend from across the street and drove me to the hospital where they determined I needed three stitches – they needed “family permission” since I was under age so I had Toss call Aunt Frederica who showed up and lectured everybody. She told me Toss is certain to turn gay now and it’s all my fault. Fortunately they knocked me out (after they shaved me.) Mom and Dad came home early into a BLOODY HOUSE and found a pair of Toss’s underpants on the floor with his phone number in them and CALLED HIS HOUSE. Of course he admitted everything so it was quite a crowd scene when I woke up at the hospital. They gave me a rubber pillow to sit on. Toss’s parents are not taking it well (they thought he must be on drugs to have sex with me.) They are sending him to Ohio to stay with his great uncle before he starts college. Disgrace all around. Mom very angry that people have sex without intending to marry and unforgiving that I chose to hallucinate in the bathtub instead of cleaning the house. Dad made things worse by describing their wedding night (she kept ordering more food to keep from having to go to the hotel room! She was – direct quote ”very uncomfortable”. ) But no hospital got involved! My stitches pull and my growing hairs prickle. Misery instead of the romance I pictured, Buoyed by Toss’ loving letters. We plan to get together at Toss’ college if its possible but it might not be – his parents chose the farthest place they could get that isn’t in Alaska. First Day of Winter 1968 – Bainbridge Island, Washington Rereading my Morocco diaries. I was eating a chocolate bar while writing them and years later, the exact taste of that chocolate comes back to me, sharply sweet and slightly dusty. A fresh small coming off the sound of wet leaves & seagulls… an ache in my head maybe from swimming, maybe from thinking too much…I wasn’t swimming exactly, but digging clams that come out only in the nighttime you get very wet. Art is “the reason why” that isn’t reason at all. “The fine artist is concerned with posing his own problems and answering his own questions in an individualized manner…you must be able to work independently without regard for time, external encouragements or immediate economic reward. Insight and technical qualities are not enough. Ultimately your stature as an artist depends on your quality as a human being” – Your Career In Art, Phila College of Art. I say Amen, brother. And next I say, is this slogan too long to have engraved on a medic alert bracelet? Falling in love with Colette (Mes Apprentissages) – envying her courage. Some asshole said about her, “she told too much!” Think on that, ye artists, and despair…What’s the French for asshole? Cul-something. I’m going to marry…a masseur. My body needs a pounding, I am tight all over. Contretemps with Toss – it did not go well. He warned me I would “get tired of him”, instead I showed up at his college in my short red coat with matched set of monogrammed luggage. Frenzied removal of photos & gift cards from other girls from his walls while his roommate and I take roommate’s pet wolf for a walk. I am the keeper of the watch The proper jailer of my mind To splinter up the rainbow moods That turn and slow my thrifty will… Or should it be “thriftless will?” From my upcoming collection: Poetry that Goes Nowhere. Having to pose as demure when I’m eternally voracious. Toss disappointing as he always is these days, pushing me aside the way his parents want him to. What if he runs for office someday, his mother asks, and I come tumbling out of his closet? Parents set me up on revolting date with Andre Forsythe, a sweet loving ROTC college senior who bores me to death. I literally have to hold my eyes open with my fingers whenever I take to him. Fortunately he is a film buff and we went to see The Two of Us which I’d heard was worth it. (It wasn’t. Turns out I don’t like Claude Berri. Hideous crap. Maybe I should become a film critic.) Then we had to stop by his friend’s apt for ID cards because he says Washington is very strict. Ho hum. I’ve got to rush home to Phila and find somebody male who “vibes” me back. Learning Grushenka’s speech from Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. Think it makes a good audition piece.
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Alysse Aallyn
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