Fri 17 Oct 80 – On the train
Just finished May Sinclair’s 3 Sisters. Fascinating & beautiful feminist plot. Can’t think why she’s so forgotten - probably because she didn’t make a fuss of herself. Managed to forget a teacher’s meeting this AM – another sign I’m trying to fit the round peg of my life into a square hole. 20 Oct 80 Staying home with an awful cold finishing Prelude so I can write my Wordsworth paper. Type tomorrow AM. Difficult weekend with friends. Don’t know how to handle T’s anger in front of other people. Fri night was his night to cook – he made a wonderful boeuf bourguignon. But on my night (Sat) he was so interfering I just let him do it. He’s moved everything around in the kitchen so I can’t find anything – embarrassing. He seems to be reproducing his mother’s ploys and tensions. Wish he had a little more of his laid-back father in him! Read Jean Rhys’ Quartetand Smile, Please. What a writer! Such purity! I am really envious. Don’t agree she’s beyond self-pity however – the books pulsate with it. What a pity respect & love aren’t joined in the male as they are in the female. Now reading Janeway’s Powers of the Weak. There’s a chapter missing! Interpersonal power politics between husband and wife! Avril called tonight to say she got the Maine job – (domestic abuse shelter) $11,000 the first year! Bravo! 22 Oct 80 – Train Creature from the Black Lagoon in Eng class. Too stupid to contribute. Brent criticized my story Travel Fever– bad ending – (fair enough) but he also said he was surprised at the cruelty in the family! (Katrina the scapegoat.) This from a man who admires Flannery O’Connor. Better off working on novel and NOT short stories. Don’t think I have the art. 26 Oct 80 Horrible fight with T began with my criticism of his old newspaper and rusty tobacco tin collections – do we really have to save all this moldering junk? He blames me for the “bad move” from KY in which he lost so much stuff. But I moved, too (TWICE.) He also had the nerve to say we “live like slobs” when he was supposed to clean the living room 2 days ago. (He’s doing it now.) 6:30 PM– He came upstairs and apologized – very sweetly. Lovingly, courageously and open-heartedly. So we did go for walk – gathering branches & berries to decorate house. Saw a beautiful did bird with a black ruff around its neck – feathers green and black. Blissfully happy reading Rose MacCaulay’s Letters. News that Commonweal will publish my poem Life of the Virgin! 30 Oct 80 Very interesting discussion with T – he cooked a fabulous leg of lamb (but still refuses to vacuum.) He said Henriette Wyeth not worth the ink she’s getting for her show – I said art is really lacking in feminine emotion (Rothko Pollock & de Kooning masculinity reduction ad absurdum) and woman painter raised in a family of male painters is a “test” case. Whats the missing element? Supernaturalism! Since we borrow our bodies from earth our souls are our only true individuality. 1 Nov 80. T. so angry when I criticized his procrastination ( he keeps saying he’s going to look for a job and not doing it) he pushed me into the bathtub! He denies that housework is humiliating but he doesn’t do it because he doesn’t want anyone to see him doing it. When I was having coffee in bed he pulled all the sheets off as if he was going to wash them but when I got home they were still on the floor. Guests to dinner – in the middle of the meal he would suddenly turn and glower at me hostilely. Horrible day at school – EVERYONE IN THE CLASS got an F on their Prelude paper! We all had the “wrong” reaction because we had the nerve to react personally. I immediately bought my first set of Cliff’s Notes. If there’s a “right” response I’m going to give it – don’t want another F. (We all get one more chance.) K. Mansfield’s Letters unbearably sad. She would envy T’s & my life together so much.
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22 Sept 80
Lie in bed satisfied our entertaining’s over. It’s a “test” of our relationship to be around third parties. T always more critical of me in his anxiety that things go well – I am dreamy & slapdash by nature. Ended up watching the debate after all – much more fiery and vituperative than I expected – John Andersen an old-time preacher and Reagan sweetly vague and never finishing his sentences. 24 Sept 80–Waiting to counsel Rose Love (!) but looks like she isn’t going to show. Lots of them don’t. I’m not the only one having trouble with this system. Horrors! I was “observed” in class – trying to teach probationary “backward” students (I.e. unprepared) to write an essay and feel I made an idiot of myself. I sweat & tremble – am I only “a pack of cards” or are THEY only “a pack of cards!” Basic feeling of inadequacy – these kids deserve better than me! How did I ever think I could DO this! Well if Rose isn’t showing up I can read Sackville-West’s magnificent Eagle & Dove. Very depressing meeting with advisor Ezra Brent about my novel – asked how long I’d been working on it – I said 7 years and he was HORRIFIED. WAY too long for a project so short! But I am evolving as its evolving I splutter. Better write about your childhood instead, he counsels. Of course I can’t do that! Blah! Resolve to write a novel specially for his class – chapter a week. What interests me? Murder & nuns at present. Do I know anything about those? I admit I don’t but need to follow this trail. His obvious expression of disbelief is all the goad I need. Call it “Pinch of Death” from Shakespeare quote long in search of tale to headline. Train to NY 1 Oct 80 Observer gave me a rave review! Made 4,000 copies because frankly, no one would believe it. I don’t believe it myself. Good meetings with students. Asked Brent what to do about lack of a BA – he said Do nothing yet. You are a “promising” student. I still feel uncomfortable – don’t even feel like a STUDENT. Feel bolstered up. Unfortunately no one in fict class likes my novel – they all think I’m “anti-modern”. I don’t like theirs either. I fire back by advising they read Krafft-Ebing – no “modernity” without him. I should have taken Carberry’s modern poetry – enjoying romantic poetry VERY much. Fellow student Charlene Clark is teacher at a Catholic college (working on her SECOND masters) can give me lots of advice about nuns. I got a letter saying I am a member of the faculty so I get a 10% discount at the bookstore!!! Thy also have a very respectable library. Reading CS Lewis’s Letters to an American Lady. I CHERISHED his Letters to Malcolm. But 4 Loves very rough going. His anti-feminism somewhat mitigated by his late marriage. He was dragged into that the same way he was dragged into Christianity – kicking and screaming – “the sorriest convert you ever saw.” Interested in his “shameful” relationship with Mrs. Moore. Krafft-Ebing anyone? Experimenting with prayer but it feels very unnatural. I like the mystic’s stillness – make yourself empty and “fill up.” Any kind of “intellectual direction” feels wrong. 2 Oct 80 Not pregnant, alas. Period came two weeks late but it came. Hard to keep up with this level of disappointment. BA crisis solved – I can keep teaching as long as I’m WORKING toward BA which is all right with me. Investigating Fordham discover they have a “Math for Poets” class that gets me out of science requirement! That’s the school for me! Been having good meetings with students lately – finally getting through to some of them. If they pass the essay they can stay in the school – they’re on trial, just like me. 5 Oct 80 - Lois upset with me because I want to sell the piano - I even found a buyer. We could really use the space. But she says she doesn’t want to sell - it’s a boring unspecial upright piano. But a reminder whose house this is. She also told me not to get pregnant before we have health insurance! I smiled and said it seemed my body IS waiting! Did not enjoy the evening so overdrank. Not too badly – just enough to be annoyed at myself. Finished Marge Bacons Lucretia Mott. A charmed, serene life. More laundry, more writing. 6 Oct 80– A good day – much accomplished. Ordered the most beautiful stationery in Princeton – had to pay extra for colored ink but its worth it. Asked Toss over after dinner cigars if he thinks this house will ever be his. He said he thought it was an excellent chance. After all, a farmer farms the land and the whole place desperately needs updating which his mother doesn’t want to pay for. I rhapsodized about adding a stone tower like the Brandywine Museum – he said we’re more likely to be cooking over a sterno pot in a field! Not very confident of his chances for passing the bar apparently! He needs a job because he’s driving me crazy. He spent the afternoon rewiring the garage so it can be lit from the house. Anything rather than basic housework which he considers low on thrills. He doesn’t seem to understand how insulting that is to me! However he’s fine with hiring a cleaning lady which I’ll do the minute I can afford it. Read Love & Work: The Crucial Balance. Distinguishes between “love” oriented people who want to love their work and task oriented people. Wed 8 Oct 80– All my emotional eggs are in one basket! Overwhelmed with love for T – don’t want anybody else. People come – and then they go – and I’m overjoyed to see the back of them. I’m not sure I even need friends. Disgusted by the world weariness of James’ Black Tower. I’ve given up on her. Pity. Everyone else likes her. Sat 10 Oct 80 – StormFall Farm Absolutely exhausted. Next time T suggests coming here I’ll have to tell him my idea of isn’t rest & recuperation cleaning a 7 bedroom mansion! Toss is frenzied about the place. When I asked him who put him in charge he admits he just took over. He lashes himself with imaginary humiliating words he assumes “everyone” is saying. Right now he’s yelling downstairs – some kind of breakthrough with the water system. I’m so tired I could just fall over. 5:30 PM – Thurs 15 Oct – 80 Can still be thrown by a bad day. Got so absorbed counseling a student I was 15 mins late to class – now I’m hiding in the library calming myself down with Mary Daly’s Beyond God the Father. Very interesting but kind of naive. Don’t reject airplanes because you hate bombers! How would most men score on the Sermon on the Mount test? But I certainly understand the hopelessness of “institutionalizing” emotionality. Supernature gets us off the gerbil wheel. Too much gerbilling here. Don’t see how I can handle more than a year of this place. At least T & I see eye to eye about the housework. I got him to see everyone wants to do “executive” functions, no one wants to do grunt work so we have to share that out. An hour a day would be plenty! |
Alysse Aallyn
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