Sun 8 Mar 81
April isn’t the cruelest month – Feb & March are. Oh for it to be over. Depressed phone call from Avril - I told her how much reading theology had helped me. Suffering isn’t purposeless; it’s the beginning of everything. The wake-up call. She was depressed enough to listen. Read Beryl Bainbridge’s disappointing Quiet Life and am now plunged into Pearson’s Life of Ian Fleming. There’s a cautionary tale for you. Wed. 11 Mar 81 So tired all the time I am DRAGGING myself around. Lois is angry that we’re not paying rent – T trying to negotiate “work he does around the place” which keeps him away from writing & the law. Sutton calls to say he’s marrying Pansy. Lois demands a “pow-wow” about “the unresolved state of this family” which I think will be more screaming about Sutton and all the Hideous Wrongs he did her long, long, long ago. While we sit there pie-eyed. 12 Mar 81 I was right about the pow-wow. She wanted to read us a long letter she’s writing to Sutton about how he’s a bird who fouls his own nest. We know but don’t say this is in response to his marriage announcement. I say she’s acting like they got divorced YESTERDAY and she tells me I DON’T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING. More examples of what an awful father Sutton was, abandoning his children etc. etc. I say she should be GLAD SHE’S RID OF HIM if all these things are true. Her argument sounds like he was too awful to be “allowed” to leave her but isn’t she really saying she deserves better? Slowly it emerges that she’s really depressed because her advisors tell her she needs a partner with a track record to develop this property (plus the one she wants to buy in Phila.) Toss says he will be her attorney. My hackles rise. This is a woman who calls black white and praises herself for her honesty all in one breath. I tell Toss privately we need to get the HECK out of her house but he’s loving being involved with his grandparents stuff. Sat 21 Mar 81 Hoping I’m pregnant. Just don’t want to focus on anyone else. Reading advice book for writers it occurred to me I’ve heard ALL THIS BEFORE – in women’s mags telling girls how to attract men. “Find out what he likes and be that” “Be careful not to turn him off” “Smile” and “Be cheerful NO MATTER WHAT.” Or how to get hired in Domestic Service 1800. There’s the truth about buyers’ markets. I need a press of my own. 24 Mar 81 (Tues) In the train Good day yesterday – I typed 20 p of novel – T got Kidder Peabody check. Want to send it to my agent for her opinion NO MATTER WHAT my class says. Made the 9:30 dance class. Reading a history of the Alcott family. Pretty sure I’m pregnant – breasts enlarged and period 10 days late! And all this exhaustion!! I’ve been too tired for sex! Also depressed at living In a cramped ancient house full of ugly broken down furniture. Wed Ap 1 81 Have to face it – I just hate PD James. Unsuitable Job for a Woman unsuitable for reading. I find her attitude to humanity downright depressing. Guiltily enjoy The Pale Horse instead. Wonderful book! Avril and I have long discussion about how impossible it is to diet when depressed. Food is not just love; it’s excitement, color, interest. 7 Tues Ap 81 Wonderful news! YES I am pregnant and T won prestigious IRE award (with Larry West) on their coal series. Just back from celebratory weekend in KY. We’ll be going out to San Diego for awards dinner. T feeling elated & secure. Now if I can just make I through this semester… 18 Sept 81 5:45 PM Grimly assembled a poetry collection for contest – for sacrificial reasons, knowing I won’t win – then had to take another nap. Have I been awake at all today Endless problems over Fordham Life Exp credits making me want to say The Hell With It. How do I get into these fixes – suddenly dependent for “approval” from bureaucrats I despise? There must be another way to live. Plumly’s ugly insistence on “appearance versus reality” raises its hideous head. I am an artist, most at home in the company of artists – but the financial picture cloudy. Still “finding myself” as they say. Learning not to care about $ could be tough when I am about to become a mother! Forced to conclude my timing has always been bad. T. unexpectedly inviting me out to dinner really helps with the gloom.
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Tues. 4 Feb 81
First day of class both teaching & taking. Met with Fordham advisor who ants me to switch out f Excel and pursue a double major – maybe philosophy! Whoa there! My class babies with glazed eyes – my fict seminar wrangles about the Death of the Novel. Very dispiriting. They are excited by horrible shit sans character or plot. Plot is contrived and character is MUTABLE. Ineed to stop reading thrillers I enjoy and learn to like Robbe-Grillet. Wed 5 Feb 81 Miss T – haven’t seen him since 9. Gave my class a really easy test they could pass they all failed. Blue, blue blue. Women’s group wonderful on the other hand – I adore Joan. Want to ask her to christen our children. Sat 7 Feb 81 Spent $359 on bathroom floor tiles. It had to be done. Dinner at the neighbors who wanted to show off their friend a famous journalist. I got too drunk – T has forgiven me but I can’t forgive myself. Bad day all day. The sorrow of teaching Eng to the deprived – taking their money and flunking them – is always with me. Don’t like this system. Tried moving novel into first person voice – something my class can respect. Wonderfully cheering call with Avril – she is so good. Mon 9 Feb 81 Off to library in Chrysler – got a flat tire – had to wait an hour for AAA – missed appt with man to hook up tiny washer dryer we are installing in dining room closet. Feel squeezed & helpless. Discouraged by mess in house. Frustration the most difficult emotion to deal with. Not impressed by Ross Macdonald: “There’s nothing worse than an ugly woman with a gun.” Really? Bid of $1000 for wiring & plumbing. Bills bills bills and soon it will be tax time while every job prospect for T melts away. 18 Feb 81 Coming out of depression. IRS is auditing me – Toss being completely calm and supportive. He will represent me! Costume dinner at Snowbury was waste space but we was fun wearing the costumes & we met some interesting people. (Mayor & his girlfriend, a lawyer.) Weekend at StormFall where I officially give up on fiction and surrender to poetry. Offer to help Gretchen Fuchs find a publisher for her book – it’s so beautiful I can’t believe we won’t be successful. T. painting my bathroom. 20 Feb 81 My depression climaxes and I call in sick – feel like an ugly hopeless worthless slob. Housework all day until I become depressed over how ancient and broke everything is. So desperate I try prayer. The cure lies in orderliness I’m sure. Sun 22 Feb 81 One cure for depression is reading my diaries – the horrors of Ryder, Devon, Jervaze. Toss so wonderful by comparison. More relief offered by Ann Sexton’s poems. Mon 23 Feb 81 Feel so unequal to everything. Trying to please too many people with my writing – obvious cure: please only myself. T asked if I would mind him working for the govt – prosecutor or IRS. I said no – if he wasn’t bored. He said he’s never been as close to another person as he is to me – relief. I was considering myself a hopeless case. Dancing the only job where I didn’t have the fear of being “found out” because I knew I was good at it. 28 Feb 81 Party went well – bathroom finished, house stunningly clean & orderly. I got a bit snarly with Toss because he has literally no idea how to fit tasks into a time frame – whatever he chooses to do takes forever. He can’t prioritize, either. But the food was good, and I could tell Genevieve and Brett had a good time. T. and I got up early and dressed in our dowdiest clothes to go to New Brunswick. T and I did research – who knew I kept an 1978 expense diary? we bristled with estimates & documentation – T said he could get me a refund! I begged him not to even TRY. Called for directions – our contact not there so a new time set up. Annoying jerkwoman! Spend the day reading Shana Alexander’s Anyone’s Daughter and reflecting on Mom & Dad. Fri 6 Mar 81 -11:15 PM T. in DC for an attorney fees conference so I am all by myself. Tried calling him an hour ago but I think they went out to dinner; now I’m too tired. Exhausted after doing all the work I can stand – letters to everybody. Lots of good news – T owns up he’s worth a quarter million so he can afford to put another $900 into our account. It also explains why he doesn’t want to take a job he hates! I wouldn’t either! In fact I have a little more money than usual because the fellows were included in the general raise. And T DID get a refund for me from the IRS which frankly I think was a miracle. I immediately buy $100 worth of spring clothes and go to dance class ($65/month.) Where they yell at me for my style (which was to be expected. NOT impressed by the likes of Martha Graham. The best news of all is that Lois won her long-running case against her mother’s self-serving trustees – the bank has been officially chastised and DUMPED. Now Lois can develop the property – work for Toss & money for everybody. Unfortunately her first action is to get her sons to sign off on any interest they had in the trust – sign it over to her. This raised my eyebrows but T trusts her. Good conversation with Mom & Dad – I hadn’t actually looked at their blueprints for the new island house but I didn’t let on. Invited Mom to study in England with me three weeks this summer – she says she can’t take that much time away from Dad – he would just drink orange juice and sob. 22 Thurs 81
Wonderful women’s service at Trinity – new minister Joan Platt – like her very much. Completely relaxed about me sobbing my way through the Nicene Creed – “it gets some people that way!” Went to the Fordham party with Donna – Dr Dohrn seems to think I could be pulled out of the Excel program fairly soon. Introduced Donna to T’s roommate – she was nervous he was supercilious. I give up matchmaking. T (due in ½ hr driving the ’65 Chrysler Imperial from Phila) said people create their own hells of loneliness. Sat 24 Jan 81 Off to Trenton library with T – he studies and I enjoy Caroline Gordon’s How to Read A Novel. We look at washers and driers – you really can’t get anything for under $700 so we buy a heated bedpad instead. I read the Denatured Novel – then we have chicken soup in bed watching Desk Set. Thurs 29 Jan 81 I like the women’s service even better than the discussion afterwards. Stress interview with Book Forum – wanted me to “throw out 1,000 ideas really fast.” Became completely tongue tied – hadn’t expected that – thought we’d talk about what THEY need. As a result I looked like an idiot. Could barely smile. Awful. I came up with my “Impure Women” concept – Mansfield, Plath, Woolf – that was it. Sounded tired even to me. Obviously never hear from them again. Imagine me being taken for an academic! Hilarious. Fast registrations at both Fordham & Guilders – only had to pay ½ when I said I was getting a loan. Dinner with Charlene but I rushed home missing T – it was 12:10 and he waited up for me. Delirious marital sex all over the place. Fri 30 Jan 81 Terrible arguments with T about Episcopalianism vs Quakerism. He’s not looking forward to Epis dance. Sat 31 Jan 81 T in his wedding tuxedo – me in a blue bridesmaid’s dress at the Episc. Dance. I especially enjoyed meeting Joan Platt’s husb Peter. Also the new curate – slight pretty girl. (The poor Catholics!) Connected with my parents’ old friends the Macdonalds. Bob McD hilariously funny. T had a great time; didn’t scream at anyone. We left at 11. Sun 1 Feb 81 Met Dom on train – T in “correction mode.” He never does this at home. I called him Mr. Persnickety. Wait a solid hr at Lois’ house till we can leave for Chadd’s Ford. I eat too many cookies while marveling at Lois’ ability to estrange people. She goes on and on about how the Garden of Eden is a birth myth – this has never been noticed in the history of time by anyone but her. We don’t argue because that would trigger an endless “scene” – she would make us sit there for an eternity unable to move while she beats us into submission. That’s the kind of audience she prefers - cowed. Ricardo wiggles his eyebrows at us behind her back, gesturing “Please don’t say anything so we can just get out of here and have a nice day.” She goes on and on in her babygirl voice while batting her eyelashes until you want to smack her. The worst thing that could ever happen to her in life would be to meet herself – neither would ever give ground until they both died, like a Greek myth. If she read any actual books she would not be so impressed with her own ideas – she hasn’t gotten through a whole one the entire time I’ve known her. She’s still reeling from the Deep Truths of The Road Less Travelled – gave everyone copies so they can see how terrible others are –it’s never her. Finally we get out of there and take both grandmothers out to dinner in Chadd’s Ford to celebrate their birthdays and hav a very nice meal. I’m bore though so eat too much. Reading the last vol of Kathleen Raine’s autobio – she’s having a rough time with Christianity and there’s no comfort I can give her. |
Alysse Aallyn
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