4:20 PM Fri Oct 14 – 77
Blessed book! The joy, the solidity, the security this diary has afforded me all my life can’t be measured. Bizarre letter from my dentist thanking me for referring “Mr. Arlen” to them! Now I have to wear makeup to the dentist! Hope I don’t run into Ryder while wacked out on Novocain. Usual day of quotidian pursuits, washing lingerie & hair, filing, letters. Avril writes that Mason is moving in with a friend! He thinks it will be “better” for her. Uh oh. Sure sounds like death knell to me – he dragged her all the way out there, ran busily through her money & lost his spark. Still others relationships are always so much clearer! Now we can be glad she’s not going to school – she needs to get out NOW. Plush Palace – Mon – 11:40 PM 17 Oct 77 4 Dancers on tonight but Cindy and Linda walked out, ticked about my raise (I didn’t tell them.) So more dancing (and $$). Plus coffee machine broken and we need to order out so I treated myself to 2 Krispy Kremes. Ah, the simple joys. Five-year plan guy is back. His “Love is Alive” – unfortunately. The most gorgeous autumn weather tonight driving here – my heart soared. ONE MORE SET! Then fling on fake fur “Shakespearean” coat, jump into El Diablo, off into the night. Bar deserted, tips unspeakable. Asked if I could cash a check with Randy he just handed me a $20 bill, so there’s gas. Kiki says she’s getting married, worked the whole evening on her guest list for Big Event in Fredericksburg. Reading Hardwick’s Seduction & Betrayal and appreciating it although something’s “off” about her. Why won’t the ventriloquist put down the dummy and just talk? And she’s just flat wrong about Woolf and Plath. I brood about letting R. know where I am. Brave or stupid? Stupid, I think. Better class him with “dead end relationships”. I have plenty of people I’d never want to see again – Bruce and Kyro spring to mind. Other people I feel good about like Toss Sheffield. He’d be fun to see again. Could he handle my dancing? He had a fun “hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy” attitude in general towards effort & enterprise. 12:10 PM- Plush Palace – Wed 19 Oct 77 Dance night, then dance the next day kind of rough. And days are bad when the weather’s good – no one comes in. I seem to have a lot of bills – just turned on the heat – but I’m meeting them. Making some inroads today on Thomson’s Life of Frost. Randy fired Robin – Yvonne needs $300 immediately because she just bought a piano. Well good luck getting it out of this crowd is all I can say. Paz’s “on call” because she left her husband and moved into the motel across the street. Let’s hope she shows up. Last time I saw her she was pretty depressed; said she gave him “the best four years of her life.” I have to get this all down in case I need it someday. R used to be especially pissed when I got nostalgic for dancing. But dancing is its own little world. 7:30 PM- Plush Palace – Thu 20 Oct 77 This aft I was getting ready for work phone rang, I say hello and Ryder’s tight little voice says: (very meaningfully) Hello. I turned the radio down (Lakmé) and said casually as I could, “How are you?” He said he should enroll in FBI school after all the trouble he’d had tracking me down. (It couldn’t have been that hard since Mom and Dad’s house sitter has giving my # to all and sundry.) Said he was a non-communicative procrastinator who should fling himself off the 14th St Bridge. I told him I lived in Beltsville and danced in Virginia, refused to give further details. I didn’t let him get away with any of his garbage. He said I’d been in town since Sept 8 without contacting him. I said he’d made it pretty plain he didn’t like what I had to offer. Then why did I come back? I said, I like it here. Creep! Like he owns the world! He said, will you eat with me? Hmmm. Something rattling in Pandora’s box. While I hesitated he said don’t make me disguise myself as a girl scout cookie salesman (he could get away with it, too.) He said he hasn’t gone out to dinner since our last night at Alfio’s!!! (I guess the Emmys don’t count but I said nothing.) Said he’s having to sell his furniture and sleep on an air mattress because he can’t make the payments. Aww. This is the idiocy of buying furniture on time, but I still say nothing. So we’re meeting Babe’s Sun at 3:30. Seems fairly safe… Rushed to library and took out every true murder book I could find. Just in case.
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Plush Palace – 11:20 AM Sun 24 Sept – wrote a fourteen page letter to Avril tonight. There’s a very pretty blond here who looks just like R – they could be mistaken for each other – but it’s not him.
9:40 PM – walls dry so I could hang paintings. What a difference. Reading Redinger’s bio of George Eliot, The Emergent Self. Like it very much. Turns out I love driving to work – 5Pm is rush hour on the Beltway – everyone’s coming home but I’m going out for the night! Makes me feel weirdly close to all those people. And apparently they feel close to me – though they could just be reacting to my bumper sticker (Colette was a Nudie Dancer). They don’t seem to get the literary reference. Mon 3 Oct 1977 I hear only from my sister Merrill who declares my book a “brilliant satire”. She wants to know why I work? Shouldn’t I tour with book? Sigh. Give me the money and leave me alone I say. Spent the AM phoning around trying to find my book in all the stores. Only found it one place. Dropped note to publisher. Out for Courvoisier with Erika who lectured me on my book. I ended up defending the Victorians saying everyone now thinks “honesty and openness” are going to save them but we don’t know enough about ourselves for real honesty and our lives are still based on “smothered panic” as far as I can see. (See Janet Case’s strictures to V. Woolf. ) Well off to my double life. When I pull into the Plush Palace parking lot I have such a good feeling. Everything coming together. Down the old runway. Bought the most wonderful gold stripper shoes that tie with ribbons and have clear Lucite six-inch heels. I finally have enough costumes to feel really professional – every set should be good. Randy always compliments me. I am slowly phasing my hair from red to blonde – seems to help with the tips. I can live on fruit and cream of wheat – only buy groceries with tip money. Little man down front muttering “fuck me-fuck me-fuck me” over and over but not loud enough to be evicted. Randy said I am the best dancer in Washington area. Sat 8 Oct 1977 Giving a dinner party. Bought 8 old-fashioned glasses for 50 cents apiece, five floor pillows, peacock chairs and a glass dining table. Now I’m looking for a silk eiderdown (for my bed) in some violent color. Bought beautiful rose-lilac fabric for curtains. Randy gave me another raise without my even asking for one. I love my body again! After the long estrangement caused by R…he deliberately tried to undermine my faith in my body. He would prefer bad sex with a slave if he can be boss. Wait – isn’t that the marriage he just got out of? Guess we all repeat ourselves. 7:30 PM Tues 11 Oct 77 I’m too fucking fragile. All my problems come from pretending I’m not. I look forward to old age when presumably throbbing metabolism, soaring hormones and plunging brain waves will have smoothed out. How to describe this scrambled day? I’ve been vibrating like a cilia ever since I got up this morning. Made dentist, gyno appts, shots for dogs, dog licenses, took angel puppies on an hour’s walk. Divorce lawyer on the 26th: “John Love”: seems appropriate. Clear the decks for writing. My area of Beltsville very rural. Poetry in all directions. Reading Mildred Savage’s A Great Fall and getting lots of ideas. Vac cleaner to repair shop they say they can fix for under $15. I hate errands, a disgusting dribble of irreplaceable time. Rewarded myself by getting Sleeping Murder at the library. Already know Dr Kennedy is the murderer. 2PM Wed 12 Oct 77 – Plush Palace Some men seem to interpret the fact that I’m a dancer as some sort of personal challenge to them. You can feel the spike of hostility. “You’re making me think about sex again!” Is it fear of rejection? Any aura of professionalism bothers them also. I always curtsy especially low to the hostile tables – they can never figure out whether I am mocking them or not AND THEY THINK I PROBABLY AM! I save them a lot of money by getting them thrown out early. One guy asked me how long it would take to get in bed with me. His erection was so obvious I almost asked, “And what is your little friend drinking?” but instead I said, “5 years.” He showed up next night, saying, “Day one of the five year plan!” I like those guys much better. Final R conclusion: What a JERK! Jerk’s absolutely the right word - in instinctual reflex – no brain activity involved. Will I ever find a gorgeous man (blond, please) who soul connected to his brain? 9:20 PM Thurs 13 Oct 77 Shopping Loehmann’s yesterday with Maeve. 3 sweaters, silk jumpsuit with jacket & scarf, lime-colored silk jersey blouse, socks, boots, shoes, gloves - $140 cash. Nice. Saw a wonderful fake fur coat I’d like to come back for. It has a priceless air of Ken Russell camp. Buy it with my Folger money – Shakespeare would understand. Maeve bought nothing. Couldn’t find one thing she liked, reading labels with the expression of Queen Victoria viewing a slum. And the free-for all dressing rooms full of naked people just astonished her. (Stuff I see every day.) Wants to know exactly why Wealthier People rejected this clothing at its first price? They must know something we don’t. (Wondrous rhinestone earrings to dance in, too. M. expressed pious horror. ) People like this amaze me. Why is your own taste of n importance? Then we out to dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant – my choice – heavenly lamb shish kebab and a belly dancer! I loved it but Maeve had to rush out before dessert. But as it seems I can never be with ANYONE – even lovers – longer than 3 hrs it was just as well. Folger morning started badly, hair looked mangy, face required immediate skin graft. Dog hair even on NEW clothing (How is this possible?) Running an hour behind schedule (compulsively early me). May Miller gave me worst intro I ever hope to have, misquoted my poems and said I was a grad of the U of Minn. I thought I would sob with emotion 52 times during reading. My “woodcunt” poem did not go down well (even though it is definitely my most Shakespearean). Damn. Then I could have strangled Erika Gelbfisz (at the after party) who is so scornful and cynical about everything you can’t even have an ordinary conversation with her. I felt like throwing my wine in her face saying, “Suppose you actually succeed in making us all feel rotten, what then? Fighting in the streets?” Nothing’s worth anything in her opinion, so why is she alive exactly? This is what gets my hostility going but because I am at a party I DON’T WANT TO GET INTO IT. So I just growl and stew. I don’t care for Cocktail Party Standing Around – my right boot was trying to extinguish my left toe, a toe already threatened with extermination from dancing. This is real Italian leather so SHOULD ultimately fit my feet – I can see each boot slowly outlining my toes – if I don’t come down with gangrene first. Will try Wet Washcloth Stuffing tonight. (Still, I looked ravishing, my dear, in a blue gaucho three-piece suit and my red, red, high-heeled boots.) Poet Usher Glayne seemed impressed with me – but he’s an old man. To bed with my main squeeze, Agatha Christie. Thank God for that woman. She has pulled me single handedly through the last three months. I was just drifting off when Marc Kramer called. We talked ½ hr. He bought a sailboat and a BMW and wanted to be sure to let me know. I like the sailboat and the car but the desire to “impress” me diminishes him in my eyes. Sad to say. He’s presently at risk of being filed under “has no conversation”. Well, he did talk about work. They wanted to fire him from The Washington Project, then admitted he had been right all along. He’d love to have dinner sometime, “see how I live”. Uh oh. Can I keep this relationship out of the sexual? I don’t want to go to bed, even experimentally with someone Lacking the Necessary Spark. Could they make up for it by enthusiasm or step-by-step instructions? I hesitate. Is it ever possible to just date? It was AWFUL with Keith. Marc, however, has a gift of humor. And my parents like him. “No expectations?” I finally say. And he promises. Chevy Chase, MD - 10:15 PM Thurs 8 Sept.
At Shoulder’s house. Not a bad drive down – (washing the dogs right before the ferry (I had to – they stank) put some time pressure on me – but I made the ferry anyway. Larry – Shoulders - looks different – has a moustache. Talks about needing a roommate – does he mean me? He doesn’t know where yet and I don’t want to live with him. Constant string of ignorant pickups would eventually get me down. He doesn’t mention Ryder and I don’t look up his TV show. Promising stuff in the classifieds – a garden apt in Landover, a townhouse in Dale City, sharing a house in Kensington. Took the dogs on the old walk – they remembered the route. Huge construction at my old house. L’Escargot closed. 5 PM Sept 9 Kensington House hopeless. You have to join some kind of food co-op that’s like a cult religion and there’s a huge emphasis on kitchen and cooking duties. They all eat together. Seems like the worst of college and boarding school to me. I’m now sitting in a real estate office which is really a garage waiting for a guy who’s already an hour late. He’ll be here in 10 mins they say, then he’s going away for 2 weeks so I hope he will want to close the deal tonight, It’s described as an old apartment, high ceilings, fireplace. $210 a month. So I’m just praying the neighborhood’s not too bad. 7:00 PM Bleak. Too bleak. Tried to imagine myself doing my exercises on that floor, standing in that kitchen waiting for water to boil, etc. Couldn’t manage. Feeling very stressed. Do I even want to live in this city? It’s just that I know I can easily make a living if the book doesn’t take off. Went to the library and loaded up on Agatha Christies to help handle the strain. It works. Maybe I need to get a shag haircut and spend the winter in Spain. Now why don’t I do that, other than the obvious reason I can’t afford it and have missed my dogs as much as I want to. Another guy says he has half of a house I might want. With a fenced in yard. 8:15 AM Wed 14 September – Powder Mill Road Drinking coffee in my own kitchen from the mug that was my present to myself last morning on the island. The guy is selling this house as a rental property and was amazingly cavalier - needed a tenant – didn’t look up my refs or demand cosigner. Absolutely cool when I described myself as a ”writer” so “dancer” remains beneath the radar. (Dad would say that proves I know dancing’s “bad”! I refuse to be unsafe just to convince my own father I’m respect-worthy.) Yesterday very full day. Got up at 8 and moved the dogs to their fenced in yard. Fetched the truck, loaded and unloaded with Larry The Shoulders’ help – bookcases, boxes, mattress, desk, sofa – had truck back by 3. A thousand robins on the weed-grown lawn. I wonder how long I will be looking at this view. 8:30 AM Thurs Sept 15 1977 Up early spending the last of my money on necessaries – hardware, lampshades, contact paper. Fri 16 September 1977 My books arrived at Larry’s! I spent the morning sending them out. Then drove to the Landover Mall, bought two g-strings and pasties and off to the Plush Palace. Steve was there – (Randy the bouncer just hired) thrilled to see me. Wanted to know where I’d been but I turned that easily away. Vacay! Who wouldn’t! Told me to come to work Saturday night and they’d give me my schedule. So that’s settled. I don’t like trying to live without money. Took the landlord my paint color selection – he buys the paint and I do the work. Probably will take me the next week. Every now and then am attacked by that claustrophobic feeling of restlessness and purposelessness but I am able to keep it at philosophical bay. Working at my poem index made me feel strong and soothed. Called Chloe to see if I can get on the radio – she was excited to hear from me, but unfortunately gave Erika my number. Erika called – I was nervous that she wanted me to rewrite her manuscripts, but she just invited me to breakfast. After that she has another appointment so she can’t swallow up my day. Letter from Avril saying she is coming end of Oct. 10:15 PM Sat 17 Sept 77 - The Plush Palace, Alexandria Virginia Ego lift. Nothing’s changed. I’m still the best dancer in the place. Four dancers on and I know two of them. The gossip, the Costume exchange, the curling irons, the dope in the dressing room – it’s all coming back to me. They’ve introduced some weird rules, like customers have to play the music, but it’s still a fun and relaxed place to be. Steve the floor manager says I can have all the work I want so I might be able to put money away. Sun 18 Sept 77 Opal comes to over to say “hi” but really to complain about her incipient divorce. Not the best company. Not the best climate for me either – I found myself sobbing over Ryder (fortunately while alone). So I can still get into that sort of mood. Nice phone call with Mom and dad, not too pressured. They are coming to a boatyard in Annapolis to look at a boat – will see me then. One of the best things about this house is the month-to month lease. Feel I can leave any time but if I behave well they won’t kick me out. Gorgeous location but forty-five minute highway commute to The Plush Palace. Still wish I could live in Virginia. Wed AM 20 Sept 77 Sent out a ton of poems. Replied to a woman who wants pieces for an anthology. Got a beautiful loveletter from Devon! His usual length – both sides of one page. Talked about how much fun we had in August, dressing up and going out and “afterwards…!” Made me smile. I said to hell with money and called Avril because I wanted to share – Mason is not there during the day. She is in a bad place. Providential I called. He has taken to staying out at night without explanation – she is frantic. Thank God she is coming here. I told Randy since I’m your best dancer, how about a raise. He gave me one! Only flaw to this house – they need to fix hot water. I had to heat water to wash my hair. Bought 2 more costumes bringing my total up to six - the bare minimum I’d say. Plush Palace – 11:20 AM Sun 24 Sept – wrote a fourteen page letter to Avril tonight. There’s a very pretty blond here who looks just like R – they could be mistaken for each other – but it’s not him. 9:40 PM – walls dry so I could hang paintings. What a difference. Reading Redinger’s bio of George Eliot, The Emergent Self. Like it very much. Turns out I love driving to work – 5Pm is rush hour on the Beltway – everyone’s coming home but I’m going out for the night! Makes me feel weirdly close to all those people. And apparently they feel close to me – though they could just be reacting to my bumper sticker (Colette was a Nudie Dancer). They don’t seem to get the literary reference. Sun 9:30 AM 28 Aug 77
Mom washing windows. God I think I am supposed to offer help but I Refuse. I need to get the hell out of here. Mom says I can’t add my laundry to hers but have to go to the laundromat in town. So the Battle is On. I’ll just go around smelling bad so there. Mom and Dad are sailing down the Inland Waterway but not till Oct. Have a horrible feeling I’m not out of the woods on this Ryder thing. Maybe I can get established in Wash without him knowing. If I go back to him I will despise myself. Keep D as my lucky talisman. 9;45 PM Drunk, fat and exhausted. Parents had cocktail party inviting Island Poet. (Published in The New Yorker.) Tried to give her the rundown on my summer but it sounds a complete waste – “Wrote half of a no good book, got my other book rejected”. Of course my summer doesn’t sound like anything with the sex & love left out!!! Am I trapped at the end of a cul de sac? No; there is something there. I just can’t find it yet. Dad said he’s sure my life provides a lot of stories, but maybe what I need is a PhD in Eng Lit! Mom’s reaction to that is rigid disapproval. (He’ll never make that mistake again.) To explore the boundaries of one’s soul is Selfish. One Lives to Serve (or to Claim one is Serving. So if you’re too stupid to know you’re selfish its win-win for the small-minded!) Tried to read The Clocks but its Agatha Christie’s worst. Absolutely meaningless. Poor VW going through a very bad, painful period. Obviously sick, recording only weather & food. Now theorists act like she was “mental” not liking to look at herself but Vita Sackville-West felt the same way. Couldn’t look in a mirror, wouldn’t buy evening dresses or go to parties! (And she was on the sexual prowl, unlike poor VW.) I think their era was actually worse about beauty than we are – they gave it a “magic” “classical” quality so it was very much restricted. We see more beauty – and in weird places. Otherwise how explain Leslie Caron? Jeanne Moreau? Charlotte Rampling? Hardly classic beauties but wonderfully, rightfully worshipped as goddesses. I see hope for all of us. 8:00 AM Mon 29 Aug 77 It’s real Agatha Christie weather – fog so dense you can’t see the water. Nevertheless the ferry’s running – Mom took Dad down. I’m feeling successful, sober and sane. I’m doing exactly what I want and will find my own way. I’m determined to be happy and not develop some kind of “rejection phobia.” Not knock out the props of my own happiness. Accept the fact that my pride has been hardest hit. 4:20 PM Letter from the Folger Shakespeare Library inviting me to read Oct 13! Even Mom was impressed. 20 mins pays $50! I’ve hit the big time! Wish I’d known this when Island Poet was asking me why I don’t just kill myself and get it over with. M & D can’t argue with me going back to DC now (Berthe Slaughter’s condo is for sale on the cutest little road. Right on the waterfront. I say I would rather have the art gallery next to the Atlantic Grocery $5000, no bath or kitchen. In case they’re buyin’. They aren’t, in spite of the fact that they are very flush with money right now. Got their $$ back from NY State but Dad always in a panic that we’ll figure out how rich he is.) 9:00 PM Called Shoulders. He said dogs will be all right for a couple of days but he’s being evicted at the end of Sept! Too bad, such a nice house. (And in Chevy Chase!) So I’m spared kennel fees for 2 days at least. R must be back at work (if he still has a job). Reading old NY Times Book Reviews in front of a roaring fire. Dishwashing break – I said I’d do them. Pick up Agatha Christie afterwards – the preferred reading of “shock cases”. (She was a shock case herself. Absent in the Spring is very fine). Island 10 PM Monday night, 5 Sept 77 In bed in the Barnacle drinking coffee, eating bread with honey. Delicious solitude. Can’t go to the Main House because Genevieve’s friends from Boston are there – they no sooner arrived for this Fantasy vacation than they decided they need a divorce. Fortunately they are quiet about it. The one thing they can’t deal with is their dog – tomorrow I have to drive him to the ferry. Oh well. I’ve been enraptured by this delicious solitude – beachcombing is very healing. I guess I am just a solitary sort – don’t really care for people at all, I fear. Last night a bad dream about Ryder – treating me cruelly and me, paralyzed. In the daytime – in my conscious mode – I remember everything good about him, his lips mouth and fingers – his constant air of playfulness. The way we fit perfectly together like interlocking puzzle pieces made it nice that he was short – my mirror opposite, only male. My lost twin. But nature abhors a balance, apparently. Must remind myself how he had to try to turn it to his advantage, throwing the whole system off and spinning my world into frozen space. Now he doesn’t know where I am (although he might suspect.) No phone in this building thank God. Tomorrow goodbye Maine – back to DC to house-hunt. M & D have been good about not dragging me to things – enjoyed the Smythes sculpture show – parties not so much. Parties seem like “consensus building events” where I’m fated to be perennially on the outs. Ford Madox Ford made some kind of statement about how people have to achieve a level of “ordinariness” to be “successful” – I can’t remember the exact quote. Plus I lack the patience to look it up. R felt I despised him intellectually, which of course, I did. I don’t think of myself as stratified, but he is and when you’re with a stratified person, you become so. Sometimes I am in mourning for the part of me that died. I wish I could get my letters back – but they were only loveletters. Must seem now like the ravings of an insane person. Well, there’s no reason to see him again. I think the casual relationship is beyond me. I hope in the future I’ll be careful of men going mach one across the sexual barrier. I’ve got to stop looking at sex as a vitamin requiring periodic intravenous doses. |
Alysse Aallyn
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