Starlight 2:30 PM Sat 31 Mar 79
Hot day – sun behind clouds – the sky is violet and the air intense - looks like rain, but I’m overflowing with joy and luck and good fortune. Just ate an enormous chef’s salad and two cups of coffee. All I needed for returned confidence was one big tipper and a non-suicidal letter from Devon. (He’s been depressed, is all.) Obviously it will never work out between us. We would be in competition each trying to get the other to play caretaker. I need too damn much care. It would be madness. Discuss this over vod & tons with Avril. Invited back to Mulberry Island, also got a card to the Bullets opening (which I would rather do.) Reading The World, the Flesh and Father Smith. Dancing very well – what a pity I’m “sculpting in snow”. Feeling in tune is a clear lens to the soul. 9PM Tues 3 Apr 79 Buying spree with A. Bought a pile of silk shirts and a satin whipcord coat & skirt (black). Immortal piece I should still be wearing thirty years from now. We had a lovely lunch at Third Edition – reminiscing about our lovers’ bodies – what we treasure most – I vote for the flock of milky-white scars above Devon’s buttocks. Aaah. Intimations of glorious, irreproducible mortality. I am also irate at not hearing from Usher and even more irate at myself for being irate. He is obviously a no go so what’s wrong with me? I think I may be like those explorers expiring for lack of vitamin C. Need to force myself to eat raw blubber just to save my life. It’s a wonder anyone survives. Reading 3rdvol David Garnett’s autobiog – what an unlikeable human being. Car pooped out on us will cost $250 to fix. Starlight 9:15 PM Wed 4 Apr 79 I hate wasted days. Drove all the way to White Flint Mall to pick up my rhinestone glasses – a pin broke on them – and all the way back. Grrr. Not liking Robt Frost’s letters and Christina Stead’s House of Nationsis even harder to get into. But things looking up on diet front. Fewer binges. 5 days of rain, and a power mogul in the audience who keeps instructing me on how to please him. I curtsy down to the floor very gracefully and pretend I don’t speak English. Starlight 8:25 PM Sun 8 Apr 79 Burst of freedom rescues me from inertia. My best moments are intense enjoyment of the present: must write and examine everything. Revel in my own growth – including comprehension that Usher Glayne can’t be my crutch. Lost 4 lbs eating apples and feel good – refuse to take a guy’s tip because he licked his lips at me. Yuck. J came into the bar last night, dragging his shame-filled self across the floor. I couldn’t resist suggesting he come home with me – he was so excited – love poured out of him like a dizzying force. I browsed greedily on his beautiful body. It was like plugging into an electric current. He moaned, “You’re so good to me” but when my orgasm came it was just a little pop – uncorking a bottle of stale champagne. So goodbye to all that. Masturbation is really a lot less trouble. Out to China Syndromemovie tomorrow with Avril. John Middleton Murray is a blubberer. Usher sent me a poem entitled “I dream of starting off with you” which was obviously notwritten for me. Took her name out and slammed my name in. What could go wrong? What a pity we leave choice up to men when they so clearly have no idea what they are doing. 3:30 PM – Dumbarton Oaks – Sat 14 Apr 79 Enjoying a day of full sun. Beautiful carved stone bench – azaleas- peace. Woke up determined to finish taxes – offices closed! When can people go if they work all week? Beas me. But it would take more than a late filing to bother me – feel blissful. Approaching Plath from the question of her reputation. Determined to write and to learn to see movies alone. Last night awful sets with Z – he couldn’t seem to play and sang offkey. Promises of a future have taken his present away. My heart went out to him – ordered a bottle of champagne to cheer him up. Late dinner – I ordered tripe in a spirit of adventure (not good) he ordered what he always has chicken & fries. He told me about the times he’s been mugged and his belief in magic – I didn’t believe any of it. He was full of insecurities about G – I decided to act like we had a relationship to make it easier to get rid of Z sexually later on. He “retaliated” by describing his affair with his friend’s 48 yr old divorced mother back on the coast. Bought drugs for famous Sat Night Live personalities. Sure, sure. Screwed an anonymous black girl coming back on the train (she specifically complimented his penis.) Asked to come home with me. I said no. Plush Palace – Mon 23Apr 11PM God Malcolm Muggeridge is unpleasant (Jesus Rediscovered) and not even Christian. Makes Waugh look like the author of Sermon on the Mount. Trying to figure out how to address God: what would I say? Beautiful note from Devon saying “I love you dearly”. Sweet. The silenter I am the more he adores me. Sent a copy of my Plath essay to Usher – we’ll see what he says. Agent passed along a very flattering rejection on Gift– I am “too much” of a poet! Since I have just concluded I am no poet at all this cheered me up. Airborne today – dancing really well. It’s the fasting. Feel a shimmering force field all around me. Starlight – 12:45 AM – Thurs 25 Apr 79 Dragging myself around this AM – my own fault for indulging in Irish coffee and caramel ice cream last night. 2ndanniversary party at the radio station and I thought, That might be fun! It was a disaster. I took Avril and we were immediately cornered by the club bore. (I had to give him a fake phone no just to get rid of him.) Plus they charged us for our drinks! Rod was there – tight and prim – fearful I would attack him about his nonexistent dance article - I put him at his ease. Left after an hour and Avril and I “drowned our disappointment” in the usual way (it felt good at the time.) Ross & Tomshould be required reading for egomaniacs.
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Sun. 18 Mar 1:50 PM.
Terrible nightmare about Usher Glayne. His face melted showing the skull underneath – two hideous holes of darkness. The world is fierce, cruel, we are all hobbled. Wake to astonishingly gorgeous day. Worked on Erin– cleaning away deadwood - it’s only going to be 30,000 words but the hell with it. Can’t “produce” to “compete”. Want to find the intrinsic shape buried within. The secret meaning. Letting it speak for itself makes me happy. Adoring Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. (Wish I had written it.) Then it’s off to the library á la bicyclette for more theology books. Obviously I should worry more about Success and the fact that I’m dirt poor. But I have arranged my life so carefully to do exactly what I want. Seems a shame to ruin it now. 12:30 PM Mon 19 Mar 78 It’s a problem that I don’t like Usher’s poetry. At least he talks about sperm and chastity so presumably is not yet dead from the waist down. He’s successful and I am not, so criticism from me sounds like sour grapes. I call to thank him for the books; a woman who is probably his wife answers. Should I be embarrassed? We are not having A Thing. Out in the yard with dogs trying to read Teilhard de Chardin. Hot sun. Café Rabelais, Wed 21 Mar 79 3:25 PM Pleasant 3 hr lunch with Usher discussing literature – he had to run away leaving me with my coffee. Tried to get me to pretend to date his friend who is wheelchair bound. I have a feeling this was the whole point of the lunch. I want to talk about literature, he wants to give me away to his friends. I said No. But couldn’t I just make nice? I said no. I’m not that kind of nice. I took revenge by asking if he lives with his wife. He said “sort of”. Their child is “a problem”. No one can write within a mile of this child. (Poor wife. Luckily for him, her psyche doesn’t matter!) Usher seemed taken aback by my questions so maybe I won’t hear from him again. Good lunch, though. Very cuisine minceur – lots of different dishes and you don’t feel full afterwards. (Rabelais would have been very disappointed.) I top off my coffee with a glass of blond chartreuse. At the Phillips I saw a Goya that made me want to burst into tears. Note to self: reorganize Courtney entirely around paintings. But which artist would be perfect for my anti-heroine? 4:20 PM Thurs 22 Mar 79 Today a model for what all days should be. I’ve passed unscathed through the financial hysteria of closing, even have money in the bank. Sparkling weather; spring is definitely here. A day of sunbathing – the first are always the worst – skin a white blubbery mass. Reading Kroll’s book on Plath – gives one furiously to think. She wants to find everything in the poems themselves – and of course – that’s exactly where it all is. Plath controlled by potency symbols. I am sick of Devon’s letters – he must “shield his eyes” against my radiance”. Come on. I can’t believe he doesn’t want exactly the life he’s got. Always hard for me to believe that one can reject the sprinkles, the cherries, the walnuts on the sundae. My family always lectured me for being attention-seeking and voracious – so it makes me shy to advance myself into anyone’s purview. Plath seemed prepared to be loved for her accomplishments rather than her being – a scary compromise. Although I do recognize that I am trying to experience my own “wholeness” through the eyes of another with all the danger that implies. Trying to kick my sugar cravings. 11:30 AM Fri 23 Mar 79 More sunbathing – my own skin smells intoxicating to me. Like pool water, like beach sand, like childhood. Dixie – “God’s lioness” stretches out beside me, wind ruffling her fur. Unexpected tear sheets in the mail from Usher – his reviews of Plath. He says he didn’t think it “professional” to disclose that he knew her – that seems unprofessional to me. Makes his comments seem underhanded: pale. He says diplomatically of my poetry that I’m a “rare being.” Hmmm. 11:40 AM Mon 26 Mar 79 Ezra Pound’s last years (Nigel Stock) make very depressing reading. I wish “survivors” seemed more enviable, considering the alternative is Death at the Height of Glory. The good news about a long life is, you can accumulate quite a body of work – the bad news is your instrument is increasingly deranged. Bad schedule this week – 5 shifts including one double. Present of $2500 “house gift” from Dad means I don’t need to accept but I would have to quit and I’m not ready. These are the best places to dance with the best managers – I don’t want to get thrown into some of the compromising situations I’ve heard tell of. Plus they just let me up and leave for vacation whenever I want. Can’t play that hole card too often. Spent all day wandering the mazes of literature – look at Lillian Hellman – surely she’s getting very bizarre. She’s a “history fixer” and no one wants artists doing that. 3:20 PM Tues 27 Mar 79 A bad day doesn’t make a bad week thank God. Got drunk with Maureen last night, (too much sherry in our tea) but with careful diet and lots of sleep I bounce back. Anne Lindbergh’s Flower & Nettlea great improvement on previous volumes. Tantalized by Rosamond Lehmann, who ought to be my next project. I AM HAVING ALL MY HAIR CUT OFF MAY 1!!! Starlight 8:30 PM Thurs 29 Mar 79 Joselle plies me with Chablis – I succumb to get her to spill her secrets – but her secret seems to be she’s thinking of turning lesbian and her gaze on me seems somewhat fixed. Or am I imagining things? Two glasses of wine on an empty stomach and I’m a goner. God knows I long for the flesh – those “brown motherly furrows” as Plath calls them are in need of plowing. Would I have to exclaim over her body the way men exclaim over me? It just doesn’t sound fun. If only she were less female. More boyish. Order a cheeseburger to snap myself back to reality. This is a dangerous world to be hungry in. Reading Randall Jarrell’s Third Book of Criticism. I enjoy him enormously. 11PM– Shank of the evening. I am dancing superbly but tips very bad. The approach of tax time or are they simply seeing too much of me? The latter, no doubt. Went to the health club today but I won’t renew when my experimental month is up. I was seduced by their sauna and masseur but need something closer to home. 12:35 PM Tues Mar 6 – 79
Sit down to chat with diary over lunch – can’t eat because scolding letter from agent gave me a stomachache. Didn’t I know it was unethical to allow several agents to consider me at the same time? I do see it’s a very beneficial for the agents to drag this process out so they end up doing all the choosing and not you. But since she’s the one I want I can’t say so. Play dumb, promise to Be Good in Future and throw my affairs entirely into her hands and let her speak for me. Silence frees the artist from “servile bondage to the world”, says Sontag. Letter from Devon saying he really respects me for buying a house (the opposite of what Mom thought would happen. He says it makes me more interesting. Or he’s just less scared I will show up on his doorstep.) Also he says “it’s been a bad ski season” and asking particularly about the men in my life, closing, ”I love you Alysse. Our relationship is the most important thing to me.” Whew! What are the odds that every girl on that team would turn out to be a lesbian? Or were they fooled by his aura of untouchable purity? Most girls would consider it a challenge but some lack the three hours necessary to defrost him. Still, they’re all out of their minds not to give him a whirl I must admit. Interesting how much we each so fear the other’s loss. 11PM Starlight Wed 7 Mar 79 Very down night. Only $70 so far. Need $600 to keep my bills current. Bryony wailing because the state took her children away. Sometimes seems like the pain of the helpless is smothering the world. Tony’s the bouncer tonight and he’s all for letting the men stick their bills down the girls’ G-strings! No thank you. Wait till Gentleman Randy hears about this. Reading a bad German mystery – the mystery being why he wrote it, how it got published and why I’m reading it. Fantasizing celebrating spring by getting all my hair cut off. Hmmm. Could be sexy. Wish I’d brought Kafka’s Letters. Making huge floor pillows for my floor party. Longing to sink into classical music & bubble bath, followed by Oleg Cassini sheets & cup of diet cocoa. Having my own house really is a dream come true. Mon 20 Feb 79 – 12:20 AM Such a depressing party I got drunk just to be “out” of it. Avril & Ben making out in a corner all evening. Usher brought me books and a bird of paradise flower, Stockley gave me a beautifully framed tiny drawing of crustaceans but then cancelled that by attempting to corner me all evening. He covers up the soul he doesn’t believe in with a repellant fleshy brutality – life is kill and conquer – eat or be eaten. Honestly I’m scared of him. Afraid to even argue with him for fear of launching something irreversible. Luckily he fastened his lasers on Yvonne. Poor Yvonne. Save yourself, I say. Plan to ask Paz to schedule me for just two nights. On a dare I sent my poems to Usher. Tues 28 Mar 78 Extraordinary spiritual experience. A haunting. Someone standing behind me in the empty house. I turned and no one was there but power only increased. At first I was afraid – then felt a melting richness of love – coming at me, into me from outside of me. I realized it was Jesus. Relief. Confidence. Of course afterwards I question it all over the place. How could I be so certain? Maybe just an ordinary haunting by a peculiarly loving ghost ? Maybe a thing in my head? But I do have that memory of certainty and bliss to cling to. Very powerful. It’s out there – somewhere. Starlight Thu 14 Mar 79 – 10:00 PM Started out as a very bad night – trying to dance myself exhausted - then some guy tipped me a $50 and I ate an orange and now I feel better. (Feeling so unbearably fat I bought diet pills. Then “dinner” of cashews and wine.) Finished Prayerbook for a Skeptic - I liked it. Fortunately I brought a ton of reading. Had to dump Joyce Carol Oates’ Do With Me What you Will when I became disgusted with zombie heroine. NOT as good as The Hungry Ghosts (reminiscent of McCarthy’s Groves of Academe.) But I’m in the mood for something different. Not, however, CS Lewis’ The Four Loves which is deeply annoying. Women are “unqualified” to be “true friends”. Isn’t that the “know your place” argument? Maybe what I need is Thos Merton’s, Seeds of Contemplation. How to switch the physical into the spiritual – that’s what I can’t figure out. Sexual longings intense – my body on fire. No wonder monks beat themselves. Peace and concentration in the dressing room – we are all doing doubles. Yvonne is fine. She is more than a match for Stockley – saw through him without a problem. She just acts interested in all men regardless. On principle. She says if you want to choose, you have to compare offers. Tomorrow a day of cleaning & working in my study. Starlight Sat 18 Feb 79 – 11:10 AM
Waiting for my bangs to curl at the start of a double. Had a nightmare where Devon performed marriage ceremony between me and some other guy! Right up to the end I kept thinking he was going to “rescue” me. Naturally he did not. Then “psychic” about him as usual I got a letter saying he’s busy with this year’s Ladies Ski Team meaning he’s got 12 girls passionately in love with him and he plans to take his time to savor. 2 PM – Jervaze came in! Ducked away momentarily from his fiancée. Glad he didn’t bring her in as I am having my period and feeling particularly fat and grumpy. My poor body’s been unloved for a month now and is falling to pieces. Still it was an enormous pleasure to see him. Someone for whom I apparently remain The Holy Grail. Tues. 6:45 PM 20 Feb 79 Struggling against a vast undifferentiated depression. Going to treat it with diet and meditation. Reading Tapie’s Richelieuand Louis XIII. History a great cure for all who feel unlucky. Even being an aristo was no picnic. Avril accepted for both of us to go to Aunt Frederica’s party on the shore where she’s rented a house. Hitchman’s bio of Dorothy Sayers very bad book. Sayers wasn’t “in love” with Lord Peter, she washim! Will-to-power and dream logic. Tried to “bind” her two halves together when he married Harriet. Had to re-read Sayers’ wonderful Unnatural Death(my favorite) to get the taste out of my mouth. Ah. Such pleasure. Painting till I’m exhausted then long walks with dogs through pretty Queens’ Chapel Manor. Haven’t seen a neighborhood this satisfying since Chevy Chase. Starlight Wed 21 Feb 79 – 11:45 AM Going through a phase where work feels like being beaten. Think it’s because no one is caring for my body. Will warmer weather turn the tide? I love my house but Marc Kramer is wrong – home ownership NOT the cure-all promised. The only difference I can see is I can no longer fuck around financially. Nose permanently to grindstone. Reading John Dickson Carr’s Blind Barber. It is so awful. Why does anyone like him? Pass my time sewing red rhinestone buttons to my pink satin blouse. Yesterday clutch cable snapped – pedal became a dummy. Fortunately I was right NEXT to a gas station. Had to take a taxi home. Financial nightmare - more doubles to get my car out of hock? Turns out it’s not expensive. A. gives me ride to work, Eddy gives me ride to car. Leaning heavily on inner life. Efforts to live “outwardly” all seemingly result in hideous failure. Shopping list: pasties, carpet tape, stockings, cotton balls, liquid plumber, string bikini. Sat. 24 Feb 79 Devon turned 30 today.Great house party at bungalow Aunt F rented on Mulberry Island. Interesting artist named Stockley there with an exciting mind but unworkable body. Fun to talk to though. He wears a hard hat and welds. Avril asked out by handsome redhead named John. Fingers crossed. Jervaze called to say he broke off his engagement. Uh oh. Macmillan says my novel “not their cup of tea”. Very sneery. Starlight Fri 2 Mar 79 – 2 PM Bought a pair of yellow overalls to write in. Hadn’t realized how thin I’ve gotten – I look fantastic. House (closing) magically lifts depression when it cost $900 lessthan I expected. I was fully ready to write these nice people a rubber check – Thank God that’s not necessary. Instead of wasting away in debtor’s prison I get to compare myself to Sylvia Plath. What if in a panic I married a party boy who fails to love The Real Me? Wait, I did that. But I didn’t stay to wrestle with him and now I’m free. Could be much, much worse. Have to hang in there and go it alone. See it as a strength. Trying to apply for grants. It’s an art form all by itself. Avril’s redhead working out nicely. I don’t like his comments about his mother though. Is satisfactory sex possible with men who hate their mothers? Could be massive Red Flag. |
Alysse Aallyn
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