Tues. Dec 13 – 66
Reed Hambro asked me to the Christmas Dance and I said No. Aynsley (who favors him) said Why on Earth and I said because he needs someone to take care of HIM and I need someone to take care of ME!! The theme of the dance was An Old Fashioned Christmas so I took the job of barmaid handing around birch beer. For an old fashioned barmaid I did a lot of dancing (with Brice the new speech coach.) Next night was The Santa Clause Masque – a stupid play, if you ask me. My part goes, “Knowledge has taken love out of the world and the world is empty, empty, empty…” Do they HEAR themselves? I guess art is about other people – unfortunates we can feel smug about. We don’t NEED art because we’re perfect! 3 weeks work up in smoke. At least it’s snowing. I like snow. Beauty, strength silence – it has all the good qualities. Wed 14 Dec 66 – 2 PM Feeling sick after reading Rabbit Run. It’s a Forbidden Book which means they keep it in the Librarian’s office and you need your parents’ permission to read it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered. Character describes his wife as a “white, pliant machine for mating, hatching and feeding”. Yuck. I used to want six children but now I’m wondering. I’m starting too think women are worse off than Negroes. Negroes can go to Africa but women have no country. I am a Human Being. I intend to lead a full intellectual, artistic and emotional life. Those uninterested in the Entire Package need not apply. 11PM Reed sent me such a sweet KOB. My heart leaps As a pebble will do after sitting two days In a glass of still water. For the legion of the sixties is clashing with its foes Marching to inevitability & failure. Rationalizing & nationalizing its ineptitudes Treading mercilessly on inferiors Leaping At the drop of a penny and Leaving a cavity gold could not fill. As I sit in my army blanket The torchbearers approach Glory heads, holding Exiled pedagogues captive with Their faithful frightful faces Whose drab accoutrements dissolve I know all and yet I will not speak out. Only the hues of night will know They are the base I am the apex. I could name A hundred faces in between. I must judge iniquities of façade & mind Doomed to live a life A hypocrite could recognize. Life goes one and Life goes on and Venus will never know. Wow! I will date any boy who writes poetry this good. Pebbles don’t leap but still. He uses the word “accoutrements”! However he No Longer Believes in Dating. Couldn’t we just Show Up somewhere at the Same Time? No, we could not. He handed it in and got an A. I write 101 Things Wrong With This School and got an F.
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Thurs Sept 29 – 66
Everyone in love with new speech coach except me. I spread my dragnet instead for Doug Bristow from Kenya who has one gold and one blue eye! (And a crazy laugh!) Unfortunately he’s dating someone else and my roomie Aynsley says Marnie never dates longer than a month because she’s too possessive. (Hope!) I asked the Ouija board when he would ask me out and it said Oct 2 but doubt he can move that fast. Blair keeps KOBing me: “You are an elusive problem. I want to ask you out for Fri but I’m afraid you won’t go you seem so noncommittal.” He is a slow boy to get the point. Classes grim. In history Mr. Beedwell keeps telling me not to speak in wide terms. Unfortunately I THINK in wide terms. Synthesis and analogy are my arts. In public speaking I burst into tears Mr. Thornton is so mean. Very humiliating for a future actress. On top of all this I’ve been elected Vice-President of the Junior class! Girls are not allowed to be president – it would upset the boys and we know they’re so fragile. (That’s why they’re out every day on the Golden Fields of Autumn trying to kill each other.) President is Shawn Kobler. Sun. Nov 20 – 66 Sorry for the gap – life chewed me up and spat me out. I would be a lot better off without the amateur psychologists picking my brains. This place is determined to break me whatever it takes. No Mr. Dean I do not like your math course or your clumsy attempts to “civilize” me. Yesterday I was shaking with rage because he said I would need math when I am a housewife! I thought I’d pass out! Actually feeling a bit better today because of the movie we just saw – Sixteen in Webster Grove. It’s about the pressure adults put their kids under. You even worry in your sleep. I used to be so excited about every new day but no more. I am the same jittery mass of frenzied hostility as anyone else. My only defense is “to hell with it.” Nice to know it isn’t just me. After the film (in the East Room) there was a Discussion. What a travesty. It was all “they”. Why are “They” so bad? Why can’t they be wonderful and right-thinking and privileged like Marvellous Us? How we Pity Them! Tues. Nov 29 – 66 Mr. Ensleigh agreed to be my advisor. He let him kick his desk and turn the lights off and on until I felt better. He asked me what I was reading and I told him Brideshead Revisited. He asked me to lend it to him when I was finished. He is at least a step in the right direction. Got a booklet in the mail from the Central School of Drama (London.) They listed all the ways you could get expelled! Sounds like another prison where they watch the inmates closely! Fortunately the future never comes. Today is all there is. Thurs. Dec 1 - 66 Today I achieved a real understanding of people who throw their dreams away for a little security. Anything for Peace and Quiet. I signed up for Coffee & Conversation – Juniors & Seniors ONLY!!! as a Hobby (they are Required) and we sat around Mr. Ensleigh’s apt talking about juvenile delinquency while we devoured a whole chocolate cake. I imagined what it would be like to be married to him and when the bell rings and the Patients toddle out, I throw off my clothes and fling myself full length on the sofa to watch TV. (They do say he is queer, however.) In how short a time would THAT security seem another prison? Doug Bristow told me the rumor is I’m cold! Wow! How well I conceal my true self! Sep 12 – 66 – Brockton Ohio
Back home. Sitting on the same old stone bench where I used to sit and look out at the Same Old Woods but things are inexplicably different. Avery is back from Choate – much handsomer – blonde goatee and all. He is very envious of me for going to a double sex school and asks a lot about it. He is taller and handsomer but he doesn’t seem to notice it – in fact has acquired a stammer that makes my heart go out to him. Is the Boy Next Door a Possible? I don’t know. Tues Sept 20 - 66 Back at horrible old Plumly. Already so restless that I want to leave. Had to break up with poor old Blair – he kept holding my hand, waiting for me after meals and telling me things I’ve heard before. It got so I wanted to duck behind a pillar whenever I saw him. Reputation for heartlessness into overdrive but I can’t help it. Not heartless merely ornery. Just can’t cope with this “ownership” stuff. Reading The Hepburn which is WAY too sexy and not helping my mood. Dizzified with lust. I’d go for a Hepburn but I can’t find any. “Give me the earth, give me the sky - Stone, not sand on which to lie.” Writing a parody of The Last of the Wine – The Last of the Alphabet Soup. Takes place at Plumly in the far distant future and reveals a sexual disintegration of the nth degree. Of course I am the heroine – named “Shalott” but pronounced “P-chot”. Better get to it. Whether Mr. Bernard will find it funny or not I can’t say. Sun Sept 5 – 66 I’ve got to stop reading like this. Evelyn Waugh did not write Vile Bodies to motivate Christian schoolgirls to do their homework and get into a “nice” college. Further disturbance created by the fact that the person I identify with in his work always gets killed. First Prudence, then Agatha. I think he just hates women. Hard to concentrate there are so many record players going on this floor. Open any door and the inside looks like a Pepsi commercial. It’s Barbra Streisand vs. the Fugs, the Turtles battling it out with the Lettermen and Beach Boys neck and neck with Bob Dylan. Aug 15 – 66 – Aboard the Gryphon
No Bad, no Good, no Up, no Down, No Wednesday or Friday except in The Mind of Man. Sitting on the deck reading Maurois’ Life of Balzac – Prometheus. As usual I am fruitlessly pursing interesting people through the indexes. I am so interested in people who just appear once and flash away. That’s history. I especially enjoy the tantalizing extracts from the diary of Melanie Princess Metternich! How I’d adore reading the whole thing! Makes me ashamed of this spastic notebook with its diaristic pretenses. How can I upgrade this rag? Mention as many names as possible and hope one of s vaults the bridge of death? Getting late. We left Sarnia headed for Tobermory and I have the nine to twelve watch so I have to stay awake. I should rush down now that I have a chance and freshen u, trying to make myself a ravishing beauty in case of passing tug. Dad keeps mouthing off about The Evils of the President – I say Johnson is just a Prisoner of his Age. Sat. Aug 20 – 66 What a storm! I awoke to hear Daddy calling me – pulled on some foul weather gear and went on deck – seas foamy white and waves at least 17 feet – no lie! Daddy gave me the helm to hold hard over while he & Mom lowered the sails. I was freezing and wet and shivering in seconds. Dad tied the helm over and went below for just awhile. We were looking for the Cove Island Light and when we got there the natives were amazed that we had weathered that storm! (Battens flew out of the mainsail!) Daddy took us out to dinner at The Tub. We had porterhouse steaks! We stocked up on food, had the head repaired and then took off for Collins Inlet. After skirmishing with a couple of snakes (one a rattler! – the other a swimmer) I was happy to sunbathe nude on the beach while Mom & Dad explored the island. Saw 2 jackrabbits and a passel of beavers. Afterward we barbecued chicken and ate apple pie on the beach leaving me fatter and happier. I am writing this by flashlight while Mom and Dad yell at me to go to bed. (Apparently they don’t want to be mentioned in my index.) They are prisoners of convention. Sun. Aug 21 – 66 Feeling oddly happy and calm in spite of the turbulence of my future. School? I can’t kid myself – in two months I will be bored & screaming. I don’t want to follow a life shaped by another’s hand. I want Alysse to be for Alysse. Wonder what that is in Latin – want to put it on my shield. My mother says I’m an egotist but I think I’m just normal. I believe in generosity and kindness and all that but living for others is death. I believe in calming and exploring the depths of your own waters. “Self-plumbing!” Inspired right now by Simone de Beauvoir’s Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. (The “dutiful” is sarcastic.) |
Alysse Aallyn
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