20 Aug 76 – 11 AM
Inside I start The Mass at St Secaire for the thousandth time with one good idea: Manage transitions by IGNORING them. Just start abruptly somewhere else and worry about it later! Outside R sits in a lawn chair playing the guitar. When he falls silent he’s writing down notes. He says I have a good effect on him, getting him writing again. In the meantime, I made a list of literary essays I want to write and to my surprise there were more than 20. When I get back I will make a folder for each one and start collecting notes and ideas, beginning when I feel I have enough. How to finish a book of poems, finish and send out a novel, write 20 literary essays while working a 45 hr week? My heart quavers. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get a job that isn’t straight typing – then I have to type when I come home. Balzac could have done it. Trollope could have done it – I don’t think I can do it. But I certainly don’t want to lose R – he is a rare being. I need a deus ex machina of some kind. Maybe my gothic will sell. So glad this is our last day. Couldn’t say that to R – he would think I hadn’t enjoyed myself. Last night he stretched me out naked on his lap and played me like a guitar – most delicious thing. Waves of ecstasy bulging, rolling and crashing inside me. He says I’m so fun to please. Talks about how he would like to adopt deaf children. This means I would have to learn sign. Sounds good but I feel lazy and stubborn. Feel like a fledgling – flight pattern undetermined. R. wrote a song called Blue Lake Blues. I wrote a poem called LifeRaft. Don’t know what I think of it. Club Shalimar, Mon 23 Aug 76 Should be glad to be back but I’m so depressed. Everything so mixed up. Promised R I’d get another job so now I have to look for one, which won’t be pleasant. God knows what I’ll have to say I was doing. Once when I was married I tried to get a loan and of course they wouldn’t give me one without “collateral” – something of which I’d never heard. Dad told me to tell them I had a basement filled with gold bullion. I guess I could just tell employers the bullion ran out. Then I walk up to the club and whose car should be there – but R’s. He had told me he wouldn’t come in as long as I was working there. He said he just needed to talk to Rick because Rick is helping him feel better. I think what will happen is that I won’t work there any more but R will drop in when he feels like it. I want to “ban” him but I even more don’t want to be having these conversations. He says I just do it for the money and because it’s easy and of course that’s perfectly true. If I got $500 a week from writing I probably wouldn’t dance. The fact that something feels natural and pleasurable and doesn’t leave you feeling depleted at the end of each day isn’t a point against it to my way of thinking. He’s just an old fashioned sexist. On the other hand he is a special person and I definitely don’t want to dance forever. Sometimes I think the whole problem is that he’s getting a divorce and he’s so unready for a relationship he’s giving me hoops to jump through. But even if we got married I’d have to be at financially independent – he’s just too different from me for me to trust that he will agree with me about what’s right for me. My theory is it doesn’t hurt to look for a job. Maybe I’ll find something special or interesting. 11:20 PM – A called – R staggered in dead drunk, said “Call Alysse and tell her I’m here and set the alarm for 5:30” and then passed out on the sofa. I told them to hide his car keys in case he wakes up and tries to go someplace. I’m glad he’s safe, on the other hand I’m annoyed that he’s been touring the bars. He plainly didn’t go to his apartment, drink and then go to my house. My guess is total strangers up and down Wisconsin Avenue have been hearing his heartrending saga of the misery of dating an exotic dancer. 11:00 AM – Tues 24 Aug 76 Lying in the same bed where R and I made love five hours ago – just finished Tyler’s Clockwinder. Puzzled by the lack of passion in her strange, sad, minor novels. Tonight R is picking me up and taking me “someplace” – I have my eye on a little restaurant – where we can talk it out. I hope he’s paying because I have exactly $177 to live on till Sept 7 and $125 of that is rent. I’m trying to look at the future calmly – I love him, he loves me – who knows what may happen? 2:40 PM Was feeling so much better I was going to work on sending out poems until I looked around at this place. A and I desperately need Maeve to live here to help out with expenses and she is not the tidiest person. A says she never cleaned her other place after the party and it smells like a dead body. I cleaned and now I feel better but not in the mood for literature – more in the mood to take my dishpan hands to the mall. However I won’t because it would just result in expenditures. 3:40 PM Obviously R doesn’t really respect me. Otherwise he wouldn’t manipulate me like this. I don’t think he cares about me being a writer at all. He would actually like it better if he could introduce me to people as “my girlfriend the insurance agent.” That makes sense in his little world. I could break up with him but I’d have to find another place to work anyway – he’s ruined Shalimar for me. One can understand and deplore and get mad, but the alternative is loneliness. All I want is to go out and have fun, have someone to play and smooch with. Finding and then cultivating such a person is incredibly exhausting – and aren’t 99% of them only going to have the same (or worse) reactions he’s having anyway?
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Shalimar – 3:30 PM –13 Aug 76
Was sitting on a box of Lite Beer sipping coffee and reading Miss Read when Carmen warned me that the boss might fire me for reading. Apparently writing he doesn’t mind so much, probably because he can’t imagine anyone keeping it up longer than 10 mins at a time. R. will be here soon, then we hit the bank, pick up my stuff and we’re on the road for the Finger Lakes. Five hours alone in the car. I find I have a lot of inhibitions against voicing boundaries in our relationship – mainly because I don’t want to be lied to. I want to find out how things really are. For example, he spent last night in Gaithersburg with his wife. Now her I’m jealous of, because he used to love her, used to think she was a “catch” and was surprised and gratified that she “descended” into marriage with him. I probably won’t ask him if they had sex because it would be making too much of it. He’s said before he wouldn’t, and she definitely wouldn’t. But I can’t believe a woman who knows she’s losing a man might not change in her feelings – just to see what power she has left. I would, if he wanted the divorce and I didn’t. Will I be able to tell just by looking at him? R feels the right to be jealous and possessive over me, which I don’t grudge him since I’m naturally monogamous. He feels no discomfort making rules for me. But he should. 6:00 PM Saturday 14 Aug 76 Finger Lakes Lying on the bed in our tiny TINY two room cabin – with just a curtain separating the rooms – I was going to write here about how much I love my job (I really miss dancing so much when I’m away from it – the ideal thing would be three sets a day for life) – when R came in, threw himself on me, tore my clothes off, began kissing my breasts and exploring my tan lines and pressing his beautiful valued body hard hard hard into mine – and you know what happened next. If he turns the fan on high I don’t think the other campers can hear our little yips and screams. At least I hope not. We spent last night in his grandmother’s house in Binghamton, New York. She bedded us down in separate rooms – he gave me a long lecture about how you have to respect the house rules of whoever you’re staying with – and then who do you think showed up in the middle of the night saying he couldn’t sleep. It is ecstatic to have sex almost without moving – this must be what Tantra is like. We were directly over her and the bed creaked so we didn’t move a muscle – absorbed and shed each other like snakes. Wonderful. Next stop was R’s cousins who own the cabins. I don’t know what to say about them – plastic flowers and Sonny James. My state of deep shock probably resembled mental retardation. Some people’s houses are frighteningly ugly. Their clock has eyes, they keep the plastic on the lampshades. I just sat there while the ethnic and sex jokes filtered around me. Who could blame R’s first wife for shunning this bunch? I would not choose them for buddies either. And the fact that they are renting us a cabin doesn’t appear to mean we will also get privacy – so I have taken to wearing my glasses. Number one – I don’t see as well – number two – it creates a kind of screen between me and them. The Lake is beautiful – but I don’t need to go in more than twice a day – I also don’t have the patience for the fish-a-thons that absorb the rest of them, dawn till dusk. Plus one time waterskiing was plenty. Since dinner is a vast barbecue down at the beach every night and we only have sandwiches for lunch and cereal for breakfast there is not that much to do, thank God. Sadly the dinners are followed by hours of dancing, drinking and fighting. I go to bed early to read but R stays and plays “peacemaker”. Tonight he says he’s going to let them kill each other and join me. Therefore I can set up my typewriter on the kitchen table and get right to it. People keep coming to bring me coffee and cookies – I think they really want to see a writer “in action” – at the end of this trip I MAY be 20 lbs heavier. The rest of my time is spent sunning and reading. Unfortunately St. Secaire going VERY badly. Complete horseshit, alas. I’ve started it four separate times. I think at this point I just have to keep going and hope it’s possible to clean up the mess later. Tuesday 17 Aug 76 7:30 PM Outside a fair number of people, all high as kites, revving their engines and swearing they’re leaving and never coming back. I don’t know if anybody’s actually going to GO or not but I wish they would. No wonder R had nothing to do with these people for four years – he may conveniently blame his wife but the truth is none of them can stand each other. Pack of wolverines. I’ve been left totally alone and am well out of it – they may have forgotten I am even here. Last night R was so depressed he just lay on the bed exhausted by them. I tried to explain to him about resentment and the resulting succubae and incubi thus created. (Subject of my novel, in fact.) He said something about “our next 25 years” that just floored me. Even my husband didn’t talk like that. Remember saying to my father – I would be fine if I could only find a man who treated me as well as I treated him. Dad - so ready to take anybody’s part over mine, said, Has it ever occurred to you at you might be hard to live with? Such a typical Daddy remark – the more you think about it the worse it gets. Well, R treats me better than anyone else so far. He’s almost talked me into looking for a new job when I get back – and that’s a lot. But if he wants to introduce me around, can’t lie about what I do, etc etc. (This group – doesn’t know about my job – he says they’d eat me – and him – alive. I can scarcely believe they would take the moral high ground with me but I suppose anything’s possible.) Tried to read a Redbook someone brought – shouldn’t do it. So depressing. Could never write like that or be like that. If that’s the standard this whole thing is hopeless. Then I picked up a book by Grace Livingston Hill. I’m going to include her in my article on female pornographers. R told me he had the impression that if I didn’t have my novel to write I would probably go bananas. I said probably. I tried to prepare him for the very different kind of vacation he’s going to get in Maine – where people very deliberately leave each other alone. If somebody sets off down the beach and you wanted also to walk on the beach – you’d turn and go the opposite way. R says in his family that would be grounds for a six-year grudge punctuated by sobbing, screaming and threats of suicide. 12:10 am Went night fishing with R because he wanted me to. Wrote a wonderful poem about Coleridge – just came to me in one piece. Couldn’t really share with R – he doesn’t know who Coleridge is. So I showed him – November Wedding. This triggered a fight because he says it wasn’t written for him. If he jealously searches my work for other lovers madness is assured.) He almost talked me into thinking it a bad poem. I feel my mother’s disapproving stare on all of this – “don’t ruin what you have by trying to get something else” – as if showing R this poem would be a deliberate way of hurting him by making him feel inferior – part of her larger accusation that I channel so much energy into writing I’m no good with people and that’s why my relationships suffer. All I can say is, thank God for my diary. Writing now with my feet in R’s lap while he plays cards. He strokes my toes from time to time, as if I were a cat. We came in from fishing and he just took my pants down – such earthy sexuality has never existed for him. He told me he’s never been so happy. And as for me? One side of my multi-prismed personality is happy, but some of the other sides are complaining. Difficult to contemplate an existence where I am not mentally alone six hours a day. One of the reasons I like my job is that it leaves that part of me remarkably intact – dancing is a lot like sleepwalking. If I get another job there’s a strong chance I’ll have to interact with humans. Hell. And we both know how humans can be. Then I might be too exhausted emotionally and battered psychologically to have the energy to write – it’s a serious risk. Those architects ran roughshod over me. Shalimar – 3:30 PM –13 Aug 76
Was sitting on a box of Lite Beer sipping coffee and reading Miss Read when Carmen warned me that the boss might fire me for reading. Apparently writing he doesn’t mind so much, probably because he can’t imagine anyone keeping it up longer than 10 mins at a time. R. will be here soon, then we hit the bank, pick up my stuff and we’re on the road for the Finger Lakes. Five hours alone in the car. I find I have a lot of inhibitions against voicing boundaries in our relationship – mainly because I don’t want to be lied to. I want to find out how things really are. For example, he spent last night in Gaithersburg with his wife. Now her I’m jealous of, because he used to love her, used to think she was a “catch” and was surprised and gratified that she “descended” into marriage with him. I probably won’t ask him if they had sex because it would be making too much of it. He’s said before he wouldn’t, and she definitely wouldn’t. But I can’t believe a woman who knows she’s losing a man might not change in her feelings – just to see what power she has left. I would, if he wanted the divorce and I didn’t. Will I be able to tell just by looking at him? R feels the right to be jealous and possessive over me, which I don’t grudge him since I’m naturally monogamous. He feels no discomfort making rules for me. But he should. 6:00 PM Saturday 14 Aug 76 Finger Lakes Lying on the bed in our tiny TINY two room cabin – with just a curtain separating the rooms – I was going to write here about how much I love my job (I really miss dancing so much when I’m away from it – the ideal thing would be three sets a day for life) – when R came in, threw himself on me, tore my clothes off, began kissing my breasts and exploring my tan lines and pressing his beautiful valued body hard hard hard into mine – and you know what happened next. If he turns the fan on high I don’t think the other campers can hear our little yips and screams. At least I hope not. We spent last night in his grandmother’s house in Binghamton, New York. She bedded us down in separate rooms – he gave me a long lecture about how you have to respect the house rules of whoever you’re staying with – and then who do you think showed up in the middle of the night saying he couldn’t sleep. It is ecstatic to have sex almost without moving – this must be what Tantra is like. We were directly over her and the bed creaked so we didn’t move a muscle – absorbed and shed each other like snakes. Wonderful. Next stop was R’s cousins who own the cabins. I don’t know what to say about them – plastic flowers and Sonny James. My state of deep shock probably resembled mental retardation. Some people’s houses are frighteningly ugly. Their clock has eyes, they keep the plastic on the lampshades. I just sat there while the ethnic and sex jokes filtered around me. Who could blame R’s first wife for shunning this bunch? I would not choose them for buddies either. And the fact that they are renting us a cabin doesn’t appear to mean we will also get privacy – so I have taken to wearing my glasses. Number one – I don’t see as well – number two – it creates a kind of screen between me and them. The Lake is beautiful – but I don’t need to go in more than twice a day – I also don’t have the patience for the fish-a-thons that absorb the rest of them, dawn till dusk. Plus one time waterskiing was plenty. Since dinner is a vast barbecue down at the beach every night and we only have sandwiches for lunch and cereal for breakfast there is not that much to do, thank God. Sadly the dinners are followed by hours of dancing, drinking and fighting. I go to bed early to read but R stays and plays “peacemaker”. Tonight he says he’s going to let them kill each other and join me. Therefore I can set up my typewriter on the kitchen table and get right to it. People keep coming to bring me coffee and cookies – I think they really want to see a writer “in action” – at the end of this trip I MAY be 20 lbs heavier. The rest of my time is spent sunning and reading. Unfortunately St. Secaire going VERY badly. Complete horseshit, alas. I’ve started it four separate times. I think at this point I just have to keep going and hope it’s possible to clean up the mess later. Tuesday 17 Aug 76 7:30 PM Outside a fair number of people, all high as kites, revving their engines and swearing they’re leaving and never coming back. I don’t know if anybody’s actually going to GO or not but I wish they would. No wonder R had nothing to do with these people for four years – he may conveniently blame his wife but the truth is none of them can stand each other. Pack of wolverines. I’ve been left totally alone and am well out of it – they may have forgotten I am even here. Last night R was so depressed he just lay on the bed exhausted by them. I tried to explain to him about resentment and the resulting succubae and incubi thus created. (Subject of my novel, in fact.) He said something about “our next 25 years” that just floored me. Even my husband didn’t talk like that. Remember saying to my father – I would be fine if I could only find a man who treated me as well as I treated him. Dad - so ready to take anybody’s part over mine, said, Has it ever occurred to you at you might be hard to live with? Such a typical Daddy remark – the more you think about it the worse it gets. Well, R treats me better than anyone else so far. He’s almost talked me into looking for a new job when I get back – and that’s a lot. But if he wants to introduce me around, can’t lie about what I do, etc etc. (This group – doesn’t know about my job – he says they’d eat me – and him – alive. I can scarcely believe they would take the moral high ground with me but I suppose anything’s possible.) Tried to read a Redbook someone brought – shouldn’t do it. So depressing. Could never write like that or be like that. If that’s the standard this whole thing is hopeless. Then I picked up a book by Grace Livingston Hill. I’m going to include her in my article on female pornographers. R told me he had the impression that if I didn’t have my novel to write I would probably go bananas. I said probably. I tried to prepare him for the very different kind of vacation he’s going to get in Maine – where people very deliberately leave each other alone. If somebody sets off down the beach and you wanted also to walk on the beach – you’d turn and go the opposite way. R says in his family that would be grounds for a six-year grudge punctuated by sobbing, screaming and threats of suicide. 12:10 am Went night fishing with R because he wanted me to. Wrote a wonderful poem about Coleridge – just came to me in one piece. Couldn’t really share with R – he doesn’t know who Coleridge is. So I showed him – November Wedding. This triggered a fight because he says it wasn’t written for him. If he jealously searches my work for other lovers madness is assured.) He almost talked me into thinking it a bad poem. I feel my mother’s disapproving stare on all of this – “don’t ruin what you have by trying to get something else” – as if showing R this poem would be a deliberate way of hurting him by making him feel inferior – part of her larger accusation that I channel so much energy into writing I’m no good with people and that’s why my relationships suffer. All I can say is, thank God for my diary. Writing now with my feet in R’s lap while he plays cards. He strokes my toes from time to time, as if I were a cat. We came in from fishing and he just took my pants down – such earthy sexuality has never existed for him. He told me he’s never been so happy. And as for me? One side of my multi-prismed personality is happy, but some of the other sides are complaining. Difficult to contemplate an existence where I am not mentally alone six hours a day. One of the reasons I like my job is that it leaves that part of me remarkably intact – dancing is a lot like sleepwalking. If I get another job there’s a strong chance I’ll have to interact with humans. Hell. And we both know how humans can be. Then I might be too exhausted emotionally and battered psychologically to have the energy to write – it’s a serious risk. Those architects ran roughshod over me. Thurs 5 Aug 76
R dearer every day, in spite of the fact that he’s been checking up on me. Called and called last night – wondered where I was – I wasn’t too sure how to tell him A and I were over at Shoulders’ drinking, so I just said we were visiting the neighbors. Standing in their yard, which wasn’t true. He is jealous of Shoulders and I don’t blame him – such lush male beauty makes women helpless. A is a complete mess over him. He frequently wanders around the house in nothing but his boxers – we call them as his “huppa”. R. finally got an apt and can stop “crashing” with friends – one bedroom at the top of a Rockville skyscraper. Sounds crazy expensive to me. Wrote a good poem – capitol ghosts – today from the book R gave me. Trying to think where to send it. Tomorrow’s my day off – R coming over at 2. Shalimar 7 Aug 76 Sitting here in a stupor of exhaustion. We had an Al Green fan in here tonight – kept playing same song over and over. Presumably working through some kind of a relationship crisis. They don’t realize coming here and blowing their money kills any relationship – and I am not going to tell them. Anyway I hate Al Green. Missed my bus this AM so took the Fessenden bus and walked across. A better way to go – I like the walk – to hell with this transfer business. I have to admit R doesn’t seem to understand poetry. He’s very suspicious of all ease, elegance, lightness. Nature.! “Work” should make you grit your teeth, groan and bulge your forehead veins. The easier it comes, the less valuable it MUST be. (He would hate Picasso’s very best stuff!) I’ve tried getting him to understand by comparing art to athletics – it only looks easy – it’s the training beforehand that’s so hard. The trick is to render training invisible. But he seems to think modern poetry is a plot to make him look stupid. Really worried about money lately – everything at Unibank is bouncing. It doesn’t take much to set off a chain reaction. Guess I’ll have to borrow from A after all. How true it is that before you can love you must love yourself. My love for myself is wavering. Just finished Sean Stiles’ Occam’s Razor. I hate to see a good idea wasted. Mostly I am depressed by the poor quality of the stories in the Times Detective Story competition anthology. This is something I should aspire to? I’m on a wonderful streak of poetry – keep piling them up – got suicide street and haunted house this eve. Tomorrow R is taking me on a tour of the television station and out to lunch. This is a biggie – see where he works. So I had to buy a gorgeous black linen jumpsuit (size 5!) Should be worn with high red heels – but needless to say, can’t around R. So instead, flat sandals. Fortunately everything is on sale. A and I have decided to ask Maeve to move in with us – we can’t seem to manage alone and we do have three bedrooms, but she’ll have to hide from the landlord. I hate to do it. Letter from D today – he’s in love with the 18 yr old virgin daughter of his minister. Since I am too, it didn’t do a thing to me. God bless ‘em. Rick the gambler in tonight. He’s a friend of R’s – cheered me up by telling me I’ve done so much for R who was really “hurting” over his divorce. Ryder – I love you – but I don’t really know who you are. Hope you are who you pretend to be. 6:30 PM 9 Aug 76 – Shalimar Writing carefully so as not to mess up my fresh polish. Got here early –Fessenden bus much better. Rick Marl in tonight talking about R’s divorce. Said I should hear his wife’s side of the story. (He’s met her.) I don’t want to hear his wife’s side of the story – what would I do if I did know it. Sounds like they should get a divorce – she’s not resisting so obviously she had as many problems with him as he had with her. The fact that he spent so much time here is bad news for any marriage. I was very impressed by his job – a TV news director is a king – he sits in a the control booth with all the camera angles in front of him and tells everyone what to do. I said nothing, but I enjoyed the way they looked at me – very admiringly – where did SHE come from. Little do they know – R won’t tell them. If they dine at the Shalimar, they’ll find out. Fortunately they’re all good family men – eat lunch out of a cooler then rush home to fix the automatic garage door opener and read a bedtime story to the little ones. Reading Mortal Wounds and loving it. Fun to compare the George Sand period to the Notorious Woman TV series last year. Went on a picnic with R. then saw Robert Shaw in Swashbuckler. Ghastly flick. I wasn’t too rude because R liked it. Told him he should have seen Anne of the Thousand Days. Sent out 12 poems. But I’m trying to force myself to stop writing poetry and concentrate on novel. There’s no financial point to poetry – Alas. 11:35 am Thurs 12 Aug 76 I’d like to write but I must pack for the trip and it junks up my head. Mss, 2 ribbons (in case) correctype, The Romantic Egoists, Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald’s Scrapbooks, and the wonderful portrait by Julia Cameron of the two little girls clutching each other which I see as the cover of my book. Sad to see the way Fitzgerald tried to force his wishes on the universe – force it to see things – to be – his way. No wonder he admired the rich – they’re the only ones who sometimes – very infrequently - get away with that. But they are not enviable nevertheless – it’s always a naked emperor situation. Zelda’ s constant references to “not having a past” interest me exceedingly – that way madness most definitely lies. This is what happens to people who insist on “living in the present”; they become amnesiacs. Idea for a poem. I guess I’ll need clothes – so I must do laundry. I also should clean house for poor A – it’s only fair. No writing; circumstances militate. R working very hard to get to the point where he can take a vacation – didn’t get in till 2:45 AM. 9:45 AM Wed July 28 76
Anniversary of Toss Sheffield relieving me of my impacted virginity (as I relieved him of his.) R came yesterday at 2 – left at 3 – came back at 5. Another watershed in our relationship – Fears. He’s afraid to lose the hearing in his good ear. He speaks sign language but doesn’t want to live in a world without sound. I made him promise to go the doctor. He agreed to make an appointment no later than Weds. Reading Christina Stead’s wonderful Dark Places of the Heart. Considered inviting Ryder to live with us – rejected the idea. I need too much alone time. So important to establish amour proper. I am so impoverished from setting up the house (though I’ve made enough in tips to pay my taxi ride home tonight) I am barely going to make the rent. Need a windfall. Sweaty and smelly. I think I’ve boogie –oogie-oogied till I just can’t boogie no more. Club Shalimar– 30 July 76 Cookout at Ryder’s parents – I met his folks – two roly-poly people who are nothing like him – one sister who is a lot younger. We had glorious talks on our way there and back – about having our own space – (we agreed he needs to live alone); our hopes and dreams (he used to write music, wants to do that again someday – I told him I have an agent shopping a novel around) first impressions (I discovered he was in the bar when I auditioned! Horrors!) He said what intrigues him most about me is that he can’t figure me out – still can’t – everything about me is a surprise. I guess I could say the same about him. Wonderful abandoned sex – just crazy stuff – I came and came. He told me he spent last night at his old house – he and his wife had to have a “meeting”. I was jealous until he told me that his wife is sexually dead – and always has been. He didn’t understand it when they married, assuming it was something you get over. I suggested she was probably molested as a child – he didn’t want to believe it. He thinks some people are sexually just asexual. I thought – but didn’t say – there’s a self-protective concept. He doesn’t want to think she is turned off of him but in my experience – such as it is – chemistry is a completely mysterious yet crucial factor women have a tendency to discount it when choosing a life partner. So they end up married to the “perfect” person, except they’re not sexually stirred. 2:00 AM. He tucked me in – kissed me – left – then I was wakened with his hands all over me. When he got to his car he realized our clock had stopped and he didn’t have time to go home before work. So he snuck back in the sliding door. We had sex again, and the whole night became a snake eating its own tail. This morning got a wonderful poem: Love, the Magician. t 31 2 31 July 76 Shalimar R came in but I managed to get rid of him. Sandy brought in a huge bag of string beans, squash and tomatoes from her garden – I told Ryder to take them home and cook them. My job is turning into a source of tremendous conflict – he is the snake in his own paradise. Plus tips really fall off when he is here. I am already looking at a very tough month financially – trying to take so much time off. He said he’ll be back at the end of the night to pick me up – he’s hurt when I’m “in need” and don’t call him. So that saves cab fare anyhow. We took a walk between sets and talked about his parents – second generation immigrants, lifelong Army. He doesn’t tell them anything (they obviously know his marriage broke up and now he’s with me – but they don’t know about his deafness, for example or about his classes at Gallaudet.) He said to me, can you believe I’ve only seen these people twice in the past four years? And we live in the same state. Wait till he meets my parents – shudder. I’ll put it off as long as I possibly can. Dancing tonight with Alicia. Poor Alicia. She’s a “dripper”(constantly leaking pee) but blames it on hypoglycemia. She hates dancing when there are so few people in here. It’s kind of interesting. She sort of has a whorish appearance and doesn’t realize she’s trapped in a vicious cycle – audience thinks she’s a loose woman, she thinks they’re perverts. I’m trying not to fall into the super-loving, super-giving trap but Ryder is the first guy I’ve ever met who would obviously be a wonderful father. Rare among men under thirty? Or something. Talked to A on the phone – she was bored to tears at home so I suggested she come in. We shared a burger basket and she saw me dance for the first time. She wasn’t grossed out at all by the semi-nudity – which is good – told me I’m a great dancer and she really envies me my pelvic wiggle. Also told me I have a terrific body – which really cheered me up because I still feel too hefty around Ryder. (At his parents’ house we went over his old scrapbooks – he was the star quarterback in high school football. They described him as 5’4”! That’s a lot shorter than he admits to these days. His boots have at least two inch heels.) A left after one set because all the guys of course came on to her. Obvious losers, alas, including the one who insists he’s a hitman for the CIA and another who claims to be giving away government jobs. Unfortunately I’m dependent on the tips of these characters. Ryder has been telling them all that I’m a writer (instead of a call girl, presumably) which gives me a lot of explaining to do. I wish I had money to buy things the house needs – flashlights and fuses and drainers and shelving and all that stuff – but I’m saving every bit for our trip to the Finger Lakes. Aug 5 will mark one month in the house and six months since I quit the architects. Seems like much longer than that. Where will I be six months from now? Hope my gothic novel sells – I need an immediate hundred grand. I really can’t write with R sucking up all my free time. I’ve been struggling with another poem about him – even that isn’t coming. Hopefully we’ll settle down into being able to work side by side quietly – maybe after our vacation. 6:00 PM, Chevy Chase Tyler St, 2 Aug 76 Across the street Shoulders, dressed in a skimpy football undershirt, is mowing his lawn. He is a sight to behold. Sitting over my repaired typewriter with a cup of hot tea and a case of writer’s block. I could write a poem about Shoulders – already R is interfering with my life. Beautiful day – a little chilly – a little Maine edge to it. Finished Stead’s Dark Places – which I adored – absolutely one of a kind. Another bothersome thing about R – he really doesn’t read. He’s been dragging around a sleazy paperback “heist comedy” he pretends to read from time to time. At this rate it will take him six months. I am struggling with All Authors are Equal but I may give up on it and read Famous Washington Ghosts which R picked up for me to add to my considerable collection of ghost stories (I must have 50 vols.) On the phone with Maeve my old Baltimore buddy – she is behind in her rent but looking for a new job. In the meantime borrowing from boyfriends. I take a perverse pleasure that anyone is managing worse than me. Shalimar – 10:20 PM Called in tonight to replace another girl – great – that means I work 5 times this week. Just that small amount makes a big difference. A is in the chips right now and I could owe her but don’t want to. When I came in they told me R had been in 30 mins before. That was a little unsettling – I didn’t realize he would come in if I weren’t here. Of course it is really close to his job – but equally of course the food is more expensive here than just about anywhere else he could choose. I look at who was dancing to see whether he would think she was in any way better than me – luckily it was the pisser Alicia instead of potentially scary competition like, say, Gloria. He didn’t know I was coming in, because Carmen didn’t tell him. Reading the Ghosts of Washington. Wonderful poem potential. 17 July 76
Interesting date. I want to write about it but first I have to say today has been a TERRIBLE day – I had to follow ex-stripper named Edie who wore a black lace corset and gloves and carried a whip onstage – everything but a donkey, as one of the other dancers remarked. Then I had to listen to loud speculation on how I got the bruise on my ass when it was my turn. But Ryder Arlen. We had a wonderful dinner. He ordered in Italian. The weirdest thing about him is that he doesn’t like mushrooms. Long dinner, then over to the Gangplank for Irish coffee. He insisted upon carrying me across two puddles – he’s not very big and I was sure he’d get a hernia – but he made it. We got back to Chevy Chase the house looked wonderful – A had obviously slaved for hours. We had her down for a glass of wine, then she went back upstairs. We ended up reading my poetry I didn’t show him the erotic stuff because I didn’t feel the time was right. He liked valentine the best - Valentine I sent myself in a letter Heart-creased Like a glove Too much folded An anecdote Too much told Dear stranger don’t Lose me I forgot the rule (Hold back a copy) Then we made out for hours. He was deliciously passionate. I said, “You don’t want to end up in bed on the first date, do you?” He said, “You pick the time and the place but I hope it’s inevitable.” I said it was certainly feeling that way but I’d have to get to know him better. I wouldn’t let him take down the top of my dress either. He left at 2:45 AM. He seems to really care for me – so my worry that I’m just a first experiment after leaving wife seems baseless. He invited me to go crabbing tomorrow, then on a four day cruise sometime in August. Fri 23 July 76 - Tyler St, Chevy Chase, Maryland R and I have seen each other every day since Fri – I think he’s in love. I could fall if I let myself but something holds me back. I like our relationship now – he drops by the house after work and we’re both in jeans. I think tonight’s the night for sex – first time – I’m nervous but since I love his body I expect to be all right. Adore these slow working mornings. I get up with A (depending on when her first run is – she’s now working courier) to have time to set my hair before leaving at 10. Beautiful walks up Tyler St. Early AM at the Shalimar such a pleasure – sitting at the bar with my diary balanced on my hipbones, watching the barmaids get ready, feeling like a character out of Toulouse Lautrec. Yesterday we met our across the street neighbors – one of them is a gorgeous guy named Larry getting a degree in Hospital Administration. Among ourselves we call him “Shoulders” because he has such a gorgeous pair. To see them dimpled with sweat on his way back from a run is to be in heaven. Invited Larry and roommates Garrett and Opal to dinner tomorrow night – if they can come. Thurs 22 July 76 - 9:25 Pm God I’m in love. I love his fragile, tense blond body – love holding it. Love looking at his Lorenzo diMedici face. Those blond Italians! He wouldn’t like to hear me say it – he has a black belt in karate and thinks he’s so tough – but he probably only outweighs me by 20 lbs. Made love all afternoon – he is very skilful – obsessed with my pleasure. Says he doesn’t care if he ever comes – wants to see what gives a woman pleasure. We fit together exactly – interlocking puzzle pieces even upside down. I can feel his feet with my feet – his knees with my knees – it’s like having a mirror body – only with a hard chest and penis. After the first time the relief of the orgasm was so great I wept. I fell asleep with him inside me. Wrote a poem about him but don’t know if I want to show him. If I learned anything from Bruce it’s that people misrepresent. He could be shockable and its early days yet. Today I want to buy a bookcase. Love equals, unfortunately, anxiety attacks – could he possibly love me as much as I love him? Yesterday walking in the park I expressed fear about him going straight from one serious relationship right into another – but he says he refuses to limit the experience. Which of course was exactly the right answer. The worst part is his trouble with my job. He says he knows he can’t ask me to quit because he can’t support me – I pointed out he wants me to go on the Divers World expedition, and then to Cozumel, and I want to take him to Maine, all of which would be impossible if I had a regular job. He says he can deal with it only by avoiding the Shalimar – OK by me as long as I see him outside. He came in today – I got rid of him after a half hour, before my set. 11:05 AM – Shalimar Tues 27 July 76 Feel like throwing out all my diaries. Driveling gush broken up by gushing drivel. But I go right ahead and produce some more. Randy throwing ice and cases of beer, Bobbi cleaning trays, Carmen checking paper towels and me writing. Perfect. We were lying in bed – me and Ryder – I have to lie on his right side because he only has one good ear – and he told me a long purposeless allegory about bullfighting. Can’t tell which of us is the supposed to be the matador. I’m the only one with a poetic license in this relationship.) He said I should just write, and he’s going to see to it. I said fine by me. I love this job but not as much as writing, love and freedom. Then he said, I love you. |
Alysse Aallyn
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