3 Aug 82
Back from the Berkshires to find 1 rejected MSS already. My typewriter broke down & Jacobus brought me his machine. Called IBM repairman. Jacobus left me with wrong typing ball & had to come back. T & L hanging up on each other. The sooner I can separate those two the better. Poor T looks back on Kentucky as “the golden days.” I really want this marriage to be a success but I think I should stop offering advice. There are so many things that he can do. Can’t forget how mad he got when I arranged a dinner with Dad’s lawyer assuming they could have a frank talk about the possibilities in the legal world and T embarrassed me by bouncing ragefully off the walls! “You set me up!” Back to Jacobus. The sooner he’s done the better I feel. The $4500 already gone. 3:30 PM Wed 4 Aug 82 Baby seems happy with blueberries & tray so after 1 hr Jacobus (IBM repairman a no-show) 1 hr housework and ½ hr nap I snatch a moment to write here. T and I stuck in a doomful crawl while I throw out ideas he then rejects. Lois taking a $30,000 second mortgage on her house to add to the $90,000 they hope to borrow on this place to get things moving. T talks of hiring a secretary while I need a job but L won’t hire me. My mental drains are backed up from the bad reviews poor Plath’s Journals are getting – this is a feminism sourcebook! The best revenge is living AT ALL (she would be 50 this year) by dying she placed herself in their power. Like Chatterton, she thought the twanging of her own desperation was the world’s machinery. She thought what she wanted was to be a “success” when what she really wanted was to stop being herself. The only freedom is in a concept of God. Seeing past the universe. God gives us permission just to Be. Why was I touched and she was not? Sat 7 Aug 82 Finished Jacobus’ work in a flat out hair raising push – now he’s silent. He always does this. Use my nervous energy on housecleaning, then iron to War & Peace. I can hear Mom thinning her lips to say “Life is real & life is earnest” – her favorite quote. Most people think she has the ideal life – she sees herself as performing an endless string of menial tasks for her family. T. offered to take some of the work off my shoulders – gave him a criminology thesis to type. 8/8/82 Jacobus has 2-3 more “lots”. His charts take forever! Alas, typing consumes all my writing time. Baby asleep 11/2 hrs! I dare not even flush the johns. Jacobus driving me off my onion – he rattles dictation like a bren gun. Jacobus’ transcriber broke and he’s getting me a new once – hope that slows things down a bit. Reading Jerome Goldstein’s In Business for Yourself. I agree with J. Granville that the stock mkt is going to get worse. Unreadable Georgette Heyer – endless sly preaching about Unwashed Them vs Us. A woman called in answer to my card – she’s published “2 Regencies” and nothing since then! Wanted to see a copy of my Tarnished Vows outline! I had to laugh – we’re all in this together. 1:40 PM Fri 13 Aug 82 I abandoned cranky Shane yelling upstairs – he needs a nap. He doesn’t agree. Walks his crib across floor and almost downstairs! Wrote for an application to an infant childcare center in W Windsor. Reading Louise Bernikov’s very good Between Women. Trying to get T to calculate what it actually costs to live here when he says we can’t afford to move. I think there are a lot of hidden costs. Imagining what would happen if our situations were flipped. He would be angry & threatening. Sat 14 Aug 82 Difficult anniversary dinner with couple whose wedding we attended last summer. They seem to have plenty of money – cars, houses, trips – just hearing about it is depressing. T made comment at one point that I “improve on the truth” I had to tackle him over it. I love Toss but am feeling immensely sad just now. Feel like I’m living I Dostoevsky’s Poor Folk. My uterus hurting when I sit down – I see how easy it would be to disappear into hypochondria. Luckily I am enjoying V. Sackville-West’s Pepita– worthy to stand by The Grande Mademoiselle.
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Alysse Aallyn
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