Mon 17 Jan 83
Irritated resentful & crabby. Everything at Marycliff boded well at first – Philosophy class looks rewarding – Intro to Psych slow & dull but there’s no way around if this is my major. Have to listen to ridiculousness about letting people express their anger – when has reinforcing hostility ever worked It isn’t working for poor Ricardo who needs to tell Lois off. She’s especially savage because he won’t fight back. Chased out of the laundry room by a crabby old nun – went to the senior dorm and talked the door watcher into letting me do a load. What can it hurt? Stood in line at the bookstore but had to leave without my book because time to pick up the Bug. He insisted on stories in the car - 1:30 PM when we got home and he wouldn’t nap. My Beloved Angel home at 3:30 so I had an adult to talk to ! Bug went to sleep 5:30 PM. Reading a HORRIBLE book called Mind Over Weight that says if you just relax and accept yourself you’ll become thin! What sense does THAT make? I guess we were all “meant” to be the same size and we keep interfering with that by being “different." All we have to do is stop! How about problems with the whole idea of “perfection” which seems to be a constantly moving goalpost anyway. How about thinking of oneself being “enviably thin” as incredibly threatening? Sacrifice and giving up your freedom ALWAYS hurts, period. If I just relaxed and accepted myself I’d have TWO glasses of wine with Dan Rather (maybe 3.) Frustration makes me hungry. Makes me gnash my teeth. Have discovered the most delicious zucchini pizza. For the most part things between me & T are better than ever. Save my arguments for my philosophy prof who shudders when he sees me coming. Tues 18 Jan 83 Tackling my last typing job – yet another client who lied to me about how much work was required. Out of sequence – confusingly written – had to type one page twice. Took phone off hook – hot bath – lunch at 10:30 AM! Then took a nap! Who the hell cares what time it is? T critical of my poetry book operation every chance he gets – he’s only limited by his disorganization and procrastination. I feel I am VERY MUCH on the path toward being the person I want to be. At least I have what I most value in life: contemplative privacy. Imagine if I’d gotten that Bamberger’s job!! Bibliography then I’m done. Fri 21 Jan 83 Sitting up in my study abuzz with joy & love of life. Yes it happened – DONE with typing! Car conflicts this am so I regretfully cut Phil class which I will NEVER do again unless weather excruciating. Amnesty day = HEAVEN – drove Bug to the sitter then bath while finishing Glendinning’s Edith Sitwell. Superb. Next: Wallace Stevens. 1,000 words – great fun – on Tamsin’s novel The Color of Love all of which takes place in Ireland which I know NOTHING about! Only quit so early because I want to wallow in T’s presence. 22 Jan 83 Still hypnotized by the spell of Dorothy Eden’s Afternoon Walk. You have to admire someone who gets her effects so simply. This template could be applied to endless other stories. Pity there’s no such excitement in Color, only the usual jealousy and miscommunication. Ho hum. Weird day with mysterious churning beneath the surface. Inability to diet. 3 bowls of veg soup at lunch hardly a binge but very strange. Contraindicated. Baby trying to nap because he’ll be up late tonight at dinner party. Muttered sang & threw his bottle. Now he’s silent & so am I. Wed 26 Jan 83 Goddamit had to stop my food journal. Too anxiety-producing. Does this have something to do with Color? I think it might. A lot of eating in that book. And in my life pizza, wine, tuna casserole. Crackers. Ugh. Cooking should not be part of my life right now. How to arrange for a smooth & constant flow of power? Enjoyed Brownstein’s On Becoming a Heroine but it’s a big vague. How do these things gt published? Can’t help but assume she’s the editor’s friend. Her choices too arbitrary. Where’s Trollope, Yonge, Mrs Henry Wood? Fri 28 Jan 83 The things I’m discovering!! Writers in Love by Benet. Comparing KM to Woolf. Woolf feels more “human” in spite of KM’s “sinning”. And - Exactly WHY is academia bad for writers? I found out! Discourages passion and individuality! Yesterday rice with vinegar for lunch. Mmmmmm… Then the worst happened – T home at 8:30 when he said 6 – I ate too much (alone) at 8. I will try harder like Queen Victoria. He’s not even coming to dinner tonight. So grapefruit & cream of wheat. Exercise? Turns out I LOATHE skipping rope. So take a walk after class like a good girl – once around the lake. Mon 31 Jan 83 Last night vast depression. Thinking about it in the car it’s my 3 lives – must bring them into some harmonious whole. No drinking – it wastes the evening. House is filthy & confused but I shirk the prospect of sorting it out. Blaming leads to more pain Driscoll arrives…class begins.
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11 AM 6 Jan 83
T came home depressed from the law library yesterday. He agreed to take Jan DeFres case suing Exxon but they will just keep the case open forever till he gives up. He feels he hasn’t “given NJ a try” yet. It seems we can’t “save” each other. Just trying to increase my own strength to the extent that I can give him some. Clear the decks of backlogged work like Mr. Bellwoar’s Mistress (HG Wells.) Re-read James’ Spoils of Poynton yesterday – he is so much greater than his critics. James writes about nothing less than Victorianism itself – its best & worst. Wonderful main character a conduit for evil who sees the self as a formed rather than forming entity leading to malformation of vision & moral sense. Fri 7 Jan 83 Feeling better – my cold improved – ordered $130 of clothes including red linen jacket and low backed voile dress. Now to the $130 of typing to pay for the clothes… 11 AM Mon 10 Jan 83 Reading Whoever Said Life was Fair by Sarah Cohen, she says ne of the most dangerous things a marriage partner can do is try to halt the other’s growth. T makes scenes & I survive them. Inviting him to “play” with my binder last night invites explosive screaming that I didn’t ask him to design the cover. (That’s when he’s not screaming about how overworked he is or how little I do.) I just stare at him and tell him to “lighten up” which invites more screaming. He seemed to be escalating in a desire to get me to scream back but I don’t think it’s good for S so I went for a long refreshing walk. When I got back he told me “never do that again” and I said I have to leave when he pollutes the house with his displays. I often wonder what he expects to achieve by his behavior but I think this is what his mother did (and still does) and he doesn’t know how else to get it out of his system. I’m sorry he doesn’t look at marriage as an “achievement arena.” Falsetto seems to be turning into the tale of a woman married to a monster! Why not make him the Lord of the Underworld? Must reread Devil on Lammas Night. Tues 11 Jan 83 This has been the most awful week. Mom operated on for breast cancer but parents playing it down as “no big deal.” They are doing everything medicine requires. Don’t really know how to respond when they dismiss it so fast. They want me to dismiss it too. How does Mom really feel? But she won’t talk to us with D. so we are all false & fake & reassuring. Everything’s fine! I’ve got to get out of the typing racket completely. Infuriating not to be able to get to my novel when it’s bubbling in my mind. I need a routine that BUILDS my STRENGTH not depletes it. Last Sun night dinner with Granma completely frustrating – she considers herself a “philanthropist” but seems unable to talk about serious things. Keeps offering us old furniture that would make escape even more unlikely. She is frustrated, feeling she’s “providing” and nobody’s thankful. She is renting a room in her house to a pair of Ethiopian princes attending Haverford and is irritated that they don’t seem to know how to lay fires – the students in her house have always cut & fetched wood and these are amazed to be asked to do anything. Didn’t know they were supposed to be grateful to her liberalism. She has decided to leave her house to Haverford as long as she can live in it and Haverford “takes care” of the outside. T. tells me privately they won’t do a thing – plus her lawyer’s on the Haverford board and it’s a clear conflict of interest to solicit gifts from his clients! My novel makes me grateful for the things T DOESN’T do to me! Infidelity & physical abuse are at least off the table! I think T’s rages don’t affect me as much as Daddy’s did. From 3-6 today I was so tired I felt DEAD. Irritating modern novels describe everything from the camera’s eye – no one thinking or feeling. “Blandizing.” 6 PM S finally asleep after yelling & yelling. When he doesn’t want to be held there’s nothing we can do. I type Peter Hone’s wretched vandalism thesis between bouts. I think about women coming up against brick walls – our reaction is to “remake” ourselves over and over. Katharine Mansfield was on her fourth incarnation when she was cut off, Sylvia Plath played Russian Roulette and lost, Alice James gave up entirely. Isak Dinesen and Katherine Anne Porter succeeded. The power of a long life. (OhMyGod that baby is making noise. I can’t believe it. It’s like Rasputin. It’s magical & remorseless but a toddler’s favorite word DOES become “no” just like the books tell you. S. sobbing “don’t say no to me…” All the disapproving voices say, “You’re not doing this RIGHT” T agrees with them unfortunately. Now is the moment for me to unlock my REAL creativity. One escape hatch: art. Like a toddler, T is the king of “no.” In the worst irony of my life I am waiting for him to get around to it, to study it, to complete it, to take the initiative, to follow through. Awful. Severest test I’ve ever had. Coming into this marriage I thought I was embracing more freedoms – but they all turned into restrictions. But I take heart from my rapid learning curve. The only way to educate my husband is to educate myself – even if I don’t know what I’m doing. Have to act free when I don’t feel it. Sat 15 Jan 83 Reading about problem drinking my anxiety level very high. Too easy to take the “magic sip?" That means suddenly we’re relaxing and having a good time. No more sitting in front of the news with a glass of wine talking to Dan Rather like he’s my friend. Worried abut drinking, dieting, eating, etc. Waiting for S to zonk so I can get this typing out of the way. 16 Jan 83 A very good day. Tamsin Sylvester called from London to give me $500 to furbish up her romance! Ghostwriting! There’s some creativity but I bet it’s more like editing knowing the way she goes on and on. 10:30 AM Sat 4 Dec 82
My 33rd birthday! Last night T “healed” me. He was his old self –flexible, warm, imaginative, generous so that every problem there had ever been between us just melted away. The BEST birthday gift. “You shall be one flesh” and presto! I told him I don’t understand MYSELF what I’m going through! He likes my poem. I’ going to pull through. Reread as far as I’ve gotten on Falsetto. It’s intriguing. I see lots of possibilities. 1 PM Dec 5 -82 The “healing” holds. Feel like I will never have to suffer that peculiar loneliness again. The next child’s babyhood will be dramatically different if only because Shane will be there. He was so much fun this morning, wanting to play with me rather than his toys, slobbering over my glasses and standing on my book. M & D sent Isak Dinesen biog for my birthday it is WONDERFUL! Reading it in a state of exaltation. She lost “everything” but gained “the world!” Of course she wasn’t “happy” THAT would DEFINITELY have been too much to ask. I am way ahead on all counts. Want to read everything else I can find about her. As soon as baby awakes we ride into town for tampons & baby oil – I hear him. 12:30 PM TUES 6 DEC 82 Feeling blue at my desk as I shift from “inner” to “outer” tasks – preparing an agency mailing. Ugh. St Theresa has to drag the sword out of her breast and go answer the door. Rough life for us introverts. Poor T says, “I’m sure when you get hooked up with an organization you’ll feel better!” We each KNOW it “should” be that way but we can’t get ourselves there. Taking S into Phila today – gives Me & T time to talk & something new for me & S to do – play by the river. Reading Wickes The Inner World of Childhood– it is a help. I got this book from Granma (who hadn’t read it. She’s too “busy”. No one reads but me.) I think my problem’s “cowardice”. T yelling trying to give me a sense of responsibility without any actual power. I have to confront that. His mother always tries to play “offense” – works for her. 1:10 PM – NOT going to Phila! Called L to say I was coming and she responded in such a flustered, hostile way I had to let her off the “hook” she seemed to put herself on! Similar to my response to her visits here! We all suffer from the same sickness I’m afraid. T. says he’ll come home early – I said that was fine! Thurs 9 Dec 82 Last night T wasn’t early but he was on time for dinner and that was good enough. We talked while dinner cooked, which meant his long litany of complaints about Why Developing Property isn’t easier (hint: Everyone’s Against You.). Under the hypnosis of L’s reasoning he doesn’t understand that resentment is the poison that kills. I got T to see we can’t talk this way around S – he has to see us SOLVING problems not COMPLAINING about them! Luckily this made sense to him – focus on how things aren’t what they “should” be is DISEMPOWERING. T said he hadn’t felt his parents’ hypocrisy till he was 17. Having been a witness I was able to disprove that and then he remembered. He saw his father skewered between his mother’s incinerating rage and her sulky silky manner. We sat down after dinner to work on our “life plan.” Mine is 2nd baby in ’84 (last if it’s a girl) part time job 85, Masters 86, full time in the “psychotherapy of poetry” in 1990. Meanwhile having fun with my press! T promised to finish his “life plan” tonight – wanted to take pix of me for Xmas card instead, I was drunk enough to comply. T’s “complaints” about me – Bad Mother, Beggar, Slob – seem to melt away when You Know Who isn’t around. Thinking of putting a rape in Falsetto. Dare I? Short & sharp. Have to accept that misery & terror can be conduit to God. I refuse to feel the worthlessness life seems to demand of me – God won’t allow me to feel it. Sun 2 Jan 83 A new diary! A new year! I interrupt the backbreaking labor of vacuuming pine needles out of the rug to make my first entry. I got a triple Perry Mason that has been getting me through, plus Christmas cash paying the most desperate bills. Grocery bill is the consistent biggie but T admits I’m very thrifty. Having to fight the urge to run upstairs & reread Dorothy Thompson’s life – anyone’s life but mine! Every dirty broken corner of this house makes me want to flee…Can’t spare any $ from the exchequer for remodeling a house we don’t own! Lois latest plan “in lieu of salary” is that we should take her old car so she can buy a new one; offended when T declined. Hey, she would recover the seats! No hot water last night - was afraid they’d tuned off the gas but it wasn’t that, fortunately. If I want a happy married life with my husband I’m going to have to take this craziness down a few pegs. T has taken to saying jokingly to me around other people: “Lighten up!” Yeah, I’M the problem! Ha ha ha! Not laughing hilariously enough! In private of course he’s completely different. “Raggedy man” beset by feminazis. “I could earn my own living without my mother when I was 23,” he says sadly. Not much to laugh about there! I stress our freedom: we can go anywhere! No. He says he is stuck. Cleaning up trash in my study found the Ballantine report – feeling a certain nostalgia for the hope that sustained me through the romance novels. In the mean time struggling with a rape scene that’s awful any way you parse it. 2:45PM 4 Jan Tues 83 This is the time of day I want to collapse and I’ve still got everything ahead of me. Unfortunately. Now is when I really feel the lack of a supportive person to confide in. Trying to get anything out of T produces bare cupboards & hostility. His ego is under too much assault to help me any. I’ve tried and tried to persuade him to see a marriage counselor – I’m convinced ANYONE would say you can’t keep doing what you HATE – which is what I say – but he says no. Marycliff College to look forward to. Took a long trip yesterday to Hopewell junk shop to buy china – soothing & relaxing but didn’t solve anything. Inspired by Published in Paris. 5:30 PM Fri Nov 26 -82
Dad announces he will give me $6000 of my stock but I can print his kid’s book out of that money! Never mind that it’s not really going to be $6000 – never mind that I am going to have to pay for his book – this is a substantial help to us right now and there really is no other way to GET the money since he is “trustee”. (Which he hated when HE had a trustee! He disguised Mom’s college bills as “dental expenses” to get HIS trustee to disburse! ) I can get a printing press for $700! Current problem: how to live like a poor person in the lap of rich people. 8 pm – Determined to end this struggle with T. He is such a beloved. All this anxiety about entertaining & money – I am just going to drop out of it. Marriage seems to be a cage in which one is “trapped” into giving an endless supply of “love” – milked like a cow. Clearly nonsensical! We have to say yes each time – if we can break the ice bond. My dissatisfaction treated as treason. Yet I certainly have a say in how we live! Simplify, simplify. T says there’s a press in the barn with type case – we are going to look at it to see what can be salvaged. Reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I like the right brain sense of endlessness – timelessness. When I get to the part about the childhood of an artist I feel myself come alive. Makes me want to take out books on children’s art. My parents saw me as a scary ocean of need of rechannelling. Not to make the same mistakes with S. 1 Dec 82– An exquisite day. Many phone calls about binding systems. T. wants to do it in the barn with wire & glue & rocks – I prefer a more modern method. The key is to be able to produce volumes instantly to match demand. T’s reaction is interesting – if I can step back from it. If I can’t I’m looking at cardiac arrest. No one in his family has any concept of how to be supportive It’s always competing ideas – even if its as pathetic as “I haven’t done any research yet because I’m too busy but if I did I’m sure I’d find a better idea than that!” It REALLY makes me want to withdraw MY support from HIS crazy ideas!!! He’d better learn how because I’m not going to stand by while he attacks & humiliates S – if he has to “learn” on me that’s OK. But I demand progress. At dinner I reminded T that my last batch of Corning paid off his margin call. He had “forgotten”. We’re down to our last $600 now. Let him worry about it says Granma. T. said he is utterly committed to my health, happiness & welfare. I had to point out that his actions say different. When I was so depressed I was borderline suicidal he did nothing and now that I’m happy & excited all he wants to apply is brakes. He wants to make me dependent on him – overworked as he is – to “come up” with a binding system. No thanks. I’ll do it. Shane is glorious, peaceful, sweet – brain expanding visibly like a sponge in water. Fri 3 Dec 82 – I hate to report – bad day. T and I fought on the way to Trenton – he got out of the car so angry he didn’t kiss me goodbye. I cried. But I always feel better after I share my feelings even if he doesn’t want to share them. Maybe I should struggle on alone. It’s what he seems to want. I explain no parties, entertaining for awhile – I am going into hibernation. T. takes an adversary position on everything – then denies we even had the conversation. Am I crazy or is he? Guess what? It’s him. He keeps dragging in entirely mythical beings – “the neighbors” - “girls I might have married” – “other men might say” . How about what WE think & feel & are trying to achieve? He ADORES tending S an hour a day – then he’s done! He thinks what I do is no biggie. Toss stayed home yesterday – the day I was going to work on my novel – using my typewriter, having me do things for him and complaining all the while that he doesn’t have a legal secretary to “show him the ropes.” If that doesn’t tell you all you need to know about the male/female differential you ain’t listening. Noon – 30 Nov 82 Most interesting AM watching salesman’s ThermaBind presentation. I am passionately in love with this system because it has the flexibility I require. Feel like I am setting out on a great odyssey here – learning how to be a flexible independent dependent… T’s atmosphere = crisis and frenzy (one day to file his amended complaint.) I must have serenity. I want harmony between us. Overwhelming similarities between T & M & D – not an accident…Pity he screams with wrath over every one of my ideas. I would rather work alone. He asked me what I want for my birthday. I said for him to do the dishes occasionally. The more fool me. 5 pm – Wrote a sobbing shrieking letter to T; a long catalogue of masculine idiocies & betrayals. I was upset by the religious fanatic who spanked his 2 yr old to death last week. The sins of the fathers are ENDLESS all from “being right.” Won’t send it. I was stopped by Mom’s story about Granny who always said she had “earned” their love. Mom said no one “earns” love! Instead I wrote the poem: “In photographs the ladies scream or laugh”. Confrontation In photographs The ladies scream or laugh It’s hard to tell Heads back they bare their grief In ecstasies of joy or Agonized relief It’s hard to tell. All that remains of them These withered icons growing ever dim. In that first winter When we thought the world was dead Cold crystal splintered up the sky In shafts; dogs barked We heard the devils laugh But stars came out The soil sprouts grain We saw the statues Move and speak again. The fountains of our fear Leap high at first, like dancers Frozen at first burst Of freedom Paralyzed abreast the arc We can’t see what These abstruse sign were meant to be. Somewhere a fetus twists and jerks Assemblage of dynastic quirks Waiting out this cycle’s spiral Pull to kingdom come. For nothing vain this world is born To bleed again. Lost in deep, deep prayer. So excited to find a copy of A Grief Observedat The Lamplighter. Read it while the baby sleeps. Noon 16 Nov 82
Sent Shane off for 2 hrs with Nancy while I work on Falsetto. Thank God. But instead I waste my time arguing with T. T says L’s going to pay his $3,000 debt to the bank in lieu of the salary she promised him. I say we can’t go on living here and it isn’t free. He can’t see how L is manipulating him. I talked him into at least a couple of days a week at Granma’s – she wants to help and she needs the help. Unfortunately L see her as her bitter enemy. 8:30 PM– QED Corresp – check – an hour’s cleaning in kitchen. Check. 9:30 AM Fri 19 Nov 82 Poor T feels so awful, so valueless right now. He keeps pouring money into this place without any appreciation from You Know Who. She had dinner here last night – me determined not to kowtow. T neds to be able to step back and LOOK, not fall victim to The Family Disease. T. promised me half a day today – he’ll be here by 1:15. He wants to drive to Lambertville to look up some court docs for our car mechanic, return some pipe & negotiate for a chainsaw. Tonight he & L have a pond committee meeting (trying to save Grovers’ Mill Pond) that at least is worth doing. There’s another mtg Dec 2. Starting to think Lois may be actually evil. She is fake fake fake. Good conversation with Dad when I offer to edit & print his kid’s book. 9:30 AM – Sat 19 Nov 82 Finished Ellen Goodman’s Turning Points. Interested in the questions they DON’T ask. They see themselves placed in the century, but how about eternity? What do we do if God speaks. Judging by the NT we wouldn’t even recognize it. Good talk with T last night – even though he was trying to argue me out of GC. “Why don’t you go to Princeton? You have a good brain.” (I actually don’t have THAT kind of “good brain.”) I pointed out Princeton doesn’t take part-time students (which is automatically cruel & unusual.) He says why not go full-time? Because I want BALANCE in my life. (Not that they’d have me.) I tried to get him to see that his snobbism is PUNISHING HIM. I need to rescue this man. He woke up at 3:30 and worked in the kitchen till 6 because he felt guilty about not helping with housework – but as soon as he makes breakfast it’s all a mess again! Mon 22 Nov 82 Up against the problem of forgiveness. Granma scotches our current plan and T frantically disassociates himself from it. He can’t admit things aren’t going well with Faircross: “I might need her to invest!” So Granma hears a “marriage division idea” where she is being asked to side with ME against her grandson! Guess what she said! So THAT exit’s been sealed! Then Granma challenged the very idea of my going to school: why do I need a job? Do volunteer work like she does! I got a long lecture during which T not only DID NOT HELP (he wants me to work more than I do) he heaped a spare coal or two on my head when the diatribe showed signs of winding down: “Alysse thinks in absolutes!” Granma then told the most hilarious story about all the difficulties at the start of her marriage when her husband had no patients and SHE was absorbed in “dishes and diapers.” (She had a staff of six NOT COUNTING the chauffeur.) Some country doctor referred a few patients to Dr. Sheffield and he had to have the chauffeur drive him ALL THE WAY OUT THERE. Now, really! I tried to explain some of our financial problems but T just denied the whole thing and Granma said “Let Toss worry about it.” Not once did he defend anything about me; in fact, when I staggered upstairs he told Granma I was “unhinged” by the cavalier treatment I’d received from editors & agents! So now I’m in the position of having to watch this whole thing fail – presumably so I can have the hollow victory of “I told you so.” (They’ll still be mad I didn’t save them. “You WANTED us to fail.”) In the car T pleads the Racehorse Haines defense; he didn’t say It and if he did say it he didn’t mean it! Women are supposed to make their husbands look good and to hell with their sense of self worth or pride. He’s mad at me because Granma DID offer him money, but in the most humiliating way! She could add him to her list of Supported Hangers On! Of course he had to reject THAT and it’s MY FAULT that avenue got closed. Granma annoyed that she lost the chance to gang up on Lois! I naively never thought it could get this bad. And yet I “forgive” T – automatically and instantaneously – because he’s just scared and lying. It’s rarer NOT to throw your beloved out of the boat the minute your ego’s threatened – it’s a reflex! I’m not superior enough to “forgive” him. I am considering demanding marriage counseling so we can just get some agreement on the way we talk in front of others. Shouldn’t there be rules? But do I want to put our time & money there when lack of both is a large part of what’s killing us? I feel neatly caught in a cleft stick. I think I have to really study T and find out who he really is separated from my fantasies about him. He commits lip service to justice: what does that mean? I actually feel he’s been possessed by a demon. First he was “possessed” by me, now he’s “possessed” by his mother. Maybe someday he’ll be possessed by himself – if we can figure out who that is. I think if you have no concept of Eternal Love you are forced to carry around all your sins forever – have to close your “moral pores” eventually in sheer self-protection. T. said I was a “cheap conniving, slovenly slattern and a groveler.” So when we got home I stomped upstairs whereupon T threw himself on the floor sobbing that if I refused to cook his dinner he had nothing left to live for. Might as well blow his brains out! (He has a rifle, too.) I think they’re a whole family of moral barbarians. So I heated up some soup for the father of my child. Then last night he dreamed that we were driving and I kept saying we were in danger so we stopped the car to investigate and found we were on the edge of a cliff! He knows I’m right! I dreamed about a monster pile of shit that would NOT go down the toilet. Obviously I have to stop worrying about HIM and start thinking about ME! #1 is to stop doing all the money grubbing pursuits I don’t enjoy. Oooooo! Excited over the prospect of disconnecting the phone in the AM! #2 step back out of family junk. It is the Wife’s Christian Duty to Suffer Fools Gladly – fools usually interprets as relatives – Why? I refuse to patch and lubricate their spiderweb any more. It occurs to me that T feels about me the way I feel about Shane – insane with love also fears of imprisonment. Trying to be honest about our mutual sense of betrayal. “We shall overcome.” 8PM Thurs 11 Nov 82
Nancy asked me to keep Shane home tomorrow – she had a hard day with him today – his genital rash really not clearing up. Desitin seems to cope the best. 1 hr of cleaning and I only scraped off the top layer of dirt! Open house at Marycliff College – the type of place that used to suit my fancy – does it still? Very baroque – a robber baron house with green marble fireplaces. The last chatelaine killed herself by crawling painfully into a “slimming” rubber suit – positional asphyxia! Then they filmed a scene from The Amityville Horror there – starring Richard Burton no less – now the Sisters of Mercy are frantically exorcising the place and I get to be a part of it. I was somewhat intimidated by all the 17 year olds with their mothers. Library had no listing for Monica Dickens! And she was a Catholic! Beautiful handmade signs everywhere: “Life is Fragile” & lovely quiet study & prayer rooms. Fr 12 Nov 82 Poor Shane cutting teeth on top of his rash – bad day. Very nervewracking. Silhouette rejected Dishonored Virgin- they don’t care for the abusive husband. Too bad – he’s the funnest part of the book. Still have high hopes for the English – they might think I’m snazzy. Back to my amorphous, powerless, resourceless life! 8 AM – Sat 13 Nov 82 Another sad, restless day. Sore eye from a chipped contact lens – felt bad about not seeing Granma since her stroke so dressed up to go and this is what I get for it. Now I need a new lens and no money to get it with. S fussy and cranky – me & T feeling “separate” – can’t get close. He didn’t get home till 10 – woke me up with lovemaking. Mmmmmmm… Worried about trust issues however. How can you “trust” the other’s reflexes when they are automatically paranoid/hostile/disturbing? I trust his SECOND THOUGHT. Not his automatic self. He has been dreaming lately that I balk or frustrate his efforts – I dream he lets me down! We soldier on while the baby screams. Rocked S to sleep. FINALLY. Speaking of dreams, Lois is very resentful of others “meddling” in her life but her strongest desire is to control the lives of others! Some kind of Freudian thing, presumably. DEFINITELY time to move on, but nowhere to get to. I’m beginning to realize that “constant forward motion” is actually my most impressive talent. I thought it was rough when I had to be strong for the dogs!!! Finishing Koch’s Rose, Where’d you get that Red? Lovely book. Poor S screaming – better give him some Tylenol. 5:30 PM – Sun 14 Nov 82 Feel fragile, like I’m recovering from some long illness. Sitting in front of the TV wtching Two for the Road, a perfectly awful movie I liked way back when I was trying to learn about Life. Finney plays a pig and Audrey plays a “nothing” – pretty depressing. Spent yesterday walking S around the Beaver College campus feeling like a heroine in a sad novel. Seems I do everything late & in the wrong order. Why? Only when looked at through the prism of a disordered society – which I want to find more about. I keep trying to turn into another person but it hasn’t happened for 33 yrs. The problem of my “earning power.” How to fit into the world. I should get some “marketable skill” like audiologist or reading specialist but those aren’t the things I want to study! I want all the most useless subjects like poetry & mysticism. Reading Agatha Christie my usual recipe for shock and thinking abut parental ideologies. They didn’twant to talk about the way the world REALLY WAS but how they wanted me TO THINK IT WAS. In the meantime, evil moves behind the scenes. Sex, rage, adultery, hypocrisy, redemption – my 11 yr old brain goggled at the Strange Old World. It’s what I want to write about and I can’t see how it’s going to make me popular. 11:30 AM Mon 15 Nov 82 Another record in awfulness days. Growing theory of mine that women’s depression sets in when their powerlessness is brought home to them. Men fight for their families, women have to BE their families. Genevieve says not – she and Brett are out in the world both swinging while their children are raised by the least expensive born again Christian they could find. (She’s agnostic, he’s ex-Jewish.) Hmm. My dilemma is I’d rather be poor. Unless somebody wants to buy Dishonored Virgin or Tarnished Vows for at least $5000 which is what it cost to write them! And in the future it would cost more BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO DO IT AGAIN! SO ACTUALLY THEY GUESSED RIGHT – I’M NOT GOING TO BE THEIR LAYER EVEN OF BRASS EGGS. Sitting here worrying about housework because Women’s Work Is Never Done. It starts unraveling immediately. But I’d rather start my new novel scary as that is…Why be afraid of unlocking the soul? Feel like a singer who has been operating in falsetto. Good name for a novel, by the way… Maybe being poor is like being thin, or young. You just feel more intensely what’s around you. Letting my Psych Today sub lapse. Just doesn’t make sense to me anymore. Interestingly, exactly the same emotional/psychological/financial waves are breaking over T’s head. Should feel like a double whammy but in fact it makes things easier. 5PM– wrote 5 p sick with fright. Just forced myself to do it. They’re not any good of course so is that worthwhile? Feels like a skier walking down the hill. Pictures back – S adorable, T handsome, I look like a bloated corpse. The Return of Starr Faithfull. Obviously my idea of hiding till rebirth is a good one. Unwilling to leave the house because I have conceived a phobia of being Yelled At. Accused. Thurs 4 Nov 82
Just wrote a $44 QED ad for Moneysworth that will supposedly be seen by 5 million people. I’d settle for 1 million. I have no idea what will happen and I don’t think anyone else does either. Torrents of mail pouring into my “bad publishing experiences query!” Hard to see how I can get a book out of this, though – who would publish it? Still, shows me I’m not alone. We all feel like girls who have been “strung along” by a bunch of married men; i.e. do this work and SOMEDAY… Power thru division & exclusivity seems to be the Great Secret. 45 mins every AM to take S to his playschool at a house T goes RIGHT BY but he’s too busy to stop and insulted that I would expect it. The famous double standard! Women know how to ALLOW OTHERS TO BE FREE – men cannot IMAGINE such a state!!! Lewis asks – would you really want a woman in charge? YUP! If you wanted to see fairness… T. has stopped listening to me. Literally pushes my words forcefully back in my mouth. I think all his pain is self-caused and he doesn’t want to hear it! Do I comply to his wishes because of his pain or his threats? Does it matter? At least the stock market is going up – may get some relief there. Fr 5 Nov 82 Can literally HEAR a page turning in my life! Got a large typing job – tried working on novel first –(Ballantine says it wants “good psychological novels”) Couldn’t. Just like eating a 3 day old salad. So…type first. Last night was a good night for us but still I feel the separations of sexism. Think I have one more “romance” attempt left in me. Poor T struggling with Lois’ weird mythology. Her very hungry ego. Sat 6 Nov 82 What a week it’s been! Now I have a whole day with S ahead of me…Last night T late after driving the workers home – 8:15 – I think L loves making him late. She thinks if she uses a sweet voice no one will notice the pleasure she takes in subduing, humiliating & frustrating others. For dinner I cooked liver & rigatoni & yogurt stroganoff. But he had to go right to Amnesty Int phone-a-thon, said he’d be home by 10 so I could deliver Princeton thesis. Drove myself in a rage leaving Bug alone – when I got back he was here. We’ve been considering buying Dom’s Volkswagen so we’ve been driving it – it broke down! I sat in bathtub he sat on closed john with his head in is hands – we agreed we’re in this together. SOMEONE needs to “stay home” and we need to agree to not punish that person as ‘last through the door.” COOPERATION not COMPETITION. This demand for “pretense” brings out the worst in me and I think I am getting him to see it isn’t helping. We need to make plans & set goals & deadlines. Jane Macdonald called to say her grandson died last night. Horrible searing pain – T & I clutch each other & cry. Making love when L called – T talked to her while I “played through.” 7 Nov 82 Almost 33 years old! Does seem like I should have arrived…somewhere! Applied to Sears for temp work…just in case. But to get the first year of Shane’s life behind us is quite an achievement! I wanted it but it's difficult & exhausting – like first time sex! Enjoying Andrew Greeley’s Death & Beyond. I covet freedom but it certainly does not exclude loneliness. Really makes me want to study theology! Reminds me of discovering the planets & solar system when I was about 5 – that same awestruck sensation of lonely vastness. Exciting too. Yesterday gave up officially on writing the romance. It wants to be a thriller. Period. Told T if I have to do all the childcare we will have no more children. 5:30 PM – perfect happiness – if only I can preserve this joy! Baby & I walked all around Princeton. Didn’t really eat today – only snacked on healthy things. S crawled & climbed – he’s in “gymnastic” mode – so I crawled & climbed with him! M & D sending a little money so I’m ordering a Daytimer. T late again last night! This time he ran out of gas! Called Lois to see where he was got a long story about how Granma used to torture her about Sutton’s schedule – where he was and what he was doing! But Granma didn’t WORK with Sutton! I honestly don’t think L knows what conversation is FOR much less how to do it. Fortunately I’ve learned how to argue with her – don’t answer the sense answer the TONE. Strip those motives bare. Trying to get Shane to rest – no dice. Lambertville, NJ 9:50 AM Tues – 9 Nov 82 Stopping for coffee and checking out the real estate – it’s nice & cheap and closer to PA. Feeling close to V Woolf as I drive towards New Hope on this golden autumn day! Wonderful eve with T last night – great talk. Men expect wives to identify with their aims but we marry with inarticulate aims! Feeling our way! 3:45 PM – took phone off hook I spite of typing jobs – S desperately needs this nap. New resolve: housework ONLY between 6-7! Joan Carnahan has me judging a fiction contest for the Baldwin School – it is pretty discouraging – the authors intrude where they should be absent and are nowhere to be found at the heart of the story! Wish I hadn’t taken this on. Want to send them all cards offering my services but fear it wouldn’t be “professional” – much as they need it!! Uh oh – Shane throwing toys… 27 Oct 82– Meant to go bike riding but S suddenly falls asleep! Oh well. Can fit into yet a new pair of pants! The problem is I have lost all self-confidence. Cleaning our bedroom I was suddenly struck with a delicious thought: this can’t go on forever! T calls to say he’ll be late tonight – had to fix a gate where vandals broke in.
Baby and I read today – he seemed really interested! 28 Oct 82 So jubilant this AM not even rejections can interfere. Feel like all the troubles & traumas of the past few years have been inevitable. Necessary. It’s awful, but we are almost through. Trying to get back into a beauty regimen. T was very taken with the Kabuki aspects of my self-presentation but also started to sabotage them immediately like he can’t help himself. Suddenly wants me to turn into a vigorous outdoorsy LL Bean type. Applied for a Bamberger’s job – just to see. Four hours at a time close by, 20 hrs a week sounds interesting and doable but as I walked in wearing black jacket and skirt I saw myself in s many mirrors looking OLD OLD OLD. Pores huge. Now I’m having delusions that I wrote down the wrong phone no. Oh well. S muttering to himself in his bed but not calling. Yet. He keeps rising up like Dracula. T has date with ex-girlfriend Cindy who’s staying in the city! I THINK I can trust him. Gotta get my house in order. Sat 30 Oct 82 S cranky but not insisting on rescue. Yesterday S & I went to Phila with T just to have something to do. He pointed out ex-girlfriend’s hotel – she invited him up but he didn’t go – they stayed down in the bar. She was fishing for an affair but gave up when she saw he wasn’t interested. I thanked him, he said, “I hope you’d do the same for me.” I told him he can BANK ON IT. Lois’ house not baby-proofed in the least. T frustrated with his mothers constant (and idiotic) rejection of his ideas “That’s not appropriate.” Forced to guess what she might consider “appropriate.” Not a happy task. Takes it out on me as the one “flexible” element. I resolve to “stop struggling” and cultivate the “inner life”. Cheered up reading Conrads Life. He produced great work under worse torture than I have to contend with. Most women report coming close to “breakdown” over caring for first child – I’m just a statistic. Add that to the money situation, carer situation & T’s withdrawal and you get “unbearable.” If I can only make it to Jan… Be kind to myself. Accomplished:
5:50 PM – Mon 1 Nov 82 Bad perm. It’s not helping. Last night another bad party – I am getting to hate them. Thought I could cultivate friends but it turns out I really don’t like the “back and forth” (i.e. give and take.) Let’s say I’m in an “ungiving” stage of my life what with all the giving I do at home (which makes sense to me) while “yielding the floor gracefully at parties DOES NOT. T drove so stupidly on the way home we almost had a wreck. Why let anger take the wheel? Makes no sense to me – the road doesn’t care – you can’t “intimidate” it! Mr. “I’ll never lie to you” flat out said it is my job to pretend I’m happy so he can soldier on. Then they criticize us for being sly doublecrossing whores! NOT enjoying the similarity of my slow disillusion in Marriage #1. But I don’t see a way out, frankly. If I want to raise Shane the way I want to raise him I won’t be the breadwinner –that’s what the editors are telling me. Considerably heartened by Lewis’ Mere Christianity. 12:30 PM – 13 Oct 82
Lying in bed frustrated enraged and sick. Dammit! Good morning shopping for wood stoves with T – buying 7 of them – 5 for the apts & 2 for here – coming up with a future vision of myself poor but chic and swathed in sweaters. Too fluey – came home and had a bowl of hot cereal & went to bed. Had a good idea for a Graham Greenian mystery with feminine twist but I can write it! Mixed identities. Discouraged by genre. Learn to keep that excitement going… 10:45 PM 14 Oct 82 Spent the AM quarrelling with myself until I’m completely exhausted. I know why schizophrenic parents happen – parent invaded by own childhood. (See Life of Robt Lowell.) Feeling faint hope however from talking to a psychologist who offered me work. I hate lack of power combined with increased responsibility. Seth calls to say the bottom has dropped out of Sykes. I just hope when the smoke clears, assets equal debts. We’ve had a good run – we’ll be better off out of the market. What would it mean to put ourselves in God’s hands? Every day a new start. T comes home immediately starts criticizing me for wearing his shirt. I called him on it – he said OK the place looks good too. I’m a little worried about his adoption of his Mom’s theory that an “acceptable” façade is BETTER than the real thing. He doesn’t like that I don’t care what strangers think of me. Shouldn’t even write here – but no matter how much sleep I get it isn’t enough. (S making noises – he sleeps at Nancy’s!) Good dinner with Dom but I drank too much anisette after. Meals go on too long for dieters and that’s for sure. I get bored. At least yesterday I was able to fit into my old jeans & feel sexy again. We discussed – as usual – the Family. Granma’s crazy situation, etc. I think about m novel turning into something else – the mask of horror keeps peeking out. Should I put Bettina away and write the other one or let this one evolve? The hell with forever: I’m going to live my life now and if it means shutting out the world then “I should” waits upon “I must.” I think one needs to “conscientiously dare.” Resolve to confine cleaning to 1-2 hrs a day because IT ISN’T THAT IMPORTANT. 10:15 PM – Fri 15 Oct 82 Fire walking. Paradoxically reading Tamsin’s Olwyn The Witch is making my spirits soar even though everything about it is wrong. I happen t know she has been working on this book for 12 years – definitive proof that sweat alone won’t make things grow. Makes me feel a little less of a nothing. Time is on my side if I can just hold out… Trying to phase out the typing biz. No point making gas money and exhausting my creativity in the process! When I try to transition into editing my advice is rejected. Need to keep looking. I love starting COMPLETELY OVER! Best feeling in the world! Jacobus came this M to give me work and I was too distraught to face him so left a note and took off on my bike. Shane’s yelling…he wouldn’t eat and now he won’t sleep. Too fried to make T dinner and feared his punishing rage but he calmly made himself a sandwich and suggested we don’t pay his insurance so we can afford Christmas cards! Bad idea, I said. There is a “talk gap.” He still talks about getting rich (“buy everything from Brookstone, S will go to private school”) but it seems we have to skimp on the basics. Starting to feel we don’t have the same American dream. Sun 17 Oct 82 Long days with Shane very hard to get through. Yearn for Mon when he’s at playschool in the AM. Shane socked me in the face so hard (by accident) I feared for my vision but it seems to be clearing up. Has also loosened a few of my teeth with his strong skull. Take a couple aspirin and keep going. Asked T if apts will be ready in spring he says no but Lois won’t let us move there anyway. Seems we HAVE to stay here while she makes clear her displeasure about out inadequate tenancy. Weird double bind. I would welcome a fire if it would free us of this murk. Meditation, bowl of soup. Nap. Woman in Lansdale –friend of a friend – sent my MSS back. To others my advice would be: don’t write anything that isn’t 100% of yourself. 5:30 PM – Tues Oct 4 – 82
Lost my diary in all the room changing so this will have to do. Conv w/ M & D who seem to be realizing The Curse is lifted – they said I'd be a failure if I lived my own way and I’m not, also I’d be lonely and I’m not. I have to commit myself to this house and its scary. Were here for God Knows How Long. T says I have to Act Like I Own It and make believe I own it. Change my attitude and presto! I argue we are caretakers. Worry about T’s denial. At least our new study is beautiful. With a fold down couch it can be converted to a guest room. I am relying on working there to get me out of a dead patch. Just finished reading the Marycliff College catalog – little Sisters of Mercy college run by adventuresome nuns where Dr James teaches. I want to take everything. Move my Fordham “credit” over. I need to find someone whose arms I can fall into sobbing. There’s got to be someone! I hunger to write about ordinary people but who are they? Don’t want to be cynical. Tried explaining my religious feeling to T – he is utterly uncomprehending. When I ask for support he says “I can’t lie to you.” I feel he would be prouder of me as a low level editor at a publishing firm on the verge of collapse than being who I am and doing what I’m doing. In the absence of support I write letters. Good letter from Pansy – perhaps she will be my correspondent. Then clean. Good! I am strong again! 11 AM Wed 6 Oct 82 Unfortunately T is very slow. I cycle through all the changes much more rapidly than he does. Except getting over a fight. That takes me longer patiently building my house of cards once again. I’ve given up trying to get him to see that working with his Mom and having her for a landlord is a terrible idea. He just starts berating himself and its downhill from there. Tell him its not the poverty – I have groceries, a roof over my head and 20 hrs childcare a week. Panic attacks to be avoided: they are immobilizing. I almost regret sitting down – waves of exhaustion sweep over me. 9:45 AM 7 Oct 82 I don’t have dark nights of the soul: for me its dark mornings. Can’t imagine working on Issue of Blood. Not until it “lives” inside me. So sending out typing cards to lawyers etc praying they respond. Seeking a modus vivendi. Eliz. Friar Wms spoke truth when she said overeaters overeat IN ORDER TO FOCUS THEIR ANXIETY. Women in particular suffer from endless onslaughts of untackle-able anxiety. It just comes at you from everywhere. “Restraint” and “constraint” as the major female virtues overwhelm everybody. Facilitate others. My gift for writing saved me. 11 PM– 2 glasses of wine with dinner is one glass too many. Makes me long for sugar. T & I combat this with sex. Then wasted an evening reading Agatha Christie’s play Verdict – should have been a Westmacott – one of those “what if” ideas. Then a book on addictive drinking which was somewhat more help. Says when you take away the crutch you are going to fall down. House still disrupted – tomorrow I’m really going to finish. Take it one day at a time trying to get all the richness out. Unbroken trains of thought – and love – are what I most value. Now that Shane is older he’s less of a savage – we’re starting to have meals as a family. Expect my life to revolve around kids till I’m 50 – then I can have my next crisis! 9;00 AM Sun 10 Oct 82 Baby asleep after a bottle. After a very successful dinner party last night complete with blueberry muffins, too much wine & cheesecake I’m back on my diet. We enjoyed the Goldbergs so much and intend to invite them to the farm. T. treats me a little strangely in company – talking about how sexy I was as a teenager. Almost as if there isn’t anything to say about me now. House finally clean and orderly except for the kitchen which I can do today. January is so close – S 14mos old – I will take only 1 class so I can “sniff around” and “get the feel”. Tomorrow I get to restart my novel. Not writing causes depression. 1 pm Mon 11 oct 82 It’s freezing but my cold is in it last stages so the hell with it. T will connect up the heating tonight. Feeling happy & fulfilled. This is the place I wanted to be in a week ago. Sat at my desk for a long time this AM smoking a cigar and thinking about my novel. It’s going to be good. Idea # 1: “The choice of a husband is the choice of a self.” Create something new from the rubble of a dead tradition. Problem #1 was reading dreck. Don’t do it even when editors encourage. Reading Raymond Chandler instead – now there’s a writer. He wanted to write about corruption which he despised – put him in a permanent quandary. I want to write about sex & families. Feeling rejected by the male/female nexus, longing for it, defensive of it all at once. Need to let my agent go – she is doing nothing for me. Actually enjoyed Eladell’s Lion in the Way even though it shirked every one of its fences. 4 PM – Sweet baby asleep after vigorous morning’s play. I got a 20 min nap too. Control my time: plan to sit at my desk after T & S leave for swim class. M & D attack the idea of a Catholic college – I say all roads lead one place only – to the meaning & purpose of existence. The baby & I will bicycle to the store as soon as he wakes up _ I swear its warmer outside than in. Then play & dinner – must eat early because of swim class. Thinking about Shirley Jackson – how would she have evolved if a steady diet of coffee, cigarettes, brownies & phobias hadn’t killed her? |
Alysse Aallyn
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