Tues. 4 Feb 81
First day of class both teaching & taking. Met with Fordham advisor who ants me to switch out f Excel and pursue a double major – maybe philosophy! Whoa there! My class babies with glazed eyes – my fict seminar wrangles about the Death of the Novel. Very dispiriting. They are excited by horrible shit sans character or plot. Plot is contrived and character is MUTABLE. Ineed to stop reading thrillers I enjoy and learn to like Robbe-Grillet. Wed 5 Feb 81 Miss T – haven’t seen him since 9. Gave my class a really easy test they could pass they all failed. Blue, blue blue. Women’s group wonderful on the other hand – I adore Joan. Want to ask her to christen our children. Sat 7 Feb 81 Spent $359 on bathroom floor tiles. It had to be done. Dinner at the neighbors who wanted to show off their friend a famous journalist. I got too drunk – T has forgiven me but I can’t forgive myself. Bad day all day. The sorrow of teaching Eng to the deprived – taking their money and flunking them – is always with me. Don’t like this system. Tried moving novel into first person voice – something my class can respect. Wonderfully cheering call with Avril – she is so good. Mon 9 Feb 81 Off to library in Chrysler – got a flat tire – had to wait an hour for AAA – missed appt with man to hook up tiny washer dryer we are installing in dining room closet. Feel squeezed & helpless. Discouraged by mess in house. Frustration the most difficult emotion to deal with. Not impressed by Ross Macdonald: “There’s nothing worse than an ugly woman with a gun.” Really? Bid of $1000 for wiring & plumbing. Bills bills bills and soon it will be tax time while every job prospect for T melts away. 18 Feb 81 Coming out of depression. IRS is auditing me – Toss being completely calm and supportive. He will represent me! Costume dinner at Snowbury was waste space but we was fun wearing the costumes & we met some interesting people. (Mayor & his girlfriend, a lawyer.) Weekend at StormFall where I officially give up on fiction and surrender to poetry. Offer to help Gretchen Fuchs find a publisher for her book – it’s so beautiful I can’t believe we won’t be successful. T. painting my bathroom. 20 Feb 81 My depression climaxes and I call in sick – feel like an ugly hopeless worthless slob. Housework all day until I become depressed over how ancient and broke everything is. So desperate I try prayer. The cure lies in orderliness I’m sure. Sun 22 Feb 81 One cure for depression is reading my diaries – the horrors of Ryder, Devon, Jervaze. Toss so wonderful by comparison. More relief offered by Ann Sexton’s poems. Mon 23 Feb 81 Feel so unequal to everything. Trying to please too many people with my writing – obvious cure: please only myself. T asked if I would mind him working for the govt – prosecutor or IRS. I said no – if he wasn’t bored. He said he’s never been as close to another person as he is to me – relief. I was considering myself a hopeless case. Dancing the only job where I didn’t have the fear of being “found out” because I knew I was good at it. 28 Feb 81 Party went well – bathroom finished, house stunningly clean & orderly. I got a bit snarly with Toss because he has literally no idea how to fit tasks into a time frame – whatever he chooses to do takes forever. He can’t prioritize, either. But the food was good, and I could tell Genevieve and Brett had a good time. T. and I got up early and dressed in our dowdiest clothes to go to New Brunswick. T and I did research – who knew I kept an 1978 expense diary? we bristled with estimates & documentation – T said he could get me a refund! I begged him not to even TRY. Called for directions – our contact not there so a new time set up. Annoying jerkwoman! Spend the day reading Shana Alexander’s Anyone’s Daughter and reflecting on Mom & Dad. Fri 6 Mar 81 -11:15 PM T. in DC for an attorney fees conference so I am all by myself. Tried calling him an hour ago but I think they went out to dinner; now I’m too tired. Exhausted after doing all the work I can stand – letters to everybody. Lots of good news – T owns up he’s worth a quarter million so he can afford to put another $900 into our account. It also explains why he doesn’t want to take a job he hates! I wouldn’t either! In fact I have a little more money than usual because the fellows were included in the general raise. And T DID get a refund for me from the IRS which frankly I think was a miracle. I immediately buy $100 worth of spring clothes and go to dance class ($65/month.) Where they yell at me for my style (which was to be expected. NOT impressed by the likes of Martha Graham. The best news of all is that Lois won her long-running case against her mother’s self-serving trustees – the bank has been officially chastised and DUMPED. Now Lois can develop the property – work for Toss & money for everybody. Unfortunately her first action is to get her sons to sign off on any interest they had in the trust – sign it over to her. This raised my eyebrows but T trusts her. Good conversation with Mom & Dad – I hadn’t actually looked at their blueprints for the new island house but I didn’t let on. Invited Mom to study in England with me three weeks this summer – she says she can’t take that much time away from Dad – he would just drink orange juice and sob.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Alysse Aallyn
Archives
September 2022
Categories |