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Thursday, February 1st
Made it through the seven-hour bus trip here to Bennington, Vermont for my college interview. Arrived in snowstorm at weird old lady’s house, the college found me a room in her house for only $10. Nice old-lady pink decor. Her Sunday gloves and best petticoats in the bureau drawers. Ate in an old-timey diner out of the forties – blue glass mirrors, wood panelling. Chicken and rice, one slice of Wonder bread on a plate. Feel depressed, can’t sleep, listening to the wind howl.
February 2nd
Interviews not very favourable. With poetry professor discussed the ‘use’ of poetry as a useless art. That was good but the literature professor rather upset me. He was brusque and sneering. He hadn’t read any of the writings I had sent, acted like he was just too busy! I froze up and couldn’t understand anything he was saying as I realized he was dooming me. I think I had a ‘fugue’ — I was walking away from his office down the corridor, and at that instant could not remember saying good-bye or leaving his office. Still can’t. A walking, waking blackout.
Talked to some students over dinner at the same old diner. They said it was a terrific bore there all winter and that they all had ‘cabin fever.’ They thought it was funny I had never heard that phrase before. What can I say I’ve lived in cities all my life, except at St. John’s where the dorms/cabins were on a mountain-side. Went for a long nature walk with them — the naked aspen trees appear to be covered with eyes.
Saturday, February 3rd
9 PM
Last night the students I’d met came to get me at the biddy’s and we drove to a redneck hangout to hear the blues. There was a beautiful red-head lady saxophone player, so intense! I think she was coming on to me! Danced and went wild. Got home after 3 AM and got violently ill from Southern Comfort and repressed sex.
I was awakened at 6 AM by a crazed bitch shrieking at me to get out of her house, “I’m going to call the police!” Screaming in my hungover ears I had to BUY the sheets I’d slept on, because she was going to have to throw them away, because I was “EVIL!” Really disturbing. I went to the bathroom and saw that I had cleaned up very well for being drunk. But there were pukey towels and it stank because the windows don’t open. They’re nailed shut or glued or something for the winter.
Then on top of all this she calls me to breakfast! When I refused food she got nervous and tried to apologize. She was scared of me, of Satan’s powers, that maybe NOW Satan was gonna get mad at her. Somehow she got me to the table and served me a mess of one-minute eggs. They were raw! Is that what devils eat?
It was 7 AM I wasn’t allowed to go back to bed and I was going to be throwing up again, so I crawled out into the snow with my little suitcase, Ol’ Harpy screeching that I should wait, wait, she was calling me an ambulance. Hiked all the way to the bus-station in a snowfall, collapsed on a bench for four hours of hangover agony. Then five hours on the bus, vomiting to the point of the black bile. Arrived in New York at 5 PM, ecstatic to be in the city.
Pampering myself all evening, stole some of Georgy’s Valiums.
Sunday, February 4th
Lethargic day, rainy and grey. Read OUI magazine, Playboy and Penthouse, then read Proust for an hour. Played with the cats, wrote two poems. Went for a little walk and got rained on. Georgy is being nice but toujours distant, he is anxious that I find an apartment. He wants to get our security deposit back as soon as possible. What can I do, I have to wait for my next paycheck, I can go look but if I don’t have money in hand it’s useless. Is he expecting me to ask for a loan? I won’t do it.
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