August 31st, 1982

Nearly midnight— I just got home from an evening in Hoboken with Phil. He made a wonderful dinner. I gave him the set of ceramic fish chopsticks I brought back from Providence. He rented a movie— “A Place in the Sun” and we sprawled on the sofa like lovers and watched TV. He stretched out and lay his head in my lap. I stroked his thick strong arms. God, I love him. I will always love him. As Elizabeth Taylor said to Monty as he waited on Death Row, “I will go on loving you for as long as I live”. Phil has put on weight. A lot, actually. I love him all the more. He talks to me casually about Morey. How very much Morey wants me to visit in the country. Fuck Morey. I hope Morey gets hit by a truck tomorrow. I hate Morey. How I wanted Phil to take me in his arms and carry me to bed. He didn’t. Once, he went downstairs for tea and I went into his bedroom and buried my face in his pillow. Breathing his smell, pressing my face into the smell of his body.

A part of me is humiliated at accepting this odd relationship. But, the first time I visited him this spring there was a formality to our being together; the next time we kissed goodbye. Tonight he was physically affectionate. It may take me years but I will get him in bed again— I will make him love me.

Of course, all this is horseshit, and I know it. Walking to the train after leaving him, I actually ached with the pain of unrequited love. Like a burst of illumination, I realized that this is exactly the plot of Gone With the Wind— Scarlett O’Hara and her obsessive passion for Ashley Wilkes— for what she could not have. And Morey the perfect Melanie. I was delighted at identifying with such a rich drama.

And I realized how much I enjoy this— suddenly aching didn’t seem so much like pain. I love my little melodramas thank you— and I have full and complete permission to have them.

And I love Phil and I love Joe and I love my Bohemian life in Greenwich Village and my Fashion Avenue advertising career and the acting classes I am about to take and my fabulous new apartment I am about to get and my trip to Italy next Spring and that—

I have permission for the first time in my life to have it all. I can have my way.

I go to bed now with my marvelous dog and my romantic little heart beating quickly.