Jessica’s Diary

In the 1960s, Jessica's Diary is a Classic women fiction that gave a wry voice to the nascent women's rights and helped incite a revolution in a generation's consciousness.

Jessica Evelyn begins a secret diary as a form of therapy and escapes when she suspects that she is going mad. Elevators, subways, bridges, tunnels, high places, low places, tightly enclosed spaces, boats, cars, planes, trains, and crowds are among her fears. Jessica searches for meaning in her dreary existence by observing herself and those around her. Her candid examinations result in many changes, including an extramarital affair. Her voice strikes a timeless nerve, resonating on many levels – from the ever-evolving feminist consciousness to the universal gnawing existential search.

Jessica's Diary's wit and insight are as current and relevant today as they were yesterday, and it will charm and disarm men and women of all ages.

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Thursday, September 22

It is nine-fifteen on this sweltering September morn, more sultry than any late spring day we had. Every one of the windows is open, and sediment, similar to the aftermath, is floating in and settling all over the place. Outside this room entryway, which I've locked, the loft is unfilled still. The young ladies returned to school today, a Friday, for what is called Reorientation Day. I've recently returned from seeing them off on the school transport and strolling Freya on Central Park West, which took everlastingly since Freya despises the drains, and since I'm hesitant to go into the recreation center. Today I swore I'd make myself go in there and got similarly as the passage when I saw the man in the way, standing and lonely grinning up at the trees. He was an extremely older person with white hair, who was most likely someone's helpless old resigned Dad, or a decrepit birdwatcher trusting, perchance, to detect a purple finch—however, I wasn't going to hazard it. Not nowadays. Not me.

So it was the messy drains with torn pages of the Daily News. The moment I got back up here, I locked this entryway—I don't care for that quietness—opened my center cabinet and got this cushion free from a heap of nylon slips. It's an awesome thick cushion, one hundred and 32 pages. As my hand drops down the main page so white, so new, it leaves moist puffy wrinkles, making the ink run when I attempt to compose over them. I purchased the cushion yesterday in the 5&10. I took the young ladies there for a treat since they'd been so acceptable while we looked for their new winter clothing and night robe at Bloomingdale's. The pleasure was frozen custards, and five dollars of school supplies and unadulterated diversion since the Bartlett School gives every one of the provisions they need. In any case, I'd guaranteed, and that is the thing that they needed, so they each took a bin and started to stuff it with something—minimal twisting scratchpad, bunches of pencils, pink erasers, boxes of paper cuts, plastic rulers, pen nibs, Magic Markers and containers of paste. As they perused and snatched, I remained by watching, wishing the spasm in my right eye would stop, and asking that the sense of foreboding deep in my soul wasn't going to deteriorate, when I recognized a pile of these cushions and got the thought, actually like that. I saw them and realized they were the thing I'd been requiring, were the thing I'd been searching for from the beginning, without realizing I was needing or searching for anything like them, on the off chance that I get my point across. Furthermore, I likewise realized the thought was correct, was sound, because as I stood and gazed at the cushions, the spasm in my eye abruptly halted, the sense of foreboding deep in my soul vanished—a Sign. So I got four pillows and stuck them under my arm. "Are those for us, Michael?" asked Kirsten at the checkout when I put them down to be rung up with their things. "No. They're intended for me," I said, removing a plastic rain hat from her hand and returning it to the reserved register. "For you?" said Olivia. "For what reason do you require that load of cushions? How are you going to manage such countless grisly cushions?" I took out my wallet to hold back from smacking her hard. "Records," I said serenely, tallying out bills. "I will do my records."

Presently Account is an excellent word. Records in its reportorial, not calculative sense. Record, bookkeeping—a record of what is happening. Better than a diary or journal by a long shot. Journal makes me think about those young ladies at camp, consistently fat and sodden young ladies, who had counterfeit green morocco journals with locks and keys they wore on chains around their dingy necks. Diary makes me think about every one of those school Lit courses, of Gide or Woolf or Gorky or Baudelaire; however, I should concede that something like Baudelaire's "I has felt the breeze of the wing of frenzy disregard me" comes very near what I have as a primary concern.

In any case, Accounts are acceptable. Records are ideal. Indeed, Accounts does tranquil well. For a model—an Account of what occurred here today at 7:22:

Tossing a spotless shirtless two catches down on his bed with disdain, Charlie went to his chest for another and said: "Anna. Anna, I'm truly stressed over you."

Fortunately, he had him covered to me and couldn't see my response to this. "Truly?" I said, lastly completed the process of dashing up my pants. "That is interesting. Why in the world would you say you are stressed over me?"

"It's not in the slightest degree amusing." He pivoted as he stuck an arm into a shirt, probably a shirt with every one of its catches on. "Indeed, it's significant. I'm concerned because you're not yourself and haven't been for quite a long time."

Contemplating whether the dance was up, I figured out how to remain ostensibly quiet. I said, "I truly have no clue about the thing you're discussing, Charlie," and strolled to the mirror to brush my hair.

He murmured and went to the tie rack affixed inside his storeroom entryway and started scavenging through the 117 ties hanging there. "I'm discussing a ton of things. For a starter, take how you look. You don't look well; truth be told, you look simply horrible. Your tones are spoiled, you look depleted, you appear to shed pounds, and you don't appear to mind what you look like to finish everything off. Then, at that point, alongside this, you're sensitive as damnation. Unsteady and touchy and disarranged. That is to say, for instance, take a thing like the trunks in the storage room. We've been back from the country for very nearly fourteen days, yet you haven't taken action to unload those wicked trunks and get them the damnation out of here. I could go on, Teen; however, I think at this point when I say you're not yourself, you get the overall thought."

I got the overall thought. He'd completed the dressing process and, prepared for his morning meal, stood hanging tight for me to attempt to vindicate myself. I said: "Rail route Express brought those trunks last Friday morning. They've been here a multi-week, not two. Right around one entire trunk is loaded up with your messy summer garments. Since you demand they be taken care of press, just as washed, and since you don't care for Daisy's pressing and will not allow me to send them out, I need to get an uncommon laundress, which is something I essentially haven't had the opportunity to mastermind. I haven't had time because the young ladies have been at last details until school began today. I've needed to assist with keeping them entertained. For about fourteen days, I've needed to run all over town with them in this indecent warmth—taking them shopping, taking them to the specialist and dental specialist for their yearly tests, taking them places with companions. On the off chance that I look drained and pale and to some degree muddled and appear to be unsteady and disrupted, this is because I can't take too going around in this warmth and because I haven't had a solitary moment to myself."

Looking to some degree put off by this intricate demonstration of fortuitous proof (which really, is a legal advisor, ought to have put him insightful), Charlie tediously shook his head. "OK, Teen. OK. I award you all that is valid; however, I'm stressed over you. What I'd like you to do is go to Ryan Nathan and get a complete exam—it very well maybe you're pallid or something to that effect without knowing it. Also, I think after the exam, it very well may be a smart thought to take a brief trip and see Tobiah, proceed to have a discussion."

"Tobiah. Why in God's name would it be a good idea for me to see Tobiah?"

Charlie gave another patient moan. "Why. Since he helped you gigantically when you were in such a state two years prior, that is the reason."

"May I remind you," I said uproariously, "that I was in 'such a state' in light of the fact that my Dad was relied upon to pass on at any second. I'm in no sort of state now!"

"OK, alright. Relax, for the wellbeing of God—that's exactly what I mean. You're delicate as hellfire." And he went clacketing off a few doors down in his spic and span $65.00 Peal shoes.

End of Account. Remark: That was close. Close shave. Helpless Charlie. Sensitive and confused, he thinks I am. Anxious and bad-tempered. What I truly am and have been since midsummer is deadened. What I am is distrustful as a fogy. What I am now and again is so discouraged I can't talk, so low I need to secure myself in the restroom and run every one of the fixtures to cover the sound of my crying. What I am on different occasions is so invigorated with nerves I can't bear stilling, and everything shakes. I end up either taking a pill or a quick, slippery shot of vodka—it depends which is accessible. What I am is out of nowhere scared of most all that you could name. I'll call a couple. I'm apprehensive about:

Lifts, metros, spans, caves, high places, low places, firmly encased spots, boats, vehicles, planes, trains, swarms, abandoned parks, dental specialists, honey bees, insects, fluffy moths, cockroaches, young possess, muggers, attackers, sharks, fires, tsunamis, deadly sicknesses—each one known to man.

The rundown could go on; however, I can't.

I've never needed to confront it in high contrast previously. It's a triviality obnoxious, as is commonly said. Indeed, however, everything began toward the beginning of August in the country; it didn't advance going max throttle beyond until we moved back to the city the end of the week after Labor Day. How I've figured out how to conceal it is past me, yet even before Charlie's little discourse today, I realized I would not have been ready to keep it up without assistance. Be that as it may, by assisting I with importance Tobiah. Sometime before Charlie brought him up, I'd ruled against it, the principal reason being that I basically couldn't confront the possibility of going through all that once more. Assuming one even could. I mean, I was contracted, completely, and apparently with progress; for a very long time, I've been working delightfully, and I can't resist the urge to feel that I've pretty recently gotten briefly Out of Order and that what's turned out badly is something no one, but I can fix. Not hairpiece picker material by any means.

The other explanation I'm not going to see Tobiah is that I never told Charlie. I'm irritated as damnation regarding that little repeat Tobiah, and I had two years prior. While the facts confirm that I was "in a state," as Charlie brings up—I was unable to quit crying—there was a condemned valid justification: my Dad had a coronary impediment and lay in an oxygen tent in the clinic, On the Brink of Death. I cried day and night, which is quite debilitating. At last, I called Tobiah and went to see him, ready for a review of sorts, maybe a repeat of the entire Electra thing, with some intelligent new fold like The King Must Die tossed in to brighten up things up. Ha. For two meetings, Tobiah didn't talk, just paid attention to me sob and chatter. In the third meeting, he, at last, shouted out. He said I wasn't crying with regards to my Dad yet about myself. He said: "I would never get you to understand the entire idea of mortality during your examination. In any case, you did as well, despite that I chose to allow it to pass. One should do that in treatment—let certain issues pass—in any case, certain patients would be perpetually confined. Be that as it may, here it is finally. Also, you are crying since you see since you too should kick the bucket. You are crying because the approach of your Dad's demise has made you see the certainty of your own, has made you see finally that nobody is everlasting, most importantly, yourself." Though I'd sobbed somewhat at the start of the third meeting, I'd quit crying when he said this. To my psyche, I'd stop crying basically because my Dad was off the basic rundown by then, at that point—out of the oxygen tent, out of risk, alright to make arrangements to sell his business and resign to Florida. I expressed gratitude toward Doctor Tobiah, who said he'd mail me a bill (for $120.00) and said I should call and come in any time I wanted to, and left him putting a new paper towel on the headrest of his love seat.

Which is the place where I'll leave him. In addition to the fact that I think I can fix what's wrong with me, however, I additionally figure it will end up being an accident. Something ecological. Or then again, something way out that hasn't been archived at this point, similar to a Pre-Menopausal Agitation, a little review of what's coming. Or then again, because I turned 36 toward the beginning of August: the circumstance is positively correct. Thirty-sixties. I'll never forget that mid-year we went through three weeks in Wellfleet, a similar summer Marilyn Monroe passed on when some examiner's significant other sat on the seashore one evening time holding forward on the abhorrences of turning 36—guaranteed that 36 was a critical and hazardous age for a lady—like fifty for a man. Guaranteed, she imagined that the way that MM had quite recently turned 36 had a ton to do with her self-destruction. At the time, all I needed to do was bop her on her empty head with Kirsten’s sand scoop; however, perhaps she had something all things considered. Thirty-sixties. Is that what I have?

I don't think so. In any case, whatever it is that is off with me, I figure it will be a significant assistance to write in here. Evidence of how great my hunch was, of how remedial it's now been: my hands are dry and warm—I haven't made the paper pucker since the subsequent page—and I'm adequately eager to need to have some lunch without precedent for weeks. Indeed. I figure it would not exclusively be a decent spot to release pressure, yet in addition, may assist me with seeing things all the more unmistakably: if I made it my plan to put something down unbiasedly, as they occur, and afterward at some later time rehash it, I could detect some pattern, some key that will assist with clarifying why I've gotten in this state. On the off chance that I do choose to go on with it, the significant issue will be a protected concealing spot, a spot more secure than my clothing cabinet or the capacity box for handbags on my wardrobe rack, since Daisy takes care of my perfect clothing, and the young ladies scrounge in my storage room now and again. However, that is a little

Untimely. I'll need to stop for now. It's 11:45, a lot later than I suspected, and Daisy's been in for 3/4 of 60 minutes. As I compose this, I can hear her moving the young ladies beds as she makes them in the room nearby, which means she'll need to get in here soon. So right now, I'll pause and conceal this in my stocking cabinet and go in the kitchen and get some lunch. Then, at that point, I'll telephone Doctor ("call-me-Ryan") Nathan and make an arrangement for a test—to mollify Charlie, yet to check whether I can con him into giving me more pills: the stockpile I got from that quack in Sag Harbour is running perilously low. After that, I definitely should telephone for a laundress to come and do the things in the trunks, telephone for a man to go and wax the floors while the mats are still up, telephone for a window-washer ... furthermore, telephone for God knows who else. Yet, by one way or another, settling on that load of decisions doesn't interest me, address me. So I'll put on a dress and take Freya over to that Poodle Parlor on Lexington Avenue for a clasp. Preferable her over me.