September 17, 2007

Quiet night, the fattening moon staggering his way westward.

Devin and Ariel came to my office beaming like two suns. They have known each other for years (since they met in my playwriting class, they reminded me) and yet agreeing to marry has given new life to their relationship. They smile and smile and hardly say a word. Devin looks like a boy. Ariel looks like a goddess. They asked me to preside at their marriage next Memorial Day, in Carbondale, Illinois, and I said yes. It is an honor I never quite expected in this lifetime, but it makes me smile a smile a little less than the wattage of theirs, but broad and bright still. They assure me a magistrate will make up for the legality I am unable to provide. Put this as a milestone in the ever-uncertain road ahead.

The woman who looked like a woman playing a community theater director in a movie phoned and offered me the role of George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf at HART. I agreed, and we’ll have our first read-through tomorrow at a hotel at Lake Junaluska. I don’t know why. I’m happy to have won the part. I thought I lost it because I refused to come to call-backs tonight, but apparently that wasn’t necessary. I couldn’t come to call backs because of a visit to Ben, so long overdue that I was unwilling to give it up. What enormous, strong hands he has! I feel them on me now as I write; it is one more happiness in a night of multiple happinesses. How little it takes to bring joy to another, and how unnecessarily laborious we make it all at times.

Someone at Pecan Grove e-mails that A Dream of Adonis has arrived from the printer, and two copies wing their way to me now.