December 21, 2007

Solstice. Blessed be. Maud purring on my lap.

The car heater chose now to die, so I note with relief that the days when I must drive to Atlanta do not, on the Internet weather forecast, look too arctic. Can one operate a car in winter without a heater? We’ll see. I want to complain,”Why do these things always happen when they cannot possibly be fixed in time?,” but I recognize that I haven’t broken a leg or am not on the lam, so all is well.

Quick lunch at Asheville Pizza yesterday, where I encountered AR, who was waiting for a friend. The friend, a local attorney (that should have been a signal) was distressed by the Feng Sui of the tables, and commenced moving them about–moving my table from under me as I was eating– arranging things so I no longer had an exit without crawling under the table, putting her purse and keys on my little table instead of hers. Tim immediately transformed into her personal servant. I wondered what sort of life she had which would allow for that.

The wiring at the studio was being seen to when I arrived yesterday, Mark P bustling colorfully about. It was like a movie about people fixing the wiring in a big arty studio. Eventually Nava stomped out because there were certain places she can plug her heaters in and certain places she can’t. I stomped out not long after because I was painting badly.

Linda says that Jonathan was home from college for a while, but went back in a huff because conditions would not allow him to be on the computer playing computer games every hour of the day. He went back to Columbus, where there is no competition for computer time.

Dad phoned to ask about the Saint Nicholas photos I’d sent. He could barely speak, but what voice he had was full of interest and good intentions and–what was it? Longing. I was standing in the rain outside church listening to him, and I had not yet felt grief like that for him before. I couldn’t go to the Usual with my friends, but had to go home and sit in the dark.

Gray rain. Music from the Elder Edda on the CD
Have painted a little. Have written nothing.

Trying to get students’ recommendations to graduate school in before the deadlines, which I know are out there but which I never sharply comprehend. The two I’m working on today are Devin and John S. What a remarkable breadth of character and accomplishment is represented by the two of them! One is sharp and fluid as Pope, and destined, I think, to wrench the course of American theater back a few steps toward where it would have been had Jonson and Etheridge had their way. The other is a warrior saint. I feel privileged to have known them, and prayerful that I might have done them right along the way.