February 9, 2008


Milky yellow dawn sky.


Invited to two parties last night. The impulse was, of course, to go to neither, but I forced myself, after rehearsal, into a festive mood. I crossed the mountain on foot to get to Ed’s house on Hy-Vu, on those unlit mountain streets which are by night very dark indeed. Had I been traveling by the stars, all had been well, for the air was better than clear, and seemed to magnify the tiny white fires above, and the night stood still and cool and beautiful. Ed phoned while I thrashed through the darkest of the dark passages. Although I was on the right path, it seemed I wasn’t, and he came part way up the street to meet me. Ed’s is everyone’s strong friend, a bulwark, dependable and loving. I do not know where he finds the fortitude, let alone the time. I wonder if he knows I have written sonnets about him? And how deeply comforting is the cell phone ringing in your pocket when it’s pitch around you and you’ve been going uphill for a long time. Ed’s party was full of people I should have known, or did know at one time. One woman discoursed at length about my yard, saying, "it’s beautiful, but it’s definitely not the yard of a Virgo."


Wound then back down to Lakeshore, where Darren and his roommates were having a party at the house that’s numbered wrong. The local theater scene was there, doing jello shots under ropes of red lights. It was all much merrier and more innocent than the debauch I was led to expect. Came home. I don’t know what happened then. But I awoke in my own bed, with a headache and the cats impatient for breakfast.


I’ve vowed to stay put during Spring Break, needing to pay off credit card debt, needing to paint toward my show in September, looking toward a summer of who knows how much necessary travel. Nevertheless, my fingers walked me to the flight sites, and a heard myself saying that a week in London was less than my State tax return, and the like. I have not succumbed, but the effort not to is surprising. Travel is the one thing which makes me predictably happy. Well, sex and a new production, but it’s harder to plan for those.