June 16, 2008

Bloom’s Day.

Visitors at the studio yesterday, some from UNCA, and it was good to see them. MG came with his wife. Whatever MG is talking about, all I can think is, "Man, you are so fucking beautiful." I wonder what it was like going through life looking like that? It seems not to have affected him as, I’m certain, it would have me. Unconscious Adonis. Despite good visitations, the Stroll was a catastrophe, and I tottered home almost too exhausted to go to rehearsal-- though, of course, I had to, the concert being less than a week away. Rebounded from the studio and lay down, and sank into darkness until I had to get up again. It wasn’t anything in particular, but everything in aggregate. This is a life in which a "Maybe" amid a thousand "No’s" seems like salvation. Yet, there really aren’t any lasting Maybe’s–just momentary hesitations in pronouncing "No," a hesitation which I take, desperately, idiotically, as a kind of blessing. It’s wasteful and futile and cruel, and there are moments, amid the many wherein one smiles and strives, where one must lie down in the cinders and dream of something else.

My sister left a coffee gift card for me at Mountain Java. The day had been going so badly they had to convince me it was for me, rather than some luckier person with the same name.

Father sleeps twenty two hours a day. He says a few words and then falls asleep. "What were you dreaming?" asks my sister. "Of a white church with a white congregation and a black preacher."

J and DJ and L and I go to Asheville Pizza after rehearsal. Our waiter, Ian, recognizes me because the manager names me as his favorite teacher. Ian says, "But I thought you were black." I put a hurt look on my face and say, "But I AM black." He runs off, bewildered. Ian is a theologian and says Communism is the Kingdom of God without Christ. I don’t understand that, exactly. Love proceeding from a political apparatus rather than a Person? He was briefly married. He came here to rest and sling brews for a while. I was so wildly attracted to his grave and goof-ball boy-man energy I could hardly contain myself. No. That is not true. It was sadly easy to contain myself, whatever was happening inside. It is all contained. Who counts this a victory?

Emails from the University of Iowa about the flood devastation. Context adds to horror when you hear, "The Theater and the Fine Arts Building are under water."