August 26, 2008

Gentle rain becomes vast rain, and rain still welcome. The groundhog takes shelter on the porch, climbing the seed can and peeking in through the front window, bewildering the cats and leaving muddy nose and paw prints at the bottom of the glass.

My painting Leda and the Swan is up in the library as part of the "Faculty and Staff" show. They put it in a very good place, where it looks radiant, where you can hardly enter without seeing it. I have fought the urge to go and stare at it.

The latest word on Michael Minor is that he is cancer-free. I have seldom prayed so hard for anything, without being able to explain to myself exactly why. But I rejoice, and thank Him who heard the prayers of all.

Spoke on the radio this morning with SP, I about my show and he about the building which houses the show. It would be difficult to imagine two minds as different in their workings as mine and his, yet I like him, and enjoy being near him.

Phone call from, of all people, Jim Powers. Is he still in prison? In or out, what does he want with me? Curiosity almost leads me to return the call, but not quite yet.

AW commended me via email on my "passive employment," which is what she calls my having dodged committees and senates and offices at the university. It brought me up short. Is this what people think of me? Is it in fact what I have done? I would have said that I kept the extraneous away while concentrating on my teaching, my students, and my art, but the extraneous might well be what people see. Nothing can be done about it now. . . in part because there’s nothing really that I want to change, except the perception.