October 19, 2009

Saw RC looking bedraggled and wasted by the urinal. He hadn’t slept well the night before. He said, “I almost never sleep well.” I considered that I have not had a totally sleepless night in my life. This is a huge blessing, and I know it. If anything, I must struggle a little for full consciousness from time to time. This minute I am almost too sleepy to continue, but I do continue, putting off sleep as a hungry man puts off his meal so that when he has it he will be groaning with delight.

The white Christmas cactus bursts into bloom. The summer porch sun discolored the leaves, but apparently that doesn’t matter.

Reading excerpts from our favorite authors in fiction class tonight. Several of the students, clearly not prepared, stumble over words. One poor girl encountered such a word several times in her passage, and said “Oh, that word I can’t say” whenever she came to it. I was very angry, but couldn’t explain my anger to myself, and so said nothing. Now I can explain it– anger at the slovenliness, at the carelessness that this generation doesn’t seem to notice, or to deplore, if it notices. I sound like an old grouch in a movie. . . .