August 30, 2011

Stopped counting when the apologies for missing Vance among my colleagues reached fourteen. The flat fact is that the only reason why anybody doesn’t go anywhere is, finally, because they don’t want to. The whole matter is probably best left unmentioned. The group I’d hurried out to meet on Saturday night didn’t make it, except for L and K. I knew this at the time. What I didn’t know is that they had gathered at the bar in Weaverville as planned, but had gotten so drunk that none could finish the journey to Mars Hill. When this was told to me it was clear I was meant to find it amusing and endearingly human. I found it, actually, so clear a gesture of contempt that I could hardly continue the day among them. I stand outside the magic circle of people my colleagues care about. I must have wanted it that way at one time, someone is bound to say. What most astonishes is that we are so incurious about the present, living aspect of what we present in our classrooms. Had there been a playwright on our faculty at Hiram, we would have walked to Cleveland at midnight to see his work.

Yesterday a bad one all in all. The cascade of false remorse broke my stride and I never got it back. Did enjoy conferences with my creative writers, each of whom is charmingly unique, some so frightened, some so confident. No idea from those few moments who can write and who cannot. Had a meeting with the first student (not in my class, nor ever to be) who, I knew from the first moment, was not sane. I often don’t pick up on that. Did this time. Watched her carefully to see how much of it was an act. A presentation. Couldn’t, finally, tell. Maybe if you’re really wacko, none of it is an act.

Carolyn returns to a great sounding of car alarms.

Auditioned for the university theater for the first time in 20 years. Testing the waters. In the display cabinet were posters from Much Ado, Tartuffe, The Canterbury Tales. I told the kids auditioning with me that I had starred in them all, which is quite true, though whether they believed me or not was hard to tell. Theater games before the audition. I normally think I hate theater games, but in the middle of it I was wondering why. They were fun, and I felt limbered up afterwards.

DVD of an amazing British series about the founding of the Bow Street Runners by none other than Henry Fielding and his brother John. Like CSI in 1750.