January 16, 2012

I bless Martin Luther King for giving me this day off.

Pot-luck last night convivial, the P-D’s new room gorgeous. My attitude at the pot-luck was uncharacteristically good; I let two opportunities to flee away pass by before I finally did. I enjoyed making my dish. In the larger world, I have taken up three musical instruments since Christmas, since September added serious wine scholarship to my list of hobbies, found satisfaction in preparing manuscripts for submission, re-discovered pleasure in preparing for my classes, even finding occasions–plays and readings–so spend MORE time with my students. Have not despaired at rehearsals. In short, I’m experiencing a revival of enthusiasm and energy greater than I’ve known for a long time– a time in which there have been, instead, many a decline and extended torpor and turning-away. I never know the whys of these things, though I assume they’re not totally random. Nothing exhausts me except physically.

Stared at as I write by the living Circe, who likes to have her nose against the computer, and by the stuffed dog I got in Galway, and the little stuffed panda I found on the Millennium Bridge in London. Maybe they are good spirits, presiding.