November 5, 2012

Between the time Circe woke me and the time I actually got up, I dreamed that I was starting school again, in a dorm at Johns Hopkins. DJ was my roommate, and we were best friends with some girl I didn’t recognize, and DJ was going on about this mutual friend he was in love with and for some reason I couldn’t believe it, and I had a massage therapist, but I didn’t know where or what my classes were. A kid brought his dog in to play, and I was happy and carefree and irresponsible and had a complicated social life, the way I was not when I really went to college.

If my ears could tell, the Lauridson and the Dove went well. I sang well, anyway. I read poetry with Holly at Malaprop’s just before, and Richard came from that reading. I was happy to see him there; he seemed happy to be there. The reading went well, though I rushed and stumbled. I guess I was worried about getting to church in time. I worry about my poems unless I’m actually reading them. A wall of new tenors, 4 or 5 of them trying to out-diva the other. The effect is really rather thrilling. In two days I’ve been an artist, a plutocrat, a fantasy novelist, a poet, a singer. Today near the end I must be a scholar and teacher, though what comes before is not yet known.

Feeling disengaged. Feeling so obsessed I barely have time for anything else, though what I’m obsessed by is too poorly defined to be approached directly. Not this. . . not that. . . neti. . . neti. .

Sweet C writes from Chicago.