January 17, 2014

Four garbage bags stuffed with shirts to haul to the Goodwill truck. I suppose one acquires as long as one has space. If I look into the closets they still seem full, though not so crammed.

Beautiful moon, night after night.

Afternoon: Closed on 51 Lakeshore. Karen and Stewart and I did a walk-through that renewed (or ignited) my excitement about the place. For one thing, there’s room for ample flower beds in front of the house–and facing south– without my even having to set spade to turf. The great western pine seems not to shade the yard overmuch. This was full salvation. Everything that came after was flourish. Stewart will be leaving Sunday, and Monday I can roam around to my heart’s content, though I can’t actually move in until the painting’s done.

The closing was sort of idiotic. The bank had me sign every page of my last year’s tax return. I asked why and Rose said, “No reason at all. It’s just crap.” Most of it is just crap. Like the security lines at the airport: the institution makes a terrible mistake and then a great show of imposing procedures that do not address that much issue at all, but give a public impression of doing. . . something. . .  as if inconvenience were a sign of diligence.

Good class on Gilgamesh. One of the students said he’d dropped out of the Honors class to take mine because the word on campus attested mine was better.

Spent time in the early morning writing in the café, as it turned out, about the Chancellor’s resignation. I think subtler things abut that than I had imagined.