July 27, 2015

Hosting is hard work. But amiable work in the proportions I have accepted for myself. Huge happy party for the Ps last night. I think nearly everyone they invited came. Guinness cake and cauliflower casserole were hits; the eggplant Parmesan less so because the sauce was not right. Too thin. Cheesy eggplant floating in tomato juice. You catch bits of conversation, bits of unfamiliar lives forming into something ponderable for a moment, dissolving again. You’d say right off that a primary component of M’s nature is exuberance, but it turns out to be exuberance over one thing, the greatness of the production he was just in, and the even greater greatness of the one he’s in now. His wife is one of the great beauties of Asheville and his son is an angel of light. Some men have all the luck.
  
Ps are gone to their next visitation. Quiet house, a little sad. The cats walk around looking for the company they liked.
  
Will replenish my liquor cabinet, drained by the party, before, at long last, signing the refinance papers. The last business was done by email because I refused to talk to the Boy Brian. Rather amusing, actually. I am amazed by my fury sometimes–fury that is almost always in response to rules that are at once inflexible and idiotic.