September 20, 2015

Went to bed last night with a mouthful of pills, deciding that the rest of my life would probably involve combinations of ibuprofen to dull the effects of arthritis. Rose, however, mostly without pain, electric with energy, bounding up the stairs I had dragged myself up the night before. Perhaps it was just exhaustion. The chancellor’s installation was to some degree an institutional circle-jerk–everyone thanking one another until you wanted to burst into tears–but the speeches were occasionally memorable, and to have nice people in positions of power again–at last– is worth the annihilated morning. The people beside me were playing some kind of words game, or else sending notes back and forth. Talked with Alan a long time, after a long time. Came home and dug a new garden between the plot of the hibiscus and the plot of the eggplants. This was a big undertaking, and at one point I was literally, finally, incapable of going on with it. My body was in complete shut-down. Drank copiously, rested a little, finished the job. Don’t remember feeling that unanswerably spent since those days when I had to swim length after length of the pool to get my Lifesaving merit badge. Didn’t like it either time. I haven’t had carbs (other than those in wine) for two weeks, so I set it down to that.
   
The installation made me sad, for reasons other than the expenditure of time. I had leisure to think of my career in academia, and its seems to have been rather. . . I don’t know. . . not what I expected. I have no idea what figure I cut in others’ eyes, and perhaps that adds to the uncertainty of the image of myself in my own eyes. I have done right by my students, and that’s what I set out to do. But that seems not to be precisely what was expected. I am in limbo, not knowing what to do if not what I was doing.
   
Cleaned a closet before dawn came. Linda’s wedding pictures showed me that my sports coats are ridiculous, the hems coming down nearly to my knees. How many times did I go out thinking I was looking fine? I’m not a mirror-gazer, and when I do, I do not always know what to regard. I think the gout has rendered all my dress shoes unwearable, and I had to wear electric blue sneaks to the installation. Just one thing after another.
   
Gray dawn now. I woke urgently needing to transplant two roses I had set in uncongenial ground.