July 23, 2016

Blessings for last night’s rain. It made the drive to Waynesville interesting– more feeling the way than driving–but I was comforted by the thought of the dry roots of my garden drinking it in. Everything looked better this morning.
   
Harry arrived for an impromptu visit, and almost immediately the exterminator arrived (he with glittering blue eyes) to deal with my yellow jackets. Almost immediately after that I sunk into regret. When he found the nest, I realized I had been spading away almost on top of them, and what I had interpreted as nasty imperialism on their part was a last-ditch effort to keep their home from being spaded up. He poisoned them, and then we dug out their pale combs writhing with their pale grubs, dying in the poison and the sunlight. I did not feel triumphant. I felt impatient and wasteful, driven by fear. For their sake I didn’t touch the garden this whole day.
   
Minos showed himself to Harry, almost as a blessing.
   
The latest thing in the pond is a shoal of tiny fry. Evidently the minnows are breeding successfully. The big fish do not seem to be eating them, or eating them very fast, or maybe their arrival was timed to take advantage of a bloom of green algae covering the sunlit portions of the bottom and allowing them places to hide. Bought a couple of placostomas (placostomaii?) to eat the algae. The man who sold them to me was a happy and fulfilled man, loving animals and working in a pet store.
   
Baked red velvet cookies for the cast tonight. Frosted. Last night I was slightly off vocally, and of course it was the night immortalized by videotape. Getting just the littlest bit tired of Jesus Christ Superstar. 
   
Have spent some portion of many recent days in a state of anger, sometimes volcanic red spikes, sometimes a gray bitter simmer. Of course I know why, and of course one or two things (long overdue already) would end it, but those things do not happen and I must find a way to proceed. The anger is a sort of fuel. It does get me through the thick days, but it is wasteful, exhausting, and wrong when it reaches out–like my frightened yellow jackets–and stings the world around. I’m almost always working at the limits of my abilities, so when I am stymied, I am truly stymied. Not angry once today, though, so I try to beat out the mood like a lump of gold and see how much it can cover.