August 30, 2016

Watered sufficiently, so everything in the garden is assured of another day’s life.
   
The disasters I feared from my playwrights last night did not materialize. What I thought would be calamities were merely irritants, and that can be dealt with. The one with the unendurable voice talks most. It is practically a law. New kid, whose father’s second wife I knew quite well. I said, “I knew your mother” and he set me straight. She is recently dead, in any case. He is one of the best writers I’ve encountered here, though with his Beckett-like evasiveness it’s difficult to tell if he’s wise and good or merely skillful. Three students in two different classes said, “I’m so glad I’m taking this course.” I’m hitting my stride–or an additional stride–just as others of my generation retire.
   
Full of energy, not all of it directed, or even directable.  Some of the edge must come off before I can even sit down to write. Did the Mountain Xpress crossword in ink in fifteen minutes, slamming down horrible coffee . On the downside, I’m continually hoarse, and rivers of phlegm rift up from my lungs. I complain to the doctors; they listen; they all, is if in chorus, declare, “the lungs are clear.”
   
Delicious day off. I drink in idleness–or what in my life passes for it–like yellow wine.