New York 3

September 30, 2017

Dedicated the day to the Metropolitan, which is deucedly hard to get to from this side of the island. Bought Michelangelo’s Notebooks, Spent a good time in the Classical sculpture, which looked so cool, clean, tranquil, and, tranquil, mused upon tranquility. A Chinese woman was abusing her child—she snapped at him, looked around, and when she felt herself unobserved, slapped him viciously across the face. I moved toward her, staring my most teacherly stare. She recoiled, then bent down to the child and pretended to explain patiently the reason she had hit him. I hoped she would attack me, so to learn what happens when one attacks someone your own size. Happy, full day. China’s revenge was to give me a Chinese cabbie on the ride home, who spoke not one word of English. It was excruciating.

          

Evening to the Beckett at Theater Row to see, The Suitcase Under the Bed, short plays by the Irishwoman Teresa Deevy. She is one of the “neglected voices” that the Mint company specializes in reviving. Had I read the pleading producer’s forward before, I might not have gone. Why had I never heard of her, when I am in the top 1%, probably, of those who know the Irish theater? The suitcase under the bed was where her manuscripts lay un-looked at for fifty years. The theater was intimate, the acting good. The plays were, sentimental, modest, well-made, almost exactly what one would have expected.  As for her assertion that they represented the truth of Irish life in her time, who knows? The Irish must have been very innocent.

        

Wrote two poems. My bottom line was that they be better than when we heard Thursday night, and they were.

Rather lovely day wandering around in the Village, both West and East. Sat in the Think Café in the north of the Village, among actors discussing acting, among writers tapping furiously at their lap tops, and where I myself began a new play based on the reminiscences of an old woman I met in the Paramount Bar the last time I was here. Bought a jacket at a military surplus store. Cruised Washington Square, visiting the scene of the Diamond Shirtwaist Fire. A red haired man played a grand piano in the light rain of the Square. Lunch at a sports bar off Astor Place, where cheers went up for one soccer team or the other.  Saw As You Like it at CTC on East 13^th. It was radically cut—by ¼, I would think—to accommodate doing it without intermission, I guess. It featured movie star Ellen Burstyn as Jacques, rather a mistake, for she was frail and tentative and it was hard to see exactly how she fit in. Duke Senior and his men were absent, to make way for the love story. It was, all in all, not the ideal rendition. What I remember most was how bad I had to piss when it was over, and the restrooms were packed, and I couldn’t find relief until Bryant Park.  

New York 2

September 29, 2017

Began yesterday with my visit to Bryant Park, mossy green under the brilliant sky. Walked to MOMA, where I was apparently early and people keep shouting at me that this gallery or that was not yet open, but some were, so it was confusing. Gorgeous Max Ernst, kind of sickening Louise Bourgeoise, the permanent galleries, as usual, profound, and the rest largely of the moment. Sat in the garden and contemplated the moving waters. Ate falafel at a deli near the Park. 

Late in the afternoon I began my trek to the New School (which is wonderful, and I wish I had known it when I could have used it). Deep tiredness was on me, and for the first time in my life I suspected I wouldn’t make it if I tried to walk, so took the subway and arrived early enough for a merlot at a sidewalk café on 6^th Avenue. Twenty seven poets of some renown gathered in the tiny green room before the reading, passing our books around to be signed by the others. There were famous names: Robert Pinsky, Sharon Olds, Joyce Carol Oates. Our editor started the evening by reading a long poem by John Ashbery, who is in the anthology though recently deceased. It was awful, the poem was, like all Ashbery poems I know, learned, self-satisfied, flat, assuming much and discovering nothing, the conversation of elegant Upper East Side fags over prosecco and hors d’oeuvres. Long boring poems were the rule of the evening, in fact, which began at 7 and ended just before 10. Joyce Carol Oates’ was among the longest and easily the worst, a desiccated and barely imagined diatribe against, of all things, Marlon Brando. I need to teach a class in The Long Poem, which should not be like an unruly lawn, just spreading out in all directions willy-nilly, but like a great tree, growing from a point toward a point with green and solidity between. In all that mass there were four poems worth listening to: mine was one. Mine was also quite the shortest. The audience was huge (about 300) and young and very kind. I prayed our tediousness didn’t set any of them off poetry. What happened afterwards I don’t know, as I was launching toward 14^th street and the subway.

         

Wandered Times Square, then back to the Paramount for drinks. Met A, VP of Sales at Casa Dragones, a liquor importer. I noticed him because, though I walk down the streets of New York noticing handsome men, he was the most handsome I had seen all night. Big, blond, a little thick with middle age, he looked like a model for a Join the Marines commercial. He was in fact a Vet, and very much the businessman, and about as right-wing as you’d expect. He buttoned a button that was undone on my shirt. He bought me a drink and showed me his son (in military uniform, at VMI, his own alma mater) and his three wives, all heart-stoppingly gorgeous. The current one is the least gorgeous but the most beautiful, which I said and which he seemed to understand. He said, “You are the one professor I have ever met who was not full of bullshit.” We actually were able to talk a little educational politics. He’s afraid his son is being “brainwashed” by liberal professors, and my response was that liberal professors often take that stand for fear their students are being brainwashed by right wing bigots; it’s all to balance the input, all in genuine concern for the young. This seemed to sound reasonable to him. The bar man cut him off, which angered him and puzzled me, as he wasn’t drunk or disorderly that I noticed. I need encounters like that in my life. I love hotel bars.

New York 1

September 28, 2017

          Seventeenth floor of the Paramount Hotel. View into the ventilation shaft, as usual. My seat companion for the flight was Brendan, an investor on his way to present his company, Singing Machines, the world’s largest maker of karaoke machines, to a group of investors. The company’s stock fluctuates between 2 and 20 cents, so he thought it might be an excellent buy for me. His knowledge of the markets was detailed and fascinating, but he seemed at the moment slightly diminished from former glory. He sold his two houses and now rotates among the houses of friends. He did not vote for Trump but was glad he won, because Hillary is a murderess. I asked him how he knew this and he said there is a book outlining how all the Clintons’ associates end up dead in mysterious housefires or commit suicide with TWO shots to the dead. This seemed implausible to me, but I realized I had no facts to support my doubt. He was an attractive man and I saw how he might make his way.

          Slightly unpacked, then made for the Iron Bar, which I do because it is, sort of, my local. Waitress Jennifer (from Staten Island, right beside the central fire house) talked to me about the Midwest, which In didn’t understand until I realized the credit card I’d given her is from a bank in Omaha. The city is not packed or frenetic just now, so the tour through Times

was nostalgic.

September 27, 2017

Christine here last night to discuss the production of Night Music over pale wine. Discussion of two different play productions, me correcting proofs on a book– two days of what I thought my whole life would be.

Kent State on the Vietnam War series last night. I was there. It is still a shock, and the shock is made deeper and more hateful by the discoveries of time. Also, Nixon, who I had thought was a smart man blundering into a series of unhappy mistakes, was actually evil and crooked from the first. People said so; I should have listened. He may have been even more evil than Trump. Trump is a stampeding elephant; Nixon was a viper in the grass.

Uncovered unrevised poems from Budapest, Venice, Ireland, with no time today to look at them very deeply.

The day of travel is always upheaval.

September 26, 2017

Read-through of Uranium 235 in the basement of the Grove Arcade last night. I’d arrived early and had time for a leisurely glass of wine at one of the sidewalk bistros, a lovely ritual which I could pursue almost daily if I set my mind to it. Limpid, sweet, European. The read-through was satisfactory in most every way, and in some cases truly exciting. Several parts written for men are being taken by women–a personnel necessity, I suppose, but one of my pet peeves. Genders are NOT interchangeable, and the play will be marred by this. AG seems less agitated by it than I, so I’ll look the other way and let it drop. I am always grateful and amazed when people take their time to say my lines and actualize my vision.
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Tumultuous creative writing class yesterday. Chaos or excitement? I’m not sure. Superb poetry class, in which I introduced Shelley to general approbation. Today I need to get 58 things done in order to fly off to New York tomorrow. I tick them off one by one.

September 25, 2017

Rose ghostly early, caught up on bills, changed out the litter box that we were using when we moved here. Of course the new is not so good as the old.

No day goes by that our President does not embarrass himself and his country. Anyone else would have been impeached before Inauguration Day.

People getting into a sweat about what other people do during the National Anthem. Always a disaster to worry about other people’s symbolism.

My handsome leopard frog leaps into the pond with a squeak when I so much as walk out onto the terrace. This is disheartening. Who does he think dug the pond for him?

September 24, 2017

Theater last night, Lucia’s new play, one of the local pieces which I can, at last, unreservedly praise. The perspectives in the two person play are not equal– one is clearly right, the other clearly wrong– but the writing does not judge between them. Good performances, too. I have a peer. The people in the seat behind me said they saw Washington Place several times, and thought it was the best thing the Magnetic has yet done. AG paid for my drinks. Nevertheless, I was uncomfortable all evening, fearing that to enjoy myself would somehow be a betrayal of SS, not even sure anything I would do or say or feel were applicable to the situation. Wanted to offer my help as the theater moves forward, but ought I? WILL it move forward? No one was talking about “it,” and neither did I, unsure whether I was meant to know or not. But AG has not cancelled tomorrow’s rehearsal, so onward.

Thought of Aunt Barbara. When my cousin Diane, her daughter, was not much more than a baby, Barbara and Diane and I were blackberry picking. Diane (being a baby) was smashing berries and upturning her bucket and not doing it “right.” I wanted to point this out, so our outing would not be futile. I realized that Diane was Barbara’s daughter, and so she would be predisposed to be on her side, but also that I was right, and trusted an adult to be on the side of the right disinterestedly.  So I made my complaint. My aunt’s response was, “You are hateful.” That was more than sixty years ago–perhaps I was six-- but it is as vivid as this moment. I stopped at the time and considered, Am I hateful? Have I been hateful all day, or was it just that one comment? I realized I had been foolish to think that she would take my side against her baby, but I had thought she might, given the reasonableness of my stand. I wonder today if “You are hateful” was her final and permanent evaluation of me. I can’t think of much I did to encourage her to change her mind. She is alive. She can be asked, but I do not have the courage. Perhaps she does not remember at all. Who ever means to be hateful?

A little more planting. Watching the orange fish in the pond circle slowly, glowing torpedoes, growing without aid from me.

September 23, 2017

Office hours yesterday were taken up by visitation from three students, S, C, Quinn, who pretty much “just wanted to chat” and who each was a unique blessing, cheery and smart and candid. I counted them against great swaths of the Darkness, and they came out ahead. S was Exploration; C was Music; Q was Performance.

Hugely active day. I was digging in the garden before full light. Cultivated. Cleaned out about an acre of crabgrass (grown over mulch, so came out fairly easily with a rake), planted Dutch iris, German iris, double snowdrops. Lately I have been afflicted with tiredness coming on fairly quickly–one flight of stairs, a couple of heavy lifts– which does not involve pain or shortness of breath but simply a leaden, pervasive exhaustion. I thought this would get in the way of gardening.  The tiredness did come on, but did not grown any worse after the first iteration, so on I went. Less tired now than I would be at the end of an ordinary, not-much-physical-exertion day. After gardening I went to the studio and painted well, but no one was climbing the stairs, and I left a little discouraged. Second bout of gardening ended by rain.

Tried to buy a ticket to the Magnetic for tonight. The web page was out, and when I warned SS about it, he emailed back that he had been relieved by the Board of his duties. Impossible to know what to say on the basis of limited information, except that I had the impression he did 85% of the work done there, and what will they do now? Who is the Board and what were the issues? Asheville Arts organizations have a history of Boards turning on founding or dynamic directors, and it has seldom turned out well. Though, it must be said, sometimes. What does this mean for me, who have two plays scheduled there in the next four months, and hope for more in the future? What of him? Is there another theater to run? Should there perhaps be one? Can I get submerged in all that again? I did finally get a ticket for tonight– the piece looks boring online, so perhaps it is wonderful on stage–and maybe I’ll discover more. You never know whether to reach out to someone in this situation or to leave him alone. Even if it were me, I wouldn’t know which to prefer.

TG sends a touching blurb for Peniel. Realized I expect that, too, to fall through in some presently unforeseen way.

September 22, 2017

Woke the last two mornings with a recently rare sense of physical fullness and well–being.

Autumn. Cleaned the pond filter. Raked fallen branches out of the murky water, watching the dim silvery flash of fish beneath.

September 21, 2017

Summer turns its back. Autumn knocks at the door looking exactly like summer. The volunteer goldenrod are in misty gold bloom (the goldenrod I planted elsewhere having vanished long ago). I keep wanting to dig in the garden, but arrive home at the wrong time, or too tired.

Odd class day. There is one student (such students are always female in my experience) who has taken it upon herself a tone of imperious disrespect, like a judgmental older sister tired of my missing the mark all the time. If only you would do THIS we might learn something. . . if only you would explain the assignment in THIS way we might understand. A few days ago it was her literally shrieking at me, red-faced, at the end of class, “Grammar is subjective! Grammar is subjective!” I had told them that the grammar of a poem would reveal its meaning. Yesterday it was. . . I’m not sure what. . . the fact that we had a paper due on Monday, and that I had thought assigning the paper and giving the topic and putting it on the syllabus was enough. My program of underexplaining is quite deliberate, giving the student greatest leeway to exercise personal inspiration and individual slant, though I do therein admittedly neglect the student 1) too lazy to think for herself, 2) too frightened of doing it “wrong” to dare any personal commitment, 3) who has somewhere obtain a sense of entitlement whereby she comes away with a sense of grievance of things are not directed specifically to her expectations.  I also resent time spent in class talking about the conduct of the class. Just listen, and all will be well; I know from the testimony of generations that this is right. This student is unusually snotty about it all. After class Wednesday a crowd of my students followed me down the hall, and they did so to praise the class and my handling of it, to say it was their favorite, to say that they loved my lectures and were put off when missy redirected discussion to her anxieties, and what could be done about that? Two young women in the lobby said, “We can’t believe the disrespect she’s showing you.” I had interpreted the student’s attitude to grade-panic and perhaps mishandled humor; the class saw disrespect, and now I do too. We’ll see what onslaught comes today. I suggested that they could say things to her that I could not.

September 20, 2017

Long session with RS last night getting Peniel formatted. It’s exactly the sort of thing that used to drive me into passions of impatience, though this time I found it interesting, and had to get up and pace around the room only once. I think it’s going to be sort of glorious. I think it was that activity which gave me extraordinary dreams. I went to a Rock concert where the performer was godlike, and above him hovered a gigantic silver airship that changed shapes. The show was spectacular, and when it was over the performer collapsed on stage and the airship fell out of the sky, and you knew there would never be such a performance ever again. But as I was going home– I must have been slow for the parking lot was empty– a man stopped me. He held a package in his hand. When I said, “That was wonderful. Godlike. We’ll never see the like of it again,” he said, “Not true. I’m  -----‘s former manager, and I have chosen you.” The package in his hand was the collapsed airship, which began to grow and ascend into the sky as we talked.

September 19, 2017

Tried not to resent going to school only for a meeting, and going early to get some work done, and discovering that half that work could not be done because others were behind in theirs. Mostly sleep other than that. I’d look more deeply into why I’m always exhausted if it were uncomfortable in any way, but the exhaustion is kind of sweet and the sleep is sweet and the waking is sweet, so motivation lags. B is pregnant, so my sister is to be a grandmother, and I a great uncle. I foresee it is a girl.

September 18, 2017

Amazing day in class. Faust at 8 AM, then Tintern Abbey, then in the afternoon my creative writers in an odd passion over the novel Invisible Monster, which I thought was monstrous but they felt pretty much identified their lives. Had a discussion in which it was clear they felt– to a one, if I could judge by the nodding of heads–defeated by the crass consumerism and emptiness of modern times. Helpless, hopeless. Overwhelmed by the sheer power of hideous things. I felt like a child among cynics. But some wise spirit entered me and I read them Yeats’ “Lapis Lazuli” and Rilke’s “An Archaic Torso of Apollo.” The room went silent. Somebody said, “Well, that’s the real stuff,” as indeed it is. I wonder if I turned the day or if they just perceived a gap between us that could not be bridged. Three were weeping when I was done with “Lapis Lazuli.” Bless the greats. Bless the ancients. Bless wisdom which does not change. Gave them a prompt to respond to Jarrell’s “The Woman at the Washington Zoo.”

Whoring for blurbs for Peniel.

September 17, 2017

Schutz in church, then iced coffee with D and his son M who, over the last few years, has turned into D. Really quite lovely. You don’t usually see such playful harmony between a man and his teenaged son. I am to be the mentor of his senior project (writing a novella) at Irwin High. Why is fantasy the go-to of  beginning writers these days? Lack of rules? No real necessity of observation? The example of cinema, where there is almost nothing else? One reads and critiques, trying to find the proper admonition. Read Faust for the morning class. Each time it seems more brilliant. Watched French porn and could actually follow the conversation.

September 16, 2017

Morning at the studio, where I painted well and sold a hummingbird on silver mesh background to two girls from Knoxville, one of whom wanted the painting for her grandmother. Some writing, mostly sleep and the longing for sleep. Meant to garden, but it didn’t happen. Part of the longing for sleep us fantastic, epic dreams. Giant spider haunted my living room window last night, right in the exact center, big as a fist.

September 15, 2017

Cable guy arrives, the Cable company finally agreeing that my problem lay outside the automatic menu of inquiries. He was a charming red-neck from Leicester, who took time to play with the cats. They send sweet boys on purpose so there’s nobody to blow up at. Modem fried, cablebox antique, some doo-dad loose on the utility pole. Oddly my clock radio was stricken too. The radio plays but the time is 6 hours off and cannot be reset.

Long talk with Mike, who wants a recommendation for a Fulbright to Germany. That is exactly right for him. We talked of Donne and MacDonald and Goethe, but mostly of religion. He had to fight for liberal perspectives I got pretty automatically by growing up in the UC of C.  Christ’s death necessary for atonement of our sins? Itself a grotesque and sinful thought. Sin? Not a philosophical concept but a whip in the hand. Hell? A fable told by scoundrels in order to control children. I landed soft; he came slamming in like a comet.

Constant prayer: Lord, allow me to love you.

September 14, 2017

Bought a keyboard for the Magnetic, unable to see how they could have rehearsed music in the past without one.

Smiling Mike in my 8 o’clock–who wants me to read Phantasties-- confides that he wants to drop put of school because he is not being challenged, and is forced to do busy work in most of his classes. He has a baccalaureate degree already, and returned to get a teaching license and another degree in English, so my usual advice’‘ No! Stick it out!”–was not sufficient this time. He is a bright and charming boy, and I’ll miss him. He wants to study Donne with me one on one, and I said “yes,” though we’ll see what actually happens. Donne may in fact be the gift I’ve given him.

Brahms at rehearsal last night. Paradise.

September 13, 2017

Cable continues to be out, which means I cannot work from home, and that I have strands of rage to fight through on my way out into the world. The phone reps are given exactly the most provoking thing to say to callers, that we don’t know what’s wrong, can’t tell you when it’s going to be fixed, so just be patient and hang up. My own species of rage would be placated by, “There’s a big old Oak down on Pine Street, and we’re hoping to have the problem solved by Thursday morning.” Just a little hint that they’re actually working on it and not just fielding calls. The damage here was not bad enough to require much intricacy of repair. Or if it was, they should say so. Cable companies, airlines, Congress can’t do anything, or fail to do anything, without everyone’s assuming the worst imaginable dereliction.

Mary Grant, our Chancellor, is resigning to take a better job. I’m truly sorry, and think the campus is as well. She was good for us. I can’t remember the last time I was sorry at the resignation of an administrator.

Like Data the TV robot, I have to remind myself to use contractions.

September 12, 2017

Then tropical storm Irma drove through, switching the power off and on through the night, littering the yard with trees and branches, but leaving me materially unharmed. Trees fell across streets in the night, meaning one had to detour and pick one’s way to one’s destination. Surprised how at sea I am without my cable. Even after a night of storm I assume that the outage afflicts only me, and that if I thought hard enough I could figure how to fix it on my own.

Contemplating deeply and sadly in the trances of the storm. I know the shape of my life, and that it has not changed from the earliest time I was moved to take stock. No effort of will or work or study or faith or patience of fury budged it. It adds credibility to those who argue for fate and pre-determination. Tried to dismay God by saying, truthfully, “I would rather not have bothered.” I’m sure He’s heard that before.

September 11, 2017

Anniversary of the dark time. Trump on the TV cannot even look solemn. He looks like a naughty boy struggling not to cuss or burst into raucous laughter. My students are barely old enough to have this event firm in memory.

September 10, 2017

Good session at the studio, then preparing the “front matter” for Peniel.

Reading the miseries of my friends on Facebook I call to mind the fact that I never have a sleepless night, almost never have a headache, defecate regularly twice a day, have enough money for ordinary uses. One gathers the blessings, however mundane, however oblique from the fury of the heart.

September 9, 2017

Considered the path of the great storms out of the Atlantic, the videos replaying in my head. A feeling of helplessness, nothing to do to fend them off, too little to do once they have passed through destroying all. I hope I will be shown where I can be of service.

Auditions for Uranium 235 in the morning, disappointing in numbers but not in talent. A thinks we can find a cast, so the mouth of lamentation is shut. SS wants to do Night Music at the Magnetic in January. I am surprised and delighted.

Had an appointment in the evening which I missed because I was engaged in formatting Peniel. The bulk of that is accomplished. More revision and replacing of faulty material than I had anticipated.

The night is alive with insects. I listen hard, wanting to keep them through the edge of the coming cold.

September 8, 2017

All of my friends are younger than I. This is a blessing.

God says, “Have faith.” I answer, “My faith is not strong enough to overcome my experience.”

Blazing brilliant day. Furnace off. Windows back open. We look southwards and expect the hurricane. There is a hurricane behind the hurricane we expect.

Getting Peniel ready, Unnecessarily tedious, but also kind of interesting, and an occasion for revision. Five rejections in a day. This would be just or tolerable only if there were five acceptances on another day.

September 7, 2017

Addressing myself to formatting Peniel. One bout of confusion and fit of temper followed by another– exactly why I got out of the publishing business. Must frustrate R floating over the ruins of Houston and having real problems. Still, my day wasted for the lack of a three minute tutorial and how to do the task at hand.

Man in the line at the bank looks at me and says, “You have small feet.”

Three out of four projections for Hurricane Irma aim it at Asheville.

Closed the windows yesterday. Turned on the furnace, briefly, today.

Run of good classes, the students present, charming, and engaged.

“The Soul’s Capacity to Bear Sadness” appears in One. Brief editorial quarrel. Writers get mocked for believing their words are sacred. Editors too often get a pass for thinking their judgments are so.

September 5, 2017

Though I probably intended something else, repotted the houseplants, acquired two more. Luxuriating in the exceptionally long weekend. Watching video of another killer storm raging in from the sea, Irma allegedly the most powerful in recorded history. An area the size of Georgia whirling with tornado-force winds. With the Lord is terrible majesty.

September 4, 2017

I recall when I was at the studio Saturday, I was filled with such deep and perfect pleasure being there and working. The painting was going well, too. Will try to get back today and look. Received my new lease which I may have immediately lost.

Turned a dispiriting heap of red and yellow tomatoes into a soup delicious beyond my imagining. Nothing in it but bacon, tomatoes, onion, garlic, a tiny film of olive oil. Note to self: Open a guy restaurant, where you throw in whatever you have without measuring.

Read the Moses and the Burning Bush passage in church. Love that. God is such a tease. Shocked by a letter from RS in Houston–still submerged Houston-- saying my book is on track, and that it is I, actually, who am holding it back a little, having not received an earlier email with instructions in it. Need to do that. Need to clean the pond filter. Need to deliver imagined paragraphs of my Portage County story onto paper. Need to dig the fall gardens. Need to give thanks for days each of them better than its corresponding day last week. That’s how we measure in an imperfect world. Maud watches Trump on TV for a minute, lays her head against my arm in a gesture of sadness and exhaustion. Even the cats--

September 3, 2017

Note on my Facebook page this AM:

Esteemed Professor,
We don't actually know one and other personally, so I find it if not prudent, than cautiously familiar to tell you that you have remained a huge influence and inspiration for me, ever since I took your intro to English poetry class. 
Which was 2000ish.
I was close to A for many years, and if knowing her through the auspice of loving one of her daughters complicated my relationship to her, it never complicated my understanding of her gigantic talents.
She had only a few close peers, and you were one.
So, by the time I was in your class, I'd already had the chance to come to respect you socially. Which allowed me to put more of myself into the class than an average Liberal Arts major.
My relationship with academia is complicated and school was a place I had trouble fitting in, neither with my peers nor my role as a pupil.
You are a person who helped me stay dedicated to my own growth, and growing my talents.
I think fondly of how deeply that class impacts my life.
It feels simple and privileged to have fallen in love with poetry and the muse in such a bucolic setting.
I only hope to be a better and better acolyte of inspiration.
Happy Birthday, many laudations and toasts in your honor!
-OJB.

I remember the young man as being heartsick, sincere, and, at that point, almost ludicrously beautiful.

Ate at a barbecue place yesterday. Talked with me neighbor, a red giant speech pathologist who hates barbecue but comes there for a peerless chicken sandwich. My waitress is studying languages, and worried about her Japanese because she quarreled with her Japanese friend. As she passed me my bill she said, “I gave you a friends discount, to thank you for Readings in the Drama class all those years ago.” It is sometimes necessary to hear these things--

September 2, 2017

Talking on the phone when I realized a mantis seven inches long was attached to my study window screen, where she had probably come to avoid the heavy rain. Accepted this as a blessing.

Merry birthday do at the new AC Hotel downtown, at their roof bar which, evidently, had only opened on that night. Beautiful. Reminded me of Topkapi lifted into the air. The usual crew, plus Tom and Sam and Richmond and Heather. I went away happy, and that much happier suspecting that everyone had had a good time, and that I had supplied that time. One notes that reciting poetry in a silly faux-Chinese accent is always a hit. When we walked up the to desk the greeter said “I had you in Humanities.” I had to pause a minute to sense whether that was an accusation, praise, or the iteration simple fact.

Every time someone mentions Humanities, I put a needle in a mental image of the Boy. I pray I am alert to the moment and the circumstance of his humiliation. I sort of regret resigning my opportunity to be the cause of it, but sort of not.

But, anyway, happy birthday to me.

September 1, 2017

Dawn on my birthday. Great wind, a blast of light and a pop as a transformer explodes nearby. Circe looks at me at though it were my doing.

Drinks after Cantaria last night. New people in the chorus, and for that we rejoice, except the music for Pride is exactly that of which I was mortally tired at the end of last year. I will not be singing, so I can sail through for this while. A sub-group has formed to do the jazzy pop numbers, with choreography, it is alleged, but if I think that will save me from the music I’d rather not do, I’m probably wrong.

It is early. I don’t know what to do with my day, except to teach my classes: Candide in one, Milton in another.