December 30, 2017

This year I did not, as in years past, compose a Christmas letter. Never felt a sufficiently reflective mood. Venice and Ireland were the stand-outs as far as travel, though I was too sick to enjoy Ireland much and the demon seized me in Venice. On the subject of the demon, it’s hard to know what to say, as to speak of it or to think of it is to summon it. It has receded-- at times, I think, almost to nothingness-- though there are still moments when sickening images come to my head and I know there is no reason for it but the demon wanting to behold itself. It is the strangest thing, the thing I would not have believed had I not experienced it for myself. There are demons, or at least parasites of the spirit, who do harm and whose harm, apparently, must be endured until they, like viruses, weaken and fade back into the pattern. I hope someday I read this and wonder what the hell I was talking about. I did not know anybody, except in literature, likewise afflicted, so there was no conversation to see me through. Prayer avails in the bible, but it didn’t avail here, except if you take the larger picture, which on the darkest nights I was not able to do.

Published Peniel, saw Night Music and Uranium 235 on the stage. Uranium was done right by its production, and was kind of wonderful. Was included in this year’s “Best American Poetry,” though I see inclusion is every bit as odd and arbitrary as exclusion has been these last decades. Acted in an unsatisfying production of The Great Gatsby. It was unsatisfying because everyone was notching their actor’s belts rather than bringing their characters to life. And the boys in the dressing room made me feel very old. And never did that drive seem longer. Perhaps that is the end of all that. These are the things that stick in mind without my leafing back through the pages. More recently, Q has come into my life, maybe the first person who ever read my stage work critically and with the intention of participating in its realization. I’m an excellent reviser typically denied the opportunity to revise. Producers have put on my plays or they have not, but almost never provided useful critique. 

Weathered at least two public crises by keeping my mouth shut.

Gratitude to Sam, to Q, to the Wednesday night bunch, to the boys who came to my office to talk about their lives; to the people who worked so hard producing my plays.

Preparing for the party. One cheesecake failed miserably–a frisbee or a stiff golden pancake-- the other I won’t be able to judge until it’s cut. I think me as party planner is the oddest image in the world. And yet, here we are---