October 13, 2018

I never know for sure what has interceded when I look and days have passed since I last recorded. It’s not as though there’s not time. . . though, perhaps, there’s no time.

Gave Tennyson a triumph in class on Friday. 

Most of my students though A was a “jackass” when he came to the workshop. This surprised me because I didn’t see that at all. I thought he was candid and maybe a bit heroic. Maybe those qualities read as “jackass” to the young.

Impressed myself by getting the work done that finishes off the garden in preparation for winter. All the bulbs are planted, and what is not finished can wait for a day or a season. The terrible exhaustion abates measurably, a contributing factor to my success.

AW, our colleague, is caught by the police removing political signs. The local Republicans are in a froth about it, of course. Both AW and our chairman have received death threats, and people solemnly ask “is THAT what they’re teaching at that university?” It’s all so petty it’s probably old news even as I remark on it. It’s mostly a matter of bad luck that she got caught. You do perhaps wonder what possessed a grown woman. . . . Me, I would have tried to incite my students to do it. . . .

Proofing done for The Falls of the Wyona. There was less of it than might be expected, fewer mistakes, fewer passages of questionable taste. I respected and was grateful for their punctiliousness.

I believe I have enough paintings for the show. Took the last to be framed today. What will people think of it? I don’t know, and since there has been no reviewing apparatus since I was fired from the CT, I probably will never know.  I am painting what I like the way I like it, so perhaps the main thins is accomplished. 

Downtown to see Frost/Nixon and have a drink at Zambra’s. The play requires impersonation, and impersonation is hard to judge except as to believability, and in that realm, Michael was magnificent. Nixon was always the smartest person on stage. I remember the real thing, but I was young, and remember it mostly for being boring.

Blue jays in the blue sky, the remnant of the orange zinnias buzzing in the clash of light.