February 25, 2019

Wind howling over the roof in the dark of the morning.

Planted the mulberry outside the fence, in the cold brilliant light.

Jerry’s reading at Malaprop’s for his new book, Paraclete. The writing was quite fine and engaging. Hope the book and he do well. Tracy asked what was all this about my being an enemy of the Trans community, and why has some of it banned together to get me fired. Forced me to post this on FaceBook:

How I regret that things like this need to be done in a community which should be open, honest, and, if nothing else, aware of who their friends are. I have always been and am now a supporter of the Trans community. I have never said anything against the Trans community or any member of it. I have not done so because I am in full support of the community and its aims, or as fully so as I can be without being Trans myself. Anyone who actually knows me would find any doubt about this absurd. My several Trans students find me, or so I hope, absolutely supportive. The notion that I made a statement critical of the trans community is a lie, perpetrated by a liar who announced that she was going to lie and misrepresent deliberately in order to get me “in trouble.”  I corrected her in a matter of fact, and the only way to revenge her absurd pride in this was to pretend that I hold convictions which I do not hold , and broadcast that as widely and as energetically as she could. My credentials as a representative of the LGBTQ community go back 35 years in Asheville, and I dare to presume them impeccable. If anyone wants to discuss this, I am willing and joyful to do so. If anyone wants to continue this slander, know that you are a liar, or at least the dupe of one.

So far, the posting has been met with a flood of support. The last year has been weird for the times I’ve gotten in trouble for things I did not say and for beliefs I do not have. I want to say, “there is something I do which seems to infuriate certain women,” but the other way of putting it is to observe that every time I have been beset with truly vicious and covert misrepresentation, it has been by a woman. Don’t even know what to do with these perceptions, except to hope for the opportunity to forget them. 

Will came over to see if there were a way I could help finance a new house for them, or a rebuild of the old. I think we found a way.

February 24, 2019

Heart-filling Russian chant in the morning. almost ruined by over-rehearsing and blunting the edge, but some habits cannot be changed. Concert at All Souls in the afternoon, except for Bach almost all new to me. Must go to more concerts. Must tear myself from the desk. The day began in vernal sweetness, ended in cold wind. Watched the Academy Awards all through for the first time in decades.

February 23, 2019

Finished my story of hunting hogs. Sat in High 5 a big chunk of the morning writing it long hand, and I was happy, happy. Watched parents and their beautiful children. Went to the Tractor Supply Store (to honor it for being my big Wall Street moneymaker this year) and bought elephant ears. Beginning last Wednesday I had a mood, a feeling, that I have not had since graduate school, full of freedom and energy and hope. Part of it is the long-awaited signal to retire and get the hell out of academe. Part of it is something more, a liberation, an awakening, a guarantee of a third act. 

February 22, 2019


Millay’s birthday.

I requested Reems Creek Nursery to get me a mulberry tree in March of last year. The phone call came yesterday. I picked it up in the driving rain. I have one, but this one seems destined for me. I want the rain to slacken no I can begin playing in the dirt.

After spectacular and numerous mishaps at Staples, I finally have my new computer set up. Lascia ch’io pianga is the first sound that came out of its speakers. I tried to boot the old one, but it apparently cannot ever again. The new one came at exactly the last possible moment.

I sat in the car for a moment when it looked like, after much misdirection, the day was going to end well. I wept bitterly, thinking of how faithless I am, assuming the worst, summoning rage and despair at the first cross. Every time I panic and things work out nevertheless (which is almost every time) I chastize myself about this, but the lesson seems never to be learned. I have not the faith to move mountains, or even a mustard seed. I am afraid and alone. I hope this is some sort of an excuse.

February 20, 2019

Huge rain, thunder behind it roaring from the south. The streets were already dark pools. Bought a new computer, as this one develops a new quirk each day, and I’m afraid of losing my work.

Good rehearsal, except my voice was over before it was. Repaired to our weekly rendezvous at the Wayside, where people praised my acting. I didn’t know that anybody had noticed. Leaving All Souls, I was walking to my car when the greatest thunderclap in my memory broke, it seemed, directly over my head. The great blue light was followed by silence, then I was struck nearly to the wet pavement by the force of thunder. It was afraid. I was exultant. With God is terrible majesty. 

February 19, 2019

Crystal Kim reading in the Laurel Forum, to a packed audience despite the driving rain. I had the rare opportunity to be able actually to respect the reader. Full day. Do I remember fully of what?

February 18, 2019

Brilliant lecture on Blake this morning, I think. Turned in my taxes. Wandered around downtown for a while (having found a free parking space and not wanting to waste it), amazed that there was not one thing in the entire city that I wanted to buy, except a cappuccino. Went to the Mall to get an overseas account for my phone, ended up getting a new phone. Garrett Brown sold me the phone, a beautiful man with a five year old son named Cannon. I wanted to be Cannon. Cleaned the litter boxes. De-flead the cats (before they needed it). Napped with Maud on my stomach, to make up for de-fleaing her, which she for some reason hates. Will go to movie night at DJ’s tonight.

Fell into a revery last night where I thought I was retired– dear God, the lightness, the relief. It made me think I’d waited at least a semester, possibly a year too long. I’m committed for next year, but I think “committed” in this case will have some give. Yes, my students still need me, but the reward of that it, these days, goes all one way.  Whatever ties I felt to that institution have turned to air.

Yellow crocus in the lawn, the Lenten rose blooming a little ahead of Lent.

February 17, 2019

Gray morning. Moved the furniture around so there’s more tree and less sky in the one study window.

AGMC did our big Broadway Baby show at the Greek Community Center. I think it was a success. I know it was a success financially–we were sold out–but there’s more question to the artistic side. Most of the solos were adequate, though Jack’s was sensational. I made it through, but staggered home with superficial infections on my swollen leg. Most everybody worked harder than I did. I’m sorry for that, but don’t know the way around it.

The program became unresponsive and I lost a day’s work on Invisible Husbands. Not the best of days.

February 14, 2019

Rehearsal last night, drinks at the usual, served by the usual. The way we like it. Reading in the Laurel Forum today to honor St. Valentine. I read from Sam-sam, the first time I ever did. Upheaval at school makes me sleepy all the time, for sleep shuts out the harshness and puts me in the paradise of dreams. Last night in dreams I was trying a new kind of art, huge and loose and gestural. I had to get a new studio to do the enlarged work.

Anniversary of the school slaughter in Florida.

Never in my adult life have a received a Valentine card. Have I sent some? Yes. I remember sending flowers to Jo-Jo, and surprising him at his work. Perhaps I remember that every St. Valentine’s Day. Rehearsal tonight for the loathed fundraiser. Word has it that we are sold out.

Taking Invisible Husbands out of mothballs to give it another try. 

February 12, 2019

Departmental discussion on the overreaching of Ms Moffitt and Title IX. As Lori assured me, it is a universal problem, and not, as I had feared, specific to me. Even so, I, at the moment, am the tip of the spear.

Conversation with John at High 5 about the production of Father Abraham. I’m more excited about a project than I’ve been for a long time, and found myself bubbling over with ideas, contacts, alternatives– as in old times from the brilliant house of air. 

February 11, 2019

Dawn class, then home to true and extended work as a writer. I think I will hold to my determination not to go to auditions tonight. Evening through the study window is gray, yellow, compressed, blustering. Even to trundled the garbage out to the street seems dreadful.

February 10, 2019

Giant musical undertaking at church today– joined with a choir from Tennessee-- Mozart’s K 220 with a raft of kids. Climbing out of my sea of phlegm, I was in extraordinarily good voice. I’d almost forgotten that I can sound good. I was happy for that hour or so. Interesting to sing under unfamiliar conductors.

Winter returns with some vengeance.

I think of myself as a placid, peaceable man, but then I begin to number the people– just at the University-- with whom I seem to have had a bitter quarrel at one time or another– the entire Drama Department, Ileana, Brian, Jill and the Title IX office. In each case I want to point out that someone tried to stop me from doing or tried to interfere with my work, and, after many exhibitions of forbearance, I struck back. Is it how it would seem to them? Ileana is long gone; the Drama Department is an irrelevancy. Brian is demoted. I want nothing from Jill but for her to leave me alone to do my work. Unfortunately, she has one of those positions where you can’t prove you’re working unless you’re wasting somebody else’s time. I should have awakened on the First Day and heard God say, “Tend my garden,” and I would have been happy. 

Not auditioning at HART tonight. Blaming the weather, but it may be I have said goodbye to all that. Would see Daithi and my heart would break.

February 9, 2019

I think Todd lost his mother and saw his first grandchild born on the same day.

Ruined Saturday by taking NyQuil Friday night. Bouts of irresistible sleepiness every few hours. But in the morning, before the first decline, I finished a titanic revision of The One with the Beautiful Necklaces. 

February 8, 2019

Windy, cool, back to winter again after yesterday’s brief spring. Went to the bank to buy shekels. Good classes, I think, but who has any knowledge of what actually happens on the other side of the desk?

February 7, 2019

Dream of auditions that involved recitations from Shakespeare and a gymnastics routine.

February 6, 2019

Strange session in the evening. Disappointment, a little depression, upheaval set me on edge, and I asked the Powers for peace. What came was the conviction that my mother was in the room, and out of me came the most agonized cry for forgiveness for all the ways I didn’t recognize her personhood, the ways I trampled her goals in order to get to mine, the foolish ways I fought for autonomy and independence, the ways in which I was a selfish boy. Do parents forgive that automatically? I couldn’t think of a single thing I ever did which was certain to have made her proud or happy. My only hope was that she could somehow hear me.

Bought my ticket to Jerusalem for spring break. Was happy afterward, so at the moment there are no second thought.

Someone was apparently murdered or committed suicide at the Mill, where my office is. Not enough details either to be afraid or to be comforted.

February 5, 2018

One of my students, the one whom Depression makes late for class, wants to “make a deal” for one of my paintings.

February 4, 2019

Good class on Pope and Smart, pointless but amusing turn through the streets of Hendersonville later in the morning. Sent my complaint about Dr. Jill to the University Ombudsman. Why can’t I be left alone to do my work? is the plaint behind the plaint.

February 3, 2019

Quite satisfying reading at Malaprop’s of “Corin and Dorina.” There was a large crowd (including none of my colleagues, but several of my students) which seemed unusually attentive to the reading, laughing at the right places, literally gasping when the plot turn came. I was happy as I am not always after a reading. Glenis read some of her poems, which also appeared in the North Carolina Literary Review, whose latest publication the reading was to celebrate. It could have been 1992 at the green door. Glenis is at her best when she has a character from whom exhortation can be expected. This afternoon is was Harriet Tubman. Wandered around for a while downtown in the pure winter light.

February 2, 2019

Imbolc passes, splitting the difference between winter and spring.  A huge (though immature) red tailed hawk blessed the silver maple by my pool for a few minutes. Huge progress on Sam-sam, good work at the studio, in a room made bare by removing all to the library.

Came upon Maud pissing on the beautiful carpet in the guest room. So sad, inexpressibly sad, exhaustion and betrayal at once, it seemed to me. I shut the door and prepare for a trip to the carpet cleaners. Nothing can be good for two days.

Harassment from JM wakes me, assails me now and then throughout the day. The fact that there is no point and no logic does not, in this case or any other, signify.  Had I been worse than I am I had earned better than this.

I have no idea if anything, ever, was worth the effort.

February 1, 2019

Dream before morning. I’m visiting somebody’s house where everyone’s gathered in the kitchen. I walk into the next room, where I feel myself passing out. I think as I sink toward the floor, “No one will know this happened. I am not the one who is ever found in trouble or hurt, but wakes himself and binds up his own wounds and doesn’t even bother to tell the story.” That’s exactly what happened. I came to, got up, went about my business. Later someone pointed out the misty mark my body had left on the floor and said that proved I’d been sitting and watching TV.

Review from the Internet:

JulieW142014
Harare, Zimbabwe
Reviewed November 28, 2017
"Uranium 235"
Plenty of shockingly relevant insight in 'Uranium 235'. Loved Truman's exploration of his 'non-choices' in dealing with Japan with Clio, the muse of history. Juxtaposed with the blatant propaganda song and dance of the day, my own moral compass had a spin. So glad I saw it!

Received my order of Alter’s new translation of the Hebrew bible.

Received Sweet Herbaceous Miracle, a book of poetry that must have been the winner of some contest I entered. It is implausibly bad, as if someone had decided to try in one volume all the ways in which softness and self-indulgence and tone-plagiarism could make a poem founder. It is the winner of the Ciardi Prize for Poetry. What given the quality of the work, could that possibly mean?

January 31, 2019

The day I looked forward to as a “that horrible day” when I could not possibly do what needed to be done is passed, and all things, to some degree, done. I managed, with enormous help from Jhierry and the library staff, to get my show Perimeters set up. Of course the library elevator was out and all the paintings had to be dragged up the stairs. It looks a little too big for the space its in, but it nice to have it there. Whatever people think, I’ll be the last to know. They said I could have a reception on my dime. Stiff and exhausted afterward, taking a long nap with my feet up and dragging myself to chorus rehearsal, where my voice was a cow-like bellow, but I think I learned some notes. Left in exhaustion before Mike taught us the choreography to “One.” Only thought now how that must have looked.

January 30, 2019

Rose and walked toward the car and saw in the southern sky the moon and Venus and Jupiter in a line like a glittering sword. It was beautiful beyond hope. It was the portent of something swift now to arrive.

January 29, 2019

Return to rehearsal, but not quite able to make it to the Wayside afterwards. My voice under the muck is sound.