August 27, 2019

Windows slowly shutting against what appears to be the dwindling of summer.

White iris reblooms and reblooms. I bless it.

Gave my gleaming, expensive barbeque to Juan. I’ve had it three years and used it twice. So glad it may get some use. From time to time I imagine myself entertaining frequently and with gusto. Doesn’t actually happen.

Received today a response from an agent whom I queried in December, 2018.

Said goodbye to the Dean on his last Sunday with us. A tenure without a shadow, so far as I can tell.

Reading of 2/3 of Father Abraham Sunday afternoon. I was feeling ill, and didn’t realize until after the reading that it was nervous apprehension. The two plays we did sounded better than I feared they would, even though I’d heard the first a dozen times on the New York stage. I can be better thanI anticipate. Most of the cast is fine, and somehow they managed to locate a perfectly believable Lincoln. I cannot foresee how the project will actually turn out, though my gratitude already for the huge effort.  The word “nigger” is causing difficulties which I completely understand, but which I don’t know how to avoid without being coy. The one black person present had no trouble with it.  It is right for white people to stumble over that word, at least for a while. But for how long?

A young woman named Ava from Enka High visited me to ask about literature for her senior project. She was so VERY young and yet completely poised and prepared. Her teacher encouraged her to ask questions like “How does an author achieve effects in his work that will lead it to be considered as part of the classical canon.” We had to have a longer lecture than she probably expected and how it doesn’t work that way. Much obsession, now that I think of it, with canon. What on earth goes on in high school?