Ben and Angela

 

December 28, 2022

Have been rising and climbing to the studio at a time when morning light streams through the attic window on the south. The whole attic gleams gold. 

Unexpectedly baked oatmeal cookies. 

Red haired Kyle came and fixed–so he says–the furnace.  The problem was that when the exterminators sealed the basement, when the Mexican boys sealed up the windows, they screwed up the furnace drainage system. This, Kyle claimed, was the problem. I believed him. He also observed that he’s been here 25 years and last Friday was the coldest night in all that time. I have been here 39 years, and it was still the coldest night. Perhaps I can rest easy on that account. 

Reading of Ben and Angela at the kitchen table. It came out quite well. The play is better than I remember it, or maybe it’s just having live voices read it. The actors were so good the reading could have been a performance. Much autobiography in this play, which I had also forgotten. Every single person brought his or her own beverage, six separate thermoses on the table. It’s a new kind of socialization that took me by surprise.