February 28, 2024
Tremendous wind. Despite the wind and gray, the back of the garden gleams pink with incipient sweet bay.
Woke energized, accomplished the things suggested by the influx of energy. Do not feel the energy now. Hoping against hope that the weather is even worse in Biltmore and rehearsal will be cancelled. O, flood, beloved French Broad, just enough!
February 27, 2024
Took the ball and ran with a proposal for a theater money-maker for the Cathedral. After a good deal of research and labor, was told it was “not a good example of Stewardship.” And that was that. Made me consider why people who worry to morbidity about hurting some people’s feelings don’t seem to worry about mine. Normally I don’t care (and that might be the explanation). Sometimes I do.
When I was a kid I irritated people by taking any opportunity to be left alone. I begged to stay home from family gatherings, to avoid trips to PA to my grandmother’s stifling house, to skip birthday parties. I knew it looked like haughtiness or antic-sociability; it wasn’t, but rather delight in creative solitude, that I might fill with my own limitless imaginings. The rest of the equation in those particular instances was that I was not particularly welcome. It was a sacrifice I was to expected to make without reciprocation. I would not have been a poet without those spaces of time. I would not have been the person I am without those spaces of time. The irony is that neither being a poet nor being the person I am has turned out as anticipated. The swathes of creative solitude are still a delight, though at this point they blend undetectably into isolation. I acquired no real allies, which is to say, anybody that would prefer me and support me even in the face of adversity. I do not believe the reverse is true. I’ve worked hard for causes which were not mine because I believed they were precious to someone, and to be a friend or an ally is sometimes better than to be right. I’ve stood by even casual friends if I thought they needed me, or that their cause was just. It is conceivable that nobody thinks I need them, or that my cause is just. I shrug and move on, feeling that an appeal to loyalty or affection would end up an embarrassment not only to me but to those who–legitimately– feel no such way. I acknowledge the degree to which I made this situation for myself. I had no such intention.
February 24, 2024
Finished The Garden of the Bears five minutes ago. I think it is a beautiful book. But then, I thought each one was a beautiful book. Now the struggle begins.
Sleet trying to make itself into actual storm.
February 23, 2024
Rain and sun alternate, rain getting the final victory. Finally replaced all the Anatolian carpets I had to take up because of Maud. Much tugging of ungainly loads up and down the stairs. There are too many now, or I didn’t re-discover the maximal distribution.
Writing, painting. Strange energy in me. . . maybe I’m finally taking enough aspirin.
February 22, 2024
A flock of bluebirds rested in my garden this morning.
Sat beside the river because it was almost warm enough. One mallard. Several geese. Ate a sandwich, throwing bits of it to a song sparrow.
Various chores, most of which involved spending a lot of money.
Credit Card Company called about a bogus charge. The lady on the line was not only Indian, but couldn’t be bothered to speak into the mic, so I had to ask her to repeat everything, and we finished our business only by my fishing the occasional word out of the mud and deducing what she must have meant.
Tried to fix the sound on the TV. Bought speakers. Expensive speakers from a big guy with a red walrus moustache. Did I install them correctly? It’s both better and worse, so true to my history.
February 21, 2024
Letter from Buncombe County Property Assessment saying that my house, Parcel ID: 974032830700000, .38 acres, is worth $437,000. It’s a reassessment, and they say I have so much time to protest, but I don’t know whether it’s down or up or what it was before. I thought it was more land than that. What would I have done with an acre?
February 20, 2024
The ceiling epic ends, and my nerves return to torpor. Took the opportunity to re-arrange furniture and paintings. Some compact joy there.
The news causes me to contemplate the percentage of the world’s present anguish which could be extinguished by two bullets, one in the head of Putin, one in the head of Trump. What if you wake up one day realizing that the harm you cause exceeds the good by multiple multiples? Is one even capable of realizing that? Sociopathy is really the only explanation: one must be literally unaware of, or insanely indifferent to, the burden one puts upon history.
February 18, 2024
Clement Sunday morning after a knife-edge Saturday, which began under a veil of snow. Rehearsal in the morning for the Hayden St Nicholas Mass rough but convivial. I’m making actual friends in the chorus. Got a parking ticket because I’d not parked downtown in so long I didn’t know Saturdays are no longer free. The Saturday night performance was. . . what do I want to say?. . . . more chaotic than it needed to be. The caterers were furious with the choristers because we all had to occupy the same space at the same time. We had to grab our coats and run after our piece, as the caterers had to bring out their trays of oddly prepared root vegetables. Bad planning, or contempt for the choristers, one. The performance itself was rough because of miss-communication between Maestro and Chorus. At one point D knitted his impressive brows with rage at a soprano anticipated entrance. The soprano I stood in front of whispered “It’s on him.” and it actually was. He paused where he had not before, and the gesture he made did not communicate a pause longer than the printed rest. I made no errors, and was in my glory in the one low part in the Gloria. But, nothing exhibits the deep-dyed amateurism of the Asheville performing arts scene more than the belief that jovial announcements, greetings, acknowledgments are necessary before a performance. Put it in the program and get your fat ass out of the way of the art.
Rudy & companion finished the living room ceiling, and I am mostly moved back in (with some improvements in decor), even getting the TV set up with not too much frenzy. Of course, it’s not REALLY finished: Rudy forgot the tool he needed to re-affix the crown molding, and so must return sometime to do that. $1500. I gave them $1700 for helping me move the furniture.
Afternoon at All Souls watching H’s wonderful puppet show, Animalia. Screams of laughter from the children, respect for his skill from the adults. Dinner with DJ at Rye Knot afterward. I stared at the bill wondering how one person could eat $72 worth of food. Most of it, in fairness, was drink.
February 16, 2024
Haircut, pick up new glasses, take taxes to the accountant: the plan at 9 AM. Let’s see what gets fulfilled.
Night. All the above achieved.
ASC rehearsal at the Wortham, the worst possible venue for a large chorus and a symphony orchestra. D’s musical vocabulary is different from K’s, so there were a few bumps in the road. His grasp of the music seems advanced and instinctual. Plus, he’s a very handsome man. Without his bit of a pot belly he might distract from the music. Legs in extreme agony as I left the stage. The walk back to Oak Street was very long.
February 15, 2024
Voted. New system, rather fun. The oldest people in the world command the voting booths.
Saved a painting I had thrown away.
The Wild Bird shop had a cat named Valentine up for adoption. I had to tear myself away.
GMC rehearsal not a rehearsal, but a round of announcements and congratulations followed by drinks at Neo. I asked myself, “What else do you have to do?” Had a good time, and then most of the dreary night was gone.
February 14, 2024
Ash Wednesday
Read the Eliot poem online, as my books are unavailable in the mess. The poem isn’t good, and yet very famous. One stops trying to figure things out.
Rudy and his helper banging away downstairs. He mentioned being finished sometime next week. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Neither reason nor outcry changes anything. Lent starts very Lent-like, a gray mood for this bright blue day.
Dilemma after the Imposition of Ashes: The scripture is the one from Matthew warning against displaying your piety in public and going about with a pained face when you fast. Is wearing the cross of ashes in public displaying your piety? Signaling that you’re about to fast and deny yourself? Is not wearing it a denial of your faith? I sat in the Walgreen’s parking lot wanting to get my prescription, wondering whether to rub the ashes off or not, witnessing or boasting?
February 13, 2024
Mardi Gras
Rudy and his helper demolishing my living room. Mess and fuss are intolerable to me. Perhaps they are to everybody and they just don’t bitch about it so much.
February 12, 2024
Message from Rudy that he wants to do the ceiling tomorrow, which means I spend portions of the day moving furniture. Culled the indoor plants, leaving only two Christmas cactii, a tiny regular cactus that I bought from a girl at a café, Jason’s jade plant, and the kitchen philodendron. I’d ruined the rest by not turning them, and they grew into odd shapes, rootbound. Found one of Maud’s toys under the love seat. Annihilated.
J and I drove down the mountain to the Peace Center to see The Girl from the North Country, a show built around the songs of Bob Dylan. Gloomy, ill-considered, ill-constructed, failing to enable any possible concern for any of the dreary characters. It had nothing to do with Dylan that I could see (except for being set in twilight Duluth), nor did it succeed at creating a narrative of its own. The Dylan songs were unrecognizable, except now and then you’d catch a familiar lyric out of the cold oatmeal of interpretation. The girl at the bar asked me to describe it in one word, and I chose, “Unnecessary.” We left at intermission. You raise $10 million to do a show, and you do that? It is a wasteful and improvident world.
My cleaning lady’s check rejected at Wells Fargo. Spent the morning fighting to get a “hard hold” removed from the account. Wells Fargo is a fan of sharp practice, and only the bother of changing banks keeps me from doing it.
February 11, 2024
Slept in this house for the first time on this night ten years ago. A decade. Still think of it as “my new house.”
Cold rain. Bach from the implement downstairs.
GMC had its Valentine’s fundraiser last night-- effort palpably larger than reward, but everyone seems to have had fun and to feel pleased with the results, so, fine. We charged enough money that we should have exercised some quality control on the individual acts. There were five or six too many of them, and while half were fine and engaging, half were not. Some were cringe-worthy. I don’t mind Boys’ Own Talent Show, but it should be separate from a paying event. Did the audience like it? I think they did. I had fun performing, though something threw my back out and I had to get off the risers with a yelp of pain. All part of the process . . . Anyway, back is fine this AM, and I think of last night fondly.
Arrived at church, got out of my car, was confronted by a sharp-shinned hawk, standing on the lawn, glaring at me. He let out a scream of challenge, then flew to his mate in a great sycamore. Had I interrupted romance? I assumed they were answers to our prayers concerning the superabundance of moles. When the hawk screamed at me, it was with such wild defiance that I loved him immediately. In church I contemplated the blessing and possible message of the hawk sighting. God and I have been locked in battle recently, and I wondered if maybe God loves those who stand up to him as I loved the hawk standing his ground in the winter rain. Hawk could fly to his mate in the skies. I have nowhere to go.
February 9, 2024
It was revealed to me that my old studio at the 109 Roberts Street is now an expensive boutique hotel. I wonder what they thought when they got to my studio, filled as it must still have been with paintings and supplies. I rather cherished my illusion that it was still intact, a ghostly tribute to effort that came to nothing.
UNCA announced a six million dollar deficit, and the intent to gut faculty in order to pay for it. The announcement came from the very people who caused the problem, our increasingly incompetent and, sometimes, malicious administration. The doers of the deed wringing their hands over the sad results of the deed is so commonplace as not even to be noticed anymore. Anyone with powers of observation saw it coming. Ever declining generations of chancellors and provosts-- who had not our interests in mind, but their next post-- alternately neglected and undermined what had been a promising institution. Our immediate previous provost so perverted the hiring system that there was no way out of the hole his predecessors had dug. We were among the finest faculties of small colleges in America. The destruction of that legacy was sneering, systematic, and deliberate. In fifteen years we declined from a university to a top-rate high school, then continued downward until we were not even that. We hired cheap, and according to the politics of the hour. Administration was stuffed and then over-stuffed so the seventh vice-provost had nothing to do to justify her existence but make work for other people. Extra administration and pricey consultants were hired to do jobs that a faculty committee could have handled in a month, and then did them wrong. Firing everyone in administration who has nothing vital to do would alone solve the deficit. Actual education was disabled at every turn, insofar as it interrupted the smooth sale of degrees. If the faculty would just get out of the way and let the administration hand students the diplomas they’d paid for everything would be fine. Education was a joke to be laughed at over the heads of the naive. Scholarship and critical thinking became irritations. When I retired we were a degree sales operation and no longer a university. It’s grown worse since then. My professional life as an educator was devoted to an institution being intentionally sabotaged at the other end. It is unforgivable. It is a waste of time, energy, and the aspiration of students; the hard stands beyond calculation. The hope that the right people will be blamed is probably vain. They will fail upward, as they always have.
February 7, 2024
Brilliant morning.
Have been called “gentle and respectful” by two different people this week. It’s not the accolade one expects.
R the sheet rock guy estimates $1200 to replace the ceiling. That’s on the low end of what I expected, so we move forward. Realized I resisted full replacement (rather than patching) only because I’ll have to move everything out of the living room, and not only do I not know where to put it, but I hate disruption. I told R he needn’t put a patch on since we were going to replace the whole thing, but he was afraid spiders would fall down on me from the attic.
Editing the beginning of GB while still writing the end. Much taking out of “the” and rewriting “was” phrases. Why do I insist one “he was hiding” rather than “he hid”?
Visited Properties committee meeting. Their concerns are refreshingly specific and concrete. The major talk was of moles, which have turned the church lawn into Verdun. My suggestion, “wait for a flood” didn’t gain much traction.
Was in sensational voice for ASC rehearsal last night. Hayden is easy to sing. What a gentleman.
February 2, 2024
Moving on from Imbolc.
Made my one-year-later visit to the optometrist, and, in a flood of regret and indignation, declared that her terrible glasses were wrong and I’ve suffered from them for a precious year of my life. I demanded that she duplicate my previous prescription, which was fine except for some sort of film peeling off and clouding the lenses. Somewhat to my surprise, after doing all the things she needed to charge me for, she agreed. She said they had miscalculated how much of the lens should be for far and how much for near. In any case, until the new arrive, I’m back to the smeary glasses I gave up last year. The sense of limitation and “wrongness” I had with the “new” pair have already disappeared. I can read street signs. I can drive at night without squinting and staring. I would not have come so close to failing my driver’s test. Already it’s better. I’m too patient, too reluctant to make a fuss. The end of that is that when I finally do make a fuss, it’s too loud.
Paradox that GMC rehearsals are infuriating but fun. The musician in me is infuriated; the guy wanting to have fun with his buddies is pleased enough. Director lashes out at those who want new music, things we haven’t done fifty times before. Don’t understand her vehemence. It would seem to me that THAT recommendation, at least, would be uncontroversial. What is forgotten is that part of the formation of the group at the outset was self-improvement, expansion of experience with the repertoire. That, among other things, left in the dust. S has too many irons in the fire to learn new things. We sound pretty good but are, repertoire-wise, stagnant and wasted.
Boys were playing basketball in the All Souls court when I left rehearsal, in full night, so I hoped there was enough ambient light, but they were laughing and hollering, so all was well light or no.
Surprisingly, I’m a fan of doo-wop. Love singing dum dum de dum de dum down at the bottom of the scale.
Attended C’s funeral service, along with enough others to pack the church to the rafters. C was a woman of efficient good works, more useful to her community than a dozen others. Sat beside M, who spent the time relating the deceased’s kindnesses toward her. I realized I spend half my time drinking out of mugs with her business’s imprint.
January 30, 2024
My Black Lives Matter sign has finally been snatched away. It lasted nearly four years, which is longer than I expected.
Shadows of crows crossing the bedroom window on their way to the seed, alarming in size.
Had three errands to run this morning, all of them failures. Bought sushi to make up for it.
Lord, give me what You have made me want
