March 22, 2024

Went early to the river yesterday. Met a man who was up from S Carolina to meet a man with an artificial leg, to learn how to care for another man with an artificial leg. I asked how the prosthesis was fastened to the body, and we talked about that for a while. My white lab returned for a brief visit. I had no sandwich for him. A little girl– eleven or twelve, I guess– approached and asked me if I’d seen any fish. I had not. She asked if I’d seen birds, and I had, so we discussed that. The girl had a silver fox’s brush attached to her pants, she apparently pretending to be a fox. We talked about that. Then I wrote a poem to welcome Stetson, and wept because the poem was good and such things still flow from an unsullied fountain. 

Stopped by Reems Creek and bought $200 worth of plants to put in the places I’m laboriously ridding of vines. 

In the evening, went to NCS. I’d cherished an evening of theater after a long dry spell, even skipping a concert at the old folks’ home to do it. The evening was a success because of the excitement of being in the city, of parking at distance and stopping here and there for ogling and cocktails as I made my way. The couple beside me at Zambra’s were celebrating the twentieth anniversary of a Bob Dylan concert they went to, Dylan playing that very night at Harrah’s. I’m so disconnected I didn’t know Dylan was in town. She lives in Asheville, he in Washington State, and I gathered they hadn’t seen each other in the interval. Saw several friends at the theater, including Adam, a sight for sore eyes, who asked me to be in Montford’s Henry VI. I said yes, counting on something to intervene between now and then. As for the play, this company has established a tradition of giving C plays an A production. Except for one weak actor (the same who had been my Frankenstein) the production was impeccable. The play, Witch, was. . .well, I began looking at my watch about twenty minutes in. It couldn’t commit to an identity, being sometimes a fractured fairy talk, sometimes a feminist discourse, something a gay coming-out exercise, sometimes a half-assed observation of medieval family relations, a bargain basement Lion in Winter. Action stops every now and then so a character can face the audience and declare what the playwright is thinking. The actor playing Scratch could almost pull that off; the others, not. Productions like that make me wonder why I try so hard. But, left the theater for the long merry walk back. Stopped in the Times Bar– which I like though it’s gloomy–for another cocktail, though actually was to pay for access to a bathroom. The goofy bar boy explained Japanese Scotch to me. I asked because a single shot was $28. Felt young and energized striding through the dark streets.