Rugby

July 28, 2024

Waking, it took me a few moments to settle down and realize I was not in immediate economic peril. When my dreams are turbulent they are often about what am I going to do for a job? How am I going to finish my degree? Where will I go now that the university has let me go? Where will I live now that I’m homeless?– things I don’t remember worrying about when they were possibilities.

Olympic-watching: Rugby is far more interesting than I’d given it credit for. Few things are more boring than watching water-polo. I would pay cash to the gymnastics commentator to stop using the words “hop” and “stick the landing.” 

 

Olympics

 

July 26, 2024

Early to the Riverside, where A gave me the full account of his prostate drama. It sound fairly horrible. I am glad to sleep through every night, wake up and piss like a racehorse. An egret hunted on the far side of the river as we talked. Arrived home in time to watch the opening of the Olympic Games. Inventive, inexhaustible, spectacular. Paris knows how to throw a party. 

Goldfinches throng the garden. My seeds are their seeds.

Anniversary

 

July 25, 2024

Mother’s 100th birthday. 

Gentle, relentless rain continues. I see my street-garden gleam red and yellow from behind a shield of rain and overgrown grass. As soon as the rain stops--

The regular guy came to inspect my de-humidifier. On the way out he stopped to tell me how he’d gotten into some trouble (DWI, I guess) and had to be driven everywhere and how he was grateful not to have lost his job. We agreed the judge had no reason not to grant his petition to get his license back earlier than planned. The butcher at Fresh Market told me about the carno diet he was on, where you eat nothing but animal products. This was apropos of talking me out of buying bangers because they have bread crumbs in them. I asked him how the carno diet was meant to benefit him, and he wavered a little and said he was doing it in support of a friend who was doing it. In any event, I didn’t buy the bangers. 

Kittery

 

July 24, 2024

Day begins with phone calls to Direct TV, which has been billing me without my ever having used or requested the service, then to Capital One because online access didn’t work. . . finished with business for the day, I hope. 

Painted with fluidity yesterday. Maybe will today.

Second stint as a Cathedral docent. Interesting people from Maine, Florida, elsewhere. I enjoy meeting them, but the expanse of talking expected exceeds my accustomed portion. One couple was from Kittery. I told them of my walking across to Kittery on the bridge from Portsmouth, looking down into the waters, hoping for a great sea-creature. 

 

July 23, 2024

Typing on a new computer, the old giving me unmistakable signs of exhaustion. Adam, who transferred my files, plays drums in a band. Set up everything with only the usual temper tantrums. Half the glitches were my inattention. Half weren’t. 

Stomach muscles sore from the dry cough of Covid. Seems to have abated during the night.

Screech owl in my dogwoods in the darkness. 

Photos

 

July 21, 2024

President Biden withdraws from the race. I didn’t know how I’d feel about this until it happened, and now I know I’ll feel exhilarated, ready to get back into the fight. I’d withdrawn from everything, even watching the news on TV, out of a sense of dread and despair. Breathing again. The irony is that Biden will outlive Trump. 

Forty pages into my nature book.

My sister sends dozens of photos of me when I was a kid. I have no recollection of anyone taking pictures of me, yet I know the occasion and the locale of each instantly. What a surprisingly well documented life, at least the beginning of it. 

 

July 20, 2024

Gloated too soon, as I think I’ve spent most of the day weighed down by a minor bout of Covid. Exhaustion past description, a few aches, not much more. 

Rain is now my excuse for neglecting weeding. It’s better than heat, which was my excuse before.

Working on a new nature book. I can’t remember which stories I used in the previous ones. 

 

July 19, 2024

Blessed rain renews. The wildlife drinking vessels in the lawn brim. 

R asserts that GALA choruses are reporting 25-40% Covid infections. Of course now every minor ache suggests this. 

 July 17, 2024

Visit to the Y. I must remind myself I feel better each time I do that.  

A spider crossed the lens of the backup camera in my car, looking quite huge. Thought for a moment I had backed into a monster movie. 

Late afternoon thunderstorm. Tlaloc be praised. 

 

July 16, 2024

After lounging through the morning, I caught a taxi to the Minneapolis airport. We were out of the city and on the Interstate when my driver, messing with his phone, changed lanes without looking, and hit the car to our right. I was shaken, but not so much in the moment as when I got out of the car and saw how much damage had been done– a more significant collision that I’d thought. The Spanish-speaking driver chattered to me a mile a minute. I thought he was trying to charge me for the distance already traveled. I had no idea what to do. Either the driver called a colleague (driving the same kind of cab) or one happened fortuitously by, for after maybe fifteen minutes I was in another taxi completing the journey. The driver was not going to release my luggage, so I had to shove him a little aside and hit the button myself. Once at the airport I considered that maybe I should have waited for the police, but I hadn’t thought of that in time, and it might have led to missing the flight. My driver’s fault was so obvious it probably didn’t need me to confirm. Sat in the blessed Delta Sky Lounge drinking blood Marys to calm down. Otherwise, uneventful return, except standing with my luggage realizing my phone had deleted (by its own wicked will) Billy’s contact number, and I had no way to call my ride. I cursed out loud and creatively. A woman had fallen on the pavement, so she got the attention I might have otherwise. 

GALA 2024 closed. What I would have said had I not listened to the video of our performance would have been different, for I couldn’t imagine how we would stand up in that crowd, in the midst of New York and Atlanta and Chicago and Los Angeles, etc, which overflowed the stage with their numbers. But we were very, very good. In terms of musicality, none I heard was better. Though we couldn’t provide the tsunamis of sound of the big choruses, we had passion and precision, and even considering just mass of sound, we could probably outdo most choruses twice our size. Whatever I was going to say about the experience is fully changed and redeemed by beholding the unexpected result. In any case, I’m not sad to be home. Not sad to curl by the window last night hoping for a breeze, after all that vaguely inhumane air-conditioning. Stab of grief when there were not cats to greet me– intense, but shorter than before, so, progress. 

A little panicked at how much I spent, but looked at my portfolio and saw that, at 10:30 AM, I’ve made enough already today to cover the cost. Still, time to curb extravagance. I may live longer than I expected. 

Sparrow

 

July 15, 2024

Rain over Minneapolis. I am, of course, showered and packed with two hours to kill before I can reasonably head to the airport.

The crowd seemed to love us yesterday afternoon, but whether we actually sang very well one cannot be sure. I hit my low notes with the vigor that comes from knowing you don’t have to do so again for a while. I was timid at rehearsal, but recognized my Thor voice spreading its wings at the actual performance. Had fun with and drew closer to my brothers in the chorus. As you age and recognize the mutability of all things, affection is more cautious, but still sometimes it arises. Spent prodigally. Was it worth it? I have an experience I wouldn’t have had otherwise. It will take days to contextualize. Walking becomes harder and harder. Most of my afflictions have been a phase that passed eventually away. Maybe this will be too.

As I walked to the Normandy last night for our celebration dinner, I found a little sparrow banging repeatedly against a window, either trying to get in or fighting the bird in the window. I tried to lift him away and aim him in another direction, but he returned each time, and finally was so angry or so frightened that he began attacking me. Could think of nothing to do, so I went on my way. When I returned hours later he was gone.

Minneapolis 3

 

July 13, 2024

The day begins with hard rain on the windows. I brought no rain gear.

A newly informed glance makes me realize I can see the roof of the Art Institute– as well as the Hyatt where we’re meant to rehearse– from my window.

Returning to yesterday, went to see several sessions at Orchestra Hall and the Convention Center. The sameness, the relentless pop-y hyper-activity, the underdog triumphalism began to exhaust me sooner than I anticipated. I never need to hear another gay chorus singing gay anthems, ever, though I certainly will– beginning with today. The crowd, in its anxiety to uplift and support, manages to ruin every number by screaming and bravo-ing after every high note, after every achieved rhythmic effect, thus obliterating the end of each of those moments and then next ten measures of music after. Some groups, such as Atlanta and Columbus, manage both effect and music, but most aren’t trying, understanding that the crowd wouldn’t know how to react to good music making without a headdress of peacock feathers and flaming batons. 

Met Michael from Columbus in the hotel lobby. He has a tic toc channel where he talks about his life as a gay man and the surrogacy that brought him and his partner, also Michael, a son long before it was fashionable. I ran from building to building to hear Columbus for his sake. Lunch with members of the gang, who invited me to the Normandy for dinner and drinks. When I got to the Normandy, no one was there. I had been stood up Ordered cocktails anyway, in conversation with an old spinster who lives a few blocks away and volunteers at the church because she wanted to meet more gay people. She lamented that most people find her irritating, and I stand witness to the truth of that. Left Normandy, returned to the Hilton, more cocktails with guys from Turtle Creek (Dallas). Surprisingly, they shared my exhaustion with the relentless up-ness of the festival. Conversation with men pouring into the bar from a meeting, stately old guys in tuxedos, wearing medals, youths radiating insolent good health. Phi Kappa Psi having its bi-annual fete. Took a negroni up to my room and disappeared into sleep.

Evening: Full day. Sat in Peavey Park and wrote a poem in intermittent rain. A lesbian version of myself haunted the other corner of the terrace.  Rehearsal at the Hyatt, dinner at Hell’s Kitchen (which I liked) with colleagues. I’d been wandering around wondering what to do with my evening when the invitation to dinner came. 

I must temper my criticism of crowd behavior with this: The Triad Chorus (otherwise undistinguished) sang “Lift Ever’y Voice and Sing,” and immediately, silently, as one, the crowd rose to their feet. I was so proud of everybody that tears came to my eyes.

Someone shot at Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania, piercing his ear. My surprising reaction was sadness and sorrow for a bewildered old man who had to put up with being hurt in a place where he should have been safe. 

Minneapolis 2

 July 12, 2024

Full day yesterday of padding around Minneapolis, listening to choirs on the Orchestra Hall stage. The level of excellence is high, but not universally high. Women’s choirs had trouble with blend and intonation. The repertoire is noteworthy in that, down the line, from chorus to chorus, it consists mostly of LGBTQ triumphalist material, which is intended to, and often does, touch a nerve by reminding gay people of the struggle of our elders (perhaps ourselves) and congratulating us on our present level of ascendence. You were an outcast; now you are dancing in the street. In the groups I heard, not one classical piece, few that placed musical values first. Atlanta did a beautiful Mandarin piece involving Tai Chi gestures. Chicago came out glorious as the very first act without singing anything that was actually music, but lustily performed (in cowboy hats) missives of encouragement. The singers would hate the comparison, but these works resemble nothing so much as the Praise music of conservative churches, where the cycle of sin and confession and redemption is repeated ad nauseum, so those who have not lived the experience may feel it, and those that have may get a booster shot.  It’s not that the gay anthems aren’t effective (I caught myself weeping) but after a while they’re a dog whistle, meant to illicit the same reaction every time. Too sweet for propaganda, perhaps. Perhaps not. And– as I know from having sung them– having little to do with art. 

Meeting people in lines and throngs. Had lunch at the Brit Bar beside a young woman who sings with the Atlanta Men’s Chorus. She saw my expression when she said that, and she added that she was in her first few weeks of transition. “Do you feel any different?” I ask. “Not yet,” says she. I went to their concert, and there she was in the front row, singing her heart out among the– can it be true?– baritones.

Drinks with the crew in the hotel bar. I hadn’t had my nap and didn’t go with them to finish out the night at the Normandy, where most of them are staying. 

Morning hike to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, giving me a glimpse of the city. I gave myself an hour to get there, and it took, of course, half an hour, so I sat on a park bench until it opened, the benches around me filled with homeless recovering from sleepless nights, Unexpectedly colossal museum, only part of which I saw, mostly the Asia galleries, which brought peace.

Minneapolis

 

July 11, 2024

Twenty-fourth floor of the downtown Hilton, Minneapolis. Magnificent views in three directions, one of them east, where the sun approaches roaring and exultant. A chatterbox named Megan lightened the flight from Asheville. She lives in DC, was visiting friends in NC, now off to a funeral in Minneapolis, where she grew up. She works in finance, of late with Wells Fargo, now with Discover. 

My driver from the airport was an Ethiopian, who told me during the ride of the troubles in his home country. He described himself as a Tigre tribesman, and said that a million of his tribe have been murdered in a brutal war that hardly makes the news in the West, because, he says, the people dying are black, and Ethiopia has no commodity that the West desires. Tigre apparently insist on a election, while the present dictator forbids one. This is not the way it was described in the news, long ago when it was news. His last observation was that whatever troubles America has, they’re nothing compared to what his land goes through, generation after generation.

Arrived at the bustling Hilton and was told that my room was not ready.

“But it’s 9 PM,” says I

“I’m sorry, but it’s not ready.”

“It’s 9 PM,” I repeat in disbelief. “My scheduled arrival was 3.”

The lamentation about many conventions and how busy everything was did not impress me, and I used my Professor face. Got comped for dinner (which I did not want) and eventually made it to my room, which is fine and high far beyond my needs. 

Wore the wrong pants, which kept trying to fall off my, and which I sometimes I caught barely in time. It was especially interesting when I had my luggage in one hand, carry-on in the other, and could barely get the descending trousers in time. Belt in my luggage redeems all.  

I have some advantage, as my clock is an hour ahead of the local one. Early start for everything. 

 

July 9, 2024

Avenue M is closed. For a while it was the seat of our social life. What happens to all the people associated with it, who struggled to make it viable through the years? Someone painted swastikas on the windows. 

Most of the day spent revising The Book of the Roses and gathering what I need to take to Minneapolis.

A Kind of Paradise

 

July 7, 2024

Forty-eight years ago today I had open heart surgery in Cleveland Clinic. Still the one objective dividing line of my life. Money well spent, all in all. 

Moved between front garden and back garden at sunset last night, strange reds and purples and the calling of my favorite birds, the towhees and the catbirds. A kind of paradise, which I made for myself. 

 

July 6, 2024

Blessed rain. One day can go by without my having to drag the hose around trying to keep everything alive. 

Fireworks

 

July 5, 2024

Last night erupted with fireworks, distant and close, the close so close rockets exploded over my yard, launched, I think, from the parking lot of the apartments, or possibly from the lawn of 62, my old home. The smell of gunpowder drifted into the windows. Luckily I like fireworks. If not, it would have been a rough night.

Independence

 July 4, 2024

Sweetest waking this morning, quite late, as when I startled on the couch and finally went to bed it was almost 3 AM. Birds singing, men talking as they cycled up Lakeshore. Full of holiday spirit, though there is no way, except in my attitude, why this day will be different from any other. I’ve been in general quite–if not seamlessly– happy in recent months. I attribute this stage of attitude to that night in Cork when I realized that happiness depends– for me, now–on not looking back, on pretending that this try is the first try, that this flop is an anomaly without a legacy and pattern behind. I should write a book, though where to go after “stop thinking about it” I don’t know.

Flipped the jury summons over and saw where it said you can get an exemption if you’re over 72. Filled it out, sent it in, realizing that one experience I’ll never have now is being on a jury. Mildest possible of regrets. 

Only once have I known a President younger than myself. 

Before the Holy Temple

 July 3, 2024

Early before-the-heat gardening. 

Tried to get us rehearsal space in Minneapolis, giving everybody a headache by going at it the wrong way. That’ll teach me. 

Found the Capital Q video of Before the Holy Temple that I thought was never made. Not bad. The actors needed another rehearsal, but who doesn’t?

Drag

 July 2, 2024

B suggests “Christmas Is a Drag” for our holiday show, writing: 

We would like to partner with the local drag community to weave our own tale of Music, social injustice, greed and the holidays reminiscent of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"! Think Drag Queen(s) as the spirits of Holidays past, present or future and what holiday music might correspond with our narrative. We want to keep this one light (mostly) and help make the season's bright.

If the roof were high enough I would jump off it. I have to consider my aversion to Drag. A man dressing as a woman and trying to be as beautiful or as womanly as he can be is lovely and intriguing to me. It’s an homage to women and womanhood. But that’s not what gay men mean when they reference “drag.” They mean gargantuan evening gowns, glitter, lip-synching, alien or reptilian make-up, some cross between Mae West and a Hogarth slattern, braying and obscene. I do not understand what part this plays in gay aspiration. I do not know what message it sends about women, except for the most virulent contempt. The best defense I get is “It’s fun.” Maybe it is for those who do it. To me, being asked to participate in a drag show, or even witness one, is like requiring a Black man to join a minstrel show. 

 July 1, 2024

The Supreme Court just made the worst ruling (that I remember) in my lifetime. I remember in the 60's and 70's when the Court was a stay against the lawlessness of the right. Now it practices fascist activism to a degree unseen since before the Civil War. 

Painted weirdly, but that’s not new. 

 June 30, 2024

Fearsome all-night revision of Antigonus occasioned by what I’m not even sure, maybe the conviction that great jewels lay within a confused casket. I wept typing the final period. 

Revised The Class of 1960

Will leaves us for Transfiguration in Saluda