Bears

 October 19, 2025

Roused from the couch last night by terrible noise out back, like somebody dismantling the tool shed, Two adult bears haunted the yard. One was wrestling with the garbage can and its bear-proof lid. The lid won, but I wonder if it would have had I not interrupted. One of the bears fled as soon as I appeared, but the other took his time, walking back into the garden, then changing his mind and walking toward me again. He passed peacefully between the car and me and out toward Lakeshore, but I watched his brown eye in the flashlight glare, wondering if he wanted to attack, flee, or was merely going peacefully on his intended way after an insignificant interruption.. 

 October 18, 2025

Infuriating rehearsal last night. Constant stopping of the music to correct diction errors which had not been made. 

Excellent gardening, planting daffodil and hyacinth, digging, weeding, mulching. Bulbs that must yet be interred shrink to a single box, unless I’ve ordered something I don’t remember. 

The School of Night

 

October 16, 2025

Finished, for the moment, The School of Night. Finished it twice ,in fact. The first ending worried me for hours before I went back, deleted it, wrote another ending not like the first at all. It’d easy to imagine that an outside power reads and critiques one’s work, then sends one back to the keyboard, because that’s how it feels. Whom was I pleasing when I changed the end? Wasn’t I content with the first? Who wasn’t? And why did he prevail? 

 

October 15, 2025

The man next to me at rehearsal last night said he was just getting over COVID. Great. 

 

October 13, 2025

Almost tomorrow. When I turn the heater on upstairs, the smell of cat urine wafts from the rug. This fills me with sorrow, missing Maud, who loved the study and, understandably, couldn’t be bothered to go downstairs and use the litterbox. 

Final performance of Washington Place yesterday afternoon. However many times I’ve seen it, I never wept in the last scene. I did yesterday, uncontrollably, shaking in my chair– though it was the least well done that it has ever been.  My nerves have been building toward a good cry: that was perhaps a prelude. This run has been extraordinary: full houses every night but opening, friends of mine not theater people attending, remarks from the crowd of unexpected admiration. An usher reports that as he was helping an old lady down the steps, she said, “I lived forty years in New York and saw a million shows. This was better than all of them.” The actresses said it was “poetic” and “inspiring.” Two people said it was “profound.” J said I am “a gift to the community.” One longs for such comments, then pretends they don’t mean anything. One doesn’t know how to react. I got tongue-tied in the talk-back and sounded like an idiot. Perhaps this will add to my mystique. 

Randomly came across a recording of Cantata 140 on You Tube. Such perfection! Why did I weep? The beauty of it, perhaps, or perhaps realizing I am one of the wise virgins keeping their lamps trimmed through the long night, awaiting the bridegroom. 

Went to Morris’ Funeral Home and talked with a funereal young man about my burial arrangements. J his name was, reporting that his secretary said I was “cheerful” on the phone. He handed me a giant folder full of information I must master before making decisions. It would have been easier to have died and left it to somebody else. The money I pay for the services goes into an insurance account. I asked, “So if I don’t die, I get all the money back?” He didn’t know whether to laugh. The firm had done Billy Graham’s service, and there huge photos of that on the wall, including Donald Trump, who was at the funeral. J said, “We are proud of these photos, though we know some of the images in them may be divisive.” 

Lunch with SS. I’m almost hopeless at practical planning. In any controversy I tend to forget the worst parts over time, which infuriates those who remember them. I forget who my enemies are, which may have the unexpected by-product of bewildering them. 

GMC planning meeting here. I was dark and combative. I’m fighting against the birth of a new world. It’s not better than the old world–worse, in several ways– but it is new and must have its day. Savage condemnation of anyone who does not honor the specification of pronouns and the desire of a person to be referred to as “they,” regardless of the knots in meaning that causes. Vehement dogmatism is always a testimony of doubt. Enlightened people do not recognize, often, where their enlightenment ends and something begins which in anybody else they would call bigotry.

Agitated and wary. When I search my mind for reasons, I come up with nothing. Maybe it’s just the general specter of the world in these latter days. 

Winter seeds and feeding stations set out. 

 October 11, 2025

All-day rehearsal retreat with AVLGMC. Good work, I think. The touchy-feely parts were considerably less mortifying than one expected. My partner for the sensitivity moment, or whatever it was, was supposed to tell me something about myself I might not know others know. He said, “You think people don’t know you’re a fucking genius because you never talk about it.” I’m sitting beside T now, my absurd infatuation. My infatuation may be absurd, but he is not.

Weary to the bone. 

 October 10, 2025

Blazing blue day. Enlarged the back garden to include a Cherokee rose and a couple of lines of crocus. The rose fought me, and my arm is red with thorn wounds. 

GMC last night, turbulent but useful. Good fellowship, as it had not been in quite a while. New blood, new energy. I’m an old limb on that tree, but not quite withered. 

Dragonfly

 

October 9, 2025

Moon, rising late and late-enduring, colored the west just as dawn colored the east. 

Planted narcissus and crocus yesterday– some of what lies waiting to be planted. Managed to fix the pond pump, an issue that has surprising effect on my state of mind. The solution came– I swear– in a dream, in which I was cleaning things at an archaeological site with the garden hose. Trundled out and fired the hose into the pump pit, and at one point dislodged a wad of vegetation from what I take to be the intake pipe. Rejoiced. Assured the fish that they soon would be able to breathe. Sat down to watch the water flow, ended up watching a dragonfly for most of half an hour. She swooped and hovered, laying eggs, I thought, but she dipped her tail in the water only once or twice, spent the rest of the time hovering, as though she were going on a journey and wanted to remember every detail of her home. 

Security camera picks up Bart the cat sunning on the porch. 

Watched an interview made with Jane Goodall in anticipation of her death. She relived her life and her scientific observations. She was like a creature from another world, calm, direct, humane, not one observation dogmatic, every detail draw from close and verified observation. We could have lost the entire present administration and kept her. 

T and I had coffee in the cold morning light and spent two solid hours excoriating Trump and his works.  Just like old times. 

Trip to Ferguson Auditorium on the AB Tech campus to decide how to set it up for the AVLGMC concert. I stood there thinking about other things while the boys whirled about in an excited frenzy of organization and problem-solving. How I admired their enthusiasm, their energy. I must have been like that at one point, though I don’t recall ever being much of a planner. “Just come out and sing” was a suggestion not at all tuned to the moment. 

 October 7, 2025

 Hours yesterday getting my tire fixed. Huge tow truck guy taught me how to use the inflator apparatus and towed my to the amazingly clean AAA garage downtown. Tow truck guy lives in Alexander with his wife and three little boys. He loves his job, but hated school because he only likes things that are “hands on.”  The tire had a puncture in the sidewall, so it had to be replaced rather than fixed. $250. There was no nail or debris, which strengthens my suspicion of sabotage. But, who knows? 

GMC planning meeting here last night, two hours of talk of staging and choreography and raffles and decorations. I want to stand on the risers in my tuxedo and sing Bach. That voice, except for me, is no longer heard. 

 

October 5, 2025

Downtown last night to see two of T's short plays at the BeBe. One was a masterpiece. The other was possibly a masterpiece, but one for which the actors’ needed a sharper conception to put fully across. Lines almost as gorgeous as mine. I kept checking myself to see if the splendor of his person wasn’t affecting my judgment. Anyone that good looking shouldn’t be able to write so well. Hope I’m getting past that. Took in the town, as I do mostly on those nights when I go to the theater. Lively, happy. I must seem a tottering relic alone on the streets like that. When I appear on my new security cameras my hesitant walk makes me look 1000 years old. 

In the car ready for the trek to Waynesville when I discovered a very flat tire. Turns out the 2024 Toyota Cross has no spare, and the AAA guy was unable– for liability reasons– to help me with the re-inflator apparatus. So, getting a tow first thing in the morning. I simp for God so much that the thoughts that ran through my mind were how much luckier it was than to have a flat last night on the downtown streets, or half an hour later on the road through the mountains. And maybe missing today’s performance of my play caused me to miss something far worse, as on TV shows when the hero misses the plane that crashes. I suspected sabotage for a moment, but the security cameras detected nothing. Probably a bolt or nail left over from recent construction. P writes me a review of the performance: 

We’ve gotten back from the play and dinner and wanted to let you know how everyone we talked to—our friends from Deerfield, Daphne and Bill, and J and D F all had things to say about your play that would make you blush were you to hear them. We loved how you treated the story and made it come alive, not as a tragedy you can read about, but a very personal account of the protagonists. Each woman, and the young man, were rounded complete people—all in the space of 90 minutes—and their personal stories didn’t have a tincture at all of the commonplace or the emotionally hyped-up.  It was all very satisfying theatre, and the actors themselves, in the Q & A following (oh, how we missed you at that) said they’d become very connected with the subjects they were performing, and had on their own gone to look up as much as they could about their roles. How often does that happen when someone’s playing Coriolanus! They also said how well your script turned into easy-to-perform dialogue, that was beautiful to hear and to speak as well. The performance (and therefore the play itself) was enthusiastically applauded with a standing O that would have pleased you.

Washington Place

 October 4, 2025

Feast of St. Francis

To Waynesville last night for opening night of Washington Place. I’m always astonished and grateful to see the effort so many people put into realizing my work. It was a good show in an especially good space for it. The girls tried Yiddish and Italian accents, which got in my way, but which were praised in the talk-back, so I assume I have the playwright’s prejudicial passion to hear every single syllable. The actresses had done research and knew far more about their characters and the event than I. Gussie wore a necklace because her character, burned past recognition, was identified by a necklace worn in a certain way. 

 October 3, 2025

Getting used to the security cameras. Trying not to obsess and look every 20 minutes. The backyard one sees ghosts– which is to say it detects a person and then shows none. I think it’s triggered by big moths close up, which is what I saw in the videos. The front camera is ill-placed, and a person, or a car, can come up the drive without being detected. You can get to the front door without being detected if you come from the east. But, at 2:30 this morning it caught a family of bears drinking from the cement basin on the front porch. My guess is that the cameras will reveal nightly bear visitations. I asked Zac my installer specifically if a bear would count as a “person” to the camera, and he assured me it would not. Glad he was wrong. 

Huge, irritating rehearsal last night. We’re not used to the numbers, and the social energy & chattering are hard to tame. We’re singing a song called “Pink Christmas”– against which I fought manfully but unsuccessfully– containing perhaps 40 uses of the word “pink.” After each and every goddamn one our director would stop and say “PinKKKK” to emphasize how much she wants a clown-like final consonant. The direction you repeat most often is the direction which is wrong, and you know it’s wrong because you have to repeat it. So old, and yet not all my rough edges worn off.

Monteverdi playing from the computer. He played while I was trying to work while the solar guys messed about in the attic. Wonder what they thought.

First female Archbishop of Canterbury.

Jane Goddall

 October 2, 2025

Security installed, solar array in process. I was told it would take one day, but perhaps they’re doing a really good job. I did not “arm” the apparatus last night, considering that I’ve never had a night invasion (except of my car) and assume spotlights will be enough. The solar installers walk back and forth on the roof above my head– a white boy and a black boy; I’ve not heard them speak one word to each other.

It’s 11:40 AM, and at this minute the upheaval of construction has become irksome. “Finish up,” I think, “the guy told me one day at most.”  

Secretly I expect none of this laborious apparatus to work. The new wiring will start a fire and burn my house down. Some glitch will never allow the solar units to work. Turkeys will shit on the solar panels before the day ends. All my breakers will be flipped when they hit the “on” switch. They will have bashed holes in my roof hidden till the rains come. Something. 

Excellent writing session at riverside. So cold, though, my winter jacket was almost not enough. 

Jane Goddall has died. Whenever anyone asked about my “living heroes,” she was always first on the list. Gaia. Yavanna. 

 October 1, 2025

The Security System man and the solar panel men came in the same hour. Footsteps and banging on the roof.  I expect each bang to break through into my study.  Hubbub from which I am about to flee. As they have my car hemmed in, the flight will probably be to the garden with a box of bulbs. Sweetboi’s strange end made me think I need security cameras. A man knocking at the door with an offer of free installation made me think I needed solar.

 September 30, 2025

Cold. All the windows shut for the first time. Twice my finger hovered at the thermostat.

Gave an interview about Washington Place with Janet Kopenhaver of Asheville Stages. She’d been to the gym and was hyper-hydrated and had to use the bathroom a lot. Interesting half hour. It is still true that I have never listened to a podcast of which I was not the subject. 

Guy delivered a pallet of materials for my solar panels, so I guess that’s on. What a week of banging and hammering this is going to be.

Waiting for a locksmith on one of those “I’ll text a half hour before I get there” arrangements which are the most infuriating things in ordinary life. I expected the call at 8 AM. It is now 3:20 PM. I’m not the kind of person that can be casual about appointments. 

Vivint Security guy makes arrangements for tomorrow. I let loose about asking for a morning time, getting a vague sometime-in-the-afternoon time, repeating the AM request with every communication, being ignored every time. There was a glitch in their system, so he says. and now I have a slot at PRECISELY 9:30. Their web page won’t let me sign some document I’m meant to sign before the technician arrives. Days chopped to bits by interruptions and irrelevancies. 

Some hugely dark nights replaced by irritations far more immediate and superficial. This is an advance.

Ate a single tomato for lunch. Quick and baffling diarrhea. 

School of Night gets better and better. I impede progress by thinking, “So what? Irrespective of quality, it will come to nothing.” Old songs repeated so often they leave grooves in the air. 

TP responds to my announcement about the Washington Place productions with: This is great. My entire day is just trying to stay alive. Doctors are considering putting a fucking bag on my side I can’t even use the toilet without help. I was in an unbelievable amount of pain when we first met. I didn’t realize how many physical problems I had then I guess even I didn’t believe I could have so much wrong in my early 20’s . I lived with it all and had to at last end up not being able to walk about 6 years ago after a trip to the park to play frisbee with Nick and Dylan. I wish I had been smart enough to do some things differently. I am really happy to hear about your play. It’s wonderful. Thank you David for being a wonderful person and friend.

I remember his angelic beauty and clear talent when we were doing our play at the green door. No, I knew none of this, or but echoes of it that I did not pursue. Alas repeated like the call of a bird.  

The Locksmith arrived after a bitter text from me. He was a giant, sweet Tunisian, very apologetic, though pointing out correctly that our plans had never been definite. He fixed the knobs in five minutes, and showed me how to open the doors correctly, and undercharged me because I had been disgruntled. He thought my house was beautiful, and lamented that his wife filled theirs with “so many things.” 

Dream before waking, mostly lost: I was in a very beautiful blue landscape, evening or some blue planet, trying to save somebody. Around the small sharp moon a flock of white birds wheeled in a circle I thought they were tiny birds, but that was a trick of distance. When I saw them in trees later, they were gigantic. It was a dream that continued into wakefulness, then reasserted when I deliberately went back to sleep so the beauty of it would continue. 

Lord of the Rings

 September 28, 2025

“The People that Walked in Darkness” from Messiah rises up from the kitchen. Sat down to watch the whole expanded version of The Lord of the Rings, over three late nights, after the talk shows end. Reminds me of exam week at Hiram, when I’d re-read The Lord of the Rings instead of studying. That worked out well enough.

Helene

 September 27, 2028

The Helene Anniversary. Everyone’s Facebook and You Tube feeds overflow with images of wreckage and desolation. 

Morning rehearsal at First Baptist, then a performance at Pride in City-County Plaza. One tape has us sounding horrible, another has us sounding fine, so who knows? Mostly what you hear on the tape is the chatter of the crowd, so maybe it didn’t matter how we sounded. Finally a big hurricane memorial service at First Baptist. I think it went well. I made the fewest mistakes in the Lauridson Lux Aeterna that I had ever made. Tall H was planted right in front of me, so I could only guess what the conductor was doing. Fell asleep on the sofa, woke after 3 and staggered to bed. 

Question: “What are you going to do to commemorate the hurricane?” Answer: “Flush my toilet.” 

 September 26, 2025

Dim days, half rain, half gray light. A cloud of titmice at the feeders late in the afternoon. 

Emotions roiling as though I were a teenager.

Hurricane anniversary weekend. We’re singing a commemoration program at First Baptist. Here’s an enigma: we have too many rehearsals and yet, at the same time, we are under-rehearsed. 

Pride tomorrow. They predict considerable rain. 

Naps

 September 24, 2025

Productive time a riverside working on The School of Night. 

Sound of turkeys racing around on the roof. Something gets into them every now and then and they fly up there. 

Odd exhaustion. Two naps in one afternoon. 

 September 23, 2025

Trump inconceivably demented before the UN. I use “inconceivably” properly, for such atrocities could not have been anticipated, could not have been imagined, are difficult to believe once witnessed. 

 September 22, 2025

Autumn. Swift progress on my Marlowe play, the words fitting like bricks in a wall.