March 7, 2008

Driving rain. Truly remarkable rain.

Woke from a cluster of vivid dreams. Ann R and Amanda G and I were sitting in a room translating from big books of Gothic or medieval French, discussing, at one point, a verb with "jongleur" as part of it. "Jongleur" seemed very important to whatever it was we were researching. I was a student, apparently, and after the translation session I had to meet with a class in a very old building. As I was sitting at my desk, a man passed by and touched me on the back of the neck. There was immediate communication between us, instant longing, and in the next scene of the dream, he was soaking a great knot of rope in oil in a belfry in the ancient building, meaning to set it on fire and cause a distraction so classes would end and we could meet.

It’s Friday and I’ve done nothing with my break. Prepared boxes for the Cantaria yard sale, worked grandma’s china into the cupboards–one activity would have been impossible without the other. Worked a little on a play. But napped hugely, monumentally. Wrestled the new computer, I hope, into some form of submission. DJ and I saw the movie 10.000 BC. I liked it, but wished for more creatures. Visited Jason and saw his painting of me as the Feathered Serpent. An amazing concept, actually. . .

March 4, 2008

The most amazing quantity and duration of rain--

If I hoped that the ending of Crown of Shadows and the accomplishment of a jaunt to Atlanta would allow a period of productivity, I was wrong. My desktop refused to boot this morning, very nearly the most catastrophic thing which could happen right now. The man at Sassy’s diagnosed a destroyed mother board, but did managed to retrieve my files. A thousand dollars later, I have a new desktop on the way and a tiny pencil of plastic containing my life’s work ready to be injected into it. God thinks that by wasting great swathes of my time– such as driving nine hours yesterday, such as distilling this day down to a hunt for timely computer repair–he is teaching me patience. Exactly the opposite is true. I think that by reacting badly to his impositions I may stop them. I don’t know that to be wrong at all.

Drove, as alluded to above, to Atlanta to see dad in his new digs at the Dogwood. He has so many doctor appointments that I don’t know that he’s actually had time to acclimate. We had lunch with his new friend, Joe, a Texan who must have been big in his time, very much in control of his environment. They have a jovial relationship, though dad, being deaf and hardly able to speak above a whisper, has a hard time communicating with anybody. Lunch was almost silent, because everybody is pretty much deaf. Dad should have had more friends in his time, for he seems to be a good one, encouraging me to talk to Joe because he can’t, and he imagines Joe to be starved for conversation. I know I shouldn’t pass judgment from the outside; I know that Dogwood is the creme de la creme of such institutions; I know the people will take life pretty much on any terms whatever, but still, the place seemed horrible to me, a luxurious last waiting room, where women who once ran corporations have to ask three times for lemon for their tea, where good food is eaten in silence burdened by the weight of multiple remembrance. Everyone is good to them. It doesn’t matter. Most of them are bewildered still to be alive. Some of them are alive only for lack of a means of exiting. Dogwood is enlarging, and I observed that there will be more call for such places as the population ages, and dad said, "You’d think there’d be a limit."
Linda took me to the school where she works, and which David and Daniel attend. It was wonderful to see my handsome nephews among their friends, clearly popular, smiling and mischievous. They hugged me and cried "Uncle David!" and one of their friends did the same thing. I thought it was charming and funny. Linda tells me my new nephew is some sort of Nigerian prince. Jonathan arrived later, a jolly giant, affectionate with his brothers, vocally but not quite cloyingly devout. A neighborhood boy named John came over, and there was much searching on computer for horrific weapons of war, which the boys would describe to each other in terms which one soon recognized were enthusiastic fiction. We used to do that too, without the visual aids, or based on comic books and movies. Bloody-mindedness is hardwired in boys; let’s hope it remains, as it was among them, and us, merry. I smiled at them for their merry selves, and less merrily at myself, for one of the lives which could have been and was not.

The drive back was ghastly, and magnified by events such as taking one hour to progress seven miles on McGinnes Ferry, which seemed such a shortcut in the morning.

Dusty pink trees are abloom in Atlanta.

I surprised myself by thinking very little about Crown of Shadows during the drive. Every other thing in the world, but little about that. But, then, what would I think? To think about the performances would be to miss the people who gave them. As for the rest, all is accomplished, and one wants to stop short of thinking oneself into too much satisfaction.

Grandmother’s china came back with me in four cartons. I don’t know why I wanted it so bad, or why I am so excited about having it. Maybe I think it will cement memories. I won’t unload it from the car until the rain stop, fearful of slipping in the mud and breaking something.

March 2, 2008

Bright Sunday morning.

In terms of attendance, Hat has been our most successful play. I don’t understand it, but I don’t mind it. I think it is, of the three, the script which rolls along without a glitch, almost actor-proof, almost inevitable. It’s where I want to launch from as a playwright from this point on. It felt like silk to me.

Ryan Madden posts a detailed, very professional and plausible critique of the technical aspects of Gilgamesh. It’s not a particularly flattering assessment, but one is flattered when someone takes the time. I realize that I am worse (or better) than others at overlooking technical shortcomings; usually I’m so wrapped up in the words or the acting that I don’t see them. On my own I noticed none of the problems Ryan did–or didn’t think of them as problems-- but once he mentioned them, I understood what he meant, and how a person who was looking for those things could have his experience of the play diminished. Short of my own theater and a whole lot of money, I don’t know what to do about them, except maybe post another sign like the one we did warning of nudity and strong language– "theater professionals may be disappointed at our various unavoidable amateurisms." I can’t even say that we did our best, for I--and probably Mickey too– let some things through which we knew were not the best, or even the best we could do, but to which someone or other had an attachment, and we had decided to take the concept of collaboration seriously. Things happened that made me cringe, but made another smile, and that seemed an upright tradeoff. I think Ryan and Brian have a different feel for what constitutes correct tech for a play, Ryan intending, if I understand things right, to be efficient, elegant, unobtrusive. Brian is more poetical, more responsive to the text, and rather more about self-expression. Both are welcome behind my board any day.

I dreaded the weeks that Crown of Shadows would take up, but it became ordinary life, and I forgot that I ever did anything else. This afternoon it’s all over, and I will feel– content, I think. Thanks to everybody for that. I will miss my actors. I will be glad of my evenings back. . . to do what with? I’ll think of something . . . .

March 1, 2008

Hat’s world premiere went nobly last night, a good performance of the play which is, in terms of simple efficiency of exposition, the best in the bunch. Stephanie has grown into the queen, and the two goddesses never worked better together. Darren was moving as the vizier-- the emotional center of the evening. A UNCA student I’d overheard in the hall talking of Hatshepsut, a paper topic for some class, came on the ticket I gave her, and beamed with happiness. Our audience was considerably larger than I expected, perhaps on the basis of word-of-mouth. Mickey’s mother had New Orleans rescue kittens in the foyer, as she had for Virginia Woolf. If I hadn’t a full house already I’d have adopted one or two.

Slept unusually late this morning, entertained by a dream that was long, detailed, funny, beautiful in places, and very telling. High on a hill above the city was a palatial building full of fascinating rooms, not so much functional as fun, TV rooms and stuffed animal rooms and animals-of-Africa rooms, and I had to wait and wander through it after dark because I wasn’t sure that I was fully welcome. I wasn’t unwelcome, for when the owners–Charlie and Angie Flynn McIver–encountered me when I had inadvertently left my coat behind, there was no rancor, but there was a quizzical lift of brows. Elaborate shows went on in theaters scattered throughout the building, and I would stand in the shadows and watch chorus girls making their entrances in costumes of pink feathers, though I never actually saw the shows. I would sneak away by daylight, encountering workers entering, me looking nonchalantly about as though I had just happened on that corner of the world.

February 29, 2008

Leap day of leap year. Coffee with Tom this morning, the first time I’ve met with him since the birth of his son, the first time he met with me since we moved my father down from Akron. Life changes all around us. August was sick the first few days, and Tom said, "I never stopped crying."

It must be terribly cold outside, for the furnaces hisses and rumbles. The little night animals leave tracks in the remnants of snow on my porch. The crocus–gold and pale lavender-- the pulmonaria, the Lenten rose, and the violas are unvexed by the cold and snow.

February 28, 2008

Snow, but not enough to cancel classes. Not feeling well, but how not well am I feeling? Enough to cancel classes and stay home? Almost, I think–but maybe not enough? I have far too much Midwestern responsibility in me to catch, as Lady Macbeth would say, the nearer way.

Hat rehearsal good last night, but with huge gaps in the lines, which I wasn’t used to from the first two shows. Something seems too easy about this one. Maybe it’s simply that we kept the set from being an issue every minute of every night. Maybe that there’s no need for the titanic, overawing individual performances so necessary to the other two.

I wish some people would receive a shock whenever they start to explain.

I wish I would receive a shock whenever I let something go because I’m too exhausted to explain.

Last night Maud and I watched a raccoon out on the porch, gleaning the sunflower seeds spilled when I filled the bird feeders. He looked so cold and bedraggled. I would have invited him in to cuddle with us, except for the conviction that it would not turn out well.

February 27, 2008

Brahms quiet from the next room. Snow. Did almost nothing. Have barely been able to stay awake, lying down and sleeping almost as often as I passed a horizontal surface. Went to bed before 10 last night. My body is fighting some illness, and long ago discovered that sleep is its best weapon.

Bought my ticket and reserved my room in New York for the Edward opening.