December 7, 2015

Pearl Harbor.

Lapping one day of rest like honey off a silver spoon.

Studied the score. Wrote on the Hiram book.

Received a call from the faux IRS saying this was their final warning. I should have listened to the end to see how much money they wanted me to send where.

Baked pomegranate cookies. Holding a mixer is one of the activities prohibited by my ruined shoulders. Nevertheless, my playwrights will have cookies tonight.

December 6, 2015

Transplanted the wisteria that came already too twisted ever to be a tree. Now it has something to lean against. Good, firm & abundant roots. Day obliterated by rehearsal: a case of diminishing returns, but also a sort of joy, because I thought my voice would never hold up, and it’s gotten over its delicacy, and has. Director too confident in his own ear. Me, too easily distracted, my mind wandering after a while (exhaustion?) even in difficult parts. Took no dinner break (we had maybe 20 minutes what with one rehearsal and another) but stopped at 5 Walnut, drank one glass of exquisite Portuguese white. The band played “One of These Days,” and I allowed myself to think it was in honor of Washington Place.

December 5, 2015

Geminiani on Pandora

Began the day before light, sneaking the discarded bedframe into the apartment dumpster. It was exciting. Got my blood moving, with just a hint of the illicit. The larger of the two delivery giants had recommended this action.

Did terrible last night at rehearsal, a little grenade of error. Don’t know why, as I did practice at my electric keyboard. Maybe that gave me a false sense of confidence. The city streets are alive as I walk the varying distances to my car after rehearsal. I want to go into a bar and meet someone and have a drink, but my feet keep walking and my back thinks of bed. My throat is holding up magnificently, thanks be to God.

Birds call strangely, a little viciously, from the cover of my hollies at dawn. I’m not even sure what they are, unless they’re mockingbirds trying, almost successfully, to frighten me.

December 4, 2015

Corelli on Pandora.

Planted two peonies coming late in their own square of dusty earth.

The first things visible in the back at morning are the tops of the two discarded pumpkins, a deep orange glow, the predations of the squirrels not yet visible. They’re meant to rot there and their seeds send out vines for me in the spring.

December 3, 2015

Three beautiful young men came to my office and confessed their love for me. I have sunk so far into worldliness, and turned so many words to base labor, that I cannot find a pure language to describe the moment. But they were radiant, manly, heroic, three Parsifals, three Adams before the Fall, their emotions pure as angels’. They came separately and were unknown to each other. One I will call Energy, one Love, and one Courage– which in this world must look like sadness. I did not do well by them, for their confessions were so abashing that I tried to deflect them with a joke, or to turn to other subjects. Who but God is so self-assured as to take admiration full on? Not I. But when the moments were passed, I realized a great thing of the Spirit had happened, a thing by which my labors are justified. I sat in a coffeeshop with my face turned to the wall, and wept. Then I wrote. All was well. Some few things are well forever. I may forget; drudgery and defeat may lie before, but for this moment I am justified, and all is a level plain stretching before me. I said to the Lord, “Your work in me is justified.”

As if that weren’t enough, after many recommendations I took some tumeric. I had been swallowing ibuprofen by the handful to get relief from pain in my arms and shoulders, and it barely sufficed. I couldn’t lift a coffee mug, couldn’t lift my right hand to the top of the steering wheel, couldn’t pull the covers around me in bed. Had to bend nearly to the floor to get my coat on. I took the tumeric capsule and within two hours it was well. The ache is still there, dull and deep in the shoulders, but mobility returns, and the pain is a tenth of what it was. I am not one to believe in supplements or organic remedies very much, so I assume the effect is real.

Grueling rehearsals, far too long for singers. Nevertheless, one cannot say we have the material mastered so that the effort is not necessary. Productive and informative despite my irritation. I’m surprised by the mistakes I can make without knowing I’d made them. Worse tonight, and worse still at the beginning of next week, and then things relax like a snapped rope. The short of it is that I do not like following other people’s schedules.

Bed got delivered yesterday. Two giants came with it. The larger of the two giants was trying to teach the lesser how it should be possible for one person to carry a Queen sized mattress. He demonstrated, but I don’t think many people could possibly follow after. I was happy to drag it from one room to the other, even with my restored limbs.

December 2, 2015

Immortal rain.
   
The pain in my shoulders and arms makes me effectively an invalid. My shoulder aches from carrying a mug of coffee up the stairs. Tried to help Catori lift a platform–one I could have lifted single-handedly a year ago-- and I froze half way from the floor. We call it “inflammation,” but I am not clear what that is or what causes it. I assume most things are dietary, but if so, what? I will stop this. I will increase that. Anything.
  
Grueling rehearsal last night. I made multiple mistakes, and unless I was the only one off, there must have been musical cataclysm on down the line. C has a good ear, and my fear of goofs that were never heard about is abated. The actors are finely tuned and wonderful to listen to when one is oneself not singing or praying to Polyhymnia for the next note. It is flatly not possible for me to sing four hours straight. At one point my voice literally shut down, and I had to run offstage for water. Luckily the play is less than half as long as the rehearsal. Last night I was racked with muscle spasms as well. God knows why, for I was hydrating like a maniac. Tenseness? Sitting funny? The Lord’s array is forever a surprise.
  
Panicky queries about when our exam is. I want to say, “You have access to the same information I have, aside from the fact that I told you multiple times in class.” but it’s too long to type, so I just answer with the place and time. In my career this is the class to whom it was evidently never suggested that they should take responsibility for themselves at any point.

December 1, 2015

The little raccoon is fully gone, as I assumed he would be. We stood in the rain to dedicate Michael’s rose garden and Cindy’s statue of Saint Francis. I thought of Cindy all afternoon. For one, she was the only of my colleagues who ever showed up when I had the gallery downtown. And she bought something. I wonder where that little piece is now. She gave me Titus and Conrad, whom I still hold in my heart.