January 7, 2016

Set out earlier this morning and the moon was different, a starveling curve just at the level of the roofs, Venus high above it an unbearably radiant. I watched a racoon hump his way in the light of the streelamps from one shadow to another.
   
J said of All Is Calm, “You and Jack carried the show.” Whether that was true or not, it was nice to hear, to balance my suspicion that I hadn’t done well.
   
Off to school to get my syllabi done. I am ready for the semester, in so far as to be ready is to be ready. Application is all.
   
Finished Uranium 235. I think I am well pleased. It is the beginning of an evening which might end in the theater.
   

January 6, 2016

Epiphany. If I go back through my voluminous, pointless writings I will find the passage from forty seven years ago, where I first began to record my life. Watched for the third morning the passage of the slim moon and her radiant companion across the south, in deep blue in the hour before dawn. Juggling one thing and another, managed to get my rental car returned and retrieve my own dear one in one swoop. My driver’s brother-in-law is a new student at UNCA. We discussed why minority students have such a hard time there. Dave, the owner at the body shop is burly and humorous and manly and almost irresistibly attractive to me. I said to him, “I hope not to see you again,” and he thought I meant the bother of getting my car fixed, whereas I meant something else entirely. The money paid me by my insurance is a solid hundred more than it actually cost. I will set this down as the opening salvo of an auspicious year. Have essentially finished Uranium 235. Wept at the ending, which is a good sign. Back to choir I think tonight, though I have no impetus but habit. The house is cold. I’m only comfortable when I’m asleep. Or inebriated. Dreamed this morning that I was the captain of a research ship that studied whales, and studied them by capturing them temporarily in huge containers attached to the sides of the ship. They were strange whales, with sharp angles and bright colors, as though they had descended from starfish. Dreams of water and sea life are auspicious for me.

January 5, 2016

Laboring away on Uranium 235, making a misstep in the evening which I go back and correct in the morning. It edges toward an end I do not yet foresee. Saw Sam when I went to pick up my Chinese. Remembered why I don’t retire upon this moment– the students, who are at this point the only reliably new things in my life. Crescent moon, brilliant Venus over the Racquet Club parking lot, in a jewel dark sky.

January 4, 2016

Managed to do a full weight series today–leaving out only the chest presses–without irritating my shoulder. Curious. What IS wrong with it, anyway? The crescent moon sailed above the gym parking lot, trailing Venus a little below and behind in a perfect peacock sky. I watch the Boy drive his pale car along the street, open the window beside my house and toss trash out onto my yard. I laugh. This is pettiness even beneath the pettiness of his life.

January 3, 2016

Movie day yesterday, then Mongolian beef at a Chinese restaurant I longed to eat at, and long to eat at no more. Desire is the child of denial. The only way to conquer desire is to have, or to have had.

January 2, 2016

Thinking back on the audiences for art events in town, the group that is most conspicuously lacking is the UNCA faculty. Never have I seen the drama faculty at ANY theatrical event that was not on campus, and surely never at one of mine. The Lit professors do show up sometimes, but the rest– never. Administration SHOULD have a representative at every event, but of course they don’t. When I arrived I was cherished (a little) because I was a presence in the town. If I was blazing a trial, no one followed.

January 1, 2016

Nearly impromptu party here last night to ring in the new year, R and M and DJ and K and A and B. I made annihilating punch, and we made fun of the television personalities trying to entertain us into the new year. M explained her decision to give up acting in favor of working as a college registrar. I understood. Theater and I have remained friends because I never depended on it for a livelihood.  Went to Ingall’s and stood in line behind a wild brood, a distracted mother, four or five children clustered around one of those house-on-wheels things that can be used as a babysitter/shopping cart. As I watched, a little girl still strapped into the cart took a sucker off the display and hid it in the folds of her coat. I wanted it to be innocent, but it wasn’t, and the giveaway was the look on her face. She shifted her eyes away from the hand that had stolen the candy, staring up at the ceiling in affected nonchalance. I was looking at a shoplifter, and not at a little girl who wanted a piece of candy. Didn’t know what to do; did nothing. If the first day of the year is an indication of the year, then 2016 is going to be full of naps and lying around with a cat on my feet.