September 9, 2018

Strange howling or shrieking before morning, like a screech-owl, but unwavering, and very much louder.

September 8, 2018

Moderate success in the studio. Finished a major work, until I look at it again and see what must be redone. Tony came and not only mowed the lawn but filled up the air in my truck tires. The strange holes dug in the lawn were not a mutant mole, as I’d thought, but him digging out yellow jacket hives. He failed, I guess, and the one I finally destroyed was the same one resurrected. The clumps of grass he left around the blue spruce were not neglect, but fear of the hive. The cats barely move. Maud will go to the shower to lap up water. Circe goes to the litter box and the food bowl, but spends the rest of her time on the green cushioned chair. Circe climbed to the study to me today, and I made much of her for extending what must have been tremendous effort. Old age is one thing that cannot be cured. I must be patient. Maud purrs when I hold her, and I sob.

Blundered upon the news that Pilgrim Hills is to be sold. My spiritual life began there.

September 7, 2018

Crashing like a runaway diesel into the weekend. I believe my classes so far have been successful. Not many sleepers even at 8 AM. The playwrights are unexpectedly eager. I stand and present the things that delight me, hoping they too will take delight.  Because of Miss Jill one replays one’s statements after class, weighing them to see if by some remote chance something maybe be distorted so as to seem sexist or exclusionary. The Inquisition comes to Academia, and we dare not even call it by that name. What complicates that issue is that one agrees with and upholds the stated goals of the very apparatus that torments one. But it goes too far, and takes “you’re going too far” as an admission of guilt.

Bought mass quantities of bulbs to force myself to reduce the outside of the fence to order.

One of the cleaning ladies stops me and says “Thank you for reporting the broken elevator. We reported it every morning, but they never listened to us.”

Sat beside the canoe-expedition-leading giant who just joined Cantaria. He is one of our straight men. He asked, “Why did you throw away all the good will and recognition built up by Cantaria and change the name?” I did my best not to say, “THAT, my friend, is the $64,000 question.” He has a magnificent deep speaking voice, but I didn’t hear a single note out of him during rehearsal. Maybe getting ready– Wanted to skip rehearsal, but ended up having a good time.

Thoughts rush through the head. At night dreaming dreams of astonishing vividness. Have not written in any systematic way since school began. Maybe tonight. I am sitting in the writing chair right now, so if I can just keep sitting--

Every day of lingering summer I bless. The moon last night was the thinnest possible crescent hung over Merrimon Avenue.  Late summer roses in bloom.

September 6, 2018

Joined AAUP after all these years. Why? 1) Because it is right, 2) Because I’m from Akron and have never been comfortable not belonging to a union, 3) Because the spokesman for the group is our absurdly handsome German political science prof, across from whom I sat all through the informational meeting.  You think these things recede with time; they do not, but merely become more subterranean.

September 3, 2018

Labor Day of intense and rewarding labor in the garden– nothing planted, much cleared. The shoulder-wrench which makes it difficult to lift a teapot simply ignores heavy garden work. Moved the raised beds out into the light, thinking of annuals next year.

September 2, 2018

Thunder in the distance, the sky yellow and gray nearby. We could use a drenching. Wrenched my shoulder loading the last of twelve bags of mulch. Had to leave the store to vent my fury– get the gout cleared up enough to function and something else goes wrong, the universe not being content if you go through an ouchless day. Got nothing planted, nothing weeded, not even the mulch unloaded from the truck. The rain will be my excuse. Headed for the studio, but forgot my wallet and turned around and gave up. Did nap. Did achieve that.

The shoulder pain seems to be worst when I’m typing. Of course. That’s what I need to do the most of.

Is it just me, or is it universal to spend one’s maturity looking back and wondering if there was a single moment when one wasn’t goofy or selfish or awkward or petulant or disappointing? I barely have a memory not tainted by the suspicion that I could have–probably did–look like an ass to every other participant. My poor parents. . .

September 1, 2018

Half way through my birthday. Spent it, so far, because the gout had left my toe, gardening. I’ve been opening up the patch against fence, which had been under the great pine and is a morass of tangled ivy and honeysuckle vines and roots: much labor, little progress. Did get yellow native hibiscus into the ground, and a few iris.