November 10, 2018

Since I couldn’t speak and there was no point in trying to sing, I went to the studio and painted well, inspired by the blank walls occasioned by my show.  Began paintings in a quite new style. Frustrated that the masses arrayed for the Studio Stroll weren’t coming upstairs, I closed up and drove to Mars Hill to take photos of my show. The gallery was, of course, closed, and some sort of dance contest going on in the auditorium. One girl in a gaudy costume carried two gigantic trophies. Ate lunch at the hillbilly sub shop. A different world. She seemed very happy. Worked the last several hours on Poets in Their Youth, which is finally near completion.

A great wind blew open the glass door in the kitchen, and for a while, until I came downstairs and found it, there was a gaping hole into the stormy night. The cats gathered in the living room as far away as they could get. I explored the rooms to make sure nothing of the night had come in.

November 9, 2018

Back to the doctor to get a valise of prescriptions. Got pneumonia vaccine, and my body turned into an ache. Why do they tell you that can’t happen, when it does? The winter hoarseness sets in. Teaching The Cantos this morning was, therefore, interesting.

Somehow photos of Jesse as a soldier made their way into my Facebook account. Heart staggers with, now, irredeemable loss. I have been more loyal–or desired the chance to be more loyal–than anyone ever wanted me to be.

Mitchell County students in an uproar over Parkway’s Shakespeare’s Complete Works: Abridged because it references drinking, suicide, and at one point two men kiss. I doubt that this was a spontaneous demonstration, but part of the Culture Wars, encouraged by parents and teachers. I want to walk on stage and scream, “Have you read the BIBLE lately???”

November 8, 2018

Extra paintings taken off my own wall and to Mars Hill, to fill one great gallery wall, though another is still and permanently black. I do not paint enough. I look like a hobbyist. But the show looks good, I think, distinctive and arresting. I doubt that there will be a review, but I brace myself in case. Praying to the gods that things sell so I don’t have to haul that back up the winding stair.

Jim Nave came yesterday to interview me for WPVM. We spoke first of how we have known each other for at least thirty years. “I know what you were going to say before I asked the questions,” he said, “and I wanted you to say exactly that.” He recited “Prufrock” by heart during the interview– posing, but impressive. Later he said, “I memorized it, but I don’t understand it.” He talked about his friendship with the Hustons, John and Angelica and the lot.  We sat on my picnic table and recorded my crows and my babbling pond for ambiance. I admit that I do not know what will come of anything.

Hoarseness. Sometimes I can speak; sometimes I cannot.

Letter from Blackmore, who’s kept better tabs on my life than I have myself.

The election? Better than one feared, worse than one hoped. It still amazes that, given the choice between a bologna sandwich and a plate of vomit, some people choose the vomit, resentful that no one offered steak.

Students panicky after the second exam. One student with a grade of 51 and some of the most clueless answers I have ever read insists that she was in class and attentive every day. I check the record, and she is right, at least about attending. Why does she then understand nothing? I admit it’s a mystery, and bid her merely to try again.

Picked up my dry cleaning and the dry cleaning lady told me about her son, who had cancer. He recovered, but when he did he was addicted to the opioids they gave him for pain. Eventually she had to evict him. “The drugs were worse than the cancer,” she said. 

November 5, 2018

Gunpowder Plot Day. Doesn’t seem such a bad idea.

The Brahms Requiem went well last evening–well from my seat, and well from all I could hear around me. Kyle seemed content (and spent) at the reception afterwards.

Helped my 8 AM class through “The Waste Land.”

The thing I was sure I could not accomplish–setting up my show at Mars Hill–is accomplished, though I was right in one way: I could not have done it myself. Leland and Jack stepped in and did 95% of the work. My gratitude went feebly expressed because it is inexpressible. The show looks good in that austere room. I didn’t bring enough work, so stuff robbed from my own walls gets run up tomorrow afternoon. I believe this show is more important than I have allowed myself to say. How many artists get shows in the Weizenblatt? I hope somebody goes to see it.

November 4, 2018

Morning spent rehearsing Brahms. It was about as much high culture as I or my voice could stand, but it went well, and our esteemed director had no cause for a melt-down. Sam has come to sit beside me, and his accuracy and my rich low range make a good combination. Spent the afternoon sleeping and working on a play, then out in the evening to see The Misanthrope at the Magnetic. The Moliere was re-written to be about a rock star, Alceste, and his cronies. The actors delivered the couplets admirably, but that sort of thing reduces after a time to seeing how close the adaptation is to the original (maybe because it charted no territory of its own), and waiting for the rhyme, either to applaud or disapprove it. I did enjoy being out, though, and the actors were worth watching. Unfortunately, the hyena was there (she seems to be a volunteer at the theater now) and everyone’s pleasure was compromised. I flirted with a man in the row behind me, but realized I was just too tired for that to have any outcome, so made my way out into the dark. They had Prosecco, but I could hardly stand.

That must have been the right choice, for I slept exquisite sleep and woke feeling sounder than I have in a while. Erotic images at waking, which I have learned to take as a good sign. I do fear tomorrow, for I literally do not have the strength to move my paintings and set up a show, and yet that is what must be done. I don’t often leave things to fate; this I am. I have been taking as much iron as I dare, and mounted the steps of my study this morning without having to pause to catch my breath. 

November 3, 2018

What must be remembered before all is the canary yellow iris now blooming in the back yard. Is it an autumn bloomer, or one bewildered by the weather? In any case, it makes the world go around it like the axle of a wheel. It gleams out there long after the rest is dark.

The flu shot that couldn’t give me the flu has in fact given me the flu.

Staggered out last night. The streets were full because Bob Dylan was at the Civic Center. Driving up the ramp of the parking garage, the van in front of me hit the wall, stopped, tried again, continued hitting it until it had torn its front bumper loose. It drove away in front of me dragging the bumper. Stopped at the Yacht Club. Everything there was festive, happy, Dionysian, and I reminded myself for the hundredth time that I must go out more. Went on to the BeBe for the opening night of the opening production of SS’s new theater. We’d read the play in class, and it is always interesting to see how a production unfolds differently from one’s initial imagining. The staging was right–even the roughness of opening night contributed to the basement-in-Berlin ambiance.When people sang it was at its best. I did enjoy the night. My student Elliott attended with his stunningly beautiful Asian partner. What a couple they made!

November 2, 2018

Yesterday was an interesting day. I was so exhausted after planting the peony (and rooting up some mints) that I was, for once, truly alarmed. Friday morning there came a kind of haze over my eyes, and every gesture sapped my strength. It was difficult to draw a complete breath. I went to school, and while I was lecturing (on theater after Webster) I kept losing my thought, losing the word, and twice had to grip the desk to keep from collapsing. In my mind were Mike Herhold, who told me of the by-pass surgery he had to have, and Mark, the nurse in Cantaria, who said exhaustion like mine (I briefly referred to it once) is likely linked with heart problems. I cancelled my afternoon class. I convinced myself that I would go into the hospital and have a risky surgery and get some sort of horrible hospital infection and the surgery wouldn’t work and I’d been a slow decline and there would be no one to take care of me. . . . even came home before going to MAHEC and got my phone charger, trying to think of whom to call to take care of the cats, etc.  Of course, it was the least of all things it could be. My circulatory system is fine. My hemoglobin is dramatically low. Had I stopped taking the iron pills? Yes, because I thought they were doing no good. Apparently they were. My self-inflicted terror came to nothing and I sat in my car weeping with relief. I did get a flu shot (they were very insistent) and though they assured me the critters were dead, I got, for an evening, the muscle ache associated with flu. But I took iron pills and made it to rehearsal, which I had almost decided not to do. I was watching the evening news when the haze fell from my eyes. 

We read through “At the Creche” by Jon David and me. It is beautiful.