December 6, 2019

Exhausting AGMC rehearsal last night. Everyone came or was soon in a bad mood. My voice was gone at the end.

Gave perhaps my last Enlightenment to Modern exam this AM. Graded it already, and there were grades of 40 out of 100, with only a few doing really well. If you mistake Tennyson for Frost, Yeats for Hopkins, how can you make your way in this subtle world?

The prize check from Red Hen that I’ve been awaiting for two years still had not, after an apparent flurry of activity, arrived. Sent a bitter email. The accountant’s explanation that it had been sent on November 20 to the correct address was unconvincing, but the only explanation I have. For that, of all things, to be lost in the mail is exquisite. I don’t remember anything being lost in the mail before.  Whatever the truth of it, it sounds like an excuse. I wait still.

December 5, 2019

Finding more errors in NSDL. Hatred of circumstance which allows–compels– things to be imperfect,

Getting chores done, some of them left over from the move-in now years back.

Sang quite horribly at a charity estate sale last night. It was all right, as nobody was listening.

December 3, 2019

Rather brilliant presentations of my students’ Faerie Worlds. They say it’s the best assignment they’ve had in college, and what is remarkable is the sheer volume of work and thought they put into their creations. The truth is that we ask too little of our students, rather than too much. Nice to learn that in my last semester. Saw two donuts on the Common Room table, ate them Trying to find the place in my soul that allowed that to happen.

December 2, 2019

Maud purring on my foot.

Day began in blinding snow, none of which stuck, bright for a while, looking like storm again toward afternoon.

Last day of Enlightenment to Modern, probably the last day forever. I lectured while three of them got up and wandered the hall. No one ever smacked their noses and said “No! No!.” Drove one to a commune (just up the road) after class. She had interviewed to join the commune, one of the attractions of which is free love. I refrained from saying, “the last thing you need is another distraction.”

Cleaning out bookshelves I came across four copies of Timothy Liberty, which I thought was lost, and acting scripts for most of the plays I’ve been in since The Man Who Came to Dinner.

My cheesecake was apparently a hit at the senior reception.

December 1, 2019

Advent 1. Calm Italian Baroque in the darkening hours of evening.. A warm summery day that the news says will yield to snow before morning. Anecdotes from Kyle’s Paris sojourn at lunch. Such a ferocious afternoon nap I’m only now recovering from it.

November 30, 2019

Began a new and near-the-end chapter for Sam-sam in High 5. Talked with Alex. Coffee and a bit of breakfast with Tom, who is not yet exhausted by political indignation.  Back to the studio, finding it was warm enough and dry enough. Worked well and happily. The Bosnian neighbors across the hall move out, having sold, essentially, nothing. Those terrible stairs are the difference between solvency and despair.

November 29, 2019

Back from Atlanta Thanksgiving. The Family prospers, the same girlfriends in the holiday pictures two years in a row, which begins to look like commitment. Linda packs up mother’s–quiet extensive– painted ceramics oeuvre and makes sure they make it into my car. Not one person on planet earth would spontaneously imagine me with a collection of large ceramic leprechauns and Easter bunnies.

One observes again the family dynamic in which, when one is answering the questions “What’s up with you?” the answer “I just brought out another book” brings on dead silence.

Daniel feels his honor is redeemed by having beaten me in chess. After last year, I was over-confident.

I remarked to Linda that this is the first time IN MY LIFE that I looked forward to traveling on an important holiday. It was not only all right, it was anticipated and enjoyed. It this all connected to the release of retirement? Am I giving credit to that for too many good things in my life?

Jonathan’s Beagle puppy, with a cone around his head to keep him from nipping at his stitches, was the life of the party.

I was alone for a while with the staff of the Hyatt in the hotel lobby, drinking and buying them drinks, thinking to make up for their missing Thanksgiving with their families. When I got the bill at check-out this morning, the charge for all that was cancelled. It was they who gave me the lovely surprise.