YMCA

 July 18, 2022

Return at dawn to the Y for what I believe was close to my former weight set. Healthy boys in their tank tops: one tends to forget the side benefits. Drank iced coffee at Starbucks on Charlotte Street, witnessing five or six accidents that almost were. Determined to get casually out and about, realizing that I had not left the house yesterday and was feeling bored and isolated simply for lack of movement. 

Tormented by the idea that the anti-vermin basement guy was a scam. Phoned first thing this AM: all is well. They come Wednesday. 

 

July 17, 2022

Won a gold medal in the 16th annual Solas award for travel writing, in the “young traveler” category for “Homage to Lady Gregory” I do remember vaguely sending it in. 

Watching Barry, a TV show where an acting teacher gives harsh, sometimes cruel criticism to move his students forward; reading Jeremy Denk’s memoir of piano teachers who were harsh and cruel in order to move him forward. I never prospered under such a regime, so when it came time for me to teach, I took the gentle road, suggesting something that might be better rather than mocking or damning the words before me. In retrospect I’ve no idea whether that was the right choice. Some students complained that I wasn’t firm enough– a cajoling move toward excellence didn’t seem as loving as a blow of the critical fist. I understand that. Strengthening students by making them crawl out of the ruin I made of their self-esteem was not my way, and perhaps, therefore, I goaded no one to greatness. Did I lure anyone to greatness? Seduce them so? Only time knows. I did, however, have to fight the tendency to sarcasm when I was directing plays. A rehearsal is more exhausting than a classroom. 

Even so, student evaluations– worse than useless–who but Administrators could come up with such a foolish idea?– complained when I “singled somebody out,” which usually meant correcting a wrong answer or a bad sentence. When I left education, it was not education anymore, but the method of delivering diplomas into student hands with the least possible friction or controversy. 

Incidental Poem:

The tiny white spider

has crossed

what must be for it a continent

to find the one

white lichen

to rest upon unseen. 

 

July 16, 2022

Dream of the long corridor through the wilderness (which has been in my dreams before) which this time was a sort of diffuse graduate school, and my thesis advisor was a literal witch. When she found out I’d made a snide comment or cut some corner, she assigned me to fill fat little notebooks with essays on philosophy, written all along the sides and in the middle, like the Talmud. 

Coffee reading still Gunn’s letters. How amazing to have people read and discuss your work with you, you all the while assuming their sincere interest. He assures his correspondents that he is working on this and that, as though it were a matter of actual concern. I remember waiting to see when somebody expressed concern that I’d stopped painting. Still waiting. I could write or not write and I think nobody I normally see would mention it. Perhaps distant correspondents would, though one does not have those anymore. I’ve led a hidden life without actually hiding anything. 

As soon as I finish the paragraph above, Laura Budofsky writes from Vermont: Dear D. Thank you for the book. I just finished reading it through a couple of times. I found it wonderful: thrilling, abundant, generous. I say generous because I felt almost every line was full to the brim with beautiful, new, musical language and that the language itself was allowed as much space as it needed. I say thrilling because there were so many turns, so many surprises that sometimes I could barely hold on, but I did. Thrilling also because emotions, like humor, for instance, kept going right to the edge and falling off into their opposites, like grief, for instance. I say abundant because the whole world seemed to be in it, the most mundane and everyday and the biblical and mythic. I particularly liked “Benediction Before Sleep,” “The Alphabet Song,” “I Think of My Lover Lying Down,” and “Swan.” Of course, I’ve spent the years since Syracuse eking a living, raising children, teaching Yoga, writing alone at the kitchen table, etc. very far from anything academic… this info just so you can consider the source.

Vermin

 

July 15, 2022

William Byrd on Pandora.

Tumultuous day just passed. Vermin inspector arrived in the afternoon. I wondered why the guys who have to crawl around in tight attics and crawl spaces are always, in my experience, huge. Good looking man, though, who must have been stunning in youth. When I warned that the bb gun on the stairs was not a real gun and just there in case of a confrontation with a ‘coon, I received a lengthy oration on how guns are necessary, yea virtuous, nowadays. One nods and appears to be in agreement. He crawled his crawl in the attic and discovered that–besides the gash in the roof–there seemed to be no damage– insulation unsullied, floors not urinated upon, rafters not gnawed. The bade me regard the smell of my attic, which is sweet and woody. He said it would be sharp and foul if ‘coons had actually lived there. Nobody there then, anyhow. Our inspection also told me that no animal could survive the heat of that space in summer daylight. Went down to the basement, where the actual inroads had happened, claw marks in mud, displaced plastic, the bear-torn windows open (periodically, when I have not been watchful) to the air. He gave me an estimate for fixing everything, sealing the windows and vents and installing a de-humidifier. As I had no idea what to do about any of it, I agreed. Tightness lifted off my chest. He says I have no signs of termites or mold or anything but the tree-bandit, the least of scourges.  His company was founded by a preacher whose church couldn’t afford termite treatment, and so he learned how to do it himself. 

Letters from Chancellor Cable and Governor Cooper thanking me for The Ones with Difficult Names. 

 

July 14, 2022

Bastille Day.

Email: Jessica Johnson 9:01 AM (4 hours ago)

Hi David, Your play, Bach Bach Bach bach, has been selected to be included in The Magnetic Theatre's One Act Play Festival in November! We received almost 1,000 submissions, and have narrowed those down to present a series of about 20 plays over two weekends. 

Woke to a droll face at my window, a raccoon proving the thesis that climbing the cherry tree is how his buddies keep getting onto my roof (and into my attic). Took him one minute to remove the ground cloth Will had stuffed in to close the hole. Exterminator arrives later this afternoon. Facebook full of testimonials about the diseases I’ll get from having ‘coons in the attic. 

Sent Jack’s wedding poem.

Sent proposed Stewardship campaign. 

Progress on The Seas of Beta Pictoris. 

Cecropia

 

July 13, 2022

The only cecropia moth I’ve ever seen lay battered and almost dissolved on the eastern porch after last night’s tropical thunderstorm. 

Dream last night that I wandered over a bridge and into a vast tunnel, that I’d seen before but never entered. It was like a Mall or an airport concourse, in that there were attractions and stores here and there. On the far side of the bridge lay Nebraska, and though I was eager to see it (it was a plain of golden wheat through the windows) I couldn’t seem to find an exit. 

Zach handsomely morose. His era of liberation may have hit a snag. His son (who is 6 today) super-glued one eye shut. 

Cocktails

 

July 12, 2022

--and the rest of the day was annihilated by the onslaught of phlebitis, after a hiatus of 19 months. Brutal, but brief, because of the drugs. The gods of doxycycline be praised. There was an afternoon and night of being passed out on the bed, but this time the episode introduced itself with the most titanic nausea and flux. I diagnosed dysentery, though I couldn’t figure how that had happened. What I lost at both orifices could not be accounted for by what I’d taken in, even if several days were taken into consideration. The spectacular sickness a body can produce! I tried to tell my stomach, “All right, I’m leaning over the toilet, ready to let fly. You can take that hellish sensation away now.”

Fine now, not even that exhausted. 

Evening cocktails in Reynolds Village with the gang. I’m ever amazed by the depth and abundance of gossip that can arise from a relatively small place like All Souls. There must have been that much more of it at UNCA, but people do not generally or spontaneously repeat gossip to me. Mostly, that is well, but it also makes me wonder at my own obliviousness.