March 27, 2009
Oddly dark morning. Rumble of the washer several rooms away. I won’t go there until it’s finished, then to see if there is another flood or if all that time and money actually fixed anything.
The scarlet crown imperial is in bloom.
Cantaria sang well, so people said, for the opening of the GLBTQ conference at UNCA. By the time the evening ended, I could do nothing but hoist the cocktail to my lips.
Reading Mary Gordon’s In the Company of Women. It’s a splendidly written book, though I hate everybody in it. Every one of them is an idolater and a hypocrite, though it is perhaps true that one cannot be an unconscious hypocrite, in which case they are fatally deceived about the nature of spirituality, and of spirit. On the most basic level, the Spirit never requires judgment, or even opinion, on the actions of another.
Friday, March 27, 2009
March 26, 2009
We always note this as the day of mother’s death. Too many anniversaries to remember now.
House still in turmoil. In order more easily to bash holes in the walls, Steve the Plumber empties out the closets and piles everything on the bedroom floor. He acknowledges his destruction, fixes it without comment. It must be frustrating. B, missing his check, wants to come and clean around the mess.
Dead-stopped by howling on all sides.
We always note this as the day of mother’s death. Too many anniversaries to remember now.
House still in turmoil. In order more easily to bash holes in the walls, Steve the Plumber empties out the closets and piles everything on the bedroom floor. He acknowledges his destruction, fixes it without comment. It must be frustrating. B, missing his check, wants to come and clean around the mess.
Dead-stopped by howling on all sides.
March 25, 2009
Two thousand dollars spent on home repairs. Gaping holes knocked in walls and floors. The washer guy ripped the one-day-old $900 dryer vent rebuild out of the wall while he was snaking the washer drain. Did he not notice? Did he hope I didn’t notice? We have that confrontation when he comes for his check today.
Days of rolling catastrophes, most of them minor, adding up.
Jocasta vomits her way through the days, deaf and skinny, looking happy and content, nevertheless.
Two thousand dollars spent on home repairs. Gaping holes knocked in walls and floors. The washer guy ripped the one-day-old $900 dryer vent rebuild out of the wall while he was snaking the washer drain. Did he not notice? Did he hope I didn’t notice? We have that confrontation when he comes for his check today.
Days of rolling catastrophes, most of them minor, adding up.
Jocasta vomits her way through the days, deaf and skinny, looking happy and content, nevertheless.
March 24, 2009
The idea that the various plumbers and fix-it men might be out of my hair yesterday got me through a very long day. Turns out–naturally–that NOTHING was done, one job proving too costly and complicated to do in one day, and for the other the guys just didn’t bother to come. The plumber is facing original equipment on the house–older than I am– which has denatured, disintegrated, which was fixed badly long ago or hasn’t been up to code in thirty years. I do not envy his time rolling around in the crawl space. The electric plug fix-it guys are milking a simple job into the second week.
The idea that the various plumbers and fix-it men might be out of my hair yesterday got me through a very long day. Turns out–naturally–that NOTHING was done, one job proving too costly and complicated to do in one day, and for the other the guys just didn’t bother to come. The plumber is facing original equipment on the house–older than I am– which has denatured, disintegrated, which was fixed badly long ago or hasn’t been up to code in thirty years. I do not envy his time rolling around in the crawl space. The electric plug fix-it guys are milking a simple job into the second week.
March 23, 2009
East mottled purple and azure, dark versions of those colors, before dawn.
Arrange for the plumber to fix the sink and the drain to the washer; wait while A-1 Appliances finishes re-venting the dryer (a task, typically, akin to reconstruction of the house) and installing new plugs, a project begun last week and mysteriously abandoned; go to the colonoscopy workshop on Wednesday; prepare for a lecture in Statesville on a book I’ve never read for Sunday; prepare for and attend four different types of rehearsals; sing a concert; do a reading at the GLBTQ conference; lecture on Persia and Alexander today; read through a class of research papers, three weeks’ of student plays, nineteen senior projects, about 10 Arch Brown scripts, mostly delayed by illness. Try to finish the Sublimity essays. This is the week alone; this does not include class or regular things, and I know I have left plenty out. Have to get out of this, have to shake things off. It cannot go on. Ten things must be eliminated for every one taken on, and this for a very long time.
Tried to call dad last night. Wakened by the electronic voice on the other end reminding me that the line had been disconnected.
Sang for Becky’s funeral. Much sadness, audible sobbing. Standing room only.
Cantaria sang for the Men’s Supper club at the very pink Victorian B&B on Biltmore. We sang well enough, given the circumstances, but the event was horrifying to me for reasons I am still figuring out. Too much energy was going into admiring the woodwork.
East mottled purple and azure, dark versions of those colors, before dawn.
Arrange for the plumber to fix the sink and the drain to the washer; wait while A-1 Appliances finishes re-venting the dryer (a task, typically, akin to reconstruction of the house) and installing new plugs, a project begun last week and mysteriously abandoned; go to the colonoscopy workshop on Wednesday; prepare for a lecture in Statesville on a book I’ve never read for Sunday; prepare for and attend four different types of rehearsals; sing a concert; do a reading at the GLBTQ conference; lecture on Persia and Alexander today; read through a class of research papers, three weeks’ of student plays, nineteen senior projects, about 10 Arch Brown scripts, mostly delayed by illness. Try to finish the Sublimity essays. This is the week alone; this does not include class or regular things, and I know I have left plenty out. Have to get out of this, have to shake things off. It cannot go on. Ten things must be eliminated for every one taken on, and this for a very long time.
Tried to call dad last night. Wakened by the electronic voice on the other end reminding me that the line had been disconnected.
Sang for Becky’s funeral. Much sadness, audible sobbing. Standing room only.
Cantaria sang for the Men’s Supper club at the very pink Victorian B&B on Biltmore. We sang well enough, given the circumstances, but the event was horrifying to me for reasons I am still figuring out. Too much energy was going into admiring the woodwork.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
March 21, 2009
The Equinox has come and gone, and changes came in its wake. My plot of bloodroot floats like a little ghost a few inches above earth in the twilight. Two crown imperials shoot up in the front yard, and if one of them is gold and the other is scarlet, all shall be perfection. I found strange flowers in the yard, slender, delicate gold. I wondered about them until I realized they were the pistol and stamens of crocus, from which the petals had fallen away.
TD and I finally manage to hook up at Starbuck’s this AM, after three mishaps. The melancholy tale of his screen writing career continues to unfold. I understand in five seconds how his collaborator is taking advantage of him, but T is slow to be convinced. He takes their fifteen years of (fruitless) history as cause for loyalty, whereas I take it as a sign of mendacity. I suppose we all see other’s problems clearer than our own. I take The Beautiful Johanna to C to see if he wants to design a set, and in one minute he has a beautiful conception, the likes of which I would never have thought of on my own. I wander downtown in the cold, bright light, half-awake, in a pleasant way, thick and slow, as though moving through crystal. I spend the afternoon at the university, empty except for me, trying to shovel out from under the strata of unfinished work. My students writing beautiful essays that nobody will see but them and me. This is why I am a Platonist, that I might assume all that effort comes to something, and is not lost, and comes back as music in some festival yet to be enjoyed.
The Equinox has come and gone, and changes came in its wake. My plot of bloodroot floats like a little ghost a few inches above earth in the twilight. Two crown imperials shoot up in the front yard, and if one of them is gold and the other is scarlet, all shall be perfection. I found strange flowers in the yard, slender, delicate gold. I wondered about them until I realized they were the pistol and stamens of crocus, from which the petals had fallen away.
TD and I finally manage to hook up at Starbuck’s this AM, after three mishaps. The melancholy tale of his screen writing career continues to unfold. I understand in five seconds how his collaborator is taking advantage of him, but T is slow to be convinced. He takes their fifteen years of (fruitless) history as cause for loyalty, whereas I take it as a sign of mendacity. I suppose we all see other’s problems clearer than our own. I take The Beautiful Johanna to C to see if he wants to design a set, and in one minute he has a beautiful conception, the likes of which I would never have thought of on my own. I wander downtown in the cold, bright light, half-awake, in a pleasant way, thick and slow, as though moving through crystal. I spend the afternoon at the university, empty except for me, trying to shovel out from under the strata of unfinished work. My students writing beautiful essays that nobody will see but them and me. This is why I am a Platonist, that I might assume all that effort comes to something, and is not lost, and comes back as music in some festival yet to be enjoyed.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
March 18, 2009
Quick tour of the yard. The shafts and cotyledons pushing up from the wet earth give me joy– especially since I don’t remember what all of them are. I must have dropped daffodil bulbs wherever I walked. One of the things I wanted was a self-sustaining patch of bloodroot, and now I have it on the little terrace outside my kitchen window, shaded by the sweet gum and a shapely black spruce. Bought spring flowers from a catalog, whose saleslady pronounced "quince" and Kween-se. I bought two just to hear her say it twice.
Quick tour of the yard. The shafts and cotyledons pushing up from the wet earth give me joy– especially since I don’t remember what all of them are. I must have dropped daffodil bulbs wherever I walked. One of the things I wanted was a self-sustaining patch of bloodroot, and now I have it on the little terrace outside my kitchen window, shaded by the sweet gum and a shapely black spruce. Bought spring flowers from a catalog, whose saleslady pronounced "quince" and Kween-se. I bought two just to hear her say it twice.
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