April 30, 2011
Had a choice between the roller derby and the theater last night. Chose John’s Labyrinth at MF. The atmosphere in the café is richer each time I go, old friends, new friends. The ensemble of actors is smoother, too, professional, effortless. The backbone of the art of it all is inspired directing. That is not often the case. I say to B who was ushering “How’s it going?” and he says, “Not so well, I went to the doctor and she says the cancer is back, and it’s terminal. I have four months.” Absolutely no line in the world can follow that one. “Alas!” maybe. The play was John’s best-- that I have seen-- and daring in conception.
Ste’s painting arrived, but was slapped with a 25 pound surcharge of some sort, which he cannot pay. It was a bad idea from the first. I felt it, should have given up, but still don’t understand why such a simple operation involved so much thwarting and complexity.
Met M in the Ingle’s parking lot. She had a bag full of rodent poison. She said, “I consulted with my animal medium– I went to her so I could learn to talk to my dog; my dog is the one who first warned me about the mice–and she said that before I poisoned the mice I should give them fair warning, which I have done: putting drawings of death and dark images that mice would understand around the house, so at least they would know what’s coming and be able to make conscious decisions. It’s only fair.” I offered the loan of a cat and of my immense, and possibly hungry, blacksnake, but the dog had already agreed the poison was the way to go; it wouldn’t give him issues about no longer being the only animal in the house.
Day cold but blazing bright. I weeded and weeded, wounding myself in the process of freeing the pink antique rose from its tangle of wild honeysuckle.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
April 28, 2011
Dark of morning. Distant lightning.
Bruce’s letter about My Trip Down the Pink Carpet is harrowing and, if representative of a general condition, discouraging. Numerous good reviews, some raves, didn’t lift ticket sales above 30%. It’s scary. I want to say, “Do my show! I’ll save you!” but for the fear that the gods would be listening.
Scent of blossoming locust over the city. In my garden, the scarlet lupine, a bevy of iris, the pink bank roses, some terra cotta groundcover on the slope I had forgotten planting.Planted one more white lilac, spiderwort, white bleedingheart.
Dark of morning. Distant lightning.
Bruce’s letter about My Trip Down the Pink Carpet is harrowing and, if representative of a general condition, discouraging. Numerous good reviews, some raves, didn’t lift ticket sales above 30%. It’s scary. I want to say, “Do my show! I’ll save you!” but for the fear that the gods would be listening.
Scent of blossoming locust over the city. In my garden, the scarlet lupine, a bevy of iris, the pink bank roses, some terra cotta groundcover on the slope I had forgotten planting.Planted one more white lilac, spiderwort, white bleedingheart.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
April 27, 2011
Bruce’s call opened my heart in ways that I suspected it would, and am elated that it did. I haven’t been able to write. Writing I am this morning, in a flood, a commission here, a jeu d’esprit there.
There was a robbery at the Flood, the perpetrator of which was apparently caught pretty clearly on video. Though I didn’t do it, I somehow expect the video to show me. I find that odd, but I do remember back in elementary school feeling the same thing, that somehow there would be irrefutable proof that I did something I didn’t do. Don’t remember of that ever actually happening. Maybe I’ve been watching too many DVDs of police procedurals where someone gets elaborately framed. The fact that I couldn’t think of a reason why doesn’t matter; neither can they. Actually, now that I’ve denied it, I do remember it happening in the past. I’ve gone down in history as the one setting off false alarms in the dorm at college one spring. I wasn’t. At camp Y-Noah (back in Indian Guides, to plumb the deep past) I rose early to go to the bathroom. While there I noticed that someone had left sizeable turds on the floor. I was, like, six, and this amused me. But later that day I was blamed, because I had been in the lav before anyone else. I remember the vehemence of my denial, and my astonishment that public opinion remained, nevertheless, against me. My faith in justice has always exceed any actual incident of it in my life.
A bumble bee has been hovering for three days over my hydrangeas against the front porch. They won’t be blooming for weeks yet. Maybe she wants to be first when they do. Maybe she is a divinity sent to guard my house. She can be startled into flying away, but she’s back in seconds.
Bruce’s call opened my heart in ways that I suspected it would, and am elated that it did. I haven’t been able to write. Writing I am this morning, in a flood, a commission here, a jeu d’esprit there.
There was a robbery at the Flood, the perpetrator of which was apparently caught pretty clearly on video. Though I didn’t do it, I somehow expect the video to show me. I find that odd, but I do remember back in elementary school feeling the same thing, that somehow there would be irrefutable proof that I did something I didn’t do. Don’t remember of that ever actually happening. Maybe I’ve been watching too many DVDs of police procedurals where someone gets elaborately framed. The fact that I couldn’t think of a reason why doesn’t matter; neither can they. Actually, now that I’ve denied it, I do remember it happening in the past. I’ve gone down in history as the one setting off false alarms in the dorm at college one spring. I wasn’t. At camp Y-Noah (back in Indian Guides, to plumb the deep past) I rose early to go to the bathroom. While there I noticed that someone had left sizeable turds on the floor. I was, like, six, and this amused me. But later that day I was blamed, because I had been in the lav before anyone else. I remember the vehemence of my denial, and my astonishment that public opinion remained, nevertheless, against me. My faith in justice has always exceed any actual incident of it in my life.
A bumble bee has been hovering for three days over my hydrangeas against the front porch. They won’t be blooming for weeks yet. Maybe she wants to be first when they do. Maybe she is a divinity sent to guard my house. She can be startled into flying away, but she’s back in seconds.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
April 26, 2011
Peg’s retirement gala. Though not adequate for how much she accomplished and how many lives she touched, it must have been gratifying to see so many faces from so many phases of her life. We sang horribly to her, but it made her smile.
Myself, I spent the day feeling professional defeat very keenly. Then a phone call came quite late from BH, exactly the person whose voice I needed to hear to be convinced Lincoln was still alive. My spirits along with my hopes for the show are revived. I did have to pump that information out of him, a little, for he’d actually called to say I’d lost everything I’d invested–about $13000,–in the financially catastrophic run of Pink Carpet. Glad as I can be now that I didn’t convince anyone to come along with me. Now, I don’t like losing that much money, or any, money, but as I told him, I’d invested only what I could lose, and the revelation that The Loves of Mr Lincoln is still on eased the shock. My entree into theater production (large scale) was not a success. If Magnetic Field folds, then I’ll be 0 for 3. But I also had the thought that I have never done anything–or avoided doing anything–because of money. The odd corollary to that is that I have plenty of it. Maybe I should be careless about other things, too, and grow rich on what really matters to me by not really giving a damn. I say that as though I’m joking, but the longer I let it reverberate in my head the more it begins to sound like Universal, if very queer, Truth.
A hand appears at the bottom to keep us from falling quite all the way.
Incredibly beautiful Korean film on DVD: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring.
Peg’s retirement gala. Though not adequate for how much she accomplished and how many lives she touched, it must have been gratifying to see so many faces from so many phases of her life. We sang horribly to her, but it made her smile.
Myself, I spent the day feeling professional defeat very keenly. Then a phone call came quite late from BH, exactly the person whose voice I needed to hear to be convinced Lincoln was still alive. My spirits along with my hopes for the show are revived. I did have to pump that information out of him, a little, for he’d actually called to say I’d lost everything I’d invested–about $13000,–in the financially catastrophic run of Pink Carpet. Glad as I can be now that I didn’t convince anyone to come along with me. Now, I don’t like losing that much money, or any, money, but as I told him, I’d invested only what I could lose, and the revelation that The Loves of Mr Lincoln is still on eased the shock. My entree into theater production (large scale) was not a success. If Magnetic Field folds, then I’ll be 0 for 3. But I also had the thought that I have never done anything–or avoided doing anything–because of money. The odd corollary to that is that I have plenty of it. Maybe I should be careless about other things, too, and grow rich on what really matters to me by not really giving a damn. I say that as though I’m joking, but the longer I let it reverberate in my head the more it begins to sound like Universal, if very queer, Truth.
A hand appears at the bottom to keep us from falling quite all the way.
Incredibly beautiful Korean film on DVD: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
April 25, 2011
Robins calling in the near-dark. Slept most of Easter day away. I wake feeling better, no distress in the stomach, but still exhausted. This is the way Paul describes his celiac, but I had thought mine was something less dire, something nameless and not worth a trip to the doctor. I did complain about it to the doctor once. She said, “Do you take antacids?
“Yes.”
“Do they work?”
“Yes.”
“Well, there’s your cure.”
It’s the sort of diagnosis that I believe and cherish.
For three years now I have kept a photo of Ginger’s son– Sean, is it?– on my desk, replacing it with the new one that comes with their card at Christmas. This one is a happy kid who’s just come out of the sea, his hair and t-shirt wet, holding on to a waffled plastic something, probably a float. The composition is actually rather glorious, with blue sky, darker blue sea, white shirt, and right down the center the family of reds, made of the float and his sunburnt face.
Robins calling in the near-dark. Slept most of Easter day away. I wake feeling better, no distress in the stomach, but still exhausted. This is the way Paul describes his celiac, but I had thought mine was something less dire, something nameless and not worth a trip to the doctor. I did complain about it to the doctor once. She said, “Do you take antacids?
“Yes.”
“Do they work?”
“Yes.”
“Well, there’s your cure.”
It’s the sort of diagnosis that I believe and cherish.
For three years now I have kept a photo of Ginger’s son– Sean, is it?– on my desk, replacing it with the new one that comes with their card at Christmas. This one is a happy kid who’s just come out of the sea, his hair and t-shirt wet, holding on to a waffled plastic something, probably a float. The composition is actually rather glorious, with blue sky, darker blue sea, white shirt, and right down the center the family of reds, made of the float and his sunburnt face.
Monday, April 25, 2011
April 24, 2011
Bach on the CD, gentle Easter evening. Came home after Easter Vigil last night ill. Spent the time from 1 to 3 AM throwing up, for the most part. My throat was raw from that, but it did manage to get through the services in reasonable voice. Headache, exhaustion, stomach titanically upset– wondering if eating one (albeit large) piece of bread was the cause of all that. Got home from church and slept until 6 PM, until moments ago.
Putting the finishing touches on the rearrangement of my house. Though there is more storage area by the addition of a large bookcase, and the severe culling of another, there seems still not to be enough space to put back in everything I took out.
SB facebooks that he will be directing at the Hanger Theater in Ithaca all summer. That means no start, again, on Lincoln. I know in my heart that this is a dead issue, that it will never happen, but there is so much good that would come out of its happening and none whatever out of its not that I cling tenaciously to brutal hope. Life is full of circumstances where all the good lies on one side, and yet you know at some point that the other side will, pointlessly, maliciously, prevail. I wonder why they bothered. I wonder why I did. I trust God’s not confused about my disgust with him.
In the midst of the banging, clattering Easter services I thought this: what if we led everyone out just before sunrise to a quiet forest, and had them face east. Then, as the sun rose, we went to each individual, each group and said, in a quiet voice–for the Magnitude needs no amplification-- salvation is created. What if we did that? Although I must say the story of Mary at the tomb moves me, and I sat in my chair each time and wept. Little FK in the children’s choir saw me once, and a tear rolled down her cheek. I wonder if she thought I was sad? Maybe I was, and because it was Easter morning, confused it with something else.
Dusty pink buds on the antique rose.
Bach on the CD, gentle Easter evening. Came home after Easter Vigil last night ill. Spent the time from 1 to 3 AM throwing up, for the most part. My throat was raw from that, but it did manage to get through the services in reasonable voice. Headache, exhaustion, stomach titanically upset– wondering if eating one (albeit large) piece of bread was the cause of all that. Got home from church and slept until 6 PM, until moments ago.
Putting the finishing touches on the rearrangement of my house. Though there is more storage area by the addition of a large bookcase, and the severe culling of another, there seems still not to be enough space to put back in everything I took out.
SB facebooks that he will be directing at the Hanger Theater in Ithaca all summer. That means no start, again, on Lincoln. I know in my heart that this is a dead issue, that it will never happen, but there is so much good that would come out of its happening and none whatever out of its not that I cling tenaciously to brutal hope. Life is full of circumstances where all the good lies on one side, and yet you know at some point that the other side will, pointlessly, maliciously, prevail. I wonder why they bothered. I wonder why I did. I trust God’s not confused about my disgust with him.
In the midst of the banging, clattering Easter services I thought this: what if we led everyone out just before sunrise to a quiet forest, and had them face east. Then, as the sun rose, we went to each individual, each group and said, in a quiet voice–for the Magnitude needs no amplification-- salvation is created. What if we did that? Although I must say the story of Mary at the tomb moves me, and I sat in my chair each time and wept. Little FK in the children’s choir saw me once, and a tear rolled down her cheek. I wonder if she thought I was sad? Maybe I was, and because it was Easter morning, confused it with something else.
Dusty pink buds on the antique rose.
April 23, 2011
Haverty’s delivered my furniture, and I spent part of the day gardening and part of the day working my book collection from one case to another, discarding, in the meantime, the complete Paulist Press series of Western Spirituality that I was saving for a time of calm perusal that never came. Thousands of dollars lost to me from a time when I was counting every penny, though not quite wasted, as Thomas Murphy says he wants them as he begins his career in the priesthood. Their gathering dust unopened had been weighing on my mind. What I have not been doing is giving any thought to Holy Saturday, though the service tonight may do that, if I can keep from my mind bitterness at the length of it. Holy Week used to be so special to me. There are several poetry cycles to honor the days and stages of it, but that is gone away. In my life God’s betrayals are more obvious than his benefits, and I cannot set my anger–even my contempt–aside long enough to regain the old spirit. I’m like a child ejected from his home by a bad father, standing outside, looking through the windows, but having neither the will nor very much of the desire to walk back in and start it over. What guarantee– not even guarantee, but hint– would there be that it would be any different? Even children of the Spirit must leave home and light out on their own.
I have rearranged most everything in the house, and the cats explore and climb and curl up for a moment, trying out new spaces.
Carolyn has been generating huge quantities of garbage. The bags pile up till the cover of the waste bin cannot be closed, and at morning there is a big black crow on top picking gashes in the black bags. A striking image, if a terrible mess by garbage pick-up day. I’m guessing that she means to depart without going through the process of selling her house. She told me once there was some irregularity with the deed, and it is clear from my window that there are severe foundation problems. I’ll watch through the summer and see. My dream is to buy her lot, level her awful house, extend my garden.
Voodoo lily coming up through the dirt like a red thumb. The towhees, sir and madam, are the blessed spirits of my porch.
Haverty’s delivered my furniture, and I spent part of the day gardening and part of the day working my book collection from one case to another, discarding, in the meantime, the complete Paulist Press series of Western Spirituality that I was saving for a time of calm perusal that never came. Thousands of dollars lost to me from a time when I was counting every penny, though not quite wasted, as Thomas Murphy says he wants them as he begins his career in the priesthood. Their gathering dust unopened had been weighing on my mind. What I have not been doing is giving any thought to Holy Saturday, though the service tonight may do that, if I can keep from my mind bitterness at the length of it. Holy Week used to be so special to me. There are several poetry cycles to honor the days and stages of it, but that is gone away. In my life God’s betrayals are more obvious than his benefits, and I cannot set my anger–even my contempt–aside long enough to regain the old spirit. I’m like a child ejected from his home by a bad father, standing outside, looking through the windows, but having neither the will nor very much of the desire to walk back in and start it over. What guarantee– not even guarantee, but hint– would there be that it would be any different? Even children of the Spirit must leave home and light out on their own.
I have rearranged most everything in the house, and the cats explore and climb and curl up for a moment, trying out new spaces.
Carolyn has been generating huge quantities of garbage. The bags pile up till the cover of the waste bin cannot be closed, and at morning there is a big black crow on top picking gashes in the black bags. A striking image, if a terrible mess by garbage pick-up day. I’m guessing that she means to depart without going through the process of selling her house. She told me once there was some irregularity with the deed, and it is clear from my window that there are severe foundation problems. I’ll watch through the summer and see. My dream is to buy her lot, level her awful house, extend my garden.
Voodoo lily coming up through the dirt like a red thumb. The towhees, sir and madam, are the blessed spirits of my porch.
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