October 12, 2012

Venus alone high in the east.

October 11, 2012

Finished The Mermaid yesterday, thought surely I’ll be tinkering with it late today when my duties are over. Showed Apothecary to Leland, that window coverings might occur. Hauled myself to Fired Up on Wall Street finally to paint a Robert Creeley bowl for Connie’s fundraiser. I resented the time expenditure, but the actual activity turned out to be enjoyable and calming. Headache this morning from the richest wine at Avenue M last night. Waiting for frost, so the garden ceases to be a concern. I wrote the play in four days. Whenever I was ready for the next bit, the next bit lay under my fingers. Must prepare the house for the housecleaners. Must prepare Genesis for my first class. Must flush this headache. Mitt Romney is in town today. I’ll keep a wide berth.

Today's e-mail

Thirty-seven new messages on my primary email account since this morning. One of them-one–was personal. I was warned four times that there might be sexual predators in my area. I was warned about the closing of three different shows in different parts of the world that I might want to go to. The Democratic Party asked for money twice, My chance to buy tulip bulbs in bulk is slipping away. I have been nominated for inclusion in Outstanding Women of America.

October 9, 2012

Yesterday a boiling cauldron of deeds. I finished Act I of The Mermaid. I sent off my application for an artist’s grant from the state (my eighteenth application, with no reason to think it will find more success than the others). Worked out memorably at the Y (still stretching against leg cramps), met with TD at Starbucks to convince him to enter his screenplay for a grant as well. Did not once look at my portfolio. Made a slumgullion of the vegetables left from the garden, peppers, tomatoes, red onions, the un-eggplant looking white eggplant. Then it was noon.

The Mermaid sends me back to those days when I set down to write and the writing rolled out before me like landscape before a moving car. All I had to do is look, and write. Great joy, but also, behind the joy, anxiety that this too will never find its way into the world. Does the world need it? Not so much as a cure for cancer, as much as anything onstage now. I hear MM saying the lines as I write them. I must tell him.

Late dream that DJ and I were in a hurricane on the coast. I parked the car, with him in it, and ran. I assumed he’d follow, but he didn’t. When the wind died down, I went back to look, and the street was empty, no cars, no people at all, just emptiness and debris.

No frost yet, but the garden looks as battered as after a night of frost, or it will when the light comes. It must sense what’s coming, give up, some of it, on its own terms.

October 7, 2012

The roof leaks again. I thought my golden friend had fixed it. No match for the autumn rains.

Cantaria sang for Blue Ridge Pride yesterday afternoon. It was far more clement than it had been the year before. Bright skies. Enthusiastic audience. Had a sort of crush on the one who was singing to my left, so there was an interesting frisson to the event.

Bought a Mac Book.

Can hardly bear looking at my garden, for it’s in the transition between abundance and productivity and the sort quiescence which allows one to dig it up and prepare for the next round.

The movie Battleship (which wasn’t as bad as everyone said) and shots of moonshine in apricot nectar at DJ’s. Staggering home in the dark and the unanticipated cold.

October 6, 2012

Aches and bruises left over from yesterday’s tumble. Everything is worse than you think it’s going to be, except those things which you think are going to be really bad. Often they’re nothing at all.

October 5, 2012

Zach had double booked (more likely I had forgotten a changed arrangement) so I went without the massage around which I had planned my morning. Worse, leaving the building I slipped on the steps and crashed down, breaking the step under me. I could feel my skeleton jolt inside me, and I had to sit for a moment before being assured nothing–but the step–was broken. Gashed elbow seems to be the only effect, aside from jolted nerves. There was something on the step which was invisible and slick as ice. Didn’t matter going up, but coming down it did. What I took to be a homeless man helped me up and said he'd pray for me. The receptionist who came out to investigate fell at exactly the place I had done. She was afraid to get up, so I held her hand and eased her down the remaining steps. Stopped for an extra coffee coming home.

Working on my lost-play-of-Shakespeare play. I’d thought of it long ago, but forgot, until TD reminded me over coffee. It’s good to have a specific project again. I know it’s right because it’s going fast and, if not easily, unwaveringly.

Went downtown to see Kenn’s work at the new Aloft hotel. Wine on the fine balcony overlooking Biltmore Avenue. He was being lionized so I didn’t have much time with him, but I discovered I was in the midst of a gallery walk, which I have not attended in a long time. Walked among the galleries, seeing much I liked but nothing I wanted. It used to be I couldn’t walk down the street without seeing somebody I knew.