—From CB—

Coming toward the end of our Eastern tour—two events in Milwaukee, one reading in West Liberty IA, and then hi-tailing along I-80 homeward to rescue our fat cats from the kind hands of our beloved house-sitter. Actually, only one of our cats is fat; his brother is populist, though twitchy.

Mixed feelings. On the plus side: both shows—readings of our new novel Galahad’s Fool and Elizabeth’s solo show Survival—have had wondrous response; revenue has met expectations; and we’ve had generous hospitality and long talks with old friends and new. 

On the backside of the moon, we share a collective exhaustion. The Prius is holding up fine; its drivers less so. Partly due to age, perhaps: difficulty sleeping, and it takes us a bit longer to unfold when getting out of the car after long drives. We’re used to going to gym six days a week, plus a lot of walking, so physical dormancy, the sudden rush of set-ups and strikes, and the ghastly heat & humidity all the way up the coast have rendered me pretty damned exhausted. We’re thirsty for the intense social fellowship of our visits, so different from the relative isolation of our life at home, but it’s easy to overindulge in wine & talk & laughter.

Implications? Puzzling. At ages 76 and 78 we might justly be excused from continuing long-distance tours, but I fear that would be like relieving yourself of worries by chopping off your head. Already a new project is jerking my chain and diddling my brain, but there are too few venues in our area for extended evolution of new work.

We’ll figure it out. We’ve made a long, checkered career of U-turns, detours, and off-the-road rumbles, sometimes undertaking great earthworks projects to align the terrain with the map in our heads, and now our age gives us a unique advantage: if all else fails, we can plead senility. Onward.

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