EXCERPTS FROM JIM’S DIARY
 

At last, here is a new entry.  This is my New Year's letter.
 

January 4, 2000

    Come on now, admit it?  Aren't you, like me, just the tiniest bit disappointed that nothing dramatic has happened as we have passed into the year 2000?  Sally and I were at a mountain lodge, looking up at the fireworks being set off on the summit of Pike's Peak when the first day of the last year of the this millenium began.  There were other, fancier shows all night on television, and a feeling of confidence and joy.  My semester break and my holidays were spent, as usual, in Colorado.  This year the food was exceptional.  Maybe that's because my family and friends there are all good cooks, incredible cooks, and maybe it's because, having given up smoking in October, I can taste again.
    To be honest, I had no intention of giving up smoking, although I had managed to confine my puffing to home and was using a nicotrol inhaler at school.  I was in rehearsal for the production of my "Vampire Follies" that I was mounting on my students.  Suddenly my right foot, for no reason, gave out.  I had to be able to work on it so, in a moment of poor judgement brought about by panic, I went to my doctor for a quick fix which he gave me in the form of an anti-inflammatory called Prednizone.  I had an immediate and severe reaction to this evil drug and was flat on my back for five days, neither smoking or eating.  Once I was up and at 'em once more, it was quite easy not to start again, smoking that is, the eating goes on.
    "The Vampire Follies" was a resounding success and the next week I went into rehearsal for my Shakespearean debut.  The department was mounting "As You Like It" and the director asked me to play Hymen, the God of Marriage, who makes a short deus ex machina appearance in the last scene.  I suspect it was my long hair that won me the invitation.  They covered me in robes, like Patrick Duncan (Isadora's brother, the original hippy), and showered me with glitter.  I also choreographed the final wedding celebration dance, on a seven degree raked platform that looked great but was a challenge.  This was supposed to be my last official production activity for the University of North Texas before I retire in May but I think I have gotten involved with helping with the big waltz scene in the opera department's spring production of "The Merry Widow".
    Matt is back in Texas for the winter.  He's been in Vermont at the New England Culinary Institute and recently finished an apprenticeship at a fancy restaurant in Florida.  He will start his final months in NECI when the Vermont winter is over.  He is happily working in the kitchen at Denton's main health food store, "The Cupboard", not really cooking, he says, but working on his chopping and cutting techniques and making good soups and salads.  He has convinced me to eat more tastily.  It's good to have him home for awhile, this may be my last chance to enjoy the boy in him.  He's 22!
    Sally and I went to Canada for a few days mid-October for the 60th Anniversary of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.  We got to see the Northern Lights, had a wonderful time seeing old friends and came home happy.  I am, however, more interested in looking forward than looking back.
    I went to Galveston over Thanksgiving, to begin my search for my "retirement home".  To my delight I found it.  On the corner of 12th Street and Avenue L, just five blocks from the Seawall and the beach and the Gulf of Mexico, stands an odd looking white building that would look better with a trellis and vines around it.  Upstairs is an eight room apartment.  Downstairs is a country western honkytonk, the 12th Street Saloon.  If all goes smoothly this fine place is soon to be mine.
    i will have a tenant for the first yeart of the new millenium.  When I finish up here in May I will pursue several offers to teach and choreograph here and there, bunking in at my friend Bart's Heron House in Galveston while not on the road.  I think I need an agent to juggle the time and offers and make sure I go south in the winter and north in the summer.