Atypical Psychosis

Loosening of associations. Affectless. Opening party last night, and then up late talking with a lady friend. Twelve days at the museum, then the final big push, then the party, today was a sofa day, reading. Finished "People Of The Book", good read, then a book on tides, looked up a great many words. Squalls move through all day, some hitting, some not, I collect water and take a bath. Late afternoon managed to cook a half-slab of ribs on the grill between showers, steam an artichoke, make a nice slaw with tangy horseradish dressing, drink the last of the Ridge Zin that I opened last night: eating artichoke leaves and eating ribs go well together, both finger food so no constant cleaning, the traces of sauce on the leaves is a nice touch. Rampant growth all around the house, the foliage explosion. This area is amazing in that regard, any clear spot becomes a text-book on succession. Sumac is so invasive, but tender when young (anything that grows that fast would have to be), falls easily to the sling-blade. I need a tee-shirt that says SAVE HYPHENS because I read another piece about losing them, that a thing could be one word or two, but hyphens were dying. I resist losing punctuation, and fucking Vonnegut killed the semi-colon. It's nice to have a long conversation with an intelligent other person, the large number of bases that can be touched, the layered story-lines. She let me put D'Zing on her wrist and smell at intervals. I wanted her for my Antigone several years ago, the beginning of the end of my tenure at University. I like the museum better anyway, smaller numbers. We sold a lot of art on Friday, the Purchase Awards for the show, where local folk can support the local show, and all of them over-bought, the numbers were good; everyone left to go home and change clothes so I stayed to watch the shop, habit, remember we had forgotten to put on the punch-list to clean the frames and polish the glass on all the wall pieces, you have to handle them, to put them up, to hang them. I get a couple of the lint-free cloths and the spray bottle of alcohol to clean and these strange sexy young women start arriving, in costume, the 70's, the party has a motif. When asked was I going home to change, I just replied that I was wearing essentially the same clothes, jeans, denim shirt, work-boots, and I saw no reason to change. So, while watching these hot high-school senior girls (I think it's a Beauty Pagent, Miss River City or something) out of the corner of my eye, I go around and clean all the frames and the glass, thank god, everything in the back half of the museum was seriously dirty from the emergency repair of a wall section that seems to have a kind of plaster ringworm (I could have used a hyphen there). We had deeply gouged and re-plastered a couple of places, I had to sand and repaint, and, of course, there was dust. Most modern frames, wood, plastic or metal, are black; Sanding new plaster is white dust everywhere. Black frames seem to be magnetic for dust. That electrical charge thing. Static. Tesla's solution, I imagine, would strangely be oddly correct, you just charge other areas positively and keep a low profile, charge yourself negatively, stay clean. It was nice to indulge my interest in feet, I had forgotten that space between toes. I liked the dry-down, almost vanilla. Dirty, slightly off center, where I find myself. Hello, I thought we were on the same page: shit, washed up by the river, the very things.