Sidetracked

Not really sidetracked but D and I spend most of the day in the theater, finishing the set, AND we add four dimmers to the lighting system. A joke to call it a system, a couple of wall dimmers, but we add four circuits by cutting and wiring some old track, using the dimmers from the cirque (which they don't need) and running the controls up to the projection booth. The track is tap-conned into the sidewalls of the theater, down at the first row of seats, and our regular art lighting cans, with spot bulbs, work really well. Also, everything is white and blends in perfectly. We crow. I mount the death tree on a plywood base and weight it down with stage-weights that I 'borrowed' from the college theater. No one was there and I knew where the weights were. Stephanie (my mold-specialist friend in Iowa) asked about that last article I mentioned, from NJP. Actually, it's a book, title taken from the American Association of Museums book catalog. I rescue same from the trash (recycle) to send along. I'm preparing an article for NJP and you, faithful readers, will see it first. Working title is " Ring-worm In Old Plaster" but that is subject to change if I actually find out what the phenomenon is called by plasterers. I'm a plasterer and I don't know. Also a jargon nerd. The death tree, a river-stick that I'll save for the Wrack Show, looks very nice, at the upstage right, above the Garden. Excellent touch, long as she doesn't touch it much, I need to get a brace on it. I'm at the museum Saturday, and that's when they have their final rehearsal before tech and dress. The Brit's 'Moms" have a lot to do, he says he has them ready to roll, and moms of child actors are usually motivated, so he probably does. He's also completely professional, in a funny Brit way, and a hoot to be around. But I'll be there Saturday, to make sure everything works. Half staff, at the museum, and D and I are working fast as we can, down in the theater (you walk into the theater at first-floor level, main gallery, and it's sharply tiered down from there, every row of sets, four and four, down two steps) and Pegi appears through the doorway at the top, D and I are onstage, working, and she clears her throat. As a janitor, I know the signs, and knew that there was a plumbing problem, probably in the staff bathroom, probably bad. Correct on all counts. It's the usual problem, a wad of toilet paper, and the usual shit. I keep a stash of gallon, sealable, plastic bags, for these occasions, and use a lot of paper towels, and gloves. I had babies, in a former life, and birthed hundreds of animals, mucked stalls without number. Shit don't bother me much. Funny thing was that Pegi was getting on me, just the other day, about calling myself the janitor, when I did so much more than that, am officially the "Preparator", as D has moved up to "Curator", and we were goofing about that, how I had built more sets, staged more plays than anyone in maybe a 100 mile radius, but then she shows up, at the head of the stairs, clears her throat, and this was utterly charming, says -Tom, in your other capacity, as janitor, could you please fix the upstairs toilet?- Pegi is a performer too, and she asked me in just right way. It's not a big deal and it is part of my job. Mucking out stables has a long history. Sun broke out this afternoon for the first time in days, dappled, lovely. I stopped at the lake because no one was there, placid, and full of clouds, a watercolor. A conversation with the Deputy today, I have to think about this, such a beautiful thing, that people would think about you. She offered their basement to me, when I could no longer do what was necessary to live alone on the ridge, walking up and down in the world. And she is not the first, I can choose my location. Am I killing myself so obviously that friends feel it incumbent to offer a place to die? My dad always said there were many ways (more ways than one) to skin a cat. What's meant. I appreciate it, you know, my real family, the people that would accept me for nothing more than what I was, and the opportunity to die in any area of the country I might choose, but I have a few hundred pages I need to write first, sorry, I can't die yet. What was it she said, the Deputy, something pointed, her barbs are like those arrows that don't hurt until you try and pull them out, all I could think about was the steak I was going to grill, if I ever got home. Ouch.