Yes But

The day after major parties is always interesting. To her credit, Pegi helped me go through the trash, sorting out wine bottles and aluminum cans. People just don't understand about overloading trash cans. I'm sure that at their homes they wouldn't think of putting 100 lbs of bottles and left-over food in one can. At the museum they do it every time. Pegi suggested I just hide the two large units, take them out of play, on the other hand I don't mind going through garbage, recycling a few things, stashing food for the ducks. Today I gave them a batch of what I call Pot-Stickers, egg-roll dough crimped around some unidentifiable stuffing and fried. Ducks don't have brakes when it comes to eating and these things were too large for a single bite, but ducks think in terms of single bites, and one of the mallard males almost died trying to get a whole one down. The other ducks were solicitous, but they're not equipped to be of much help. Cold has descended and I have to leave work an hour early to get a fire going before dark. I might invest in this new generation of quartz/copper electric heater, guaranteed to not start a fire (doesn't get hot enough) but still heats 1000 sq. ft. for pennies a day, maybe a dollar, but so what, I have to leave a heater on at the house while I'm in Florida. I'd gladly pay a buck a day for three months of the year to be ten degrees warmer. I had always imagined I would just stay home in the winter, read, write, keep the stove stoked, a simple life, chopping wood, hauling water. And I still aspire to that goal, but I need to work a few more years, settle a little debt, finish the house, get a year ahead on firewood. Full Janitor Mode today, when I got there the table and chair rental people were chomping at the bit, then the garbage, then Jennifer and her helpers were back, to undecorate and box stuff up. The culprit this time, and there's always a culprit, was the particular chocolate frosting on one of the cakes. Overnight it had become a kind of mortar, I spent an hour with my pocketknife, digging it out of grout joints. Then I swept, adding fake snow to the short list of things that shouldn't be allowed in the museum, glitter, grapes, cranberries, then I mopped. Full tilt all day, stop for five minutes and visit with the Deputy or Pegi, talking about nascent issues of influence, the price of tea in China. Listen, I don't do conflict anymore, I just wash my hands, and say whatever I imagine someone else wants to hear. I don't care what they think. I just observe. I know I'm deeply flawed, if you don't know that about yourself, it's your problem. I wash my linen in public because it keeps me straight. At the laundromat everyone is equal. A reader of mine went over the line, I've thought about this a lot, in the near future, she was out of bounds. Anything critical I say is considered, you can't imagine I make this shit up, but I was called to task, and I wondered what I had said, remember, I don't have a printer, I have no record. I'm trying to remember. Right, I criticized something. I'm sure it needed criticizing. Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on. I'm enjoying the sun in Belize, it's lovely here, it's perfect almost all the time. Don't imagine we could exchange barbs, you'd be dead, bled out in a heart-beat. No one wants to see that side of me, I can stop people dead in their tracks and make them weep. It's a gift, you don't want to call it into play. I can be ugly, knee you in the nuts when you're looking the other way, kick you in the head when you're down. Don't get me started. It's a simple challenge, you and the gauntlet. I know you, and I know the gauntlet. They'll ask some questions, I'll give some answers, nothing will be advanced. Blame it on the writer. Actually we all heard you, talking in your outside voice, taking credit. A matter of course. What you thought you were saying. I just mention it. Those really were my words.