Rock Cairn

A lovely thing someone built, a budding Goldsworthy, in Mackletree Creek. Beautiful cairn of those peculiar flat stones found in profusion there, hundreds and hundreds of them. Most of the stones are hand-sized, about an inch thick, and the tapering pile is at least four feet high, three feet square at the base. I'll stop tomorrow on my laundry run and admire it more closely. Serious stackage. Brutal day at the museum, had to clean the basement hallway, which serves as backstage for the theater. Cementitious-dirt removal. I don't know exactly what it was or where it came from, but when the recently flooded basement dried there was a deposit of what seemed like, and I examined it closely, mostly sand with some organic matter. On my knees with a magnifying glass and flashlight, too often where I find myself (the other night I found myself in that position, examining the Raven "Landforms And Drainage" map of the United States, looking at the fractal edges of coastline) and this stuff was weird. It had consolidated and was impervious to the broom. Known facts: it was rainwater, had come in from outside, through brick walls, probably in contact with plaster at some point. It could have picked up some lime, maybe, maybe some clay, coming through the bricks, idle speculation as I consider the mess. I end up scraping it up, on my knees, with a plastic three-inch putty knife, so as not to remove the paint D and I finally got to stick, then mopping three times, the last time with a strong bleach mix to try and kill the sewer smell. Another dead mop-head. I was all in at four o'clock in the afternoon and Pegi grabbed me to get the cordless microphone operational for the talent tonight. For one thing, nothing needs to be amplified in our theater ever, I hate amplification, generally, except for rock and roll, because of the distortion; and the other thing is I know squat about electronics, have no idea how to hook up a cordless lavilier. But we get it done. Pegi is effusive, for my efforts calming her anxiety. Two of her hottest young girls do a cheer for me and I'm embarrassed. I want to stay under the radar. I don't want the attention. You fuck someone, eventually you have to talk, that's where my problem kicks in. I think about things, sometimes I get distracted. Occupational hazard. Later the clouds move off, and the sky is clear, a blue we all accept, dark, with streaks of purple. Once in a while you actually catch a fish, not just an iconic image. Good to know.