Done In

Physically shot. Probably wouldn't be so bad but I took a fall last night, off the deck, and contused myself in several areas. Wet deck was slippery and I'd gone outside to run off a pack of semi-wild dogs, took a header. Note to self to be even more careful in the future as I'm a long way from help. Not much blood but some pretty good scrapes which I flood with peroxide and then apply some Neosporin. No broken bones, but close enough to put the fear of god in me. Not as young as I used to be, but I would have taken this fall anyway, the difference being that I heal more slowly now. I worry about chain-sawing, as most of the billets I have now need cutting a time or two, so in my mind I design a saw-buck, that I need to build, which would greatly improve my safety. I'm on this, I want to live, I haven't found anything to die for. I do really like installing shows, because I'm southern and shy, I've learned to like looking at feet. Goddamn I'm sore, hadn't noticed I'd taken a blow to the shoulder, my right arm is almost useless. I'll be extremely sore tomorrow. I've a thousand cancers on my body and one of them will kill me. Not many alternatives, I choose to stay active, and watch whatever passes beneath my microscope. I will not move to someplace safer, I'm happy here, settled in. Throw your red-necks at me, whatever they say, I can wave my hand, everything disappears. The silk scarves, the rabbits, the quarters, slight of hand, what we thought we saw. Next week we build the props for "Wind In the Willows" set the stage, then, maybe, I'll go to Florida. I can't not see something through, not in my nature. Couldn't Send last night, mu modem wouldn't connect, then couldn't sleep because of soreness. Rereread parts of "Song Of The Dodo", town early, another small load of firewood, beautiful oak. Hang the last pieces of the show, finally the furniture guys from next door (the movers) come over, we help each other out, to be the extra hands to put on the last plexi bonnet. This one is four feet tall, 24 inches square. To get it over the pottery statue we have to get it 5 feet in the air, then straight down. I'm paranoid and sore, but with two strong guys to spot us, the job is done in 30 seconds. D and Sara light the show while I start putting things away. Five trips to the basement. By the end of an installation we'll have pretty much used every tool, plus an assortment of things bought for specific purposes. I just haul everything downstairs, will spend a day down there later, sorting. Five gallon buckets of paint, gallon cans of paint, roller trays, rollers, brushes, sanding blocks, tack-cloths, shipping blankets, odd bits of lumber, tables, boxes, trash cans, light cans (3D is lit with spot bulbs, flat wall-work is lit with floods), bulbs, ladders, and the job-box, in which are hundreds of other things, more closely sorted, in boxes and bins. Officially open the show two hours late, but the time was a little arbitrary; the three of us are a bit giddy, actually, realizing we've done it again, and it's really nice, as always, when the lights are focused. After lunch I clean the floor, paying special attention to hammer-drill dust, which is nasty shit, do some last minute touch-up painting, throw in the towel. D, at the white board, drawing in blue, we're designing scenery, the boat, the caravan (wagon), and Toad's car. That Damned Brit assures me that the role of Toad, in England (at least) is considered a plum. The A A Milne script. D and I agree to work on a day off, get the stuff done so we can move on; we've got to re-hang the permanent collection of Carter's, to free up the circus stuff and we need to start picking up work, from far and wide, for that show, since we, it's really Sara's baby, are the originators. We'll have to build shipping crates, arrange the logistical nightmare into fractal units. I've never originated a show before, that's not true, I helped D get the last Carter Show on the road, but every show is different. And what I can do is different from what I could do then. Give you a line of talk. Trust me, I can be misleading. But when that bonnet top was nine feet in the air, we had no control, I knew it was beyond my reach. Goddamn electricity out again and I lost most of a paragraph, something about the nature of reality, a mention of Janitor College, a pun I don't remember; writing at the end of the grid is a fractured reality. Unloaded billets of firewood and went back for a small load of pre-cuts, then, after the drizzle started, read "The Forgery Of Venus", Gruber, which I quite liked. For my Fourth of July dinner I've planned an elaborate breakfast, featuring scrambled eggs with avocado (which I read about in Thorne, "Mouth Wide Open"), and a very good chorizo, sliced boiled potatoes fried in butter, the first local tomato, a decent brie, and a modest Cab. I would have grilled ribs, but I knew it was going to rain, saw the Dopler yesterday at the pub, no way that line of storms could miss. Maybe it's just the presence of That Damned Brit, but life seems to become a Dickensian drama. In lost versions of my writing, some of the thoughts are completed. This past week, on my feet forever, then hauling a modest load of wood, I'm completely wasted. I actually nap with a book on my chest: what Hume said, about the limits of empirical observation. There's a sense in which we want logic to intervene, such that events fall into place, but it is only in mystery that new information appears. Wittgenstein is correct, when he says "the world is whatever is the case". Some infection in the scrapes, so I rub off the scabs with peroxide and medicate. What are you going to do if you don't have medical insurance and a retirement plan? I tend toward blotting up the blood and sticking on a band-aid. Most things are out of my control. I can decide what I'm going to fix for dinner, but even that doesn't often happen, I end up with a can of beans. Maybe it is a matter of breeding, if someone else fixed dinner, I'd eat it. But I live alone, there are no options. Unloading these heavy green billets I'm struck with what a rough life this is, but how connected with the natural world. I make no claims, don't give a shit, really, carry wood from one place to another. The world is what I imagine.