Opening

The event is open bar and finger food carried about by Pegi's Cirque girls walking about with trays, and they are dressed in formal tails. Very cool look for young attractive women, could completely eliminate that whole French Maid thing. There are, like, ten thousand things to do. It must be wonderful to watch but is exhausting to be a part of. James takes care of some pesky wiring problems, D and I, a well-oiled machine, solve final problems at a rate that is truly impressive. It's fun, when you're good at something, to just do it. I'm good at this and the energy flows, good is a fine place to be, it falls almost exactly in the middle between bad and great. Bad, good, great. You could sub-divide. I managed to screw-up several labels several times, and there was a funny scene with the paper-cutter, you would have to have been there. I don't so much decide to stay for the opening as there comes a time when everyone else is gone and I'm the only person there. I think about that, because I've been told I have a 'commitment problem' and I think about that. D wants to talk about Plato, and I've prepared my argument, the stage was set, and he had already gone there, so, great, I don't have to read anymore. I love the opening because I talk with really cool people. Full stop. Me, suddenly, out there. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Everyone is shocked I stay, I think they think I might cut and run. It feels nice to be appreciated, several other curators are there, including the one for the show's next venue, and we talk at length about the actual installation. She wants to hire me for a day to talk her guys through the trickier aspects. Everyone loves the rigging for the Aviator Monkeys, the ropes cleated down. The show looks great. I'm all in, but still no rain so I go to Sara and Clay's for the after party and a bit of dinner, more chat, more praise for the show. Light rain, finally, and I head home, one drink and I'm asleep on the sofa, awake at 9:20, the longest I've slept in months, and back to the museum for a talk about the show by the first Director, visiting from Indiana to see what we've done. The ride home today, after laundromat, library, and liquor store, rested and care-free, was like getting off an escalator. Naming the colors of fall, stopping several times to pull roadkill off the road, stopping at the deserted lake and feeding left-overs from the opening to a small flotilla of ducks, then stopping once more for a couple of billets of firewood on Mackletree, where someone had cut up a dead oak that had fallen across the road. Gathered another bag of acorns, to thicken the butter-nut squash soup I plan to cook tomorrow. There is life after the circus. It's mid-afternoon when I get home and I want to be outside and work physically, so I bow-saw some firewood, with long breaks to watch the wind in the trees, smell the sawdust, listen to the last of the song-birds (winter is just raucous crows and the hammering Pileated Woodpecker); and several stops for a mug of something hot, chicken broth or cider with a shot of whiskey. Slipping back into the natural world. From Plato to Thoreau. It's closing time, but I call D at the museum, to talk about changing tastes. We had been talking, earlier, about the zone, that place artists go when they go somewhere, that middle distance, and I remembered a thing that happened. In my defense, I understand why I respond the way I do; but I always question my motivation. I'm so deeply flawed and question everything, Melville's "Confidence Man" comes to mind. Waking up is hard to do. Barnhart does a riff here. I imagine a cello, but Barnhart probably uses a kazoo. Nothing is really what it seems.