What's Real

Considering the scope of things, working all day Saturday isn't a big deal. I knew I needed to, though Sara said not, I did anyway, knowing D and I could knock holes in the punch-list. Up early enough for a major breakfast, then stops in Kentucky, for tobacco, and at Kroger, for supplies. Ducks in a row. D met me in the grocery parking lot, having forgotten his keys, coffee and a scone at Market Street. We fairly jump on it, paint (pickle) the Carter frame and reframe the painting. It's cool to reframe a $50,000 painting. Then the signage on the front wall, then I hang two works on the signage wall, we hang the Carter, I rehang a watercolor that was hung an inch too high (James made a mistake in the math, the mistakes in hanging are almost always one inch, one way or the other), then prepare the panel for the 12 photos that were forgotten. It's a simple 3 foot by 4 foot piece of plywood, rounded edges, filled and painted semi-gloss Gallery White. I had to mark it all up to plot the lay-out, then place the 24 screws just so. It'll need touch up paint, as will all the pedestals (14) and some wall areas. All those labels to mount (spray glue then vacuum seal, trim to size (individually, as they are all different) then stick them to the walls with loops of painter's tape), and still have to fabricate supports for the distressed animals. We'll make it easy, because I worked today. I'd rather make it easy and work an extra day. Dreary weather and I would have just read. Great start to the day, walking down the hill, I flushed a grouse and nearly had a heart attack, thumping birds should be outlawed. Foggy, the hills are smoking, as the vapors rise, it's beautiful, I have to stop several times. Then slow down for the free-ranging chickens, have to stop, actually, because a previous driver had killed a Rhode Island Red, chickens are cannibalistic so the rest of the flock were clustered in the middle of the road, eating Frank or Mary or whomever. Booby Weghorst and his chickens. Since I'm stopped he comes out of the shed/coop and we shoot the shit about lumber prices. Finally he herds the chickens across the road and I can be on my way, knowing that, this time, the chickens crossed the road because Booby herded them. Sometimes it's embarrassing to be an adult. Must be because of Glenn's movie, the 50 or so people that were at the preview must have mentioned it to other people, but I've been directing a lot of people to the blogsite. Another person, yesterday, said there should be more of me (that person) in the movie, and I wondered how, or what, and where. I'm not an actor. If anything, I want to appear natural. That's my position as an anti-romantic lead. What you see is what you get. If you're filmed looking at something, how many times removed is that from what the thing is? Many, then there's String Theory. Forgive me, this dumb spectator can't keep track. I do the requisite reading, but I'm so easily distracted. I watched formation of geese going south, coming home, and nearly caused a pile-up. Dufuss Bridwell watching the birds. I withhold judgment, I think that, maybe, the fact that the geese settled into a perfect 'V' counts for something. I don't pretend to know how they navigate, you go to that big tree in the middle of a swamp and turn right. If there's a genetic story-stick, doesn't that change things? I have to ask myself, so hey, man, what do you think? and I'm always at a loss. The real world is always one step ahead, the natural world. Lane is correct, Plato is wrong. This is a matter of definition. We could talk about it, but the result would be the same. What you decided.