Fiasco

I got so mad this morning I used some very colorful language in a loud authoritative voice. No one at the museum had ever seen me upset before. I got out of theater because I was forced into a position of using my temper as a management tool. I was supposed to have all day to crate paintings for the Circus Show to travel. The museum is rented out for a wedding reception tomorrow night. The decorating committee arrived at 9 this morning, tables and chairs arriving soon after, bad enough, but they wanted all the art off the walls. Why would you rent an Art Museum and want the art off the walls? Who agreed to this? I ended up spending the entire day moving everything, all the crates and boxes that we had brought up from basement, into the library, moving all the dioramas into the Board Room, moving my job box and packing supplies into the upstairs office common space. I couldn't talk, I was reduced to sputtering. All day, I didn't get a single thing packed. Pegi was upset, and this will never happen again. We're an Art Museum, not an empty meeting hall. After my tirade, I was very nice to everyone, the decorating committee, the staff, even instructed the groom in the fine points of taking down panels, thank god he was a strapping lad. I'd never taken down panels without D: they're heavy, awkward (eccentric in center of gravity) and therefore dangerous to move. One of them was where the piano player was going to be, and the other one blocked the flow. Fuck me and the flow. I pointed out that the Scheduling Department didn't understand what was happening on the ground. Even if I had been allowed to pack crates today, where would I have put them? We generally stack the packed show in the middle of the gallery, to get a feel for its size, so we know what length truck to request when we rent. Packing trucks. I've packed a lot of trucks. You have to visualize the load. I love this stuff, fulfills a need I seem to have for ordering at least one thing in my life. Doing something well speaks volumes. We also have a residency now, a wood carver working with six kids downstairs, six kids using sharp chisels and mallets, and I tried to keep an eye on that. By the end of the day my little brain was fried. I forget to go to the store, I forget to get booze, but when I get home, I have a pot-pie in the freezer and a really good wine I'd been saving. Small graces. I pop the cork as soon as I get home, to allow this cab to breathe, nuke the pot-pie, while I change into mufti and slippers, start a fire, roll a smoke, check my mail. It's a life, you know, what are you going to do? I have to laugh, I'm sitting at the island in my bathrobe, eating a pot-pie and drinking an extraordinary wine, and seriously considering meaning. I certainly admit I'm a fucking dufus. I couldn't keep the beat if you piped it into my brain. I often don't know which side my bread is buttered on. But this was a really good dinner. I'd bought some hard avocados on sale and one of them was ripe, I'd made a pan of biscuits, the wine was great, and the pot-pie was perfection. I can feel the fat coursing through my veins. I go back for a biscuit with butter and jam.