Marching Orders

Good and necessary staff meeting today, as the next couple of months promise to be crazy busy. So much on my plate that after the meeting I take my notes and go over the calendar with Pegi. Crunch time, as we used to say in theater. Looks doable to me, the entire schedule, unless the weather throws a monkey wrench. One major show, three smaller ones and about a dozen events, THEN my favorite, another major, the local, juried, show, "Cream Of The Crop", which actually fills all three galleries that aren't permanent. Add to the number of shows to install an equal number of taking shows to take down, add the patching and repairing; for every event add setting up and taking down and cleaning up after whatever it was. This is when the Preparator/Janitor/Jack-Of-All-Trades comes in to his or her own. Stage Managing, I run these shows, I tell people what to do. I'm not the boss, but I know what needs to be done and it what order, so I ask in a nice way; call these people, order these things, line up the piano tuner, have we got the liquor licenses? who hid the extension cords where? how many events involve food and what's the menu? This is one of those things I'm very good at doing, so it's always interesting and almost fun for me, while those around me panic. Not D, he is a rock, and in his two days a week, we'll accomplish small miracles, and James can handle all the electronics, and, I learned late today, that we don't even have to do labels for the main gallery show; they travel with it, good news, because I had spotted those labels as a sore spot, and had imagined a Sunday at the museum. I have to work every Saturday for the foreseeable future, and that's fine. I love working with D and I love installing shows, that whole problem-solving thing, it keeps your brain alive. I make a note to buy a dozen cans of tuna, six in oil, six in water; on pasta I want the oil, on a salad I don't (I prefer my own oil on a salad, one of the few places I go exotic, because I use so little, I have a stash of oils) and maybe some protein drinks. I need a raise, at the museum, to cover electric costs and specific foods: "If I didn't have to go in and install that show, I'd be eating beans and not driving." Now, I require tuna fish and gas. I'm just saying. Thinking out loud, that phrase strikes me like a ton of bricks, thinking out loud; goddamn, I talk to myself a lot, does that mean I'm a sick motherfucker, or merely normal. I don't know. I do what I do. All of my systems are suspect, I claim no knowledge. Even the way I dress is subject to review. When I wear grubby clothes to work, it means I'll be doing something awful, and the staff avoids me like the plague. A single crow announces it's time to return to the roost, and ten thousand come. That's a lot of bird-shit, but still, would indicate where crows might gather.