Of Late

I knew I did a lot of walking, but I didn't know how much until the broken toe. Now the question "how many miles do you walk in a day?" seems germane. Must look for one of those counters, and a new thermometer, I'm missing information here. I can tell if it's above or below freezing, and I know I walk a lot. Scanty knowledge. My list of chores kept growing all day, even as I worked my ass off; all the other things that need to be done, to keep the museum going, to keep up with maintenance, tend to slip during an installation, and this was a difficult one. The lighting needs some work, D knew, and Sara mentioned a couple of things that might help. Friday there are a couple of events scheduled around the show, one at mid-day, the other late afternoon. Different set-ups. Pegi had me mark that day, when we were cross-checking our calendars 'Tough Day' because she has learned to warn me when chaos is imminent. When chaos strikes, I'm the go-to guy at the museum. Theater training comes through every time, or if it doesn't quite come through, it gets closer than anyone else's idea to solving an immediate problem. Because I'm still touch with some of them, and one of them called last weekend, out of the blue, I was thinking about the several incarnations of the 'A' Crew at The Cape Playhouse. An incredibly talented group, over a period of several years ( think I worked there for 10 or 11 years, which were, I'm told, the halcyon years) that could pretty much deal with any emergency, short of death, and no one in the audience would notice. The test of this, the final exam, was to prevent something bad from happening AND to remain invisible. All of which explains, I think, why ending up at an art museum perfectly suits an aging hippy trained in theater. It's the same, only in slow motion. The opening curtain takes hours or even days, instead of mere seconds. It's a better pace for me now, I've lost a few steps; the last couple of days, I'm losing miles. But it's fine, I can still do what I need to do, albeit with a lot less grace, and it's doesn't matter that I'm moving more slowly, everyone else does anyway. Or that I'm moving like a cripple, which I am, which adds to that whole ambiance of the hermit/janitor. "I heard he lived in a cave." "No, I've been to his digs, it's a tree-tip pit covered with a tarp, half way between Booby's sawmill and the trailer where that loose lady lives who works at CVS." Graduate study, at Janitor College, required degrees in Organic Chemistry, Art History, and Shop or Homemaking, and only 25% of us did graduate, 1978, Helsinki, but we were assured jobs, mopping at Harvard, cleaning the corners at MOMA. The fact that life isn't fair is not the issue. I'm a smart person and it doesn't seem to matter, mostly I lose ground, walking with my mop handle, just trying to get to my truck.