The Same

Nothing is what it seems. A trick of light. The shadow of some remembered adventure. Bird-song in the night. What actually happens is always a surprise. Called for a foul you know you didn't commit. Misunderstanding is the rule, get with the program. Spring rain hammers the roof. Go back to sleep. Tomorrow is another day. Sara is back for a week, Special Curator, I guess we'd call her, not Emeritus because not fully retired, and she'll be doing one show a year for the foreseeable. It's a happy marriage, the museum needs her, and she enjoys her half-time there. A sharp, funny crew, an Art Museum, what's not to enjoy? Feminist group from the college using the theater tomorrow, for a power-point presentation "The Naked Truth: A Brief History Of Barbie" and I'm tempted to stay for it, but its one of those damned lunch things, and this time with not actual lunch. I pointed out that it was unfair to call it a Luncheon Lecture if there was no lunch, you might be able to call a Lunch-Time Lecture, but even that seems misleading. Really should be call A Lecture At 12:00, but that sounds more like a class you don't want to attend. Anyway, the last people to use the theater and stage had been the Bridge's Girls, the naughty girls in rehap. They had written a frolic, with confessions, and filmed it as some sort of testament or testimonial. I'm not clear on some of this, and I wasn't really warned. They used a lot of two of my least favorite things: glitter and feathers. You want to drive a janitor over the edge, I'm telling you. Glitter and feathers on a bad day, figure in over 25% of all janitor suicides. The feathers were confined to the first two rows of seats, the open area in front of the stage, and the stage proper. I've found that feathers are best collected by hand, before you start on the glitter. I have several foam pads stashed around the museum, that I use for kneeling, what with the hard floors and my bony knees, not to mention that my jeans last longer; and I got one of them, to swirl amid the glitter collecting feathers. I collect all the feathers. A codicil here: once you have a feather in your hand DO NOT let it go. These are feathers, they obey gravity in a different way. I have twice crashed into walls chasing errant feathers, despite a high degree of training. Of course I stir the glitter, as I move amongst it; and the feathers are coated with it, so it flicks off on me, and at the end of that stage of cleaning this particular space, I was more or less covered with glitter holding a feather fetish in each hand. I felt like I wanted to rip the heart out of something, and eat it raw. The Oreck does quick change on the glitter and then I retire to the basement tool-room, to vacuum myself with the little one-and-a-half gallon shop vac I use for cleaning under the seats. Cleaning under fixed seats is a problem, requires attention to detail, I have Vel-Cro attachments, so I can carry this little beauty on my back, me and my back-pack vacuum. A lament often heard, across the distances of space. What I thought. Cut to the present, where a hooded figure hovers over frog egg-cases, life, tadpoles. He might, or might not, deserve consideration.