Reception

I met two women that interested me, so I'd call it a success. Spent the day cleaning the main gallery, putting things away, stashing things in the basement. Since the photo show is completely on the walls, all 2-D, the entire Richard's gallery is open. A good thing, as 75 people, 90% under thirty, most had never been in the museum. An open bar, just beer and wine, but nobody drank much. As the nominal bartender, I didn't circulate at first, but as the party wore on I became engaged in several conversations and found myself involved in social stuff. I'm well versed in conventions, because I learned from actors. But I had two serious conversations, and took three people down to see Phillip's piece in the board room. I don't want confusion in my life right now, relationships probably being primary, but this woman Julie really interests me. And the mysterious woman in the short skirt, with boots. It's all I can do to tread water. I can't believe how well I can recount. Maybe it's genetic, or geriatric. Julie had a lovely light blue vein on her right temple that I really wanted to touch, maybe kiss and whisper a secret One conversation I backed out of sounded like it was actually an encoded subtext. A little light background music was playing downstairs, jazzy Anasazi pipes. Just enough. Group photos of the artists present. Everyone stayed until we ran them out, an excellent opening. Home late, plopped down on the sofa to rest my eyes and woke up this morning, fully clothed, with a crick in my neck. Blow off going to town, as I've got rags and tatters I can wear around the house, holey socks and such, and I can do the laundry on Monday. I spent the day flipping through a batch of food and recipe books Amy Barnhart gave me six weeks ago, which inspires a batch of mid-afternoon crab cakes. For dinner I stir-fried some canned squid (I'd forgotten it was there) with a couple of chopped low-acid tomatoes, an onion, and some lamb's quarter I found in a flower bed at the college. I get great dandelion greens there, too; the groundskeepers use a ton of mulch and not much insecticide, but I still wash everything three or four times. I had the squid on toast, which was easier than making rice. Assembled a batch of grits in the crock-pot, which I'll cook tonight, and eat all next week, in various guises. I'll use it as polenta, something I might serve something on, a fried egg or anything hot and juicy; and I've learned to make very good cheese grits in the microwave. In a small heat-proof dish I mix grated cheese with prepared grits, nuke it for 90 seconds, then brown the top with a propane torch. It's very good. Fried crumpled bacon is a great topping. Bacon, I think, is underestimated, in the great spread of humanity, stop for a minute, consider, there is no way you could move that object, which weights tons, you couldn't possibly lift yourself. Bacon is a constant. Smell is more important than you think. Bach played out the lines. Listen. You can follow it along. The 'Cello Suites' are the best piece of music ever. That they could make me smile and make me cry in the same moment. No way I can move a frozen mastedon.