Slight Gains

To be a part of the world. A citizen.  What is, as opposed to what might be. Three steps forward, two steps back. It's too hard, too far, the rain keeps falling. There's a patch of blue sky, I can see it, over there, but I'm trapped under this cloud. I understand the theory, but I can't stack boxes 21-and-a-half feet tall, I just can't do it, it's out of my league. I don't have a ladder that tall, and even if I did I wouldn't climb it. I didn't climb K2 for a reason, I'm afraid of heights. Those boxes scare the shit out of me. Sure, I could install this show., given a fork-lift and time, but the time restraints are critical. I'm supposed to install a photograph show in the Richard's gallery, then install a box show higher then I can reach. One step at a time. Most of the photographs in for the show upstairs, some very nice images. Allyson's students, past and present, from the college. Have to touch-up paint in there. Most of the day cleaning up from the Sunday auction, chairs and tables everywhere, junk, dirty floor. Not clicking on all cylinders. Everyone noticed. Drained from reading 800 pages of the Faulkner biography. Bill and Estelle were not happy together. After lunch I hauled off the garbage and recycling, swept and mopped the main gallery. Beer after work with A and D, both of whom were in fine funny form and gave me all kinds of crap for being slightly sour. Cheered me up but I was exhausted, stopped at the Marina Dairy Bar and picked up a footer with chili and cheese, jalapeno poppers for dinner. I stop there maybe once every ten days and get something. While I wait for my order, I sit at a picnic table in the roofed-over eating area; I always have a book, because I always have a book with me everywhere, and one of the girls that work there (every kid on the west side of Portsmouth, across the Scioto River, works at the Dairy Bar, at one time or another) says, after she taps on the glass to get my attention, that I'm the only person she knows that reads in public. Funny phrasing I think, asks me what book I'm reading, and I explain that I was reading my truck book of the moment, a Steven Havill, whom I quite enjoy, because he's a decent writer, and he writes well about the southwest, but that at home, where I'm now going to eat this chili dog and drink a beer, where I'm reading a huge biography of Faulkner. Then she asked if I was that writer that lived on Upper Twin. In shock, I had to admit I was at least one of them. She asked where she could find something I'd written and I wrote down the blogspot address for her. I have no idea who or how many read me. Strange, in a way, because it's a daisy chain, opening out, Linda's brother and Kim's daughter, my own daughters and their friends, I suspect this is a wider circle than I suspect. Not that it matters, just that it's interesting. I went on line to look at some cheerleading outfits, Pegi had said something. I forget what it was now. I love her dearly but I hate her polemic. Nothing. Listen carefully.