The Ridge

Back on the old Dell, my square headed girlfriend. Everything is different, I'd adjusted to the Mac. Creatures of habit. D and I puttered around, getting some small things done. Sara got in this afternoon, got Clay to drop her off at the museum and we started setting the Modernist show right away; should finish setting tomorrow, then a week to hang. Big show. Then showed Sara the Carter nudes, which just earlier we had finally stowed, separated by buffered tissue in an archival box. A meeting of the accession committee Monday, and I'll show them again, with my white gloves on. Thirteen in all, one male, nine of them are on good mold-made, laid, paper, the other three show slight foxing. Sara loved them, as we knew she would. We talked about matting and framing. Could have talked with her much longer, but needed to get home. Didn't want to drive up the driveway without first examining the ground conditions, so had to hike in, with supplies. I'll do the same tomorrow because rain and colder forecast for Sunday and Monday, and I have to be at that meeting. Hard to believe that all the boxes and crates are stored away, and in the correct order. Little mercies. The Peregrine falcon was back yesterday, dining on a dove in the parking lot median. Bloody mess. Predator and prey, picture perfect. I enjoyed the show. Then when I got almost all the way up the driveway, the beautiful lament of an owl. Speaking of Predator. The fourth graders, yesterday, had learned some museum speak, and when Pegi handed them over to me, she said this was Tom, and he installed the shows, so he's known as the what? As I am the Preparator, I became the Predator. Excellent. Rising full moon, shot through with that hot new color, Orange Crush, or as Pittsburg Paint calls the color, at least in the museum version, Cinnamon Stone. Everything has a name. Even in that class of things that don't exist. The moon clears the ridge-top behind me, and I keep glancing over my shoulder. It's huge, must be perigee. Even with the cheap little spotting scope I use for watching things, I'm looking in great detail. Craters and mountains. Simple pleasures. 60 degrees today, 50 yesterday and the wind steady blowing, I could have made it up the driveway, but I'm glad I walked, to see the lay, but, also, I'll have to walk down tomorrow morning, and that will be glorious. A fine way to start any day, walking downhill the length of a hollow. I've tried a thousand times to count the number of steps, but I always get distracted. It's either a good year for squirrels or a bunch of fat gray birds are rooting in the mast. It's always a show, unless I'm in a hurry and not paying attention. It's always there, whether you notice it or not. The fact of nature. Around here, she's rudely abused, but given 40 years, comes out on top. My small holding, 27 acres, is completely wild, I don't do anything but cut a few dead trees and clip paths to haul out the billets for firewood. I don't have a yard. There's a path to the outhouse, and I carry a 9 iron, now, since the snake incident, when I go out to do my business. And I never read when walking anymore. So it is possible to change. Which I hold out, as a carrot, in front of myself. How many times do you need to break your nose? It's necessary to open a door before you go through it. Janus 101. I thought we'd discussed that. Guarding the portal. When I hear someone in the upstairs gallery, I go in there, to make sure they don't touch, to tell them what I know, and to watch their reaction. Installing art is addictive. You start having ideas of your own. What would this or that be like? Cow-paddies in a line, or rocks, or water doing something; some combination of things. The sky's the limit. I want to work with found objects, I don't want to fabricate beyond what's necessary. I might glue a few bottles together, but it wouldn't mean anything. There we are back again. My grandfather had a blind mule, Clyde, he used to tell when anything was in estrus, and, in the spring could plow perfectly straight furrows. The wonders. One of Pegi's girls showed up this afternoon in spike heels, tight pants, and a top that defies description. Am I not supposed to respond to that? What's being sold? Who's the victim here? I pee in the kitchen sink, normally, when no one's expected, because it's a perfectly fine way of recycling phosphates; I grow tomatoes in the flood-plain, they like it hot, and the nitrates are a boon. Whatever you thought is wrong, nothing prepares you. Every ongoing moment is dictated by the moment ahead. Look at the last twelve hours. How did you get here? How did I get here? I admit to a certain confusion. You and me seem sort of interchangeable, in the game, that way.