Tequila Sunrise

Just realized I'm probably staff at the museum Saturday. Which will mean I've worked 30 of the fifty two Saturdays in the last year, not a complaint, just a statement of fact. I hate hearing people bitch about having to work, so I always volunteer to work that half-day; besides, it allows me access to a climate controlled space where I can read for a few hours, hardly a blip on my radar, the time I spend reading. Lovely sunrise, tendrils of mist rising from the lake. Early, so I stop and roll a smoke, remembering the goose attack last year, I get back in the truck before tossing left-over museum bread to the geese. Errands and small chores in the morning, more glasses. After lunch we worked in the alley, waterproofing and repairing divots with Asphalt Repair, which is a nasty product. Needs to be tamped solid. Then the board president and a couple of members showed up with a real, old-time plumber, who had actually worked on the museum when it was still a bank. He has a plan to put a back-flow preventor in the main sewage line where it leaves the building. Need to move some things tomorrow, so he can get to where we hope it is. Progress. Cool old guy. We traded plumbing stories. I told him about the Wittgenstein Plumber and the Quantum Mechanic. A story I made up on the spot. The board president is a wholesale/retail plumbing magnate in three states. If you've ever installed a toilet, you know there is a company that makes a gasket, a wonderful piece of work, a wax and plastic thing that seats the toilet very well indeed. I've used dozens of these, and I can't believe I don't have one of the boxes push-pinned on the wall someplace. Black ink on white box, sans-serif, it's called KANT LEAK, which I can't help thinking means a philosophical drain. There's talk about taking out some old toilets and I mention we'd have to break the Kant Leaks, and make a couple of puns, everyone looked at me as if I'd been drinking, or worse. After work I stood D to a draft at the pub, where Astra was pissy, and John, the manager, was goading her. Between us, we got her to smile, and I drove home with a grin on my face. I don't want to convince anyone of anything, don't want to enter any fray, have no desire to fluff a single feather, all I want is to be left alone. The last cry of an aging hippy. Annie Dillard can do this, I should be able to. There probably needs to be more dialog. I've certainly thought about things I might say.

Tom

Who could that other be? Everything points inward. Otto Rank.