Janitor's Journal

Fundraiser over and the clean-up almost over. Fun event and the auction went well, we may have hit our target. I was too busy pouring wine to mingle, but several patrons stopped by to chat. The finger food was quite good, but when you serve finger food and wine at an event, there is going to be a mess the next morning. Comes with the package. I got fairly drunk, having to sample all six wines so I could talk the talk, then drinking museum's Maker's Mark the rest of the evening. No intention of going home. I have a pallet of packing blankets I roll out in my office, and a pillow. It's comfortable. Best line of the night was TR's, we were kidding him about the very cute Cirque girls dressed as mermaids (for the Wet Paint show) and two of the cutest dressed as birds (for the Birds Of A Feather show). They were serving the finger food. TR quipped that he hoped the birds weren't serving our favorite, "because he didn't want feathers in his crab-cakes". There were several pair of notable ankles, in particular those of a wealthy doctor's Trophy Wife. He probably didn't marry her for them, but he should have. Mareka Esham has nice ankles. My former wife has great ankles and feet, as I remember them. I probably did marry her for them. Crashed early, but I did watch an episode of the new Hawaii Five-O, which was fast-paced and fairly violent. Oddly seemed to calm me and I got a good night's sleep, rare these many months. Felt hideously bilious this morning, but after orange juice and coffee, and a shave with hot running water, I was cured and up to the task. An event like this, the museum gets trashed, and there is never anyone there but D and I. First is the garbage, then stripping the tables, then fold and rack the chairs, then fold and rack the tables, then go around with a pocket knife scraping up odd bits of goo, then dust-mop, then mop. Intense janitorial experience. D leaves early, to go to the Chairman's annual party at OU, but we'd gotten it mostly done. We'd unhung the front wall, so we could hang the art work for the auction, and got it rehung and labeled, removed the extra lights we'd installed to light the event. I washed a lot of wine glasses, by hand, because I actually like doing it. Go figure. It's a break, for one thing, just standing at the sink, and then there's that whole concept of hot running water. Gives pause. It might not be Zen but it feels like it. When a warm, neutral, 'perfect' liquid flows over your fingers. I got my hair cut, quite short, so it'll be easier to keep clean, through the winter, faster to dry. I'm listening to Messisen, "Quartet for the End of Time", as I do, maybe once a year, an extraordinary piece of music. Listening to Bach less. That might mean something, but it probably doesn't. A blues song plays in the background, Robert Johnson, "Come In To My Kitchen". Very tired, I nodded off; but the wind woke me, howling, nothing is what it seems. Those last dry leaves, slamming into the house, are minor explosions. Listen. I have to kill the breaker on the fridge, because the sound is so pure otherwise. Just the wind in the trees, no mediation; just yourself, and things you've done wrong. I draw a line here (arrogant, bastard), sort of in the sand, beyond which I won't go. The wind. The house shakes, like it's designed to do. I think we're on track.