Learning Curve

Pegi asked me to define Folk Art. I said it was art that showed no learning curve. Except for quilting, which does, and is far and away my favorite folk art. Waked in again, got a fire started before sunset, which is critical. Taking a week of my vacation time by leaving work an hour early. The walk down this morning was stunning, still a coating of snow and I'm amazed every year at how that reveals the actual lay of the land. I study this in detail. Sidebar: it's fifteen degrees warmer and I had to go put on my sword-fishing cap, it has a extra long brim, so I could block the rays of the setting sun; which happens, this time of year, right outside my writing window. Warm enough that I don't need Linda's hat. Pegi's office looks so much better that she wants several other zones painted, plus I have some to do in the Carter galleries, plus patch and repair and paint the main galleries. The apple crate I keep at the museum for books that accumulate for me there, is full AND in D's office and I need to bring them home and do something with them. My book accretion tendencies. I'm thinking about turning the smaller bedroom upstairs into a library with a single bed and converting the downstairs room that was supposed to be a studio but became a junk room, that I call the chainsaw room because there are three dead chainsaws in there and one that is alive, into a downstairs bedroom. Pink clouds outside, lit from underneath; two orange jet contrails, over Kentucky. Reading some of Mary's letters every day, and now the diaries. It's interesting, constructing a life and a relationship just from what's said on the page. Not unlike you and me, though I probably dip into the 'creative' side of Creative Non-Fiction more than Mary ever did. There it is again, Jupiter, Mac says, and I trust him in these matters, blinking because of a branch in the breeze. Or wind, if you felt 'breeze' was too much. I swear, I was not consciously aware of building up that alliteration, it's something my writing self does to see if I'll notice. Devious bastard. He knows how I feel about elevators. Safe assumption that you're not going to die, but nonetheless I always send freight and take the stairs. There's a learning curve, I was trapped in an elevator twice. There's no place to pee. Now, when I find myself in a big city, and I have to use an elevator, I carry an empty one gallon pickle jar, with lid, nobody can miss a gallon pickle jar. And I always carry a book, whenever I might be caught between floors. Come on, would you rather hear about the medical history of an entire family, or read a good book? I carry a copy of Ken Warren's HOUSE ORGAN everywhere I go, that way I can always read some good poems. He's a great mediator, for me, between the plethora of shit that's published and what I have the time to read. We all have filters, I did a survey, once, and it was concussive. Like with the eye-color hazel, the jury is still out, and we shouldn't talk about that either. What's not said is at least as important as what is actually said. This is the Bridwell Rule, and I thought everyone knew we weren't working on the metric system. Fucking grips from Australia. They all have that weird accent. Listen, mate, I'm trying to be offensive, it's the bowl season, after all.