Painting

Painting a straight line on an uneven surface is a thankless chore. Cutting-in a different color on plaster walls, for instance, in a corner; you can't tape it, so it has to be done free-hand, and the closer you get, the worse it is. Mandelbrot edges. Like painting a shear line on a lap-strake skiff. Say that ten times quickly. I don't compose sentences specifically to be difficult to say, I'm just working it out in my head, what I actually mean. How to describe a simple thing, like eating an artichoke, becomes if not difficult, at least convoluted. There's been a shifting of the order at the pub, new hires, Lindsey is gone, to a new job at the bank, where there are benefits. She was the glue, that held the lunch trade in check, maybe the best waitress in the history of the universe. She knew what you wanted before you did, and got you in and out as quickly as possible. I was waiting for my check today, and realized I never had to wait for my check when Lindsey was there. D and I considered opening an account at the bank and ordering lunch, in the lobby. A Monty Python routine, but we don't want to get anyone fired; the new servers are cute, they just need training. How would they know it's always Happy Hour for me unless the owner told them? Breaking in a new waitress is a formidable task. Which is why I usually drink alone. Fucking social conventions will drive you crazy. Consider the last time you dated. That I"d rather write you than interact with actual human being. People are so flawed. The world in which we beat each other with sticks. I'd gone down to the Second Street dairy bar, and gotten a couple of corn-dogs and an order of onion rings, a fall-back position, but with chinese mustard, not a bad place to be. A good match, in fact, between the inside and the outside. Then D came back to switch trucks. Folk Art tomorrow but not until the end of the day, so I'll have a chance to unwrap the photographs. Which is what I did yesterday. They were all wrapped in bubble-wrap and way too much tape. Mummies. Would require knife work. I loaded them all in the elevator, sent it up and walked up the stairs, I almost always do this, use the stairs, I climb three sets of stairs 10 or 15 times a day. I just locked the elevator open on the second floor. Everyone should use the stairs unless they're handicapped. These are large, digital, high quality prints, uniformly framed in a simple white aluminum frame with which I am very familiar, two feet by three feet and larger, and they are taped to spite the devil. I take them one at a time over to a table I've padded with shipping blankets, put them face down, and do battle with the tape. In every case, after unwrapping, I stand the image up on the table and look at it. I put the table in good light because I knew I was going to do this. And I lose track of time, at some point I went over to the pub, for lunch, I don't remember what I ate, but I had slaw as a side, and Astra told me she was Astra today (yesterday) and not her evil twin Ashley. Good to get straight on that. These photographs, one thing they're saying is that they're not merely an image, that now, narrative is involved. My favorite, D agrees, and it achieves the primary spot, the anchor spot on the main wall, is an extraordinary shot of a concrete bunker with empty book-shelves, and through a far doorway, there's a young girl, dancing. Dream-like, mysterious, I tell white lies all the time, I'm familiar with the terrain. Nothing is what it seems.