Patterns

Funny, how connected we are. I was writing last night, and it was slow going, wading through memory. I write slowly, going back, often, to delete words or change a tense, and I'd been working for about four hours, which seems like a lot, for a paragraph. But then again, I have nothing better to do. And I got to the phrase "...even the water seemed medicinal." And I thought, damn, that was a good line; it was literal, I drink filtered or boiled water and it has a slightly sharp taste, almost sweet, that I like very much. It makes good coffee. But that line jumped off the page (screen, actually, then) with a different sense, and it seemed powerful to me. I maybe over think this kind of phenomena, but you have to remember, I've adjusted my life to make it possible to sit and consider a comma for an hour. I finished the post, which is a relative thing, as you might imagine: a paragraph, for me, is like a Blue Tick Hound; of a given night I want to wear one out. I felt like I was writing fairly well, and that line had hit me broadside. I'd just gotten up to get a swig of orange juice and roll a smoke, and I wasn't thinking so much as riding a rift. The zone. I'd written out a recipe for the pate I need to make for the next opening, I'd made a list of boxes I needed to collect, I was feeling guilty that I hadn't talked to my daughters, and then that line. I thought it sounded biblical or Shakespearian, some over-tones or something, and I specifically thought, at the time, that someone would respond. And it wasn't an hour later that Glenn responded that I sounded like Amos coming off the mountain. TR and I spent time in the main gallery, trying to come up with the language for the condition report. Exacerbated by the fact that folk art is often not that well made and put together out of spare parts. We're originating the show, and the report has to accurately reflect condition at the beginning of the run. The other venues have to check it in , then out, at the end of their run. We don't want to write any more than necessary, because the other perparators will hate us, but we need to be complete, so that no one gets blamed for damages. I'm thinking we should take a digital photo of every piece, and include it in the book. Then we could just circle things and add a spare comment. "Visually Literate" comes down the 10th of May, and from them until the 13th of June is going to be a mad-house: uninstall, pack, ship out, patch and repair in all three galleries, then install a huge show in all three, and open with a gala event, for which I need to make pate. I have to make the pate on the 4th, as Kim may arrive on the 5th, so I'll need to confit the product under pork fat, where it should mellow nicely before the gala on the 12th. Sara said she wouldn't mind having some for the new Carters unveiling to 'members only' on the 6th, so I need to make a large batch. It's fun making it, except for the cleaning up, and it's always different. As long as someone else is paying for the ingredients. Like I told Terry (a board member) when he told me he had moved the grill up to the roof-top patio, so that D and I could cook ribs again for an invited audience. I told him that, yes, we could do that, but this time someone else had to buy the ribs. I remember cooking ribs for a huge number of people at Tim Dibble's house in Brewster, he owned a meat shop, and got things wholesale, but nonetheless a fifteen pound box of ribs was $19.99. Maybe ten slabs of baby-back ribs. Now a single slab is $13. That's a dramatic spike. I prefer cooking neck bones or baby-back ribs specifically because they don't have a lot of meat on them, rendering connective tissue edible, sucking the bones. I don't wear a bib, but I do eat hunched over the island, trying desperately to keep one hand clean, to turn the pages. The story of my life is a quest to not leave fingerprints. My goal in life is to leave a completely clean slate. To be absolutely transparent. Maybe 'goal' is too strong a word.