Ever Been

I need a new pile of rocks, I've thrown all I had at one thing or another. There's a perfect spot for collecting throwing rocks, where Mackletree Creek runs into Roosevelt Lake. Actually, several hundred yards upstream, where the fines fall when the spring torrents rage. Almost every rock is the same weight and it's just a matter of finding the ones that fit your hand. I can collect a five gallon bucket of them in ten minutes. A little further downstream there's a zone where every rock is a skipper. I've been known to skip rocks for an hour, when I was particularly perplexed by something. I still have a good right arm, though I could no longer play third base. Language is fraught with difficulty, wanting to say a specific thing and not having the exact words. It's why we have all these poetic forms where one thing means another, the way symbols serve in painting, the haunting overtones in Bach. I want to talk about the representation of the real, but I'm not ready yet, I might never be. Looking at pictures for over a year, thinking about it. Narrowing the focus to four artists: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Caravaggio, and Velazquez. The nature of reality is called into question. What is real? I have an objective reality I share with other people, Kim talking about traffic flow in Tallahassee, the availability of morels in Minneapolis, the snow pack in the Coastal Range; and these things are observable, viewable from the outside: there was, actually, twelve feet of snow in Telluride that winter. Not a joke. I go back to sleep for a couple of hours then go in early so I can shave and wash my hair. D shows up and we go get the Saturday burrito. We had been promised that we wouldn't have to do any clean-up during this huge turn-around, but all the museum tables and chairs were out, the garbage cans were over-filled, and there were tablecloths and skirting everywhere. Took us until noon to deal with that, and one of the garbage bags burst all over me. Fortunately I had my dirty laundry in the truck (never did get to do my laundry) and I was able to change into dirty, but not soaked in garbage juice clothes. TR joined us for lunch, then took the desk, we brought up all the packing, and the cardboard, and the various crates and bin-boxes. A bin-box is just a very sturdy cardboard box we can interleave and pack full of similar sized paintings, makes the transport safer. Discuss the problems, and there are several; late in the afternoon, we actually pack the three large paintings that were problematic, as they'd never been packed before and we knew they'd take some time. None of the new tapes stick. This is a real issue, because in the seven or eight years I've been at the museum I've used hundreds of rolls of tape, and, I have to add, before D can post something, that I'm actually tape-challenged, in that I can never start a roll and it defies me in other ways, resulting in hair loss and some tissue damage. The problem is that the 'new' packing tape doesn't stick to cardboard, which is ludicrous, cardboard is what it's supposed to stick to. I'm in disbelief and tongue-tied. D allows that he'll come in Tuesday, and TR and I are working tomorrow, a Sunday, the first of several Sundays I need to work, we should be fine, getting this show to the next venue, installing the next show, which is huge, and making pate. Just a couple of things I need to do.