Going On

Power was out most of the night, woke me when it came back on about four this morning, but I just rolled over and went back to sleep. Big rains over night, but the driveway was fine this morning, and into town in time to shave and clean up. TR had the Cape Kids in the morning, then had to take his Mom to the doctor; Pegi left early, to go to a conference with Sharee. I puttered around. Cleaned the theater. The piano tuner, Jerry, came in, looking for some of the hard rubber dampeners he uses on adjacent strings when he's tuning; and his glasses, which he was convinced he had left somewhere on the property. We searched for an hour. Unless something is going on, I usually just read from four until five. D and I learned years ago not to deal with art after four in the afternoon, you get sloppy. We break the rule all the time, but, as the staff reference librarian, there's a fair amount of work-related literature I need to read. There's a lot of crossover stuff, in addition: almost always something that I started reading about at the museum, usually a show that's long dead and gone, that I continue to have an interest in. I usually read this part of my reading on Saturday or Sunday morning, at home. Over an omelet, I could teach a good art history class. About what I like, I can be quite lucid (about what I don't like, I can be quite lucid), I can talk about product, and method, in equal degree. Which is a thing, you know, a divine intervention, I'm just looking at some pretty flowers. Fuck a bunch of history. Bonnie Raitt, "I've put them all behind... it's been you, right down the line." I'm listening to these Swedish sisters singing perfect California English. It's weird, nuanced, held together by a drummer, and the harmonies. It's like Woody singing about the dust bowl. And those Dolly Parton notes. I have Goya on my knee. I'm looking at the most difficult of the paintings. He was over the edge, Balthus was, sweet crazy Medi, all of the artists I've ever known. A tendency toward the extreme. Not that they were making a point, so much as they were saying something about the way things were. I trust the narrative, when it's given free reign. Most of my friends are crazy. In a recent survey I was judged the winner in a survey of a person having strange friends. I won. And I didn't even enter.