Docent Tom

Heavy rain all day yesterday, started before I left the house, the drive down was a bit dicey, and I knew I wouldn't be able to get back up the driveway, so I went to the pub after work, for a beer and one of those giant pretzels with a jalapeno cheese sauce. When I got back to the museum Pegi was rehearsing a Christmas program in the theater and TR was taking a group of Cub Scouts through the galleries. I retreated to my office and read Carter material, found another reproduction of the third painting of Elenore, a better one, on glossy stock, with higher definition. It's a good painting and I wish I knew where it was. Spent all this morning in full janitor mode, trash, bathrooms, the floor, but after lunch, Pegi had begged off on me that I take a Board Member (Julia, who I like) and a guest, through the museum. Especially interested in the Carters. I give a good tour and I was on my game. But spent afterward, a ninety-minute lecture, and Pegi told me to go home. Temps in the twenties and I needed to get a fire started before dark, so I readily agreed. On the drive home, I was thinking that I was one of the few people who could lecture on Carter for a semester. The course would jump all over, regionalism, mid-westernism, magic realism, technique. Probably be a pretty good course. I accrete these layers of information, if something takes my fancy. Just went back and added a comma, it always makes me feel good, at first. A few warm days and I hadn't started a fire; and I think the flying squirrels moved into the spark-arrestor at the top of the flue. (I just say some things because I can.) Started a fire and there was no draw at all, like a beaver had built a dam on top of my stovepipe. Cleared out the smoke, let the fire go out, calmed down, got a drink, smoked a pipe. To clear the obstruction I leaned out an upstairs window and beat the stovepipe with a bamboo pole. All of the crap fell down into the stove. Took me an hour to clean the inside of the smoke-chase, where the heat circulates around the oven. A fucking mess. But that's ok with me, a mess is better than freezing to death. It's not a staged event, me, two crows, the third suite. Cute, the way you avoid the issue, but I know you know what I mean.