Madsong Stanza

Whipping post, again. But I got the Jeep back and I'm sitting in my writing chair at home, a glass of whiskey and a smoke. Parked at the bottom of the hill and carried in a heavy pack, juice, booze, yogurt, fruit, the ingredients for a pork-fried rice, and a gallon of drinking water. I'll carry in another load tomorrow, and be set for the three day weekend. I need some books. Four, probably: two non-fiction and two fiction. I have a canvas bag I've adapted for carrying books, found a guitar strap in a dumpster and sewed it on with dental floss, but I can only use it on a light-pack day, when I can carry my backpack on one shoulder and the book-bag on the other. Every thing requires consideration. Mop handle walking stick, and I try to keep the other hand free, for picking things, and breaking any potential fall. To save my collar-bone (designed to fail first). I should invent an implement, a glove-like thing, that you would strap on to your free hand that had a spring built into it to absorb the shock of falling. I might have to go into town for a couple of hours on Saturday, to do my laundry and buy a pair of work shoes. My feet are killing me. The bathroom guys finish a drop ceiling in one bathroom, then grout the tile; they're a very good crew, one of the best I've ever seen that wasn't mine. Not bravado, but I've always had a penchant for putting together a very good crew. I just assemble the people who know what they're doing. I'm the greatest helper ever. Tom Terrific. I know what you need next before you can even form the words. We have to wrap some walls, in the back entry, with some cherry plywood, and, since the building is an old bank, 80 years old, fully matured concrete, we have to make frames of lathe, to provide nailing, and they must be glued and Tap-Conned to the concrete walls. None of the walls in question are square or plumb. D started building what look like ladders, one-by-three on the flat, pocket-screwed together, which we attached to the concrete walls after lunch. The bathroom crew were impressed. What I see are a bunch of trimming nightmares. This is difficult carpentry, interesting and engaging, we make up everything on the fly. We consult each other. We're working from a watercolor drawing, there are no plans. It occurs to us, not for the first time, that what the committee wants, envisions, is a look, with absolutely no knowledge of what it will take to achieve that. There's always a disconnect, between the person that wants something done, and the person that actually does it. The one is an idea, and the other is a practical way to make that happen. I painted a fifth coat of white, over the black, and it is now a white wall; strip off the tape and newspaper, and there you have it. A nice job, if I did do it myself. I expected at least a minor epiphany, but there's nothing there, the black wall simply becomes white. I expect injury, you work in the field, with steel wedges and sledge hammers, eventually you hit your thumb; a few stitches and you're fine, but it makes you conscious of other possibilities. How frail you are. I have to go.