MadTom Saga

Sometimes it actually seems things are constellated to drive you crazy, but Tuesday I did get the Jeep to town. A slow-motion procedure that took most of the day and six or eight phones calls (more than my monthly average), as no one really wanted to drive this far out of town. Finally got in touch with a guy on the west side (I'm seventeen miles west of Portsmouth; but he gets called away twice before he can get to me. I make three hikes up and down the driveway, because I don't have a cell phone. We finally meet, after two o'clock and get the damned vehicle to the service center. Interesting ride in with Jeff and his wife (who came along to see the state forest in winter). They couldn't understand why I would live the way I do, but they thought it was cool. The car guys didn't think it was anything serious, but they couldn't get to it until today; put in a new battery, but have to wait overnight for all the computers to reset before they can run diagnostics on everything. Another night. I figured it would be. The museum is a wreck. The bathroom guys are laying tile, grouting tomorrow; the remnants of the Sunday Tea, tables and chairs everywhere, everything layered in dust from construction, and tea stirring sticks flung about, which, I suppose, is better that champagne flutes thrown against the walls. I started painting the black wall white today, patched and repaired, taped it off. It's in a recess, and the bottom and two sides of the recess are black formica, so I taped on newspaper to cover against spatter. There's always going to be spatter. Two coats of primer and the first of two coats of finish, and it's looking pretty good, still, it feels like I'm buying penance. The first thing Gutenburg printed was promissory notes between man and god, everyone sins and the holy church needed a source of revenue, not that different from L. Ron Hubbard, and buying your way to salvation. Maybe you can. I'll take my chances with oblivion. It seems I chose oblivion a long time ago.