Appearances

I know it matters, the way you appear. But I've gotten beyond that. I never threw dog shit on the roof, so that it looked like the neon rain-deer had shat (Charlotte's brother-in-law) nor did I ever smear stinky cheese on light bulbs (her sisters). I was never engaged by petty vandalism, because it always seemed a threat to my freedom. As long as I flew beneath the radar, I could pretty much do what I pleased. I prefer a world in which I can do what I want, so I go out of my way to make that possible. The die is cast. You reach a certain age. Quiet day at the museum, Board meeting, various small chores; then I stayed for Mark's six o'clock lecture "Renaissance Space", which was very good. The creation of proper perspective, the naturalizing of the human form. A boat-load of information. Excellent talk and a pretty good audience, for a lecture on Renaissance Art in Portsmouth, Ohio. TR agreed to lock up so I could creep homeward. Many deer. This morning, going in, it was many turkeys. I saw thirty or forty, gleaning the harvested corn fields. Sara and I talked about writing, off and on all day. She'd written a three page bio on one of our favorite local painters, we're opening next year with a retrospective of his work, and there's going to be a major catalog. She wanted me to proof-read it and see what I thought. It's damned good, and I told her so. I thought it needed one comma, which she agreed with at once. One of those cases where there needed to be a comma in front of a conjunction. We're both serious about punctuation. We talked about being clear. We both work slowly. We both smoke, so a lot of this conversation was held outdoors, at the loading dock. The last day of fifty degrees for a while. I was worried about getting home after the rain had started, I never used to worry, but now it's an issue, and I hate driving after dark, and the fucking deer; but it doesn't start raining for an hour, and I have a nice little fire going by then, and the house is warm. Warm being a relative term. My toes aren't freezing. Your igloo or mine? Phone was out when I went to send, so I just kept going. I'm excited about seeing my girls and meeting Scott, so I don't get much done at work, but neither does anyone else, so I don't feel bad about it. Mid-afternoon I went over to Kroger and bought a few groceries. I'll let the girls decide the menu, but I wanted a meal or two in the larder, in case of snow. Stocked up the juice supply, got a back-up carton of ultra-pasteurized half-and-half, because I like cream in my coffee and I didn't know if they did. Got eggs and bacon. I have two pork tenderloins in the freezer, and I could kill a goose tomorrow, if I needed to, with a machete. They consider me The God Of The Buttered Toast Points, the geese do; and it's nice to be recognized as a benevolent entity. Allows you to get very close, for the killing blow. Pluck a dead bird as soon as possible, the feathers release when the bird is still warm, then it becomes more difficult.