Boiler Confusion

Late for work, I had to build a fire and get it damped down (an hour-and-a-half) and Pegi called wondering (for Mark) where the handbook for the unit called "The Air Handler" was, and I told her there was no such manual. Mark and Charlotte had stayed, yesterday, while Dennis installed the new starter motor on the boiler that wasn't working, but when they got in to work this morning the inside temperature was 53 degrees and everyone was in a panic. Did I mention that I hate being the 'Facilities Manager'? Finally got the guy who had installed the air handler to come out, and it was just a setting on one of the dials that someone had turned (not me, I don't turn dials, but there have been a lot of people in that room recently) and once it was reset, heat was flowing again. The air handler is huge, by the way, with ductwork, it fills a room 12 feet by 16 feet, with just room to walk around it. What it does is just move the air, whether it's hot or cold air, the lungs of the system. I don't know how any of this equipment operates, I don't know how electricity operates, and I certainly don't understand how a low-pressure boiler functions. I don't want to know. Too much information. My hands aren't working up to correct standards, what with the cold, and wearing gloves inside. I broke the Pyrex bowl I've used for shaving at the kitchen sink (for 14 years) and there's glass everywhere. It'll take days to find all the pieces. It shattered. I'd gotten the area around the sink and stove fairly warm, heated water on the stove, I've done this thousands of times, shaved, and was drying the bowl to put it in it's place, and it just slipped out of my hands. It was a useful sized bowl, two or three quarts. I used it for mixing up small pones of cornbread and countless other tasks and I'll have to replace it. Next time I do my laundry I'll find something at Big Lots. Pottery and glass almost always break. I have some pottery I've been using for forty years, but, eventually, someone will break it, if I don't get around to it. The finite nature of things. In my defense, it's hard to hold on to anything, even adobe walls eventually crumble. I have to go, the wolf-hound is at the gate. Read more...

Slow and Deliberate

Not much accomplished at the museum today, everyone was wearing their coats. With one boiler out, it was cold. Dennis, our boiler man, called in the afternoon and said that he had the new starter motor, and could someone stay in the building while he installed it, running into after-hours, and Charlotte and Mark said they'd stay as long as it took. A little before four they told me to go home. Tough going right now, walking in and out, the snow is crusted and the footing isn't great. I'm very slow and deliberate, and look where every next step falls. I stop more often, not because I'm winded, but because I want to look around. Usually I'm looking around the entire walk, but now I'm looking at where I place my feet. A large buck deer has been on the driveway, his tracks are three times the size of the doe tracks I usually see. My drainage system is frozen, so I'm using a dishpan, and I have to throw it out, and my piss pot, every morning. It's supposed to get above freezing tomorrow, which will make a mess, but is welcome nonetheless. It's been too cold to function normally, everything becomes a struggle. I look like Basho, with his staff, coming home at night, holding a lantern to light his way. Billy, at the pub, stood me to lunch and two beers for providing them with tablecloths, I took a rain-check on the two beers, but I had a steak-burger and mac-and-cheese for lunch, half of which served me also for dinner. The ridge is locked into winter. There's a path that leads down the driveway, there's a path that leads to the woodshed. It's a cold hard world. Read more...

Relative Cold

Ten below, Jesus, I've been duped. I have to wear a face-mask to go out and pee. The wind came back with a susurration. The stick trees act as tuning forks. My eyes start watering and freeze immediately. This, I realize, is the other side of the coin, what you get if you hole up on a ridge in southern Ohio. Most years, it's not that bad, you build a fire at the mouth of the cave and eat a lot of animal fat, but then a winter comes along that knocks you off your feet. Cold, as God intended. Wake up, mother-fucker, the party has just begun. Let's not talk about how slick the ice is, but how, if you slip and fall, you're dead meat. I did bundle up, walk down the driveway. The Jeep barely started, so I did drive to town, stopped briefly at the museum, to check on the boiler, and it was the motor, which was over-night shipped and should be installed tomorrow. Stopped at Kroger, for whiskey, cream, and a couple of the Bolthouse protein shakes (buy one, get one free). I still have three servings of fried rice, so I turn right around and go back home. This time of year, in a cold snap, all the birds eat sumac seed-heads. They pretty much leave them alone, the rest of the year, but when the going gets tough, there up plumped birds of every variety, pecking away. Even two robins that foolishly thought they could live here year-around and didn't fly south. The lake is lovely, frozen hard and covered with four inches of virgin snow. I had to stop at the spillway. I don't remember ever seeing it frozen solid. And the frozen wet-weather springs, coming out of the road-cuts, where ground water meets a solid cap of sandstone, are beautiful sculptures. I split two knots into four pieces that will heat my house, even under these conditions, for eight hours. I'm learning knots, there's a science to splitting them. First thing you do is store them for a couple of years, so you can see where the natural splits develop. I'm not much of a brute force kind of guy anymore. Not that I ever was, so I like any natural advantage, what you might call a student of high ground. I'm top-loading pieces of wood that I never thought I could burn in this stove. Excellent learning that, collided with a very cold winter, and my needing to clean out the woodshed. I should be able to get three cords stacked in there, in an easy rotation; and I can stash knots and crotches under the house, to age a couple of years. Locked down, frozen. When I get up and go outside to pee it's so cold it takes my breath away. Catch the fire perfectly, and I put on a poplar split, and a piece of red maple, and on top, a burl of rock maple. After midnight, and the house is almost comfortable, if you wear a bathrobe over several layers, and Linda's hat and fingerless gloves, two pair of socks and over-sized slippers. I look like a reject from a mental hospital, but I feel great. A couple of lung-fulls of very cold air, and I go back inside, for a wee dram, and a smoke, if I can roll one. If I can't roll a cigaret, I just go to bed. Down pallet on the floor. I did rather well, in that . It's too cold to be serious. Read more...

Well Met

Midnight, I get up to pee, and my piss-pots are still frozen. The ambient temperature in the house is comfortable enough, with several layers of clothes, mid fifties maybe, and there's no wind. I, finally, moved a chair over to inside the back door. A place where I can deal with footwear. A staging area. I have rubber boots there, and a whisk broom, they serve me well. I sweep up most of the crap that I track in, before it thaws, and throw it back outside. Listen. You can actually hear when branches re-freeze, random sounds. Cracks in the night. It's brutal, but it's not that bad. I can rebuild a fire from almost nothing. Ten degrees this afternoon, ten below tonight, five degrees tomorrow, ten below tomorrow night. The radio was constantly warning not to go outside, so, of course, I pulled on an outer layer and took a walk. Bloody cold, and the wind is supposed to pick up later, as even colder weather moves in. No animals anywhere. Everything is brittle. The crust of ice on top of the snow squeaks with every step. Back home, I put a large cast iron skillet on the stove, with a walnut size lump of bacon fat, caramelize a large onion and a red bell pepper. While they're cooking, I cut some fairly thin pork loin chops into bite-sized pieces. Vegetables out, the meat in, and I sear it quickly over high heat. I'd made the rice last night (you always want left-over rice for this dish) and I just mix everything together in the rice pot, looks to be about four meals. After I reheat portions of this, I add soy sauce and mango chutney. A very cheap meal that I enjoy enormously, this one came in at $1.32 a serving, but I buy damaged produce and remaindered meat. I pulled a couple of wood knots out today, that I intend to split tomorrow. I'll need to go down and start the Jeep, and I might as well drive to town, get a few things, even if I don't go to work. I can't afford to, the house needs tending. What I'll need to do is get up, stoke and/or start a fire, get it going, put on a serious log, walk out, go to town, get back home, throw in another log. I think I'll buy a steak and some mushrooms. Those small purple potatoes keep very well, I'm still eating from a bag I bought when the girls were here. I steam them, then finish them fried in bacon fat. They're incredibly good. As is the fried rice. When it gets this cold, I remind myself to eat more calories. The oil lamps are all filled, I have candles, my crampons are near the door, there's not much more I can do, so I settle near the fire and reread a Lord Whimsey novel. The next couple of days could prove difficult, I hope to get by. Read more...

Something

I'm snuggled in, wrapped in a bathrobe and a blanket. By my standards the house is fairly warm, I can't see my breath. I keep a nine watt compact bulb on in the back entry, so I can see to stoke the fire or pee, and something wakes me. At first I think it's another mouse, but as I collect my thoughts, I realize it's the wind. A full gale blowing through stick trees, branches snapping, and that deep-throated roar when units of wind gust across the ridgetop. The new arctic blast. Often, I'd just roll over, settle deeper into a dream, but I decide to get up, pour a dram, roll a smoke. After the silence of placid snow-days, this is a noisy event, the house groans; and I'm sore, from working firewood, so I groan a bit too. After some debate, I turn on the radio, and it's a great blues set, from the station out of Athens. John Lee and Bonnie. I don't know why I have such an affinity for this music, it just seems to cut through, like Bach does on a regular basis. Draw a parallel line through the Cello Suites and Mississippi John Hurt. Something else, another sound, the last of the leaves, as the trees are stripped bare. A brittle sound. Deep into this, The Shattered World, as it presents itself. I just sit, for several hours, listening to the wind. Of all the things I need, what do I carry in tomorrow? It's a cartoon (right?), or a life and death situation. I'm not sure we've hammered out the playing field. The wind dies as suddenly as it started. I'm going back to sleep. Awakened at the museum this morning, and knew was going to get my ass home, made a pot of coffee, shaved and washed my hair, taking every advantage of hot running water. Stopped at Kroger for the makings of a pork fried-rice, coffee, pita bread, a bottle of whiskey, and a couple of protein shakes. Still four inches of snow in town which I knew meant eight inches on the ridge, but I reasoned that the roads would be clear enough and on a Sunday that there wouldn't be much traffic. Correct on both counts. Loaded up my pack, put on my crampons, and headed up the hill. An epic hike, but I had expected it to be and stopped frequently. The hollow is very beautiful right now, deep in drifts, as the last snow was quite dry and the big winds had swept all the snow from the trees down into it. Tracked a lot of snow into the house, but it didn't matter, because it was below freezing inside and I was able to just sweep it up. Everything inside was frozen, but nothing had burst. Turned on the electric heater and built a fire, a good fire and quickly, as all the wood I had brought inside, before the few days in town, was bone dry. I built a poplar and red maple fire because they burn hot and quickly, and as soon as I put on a piece of oak, I went out and worked in the woodshed. I already had on all of my layers and I couldn't take any of them off until the house warmed a bit. So I split and brought in a couple of armloads of frozen wood: they radiate coldness, which, Mark says, they call 'cold soak' in the UP of Michigan. The olive oil was frozen, the drinking water, the rain wash-water in five gallon buckets, everything inside frozen solid. When the stove gets hot, I go outside and scoop some snow into a five gallon pot, put it on to melt, I need water. Over the course of an afternoon, I get three gallons, and filter it through an old tee-shirt. Problem solved. Potable water. Even my piss-pot is frozen. It's very cold. Read more...

Extreme Weather

Pegi called this morning and said there was a Class Two snow emergency out in the county, which means stay off the roads. She told me to sit tight, and not attempt to get home before tomorrow afternoon. Four inches of new snow by morning and it's still snowing hard, this on top of all the rest of the snow and the compressed snow on the cross streets. I walked. over to Kroger, to get some supplies, D had left me an old Navy Pea-Coat, warm enough that after I'd brought some things back to the museum, and since I was completely suited-up, I walked down below the flood wall. Larger chunks of ice, floating in the current, and if something slows them, on their way downstream, bridge abutments or a fouled tow of barges, the river could freeze early next week. Monday night is calling for 12 below, a high of seven on Tuesday, then back to 10 below that night. I venture out once more, to get a slice of feta pizza., from that Italian place down the street. Town is deserted, everyone gone home. Stopped snowing for a couple of hours, mid-day, then back with a vengeance in the afternoon, and when I go outside for a smoke, the blowing snow is so thick I can't see cars on the other side of the street. It's supposed to get just above freezing for a couple of hours tomorrow, before the temps dive below zero, and that should make a nice mess of things. Two layers of ice with snow on top. I've only ever seen conditions like this a few times, in a long life of brutal conditions. Gives pause. After that last trip outside, I had to soak my feet in warm water, to bring back some life, wrapped a scarf around my nose and ears. Even sound has become a cold echo. It's fine, life is what it is, you wake up and do what needs to be done. Molly, oh Molly. We should talk about crab-cakes, or those wonderful clam-cakes you make, when you''re drunk, and pissing into the wind. I mean, really, I have to go. Read more...

Restoring Order

First thing I did this morning was turn off all the damn fans. Quiet at last. Then opened the vault and started to spread the Carter paintings. Moving slowly because the cold has my left hip throbbing. Carry a few and take a break. After lunch TR was in and we carried out the larger pieces together, then hung the thirty or so works in record time. Pegi's husband came to get her, the roads are still bad in the county, and he warned that there was more snow coming late tonight and all day tomorrow, advised that I stay in town. It's supposed to warm into the twenties this weekend, so my house will be OK, and I elected to stay, so I could read and write in relative warmth. The museum is quiet, and everyone is gone for a long weekend (we've been closed on Saturdays, during the painting and floor cleaning), so it's not a bad place for me to be. I'd rather be on the ridge, but I can't be trapped there, right now, though there is nothing I love more, because I have a great many things, in town, that I need to get done. Mark left a huge book, "American Art", on his desk, and I'd like to flip through that. There's no one to whom I have to justify my actions. I'm not in a relationship and I don't have any pets. Means I can come and go as I want, never waiting for someone else. The way we factor time. Read more...

Smoking River

Stuck now. Pegi's husband, Steve, drove in to get her today, she'd been trapped in town for two days and he drove by my access, said I didn't want to go home unless it was absolutely necessary, because there was six inches of new snow out near my ridge. I'll stay another night in town, but I'll probably leave early tomorrow and beat a track home. High of 15 degrees today, a low of zero tonight, and more of the same for the next several days. It's brutal. The floor crew made it in today, and worked hard. They refinished the board room and sealed the back hall, started cleaning the carpet upstairs. It was so noisy, and so cold, that I went up to the third floor for my occasional cigarette; where there are no smoke detectors, but I have to put on a muffler and coat. Mostly what I did today was monitor progress, and lock doors to keep people from walking where we didn't want them to walk, but maintain egress at the same time. Mid-afternoon the noise finally got to me, four fans, two scrubbers, a wet-dry shop vac, and I went up on the roof for a smoke. Bitter cold. I closed up the museum and drove down below the flood wall and the river was a sight. Big chucks of ice , flowing in on the Scioto, and the edges of the Ohio beginning to freeze. The river was giving up heat, as vapor, but it was so cold it was re-condensing almost instantly as ice, skipping a state, in a sparkle of color. I'm sure those ice crystals have a name, but I don't know it. It's lovely. There was a muskrat, working the edge of the shore ice, finding good scraps in the eddies. Too cold to stay long. Worse noise today than yesterday, because they were cleaning the carpet in the offices, and everyone was distracted. I probably could have gotten home last night, but a fall on the driveway, at zero degrees, could easily be fatal. If I leave early tomorrow, it should be in the twenties, and I very much want to get home. I'll have to carry a sizable pack, so I'll need to choose carefully. I'll be stuck on the ridge for three or four days, what with the next Alberta Clipper arriving late Saturday, and I'm out of drinking water, so I'll have to melt snow. It'll be a pretty good slog, but if I get into Sherpa mode, and stop every fifty feet, I'm reasonably assured of success. I measure my risk more carefully now, what I will attempt at twenty degrees that I will not attempt at zero. I thought about going over to the pub for a pint, but I didn't want to talk to anyone; walked over to Kroger, bought a few things, made some plans, watched my footing. There were some remaindered marrow bones, and I'm feeling atavistic (I'll steep these for several hours, in broth, with onions; wood cook stoves are great for this) with either rice or mashed potatoes. I was nursing a glass of water, eating my signature Mac-and-Cheese at lunch, sitting at the bar; and this woman, that I know to speak to, eating with someone in a back corner booth, walked behind me on her way to the bathroom, touched me on the shoulder and said oello. It was like an electric shock because not that many people touch me, and I wondered if it meant I could touch her in return. I don't understand the protocol. Read more...

Too Late

I had a call into Donnie Martin, who is our AC guy, because my heating guy, Dennis (who is very good), said that I should give him a call, because the air-handler was frozen up. I want to use Dennis for both the AC and heat. At any rate, Donnie was a no-show, and I had waited around until 6 o'clock, and it was too late to go home, snowing and dark. Went over to Kroger, got some sushi, whiskey, and a protein drink for in the morning. Back at the museum, read essays on Wyeth and looked at pictures, watched an episode of "Elementary", and called an old friend that another friend had told me was dying. We talked for thirty minutes about how to kill yourself if things got truly unbearable. She has several stage four cancers, and it's a dead heat, what's going to kill her. She asked me what I knew about dying and I couldn't tell her much: fast or slow, painful or not, involving other people or being alone. It's best, I think, if you just disappear, so you can eliminate the cost of internment. The floor cleaning guys have done a great job, but it requires someone stay at the museum, and that's been mostly me, so I got stuck in town for this latest batch of severe weather. Pegi's husband called yesterday and said that neither Pegi or I should attempt to get home. Blowing snow and cold temps. 15 degrees was the high today, zero tonight, and the radio says that the back roads have not been treated. Four inches of new snow in town (sure to be six inches on the ridge) and as they don't plow the cross streets, at these temps, it's been crushed into a sheet of ice. I have to wear my crampons, to walk over to Kroger for whiskey and dinner, Buffalo Wings and potato wedges, and several people asked me where I'd gotten those damned things. Slipping on the ice is one of my least favorite things. If I get home tomorrow, which is certainly my plan, it will be because I wanted to get home, and I was willing to forgo certain creature comforts in order to get there. Nothing completely satisfies, but I'm already ahead of yesterday, and tomorrow is more or less a myth. Read more...

Nothing New

I need to clean out the fridge and dump my ashes. It's not rocket science, but when it gets very cold, everything is a chore. Dumping the piss-pot becomes an issue. I'm fine, reading next to the stove, but going outside means putting on boots, sweeping a path, breathing sharp winter air, and considering my isolation. Not that I would trade it for anything. I actually prefer being alone, the way silence becomes a companion. When I'm truly in the zone I find myself hum/whistling an old tune, "Sweet Melissa", or something like that, when I'm carrying a frozen log out of the woods. I must present a sorry case, in terms of ambition or personal appearance, but I don't care. What counts is being in the moment. I have an ambitious day planned for tomorrow, later today more accurately, in which I hope to carry several frozen logs out of the woods and smash a shipping pallet into kindling with the maul. All in a day's work. Late afternoon, at my desk, having a glass of wine, I realize I over did it. Sore everywhere and a bit down in my back, however I'm loaded up with wood, and ready for the next polar blast arriving Tuesday night. Above freezing today, the last time for a week. When it did get above freezing, the snow in the woods became quite slick and I had to curtail hauling lest I slip and fall. I split a bunch of poplar, which burns hot and fast (with very little ash), because I'll need to get fires going quickly when I get home from work this week. The house is a mess what with the leaves and sawdust falling off frozen wood, and it brings the temperature down, bringing a large quantity of cold sticks inside. And I let the fire go out completely, as I wanted to clean the smoke-chase before the next bout of cold. Teens tomorrow night, and I'll get home right at dark (the floor crew), then single digits, then zero for a couple of nights. Back into survival mode, though if the ruts melted in the driveway today, I'll probably be able to drive in when it refreezes. I need a great many things, including drinking water and juice, whiskey and cream, coffee and eggs, ingredients for a major soup, buttermilk (to make cornbread) and a pound of bacon. B will be able to drive in before I'll want to attempt it, I can always go over to the college and put a few things in his truck. I need to go to the library. I have to pay my land taxes, $160 for six months, and at the same time file for my status as a tree farm. It was the registrar at the county offices, when I first bought the land, that told me I qualified as a tree farm, and I could get a great tax break. All I have to do is get up and leave in the morning, I can clean up and shave at the museum. Hot running water. I think the museum should probably buy me lunch tomorrow, since I'm not supposed to be there, and I'll probably have a beer. I'm pretty well prepared. Read more...

Dried Morels

A great conversation with Linda, then Glenn, and it lifts my spirits, which were pretty much frozen. Their daughter, Margit, had dried a bunch of morels and didn't know what to do with them. I had some suggestions: an omelet, a cream soup to die for, and stuffed squid. Jesus, it's cold. Early morning and I start a fire, put on all the clothes I can manage. A few trips into the woods for frozen logs, split a couple, back inside, having a cup of tea, when a woodpecker I didn't recognize landed on a tree outside my writing window. A beautiful bird. Later, I walked over to B's cabin to ask him about it. He said it was a Red-Headed Woodpecker, quite rare in these parts. He's only seen three or four in forty years. On the way home I diverted into the woods to check out a disturbance in the snow, clearly where the fox had successfully dug a vole. A narrative spun in tracks and spatters of blood. I've watched her do this, so I actually know what happened at that particular spot in the woods. In so far as I can actually know anything. As I grow older I'm less and less certain. Given Brownian motion, and the fractal nature of things, patterns emerge, but they don't necessarily mean anything. They might, but not necessarily. Meaning, of course, being a relative construct. Specific ice crystals occur under specific circumstances, particular caterpillars might be more common in any given year, and there are cycles of rabbits and lemmings. One thing I know for sure, is that I never want Charlotte to be mad at me. She reamed the floor-cleaning crew a new asshole about the shoddy job they had done cleaning the main gallery floor. They had, she was correct, and they, after calling their boss in from Kentucky, agreed to redo everything they had done. Which is why I have to be at the museum on Monday, to make sure they don't seal food-gunk into the grout joints. In their defense, it is a very difficult floor to clean; but we're paying them a lot of money to clean it, and they had looked at the floor and given a bid, so the assumption was that they'd do a decent job. I had gotten to work early, yesterday, I think, so I could shave with hot running water; and she stormed in, full of vinegar, obviously having lost a night's sleep over the stupidity of other people, with a kitchen sponge and a butter knife. When the crew arrived, I was hiding out, upstairs, but I could hear the conversation, and she was a destroying angel. If they had ever had testicles, they were surgically removed. She used the sponge to clean up dirt, and the knife to dig crap out of the grout joints and put it in their face. Long story short, they'd never been called to task before, three guys spent six hours doing what two guys had spent three hours doing the day before. And it was well done, unlike the day before, when they thought to just get by with a shitty job. What bothers me is that these guys are supposed to be good at what they do. It's not incompetence, exactly, more just playing to the lowest common denominator. 'Clean' becomes a relative term. Read more...

Sporting News

Pride is a costly affliction. Alex gave 25 million dollars away, so he could be buff. Mr. Manning and Mr. Brady both make over a million dollars a game, 30,000 dollars a minute whether they're on the field or not. Hard for me to wrap my head around. 45 seconds equals my yearly income. There's a disparity here. The CEO of Morgan Chase. I mean, really, come on, 20 million dollars as a bonus? I have a problem with that. I bet they have running water. Bastards. I suspect they just call a plumber if the drain is clogged. Clearly they never wintered on the ridge. Shit, I just lost a page. It's been a while, and I'm much more careful, but I was blind-sided. The weather was calm, no wind, a light rain, I'd been writing for a while, drinking hot tea. An introspective couple of days, I was distracted. Two deer entered the frame, and I went over to the window to watch them, I didn't SAVE, which I do almost automatically, and thus a page on American Tonalism was lost. I lost power three times this past weekend; last night, or early this morning, I was reading recipes for cooking lamb's head by an oil lamp. When the power came back on, this morning at five o'clock, I immediately made a double espresso. Keep your priorities straight. Mark and Charlotte out today, taking an African Show that C is curating up to Columbus, and tomorrow they're taking art back from the last show. TR and I were tasked with taking down the entire permanent collection and getting it in the vault, as the floor cleaners are also going to steam clean the carpet upstairs. Very bad circumstances, especially for the watercolors. So we spent the day moving art, commenting on paintings, bullshitting each other. He lunched on Mexican take-out at the museum with the ladies; I had a great lunch at the pub, sitting at the bar with Pete, the electronics guy at the University, and one of the funniest people I've ever known. We had the wait-staff in stitches, and the new owner was sitting right behind us at a table for four, I saw her grin. I hate having to break-in new owners. Walking in, I was carrying a pretty good pack, and I was stopping every 50 paces, to catch my breath and look about, when I heard B singing. I was below the curve in the driveway, so I couldn't see where he was, but I knew that he was carrying wood. He delights in this more than anyone I've ever known. After I round the curve, I have him silhouetted against the sunset, carrying one last piece to the woodshed. I sit on the back porch for a long time, before I go inside, a certain sense of accomplishment, that I actually got here.. Build a fire, and move on from there. Of course the phone is out, so I can't send. Spent a couple of nights in town, one because of museum business (didn't feel like walking in after dark, while it was snowing) and the ogther because of the snow. Today, though, Friday, despite the fact that it was still snowing, I decided that I had to get home, and besides, I reasoned, they should have the roads salted; four-wheel drive on Mackletree, which wasn't salted, and didn't pass a car, which was a bit of luck, because it had become essentially a single track. I needed to get home not just for my sanity but because next week is going to be very cold again and I need to rick-up some wood in the house and split some kindling. I have to be at the museum Monday, because the floor and carpet guys want to work, and I want to be shed of them. The house was cold, but not too cold, because the olive oil was still liquid. Nice walk in, crampons, a light pack, gentle snow. As so often in the past, the walk up the driveway mediates between two worlds. I stopped often, so I wouldn't be exhausted when I got to the top, and caught snowflakes on my tongue. It's a good transitioning practice, and by the time I had achieved the ridge, everything had slowed down. Got almost everything done at the museum, that I needed to get done, and can easily finish, with TR, on Tuesday, before the crew steam- cleans the carpet upstairs. Then I can start re-hanging all of the galleries and we can become a museum again. There's a gala opening scheduled for March 2nd, after that, I should be able to take some time off. Read more...

Silence

It's so quiet, I can hear the freight trains in Kentucky, hauling coal, and they are many miles away. I turned off the radio and flipped the breaker on the fridge. The quiet is overwhelming. Clearing my throat is a major aural event. Maria Magdalena had a distinctive hand, you can always tell when she's copying Bach's original. In cases where we have both copies, she is absolutely accurate, so I trust "The Cello Suites", despite the fact that we don't have it in his hand. I think it's the 12th of January, thereabout, and at 3:23 in the morning I start listening to Rostropovich. This year I want to listen to a different version every month, and it's fitting that I would start with Mstislav, because it's my benchmark. I can spare two hours a month for BachWorld, I can spare more than that. Add it up and I listen to Bach more than anyone else, Bach and the Grateful Dead, there's always a warm spot in my heart for Garcia noodling, and Dwayne Allman on that first Boz Scaggs album, but I always come back to Bach, certain progressions. It's probably closer to two-and-a-half hours, but I'm not keeping track. Heaven forbid I should be tied to a clock. I heat some water and clean some dishes; when I go outside, to throw away the wash water, the silence is overwhelming. It's 4:31 in the morning and we're just starting the D-Minor suite. I get a drink and roll a smoke. I love this piece of music. Just at dawn three crows converge at the outhouse, shattering the stillness with their squawks. I don't have any frozen mice for them, and can sense their displeasure. When I go out, to use the facilities, they fly off, complaining. Since I was booted-up, I did a little exploratory walk, but as it stayed a little above freezing last night, the mud situation is even worse; dangerous footing, and I'm not about to haul wood in those circumstances. Beat a retreat back to the house and reread W. G. Sebald's "Austerlitz". A lovely book. Extreme attention to detail. When I get a slight headache, from reading too much, I make another pone of cornbread and eat the last of the chili. It's beans on toast unless I go to town tomorrow, and I'm not feeling much like going to town. Ran across the word zugzwang yesterday, which is a position you find yourself, in chess, without having a move that doesn't involve sacrificing a piece or getting yourself deeper in shit. Surprised that I hadn't run across the word before, as it so nearly describes the human condition. It might become my standard reply when people ask me how I'm doing. I'm working on this whole recluse thing. Spent several hours today thinking about the libretto for an opera TR and I had talked about. Concerning a hermit and a fox. A fairy tale that involves no bestiality. What it might involve is what occupies me most of the day. Toward sunset I walk out to the graveyard, sit on a stump while the light fails, and imagine my life in other circumstances. Nothing comes of it. When I go back to the house my feet are very cold and my hands are shaking, so I put a kettle of water on to heat and get a change of socks. I amaze myself, how purely practical I can be. Read more...

Mud Again

I knew from the walk down this morning that the walk back in this afternoon was going to be bad, and it was considerably worse than I expected. Easy day at the museum, pulling plastic anchors, patching and repairing, running a few errands. When Mark and Charlotte got back from Cincinnati, just before four, I left; stopped at Kroger for whiskey and a few things, but I wanted a fairly light pack for what I knew was going to be a slog. Frost coming out of the ground, and already the top inch was thawed. Slipped and nearly fell a couple of times, every step was slick, and I took great care. My boots acquired quite the layer of mud. Cleaned off, as best I could, but still left a trail from the back door to the chair where I change shoes. Straight into an extra pair of socks and house slippers. No way I'm going outside until Sunday, when I need to haul wood. I brought a couple of books home, about landscape painting, just to see if I wanted to give a talk on that. "Wyeth and Carter: The American Landscape". I can see the other side of the hollow now, so I get my big military binoculars, and use them, occasionally, to sweep the other slope. Sometimes I turn my chair around, rest the binoculars on my knees, and watch a related sequence of events for a long time. It's what I imagine television is like. What interested me, late this afternoon, was the way squirrels could recover a specific acorn. How do they remember where they buried it? I was looking for a particular book this evening, Bacon's essays, and I remembered exactly what the book looked like, brown, faux beading on the spine, the title in an old-style type; I couldn't find it. If it came down to me and a squirrel, I'd put my money on the squirrel. Later still, I was in a fit about something. I'd gone outside to pee, and I was mumbling to myself, my various failures; what stopped me cold, was that everything was frozen. Time. How do you factor that? Lost electricity but still had phone service so I called the power company and they said that a repair truck was heading out my way, they already knew of the outage. Took them several hours, which usually means a downed power pole. Even with the overcast and rain there was enough light to read, so I spent most of the day reading "The Luneburg Variation" a novel about chess and morality, a couple of issues of The New Yorker and several copies of The London Review Of Books. I've been eating peanut butter on corn pone, which I had never done before, and it's quite good. A day like this, even canned chili is pretty good. In the afternoon the clouds race off and there's a little sun to end the day, which bodes well for hauling wood tomorrow. On my breaks I'll start reading about landscape painting. I do eventually have to go outside, to dump the dishpan (the drain has been frozen for a week) and my piss-pot, and there's a fecund organic smell from the rotting leaf-litter. On the weekends, during the day, I drink very strong black tea with a little cream and sugar, and I keep finger food around, trail mix and jerky, several different olives, gherkins, cheese, saltine crackers. I just graze, and then it's finally five in the afternoon somewhere, I have a drink and consider my position. It's not idle boast to say I like who I am, the place where I find myself, my particular stool at the bar. It's a fine line, between fantasy and fact, but I earn a living and operate in the world of commerce. I hate myself for that, actually. The way I can operate in the world. Go figure. Read more...

Survival Mode

Nice to pull back a little bit. It got into the high thirties in town and just a touch above freezing on the ridge. Most of the snow is gone. Loaded Mark and Charlotte off, to take some art away, I don't know where. Tomorrow they return another load. I helped the painters pack up, and they're gone. They even mopped the floor. I started gallery repair, which is an almost mindless job that I quite enjoy. Time flies and no one bothers you. Flooded ice fields along the river, and the Scioto is carrying huge amounts of ice into the Ohio. I'm a traffic hazard, this time of year, watching the drainage. I keep an orange cone in the back of the Jeep, so If I have to stop in the middle of a bridge, I can look semi-official. A cop pulled over once, and asked what I was doing. I pulled out a completely bullshit routine about making sure no snags threatened the abutments and he bought it. I was actually just watching chunks of ice flow downstream. They spin in a complex algorithm involving surface area and rate of flow. A way of telling time. I left at four. TR was talking to Sara and Pegi was sorting papers. I signaled that everything was locked up, and that the last person out had to set the alarm. Another thaw cycle in the forecast, and the house is already a mess. During a cold spell, you tend to track in a lot of crap, leaves and chainsaw debris. I sweep it up, as a matter of course, but the place gets dirty: mud and then ice, mud again, and ice again. Two places in particular, the area in front of the stove, and the floor, beneath the chair, at the end of the table, where I take off my boots, are problem areas. You just do the best you can. During a bout of sub-zero temps, you don't set the bar that high. Climb into your down bag and kiss the world goodbye. A positive aspect of living alone is that you don't have to negotiate, you just do whatever it is that you think you need to do. Today, for instance, I didn't stop at Kroger, I didn't carry anything in, I needed eggs, but I didn't want to carry anything, I just wanted to get home. Build a fire, seek solace, nothing, after all, means that much. Read more...

Gallery Work

Caught the fire just right this morning, about three, when I got up to pee, but then I couldn't get back to sleep, then did, and overslept, got to the museum an hour late. Everyone was thrilled to see me, and actually surprised that I'd made it in to work. We exchanged cold weather stories. The painting crew is almost done, at least a week ahead of schedule, and the main gallery looks great. I've got to patch and repair the upstairs galleries, then ride herd on the floor and carpet cleaning crew, then install three shows, though one of them is very small, and we'll have a gala opening the first week of February. I'd been gone for a few days, so I had the usual chores to take care of today, then lunch at the pub with TR. They had a very good Maryland Crab Chowder (I'll have it again tomorrow, so a chowder is off the list for next weekend) and it was nice to visit with TR. My social skills are eroding and there's nothing to be done about it. Charlotte asked me today about working up a talk on landscape painting, because we're doing a big landscape show, and I told her I could probably do that. Two books and a week, I can talk about anything for an hour. I could tie it in with the Carter Collection, make the Andrew Wyeth connection, talk about the Regionalists and tie that into the Hudson River School. Need to check with Mark about what his talk is going to be about, no reason to overlap, as there is plenty of material. Ten years ago there's no way I would have imagined giving a talk on the art of the landscape, now it seems perfectly normal. Darren called, cell-phone, from his car, going somewhere, and we chatted like school-girls; I picked his brain about the light-bulb situation. The museum spends more than a thousand dollars a year on light-bulbs, maybe twice that, I've got to crunch the numbers. I don't actually see the fox, but her tracks are everywhere; they allow me reprieve on the walk up the hill, because I can stop and study them. Dainty and precise. She seems as distracted as me. Verve off the beaten track to smell something foreign, check; go out of your way to piss on a particular plant, check; sit on a stump and watch the last halo of light at 5:45, check. I pass muster, but barely. Read more...

Extreme

Did I mention that it's very fucking cold? Ten below last night, and a high today of five degrees, zero tonight. I didn't even think about going to work. I did go out and split a few sticks, but, with the wind, I was concerned about frostbite. It was beautiful, but the sun was so feeble. Settled in with some hot tea and read the rest of the day. A book of soup recipes, a book of essays (rereading Guy Davenport), and for my light fiction hit, a John D. MacDonald, of which I must own 15 or 20, so there's always one that I don't remember and can read again. Beans and an egg on cornbread, twice today, and maybe a third time later. I'll carry in ingredients for a soup tomorrow, but I haven't decided which one; I'm leaning toward a garbanzo bean/kale/chorizo masterpiece that I learned at a sleazy joint ,1971, Provincetown They served it as bar-food, with stale oyster crackers that had to be soaked in the broth. But a cream soup would be good, or a chowder. I'll decide when I see what's available. Went to sleep. When it's this cold I tend to nap, so I can tend the fire. After ten below, zero doesn't seem so bad. I have a piss-pot inside, one of those plastic coffee tins, Folger's Black Silk, but I actually like going outside to pee. You have to be careful with your footing, and the snow, when it's this cold, squeaks. Overcast, it's very dark, three in the morning, and it's so quiet, you can hear the world revolving. I just catch the fire in the stove, a bed of coals, and rake them forward, add a couple of small sticks, then a piece of oak, then top-load a piece of Osage Orange, and by 4:30 I'm practically dancing in the aisles. Talk about a whirling dervish. In my bathrobe, with Linda's hat and fingerless gloves, I more closely resemble a cartoon. Not that it matters. I did shave, when the house was fairly warm this afternoon, and washed my privates, but I wonder if that's enough. In the great seem of things. Read more...

Weather Report

I crashed early, again, awoke to rain, changing to sleet or hail, then snow; finally got up, about two in the morning, to look about, stick my nose outside. Wind, with a vengeance, and the radio says it's twenty-two degrees, and that will be the high temperature for the next several days. Ten below tonight and I'm as ready as I can be. The kitchen drain will freeze, so I get out the dishpan, to wash dishes, and I get out my piss-pot, which is a two-pound coffee container, plastic, with a tight-fitting lid. The house is fairly warm right now, and I'm letting the fire burn out, so I can dump the ashes and clean the smoke-chase, then I'll burn a very hot fire for forty-eight hours and mostly hang around the stove. Finding something to read isn't a problem, and I dig out my extreme cold-weather gear: snow-boarding pants (I never did), a vest of some space-age material, wool socks. Below zero is purely survival mode, I just eat beans on toast and read. I have a reading nook, over near the stove, that I've fabricated from blankets and chairs, and I sleep there, when it gets this cold. Usually, these conditions, during the day, I wrap up, and read on the sofa. After a day like yesterday, numb trips through the woods, splitting out recalcitrant stumps, I might self-medicate. I finally just stopped, I needed to make two more trips, to collect what B had cut, but I just couldn't do it. Done in. I slept well, awakened to another inch of snow over hard-frozen ground, temperatures steady falling. By sunset it was zero, and still falling. B came over, home from his classes, to make sure I was ok. With his knobbly tires and 4-wheel drive he was able to drive to the top, and asked was there anything I needed for tomorrow. I told him a dozen eggs, so I could make cornbread, but that otherwise I was fine. If it was going to be like this very often I'd invest in a Casio wrist-watch that would wake me every few hours so I could stoke the stove. Hot cornbread and baked beans for dinner. Tomorrow or Wednesday I hope for some marrow bones in the remaindered meat section. I crave marrow right now, and I have a little pickle fork that works perfectly for eating them. I get the house almost comfortable, bathrobe over sweats over long underwear, curl up in the corner with a good book. Quite comfortable, actually. Fuck a bunch of convention. Read more...

The Blues

Alter my consciousness indeed. What do you consider the bass line, and what do you consider to be the lead? Given the variables, I'm right where I expected to be. I stop at the little front porch on the print shop, to take off the crampons and knock the snow loose. Enough supplies, I figure, I couldn't have carried more. I finish a piece of text with what Linda emailed me was a great last line. And crashed on the sofa. The hike up the hill, in slick snow, with a full pack, had taken the vinegar out of me. I didn't even eat all the sushi. Suited right up this morning, and started preparing for two days below zero. Split some Sourwood, which is a feat, and a large block of Red Maple (which was actually just the wedge someone had cut from a very large tree they were felling. It had resisted me before, but after a year in the woodshed I could see where it wanted to split. B shows up, with his chainsaw, seems it was a little piece of ice in the high speed jets, and he's got it working again. We cut some stuff. He cuts, I carry; and the oak is wet on the outside but will dry quickly in the house (lord knows I need the moisture), and he cuts two of my stash of Osage Orange pieces in half, so that I can more easily split them. After he leaves I carry wood in from the forest, and split out night time logs. Finally my legs are give out, and my shoulders are screaming, maybe five hours of hard physical work, in the cold, on rotting snow, temps just above freezing. I actually over-heated a couple of times. Temps drop tonight, then 48 hours of zero or below. I have a pile of top-loading knots, serious firewood, that fills the woodbox and all the space over to and in front of the stove, and I'll probably miss the staff meeting on Tuesday. I'm glad I cleaned up and shaved yesterday, but I'm right back where I started, dirty, and needing to shave. I might address personal hygiene again on Wednesday. It's serious business, when the temps are below zero and you don't have a thermostat. I pull a chair up next to the stove, and pull a blanket around my shoulders; not so bad. Read more...

Access

Stands to reason that if Matt can get out here, in a Honda Civic, that I'd be able to make in and out of town in a Jeep. We're all parked at the bottom of the hill, the snow is slick and impossible, Matt allows that the driveway doesn't get any easier. To him, right? visiting once in a while. It does get easier for me, as I shoulder a pack, and head up toward the ridge. You do something twenty or thirty times, a few hundred, or a few thousand times, and it's no longer a big deal, but achieving the ridge is always special. Walking down, I'm struck, as I always am, by the way a carpet of snow reveals the lay of the land. I drive out Mackletree very slowly, because it never got plowed, though they did salt the hill at my end, and I stop several times to look at landforms I'd never noticed. No snow at all in town. Stop by the deserted museum, shave, wash my hair, and take a sponge bath. Stop at the pub for a beer and a bowl of the jalapeno/bacon mac and cheese that bears my name. Talked with the waitresses (I was the only other person when I first got there), then over to Kroger. It was a zoo there, everyone laying in supplies for the two nights (Monday and Tuesday) that it's supposed to be below zero. I get whiskey, a back-up pint of brandy, a back-up carton of cream, and the ingredients for a large pork fried rice. Sushi, for tonight, and a few other things, then drive slowly home. Thinking about fate, I don't know what brought it to mind, but I was chipping away at the whole idea of anything being preordained; though, as a decent debater, I had some pretty good arguments on the other side. The entire internal dialog disappeared when I got to the lake. A flock of turkeys had come down to the road, from the slope to the south, and on the lake side, the north, there was a gaggle of geese. There was much flapping of wings, and what I took to be insults exchanged. I had stopped, to watch and listen, but when I finally moved on, and stopped between to two factions, they both turned around and walked off. The rest of the way home, five miles on Mackletree, through the state forest, I'm doing a play-by-play for a radio broadcast of an imagined battle between turkeys and geese. Parked at the bottom of the hill, put on my crampons, organized my backpack, grabbed my mop-handle and headed up the hill. Done with the outside world. I'm carrying a pretty good pack, and I stop five or six times, but I make it, you know? either a Sherpa or a really stupid white guy; I build a very good fire, and settle in, bring it on. Read more...

Much Colder

Snow all day long, first they said no accumulation, then they said three inches and another inch before midnight. Below ten degrees tonight and tomorrow night. B had a bunch of William Gibson novels, so I'm reading those and eating ramen noodles. I'll have to get out on Saturday, for whiskey and a few things that can I carry in, but that should give them time to clear the roads. A good Osage Orange fire in the stove, and the little infrared heater over by my desk. Probably lose power tonight, but the oil lamps are filled, and I have candles. When I'm in Big Lots (it's near my laundromat) I always look at the candle shelf and buy anything that will fit my candleholders. I didn't use many last winter, so I have a good supply. I rummaged in the large tin, that I use to store foodstuffs that mice can't get into, today, and found several potential meals. I have some purple potatoes to roast. I'd rather be stuck on the ridge than stuck in town. The fall and winter I mostly cook with pork fat, bacon drippings, so I have to eat bacon a few times a month; I just keep the fat in the skillet I cooked the bacon in, with a cover, and take out a spoonful when I need it. Cut the little purple potatoes in half, roll them in some melted bacon fat and several grinds of fresh black pepper, a hot oven, thirty or forty minutes, turn them once. These are very good. While the oven is hot, and the pan is greased, I crisp some kale leaves. Too cold to think, so I bundled up early, on the sofa, reading until I fell asleep. Beautiful morning, four inches of new snow. A perfect sunny day, still very cold , and everything sparkles. I limit my outdoor time because it's too damn cold, way too bright and I left my sunglasses in the Jeep. TR calls, to make sure I'm alive, and B walks over to say that a former student, now in the MFA writing program at Bowling Green is coming by at four for conversation and an early dinner. So I suit-up and go over there. Excellent pot roast dinner, with butternut squash cooked two ways. Good beer and good conversation. I bow out early, to get home and build a fire before dark. Realized I hadn't socialized at all over Xmas and New Year, it was nice, talking about lifestyles and writing. I'm a mess right now, dirty, unshaven, smelling a little like dog. I'll go into town tomorrow (Matt said the roads were ok) get a few things, stop at the museum, take a sponge bath and shave, wash my hair; all of my clean clothes are there (from last Tuesday, when I couldn't get them up the hill) and I need to change, I've been wearing the same pair of Carhartts for nine days. It's winter. The rules change. I care even less what I look like in winter. When B came over today, I'd created this little reading nook for myself, with blankets draped over chairs, sitting on a piece of foam-rubber I'd salvaged from the furniture store; in my velour bathrobe, over Carhartt bibs, over long underwear, hat and fingerless gloves, with an extra coverlet over my feet. Not concerned, at all, in the way I appeared to anyone else, just reading a book, and biding my time. Read more...

New Year

Just like that. After several small hikes, I was exhausted, physically beat, so I ate an early dinner (beans and an egg on toast, twice), read for a while, finished a piece of text, and took a nap. Awoke after midnight, turned on the radio, turned it off, went outside to pee. Cold and brittle. The power had been off, so I had to turn on the computer to see what time it was. After one in the morning, which makes it the new year. I keep up with this stuff. Should be fine to take the Jeep down the driveway later. I might have another nap, storing energy units for a day of hauling frozen oak rounds. Establish a path, establish a rhythm, it's a no-mind mindful state, one foot in front of the other. If you establish a path, like this, through a piece of woodlot, after a few trips, you know where every foot falls, you have a map in your head. You keep track of certain things, certain obstacles, and you avoid them as well as you can. And you always note where it would be the softest place to fall. Oddly, that would be, if you were falling, into a bed of green briar. It's so strong, you'll never hit the ground. Sure, you'll be pricked in a few places, there might be a little blood, but you won't break a hip. Point is, that your mind can drift, you can remember your failures, and build on that. I'm not being clear, but I wish you could see me now. It might explain something. I'm in my bathrobe over my Carhartt bib-overalls over long-underwear, with Linda's hat pulled down over my ears. I have on extra socks. What I'm trying to say, is that I'll take my chances. I've always cooked black-eyed peas and cornbread on News Year's day. This year I had tomato soup and a toasted cheese sandwich. I wonder if that means something. Probably not. Burrowed several feet deep in a pile of leaves, I don't care that much what's going on in the outside world. Best laid plans. B came over and we scoped out a path, but his chainsaw, that was working yesterday, refused to operate; he cursed, went home to work on it. He thought he'd probably have to take it in to the shop, so we won't cut wood for a few days. I was already suited-up, so I spent the day in the woodshed, cutting a few things with the electric chainsaw and splitting gnarly pieces I had set aside. Fill all the stations of the cross, and have enough wood in the house, by the end of the day, to last for a week or more. Muscle sore, but it actually feels pretty good, looking at the pile of night-time logs stacked around the stove. One Osage Orange round yielded seven night-time chunks. It took me 30 minutes to split and cut, but it was time well spent, and I have four more of them in the shed. Splitting Osage Orange is a Zen exercise, you have to find where the wood wants to split. On my knees, on my ethafoam pad, I find a small heart check, and drive my hatchet into it, opening it enough that I can drive a wedge. I do this work inside an old tire (a trick I learned from Kim) so that the damned things don't keep falling over. Totally involved in the moment. Read more...