Aluminum Oxynitride

Chemists are clever bastards. I knew there was a clear version of aluminum but was under the impression that it had to be fired to a very high temperature under a lot of pressure. High tech, clear (no refraction), bullet-proof sheets. Now it's a floor finish, on wood, so they must have found a way to liquefy it. I'm amazed at the new generation of floor finishes. I spent some time at the library (I can't do a search on my land-line) and realized quickly that I wouldn't understand anything that I read, except that, yes, they had learned to liquefy it and bond it with a polymer. A catalytic action for drying. It's a hell of a product. I've talked with guards in several art museums about traffic and maintenance, and they swear that it's truly the cat's ass. I haven't had a chance to look up "cat's ass" but it is the actual phrase one of the guards used, and in a positive sense. Not unlike that use of the word "shit" in a positive sense. Shit must have been one of the first words, Old Norse, Old English, shit was always a fact of life, then, at some point, much later, superior stuff became good shit; then pot, where there is good shit and everything else, then you drop the good and it becomes "That was the shit, man." Did my usual routine in town, library, pub, Kroger, then stopped back by the pub for a beer with Loren. We sat out back and smoked, talked about theater. On the way home I'm thinking about Anglo-Saxon, and Old Norse (about which I know nothing), the word "fuck", and how, right up there with "shit", fuck was important. It provided a time-frame. Gestation, for a sow, is three months, three weeks, and three days. A careful analysis yields almost nothing. I subscribe to several old proverbs, most of which are built on stilts, but I like the way they sound. Cory was at the bar and there was a new waitress, Sandy (I think); Cory introduced me and told her I had free run into the kitchen and behind the bar. The new office for the Ohio FBI is just across the alley from the pub, and there's one guy, gun on his belt, gold badge, who I run into once in a while. It was school break and the place was quiet. I was sitting at the bar, eating clam chowder and watching ESPN, trying to catch up on sports. Everyone, all of the staff, had come over and talked with me, I was clearly a crowd favorite. He'd been sitting at a table, and came up to the bar next to me, to pay his tab. We walked out together and I sat down in one of the three chairs the pub keeps for smokers and instead of walking back to his office, he sat down next to me. He wanted to know how it happened that I was so good with people. I had no answer for that. I told him to lose the gun and badge and undo at least the top button of his shirt. I have a tendency toward losing causes. I worked for years, establishing credibility, leaning on a mop, watching stupid people be stupid. As it happens, I'm not far removed. Just another stupid person. You see the drift here.