Roaring Outside

A sign of the times. More people bumming cigarets and asking for spare change. I'm always so surprised by that use of 'spare' that I just look stupid and shake my head. There are now three or four people that regularly raid our "Butt Bin" outside the back door. Something woke me, a sound in the night, and I ended up back at my writing station with a short whiskey, rolling a smoke and musing. There's a roaring outside, the wind in stick trees, like a young war in the distance. Hard to keep humidity levels where they need to be when you heat with wood, it's a strain on my books. So preoccupied with Pegi's office I didn't get to the library, to pick up a fiction, to read on my breaks from reading other things. Picture this. I'm sitting at the front desk, clearly a janitor (jeans, denim shirt) filling in for someone better dressed, looking at pictures in an art book, and a couple come in. They're tentative. Born and raised in this town and didn't know there was an art museum. I walked them through the Carter's, glib and slightly profane, they were amused and I was amazed at the way I do this docenting thing. There's no mediation between me and the work, I just say what I think. The stipulation being that I leave out almost everything. I realize I'm bad about getting side-tracked (that's a good looking hyphen), so I get another short drink and roll another cigaret. Kristi said I shouldn't use the word 'fuck' so often, in it's various tenses. So I walk this couple through the Carter's, pointing out a few things, and never use it at all. Fuck a bunch of tattered lavender tights.

Tom

I went on so long the sun finally rose. My early mornings have become confused. Maybe it's just a glitch, but I suspect something more substantial. We'll see how I deal with today: rolling around under the house. There really isn't a referent, maybe a perfectly chipped point, I mistrust everything else. Read more...

Nothing Fancy

A chicken pot pie. Anything with a crust. Apple crisp. I'll do some cooking this weekend. One more hour under the house tomorrow, thank the gods for a nice day (I got lucky) because a very cold front moves in Sunday night. Whatever it takes to get battened up. No rain today, just some spits, and I was able to get up the hill and bring in a few things. I've been carrying two five-gallon buckets of water, as ballast, in the back of truck and I'll need to trade that out with a couple of rocks or something. I saw a nice pile of free wood on the way home tonight, but it was too dark to stop, I might go get it on Sunday, hard to pass up pre-cut firewood. Another dead tree on the telephone line, some local (with enough wood already, one supposes) had cut it up into manageable pieces and just left them by the side of the road. Happens all the time around here, hardwood capital of the world, and everybody carries a chainsaw around in their truck. Work for the day was cutting paint in the two big windows and Pegi's room is now officially Lavender. A little bright for me but she's going to love it. Restored her office, cleaned up, closed up, and D was certain I could make it up my driveway. I was too, because I've developed an algorithm or a system that allows me to judge, from the conditions outside the back door of the museum, whether or not I can get up the drive. There's a lot of boring criteria, but it's over 90% successful, not too bad for someone who never took a course in statistics. Mostly trial and error, a meta-system I apply locally. I learn this way, that if the center hump of asphalt on sixth street is dry, and the potential puddles you learn if you're a smoker, are dry, then probably there's been enough wind to dry the top of the driveway. I'm dressed warmly right now, comfortable; it's forty-eight degrees outside and I don't light a fire. Fuck a bunch of cold. D doesn't understand that I work all those extra Saturdays because I enjoy his company, everyone else is jealous, and they don't even know of what. It's blowing a full gale right now, and this is when the ridge-tops suffer. Stunted trees are bent once again, and when you cut them, they spring apart, like creatures with their own imaginations. What the wood wanted to be, as opposed to what you wanted the wood to do. Classic de lima. I fall down heavily on the side of the wood. Read more...

Painting Day

First thing was to paint a stain blocker on some mold under where a potted plant had been. Actually. first was hearing that we've aquired yet another Carter. A watercolor that was painted as a final study for an oil painting. He often did this. The painting is called "Tidewater". It's being over-nighted from California. The stain blocker needs to dry for an hour. I had to go the hardware store and get roller covers. This is a very difficult office to paint, two big windows, tight quarters, and a monster desk (must weigh 800 lbs.) that D and I swore to never move again. We left room to paint where it comes closest to a wall, but it isn't easy. Since I'm only painting two walls and because of the dropped ceiling and the plastic baseboard, there is an enormous amount of cutting in edges. I only tape the baseboard, everything else I just cut in carefully freehand. I like doing it, it's an imperfect science, in that it's quite difficult to paint a straight line. I'm not the best at this (Herbert, bless his soul, former designer at the Cape Playhouse, was the best, I don't know who is now) but I have painted many thousands of feet of cut-in lines, and I'm pretty damn good. Nice to get to the actual painting part of this, but you have to do the prep work or it don't mean a thing. So I cut edges for a couple of hours, with a couple of breaks outside for a smoke. I rolled the rest of the surfaces in half-an-hour. Finished just after four, D'd had to leave early because Carma's car had lost it's transmission, so I have to stay and close up. The footprint of a brush and a roller are completely different, and your greatest fear, at this point in painting a room, is that the difference is going to be noticeable. Reds are impossible, but this Lavender Lane is fine, it's done in a single coat. It's a really good paint job and a really awful color. But it's Pegi's office, and she's the boss. It hurts my eyes. But it dries out very close to perfect. It's vibrant. I still have to paint the window casings, and they're very deep and stepped, probably take me most of the day tomorrow. I need a list, of course, for the upcoming festivities. I should be able to finish insulating the rim joists on Saturday, which is projected as a 'nice day' but then Sunday night and Monday the bottom drops out, daytime highs in the twenties. I'll get it done. I pretty much have to; I need coffee and more juice, I have enough tobacco and papers, I probably need more whiskey. I have days and nights of stockpiled food against some imagined famine, I keep grits and dried beans in a tin-foil lined cannister. I don't remember what the context was, today, something about being unfaithful, and that woiuldn't have been merely, like a number or something, a tattoo. Read more...

Changes

The bank on Sixth Street either changed hands or they just decided to change all the signs, because the sign guys were working in the parking lot all day with a small crane and a bucket truck. A good crew, the crane operator was very good. No smashed cars. We didn't have a morning receptionist, so D and I split the time there; down side is that when we don't have a morning receptionist and three of the five people at the museum are on vacation we don't get anything done. The rule is that there's always a person upstairs and one downstairs. We did pretty well, considering; D made real progress on the large catalog for the Folk Art show. Printing costs have come down dramatically and the quality has gone up. He found a place online, I think they're in Texas, and he just ships them a file and a week later we get the finished product. This particular catalog is 44 pages, full color, images from all the artists, biographies and a couple of essays. Since the show is playing at five venues we're getting a thousand copies, and the total cost is less than four thousand dollars. Seems like a bargain to me. We give 25 copies to each of the other venues, sell the rest at $10 or whatever; plus the fees the others are paying for the exhibit, this show turns a profit. If D did a show from the massive collection of prints at OU, it could travel, and probably also turn a profit. I need to talk with him about that. Finish preparations in Pegi's office. Paint tomorrow. Replaced light bulbs, goddamn but there are a lot of lights in the museum. Wrapped up the day an hour early so I could get home and try to get the house warm. Warm meaning just not freezing to death. Winter camping with a roof. It's fine, the sunset was so beautiful, and the immense silence is a transport of joy. Mackeltree was a thing of beauty. I was looking at nudes today, when I was being the receptionist, Modigliani especially, those late paintings are exceptional. His very last, I think, painting, of his great love. Seated in a room with a door, which was his motif; fucking doors, I don't know what they mean, maybe that they're just a way of closing things off. Have to think about that. "Naturalia non sunt turpia" pops into my head, and I have no idea where it comes from, a turn of phrase, it means something like 'natural things are not bad in themselves' like M exposing all that pubic and armpit hair. Without the doting hand or branch of something covering the privates. Which we consider civilized. I'm always looking for context. Maybe it's a fault of my upbringing, I'd sign off on that, in certain regards. In another circumstance I might argue the opposite case. That you should never. Which you probably had already done. And we'd argue about that, which one of us had hit the button, the first time in forever that the moon is visible at all. I just watch, my mandate, and add an occasional comment. It's always changing. Read more...

Intimisme --- Nabis

The domestication of impressionism. Bringing it inside. What Vuillard and Bonnard did. The intimate development of realism had its origin in the Nabis group, late nineteenth-century. Influenced by Gauguin's use of flat colors. Read another book about them last night. I really like some of the work. I now keep a dictionary of art terms on my desk at the museum; on a coffee break, I'll read a couple of definitions. The piano movers were in the alley, I was open early waiting for them, but they never knocked or called so I didn't know they were there. D saw them when he came in. Five guys from Luther's Moving And Storage, and their truck wedged sideways in the alley, so they can slide a ramp into the loading door. They have a system, this is not the first baby grand piano they've ever moved, but they're not as good as the guys in Boston (they were the best I ever saw), or even the guys in Tallahassee Florida who were stone cold tokers. When I think back on it, I've been around a lot of pianos being moved. I'm always paranoid, because they've both heavy and delicate. but I've always been interested in the concept of moving heavy things. I've moved a great many printing presses; sometimes buildings, with printing presses and paper cutters inside them. I wouldn't do it any more, my reflexes aren't fast enough. Baby Grands, and Grands, are so awkward to move, they ship on edge, legless, with the wide part of the sounding board down, strapped on very strong dollies. The guys get it done, but mostly because they're very strong country boys. One of them is smart enough to see that the load has to be carried cleanly down to the wheels. And they keep it balanced on the ramp, which is the really scary part, and get it into the truck. I'm done with it, it's not my responsibility, they have their own insurance, the shippers; the church, where the piano is going, have their insurance. My responsibility ended a long time ago. I just wanted to see how they'd do it, I had my own ideas. Loading a fucking piano, come on man, how would you have done it? Read more...

A Good Day

Exhausted, and now the wind is howling. A low drone with branches scraping. The house shudders. This would have been the night I could have used a motel room. I'm dirty, and hacking up insulation, so I pack a kit and head into town; I need to shave and wash my hair, clean my ears and wash my neck. Luther's Moving is picking up the baby grand piano early and I need to be at the museum. But then I have a dozen errands I need to run, end of the year stuff. I cleaned out the fridge at home, throwing away a few things, and I dug a good deep hole in the compost pile, but the coons will dig it all up. It's just a game we play, our various natures. Talked with Samara this morning, she and Rhea had spent a quiet day at Marilyn and Mark's cabin, hiking through deep snow with the dogs. I'm not even remotely jealous. All I wanted was hot running water, cold water first, when dealing with fiberglas, to close up the pores. then I like to use something disposable, paper towels or part of an old tee-shirt, something I can just wad up and throw away. To wipe that transition zone. I wouldn't want to confuse anyone. Lord knows it's a slipperay slope. If you could have been someone you imagined. Don't go there. It's enough to talk the talk. Read more...

Target Audience

Maybe I misconstrued, I thought we were meeting for drinks after. Completely my fault. Realized I was supposed to write you, tell you whatever. It's a memory project, not unlike something you might have done before. Get comfortable and discuss your feelings. Over the years you probably realized I have a problem with holidays. As if they were things snatched away from me. Which might be true. At that level, who do you trust? I'd almost rather trust the opinion of a competent stranger. Hard enough to find these days. I went out on a limb, engaged this once-a-week pub guy, I knew he was a banker because he was/is always in a shirt and bow-tie. My spell-check likes hyphens and I just usually go along with her (we have a relationship (cute, resisting the parenthesis) ) but sometimes it doesn't feel right. Like I'm being manipulated somehow. Despite all the evidence to the contrary. Try to stand back from your life for just a minute, you can't do it, you're always too involved. No down time. His name, actually, was Tyler, which confused the issue, since I spend most of my time trying to make connections and we talked about car loans. I make myself laugh, the sheer or ephemeral way things are constellated. It's already tomorrow, for instance: what do you do with that? There's an internal dialog going on all the time, you and those stupid piles of books, wait, I put them there to remind me about something. Latin from the Greek. I hate myself sometimes, the way I might buy the party ticket. I take off Linda's hat and roll a perfect cigaret. What difference a word might make. Nine ways from Sunday. If I might be so bold. Whatever competent means. You and your left-handedness. Contrary. On a bed of fantastic cheese grits I have several pounded rounds of pork tenderloin with an egg on top. Excellent. I think I'll eat the same thing later and skip the chicken pot-pie. Decided to take the day off and not crawl around under the house. This morning the sky was clear but there were little light-weight crystals, ice dust (I used to know the name of it raining down. Prismatic and incredibly beautiful. Linda and Glenn called, great conversations, Glenn said he recently saw the word 'anacoluthon' in a NY Times article, and only knew the word because it was the title of a little book of prose I wrote back in the 70's. Means "does not necessarily follow" or something close to that. I remember that I was studying the prefix 'ana' and trying to prize some meaning from it. I wrote three extended essays at the time, two of them published as small books, the third "Anabasis" was never published and I can't seem to find a copy. I think the only copy was probably in the fire-proof lock-box that was stolen. There were four books in there, that I could never reconstruct, 3,000 draft pages, single spaced. I keep coming across pieces of those books, here and there, and they always surprise me. Some fragments were published Small Press magazines, some University publications, and things have a way of turning up. Someone sends you a copy or you're rummaging around in a pile of trash. This intense slanted sun is enough to give you a headache. On my way back to the house, a glint caught my eye, a hoop earring, and I can't remember who it was, Rachel, Heather, all those years ago. Pretty sure it wasn't Kristi, because she never wore hoops. I'd remember that. I forget almost everything, a heat-sink at the bottom of the universe. A drain, more or less, where expecturants are washed away. Forget whatever you thought. Where an iris was merely a beautiful thing. Read more...

Maybe Someday

Stories. A rich history of fiction. I could regale you, but you'd never believe anything I had to say. It's all fiction, even the absolute real, which is just a surveillance video from a bad angle. No wind, and it's so quiet you'd think something was about to happen, but nothing does, just an ongoing "Waiting For Godot" state of tension. Tension may be the wrong word, because it implies anxiety, and, actually, everything is very calm. Still, a dynamic state, holding a pose, something contained but straining against some constraint. A common enough feeling. I've got this late dusky light turning all the trees into stick figures, and when I go out to pee the top layer of leaves are dry but everything underneath is mushy and sticks to my slippers. I don't want to go under the house tomorrow, but I have to; no way to get it done but to do it yourself. I have four or five servings of these great whole grain grits that I'll be eating over the next couple of days and tonight I pound out a couple of tenderloin slices, lightly bread them in a highly spiced flour, and fry them in a very hot skillet. I use a little walnut oil, but the skillet is so well cured I could have fried them dry, I really take care of my cast iron cookware; and serve them on a bed of polenta-like re-fried grits. Cheese grits, actually, because I nuked them with a feta while I was frying the eggs. Egg yolk, I would argue, is the greatest sauce ever. I shouldn't eat this well, because it spoils me, at some point you begin to expect things. Someone to pick you up, someone to do your makeup. I'm not concerned with my appearance, what you see is what you get, but I do place things into a context. There could be a narrative. Maybe we had met once on the jetty or something; and fuck you, TR, and the horse you rode in on, maybe there was the sound of surf, extrapolate from that. In so far as what is real.

Tom

Something else. What I say with a great deal of confidence is often not the case. It's a puzzle. Not a lie, exactly, more like a chess move, considered, but with reservations.Even where I might place a period, much less a comma.. Read more...

Waiting

For that moment to arrive. I hate to quote Paul, but he's lived a long time, not to mention Mr. Simon, who has certain skills, especially where the bass line comes in. I'm sorry, were we talking about something? Judas, at the end of the bar, mentioned selling out. I wondered where he was coming from. Seems to me there's a scale, and you weight the gold against whatever hardball you have to play. An odd game, you make the rules as you go along, but there's a referent, a chart, and you compare the results. Bear with me. If ever it had happened that you might have stubbed a toe, say, maybe, drunk, a given night, stumbling around. Maybe there was an ottoman misplaced, or an end-table slightly askew, it happens, in the dark, at night; you stub a toe. A violent discourse involving much swearing, maybe a painting falls on your head, maybe you break some glass. I don't know, but I've been told, we all get clumsy once in a while. The way things constellate. What stupid idiot put a pile of books there? The ridge is heartstoppingly beautiful, full sun, no wind, 42 degrees, I have to take a walk. Haven't done it in a while, so I walk the entire rim of Low Gap Hollow; the complete drainage, like a horseshoe funneled out. I carry my Sassafras walking stick. It has a bulbous root handle that fits my hand and is strong enough to smash things, if I need to smash something. I've been smashing oak galls recently. All those acidic layers harboring a sweet, liquid, inner core. Manna. Once you've gone over to the acorn side, you start subscribing to the whole program. It's best to be leery of systems. I went under the house and my repair to the gray-water drain has held against several freezes, and the ground, under where the break was, is dry. So I'm on for tomorrow. These are exciting times. I'm drinking a lot, but it probably doesn't mean anything, and I'm increasingly careful where I place my next foot. Meaning what? Right. What isn't said. Change a question mark to a period and everything changes. You might have been there, a slot-canyon, nowhere to go. What do you do then? We have a protocol, I'm not allowed to any prior knowledge, BUT.

Tom

Have to go. Make the best of it. Read more...

Organizing Principles

D was there to work. Had that look about him, and wearing old clothes. We assembled the flute boxes, with their dividers, re-boxed all of them. 144, eight extras we stashed in one of the cupboards. Re-organized the top glass storage shelf in the back room of the kitchen. Re-stacked everything. Went down to the basement and consolidated things, threw some stuff away. Pegi had said to store some of the glasses down there, but after cleaning out space, we realized it wasn't suitable for that; however, we were able to get some other items stored down there. Freeing up space, which was the order of the day. More rain. For 80 of 88 counties in Ohio this was already THE record year.; but is supposed to nice (50/30, sunny) for the next couple of days, so I'm excited about finishing stage one of the floor insulation project. Making a crock pot of grits, and I have a pork tenderloin, lots of fresh eggs. I'm beginning to see a lot of breakfasts in my near future. D left while I was still locking up, anxious to get home to the family. I wasn't in much of a hurry, thought I might watch an episode of "Person Of Interest", which I like quite a lot. The phone rang, and it was Kristi, from Kentucky, and it was so nice to hear her voice. We talked for a while, catching up: the metaphysics of missing someone or a place or even a particular job. She seems to be doing well, a car, a couple of jobs, I told her she had to get up here for The Emiliy Project, or before that, and we could close out the pub, singing Jack Vetter's version of Bob Dylan's "Knocking On Heaven's Door". There's some Garcia there, from when Dylan toured with "The Grateful Dead", so I'm sensitive to that; Garcia is my household god, so I'm sensitive to any nuance. Not that I hear anything different, it's the same noise; loading a dishwasher, whatever, dishes rattling down on a table, fucking silverwear, man, why do they call it that? Oh, of course. Fucking holidays are a pain in the ass. Clearly there are walls, I construct them to protect my ass. Not always as clear as I should be, I generally think about protecting my ass first and think about the consequences later. Read more...

Hard Rain

Starting falling late afternoon and my windshield wipers aren't working. TR's car wouldn't start. We retired to the pub. Sorted hardware, actually an interesting chore because we have some interesting hardware. Things that don't get used fairly often are stored in small bins on shelfs in the vault in the basement, which is our tool room. It's a mess right now, but there's no reason to clean and sort everything, because we have three shows coming down at the end of next week. D ordered the Master Boxes (specifically for art), dense, double thick, with archival foam lining, but essentially card-board boxes. $186 apiece, also ordered some boxes for the champagne flutes, $7 each. Trying to keep things organized is a frigging battle. Start in Pegi's office tomorrow. Repair some rotten plaster, actually more a matter of containing some rotten plaster above the new windows (the problem is fixed); there's a wierd soffit and whatever we do will be hidden. Another messy job. Then repair sheetrock and paint at least two of the walls, she's specified a periwinkle color. Then rehang the Carters. We're getting the Folk Art show early, so D can photograph everything for the catalog; it travels to three other venues after we assemble it, so we'll have to figure out how to pack it for travel. Another interesting task. The same art shipper is going to transport the work for every venue, and then back home. Which makes the whole process easier. We've worked with him many times. Art shippers are a strange breed, only the good ones build a reputation. Fed Ex has an art shipping branch, and they're quite competent; but the idependent guys are much more interesting. Weather looks good for this weekend, cold but no rain, and should be able to finish stage one of the floor insulation. Read more...

Running Down

For the sake of argument let's say I agree with you. That's how I usually avoid upset. Not making a point. A by-product of not giving a shit what anyone else thinks. A main consideration in living the life I do, is that I don't have to compromise very much of my time. Four o'clock in the morning and I'm reading David Bainbridge on balanoculture (acorn eaters) among coastal California native tribes. My mouth is dry, so I get just a splash of Irish whiskey, to wet the palette, smoke some local herb, roll a coarse Kentucky tobacco into the semblance of a cigaret. I don't have to ask permission, I don't have to be twenty feet away from the door, I don't have to dress accordingly. I prefer a solitary life, precisely because there is no mediation. Me and whatever gods there are. After a lifetime of working with other people, what I want to do now is just read and write. I'm still drawn to the combined arts, the Wrack Show, the Emily Project, though I do absolutely hate the fucking bureaucracy necessary. Some fat-assed office manager controlling the flow of cash. The very idea that I'd have to get angry. I thought we'd agreed we wanted to do this. Does Trish, in fact, run the museum? I just need to know. I like this job, but I could go somewhere else. Ply my trade in Phoenix. A nice phrase, I like the intent. I've lived here longer than I've ever lived anywhere, but that doesn't mean I can't move. Fuck a bunch of inertia. I let my anger boil over the top, and I'm not even sorry, fuck a bunch of punctuation. What is a museum, what does it stand for? I don't know, and I'm not sure I care. The whole idea of working with a community. Most people are full of shit. Nothing makes any sense. Better off living in a tree-tip pit and not giving a damn. Pardon the alliteration. A shopping cart from Kroger, collecting cans. I amuse myself. Read more...

Wind

A howling in the trees, snapping branches sound like gunshots; the house, in winds like these, creaks and sways just a bit. Three crows acting like drunken pilots. Pegi starts vacation tomorrow, so we might get started on some repair and painting in her office, and, sensing a rather busy schedule for the next few weeks, I left early. Stopped at Ohio Builders Surplus and exchanged the staples. Then on a slow trip in the back way, looked closely, through the now barren trees, at the actual land formations. Exposed sandstone with seeping springlets that will be frozen soon enough. The creek was running full and the dozens of small waterfalls were beautiful in the slanted light. Need to make a list of supplies I'll need for the long weekend. An extra bottle of booze, I've got plenty of tobacco but I need extra cigaret papers. For food, knowing the cookstove will be hot anyway, I'll roast some vegetables, and the Linda trick of roasting kale leaves into the greatest chips ever, and a pot roast. Got enough coffee, need half-and-half, a couple of Honeycrisp apples, a small piece of very good cheese, maybe an English cheddar. All of which will provide for several omelets, and I've got farm fresh eggs for that. If I could finish stage one of the insulation upgrade Saturday, it would make Sunday truly special. Everyone else is wrapped in their holiday protocol, everyone has an itinerary. I suppose I do too, I'll probably take a walk. Either field or make a couple of phone calls. I'll eat, and shit, and wash between my toes: have to get to the library and check out some escapist fiction. An alternate reality, in case I need to escape. I have a dish-pan, plastic, that I scored from a dumpster, that I use for soaking my feet, and I think I'll do that twice yearly session with my toenails sometime over the long weekend. Other than that, I don't have any plans.

Tom


It must be blowing a full gale, backlit, with lightning; pretty sure I'm going to lose something. Read more...

Cricks And Pops

Not as bad as it could be, in that I can still move, and the house is more comfortable. An even trade. Creature comforts win every time. Still, I had to go to town, I'd had dirty laundry in the truck for three days and it was starting to smell like sneakers. And I needed food and booze. I have all these fresh eggs, and I want to use them. Linda had brought me a tin of very good pate from France and I had written the firm, to ask where I might get some more of that incredible product, and they'd sent me a tin, mentioned a few stores in NYC, so I make an omelet with pate and a decent goat cheese. Excellent. Fog everywhere this morning, even the parking lots in town. Open up the museum, there's a school group scheduled for all day, TR, and Pegi's Cirque to entertain them, a docent to take them around the galleries. I hole up, most of the day, reading Mary's letters. Getting into it. Receptionists (volunteers) canceling, so we're all covering the desk and the staff starts thinning out tomorrow, by the end of the week, and all of next week, just D and I here. Which is fine, I have to re-hang some Carter walls, do some painting, D has a major catalog to design. Less distraction, and there won't be many visitors. Actually I had a great chat and mini-docenting session with the brother of a former employee today. He was good friends with B, knew all the people on the creek. We talked easily with each other, and it's always nice when that happens. After work I went over to the pub, for a beer and a shot of Irish. TR was in the back corner, writing out music on a staff, and I didn't want to disturb him, I knew he was working on the Emily piece. Jason was sitting at the bar, and I knew we could talk or not. Two scruffy guys come in, they sit a stool away, and the nearest guy looks at me. Said that he knew me and he used to live on Mackletree, and I realize it has to be Dennis, from the octogon house, another Emily is his sister, and his mom shoes horses. And this explains who that woman, wearing a helmet, on horseback, who waves a stilted wave at me occasionally, actually is. A breakthrough, and how cool is that? it's EMILY. Of course she would be waving from horseback, with a helmet, such that I could only tell you her gloves were tan. Essentially, I saw nothing. Maybe they were gloves, maybe they were her own hands, if she'd spent forty years herding animals, her hands would be pretty tough. Maybe, just saying, there could be another reason. Read more...