Event Horizon

With some trepidation I call up the weather for the week ahead, and the news isn't bad. A day well spent, caring for my foot; or body pays us in kind, be good to yourself and things fall into place. Even the Buddha must perform his toilet. Not that I care, but even insignificant things matter, that butterfly in South America, a wind in North Africa. The nature of reality is confusing. Three crows, what do you make of that? Do numbers mean anything? Nearly two days of staying off my feet has helped the toe and I can finally get into my boots again, late afternoon I go for a little walk in the woods. Out beyond the graveyard I suddenly remember the red squirrel acorn midden, find it again, and steal a small plastic bag (never leave home without one) of them. A little fire in the stove and soon I'm leaching a pan of shelled and broken nuts. Put on a pot of grits, and in just a couple of hours am sitting down to a steaming bowl of cheese grits fortified with acorn meal. Just before dark a modest flock of robins and one male cardinal looking very bright indeed. The robins move from bare spot to bare spot, turning over leaves. I'd never actually seen them do this before, but I had seen the evidence and wondered. The cardinal attacks a sumac seed-head. I don't know what the robins find under the leaves, they're omnivores, so anything is fair game. Last day of February, thank god. What a brutal month, a brutal two months, really, the harshest eight weeks of my ten years on this ridge. I've burned more than two cords of wood in two months. 3757 pounds per cord, as an average, means many trips, many armloads; then fed a stick at a time to the stove means lifting it again. But I love this wild life, you know? Little that is ever planned actually happens, but something is happening all the time. I'm at peace in my skin, at this place, at this time; hard to describe, how right it feels, the warmth in the pit of my stomach. Probably just the cheese grits. But maybe that's the point. I have to admit, I don't know. I usually operate in the dark. The natural world is right outside the door. A certain connection. Read more...

Another Event

James, being generous, predicts that I shouldn't get over five inches of new snow. I need to clean the fridge tomorrow, later today, and boil some drinking water. I have everything to make a risotto with butternut squash. I could eat that for days. I certainly could cook a pot of beans and make a pone of cornbread. I brought in some mustard greens tonight, they weigh almost nothing, I have an idea about cooking them with a few strips of bacon, some chilies, an onion, and lots of garlic. Greens From Hell. I need to work up some wood, mostly to get outside. One of the best things about living alone is that you don't have to explain yourself, monad of the particular; you dance by yourself, in a corner, running a riff that either someone gets or they don't. The only reason I understand anything is that I happened to be there. I'd rather not, what I'd rather is just be alone. The snow is falling. The visible becomes less visible. Good call, getting home, I can burrow under down. At dawn, only three inches. Start a fire, go outside, scoop the canning kettle full of snow, put it on the stove, and go back to bed. Very tired after a difficult week, I sleep until after 8 o'clock, get up, scoop more snow. I need to do a smallish hand-wash, some socks and underwear. Start a second kettle (3 gallon stainless steel soup pot) of snow melting. The first hot water I use to wash dishes, clean the sink, scour the drain-board, then I put clothes in the soup pot, with a modest dose of detergent, keep it on the stove and stir vigorously with a large wooden spoon. Repeat with rinse water, then wring everything as dry as possible and hang on coat-hangers from cast iron skillets hanging from a beam near the stove. Not only do I thus generate clean socks and underwear, but add precious moisture to the air. I continue melting snow, use the next batch for a sponge bath, and the one after that to soak and clean my feet. Then clip my toe-nails and slather on more of the arnica ointment. This stuff really works, the swelling is down, the bruising is diminished; a small bit of flex no longer makes me cry. Other people tell me I have a high pain thresh-hold, I don't know, I have nothing, internally, to compare: when I encounter pain, my eyes leak and I swear a lot. I think of this as a normal response. My Dad was a Navy Hospital Corpsman and he always took care of minor injuries, took us to the Base Hospital if we needed stitches or that wonderful codeine cough medicine (I loved the taste, and it made the Classics Illustrated comics come alive), so I have a kind of mental triage chart that I use when I damage myself. People ask me if I've been to a doctor and I usually say no, I haven't, because I know there isn't much treatment for a lacerated iris, or a broken toe. Ok, sure, it's going to heal crooked, but I'm not a foot model and it doesn't matter; I might need wider shoes, so what? those are available. Petty concerns compared to what's outside the window, stark winter snow and dark trunks: the branches are a crazy quilt. It's only a matter of weeks before the frogs will fuck again, and the seasons will turn over again. And then there's the show. I left, yesterday, before the opening, as is my want, I rarely attend openings, now. I used to dress for them, and attend with a frozen smile, but I longer do, now I just go home and build a fire, get a drink, and write you. I'm happier than I've ever been. A bird flew into a tree outside my window, a male Cardinal, and the color was so extreme I almost cried. I reread a book today, a reprint, 1998, from a 1903 original, "The Riddle Of The Sands" Erskine Childers, one of there great books ever. I often leave, just when things are starting, a matter of habit. It's up to you. Formerly, I thought I had some control; evidentially not. Read more...

An Experiment

I needed to determine if I could actually be away from home for a night, dead of winter, which it's not, really anymore, I err on the side of caution, but I did spend the night at the museum. That drive in, day before yesterday, was a nightmare, and the drive out yesterday was difficult. I did pack my kit-bag, a pillow, a blanket, and some slippers. My foot still hurts but is better, I think, using the Arnica ointment Linda sent. At the very least I will save: two walks up and down the hill, a drive to town and back, and whatever firewood I might have burned. And I can see how cold the house will actually get. I left one of the small heaters on low. I got up early enough to build a good fire and heat the place to 58 degrees. I think I'm losing my chronological sense. My tenses are more and more screwed up, or maybe not. I argued with someone recently that tense was always of the moment, but that I often remembered the past in the present. Pegi had a couple Cirque kids bring over a tumbling pad, I was going to sleep on ethafoam, but the pad is pretty nice. So I worked yesterday right up to 5 o'clock and I was all in. I told the remaining peeps to lock the doors but don't turn on the alarm, I'll be the guard dog tonight. I got everything done, everything, really, I checked with everyone. I lunched the artist and his curator at the pub; I moved chairs around, I repositioned tables. Apparent reality is a very flexible thing. Sometimes, in my considering, it changes. Sleep alone, in a dark space that is huge, where the sound of boilers makes voices in the night. I could imagine some fiction here, where something happened. But nothing did, I slept a few hours and read a lot, except that I wasn't talking with you about what was happening. So there was a difference. I spent the night in a warm museum, washed my hair in the kitchen sink; shaved, this morning, in the warmest place that I have shaved in for at least six weeks. I had the house back from 38 to 58 degrees in two hours. Yes, I can go away, but I really don't want to, there is no place I would go. One of the hardest things I've done recently, was not to go home last night. I knew it was ok, but I wanted some resistance, at least a hit on a fly I'd tied. Nothing seems to be my habitation. I'd better send this now, it's looking terrible out. Read more...

Another Storm

The cone of silence. I knew there was more snow by the absence of sound. Goddamn weather is getting to me. My foot is better, the crescendo of pain was walking in yesterday, I knew when I arrived home, that I had weathered the storm, still hurts, but nothing like it was before. It's the end of February, the skeletons come out of the closet, best not to pay too much attention to minor failures. Fact is the days are longer, though the sun is weak and slanted, and if you haven't blown your brains out by now, you're probably ok. I don't know what drives me, how I am driven, I put one foot in front of another, I don't a choice, really, I just need to get somewhere. Immediate necessity. My pantry is bare. But I've always, enjoyed is not the correct word, accepted, living close to the edge, because it keeps me awake, aware of the world around me. The three crows were back, commenting on my foolishness, I blew them off with a blast on my kazoo. Fuck a bunch of birds, they don't know much more than me. It's late, I have to sleep, deal with some demons. Finally get up for good, don't start a fire, shave, make an egg sandwich to eat on the way down the hill, walk down through just a skiff of new snow. Light flurries all day but temps above freezing in town, so nothing sticks, I fear this will not be the case when I return home, but too much to do to leave work. Punch list, little things. Re-do some lighting, clean some corners. D gives the docent briefing and I sort hardware. After lunch we tweak a few things, haul garbage, and I clean the last of the tools and painting supplies out of the kitchen (where they tend to live for a while after a show opens) down to the basement, because the official opening, Friday, is a food event, and the kitchen will be needed. Late in the afternoon, the beautiful Erica, who works at The Market Street Cafe, where we always get morning coffee and a scone, comes in, and asks for me. I had promised her the cook's tour and find myself almost tongue-tied; her smile is so radiant I develop a stutter. I love taking people through a new show, explaining what I can and fielding questions, and she's a quick study, points things out that I hadn't noticed. One of the perks. When she leaves, I become aware of the world outside and notice it is snowing heavily. D dismisses it, but I live 800 feet higher than town and I'm a little concerned, so I leave for home an hour early. Still snowing hard but Rt.52 is still almost dry, then Rt.125 is wet but still above freezing, five miles to go on Mackletree, and the lower three are fine, snow beginning to stick, but the last two miles are awful, the road not visible, several inches of accumulation, and almost a white-out. I'm the first and only vehicle and I guess where the road is. I take the end of Mackletree, which is downhill into the low gap, in 4-wheel low, Upper Twin Creek is buried and I stay in first gear, achieve the bottom of the driveway and my parking spot there, put on crampons and don an umbrella. A primitive Mary Poppins. This is difficult, I may need to sleep at the museum tomorrow night, because I HAVE to be there Friday for the double events. In the future I need to keep a survival kit at work, a pad, a space blanket, a pillow; but I can make do with carpet scraps. I know where the carpet scraps are, because I put them there. I know where the bodies are buried. If I leave one of the electric radiators on low, the house won't freeze. I realize I could do this, probably will. Would mean you wouldn't hear from me, not a big deal, very like losing my power or a dead tree knocking out the phone line, a blip, a minor glitch. If there was only a Motel 6 I'd rent a room, for a couple of nights, but in University towns the motels are always expensive, on the other hand taking 8 or 6 showers is an attractive concept. I could buy a luffa on a stick and scrub my back. Matters of personal hygiene. For years I had someone to scrub my back, usually, in exchange, I'd do their toenails. I'm meticulous doing toenails. I'm sort of infamous for that whole silly debate about toenail painting, I was just kidding. It's amazing what happens when the media get involved. The distortion. What I actually said hardly matters. I never actually struck the speaker in the face, that was an mistake in reporting, I actually just pushed him away, maybe rather forcibly, but still, not the same as striking someone. Where was I? Where am I ? Oh, and then the water got cloudy at the museum. One of my problems is that I'm way too liberal and can't hold my tongue. Another problem is that the pantry is bare and I need to plan some meals. But the most significant problem is that I really don't have enough dry wood. I'm ok, because I can burn the chairs, the pedestals. I probably won't freeze to death. I love extending out on that line, but who knew living could get this difficult? I already have way more snow than anyone had forecast, and the night has barely begun. Fuck me nine ways from Sunday. Whatever that means. Read more...

Of Late

I knew I did a lot of walking, but I didn't know how much until the broken toe. Now the question "how many miles do you walk in a day?" seems germane. Must look for one of those counters, and a new thermometer, I'm missing information here. I can tell if it's above or below freezing, and I know I walk a lot. Scanty knowledge. My list of chores kept growing all day, even as I worked my ass off; all the other things that need to be done, to keep the museum going, to keep up with maintenance, tend to slip during an installation, and this was a difficult one. The lighting needs some work, D knew, and Sara mentioned a couple of things that might help. Friday there are a couple of events scheduled around the show, one at mid-day, the other late afternoon. Different set-ups. Pegi had me mark that day, when we were cross-checking our calendars 'Tough Day' because she has learned to warn me when chaos is imminent. When chaos strikes, I'm the go-to guy at the museum. Theater training comes through every time, or if it doesn't quite come through, it gets closer than anyone else's idea to solving an immediate problem. Because I'm still touch with some of them, and one of them called last weekend, out of the blue, I was thinking about the several incarnations of the 'A' Crew at The Cape Playhouse. An incredibly talented group, over a period of several years ( think I worked there for 10 or 11 years, which were, I'm told, the halcyon years) that could pretty much deal with any emergency, short of death, and no one in the audience would notice. The test of this, the final exam, was to prevent something bad from happening AND to remain invisible. All of which explains, I think, why ending up at an art museum perfectly suits an aging hippy trained in theater. It's the same, only in slow motion. The opening curtain takes hours or even days, instead of mere seconds. It's a better pace for me now, I've lost a few steps; the last couple of days, I'm losing miles. But it's fine, I can still do what I need to do, albeit with a lot less grace, and it's doesn't matter that I'm moving more slowly, everyone else does anyway. Or that I'm moving like a cripple, which I am, which adds to that whole ambiance of the hermit/janitor. "I heard he lived in a cave." "No, I've been to his digs, it's a tree-tip pit covered with a tarp, half way between Booby's sawmill and the trailer where that loose lady lives who works at CVS." Graduate study, at Janitor College, required degrees in Organic Chemistry, Art History, and Shop or Homemaking, and only 25% of us did graduate, 1978, Helsinki, but we were assured jobs, mopping at Harvard, cleaning the corners at MOMA. The fact that life isn't fair is not the issue. I'm a smart person and it doesn't seem to matter, mostly I lose ground, walking with my mop handle, just trying to get to my truck. Read more...

Broken Toe

The little piggy that stayed home. I'm sure all the toes have names, but I don't know them. The longest toe, next to the big toe, on my left foot, took a blow from a stick of firewood, and I went down like a rock. Should make walking in and out even more of an adventure. I'd gone out to get an armload of firewood, a chore I've accomplished 10,000 times before without ever breaking a toe. The wood was frozen and the top piece just slipped off. It was before dawn this morning, guided by the back porch light, as I often am, a billet of Osage Orange, probably the heaviest wood in North America, one of, with Live Oak and whatever that species called Ironwood on Cape Cod. The field care for this injury is to tape the damned thing, with a splint of tongue-depressor stick, to the big toe, the one that went to market. Hurts like a bastard, but what's done is done. Like the Tao says: "I am not this fragile body." Needless to say, I don't work on firewood, don't do anything really, but keep my foot elevated and read. My toe turns a beautiful shade of purple. The snow melts all day, and I see dark spots of earth emerging, where some heat was mysteriously stored. I don't pretend any knowledge, the edge of a rock, or a dark leaf protrudes, it heats in the sunlight, BTU's are conducted. Thermodynamics. Finally had to drink a couple of stiff whiskeys and go to bed. Still hurt this morning but I had to get to the museum, to finish some things and get started on the floor. The walk down, on rotten snow, was painful. Gingerly awkward. I have the museum to myself until D comes over from the print shop where he's doing some letterpress work for grad school and we do the signage on the entry wall. Sara shows up, thrilled to see us, and tweaks a few things. I leave early, worried about the walk back up the driveway, but going up is actually a bit easier than going down, still, difficult enough, and I felt like I'd been beaten with a stick. Prone, on the sofa, with my foot elevated, for a hour, reading the Food Issue of the New Yorker Sara had saved for me. Not really hungry but I manage a bowl of cheese-grits and some toast. Just at dusk, there is 50% ground and 50% snow. The Ohio will flood with all this run-off, the debris fields should be spectacular since we haven't had a flood in a while. I need to cut up everything in the woodshed and clear the back for loading as there is always a lot of pre-cut firewood amongst the wrack. Picked up two more rounds of pine, 2 foot diameter, to split for next year's kindling. Off-cut slabs of oak are available, at a sawmill down the creek, for $20 a pick-up load, and I'll get a couple of loads of those, for splitting into starter sticks. Stopped by the Goodwill today, and picked up a couple of heavy canvas tote bags, that I can cut down the sides and have a pair of nifty firewood carriers, so that the 'arm-load' of wood would be a thing of the past. Once bitten. Those of you who can walk out the door and be at your vehicle, and even more, those who walk out to a garage, open the door, and start a vehicle that isn't covered in snow and ice, I salute you. In the slush, at the bottom of the driveway, even in 4-wheel drive I have little control; I sort-of park and step out into mud. I thought my house was dirty before. I might start spending February some place else. Mexico. My outside thermometer was sheared off the wall by a cascade of snow from the metal roof. I don't even know how cold it is. A dearth of information. Two taps means yes, one is no, listen closely, some of the taps are almost always echoes. Read more...

Long Day

Up before dawn and the house is warm enough that I don't start a fire, first time in six weeks; heat water on a hot-plate, shave, read for an hour, 18 degrees, so the slush has refrozen, down the hill and off to town. Early enough that I can go to the store, get a few more things to pack in to the house, and wash my hair at the museum. D arrives and we go to Market Street for coffee and a scone, back at work we survey the scene, decide on a course of action, shuffle a few pieces, dig the last two pedestals out of the basement, both of which have a bad side but will be against walls, which frees up a shelf, which means we have enough flat surfaces. We hang the last few pieces, reposition a couple of things, D starts lighting the show and I start hauling stuff to the basement. Every tool we own is out, the gallery is a shambles, piles of blankets, tables (five of them) covered with debris, the job box overflowing with hanging hardware. Mount the remaining labels, touch-up the peds that we added, then we finish the lighting. Then we do the vinyl signage and it's 5 o'clock, I have to go home. We're both exhausted, but the show is done. We agree that I'll come in on Monday, to touch-up the walls and clean the floor, D will come in that afternoon and we can do the signage on the entry wall. I remember eating lunch, and we stopped for a couple of smokes, other than that, we never stopped. I get home at dusk, with plenty of light on six inches of rotten snow to follow the trail, and there was enough sun today that the house is not frigid, merely cold, I don't even start a fire right away. Comfort, it seems, is a relative thing. Mostly I want to change clothes and get a drink. Whipped, I have to nap for a couple of hours before I can see straight. Get back up at midnight, eat some left-over mashed potatoes and an avocado, start a small fire (it's still above freezing outside) and collect my thoughts. D and I work so well together, it's almost unbelievable what we accomplished (now) yesterday. I call up the weather on line, decide to stay home today, do firewood, rest and read, nap as necessary. Everyone knows what it's like to push toward a deadline (I wonder if that's really true: most people, in my experience, are actually quite lazy), to get your term paper done, to open a show. I draw on deep reserves to do what I do at my age. Enjoy is not quite the correct word, but I derive satisfaction from seeing something done, installing a show, and there are lessons learned, and learning is always a good thing. I didn't understand what D wanted to do with the vinyl signage, then I got it, he wanted a different plane, things aren't usually absolutely horizontal and vertical: life, actually, is skewed. Mostly what you see is what you're used to looking at. Snow-cover reveals the contour of landscape, drainage is a fact of nature, straight lines are rare. Nora Jones keeps popping up, Koko Taylor, the women in my life. It's interesting that my life is full of women but devoid of intimacy. The Court Of Enigma. I love women, I love the way they smell, I love their tone of voice. Maybe the right girl will come along. I use these terms loosely, right, loosely, because, really, I'm not going to change. It's fine to speculate. You're given a hollow, water flows downhill, you do what you can. Going out on a limb here, you follow my line of reasoning, which brings up several points we should talk about, but I can't keep notes fast enough. It's 4:12 tomorrow and I feel better than I have in weeks. The loosening of bunched muscles. The way you set back and breathe when you've done something difficult and survived. Hey, between you and me, there is really just this very thin fabric, what we have experienced together. Almost nothing, and yet a very real thing. Harmonics. I'm a joke, a cartoon character, I'm not sure I really exist.

Tom

Diana reads me in the morning,
a bagel, and cream cheese,
who could ask for
anything more. Read more...

Getting By

I have a new attitude toward cold, mostly I ignore it. As long as the temperature is above freezing inside, I can deal with it, simply a matter of how you dress. I might look funny, but what does that matter? The Pillsbury Dough Boy plodding through deep snow. Love is like a faucet, let it drip. I got the blues so bad, it hurts my feet to walk. Night and day. I was feeling truly terrible, walking in last night, one foot in front of another, but I finally got to the top, realized I could make it to the house, shed myself of frozen boots, start a fire. But the walk in today set the bar. Above freezing for the first time in forever and the remaining foot of snow was rotten, like walking in molasses, and I was carrying a pretty sizable pack because more snow and cold was predicted. They seem to be backing off that forecast, as the jet stream seems to have moved up to Columbus, which would leave us hereabouts with rain and another mud freeze/ thaw cycle. What fun. Didn't get enough done at the museum today, odd for me, but I kept getting called off task, distracted by people with questions. Beautiful day, sunshine, I knew the hike in was going to be heroic, so I stopped at the pub and begged an early happy-hour beer. They were happy to comply, since I eat lunch there every day, and it was pleasant, to linger over a beer, talk with the owner, flirt with the barkeep. The lake was a sea of slush, the ducks were happy to see me with my bag of stale crackers. The thing about an enameled steel roof, is that the accumulated snow releases all at once, and when I get home the back porch is covered two feet thick. It has compacted, in the falling, and can't be swept away, and my shovel is in the truck, where I keep it for digging out. House-shaking snow slides rock the house through the early evening, before temps fall below freezing. Very like an earthquake, what else can shake your house this way? Not likely I'd be rammed by a whale at this altitude, and a total distraction. Waiting for the next foot to fall. There's no way to prepare for completely random events, they always catch you off guard. I do a perfect fried egg, over easy, most of the time, but the last quake caught me mid-flip, and the egg ended up in my shoe, Don't wish this on your worst enemy. There are rules of engagement, or at least there used to be. Read more...

Made It

It's exhausting walking in 12-14 inches of snow where every step sinks. Going down was actually worse than coming back up this afternoon, slick. Roads were fine. Managed to get above freezing in town, but not at the house. I make a list, prioritize, go to the store before work, over to Kentucky for tobacco. Sharee has called about the companion student's show, so I hang that first, which requires half the day because the pieces don't have any hanging hardware, then move downstairs and do everything I can in the time remaining. We're fine, installing this show, we might be a day late, but, considering the weather, that ain't bad. I figure to carry a 20 pound pack in, for the next few days, my larder is much depleted, and I'm running short of wood. Clearly, I can correct these problems next year, get further ahead on firewood, and stock a deeper pantry. I've been here 10 years almost exactly, and, strangely, it has been my pattern, for the last three cycles, to move every 10 years; but I plan to stay here, for the next cycle, so I need to change a few things. Get ahead of the curve, refine my techniques. A dream, in which someone steals all my denim shirts (about 20, because I can wear one, aired on a hanger, three times, at least, before it goes in the basket, and that gets me through winter; at least I don't have to worry about what shirt I wear) my house burns down and I'm living under a tarp, in a tree tip-pit. This dream shakes me awake. I'm living too close to the edge. I can extend this, a few more years, maybe another decade, but it's a hard life, and requires a younger body; I'm not sure why I do it, merely habitual at this point, what you do, the fact that I have to change clothes to shave, I mean, come on. What I did today, getting down and out, accomplishing a few things, getting back home with a few supplies. I don't know many people stupid enough to do this, but I am one of them. It's stark and real to find yourself in an almost frozen house. A Grimm fairy tale. Life goes on. I had some other things to say, but I was so tired, all I wanted to do was go to bed. Read more...

Good Try

Headed into town, despite deep snow, after digging the truck out again, after an almost impossible trek down the hill. Made it about halfway out Mackletree when a red sedan, completely out of control, spun into my lane and I had to ditch, literally, off to the left. I sat there, stunned, until Booby's wife Diane, came creeping along, went back to her house and got Booby. He came down with his tractor, I had a logging chain, and finally got my back wheels on the ground so I could get out in 4-wheel low. Covered in snow, with frozen feet, I had to turn around and get back home. Two hours to go five miles. The climb back up the hill, was so awful, wet, frozen feet, I had to laugh. Stoked the fire, heated water to soak my feet, dried off, changed into dry clothes, made a hot toddy, sat in a rocking chair next to the stove. A robin, looking really out of place, pecking a sumac head. Back to the printing book. Light snow on and off through the afternoon. Must get in tomorrow. D calls with an update, what he got done (he lives right on a primary road and always gets plowed first) and what I need to get done. The show will open Friday, but there still will be some things to do. I'll go in Saturday and Monday to do a major floor cleaning and probably touch up painting. Fortunately, it's a big, bright, 3-D show, and when it's lit, you won't notice anything but the pieces. I can obsess about detail for a day or two after opening. And the opening party is a week away, good planning on someone's part, though probably, more a question of when the artist was available. Shows are booked sometimes years ahead, individual people, with their varied lives, are harder to book. I was thinking about the frogs today, how difficult it would be to actually record, sight and sound, that amazing fuck-fest that starts the season. It always wakes me from deep sleep, and I know what it is right away, the frogs are back, I throw on an outfit, grab a flashlight, my foam seat, roll a smoke, get outside, and watch. I'm surprised National Geographic hasn't done something with this. Read more...

Snow Event

Early morning, deep night, whatever you call it, I get up to pee and flip on the back porch light. Something is different and I don't see it right away, then realize all trace of my passage is disappeared. Like a character in a Jack London story, my footsteps, whatever imprint my feet might have made, are/is completely covered. New snow covers everything to a depth I can't quite calculate. What, exactly, is a drift? Is everything adrift? I've experienced more snow than this, in Telluride we calculated the depth in feet, not inches, and once, on the Vineyard, a serious storm dumped 16 inches in a single night, and a dump find, a shattered statue of Don Quixote was completely buried, but I have never been so completely isolated as this. No question I won't get out tomorrow, later today, because the first phase of this storm is only projected through the next eight hours, and it's all snow. My plan is to fix a large breakfast and read Proust. I'll need to split some frozen wood and bring it inside, bitch about the cold, cook some grits, take a walk in the winter wonderland. Nothing changes, everything's the same, very like a whale. White is white, right? The snow keeps falling. Ended up not reading Proust but "The Printing Press As An Agent Of Change" instead. A 700 page book with a 60 page bibliography, heavily foot-noted, perfect for a serious snow day. Requires countless trips to the 11th Britannica, trying, and sometimes succeeding, to find other books, pursue tangents. I did suit-up and split a rick of wood for the house, frigid out, windy; and bringing 100 pounds of frozen wood inside is a lot like bringing a really large block of ice into your living room. The top layer of snow is very clean, so I fill a five-gallon bucket, set it next to the stove, add to it as it slowly melts, and melt snow on the stove top in a large canning kettle. The drain freezes again and that allows me to mark my yard with that clear indicator of rural poverty: a tear-drop shaped frozen lump that is my slops. Between 1517 and 1520 Luther's thirty publications sold 300,000 copies. The Reformation was built on the printing press. The Ninety-Five Theses were not so much tacked to the door as distributed hand to hand. The Broadside. In the area of yard where I go out to pee, I'm trying to recreate Mount Rushmore with piss on virgin snow. It's not going well, my Teddy looks more like Taft. The house is comfortable to me, at 58 degrees, it's often in the 40's when I get up, it's all about how you dress. Thomas Aquinas staged his great come-back, the 'Council Of Trent', with the help of the printing press. Great name for a rock group, "Thomas Aquinas" and their first, platinum, album "Council Of Trent", followed by "The Diet Of Worms" and "The Defenestration Of Prague". Being snow-bound is such fun. I'm not answerable. All the ground-cover is mounded. Everything looks like a breast at rest. In the oral tradition, everyone wanted to be a preacher, in the printed age, everyone had a spin. Erasmus was there, at the beginning, proofing his on copy. All the schisms, all the heresies, Calvin wasn't even a monk, a lay dude, swept Switzerland like a snow-storm. How much mediation between you and god? Even I, believing nothing but rabbit tracks, when faced with an untenable situation, cry out "Oh God" as if it might protect me against the void. A pessimist with a sense of humor. Irony is a suitable refuge, sarcasm, pointed criticism; but it all misses the point, when what you're trying to do is stay alive. After my walk today, particularly beautiful, I was soaking my feet in warm water, restoring life, and I was crying, because the pain was so exquisite. For a lapsed Romantic I'm amazingly labile. I cry for ice that must disappear, for birds out of season, for the buds that appear too soon, the woodchuck that rises on its hind feet only to be struck in the head by my bumper, a frog that misjudges the weather and fucks too soon. Dude, didn't we tell you, there's always a hard freeze after the first thaw. Lost power last night. Better SEND this now. Read more...

Living Alone

Nothing prepares you for the isolation of living alone. No one to call. On the other hand you don't have to make excuses, and you can let almost everything slide. I live in a pig sty, but no one can call me to task. It's my world, I choose one thing over another, take off the kid-gloves. Up early, to stoke the fire, bathrobe over full regalia, flip on the porch light and it's snowing hard, several inches already, on top of the eight inches still hanging around. Dawn lights a leaden sky. A good day for anemology, as the wind is made visible. Multiple phenomena. Drifting snow blown by strong winds, hard snow, and snow fog, visibility is 25 feet. A lull mid-day, then more snow. Feeling a bit house-bound, decided to walk about outside, bad idea, didn't make it to the head of the driveway before retreating home. Brutal weather, decide to write early against the loss of power. Three significant storms in 10 days is a bit much. Temps not supposed to get above freezing this week, but the sun yesterday, though the temp never got above 28 degrees, was able to melt the snow on the edge of the front roof and there are icicles three feet long. I harvest some for tonight's cocktails. I make a macaroni salad for no good reason other than it sounds good and I have a set of ingredients that might substitute for what Momma Rombauer recommends. Boiled the elbow macaroni, diced in some roasted peeled peppers (from a jar), some sun-dried tomatoes (from a jar) and some raw minced onion; I made a dressing form mayo, a spoonful of brown mustard and a couple of packets of Arby's horseradish sauce. Excellent. I eat a large plate of this, with the last of the duck pate, which I had stored under a layer of bacon fat. This is a very good way to store things in the fridge, because the layer of fat comes right off and can be reused, and if you live alone there's always too much of everything when you cook. Some things don't take well to freezing. Snowing hard again, almost an inch in the last hour, I have the sense of being buried alive. At least I can see all the way across the hollow. A pretty sight, all the trees are coated on one side with driven snow, so it's a stand of half-trees, against the white background. My depth perception is completely fucked but it so beautiful outside, under the growing blanket, the white so intense and virgin, that I'm mostly staring into the middle distance anyway, remembering old lovers and other storms. Early darkness, because of the thick overcast, but my god, this is the mother of all snow-storms, the weather service has drastically under-estimated the amount of southern moisture that would be available to this arctic front. I'm being hammered here. Of the major food groups, I'd run out of coffee first, but I'll get out before that, I have a show to install. We're already at a Class One Emergency, which is 'don't drive if you don't have to' and should be Class Two tomorrow morning, 'Only Emergency Vehicles'. Sara calls and we talk about the weather, I talk with Glenn, I talk with D, we pretty much do what we can. Life goes on. Read more...

Another Storm

Supposed to hit after midnight, snow, much colder, Winter Storm Watch until Tuesday morning, which will play hell with my schedule at the museum. Play it by ear. Revise my plan to take the laundry to town, I can buy some new socks; melt snow and wash long underwear, knock down the stovepipe, shift one of the inside ricks to the woodbox, then suit-up and go outside. All the stations of the cross. A beautiful day, 20 degrees, strong sunlight until mid-afternoon, no wind. I cut and split everything in the shed, stack it inside the house, fill the kindling box, bow-saw dead maple saplings into starter sticks, then dig another outside rick out of the snow, sweep it off, and stack it in the shed. Melting snow and heating water all day, I finally stop, shave, wash my hair, take a sponge bath in front of the stove. Sore, despite being in the best physical shape of the year, because I really pushed myself today. I have to get to the museum, if at all possible, and I need to cover my ass on the home-front. What did Steph call it, "High Survival Mode" and I am good at it, I've lived on the edge for so long. Odds are I'll die in the woods and it'll be weeks before anyone notices I'm missing. From what we know, hypothermia isn't a bad way to go, you're no longer cold and just freeze to death, while your brain lies to your body. My own experience of serious cold agrees with that. Twice, or maybe three times, I was in danger of freezing to death and on those occasions I was comfortable, I wasn't hurting with the cold, and I knew I had to get to a warm place. And those times I did. Twice, there was someone to heat water and look after me, the third time, which is only probable, I might not have been in danger, I was all alone. I had wandered off into the woods, following the fox's trail, and I didn't know where I was. Easy enough, follow your tracks back; but I don't tend to follow a straight path. By the time I got home my feet were burning and I was starved. Stoke the fire, put chicken stock on to heat, soak the feet in warm water. This is a good time to change socks. I amuse myself with things I say out loud, sometimes I start dialogs, your character holds up really well. The reader, the listener, is sharp, nuances what I say. I made a simple statement, this was a week or so ago, and I was wrong. Not a difficult situation for me, because I'm often wrong, but I don't care. I prefer lee of the pillars, where the snow doesn't collect. Read more...

Arranging

The way you start a day like this, you walk around a bunch of times and look at all the pieces, then you start grouping things in the bays of the gallery, then you start moving things to other places. Very confusing at first, then a sort of order emerges, one of many possible orders because the relationships between pieces isn't cast in concrete, but there are thematic groupings, and color groupings. Perhaps because we read left to right, most people go through the gallery left to right and that affects placement. Our friend Sharee, who oversees art education for the county high schools, drops by, and spends a couple of hours watching and making comments. Installing a show is inherently interesting, all the unknowns converging, and requires complete attention. By the end of the day (4 o'clock) we are mental and physical wrecks. We have a tentative placement, I convince D that we must stop, come back with fresh eyes later, that James and I can paint and clean on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday we can actually install, I say this because only a dozen or so pieces hang, everything else is 3-D and merely sits on a flat surface, an easy show to finalize. Having worked with Sara for years, I know D will fret and dream and rearrange everything in his mind, and we'll change a few things, but if the weather cooperates, which it is not expected to do, we'll be fine. It's going to be a lovely show: when we light it. Wednesday afternoon, it will fairly pop. I love the 3-D shows, but the downside is that the light is off the walls and on the floor, every pedestal we own is in play, and the floor is in terrible shape. I'll need to clean it, because no one else can or will, except D, and he's an executive now, wears fancy pants and a sports coat. Homage to Sara, we both, independently, had internally dialoged building a conglomeration of platforms and pedestals, with the various risers and boxes, in the middle of the gallery, which we would have done, thereby solving a lot of placement problems, but there are a raft of functions, upcoming, connected to the exhibit, and we had to keep the central area open for dancing. I love this stuff, it turns my crank, you know? I'm fully engaged. The way the elements come together. Compounds. First thing you know you're building things, or imagining things, or hearing things, or seeing things, or smelling things that make you remember. I had every intention of coming in the door, when I arrived back home, at the end of this day, of nuking left-overs and writing. I didn't even nuke the left-overs, turned on the computer, sat there like an idiot, staring into the middle distance for a long time, a mindless half-hour, started and stoked a fire, but essentially mindless, and my only goal was to post. By normal standards it's awful outside, but being only nearly normal, it doesn't bother me so much; it's inconvenient, slogging through deep snow with a heavy pack, but on the other hand, no one questions my resolve. Read more...

Well Packed

Anything done well is a joy to behold, and this show was beautifully packed. 62 pieces in 17 crates, 2 to 6 pieces per crate, cradled and separated with clearly marked ethafoam blocks. Some of the pieces are large, some are quite heavy, some are in crates that are quite deep. They range in price from $1,200 to $7,000. By the (early) end of the day James and I are completely exhausted, physically and mentally. The level of attention is very high. D and I agreed long ago to never handle art after 4 o'clock, unless absolutely necessary, and if then, we talk through every step, to avoid stupid blunders. Tomorrow, setting the show with D, we'll handle every piece two or three more adventures. Show Time, the major perk of the job, handling art. And I do love installing shows. It's theater and it's problem-solving right at the pinnacle one's ability. Mine, at any rate. Not that I tend to judge myself, but I do hold up certain standards, as a matter of course. It's hard (but not impossible) to imagine a show I couldn't install, this isn't hubris, I just know who to call. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, you just have to have the number of the wheel guy. I could actually bid on building a bridge across the Ohio, wouldn't be that intimidated really, just need to hire an engineering firm, a bridge designer, some barges, and several construction crews. I could do it with a phone, one hand tied behind my back. I feel beat with a stick, the climb in tonight was at the limit of what I can do. Breaking through the crust on every step, carrying a pack with books and tangible food. Answer the call. I don't know why I'm here, put one foot in front of the other, in snow this deep you step in yesterday's track. Tramp a path to the woodshed. I have brooms everywhere, to sweep away the drifts, the stuff that accumulates on my boots, the layer of wood-chips that adhere to every single billet. D called, on his way home from University, and I had him in hysterics, recounting what was done and where we stood. There is this woman, at The Market Street Cafe, where we get our coffee for free because we provide the sleeves for their hot cups of coffee. The whole economic equation I don't understand, we still pay the old price for scones, like we're a grand-fathered clause or something. A pea for a brain, yet something we understood. I have to go to bed. I'm tired. Read more...

Must Do

The new show is coming from Kentucky, two hours away, they have to rent a truck and load, no way they can get here before 11. I get up early and start a fire, work up another rick of wood, eat grits and toast, have another coffee, then head out, in crampons and gaiters. 10 inches of snow on the driveway (13 inches at my house), tough going and this is the downhill leg. The truck is buried again, dig it out, Upper Twin was plowed yesterday and is covered with ice and drifting snow, but Mackletree isn't too bad in 4-wheel drive at 10 mph. 30 minutes to go 5 miles. Rt.125 is clear, as is 52, and I get to town fine. The roads in town are horrible, back into 4-wheel drive. Get to the museum at 11, James is happy to see me, The Show and all. They arrive after noon, 17 crates, on wheels, thank god, as they are heavy and awkward. 3 of them are too large, too heavy, but we manage, one we have to carry around through the frozen alley (3 inches of ice) and take in through the loading door. We all go to late lunch, they love the Pub, love the lunch, and they're off. We don't want to handle a bunch of frozen art, so we just pop the lids, so things can acclimate. We study the condition book because there are detailed instructions for packing and unpacking; complex foam inserts, with all kinds of numbers and arrows. James will photograph the unpacking tomorrow, so we have a guide at the other end. Always good to have a guide at the other end. D and I saw the Show, when we were picking up some Circus Show parts, and it's going to look very nice in the main gallery. LaVon, the artist, did a residency with some local high-school students weeks ago, and their pieces are finished and ready to install in a tiny upstairs gallery, to run with LaVon's show downstairs. Tidy. It's nice when the galleries reflect each other. Sometimes it sounds like I'm talking about something other than what I think I'm talking about. Language is a wonderful thing. Mouse infiltration due to the rotten weather (from a mouse's point of view) and they have invaded, from, I think, the storage shed. Four in two days, and I just heard another one. I've rigged the entire perimeter with prototypes of mouse traps that can be assembled from things found around the house. My favorite one, and its already scored two kills, is a small plank, a 1x4, one end of which rests on a cast iron brick (I had one hanging around the house, a regular brick would work) and the other on a pan of water. There's a shingle ramp that goes up to the plank. Where the plank rests on the edge of the pan, there's a shim balanced on the end, the fat end of the taper on the plank. On the thin end, out there over the water, is a smidge of peanut butter. I can see them, in my mind, as the shim over-tips, and they think, falling to their death, "that goddamn Bridwell and his fucking traps." Notice that I choose to contest only small mammals with very small brains. A decent tombstone: He Could Outsmart Mice. Sometimes. They or something actually got to a bag of rice I had hung from a beam in the kitchen, thinking it safe enough. But this kind of weather, turns us into thieves and cannibals, and when I got up this morning there was rice everywhere. I saved most of it, by rinsing off crap in rainwater and re-drying the rice, but what a pain in the ass. I have a little propane cylinder, and I'm working on a trap where there little fuckers would just be incinerated, but I can't see risking my house and library to kill a single mouse. On the other hand, if it was The Main Mouse, and we were going head to head, I might risk everything. I have before, on lesser bets. I could argue with my friend Harvey that I was alive and he wasn't. And he could argue back. In the Dead Of Winter, anything is possible. Read more...

Howling Wind

Got up early, to get some things done before trying to get to the museum, Knock down the stove-pipe, clean out ashes, vacuum the mess and a few corners. Then suit-up and bring in armloads of frozen wood, build two ricks near the stove; get a good fire going, and turn one of the electric radiators on low, so the wood will thaw. Grits and eggs for breakfast. On a two hour delay, finally slog down the hill, un-bury the truck and head off on bad roads, don't get halfway down Mackletree before it starts snowing again, hard and I just turn around and come right back home. The frozen wood was so cold it sucks the heat from the stove, I go back out and split some knots, split some dry sycamore for the firebox. The sheep-watering trough/bathtub is completely covered, mounded over in snow 12-14 inches deep. I have to change boots and pants because of the walk down and back up the driveway, curl up on the sofa, under a blanket, and read for a couple of hours. Early afternoon I make a pot of chili with beans. I started the pintos as soon as I got back home, cook a pound of ground lamb, caramelize two yellow onions, roast a red pepper and peel it, add all together, shred the last of the cooked loin into it, add a can of roasted tomatoes and some wonderful green chili powder sent by a friend. Excellent winter fare, with buttered saltines, I eat several bowls. If I'd made it in to work (which I will tomorrow) I never would have gotten the house warm this evening. The wind is awful and the wind-chills are below zero, finally get the house warm enough to shave and clean up by late afternoon. Go back out one more time, to split a couple more knots. When it's this cold, you can split the unsplittable. It's a brutal day, the qualities of mercy are slim. I'm very careful whenever I'm outside, moving with deliberate slowness, watching where every foot falls. I can hardly wait to get back to the museum and be truly warm for a change. I leave some shampoo and a towel there, so I can get in early and wash my hair. It's amazing what you take for granted. I'll need to work Saturday and Sunday, installing the new show, but that's a fair tradeoff, for the snow-days. The wind is howling across the ridge-top, the temps falling, the snow is drifting. There were, briefly, this morning, a couple of patches of sun, before the next round hit, when I still thought I could get to town; and when a gust of wind blew a layer of snow off the roof, the house was invisible in a cloud of glitter. It's still snowing, but they say it's going to stop. It surely must, eventually. Looks like a hell of a mud-season on the distant horizon. I'll enjoy some social interaction, getting back to installing art, thinking about things that aren't purely survival motivated. This is a good latitude, in that regard, for 12 or 14 weeks you might be uncomfortable, and a few weeks might be downright painful, but if you're careful, it's not a big deal. I'd better go, I'm suspect of these winds. Read more...

On Pace

They seem to have called this one about right, glad I paid attention yesterday. The 6 inches of snow I had was slumped to 4 inches, then 4 new inches last night, calling for 4 more today and 4 more tonight, maybe just 2 tomorrow. Everything is closed down, according to the radio, I certainly am. Nothing for it but to read, which makes having a huge personal library a godsend. I fully intend to shave and then to cook something this afternoon, another batch of grits, for sure, and probably the pre-ordained pot of chili. Not very adventurous cooking, but I'm not feeling very adventurous. Gets to 33 degrees for an hour, long enough for thick fog to fill the hollow, a little freezing rain, then back to snow. D calls and says the heart of the storm is supposed to come in tonight with much more snow. Oh boy. Sweep the porch and stamp a path to the woodshed, bring in an armload of frozen wood. I make one more meal off the pork loin before turning the remains (along with a pound of ground lamb) into chili. These new instant mashed potatoes are really quite good, the Homestyle Reds especially; I eat a serving for four before and with lunch. The cheap, generic brands are terrible, but do make a great binder, even holding together left-over grits fried as a johnny-cake. Extremely pissed off this morning: yesterday I picked up a bag of shredded mozzarella, to speed up the omelet and cheese grits parts of life (grits can take either the singular or plural according to John Thorne, so have it your way) and I didn't read the package. Noticed, when opening the package, that the sell-by date was July 5th. Read the label and discovered it wasn't really cheese at all, but a complete imitation. Stupid me, to trust what it called itself. Shredded Imitation Mozzarella Cheese, it says right there, in small print. If something is imitation it should have to say so in the main title. Desolate enough up here, right now, to not be stuck with fucking imitation cheese. It was on sale, what can I say? and I was a little strapped for cash, land taxes and truck insurance both falling at the same time. I keep saving this, because I expect to lose power. An ominous cast to the sky, late afternoon, gray on gray. We can still have the new show installed on time, but I really need to get in to the museum Thursday, to take delivery. Assuming, that is, that they can get here from Morehead, Kentucky, considering that the entire state is closed down today and tomorrow. The good news is that the new generation of liquid salts they're using on the roads now are quite effective at these temps. Worse than useless when it gets below 10 degrees, when they freeze and become there own special black ice. Four days of this, in the last six, is beginning to grate on me, I'll have to get outside tomorrow, work up a sweat, look for the fox. One Pileated Woodpecker today, with a haggard drooping crest. Even the outlaw crows stayed away, sticking to their roost. Thanks to several readers, I now know much more about crow roosting than I used to, and to ask Jennie, next time I see her (the local naturalist) where is the nearest roost from here. I'd very much like to go watch. Thousands of them all at once must be very loud. At five o'clock I get a whiskey and snow, and indulge a particular food craving that hits once or twice a year. Bought a small slab of un-sliced bologna, so I could have a couple of fried bologna sandwiches (multi-grain bread, mayo) with a big slice of raw onion. I'll have another tomorrow, with fried potatoes and onion, searching for the perfect food. I love fried potato sandwiches, with onion, and I love fried bologna sandwiches, with onion, and it seems to me that I might be on to something here. It could be hard to eat, to actually get the mouth around, but if I carefully sink a single layer of potatoes into the mayo on one side, then the meat, then the onion maybe embedded in a layer of horseradish sauce on the other side, I'd need something to keep the onion from sliding against the meat, maybe a thin layer of instant mashed potatoes. At Janitor College, I was a junior, and there was this guy, a senior, Vlad Gibson, whose driving desire was to be the janitor at the American complex in Antarctica. He lived for cold. He shaved, on winter camping trips in Alaska, with a mixture of snow and soap that he whipped together before dawn, in a tee-shirt. He always broke trail, when we were cross-country skiing, and one night, these were moonlight adventures, he got turned around by the overcast or sunspots or something, and we were hours late getting back to campus, near dead and frostbit. He opened the mess hall, heated water, for us to soak our feet, then set about making fried bologna sandwiches, with a large slice of raw onion; god they were good, such as memory is reliable. He died, a couple of years later, in that famous dry valley, where the winds whip at 70 below and there is no moisture, trying to save a seal, with whom, he had, by then, an amorous connection. The world, it seems, is much more complex than we could imagine. My older daughter calls, and I realize I don't understand anything. I need to be altruistic in addition to surviving. I'm not sure I'm up to the challenge. One reason I live the way I do is that no one makes demands of my time, within reason, and I'm shocked when someone does. Stupid fucking logistics. Read more...

More Prep

Another big storm in the forecast for late tonight, 2 days, more snow, but maybe not as cold. Still, I change my plans, suit-up early and cut the rick in the shed, then down the hill. The truck is buried under six inches of snow, with a layer of ice under that. Takes and hour to get it clear, then to town. Library where the new Coetzee, "Summertime" was on hold for me, liquor store for a back-up bottle of whiskey, and Kroger for juice (frozen: tangerine, grape, and orange/ pineapple); some pretty good menudo soup so I don't have to cook tripe in the house); couple of packages of decent dried mashed potatoes because they are so damned fast; butter, then cross the river into Kentucky and buy some tobacco, a couple of packs of papers. Almost no snow in town. Today is that exciting day, following a big storm, drier air, and a random puffy wind, and the result is tree snow. If you live in the woods, it's a big deal. The sun is out and often an entire tree's branches will release the snow at the same time, in the same gust. It's a phenomenon I've watched for decades, wrote a paper for the Janitor Quarterly, "The Thermodynamics Of Trees" that was well received, after that frigid year of post-graduate work in Hokkaido. Lunched with D and Carma at the pub, splurged for a Harp on draft. Stopped at the lake to feed the ducks the crackers that collect where the ladies at the museum eat lunch. Say that twice quickly. I left out two commas, to see how it felt, in that next-to-last sentence, the penultimate sentence. The ducks were cool, they don't threaten the way geese do. Language is so ambiguous. After I feed the ducks, while I'm in the parking lot, a turn-off really, I pack my pack. I've done this thousands of times, weight at the bottom, something flat against my back. And walking up, I stop, usually 5 or 6 times, just look around, bring my breathing down to normal, consider the tracks in the snow. When I finally get home, I barely catch the morning fire, then outside, to spilt a week's oak, and fill the wood-box with dry billets of sycamore and some splits from walnut off-cuts. Thank god for left-overs, I'm exhausted and my feet hurt, but oddly exhilarated, too, because I'm set for a couple of weeks, no matter what happens. Put dinner on to heat, go back outside, sweep the snow from an outside rick and bring it under the shed. Split wood, carry water. For six or eight weeks life is very difficult, but that means that the rest of the year I'm free as a bird, not a bad trade-off, I think. The orchard as a playing field. Read more...

Ruckus

I can mark it in my date-book that if I clean out the fridge and compost a few meager left-overs, they will come. Sounded like a ill-trained SWAT team, grunting and squealing as they lost footing on the ice under snow, but it's just two coons, fighting for possession of some short-rib bones. They're pretty funny, bandit faces smeared with stove ash. A mom and last year's cub, they hiss at me but never lose sight of the carrot. The thermometer is encased in ice but I think it reads 5 degrees, thereabout; very still, and so quiet the squeak of my slippers on virgin snow is like a banshee in the night. Harsh, but beautiful, playing the flashlight off prismatic branches that completely surround me. The house is almost warm and way too dry, tomorrow, later today, I'll bring in some frozen wood to release its moisture inside. Last thing yesterday, before coming in for good, I swept snow from the white oak rounds I intend to split, a rick of hickory and another of osage orange that need to come inside to lose surface ice. The house is a mess. Terminal winter mess: wood chips, bits of leaf, sawdust, boot tracks from the freeze/thaw cycles, cobwebs in unattended corners. Sounds worse than it is, I keep the desire paths clear, the stations where I stop, the stool at the island, my writing chair, the sofa with the various blankets I might use. The solace of books cannot be over-stated: mid-winter, when you get really cold and think you might die, read Shackleton. Talk about not having a thermostat. I'm hardly done yet, I can still eat my shoes. I haven't even burned the furniture. Comes right down to it, I'm not very good at this. I scrape by, I eat well enough, I don't freeze to death, but I'm scatter-brained and irresponsible. It's why I live alone, one idiot is enough. If I had someone to egg me on I'd probably live in a tree tip pit and burn cow chips. I don't know why I live the way I do, something about a direct confrontation with the natural world. Thoreau said something about slogging miles through deep snow for an appointment with a particular tree, it's like that. I can't not. Mare est in turba. It's 5 o'clock in the morning, I need to get a couple of hours of sleep. Got back up around 8, put on work clothes, caught the fire, went outside and worked on wood, came back in and fixed a giant breakfast, bacon, grits, mushroom and cheese omelet, toast, more coffee, put water on to heat and went back out. Finish splitting enough oak for a goodly rick inside, in addition to filling the various boxes with the various sized pieces. This time of year firewood is an endless cycle. Back inside I do dishes, considering dinner. Need to boil the sauce tomorrow, it's 8 years old now, the longest I've ever kept one alive. I'll add a few things I've been saving, some marinades, the end of a bottle of wine, a beer, run it all through the blender with an onion and some garlic, maybe some tamarind paste. So I decide to dry rub part of a pork loin that I'll dampen with balsamic vinegar and molasses first, to hold the rub in place, cook it in a hot oven, probably blacken it a bit. Picked up a very good rice at Kroger, very nutty, and that would go well, as will coleslaw. I'll have to eat it for several days, but that shouldn't be a reach. Still very beautiful outside, the combination of sticky snow glued onto iced branches, and very little wind, has kept everything covered. Mid-afternoon I change boots, put on the insulated Red Wings, which are very waterproof, and the very red, new, heavy sweat-shirt Stephanie sent, 'University of Iowa --- Industrial Hygiene' because it has a tight collar and hood and I'm bound to dump a ton of snow on myself, walking in woods such as these. The quality of light is amazing. Fairly heavy overcast, but in a single layer and fractured, so there are occasional shafts of intense sunlight. It's like stage lighting, coming up slowly as the clouds clear the sun. Dramatic. The birds are out in force, including a robin that really looks out of place and both red-headed and pileated woodpeckers. I find a stump, get out my foam pad, and sit a spell; roll a smoke, watch the movie. New Wave, it's all about light and a few birds. Meaning might be irrelevant. It's beautiful, that might be the point, a rhapsody on the form of branches under load. The rice is wonderful, the coleslaw, with a horseradish dressing, is great, but the chunk-o-loin is world-class. I butterflied it, leaving just a hinge, smeared the two sides with pesto, then glued them back together with molasses, brushed the whole thing with molasses/balsamic (50/50) then rubbed it with whatever was in the 'rub' jar (dried herbs, chili powders, garlic salt, dried onion flakes) and slipped it into an 500 degree oven. I had to tent it with foil, half way through, so I didn't end up with charcoal, and cooked it almost forty minutes, opening the door of the oven several times, to dump heat. I let it rest, to finish cooking, and while it did, decanted the sauce into a quart and pint jars and sealed them with rendered lard. Sauce Confit. It's a conceit but I love it. This sauce has become so complex that it could never be duplicated, approximated certainly, but never duplicated. When someone asks me what's in it, I have to laugh, my memory is fairly good out to about 8 hours, everything else is sporadic and subject to revision. History is a myth. Now, of course, we'd wire Pliny, so we could hear his last words, and we'd watch him melt into the magma on our I-phones. I know where my affinities lie. Lay. The matters of perspective. Maybe nothing means anything, maybe anything means nothing, I'm way over my head; what I try to do is walk that ridge, between knowing and not knowing, strike a balance. Usually I'm either too hot or too cold, but sometimes I feel ok, and that's enough. I never expected a ride. Read more...

Blanketed

The white world. Power out before I finished writing last night, thus the unsigned post. The patter of sleet changing to an enormous silence. Heavy wet snow. So cocooned I missed my early morning stoking, consequently the house was quite cold when I finally got up. Outside to pee and the world is a white marvel, still snowing, and 6 inches of snow on what had been slightly damp branches leaves several inches even on branches the size of your little finger. The woods become opaque in fifty feet, white on white. The stove is still a bit warm, the house is 50 degrees inside, I go back to bed, to try and retrieve a dream, and let the stove cool completely, as I might as well clean the smoke-chase and stove-pipe. Supposed to clear and get very cold tonight, can't be too careful. Power comes back on, I leave the radio on NPR so I'll know exactly when, and I get back up to turn on one of the small back-up electric heaters over near the cookstove. When I get up for good, it's Carhartt bibs over sweat pants, sweatshirt over merino sweater over tee-shirt, thick wool socks over silk socks (Goodwill) and an ridiculous pair of house-slippers and the new bath robe over all. Make a serious double espresso, drink a protein shake, and clean the various runs and chases, knock down the pitch in the pipe, vacuum up the mess, lay a fire. But I don't light it, because I'm warm, dressed thus, change into boots and go outside to sweep a path to the woodshed, which warms me even more, so I come back inside, make another coffee, crawl under a blanket on the sofa and read Horace for a while. I have a nice selected poems that is bilingual and I can play with translation then laugh at my mistakes. I was looking for a particular quote, Ira furor brevis est, "Anger is a brief madness" which they translate as 'passing madness', but close enough. I don't find the quote, which might not have been Horace after all. Then I spend a while reading about Bingham Fluids, which are those, like mayonnaise and, famously, ketchup, that stay maddeningly solid until you tap too hard and catch a flood to the lap. Slow liquids. The east side of all the tree trunks are covered in snow, which means this storm came from the wrong direction. Most of our winter storms come from Fargo via Canada. I think this means that the jet-stream has migrated slightly north of Portsmouth. Stops snowing mid-afternoon and the temps are dropping fast, so I finally light the fire, and by late afternoon melt snow and heat enough water to wash my hair and shave. Make a batch of grits, fry bacon, and have breakfast a couple of times. It's beautiful outside, never got the expected winds, and everything stays frozen in place. The last diffused light is almost pink, almost blue radiates from the snow. Very quiet, blanketed; I roll a smoke, take a sitting pad and a drink out on the back stoop and sit for nearly an hour. It's so peaceful, so serene, lovely beyond expression, sublime; I only come in when my toes are just short of frozen. Wash my feet with warm water in a huge stainless steel bowl I found somewhere, change socks, wash some long underwear in the rinse water, then rinse again in water from the stove, drape it to dry over a dining room chair. I have clothes everywhere, components of various outfits, draped here and there, neatly folded on flat surfaces, hanging on loops near the back door. By the end of winter all of my clothes are in play, I choose what is dry and can be layered. The real hazard isn't freezing to death, but slipping and falling. I pay particular attention to where every foot falls: when you're young you'd just break a collar bone, the joint designed to fail, but when you're older you might break a hip. Takes me a while to see what I'm saying, that the natural world is dangerous as well as beautiful, the women I've known. Dropping a tree is always like that clip of Babe Ruth, pointing with his bat, I think I'll drop it there. Sometimes you do, some times things are constellated, sometimes not. There's a lot of snow, everything is covered, my cheap-ass excuse is bullshit, what I couldn't see. Almost everything. Read more...

In Detail

If you know exactly where to look. Hidden in plain sight. Nothing succeeds like suggest. Eventually everything rubs off and you're left with nothing. A moonbeam through parted clouds, a mere sample of what light might be like. Ice-storm conditions, rain, 33 degrees. When I first got up, the deck and back porch were covered with ice, my doors frozen shut. Finally get outside through a window, throw hot water at the back door to get it open. Bring in all the wood I have split, cut starter sticks, split kindling. As ready as I can be for whatever weather is coming. Calling for 8 inches of snow tonight and maybe another 6 tomorrow. Winter Storm Warning until tomorrow night. Heavy wet snow, bound to lose power and phone, probably late tonight, when the snow starts accumulating. I get out two of the oil lamps and four candles in holders, two of which are very nice, brass, with carrying handles. What I think of as the winter-night-power- out kit. It allows me to read or write at the island and stoke the stove. Which is the limit of my activity. Tomorrow I'll probably recline of the sofa most of day, under several blankets, start reading that history of printing. I'll probably make chili, again, because it is perfect for this weather, but I have other options. I have been known to cook a risotto on days like what tomorrow promises, because it keeps me hovering over the stove. I have dried mushrooms and baby peas in the freezer, so risotto becomes a serious option. There's a pork roast I may have to eat, about three pounds, and that poses several alternatives. The menu of necessity. I've got 10 pounds of beans, 5 pounds of rice, and a bag of onions, a dozen eggs, a loaf of honest bread, and two pounds of very good, thick-sliced, apple-smoked bacon. I can hold out for a while. 4 pounds of cornmeal, 3 pounds of grits, 2 rock-hard avocados, and a single small deer I shot from an upstairs window. I swore I'd never do this again, but I did it anyway. I needed the meat. It's an easy change. What I needed. Read more...

To Each

If you're worth your salt, you're good at something. No more hunger, no more pain. 100 percent chance of snow Friday. February, after all. But tomorrow, early, I should be able to bring in another load of Mackletree white oak, when the driveway should be frozen and snow-free. Night and day. In the moonlight, in the mid-night. I'm hardly the man I used to be. Lightening bolts scare me and I'm afraid of heights. Imminent storm. Ice, at first, so I could lose power and/or phone. Did make it in with the white oak, then off to the museum, cleaned the theater, the stage, and the classroom because of some event which will, in all likelihood, be canceled. Needed doing anyway. Then met with the construction company and the president of the board about the repairs. Looked alright while the paint was wet, but the staining bled through, and when the paint was dry it started flaking again. I wanted to give everyone a stupid slap, as clearly there is moisture trapped deep in the wall (they're 18 inches thick) so the outside work and waterproofing needed to happen first. I had argued strongly for this, but was overruled by the professionals. My winter finger-tip cracks are back, and painful. Hard for them to heal, the life I lead. I'll end up using the special ointment (Udder Balm) and going to bed with vinyl gloves on. I always have surgery dreams when I do that, where the surgeon takes out the wrong thing and I can't wake up to tell him. Forecast is calling for rain, then sleet, turning to snow early tomorrow and snowing for 14 hours. I'm always colder than town, eight hundred feet higher, so it might be mostly snow here, if so, it could be a bunch. The upside is that I'm well supplied, brought in back-up booze, extra cigaret papers, and the makings for an extreme chili. Lamb shanks were remaindered, very cheap, and I bought eight, I'll cook them for hours on the cookstove, then for hours more with the reconstituted chilies that a friend sent from New Mexico; beans, minced onion, and cheese on the side. I think I can make tortillas using the cornmeal from Georgia and the book binding press, between sheets of waxed paper. If I get snow-bound it would pass some interesting time. And I've got a great pile of things to read. I'll make another batch of grits, for sure, and eat breakfast many times. Potatoes, and grits, and bacon, and eggs, with toast, is a very substantial meal. You could build a wall with these, I think, against the infidels. The fox was in the compost heap, her dainty tracks are everywhere; there's a slight depression, where she went down on her belly to tease a marrow bone. A current passion is cooking 'dog bones', sealed with foil, with a spoonful of pesto in each, on end, in a shallow pan with chicken broth; I drink the broth afterwards. I eat the marrow with a fork that must have been designed to get small condiments out of a jar, I don't remember where I got it. Eating marrow is so fucking primal, I can't even read, just stare into the middle distance and grunt, spear slices of pickled hot peppers and sour pickles, buttered saltines are good with this. I have a passion for black olives, I eat with my fingers whenever possible. I haven't finished a thing I started. Not a great track record. Read more...

Marching Orders

Good and necessary staff meeting today, as the next couple of months promise to be crazy busy. So much on my plate that after the meeting I take my notes and go over the calendar with Pegi. Crunch time, as we used to say in theater. Looks doable to me, the entire schedule, unless the weather throws a monkey wrench. One major show, three smaller ones and about a dozen events, THEN my favorite, another major, the local, juried, show, "Cream Of The Crop", which actually fills all three galleries that aren't permanent. Add to the number of shows to install an equal number of taking shows to take down, add the patching and repairing; for every event add setting up and taking down and cleaning up after whatever it was. This is when the Preparator/Janitor/Jack-Of-All-Trades comes in to his or her own. Stage Managing, I run these shows, I tell people what to do. I'm not the boss, but I know what needs to be done and it what order, so I ask in a nice way; call these people, order these things, line up the piano tuner, have we got the liquor licenses? who hid the extension cords where? how many events involve food and what's the menu? This is one of those things I'm very good at doing, so it's always interesting and almost fun for me, while those around me panic. Not D, he is a rock, and in his two days a week, we'll accomplish small miracles, and James can handle all the electronics, and, I learned late today, that we don't even have to do labels for the main gallery show; they travel with it, good news, because I had spotted those labels as a sore spot, and had imagined a Sunday at the museum. I have to work every Saturday for the foreseeable future, and that's fine. I love working with D and I love installing shows, that whole problem-solving thing, it keeps your brain alive. I make a note to buy a dozen cans of tuna, six in oil, six in water; on pasta I want the oil, on a salad I don't (I prefer my own oil on a salad, one of the few places I go exotic, because I use so little, I have a stash of oils) and maybe some protein drinks. I need a raise, at the museum, to cover electric costs and specific foods: "If I didn't have to go in and install that show, I'd be eating beans and not driving." Now, I require tuna fish and gas. I'm just saying. Thinking out loud, that phrase strikes me like a ton of bricks, thinking out loud; goddamn, I talk to myself a lot, does that mean I'm a sick motherfucker, or merely normal. I don't know. I do what I do. All of my systems are suspect, I claim no knowledge. Even the way I dress is subject to review. When I wear grubby clothes to work, it means I'll be doing something awful, and the staff avoids me like the plague. A single crow announces it's time to return to the roost, and ten thousand come. That's a lot of bird-shit, but still, would indicate where crows might gather. Read more...

Nothing Changes

I get tired real quick of people enabling other people. As I get older I have a lot less patience with stupidity. James and I draped blankets over displays and hung sheets of plastic in the balcony opening that look down into the main gallery from our permanent Carter Collection. Then he pulled up a chair to remove vinyl signage from the entry wall, a fairly longer paragraph in signage about one inch tall, many individual letters. This is the same stuff they use to detail cars and it sticks really well. We paint the two walls we use for this with semi-gloss paint, which helps when removing, you just have to break the bond at a point, for which I use a paring knife, the tip of which I've bent slightly (don't want to damage the walls any more than necessary) but James uses that ancient tool, his thumbnail, to great effect. I sort hardware and try to make sense of the chaos. Start a list for tomorrow: paint walls, paint pedestals, clean floor. A bit ambitious, but it's just a list. At the Opera Company of Boston, there was once a list, that among other things, had on it: build Trojan Horse, fabricate 25' high statue of Pallas Athena. That was ambitious. With that particular 'A' Team, it actually was possible to build anything, we proved it time and again. It's more difficult to stage a major opera than it is to build a house, and the hours are worse. Got another of the white oak boles, a monster, I could barely get it onto the tailgate. Looking at it, and calculating, I think it might be a week's wood in milder weather, but below zero, I'd burn it in 24 hours. It's hard to predict what might be necessary when the variables are so large. Neil, who reads me closely, and is responsible not only for this very computer I write on, but also for the copy of Walter Benjamin that is never put away, has sent another gem, two volumes in one huge handful, of Elizabeth Eisenstein's "The Printing Press As An Agent Of Change" which is a subject dear to my heart. A winter's reading. I can blow off comfort, simply drape myself in an electric blanket and pay the bill. I'm just a printer but I'm ok, I work all night and I read all day. Wait, that's wrong, I work all day and I read all night. I hear it change, the way rain changes to sleet and the sleet changes to snow, I know these sounds, they frame my life. Dust off the crampons, buddy, because it's going to be an interesting walk in the morning. My ex calls and we have a good conversation about the girls. I need her input because I'm no longer there. I'm the distant parent. I hate every minute of this, but I'm good, ask all the correct questions and listen. Basho teaches patience. Crows aren't stupid, and cherry-blossoms in spring display a certain sense, look around you, I think it's everywhere, pretty sure. The poplar buds are pregnant with feeling. Certain tubers are ready to explode. The frogs are waiting for the first warm night. What can I say, I'm on the edge of my seat. You, it, whatever it was. Read more...

Insatiable

Eating at a record rate. Bottomless pit. Everything in the fridge, then a nice breakfast to top things off. One thirty in the morning and I'm wiping egg yolk off my chin and laughing at my appetite. I almost make another pan of biscuits before I just call it quits. Enough already. Leave something for tomorrow. Ambitious plans, maybe lunch at the pub, work on the path down to that dead oak, something hot and filling for dinner, read a while, write. The way my time is constellated. I need to get below the flood-wall, see what's washed ashore, walk the debris line and poke among the rubble. It's what I do. Get back up and don't build a fire, seems warm, is, because a burned a large Osage Orange knot in that early morning stoke. Excellent. Suit up and cut half the Mackletree wood, bust it in half, then off to town to get a few things, wash socks and underwear, stop at the library, the liquor store, lunch at the pub, D comes in, he's letterpress printing at a shop in town. Go visit the shop, to check the facilities, and it's almost exactly like the shop where I apprenticed, filthy, ink everywhere, always amazed me that anything clean could come out of such a place. Odd phenomenon, hard freeze while the rivers were high, and then the water receded leaving sheets of ice draping every hummock and bush, it's lovely, stretching across the soy-bean fields to the Ohio. Stop at the lake to examine the rotten ice. On Mackletree I pick up two boles of white oak that I can barely lift, I'll have to split them to get them home from beyond the puddles. I need to stop and get one or two of these every day, I can depot them at the bottom of the hill, and bring them up on a moment's notice when the driveway is snow-free and frozen. Split the wood I cut this morning and it's beautiful solid-heart red oak. I feel better about my wood supply. Easily a cord of pre-cuts, just sitting there, on Mackletree; I still will cut a path to the dead chestnut oak, but the almost emergency edge is taken off. This new oak is so straight-grained that I can split it with just the hatchet, kneeling on my prayer pad of foam. Life is good, I'm warm, and there's a pile of wood. I reconfigure my ingredients and make a large casserole of ground chuck, egg noodles, tomatoes, onions, peppers, all cooked separately, then baked under a layer of cheese. Sinful, but very good, and filling, which is the point. Glenn and I used to eat something like this, at a bar/restaurant where we had poetry readings once a month, The Binnacle?, back on old Cape Cod. Where I met my future and now past wife. Recipes are a kind of memory, reconstructing history by tastes. What it sounded like. Squealing rats and raucous crows. Read more...