Downtime

I wonder what any of it means. You poke among the leaf-litter, nose a few things around. Excessive rumination is an indicator of that might be construed as a problem, wouldn't matter I could argue nothing I said made any sense. Sense falls to the reader. Reading Agassiz, about visiting Thoreau at the cabin, talking about turtles. An interesting moment, back at my house, the various piles of books undisturbed, I can almost see what I was last thinking, before I left. Reconstructed memory. Bedbugs are fearsome and I advise Samara to leave everything behind that can't be sterilized at the laundromat. They die, and the eggs are toast, at 130 degrees. A light pass with a propane torch on the bottom of furniture, because they seek the pores in wood. But it's actually easier to leave everything behind. Starting over is under-rated. At the museum, I had factored in an extra day, knew I'd be hard-pressed and allowed a margin of error, Either that, or I had just misread the calendar. James came in for a couple of hours yesterday, retagged all the pieces in the current show and we enlisted D to get the five over-sized crates from the basement, bulling them up the aisle, through the theater. Going down is easy compared to coming back up. Gravity and a short wheel-base can lead to crushed ankles. Always look one step ahead. If you can discern a pattern, you're in the game. Most good stagehands play chess or solve numerical problems in their off time. Force of habit. The Great Unknown, the next moment, is always a surprise. I get the other 12 crates, one at a time, up from the basement in the elevator, line them up along the center-line in the main gallery. As prepared as I can be. This is where I come into my own. Logistics. Born with an extra gene or something. I visualize a sequence and make it happen, unless some overwhelming act-of-god intervenes, massive flooding or an ice-storm, an earthquake maybe, otherwise this show will be shipped out and the next show will be shipped in, installed and opened. A matter of course. Madder and woad. Might as well add some color, even if you're blind. What is red, exactly? Or blue? Merely a wavelength of light? Do nothing all day, but read and eat. I now know way too much about the relationship between mankind and cochineal, am also up to speed (I think) on the ethno-botany of the Amazon basin. The hardwood jungle has now, and in my absence, become complete. I can't see 30 feet in any direction. The greens, after big rains while I was gone, are resplendent, spanning that one color in hundreds of variations. An amazing sight. Like the sky and water at Key West do blue. To start writing, mid-day, I must put a freezer pack in a bowl next to my computer and blow a small fan across it, another fan blows across the room at my back, and there's ceiling fan, stirring the mix. If I sit very still, and drink whiskey on rocks, I'm actually quite comfortable. Don't much like the noise, because it cuts me off from natural sound, the wind in the leaves, birds and bugs, but I'm comfortable; much like mid-winter, when I seal myself within a cocoon, hear only the clicking of the stove. It's comfort-level thing. I need a day off because I am depleted, spent from white-knuckle driving, considering who my daughters are now, where I might fit in. Nothing makes any sense but drainage, when I spread the maps out in front of me, everything flows downhill. I knew that, but I needed to be reminded. Tomorrow, we return to the almost immediate present; I made a note, posted it on the edge of the screen, I hope I remember to look.

All Weathers

The dog is fine, the house wasn't broken into because Little Sister had a friend stay over, a feral Rottweiler. Excellent watch-dog, wouldn't let me in the house until she bit him on the ass. The actual trip, three days out, three days back, was all about weather. Super Cells, hail, heavy rains, very high wind on the way home, four inches of new snow at Vail Pass. The last couple of days out there was dust storms, and smoke from the Norwood fire. One graduation in the rain, the other with 40 mph wind. Lots of cute young college girls wearing skimpy summer sun-dresses. Everyone I was introduced to would nod, as if to say, so this is the guy, the father. I tried to communicate in simple sentences. Cooked dinner several times for Samara and a roommate, then for several people at the out-going Head Of Department's house. Stayed up late a few nights, bringing the past into the present. Creeks in Nebraska: North Skunk, Middle Raccoon, Middle Skunk, South Raccoon. Flooding on the by-pass at Peoria. At a Scenic Overlook in Nebraska I'm looking at a thousand, many thousand, acres of newly planted corn; a hazy green stumble into the far distance, like an asparagus field in western Mass. The eye, once trained: in western Colorado, I kept noticing something out of the corner of my eye. The wild asparagus along the fence-rows. Became my lunch of choice. Stopped at an Arby's for several pouches of their horseradish sauce and ate sun-warmed raw asparagus with cheese and crackers. Renting a motel room for a week, having a retreat, saves me; I watch old movies and the weather channel, then fix dinner for starving people. I'm an NGO. I have a laminated card I carry around my neck. It looks official. I'm nothing if not almost honest. Maybe I stretch the truth, but I'm always looking for a bass line, something that ties to something else. So exhausted I fell asleep writing the last two nights. One of the last nights in Junction saw two plays with Samara and Kaylee at Mesa State, "Zoo Story" (Edward Albee) and "Riverside Drive" (Woody Allen). Both were pretty good, the acting better than that, but plagued with technical difficulties. Having made a small career in technical theater and a lifetime in technical everything else, it's not really fair for me to be critical, but it is in attention to detail that a decent show becomes better. The lighting sucked. Uneven, especially at the edges, where a great deal of both shows played. The tickling scene in "Zoo Story" is very difficult to stage, here, it was just short of painful, should have been shorter and maybe more hysterical. Detail. College life and bedbugs. As advertised, I'm nothing like what these kids have ever met... an old coot who lives alone, without running water, writes for several hours every day, by their standards has read everything, works at an art museum installing shows... but they like me. Back at the motel, as if to make a point, a late night movie where the janitor is the only one who knows where anything is stored. I surely seem to sound exactly like what I am. A wonderful evening cooking for Samara's outgoing head-of-department and a few students, talking with mostly Rich way into the night, talking about technical fires we'd put out. An immediate bonding. Had to stay too late (not really too) and drink several cups of coffee to get safely back to the motel room. As I was leaving Rich said I affirmed his decision to leave a tenured position because he hadn't had a conversation like that one in years. Occupying a motel room for a week is interesting. A sub-culture, not to generalize. Cable TV, running water. Assumptions about the other tenants of longer than a single night. We meet in the office, early morning, for the free coffee and scones. Reading Guy Davenport, at a Motel 6, just outside the airport in Grand Junction, Colorado. Last day there, I walked completely around the airport, several miles, into the adobe hills. Nine days into the trip it's time to move the base of operations to Montrose, Rhea's high school graduation. The winds are huge, blowing the over-grazed dust from Utah at a steady 50 mph. A fire, on the distant horizon (The Norwood Fire) adds smoke to the mix. At the dual graduation party, the Saturday before Rhea flips her tassel, the kids mostly stay inside the garage, where the food is and the wind isn't blowing and I can spend some time with old friends. Almost but not quite nostalgic. I'm brought in as a ringer. The enigmatic actual father. As a cook as well. There are certain dishes that it is necessary I prepare, and kitchens are made available to me. I enlist assistants, my older daughter, her soul-mate and we cook some decent meals. I'm distracted by being the father on display. At one point Samara cautions me to not be quite so funny because everyone is laughing so hard and loud (I was recounting a Missip story) that she's afraid the cops might come, a noise violation. This is what happens, when you bring an old dog to a new place. He circles for his bed, wondering where he should lay his sleeping head. Down pallet on the floor. Mississippi John Hurt. I leave, after a few hours, way more socializing than I'm used to. Out to Ridgway, for dinner and drinking with John. One of my favorite houses I ever built and one of my favorite people, a strict vegetarian and an extraordinary cook. Best dinner of the trip, and after cocktails and two great Zinfandels with dinner, we close the night with brandy and a last cigaret. Next day, I find myself in a bleacher, top row, with a 45 mph wind right at my back, not able to actually hear a fucking thing, because the wind is screwing up the microphones, but I recognize Rhea's beat-up cowboy boots. I would have cried, I swear, but the humidity was 8% and the wind was blowing. Moisture was literally sucked from my eyes, virga, that rain in the west that never hits the ground. No time for tears before the final party, where I account well for myself, talking with the former wife, and her husband, Mark, who I quite like; but I exit that party early, to go seek a motel room, closer to where I'll cross the great divide.

Last Minute

Revise the plans, but that's fairly common. Supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow and I pick up the rental car late tomorrow. Logistics. I pack what I need, take everything into the museum, do some last minute shopping, go to the library for a couple of books on tape, take everything to the museum. I'll walk down tomorrow, with the computer main-frame, hand it over to James; pick up the rental tomorrow afternoon, park at the bottom of the hill again, walk down early Wednesday, and away. I got some energy drinks and vitamin water, taking a small cooler, some trail mix and fruit. I look forward to getting west of Iowa City, where the farm country is so well maintained, so beautiful in it's contour. And I'll see the ground now, not the top of the corn. I'll watch some old movies on television in motel rooms in strange towns. An adventure. A foray into the outside world. My "Clarel" is a trip through Denver. It's really hitting me now, I'm leaving. I've made what preparations I could, and then I go away. I got a self-feeder for the dog, and Ronnie agreed to come up a couple of times, refill the feeder, shut the door if I'd been robbed. About the best I can do. The clerestory repair is beyond my expectations. I marvel at the timing, my books are safe. My two concerns were the books and the dog. I have this under control, Major Tom. I should probably stop here, on a positive note. But all this other shit intervenes. If' it's it, a consolation, I never saw it coming. Mostly what you get is garbage, interference. Could those really small flowers mean something? I'll go out on a limb and say maybe. I have to go. I love you nonetheless.

Tom

Got home safely, a satchel of field notes, not a single scratch. Stopped at the museum and got my mainframe, stopped at Kroger and got something to eat (an avocado, a small steak), beat it to the ridge. The above paragraph was saved as Mail Waiting To Be Sent, so I thought I'd include it, as a starting point, I don't remember writing it. Must have written it just before shutting down. Don't remember shutting down and disconnecting. That last day of work, the 11th, James said my computer was a dinosaur. I had pre-loaded the rental and it was waiting at the bottom of the hill, got up, made 16 ounces of serious coffee, strolled down with the dog, and drove to Des Moines. Wanted to stop in Iowa City and visit Stephanie, but I was on a roll. This trip was about my girls, not about me, and our memories of it will certainly be different. I needed a tree-tip pit, a retreat, so I rented a motel room for a week, Samara and her roommates had contracted bedbugs, and I didn't want those, needed a place to go. The weather is an issue, golf-ball hail, a tornado touching down, I choose a Motel 6 in the middle of nowhere. Bring whatever to bear. What I remember is only a shadow, but if you read that closely, you realize we're on the same page..

Tom

I have unpacked issues,
they amount to nothing,
just what I thought.

Walk About

Bear came over, with his tool-kit. I was the ground man, cutting all the various pieces, and he did the roof work; half a day and the house is sealed solid again, better than ever, really. We enjoy the job, and do it well. I haven't worked with him for years, but we fall right back into comfortable patterns. We share a great ability to visualize what needs to be done. If you can see it, in your mind's eye, you can figure a way to do it, and this is a job well done: no more leaks, my books are safe. We finish, and clean up the site, I get a drink. He's been drinking away all day at a pre-mixed half-gallon of cranberry juice, orange juice and vodka. I marvel that he keeps his balance. We talk about the theory of stairs. I swear he is a mountain goat. Such a relief to me, to have effected this repair, on the brink of my trip. He hems and haws and finally asks for $100, for a Sunday, on short notice, and I had figured exactly that; he really felt he was gouging me, but I allayed those fears right away. We talk morels and he mentions a spot north of the graveyard that I'd not known about. After he leaves I go over and get a couple of beauties, the largest mushrooms I've harvested this year. 'Yellow' morels, but it's just a color phase, they're all gray. Fry a couple of pieces of bread in butter, saute the mushrooms, a piece of meat is optional, a salad. In a reflective moment I think this is the life, this is where I want to be: morels and thee, in the wilderness. The crows remind me that I'm not special. Checks and balances. Nothing furthers, everything gains. Harvey was right, we should at least consider killing ourself.

Check List

Out of the blue, no thunder storms, nothing but a bit of wind, I lose power and half a page. Pisses me off, because James had explained that if I worked in a file, whatever the fuck that means, I wouldn't lose anything, because it could be set to save every line, every word, and I had agreed that when I got back from this trip I'd start doing that. Lost in the ether. I took my hand power tools into the museum, packed up another 500 pages of text. I have to disconnect my computer after I write on the 10th, take it into James so he can de-frag and erase the biscuits, and I won't be back until the 26th, the longest I will ever have been away. Decide to go west through Iowa and Nebraska, because I like the terrain; and I'd like to see it newly planted, corn, soybeans, and sunflowers; and I won't hit a major urban area between Des Moines and Denver. A plan subject to change. Talk with Sara briefly, and she likes the idea of barbecued ribs on the roof, when Glenn and Linda are here. Tomorrow I must upgrade the sauce with some bean juice and several marinades. I don't do that much, really, negotiate communication, some mopping, cook a few meals, it looks like more than it is. This job, for me, now, is perfect. A kind of spooning with the real world. I'm good as a mediator, I always see both sides of anything. Dumpster diving, I realize how vulnerable we are. What we throw away. Another event at the museum last night, so I went in today, to clean up, put away tables and move the chairs upstairs for another event tonight. No way that I can get everything restored on Tuesday, before I leave, but I haven't taken a day off since the last ice-storm and they'll have to limp along without me. Big winds today and that storm last weekend have ripped the tar-paper from the exterior of my clerestory; stopped by K's house and he'll effect the repair if I have everything here tomorrow at 11. Call D and he has the stuff I'm missing, agrees to meet me halfway. Can make the repair before I leave, which is critical, because, inside, under the clerestory, is 12 feet of double-sided bookcases, and if there was a leak, they would be damaged. His truck, and his father's truck, were in the driveway, and I could hear the television, knocked loudly at the door, Bear yelled "come in." The two of them were watching a movie, an Australian Western, and protocol, if it's near the end of the movie, you don't interrupt. I'm asking for help here, doing something I don't want to do, and Bear (K) can do it as a matter of course, and D has everything I need. It's who you know. My stash of materials pales beyond a phone call I might make. A tank might be difficult, but for a couple of million, I could get you a nuclear bomb. And I'm not even in the business. How easy it is, to extrapolate. Annie Dillard said there is no guarantied thread of connection. It might, in fact, mean nothing. What you thought you saw. I go round and around.

Propinquity

Hard to use that word without sounding like a silly ass, 'nearness in time or space', but it is used in terms of kinship; another is conspicuity, 'the state of being conspicuous'. Levi-Strauss uses both of them on one page and they actually sound fine. No one to feed the dog and I'll just have to leave her to her own devices. Maybe she can find another sucker. The driveway took quite a beating in last week's storm and I'm doing nothing to effect repair until I get back from Colorado, it's a decent deterrent to wholesale robbery. A fortune in first edition poetry, but no one is likely to steal that. Difficult to think about not writing, it's become such a fundamental part of who I am. Not so much for staying sane (though it's a help there) as for considering the disparate threads, as they warp into the string of direction. Living alone, there's time for endless reflection. I remember gesture and nuance of phrasing more than the words themselves, in the field, rarely in a hurry, I remember tactile things and subtle scents. Later, any given day, after supping on something, getting a drink and rolling a smoke, I look at the blank screen for a few minutes, and remember the salient elements of a day. My concerns. Not trying so much to make sense, as to understand for myself at least a small fraction of what happened. Today, for example: I could write a very slow dreary novel about today. Pegi was almost stressed-out and Tammy was concerned about Pegi, James had to make a bunch of corrections on the web-site, typos, at this point I asked that they always run the copy through me. I'm a really good proof-reader. Comes from beinp a dyslexic poet. This is interesting, right? what I'm packing. If the guy did post-doc in extreme northern Japan, he had to be committed. I knew him AND his friends. A taudry bunch. I avoided them, as much as possible, I hate having my fingertips smell bad, and their breathe was death warmed over.

Some Problems

Pegi wants to show the Cirque movie to a group of kids, but she hid her copy and can't find it, She calls the film's maker, but Liza can't find a copy either. It exists in an on-line archive, but it's HD and we need a lot of horse-power to access; can't make a copy, so has to be a live feed. James and I try every combination of projectors and computers, finally, on the last try, using a separate mono sound system, our best projector, and the main-frame from the photographic archives, we get it to work. Most of the day gone, but success, and I get the glasses finished for the fund-raiser. I had to go over to the University and beg a decent projection screen, because their was just one place in the museum where we had the proper inter-net connection and our small screen was too small and we couldn't get the large screen up the stairs. Logistics. Get home, finally, and pour a stiff drink, the phone rings, Pegi, from the museum, and the back door lock is broken. This is the door that we use, the staff, and I know from what she says, that the tumblers have failed and the problem will require a locksmith. Thank god for doors that open out, I immediately think of the wedge-and-jamb principal, tell Pegi to go to a certain place in the basement storeroom where I stash lumber and find a slightly bowed 2x4, 8 feet long, and to slide it under the pushbar and across both sides of the jamb, set the alarm, and go out the front door. I've always felt it was those years in theater that so well prepared me for a world in which things go wrong. Do a thousand performances and you're pretty well up to speed on the myriad ways things can fuck up. No two shows are exactly the same, you really need to stay flexible. Booked my rental car for the trip, it was comical. I'm in their computer as a Southern Ohio Museum person, and they want us to use us more, so I use that to cut a good deal. I never actually have to say that this isn't museum business. I get a discount, I get an upgrade, and I get some extra miles, which I'll need. $697 for a Malibu with cruise control, AC and a CD player, and their insurance. I'll listen to some Bach, I've started a pile, 3 versions of the Cello Suites. I've done this trip a dozen times: from western Iowa to the Rockies, the Cello Suites are perfect. Personally, I like some Cowboy Junkies, maybe threading my way through Bloomington. And I've set aside several bootleg recordings, The Dead in Colorado and Greg Brown at a small club in Iowa City. I think I'm kind of ok. I don't want to leave but I need to go away, do some things, be a particular person. Samara's father, Rhea's father, which I am, of course, but living close to the edge, I'm aware of some things and not aware of others. I think this will be a difficult trip. I've called in some help. I can handle the writing of things, but you have to read me.

Awakened

Heavy flooding in the lowlands, all the bottoms. Driveway held up quite well, meaning it is passable but not much beyond that. Mackletee creek flooded the road in a couple of places, I can see the mud and debris. The 1/4 mile dirt track is completely underwater (even the high banked curves), town is fine. Museum basement took just a little water, which is actually a sign of success for the roof and drain repairs. I get out 124 wine glasses and 24 champagne flutes for the wine-tasting fund-raiser, measure to the top of the 3 ounce line, 3.75% of a cup (a third-cup measure and two teaspoons, almost perfect) then cut a story stick exactly that long, measured from the counter top. Bev, at the front desk, will adhere little strips of label stock at that level, and all the pours will be exactly the same. The wine guy is a tad rigid. Mopped the floor in the main gallery, because the new assistant janitor can't be trusted with a mop. Somehow she seems to have an almost negative effect when she 'mops' and it drives me crazy. And it seems irreligious to teach someone to mop if they really don't have a serious interest, and in just a few days, when I studied mopping for four years. Besides, as I've said, though I'll repeat myself because I love the name, I mop a double-chevron, and it's not really a stroke that can be mastered by a person that's only five feet tall and weighs less than a hundred pounds. The gallery is about 1800 sq. ft. with the back hall, also tiled, call it 2000 ft. It's a big space to mop: it and the driveway keep me in shape. The museum ladies want me to ask Cindy to bar-tend at the 'Cream Of The Crop' opening and that's just the excuse I need to drive home all the way up the creek, instead of coming in the back way, which is shorter. Cindy agrees and I see Ronnie hoeing either broccoli or cabbage in a truck-patch down the way, stop and talk with him for a few minutes, then head home, up the creek, a winding road that has you driving out your side windows. It is glorious, a beautiful day, berries in bloom, and some large trees covered in lavender blossoms. The road took a beating over the weekend, clearly it flooded in three major and several minor places. We're talking a lot of water moving quickly. They build chamber into these creek-side roads, but the water cuts the off-creek side, looking for exit, and scours a trench, the edge of the road disappears. In many places I'm looking at the original fill that is the bed of this road. Creek-run, we call it here, the rocks and mud you scoop from a creek bed. In this case, it was very handy, they built a terrace using the creek itself, put the road on top of that, and it's fine, it only floods a couple of times a year and then only for a few hours. I always carry a book. Doesn't matter if I get stopped. I'd probably be reading anyway. If you tallied up the hours. When you live alone, you read all the time; if you're me, which even I'm not, you read all the time, reading is that whole other universe. Oh, right, I can go there, what I imagine you hear. Consider attachment. I have dead appliances, from a lightning hit; I need to haul away bodies. How, exactly, do I do that?.

Words, Animals

Someplace Davenport says words are animals. I thought about that while I sling-bladed weeds. Lovely day, drifting clouds. Some house cleaning, some time outside. The high ground. Radio reports of flooding and closed roads. The dog is a bother when I'm trying to work outside. I don't want to interact with her. Just when I go to smell a blossom she tramples down the plant. She'd be a good dog for a horse with room to run. Read several essays about George Marsh. Interesting. 16 years older than Thoreau, must get his "Man and Nature". A love of nature, but with a macro to micro frame as opposed to T's the other way around. I carry them both on my shoulders, when I walk in the woods. It was goats that denuded Greece (Marsh) and sheep that eroded the remnants of Rome (ditto). A deep understanding of drainage. When wooden ships got large, wealthy sea-faring nations protected trees and erosion was not so bad; but we are literally washing into the sea, look at Madagascar, Haiti. It's ugly, what we have wrought. But I love the ridge, so many blossoms, a fragrance now beyond the fecund smell of spring, which I love too, after the frozen nothingness of winter. The white cold smell of ice. I cooked the last morels this evening, in a butter sauce I thickened with fried flour. Made a mess of the kitchen, I am not to be trusted with flour or baby powder, but I left a note, on the fridge, telling the janitor I enjoyed the plums. I say the last morels, because the ticks are out, my days in the woods are numbered. Looked closely at blackberry canes today, because, in the clearings, where trees have fallen and there is light, they are magnificent in their bloom. I carry a piece of leather on these walks, thick but softened from rubbing, maybe 4 inches by 2, that I use to grip things that are thorny. I fold it, like a note you passed in class, around things that otherwise would be painful. Harmonics. Sense is a relative thing. A weird tuning. Visually probably a color-field, one of those paintings you didn't get until you backed off and let your mind drift. Meaning is a mind-set. Sometimes you get it, and sometimes you don't. The world around me, I can barely stand it.

Notional Entity

Out before the rain this morning, but that got me to town early, and that allowed a trip below the flood wall, it's always a treat to rummage through debris the river has carried down. To wit: a second Barbie Ball, and a small load of firewood. D and I get our Saturday breakfast wraps at Market Street. These are as big as your forearm and serve for two meals. While he does corrections for the flyer I go do a load of laundry, help a hapless mother fold some sheets. Her two kids were out of control, and I felt sorry she hadn't corrected their behavior earlier in their lives. They were bad kids, and I'm seeing more of this, very young people out of line. Bad form. I finally had to hold the little boy by the shoulder and tell him it wasn't ok for him to punch me in the thigh. Maybe it's because I'm just a farm boy, and I've never been so bored by life, that I turned to a life of sheer meanness as a way to pass the time. Sara calls, I answer the phone, so we chat before I hand the phone over to D. I love talking with Sara, an affinity, we're always on the same page. The wind is up, heavy squalls moving through, I may have to duck. Up tails all. They're forecasting maybe two inches of rain an hour, flash flooding. Thank god I live atop a ridge. At least I won't be washed away. The wind picks up, blowing a gale, I have to go. All I could carry tonight, is a storm stay-sail, just enough canvas to carry the wind. To give me way. Try to write but the storms are too intense and I have to shut down. Then, today, the same, line after line of thunderstorms, lightning, heavy rain. Intense weather. I've not known rain this severe since my bottom acres flooded in Missip and I had to rescue drowning pigs. Supposed to rain all night, and there will be flooding tomorrow, but my truck is at the bottom of the hill and I don't have to go out. I'll be able to get out fine on Tuesday, because the drainage here is so fast. This is not like southern Illinois where the slope might be a couple of feet per mile, these hollows are sluices that drain at frightening rates; mobile homes are carried away, tractors and trucks become rocks. I'm saving text quite often, bound to lose power, it's raining sheets, the only thing I can hear is rain, thunder and lightning all around. A dangerous cold weather event, you have time to do things, they happen slow, you get the candles and oil-lamps out, you make a pot of soup, layer up, get out some blankets; but this intense rain and lightning event is fast, it sweeps across, leaving you shocked. One lightning strike, and enormous clap of thunder, this morning, was right on top of me, the house shook and the windows banged in their casings. The power was out, I was on the sofa, stretched out, reading escapist fiction, and the blast nearly knocked me to the floor. I love it. The raw power of a natural event at this scale. My boat, this house, is way over-built, I could float downstream if I needed to, they could pluck me from the Mississippi with a couple of straps and one of those big helicopters. I wouldn't answer their questions. As a janitor, I can do that, deny any knowledge of anything. You led. I merely followed. The Twinkie Defense. Writing is one thing, reading, another. So much rain, I'm sure the world is flooded. I've given up on the idea of being correct, I just want to keep my head above water. No choice, another line of squalls, I have to shut down, tell Laura I loved her.

Dog Fight

Not something you get used to. Snarling jumble of dogs at two in the morning. Little Sister runs them off but she gets cut up pretty badly. I go out with a flashlight and the jug of sodium chloride, flush her wounds. Not an easy chore, I have to hold her down with a foot on her neck and catch the back two feet with the other foot; the headlamp Howard sent is a godsend, flushing the wounds and blotting with an old tee-shirt requires both hands. She's ok, she needs some stitches, but I stop the bleeding and don't feel like getting bit, which stitching her would entail. Fuck a bunch of punctures. Faulkner and the natural world. Dog eat dog. Bean soup in the crock pot has the house smelling wonderful. Finally get back to sleep after four, up at six. Beautiful sunrise with birdsong. Meet D at the museum, go for coffee and a scone; back at work I leave him alone, as he has a major flyer to design, a double fold with much text. At lunch he allows that he should get a copy off to Sara by the end of the day, final corrections tomorrow. Ship the Carter watercolor out. Mid-afternoon we get the master calendar off the wall and study the upcoming schedule. I'll be gone for two weeks plus a day, May 12th through the 27th. Visually Literate closes while I'm gone, so the upstairs will be empty, D will have a chance to patch and repair. The big show downstairs closes the 29th, 62 pieces in 14 crates that James and I will have three days to pack. Ships out Friday, June 4th, the next show, a monster, in all three galleries, starts arriving on the 4th, all entries in by the 12th, judging on the 13th, opens, with huge reception, on the 18th. We'll have four days to install a show in three galleries. Ace in the hole is that D will be done with school for the year, so this is possible, but barely. The bean soup is so good I have to stop and eat a bowl, with buttered saltines. The crock pot, I have to admit, despite being a Luddite, is a superior vessel for cooking soups. Everything is retained, you have to be careful not to use to much liquid, but in my case that's not a problem; I need to boil the 'sauce', and put it to bed under some fat, sauce confit, for my time away, because I'll surely need it when I get back, for ribs and London Broil. I could write a book about the sauce, from maybe the sauce's point of view. This latest batch is at least 8 years old, with a complexity of flavors that defies description. I'd sound like some asshole wine guy, talking about metallic fruitiness. Right now she (I think of the sauce as feminine, but I don't want to come across as sexist) is moderately hot, deep into peppers and Asian spices, with a broad base of dark beer, red wine, and mixed fruits. This week, before I leave, I'll boil it with some bean juice and marinades. Everyone should have a sauce. I've offered starter kits before, but no one has ever taken me up on it. Probably do ribs when Glenn and Linda are here, they both like them quite a lot, with a horseradish slaw and potatoes of some sort. Maybe we can do them on the roof of Sara and Clay's building, ask a few people over. I hope to get lodging for G and L there, with running water and everything, maybe take a shower myself. I could feed 10 or 12 people, if I had the right grill, and someone else paid for it. I can barely afford me and the dog, though several people have mentioned that the dog eats better than them. Jesus, I think, I feed the dog on pennies a day, a squirrel, out-dated chicken broth, and remaindered egg noodles. It was very good, I ate some before I gave it to her. No reason dog food can't taste good. Though that's probably an applied aspect, something over-laid. I'm cooking anyway, I might as well cook the dog something. She, at least, dances with joy. The mouse I was trying to remember earlier. Time, the universe, it's all too much, really. We're on the edge of something, but we don't know what it is. I can say something to you and you seem to understand, we've been down this row so many times. By 'this' I mean the natural world. Nothing matters, but everything relates. The nature of the beast. Saussure imagined a system beyond his analytic method, invented the term 'semiology' (the science of signs) to describe a field of study. Nothing furthers, everything gains. Mass times velocity, or some such algorithm. Momentum. I (the writer) only exist, insofar as I am read. Which puts the burden on you. I only exist as an interpretation, ephemeral as fog. Now you see me, now you don't. I stake no claim, what did Emily say, I'm nobody. Words to that effect. And it's true. I only exist as an artifact of what you read. The dog may not be real, I never ate a morel, there isn't really even a museum. I live in NYC and made all this up as an exercise. Fooled you. Fooled myself, for that matter. I really wanted a dog.

Tom

Three crows
working a road-kill,
I can't even tell
what it was.