Hot Day

Very uncomfortable, the air too hot to breathe, five minutes outside and your clothes are wringing wet. I don't mind, too much, stop at the pub for a pint, to kill an hour before going home, the closed up house will be torrid. Yes, I didn't send that page "Later, Cooler", and tracking it down, I have a hard copy. A filing system that is nothing if not surprising. Instead of copying and pasting and resending, I think I'll edit the piece and rewrite some sentences. Rereading, I'm not as clear as I want to be; thank god I don't reread often, or I'd never write a line, and decide I can 'improve' maybe the transition from one thing to another. The bottom line is I probably can't. The Mamet moment is just a pause between two words. Considering the space. Letters have meaning too, and was that a comma? Fucking punctuation flash cards, what you thought, the thin line between fact and fiction, annoying failures, mechanical break-downs. Life as we live it. Got a brake job done on the truck today, saving my ass and the truck from a careening trip down the driveway that could have only ended badly. Alerted by a certain screeching sound caused by a piece of metal that rubs against the brake drum when the pads are nearly gone. The piece is called, at least locally, a 'squealer tab', which is a cool phrase, and could well have been the name of the dose of a particular mind-altering drug in the seventies. "Hey man, I've got some squealer tabs, let's take a couple and go walk on the beach." I didn't get the memo on spring cleaning and my house is a sty. I almost embarrass myself, living this way, but not quite. Doing everything in my power to enable myself to live like I do. Mollify the critics by appearing useful. I started writing this page yesterday, today is my birthday, I'm 64, but Ringo just turned 70, John and George are dead. We could do a litany of the dead, but that seems counter-productive, when we're still living. Someone else can keep track. Here's what I meant to SEND on the 6th but probably started on the 5th. Saving a page is hell.

Late, Cooler

Something woke the dog. Nothing this way comes, but it's cooler, a little night time breeze, the sweet scent of summer flowers. Deep thick darkness, like black paint spread over everything with a palette knife. No moon, no stars, no sense of depth perception except for a distant whip-poor-will that sounds lonely tonight. Always sounds lonely, a needy bird, but tonight draws the heart-strings. Haunting. There was a guy at Janitor College, Svet Limric (this is why I did this, created work for myself, I had forgotten Svet). We ragged him with tales of Nantucket, unfairly, really, because he was a nice person, large and dumb, always had a sucker in his mouth, and sweet things to say, in halting English. We roomed together on several field-trips, and I had gotten to know him pretty well. I make no claim, but I knew him fairly well. His parents had both died defending a brothel in Norway that commanded a bit of useless high ground that a commander decided needed to be taken. I can understand almost everything, after the fact. In the moment I'm confused, but I listen well, and seldom interrupt. He always talked about them in the future pluperfect, as though they might have been. We were in NYC once, mopping at the Met, he had a technique I can only describe as sloppy and I covered up for him as well as I could. I hadn't won any awards yet, that all happened later, but it was clear I was someone you should keep your eye on. He was happy to room with me and I enjoyed his stories. We were that odd pair you see occasionally going into an Italian restaurant: a tall skinny guy, a short fat guy, and you immediately assume Mafia. Deals are being made. I still feel I should have caught his arm, when he took a step back to see if there were any voids in his dismal mopping pattern, to look for light reflection, and slipped, took a header down the stairs. The floors were tile, and I'm sure he was dead before the first landing. Finally got back to sleep but then slept too long and was late to work. In reorganizing the vault, finally freed up the four boxes of pieces that comprise a single ceramic piece by a local artist, now dead, that we need to document. We're going to install it, more or less permanently, in the board room, covered with a plexiglas bonnet (vitrine) and finally see what the damned thing looks like. This is what makes being a preparator such a kick in the ass. Take a bunch of breakable pieces out of a bunch of boxes and put them together, with no instructions other than a couple of two-dimensional slides. Excellent. My idea of a good time. I can barely breathe, the air is so hot, my computer doesn't like this heat. Sirocco. A cheap pork tenderloin at Kroger, over-stock from the holiday. Patted it dry, rubbed it with some homemade blackberry preserves I'd run through a sieve to get rid of the seeds, then coated the thing with a highly seasoned rub composed mostly of dangerous dried green chilies. These bastards are so hot, that if you didn't wear gloves, you'd scratch your eye and go blind. But because I slice a tenderloin very thin, the surface-to-mass ratio is acceptable. Like wasabi with sushi. Grilled it carefully, to caramelize but not burn. Did the famous potatoes gratin, which I do with canned sliced potatoes in the microwave and finish with the propane torch. The dog, of course, thought the tenderloin was for her and I had to kick her a few times in the ribs before she got the point. My tenderloin, you're the dog. My favorite current slaw, with a creamy horseradish dressing. The best meal I've had in a long time. A strange scene, actually, if there was any record other than my memory. I ate at the island, as I always do, alone, considering an algorithm that would somehow relate the surface area, the caramelized rub, with the bite you were actually taking. Had another drink, staring into space, went to bed. Fuck a bunch of nonsense. Butterfly day on Mackletree. I don't know which ones they are, I don't know much about butterflies. But every year there is a day that butterflies actually clog my radiator. Medium sized black ones. MSBO's. They congregate in large flocks on the road, and flush like quail, I hate killing them, but there you are; I don't know why they gather there, the warmth of asphalt maybe. Their shadows fall in dappled light.