In the Dark

Wrung from sleep by the baying of hounds. I hate them, as a matter of course, because I haven't been sleeping well. Bad dreams and wild dogs. They've treed a coon over by the graveyard, and they're so goddamn insistent. I'm within a gnat's ass of suiting-up, grabbing the shotgun, and settling scores. I don't, because it would be too much trouble, and the ticks are already bad. I get two or three off my ankles every day. Seed Ticks, we call them; very small and aggressive. I scrape them off with the tip of my knife, crush them, with the tip turned flat, and wipe the site with alcohol. Usually, when the dogs show up, I throw some rocks, bare-foot on the back stoop. I might go get a dram of that creosote whiskey, to celebrate my victory (history, of course, might see this differently), and roll a smoke. I think I'm probably full of shit, whatever I might say, at least I can still admit it. Well shed of extraneous crap. Cut to the chase. New bosses mean a different set of choices. Do they want to center at 57 inches? We can negotiate. Perfectly willing to cut some slack. Reading is just as hard as writing. Wait, no, writing is harder. Dialog at the museum, about the coming changes. Just before lunch Kate brought an art history class over from the University, she wants me to talk with, then read for a group of Chinese students next month. They're all from a Teacher's College in southern China, and all are going to be teaching English. They're actually going to pay me for this, they should have asked, I would have done it for nothing. Docent a group of Chinese students through the art of being a hermit. I hope this is what Asa meant by me using my time more effectively, because I'll be doing it on company time. And getting paid, did I mention that? Kim on Monday, with his new Ferrari hat, the 2013 race car, a perfect 3' replica, that he wears at the race (F1, Montreal) as if he were a normal person. I'd like to display these car-model/hats, if the new directors saw fit. Sara surprised me when she said Thirteen Nudes And a Catfish was a great title for the Carter show of drawings. And we talked about a still-life show, you should remember. Rachel. Read more...

Step Forward

Big shuffle coming at the museum. As if they had read my mind. A board meeting today that went on for hours and when it finally ended, I was sitting on one of the new benches rolling a smoke to take out back, and the Chairman of the Board (Asa, 6 feet ten, built like a pro basketball player) stopped and pointed his finger at me, said he needed to talk with me. In the light of things, I didn't think they could afford to fire me, but that was my first thought. Museums across the country are letting people go. Quite the contrary, the board considers me an absolutely necessary asset, and thinks that I should spend more of my time on the artistic side of things, compiling the Carter material, for instance, and less time being a janitor. I can do that. They're bringing in a new Artistic Director and a new Director, both of them curators, both of them double MFA, Art History, Museum Management, a husband and wife team. I know them fairly well. Their energy is appalling. The thing about working with new people is that you have to establish boundaries. Any field of judgement is mostly ripped turf. I can't begin to explain that. I'm mostly black, but I appear white. Just a gray apparition. I do provide a certain continuity, in terms of installing shows, the docent of choice, which I attribute completely to looking closely at specific things. Sara was asking me about elements of the print show in the main gallery, and I walked her over to the Jasper Johns print. I love it. I could go on for thirty minutes. A print need not be merely a copy. And the board let Trish go. I couldn't believe it, bam, she was gone. Thought about the changes last night, for hours. I think it's best for the museum, and best for Pegi, who will be able to spend more time with the Cirque program. We needed curators, we get two, and they're both very good. An impromptu cocktail party Friday afternoon, so we can all get to know each other. The board acted wisely. Took advantage of an awkward situation. The health of the museum feels better now. A big deal in more ways than one: Sara is relinquishing control. You don't hire people like Mark and Charlotte and expect to tell them what to do, so there will be changes. I'm cool with that, I can ride the changes: in certain circles I'm viewed as an expert. Weird, actually, when you think about it, that you'd be ask to prove yourself. Maybe all it was was a flash of thigh, a simple triangulation, but it seemed I was learning something. I'm really a slow learner. It's usually days later that I realize what I should have said. Read more...

Black Dell

I thought she was dead, because I couldn't Send, but actually my phone was out, and I had formatted something wrong (a period for a comma) in the Send To section of one post, so I think things got out of order. But everything is working fine now. Rain this morning, and I collected enough water to bathe and shave. After the rain, before the ablutions, I went out and found enough morels, in the patch nearest the house, where I don't have to get in deep litter, for a meal. I have some good country bread and some very fresh eggs, so I opt for eggs on toast, with morels in a butter gravy on top. Any morel meal, now, could be the last morel meal of the year. I make a butter gravy by spooning out the mushrooms, adding some dry white wine to deglaze, spooning in another walnut of butter, softened, infused with chives (or whatever) and several squeezes of black pepper. Sometimes I add cream to this, sometimes I don't. I spoon it back on top and run it under the broiler. It's a hit. I don't want to bore you with how good it is, but I actually squeal. Damn, the thought goes, it can't possibly be this good. Simple pleasures. Wasn't that the working title for Gravity's Rainbow? We're due for a Pynchon. Black Bart and his crew, or something. I'm on the verge of being depressed by D leaving. It really is the changing of the guard. Travels and travails. The ghost of Robert Johnson. Crossroads are common, especially in the back-country. Changes. Am I born to die? What will become of me? To lay this body down. Bella Fleck and the three-finger claw hammer. I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I'm free. I'm sorry, what were we talking about? Read more...

Last Day

D and I pushed hard for one last day and finished the back hallway. It looks spectacular. Also got the AC unit installed in the elevator 'penthouse' which was a little more difficult than we had foreseen as we had to break a window then clean up the mess before we could proceed. Barb, at the pub, insisted on giving us free lunch, and spotted us a free drink. D had been gathering his stuff together all week, and hauled the final car-load away today. They love him already at OU, bought 16 new Macs for his computer lab, a new laptop for his office, new enlargers for the dark-room, and put the maintenance staff at his disposal. I don't suppose he'll be mopping anymore. It's too bad, when we lose one of our own, but I'm happy for him. Melancholy drive home, knowing how changed the work place is going to be. Pegi and Trish seem oblivious to it. They finally asked him, at 3:30 in the afternoon, how he did the mass market emails; and he, bless his heart, told them he didn't have time to explain, and steered them to the tutorial. I think they need their heads examined. D was the major asset at the museum, and now he's gone. The IT guy, a curator, the facilities manager, the graphic design department, gone, in the blink of an eye. And they're going to replace him with whom? A couple of college students they can pay minimum wage? Is that the fucking plan? So simplistic it's laughable. Nobody cares about the art. Last thing, last day, D unloads pages of data and folders on me. I don't even look at it. Five in the afternoon on a Friday at the end of a week when I have busted my ass and been on my feet non-stop. I stopped for some potato logs at the convenience store that used to be called Bodie's. A potato log is a quarter of an Idaho spud, breaded and deep-fried. These are not good for you, but I only eat them once a month or so. I keep a bottle of hot sauce, in the door pocket of the Jeep, a hand crafted hot sauce that will get your attention, a few small paper plates, and a couple of napkins I take home from the pub. Good napkins are hard to find. Before I leave the parking lot of the Quick Stop I mix several pouches of ketchup with hot sauce on the corner of a plate and open the box of logs on a double fold of newspaper to contain the grease. This can't be any worse than talking on the phone or texting while driving. I drive slowly, back roads, there is no traffic. Stopped at the lake, to finish my make-shift meal and throw my trash in the dumpster. Actually recognize a couple of geese from last year. They return. They like it here. The living is easy. Frost warning after it being ninety degrees on Monday; on alternate days I start a fire or run the AC for Black Dell. Pretty sure I turned off the coffee pot at work. Vinegar works well to clean the pot when someone else forgets to turn it off. Life without D at the museum is going to be a very different thing. We can glide, I think, for about a year, then the shit hits the fan. Someone has to curate shows. If I were on the board, I'd be concerned. No ripples though, yet, I think they think everything is fine, though clearly that's not the case. Read more...

Reading Fiction

I didn't want to think about anything, so I read the new Thomas Perry novel "The Boyfriend", trimmed my toenails, and soaked my feet in hot salt water. Read some off-prints, book reviews, listened to a couple of shows I enjoy on NPR. Dad called, and he sounded perky enough, but Mom couldn't get on the phone. Fiction has always provided great escape for me, gets me out of myself, reading Annie Proulx, or Pynchon, or McCarthy (the list goes on forever) I enter those worlds and leave my problems behind. I've done this since I was ten or twelve. Retreat into books. A reflex that's kept me alive. Knowing when to retreat. After the last week, I needed a couple of days off, I didn't want to think about the museum, or the way non-profit bureaucracies actually operate. I wanted thick socks, a place on the sofa, and maybe a Bloody Mary with a celery stick. Read more...

Saturday Chores

Library, laundry, and liquor. Incidental foodstuff. I go the library first, so I'll have a book to read; mostly, though, I watch the people at the laundromat, listen to their lines of talk. A terrible mother today, with a boy-child between two and three years old, and she yelled at him constantly, finally strapped him into a stroller, so he wouldn't be running over to look out the door, at the world outside. I helped a young Mexican mom fold her sheets. She was shocked that I knew what I was doing. I told her I lived alone and had to deal with my own sheets; that it was an awkward task for one person but simple for two. Julie was at the desk, TR was staff at the museum, and I stopped in for a chat, discussing the post-D future. Went over to the pub to have a beer and watch soccer for a while. I'd much rather watch soccer than football. I realize I don't have an agenda. The last three weeks I've just helped D get the things done that he wanted to get done. I need to clean house for a week, then I have to take down the print show, and I have two shows to install next month. One of them is huge, the ODC show, Ohio Designer Craftsman, usually (we do the show every other year) it's at least 50% 3D pieces. It's always a challenge. Tall things in blown glass or carved stone pieces that are very heavy. Cool, I think privately, because when I'm installing a show, no one messes with me. I need some time away, a road trip or something. I'm tired and sore and don't want to communicate with certain people. Best if I just stretch a tarp over a tree-tip pit and hunker down. Eat, sleep, read. Fill your time with whatever you do. I'm almost depressed by this whole D leaving thing, I mean they didn't even buy him a cupcake, much less a gold watch. Unforgivable behavior. But who am I to judge? What moral bridge? Just another ass hole, truth be told, convinced that my way was the right way. We're so arrogant. We should be lined up against a wall and shot. I don't like us, we blew our chance. Still, a few morels, through the litter; those lovely miniature purple iris, maybe the most beautiful flower I've ever seen; and blackberry canes, pregnant with fruit. The natural world seems intact. Brittle, but intact. Maybe you should just go with the flow. Same sex marriage isn't a bad thing, love is where you find it. Read more...

Final Push

Hit the ground running. D had to haul some mattresses quick before it rained (it never did rain) and I hauled trash while he was gone, then, before lunch, we stained (first coat, it will take three) ten sticks of the baseboard milled to our profile. We couldn't afford the cherry, so we had it run in poplar, which stains well. After lunch we scrounged just enough baseboard to wrap the last pilaster; then another wrap of trim, I don't know the name, like a chair rail at eight feet to cover the joint of cherry plywood (the ceiling is stepped in several places but is about nine feet), then shot on the outside corners. We'd stained all of that trim too. An odd bit of trim covering where the cherry plywood met a recessed door jamb going into the theater. Required a complex miter. On this project, I was mostly D's helper. I'm a great helper because I've done it all before and I can anticipate what will be needed next, verify and note measurements, and keep the site clean enough that we can get around where we need to. Tomorrow we have to install a window air conditioner in the elevator 'penthouse', where the now digital controls require temperature stability; and make the three cushions for the new bench. D and I became upholsters when we discovered that the car seat guys wanted $140 bucks apiece, and there going to be six of them. We found we could make them ourselves for about $8 each. We had almost everything we needed. Last day working with D, tomorrow; ten years; fair to say we've both learned some things. B came over for a drink. He allowed that his conversation over here with Glenn, a few weeks ago (I lose track of time) was memorable. I was there, I remember; they both range so broadly, and they're both so goddamn quick in their thinking, that it's a treat to listen to them talk. Tree rain, as the moisture approaches 100%, condensed water drips off the upper roof. Linda, listen, I like Losing Track Of Time as a working title, because that's what happens, in the moment. This morning, for instance, I'd pulled off the road, to look at some wild Teasel plants; what happened is I was caught by a traffic light, and I remembered where the patch was, so I pulled off, to have a look. I consider it my right, to stop in the break-down lane and examine what interests me. I'm out in the middle of one of those mostly triangular pieces of waste land that intersections create (they have a name, but I forget it) when a State Patrol Officer pulls up with his flashers, and I realized I was caught. That I had to explain myself out of a situation. I didn't like the way his hand hovered above his service revolver. I'm not a threat, and I was looking at a goddamn plant for god's sake, not planting a bomb. I feel encroached upon. I don't want to have to explain to an ass-hole with a gun what the uses of a particular plant might be. Historically. Don't I have some rights? Yes, but not really. I'd merely wandered into a field and I was a suspect. We may have gone too far. When you start targeting eccentrics you've probably gone one step too far. What's the difference between a crazy guy and a poet? Read more...

Completely Unplanned

Supposed to be severe thunder storms tonight, but I got home before they started and made it up the hill. The ridge is incredibly dense in leaves now, visibility down to forty or fifty feet; and the leaves are all so tender they undulate and bend in the wind. The young Sumac actually vibrate, something about that configuration of bilateral symmetry rides like a Viking lap-strake longboat on the breeze. Work was uneventful, every time I got started on something I got called off-task. Then, Julia, the board member, and her husband Ralph, arrived with two vehicles stuffed to the gills with art work for the next auction, which is, I think, next month. Ripped off my right thumb-nail, an incident with the vault door, and it hurt like hell. Then, in the late afternoon, everyone was gone, and I was the only staff member around; I retreated to my office and read Carter material until closing time, drove home the long way around. Thick stands of daffodil blades and beautiful blooming iris where houses used to be. Old rogue fruit trees. Morels like abandoned orchards. I stopped at one and found a few. Blowing off the sense of urgency, because I was close enough, then, to make a dash for home, I stopped at the First Ford, because the wild flowers were in such profusion. Noticing things. You have to slow down. Linda calls from St. Paul, and we talk about that, seeing things, talk about bad plays made from Russian novels, and end the conversation laughing about the vagaries of time. I'd score that as a plus. Talking with Linda or Glenn is always a treat, in that we cut to the heart of whatever the issue. I love the fact that Linda said she'd kill me in my sleep if I ever repeated something she'd said to me in private. It is a zen state, mediating between the inside and the outside. I have a map, "Land Forms And Drainage Of The United States" that seems to say it all. But I notice omissions, what about the blackberries? Read more...

Late Call

I was asleep, on the floor downstairs, when the phone rang. 2:46 in the morning, you don't expect good news at that hour, and I almost didn't answer, but they were persistent, and the ringing was driving me crazy. Let this be a lesson, sometimes it's best not answer. A friend, no, too strong a word, it was an acquaintance, a friend of a friend I built a house for in Mississippi, decades ago. He's on the verge of suicide, his bride has left him, the dog died, and the truck won't start. I tell him to stay on the line, while I go get a drink and roll a smoke, then listen to his plaintive whine. I don't have the patience to be a therapist. Either you roust the where-with-all to lay another course, adding bricks to the hod, or you don't. Always seemed like a simple equation to me. In this situation, there's always a cascading event and that's the thing you want to talk about. I have to poke around, then realize she left last night, and this is the first time in years that he's been alone. I point that out, then talk about being alone. I can tell he's not really going to kill himself, and I just want to get off the line: "Seven Tigers, nothing unusual, never mind.".But I talk to him for another half-hour, just to be sure he's ok, end the call, hang up the receiver, and walk around in circles, wondering if I had said the correct things. Most of my friends are over-extended. I don't know why that is. The company you keep. The inner circle is a magic place. I don't use the term loosely, magic. I have to look up illusion and delusion and several other words, then it's very late, and I have to sleep. Lovely ride into work, a thousand shades of green. I go into janitor mode at the musdeum, while D does some graphic design. Lunch with D and TR, then, in the afternoon, we walk through all three floors and on the roof, TR keeping notes, while D explains the esoteric mysteries of the building. We spend an hour on light bulbs, which goes where, and all the other operating systems, AC, heat, breaker panels (of which there are a dozen), the phone system, the security system, the new sound system. We spend hours discussing things, and D's leaving a complete set of contacts, for when systems fail, as they are inclined to do. He volunteered to take the print show back to Athens, since it was his show and he knew the people. And I readily agreed. I don't want to take the show back, I'm busy, always, right then, patching and painting and unwrapping a new show. Despite the fact that Athens is cool and there's a good Indian restaurant with a lunch buffet. I'll be on the road, next year, though, no doubt about it, art to pick up and art to deliver, and I can do that, but I can't do all the things D has done for a decade at the museum, and I won't even try. I can only believe, at this point, that Pegi intends to plug the holes with Cirque people. Which might work in the short term, but in the long term the museum is toast. Finally got a dozen eggs from TR, like pulling eye teeth, and had two of them, perked up, basted with vermouth, on multi-grain toast, with morels fried in butter, tonight. So good they defy description. I used the dry toast points to establish a base line. Read more...

Hardly There

I never would have imagined. I'll let most of those lines go slack. I'm sharper than you think. The very fact that you recognized something. I'd seen the moves ahead. Just a bad dream, then a young war out at the compost pile. Three beagles and a black dog have treed a coon in the oak near the woodshed. A working definition of chaos. I restore some order with my slingshot and some cat's eye marbles. One of the beagles has a fine voice, but feral dogs count as wild, and I treat all wild animals as if they had rabies; so I run them off, with a couple of well-placed marbles and a growl of my own. Barking punctuated with that high-pitched yelp; like drainage, the soundscape is difficult to control. When I come back inside, I'm fully awake, so I get a splash of the Ardbeg single-malt, what did Luca Turin say about some failed perfume, that it smelled like a ripe mango smashed on fresh asphalt? It was like that. But if you take very small sips, a richness unfolds, under the creosote. My hands were damp with sweat, so I couldn't roll a cigaret until I washed my arms and hands and face with cool rain-water, dried myself completely, turned on the AC to drown out the fucking Whip-O-Wills. Then the radio, where I tapped into some very strange music, a sustained electronic chord augmented with other sounds. It went on for a long time, then some Miles from Kind Of Blue, then a Bill Evans piece. Songs without words. Sitting there, shimmering at me. Variability. No direct connection. Climate change. Explain the question better. Movement requires change (D leaving). Thought-streams as I sip the whiskey and have a smoke. Finally back to sleep and got up late for me, a breakfast of an egg on toast covered with morels fried in butter. A hike in the morning, then the Monday bath, then reading all afternoon. Mostly about the Phoenicians, but with a couple of major diversions; got out the 11th to read about tin, and shuffled a couple of stacks of printed matter, so that the OED was in front of the pile of manuscripts. Remembered reading that the definition for 'set' was one of the longest and made the mistake of getting my reading glasses and looking it up. Gathering dark, by the time I'd developed a headache from reading such small print, and I needed to eat, so I made a Mac-And-Cheese, with cubed cured ham, topped with bread crumbs and browned in the toaster over. Just one of my sinful escapes .I Iove this stuff. It's supposed to mean something, but it doesn't. I have to go, another line of squalls, the ground is shaking. Read more...

Locally Heavy

"No there there" is a phrase I heard twice on the radio today, used in the sense of 'nothing of substance there', I think. TR, D, and I had a going away party for D at the pub for lunch. The place was fairly crowded for a Saturday, and the two of them were very funny. We were sitting at the bar, and the four people at the table nearest us were entertained enormously. I was a bit distanced, because I know what D leaving means for the museum, and because I'm losing the thumbnail on my right hand (I caught it, literally, between a rock and a hard place), and I was fascinated by the girth of one patron who seemed to be too large for any of the chairs. But I guess that a lot of that mass is malleable and can form it's self to a given chair by squeezing the fat into other areas. To a certain extent, it must be true, because his ass was too big to fit in that seat. If this is true, when they did liposuction, they should seat you in a normal theater seat and take away anything that doesn't fit. Left work early, because of the impending rain, and right now it's raining as hard as I've ever seen it rain. Spring thunderstorms carry so much energy, someone needs to look into that. Storage of energy is always the problem. Another storm moves through but it's to the south and west and doesn't pose a threat. I lean toward a very large flywheel, hundreds of thousands of pounds, that turns an alternator that charges a battery, using the movement of trees as the powering device. I've worked this out. Everyone needs to plant four Lombardy Poplars, they're the best for this, and buy my simple manual. I'm not kidding, but I've not written that book yet, the way the trees were whipping around last night, we're talking millions of units of stored energy, like catching a lightening bolt in your hand. Took out the electricity again. Back on this morning around three. I was sleeping on the sofa, the fridge and kitchen light snapped on and the computer sang out "Please Wait", which is my usual wake-up call after a power failure. Normally I get up and write for a couple of hours but I was up late last night reading by headlamp about Robert Johnson. Slept in this morning, and after a second cup of coffee and a lovely omelet with morels and caramelized shallots, settled back on the sofa to read Ian Rankin's newest book "Standing In Another Man's Grave". Mid-day I take a decent walk along old logging roads and find a few morels but they're getting harder to see as the ground cover becomes more dense. The miniature Iris are beautiful things; and there's another, even smaller flower, blue blossoms, with flat petals, that grows no more than an inch high. We were all, the three amigos, pretty funny yesterday. TR was talking about 'show' birds, pigeons, especially; one breed he likes, because they have little feathered booties and a crest of feathers that curve over the top of their head, like a hat or crown. But then he added that pigeons were the messiest of all birds, and he hated mucking up after them. D and I looked at each other, with a look that said "if you don't want to muck out birdshit, don't raise birds" but neither of us said anything. I'm familiar with bird people, I've known a lot of them, and almost was one myself, but I got to where I couldn't stand the smell of eviscerating birds. One of the Bridwell Compact Milking Barns I built in Mississippi was for a family that raised everything: rabbits, turkeys, chickens, quail, goats, mules, steers, Black Mouth Curs (a dog used for hunting wild pigs, which the family also raised), bees, hogs; and they had several small ponds in which they raised catfish. There were a lot of kids, and they all had their chores; it was cool to watch them, doing their assigned tasks. The way you manage the logistics of getting the chores done is a fascinating subject, I used to be good at it, but I don't pretend anymore. I can still install a show with the best of them, but I expect the art to be delivered, and I don't like driving trucks. Just so we're clear, there is no way I can do what D has done, I'm not allowed to access a keyboard, but if I had, my only recourse was to imagine what was said. You, and your various devices. Read more...

Solid Green

Encased. Walls of green. Ever changing needs. I can't even see a silver Jeep at a hundred feet. Fortunately I have these paths and I know where they go. Close quarters. The blackberry canes are a sea of white blooms. Electricity and phone out last night from a very strong squall that moved through in the afternoon yesterday. Read by headlamp. Asleep to the patter of another line of storms, then awake early this morning, coffee, morels on toast. D and I worked on the back hallway all day and might finish that up, except for baseboard (on special order), tomorrow. My last Saturday to work with D, next Friday is his last day. Funny exchange with Trish yesterday, she was asking me about next Saturday, the 25th, and was D going to work (he's worked most Saturdays, as have I, for the last three years) and I told her, that no, he wasn't, it had been clearly marked on the calendar for several weeks that the 24th was his last day. She was more concerned about who was going to work Saturday than she was about the chaos that will descend when D is gone. People amuse me sometimes. Pegi and Trish yell back and forth between their offices, which are adjacent, thank god, all the time; carry on complete conversations and balance budgets for grant applications in increasing frantic tones. I sometimes have to go outside and sit on one of the benches in the Esplanade. Roy Rogers, imagine that. It's the Roy Rogers Esplanade because he was born in the county. The coattails of fame. The Thai masseuse, was in the pub for lunch today, with some lady friends, in a line with me and the door, and I just really wanted to throw myself on her lap and talk about many things. She's so beautiful. I guess I do draw distinctions. One thing rather than another. I'm being engulfed, right now, in a sea of memories. The springs of the past. Tree-frogs, and now cicadas pull you around to cycles. One thing follows another. I could see the storm front moving in, went up to my office to check The Weather Channel and saw that we were going to get hammered before five o'clock, so I left work an hour early, and raced, like a bat out of hell, to get home, achieve the ridge before the rain. Got caught, just a mile from the driveway, in a downpour of marble sized hail, and thought I'd never make it up to the house, but I shifted into four-wheel low, 1st gear, and made it to the top, sat in the Jeep, in my parking place, a hundred yards from my back door, and read junk mail until the front moved through. I need to make it back to work tomorrow, for a few hours, to rough in the second bench in the back hall, then, I think, I'm hanging up the towel, fuck a bunch of beating my head against the wall. No one knows what sorrow. Read more...

Exactly Correct

Once in a while you hit the nail on the head. It doesn't happen often. Anything perfect is a rare occurrence, but occasionally you're able to read the score. Not unlike a whale, bear with me (the fox, a racoon, and the honey) things come into focus. I wouldn't have thought. Later, of course, when you reflect, you can modify the verbs. Take six morels that are four inches long. I clean them when I harvest, then store them in the fridge on paper towels, covered with paper towels. Slit the six on one side and stuff with a lightly herbed ricotta. A walnut of butter in a 6" cast iron skillet. They wedge in nicely and don't fall over, maybe a splash of vermouth. Maybe a lid for a couple of minutes, depending on how old they are. I serve this with a bitter salad and a hunk of bread. I usually only eat four or five and have one or two for an omelet the next day. Mostly, I eat alone. I have my eyes on a new patch, where, this evening, they were just trying to cast off the leaf-litter. I'd like to wait a couple of days, for them to fill out, but the turkeys are killing me. A two inch morel is better than nothing. Especially twelve or fourteen of them. They push up the leaf litter, which is a mat at this point, and it makes a little conical hat. You can see it more clearly if you get down on your hands and knees. D is not replaceable, doesn't matter what anyone thinks. I can't do half of the things he does as a matter of course, he's the go-to guy when it comes to the facilities. I don't know how Pegi thinks she's going to get the graphic design done, and all the rest of it. How do you deal with people in denial? My first inclination is to line them up against a wall. As Liz pointed out, I do, in fact, have a theory about almost everything. It's just a product of watching. You get a handle on thermodynamics and then you notice the way things interact. Not unlike pool, though I'm seldom the shooter. When they gave out the good jobs I was hunkered in a tree-tip-pit, reading; or writing, one or the other, I forget which. Glenn and I had a great conversation about punctuation. He could quote page and line, and we agreed that it was just another tool. Stacking commas, which I often do, is a way of ordering thought, internal dialog. Well into tomorrow. I took a nap then woke to make a note, one thing led to another and I got just a splash of that creosote single-malt and rolled a smoke. Read back over what I was writing, Change a few things. When I look back up, it's breaking dawn, a deep blue against the silhouette of dark green leaves. Black is seldom just black. Case in point: coming down to go outside and pee. It was very dark and I was moving carefully. I didn't turn on any lights, because I consider them invasive, sat on the top step until my eyes adjusted. Seeing is believing. The blackberry blossoms in the pre-dawn light are luminous. I carry a small LED flashlight Andy gave me, in a holster on my belt and I had just pulled it out to examine a bloom, when I caught movement out the corner of my eye. Fox on the compost heap. Her dugs are hanging down. She's nursing babies. All's right in the world. Read more...

Memphis Blues

One of those trips out west, to see the girls, I ended up spending the night in Nebraska. I'd made the trip so many times, I knew every Rest Stop on three different routes and I'd usually drop down to Kansas, drive through the tall-grass prairie, but Harrison had mentioned the Niobrara so I had gone out the northern route, then cut due south through the Dakotas, and spent the night in Valentine, Nebraska. I had an agenda: get a room, eat dinner, check out the river (a creek, there, actually) and had found a wonderful diner that offered meatloaf and mashed potatoes. A Deputy Sheriff came in and sat on the stool right next to me, wondered (it was so John Wayne) what I was looking for, got a cup of coffee, and after we had talked for a while, he offered to take me on a tour. He called his wife, to say we'd be late, and that they'd have a over-night guest, then drove me to several fords above the ripple. His wife was cool, Rachel, she took everything in stride. We drank late into the night. He loved the blues too. Rachel was fascinated by me being a writer and I sent her some books when I got back to Ohio. They sent me packing, the next day, after a huge breakfast, into North Platte, then along the river into Denver. I stopped at a book-store and bought so many books that they had to be shipped. Crashed early last night, so up early this morning. Beautiful deep blue sky and the green walls of leaves will be complete in a couple of weeks; I made a second double espresso, just sat on the sofa and watched the sun rise. Very productive day at work. I got the wall painted where the heater had been, then helped D frame out packing for the last pilaster that gets covered with cherry plywood. Had to pack it out, so we could shim the surfaces flat. Then cut the plywood for the facing. It's going to look nice, but it was a struggle: none of the three surfaces was plum or square. We created a square box around it. One of the last cabins I thought about building would have been extremely irregular. I wanted to build, in my head, a small place, 16 by 20, sleeping loft; with a warped plate roof, a hyperbolic paraboloid, which I've always wanted to attempt. It would be very cool. Goofy posts and beams, odd materials saying what they wanted to say, which is a direction I've leaned more toward. Impose your will too strongly and you end up with a simulacrum. I was going to add something, but that seemed clear enough. Mr.Cray plays a mean guitar. I'd turned on the radio, must have been Sunday night, to see if Tiger had won. He played it safe on 17, and Sergio blew apart. I really want Tiger to have the trifecta: most wins, most majors, and most alimony. It only seems fair. I'm rereading some early personal essays, Faulkner to his editor, Tom Wolf to Maxwell Perkins. It's well known, my affection for Marjorie. Listen, I still think she's cool. There's a bit of the white sorority sister about her, but she adumbrates the modern. I spent a lot of time at Cross Creek, an ancient barge canal, hand dug, that connects Orange Lake to Lochloosa, and it is a beautiful spot, terra-formed by some Mayan dude into winter digs. The entire Caribbean Basin was a playground for them, and I recognize their handiwork everywhere. Don't get me started. Copper, from the UP mixing with shells from the Gulf Of Mexico. But Marjorie was special. Fucking wind, sorry, but it just came up; the house creaked, maybe there's a mouse in the bucket. Too much going on. Read more...

Noticing Things

I don't really care what the authorities think, I know what I see, or what I think I see, which amounts to the same thing. The nature of reality is shrouded in a certain mystery, perception. If the fog is heavy it's impossible to see very far. Suspended vapor. Dim wit and previous experience might allow limited progress, but you have to move slowly. We're almost blind, that band of the spectrum we see. So narrow there's hardly room to move. Climbing a rock face, for instance, you're only interested in the next hand-hold. Keep from falling is the mantra you mumble. I have a long history of failure, and I wear it as lightly as I can, what I could have done, what I should have done, but I've noticed certain small flowers, recently, and they've called into question the nature of beauty. Or, let's say, Alicia's ankles. Not so much that they were, but that I noticed. Looking closely is a matter of habit. I recognize the limits of vision, you can only see so far, after that everything blurs. Everything blurs anyway, what we think we see is only what we think we see. I only mention the mice because they factored in somewhere. I keep a trash can full of kindling, lodged over in the corner, between the pantry and the cookstove; Glenn had wandered over there, admiring my cobwebs, and wondered aloud why I was keeping dead mice in the kindling bucket. There is a stack of two apple crates in that corner, on top of which I keep two pottery vases stuffed with kitchen utensils. The mice run across the top, and for reasons inexplicable to me, jump into the bucket, where they die of dehydration. This springs to mind because I hear a new arrival scratching around in there. A sound so familiar that I don't even have to get up from my writing chair to verify exactly what the sound connotes. The Language People have decided we moderns could possibly communicate with caveman based on the fact that twenty or so words don't seem to have changed at all. Seems like a leap to me. Yesterday there were two German guests that spent a good part of the afternoon in the Carter galleries. I spoke with them several times, took them into the vault, to see the sketch that would have become an oil painting that had been on Carter's easel when he died; and to show them the nude drawing, new to our collection (that are so dear to me, I hope to curate a installation with them, with several other early drawings; and over Sara's objection I would call the show Thirteen Nudes and a Catfish) and we hardly spoke the same language. Yet we did understand each other, more or less, when it came to line, color, and form. Some small purple flowers today that I couldn't identify, and the blackberry buds are exploding in a profusion of white sepals that is disconcerting. I found enough morels, in exactly the same area where Glenn and I were searching a week ago, to make a meal, on toast. What a luxury. Scattered shafts of light through scudding clouds reveals the underside of leaves. An X-Ray of the world. Google maps. Sonar or radar, or simply kneeling on a foam pad to examine something closely. The wind is acting up, and I go outside, to watch the way the way the trees respond. I don't have anything else to do, I might as well watch trees swaying in the wind. I've always been attracted to dancers. Something about where the next foot falls. Trees swaying in the wind is a good example. Dancing leaves play a part, broken light, what you might not have said. I don't pretend to anything, I just have a foam pad and a magnifying glass. A simple guy on a simple quest. First blackberry blossoms on the ridge. Down at the first ford, 700 feet closer to sea level, they started blooming a week ago. A great many things are linked to elevation, whether a hard hit ball, for instance, clears the left field fence. Took it upon myself to muck out the outhouse pit, which is a chore that always reminds me of other outhouses, in other places. It involves, here, tilting the small building over on it's back, so I can access the actual pit; other places I've built the outhouse on skids, and just move it to another hole I'd have dug in the interval. In the real world, digging holes is a fact of life. I should throw the dead mice on top of the outhouse, but I'm interested in watching them desiccate. I have a history with dead mice, and a long history with outhouses. Me and Bobby. Janis, lord god, that may be the best song ever. I have to pull away, that section of tall-grass prairie in Kansas, it's breathtaking, what you might mull in a metate with whatever you call that weight. A pestle, right? You and me, listen, I don't want to make a big deal out of it, so I'd rather deny any knowledge. Read more...

Festivities

Beautiful day. I slept on the sofa, which I'll do all summer, to stay below the heat, and the sun wakes me early, coming through a south wall that is mostly glass. Ablutions, a yogurt, I head off at a leisurely pace. Stopping to look at a couple of shrubs that Glenn had thought might be Dogwoods, but I think are wild plums. Pink, in Dogwoods, is rare. Plenty of time to take my coffee below the floodwall. Tubular river fog, I love it: all the way into town I was looking across the river at lush Kentucky, but when I got into town and down on the riverbank, I couldn't see a damned thing. A string of barges is called a tow, though they push them now, and I make a note to find out what that's all about. I think it had probably always been a push, rather than a tow, because your own turbulence impedes your forward progress. A metaphor for something. I like that. My assigned task is that I make Sharee's event happen. And I do, not a problem, but it takes most of my day. Setting up chairs, and the large video screen that we had to bring up from the basement. One thing I've learned, is that you can't be paranoid enough. Motherfuckers are out there to get you. Just saying. I pinched a nerve, out there, somewhere, and later felt a twitch. Phantom pain. Much later, I noticed that I had left a space, and it looked like paragraphs composing a narrative. I never know where I'm going. Just before four, when people started arriving for the Awards Event (Sharee raises money all year, so she can send some kids to art camp) I slipped out the back door and headed home. I care and don't care in equal measure. On the way home I stop for some fried onion rings at the Diary Bar, they're so good I almost drive off the road. Ketchup, however you spell it, is a great condiment. Sweet, acidic, and salty. Stop at the lake to watch the geese swim their overlapping chevrons. Two things. First, that the soundscape is heating up; and second, that the wind in the trees is a big part of that. I'd gone out back with a wee dram of single malt, rolled a smoke, sitting on the top step, and it didn't feel like rain. If you pay attention, you grow sensitive to the air. A rattle in the leaves, maybe wind, maybe a couple of young squirrels. First snakes in the road, sucking up that heat. I have to stop and blow my horn. Snakes don't like noise. A little blast of the horn and they scatter likes ripples on the water. Friday we took apart one of the artifact cases and it turned into a big job. While we were trying to finish up, the intern, from that time eight years ago (Liz) we installed the collection, showed up from Chicago with her mate Jake. We both like Liz ,and her friend is bright and funny, so we go over to the pub after work to have a couple of draft beers and chat. I stayed in town and watched Hulu for the first time in months, didn't feel like navigating a wet driveway after dark. Slept like a rock. Over to Kroger first thing, for a bag of coffee and a cheese danish. D doesn't get to work until after lunch, moving Carma's grandmother into an assisted-living place. When he gets there, we finish the display case and then clean everything. Pre-drilling, then tapping 3/8's inch plexiglas is messy, and those little curls of plastic get quite hot. When we're done, I put everything away, then hang around to talk with TR and D for an hour. TR and his Mom and Uncle and Aunt raise "show" chickens, but "show" chickens lay eggs too, and he promises a couple of dozen. They're all laying right now, and TR says there are hundreds of chickens. Omelets into the distance. Stop at Kroger again, for weekend supplies, and wend my way home, windows down, sniffing the spring breeze. I see that kid Travis's bike at the bottom of the hill, and sit there for a while, because I don't want to run into him while he's walking down the driveway, but he doesn't show and I want to get home, so I finally engage four-wheel drive and head up the ridge. I meet him, of course, at the beginning of the steep slope, but I can't stop, to pick him up, for him to use my phone, because if I stop, I'd lose my momentum and would never make it to the top. He stepped over the grader ditch and thought that I'd stop and pick him up but I had to keep going.This is 4:15, at 6:15 I start hearing a sound that isn't quite a crow, I finally have to put my shoes back on and walk out to see what the fuck is going on. It's a person yelling, I can tell that much. I walk down around the top curve and there's a very fat lady leaning against a tree; she's yelling "Travis! Travis!" at the top of her lungs. I don't want to be any part of that, but I glean that Travis is missing. I tell her that Trarvis isn't here. If I had a fetish, young boys isn't it. Read more...

Docenting 2

To know, to impart knowledge. Across the board. Those high school kids were a tough sell. Nearing graduation, they're not the most attentive audience. I finally got their attention, though, in the print show, talking about the sensuality of the George Segal etching, the way there was a live body underneath the clothes. Then, touring the Carter galleries, I talked about the artist/model relationship, Serenity, Maidenhood; footloose and fancy-free in Italy, 1927. Pay attention to detail. I finished with them, a churning mass of teen-age angst, and was sitting downstairs, on the new bench, rolling a cigaret, to go out back and smoke. One of the students came downstairs, just then, asked me how I knew all that shit. I told her that I read what was available and looked closely; that you couldn't know a thing that you hadn't stared at for hours. Glenn is the best writer who never wrote that I've ever known, but he leans toward the visual; TR leans toward the soundscape. Meta-themes. I got a wee dram of Ardbeg, to punish myself; this scotch is very much like eating railroad ties. Fucking frogs. This recent rain insures another generation, and they are everywhere. I walk with an old broom to sweep them aside, to clear them out of my way. Stepping on a frog is nasty. Wanted to stay home today, a stomach bug, but Pegi and D were off to the Curator's Meeting in Columbus and I thought I'd best be at the museum. Frightens me a little, Pegi going, because I'm afraid she'll start to think she's a curator, which she isn't. Didn't get much done at work, what with trips to the bathroom, but I did get a second coat of polyurethane on the cherry plywood wall, watched the front desk for a while, and took another group of high school students through the galleries. Locked up and beat it on home, to arrive before a line of squalls. Left-overs for dinner, then half a new Sandford novel, while I waited to turn on Black Dell. Never did lose power, but I kept my trusty reading LED headlamp close at hand. A mouse came out from under the stairs and I beaned it with a copy of Extinct Languages, a nice small hardbound book I picked up at the Goodwill for a buck. It was on top of the stack because I had shown Glenn the amazing similarities between the alphabets of undeciphered languages from the Indus Valley and Easter Island. It all makes sense to me. It was the Phoenicians. Seriously. We know they got their tin from South America, molecules don't lie, and that they came from the Indus valley; it's not a big leap to imagine they kept going west. The mouse is dead, so I get a flashlight and go throw it on top of the outhouse, they crows will eat it. I'm good with a book at ten feet. The cicadas will probably drive me crazy this summer, and the goddamn Whip-O-Wills. One set up, tonight, in the hickory tree right outside my writing window, but I was ready for it: slipped on the headphones for a portable CD player and listened to the Allman Brothers, Sweet Melissa, Killing Floor Blues, and when I came out from under, he was a quarter of a mile away. Starts raining again around eleven, but there's no thunder and lightening; I let the first rain clean the roof of catkins and pollen, then put out a couple of buckets to harvest rainwater. This time of year it's a pain in the ass, I have to filter the water through an old, clean, tee-shirt; unless I bring water from town, which I hate to do, but am forced by circumstance, occasionally, to do. Rainwater is so soft, Glenn assures me my carbon foot-print is very small. Read more...

Docenting

We all, I suspect, have those friends with whom conversation is easy and everything is understood. Glenn is here, from St. Paul, drove through Achilles to get here, and we're going to do a little filming. He wants some footage of mopping, with the character, a kind of me, explaining the different strokes, and a tour through the Carters, where I can talk about framing. In the larger sense. The frame within the frame. And I'm good with that, I pretty much make up the monologue as we go along, catch me in my strong suit and I'm fairly lucid. I can do the Carter's right now, because I've done them a lot recently, and I know too much about them, I have so much original material; and I've lived here now for fifteen years, where he was raised, and I understand the referent. The Ohio River Valley is so beautiful. There might be a spot in the lower Rhone that lives up to this. Glenn got here about ten on Friday morning, we looked at the exhibits and talked about the Docent documentary. Saturday went into work, as I had to set-up for a Sunday event, then did some filming of mopping in the upstairs gallery, left early, to get some groceries. I made tenderloin medallions, mashed potatoes, the sauce. Sunday we failed to find any morels (I found one, and left it to spore), I cooked a rubbed London Broil on the grill, and fixed some roasted baby potatoes. B came over as we were grilling, stayed for supper and conversation. Excellent conversation. Monday we went into the museum, as we had it to ourselves, he set up on the second floor balcony and filmed me mopping the "Modified Chevron" from above, then we tried some things with the Carter paintings. After a dinner of leftovers, we did some audio recording. He brought with him three single Malt scotches, a Laddie Ten, a Glenmorangie, and the most extreme example of a strongly peated single malt I've ever had, an Ardbeg. We three sampled the Ardbeg, but it's a winter drink. Creosote, with overtones of tar; but honestly, after sipping just half a shot, I quite liked it. He also brought three bottles of wine, one of them a Ridge. This is the perfect houseguest. Not to mention that I love him dearly, he's my oldest and best friend. Left this morning, way before dawn, for the fifteen hour drive back to St. Paul. I slept in, until almost eight, got up, heated water, shaved, washed my hair, ate a yogurt, and went to work. Some clean-up and putting away of tables, after the Sunday event; then a large group of high school seniors, art students, and I took them through the print show and through the Carter gallery. I'm so passionate about the work that at first they don't believe it. Then they get that I'm serious. I don't care what they make of that, as long as it makes them think. Glenn pointed out that one of the characteristics of my writing is that I look closely at things, slow down, take the time: it's just a habit I've indulged. The miniature iris are ready to erupt, and the blackberry blossoms; it's going to be beautiful around here for the next few weeks. Cooler nights, and this rain, there should be a good flush of morels. And I'm sorry we couldn't find them when Glenn was here, so much for planning, we ate well anyway. Fuck a bunch of planning. Left work early today, rain moving in, and I just wanted to get back to the ridge, harvest some rainwater, graze among the various left-overs, finish a bottle of wine. Fact probably defeats fiction late in the fourth quarter. When whatever his name is goes up for a shot and misses. I don't care who wins or loses. I'm not attached, as they say, to one thing or the other. Read more...

Cutting Edges

Early enough at work to go below the floodwall and watch the river go by, finish my coffee and roll a smoke. Kentucky was lovely, across the way. Two strings of barges passed in front of me. Those tugs have very large diesel engines, 35 to 50 thousand horsepower. The one going upstream was pushing hard against a four knot current. Knew D was going to be late, he had to rent a truck to get the last of the lumber and cherry plywood for the back hall. Trouble finding a truck, because it's check-out time at the colleges (everyone is on the semester system now, so they all let out at the same time) and all the trucks and trailers are spoken for. I cut in edges for hours, D rolls the front of the soffits one more time. Because they're new sheetrock, and it's red paint, they require three coats. Red is so difficult to paint because there are lots of solids. At the end of the day it looks like the top edge of the soffit will need cutting in one more time. Tomorrow we start with the cherry plywood. One wall that will be easy, but then wrapping the pilaster from hell. It's out of square two inches in nine feet, dished on one face and proud on the other. We're going to have to frame it out and square the frame. It'll take several days. I don't know how anything could be so out of square. Everything we touch in the museum is racked or canted or just plain crooked, built by committee and the lowest possible common denominator for acceptable. I'm not sure I can, or want to do this, D is leaving, a full-time teaching position that he has to take, more money and all the perks, including college for his kids. TR is off to graduate school, because that's what he needs to do, Sara is semi-retired, Pegi only cares about the Cirque, and Trish is useless, on ankles that can't support her weight. Leaves me, with the museum on my back. Did you read about that Sherpa that climbed Everest four times last year? I mean, really, that seems over the top. I'd almost rather retire, but I have a class on Tuesday, and two on Wednesday, and I like leading the kids around by the nose. It's ridiculous, how good I am at that. Read more...

Inducing Labor

Trisha's step-daughter's child will be born Monday, a child that never should have been born, but which will be induced Monday, because that's the most convenient time. I'm glad they can work this out. The mother is a high school senior and the father is a high school sophomore, and I'm sure they'll be great parents, but I question whether they should be, at this point in time. I'm a stick in the mud when it comes to this shit: a combined age of 33 doesn't come close to my minimum target age of 42; kids having kids on the dole. Gets my dander up. Otherwise a fine time on the ridge. I crashed early, because I knew I wanted to get up in the middle of the night and write, something about that time-frame. It's very quiet at three in the morning. And I don't think you should induce labor anyway. Except on rare occasions, when a trip to Jamaica, might seem preferable to a trip to Iceland. Oh, wait, that is the point. I have to be careful , driving back roads, because the squirrels are so crazy. And that fractured waning moon, dodging tree trunks, is no help at all. It seems like something I've thought about before. Sometimes language works for me, other times I haven't a clue. After dark that kid Travis knocks at the door, needing to use the phone, I nearly bean him with an Indian club I have close at hand. Didn't get much work done today, kept getting called off task, my left hip was being wanky and I didn't feel comfortable on a ladder. Beautiful warm day, clear skies, and the alley crew finished getting a second coat of sealer on the stamped concrete. I think they're done. Now waiting for Rush Welding to get the wrought iron gates completed. D might well show up tomorrow morning with the last load of wood for the back hallway, some cherry plywood and the trim. Finding it difficult to get baseboard in the correct profile. I researched a couple of things, indulgences, William Caxton, squirrels, then packed it in, headed home, the long way around. I needed more mediation between town and the ridge. My older daughter called, driving on her way to rehearsal for "Long Day's Journey Into Night", she has a minor part; I hate that hard-assed American Realism, I find it tedious, but, as a theater person, it's good to have done one, so we talk about that; and her visit, late summer or early fall, with her significant other. It was Caxton, remember, who codified English. Learned to print 1471, died 1491, but as the first English printer, he needed a language that could be set in type. He printed the first Canterbury Tales, around 1480, and a hundred years later Shakespeare was writing plays in a fairly modern English. If I were very rich, I'd own a Caxton book, and a first folio of Shakespeare, because they frame the language. My old 1911 Britannica is pretty good on this and I end up reading with magnifying glasses until my head hurts. I bought this set of encyclopedias in the mid-1970's, Starr Books, Cambridge, Massachusetts, for $100, and I've used them 10,000 times since. It's a terrible set, small format, bible paper, tiny type, but I'm used to that, from my two volume OED, which requires a magnifying glass, and I patiently fan the pages. You have Caxton printing the Canterbury Tales in 1480, and then you have Shakespeare writing Titus Andronicus, no later than 1600. Greek drama, heavy handed, but still, you can understand what's happening. It's amazing that we understand each other, that we can communicate at all, 26 letters, and 500,000 words. Read more...

More Dust

It goes without saying. Whatever I might have said wasn't strong enough. Concrete dust is everywhere. Even just cleaning the ledges, where the rear door enters, is a major activity. An extra hour of sleep, then a small amount of housework before cleaning my body, washing my hair, shaving. Rain in the morning, then a nice walk and I find enough morels for a late lunch, a lovely omelet, morels & shallots with shaved parmesan; I made a little pot of red-orange marmalade following John Thorne's lead. Excellent stuff, on a piece of multi-grain toast. Another little rain, a drizzle, and I curl up on the sofa with a couple of New Yorker articles, open an old-vines zinfandel, roll a smoke. Completely at peace, a wonderful feeling; when I bend over for a sip of wine, I look out at the newly cleansed green. It's coming on strong, I can barely see across the hollow. Rattlesnakes will be out soon. I want to see the yellow one, that dens to the north of the house, it's so strange. I'll see it and that'll be the end of the morel season once again. Ticks are bad again, the little 'seed' ticks are insidious and evil. I need to buy a new timer, the old one died, and the loin will need to be turned every fifteen minutes; experience teaches me that there will be interesting conversation and it's easy to lose track of time. And I need Mesquite charcoal. That, at least, should be, easy. Little squeals in the night, takes me a minute to identify baby mice. I think they're in the left over insulation in the tool room. I'll get rid of them in the morning, on my way out. Probably paint the back entry tomorrow. I got all of the supplies on Saturday, and D was going to get a coat of paint on the white patches, so that maybe we could get it in one coat. Red on red. Doubtful, but hope springs eternal. I don't do any social media, Glenn keeps up my posting site, but it's difficult to avoid contact completely, and I opened an email from Yearbook (or something) and there were actually some names I remembered, from high school. I'm not a sentimental guy and my best years are probably now, not then. But two names jump out: Terry Earwood, a racing fool, we once took his Dad's Porsche (his Dad was out of town) on a high-speed run down to Jacksonville Beach, my first time over 100 MPH; and Olinda Willis, who I remember dating, sometime either junior or senior year. That period is a blur to me, I worked my first season of professional theater before my first year of college, discovered marihuana, and LSD was still legal. I'd never been around so many gay people before, and the cooking was fabulous. I was coming out of that Southern Pot Roast tradition, I didn't know you could eat snails. My mother, bless her soul, had never used a clove of garlic; it was pretty much butter, salt and pepper. She does make gravy, though, and god bless her for that. A Red-Eye gravy from pork drippings and strong black coffee, a reduced milk gravy she makes that defies me, and a thing she does with toasted flour and bacon fat. Gravy is actually a beverage. Seriously. Phone was out last night, so I couldn't send. A good day, today, on the work front. I spent the morning finishing preppings the back entry, D went and got grouting supplies, after lunch, I painted, and D grouted the tile. I got all the large flat surfaces painted (one coat will cover!) but it'll all need cutting in tomorrow. Many edges. Most people don't like cutting edges, but I kind of zone out and get into it. The new tile looks good, the mortar is too bright, but I can dull it down with some coffee. I need to clean some other grout joints, mostly where bars were set up for events. I use a peroxcide cleaner (great stuff) and a toothbrush. D was late this morning, and I had a chance to haul trash and bullshit with the alley crew for a few minutes. They were putting the second coat of sealer on the stamped and lightly colored concrete and it was looking very good. They were being careful to overlap as little as possible; which I applaud, because an overlap, at this point, produces a visible line, where there are three coats of finish, not two. I had an Irish dinner in the bag, Cory had brought me an extra order of baby roasted potatoes, I don't know why, and I knew I had butter and sour-cream at home. Dismiss town, and retreat to the ridge, I'd rather die alone, then answer any question. Read more...