Fugal State

That second posting, early this morning, what happened was I got up to pee and saw I'd left the computer on, went over to shut it down, but I'm so conditioned, when I sit in this chair (which needs retiring, I've worn it out), to write, that I went on automatic pilot, wrote, sent, went back to bed. Forgot I'd even done it until I noticed the sheet on top of the pile when I got up the second time. My hard copies don't print the title, so I write the title in a scrawl at the bottom of the page, knew I had written "Extrados", which should have been on top, but instead, there was "Funny Guy". Mackletree is so beautiful right now, peaking, and the verge mown; had to stop and pick up trash. Turkeys everywhere, must have seen 60 or 80 this week, nearly managed to clip a Jake with the truck. Thinking about feeding B's clan, maybe do a brisket in the smoker with a pork roast on the rack above, talked with my Dad, he thought twelve hours at 200 degrees, maybe do a trial-run and parcel it out to the museum staff. Hound Dog makes the best potato salad I've ever eaten (almost an egg salad with potatoes because he raises chickens) and maybe a cold cherry soup. Like to have Sara and Clay, certainly D and Carma, Bear, Daleena and the kids, the Deputy and Jamie, Jenny, looking at twenty people, probably, Josh could bring Zoe on a stretcher or we could wait until after the twins are born, better idea. Need to cook a slab of ribs for Zoe. She is so very pregnant. I could use some myself, with slaw and baked beans. Have to go in tomorrow, for a concert at the museum, maybe buy some things, cook some ribs on Sunday, boil and rejuvenate the sauce with fresh herb, 7 years old almost to the day, an incredibly complex taste sensation at this point. It's like a wall of taste, every niche filled, explodes in flavors and combinations you'd never imagine, mango and chili and tamarind, red wines and balsamic vinegars, Guinness, onion juice, garlic, lime, rose water, geranium, capers, various drippings, juices you don't want to know about, a sauce for the ages, I hope when I die someone will keep it alive. I'd like to think. Phrasal verbs: fuck off, fuck up, fuck over (my apologies, Herman and Portia, I just fall into triplets, it's like they're issued to me or something, give Bridwell the threes, it's a given). I never know where to put periods, that's why I run on, I'm looking, you know, but I never see. I'm probably a foil, or a red herring, or something, a shadow you could have ignored, the moon, moving around. It works. I feed my computer ice and I can write, yes, I was hoping for a compromise. If there was a tug-o-war, we'd be on the same side of the rope. I rest my case. Your honor.

Tom

There once was a doctor on Nantucket.
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Funny Guy

I'm a funny guy, if you cut through the bullshit, what's left is a kind of humor, a sardonic grimace, one last slip on the banana skin. Like Groucho said. Tennis is just a game. I don't trust words, I love them, but I don't trust them. I always think you imagine something I don't mean. I want you close but I'm a private person, maybe the slightest bit strange, smell strongly from recent physical exertion (hacking my way through blackberry and bull-vine to get to my door) but it is the odor of honest labor, not a purchased scent, honest in that regard, like smoke after a fire, and I don't really know what you think of me. Maybe trust is an issue, what I would allow. I is an issue, what we could do with him. I'd like to stuff him in a box and put him out with the trash, but where would I be then. On a different dung-heap. Consider where the Scioto flows into the Ohio. I've considered this particular confluence on many occasions, we might say I know it well, still, I know almost nothing about it. Disheartening. On the other hand. Go away, go away, Dixie Land. It's good to get to the bottom of things. B said something, I don't remember, I could see he was annoyed, I had driven back roads for what seemed like hours, Bear wanted to hire me to talk with him, this is probably a dream, one of us will wake up and fly away, that butterfly. Saw another black squirrel today. Think about that. I need to eat more, but I'm tired of chewing. Nothing is shocking. I don't want to see them, but I swear to god, driving in tonight, the county road crew has mowed the verge of Mackletree and it is beautiful, canopied, filtered light, post-card:

I'm ashamed to admit
how much they mean
to me, three crows
on the road.

Tom

An inverse reverse Idaho. My gift to you. A matter of course. Tacking the wind. -Is it blowing, Bob?-
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Extrados

Yes, of course, what was I thinking, duh, outside curve of an arch would be extrados. A lot of jumps to hoop through. Nappe pronounced 'nap', is the sheet of water going over a spillway or dam. Knew there was a word, Latin, mappe, meaning napkin, also Old French word for tablecloth. A great word to finally have, stumbled across it looking up something else, a little gift from the dictionary gods. If it wasn't for George Bernard Shaw Nietzsche's Ubermensh could have been "Beyondman", dealing a death blow to the first super-hero. No scones at the bakery this morning and D and I pitched a fit. Twice this week. We started by repeating the phrase in every possible way, -no scones? no scones! NO SCONES- escalating in volume; then into a routine, totally off the wall, about being addicted to the damned things because of the opium they mix in the batter, first they get us addicted, then withhold the fuckers so they can laugh at our withdrawal symptoms, how cruel they were, how they should be eaten by bull sharks, how the dust from a thousand camels crossing the Gobi should clog all their pores. We were on a roll, and the owner was loving it, as she sliced and slathered cream cheese on bagels for us. A couple of the help thought we were crazy and a bit threatening. -Four lefts to go straight and stay on Gay, you can't miss it- my directions to a confused motorist,- or, I say -two rights and it'll be straight ahead, but the lefts are safer, no wait, do the two rights because you can't make one of the lefts- hope I helped the guy. Supernatant means floating on the surface, seems like too much word, but it might prove useful. Thinking about some printed matter for the Wrack show, not labels, but hand-outs, offprints: "Do Bowling Balls Float" article, a list of specific gravities, a flow-chart for the Scioto / Ohio confluence, the piece about Prolate Spheroids: a little booklet you get at the end kind of thing. I like this idea, museum logo, maybe a list and description of upcoming shows, maybe a few of these pages, where I talk about the show, where the idea came from, how everyone climbed on board. Sara wants to run the show extra long so maybe we close with Glenn's film of us making the show. Maybe we should dip the booklets in the Ohio and then dry them out, they'd be crinkled and the ink would run, maybe just the cover, like that lovely moldy cover B did for the Skip Fox book. When does Meg Oliver get up? I only see her at 3 or 4 in the morning when I get up to check the weather on TV, not that often, because I mostly don't care, you know, bring on whatever, nothing I can do other than take my truck to the bottom of the hill, but there are times that is critical information, if getting to work is REALLY important, like changing over shows, where there isn't the option. The Janitor Escape Clause overrides any other rule or regulation: If getting to work is dangerous, or is perceived as dangerous, the janitor may stay home and read. It's in the contract, read the small print. All my friends are assuming false names, I wonder if they're distancing themselves. Was that scene in the coffee-shop too much? The Cole Porter song with the bible salesman? I can't remember what I had decided.
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Intrados

Sitting in the theater at the museum, going over, in my mind, the components (the scenery) of the set for the kids' play the Brit is directing. Needs a fence gate, covered in ivy, and I'm imagining how to build it, an arch would be nice, like part of a trellis, I think about several different methods of construction. Need a smoke to think, D is off judging County Fair art and Sara is at the beach, so I'm standing outside alone, thinking about arches. Which leads to thinking about Arches, the grand National Park outside Moab, Utah, where there are some 154 natural sandstone arches, requiring millions of years of wind and the old freeze-thaw cycle; then thinking about Natural Bridges Park, how if a stone arch spans water it is called a bridge; then a mattress truck pulls up next door at the furniture store, and painted on the side is a beautiful woman in a slinky nightgown lying on a bed, her lower back is bare, and it's a kind of inverted arch. The word 'intrados' pops out of my mouth... the inner curve of an arch... (implies that the outer curve has a different name, but I don't remember that) and I remember hearing that word first from my Scenery Mentor, Herbert Senn, on Cape Cod, when I was 18, then years later, in Moab, drinking with a Park Ranger at a brew pup, watching Jordan and the Bulls crush the Jazz (Jordan had the flu, fired the game-winning shot, with his tongue hanging out, falling away). I'd always use the word when building an arch and I've probably built more than my share of them, with various people, in various states, certainly two dozen, over the years, and whomever it was I was building with at the time would look at me strangely. I'd usually just shrug and apologize but sometimes I'd stop working and do five minutes on The Arch In History, those Romans, man, concrete and keystones. Waiting for the AC guy, D gets back from judging 4-H art, a late lunch at the pub, lovely Holly is our waitress, and during our meal, at the bar, she elbows in next to me, to reach across and refill a coke without having to walk around. She's like 8 inches away, bare shouldered, and I turn my head to smell her neck, I can't not, it's there, like Hillary said about Everest; despite the fact that I am careful to be discreet, with that knowledge beforehand and not giving a shit, that three people see clearly what I'm doing, Holly, D, and Jim, the owner (or at least the money), there is no way that I wouldn't take advantage of that particular situation. A slightly musky sweat over salt marsh over a floral soap. Some people just smell good, their cross to bear. She said she wasn't wearing anything, just BO, and I'm thinking we should bottle this. She smelled great. Fucking turkeys, on the way home, wild turkeys and I've seen so many of them this week, 60 or 50, everywhere; I could have taken one with the truck and wondered, afterward, why I hadn't. Stupid three pound chicks, perfect fryers, haven't leaned to avoid vehicles, but I stop and let them cross the road, just to watch their awkward walk. Penguin time in the city. Darwin said something about finches. What about those lizards that eat seaweed? I've captured one of the salamanders that prey on the frogs, I'll watch him for a few days and set him free, I don't know what's going on, really, I merely watch, probably a crime in most states.
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Missing Piece

Holding to the triplets, again, no one at the lake, stop for a smoke and watch a large group (two 3's) of crows cleaning the shelter. Excellent technique. And a third triplet: I find a single puzzle piece, my third in a year, the famous "missing piece" that you hear about so often, on a picnic table. Someone is going to be pissed. I need to get a bunch of uniform frames, cheap is fine, though D and I could probably make 20 in a day, from walnut or cherry, that would be stunning; start buying used puzzles at Good Will and yard sales, take a nice single piece out of each and frame it. I'm not usually a minimalist but I like this. Normal janitor duties following a Saturday event and there is stuff for the auction that needs taken to the basement and a dozen or so rolled off-cuts of carpet that need taken to the third floor, I docent a group of students through the main gallery, then, late afternoon, walk a couple through, that decide the museum is the perfect place for their wedding reception, which it is, probably, the best venue in town. Bet I walked 20 miles today, leg muscles are almost cramped (that pre-cramp tingle that actually allows you enough time to stretch your leg or flex your toes and avoid seizing) and my feet hurt. Fortunately I foresaw how I would feel when I got home so I stopped at the Dairy Bar and got a footer (sauce, mustard and cheese) and some jalapeno poppers, god, I love those fuckers, an almost dangerous food: for one, dealing with the whole pepper family, you never know how hot one is going to be, two, the cheese with which they are stuffed is molten, and three, they are batter dipped and deep-fried. If my purse were deep enough, I'd stop every day and get an order of these, just for the thrill, not knowing what you'd get, how rare is that, in a time of absolute codification? Not to draw to fine a line, but as a codicil to my rule about getting footers from really large people (because they prepare each one as if for themselves) as opposed to an anorexic teenager who didn't add enough of anything (and you had to get two), but you should eat these at least once a week. They'll make you think. The best I ever had were at a state line where a writer friend was meeting me because she was wanted across the line. I drink free beer anywhere, I'm not particular, but I was aware of the surroundings, there were stuffed animals and old-fashioned juke-boxes, I fed quarters and played the Allman Brothers, "Whipping Post", really, I'm a creature of habit.

Tom

You said what? I have to pay attention, what did you mean by that? I wish I understood this better, far as I can see there is more weather, a storm that blows me off of my foundation, breaks my nose against a wall, I'm bleeding, I ask you, ever polite, what did you mean?
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Triune

I don't know why things fall in threes. Maybe it's just me, an imagined pattern, something I read when I was young and impressionable. Maybe it's just a rhythm, a beat, that I pick out of background noise. Seems real. Could be a Whip-poor-will or a Rufus-sided towhee, those fucking crows. If I were superstitious I could play the alien abduction card, the previous life gambit, the lost tribe bullshit, but I'm rooted in a world where a bad-hair-day fox takes an apple from the compost pile, glances my way, and trots off into the bush, a mocking bird sings badly, clouds occlude the moon. Not a promising scenario but something I could live with: late at night, I just need to know what are the parameters. I can adjust to almost anything if I can see the playing-field, understand the basic rules. Lean into the curves.
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Perceived Slight

What I go through. You wouldn't believe. Just as I set down to write it gets several stages darker, big winds, the leaves turn inside out, thunder, I start writing anyway, fuck it, I've lost more than a paragraph before, I can deal with it. I make some notes, actually write longhand, by candle, because I had thought far enough ahead to get supplies available. I'd written some replies earlier, I assume they're in storage, beyond this lightening bolt, saved somewhere. Coming a blow. Wait for the first drops to spatter before you close any windows, consider ventilation, changing stale house air for a batch of ozone. Hadn't worked with B's nephew, Bear, in a few years and it was good to be around his profane self. He drinks beer like it was water, is as strong as an ox, curses like a sailor. Bam, lightening close, catches me looking NW and blinds me for a minute. Fast moving cell, 30 mph, with winds to 60 mph, roaring over the ridges. I feel exposed, shit, I am exposed, the house shudders. A choice I made. Hate writing longhand, so laborious and you still have to transcribe. So, eight years ago Bear was helping me on my house, lending brute force when necessary, and I had bought a whole leg of lamb, for a dinner party. B likes lamb as much as I do, and his brother, too, so they were coming with significant others and we were grilling the rubbed leg slow, off the heat, then crisping the outside over high heat. I was relatively new to The Creek, not intending a family affair, but Bear's sister (the impossibly cute park ranger) was at her father's house and sure, she should come too, with current lover. Bear takes such offense that I don't ask him and his family that his anger is palpable, he calls during dinner, to ream me out. The perceived slight. The dynamic moment that charged and changed a relationship. I didn't ask them because I didn't have enough plates, food, and chairs. After eight years, he's mellowed somewhat, though still calls me by just my last name, as in -Bridwell, you mother-fucker, what's going on?- Back then I felt he was always on the edge of violence, he intimidated by his very presence, but since, he's survived a head-on car crash that would have killed anyone else, and then last year, you may have read about it, a Creek Guy shot a kid, at distance, through a pick-up truck, with a high-powered rifle, twice, for stealing a bale of hay (to use as a target base, honing his bow-hunting skills) and the kid bled out in Bear's arms, waiting for a misdirected 911 response, and he had known the shooter most of his life. Maybe we're most changed by events over which we have no control. Into town today to do the laundry and get a few things, stopped at B and Sarah's place on the way home (it is right on the way) to see if they had finished the roof, have a beer, and he had picked up the same vibes I had, me working with Bear again, the perceived slight. Deep background. This is like a one-page novel (a nod to Mr. McCord) because to really tell the story it would be, what, like a 100 pages, these people, this place, so interesting. Think of me as Jack Webb or Nick Adams, just the facts. Oh, wait, they're both fiction. Reality is like molasses, you get bogged down in it, and sometimes that's a good thing, you can't pay enough attention to detail. I've solved the computer problem, the over-heating-mid-summer thing, after that talk with B, because heat rises and cold sinks, and if I place a saucer on top of the black Dell and put a frozen 2 pound yogurt container of ice on the saucer it seems I can cool my mainframe. Excellent, I'm already paying for the fridge and there's no added incurred cost, hidden expenses. Coming home, there is no one at the lake, odd for this time of year, and I can see a book on the picnic table down near the water, I'm curious enough to stop, walk down and check the title, it's one of those self-help things for lost Christians, I throw it in the trash and feed the ducks bread I salvaged from the dumpster behind Kroger. God, I feel good, I'm still alive, bless the little children, I'm sure they contribute something, nothing holds a candle to the way I feel about you. An owl, there is hooting in the distance, any country road, you stop to neck, there they are:

Three crows...
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The Caesura

A thoughtful fabrication. Thinking about the Wrack Show: slightly careless in broad ways but highly refined in some particulars. B called this morning and wanted me on board for flying the roof on his addition, yes, of course, and I'll be the ground guy, the sawyer, the passer-up-of-plywood person. Hot bright day, tee-shirts soaked and sweat rolling into eyes, sawdust stuck to every exposed body part. I remember this, I used to do it, when I was younger, and nothing weighted so much. That's an odd phrase that sounds like it means something else, "and everything was lighter" might be closer to the money. Sleeveless tee, so my shoulders are sun-burned, when I get home I rub them with raspberry vinegar, if I have a choice of what to smell, you know, I go with the best option, I was afraid if I rubbed them with balsamic I'd eat myself. I have no idea why vinegar works, in this situation, or, even, really, if it does, I do it because it's a thing I learned and it seems to help. Placebo? I don't know. I do remember sex with Olinda, on the beach at Ponte Vedra, she was a red-head and we were using sun-screen, but I had brought a bottle of apple-cider vinegar because I knew she would burn, had doused her liberally, and when we fucked later, in the dunes, it was all about apples, despite the sand. I have to pass this along, Glenn said:

First: Three...

Then: ...

Then: .

Then:

he got it in one, how rare is that? There was a bird on Madagascar that weighed over a thousand pounds, it couldn't fly, short stubby wings and the bones weren't hollow, simply filling a slot, a "predator" but by name only, probably a Roc.
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What Sara Said

Nacelles are cubby-holes in planes or boats (Fr. small boats) and I ran into the word twice this week, don't remember ever seeing it before. Talk about getting side-tracked, goddamned Janitor Catalog comes in and I'm way out in left field somewhere, then to exacerbate the problem, an Archival Storage Catalog AND a Shipping Supplies Catalog. Fine day for them, though, because the carpet layers are in to finish the offices and the atmosphere is toxic with glue fumes AND they play AM radio, rock, fairly loud all day. I work downstairs and in the basement but the poor Deputy is driven to distraction. What Sara said, we were talking about a job Gina, Interior Designer for the engineering firm that did the structural consulting for the major museum conversion-from-bank, was next door at Covert's Furniture, matching some swatches, D and I were out back having a smoke, so we chatted with her (she has a terrible laugh, there should be courses in laughing, at any professional college, it was a required course at Janitor College, I developed a nice upper mid-western chuckle, innocent and self-deprecating) when she came out, seems she's designing a new interior for the local funeral parlor. We joked about that, but thought about it too, asked her if she was doing it Hawaiian Surfer or more like the Victorian Library (what I think of as Classic Funeral Parlor) that was more traditional. Later that day, we were having a smoke with Sara and recounted the conversation, Sara said -dead people are the perfect clients- she's an interior designer too, and a good one, I've designed and built a lot of houses, a lot of books, D's built custom furniture, we know what it's like working with a client, a dead client is perfect. We laugh so hard we sputter. This is the paradigm shift that is happening at the museum, where the Director and Janitor can share a laugh. I wish I'd gotten a beer and had a cigaret with her in her office, yesterday, after hours she closes her door and smokes in her office, but I wanted to get home and write, because I had this fucking Janitor Supply catalog in my back pocket, burning a hole. And I'm an egocentric bastard, generally, want to get home and write, I'll probably eat, get a few drinks, roll a few smokes, but my overriding motivation is to get to the keyboard, to tell you what I thought I saw. I love that, last night, ending with:

Three crows...

so perfectly what I meant, there they were again, at the bottom of the driveway, when I was switching into four-wheel-drive. I always stop, look carefully around, before I start up the hill, and the three crows were there, squawking, bouncing around in that crow dance, which is very like a chipmunk, somehow, erratic and off the beat.
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Janitor Supply

Got the new Ojserkis 'Janitor Supply' catalog today. Clear prose with pictures, "Improve sanitation and avoid plumbing problems. Provide disposal cans." "Larger capacity means less refilling." "Encourage handwashing and indulge the senses." Baby changing stations, hand sanitizers, soap dispensers, flat towel dispensers, roll towel systems, recessed paper towel dispensers; an entire section FOR THE URINAL, tall block screens, solo screens, lexus screen blocks, urinal blocks, budget screen with block, the grabber tool "for the nasty jobs". Commercial toilet seats (antimicrobial, fire-retardant (so that if there is a fire, and you sit on one, your ass is saved)), seat liners, napkin disposal products, deodorant systems, lavatory guards, undersink piping surrounds, toilet grab bars, stainless steel mirrors, braille signs, green cleaners, receptacles, outdoor entrance mats, comfort mats, stair treads. A transport of joy, the pictures are stupid enough to make you laugh. Still I follow the development of certain products, and specific trade catalogs must keep up to speed. Boat mags are the best place to keep up with finishes, model airplane mags for doping fabric, you don't have to know everything, you just need to know where to look. For a while I got a mag "Concrete Construction", a trade mag, informative, and the lead article, I ripped off the cover (Febuary1987) and push-pinned it right in front of where I write, it's been moved a few times but always the same relative location, "Concrete Cures An Ailing Church". Sara said the damnest thing, yesterday I think it was, we were outside, smoking. The wrong time of day, direct sunlight precluded the alley, so we were clustered in the shade on the north side of the building, the back door, and Howard had come over from Covert's. Did you notice how different reality became, when it was remembered. Not the same thing. I make some notes. I'm out of my league. You shouldn't have thought I'd mean anything. Let's consider whether it's an image or not. Do you see it, is it there? I think your sister is my half-brother.

Tom

Three crows...
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Visibility Nil

Last two mornings, going in, river fog thick as pea soup, both mornings I'm early enough to go below the floodwall and scout pieces for The River Wrack show. It's coming together. The pieces dictate what they will do. Still need some rope, with which to hang. What I think of as the river pedestals, trunk-cuts of firewood that are debarked, tumbled and bleached, are lined up along the river as chairs by the night-fishermen. I invent a device, you'll need two, for rolling these rounds the 100-150 feet to the cut-bank of the first terrace. One end is a stout spike, then a shaft, maybe two or three inches, then a stop plate to keep the rope from sliding off. The only extra equipment you need to carry is a Sharpie marker. Find the center point of both ends and mark it (using any straight piece of wrack). Drive the spike home with a rock or something heavy, two loops of rope about 8 feet long, you're in business. Positively Egyptian. None of them that couldn't actually be carried, with maybe a break half-way, but how cool it would be to roll them. We'd have to get this on film. I need to fabricate the invention, the second generation of which has a pulley. Kim, can you help me here? Your expertise in off-the-wall inventions exceeds mine. I'm not too proud to ask directions, though I don't mind being lost: like that mountain man said, I wasn't really lost, I just didn't know where I was for a few weeks. Noon Smart Talk at the museum and I introduce Donald Pollack, excellent reading considering the lousy acoustics in the large open gallery, and then questions that went on forever. D and I, the Deputy, take Donald and his wife Patsy to lunch and spend an hour talking. I feel a bit guilty, because in my capacity as janitor, it's my responsibility to clean up after the event and instead I'm taking the talent to lunch. While he was signing books, though, B shows up, D sees the opportunity to set the desk top, another three man job and there are only two of us, B pushes the point, that we could do it now (then) and I'm oddly conservative then agree, sure, we could do it right then. And we do, we stand the fucker up on it's dolly, B footing, D rolls it into position, which we had discussed, this is like a heavy weight ballet, back into position and then tilt the rock forward off the dolly, swing up to our waists and set it in place. Perfect. The perfect crew. We three, I think, could do almost anything, the 'comfort level' is off the scale, the trust is complete, we know exactly where we are and what we are doing, we set the desk top in maybe five minutes. There were a lot of assumptions made, thinking back, later. That B would foot the piece somehow, that D could dolly it around, that we three could lift it into place, but a waist high lift is nothing, and we accomplish the task as if it were nothing, between book-signings, god, we're good at this.

Tom

Three crows squawking at the house,
I grant them space, they demonstrate
'open mind' and I applaud what they do.
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Mercy, Quality

Art Shipper coming for the Impressionism show today, down from Columbus and back up, show going there, so first thing I open the vault and lock the elevator. D had forgotten to sign them out (sixty-three signatures) so I get three elevators down before he joins me to get the larger pieces and the ones in crates. We both count, starting at opposite ends, yes, 63, and we stack by size against the walls. We've loaded a lot of trucks, so prep things the way we would want them. Just before lunch the shipper calls, late leaving, missing help, won't be down until after lunch, so we slip out to eat at the pub and Jim gives us a couple ounces each of a new fusion beer that is truly disgusting, D takes a tiny sip and makes a face, Jim laughs, telling us we have to expand our horizons, we tell him he's full of shit. He says the stuff sells, girly beers he calls them, but they are insipid and awful if you're of the school that thinks of beer as a malt and hops thing. Shipper arrives and we must load quickly as he has to be back at the museum in Columbus before 4. Nice high-sided shipper's van and a mini-van driven by his kids for the small pieces. We load him in 33 minutes and there isn't room for another painting. Excellent packing, nothing can move, thank god the show came insured for travel, 3.3 million in a couple of vans, but, as I say to D when he expresses concern, it's out of our hands, we have signed off. Then we are off to the White's for auction stuff, almost all glass and nothing packed, we don't have the necessary supplies and I just can't believe they would think we could move everything loose. We do an odd thing, that works if you have a good careful driver, and that is, the same as the vans of art, pack everything tightly and avoid bumps in the road. We get back to the museum with hundreds of pieces of glass (plates, wine glasses, vases, useless doodads) without a single broken piece. Amazing. Get afternoon coffee and have to get D's new desk out of his truck, two base peds that are very nice wooden file-drawers, and the top, which is 2 inch thick sandstone, 2 feet deep and six feet long, 280 pounds (my chart says Specific Gravity 2.32, 145 lbs a cubic foot, but my empirical experience, maybe mudstone (which the locals call this) is slightly different, and I have a perfect block for reference, collected for just this purpose, three-quarters of a cubic foot exactly, 105 pounds), the top weighs 280 pounds, take that number to the bank. I don't know how D loaded it by himself (I can imagine, probably almost exactly, but don't have to) our concern is just to get it inside. We decide to load it upright onto a two wheeled dolly, on a piece of foam at the bottom, to absorb vibration, and strapped in place, that way we can get it inside and lay it down and still get our hands under to lift it again tomorrow. The Deputy gives us rafts of shit about D's new office furniture, how she thinks everyone should get new office furniture, that D builds, at least until her number comes up. Transparent. Again it happens, certainly a pattern, that the last couple of hours at the museum are very cool, give-and-take, the four of us in sharp funny banter. We get the rock top slid out of the truck to the tipping point and I have to foot the dolly because it's creeping and D can't get behind the piece, we need a third person, we're stuck. I'm footing the piece and have to stay there, I tell D to go get somebody from either the bar or the furniture store because we need help, not a lot, but we need help, and Howard answers the call, foots the dolly so that D and I can tilt the top into position, which he then rolls inside and we are home free. Tomorrow is another day.
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Epistemological Rules

Avoid inbreeding depression, don't fall down the stairs, eat when you're hungry, oh, and don't sleep with bats. Scared the bejesus out me, this morning, just at dawn, awoken by wing-beats and quiet bleeps, open my eyes to see the world's largest moth, which is actually a bat, that settles on my forehead. All I can think is RABID, knock it off with the back of my hand and roll out of bed, go downstairs to check for blood, none thank god; pretty sure I killed it, back upstairs, yes, dead, I'll study it later, back down and make some coffee. You can never go right back to sleep after a bat attack, too much adrenaline, so I pull out Vol 3 of the 11th Britannica, AUS to BIS, and read about bats. I'm not a chriopteraphobic or anything, but what a way to start the day. In a sense everything is downhill from there. Remember that great bat killing scheme Suttree's friend (?) has in the McCarthy novel, which leads to thoughts about introducing Pollard ("Knockemstiff", a very funny, dark, book) at the museum this week for a talk. Which led to thoughts about the inequity of opportunity and areas of the country where fucking your sister was considered a divine right. I see where the day is going and try to sidetrack it or at least ameliorate the impact by dissecting the bat. He's eaten a lot of bugs. I wear rubber gloves because I know he is a vector, but I must say, the sight of his little heart and liver make me consider a very strange omelet. I don't, but I think about it, maybe some mushrooms, a touch of parmesan. Chriopterphobic makes me want to say Yoknapatawpha. Pollard draws from Faulkner, a Spiritual Father. An easy grasp of a place you know well, a sense of the patois. All politics is local. In Cod We Trust (the best tee-shirt I ever saw, Cape Cod, night-fishing off the beach, cod-fish cakes forever) or a warm body spooning in next to you, whatever establishes a framework. Then I thought about Prolate Sheroids, footballs and related objects, rugby, wrack. Sandblasting is the perfect medium, you blow everything away, left with just the core. The armature is instructive, it indicates what follows. Give me the knots and burls and I will make a country, root beer in all the soda fountains and a chicken in every pot. After all I am a fucking Romantic.
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Discreet, Discrete

Several hours with the dictionaries, good clean fun. Reading through a four-inch pile of offprints from B, essays on literature and language, make some notes, start a smaller pile for discussion later. Falling behind in everything but reading and writing, work on B's addition tomorrow probably, be nice to pound a few nails, though I usually become the sawyer in these situations, like hanging shows at the museum, I'm good with small numbers and fractions, have some talent with setting pace. Inanity (silliness) and inanition (lack of vigor), discreet (showing caution) and discrete (detached from others): this is the way I spend my time, parsing. Ur Text, the real, questionable enough, and then we get into faulty memory, a quicksand of recollection, but something happened, actual events, we have footprints in the sand, that became stone, that we can see. Certainly they tell us something. I remember digging in the road-cuts with my daughters, searching for anthropods. Connecting us that way. Something older than me, and I'm older than dirt.
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