Reaching

Life's not perfect but it's a start. Not a bad mode, just that sometimes you have to plow through the mud. The party cleanup lasts all day. The bathrooms, hauling trash (four trips and still one to go), the kitchen, and the floors. Putting away tables and chairs. Daunting. I get everything done but mopping in the main gallery. The wedding cake was awful and it was all over the place, frosting hardened in the tile grout joints. I had to get down on hands and knees and scrape it with a knife. You can't sweep round candy and loose fake pearls, and I picked up a lot of both. Loose fake pearls as a table decoration was a bad idea. Round candy was a bad idea, hell, candy was a bad idea. Having the bar upstairs was a bad idea. People place so much stock in ceremony, to remember a moment always; if that's all you have to remember I submit you've lived a very boring life. I've had a thousand moments, in the natural world, that far exceeded anything I might plan. Currently, I'm of two minds, the ability to do something, as opposed to the actual desire. I've worked opera at the absolute highest international level, so my ability is not the issue; the issue is whether or not I'm willing to sacrifice my time, that I might spend reading or writing, dealing with a bunch of drunks and mopping the floor. It's a real question. I love the museum, and I love installing shows, but I'm sick unto death of carrying heavy things from one place to another. These wedding receptions are more than a pain in the ass. They embody everything I rail against. The bride is an arrogant twit, and she works in a tanning salon. She hasn't read a book in the last five years, and the last one she did read was about vampires. I don't care, but it does give me pause. I'd rather retire from all that and live in a hole in the ground. I have friends that would check in, once in a while, make sure I was still breathing. I can live on almost nothing. I've learned to slow my heart-beat down and only breathe occasionally, less is better; Whip-O-Wills seem particularly germane, the way they drop vowels. French is my first thought, all those extra letters. Nothing enunciated. Bottom line, I don't need this. Read more...

Social Mediation

I let Julie go home Saturday night, at nine, when the party was supposed to be over, she has a family and a life, and it was clear the party wasn't over. The father of the bride was an architect and we talked about various styles of building, and about visualizing how specific things might be finished. By the end of the evening he was talking to me as an equal. He knew I knew more about construction than he did. Mostly I work alone to resist any kind of competition. I don't play games, but I do enjoy the occasional puzzle, see my way through. Just before dark, the wind has the sumac turned inside out and I figure any small tornado would follow the hollows, I would, if I was a wind-storm, the path of least resistance, and the rain beats a patter against the roof. It's clear that nothing makes any sense, stretch as you might. Conditional. Consider the flowers within just a square yard, the miniature iris, whatever that wild pansy, a small white flower that almost escapes my attention, the natural world. Listen. This is as close as it gets. No reservation, late, the bugs are making a point. The ridge is a unique biosphere, a world ten thousand years old; build a twig fire at the mouth of a cave, or at the leeward of a tree-trip pit. Ten thousand possible endings but you find yourself there, not that it matters, in the great scheme of things. This train don't carry no liars. Stranded, I ain't got a home in this world any more. Mississippi John Hurt, "Lay My Burden Down", I do love the blues late at night. Can't believe how out of it I was yesterday; I almost never nap but I must have nodded off six or eight times. Today I listened to all of the news shows on NPR because I'd been so out of touch for a week. I do, actually, like to keep in touch with the doings of the world, in addition to my more esoteric pursuits. I'm surprised at the shock about privacy issues. Your grocery store, for god's sake, knows more about you than you'd care to admit. Nice soaking rain today. Last year, at this time, we were in a drought and the farmers were pulling their hair. Twice today I ate a great dish based on left-over food: a pile of smashed baked potato with thinly sliced pork (country ribs), and an egg on top. I would have had the whole thing on toast, but my bread had gone moldy. I hate waste, and Americans waste a huge amount of food, so I make a lot of soup and some interesting forcemeats; things I can't use I feed to animals. Throw a country rib out on the verge and it will be gone tomorrow. Guaranteed. Anything organic. The natural world is voracious. Omnivorous. I sometimes stop at the lake and throw out ten dozen hamburger buns and they're always gone the next morning. Linda and Glenn call, from St. Paul, and it takes me a minute to find my voice, I hadn't spoken to anyone since the reception and it was like I had forgotten how to talk. I'd like to take a road trip out to see them, cook a meal for some of their friends. Engage in conversation. What I have right now is tree frogs and a million cicadas. It's very loud outside. A weird reversal. Usually, I go outside for the quiet, now I hole up in a corner of the library, under the workbench, hoping to god I wouldn't be hit by a fragment of whatever that bullet was. It's so loud it begs the question. Read more...

Reception Preparation

Electricity was out last night, from a deluge yesterday afternoon that must have dumped several inches of rain in an hour. I was exhausted from a day of cleaning, getting ready for the set-up of the wedding reception today. Spent most of the day in the kitchen because it hadn't been cleaned (and things put away) since the last event. Mopped enough to settle my mind. Today was a zoo, the wedding party, decorating; setting up tables, covering folding chairs with nice cloth covers that got tied into a bow behind; then they did their table arrangements and set up their candy bar. Candy? At a wedding? The event is being catered by a very good barbecue place, and I'm of mixed mind. I know the place will be trashed, with sauce and beer everywhere, but I'll get to eat someone else's cooking. The bride's mother and father asked when they could get in the building tomorrow (we're open one to five) and I asked them when did they want to get in the building. They said they were hoping for eight, and I told them that wasn't going to happen, but that I could be there by nine. When people rent the museum space, they think they own it; Mark and Charlotte see this, and that I'm drawn off-task for days, and the facility suffers. We won't be doing many more of these. A grape vine has climbed up the screen on my writing window, where I look out, straight ahead, and it obscures some detail., almost everything, in fact; so I go and cut a dozen or so leaves, soak them in a brine. Then rinse them well in rain water. I roll these around anything, but in this case a mushroom and pork forcemeat, steam them in chicken broth and white wine, sinfully good, served on a bed of basmati rice, with a sauce I reduce from butter, pan drippings, and brandy. Shane and Tami arrive with the drawing show for upstairs, and it is beautiful, soft and lovely. Tami is the real thing, someone who can really render a likeness. I knew there was a reason I worked at an art museum. The week was a blur. I met the decorators yesterday morning and worked straight through until eleven last night, had one drink and passed out on the floor in my office. It was a lively party. I had no idea there were so many beautiful people in Portsmouth. Lots of short frocks and ankles, lots of dancing, loud DJ music. The bar was upstairs, so lots of spilled drinks. Dozens of pieces of candy ground into the floor. I hate candy at events in which liquor is served. The museum is trashed, the bathrooms especially. When I woke up this morning I couldn't look at it, so I just locked up and left. Brought home some left-over food, so I wouldn't have to cook; alternately napped and read on the sofa. I'm appalled at the expense of most weddings, enough money for the down payment on a house; and the waste tips a large carbon footprint. Enough food left-over or thrown away to feed a couple of hogs for a month, and all those dresses that will only be worn once. Renting silly useless tuxedos, and spending a small fortune on decoration; the entire concept that something becomes special if you throw enough money at it rankles me. Take a lesson from the Amish, a pot-luck dinner in an open field, with live music, is a real celebration. Then there's that whole reunion thing going on. People you haven't seen or talked to for years, using the excuse of a wedding as a marker to note how everyone else is doing on the socio-economic scale. That's probably a little harsh, but I don't do reunions unless it involves several poets getting together for a night of serious drinking. Otherwise, I'm content keeping my own counsel. Enslin called me a jack-daw, and I think it's a positive thing, to stay interested in what's going on. Reading Lucretius, today, how often can you say that, I had the thought that mediation was not between me and God, but between me and nature. Whether you live or not in a hostile world, it all comes down to motivation. Would you give up your identity? Idiopathic malaise. No, I don't think so; the bride is dumber than a rock, and the groom; things splay the way you might imagine, a pattern emerges. Read more...

Tired

I'm feeling old. I don't want to argue, I can see from the tilt how things are going to fall. Argue how you might, once the point is tipped there is an inexorable fall. The call of gravity. Sure, it's all drainage, but stop, for a moment, observe the way a pebble alters the flow, first thing you know you're calling up friends to alert them. Beware the water flowing down hill. Too dense. I snap back, to a kind of reality, this is that, a relative universe. Just when I'm going over the edge, a friend responds, and we discuss various means of cooking acorn squash. I know we're only avoiding the issue, what is actually happening. Flowers, for one, a kind of pansy, blooms by the side of the road. Second day with the new bosses, Charlotte and I take down the print show. She's easy to work with. Then I stripped the hardware and filled the hundred or so holes in the walls. We'd been given about thirty pieces of art, for our fund-raiser auctions (one high-end, one somewhat kitsch) and I brought all of them out for the three curators to divide into good and bad piles. Fun to watch them decide. Hot outside, and a line of thunder storms moving in, so as soon as I locked up I hurried home, beating the first waves of rain. I let the first rain wash off the roof, then put out a couple of buckets to harvest some water. Kim's going to make me a tenderizing/flattening mallet, cast iron with a wooden handle. I've always used a wine bottle. Be nice to have the correct tool. I figure I'll clean it with boiling water and rub it with walnut oil after every use. Booby was killing some chickens and I asked him to sell me the livers; he gave them to me, of course, and I had picked up a couple of remaindered lamb sirloin chops that had a fair amount of fat, decided to make a pate. I only don't, more often, because it's such a mess to clean up, but I have a lot of rain water right now. Perfect hot weather fare, with gherkins and olives, a chunk of stinky cheese. When I make pate now, I don't even think about it. It's actually a force-meat, I think, a spread. This one, I mortared some various peppers, dried morels, and watercress to a paste and mixed them together. Outstanding, really. Not on the menu anywhere I know. If you're right handed you take a saltine in your left hand, and smear on a blob of pate with the right, lean the knife against the paper plate, bite off half a gherkin, a black olive, then pop the saltine loaded with pate, then the other half of gherkin. I mean, come on, how long would it take to get used to that? I'd cave right away. Your call. Read more...

Too Much

Back to the beginning. What were you doing when the lights went out? The onslaught of silence woke me, nothing everywhere, no computer, no refrigerator, no hum in the walls, utter silence. Even the wind has given up the ghost. Gabriel sings through the voice of a couple of tree frogs and some bugs. Not exactly Saint Mathew's Passion, but close. A Whip-O-Will ruins my concentration. Kim showed up, a few minutes early (projecting his timing from Tallahassee) and I'm not surprised that he's on time, I'd just gone out for a smoke expecting him right then. We share some great history, starting at Florida State, then, The Cape Playhouse, where we cut our teeth, working with a great crew, with great designers. We did the impossible as a matter of course, and played hard on the one day a week we had off, though we had to work that night. A relentless schedule that is only barely imaginable now. We were smoking pot and LSD was still legal, not yet illegal, I was tripping all the time, and we'd build these great sets, and do perfect shows. A perfect show is as rare as an albino, and the fact that we did three or four of these a week was pretty special, plus, we learned to visualize, and we learned to solve problems, we were in step with the universe, but we didn't know it. Kim and I talk half the night. He only drinks one night a year, the night he spends with me on his way to Montreal. I made a nice supper, tenderloin, roasted baby potatoes, slaw, bread, the sauce. He drove back in with me this morning (left his rental car at the museum) and we had a final chat, about his upcoming weekend. First work day with Mark and Charlotte, changing of offices, working toward our job descriptions. Then the mother of the bride and the caterer came in, to discuss Saturday's wedding reception. It's huge, over capacity, to be catered with ribs and sauce. Should be a pretty scene. An artist, Tammy, is bringing her show up from NC on Friday. I have a list the length of my arm, of things that need doing before Friday, at five o'clock in the afternoon. D and I had dropped everything, to get the back hall finished, and I am sorely behind. TR caught me at quitting time, and we went over to the pub for a beer, talked about the changing of the guard. This has been a rough period: the remodel, the alley, then add to that a complete re-shuffle of staff positions. Lord love a duck. I don't know what I finally figured out, that the rear end of the Jeep danced around because there wasn't enough weight in the back, so I stopped and bought the heaviest thing they had in bags, at Portsmouth Cement And Lime, Playsand, and put just four bags of it right at the back of the tailgate; what a difference. Though control isn't an issue for me, I see now why the rear end was swinging the way it was. I need four new extremely aggressive tires, and new shocks. I can make this work for a while. Clawing my way to the ridge. But at some point, I'm too old and feeble. Too old and feeble. Read more...

Another Aspect

Social situations, you mix the demographics. Ankles and short skirts are part of it. Cathexis is the word that comes to mind. Libidinal energy. Sex drives situational politics. TR was able to determine exactly which feet I was looking at; I shouldn't be surprised, I strive toward transparency. Several times, during the evening, I forgot what I was saying. Sexist, to say, of course, that bend of bay, but it is, nonetheless. I'd gone out coon hunting, this was years ago, in Mississippi, with a group of good-old-boys, and we'd stopped to build a twig fire, to heat some water for a toddy. Say what you will, stopping for a toddy, the mere act of stopping, is a big deal. Not for me, I'd rather stop and look at something than not, but most everyone else is in a hurry, and they miss the finer points. Mark and Charlotte start full-time next week, and as soon as we figure out the job descriptions, we should be off and running. Now I guess it's 'up and running'. So green outside that it's almost painful. Overcast all day, though it never rained, then just before sunset, the clouds blew away and the dappled light was blinding. Found a last clutch of morels, though it cost me too many ticks to count, had the last three rounds of homemade polenta (left over grits I stuffed into one of the several cans I keep for just that procedure), and went for the obvious. Fried the polenta rounds in very hot peanut oil, set them aside, then caramelized half a shallot, which took nearly an hour, but I was reading a book, so it didn't matter, and set them aside; fried the morels in the same skillet, in a goodly chunk of butter, with lots of fresh-ground black pepper, added the shallots, nuked the polenta. I had two rounds smothered in mushrooms and sauce, and the last with butter and maple syrup. Sinfully good. I could do this on acorn mush, and it'd be even better, in terms of nutrition. Kim tomorrow, then the new world order on Tuesday. Blue turns to black, west to east; some evenings I take out my Selma rocking chair, and watch the gloaming, a force of habit. But it gets dark everywhere, eventually. Read more...

Profoundly Quiet

That dream again, where I'm on top of some very rickety scaffolding. I was focusing lights for an opera, Peter Grimes, by the look of things. Outdoors, elaborate set, the east coast above Gloucester, Massachusetts, because the beach was all rocks as it only is above Cape Ann, and there was a good breeze off the Gulf of Maine. I woke at the penultimate scene, when things started shaking badly, sat up starker's. I hate this dream, whatever it purports to mean. I go outside to pee, then get a dram of the creosote single malt and roll a smoke. I'd had the AC on earlier, to cool Black Dell, but before I went to sleep on the sofa, I'd turned it off and opened some windows. Quiet as a tomb except for a layer of bug sound that is exactly like, is, in fact, white noise. I have to flip the breaker on the fridge, and put a post-it on Dell's screen to flip it back on before I go back to sleep. Sit on the stoop for quite a while, in the dark, and listen. Hot and humid. On a whim, I play Edgar Meyer's transcription of The Cello Suites for double bass, and it's a revelation. The greatest music ever. At one labile point I'm actually crying. The depth, the sonority, is such that I fall into a state, a cone of attention, where my personal failures stack up to define me. We learn, of course, by failure. Only Bach makes me think about faith. Not quite true, those miniature Iris do the trick, and that tubular fog on the Ohio, but you know what I mean. We're defined by what we've done. Apa Sherpa has climbed Everest 21 times, a lady Sherpa, never going below 20,000 feet, achieved the summit four times last year. Last Sunday 238 people walked on top of the world. May is the climbing season. Ciudad Blanca, that new technique, LIDAR I think they call it, light reflecting radar, has exposed a vast civilization in what is now rain forest. Raised roads and temples. People populated this area before it became a forest. Wow, I have to realign my South American history. We were there much earlier, pre-pre-Colombian. I have a theory. Liz says I always have a theory. Yesterday was all about the new directors, walked around, sat around, ate lunch together, then the impromptu cocktail party. Enjoyed myself, and I do love women in summer dresses and sandals. It's the ankles that get to me. Chatted with nearly everyone (a couple of dozen people) and I knew everyone there. I was designated as last to leave, and I'd had a few drinks, so I stayed in town. Dined on strawberries and grapes and brie, excellent crackers and Melba Toast. Clay had gone over to Kroger for the finger food and helped him carry it in, found myself staring at a box of Melba Toast wondering who the hell Melba was. 1897, Dame Nellie Melba, an Australian opera singer, who had a stomach upset, and Escoffier prepared it for her, also Peach Melba. Wanted to get home, because of forecast thunder showers, and I needed to harvest some rain, so after an early lunch with TR (I just had a draft, as I had food at home that needed to be eaten) I headed back toward the ridge. On the way I started thinking about 'posturing', what some of my actor friends call 'indicating', where the acting shows through. Going to a cocktail party, for instance. What you think you see, and what you think you get. Serving up a line of talk. Good though, because we need a line of connection, between the directors, the board, and the patrons. So it's nice to mill around and introduce people. I'm good at this, though I hate to admit it. I was in the pub, the other day, talking with Barb about staffing problems, and how you planned for the unexpected. This constitutes most of the known universe. Read more...

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...