August 29, 2007

My program of toleration for the local opossums is not turning out well. They– I think it was they–broke into my cantaloupes. It forced me to harvest the two which were untouched, and which turned out to be not only ripe but delicious. More cantaloupes, fewer marsupials next year.

The Field Museum in Chicago sends me a thank you note, a souvenir booklet, and free entry tickets in thanks for my tyrannosaur poem. I am the sort of person who must resist flying to Chicago just to use the free tickets.

Lunch with JF, where I learned, as if I hadn’t learned before, how oblivious I am concerning my effect on others. People I think hardly know me write touching letters of thanks and homage, while some I love seethe with loathing and resentment. I have no clue, usually, how I earned either one. I blunder about doing what I do, assuming that people have perfect understanding of my motives, and will honor the motive above the sometimes contradictory action. All is right between JF and me, but I still feel a little staggered, a general blamed for botching a battle he didn’t know he was fighting.

David Gary gives my paintings back, not needing them for the walls of his new office. They are old, and in a style I no longer use, in a style I’ve almost forgotten why I used, and I don’t know how to relate to them anymore. I hang two in the house to get reacquainted. They are cool and lovely. I wonder if there’s something in them that I want back.

. . . assuming I ever get to the studio again.

I am almost never cool and lovely.