The Art Show

Yesterday, Vicki and I, along with Emily, hung the first show I've done in many years at the regional library. Let me just say that it was an all day event. Vicki always used to say that the best you could shoot for is arranging the paintings in such a way that people didn't notice anything wrong. Vicki and I hung many a show back in the day.....shes amazing at it.

Because this is a relatively new facility, the director of the space, who I'll call "Mark" in an effort to protect his true identity, objected to the hammering of nails and hooks in to his wall like areas. The three of us had to tie the paintings to fishing wire and suspend them from hooks along a rail close to the ceiling. This involved the climbing up and down of a ladder. the good news here is that I didn't fall once. The bad news is that I managed to drop, fumble, and ultimately step on the end of all the lengths of fishing wire that Emily had just cut causing them to dissolve in to a pile of reeeeeeaaaaallllly thin spaghetti behind her. "NANCY!!!!!", "ooops....sorry Emily"

I did my time up on the ladder. I even climbed up carrying a pair of scissors once or twice, which is a clear signal to the Gods that they need to hold their collective breaths and scramble my guardian angels. "Code red, code red!!!...shes climbing with scissors!......repeat...code red!!!" I was amazingly focused in my determination not to crush either one of the ladies on the ground; "step and up......step and up...nice...and....easy.....step and up...I'm glad I shaved my pits.....step and up"

Mark entered and spent some time verbalizing. He did this frequently. I found myself wondering why my brain refused to make any sense out of what he was saying. "Yup.....he's clearly trying to communicate something. Verbal little fella isn't he". Why is his signal not coming in on my station?I am perplexed.....yes....he's difinitely trying to tell me something. I smile and nod a lot. OK.......moving on. Vicki would like to squash him like a bug. I can see it in her eyes. There is nothing hidden with Vicki. I'm genuinely surprised that she hasn't gone up and knocked on his forehead yet and called him annoying.

Gotta pee....so I enter the bathroom labeled "family restroom" I couldn't resist. Is there a salad bar in there or something? I had to know what constitutes a family style group toidy. The room is quite large in order to accommodate out of town relatives and overnight guests I imagine. There is a standard size toilet on one side of the room and a teeny weenie baby toilet on the other side.......like a gnome size toilet. I resisted the urge to use the gnome toidy and headed to the grown-up head......which happened to be situated directly in front of a sink and mirror. No one should ever have this sort of a view of their own parts and functions. I had to take a lorazepem afterwards. Who's brilliant fucking idea was this arrangement. Oh look......there's a little gnome sink too!

A mere 7 hours later and the show was hung, and with no major injuries or fatalities I might add. We looked around the room quite proud of what we had accomplished. I left the venue feeling like I have always felt with my artwork on display....sorta like a '76 lime green Ford Pinto in a Mercedes lot.

This is my life.

I arrived home exhausted and checked my e-mail. There was one from Vicki which read: "you are not a lime green Pinto...just in case you were wondering"

She knows me all too well.