Mental decline
Quote:How is your reshelving project coming? Has the smell of paint dissipated? Are people still giving you sage advice? Are you keeping your serenity despite the sage advice?
Well, I've given away enough books to make a positive difference on the shelves; not so much need for double shelving, thank God. The reference books are mostly back, though not in the original order, but still clumped together, at least. I'm trying to make my art supplies more orderly and accessible, and to tell the truth this has come before getting the books properly arranged.
The smell of paint is just about gone, although people coming in from the hall sometimes sniff a little.
As for sage advice, that seems to have dissipated along with the smell of paint, but I'm still getting condolences from people I meet in the public areas. That too will dissipate eventually. I had a long phone call from the wife of an old friend of Bob's - he knew the couple long before he knew me - and I hope to keep in touch with her, to learn anything and everything she can tell me about him. She lost her husband a couple of years ago to brain cancer, just awful.
Right now I'm making the final selection of poems to read at my Christopher Robin Orgy on the 19th, and I've begun putting in the little notes and comments, memories and feelings that occur to me while doing this. Like the one about being eaten by bears if you step on the lines of the sidewalk: it makes me wonder if this is peculiar to English-speaking children, or is some form of the superstition common in other countries. We always said "Step on a crack break your mother's back", but the idea is still there. Anyway, this is part of the fun of doing these readings.
