I can painlessly transcend sub-nominal circumstances as I did when I declared the planned Saturday of eating other peoples’ food “an experiment,” and ended the day without feeling the world hates me. I had paid a few bills last week, and had to stretch what was left in the account to July 1. (In my kitchen, I had less than half a loaf of bread. half a jar of mayonnaise; coffee and iced tea mix to last me well into the new month.) If esteemed upstairs resident did not pay rent until the second or third, I’d have to stretch it even further. That’s why food availability dictated my social calendar for the weekend. Thursday, I decided that if I could be a mite more social and nourish my body, the result from my socializing would serve two purposes: surprising some folks I haven’t seen since I discontinued my Central Illinois Visual Artists Galleries web enterprise that I’m not a past-tensed entity and consuming what would likely be a light “lunch” but a better “dinner.”

That’s why I attended the Vachel Lindsay Home’s annual neighborhood walking architectural tour starting at 9 Saturday. Light refreshments had been promised at the end. That element was the clincher, but I also wanted to make good my previous week’s promise to the director that I would attend the event with camera in tow. Jennie Battles had hinted she might want me to share some of my memorized Vachel poetry and songs at a House event on July 5. So, really, it was a combination motivation. At the end of it all, along with excellent conversations, handing out some of my new Vachel Pages web site cards and taking some deccent pictures for my VP web site, I had enjoyed my seven or eight cookies and two cups of Jennie’s fabulous Constant Comment iced tea aaaaaaaaaaand departed the home with the happy news that I am invited to share my poetry and song thing at the site next Saturday. There’s no pay involved (it’s a state insitution and budgeting has been cut back; NOT a big deal since I would gladly share at the Vachel house as my gift to that place) but I am invited to lunch early in the afternoon.
After spending every minute between that fine tour processing the pictures I took, working on my web pages and tossing several cups of Folgers instant down the hatch, I stopped only long enough to change clothes and head over to Springfield Art Association’s reception for their new gallery exhibition. It was the first time I had visited the place since shutting down CIVAG and the first time most of them had seen me without facial hair (notwithstanding those growing out of my ear lobes). All in all, it was a very happy event that included warm greetings from director Angie Dunfee, friendly encounters with artists Gloria and Jerry Josserand, and a fast posed photo shoot of Tony Leone, owner of Pasfield House.

The finger food and wine are the best of any gallery reception I’ve attended and I guiltlessly consumed all I wanted. I wasn’t piggy about it; put only twice as much on my saucers (three or four rounds) as most of the others, took some pictures for my blog and future applications, and departed for the big blues and jazz fest downtown where I had volunteered to help. My camera went along, of course.
We missed a major downpour by Divine beneficence. Walking from my car to the big doin’s I expected to be drenched by what seemed major precip before I arrived. The skies didn’t dump on us. After helping take tickets about half an hour, I spent the next three and a half at the been truck and had a great time. I also found time to get away for a few minutes at a time to take some pictures of some of the bands. The whole evening was a breeze with excellent people and fine music, especially a group from Memphis whose name I will share when I find it somewhere. .I was having so much fun I didn’t think to take home a program.

Throughout the night, I had consumed all the beer I desired in the course of “testing” newly tapped kegs, but I had eaten nothing. No time and no dollars. As the event shut down a little after midnight, I was walking by the food vendors next to the beer wagon when someone shouted “Anyone want some leftovers?” I GRATEFULLY took home two bratwursts and kraut and two hamburgers, all I could hold with two hands without seeming like a third-class beggar. The beer I had consumed (not a LOT) might as well have been water based on the nil impairment encounterd driving home. It’s not risking lying to myself to believe I had worked it all out of my system.
On arriving home in the piquant coolness of the near south side at 12:30 am, not having any alcohol of any kind in the house for more than a week, considered myself LUCKY to down two glasses of Lipton Instant while almost inhaling the burgers and brats while watching the second half of DaVinci’s Inquest. It was an incredibly satisfying conclusion to a day uncommonly productively spent and amply rewarding.
Today, I could have gone to the grocery store for more provisions, but I’m counting my past-midnight repast fair and ample nourishment for the day. All day, I’ve been at this computer processing pictures from yesterday and working on my web sites, trying to reduce aviation photo content to make more room for arts-related pictures. I know that if I eat even two pieces of toast and margarine, with raspberry jam of course, I’ll only become hungrier and eat the rest of the bread tonight. Instead, I’m cutting myself off the coffee so I can get to sleep at a decent hour (‘Round Midnight as Thelonius Monk might say) and IF I reward myself with food, it will be close to bed time. My “experiment.” has been successful. When I’m having fun or working productively, food for me is incidental anyway. If only I could spend more time engaged in productive activity, this froggy countenance I call my baaaaahdy might be in better form. So might my life.
Live long . . . . . and proper.
Read Full Post »