Staggering around half loaded

I am now convinced that getting into pot is a gateway drug to harder drugs like wood firing.  I should never have inhaled or eaten those brownies and delicious cookies. I might have had a successful career in something really interesting like tax accounting, or life insurance. I almost dozed off just mentioning those career choices.

Each morning I start by going over to the Amish to pick up a load of wood for the kiln. In this 30 degree heat I must surely be past rehabilitation. On a good day I’m finished with the wood prep by 10.30. I keep going back to that pile of wood and it never seems to be getting any smaller. It is tinder dry and I’m totally excited to fire Cassius Clay with this wood.  Yesterday I moved wood, went to the studio and Andrew came home to help me half load the kiln. He had to make a pillow to sit his sissy candy ass on in the kiln. They ain’t making real men like me anymore. You don’t see no whoopy cushion under my butt.

I was pooped so I wasn’t about to be Susie Homemaker(apologies to my friend Susie Bowman

in Alabama)  and make dinner so we bought some beer and ordered a pizza.  Oh yeah we had also repaired the bottom of my cousin Brenda’s kiln floor in her gas kiln.

Helga Eckstein has often commented on my work ethic. Helga it is present in many of us that work in clay. There is no room in this bizz for stumblebums. We love our work, our lives and the company that we surround ourselves with. To stay solvent in this bizz unless you have independent means you have to work hard and work bloody hard.  I often sing the praises of the people I hang with. I do because they are worker bees. Here is a pic of Ronnie the Rat and me last weekend at his cottage on Lake Erie. Ronnie works each day and he is I ain’t saying exactly but over age 80. Making the best work of his life and the reason is that it is a hard drug addiction that requires daily maintenance. If you can go more than two weeks or maybe a month without doing pot you are not an addict. I would become irritable and impossible to live with. I guess you could say the same for coffee. I would not like to wake tomorrow morning with the thought of no coffee. I intend to live forever, so far so good!