magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

The reproduction images and artifacts that accompany the museum text, laminated between plexi and stood off from the main display panels, were to finally go up today. As I was the person who placed them all, as well as edited and touched-up the files for printing, it fell to me to assist in the installation. Which, after one of the contractor's assistants helped placed the first one, meant that I was actually installing all 30+ pieces myself. Peel off the super-stick tape, carefully position, hope it's right, bang in place.

Despite the worry of putting something up wrong, or crooked, it was actually nice to get my hands involved in the tangible making of this space, having spent so many hours with the designing, visualizing, and tweaking the representations of the space. And, in place, full-size and real, these images add a great deal of warmth, interest, and colour to the narrative of the text.

No fault of mine, two of the images needed to be switched, and I needed to get to the original files to resize and retouch them to each other's dimensions. I called just about everyone I could think of who might be in the office. It's the last week of the year, sandwiched between two already long holiday weekends, and most people are taking the time off. So I called reception where I knew there was a temp working who I had sort of met last week (her name's Heidi, she's from Rhode Island) but had never really talked to.

'Hi, this is Bean. I work in the office, over in the far corner. But I'm on-site in Charlotte this week. There are a couple files on my computer that I need, but I'm not sure who's in the office that could help out.'

'Well, is there anyone you want to talk to?'

'Whoever's there, really. It's pretty simple. I know there's not a whole lot of people around this week.'

After a little back and forth, she said, 'Let me see if anyone can help.' A minute later she comes back to the phone. 'Are you sure you have the right office? No one here knows who you are.'

'Yes, I'm sure. I work at PDG. Everyone knows who I am. It's Bean, with a B, like the vegetable.'

'Well, who's your supervisor?'

'It doesn't really work that way. I'm freelance. If anyone it would be Chris who's here in Charlotte.'

'I'll see if Emmett can help.'

'I'm sure he'll be able to. thanks.'

---

Drinks and dinner with more of the on-site crew this evening, at the same place we went last night. Somehow it fell to me to pick out a bottle of wine for the table, probably because I expressed a preference for a grape variety when the question of red vs white was floated. 'If we're going with red I'd prefer a pinot noir.' Knowing nothing specifically about most of the bottles offered, I went with my gut. 'I'm not sure I could say no to a vineyard named Flowers.' And while the waiter tried to upsell me to the more expensive of the two Flowers pinots they had, his method was to describe the less pricey one as 'earthy' with a hint of 'mushroom'. Which was enough to convince me that that was the bottle I wanted. And it was good. And mostly a hit with the table.

After dinner, with the consensus of having another drink, I found myself in the billiard room of a cigar bar, with a tumbler of scotch (and then another) playing poll terribly against my middle-aged colleagues.

Back at the Westin, a little drunk, figuring that it's my last night here on business in my fancy hotel room with a city view, why am I not trying to pick up girls, I stopped at the hotel bar. 'I know you close at midnight. So does that mean that last call was ten minutes ago? Or do I still have time to get a drink?'

'Actually, we're closed,' the bartender said, in a not entirely friendly tone of voice. I briefly considered heading back into the city center, to Ri-Ra (yes, they have one here too, right across the street from a Capital Grille none the less), but decided against it.

So back upstairs, where I checked my email for the files that Emmett had sent off, and spent the next hour or so working, instead of..