Nemesis

Last week at a small social gathering, someone mentioned her nemesis in passing and I casually asked if she found it a big commitment to have such a thing. She laughed and we briefly discussed the amount of energy it takes to thoroughly detest something unceasingly and unerringly for a lifetime. To me, at that moment, I could imagine nothing worthy of such attention.

The next day I went to work. It was my first day alone in the shop without the girl who trained me. My boss was around and more than willing to answer questions, but as I've been framing for a long time I've pretty much been able to jump right into being useful.

One thing that is not familiar to me at this new frame shop is the glass situation. Nick uses only UV and museum glass in his frames. I've used one-sided glass before (as these both are), but never these two kinds. UV he uses on most things. Museum glass on a few. Museum glass, he said early on, should never be touched without cotton gloves and handled as little as possible as it is reputedly impossible to clean once dirtied.

I worked slowly on Thursday, as I was constantly doing things like looking for tools that are lying around somewhere in the frame shop at the NAU Art Museum, and spent roughly half the day trying to find my mat blade at intervals, only to realize repeatedly that it was, and has always been, attached to the mat cutter (unlike the one in Flagstaff). Oh the irony -I would never lose it if I would just stop looking for it.

Towards the end of the day, Nick asked me to put glass in a piece. I wandered over to the scrap pile and selected a sheet to cut down. I cut it (proud of myself for not messing up, even tho I haven't cut glass by hand since high school). I slid it into the frame, cleaned one side and flipped it over (keeping careful track of which side needed to face the art in the end).

I consider myself something of a master in the art of cleaning glass. I have had hours of experience learning all the different ways to wipe, buff, shine, polish and otherwise make glass absolutely transparent. I know which strokes work and which don't. I know all sorts of tricks and short cuts. However, I cleaned this glass over and over to no avail, flipping it back and forth and back and forth. The clock was ticking. The glass still sported smug smudges. Nick left to get his son from school and came back only to discover me still in the same place I'd been when he left. Trying to clean the &$%@#$&* piece of glass.

I said, "I just can't seem to get this glass clean," when he wandered in at some point.

"Try some of this adhesive remover," he suggested, pulling a metal cannister out from under the table.

I opened the can, then opened the window, wondering how many of my brain cells each wiff of the stuff was costing me. Using it sparingly, I succeeded in cleaning nothing. Using it profusely, I also succeeded in cleaning nothing.

Nick wandered back in. He gave me a quizzical look reminiscent of how Jasonhess looks every time I ask him a question about how he wants something done on his website.

"This seems to have some sort of scratch on the coating. I don't think it's actually in the glass tho," I told him.

He nodded wisely. "Sometimes you can buff those out. Let me see." He walked over and looked at the glass. "Oh," he said. "This is museum glass. You don't need to use this. I mean, you can if you want but it's really hard to clean. UV is better."

Museum glass. Of course. That explained the odd rainbow of florescent colors that seemed to pool under any moisture I dropped onto the surface. That explained why the text of the "score this side only" notice was slightly different than on the other sheets of glass I had used that day. That explained everything.

"Oh," I said, deflated. "Of course. Maybe I'll just cut another piece."

"Yeah, go ahead and do that," Nick agreed, and walked out of the room.

In that moment I decided that museum glass is my nemesis. Whenever it is near me, I will hate it. If it ever reaches out to me with offers of peace and reconciliation, I will scorn it. However, I have no intention of thinking about it any more than necessary. I plan to forget its existence between my brief flashes of intense and pure detestation.

Which is why I wrote a blog about it...

Dang.

I think it already has the upper hand.