Finished the inventory sheet for the Vienna room this morning. Twelve ton of salvage, four months of work, and the piece sold for 38,000 euros. My half is 19,000. Subtract the transport, which I paid, the two assistants, the crane, and I am somewhere under 6,000 for a season of my life.

I signed this contract in 2019 when I was glad anyone wanted the thing at all. Now I look at the number and I feel like the man who sells his own furniture to pay the rent on the room he keeps it in.

The strange part. I know exactly what to do. I have done it before, with a smaller gallery, and they said yes without any drama. And still I have not written the email. It has been sitting in my drafts since Tuesday. The drafts folder is a kind of museum of things I was too polite to say.

Anyway, the invoice goes out Friday as agreed. Some of us are slow learners with good manners.