Last Laugh

Last year, during a solo trip to Lisbon I was seated at a coffee shop near Campo de Santa Clara after touching a highly satisfying number of vintage tiles at a nearby flea market. As I sipped my latte, suddenly across the cafe an older woman dropped to the ground out of her chair. I would say she was around 75 or 80, but based on the European average rate of visual aging she could have been 152. 

It was clear this was a serious medical event, but I was trapped in order limbo, not sure if simply getting up and leaving would constitute walking out on the bill. As her family cried and tried to revive her, the medics arrived and cut her shirt open to begin CPR, prepared to issue shocks from the charging defibrillator. I fully intended to do the right thing and look away, and bestow this vulnerable moment with the sacred privacy it warranted. 

I want to lie to you and recall how I respectfully closed my eyes, and sent a small prayer up to whatever god might be live streaming this episode of Earth. But I didn’t. And as her chest laid bare, jostled by compressions, I was overcome with a single blasphemous thought— god, her tits look incredible for her age. Now, I feel deep shame about this. But I say it reverently, as the only possible eulogy I have for a woman I do not know, who may or may not have dropped dead outside of that coffee shop in Portugal, her boobs really did look so good.

Abandoning the scene after leaving behind a 10 euro note for a 3 euro latte, I felt the jealousy of the impressive if not ill-fated bosom I’d so crudely observed chasing me. On one hand, I do believe the body is a vessel through which we are given and regiven the lessons we have come into this plane of existence to learn. On the other hand, I am also of the Dolly Parton philosophic school of enhancement, wherein if you wanna put a few more pumps into your own birthday balloons, that's entirely your own business. 

Thankfully, I have never had the financial resources wherein this titillating debate exists anywhere outside of the abstract. After all, a really truly spectacular boob job requires a gifted surgeon which requires a gifted budget in life. But — the thought intruded deeper — what about in death? 

Now that really struck the absurdist electrical field which constantly buzzes in my brain. All things considered once you remove all the expenses related to keeping someone alive through such a surgical procedure, it’s really just the cost of materials, right? A posthumous boob job would really be like revisionist taxidermy. Of course I would likely still splurge for saline or silicone, no cotton ball or sawdust stuffing. I highly doubt anyone is going to reach into the casket for a quick honkhonk, but just to be sure.

I imagine a somber gathering. One by one people shuffle past the open casket. No one wants to say it outloud. But somebody will eventually have to be the first. Quietly, in a way that doesn’t directly accuse, but simply suggests — were her boobs…always so…big? People might hold their phones below the pew, hidden behind black hems, pointing out old pictures. No, they were definitely smaller, right? Like, way smaller. In fact, as I am writing this, I actually want to go bigger. I want there to be an absolutely devastatingly hilarious moment wherein the pallbearers attempt to gently shut my casket, only to have my post-mortem knockers obstruct the peaceful closing. I want there to be a half second panic as they try to silently decide whether to allow it to remain propped open during the recessional, held ever so ajar by my belated jugs, or whether to try and put some elbow grease into it. It will be like my overly-inflated rage against the dying light.

But what is this impulse to get one more joke in as the reaper drags me offstage? It’s possible that knowing we all have almost no choice in when the curtain falls, it gives me comfort to feel as though in death I could be in control of something small, or at least average sized (currently a sloping but full C). Perhaps my long held belief that I am not enough leads me to want to persuade people to remember me as more than I was, in numerous ways. 

I think back to the moments before that older woman with the incredible rack collapsed. What a beautiful day she must have had before that moment, spent walking the streets of Lisbon with her family, sipping coffee together al fresco in the sunshine. Though I can’t say what her fate ultimately was, she didn’t seem to be in any pain, it would not have been such a bad way to go, with a bang and a flash, ogled by an envious, already sagging 32 year old. 

I think maybe I just want to get the last laugh. But like all things both tragic and comic, I guess it will come down to timing.

Contain

One day in May 2019, ten fish died in Charlotte, North Carolina.

My father had inherited a pond full of koi fish as a part of my parent’s official down-size, having finally shed the weight of a household sized for five. The previous owner of the house and the pond that came along with it, a man named Trent, had lived the robust life of a long-time bachelor. This, plus a healthy income I assume, had afforded him quite the collector’s spirit when it came to koi fish, with eleven mature fish in total.

Before the decision was even made to purchase the home, my father had begun drafting plans for a small lap pool, which would have evicted the koi from their tranquil home. However, a few days after moving in, I walked out of the back only to find him gently scattering food pellets across the water’s surface. “I call that big white one Jaws” he said, pointing between lily pads at a large pale fish that lurked among the 3 foot depths. It was thereafter more or less understood by all that the koi weren’t going anywhere.

Another factor which may have affected my father's opinion of this aquatic inheritance was their value. Trent had told my father during one of the many walkabout inspections of the home to take note of a number of koi in particular, remarking that they were high quality “sanke” koi. This meant they had an extremely desirable combination of both black and red color overlays and as such, had been purchased at a price of $2000 each. This became a heavily rotated anecdote of my father, though the amount was never directly stated, more issued in the form of a pop quiz for any visitor, how much would you guess a fish like that would cost? When ultimately all estimations fell short, he would divulge two-thousand dollars, can you believe it with both an air of disdain for a younger man's frivolous spending and a wink of pride for his savvy acquisition.

Under his care, with twice a day feedings, the koi flourished, each one growing to an absolutely enthralling size. As my parents approached a certain age, they began traveling more often and in their absence, I often became the default guardian of these treasured fish. While my dad always left specific instructions for their twice-a-day feeding and care, I often took to just occasionally doing double portions at night. Afterall, these were very fancy fish but nonetheless, they were fish. They didn’t exactly run up to meet you at the door. At the very most, you could consider yourself honored if a koi fish acknowledged that you were blocking the sun. But these exotic pets provided that perfect combination of routine maintenance and leisurely decadence that retired men seem to enjoy, and so the koi became a great source of joy for my father.

As it followed, one weekend while my parents enjoyed a long visit with friends out of town, I was charged with the care and keeping of the koi. On the day of their return, I made sure to arrive slightly early to ensure the house still looked pristine. I even arranged the pillows and did that extra karate chop to get that fancy center crease you see in Southern home magazines. I heard the car pull in and readied the smile I felt my two hard working parents deserved. Frankly, it had not been an easy weekend, or week, or year, but our family has always had a very the show must go on approach to hard times. I sat at the kitchen island and waited, facial choreography at the ready, just waiting for the music to kick on. A few minutes later, neither one of them had entered the back door and the room remained silent, so I walked out back. There, I saw my father standing by the pond, looking bewildered, with a dead fish at his feet.

“What happened?”

Apologies began to flow out of my mouth but at the same time, I really didn’t know. I was immediately overcome with the shame of disappointing him, destroying something he was proud of after so many years of paternal sacrifice. He looked at me and I suddenly became aware of the heat of the show’s spotlight turning my face hot, and turned heel to go cry backstage. I had really tried to keep all the balls in the air. What happened?

My mother came up a few minutes later to console me, an effort which in retrospect was nothing short of saintly. That’s when she told me that they had gotten a call during the car ride back home informing them that my father’s mother, my grandmother Nita, had become non-responsive. I needed to pull it together, because they needed to go be with her now. 

I went back downstairs to the backyard. My Dad had vials of water swirling in shades of pink and purple, each one telling of a different frantic search to solve a mystery. Lined up around the edge of the pool, were five more dead fish, like tally marks of my failure. My dad explained that they were suffocating, that there wasn’t enough air in the pond. “I’m just hoping the rest of them make it,” he said, shaking his head.

After they left, I continued the search for answers, only to discover how most of the others had met their end. In a desperate attempt to seek out oxygen, many of the koi had tried to propel themselves between the stones that lined the pond, becoming stiffly lodged once death had taken over. Thus began my long, difficult game of post mortem hide-and-seek. One by one I pried out my father’s prizes, tears of childish remorse streaming down my face. I had seen these fish eat heartily no less than 12 hours ago, alive and thriving. What happened?

While previous aquatic pets in life had bid a final farewell with a quick flush, these 2 foot behemoths were not exactly destined for an easy porcelain stairway to heaven. I might have considered giving them a full burial had it not been for the family dogs, who were now already growing fond of the increasing rankness of the dead fish laying out in the sun. I tell myself that the uncontrolled curiosity of snouts and paws would surely have excavated whatever mass grave I would have attempted.  So ultimately, I filled garbage bags with what was, in theory, around ten thousand dollars worth of koi fish.

Over the next three days, my grandmother transitioned away from the fiery Georgian schoolteacher into whatever other mystery awaits us. Her bedside vigil was kept most ferociously by my father, one of four children, who mostly sat alone by her bedside in a small room. He had called for palliative care, but they told him they were not able to come for a day or so. Upon first arriving at the ward, I found myself struggling to cross the threshold into a room which seemed so otherworldly. The knot of fear in my throat clenched so tight as I stood planted on this side of reality, a normal hallway where I could hear nurses down the hall hosting the kind of casual conversation shared between bored co-workers looking to pass the time. Because I loved the world on this side of the doorframe, where time could be something that just passed along.

My father saw me standing in the hall from the large armchair he had pulled up beside my grandmother’s bed just close enough to have his hand at the ready to place it on her frail arm as she endured the unknown sensations of parting this world.

“Come in here. It’s ok.” And because he was the one saying it, it was.

The next day, my father and I took a measuring tape to try and put some numbers behind the chaos of the universe. The three sole surviving koi looked on as we climbed over rocks, taking our measurements and rounding down rather than up, just to be safe. The result of our investigation was this. It seemed as though, upon further review, Trent had overexaggerated the size of the pond during the sale of the house. The pond we thought was 2000 gallons was actually closer to 1100. Both the waterfall and bubbler features operated on the same electrical circuit. That circuit had shorted out during a massive storm, meaning not only was no oxygen being added to the pond, but the additional rainfall had diluted the oxygen content even further, suffocating the fish. 

I regret not just indulging my father in his once in the morning, once at night feeding regimen. Had I more dutifully reported for what I believed to just be a somewhat spoiled schedule, I might have been able to fix the aeration system in time.  I still wonder how close the timing was. Because let me tell you this, it was very close.

On the third night, after palliative care finally arrived, my father came home to try and get some sleep. Hours later, he missed a call. It was very close.

A few days after the funeral, my father and I drove out to Monroe, North Carolina, to meet with a mobile fish hatchery driving in from the coast. They arrived an hour late, by which time a crowd had gathered, all grouchily sweating in the parking lot of a Tractor Supply. Hundreds of catfish, blue gill, and stock fish were funneled into large plastic bags, inflated with pure oxygen and quickly passed off in cash exchanges. 

The koi fish were slopped into two large blue buckets to the side. For a second, we stood there stupidly not knowing what to do next. I politely waited for them to produce nets, or step down to assist, but instead the woman called from the truck “Don’t be afraid, just stick your hand in and grab 'em.” The fish were so numerous and small that once you targeted one and quickly struck to catch it, you would have to pull your hand out and carefully draw two fingers back to see if you had in fact, captured your intended target. It was a lot of splashy trial and error. 

In the end, for eighty bucks and some soggy shoes my father and I took our bag of our selections home. Compared to their hulking predecessors, these koi seemed so delicate all swimming together in a single gallon bag like some kind of nostalgic prize from a wayward fair. Since then, under the same rigorous feeding schedule, they have quickly grown. I will tell you honestly that they are very mediocre looking, nothing like the beauties they replaced. Their colors are generally muddled and undefined, but even worse, there are more koi fish in the pond now than before. Because we thought not all the fish might not make it, we replaced the ten fish who perished with thirteen new koi. And they all just keep getting bigger.

It is worth noting here it is often incorrectly stated that, like their carp cousin the goldfish, koi will grow only to the size of the pond in which they are held. But in my quest for answers to absolve my guilt, I found out that this widely accepted fact actually isn’t true at all. The size of a container will not stop a koi from growing. It will slow it down, but ultimately, a koi fish will simply become as large as it is meant to be, no matter what.

There are now moments that I think of the terror I felt from the hallway, when at the end of her life my grandmother seemed like a small woman in a small room. I think about the wet thump of plastic bags heavy with bloated fish unceremoniously hitting the bottom of a trash can. I think about the many times my heart was aching and the insidious performer in my mind barks out that’s showbiz baby! I reflect on the many ways in life I try to make my grief very small, but in reality, I am creating a container that is doomed. That grief would grow quickly, and then stop until more space is created for it, that would be a nice way for life to be. But sadness will gaze into you with the same excruciatingly fogged eyes of a fish who didn’t know any better than to try and escape by burrowing deeper. And now there is nothing left to do now but hope that life can make the container bigger, and surrender to the truth that you cannot make the grief smaller. So, I take my medication. I try to let go of things I cannot change. I practice asking for help. I look at my body in the mirror and attempt to say with the same grace as my father:

Come in here, it’s ok.

Drained

When I moved to Greensboro, North Carolina I was set on course to fulfill the naïve destiny of every fresh graduate, an eager pursuit of  the holy triumvirate of “non”s. I had taken a non-paying role at a non-traditional non-profit, and since my income was non-existent I moved in with my best friend Tricia. It was a one bedroom apartment, so I was moving into what was essentially meant to be a luxurious closet. It was a small room accessible through the main bedroom that just barely fit the footprint of a queen size mattress. But I felt like this was more than enough to exceed the qualifications of a bedroom, seeing as it was a room filled only with a bed.

  Tricia and I both had a knack for acquiring lots of odds and ends, but when two such collections collide in a small space I’ll admit in certain light it slightly resembles a hoard. Collectively we had so many tables that one night we realized that each table sized almost perfectly down in scale. So rather than either of us getting rid of any useless tables, we stacked them one on top of the other all the way up to the ceiling to form a pyramid we called Table Mountain. To this day when Tricia and I talk about Table Mountain we speak of it with a kind of mystic reverence, like a Stonehenge we kept privately in our apartment. We don’t have any surviving photos of this magical formation, it lives on only in the witnessed testimony of a select few.

Once at a junk store we came across a small figurine, a colorfully dressed turnip-headed man who was posed laying on his stomach holding his turnip chin in his human hands. On his feet he wore what seemed to be wooden clogs which dangled in a somewhat oddly flirtatious manner. We became convinced he was truly either the only or the last of his kind, seeing as we could find no Google image search results to “cute anthropomorphic turnip figurine”. Therefore we had no choice but to take him into our protective custody. We dubbed him Prince Dutch Turnip Clown and he became almost like a mini-deity in our apartment, a motionless infanta. We sometimes would play a game where one of us would hide Prince Dutch Turnip Clown among our hoard, and the seeker would sing a very obvious song with lyrics composed mostly of his name while they searched for his little ceramic body. All that just to say yes, Tricia and I enjoy spending time together in a way that is unique, but recognized it might be a good idea to have others around to balance out our instincts.

         One such acquaintance was Jeremy, who lived in the apartment upstairs and studied Orchestral Performance at the nearby college. I can attest to the fact Jeremy has a musical ability that goes beyond natural talent or committed practice. He is an awe inspiring performer - elegant, in control and passionate. Anywhere other than in front of ivory keys however, Jeremy was a shit show. He didn’t really believe in locking doors, did not often remember to turn off burners or ovens and was really into incense, candles or open flames of any kind. More than once someone arrived just in time to nudge pizza boxes away from glowing red stovetops or blow out a candle left burning low. Jeremy was raised in a devoutly strict Christian home in rural North Carolina and had been more or less scorned when he came out as gay. Even though he was younger than us, that estrangement meant he was completely on his own financially.  He made money playing piano at an LGBTQA+ friendly church, but when we met he was in the process of finding his own voice as a musician. Sometimes we would listen from the porch as he wrote the most incredible songs about Lucifer jizzing on his face.

         Jeremy had found his current roommate about two months prior, through the ever-trusty Craigslist. He was older than any of us, a short man in his early thirties with that general thick-lensed glasses look of a knock off Allen Ginsburg, except that he was so thin he had to shop in the juniors section of Target. His stature was made incredibly more hilarious by the fact his name was Chris Farley. He is by far one of the strangest god damn people I have ever met, and that is saying a lot. He was totally down with Jeremy's maybe-we-burn-down-the house lifestyle mostly because Chris didn't really have anything to lose. I don't say that because he was some kind of nihilist. I say that because he owned close to nothing.

When we first met Chris, his room was completely empty except for a desk, a mysterious case of high end French wine and a shelf. He slept on the bare hardwood floor every night. I am not convinced he was a minimalist so much as he was possibly mentally ill. He made decent money as an operations manager at a catering company but he just didn’t find such luxuries as a bed to be either prudent or necessary. As a futile attempt to try and offset his intense chain smoking habit, Chris also left his second story window wide open regardless of the season. A good way to know if he was home would be to look up and see if there was an enormous wine glass precariously balanced on the sill with six to seven cigarettes stubbed out nearby.

He drove an old boat-sized Buick, and when that car gave out, probably from the sheer build up of cigarette ash in every single crevice, nook and cranny alone, he replaced it with another titanic-scale Buick. One night he asked Tricia and I if we wanted to see something cool and then, produced from within his closet a milk jug full of urine, assumedly his own. Chris is one of the most inscrutable people I have ever met in my life. And between Jeremy’s open door policy and Chris’s open window habit, they were both paying rent only to live two-thirds of the way outdoors most of the time.

         Those long summer days were the best of times, the worst of times but mostly they were the drunkest of times. Once, we hosted a small party wherein every attendee got rapidly smashed on tequila and champagne. No one even paused to consider that maybe neither of those substances is an appropriate or safe compliment for the other. So the chamquila had us feeling a unique combination of both wildly adventurous and demonstrably sentimental. This was the perfect time for a slippery concept like “best friend tattoos” to really take root. However, since it was 1 am, and no responsible tattoo artist would allow us so much as in their parking lot given the state of us, this was a job for the internet. About 45 seconds into a DIY tattoo instructable on YouTube we considered ourselves versed enough in the ancient art of body modification to bust out the sewing needles and india ink. I personally tattooed four people that night.

         Most of the other tenants in our building kept to themselves, and were therefore in our minds, serial killers. In those days there were two categories of people. There was us and there were serial killers. And while it may seem statistically unreasonable that multiple serial killers would live in the same dumpy house, I guess I just chose to believe in miracles. The evidence was undeniable. Where were they from 9 to 5 on weekdays? Why were they cleaning their cars? Why were their clothes being professionally dry cleaned? So, because we didn't want to get murdered, and because a number of noise complaints had been filed against us, it was time to pick up and move.

         Tricia, Jeremy, and I considered it divine providence when we found the holy grail of houses only a few blocks away. It was an old unrenovated three bedroom, three bathroom single story bungalow with a big backyard, and it was within our budget as long as you didn't believe in math. I switched from my non-profit job to working catering gigs, bartending and serving hipster tacos to make ends meet. Chris helped us move, and then in retrospect I’m pretty sure lived with us for a while. Turns out when someone doesn't really own anything, it's really hard to tell whether they are your roommate or not. We couldn't afford to turn on the gas and we did forget to transfer the electric service, but who was keeping track. Not us! We all celebrated the first night at the new house in the sweltering hot pitch black. Cheers to adulthood.

         Thus begins our fall from grace. First of all, it became immediately apparent none of our animals got along, meaning we were all instantly caught in the cross hairs of a pissing feud of which admittedly my dog was the main instigator. This meant there was a constant rotating cast of yellow-blotched, baking soda covered mattresses slumped against on the sunny-side of the porch. The key was to put the mattress out during the couple hours that the sun was high and Chris was at work, so the deodorizing effect wouldn’t be offset by the absorption of chain smoking.

A few weeks in the hot water stopped working and it occurred to us that the hot water furnace was probably gas powered. But we still didn't have enough money to pay the deposit, which just goes to show that even if you don't believe in math, it believes in you. So we all just agreed to soldier on for the time being. Most days were so hot, we shared in the lie that the cold water would be refreshing. Good for the skin! But let me tell you, starting and ending every day with a freezing cold shower makes for a very sad, neutered existence. Morale took a sharp downturn. I have one specific memory that serves as one of my standards for personal misery to this day. I had underestimated how long it took to cook a potato in the oven and was running out of time to eat before I had to report for a shift at work. So I ended up taking the semi-raw potato into the cold shower with me, and stood there completely naked, gasping and flinching under the ice cold water, eating around the potato’s still-crunchy core like an apple.

Jeremy was the first to refuse to submit to the passion shriveling showers any longer, and came up with his own solution. He would boil giant pots of water in the kitchen and then transport them in rotation to his tub. Thankfully the process only took about an hour, and only required the use of every cooking pot we had. In order to avoid the Goldilocks conundrum of submerging into either scalding hot or ice cold, the water had to be added in careful proportions and if too much cold was added, more hot was then again required. All of this just meant that sometimes when we had company they might see a mostly naked piano prodigy sprinting through the kitchen. 

Next like some kind of choreographed plague, our entire house became engulfed in a cloud of mosquitoes. Nothing we did could deflect or deter them, it was complete bloodsucking anarchy. If you left the door open for even a moment they would flock in to drain you without mercy throughout the day. Which was especially difficult if you lived with someone who had a penchant for not closing doors. Eventually we surrendered the porch and backyard completely, staying inside with our piss-drenched belongings and cold showers.

         I don't remember what it was that inspired us to look in the basement. Maybe a sound that sparked the suspicion that maybe the serial killers had followed us. But when we opened the door, what we found was worse. Gazing down, all we could see were the first five steps before the staircase was completely submerged in water. Some time ago, a long time ago I would venture to guess based on the water level, the basement had begun to flood with warm, untouched water. It had drowned out the electric hot water heater months ago and been breeding the militant hordes of mosquitoes and gestating mold ever since. We had been living on top of a putrid swamp for months.

        The house we thought was the holy grail had really been more like Lucifer jizzing on our face the whole time. How had it all gotten so bad, so fast? What other things might be lurking behind our unopened doors. I’d been drinking too much, eating too little, pretending the disappointments of the world were funny and ignoring every thought that told me to do otherwise. Multiple sump pumps were brought in to remove the hundreds of gallons of water from the basement. I was exhausted. I broke down and cried for three days. Tricia would beg me to tell her what was wrong, but I couldn’t really explain. It really does all just creep up slowly over time doesn’t it? So my best friend just sat there with me as it finally all drained out.

Blank Stair

I graduated with a BFA in Fine Art, though I always like to say it was like having a PHD in food service. Though I had worked hard and graduated college a semester early, ready to take the art world by storm, seeing as we were in the midst of a recession, I would be lucky to take the art world by a light tickling wind. My ultimate dream was to become one of those charismatic, high power curators that can somehow wear a white button down and black slacks and look like they are going to the Met Gala and not a catering gig.

         So it seemed all too perfect when the head curator of the contemporary art museum in town suggested I be a part of a performance piece in an upcoming show with a number of big name artists. This was it: this was my in. I had finally been given my breakout moment. I already imagined years later, laughing over champagne as the anecdote was shared during the dedication of the newly named Rebecca Henderson Wing of the Museum of Modern Art. Yes, I was being hazed before being brought into the underground realm of curatorial celebrity. But I was on my way.

         It wasn't until our pre-performance meeting I realized I might have bitten off a little bit more than I could chew. The assortment of women drafted upheld the classic themes of “diversity”: race diversity, age diversity, and body diversity. And guess who got the starring role as the fat one. The artist personally thanked me for my participation, reminding me that my unique representation was so important. I don’t know if anyone else here has ever been a woman in a corporal form before but I’ve never been….thanked? For being fat before? Which I didn't mind, because I am amateur fat all the time, and at least now I get to go pro. 

         So let me describe to you the piece as you, a visitor to the gallery, would view it. You walk into the gallery, and upon turning a corner see five women standing from the side inlaid into the wall you just passed. It's like they are standing in a line, but with walls jetting out between them, front and back. They are all wearing matching outfits, unmoving and unspeaking. You take it in, ponder it, hm. You move on. 

         Let me tell you about the piece as I viewed it. Wall, right here, for four hours at a time, 2-3 times a week for 2 months. The piece is what is called an “endurance performance” in the art world. The nook I stood in was almost perfectly sized like a coffin except with a lot of head room. They were just deep enough that, though one side was open, nothing was visible outside of your periphery when looking straight forward. You can’t see if anyone is ever even there. So really, most of the time, it was only me against my own commitment to being the best damn wall starer these people had ever fucking seen. So that is what I did, I stood in perfect profile, which is not my favorite perspective of myself and stared straight ahead in silence. For hours. Have I mentioned the wall was an eye blistering hot pink?

         So from the start all that I had was my interior monologue. The first week I set myself to the task of pondering questions that I expected would pop up later in a very celebrated dissertation. What is an object? What is art? What does it mean to perform? So that burned through the first 20 minutes of my inaugural shift. I tried to think about the piece and what it meant but if I am being totally honest I spent most of the time trying to remember Disney lyrics. The third stanza of “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast got me through a really tough day. That part where Lumiere sings “Beef ragu, cheese souffle, something something au flambe, we'll prepare and serve with flare a culinary cabaret.” I tried to remember the something something for what felt like decades. By the way, just in case you end up in a wall for hours, it's pie and pudding.

         As much as Greensboro North Carolina is world re-known as a cultural art capital, shockingly there were very few patrons who attended. However, there is some hope for a Greensboro Binnale yet, as the show wasn’t completely unattended. I will never forget one guy who walked so quietly I almost jumped out of my skin when, right next to me he said “Huh! People is art!” However most of the time, this show begged the question: if a performance piece happens and there is no one there to see it, does it still not make any sense? But I didn't care: I felt like somehow, some way, the powers that be would see my devotion and I would be rewarded. 

      This faith came a bit into question after the first girl passed out. Unable to tell that her eyes were sliding out of focus, and after standing with her knees locked for a couple of hours, she just fainted. The gallery attendant rushed over to revive her: and I had no idea what to do. Ironically this was one of the rare moments there was actually someone in the gallery: and I'm pretty sure this person was under the impression that this whole scene was in fact part of the performance. People is art! Right? Within minutes I could hear the EMT arrive, so at this point I am in a very strange position. On one hand, something bad had just happened, and I should try and help however I can. On the other hand: because of the way the space was built I couldn't tell if any of the other girls had moved. I am embarrassed to say I just didn't want to be the first one to crack. Eventually we were all escorted back to a private room and dismissed for the day. The fainted girl chose to leave the performance, meaning her spots on the schedule needed to be filled: and guess which unflinching rockstar picked up shifts? This gal right here.

         By the next time a girl fainted, however, I was genuinely becoming paranoid that this was the piece. The five of us, just complicit in our own imprisonment because it was “art”. The curator in my mind had become some kind of cruel mash-up of God and the Stanford Prison Experiment to me. Why would you do this? Is this what you wanted? I was staring into a hot pink abyss. I was only in solitary for 4 hours a couple of times a week and I was losing it. I felt alone, but also like someone was watching me all the time and somehow, look at me, I just wasn't being good enough. I had a newfound respect for Catholics.           

        That was about 13 years ago and I still to this day have no idea what that piece was about. The weirdest part is there is a photo of the performance that tours around art fairs and galleries. In fact, for awhile it was on a billboard in Brooklyn. So I get sent messages with my friends who were actually in the art world up next to an enormous billboard or a poster at Pratt, pointing going: is this you? Yes it is, people is art. So why did I do it? I guess for me it was about showing myself I could stand tall, eyes straight ahead, and feet firmly on the ground for as long as I needed to. And that maybe I could make it BIG, B-I-G, but just in my own way.

Big

I got my degree from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Sculpture and Extended Media program during its peak era, when the entire arts college was stacked like the 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team, except for like, conceptual thinking. During this time, one of my professors was an artist named Michael Jones McKean. Michael will probably turn out to be the closest I ever get to interacting with a genius in my lifetime, which is also to say, respectfully and reverently, kind of a weirdo.

The class I took with Michael was titled BIG, in all caps. Yes, the semester-long course is just named BIG, B-I-G. You have to remember, in art school this would not have seemed strange as in years prior I had taken required prerequisite classes such as Space and Time. That is not a joke. Michael was somewhat of a legend in the department for being incredibly insightful, fully unpredictable and somewhat bizarre. Everyone has their own piece of the McKean legend to share. As an example, I have heard told that he once listened to The Lady in Red on repeat for hours and hours and could be observed by passersby thoughtfully gazing into space saying to himself “lady in red… lady… in red” as though he was mulling over the idea like a rough stone being smoothed in his brain.

One day, we come into the studio for class and are told to go ahead and put our things down, we are going outside. The concept of field trips kind of tragically falls away in your teens, but the crackling electric energy of we are leaving where we normally are to go somewhere else?! still gives me a buzz to this day. So the fifteen or so of us set out on foot, our destination still somewhat shrouded in mystery. About 10 blocks later we arrive at the nearby grocery store, a Kroger. Michael turns to us, “alright, everyone pick out a piece of fruit, and meet me at the checkout in 10 or so minutes”. In your head you might be reading that as a command, but Michael actually has this really unique speaking tone and cadence, especially when giving instructions. He doesn’t really tell you to do something, he sort of in a velvety soft manner invites you to consider his suggestion, which in its own way is even more persuasive.

I was already filled with the anxiety of what I sensed was our next project. Oh yes, Michael would buy us a piece of fruit. But that piece of fruit, lovingly selected by your own hand, would then become your greatest rival, your albatross, your curse. Though I was not sure what kind of creative spin he would put on it, I knew in my heart we will be required to replicate this fruit in some abstracted manner. Maybe the assignment will be to replicate the fruit at fifty times its normal size. Maybe it will be to render the fruit to ½ its normal size. Maybe it will be to take the shape of this piece of fruit, but skin it with the surface of someone else’s fruit, like an apple shape with an orange skin. In paranoid times like these, art school could feel like a reality TV competition which you pay tens of thousands of dollars to participate in and yet start to suspect almost no one ever really wins.

I weigh the different scenarios and take the gamble that he will have chosen to play with scale, what with the class being BIG B-I-G and all. Therefore, I approach a box of kiwis and take one in hand, considering it. A kiwi is vague enough in shape that even my very poor hand skills should be adequate. We had also just had a demonstration of a surface technique called flocking which was simple and cheap enough to get close to the texture of the kiwi. Plus, it was very flat, matte brown underneath, so it would be hard for me to bungle the color too badly. Yes, a kiwi it was to be — had to be. I pick the most under ripe kiwi I can find in hopes it won’t go bad sitting in my studio for what could be weeks. Then, I get in line with my classmates as we all place our fruit on the conveyor belt. I see one of my classmates has chosen a cantaloupe. Poor bastard. Another has chosen a shiny red apple. I try not to roll my eyes at the glossy finish as I think to myself ok we get it, you can sand. Michael pays the fruit tab in full, and we walk the ten blocks back to the studio, and settle in, fruit in hand.

With a happy sigh Michael gestures upwards, a conductor awakening his anxious orchestra, “okay, now everyone all at once, let’s take a bite”. 

My heart sinks. We are going to have to sculpt it with a bite taken out of it? How could I have not thought of this. Oh god, all those tiny tiny seeds. Maybe I could ask for clarification to wiggle my way out of this trap. Does it need to be a full bite? Does it matter where we bite? Maybe I could try and take a small, shallow nibble. For a few suspended seconds, we are all looking around at each other until someone finally says something to the effect of “Um, what is happening right now?” In his oddly ethereal voice Michael responds, “oh, I just thought it would be nice to buy you all a piece of fruit to enjoy together”. I stare at the rough skinned, unripe kiwi in my lap and finally, for the first time today, actually see it as fruit. Don’t ever let people say you don’t learn anything in art school.

So here is the hard truth I realized in that moment and many moments since — sometimes the anxiety of the work eliminates the joy of the work. I heard that Michael Jones McKean still performs this strange fruit ritual. Good. May we all learn to truly enjoy the fruit of our labor whenever possible.

Love Sick

As a child, my style was like a chunky white girl's unintentional homage to the iconic look of RNB super-duo Salt-N-Pepa. I often sported an impressive array of massive t-shirts that I corner tucked into Bermuda length spandex and paired an uneven haircut. My entire body was like a magnificent Pangea of scabs thanks to an unholy number of mosquito bites and absolutely no self control. Calling the look “distinct” is a really kind way of putting it.

That being said, I had swagger for days. I had, and still have, the kind of blind conviction that is normally reserved for cult leaders. So when my clammy butt cheeks were finally let loose from the passenger seat of my family's van in the summer of 1999 onto the Camp Thunderbird campground, I knew that I was about to make friendships to last a lifetime. There was only one snag to the plan. It turned out that every other camper there begged to differ.

But from the ashes of my failed social ambition burst forth a new flame. We will call him “Charles” not because I want to respect his privacy, but because I can't remember his name and Charles is the most British name I can think of. Oh yes, did I mention? He was British. The first real-live British person I had ever met and the head instructor for what must have been British Canoeing and British Kayaking, although I am pretty sure it translates well across the cultures. As I recall he had a somewhat British face with British-esque hair, but what I remember most was his British accent. The very same charming accent that had been ingrained into my preteen inner monologues for the role of “comforting romantic male archetype”. I was like a kid on Christmas Eve but with sugar plums and fairies replaced with Colin Firth and Hugh Grant dancing in my head. I didn't stand a chance. It was a David and Goliath story and I was fresh out of pebbles. I was in LUV, L-U-V.

What did this mean? Well, rather than a balanced activity schedule of Arts and Crafts, Archery, Swimming, and then maybe an occasional trip to the Canteen like some of the more well-socialized campers, I had one singular obsession. Canoeing and Kayaking. These two water vessels were to be the medium through which I was going to express the purity of my love. Swapping scabs for blisters I spent all day on the lake crisping myself in the Southern sun, transforming my small hands into raw, undersized chicken cutlets. I paddled myself to the point of fatigue most days. I was actually showboating to try and get his attention.

It was just crazy enough to work, and it did, in a way. Misinterpreting my fervor for a shared love of paddling, Charles spent extra time with me working on techniques not covered with other campers. This attentiveness fueled my frenzy. On the water I was performing incredible feats of strength, bailing out boats and treading water like I was in basic training for some kind of elementary school aged tactical squad. You know how you hear stories about toddlers lifting flipped ATVs off of their mothers in a rush of undying love and heroic adrenaline? It was like that. I was his favorite buddy, sometimes we ate meals together. I especially liked the day he turned my face sideways and put antibiotic drops in my ears to ward off infection from the putrid lake water. That was a very good day.

Now let me clarify, Charles was nothing but a tender and platonic shepherd to his flock. In fact I am pretty sure looking back I was just a “nice guy” pawn in the chase of another age appropriate female counselor. I once passed a note between them, mistaking my role as a human pigeon to be one of honorable distinction. This would be the first time I had mistaken friendship for romance, but trust me when I say it wouldn't be the last.

At the end of camp, as a final test of my affection, there was an overnight canoe trip led by my leading man and meant for only the older campers. Refusing to be separated, I sought and received special permission to participate. Little did I know I was on the brink of one of life's biggest lessons. Because much like how I was not ready for real love, I was not ready for real survival. Never before in my life did I have to bring my own supplies anywhere, as far as I was concerned orange slices and Capri Sun pouches were just naturally occurring phenomena at any aerobic event. In my mind, I was prepared for anything. Beyond my overnight clothes, I had brought along a tube of Dr. Pepper LipSmackers and a sensible scrunchie to keep the hair off of my face. It was sporty, yet flirty. I did not bring a single drop of water. Not one.

A few hours into the trip, I was facing an impossible conundrum. What was I to do? I felt like if I asked Charles for a sip of water, he would suddenly realize I was both eleven years old and unworthy of love simultaneously. So as much as I craved to share a surface that had once touched his delightful British mouth, it was simply not an option. All around me I was taunted by the light, playful splashing of paddles on water. Cool, delicious, refreshing water. Water. Water which I desperately desired. There was only one way to keep from breaking the spell. Once we arrived at camp, I snuck into the shallows and when no one was looking gulped down as much lake water as I could. Which, as always with hindsight, was a very shitty idea.

Within hours the stomach cramping and core rattling bowel urges set in. This was in stark contrast to the romantic evening of peaceful stargazing I had imagined. My body was not just betraying me, this was a full on mutiny. It was as though every proclamation of love I had swallowed down over the past three weeks had been resentfully digested, and now saw a ripe opportunity to burst forth from the other end. I have always verged on chatty, as being talkative is just symptomatic of how nervous I tend to get around certain people. In this case however, it wasn't just verbal diarrhea, it was the actual runs. I prayed for nightfall that I might have the shroud of night to expel the gurgling shame building up inside of me. Unfortunately though the sunset was beautiful, it tragically lingered too long.

I convinced myself that if I just acted natural, the whole situation could remain undetected. My signature style aided me in hiding the truth. I secretly ditched the leggings and wore my massive shirt like a really hip mumu. But an irritable, immoveable 9 year old cold sweating like they are going through coke withdrawal tends to attract a certain amount of attention. Discovered and disgraced, I was brought back to camp by speedboat and taken to the camp infirmary.

I'm sure there was behind-the-scenes concern that I had eaten something bad at the camp. Perhaps I should have broken silence about where the contamination originated, but I remained tight-lipped rather than further incriminate myself as the most foolish girl who had ever lived.

The test results indicated gastroenteritis and streptococcal virus. And since I was still infectious, I was put into isolation for the remaining three days of camp. I was going to have to do hard time for soft stool. Those few days spent quarantined were long and lonely. Except for the occasional check-in by a camp nurse, I sat alone in bed all day with almost nothing to occupy my time except the traumatic scene looping in my head. I was reaching the early conclusion that romantic love was fated to lead only to humiliation and abandonment.

A few days later I was deemed fit enough to attend the closing of camp ceremonies, a social night of recognizing campers for what they had accomplished during their time at camp. Towards the end of the evening, my heart skipped a beat as Charles took to the microphone. He said, and I am translating from British here, that he was to announce the winners of the Golden Paddle, an award that was to recognize achievement in canoeing and kayaking. I had just enough time to harden myself in preparation to hear him say my full name for the last time. And this year we have our youngest recipient ever, Rebecca Henderson. I could feel the other campers' eyes as they hosted a silent question and answer session. Is that the girl who? Yeah. Because let's be real, it was a sorry you shit your pants please don't blame us consolation prize and they knew it, I knew it, we all knew it.

Though the gilded paddle was not mine to keep, I was allowed to hold it for a good portion the night. As tanned spaghetti strapped bodies group-hugged after swapping landline numbers, I mostly stood to the side, half hoping someone might remember me and half praying everyone would just completely forget. The paddle had been freshly spray painted, so as I gripped it between crossed arms gold dust rubbed off on my chest. Many camps may promise it, but that summer at Camp Thunderbird without a doubt did put me on the path to becoming the person I am today. An occasionally lonely woman with a heart of gold, steely resolve and ever-mercurial bowels.