It was pretty hot last Wednesday. And the heat + pre-art show opening jitters = The apparent need to listen to Patti Lupone singing “Gypsy” 576 times in a row. I’m sure I was annoying my neighbors. But hey, I had no choice but to stand in the middle of my living room belting out ”I had a dream, a wonderful dream papa!” to calm my nerves.  Because I did have some legitimate nerve calming to do, since only  “L” the Hippie Chick and JS had RSVP’d on my invitation to my art opening…the other 15-20 people?  Nothing.

 I also had the intense guilt of not inviting my favorite very religious Aunt. I was afraid she’d be nervous around artists who might possibly blurt out the word “penis” or have a drawing of one on their shirt. But then unbeknownst to me, my mom had invited her, so then I felt doubly guilty, if that is even mathematically possible (do numbers go that high?) that she would in fact, be coming.

Also I was dealing with the little known mental health condition called….clothingium anxieticitis. The weekend before, I had gone out and bought the first piece of new clothing I’d had in almost 8 years, you know, so I wouldn’t look like I had just stumbled in from some random Bingo game for Homeless People.  It had been due to a revelation I had had about a month earlier. One day when I was feeling particularly depressed and hopeless, I had decided to go down to the local retail outlet and try on some clothes. Now these weren’t clothes I would normally try on. Oh no. They were all bright and frilly and pretty and feminine. Anyways, I had told “A” about this little excursion into girly-land. And about how different and almost confident I had felt as I was looking at myself in the mirror, seeing someone almost pretty. But then being a guy he didn’t quite GET it and didn’t quite know how to finesse it back into positive feedback. Its not his fault. He’s not Oprah after all.

 So I had finally gone back this week and bought a new shirt. A shirt I would never ever dream of buying. It had a bold black and white graphic print and was clingy and you could actually tell I had boobs. Can you imagine? When I put it on right before my art show, I suddenly got all angsty again and I almost fell into one of those treacherous ”I look fatter than a pregnant rhinocerus” girl thingies.

But fortunately it was time to leave for the show and I did want to get there a little early to fight the massive crowd of well-wishers to put some prices on my artwork. The week before I had just been too tired to do that. I had told my mother the show was at 4 p.m. She said she wanted to come a little early to get a good parking space. Now this is in one of the busiest parts of our city. There is no “coming early to get a good space” time. Truth is there was a Gay Elvis show to go to after my show and she wanted to be able to leave early enough to get there. So I got there at about 3:20 p.m. and who pulls up at about 3:21 1/2 p.m.?  A car full of old ladies…my mom, my aunt and my mom’s elderly neighbor who’s 84. Of course they had already been beat by one of the guys from the mental health meeting the week before. Fortunately it wasn’t the creepy Jack Nicholson “Shining” guy, but another Random Guy who I didn’t know. So I told him, we weren’t going to be opening for at least another 40 minutes or so and he wandered off down the street and I kept seeing him walking by the window about every 7 minutes. I felt kinda guilty.

Anyways, so the old lady brigade came in and ohh’d and ahh’d my paintings. Ok, only my Aunt said anything. I had given my mother strict instructions not to blurt out her usual blunt brutally honest ”I don’t like this painting. Its not one of your best” type thing she usually does. I told her I might possibly have a potential buyer and she denied ever having said anything negative about me in her entire life.

LONG PAUSE….(riotious laughter)….ok, back to reality.

And then came the waiting. The people at the bakery had a nice spread of baked goods and punch and soda and a very pleasant girl behind the counter waiting to serve the thronging masses. The three ladies chatted while I anxiously leaned against the glass door waiting for people to come. I finally went out to search for the Random Guy and found him sitting on a bench about a half a block away. Fortunately he was well behaved once I brought him in. I gave him a personal tour of the witty Louve museum, seeing I wasn’t exactly in great demand. He had a cookie and then left.

Then more waiting. Suddenly I spotted my neighbor walking by. She works downtown at a law firm. So I waved her in since she walked right past the place. She was very pleasant. And you’ll never guess what. Ok, guess! Holy shit. She actually bought one of my paintings. I mean what is up with that? It was so unexpected I didn’t know what to do. I was actually shaking. Damn woman, you’ve sold paintings before. I guess it was just because it was in a show that’s due to run for 2 months and I didn’t know whether I was taking it down off the wall and handing it to her or just taking the money or taking the money later. What? We finally decided on handing me a check and her getting a receipt and she’ll be getting the painting at a later date. (And no Anna, it wasn’t MONA). 

I later found out from the restaurant manager that if I want to give it to her now, I can replace it with another piece of art , so I think I vote for that since I just fixed my car yesterday for almost $300 and I am flat broke. I have another $150 to fix on my car and the guy naturally had to say it was something “dangerous”, like I could die or something if it isn’t fixed by next Thursday. Great.  

Anyways, it wasn’t until almost 5 when several of my art class people finally started showing up. Hillary Clinton had been appearing downtown and things were snarled.  My mom almost immediately started torturing my art friend JS with a photo album from her recent birthday party, which she now carries around like a copy of the Holy Grail. It include pictures of Gay Elvis straddling her leg in white polyester, doing unsavory things in the name of “entertainment”. And to think I was nervous about some penis artwork.

Fortunately JS was FINALLY able to pull himself away from my mom long enough to take a few pictures of me with my artwork. You know, since it was MY art show. So here is a shot of me, at my wildly successful, well (cough) attended art show. Hope you can see me for the thick crowds….

P.S. Today is ALSO the fifth anniversary of Awittykitty. Its hard to believe I’ve been writing this blog for 5 years now. I didn’t even know what a blog was when I started.

Its been hard at times (like when people find your blog and virtually hold you hostage or act all pouty if you say something about them), but its mostly been a joy. I’ve met so many great people. The wonderous and splendiferous Hissandtell… the hilariously sarcastic BlueMeany (she’s really a sweetie in person though. So there!)….the funny queen of foofies Scotvalkrie….the sharp and witty and looks fab in pink Stepfordtart….the only person as sarcastic as me, YeahImadork, Andria….my fellow artist Artgnome and Poolagirl who can find something funny in just about anything. I’m just too dumb to do links, so clink them over on the side if you want. There are many more, so please don’t feel left out. Thanks for all your support. You’ve made a huge difference in my life.

GROUP HUG EVERYONE!!!!

Its truly amazing that I can now see the floor of my apartment, all merely because I took those pesky 15 paintings to another location. Can you imagine being able to see the floor? Can you??? Although sadly, the mice that Guardcat used to frequently chase around my apartment will no longer have a place to hide.

Reason #217 to buy a witty painting: Safe harbor for innocent mice to hide from menacing sharpy toothed cats.

“J” arrived exactly on time on Tuesday, which made me very happy.  Within seconds of arrival I had him up on a kitchen chair in my bedroom changing the battery in my smoke detector. And no that’s not just a euphenism for something else.  But when you have a man in your apartment, ya gotta put them to work. Right?  “J” was a very very good sport that day incidently. Thanks “J”!

So we loaded the two very large boxes into his car and headed downtown. It was nice to see him.  I had felt nervous asking for help. But I really needed it. We got to the bakery and they were just closing up, so we quickly lugged the boxes in and started unpacking them. I’ve never put up a show before. Sure I’ve watched shows being put up. Lots of times with my own art group. But having to arrange everything so they matched either in subject matter, painting style or just something that was similar was harder than I thought. The place basically had three walls.  So I put the funky portraits on one wall. My large show pieces on the main wall. And then the small nature pieces on the small dark back wall.

“J” immediately fell in love with my one and only landscape painting that I cuffed from Kandinsky. I’m very shaky on landscapes. I find them very difficult because of all the shadows and angles and bushes and skies and stairs and bell towers. Yikes! But he really seemed to like it and didn’t seem to balk at the price. So I may have sold one. Maybe.

We were pretty much like the Three Stooges minus one putting up all my art work on Tuesday. I love to tease “J”. I called him my “Frame Slave” for the afternoon.  We quarreled occasionally about how to do things and he didn’t like some of my frames, but I had done the best I could under the circumstances. He also didn’t faint when I was suddenly bleeding profusely from my right index finger. (I still have no idea what happened).

He also couldn’t quite understand my anxiety about bringing “my babies” into a public place. I’ve never been responsible for the visual design of a whole restaurant. And I am so incredibly shy and angsty about feeling accepted and to suddenly have my heart and soul splashed across an entire place of business. Oy!  I mean I practically have a nervous breakdown everytime I have to pick out one drawing or painting for a group show. 

But “J” was really great. He kept saying how beautiful and colorful my work was. And he’s not an idle complimentor. So I believed him. And it felt good. He even convinced me on the way home, that I should pursue my dream of going back to school. I had asked his advice earlier and he was all about giving me the thumbs up.

See? That’s all I need. One person telling me I can do it.

On Wednesday night, my other friend JS whose party I had gone to over the weekend, announced to my art class that I was having a show downtown. Amazingly, he had already been downtown that day and seen the show and liked it.  I was rather startled at the response in the class. What happened? Nothing. No high fives from anyone I knew. No, gee, that’s great. Not one word. I was a little sad about that, so I loaded up on donuts and tortilla chips and looked out the fire escape door forlornly during the break.

On Thursday I went to a meeting at my old place of employment. I also announced the show there and at least 4-5 people said they would drop by. Having it announced during an open meeting was a little problematic however. One guy who I don’t know, and who, quite honestly, creeped me out a bit, kept looking over at me after that and saying stuff  like “I like your picture on your flyer” and ”I think your e-mail address is cool” (???) and then smiling like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining”. Eeeee!!!

So here’s my problem. I have this opening next Wednesday. I have no freakin’ idea how many people are coming. And I’m supposed to give the store manager a number on Monday. I’ve invited people from two very distinct tribes.  Mentally ill people. And artists. And yes, many of them belong in the same catagory…granted. Why do you think I get along so well with them? And then plus there’s my family… They could go either way!  The one and only time I have ever put something together in my life it went something like this:

I invited four people to a party at my house. Cooked lots of food. Bought a large cake. (it was my birthday). Did floral arrangements and decorations. Set up music. And then nobody came or called. I eventually threw everything in the garbage at 10:30 p.m. and threw myself across my bed and cried like Scarlett O’Hara for about 20 minutes. THE END.

So what is going to happen next Wednesday? I have no idea. Will anyone besides my mother show up? I have no idea. Rather ironically my show is called “Art not Apathy”. I was also thinking of adding the sub-title: “Buy witty’s paintings because she realllly needs brake pads”. What do you think? Too needy? We are talking about me, after all.

So we’ll see. I guess I’m just not used to being the center of attention. No wonder Britney Spears cracked up! I promise not to shave my hair off though. That would be just plain weird!

In approximately 12 hours I will be walking through the doors of this place I’ve only been three times and my heart will be pounding so hard I’ll probably think I’m having a heart attack. Where am I going? Tomorrow I’ll be putting up my first one woman art show in a trendy bakery downtown and even though I’ve had an entire year to think about it, plan it, get ready for it,  its now 11:45 p.m. the night before and I’ve yet to write and design my artist’s statement sheet. I still have 3 paintings to put wires on. I don’t think I have enough hangers to hang everything on. I’ve run out of bubble wrap. I even unwisely stopped everything so I could watch “The Batchelorette” tonight, because I like to observe how dating and kissing ACTUALLY looks. And now I’m avoiding everything even further by writing this totally unnecessary and arbitrary blog entry that will put me even further behind.

I can’t believe its here though. I talked to the woman just about a year ago about having this show. And you know what?  I have pretty much never stopped thinking about it the entire year. The fact that somebody was actually GIVING ME A CHANCE AT SOMETHING. I mean how often does that happen for me? Well, these days…

NEVER. 

No. I’m not kidding. I used to get chances all the time. But people pretty much give up on you when you go on disability. I guess they figure since you’re “disabled” you won’t be able to do anything. My biggest problem though has really been the feeling useless…the apathy. Because when people stop thinking of you as a viable member of society and keep telling you you’re nothing more than a mentally ill person over and over and over and over…you start believing them and then, well……………………………………………..you give up.

But I did read something rather interesting on the internet recently. It said that according to recent studies in lab rats that, well, apathy is rather curable. Can you believe it? I know you’re all shaking your heads in total disbelief, but its true. Wanna hear what the cure is? Do you? Its called:

FEELING NECESSARY IN THE UNIVERSE!!!!

Woo hoo! Who knew. Right? One decade, you’re laying on the couch, eating a tuna sandwich, watching “Divorce Court” 437 times in a row. And then suddenly the next minute…Cowabunga!! Somebody actually thinks you’re good for something. Heh heh…I mean besides draining the government for food stamps and section eight money.

Will my art show be a success? I have no idea. I am scared to death. I am bringing way too much stuff. I have two huge boxes jammed with all kinds of work. My friend “J” from my old job is coming over tomorrow to get me and then helping to hang the show. Neither of us have ever hung a show before. I’m scared it’ll look like shit or be crooked or my poorly framed canvases will pop out of their cheap, cheesy frames and poke somebody in the eye. I just don’t know how to do all this stuff and I don’t have the money to do it correctly. I did get some basic framing lessons from a woman in my art class who owns a frame shop. She even cut down a frame for me which was really nice of her.

I’m having an small opening next week, but I’m not even sure if anyone will come. Am I saying that to elicit pity? Hell no. Its reality. “J” will probably come. Maybe a person or two from my art class.  My mom is coming but only because Gay Elvis doesn’t have a gig til 6:30.  My brother has already said he WON’T come because my mother will be there. Dysfunctional families always have a way of cutting into potentially happy events. Have you noticed that?

About the only calming event I had this week was being invited to a party. How often can I say a party is calming? I was very surprised. And there was not even any Gay Elvis numbers! No, it was a legitimate party in honor of the summer solstice. It was at our Art Board president’s house. Just a very low key event with artsy people and music from the 40’s and a cake shaped like the sun.

I was wondering if there would be anyone from our art class. Out of about 12 people there were only 2. What made the party good for me was…well, just that I was invited. I was treated like a regular person. Like a desireable person to have at a nice summer party. It made me feel normal. I wasn’t all tightened up and angry like I usually am at my mother’s parties. I actually enjoyed myself. I joined in with party games! And laughed! I had conversations! It was amazing. And it just proved that the way that I am treated by certain people have made me think that I am a certain way, and maybe, just maybe I’m not. Imagine!

I just hope I can be that person at my art opening. Although some of the toxic people will be there, hopefully I can rise above it all and let my art speak for me.

Against my better judgement I decided to re-up my Smatch.com subscription because there were two pesky e-mails sitting, waiting in my mailbox and if you’re not a member you can’t look at them. And let’s face it, I could very well be missing out on the man of my dreams. The MAN OF MY DREAMS, I TELL YOU!!!

I finally paid the damn fee (again-Grrr!), which I am now comparing to standing on a highway overpass and throwing twenty dollar bills off into traffic, since I’ve yet to get anything tangible for my money except…well, we’ll talk about that in a second.

Anyways, so I excitedly clicked on the link to look at my two pieces of mail. OMG, I was so excited. And it was so worth the wait and the $37.48 I threw off the highway overpass, since his profile was positively dreamy. It read as follows:

About my life and what I’m looking for:

wery well and suver you can meet me and i like drama book s riding , swiming .adventeggers, new freinds, honest. foweds. new idieas .art. travalings .studies. acitectuer, disainig.forest area.new finding maimings. helpfull .

Is it me or was that possibly not in English. I’m usually pretty good with words,  but I have no idea what Mr. Groove Thang was getting at. “Suver”?  ”Adventeggers”? “Fowed”? Was that like when Elmer Fudd says “I’m looking fowed to meeting ywo witty!”

I guess “acitectuer” was probably “architecture” and “disainig” might have possibly been “designing”. But its really the phrase “new finding maimings. helpfull”, that I found, well, a little disturbing. I’m not saying that finding maimings might not be kind of fun thing to do, in a “CSI: New York” kind of way. But what the hell was this guy trying to say? Anyone?

As for the other sMatch.com goodies I’ve received in the last two weeks. Well, there was a wink from a guy in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka? WTF? Yeah, me too! I could just see this skinny little starving dude, hunched over his free Feed-the-Hungry laptop from Mac, at the side of the road, sitting in ox shit, looking down at the screen and saying, “Oh, that eez a good wooonabbi. I will wink at her. Maybe she will give me a penny, so I will not die.”

And then there is the cowboy dude who keeps bugging me. He’s 5′5″, weighs 280 pounds (more than me, even!!), wears a huge cowboy hat, has a scruggly beard and wears sun glasses, undoubtedly to hide his identity from “America’s Most Wanted”. He has winked and written several notes. I guess he read that I’m a writer (AND I’M WRITIN’ ‘BOUT YOU RIGHT NOW, BROTHA!). Anyways, instead of trying to carry on any kind of thoughtful conversation or saying anything useful, he just keeps typing the same single sentence over and over:

“Maybe you can write a story about my gold nuggets”.

Huh? Like ewww! Like I would really want to see, let alone write about your nuggets, dude.  If that’s the best line you can come up with, you might want to take it down to Walmart or something. Because it sure ain’t gonna work on me.

Of course we all have our profile names. And no I won’t tell you mine. But I did see the fabulous CUMSEE. Okay, sure, maybe he’s from Sri Lanka too and its a family name from like 20 generations back, but something tells me that the person who is suppose to catch naughty words down at sMatch.com, might be a Mormon or something. Why? Well, because everytime I make even a minuscule change to my ad, like take the words “overweight, hateful, neurotic nutball in the throes of menopause” and replace them with “thoughtful, kind woman who loves to laugh” (which is really sMatch code for “rough sex with small kitchen appliances”), you have to wait 24-72 hours for them to approve your wording and photos. I guess that is so that hookers and Republicans can’t put up questionable photos (think: Dick Cheney dressed like a nun humping a goat or something).

I guess CUMSEE must have slipped through. Literally.

I have made an attempt to contact a few people I was interested in. A Jewish orchestra conductor. He wrote back once, since we had theatre people in common, but then he never wrote again. And then I wrote a shrink. Ha! Yeah! Isn’t that funny? I liked his yearly income profile and liked what he had to say. And he was sardonic like me and he said he looked like Howie Mandell. So I wrote a humorous note to him, since the wink didn’t do anything. And then he wrote back a nice note, but basically said “You lack confidence, so thanks but no thanks”. Geeze, I can just go to my own shrink and get that news.

I also wrote one more guy, but he’s never written back. He’s a guitar playing Buddhist hippy who lives up in the woods with a cat. If you can’t even pique the interest of a hippy out in the woods, just who can I find??

So that’s what new on the sMatch.com front. I just had a call from my mother. She works at a thrift store once a week and had found a teal colored leather jacket for me. I was silent for a moment when she said the words:   “TEAL colored leather jacket”. What is this? 1982. And then she said, “You do know what color teal is, right?” And I said, “Well, I am an artist. I would think I knew what teal is and no, I’m not interested. Thanks” Her: (after a long, exasperated pause) “I just wanted to get something to jazz you up, you’re always so plain.”

Now, why do I lack confidence again?

I am so proud. So incredibly proud. As a writer for over 30 years…a published writer yet, I love to look at how people have found my blog on this certain WordPress screen….how they have maneuvered through the millions, if not billions of written words on the World Wide Internet, only to be stunned…if not blinded by the effervescent beauty of the written wittykitty word by typing: ”flailing retard orgasm”.

Thank you….thank you very much (bowing graciously and then possibly doing a raucous fart song under my armpit).

Have I ever mentioned that I have the attention span of dyslexic 2 year old who’s been hit in the head with a Chevrolet? Its really been getting bad in the last year week or so and I can’t figure out if its:

• pharmaceuticals
• menopause
• alzheimers lite
• Or just sitting in front of a computer day after day,  clicking on every damn story I see pop up even though I have absolutely no interest in them whatsoever. I mean they’re short (matching my short attention span obviously) and they usually involve a movie star falling down in front of their apartment building, somebody from “American Idol” turning gay, a mug shot of Nick Nolte or the fact that the guy who invented Pringles just got buried in a can. Just something! Its just all so totally fascinating to me, even though I don’t really care about 99.99% of it. Its just sort of a case of computer apathy….I’m here so why not click.

But I was just wondering….is this why I have such a short attention span? Is it because everything on the computer and TV is all based on stuff that is so incredibly stupid that even a 50 year old white woman on drugs, who just crash landed in menopause can “get it”? Because for a long while, I actually thought it was because I was huffing pastel dust from my drawings.

Anyways, I was really excited this last week, because I read my first book in ten years. Can you believe that? A real book. Ten years. Not the internet. Yes, its true. It was like exercising a muscle I hadn’t exercised in a really long time….NO, not that one….and it didn’t even hurt!! Can you imagine?

It sort of reminded me of this one profile I’ve been looking at in sMatch.com. (Yes, I’m still looking, but only because my shrink totally brow beat me this week). Anyways, the guy looked pretty intelligent and he wrote really well. How do I know? Because he evidently he’s a REAL writer according to his profile:  ”I have written three books. Real books. Ones you actually find in the library.” Oh dear,  those kind are so much better than the ones you find amidst mushrooms or hovering in dark scary rooms like in an M. Night Shamayalam movie. Yes. We get it. You didn’t self publish them on your Guttenburg press down in the basement. How totally admirable of you. I just hope I can keep up my end of our conversation and you don’t use really large words like: “comprehensive” and “Lithuanian”, if we  ever meet. What? We won’t be meeting. You mean since I’m totally frightened, I won’t be your mental equal.  Dang!

I did manage to actually leave my house Saturday, tearing myself away from both my computer and the book that I just read. I went to a support meeting down at my old place of employment. I had called my old boss Friday because I was feeling so utterly depressed. She said to come to the meeting and she’d check on the status of my reinstatement with a case manager. I just don’t think that is going to happen. Why? Because I have a big ol’ invisible Scarlet Letter on me. The letter “B” for Blog.

The support group went ok. The people were a little scarier looking than I remembered, but then again, I live in the Village where everything is so pristine, that Martha Stewart would have an orgasm if she drove through here.  I was glad I was sitting next to “J”. He made me feel pretty safe.

Afterwards I went to an outdoor art event put on by an arts organization that Charlemagne is involved with. It had been postponed by rain two weeks ago but then Saturday, the weather was even worse…blustery and extremely windy. There wasn’t as much stuff going on as I thought, but I did have a little fun. I saw Charlemagne briefly. And then went to this tent where I got to paint some pottery with a bunch of little kids. The whole tent was billowing and snapping with the high winds. Nothing like abject fear of being sucked into a tornadic vortex to make you paint a little better.

I later went over to where they were painting a “mural”.  And since I’m all about painting, I decided to claim the top left corner and paint a lizard. The only annoying thing was, it was on two 15 foot long, 6 foot high pieces of plywood and it was mostly being worked on by little thug kids (boys-age 11, I’d say) who started throwing fully loaded paint brushes at the mural, splattering everything and everyone and then smearing everything and then kicking paint cans around and just being generally disruptive and assholely.

And this one little bastard kept coming over to where I was painting and trying to inexplicably destroy what I was doing by stepping directly in front of me and trying to paint and scribble over my lizard.   

Like WTF??? I have menopause and I will kill you.

Of course, I don’t generally yell at anyone, except maybe Guardcat, but I did yell at this kid three separate times. By the third time I snarled “We have 30 feet of wood, why don’t you go down there and play (you little fucking bastard)!”

Inbetween that, however, whilst he and his hoodlum friends were probably off painting kittens with lead paint or something, there was a Dad there with his little daughter who was about 7. She had been pretty hyperactive at the pottery painting part, just grabbing stuff from in front of me. And poking me in the head with her elbow. I just let it go, since she was just being a little kid.

Anyways, some guy had drawn a really nice replica of The Factory who was sponsoring the event, on the mural. He had been standing next to me for about 15 minutes drawing it with markers, while I was painting my lizard. (Oh great, now I’m going to be Googled for “painting my lizard”…probably some random euphemism for masturbation in Chile or something).

Anyways, he even talked to me. Again, I forgot to look at him. He probably was my future husband and I didn’t even know it. So suddenly this little girl started painting over his lovely drawing right after he left. I was standing there, getting a little steamed, not saying anything like I always do. Grrr! Do something, Dad! And her father was even the type who kept saying, “Sarah, don’t do that. Sarah, you should be careful. Sarah, stop. Sarah, wait. I’ll help you.” He just basically never let the kid do anything by herself without explicit directions, which I think I saw a parent do on Dr. Phil’s “Brat Camp” show last week.

Anyways, suddenly this huge gust of wind came and knocked both pieces of plywood (a.k.a. mural) over, trapping the little girl underneath. She started screaming and crying, of course, because all you could see was her  frightened little face sticking out. Naturally I ran and lifted the wood off of her since her Dad was just standing there flailing his arms like he was having a seizure. And I was thinking  “Dude, rescue your kid. This wood is kinda heavy!” He finally pulled her out and she was totally covered in paint. She looked like a little human mural. It was kinda cute, actually.  And fortunately she wasn’t injured in any way. Because within a minute, she was laughing and giggling, playing with the paint globbies all over her clothing. But did the guy say anything to me? Like thanks for pulling the giant mural off my daughter while I stood here acting like Kathy Lee Gifford throwing a hissy fit?  Nope. He just yanked her away, yelling at her for ruining her good outfit.  

I wish I could have been a human mural.  That would have been cool!  

I’ve sort of been recovering all week from my two day art seminar with my art group this week at the local university. Its something I really look forward to each year, because its the closest thing to a university art class taught by actual art professors I’ll ever get to take and its free, because I volunteer a lot of hours over the year to get to do it. My last task today is to write thank you notes to all the artists for doing the event. Should I slip my phone number in for the cute ones?

I was really wiped out by the whole thing though. Being on disability and usually just laying around on the couch watching “Divorce Court” every day, having to suddenly wake up at 7 a.m. (WTF?? People really get up that early?), drive somewhere by 8 a.m., be somewhat charming, try to know the answers to all the questions people asked like the presenter who asked ”Where is my nude model?” when I thought she was teaching a class about drawing eyes. Oy. Just how prepared can you be for these questions?

And then Charlemagne and I did a secret ”student salvage”, which is truly only something starving artists do. We went up into this large room where there was a bunch of canvases left behind by the departed art students. One sign said something to the effect: “Do not take anything out of this room” and the second sign said, “Everything will be thrown away after May 15th”. This was May 16th. What a dilemma, especially for someone who feels guilty if I buy one and get one free, since I know someone probably suffered for that. Anyways, I felt really nervous doing this, especially in this era of security cameras recording everything everywhere. But I did take a couple of small canvases, some unused large sketch pads and a plastic palette.

“Bless me father for I have sinned. I have taken art supplies left behind by rich kids at a well known, high profile university. What? What’s that? Say three “Hail Marys” and paint a painting of Jesus? Ok”

But now my life is pretty much back to normal. Eating too much chocolate. Feeling sorry for myself. Playing with my pussy. What? Guardcat has been so bad lately. I have two severe cat-inflicted wounds from our bedroom romps. One involves a long, sore scratch up the middle of my right foot. Like ow, it really hurts. And the other was during our “What’s under the sheet, it may be a dachshund” game, where Guardcat’s nail got hooked in my finger through the sheet and then it started bleeding profusely.  And you just never know how the aftermath of these things are going to play out. Rabies. Death. Witty suddenly acting like a Siamese, coughing up furballs.  Its hard to say.

I know you’re probably saying, oh dear, witty has finally become one of these crazy cat ladies. Well, obviously you’re not the only one who thinks that.

On Tuesday I was doing my laundry and made a decision to run over to the grocery store in a little strip mall nearby. I only had to walk across a parking lot to get there so it was no biggie. So I went in and bought a bag of Indiana Jones M&Ms, because I totally like to support the movie industry when I buy chocolate products and then four cans of cat food. I had all this stuff in a hand basket since it was a little unwieldy. A purse, four cans of cat food and M&Ms. So I go to pay for them and the young clerk finishes ringing up the stuff and then looks at me and says, “Do you want this stuff in a bag?”

Like what the hell? No! I totally want to walk through this trendy area parking lot, where cute single men might be lurking, desperately trying to juggle four cans of cat food and my bag of Indiana Jones M&Ms and not look like the total Crazy Cat Lady loser, you twat!

But instead, I just quietly nodded my head yes….I do indeed need a bag for my groceries.  grumblegrumbleTWATgrumble.

http://Crankygirl.wordpress.com has asked me to do a meme and since the pinnacle of excitement for me this week was that story about cat food cans, here is a meme, which you are welcomed to purloin for your blog if you like.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?

Since I can barely remember two minutes ago (thanks pharmaceutical companies of America), I’d have to think. I believe I was still working as a graphic artist for a Catholic newspaper full time. The first five years were great. The last two…not so great. Horrible in fact. My mental health was getting worse and we kept having almost complete staff turnovers every year and the last two years were the worst. I had started out friends with everyone and ended up friends with no one. I believe it might have also been the year I met Married Guy. My friend had given me a gift certificate for a massage (the best gift a person can ever give another person) and I met this sardonic Irish guy with piercing blue eyes and even though I resisted for over a year, he did everything he could to draw me in. This, by the way, was BEFORE he was married.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

• I have to write thank you notes to all our presenters at our Art Conference
• There is a grotesque smear of blood on my bathroom floor, which can only means one thing….Guardcat killed another mouse. I just have to find it. She kills them, but doesn’t eat them. She just hides them until they start to stink.
• Get dressed. Ha ha ha. That isn’t always an automatic for me these days.
• Wash my hair. I dyed it last night and even though it said Dark brown with golden highlights I look like Elvis freakin’ Presley today (i.e., black hair. Ahhhh!)
• Go to a birthday party at my Mom’s friend’s house. I also am supposed to be looking for photos to bring from my mom’s life. This friend is having a huge 80th birthday party for my mom next week and wants pictures of her. I haven’t even started looking for them yet. eek!

3) Snacks I enjoy:

• Dark Chocolate non-pereils
• Almost anything else chocolate (right Charlemagne? He almost always has chocolate on him. Not on him personally, like dripping down his abs or anything. Although that would be nice. But readily available.)
• Yogurt
• Grapes.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

• Go back to school and study painting. I really really want to do that. I may even try to do that without being a billionaire.
• Buy a house with a garden and studio space.
• Open some kind of arts center for people with mental illness. Many very famous artists suffered from mental illness. I think we need to nurture that in the mental health community.

5) Places I have lived:

• Miami, Fla. (where I was born)
• San Rafael, Calif. , Sebastopol, Calif., Petaluma, Calif.
• Salem, Oregon
• Lets just say New York state and leave it at that.

I took my mom out to Subway on Mother’s Day for one of those foot long subs for $5. She’s so totally worth it. Well, at least $2.50 worth since I ate the other half.

Afterwards we stopped at my brother’s house. By time we both got home, there was frantic messages on my mom’s answering machine. Evidently my brother thought one of us had taken his car keys. So I called and left a message on his phone. “Hi, this is your sister Witty*. (*that part is reallllly important. OK??).  ”I just looked and I didn’t take your keys. The last time I saw them was when you were showing me how good your camera focuses on your keys on the kitchen counter. Sorry. Hope you find them. ” I then got this message back on my answering machine. “I don’t know who you are * (see, I told you that was the important part, even though I’m his sister and actually said my name on his machine and described what I had just done with him an hour earlier, but I guess my message was too obtuse and spoken in sub-alien code words). “I’m just returning your message. I guess you must know me. Thanks for calling.”

Anyways, after going to his house, my mom dropped me off at my apartment. I decided to just go to the library across the street to use their computers. They’re way faster than mine and the chairs are a lot more comfortable. So we said our good-byes and I walked across the street and into the driveway, when this car came driving in behind me and, well, crashed into the library. Yup. Just crrraaasshhh! I was startled naturally.

It didn’t exactly crash into the building itself. It crashed into a large metal fire escape in front of the building and tore off the guy’s rear view mirror. When I took a few steps backwards, I saw the guy get out of the car and sit on the stairs with his head between his legs. Was he going to puke? Not really sure. He was only going about 6 MPH. By then a librarian was running towards the scene. I bet you didn’t know librarians could run.  Maybe perhaps only when cars run into their buildings.

Anyways, I went in to look at my e-mails. I was waiting to hear from my sMatch.com guy. We had written back and forth 3-4 times and were set to go out the next day for either lunch or a walk. I was anxious, but hopeful. He seemed nice.

I then opened his e-mail. “Hello witty, Your last message told me a lot about you and I’m left with a sense of incompatibility. However, I wish the best in your search. Jeff. “

I sat there for a minute, stunned and then started to cry a little. Its not that I had a lot vested in this guy. Just a couple of e-mails.  Its just that for a couple of days, I felt hopeful. Like maybe I wasn’t the biggest loser in the universe. Yes. I am sensitive. Very sensitive. Like a person with third degree burns, perhaps. But I’ve never been rejected even before they met me. My god, do I suck that much?

What did I say in my letter? Well, first of all he had asked me a kinda unusual question. Did I like facial hair. He then asked me to look at both of his photos: One with facial hair, one without. Personally, I don’t like facial hair. The only person I was ever friendly with who had whiskers was Married Guy. So when he asked me that, I was thinking, wow, to think I’m holding the future of some guy’s facial hair in my hands. Naturally I got a little angsty and perhaps did a little wittykitty take on the whole thing.

mistake.

I’m guessing now that when you write to these sMatch.com guys, you have to write like you’re an emotionless Stepford Wife and not someone who might possibly 1) have an opinion 2) have a raucous sense of humor 3) be silly and whimsical. I mean I actually have the word: “Dork” in my ad. How much more specific can I be?

But now I feel defeated even before I started. Sure I’ve been looking at other ads. I even found Handyman, the guy I dated twice in the last couple of years. I wrote him a brief, sarcastic note. He wrote back something decent. Then I wrote back and apologized. I’m just making friends all over the place, it seems.

I just take rejection really, really hard. Especially at this stage in life. I’ve had so many in the last couple of years (some you know, some you don’t know), that, to me, putting your heart out on the line, is about akin to asking someone to put their hand on a hot stove even though they know they’ll get burned. I’ve even been renting romantic movies lately, trying to see “how its done”.  I guess the movie “Atonement” perhaps wasn’t such a great idea, since almost everyone dies or is about to die and at least one person feels incredibly guilty.

So yesterday I went to sign some paperwork at Section 8, so that my landlord can raise my rent yet again. I was feeling so poorly that I decided to stop at a small art gallery downtown, that I had never been to. They had this really cool display dedicated to singer Bessie Smith where they have her image projected up on a wall and a Casio keyboard in the middle of the floor that says: “Play me.” How often do you see that? So I gingerly touched the key and each key played a different tiny snippet of Bessie Smith singing a musical note or two. I tried to play various keys to make some kind of tune out of it, you know, since I’m a master musician, but I couldn’t, but it was still a really fun idea.

I then walked one block over to the place where I’m having my supposed one woman art show this summer. Like everything else in my life, I’ve been worried that my show would somehow be yanked out from under me because of something I said or did or wrote, because I’ve been such a bad BAD wittykitty lately. But after buying a brownie and looking around at the space, I actually got to meet the woman I talked to last summer about the show and she’s all set with me coming in….gulp….two weeks earlier than planned.

I’m a little nervous about that since I still don’t have everything framed or with eye-hooks and wire and my depression is so bad, its hard to get started or complete anything. My middle name is Apathy with a capital “A”. Sure yes, I know its a good thing for me to have a show, and I might even sell something, but when you’re getting crushed under a mountain of depression, even leaving the couch seems insurmountable these days.

I’m not sure what made me think I could date someone in this condition.

Anyways, if I can get WordPress to work, this is my latest painting. “Mona is in the House”. I just hope you’re not left with “a sense of incompatibility.”

About 11 years ago I used to work with this very plain woman. She was a journalist. She used to have screaming arguments with her boyfriend on the phone all the time. Even though I worked in the production room and she worked in the news room I could still hear her yelling at him. And what was funny was, she was very quiet, intellectual and demure. I’d go in the bathroom, and she’d constantly be brushing her hair between fights with her boyfriend. I guess even though she was plain, she wanted her hair to look nice.

Anyways, I guess she finally broke up with the toxic boyfriend because the screaming arguments stopped. I wasn’t really that friendly with her. Creative types and journalists don’t always mesh. Journalist wear suits. Graphic artists where shiny scarves and sneakers with green neon soles. But I was in the lunchroom one day and she was talking to the editor who I was actually friendly with. The editor K was a mess. She really wanted to get married. I mean really! She was involved with a married man. He was an idiot, so the conversation they were having was basically “MEN ARE IDIOTS”. K still wanted one, but the Plain Girl said, “No. I’m giving up men. Forget it! They’re not worth the trouble!” I think she was about 25.

Shortly after that it was Christmas season. I was alone as usual. I think K had a fight with her married man. And Plain Girl? Well, for some God-forsaken reason she decided to give sMatch.com a brief try. She was all meh, this will never work. MEN ARE ALL IDIOTS!!! So what do you think happened? Go ahead, guess?

She went out with her one and only reply. They went to a hockey game and it was love at first sight! And I believe they were married within three months. I wasn’t invited to the wedding, of course. I’m a graphic artist and she was a journalist and I might possibly do something crazy like spray graffiti on the wedding cake or something. But they’re still married, and have a nice house and two beautiful sons. I see her in the grocery store occasionally and she actually talks to me now. I guess she’s very happy.

The moral of the story? 99% of the woman I know who are on sMatch.com have horror stories. 1% have good ones. I signed up for sMatch.com this weekend. Sure I’m stone cold broke and just got my food stamps chopped to practically zero. But I’m also in this incredibly dire holding pattern in my life and basically I can’t stand it anymore. I need someone to talk to.

Who MADE me do this? The Shrinkster of course. I think he almost fainted when I e-mailed him and said I finally did it. Why? Because we’ve had this conversation at least 1.6 trillion times in the last 14 years. I did briefly stick my toe in the Match pond a long, long, long time ago, but I never dated anyone….which is why I asked you for advice, Cranky (http:///crankygirl.wordpress.com).

What happened then was this. First guy popped up on my Instant Message: ”Hi! Blah, blah, blah! Do you want to know what I do for a living?” I was trying to be friendly, even though I was terrified he might type: “serial killer and I’m standing outside Your window.” But he told me about his fabulous career as a UFO Investigator.  He told me that his latest (cough) case was about a woman who had been abducted and then dumped in a local field and had to find her way back to the street and flag someone down to rescue her. DAMN THOSE ALIENS! With all that technology, you’d think they’d at least leave her off at a Denney’s or something. He asked if I believed him. I said, “SURE!!” (you damn Nutball). I guess he was excited that he had a captive audience, so then asked if I wanted a photo of him? Me: SURE! This was still in the day of slow dial up, so as his photo slowly unfurled on my screen, blipping 2 pixels at a time, it soon became very apparent that Mr. E.T. was al’naturale. You know, like no alien death-ray deflectors. Nothing! Ugh! This was long before I was OTAY with full frontal nudity.  Of course he did soften the blow slightly by holding a Chihuahua in front of the family jewels. And I was thinking to myself, “Duuuuude, you should at least round up a Great Dane, or something. Not the smallest dog on the fucking planet.”

The next responder was a guy who wanted Instant Message Sex. Click. Bye now!

The last guy was someone, in retrospect, I should have met. He was gentle, funny. He was a tall, gawky Jewish guy and one of the first photos he ever sent me was him dressed in a fluffy pink Easter bunny suit. He was an architect, but he also liked to draw cartoons and he used to send me cartoons with our frequent e-mails. We did this for three months, but I was too frightened to meet him. Not because of him. But because of me. I was pretty ill at the time. I had just been diagnosed bipolar. I had anxiety problems. I was agoraphobic. I even went into the hospital during all this, and he said he had no problem with that and said he missed our e-mails while I was gone. But he finally grew frustrated and ended it.

So “A” and I had a really intensive session this last week. We both practically needed oxygen by the end of it. At least I did. I was actually shaking. Anxiety I guess. But I know he’s right about meeting someone. He told me all the nice qualities I have to offer. That’s not something I get to hear very often and for some reason I totally burst out laughing during it and almost couldn’t stop. I think it was when he said I smelled good. WTF? Really? Ok. He must really be into smells because when I dated Handyman that was his advice then too. Wear perfume. Heh! I don’t even own any perfumes. I’m allergic to almost everything. And I hate men’s colognes.  But note taken.

So I put the damn ad on very late Sat. night. I still wasn’t really sure. Plus I don’t really read things very closely. I thought I had to pay before the ad would go  live, but the next morning I already had dudes winking at me and two e-mails waiting for me. It took me another 2 1/2 days before I even finally decided to part with my very precious money. This better be fucking good. By then I was really racking up hits and winks. I have over 210 hits the last time I looked. I mean I have winks from guys in Wisconsin and Virginia. Like where are we supposed to meet for a cup of latte ice cream? Pennsylvania? Plus a lot of them appear to be unable to comprehand my needs, like : NO SMOKERS. (period). Ages 48-53. And I have like Regis Philbin sending notes. Guys! Read the fine print! Oy!

But I have selected one very lucky fellow from the thronging masses for a witty interlude this weekend. He told me he’s a tree hugger and hates the war, so that pretty much already won my heart.  So we’ll see. Oh, and he also says he’s an optimist. I had to look that up in the dictionary. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant.

Here is your single’s love horoscope for Wednesday, April 30:
Your friends are all abuzz about you and some new hottie you’ve been spotted with. Let them wonder if there’s really something going on. You don’t have to kiss and tell-unless you really want to!

Wha-t-t-t?? Where??? Who??? Me??? Yeah right. I’ve been communing with my couch for over two weeks now. Other then the occasional walk and night out with the arty types, I’ve been slowly sinking between the cushions in my couch and Guardcat may soon be eating creme wittee brulee. You know….since the love between you and your cat can only take a turn for the worst, if you don’t move for a while and you suddenly look like a pile of human Friskies.
 
I’ve actually been obsessed with two things the last two weeks….lottery tickets and sleeping, with sub-headings of weird dreams and an uncontrollable obsession with numbers. Where should I start? Well, since sleeping isn’t very interesting, unless its WHO you’re sleeping with, and its certainly not the hottie in my horoscope, we’ll go directly to lottery tickets. They’ve been calling my name.

Now even though I’m poor and getting poorer as we speak, I buy a lottery ticket every time I go to the grocery store. Its an obsession. The potential for free money and financial freedom. Why not?? Unfortunately I have monumentally bad luck and couldn’t win anything higher than $1 if God/Allah and Howie Mandell dumped all the lottery ticket machines in New York on my bed.

 I mean I just can’t win. Its funny how that sorta parallels my life. The most I’ve ever won was $8. Woo! You should have seen me! I was jumping around like those idiots on “Deal or No Deal”. Although just for the record….I would only jump around on that show if I was near my honey bunny super stud Howie Mandell, not because I was going to pick the case with $1.00 in it. Ya got it?

Anyways, in the last week I’ve been having lottery tickets literally throwing themselves at me. First at the yuppie grocery store where I went to buy my $1. ticket and there it was….a $2. crossword lottery ticket just randomly laying in the tray. Eek! Was it a sign? Or was it that news show that films people in those what-will-they-do situations and then films them to see if they do the RIGHT thing? I’m always worried I won’t and then I’ll be on National Television talking to John Quiones and some nun from my Catholic school days will be sitting in some convent nursing home somewhere, shaking her head in utter shame, saying “I thought witty was better than that.”

So I took the “lost” lottery ticket over to the customer service counter, which obviously had cameras on it from ABC News too and asked if anyone had asked about a lost lottery ticket. At first they wanted me to just “leave it” in case someone came to claim it.  I wasn’t born yesterday chickie! So finally the young girl asked around and nobody had been looking for it in the last 1.5 minutes so then it was now MINE….MINE….MINE!!!!!! Woo! Hoo! Was it a winner?

What do you think?

And then the next day I went over to the Village to do my laundry and then onto my favorite ice cream place and on the way back I saw something rather interesting in the trash by the pond. TEN FREAKIN’ LOTTERY TICKETS in the FREAKIN’ GARBAGE CAN!!!!!!!!!!! THE TWO DOLLAR ONES!!! OMG!!! And they were only partially scratched off.  And they were calling to me. Really loud…”witty….witty….that economic stimulus check will barely cover all the money the government has taken away from you in food stamps this last month…scratch us…you could be a winner!!”

So there I was on the main street of our tony little Village, overflowing with SUVs and Porches, digging through a garbage can for half scratched off lottery tickets, mixed in with food wrappers and old diamond tiaras, mumbling something about Howie Mandell, I think. Talk about humiliating! Fortunately they were fairly clean, although I had to wash my hands about a hundred times before I folded my laundry back at the laundromat. But there they were…10 freakin’ lottery tickets for the taking!! I didn’t do anything with the tickets until I got home where I found one winner for $2! Woo! It paid for almost a load of laundry. Woo! Call CNN!

So why the obsession with numbers? I’m not really sure, because I’m really terrible with numbers. But I do like free things and money, so I do every little thing online to make money including surveys. Some surveys pay money. Others just offer you gifts. But this last week, one of my gifts arrived and for someone with OCD, it was like the funnest thing ever. A pedometer. It records number of steps. Like four steps from my bed to the bathroom. 8 steps to the fridge. 16 steps to the mailbox downstairs. 39 steps to the library across the street. The other day I went on a hike and recorded 5634 steps. I definitely needed a nap after that one.

 And therein lies the other problem I’ve been having lately. Excessive napping and dreaming of strange dreams. Dreaming of having job interviews in seedy places with tall dark ceilings. Standing out by a street in a see through negligee kissing Married Guy with my tongue. And then having him trying to run me down with a car. I mean WTF? What does that mean? Am I trying to resolve strange things in my subconscious? Am I having anxiety about finding a job and having it turn out badly. Or is my next relationship going to end badly, by me getting run over by an SUV? Wouldn’t that be poetic justice, getting squashed by a Dodge Caravan.

So like any overtired, angsty artist type I had to check in on my biorhythms. Why? I had just read the blog of our local newscaster (who incidently lives in my neighborhood. I see him out running). And he had cut himself shaving, punctured his shin with a stick out in his yard and fallen when he was out running….all in the same day. His decision? Check his biorhythm chart. So see, I’m not so flaky. He’s a newscaster fercrissakes! So I went to http://www.bio-chart.com/. And I’m so glad I did!

First of all I found out that I was 18,340 days old. No wonder I keep needing a nap. That’s almost as old as Larry King and his socks added together. And then I looked at the charts and graphs and most of them were under the normal line, as in bad.

It said: Your general well being is moderate. Tendency: Its getting better.
You are in very good physical shape. Instead of wasting it go for a walk or a jog.
Emotional: You can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. The time for self pity is over. There is only one more hurdle to pass.
Intellectual: You spend these days without any plan or aim. Also, your reactions leave much to be desired.

Holy crap, that’s my life exactly right now. All the couch sitting. Aimlessness. Window staring. Self pity. Oh, and thanks for pointing out that my reactions leave much to be desired, oh biorhythm goddess. See if I ever laugh at your stories about sMatch.com again.

In the end, however, I am somewhat buoyed by the light at the end of the tunnel thingie and also by the fact that I only have one more hurdle to leap. What it is? I have no idea.  But dog-gone-it there’s only one left. I just wonder if that will require me getting off the couch and relinquishing my remote control for human contact. Can you imagine how scary that could be?

Yesterday when I went to pick up “L” to bring our artwork to our funky/Goth/comic book/sex/political art show around 12:45, and she was the late as usual. The latest ever actually. At least 30 minutes late with the usual bath towel wrapped around her. I did wait in the car for a while, but damn, we were having the hottest day of the year so far (87 degrees….WTF? It was just snowing 10 days ago) and I was roasting out in the car, so I finally went in her house.

I’ve never been in her house before and it was quite a sight to behold. I won’t go into it here, but while she was getting ready upstairs I sat down at this ancient piano to play a few Broadway tunes….since I was pretty much afraid to sit down anywhere else and it was the most out of tune piano I’ve ever played…a fact we later discussed and of which she was proud. I mean when I played “Wilkommen” from “Cabaret” and it came out sounding like “Oklahoma” as sung by Richard Simmons shrieking while seeing a mouse.

We finally got down to the bar with our artwork at around 1:40. It was weird going from bright sunlight into the Bowels of Hell, i.e., a pub with a bunch of Goth types. And I so fit in with my shorts and striped shirt from J.C. Penney’s, via the Salvation Army. About 2/3 of the artwork had already arrived and some of it was (cough) pretty interesting, especially the rather large painting of former New York governor Elliot Spitzer and a very lovely young naked woman doing something rather private with her fingers and her va-ji-ji! Yikes! But it was beautifully painted and if PBS ever needs a painting to auction off, some late evening, this one would surely fetch a rather princely sum. And rather nerve-wrackingly, the guy who painted it, kept looking at me for most of the afternoon and evening.

So I didn’t really do much at the hanging of the show until the Sci Fi Guy pulled out a twenty and asked “L” and I to go around the corner and get some loaves of bread and some salsa dip for the people working. Even though the place we were at is kind of a dive, the neighborhood is very yuppiefied and has a lot of high priced eateries and Starbuck places. It is, in fact, the area, where I will have my art show next summer.

So “L” and I walked over to this high end bread bakery and told the young girl, who looked a little arty/Gothy that we were looking for some bread and dip for some artists who were setting up a show.  So she pulled out two huge, freshly baked loaves and a tub of the most expensive dip.  “L” and I started going “Oh no. We want the cheaper stuff. We only have $20″ and then she pushed everything towards us and said “Here, take it!” Well, with both “L” and I being poor,  we weren’t about to argue. And then the girl said she was an artist too, so we told her more about the show and invited her to bring stuff over. 

 We were so excited when we brought the goodies back to Sci Fi Guy and handed him back his money. We did tell him about the girl and fortunately when her boyfriend brought in her work, it fit right in with our theme and was quite decent. So yay on that! And yay for the additional fresh pizza bread she sent with her boyfriend and her artwork!
 
I went home in between. I’ve been tired the last few days. My new neighbor, the Loud Talker has been waking me up every morning, yakking at top volume out on her porch, which faces my bedroom starting at around 8:15 a.m. She literally sits on her porch all day, chatting on her phone, and it’s been even more fun last couple of days she was babysitting her grandson, who ran up and down the courtyard yelling and screaming and slamming doors and bouncing balls and her yelling at him THE ENTIRE FUCKING DAY. Summer, should be awesome!

When it was time to go to the show I absolutely did not know what to wear. Gah! When I had been at the set up of the show, my little teenage Goth friend had told me that my newly cut bangs made me look like the lead singer for the Seekers. Is that good? I dunno. But as far as the clothes, I pretty much look like a chubby housewife from the ‘burbs. I mean I was thinking of what the people at the SET-UP were wearing.
 
* sneakers that laced up to the knees. (don’t have)
* tee-shirts with either skulls or anarchy logos on them (don’t have)
* pants pinned together with huge safety pins and patched with skull logos (don’t have)
* purple, green or pink hair, possibly a mohawk (don’t have)
* striped shirt, plaid pants, orange tie, John Deere cap, Converse sneakers (don’t have)
* tattoo of “The Ironm@n” on my neck (don’t have…yet)

I am just so freakin’ plain. I need a Goth makeover for elderly women. Hopefully it won’t make me look like Keith Richards.

So instead I ended up wearing my Laura Ingalls/”Little House on the Prairie”/Texas Compound of 12 year old Mormon Wives sundress. Eyeliner. Sandals. And yes, I even wore underwear!
 
I got down there around 7:30 (it started at 7), but it still was pretty empty. Vagina Painting Guy was sitting on the couch looking at me. Stop! I’m wearing underwear you weirdo. So I went back out and walked around the yuppie neighborhood which was teaming with activity since it was the warmest night of the year. People sitting in outdoor cafe tables. Mean Girls in tight dresses outside of bars, lining up the rich guy they’re going to nail for their first husbands. 

I finally went back in around 8 and it still was pretty empty, but I sat and listened to a guy playing “Misty” on acoustical guitar with Vagina Painting Guy staring at me. Stop! It finally started to pick up at around 8:45. More kids came in. A couple of people from my art class showed up. My painting had no wire on it, so it was just propped up against some electrical cords. I had Professional Artist Guy take my picture with it. I took pictures of him and his girlfriend. But mostly I just sat in a chair with sweaty palms having social anxiety problems because everyone was there with someone and it  really hit me like a ton of bricks. What? The walking around the neighborhood on a warm summery night and seeing everyone interacting with someone and me sitting alone like some zombie staring off into space.  I really am lonely and not real confident that I’ll ever find anyone.

I mean, here I am with people…my people….artist-types and I still can’t really talk to anyone. I feel awkward. Insecure. Tongue-tied. Sure, on occasion, I feel like I’m a legend in my own mind, but in reality, my social anxiety is so severe, especially in crowds, that I just disappear into myself and feel invisible. And its kind of hard to meet people when you feel like that. Or when only the weird Vagina Painting Guy is staring at you.

So I finally left around 9. I didn’t even say good bye to anyone or get my uber-cool tee-shirt from the event. I just went home and finished up Photoshopping the cemetery pictures from last week and sent them to the client. Doesn’t that sound like an exciting Saturday night? It is for me.

By the way, this is my painting from the show.

 I was so insecure about trying to do some hip, bold piece with a condom dangling off it, that I just submitted a painting I had done about a month ago. Way to go, Hipster Artist Chick. Next I’ll be teaching Guardcat how to do Jackson Pollock paintings with her tail.