Greetings from the hot and steamy writing salon of awittykitty. I’m just momentarily resting on my lazy ass laurels a mere 48 hours after the opening of my one woman art show. Oh yeah, it sounds impressive all right. Fall at my feet you mere mortals. Feed me grapes, oh naked boys who might possibly give me a lap dance in some wildly inappropriate setting like the set of “Deal or No Deal”. But the truth is, its only a bipolar woman who painted a bunch of stuff and then some lady took it to a beauty spa. The end. Ya got it?
But witty, why were you totally off the ledge with anxiety and angst for the last freaking week or 47? The truth is I had a lot happening. I just deleted about 5 paragraphs. Why? They made me sound even more neurotic and crazed than I usually am. Let’s just say its been a combo of “Fatal Attraction” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” all kind of dwooshed up together with a really bad hormonal Movie of the Week starring Meredith Baxter Birney.
Shall we start at the beginning? I guess I mentioned that some rich wife of an artist I draw with had shown some interest in my work at another art show back in May. I was a wreck when she came and picked 8 pieces at my apartment. She’s the kind of person I generally make fun in my blog. Bubbly yuppie type with a cell phone glued to her ear. And then suddenly there she was standing in my apartment. It was a strange juxtaposition. A sort Pygmalion sort of thing, ya see.
So we hung the show about a month ago at a beauty spa. It was a nice place. Not Beverly Hills glamorous, but nicer than say like Hairs-R-Us. And they even had FAUX Marble walls! I liked it. Me and “P” agreed on where and how to hang everything and got along really well. And then suddenly I didn’t hear from her for like 10 days. I didn’t know what to think, other than the worst of course.
She finally called and said she was writing press releases for a couple of local newspapers, as well as “an article” for the small local publication in the town where the spa was. I sent her over some photos of my artwork. And then she sent me a copy of the article. I cringed. People who are bubbly and chatty may not necessarily be able to write I quickly realized.
I had thought I had finally gotten over that thing called “being a control freak” but evidently there were still small fragments lodged in my calm and rather adorable exterior. So I wrote her back a note with a few suggestions about the article, you know, since I have an extensive journalism background, which I mentioned numerous times to the point of perhaps (cough) totally humiliating her. It was my mood, people. I’m bipolar!!! So I re-wrote the paragraph about me, even though she said she had already sent it to the editor and sent it back. I don’t know why I cared so much. It was just for a crappy little paper probably scanned by only about 12 people.
Incidentally, this is a painting I was working on while all this chaos was going on. Do you think it shows the angst and loss of control I was feeling?
Yeah, I think so too.
Anyways, “P” finally set a date for my opening…Thursday, August 13th. She was sending out info to everyone she could, including local art guilds, like the one Married Guy’s wife belongs to. Erg! She also wanted me to self-promote too.
Self promote? Does not compute. Does not compute. Does not compute. What’s that?
She then brought some color flyers up to my art class Wednesday night. I had sent her two images of two different paintings, one of the Virgin Mary and one of Johnny Depp. Naturally I had to make a joke when I saw them next to each other on the flyer. Like, “Yeah, I heard that Johnny Depp and the Virgin Mary have been dating since the Teen Choice Awards….” (rim shot).
I’m much funnier in print obviously.
She handed the flyers out to all 20 some people in the class. I was still worrying about the reason I talked about in those 5 deleted paragraphs. I’ve had a stalker recently who has been making me even more nervous and paranoid than usual, so I had been trying to shield the time and place of my show from this person. I had just planned to ask a few people in the class because I was beside myself with worry as my info went public.
I had also invited my best friend “L” the Hippie Chick but had made a stupid mistake. Her young grandson was up visiting her and this weekend we had gone to see a free theatre production and he had been, shall we say, a bit free-spirited. As in he didn’t want to see the show, so he walked out of the theatre and left the building and I had no idea if he was out on the road getting hit by a car or what, since “L” had switched seats to sit with him in the back and then he came to sit with me and then he just left. I was freaking out during the whole show. Do I get up and go look for him? Is he safe? Where’s “L”? She must be looking for him. I kept looking in the back, looking for her.
Anyways, I told her I didn’t want him to come to my art show since at our art class he was also constantly running and sliding on the floor and rolling around and making noises and knocking stuff over. I just couldn’t see him at this tony beauty spa. “L” walked away from me angry Wednesday night. I started crying immediately. I think it was the combination of everything.
Zue, my second least favorite person, talked to me for about 20 minutes afterwards. She wasn’t too obnoxious. She was one of the people I didn’t want at the show, but what the hell, she earned it, listening to all my drama queen whimpering. Now she’ll probably want to be my BFF too.
Anyways, fast forward to my art opening, since this entry is getting longer than “War and Peace”. Had a few calls in the morning including “L” saying that she would be there without her rambunctious grandson. Although she added, he would have gotten a lot out of seeing my art. Okay, I deserve that I guess.
I got there about 10 minutes before the opening. “P”, my “agent” was getting her hair done. She said I looked “fresh and cool.” Ha! I had just driven 15 miles in a hot-ass car with no air conditioning, but thanks. I had brought a few additional pieces, since she said I could, including the sinful “City on Fire” pictured above (which had been rejected by her for the show as too stressful- heh heh! Try living in the body of a bipolar woman during a hot spell with a stalker).
People finally started filtering in. My mom came and was very well behaved. Folks from my art class. My aunt. Even some people who had said they weren’t coming showed up. Good ones, not the stalker fortunately. “P” was flitting around, mostly promoting the salon now. That’s fine with me. Her husband came. He loaned me this book called “Postm0dern Heretics” . Basically it was about sex, art, sex, religion…and did I mention sex with explicit photos of such things as a semi-ude guy nailing himself to a Volkswagon a ‘la the crucifixtion.. Ummm, interesting.
It soon got even weirder. I was walking around with my camera, of course. One of the male hair dressers asked if I would take his photo. I said sure, no problem. So he grabbed a manikin head used for wigs off the counter. It has a vague female face. He asked me to come into a little side room with a lounger. So I followed him in there and he jumps onto the lounger and buries the mannikin’s head down in his crotch and says, “Take my picture….just don’t get my face in it.”
Ummmmm?!?!?!
But I’m an idiot. I took his picture. Nothing like bonding over a little porn with a total stranger during your art show. I should have made him buy one of my damn paintings for that.
Anyways, the rest of the evening went much better. I mostly talked about art with my friends. Afterwards, me and some of the girls went next door and got some ice cream cones. Naturally after about 4 licks mine fell on the ground. I bent over and wiped off the top layer. Everyone was screaming. “No witty. Ewww!”, but I just continued to eat it. It fell on asphalt for god sakes. Its not like there were ants or dog poop or anything. Anyways, “L” the Hippie Chick disappeared for a couple of minutes and then came back with this humongous waffle cone with a huge pile of ice cream on top of it and said, “Here.”
See, that’s what friends are really about.
By the way…Virgins are cute. Buy them and take them home. OK? Thanks.