Did I go to the art fair? Am I going to the art fair? How is the art fair this year? No. No. I don’t know.

I haven’t gone to the art fair and I am not going. Hmm, actually, it’s over now anyway. I didn’t go. I get hit with this same set of questions every year. Multiple times. I do not have any money. I do not need anything. I am picking away at the shambling mounds I already have. I am getting *rid* of things. I do not need any more objets d’art, aka junk.

I used to like to go the art fair. But that was back when I could fit all of my worldly possessions into the back of a Ford Fiesta. I used to come to The Planet Ann Arbor to visit Pooh and the Marquis and their friends and we would walk downtown and spend hours and hours at the art fair. Everything was exciting to look at and I wanted it all. I didn’t have any money but I didn’t have any responsibilities either and we’d party on into the swampy southeast Michigan night. I have one vague, fuzzy memory of loitering around up on South University one Saturday night after the art fair was over. There were some big poles leftover from an art fair structure and someone in our party was lobbing them around and singing operatic arias. I can’t remember exactly who it was but he was not a musician.

Then I blinked and somebody hit the fast forward button and all of a sudden, I was living on The Planet with a career, husband, house, and two beach urchins and my Ford Fiesta now had a name, “Mama’s Little Gold Car.” I needed a new art fair strategy. Early is the name of the game for me, so I’d pack up the urchins and a stroller and hit the art fair as soon as it opened. We’d start out by walking up and down Main St., which is pretty well shaded at that time of the morning. Then we’d turn up Liberty, straight into a sizzling southeast Michigan sun. Whomp! Sometimes we’d make it all the way up to State and sometimes not. By an hour after the fair started for the day, it was too hut hot for us and we were done. Time to go home. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. I can’t remember what kinds of things we bought during those years. Little trinkets for little girls, probably. I still did not have any money but I had quite a few responsibilities.

And then there were all those years of summer theatre camp. Summer theatre camp performances have always been purposely scheduled during the art fair at the Trueblood Theatre, on State Street right in the middle of the whole thing. When I was working for YAG, I never had time to go to the art fair, even though I was working right in the middle of it. I would be frantically running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to park various Courtois vee-hickles, schlepping stuff in and out of the theatre, running errands, and managing panicky parents and others. I would steal a half hour and dash madly down Huron to Main to visit my favorite jeweler, whose booth was just off Huron. I still did not have any money but I would buy earrings anyway.

I don’t work for YAG any more and they’re tearing down the Trueblood so the YAG performances were in Ypsilanti this summer. I don’t know if my favorite jeweler was at the fair. Actually, I’m not even sure she’s still living. I don’t care about anything else at the art fair. I don’t need anything. I have too much stuff. I *hate* having to navigate through the crowds. I walk too fast and bump into things and knock little old ladies over. I still do not have any money. I think one of these years, I will probably go to the art fair again. I think I might even *enjoy* it again. *Maybe* someday I will even have a little money to spend. Not this year.

Okay, finish those Harry Potter books!

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 21st, 2007 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.