Oh the humanity
It’s been about a billion years since I’ve gone to the Planet Ann Arbor art fair(s). I used to walk down there from my apartment — I guess I must’ve taken a day off work or whatever — and cruise through the whole thing. It was fun back in those days. I didn’t mind the billions of people and I would see all kinds of things I was dying to buy but I could barely pay my rent and car payment in those days so I usually came home empty handed. Maybe a few little cheap trinkety things that have probably been flung by now.
I don’t exactly remember when I started practicing art fair avoidance but it was probably during the YAG years. I didn’t have time to *attend* the art fair during the YAG years but I had to *navigate* the art fair because we did our summer theatre day camp performances in a rattle-trap old black box theatre on the U of M campus almost right smack in the middle of the art fair. There was NO place to park within blocks of the place which meant that I had to park illegally to unload all of my crap and then park over at Commie High or someplace and schlep the rest. And NO air-conditioning in that place. Now I did actually go to the art fair during those years but my one foray into the fray was planned with surgical precision. My favorite jeweler of all time used to have a booth almost at the Huron / Main intersection. I would beat tracks outta the Trueblood Theatre down Huron to Main, nip in to my fave jeweler’s booth, grab a couple pairs of earrings and high-tail it back. (Yes, of course I paid for them.)
My fave jewelers died back in 2004 and I stopped doing YAG, which meant that I had no reason to be anywhere near downtown during the art fair and the beach urchins were able to go to the art fair under their own power and then I started working for corporate America again and yada yada yada.
We went to the art fair tonight. It’s Friday and you know what we do on Friday night roight? Yeah, we walk downtown and meet at the Oscar Tango for cocktails and dinner. And tonight, we cruised a bit of the art fair afterwards. I did not do well with the humanity and I hope it is just the overwhelmed, kind of one foot in front of the other survival mode I have been in this summer but I really wasn’t even *interested* in any of the art. Pretty ironic. I mean, we aren’t anywhere near the 1% but I don’t pay any rent or even a car payment any more and, for the first time in my life, I actually earn enough money that if I squint hard enough, there’s just enough of a little squinchy slush in our funds that I probably could’ve spent a little money. But not $6,400 which is what those crazy colorful whirly sculptures were running. Even if I did buy anything, where would I put it? So, we trudged along home empty-handed. Except for a couple of new tie-dyed t-shirts that the GG bought earlier in the day. Tie-dyed t-shirts that don’t have somebody’s damn logo on them. He was wearing one when I got to the Oscar Tango and I was all, “Where did you get *that*?” And then he pulled another one out of his backpack. For me. I needed a new tie-dyed t-shirt. I will wear it until it literally falls apart. Thank you!
I am done blathering for today. 10:05 on a Friday night and I worked eight hours and walked about eight miles and I am sucking down water and I can hardly prop my eyes open any more. Goooooood night. KW!