Calliope's Lost Her Mind...

        My sister and I have a theory that every girl, no matter how pretty or promising, will inevitably turn into a big butted, opinionated woman bustling past her husband in a pair of pilled stretch pants and a Tweetie Bird sweatshirt complaining about money and carrying a load of laundry on her head.  (That is, unless you're wily enough to score a David Beckham or soulless enough to score a Donald Trump.) This ghastly woman is both my nemesis and my oasis, as her resignation to her bleak existence signifies the end of all of the restlessness and anxiety inherent to the golden days of youth, when success is still a possibility.  I see subtle signs of her emergence- I find myself complaining more and more and becoming extremely frugal.  In fact, now that I think about it I pretty much am that woman, and it's only a matter of time before appearances catch up with me.
      This same sister (who I will keep anonymous at her request) also shares my eagerness to do as little as possible without appearing mentally ill.  While complaining to her about an assignment for an illustration class in which I had to draw a picture of my family, she suggested that I take advantage of the current 'anything goes' state of the art world and turn in a piece of abstract art.
      'Just draw four triangles.'  She said.
       Not a bad idea.  We discovered that I could even go the extra mile and create a piece of performance art.  Imagine the expressions of my online fellow students as they watch a video of a plump, pasty, chestnut haired thirty year old covered in shaving cream throwing herself onto the floor over and over again and heaving herself up each time.  At the end, she remains lying on the floor in a depressing heap, and a bag of chocolate chips is thrown at her by someone off camera.  She remains lying there for four or five minutes, the screen wavers and turns slightly sideways as someone struggles to figure out how to stop the recording, and the words: 'Existential Portrait of My Family' appear.  An A+ for originality!  What raw energy!  What an utterly unique glimpse into not only the artist's family, but into the concept of family itself! God I love the art world, if only there was anything even slightly original after Duchamps was clever enough to place an old toilet into an art gallery.
         I actually had my work in a show last year.  I just felt like it was one of those things that I had to do before I died- not to be macabre about it.  It was great fun, dampened only by my wondering on the way there exactly how one acted at their own art exhibit, and the appearance of a very strange, short man with disconcerting eyes who seemed to stare at me an awful lot.  This same sister also mentioned that he seemed to be staring at her a lot as well, and that she felt as if she were in a David Lynch movie.  It's hard to explain his eyes, they seemed to integrate the expression of a bird and a second grader.  As disconcerting as his presence was, it was strangely comforting as well- in the crowd of strangers who expected something of me, there he was, two sharp eyes slightly below my chin following me unabashedly, with a gaze that conveyed nothing and clearly expected nothing.  I'm glad that my sister saw him also, or I would be inclined to think that  perhaps that I'd been given one of the odder guardian angels (which would explain a lot), and for whatever reason he had chosen that time and place to reveal himself to me. At any rate, whatever I was expecting of my art show, I certainly hadn't imagined anything remotely like my experience with that elfen little man.  Eventually he receded into the crowd, but the magnitude of revealing my art to the public for the first time has been somewhat eclipsed by the memory of the disturbing gaze of that odd little creature. Such is life.
       Well, back to my school work.  I think that I'm just going to draw a picture of the four of us for my class- when it comes down to it I'm far too unoriginal for the contemporary art world.  But seriously, what if when the Pope had commissioned Michelangelo to design the Sistine Chapel, he had dangled two loaves of bread from the ceiling and declared it to be symbolic of eternity?  Or if Leonardo da Vinci had performed a short skit titled the 'Mona Lisa' for his colleagues, the climax of which was him dumping a jug of wine over his head, instead of painting his masterpiece?  Call me old fashioned, or maybe it's just the eminently practical bug butted lady coming out in me, but it's just all so ridiculous.