Weekend Visit
It is wonderful how the things that piss you off, that really get you railing against something, often provide the perfect opportunity to clarify your thinking - often, thinking about yourself.
My cousin's came to our place this weekend, despite the total disgusting mess. I didn't stress about the dust caked over everything, about the food dried onto the keyboard, about the stains on the floor. I probably should have, because this particular cousin, the restorer of renaissance art and medieval cathedrals, is the most squeamishly meticulous of the family. I am sure she noticed. But they liked it. They really did.
They (she and her husband) also provided quite an elaborate and well developed ear full about how one, if an artist, must be practical: that one cannot make art unless one can eat. We R, the cousins and myself, discussed the possibility of going into business together, importing reproductions of 17th century European furniture. We discussed it very seriously in fact, to the point where we looked up import tariffs and the like.
Which is when the moment of confirmation rung: I couldn't give less of a rats ass about selling nauseatingly expensive hand made furniture to wealthy people. No big revelation, I know. But once this comforting idea set in, it became incredibly irritating to continue to elaborate the plan.
But I dealt with it. Because in all likeliness nothing will happen anyways, the issue will be forgotten.
In the car on the way to dinner at my parents house, the advice escalated. We could, she suggested, give private art classes. We could start the landscape architecture business that I had mentioned to her earlier. We could sell antiques. Well intended, yes. Everyone in the family knows that we are not a picture, not even a faded Polaroid, of fiscal stability. We definitely could use some economic security especially when it comes to doing it in the realm of our respective interests. But the implication that R and I were wasting our time was not lost on me. Only the thought of being a day care teacher or a nurse is more disturbing to me than the idea of giving a painting lesson to some make-up reeking old woman from the Main Line.
But to say so would be offensive, because it is through these types of women that my cousin makes her living. Her clientele are the uber rich, from old money. How can I convey that I would rather work at Pathmark than for these people?
I won't convey it, and that is how I'll get along until their visit is through.
My cousin's came to our place this weekend, despite the total disgusting mess. I didn't stress about the dust caked over everything, about the food dried onto the keyboard, about the stains on the floor. I probably should have, because this particular cousin, the restorer of renaissance art and medieval cathedrals, is the most squeamishly meticulous of the family. I am sure she noticed. But they liked it. They really did.
They (she and her husband) also provided quite an elaborate and well developed ear full about how one, if an artist, must be practical: that one cannot make art unless one can eat. We R, the cousins and myself, discussed the possibility of going into business together, importing reproductions of 17th century European furniture. We discussed it very seriously in fact, to the point where we looked up import tariffs and the like.
Which is when the moment of confirmation rung: I couldn't give less of a rats ass about selling nauseatingly expensive hand made furniture to wealthy people. No big revelation, I know. But once this comforting idea set in, it became incredibly irritating to continue to elaborate the plan.
But I dealt with it. Because in all likeliness nothing will happen anyways, the issue will be forgotten.
In the car on the way to dinner at my parents house, the advice escalated. We could, she suggested, give private art classes. We could start the landscape architecture business that I had mentioned to her earlier. We could sell antiques. Well intended, yes. Everyone in the family knows that we are not a picture, not even a faded Polaroid, of fiscal stability. We definitely could use some economic security especially when it comes to doing it in the realm of our respective interests. But the implication that R and I were wasting our time was not lost on me. Only the thought of being a day care teacher or a nurse is more disturbing to me than the idea of giving a painting lesson to some make-up reeking old woman from the Main Line.
But to say so would be offensive, because it is through these types of women that my cousin makes her living. Her clientele are the uber rich, from old money. How can I convey that I would rather work at Pathmark than for these people?
I won't convey it, and that is how I'll get along until their visit is through.
posted by beef at 8:56 AM
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