I tell some people – only those who ask repeatedly, I would never lay this all on someone unsuspecting, this is my warning – about  my life up until now and they say it would make a great story, but it’s not a story, and it could not be.  It only sounds like a story because I am making it up, or because we were drunk or high and the story of my life is vignetted by episodes of Star Trek or The Wire.
I’ve been living in Baltimore for three years; I won’t set the scene by talking about the lost and useless idea of home, but I went back to my parents’ and grandparents’ and aunt’s and uncle’s house about two weeks ago.  In New York I felt however and I did whatever, it’s not important.  I went outside on the back patio, sat down in a green plastic chair covered in helicopter maple seeds and lit a cigarette.  [The house is an over-built-upon, three-family Colonial with an expansive deck and four patios.  The one I visited on this occasion is my parents' personal, semi-private outside area with hedges and bird feeders and lawn gnomes and those plastic flamingos.]  I was probably looking around all nervous because if my grandparents saw me smoking they’d kill me before whatever inevitable smoking disease even got a chance.  The table was covered with pollen and nothing else besides a tea kettle that my dad had been using as an ashtray.  All I could think was that I don’t even have a tea kettle at my apartment in Baltimore, but I have at least four ash trays….  Let’s make a trade.

It was more like a Tuesday than a Friday or Saturday when I met Garry, but we were at the bar anyway, acting like the weekend kids even though we had just got off work and the only way I could have looked approachable was if I had found one of the mascara girls in the bathroom and she had lent me her comb.  I didn’t have any money so I was flirting with guys for drinks, a skill that I both acquired and mastered that winter.  But Garry didn’t buy me a drink at the bar, and he didn’t the entire time I knew him.  Eddie O was the bar tender, a 50-something man who managed to go home with 30-something women who didn’t mind that he was flirting with them at work, in front of his son, over a counter that was peopled at one end with us – occasionally under-age, late-rowdy kids born in the newer wing of the hospital up the street, or in Manhattan, some with trust funds, some without, and at the other end by a lone, sleeping Latino.  After midnight, Eddie O would open the back door so we could smoke in the shared hallway instead of out in the cold, and we didn’t have to leave our drinks.  Garry knew every one of my friends and acquaintances before I had even seen him, and if that’s an exaggeration, he befriended them before I learned his last name.  He was smoking a blunt with someone I knew at the end of the hallway, where the smoke travelled down the stairs and into the kitchen of the Chinese restaurant where it waited with the leftovers until morning when someone would open a window.  The other guy was just a home from around town, someone from Pinecrest or Carpenter Ave, I don’t even remember who.  I only smoked pot when I was in high school, dying to be cool, or just pining for something to do between classes but I’ve always liked the smell, it reminds me of summer nights when I was living at home and my stepmother went away and my dad could do whatever he wanted.  So I turned to face the smell, or maybe one of the white boys was getting belligerent in that direction, and it’s not like it was love at first sight but he caught my attention, as I’m sure now he always does.  Something green – a scarf or a baseball cap – stood out against the scummy brick bar hallway, even through the smoke-filled air, and he was a giant.  A remarkable, giant latino in green.  The ones we knew were passed out at the other end of the bar, always wearing flannel or a dark blue or muted maroon work shirt.  Or they were somewhere else, in a brown or grey that fed on the their complexion.

pearl & wire rings, $10/each

fabric & chain necklace, $20

ameliajordahlbueti@gmail.com

The artist will send trophies to beautiful women who have married into money.  The trophies will be engraved with each individual’s name, and may or may not have some indication of what the trophy is for.  For example:  “Darleen Fischer, Trophy Wife of the Year.”  Or simply “Janeen Pomegranate, You’ve Won!”

Alternate #1: A replacement trophy will be sent to men recently divorced by trophy wives.

Alternate #2: Consolation prizes will be sent to individuals who have lost public competitions such as the Olympics, game shows, and reality TV love match shows.

Featuring flavored glitter, edible underwear, candy necklace and ground beef?  A graphic designer will work with the present design of the Taco Bell menu to create a menu addition featuring this new product.  The result will be covertly placed in a print menu, and with the help of a subversive employee, on the menu board at one Taco Bell location.  These additions will be photographed and removed before the establishment can take notice.  The photographs and a written proposal from Dane Stephenson, the first person to establish a Taco Bell in New Jersey, will be sent as a press release to Lady Gaga’s PR company, and to blogs, etc.

For this project the artist will create false press releases about Whitney Houston and send them to various publishing institutions including gossip magazines, music magazines and blogs, television stations like MTV, news websites and television stations.  Everyone will be interested in this press release as Whitney Houston is an iconic figure in American culture.  All of the information provided will be false, but will reflect positively on the new upturn in the star’s career. The press release will include photos, quotes, and a new song or remix.

Alternate:  The artist will work in collaboration with musicians (band members, DJs, or Andrew WK?) to produce an album that will be released under the name Whitney Houston.

Option A: Nightclub.  “Lecturers,” individuals with information on one topic each, will be invited to attend an event at a nightclub.  They may be stationed in one area or circulate around the club, and they should try to share their knowledge, of a piece of said knowledge, with everyone with whom they interact throughout the course of the night.  A conversation may go as follows: “Oh hello dancing partner, would you like to know more about the political history of Taiwan or fowl in folklore?”  Each attendee will be encouraged to bring some knowledge and to share it as well.  Facts will be printed on cocktail napkins; packets will be printed and important sections highlighted and distributed at the door or on tables or on the bar.  Everyone’s ideas of fact, fiction, trust, and doubt will be tested.  A specialized area, or knowledge booth, may or may not be necessary.

Option B: Strip Club.  A strip club will be rented during off hours; “customers” may or may not be charged $85 for a lap dance and lesson from strippers with knowledge to share