In my second year of college I made giant collages (that held weird secret subliminal messages under a black light) out of pictures, shaving cream, cigarette butts and lots of spray paint. I actively channeled my energy into those projects; defacing a large percentage of the dorm hallways and losing my deposit in the process until I entered a picture in an art show and watched it lose out to actual art students. I later learned that the art professors are the judges and always choose the winners based on their students’ projects. A lot of times they even give them the idea and help them develop it in class. I do not mind not winning, originally I was just thrilled to have a picture hanging in the UNT art show, but when I found out later that I didn’t even have a shot at winning because of the politics that are involved with being a successful artist, my enthusiasm for painting diminished a lot. Instead my ‘art for arts sake’ is much better, but more performance—oriented now. My creative energies are channeled into randomly (yet artistically) throwing eggs at the cars in the teacher parking spaces of the art building parking lot. That way the professors can help me with my projects too. My newest creation is to make their cars smell terrible to symbolize the oppression of the constricted establishment. Plus I like to throw eggs. I would say lately I’ve been more occupied and satisfied with experimenting on the canvas I live in. Life.
Jenifer’s been sort of bummed out lately because she’s going to have to give up her apartment on Stella. We’re still together all the time, virtually inseparable, but her roommates have been flaking on helping pay the bills so she’ll be moving back home for a little while with her parents. I suppose the notion of being back with her dad has a lot to do with her being so depressed. Her house is beautiful and huge that it has to be the parental units bumming her out right? I’ll miss sleeping over in her private air-conditioned room but the summer will soon be over and my porch room is much cooler than it was. I told Jenifer that her and her snoopy dog can stay with me anytime, I guess it was something she was worried about because her eyes lit up in that provocative way she has about her. Shit, if I had my way I would have her move in and marry me and bare my idiot children: I sanely keep my mouth shut and enthusiasm contained.
Fourth of July today. Spent most of it by myself drunk. Very drunk I might add. Drunk now. Dan and Jay went to some family thing and Jenifer’s off somewhere. I bought a watermelon earlier this week and a bottle of Everclear and ‘made a watermelon’ if that makes sense. You know, cut a hole in the melon and pour all the liquor inside? So I’ve been sitting on the front lawn in a lawn chair wearing nothing but my skivvies, jamming to classic rock on the radio and trying to count cars while my brain is all fucked up.
I think everyone caught out because they knew I set this day aside to raise hell. I have to go inside to take a bong hit every once in a while but otherwise I’m crisping in the sun until I eat this whole fucking watermelon while celebrating America. How fucking 70’s. Fuck this journal, I’m going to get the BB gun out.
I woke up sicker than a mug today. Grain alcohol isn’t something to be trifled with and I will never eat watermelon again. Ugh. I won’t even reread what I wrote, I only vaguely remember doing it.
It wasn’t even July 4th. Ouch my head.
I think I’m coming down with a cold. It might be good to de-fumigate the lungs for a few days but smoking out makes everything so much more interesting. Jenifer and I have been eating over at her parents’ house a lot lately. The fridge in my house just has a lot of condiments and beer, actual substantial food items don’t seem to stay around very long. Hopefully pizza will be included as one of the four main food groups soon. I love eating at her parents’ house because they always order out and I get to eat good food for a change. Even when we don’t eat take out they cook a lot of vegetables, homemade bread and a lot of other food I was raised on.
Jenifer’s parents cater to whatever eccentric food desires she verbalizes, probably because she’s an only child. It’s so cute to see her make faces and adamantly refuse to eat anything remotely foreign to her. Maybe later on in our life this will be a trait that grates on my nerves, but I’m so in love with her that I tend to find it delightfully enduring. I love getting a chance to cook for her, I try to introduce regular foods to her that I thought every American kid was required by law to like, and then I pretend to be hurt when she won’t eat a lot of whatever I cooked. It’s sick, but I live for the enjoyment of actually finding something she enjoys. It’s a very rare enjoyment though. Part of the not eating thing is that in her mind she’ll always hear the ballet instructors telling her she’s too fat, Jenifer would look even more stunningly voluptuous with a few extra pounds on her. Maybe it’s some secret male urge I have to fatten up the women so they’re easier to catch. I don’t know, I doubt it.
I was nervous the first time I went to eat at her parents’ house. Both of her parental units are polite and nice, despite the various horror stories I’ve heard about her obsessive-compulsive father. Jenifer’s mom is a librarian and Jenifer reveres her with all the “can do no wrong” enthusiasm usually reserved for a girl’s dad. Her mom is well read and I like her alright, but she looks or just reminds me of a short Sigourney Weaver. I keep expecting her to whip out a giant gun and kick some alien ass but she’s too subdued, in a way that only middle class white people can be, to really expect that. I’ve described the house before, I just feel like I should reiterate how much I dig eating lots of good hot food on their couch, facing the big windows that open to their backyard with all of its busy birdfeeders and watching the cable TV in the corner. It’s all very peaceful and serene, comfortable and hidden away like a Japanese garden. Jenifer always eats until she’s stuffed over at her parents’ house—which isn’t much—then she stretches out on the floor right in front of us and takes a nap. Her parents seem pretty used to her napping and even though it isn’t very proper of me, I always like to look at her sexy body when she’s lying there in front of us.