Opening
I can count the number of artist's openings I've been to on one hand.

On one finger, actually.

I secretly long to a part of this world of tortured ids and creative angst but here I'm compelled to stay below the surface lest I become a fish flopping wildly over by the featured installation until guests stare between their jet stick hair and oblong black glasses wondering what all the racket is about and who is that?


Rolling along the wall, I take considered looks at each piece on display. The first 20 seconds is always honest. After that I'm just pretending the work deserves more attention. Frankly I find it all drier than the Chardonnay hanging from my fingers. Despite this, I'm jealous of the passion she must have to create the work. Why does that theme always recur? Artists, salesmen, and Catholics. If I could only be demented enough to be so enthralled and sure of my own way.

I catch a glimpse of a fellow imposter. The husband of the gallery's manager, I'm guessing. Contact is made and we establish our common bond as outsiders. Inevitably, he asks "So what do you do for a living?"

"I repeatedly strike a yellow button on the wall with my beak until food pellets come out the chute, " I reply. "And you?"

" Same"

The CD changes from jazz standards to something impossibly hip. This increases the distance between my center and the rest of the room. A stealth glance at my watch tells me 9:30. I could leave now but I know where that road will take me. To questions I can't answer and rooms that plead escape.