(Taking cue from Drej, who wrote this last year but has
been on the verge of a group suicide for the past few days before the end and
is now hopefully thawing in some bathtub or warm embrace of her beasties.)
The fucking fair is over. Lemme say this in a way that it
will strike the right note: THE MOTHERFUCKING GORRAM FRIGGIN FAIR IS
OVEEEEER!!!! Fuck me sideways with a popsicle, but this was a grueling experience. It was bad
last year, when days of nothing sold pushed me into mini breakdowns, because I didn’t
know how this will end or if it will be worth it and I was mostly alone in the beginning,
but this year it was a horror towards the end. Towards the end it got so cold
our gadgets stopped working, the water in my watercolor jar froze beyond
thawing, I got so sick that I actually pulled a no-show one day and it will be
a little while before I am normal again. Well, normal by my own standards. I
cannot have sex, because my head is so tense the very blinking is causing me to
suffer. Every night I had to REST for a little bit, before I could fall asleep.
My muscles have atrophied, but are constantly tense and when I walk uphill
today, for lunch at the parents’ place, I have no idea what will happen. I may
just find a soft spot in the start of the forest ascend and take a nap from
being too worn out.
But okay. The money was okay this year, I think even a
little bit nicer than last year, and the company was great, Drej and
her mum being a constant moral support, people bringing me coffee and food and
flirting was cute, although I no longer have any desire to make out in the
little hut, as I did last year and General talked me out of it. He was right.
That would have been unpleasant.
You get to notice, after a while, sitting there, who is a
fair-y and who’s a passer-by. Fair-ies walk like we belong and will never ask retarded
questions in the line on: are you cold? … to another fair-y. We don’t mind stiff
blue hands or cry from having impossible pain in our freezing feet. We wait for
the pain to pass into numbness. The customers, though, as kind or polite as
they try to be, mostly they’re just annoyingly inconsiderate. How is it going –
is it worth sitting here? Have you sold much since you started? Were you
expecting more? It’s hard, having to sit here to make a living, eh? Are you
cold? …
I’ve made a list of awful experiences, regarding the
fair, in line of succession.
1. The
first few chords of “White snowflake”, our ONLY soundtrack's first song,
announcing another roll of music we have a) heard fifteen fucking thousand
times already and b) were idiotic to begin with. These have ruined our appreciation
of season songs for ever, and I mean ever, and for some reason they included
Toto’s Africa and Timberlake’s Sexy back …
2. Hardcore
subzero temperatures and having just no way to warm yourself. During 11 hour
shifts that serve no other purpose than us being a living decor of the city centre.
3. When
someone stares at your ware (I sold paintings and Christmas cards) and after
several minutes barks: have you no Christmas motifs?
4. A
child passing with a helium balloon, knocking down your display.
(Once you’ve settled neatly under blankets and over a makeshift heating arrangement
of tea candles and pottery, getting out again to fix it is just fucking bothersome.)
5. Someone
saying: Oh, yes, you have such lovely things, it’s just a shame no-one buys
these things anymore.
6. We’ll
make a round and be right back.
7. Oh,
I don’t really write cards, I just send texts.
8. Yes,
I should write the cards this year … (a few minutes of looking at them later)
Oh, I’ve already bought cheap ones at the post office, I just have to write
them down….
9. How
come you don’t have any Christmas motifs?
10. Got
stamps? (just stamps.)
11. Got
hot vine?
12. Got
hats and gloves?
13. Oh,
are you selling knitting items? (When they see me knit.)
14. People
spitting in front of the stand. Friggin’ gross.
15. Bum
drunks and gypsies begging from you and the really irritating bit is they come,
looking quite a bit better dressed and better heated than you. Get the fuck
away from me, you inconsiderate assholes! Do I LOOK like I have money filling my pockets??
16. When
the radio has a talk show about how the fair this year doesn’t really have any
Christmas products.
17. When
the fair media publicizes what great hot vine and vegetables you can find at
the market.
18. People
saying: just trash, just cheap trash… Or: are you crazy, charging one euro for
your cards??
19. A
special place is reserved for the woman who looked at my paintings and said:
yes, my little girl paints just like you, she’s four now and she’s really good.
20. No
restrooms.
21. ‘Are
you here tomorrow?’
22. The
magical creatures from the ‘Magical land’ are never the same girls twice in a
row: the Magical Land is like the Foreign Legion – you never return to it twice
and you are never quite the same once you’ve served in it.
23. The
names people call their children. Seriously. There better be a really good
story behind naming someone a Khaleesi.Will her first cake be in a shape of a horse's heart?
24. Slow
and sure deterioration of your motoric, mental and will-to-live abilities. You
start talking in odd, incoherent, half-finished sentences, but the really
spooky part is that the other fair-ies know exactly what you’re saying.
25. People,
looking at you, looking up at the sign saying where you’re from (never looking
at the product) and quickly moving on.
26. Being
so tired that my sexy short stories, which I usually write when I want the time
to pass faster, start to be mostly like this: Him: Hey, baby, you look so
yummy, I’m thinking of taking you to bed… Her: YES, PLEASE!
27. The
organizers. Good Gods, I would understand if they ran a diamond quarry
somewhere in South Africa, but having just this to run and doing this kind of a
job?? And then showing up once to ask how we’re selling and if we’re cold?
HIRE A FUCKING DJ WHO ISN’T SPECIAL NEEDS OR DEAF!!!
28. And
the winners, who get the cake: people who come to photograph the articles,
saying they’re just here to pick up some ideas…
29. Do you have any Christmas motifs or just these weird ones?
BUT.
But, there’s a list of things why all this shit is
totally worth it.
1. Every
coffee, tea or biscuit someone brings you to help you get through the day. Granted,
you are by the end so full of caffeine and sugar you are sick, but it really is
the thought that counts, because if people didn’t do that, this would not be bearable
to a human. Spartans were fucking pussies.
2. Couple
of faces that come by periodically and stop and chat and you just light up like
a tree every time they come, because they stop to cheer you up.
3. Friends
who, even though they have little money or their kids make their own cards,
still buy something from you, to show their support.
4. Every
time the General brings me hot food or hot-water cushion, or just comes by.
5. Every
sex that included a workout, stretching or a massage, until the point when I
was no longer able to have it. But until that point, that really was a lot of
massage sex which really helped.
6. Concerts
and happenings close to our stands that were cute and fun and included,
possibly, free food. (Romani and Serbian stands were a-we-so-me-ness!!)
7. Also
a lot of other fair food, like jota and ričet. Hot, cheap and really yummy. And
vegan, so you didn’t have to worry about poorly processed meat with little icky
bits in it, as it sometimes happens in meat food.
8. Trade
amidst the stands :D
9. Drej,
snatching most of my miniature drawings before they are even properly finished
and having them displayed on her work desk at her stand.
10. Mum
and dad showing up, or their old colleagues, asking me, quite drunk, if I think
it’s a good idea they should go visit. Oh, yes. I think it would :D
11. Meeting
new people.
12. Strangers,
stopping, mesmerized by my style and talking to me about it for an hour.
13. Strangers
stopping and talking about painting or photography in general.
14. The
sound of Mark X.
15. Still
earning a little bit of money and being able to buy something lovely to show
the General he is simply magic to me.
16. Sound
of carriages.
17. Smells
of popcorn and cotton candy and snow and spicy hot vine …
18. People
asking me to write something nice in the cards they bought.
19. People
asking me about my books.
20. Daydreaming
of the things you will do when the fair is over – knowing that should you lose
it completely and drag a chair in place of where the stand used to be, wrapped
in a blanket, your friends will come rescue you and we’ll all live happily ever
after in an insane asylum
21. Random
people passing by, seeing my work, stopping, passing on just a little,
backtracking, coming closer and saying: wau. Do you do this? Where are you
from?? … as if how haven’t they notice me before. Well, I’m shy.
22. Conversations
like this amidst friends: A: I would hit you very hard in the face. B: Why
would you hit me in the face? A: Probably, because I am not allowed to kiss
you. B: Why wouldn’t you be allowed to kiss me? … which are impossibly wrong to
have and would probably get me killed if General was in a bad mood when he
found them out, and yet make you really, really warm for a few hours, probably
BECAUSE they are completely innocent.
23. Footage
of fair-ies dancing in the street :D Go, Drej! Go, Drej!
24. Tupperware
meals.
25. Snow.
26. Sleeping
16 hours a day. Not really, but still many hours a day.
27. Being
able to watch terrible horror movies, never flinching, totally immune to any
other horrors but that of your bad decision making skills, regarding how you
wanna spend December.
28. Being
able to buy some totally useless things, because they’re super cute. Like multicolored
fish-shaped page markers :D
29. Being
able to explain to people that what you do here is for fun and for the fair,
that you are in no way, shape or form an artist and never have exhibitions. You
just like to draw.
30. Walking around dressed in everything you've got and a basket full of hot-water bottles and people know exactly why you look like that.
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