Yeah, so that's the opening in an Excellent Nutshell. Plus, that's my buddy, E, and I love him and his odd creativity no matter what, what can I say? My opening was bizarre but just alright, the feeling that way too.

I started the day out right, and ended the evening by dodging a werewolf on I5, with a swerve so severe it took a whack to a friend's head, my sister closing her eyes, and my brolaw yelling about what the frig I was doing... But in his defense he thought I was fucking with them for being so damn drunk, which they were and I wasn't. My sister, thank-god, saw the werewolf I dodged too, so the ten swerves it took for me to right my angry car seem less dramatic somehow, more necessary (they were, and I'm still thankful nobody died as I was going 70 in a 70-zone, quite sober, but in the night, and dodged the werewolf that tried to take us down in a less orthodox fashion than is normative).

But back to starting the day out right. My brolaw was leaving for Scotland at the end of the weekend, so I decided to discard for the day (of my opening) the facade I had so awesomely built during the week that I was a noon-2am worker on my own goods. We all took off, with mom in tow, along the Nooksack River... with friends, cooler, whole family, 80-degree weather and all. Other than my mom hitting a snag and scaring Ali and myself to death in the first 5-minutes (mom slammed 3 beers in 5 minutes directly afterwards and thus joined the ranks of true tubers everywhere with the pithy observation: "it was all just fine from there"), it was an incredibly beautiful day along the river. All set with cedar waxwings, snags, mother-mergansers with their babies floating atop their backs... and I swam the last 1/3 it was so sweet and cool and perfect.

Non-judgmental, if you will.

But it did put the time crunch on arriving at my opening on time. In fact, I was 3 minutes late and had 3 people waiting, with 2 other folks showing up within the first 10 mins. One being my dad with flowers (because my mom called him and told him what a total asshole he was and that he better show up with flowers if he wanted me to still consider him related), and the other being my once-upon teacher from Western.

I promise to cease to be negative-like at the end of this paragraph, but my former teacher from my previous university vaguely looked around, was very socially awkward (like me) [which once would make me inclined to identify and adore], and then asked me about all the other folks from the university, most of whom I can barely tolerate the thought of, except Nat, about whom she asked if it was likely she'd "ever finish the dissertation," to which I thought, yuyyyy duh, of course, as soon as it appears real to her again. And then, this teacher, who I so love, to whom I gave all my art-works-in-progress while at the Art Institute, who I looked up to and once delivered salmon to each year, and who I still think is an awesome teacher and person (not to mention, the only college-affiliated person who showed up to my opening) leaned across my work bench, my books put out for the viewing, my collages in the background... and asked me, "so, have you published yet?"

I am still in deep ponderance, consideration... my ego being middling and my self-esteem middling and my support awesome for family but nil from the academics region (which has so thoroughly rejected me as to take me off mailing lists)...

But it seems to me that in Academia there is only One Path, and that is all. How is it possible to lean over an alternative to the journal you read and ask about the journal you read?

In cringing, "I don't know what I'm doing" answer to the question, I feel pretty happy with what I made for the opening. I have other ideas, forthcoming, but they will take time. Some of the visual work, via my strange camera:















This is what happened before that.

This is my favorite opening picture... my dad with my maternal grandpa. It's pretty funny if you know them both.

& these are the folks who also showed up... family, yep. Adorable too.







And man, did they cause some major belligerant havoc, especially in the latter photo case. My sister and brolaw's friend T climbed the outside of the 2-story building, in through the window, and they all hollered at everyone to come up, then offered to sweep their legs so as to ensure their continued presence at the opening. Thus ensued an elongated discussion of whether "modicum" (of decorum) was a liquid or solid measurement. And afterward we ate spicy hot dogs on the corner, then went home and nearly hit a werewolf.

Ceci n'est pas une simple studio opening.