Art is in the eye of the beholder.

As part of my swinging bachelor routine, I go out to bars, restaurants, and cultural functions by myself. This is generally regarded by folks at bars, restaurants, and cultural functions as sad and pathetic. I can see it in their eyes.

Last week I attended a swank art auction at arts central in town here to raise money for ACAD. I was wearing the same outfit I would eventually wear two nights later at another art auction--but in a different city--because I liked the way it made me feel. People really love the jacket. It's what I imagine having really great fake tits feels like! Everyone's eyes on it--twinkling with wonder and amazement--and fleeting flashes of jealousy! I digress. . .

Ah yes--I was decked out in my yellow and black thatched pattern jacket, a bowtie, and some nice Converse high tops--very daper! And I was trying, with all my heart, not to look: 1) bored; 2) lonesome; and 3) sad and pathetic. It's not easy--but this amazing jacket helps.

So after about an hour of standing in one spot nursing a glass of wine, this guy walks up to me and says:

G- "Are you art?"

I mistook this to be a really awful pick-up line. Really awful.

B- "Well--hah--my mother thinks so! Ha ha ha!"
G- "So. . . you're not one of the auction pieces? Are you some installation art?"
B- (cluing in)"Ah. No. No--I just dress like this for the attention."
G- "Oh. Sorry. I just--we thought because you hadn't moved from that spot for the last hour that you were art."
B- "No. Just too lazy to move. Ha ha ha."

He walked away. I tried to resist the urge to move--even just a little--for fear of looking guilty of standing in one spot too long and being called on it.
I was eventually asked to move by the event organiser who gave my spot to the auctioneer--whose jacket, incidentally, wasn't as nice--and his bowtie wasn't hand tied. Looking at my replacement, I felt an arrogant superiority: no one would mistake him for art.