Bird Art
January 17, 2004
I went in to the coffee shop near my old apartment this morning. I hadn't been there in a while and decided it would be nice to stop in for some brunch and say hello to some of the people who work there. They have a lot of new servers, but John, the cook, was still at it and he gave me a warm, "hello, how have you been?"
It wasn't too busy and we had time to joke around in between the waffles and eggs and sandwiches that he had to make. As we chatted, a girl sat next to me at the counter. The first thing I noticed as she took off her loosely knit red mittens was her killer body. (Because I'm a guy, and that's what guys do.) It was long, lean and well proportioned and as she took off her coat and draped it over the stool on her opposite side, I soaked it in with careful glances. Her pale green sweater had blue, glittery stripes running down the sleeves. Her well-worn jeans were faded and patched with loosely stitched squares of darker denim. Her auburn hair was short and spiky. Not spiked in the way some people intentionally spike their hair with gel, but rather it was just so short and straight that it stuck out on its own here and there. On the back of her neck was a tiny tattoo. I couldn't tell what it was, but the small bluish mark against her pale, white skin gave the impression of a maker's mark on the bottom of a china plate.
She was apparently a regular customer, and people there knew her. She ordered coffee and toast and joined in on the conversation between John and I. When things picked up and John got pulled away to cook, she and I continued to talk. I asked if she had plans for the day. "Yeah, I'm gonna spend all day in the studio to get some work done." She's an MFA student at Hunter and the school provides her a studio in Manhattan. She was going to work on some drawings.
"That sounds like a nice day.” I said.
"How about you? What's your plan?"
"Me? No plans."
"That's cool too, no plans—"
"Yeah, its the story of my life."
She laughed. She told me how inexpensive the school was and how spacious the studios were. In fact, they were so spacious that it inspired her to start making some larger pieces. "I've been working on these huge drawings," she said and gestured with her hands like a fisherman. "The biggest ones I've ever done." She told me she had started a very intricate one last week. When she'd stopped working on it for the day, she left it laid out on the studio's large table. "And during the night," she said, "some birds got in through the window and shit all over the entire thing."
"Sounds like an A+ to me," I joked.
"Well yeah, people keep telling me to work with it. To use it somehow and incorporate it into the drawing." I nodded. "But, no," she said, and then said it again, "I mean, NO ." She took a deep breath and put down her mug, "These fucking birds—" she paused slightly between each word to make sure I understood, "—they SHIT on my drawing! I shrugged and tried not to laugh, even though she said there was nothing else to do but laugh about it. "So I'm going there today to start again."
January 18, 2004
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"I just read your blog,” said my coworker, Sarah. I always stiffen up when someone says that, preparing to be scolded. “Was that true?" she said.
"Was what true?” It’s a question I'm asked all the time, and the answer is always yes. But I didn’t remember writing anything that would stretch credulity.
“About going to the coffee shop?"
“You’ll need to be more specific.”
“The other day, about the MFA student.”
“Oh, yeah, why?”
“Did you embellish a little?"
“Embellish what? All I did was talk to a girl in a coffee shop. What was so unbelievable about that?”
"I mean about her body. Was she really that hot?”
“She looked great. It was the first thing I noticed about her. But it's not like I saw her naked or anything. She might've had twelve nipples for all I know."
Sarah thought for a moment and then nodded. “Uh-huh.”
Although if she did, I probably would have embellished the story to say she had fourteen.
