Another date with the Bachelorette

Saturday night. And we're both broke, bored and single. Simultaneously, we are also struggling artist types in our thirties who haven't figured out what we want to be when we grow up. So we decide to park it in a cafe--the kind we can sit in for hours and only one of us has to actually purchase a tea--and make lists. We are both excellent list generators. Bachelerotte is not so good at the hanging on to of the lists, so I am the designated filer. The lists, of course, we write on napkins because that is the only way of generating lists truly culled from the incisive stream of our collective consciousness. This does, however, make it somewhat challenging for the filing and subsequent cross-referencing were such a thing to ever occur.

The first thing we tackle is how to make art, make a living, ignore all the people settlin' down, and not feel isolated, uninspired, and exhausted. And then we had our light bulb moment: start an artist commune. First things first, write down the names of all those who could potentially be a part of our really cool commune. Quickly we come up with 2 names: mine and hers. But we get a little stymied after that. We write some other names down and keep having to cross them our for various reasons like well, she's already a successful artist and oh wait, I dated him or I hear she's way into wheat grass. Apparently the Bachelorette has 80 acres of land in Kansas on which her distant cousins are farming. But Kansas can be so cold. And with only two of us so far in the commune, it might be a little too isolating.

We move on to our next idea, because tonight we are idea machines! Simply unstoppable! The next brilliant scheme unfolds like this: the Bachelorette and I both seem to suffer from the same exact problems, like, we've been working on the same piece for way too long, the aforementioned piece is not wrapping itself up in any satisfactory kind of manner and we are totally unsure anyone would be interested if we ever were to finish. We decide to ask her therapist if we could start our own group therapy session, just the two of us. It'd be like 2-fors. Bachelorette agrees to call her therapist the next morning with this THE SOLUTION TO ALL OUR PROBLEMS. Since I am the designated filer, we are careful to also note down that I will actually have to call her in the morning to remind her to call the therapist.

And then, lickity split, another idea hits: because we are both such perfect messes and quite the more so when we are together trying to muddle through it, perhaps we could offer ourselves up to science. Or maybe even some aspiring screenwriters. They could pay to watch one of our brainstorming, list-generating sessions and in exchange understand how the complex, profound, neurotic and prone to extreme exaggeration mind of a mid-thirties woman works. We could be the next great case study for any up and coming psycho-therapist. Think Dora but with all the modern trimmings and well, more anti-depressants.

Finally, we came to, what it always seems to come down to: dating. Neither one of us is really willing to expend much energy on the whole internet dating thing but perhaps between the two of us we could muster one internet ad and just split the dates. It would sorta be like a surprise for the potential datee--they would never know who to expect. In fact, splitting potential dates has many advantages: it takes half the amount of time, half the having to tell our story over and over, and half the humiliation. Plus, were it to go the way of a second date, we could always swap and thus get a free second opinion.

We ended the evening on a positive note, feeling like we had accomplished a lot and more importantly, amusing (and ridiculing) ourselves in the process. Although slightly off-topic, we realized that it would be really great if we had groupies, of the kind musicians and comedians so readily acquire. But not only is it hard to get people to actually come watch experimental films, it is equally difficult for audience members to identify us as the artists when they leave in the middle of the show.