I am getting old. Which is to say, I'm getting curmudgeonly. And this is from a girl just learning to appreciate the first prime number of the third decade of her life.
When faced with the choice of seeing a couple of people I love in concert and seeing the person I Love The Most's quilts in a not-too-prolific quiltmaking year, I chose the former, which of course was a big mistake. The Minnesota July air was thick, expectant really, but no rain made it a false labor of sorts, and it hung like a damp rag over every inch of browned skin surrounding the basilica, a gorgeous neoclassical building for which the festival is named. The singers were good, naturally, although I would prefer seeing them in a climate controlled building, or in Seattle which itself seems to auto-regulate right around 65, which is delicious.
Encore done, feet aching, 1+ pitting edema in ankles and as oily and defeated as ever, I was ready to get out of the crowd and into bed in an air conditioned room. Unbeknownst to me, however, my co-spectators had other plans and we walked; were herded rather, on those tender, dusted feet to a rooftop bar overlooking (well, theoretically, if people weren't packed in like sardines) the city. Immediately upon stepping foot on the deck I thought "I've died and gone to Hell", except we went the wrong direction on the stairs, and, while close, the temperature wasn't quite to the flame-igniting stage. Pushing through the polo-clad crowd commenced, bumping noise ignored, friend found, the requisite Happy Birthday! greeting done, re-introductions to the people I remember from last year done ("Megan?" they shouted, "no, Mindy", I corrected, not as loud as was necessary, apathetic), toes stepped on, elbows digging into side, stares noted as I neither have highlights nor own anything with sequins nor intend to crack my ankle by wearing "wedges". Deterioration was swift, drowning out the vapid conversation simple, weary eyes fixated like some sort of savant on the spotlight broadcasting the Worst Place on Earth to all of Minneapolis, and I have mastered the art of misanthropy.
So now the question, do you risk the guaranteed offense taken by reticent co-spectators who-should-know-me-better-by-now by not going to a place full of people you don't like in a part of town you don't like? Do you tag along, even though every fiber of your being resists? Or do you do what I did, escape in the only way possible, being absent (and incredibly selfish) in every form of the word?
And what is going to happen when I am sixty? An implosion?
