The Unknowable Future

I'm fast forwarding a bit to a better time in my life. I was a wee twenty-two years old. (I promise I won't talk about fat or diets for a while. At this point every one must be just about as tired of my ass as I am.) I was living in Corte Madera with three room mates. I was costuming with my friend/room mate Autumn Adamme. We started a company together called Dark Garden. At least, at the time I considered us business partners. Time would reveal that I was basically Autumn's contract sewer/drafter. She's still in business for herself and doing really well, though her business has changed quite a lot since I was working with her.

As you can see for yourself, Autumn is still completely untouched by time, gravity, or immoderate food and drink consumption. She's going to be a hottie when we're both eighty years old and I'm spitting my dentures out every time I talk and have to continually shove my left eyeball back into its socket. I work really hard to not resent her for having so much self discipline.* Anyway, in the picture above I am pretty happy all in all. I loved the costuming, though I burnt out within a year of this photo. I'm headed for a professional as well as a personal epiphany. I'm about to discover that the entire world is out there for me to explore. I had previously only considered fashion, costuming, and writing as possible life paths.

I suddenly realized I could go be poor with Irish people in Ireland and write really bad poetry. I was already writing the really bad poetry and I was super poor, so why not go somewhere new to do it? Or I could become a cruise director. This was a really vibrant fantasy of mine that I would dream about while drinking wine in our covered porch. I love uniforms. I let myself dream up every crazy possibility and it freed something in me. It was the first time in my life that I realized I was at the helm of my own ship.

I was also coming to terms with the fact that I would forever be the friend of hotties like Autumn who have horrifyingly small feet and that all the men I would ever date would talk about her small feet to me as though they were precious pearls.** This sounds so sad. For a while I felt really sorry for myself. Just because I have giant normal sized feet doesn't make me less mysterious and sexy than other women. (It's actually the verbal vomit that dispels all mystery and makes my sex appeal magically vanish.) But I started to realize that I could live a really happy life without a partner. It took longer to make myself believe this than I expected. Yet I learned to relish my untangled personal life. I started planning my life with forty cats.


The person you see in the picture above would have been very surprised to find these things out about her future self and life:

• That she would not only not be single at forty (knock on wood), but that within a year of this photo being taken, she would be married.

• That her dignity could be so disposable.

• That she would get not "fat", but FAT.

• That she would give birth to the next great American dictator.

• That she would still not be a published author at the age of thirty-seven touring Paris coffee houses smoking filterless Drum cigarettes.

• That Beyonce, Mandy Moore, Jamie Pressly, Elle McPhereson, and Gwen Stephani would all become fashion designers before her.

• That she didn't die already. (Though, by this time my faith in my ability to live past thirty was considerably improved)

• That she would turn out not be an urban girl at all but a small town chick with a hankering for more dirt. Always dreaming of more dirt.

• That she will buy and sell several homes.

• That she will become a housewife instead of a femme fatale type man killer.

• That she will learn to enjoy math and discover its romantic side.

• That she will piss a lot of people off.

*I still consider her a good friend. I don't actually resent her at all.


**I knew Philip was the right man for me when he failed to be enchanted by Autumn's magic feet and thought they were not as charming as my large normal ones.