A Happy Performance
E— is most enthusiastic about her work when it involves elements of fantasy. I feel that she does not give of her best if the subject is not quite to her liking. She is very willing to take the lead in group work. She enjoys drama and performing to others and does it with aplomb.
- School report, 1993
I’m still this 9 year old in, obviously, every way. Although some stuff happened after this… Some subjects came up that were not quite to my liking and so I stopped giving my best. This isn’t a coming of age story, don’t worry. Just some thoughts about whether I am who I am and will be that way forever, etc.
The first time I fell in love I found that I was enthusiastic about the work because it involved elements of fantasy. I was 13. That’s all I’ll say about that. I’ve been in love since then. It’s easy to do! You look at someone and they look at you and you tell them something horrible about yourself. Then you go to bed.
I still want to perform to others. If someone is looking at you when they could be looking at their phone? What a feeling. Of course I have been dating since before people had phones to look at. I don’t know what we did with our hands… I used to get up on stage. I thought there was no better feeling than being applauded and maybe I was right. For ages I imagined I’d be a famous actress, and then one day I looked in the mirror and realised I was too ugly.
Performing to someone can be as simple as roasting a chicken. It doesn’t need to involve costumes or anything. I once entertained a person by sighing and staring into the distance all evening. “You’re so strange,” they told me over again, to which I didn’t respond. “You’re so strange!”
That was another of my appraisals.
I once sat on my kitchen counter while a man told me “You are the most bohemian girl I’ve ever dated.” Meaning poor, I presume. Or maybe it’s because I was sitting on the kitchen counter. That flat had long, orange curtains, very warped wooden floors with thick yellow varnish, a dead rat under the bathroom that stank the place out for a week. We watched horror movies on my tiny little black box TV, smoked weed, ate chicken sandwiches from the Portuguese shop underneath, broke futons by fucking girls on them and took photographs of each other. Endless photographs. We found ourselves very interesting. But, we ran out of money. Naturally! Did I still think I was going to be a famous actress then or was it around that time that I looked in the mirror…?
I once told someone what I have told you — that the reason I gave up on acting was that I thought I was too ugly — and he replied, “But you’re beautiful!” I was very struck by it and I will remember it always, because most of the time he was very careless with me, and cruel. Years later, for whatever reason, he sent me a series of messages that read as follows:
It’s not late
It’s not too late
You’re my girl
Come here
This could be the worst night of your life