AMANDA

Amanda was delightfully odd. She was an artist, studying at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and she had that theatricality common to so many creative folk, an attitude that life is a performance and you should make it absurd. That jived with me just fine, so we fit together like bacon and eggs. Our afternoon together was mostly spent making funny faces and trying on different accents, for nothing but the giggley amusement of the other.

At a gallery downtown, we furrowed our brows at the latest in Wisconsonian art. There was some kind of tea party performance art going on, with a bunch of adults sitting around a table wearing rainbow colors and silly hats and screaming out madly, in general acting refreshingly unadultlike. There was none of that stodgy seriousness so common to grownups. I can’t stand that shit. Why does growing up squeeze the playfulness out of people?

Back at her CouchSurfing haven, Amanda taught me how to write in Elvish, I taught her naughty words in Russian, and we teased each other mercilessly. From the minute we met there was a mutual feeling of contagious mirth. Why the hell not? I’m happy to be as naive as a newborn if I can smile like one too.

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