Constantchange

Too much of a good thing

Last Saturday I attended a very large, very wild sort of festival. Among the attractions was a make-up artist who used an airbrush machine to body paint people. His work was amazing, and The Republican couldn’t resist the temptation to get covered in a way that would let him walk around with less clothes on. I watched with frank admiration as the airbrush artist covered him with green and brown vines that wound around his torso and back, climbing up to the sides of his face and highlighting his eyes. After the vines were sprayed on, leaves were painted and outlined, making my boyfriend a living celebration of spring. There was one last go-over with the airbrush equipment then, adding highlights and sheen to the leaves. To cap off the whole thing, The Republican was then showered with copper-gold glitter.

I know this all sounds terribly feminine, but the artwork didn’t present itself that way at all. In the end he was just…well, I guess manly is a weird word to use when talking about a make-up treatment, but the vines and leaves had a way of making him look stronger. The artist knew his work, and without seeming too the lines of greenery highlighted the lean muscle and sinew beneath The Republican’s skin. Only pictures would do the art, and the man, justice. As we walked around for the rest of the day, people took his picture. The airbrush artist did a lot of good work that day; the festival was full of girls in different colored flames, complicated Celtic designs, waves of color and patterns that didn’t rub off as easily as you’d expect. Soap got rid of everything fairly quickly though.

Of course, I sneezed glitter for the next three days. Good God, that stuff is pernicious. Still, I wouldn’t have traded seeing him look like that under the warm April sun for anything in the world.

I had a few people over to my house for breakfast the next day. We had all stayed up too late and partied too hard the day before. I had the unfortunate experience of sleeping on what had to be the hardest floor in the world after deciding not to go home the previous evening. Sunday was spent sore and sleeping, Monday much the same way only with the dull horror of a stressful workday mixed in. I’m not 19 anymore. I still love the big parties, the loud crowd, and it’s hard for me to leave when I know I ought too. But I’ve got to quit that kind of thing. It’s taking me longer and longer to recover, physically, from too much fun.

It’s not that I was drinking or smoking last weekend. In fact, I made myself the designated driver this time around. It’s just that I get tired more easily, and my body is less forgiving when I eat crap all day and sleep under a blanket on some random floor. These things used not to bother me, but here it’s Wednesday, I think *maybe* by tomorrow I might feel right again. And good god, my room at home is a mess because I didn’t have time this weekend to clean. I’m getting old, I’m getting boring, and I know it. Half the joy of seeing The Republican in glitter was having him on my arm, and knowing that at nearly 30 he could still draw looks of envy from other people in the crowd.

So this weekend I’ll be with family, and next weekend Ford will visit, and both of these weekends will be full of a quieter kind of joy. After that I’m going to another big festival/party, camping on May Day weekend. And I will take better care of myself next time. Although it’s hard not to get caught up in the moment when there’s glitter, and music, and the world is so full of the wonderful press of life and living.