Paint

Yesterday was my last day at Artists Rep. I woke up early to write thank you cards and the tears started straight away. I'm sad to be leaving this job and this community but most of all, I am sad to be leaving my boss and the boys in the shop.

My boss is, hands down, the best boss I've ever had. She and I get along really well, communicate easily, joke about everything, and get stuff done. We are productive like gangbusters, let me tell 'ya. And in the past seven months I've come to rely on her for a lot of things outside of work. She was the first person I called when Ribbons started to spin out of control, partly because I needed to tell her I wasn't coming in to work but mostly to cry and say over and over again, "I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do." She has taught me so much about professionalism and leadership.

The scene shop boys have, by some strange stroke of the Universe, become two of my best friends in Portland. They're not my closest friends, but they are two people who always make me smile and only ever make me sad on accident. That seems like such a simple thing, but really it's not. People are complicated, relationships are complicated, and being a good friend is hard.

The boys and I have had a running joke all season, which started with And So It Goes... I came down to the shop while they were painting flats, and immediately went and stood against the wall. I talked to them from about fifteen feet away, until Eddie finally asked me why I was not coming closer. "The paint," I said. "I don't want you to accidentally get me." Now, I am not really all that much of a girly-girl, so this cracked the guys up. And, of course, inspired them to try and paint me on purpose. There was a but of running about the shop and some brush flicking, but I escaped paint-free.

After that though, there was always the threat that they were going to sneak up on me and paint my face. For seven months, they talked about it, I was nervous about, they schemed about it. But it never happened. So in the last couple of weeks, as my last day approached, I got a little cocky and teased them: "you're running out of time...", "I'm watching you", and "you're not ever gonna get me." I didn't really ever expect what happened.

I got in to work yesterday and found a huge box, wrapped in bright paper and big pink bow, sitting on my desk. There was a bit of white gaff on the said that said: DO NOT TIP OVER and a nicely drawn scissor line across the top, for me to cut it open. When I cut open the paper, I found a blue tub. Inside the tub was: a bowl of black paint, a mirror, two rags, a bib, and easy-to-follow (hand drawn) instructions on how I was to paint my own face.

It pretty nearly broke my heart right in two, to see all the work and love those boys put into my last day. I just stood at my desk at a total loss. What I really wanted to do was go down and sob into their t-shirts; I wanted to never let them go; I wanted to tell them how seldom I feel this truly loved and appreciated by people at all, my friends in particular and men specifically. I didn't do that though, because I knew it would scare the crap out of them. Instead, I put my index finger in the tub and ran some mat black paint across my cheekbones. 

So, yeah: they won. I ended up painting my own face and not a single shot fired.

Present and bow

The necessary components.

 

One of those pictures where I try really hard to smile. but you can still tell just how heart broken I am by my eyes.