CNN — Aubrey Plaza has shared her first statement since the death of her husband, writer and director Jeff Baena.
Baena died by suicide last Friday.
As you all know, I was crazy for Aubrey Plaza when I "discovered" her a few months back. I guess. . . wait. . . what? Too soon?
I worry, of course. What else have I to do? I had another in a string of "those days." I hadn't bathed for three days and had scarcely left the house. I knew it was time to do both. . . but I lingered. I did what I had been doing all beautiful weekend long. I wasn't depressed. I don't think so. I just didn't want to leave the comfort of home. So I said. I felt content. So, it was late when I finally got dressed to take a walk. It was a fine day, but what was that smell? Jesus Christ--it was me! I guess working up a little sweat activated something. I smelled like an old pizza. It was bad, but it made me hungry, too.
The walk was a good thing. Then I went to the gym. It was well past my usual hour now. Hardly anyone was there which was good. I really didn't want to get too close to anyone, stinky as I was.
I left the gym and went to Whole Foods to return a Henley shirt I bought on Amazon. Amazon recommended I buy an XL, but it turned out to be too big. I'm betting the L will be too small. I'll know tonight. But I needed bread and milk and a few other things, so I shopped. I decided to make a little lunch at the hot food bar.
When I got home, I still needed milk. WTF, was I going senile?
Probably.
I ate my lunch and perused things digitally. The BDSM place wrote to tell me that they were changing ownership and would not have a photography night this month. I still hadn't heard back from the burlesque troupe, but everything was a go for shooting the little league wrestling that night.
After lunch, I took a nap. When I woke up, it was four. I still needed to clean up. It was going on five. I called my mother to tell her I was running late and wouldn't be over.
"What time is the wrestling thing?"
"Six," I said. I was stretching the truth, though. Six-thirty. Still, I hadn't gotten any of my camera gear together, and I needed to charge batteries.
I made a mocktail and lit a cheroot and sat on the deck to think. That is what I did for a good long while. It was five-thirty. I still needed to do the camera thing. It would take half an hour's drive to get to the wrestling ring. I sat. I thought.
I decided not to go.
I felt myself sinking. Why? Why wasn't I going? It just didn't feel right, I told myself. It was stupid. The BDSM was stupid and so was the burlesque. Everything I was doing was stupid. I'd lost my way, lost my talent, lost my mojo. What was I doing, anyway? There was always that voice in my head.
"What do you do with the pictures?"
"I'm an artist, goddamnit," was once my inner voice reply, but it wasn't very convincing. It was almost ironic. No, it was ironic. But, you know, why do people draw of paint or collage or whatever they do?
"I'm a hobbyist, goddamn it!"
Well. . . that certainly sounded dumb. As always, carving wooden ducks in the garage.
I used to get accolades, of course. Now I barely get answers.
It was dark. I was still sitting, still ruminating. Whatever, I thought. I need to make dinner.
And I still needed milk. A grocery store run. It was seven, seven-thirty. I made a quick meal. I didn't want to turn on the television. I would read after eating.
I went to the big computer and looked at my files from the last wrestling shoot. O.K. I didn't hate them. I wanted to do more, wanted to talk to one of the wrestlers and find out what makes them do it. I looked up the wrestling website again. There was an instagram link to one of the female wrestlers I had shot. I went there. She had used one of my photos on her site. Just one. I'd sent a bunch to the guy in charge. He must have shared it with her. I thought I would like to ask her those journalistic questions.
"What are you doing this for?"
Inner voice. Yup.
"I'm just an idiot."
It was eleven. I was worn out. I went to bed.
This morning my conservative friend sent me the front page of the WSJ as some sort of social commentary. I made a joke that we had different interests, he and I. But there was an article about taxidermy, so to be funny, he sent me this.
Maykut said taxidermy is a dying art that needs new blood to continue to broaden its reach. She said the pursuit is full of contradictions that appeal to different interests: morbid and cute, light and dark, real and fake, blue collar and high end.
“It’s complicated and provocative, and people feel so differently about it,” she said. “That’s what makes art. It’s a skill set. It can be in museums, but it’s also roadkill. But maybe that’s all art—you have finger paintings, but then you have Picasso and Michelangelo. It’s everything, everywhere all at once. There’s death and taxes. And taxidermy.”
If you’re an A-lister with a penchant for decorative dead animals, chances are you know about Maykut. The 43-year-old taxidermist has sold butterflies to Drew Barrymore, an antler mount to Nick Jonas and a jackalope to Courtney Love. Her squirrels have added a measure of realism to the Saks Fifth Avenue windows. Her birds decorate the No-Mad Hotel in Manhattan.
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