2005-06-15
Absinthe and Effigy - Let's Get it Started in Here
I have always wanted to be a Patroness. I have had this fantasy that I would be one of those weird, wonderful bohemians who has an artists community with rules and a cocktail hour and who tries to enable artists of all genres to take some space and create.
I recently discovered some assets that my sister and I have and I don't know what they are or more specifically, where they came from but the fact is that they have no sentimental meaning for me and our mother doesn't even know who put them in the place where they are.
We could sell this stuff and have some cash or, and this is what I really want to do with it, sell the stuff and create a little mini scholarship to honor our parents. There has got to be a way to have a weird little sum of money available yearly to the hopeful student that loves the arts and political science.
I'm worried that my sister will try to get all fancy pants on this idea but I've got a plan for that:
My plan is to knock her out and right as she is coming to, I'll hypnotize her so that she remembers that our parents are from the edge of the South and we have no business setting up some super-charged serious scholarship.
I want to give weirdoes $500 bucks for writing a really awesome essay about the honest-to-god terror that the applicant felt when driving across the country for the first time. I would love nothing more than to bestow upon someone who is maybe not the top of the heap but who has some kind of fire and who can show me in writing or art or film why he or she deserves this paltry sum of my trust.
I hope my sister goes for this idea because I really don't know how to set up a trust, only how to spend one, and setting one up seems like something that she would know how to do.
If she handles the money side, I'll totally handle the call for submissions and the review process.
I am picturing us meeting in Tahoe, at a lodge, her bundled up in a soft cashmere scarf and sweater, tucking her legs up on the soft couch and being careful to hold her tea away from her body so that it doesn't spill while she settles back into the pillows.
I would see her in the lodge, fidgeting with her scarf while she looks around for me. I'd walk up with jeans and my hair down - wild but shiny - I'd have Rosie in tow, her leash hooked onto my wrist while in one hand, I hold the leather portfolio of finalists and in the other, I hold a gorgeous glass of Zinfandel.
Not the cheap-ass pink Zinfandel, moron. I'm in Tahoe and its winter. Give me some credit.
Of course, then the reality hits and I realize that my sister and I are going to have to compromise on something; the first compromise that we reach would be an historic event, to be chronicled in the annals of history, no doubt. This would never work unless there is a third-party collective bargaining expert and hiring that person would cost more than the worth of the scholarship. I'm almost not kidding. My mom wants us to settle everything now because the fights could get homicidal and either of us could end up on City Confidential or Cold Case Files, our neighbors and distant relatives recounting how we never really got along but we had this, "I dunno. Connection. But boy, she lost it when their mother died." That's a moot point, too. My mom is the fastest old lady in the country. She's going to out-live both of us, which probably means that all of this planning and settling inheritance stuff now while everyone is young, healthy, and would not commit capital murder out of respect for our mother is somwhat of a waste of effort.
Wait.
Rewind.
I need to have a little faith. We can do this. If she tells me her needs clearly, I can write them into my applicant guidelines and then we figure out who fits the award the best.
People who don't historically get along do this crap all the time.
Plus, if I change the tea to a glass of Zin and I change the glass to a bottle on the table in front of us, and I have a witness willing to provide a wet signature validating the decision that my sister and reach, this could go over very well.
Yes.
A small scholarship would be a perfect way to start me on my path of being a Patroness. So far, my patron skillz have been somewhat limited to becoming romantically involved with people whose art I think is special. With a scholarship to administer, I could grow my Princess Patroness Prowess to its natural end - building an artists community and having the people who participate bring me Absinthe and effigy.
Perfect.
arizonasarah at 10:22 a.m.