She was SOOOO drunk

For many, many years the fall was always our busiest time for festivals.They were fun and we made a lot of money over the years. However, after working at events for over 20 years, the thrill is gone. Besides, I’m tired of watching other people have a good time. (All the face painting has given me arthritis in my right shoulder and carpal tunnel in my hand too). So now, I only do face and body painting infrequently. Most of the time the paintings have been on faces.

However, I’ve done more than my share on shoulders, chests and legs. When you’ve painted at Mardi Gras as long as I did, you’ve painted everything. Invariably 20-something guys would come up and ask “Hey, can you paint this?”, while simultaneously grabbing their crotch. (They thought they were going to shock me). Invariably I would say “Let’s do it”. Now 99% of the time, the guys would freak out and run away, with his friends hassling him for being a chicken.

Occasionally, though one would step up to the plate, so to speak. Before I’d  start I’d make a big deal of having to find my “eyeliner” brush. Everyone gets a big laugh out of that. The last time I painted “that very special part of a man’s body” I put a tiny lightning bolt on it- an easy $35.00 for about 15 seconds work. After telling him he was done, he said, “But wait, I’m still wet.” I told him that I realized that. He said “Blow on it”. I said, “No my work here is done. You should’ve planned ahead”. I’ve got a photo of it somewhere. However, I think I’ll keep that one to myself.

I painted on Bourbon Street in New Orleans the Mardi Gras before Katrina hit. A black couple in their late 40′s wanted a body painting.  She opened her shirt and I painted feathers and swirls all over her boobs, finishing with glitter. They were thrilled. Her husband looked at her and said “Let’s go to the hotel and get jiggy with it”. (I wasn’t really sure what that meant, assuming though that it had something to do with having a good time. It did I later found out).

When I was still painting at TRF I had a couple in their 80′s come to me one day to get painted. They’d never been painted before and were visiting the festival with their large extended family.They told me to go wild! (That can be a dangerous thing to tell a face painter).By the time I was done, they were almost unrecognizable. When I showed them their faces in the mirror they were thrilled. I told them how to remove the paint and never gave them another thought- til the next weekend. All of a sudden I looked up and there they were again ready for a painting. The little old woman leaned over to me and whispered “Honey, can you do that again? It was like being with a stranger!” I almost fell off  the stool. She said they’d been married 60 years. Good for her. You’re never too old to try something new I thought. Today’s trivia answer- Pompeii in the 1st century. It said “I don’t want to sell my husband”.

Painted at the Zanibar- Austin 9/2009