Why I Hate Avocados
God forbid a doctor ever tell me “you’ll never walk again” because I’d immediately believe them. Even if I was walking at the exact moment that they told me–I’d suddenly collapse at their suggestion. I’d be a great plant at a hypnotist show. Or prime cult material.
My most gullible era was when I was in my early 20’s and living in Amsterdam, though. Man, was I bossed around a lot when I was there. From a Dutch junkie telling me how to lock my bike up so he could steal it as soon as I walked away, to a Greek man I dated convincing me to have a threesome with him and his friend at the end of the night (“But his date didn’t show up! That’s not fair for him!”).
So, it’s not really a shock that I ended up meeting the only “guru” I think I’ve ever had. And by “guru” I mean someone who was fatter than me and from Texas–both things I held in high esteem at the time. Her name was Cynthia and she had moved to The Netherlands to start an experimental theatre company and to escape the law.
The first assignment she had for me was to repeat the mantra “I’m okay..I’m okay..I’m okay…” all through the day. As I smoked pot and read Dutch children’s books, I’d pause every so often and recite it.
Another pearl of wisdom that Cynthia gave me was the “compliment chest.” As Cynthia lay on my futon eating eight avocados and an entire birthday cake (she did bring out two forks when she emerged from the kitchen with it and offered me one, but I was full–on her behalf), I was to take all the good reviews and nice things that had ever been said to me and put them in a chest and then open that chest up before I went on stage.
Which basically meant I went on stage every night remembering that I had good ankles.
One of the last nights that I saw Cynthia before she disappeared, I walked into my apartment and turned the lights on to discover her seated in a chair smoking cigarettes with tears streaming down her face.
Then, with shaking hands she rolled another cigarette and told me how her big financial backer for the theatre company had “gone crazy” and moved back to Texas, so the company was disbanding. I speak crazy, so I knew that what she meant was that the backer had never officially agreed to give any real money and once he’d gotten sick of spending every night at the CockRing Bar, he went back to his job at IBM.
Which meant the year of work that she’d just promised me and about 29 other artists was now gone–but I didn’t get upset with her. I just stuffed her into my compliment chest and tossed her into the ocean.