For God So Loved the World

If you want to reach my cousin Marjorie, you have to call her at home –- she won’t use a cell phone. I know, but it gets better. She always answers. She’s always there. Those two facts give you some idea of what we’re dealing with here.

Marjorie is just not clued in. We were having coffee in her shabby-in-an-uncool-way neighborhood the other day and I was telling her about the Outsider Art Fair I’d just been to. It was awesome! There were all these simple, adorable dolls and rocking horses, and then stuff that just looked like bad paintings, not ‘outsider art.’ What's the difference between bad art and Outsider Art anyway, when you get down to it? I couldn’t tell you. But so I describe the art fair to Marjorie and when I’m finished she just gives me this blank look and asks, “Was it outside?”

I stare at her to see if she’s serious. Then I realize she has honestly never heard of Outsider Art.

Is it because she’s from New Jersey? But even people from New Jersey—don’t they, sometimes, pick up a newspaper?

So I’m like, no, Marjorie, Outsider Art is art by weird people, people totally outside the loop. Everybody knows that. Where have you been living, Neptune? You can make a lot of money doing this art, I’ve heard, if you’re handicapped or old or anything else that makes you totally beyond the pale. But the main thing is, it’s very hip and happening. I tell her all this and she just nods, like I’m telling her about a new TV show and she could care less because she doesn’t have a TV. Yes, you heard me.

Marjorie has always been weird. When we were teenagers she asked me if the band Fine Young Cannibals were really cannibals. I guess she didn’t pay much attention to pop music because she was in that bizarro choir, that shape note thing. Shape notes – is that a code or something? Because all notes have a shape! Whatever. She hardly had any friends, but what did she expect? She was always in these oddball groups or up in her room, making houses out of popsicle sticks. I’m sure that’s going to make people want to hang out with you!

She’s never done normal things. You know how everyone says they’re thinking of going into the Peace Corps? Well, Marjorie really did—she was in Africa for three years. How do you get a job after that? What’s your skill set, digging holes? When she got back, she didn’t have a clue. She was wearing these awful sarongs or whatever, these colored wraps, and I’m like, Marjorie? We’re on Lexington Avenue, we’re not in deepest Mali or Bali. Why don’t we go into Bloomingdales and get you some new clothes? And she’s like, “These are my clothes. I don’t need new clothes.” Maybe they brainwashed her in Africa. Because this is New York, it’s 2003, and everyone’s wearing slim-cut black flared pants and beltless trench coats. That’s what they’re wearing, I’m sorry. I don’t make the rules!

As for dating, oh God. For ages she was single and we all thought she was gay. Because you know, she’s never done anything normal in her life. But that was fine. We’re all, oh, she’s gay, that’s cool. Because being homophobic is just, forget it. Nobody’s homophobic anymore. But then she starts dating this freak. He has really long hair but not in dreads, which are cool, but in, I’m serious, braids. My sister Jillian is like, oh please don’t let her bring him to my wedding. He’ll be in the pictures! My mother is like, “I know, what a mutant! Thank God you girls are normal and not dating losers in braids.” And we all hugged. But not for that long, because that would be weird.

I think Marjorie thinks it’s fine to be the way she is but what it is is, it’s lame. If you can’t look around and figure out what’s going on, why should anyone have anything to do with you? I mean, why would anyone want to know someone who’s never heard of Outsider Art?