Two (failed) self-portraits from two years ago at the South Texas State Fair,

to which I am happily, solitarily returning today.

Visiting the fair was the best time of year for me as a child. That is a cliche, yeah, I know. I feel like I should have Philip Roth describe it for me. We would go every day after school and spend most of the weekends there, from open to close. I learned about disgusting food and getting stuck on quickly-put-together roller coasters. My closest uncle was one of the production managers, so we spent a lot of time seeing concerts (albeit small-town stars), playing free games (which we could win but not take prizes) and hiding backstage to watch clowns in full make-up hit on teenage girls with sailors' mouths (the clowns and the girls).

Somewhere in a box I have (or had) a pin with a photo on it of me with three other kids, a pin taken in a booth at the fair. Our friend Shannon (she was 14; we were 15), had committed suicide a couple of days before, and we had spent the week in a NineInchNails-ish and cordless phone coma with each other. We got t-shirts with her name on it at the fair; it was pre-teen mourning. We had just been introduced to The Monkees and paraded down the thoroughfare locked arm-in-arm, yelling to anyone, the sky really, "We're too busy singing to put anybody down."

That came out of nowhere. Don't know that I've thought about that moment since.