My Year of Rest and Relaxation

The Death of Marat was one of my favorite paintings. A man stabbed to death in the bathtub.

Die young and leave a beautiful corpse. Who said that?

I had no big plan to become a curator, no great scheme to work my way up a ladder. I was just trying to pass the time.

Walking up First Avenue, everything made me cringe. I was like a baby being born—the air hurt, the light hurt, the details of the world seemed garish and hostile.

I trusted that everything was going to work out fine as long as I could sleep all day.

“Sometimes I feel dead,” I told her, “and I hate everybody. Does that count?”

“Sometimes I feel dead,” I told her, “and I hate everybody. Does that count?”

rustle in the draft

But coming out of that sleep was excruciating. My entire life flashed before my eyes in the worst way possible, my mind refilling itself with all my lame memories, every little thing that had brought me to where I was. I’d try to remember something else—a better version, a happy story, maybe, or just an equally lame but different life that would at least be refreshing in its digressions—but it never worked. I was always still me. Sometimes I woke up with my face wet with tears.

Think of your beauty as an Achilles’ heel. You’re too much on the surface. I don’t say that offensively. But it’s the truth. It’s hard to look past what you look like.”