you already know that. However, it was such an epic and wrenching day, I must write it all down for posterity (or maybe just as a form of processing and therapy?).
I was so nervous and excited that the night before the protest I loaded all the signs into my car so I’d be ready to go in the morning. At one point I had thought about having protest attendees make and bring their own signs, but Annie said no way. You could perhaps expect a few people to show up at an anti-Lulu rally, but with all the other more substantial problems in the world it would be too much to ask for them to show up with a homemade sign. “Save that for some pro-choice or women’s rights rally,” she said. Part of me thinks she was right, and part of me thinks she was so sick of me complaining about not painting or drawing she was just trying to get me to do something even vaguely like art. As I loaded the signs into the car, I was full of apprehension. What if no one came? What if the signs were dumb? What if this whole endeavor was self-indulgent and all-around stupid? And again, what if no one came?
Artemis was still scheduled to work at Lulu during the protest. She said it might actually be to my advantage, as she could text me any insider info she gleaned regarding how protesters were being perceived, as well as any possible countermeasures being planned by the manager. “Fine,” I’d said. I know it’s stupid and irrational, but it hurt my feelings she was going to be working for the enemy on my big day.
I arrived five minutes early and parked my car in the Waterloo Records parking lot. Texas and his bandmates stared down at me from the FAIL BETTER! poster with eyes that said they’d learned how to both celebrate the world AND feel its underlying melancholy. Assholes. While Annie had sworn to me she would arrive right at 11 a.m., my phone dinged with a text from her saying she was running really late but would be showing up with a surprise. I climbed out and walked around the corner to Lululemon. There was absolutely no one there. My heart fell to my stomach. I waited for five minutes and then ten and then thirty, too shy to pull a sign from the back of my car and start protesting the corporate chain all by myself. Everett, when you walked around the corner it was a roller coaster! First relief at seeing a friendly face, and then when I saw Nadia on your arm, a tinge of jealousy. She’s so beautiful, Everett! Her long hair tinted purple. I wish I could pull that off. I was nervous to meet her. But she was so sweet, throwing her arms around me in that giant—if surprising—hug. It was hard to imagine her getting regularly fingerbanged by her entire household of Goddess-only-knows-how-many OM house residents.
When we went to my car I was careful to pick out a really great sign for each of us. Mine read: I BRAKE FOR WOMEN OF ALL SHAPES AND SIZES and had a painted drawing of a curvy goddess I’d covered in gold glitter. Nadia’s read: VENUS SAYS DON’T BUY SWEATSHOP CLOTHING with a painting of Venus rising out of Town Lake on a half shell. The sign you carried was one of my favorites: CORPORATE BIGOTS OUT OF DOWNTOWN AUSTIN with a 3-D paper sculpture of the Capitol building I’d made bursting out of it.
I was happy with the signs. But it suddenly seemed ridiculous to think that marching around in front of a Lululemon store would have any effect at all. It wouldn’t change my hometown back to the way it used to be before it became traffick-y and overcrowded and full of corporate stores. For a moment I just wanted to toss the signs back into my car and drive home for some couch time with the furballs.
But when you told me you were here for me, that I could do this, I felt a little better. Everett, you always know what to say to me. I nodded, so grateful a tear spilled out and ran down my cheek. You put your hand out and Nadia puts hers on top, nodding for me to add my hand to the pile. Just as I did so, Nelson and Jason jogged up.
“We want in!” Jason