by Caroline Ross

Created on: September 25, 2007   Last Updated: December 10, 2007

"This is the best work you've ever done."
"Really? You mean it?"
"Yeah Squirt, keep it up, and you might just be a famous artist some day.

This is one of the conversations I remember having with Zoey, the best baby sitter in the world, or at least my favorite growing up. She was my hero, the only person in my life who ever took me seriously. My mom got mad at me for finger painting on the wall, but Zoey, she loved it. She got a kick out of all my antics. She just got me.

Her parents were hippies. She was not, though her real name was Moonbeam. She wanted to change her name to Zooey, a character from a book she read. She wore all black, died her hair jet black, and wore lots of make-up. Her mom really hated it, she had bright red, wavy hair that hung all the way down her back. She wore long billowy flower print dresses, and always told Moonbeam she needed more color in her life. Zoey would say, "Squirt adds all the color I need."

Yesterday, the sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the air was full of a sense of expectation. The sense of well being that comes with the beginning of fall. Yeah, I was always really in to school growing up. But, I'm also bi-polar. Usually my depression ends when fall weather begins. That is also when the mania begins, and what a welcome relief after 6-8 months of sleeping constantly, not bathing, and wishing for death.

Yesterday I was on my way to the gallery. That's when I saw them. They reminded me so much of me and Zoey. She was a goth chick, complete with a multi-colored Mohawk. He was a tow head, decked out in preppy clothing, probably about eleven. The image would force many to wonder, what kind of upper east side socialite would leave her son with someone like that? Some might even suspect kidnapping.

They were singing a song together, loudly, and he was dragging a piece of chalk along the buildings as they passed. She was carrying a bucket of chalk. They seemed absolutely blissed out. I wanted to talk to them, but I didn't dare interrupt their reverie.

So, I went on into the gallery, soon I was talking to a perspective buyer about a piece. She wanted to know what inspired me. I was trying to tell her, but I was also trying to be diplomatic. An artist can't give away all his secrets, and I was sure she didn't want to know the gruesome truth. The truth of my mania, the fact that I had done that piece, along with nine others in the show, on a four day binge. Four days with no sleep at all. The longest I have ever gone. The hallucinations

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