Apparently Billy Childish is actually a somewhat famous-ish singer/poet or something like that. At least, I guess, famous enough to be on YouTube although I guess that doesn’t really leave out anyone with a digital cameral of some sort. I digress. At any rate, I didn’t know  who he was when I went to see him in Belfast in 2001. I’m pretty sure one of my friends got the idea. I wish I could remember where it was exactly, the name of the venue or street or something, but I do remember it was in this sort of dingy intimate little room that was somehow part of a cafe? Maybe? He had this intense British accent and said all his “th”s as “f”s. As in, “It skehed me neawly dah deaf,” when he introduced a song.

At some point in the night, he recited this poem that I thought was truly mantra worthy. Something about being Billy Childish, the doer of something, the doer of other things. As you can tell, I’ve committed it impecably to memory. I did however write my own version of it: “I am Marianne, Writer of Prose, Drinker of Vodka, Kisser of Boys.” (It was . . . sort of true at the time.) But all this blathering on is really just a thinly veiled procrastination because what I really would like to say, which is: I still feel pretty childish.

I’m twenty nine years old, and I can barely make myself believe it. And it isn’t as though nothing has been happening in those years. There have been great joys and losses, hopes and acheivements-I mean, there have been acheivements, I’m almost certain. And yet . . . I wear a blonde wigs around for kicks sometimes. I collect glittery stickers, have lamps in the shapes of butterflies and daisies, and, I must admit, sometimes I can’t help but laugh at grown ups. I enjoy blazingly bright colors and purposefully refuse to get ones that match, expecially when it comes to home decor. Am I stunted or something? Is this how everyone feels in the days before they get married, start inching up the corporate ladder, produce offspring?

Is that what separates us from the adults? Is age something that you can measure by looking around and taking stock of the number of children you have or people you supervise? Is it something else?