What I Learned From Making Out With My Colleague In Public

By Kimberly Dark

No, we weren’t drunk at the office holiday party.

No, we didn’t get the hots for each other, and sneak off to the copy room only to find those steamy windows faced out onto the dining hall.

We made an appointment to meet in a bookstore. I signed a consent form. I read her a passage from a book I like. We made out.

Amy Kilgard is a writer and performer, a professor in Performance Studies at San Francisco State University. I’m also a writer and performer and while my romantic associations are most often with women, Amy and I have never dated. Indeed, my tastes in women are a bit narrow. I date pretty far masculine of center and while I’ve always totally liked Amy, (it feels weird to say it now) I’ve never thought of her as my type. We’re colleagues and friends in that way that people are excited to see each other at conferences or when we work together on a project, but we’ve never made the effort to spend time otherwise.

This was definitely not a date.

I’ll let Amy explain her performance art project “Open Invitation” to you herself, here. Suffice to say, I agreed to make out with her in a San Francisco Bay Area bookstore, after reading to her a bit. I agreed to discuss what the make-out would entail…