The hot sun was abruptly covered by clouds; rain pounded down upon us without warning. Something clicked in my brain, and I ran inside. I've been hanging on to old art for years, none of which I'm excited by any longer. Most of it is representational--portraits of friends, sketches of my surroundings, attempts to capture a particular gesture. But I don't remember even half the people depicted any longer; the intimate moments and places are meaningless to me now.

It was time to dissolve them.

Years ago I crammed my room's walls full of posters and pictures; no one could discern wall beneath all the carefully pasted up detritus. But I've moved past that stage--now I've got actual furniture, and I chose what colors the walls should be, and these days I own more cake pans than concert posters. This new apartment signals a whole new way of life, for me: cleaner, more mature, less dramatic. So I dug out a charcoal sketch of my old room, and I hung it up on the clothesline outside. It was drenched in moments; as I watched, trickles of gray started to stream down the image.

But when the rain stopped half an hour later, the picture was still there, pretty much intact. So I sprayed it with bleach.

NOTHING HAPPENED.

I was astounded. The fixative I sprayed on my sketches had never prevented me from getting my fingers coated in black dust every time I handled them, yet somehow, it was strong enough to withstand rain and chemicals. This was war!

Off I went on an epic quest to get rubber balloons and paint. When I came back from my arduous journey, a few friends had collected to assist me in my war on my old art. We grabbed a bunch of drawings: my old room, a number of friends whose names I couldn't even recall, a terrible self-portrait. Then we arrayed them in the alley, secured them with bricks and cat-food tins, and threw water balloons filled with paint at them until there was nothing left of them but splashes of color. I wouldn't say it was cathartic so much as simply, incredibly, joyously fun.