Big Red Fish

About this time 7 years ago, my friend Ali and I were between semesters of grad school, and with nothing interesting to do that night in a small Mississippi town, we went shopping at Walmart at 11 PM. I found a 6' long plush alaska salmon for $3. It was so weird ( sane people might say tacky?) I needed it. I wandered to the fabric section as I'm prone to doing, and found some flat brown netting which I thought would be ok curtains for my brown 80s apartment. I wanted 4 yards and the woman at the cutting table said "Now, some folks from a church just bought a whole lotta this for a play." That gave me the idea to put the fish in the netting and hang it from my living room ceiling. More like art installation than interior decorating. Now I agonize over authentic 20's paint color and curtains, and butterfly hinges vs mortised, and where to put electric outlets. And it isn't nearly as freeing or amusing as a giant toy fish stuck to the wall.