At the outset of this writing, I’m not entirely sure what Stephen Hillenburg and Jeffrey Epstein have to do with each other, but there’s a reason these two memories keep colliding in my mind and herewith I shall strive to complete the equation. True, I’ve met both men, and also true, I have only my account to back me up. I realize how flimsy my case sounds, but you’ve got to believe in the insane powers of my memory (all those years playing Memory solo as a kid really did amount to something) complimented by my unique quality of being skilled as background talent. That is, I’m what Ram Dass referred to as being like a walking lamp post, and I’m okay with that because it allows me to fulfill my real job of being under undercover.
I don’t know what made me realize that I had met Stephen Hillenburg, but it happened after my introduction to Spongebob, which was fairly late – about 2015. Our meeting happened in the spring of 1997 at my place of work, Flashback Photo in downtown Portland, Oregon. While I had jobs prior to this, I kinda consider this my first real job. I was 20 years old, taking a break from college so I could feel like an adult when it was time for me to feel like an adult when I eventually would finish college, if that makes any sense. I was a customer service representative which also entailed quality control checking each photo. But my chief duties were interacting with customers, filling out their order and manning the register. So this was the manner in which Stephen and I met – me writing down his name and having a general conversation about names that segued into some hilarious memory sharing of my bout with the wafer stealing from church thing. I had him slapping the counter I made him laugh so hard. He asked me out. I was overwhelmed. I said no.
It’s crushing, really. I always thought about this memory through the years because of that moment of saying ‘no.’ I was 20, he was probably around 35. I had such a baby face and knew it so I thought I was protecting myself, not to mention I could sense that he was a big deal although he was not big – he was kinda short as far as dudes go. I wondered if he could sense that I was a big deal, but my big deal was so far – is so far – from actualizing itself, I knew that I would not develop properly under that kind of scenario. Ugh, painful truths of life! I wish I wasn’t so wise at times. Think how much we would have laughed together! Oh, it kills me. But, nevertheless, I always remembered this because it was nice to recall that someone found me so funny, attractive and appealing that he realized ‘carpe fucking diem’ and went for it even though we were separated by a customer service counter with photographic chemical fumes increasing our sense of candor.
When I did finally get to know Spongebob – which is a story all it’s own featuring a possible poisoning and an emergency room visit with two kids under 5 – I realized how amazing Stephen Hillenburg is. I read up on how he manifested the show and kinda fell in love with that aspect of him: a jaded marine biologist fed up with aquarium bullshit and aware that cartoons were the real tool of indoctrination, if you wanted to make a point about ocean health. Healing through humor – really my kinda guy. So when I looked up his Wiki, I saw a picture of him and the memory came roaring back. Yes, that jawline and hair, broad teeth, our conversation about spelling Stephen – ph or v – and then riffing on Stefan and then my name because my name tag said ‘Mindy McTaco.’ I made up something about the heritage of McTaco, but what had him slapping the counter was my devolution into stealing the wafers at church because they were like matzoh bread which is what I wanted all along. That moment, in itself, was an equation solving bell ring for me. I don’t think I made that connection between the unleavened breads until that instant which probably made it all the more funny. Anyway, I think it was when I saw the episode featuring a Mindy character that I completed the equation of the memory of who that man really was.

My meeting with Jeffrey Epstein is a little more wobbly considering the fact that we did not exchange names. However, I think you can all agree that the way his mouth curls at the sides is so unique and easy to recognize in pictures. In fact, seeing his mugshot was part of what spurred the realization that I met Epstein in 2005. I did not follow the story concerning him in Florida in the late oughts, but I was certainly aware of the case when it resurfaced a decade later. Then, the mugshot and the death and the overuse of the mugshot – it all really got under my skin. ‘Why do they have to show his sad ass face all the time?’ I would wonder when it was in the press everyday. Then, I dug deeper and asked myself why it bothered me so much – what is it about his face? And bam, there it was, the awakening that this was the guy I had that weird conversation with in the hot tub at Pagosa Springs.
Pagosa Springs hot springs, or The Springs Resort, has been one of many spa/hot spring bourgeois places I’ve been known to frequent as an adult. The Resort’s hot spring deal was always fun because of their many developed hot pots with posted temperatures. My favorite aspect of the place was that it had river access because my thing is going from hot to cold to hot to cold, back and forth back and forth until I get all blissy and tingly. In the throes of doing this – which is like a job and usually something I do alone, so I’m all business and going internal and usually like ‘I don’t speak English’ type of vibe. So the fact that this guy and I talked is a little weird and uncharacteristic. I also know that I’m not picking up a guy in a hot tub, that’s gross.
Well, there I was getting in the aspen tub to heat up after a river dip. I’m wearing a really nasty hot pink bikini I had to scavenge from the thrift store. I was back from the Netherlands and in transition in life. I was almost 28 – still attractive but not heroin chic anymore. I ate a lot of gouda cheese and got into the slagroom quite a bit in the NL and probably had some badonkadonk going on. Maybe some pubes were creeping out, too. Probably – I really don’t give AF after backpacking and preferring nudity over bathing suits, anyway. So I’m sure there’s a little sexiness exuding from me. He had on black trunks and a gold or silver chain. He started the conversation but paradoxically seemed distracted or slightly disinterested. I played it cool but friendly. I was international now and having very strange interactions with strange men all over the place – I was open to meaning coming through the banal, this type of stuff really gets me off, more than sex in some regards because you can have the former experience with more people and without so much time and vulnerability. I ain’t no ho!
Anyway, we chit chat, I explained the Artscience program I followed in the Hague – all this sounds great. He wrote himself as a guy in finance – he knew this was boring to an artist like me. It wasn’t like he was trying to get intimate. Just soaking in a tub and in comes a bit of a siren, so we’ll see where this goes, right? So when he asked, “Do you party?” I knew that’s where it was going, and I’m like you got the wrong lady, mister. I say, “No, I’m just into psychedelics” and that was it. Best rejection I ever gave. He lost all interest at that point, and so did I. Cocaine = ew, yucky gross. So when it came out that Epstein had a mansion weirdo fuck pad in the New Mexican desert and when I put together how corrupt the Springs Resort is (Don Whittington and the 1990s, look it up), it all came together in a nice little equation: The Springs Resort + American soakers + STDs = Gross.
Sidenote: This was the seed that started my jungle of conviction that the Springs Resort is a disgusting place of filth and yuck. Sadly, I took my kids there when we first moved to Pagosa out of desperation for a swimming pool. We dealt with the ever-increasing rise in prices by taking advantage of locals day or showing our electric bill, whatever it took. But when my child asked me, “Mom, what’s that pink stuff coming out of that lady’s mouth?” and we realized it was strawberry daiquiri and then watched her wipe it up with her robe and nonchalantly walk into another tub without first cleaning up in the bathroom, I knew that my previous equation was exponentially complicated in grotesqueness. This place was off the books for me. Never again.

So there you have it: what is it, the link between these two men? The fact that I told them both “No?” Maybe ‘no’ is necessary to protect your pearl, your hidden treasure? Or that both these rejections were made intuitively and without real consideration? Just go with your no? It’s not like I need a lesson in attention and men and sex – I don’t really get myself into those types of situations or have that kind of trouble in my life. Is this about my memory and trusting what rises to the surface, even it it’s decades later? Why would I make things up? True, the placement of Jupiter in my twelfth house does make me susceptible to fantasy. But I’m not fantasizing about Epstein or Hillenburg, I’m fantasizing about someone else, someone who’s looking for me, someone who saw me and saw something other than a walking lamp post, and maybe these two men did, too, and maybe just maybe this means my big deal is rising up out of those steamy pools and fixative fumes like a phoenix from the ashes of my burned memories, armed with their wisdom and driven by conviction that my equations are sound and true.