A Night Right

So tonight I went down to the church to photograph a group of folk dancing senior citizens. As gray-haired women twirled by in the arms of various aging Casanovas, I thought: it must be fucking great to grow old. To finally dispense with bullshit because your life really is short!

I mean, you should have seen those people! They were fantastic! I blushed like a seventh grader when one of those old guys asked me to dance. In vain, I hemmed and hawed, pretending I had more photos to take. He would have none of it! To be fair, it was an easy number, a little crossing over and a small kick. I got the hang of it, and I didn't even have to fight some bitch because I stole her man.

On the way back, invigorated by a brisk walk in the cool air, I bought myself a raspberry yogurt at Whole Foods. I'll break the bank, I thought, handing over a $5. I mean, life is short, right?

God, sometimes I really do love journalism.

I also love film. I worked on my first film set this past weekend. What a rush. We were jumping around in a jungle gym while wearing little kids' Halloween costumes and lobbing camera equipment at each other. I can't believe an entire group of NU kids does this every weekend and I really didn't know about it until now.

Here's something else I love: Entourage. Last night at Barleycorn some guy asked me if I wanted to "hug it out." "Sure," I said, "once you take your hand off your dick." Haha, just kidding, of course. But seriously, I did ask him if he watched Entourage. And then he told me he went to Marquette, and I blurted out, "Dwayne Wade went to Marquette!" Man, I was really on fire with this guy. And then we went to the bathroom and lost him. Sigh. Oh beer.

A Night Awry

I've had a lot to drink, I can barely type straight. But before I clean off my makeup, before I clean up my desk, I want to remember what I'm thinking tonight because I do feel as if it's important.

I've always believed that alcohol doesn't turn you into a different person, it makes you more of yourself. Dancing at a bar downtown tonight, I realized that I can no longer wonder what's wrong with me. I feel as if I have wasted so much of my time and energy wondering how I can better accomodate people who don't give a damn whether I'm alive. (I'm not trying to be melodramatic, I really feel it's the truth.) Tonight I kept dancing with strangers whom I didn't even like and I kept thinking about the same individual and I kept wondering what I was doing wrong, time and again. And this is detrimental thinking. The truth is, I did nothing wrong. It's an insight I had lately regarding jobs and I mean to apply it to all aspects of life. There are times when you are true to yourself and live life correctly and you are still unwanted. And it's better to know that now than later.

When I was in high school, I was so held back by my own imperfections. I knew their names: insecurity, unattractiveness, naivete - I made them up as I went along - and I tried so hard to fight them. I changed my personality and I stopped eating and I pretended to a greater knowledge than I actually possessed, all with a great belief in my own power to confuse other people. And nothing happened.

I have to stop wondering what's wrong with me. Maybe it is something, and maybe it matters, but how much can I apologize for myself? My background, my interests, my race, my personality, my religion, my desires, my ambitions? How much can I take back or hide? How much is it worth it?

I thought I learned this lesson in high school but I'm still learning it: that I am not that important nor that interesting nor that pretty nor that anything. And none of it matters, because nobody is. What matters is some other strange quality that I don't have, and I have to stop obsessing over it.

Not because it isn't important. But because I can only live a certain way. Tonight, Sara said, "I can't date that Indian boy because I know where it will go. His parents will hate me, and he's not Jewish." And so I said, because let's not let her off too easily, "So your parents will hate him," and she said, "My grandmother." And the truth is, this is all a lie. His parents won't hate her, any more than they hate anything they don't recognize. And her grandmother will get over it. And my parents would never hate anyone. They taught me, from the beginning, that I should pursue whatever and whomever made me happy, and that is what matters. It was a disservice because I grew up believing that happiness has no rules. And to most people happiness is nothing but rules. That is the difference that matters.

This fall in New York I saw so many interracial couples and every time I saw one I was struck by the thought that there are parts of the world where people still take chances on each other. And I used to live somewhere like that, whether it was a real place or my own mind. In losing my context, I've lost myself, lost my belief in my own worthiness, in all the values I was raised with. I've found myself in conversations where boys will tell me that I would be great if only I were white or Christian and I've nodded fucking along as if this is okay. As if it just happens.

Tonight, one of these boys said, "I don't get along well with smart girls" and I said, "You and I will never get along." And he said, "You are way too personable, and way too cute, to be here." Sometimes, that is how I want to feel. Better than everyone else. As if I should never have come here, never have left home, never have doubted anything in life.

This is my last and most important thought. When I was a freshman in college, I fell really hard for this one kid. I've never admitted it to anyone (probably a mistake in and of itself) but there are many times when I think, what was wrong with me? I wanted him so much. And I hate knowing that my self-esteem depends so much on a circumstance, an individual, and a series of meaningless moments I imagined to be more than they were.

Fantasies and boredom

A good friend once told me that when she got really bored, she started fantasizing about torture: elaborate scenes in which she was the perpetrator. Needless to say, it's not a fantasy she plays out in real life.

But it made me wonder about those strange dreams that move into your head when you're bored. I sit through two-hour lectures. My attention span can be so short I've sometimes wondered if I missed out on an ADD diagnosis I really deserved. I fantasize about all kinds of things: sometimes violent, raw or just plain strange.

And what about the intersection of fantasies and dreams? Last night I dreamed I was pregnant (a dream I've never had before) with twin girls. The strange part is, I remember people asking me over and over who the father was, and I simply could not remember. I was 21, there was no father, and everyone seemed extremely happy for me. I only felt anxious once, and that was when I looked down at my pregnant self and realized I had X-ray vision, and could see through my skin to the babies inside. And somehow, Howard Stern was involved.

But it was a happy dream.

Which makes me wonder. The strange part about dreaming isn't what happens (although it's usually creepy) but how you feel about it when it's ocurring. Another friend - a really, really heterosexual one - told me this in high school. "So the other night I had a dream where you and I hooked up," she said, as we got into her car. "And the entire time it felt so strange and awkward!" Your dream was strange and awkward? I thought. What about this conversation? She seemed relieved - obviously, if even her dream self didn't like girls, she was out of the so-called lesbian woods - but I don't know.

Is dreaming like drinking? Does it lower your inhibitions and turn you into a stranger? What about nightmares? I once read that dreams are the mind's way of getting rid of excess energy. Perhaps high-intensity dreamers are just people with loads of excess mental energy - that makes sense, if boredom leads to daydreams. When I'm tired I almost never dream, but when I'm on vacation I dream so intensely that I wake up feeling I didn't sleep at all but actually, briefly, lived another life.

My Free Lunch

Sitting in the darkness of my room (our lamp just fused out) I wish for a fast electrician and the wherewithal to pay him. I wish for...an expense account.

As one of my old employers once said of the New Yorker, there are two types of people in this world. Those who have it, and those who don't. The same is true of expense accounts. This past weekend I stayed in the Hilton in NYC's Financial District, doing final-round interviews for a high-powered investment bank. I was surprised to find myself, for the first time, staying in a hotel room completely alone. And at someone else's expense.

The truth is, I've worked in nonprofits and in the government sector. I haven't made a cent off my past two internships, and for once it felt nice to be a person of means. I could take Town Cars without feeling a rush of guilt. (Imagine wedging a carry-on suitcase through the gates of a New York subway station and you'll realize why this matters.)

Sitting in the Hilton's all-hours "Business Center" I accidentally printed a document on a machine the guy next to me was using. "Sorry!" I exclaimed. "Let me pay you..."
He looked at me like I was a door off its hinges. "Look," he said, eyes narrowed. "I can always expense it." And in a flash of blinding insight I realized, Wait, so can I! It's like a rush of blood to the head. I was dizzy, blinded, strangely excited...part of an upper class I hadn't even known existed.

There are drawbacks. Except at the most senior levels, those who live the expense account life rarely have leisure time. It's true, they fret over bottom lines and corporate valuation. Coming back, I was a little deflated when I heard someone use the phrase "Econ Tool." Is that me? I wondered.

A word in the defense of Econ Tools. Just like there are Econ Tools, there are Nonprofit Tools. People who attend every lecture about every cause, toss around phrases like "institutional oppression" when talking about a rare night at the Keg, and in general make a nuisance of the fact that they really really care about low-income people's right to all-organic diets. I care about most liberal causes, I've volunteered for liberal politicians. But I can't lie - sinking into the 500-thread-count sheets, damp from a shower taken under a massaging showerhead, and smelling of sweet hotel shampoo - I didn't fill with righteous indignation. I didn't think about the child labor that wove those sheets, the water wasted during my long shower, or the landfills those empty shampoo containers would end up in. Instead, I thought, Ahhh...this feels good...wow, five pillows! It's like an orgy with a family of dwarves!

Maybe it's not what I expected going in, but it's not that bad, either.

Saline Through Life

I am an educated, liberated woman, and this morning I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered, "Should I get breast implants?"

There, I've confessed. I can't think of any way I could embarrass myself further, but I'm going to try. Let me explain.

I used to think plastic surgery was for insecure, whiny women with no self-esteem. In fact, I still think that. There's no relationship between breast size and cranial capacity, or even earning power (except in certain black market fields I don't care to pursue. Although, I have to admit, in terms of the sweet life of a stripper: at least you skip college and you never pay taxes on your tips). But I digress. The point is, I was never whiny: I was mostly satisfied with the way I looked.

But recently, driven by stress, cold-weather and my rising gym bill, I've starting taking near-daily trips to our local health club. I take Pilates and yoga. I bounce a stability ball on my nose (as well as other unlikely places). I swim laps for the first time since dropping swim team. After just three weeks of this aggressive regimen, I'm stronger and smaller than ever. But here's the caveat (and there's always something) when women shrink, they shrink everywhere. (The same can't really be said of men. Is there nothing on earth that doesn't work in men's favor?)

So I went from being average to...well...almost average. And this is a huge psychological difference. (Imagine, if you're a man, the same thing happening to you. Wouldn't you treat it as a crisis on the same level as premature balding, inability to parallel park or, say, the Israel/Palestine conflict?) I've looked for positive help. I've mentioned the problem to friends, but through some self-destructive impulse I've only befriended women who are far better endowed than I am. Their sympathy takes the form of "constructive advice" like "Well, at least you're not fat" or "Why don't I give you one of mine to balance us out? Oh wait, hahaha, I can't. Sorry." Thanks, girls. My mother, who negates all my rebellions by taking them in stride, said, "Well, honestly, you're probably the smallest woman in our family. But they'll get bigger when you're pregnant." Thanks, Mom. Not only am I a genetic anomaly, but the only solution to my problem is a lifelong commitment to the absolute care of another human being.

How is it possible I didn't think of this when I started working out so much? Perhaps because most of the women I see in their underwear (Adriana, Karolina, Gisele and Alessandra) seem incredibly fit and massively endowed. But you can't Photoshop into real life the way you can onto magazine pages.

And to be honest, most people don't seem to care. Men have the same attitude towards size as four-star generals have toward U.S. troop deployment in Iraq: although bigger is usually better, the most important thing is a coordinated strategy. Particularly if you're committed long-term.

So I guess I can handle it, without the aid of cosmetic surgery. After all, Merriam-Webster defines a woman as "an adult female person." It's quite a brief definition, really. In the dictionary, at least, less can be more.

Savor faire

Imagine walking to class. Crossing over the Bosporus Strait to the forests and castles on the European side. Hearing the morning call to prayer. Spending an hour talking about politics - in detail - before dropping by a cafe with friends. Ordering tea, breaking out a backgammon board, mulling your next moves. By the time you all leave, it's gotten dark.

It's the carefree life, right?

My friend says this is what he misses most about Turkey. The slow pace at which people live. The freedom to "savor."

I spent two months living with my grandmother in India. I woke up every morning when she was praying. I ate breakfast, took a shower, read for an hour. Went for a walk in the uneven lane outside her apartment building, weighed down by heat. Sometimes I stopped and sat in the garden, surrounded by bees and flowers and homeless dogs. I heard boys zipping by on their motorcycles outside. After ten minutes - or twenty, or an hour - I got up and walked back. I swung open the squeaking black gate, crossed the marble foyer, and peeled back both metal elevator doors. I heard a splatchy version of "Fur Elise" as I took the lift to the fifth floor. Went back inside and fell asleep on the cool marble floor under the buzzing fan. When I woke up my grandmother was painting at the kitchen table. "Want to learn?" she asked. And having nothing else to do, I picked up a paintbrush and let her guide me.

Another morning I went with my grandfather to the market. We milled around the stalls, smelling marigolds and rot. I tripped into runnels of dirty rainwater. All of a sudden a cloud came over the sun, and the air turned warm. Rain poured down on our heads. We ran to an awning and waited ten minutes - or twenty, or an hour - before striking back out, dripping with evaporating water. We filled our hands with tomatoes and custard apples before going home.

One morning a bird flew through our open balcony window and became trapped in the main bedroom. My uncle shut all the windows and we took up positions on either side of the room. We chased the bird back and forth. It flew frantically from wall to wall, perching on bureaus and beds and the washing line hung overhead. When it was exhausted, my uncle picked it up and handed it to me. The bird was small enough to fit in just one of my hands. As I wrapped my fingers around either side of its head, I felt the burst of its every heartbeat against the tips of my fingers. We finally let it go.

There's something to be said for living slowly. In the moments when there's nowhere to go, there's nowhere to be but the present. That summer, I realized what spice tastes like, that individual salt grains can make my tastebuds water if I hold them on my tongue for long enough. That cotton has a rough grain that can agitate the skin. That rain has a smell both before and after it falls. And the smell is not the same. That the sun's heat can feel like melted wax if I sit for too long without moving. That bees won't sting me if I'm still, but dogs will still bite.

The point is, it's important to move. To work. And at the same time, to sit still. To expand the senses. These moments don't have to last two months. Since that summer, I have a space in my mind dedicated entirely to feeling. When I feel, I stop thinking. My every nerve develops its own memory and history. I don't want to be a whole, I want to be broken into my component parts.

Where Did Sexy Go?

Or, the Footwear makes the woman. This thought comes to me as I unwrap two new pairs of shoes. I know - my resolution to hold off on reckless consumption lasted as long as it took the Nine West Web site to load (which was a long time, I have a slow Internet connection) - but who cares? These beauties are for work. They have square toes, low heels, and sleek velvet exteriors. These shoes are Lincoln Town Cars. They are going somewhere fast, and they have important people inside.

And the second pair? Well, that's a whole different story. I admit, there's some lace action going on, and an open toe, and three inch heels (who says size doesn't matter?). It's possible that these shoes don't have their mind on the issues, that they tell dirty jokes, that they come with a matching lace flask and lingerie. It's possible.

The other day, I told my parents that I'd given up high heels. "They're not practical," I said.
"That's so true," my Dad agreed. He puts his money where his mouth is - we went shoe shopping early last year. When we got into the store, I took off my sneaks and walked around in front of a weathered septuagenarian, who stared as I walked (his eyes on the same level as my knees). I did a few turns around the store. The man straightened, looked me in the eye, and said gravely, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but you pronate." At my look of horror he added, "But don't worry, we caught it in time." And he brought out boxes and boxes of heavy white sneakers with medial posts and reinforced arches.
"Um...do you have anything in black or silver?" I ventured. He and my Dad looked shocked. "Running is a serious business," he said. "You need serious shoes." I looked around the serious store - one poster suggested 'Tips for Triathletes' and another 'Water- and Windproofing Techniques' and I thought, this guy means business. I walked out with Aasics. White. Serious. And expensive.

So I knew my Dad meant well when he warned me against stilettos. My mom added, "Heels are so painful. They're just another torture device meant to distract women from working on what's really wrong with society."
"Right," said Dad, falling over himself to reach the speakerphone in time, "You should always keep your mind on the issues."

Well, by this point I suspected there was more at work than their desire not to pay for my back-realignment surgery.

"Wait," I said. "Don't you all remember when Condoleezza Rice went to inspect troops in Afghanistan? She wore knee-high black boots with stiletto heels. Are you trying to say her mind wasn't on the issues?"

In fact, I know more: when someone asked the Sly Secretary about her footwear choice, Condi smiled and replied, "It was cold out." An evasive tactic worthy of the administration she serves.

My parents, not updated, hemmed and hawed. They could feel - as could I -that their goose was getting cooked. The gig was coming up. By which I mean, I am no longer as compliant as I once was.

"Well, just remember what matters," Dad said, delivering the State of the Union for both of them. And they hung up.

The question: where did sexy go? Clearly, to military training fields in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Oval Office, Stanford University and the Republican National Convention (that last, of course, being a negotiable stop on the road to success).