Mascara Rivers

2012-01-09T11:19:00.000-08:00

I recently went back to the 'burbs for the holidays; we spent nine days there. The first three days were great: the over-sized grocer, The Healthy Bagel that served unhealthy asiago cheese bagels the size of a face, the mass-market madness strip malls, the privacy of staying in a home and being transported in a car...nice. But of course, boredom set in; I am a New Yorker. By day four, I was starting to hear horror movie soundtracks and see double while trying to find creative ways to walk around my sister-in-law's cul-de-sac.

You're either a city person or you are not, which seems straightforward enough, but really, that's a lie. On paper, I am a city rat, not a country mouse: I have lived in Urbanity since the age of eighteen because I like the way that a major city sounds, looks and smells at all hours of the day and night. I can get lost without ever really being lost, and am a natural speed-walking pedestrian: cars, bicycles, and city buses have nothing on me, and I have the nine lives to prove it. Of course, I have been mugged; I shrugged my shoulders, don't condemn all short Latino men in leather jackets (my mugger), and I still forget to zip my purse up. I hate chain restaurants, like seeing more than one shade of person, and I get bored where there are not five things going on at once; if there is not imminent mischief (and/or danger), I am not all that interested.

So, I guess that this all means that I may be deviant, or quite simply, not a "suburbs girl" -- and I emphasize the word think.

What I know, is that at times, I am not a city rat; I hate holding onto a greasy subway rail still warm and slick from the last hand that held it. I hate old and pushy hags with brassy accents in my cramped and yet exotic grocer. I hate slow-walking crowds and not knowing where one hundred bucks went at the end of any given day. There really are times that I hate New York - and I know that I am not ever supposed to utter those words...but, alas, they are true.

This city definitely has an energy to it; one of many trite and yet honest statements that makes New York City what it is. I have always, no matter what, embraced this manic energy upon return, however, this time, I was different: I found myself unable to breathe in a not-choppy way. I wanted to smack an entitled mom-jeans-wearing scarecrow with broom hair (but did not) who would not stop talking in my ear and reaching over my shoulder as I was paying for my T-shirt... My average thirty-five-block-per-day hustle began to feel like it would to other parts of the country -- exhausting.

Although I will never move to the south, much less a suburb within the south, there was something nice about having some arm-swing space. There was something serene about not being proudly or ingratiatingly pushy or rude on a daily basis. There was something appealing about doing jack shit except stuff my face and drink in front of a television set for a couple of days.

I guess this means I am need a country house, which means that I need a lot more money, the common consensus, which explains the craziness of many of us New Yorkers approaching a certain age past those still drunk and "hooking up" in Murray Hill or the LES.

I guess this means that New York and I are going to have to once again, reinvent our relationship.

2011-12-05T08:37:00.000-08:00

"Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most."

Fyodor Dostoevsky,
Crime and Punishment

Minimal Mania

2011-10-29T19:08:00.001-07:00

I have to say that I have never been one of those people who has Russian Egg closets, piles of treasures and knick-knacks, or finds long-lost government documents, etc. behind my toaster. I'm the type who knows where everything is (or where everything should be) mainly because I don't have a lot of stuff to keep track of. Narrow and deep is my motto: few but good friends where time has indeed, stopped; a bright and chic lip for some make-up, but not a whole lot else; a pair of good, real, earrings without all of the other costume extravaganza, and instead of an over-stuffed, mass-market closet, I will just wear my one-of-a-kind Karl Lagerfeld or vintage Moschino, thank you very much.

Yeah. I have always been adamantly, eccentrically minimal: almost sterile-sparse, definitely picky and sure, maybe even a little snobby: in all aspects of life, I like quality over quantity. So, tellingly, despite being "fashionable", I certainly don't have a lot of clothing; on paper it actually looks pretty bleak:

3 dresses
1 jumpsuit
4 pairs of pants (only one of them black)
4 pairs of jeans
3 sweaters
5 blazers/jackets
4 overcoats
4 blouses
3 button-downs
3 pairs of shorts
4 skirts
4 pairs of boots (1 thigh-high, 1 over-knee flat, 1 ankle heel, 1 ankle flat)
(No pairs of dress heels!)
1 pair driving mocs
2 sneakers
1 pairs of sandals

(Of course, being the minimalist I am composing this list, I already see some things that will begin to make their way to the thrift store...)

I was once enlightened about the "pure" and minimalistic "Japanese way" of ownership: fitting an entire wardrobe on one rolling rack, and having it all be the best that one can afford. I must say, it was a game-changing moment; my anomalies and Spartan ways were finally given street cred! (Tellingly, the streamlined aesthetic resonated.)

While my closet is fairly middle-tier in the world of decadence and designer clothing due to my limited means, out of choice and necessity, I have made tight purchases that are willed to last throughout the years; I easily see the majority of my closet lasting decades with careful care and yet, with regular wear. While I have some mass-market T-shirts and tanks, and some Lululemon tucked away in my drawers, I'd like to think that I have a "respectable" closet: not a lot, but nice. Of course, maximalists like Anna Della Russo, would be mortified. People ask if this is too limiting or boring. Not really. I find making monthly stops to Zara, Macy's, Aldo, Nine West, et al. (replacing cheap-but-not-cheap-enough things over and over) or washing something more than two times and having it look like a dumpster reject, limiting and boring -- both for my pocketbook and soul! (Don't get me wrong, cheap definitely has its place, especially if it's done right: take Target, aka Retail Crack, for instance.)

Perhaps a pair of black Walter Stieger curved-heel pumps would fill my dress heel void pretty darn nicely? These shoes are decades-long-in-the-closet material.

I think that a "well-edited" closet (and everything) could be bleak in the wrong hands, but isn't having quality and control, a little bit chic? In a world where more is often merrier, sometimes, less is just a little bit more. So, consider savings those pennies into dollars, as literally and figuratively, one "Chanel" sure as hell trumps twenty-five+ "Zara(s)"...

Dumb as a Fox News

2011-10-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

Please check out the below:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/09/02/dont-let-your-kids-watch-chaz-bono-on-dancing-with-stars/

Then, please tell me that I am not crazy for thinking this psychiatrist is indeed, crazy; Dr. Keith Ablow proclaims on foxnews.com,

"If you care about your children, don't allow them to watch Dancing with the Stars" (Starring Chaz Bono) This was posted on September 2nd.

Really? Watching a portly, sort-of clumsy, baby-faced son (once daughter) of Cher bumble around on TV is going to bring Armegeddon upon us?

Chaz Bono is dancing and starring on Dancing with the Stars; some say he is on an unofficial tour championing GLBT rights; rights that in his case, are quite extreme and controversial; admittedly, some of the extremes don't appeal...If I was a man, I would not in any circumstance hack my penis and split it into a vagina, or vice versa. But to tell people not to watch Dancing with the Stars just because a transsexual is dancing on TV?? And to put that under the guise of protecting our children's sense of self-respect and identity? Uh, no.

2011-10-03T19:06:00.001-07:00

Recently, I made a list of everything I wanted in The Universe; it ranged from world peace and happy kids to a Proenza Schouler black PS1 bag. (And the above black plissé Martin Margiela dress - oh yes, look closely at those hot pleats.) My point, is that I believe that acknowledgement is the key to accepting the terms of life: if we acknowledge that there are things we lack, want, need, than the unwavering to-do, to-get lists do not seem so daunting or ridiculous or jealousy-inducing: we address, we lament, and we might even appreciate what we do have...then, we move on.

Yes. I want to wear head-to-toe Marni, live in an eclectically chic and massive labyrinth of an apartment, have a partner who is a cross between Gerard Butler and Ernest Hemingway, vices and all, well, not really, and have my children outlive me ten-times-over...and oh! I also want a charming black and tan Dachshund named "Pascal". But, the most important thing in my life is health: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. And in the throes of life's dramas, wants, and needs, I must say that I am both shocked and impressed that I unflinchingly, unequivocally, listed health as the number one priority. Health is wealth.

Why?

2011-09-27T18:26:00.000-07:00

With the risk of sounding like an ignorant, insensitive, or sexist (try to avoid being labeled these as much as possible) pig(gette?), I have to ask the question regarding New York Victoria's Secret stores:

Why do (many) gay and straight "urban" men (bling earrings and funky hair fades/cut outs) work at Victoria's Secret? I get wanting the discount for their girlfriends and maybe a pervish fetish or two, but really? Several twenty-three-year-old hip-hop-version Bruno Mars lookalikes folding panties in crazy-customer, crowded, PINK, stripper-perfume-scented VS stores? Really?

LSD Me

2011-09-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

Moda Operandi, the members' only e-commerce site is in my left pocket; I'm a member, but I simply cannot afford hot-off-the-runway Prabal, Erdem, or vintage $18K crocodile Hermes at the moment - despite the site's 50% down deposit policy, I am a writer. My money has to go to more important and less glamorous other places.

Lauren Santo Domingo, one of the company's founders, has an entirely fabulous and aspirational existence: she has the unique ability to have our lives (new mother, professional woman, New Yorker, thirty-six) and yet, most will never have hers (billionaire husband, 5'11/sample-sized, more supermodely than the supermodels, Vogue/Proenza/photographer's darling...) As for her apartment, I could spend a lifetime rummaging through her accessories drawers, trying on her shoes like a four-year-old in a mommy's closet, and as if that was not enough, cavort for hours with that Lalanne hippo bar of hers. But, I must say: as gorgeous and enviable as this woman is, and despite the fact that she and her business partner have provided we fashion lovers a pagan god in the form of Moda Operandi, I don't think that she is a fashion icon, which is what she is often referred to as. I see exquisite and expensive head-to-toe looks on a very pretty lady, but I don't see wow, genius, inspirational stylishness in the way that you see it on Kate Moss, or saw it on Jane Birkin, or if we want to reference a like "working girl" society swan, Jackie Kennedy.

Of course, I think she looks immaculate and insanely put-together...but with her genealogy and resources, wouldn't it be a (fashion) crime not to?

9-1-1

2011-09-12T08:05:00.000-07:00

I wasn't here on 9/11. I was working for Target Corporation as a copy editor, and I was watching television with the rest of the world in my co-worker's cube; we were watching what was thought to be a freak plane crash, which was then confirmed to be a horrible terrorist attack brought on by Islamic zealot extremists, freaks.

That passing year could not have gone by any slower than it did; I could not wait to move to New York and rally my support and chase my dreams. I lived like a pauper and saved as much money as I could so that I could move to NYC less than a year later. Almost ten years later, I am still here, and the city has revitalized and redefined itself.

There are more eloquent, more poignant, much more important pieces/posts/articles on 9/11 written by those whose losses on that day proved irreplaceable, insurmountable, so I won't even go there. I have no right to...

But, I will say that the most chilling and horrifying thing that I heard about that day was that the entire borough of Manhattan - from Wall Street to the upper-UWS - smelled like "barbequed meat".

2011-09-07T17:08:00.000-07:00

I took my daughters out to Montauk, the anti-Hamptons Hamptons, and we had a blast amongst the ratty surfers, Manhattan summering families, and local Long Island folk; we stayed at a hole-in-the-wall resort on the beach with wood-paneled rooms and tattooed staff (I discovered this upon arrival), we ate fresh fish tacos every day, and built bonfires on the beach way past our bedtime. Richie, one of the owners of the resort, seemed especially charming and helpful with his local jargon, defense of the underdog small business owner, two different colored socks (?) and thirty torso tattoos. Yes, Richie is the real deal; a real redneck, that is...and the first one I have met on the east coast:

Richie: (to Iris) "Hey there, that's a great T-shirt. You do that yourself?!" (tie-dye)

Iris: No response.

(We are city folk. We don't talk to strangers. Especially not ones with pictures all over their bodies...)

Richie: (To me) "What, don't she speak English?!" Suddenly, Richie was no longer country-bumpkin-charming. Richie is just a country bumpkin. And stupid.

(We're Asian.)

Me: Smile. "Why, yes. She does." And she speaks better English than you, Richie -- at six years old. Take that. I smiled again. Kill. With kindness.

I put up with the wafting scent of falafel in my bathroom, crazy subway patrons, and sewage in my sandals every time it rains so that my children and I do not have to put up with people like Richie. Just because we don't have to.

I (still) heart New York. City, that is.

2011-07-25T05:39:00.000-07:00

Great talent can be torturous.
What a horrible thing to say...

But what else can I say?
Didn't we know this was coming?

RIP, AW

Kate...

2011-06-29T19:37:00.000-07:00

You can say that she is short, overrated, has "wobbly knees", snaggle-teeth, and is a haggard smoker; you can say that she likes spindly, greasy men who look like they might smell, and of course, you might catch her with some dusty nostrils; she's a louche junkie to some, a fashion icon to others.

Say all you want: no one in the world looks like Kate Moss; and at almost-forty, she's still nailing it.

And that doesn't mean anything more or less than what it is...

Patti Forever

2011-06-22T16:14:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time, I was a young transplant New Yorker. Some of my friends were starving artists and models who could not get enough work, but could get us into Naomi Campbell's Fashion Week party at the now-defunct Moomba; others were random people who came to New York for the Big Dream and hoping for an even bigger break; others were very lucky - and different.

The early 2000s was the height of Sex & The City. It was sort of appalling. New York was rich, safe and decadent, and the city was in the midst of rapid transformation; it was the Gilded Age of Manhattan where 25-year-old millionaire I-bankers with relatively little life experience were getting drunk in their unbuttoned Turnbull & Asser shirts all over downtown, trying to bed the irritated last-standing cool girl bartender/models/actresses....just because those were the girls that didn't care about millions or banks. Broke people weren't really broke as they were subsidized by their parents in Philadelphia and getting $250 highlights at Frederic Fekkai. People weren't really producing art or music or fashion or culture in the ways that they used to; everyone who did all of those things had agents and connections if they did not have any money. And it all seemed very strange to me, because it's true: I arrived in NYC thirty-five years too late.

I was torn: Was I to follow my dream and just write and just starve (my family and I do not have a low- no-interest lending system or any system as we are not in contact), or was I to get that fashion job and be able to afford my bar tab, Balthazar breakfasts and wear chic (gratis) shoes, and nothing else? Long story short: I have done a little of both in no particular order.

I recently discovered Patti Smith's Horses album; of course, I have always known who she is, but she has become nothing short of an obsession. Horses has been a Holy Grail path to old-school, long-gone New York coolness on my iPod; the very thing I left all stable things in the Midwest for; the very thing that New York sort-of needs...

Rock 'n' Roll skinny doesn't get any cooler or hotter than Robert Mapplethorpe + Patti Smith in their primes and pasts, so present and so now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKOULF922Rs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNg19CH9AwY&feature=related

WTForever21?

2011-06-08T11:19:00.000-07:00

Unless it's a T-shirt (and I have to be able to wash it at least four times) or a knock-around white button-down, I am not a fan of disposable clothing; I don't have a lot of clothes, and I don't have a lot of money, so, why buy cheap and then have buy the same thing at least twice more?

A friend took me into Forever 21 about five years ago and begrudgingly, I bought a very cute and ultra-trendy more-Marc-Jacobs-than-Marc-Jacobs top, but it was itchy, smelled like a cereal box, and lasted two washes ("disposable" should not be such a literal term...) So, at that point, I swore to only window shop and admire the brazen knock-off skills in all Forever 21 stores. Forever.

Well, the store that has been sued countless times for going a bit too far in their copy-cat designs, is planning on suing this HILARIOUS blog:

http://wtforever21.com/

You would think that a company that sells more-Me&Ro-than-Me&Ro knock-off necklaces for $1.95, and more-Marc-Jacobs-than-Marc-Jacobs and more-DVF-than-DVF (that's where they got into legal trouble) for $9.95 would have a sense of humor?!

But alas, no...

34. Just 34.

2011-05-26T19:53:00.001-07:00

Rather than write the "Now I'm 35 and newly old; whaddo I do?!" post, I have decided to write the "I'm still 34 for another hour and I'm savoring the last 'young' age of my lifetime" post. I think that works better; it's more dignified. I turn 35 on May 27: it's now May 26th, 11 p.m. -- Let's savor 34 just a little bit longer. (I have been "35" for the past 6 months in my mind, but anyway...)

35 is the beginning of not being young. It's an age, but it is also a defined mark of standards and maturity. I guess I am where I "should be" - I am married. I have children. And physically, too: I have to wear eye cream and night cream and day cream, which would have left me with a pepperoni-pizza-face four years ago. I have to work out and or diet in order to wear my small-sized clothing, as I do not have a surplus in my budget to buy an entire new wardrobe; two years ago, any regular diet and or exercise regimen would have left me a bit on the "gaunt" side.

If I want any more children, now is the time to think about having them - five years is not the time, not anymore; in fact, if I want to make any major life/career/love change or declaration, now is the time to think about setting my course - it won't be as easy ten years from now, just as it would have been a bit easier ten years prior. None of this is an issue; this is just how the aging process works.

That all said, tonight, I am 34; I am the person that I am, and the person that I am not quite yet in this moment; not five or ten years ahead or behind. I am not doing that year-skip-thing, anymore; living only counts if it is done in the present.

My Kids Are Awesome.

2011-05-21T20:07:00.000-07:00

Best Damn Kids in the World. Ever.

It's almost impossible to get a "bird's eye view" of an almost-six-year-old's "permanent" character; life at 5++ is still primal, urgent, and visceral. And to add to that, many kids at this age can be baby-ish, annoying (aka precocious) or ornery, or sugary-sweet or budding, but many are not exactly somethings; not exactly someones who are someones. And while every decent mother out there is going to tell you the same thing; they know their child, they see the light within, the reality of it all, is that we do: Unequivocally, we mothers know that our kids are amazing; we know this, if nothing else.

I love my kids.

Capsule Collage

2011-05-21T19:39:00.000-07:00

This page just about says it all; everything I would ever wear, anywhere:
Cool, classic. Chic. Minimal.

Osama Dead, Obama Ahead.

2011-05-02T07:21:00.000-07:00

For almost a decade we, the U.S. and free world, have spent infinite dollars, lives, and hours searching for Osama Bin Laden; we've been looking in rugged caves within Afghanistan, and have had our ears to the ground in reclusive, middle-of-nowhere filth as per George W. Bush. As per usual, GWB was terribly wrong; way off target...and at the expense of too many to know or count.

Bin Laden was a son of a rich Saudi magnate: while he was spending his family money on Al Qaeda not Aston Martins, he sure as hell was not going to spend a decade in a dirty cave, defecating in a pot; he wouldn't stand for that for more than six weeks, tops. We have been looking for him in all of the wrong places for almost ten years, or worse, it has taken ten years to finally figure out the obvious. Predictably, Bin Laden was found in a 1 million dollar hideout with 2 security gates where the inhabitants burned their trash and had no outgoing Internet or telephone... Oh, and no one talked to anyone.

As stated by real "experts", Bin Laden's digs "looked like it was a hideout for a high-profile terrorist."

Duh.

No-style Style

2011-04-03T15:48:00.000-07:00

Leopards never change their spots and today, I could not help myself; I reverted to my catty "fashion" roots. As my husband and I were sitting calmly on a park bench watching our children scoot with tranquility, I saw them: The Clog Family; the quintessentially frumpy, self-righteous, too-smart-to-be-chic UWS family. They ALL wore clogs, and not the sort-of cool, Swedish Hasbeens old-school ones; they were the obnoxious orthopedic ones: Mom and Dad had matching Danskos, and the innocent little one wore fleece-lined Crocs. And the Dad's clogs were accented by ratty-bottom, too-short jeans.

It's not that I have a problem with bad style; bad style takes guts: it's loud, tacky, grating, colorful -- I have a friend here and there with "bad" style. It's the frumpy, no-style style suburban people who live in major cities that get me in a tizzy; and these are the people who will drive Bill Cunningham to his inevitable end, as these days, there are so many of them who have chosen to live here.

It should be noted that my gynecologist, a man, wears clogs; the Dansko professional ones to boot. The thing is, Dr. Rafalin could have a scraggly pony-tail and wear open chaps with fringe; I would not care. He is a very funny guy and he delivered my twins safely. HE can wear man-clogs.

I could like a clog, such as the originally-intended Seventies wooden-bottom Scandinavian ones in whimsical colors, but even in the best circumstances, I'm just not 100% sure... I am 110% sure that I am not into pseudo clogs with orthopedic purpose; almost six years ago, some UWS "mommy" friends convinced me to buy the dreaded Dansko clogs, but it was a no-go: not only are they ugly, they are treacherous; a tragic combo similar to nasty-idiot.

So, back to chic shoes that occasionally kill my arches and give me leper blisters. ;-)

Milestones

2011-03-11T17:15:00.000-08:00

I lived among many "broken toy" types in my old apartment complex, but there was this specifically horrible woman who lived there, roughly three years ago. She was a "Danny Devito" character: short, round, homely, and scowling. Her saving grace was that she was not bald, but then again, if she was, I may have felt sorry for her and forgave her disgusting manners.

Anyway..."DD" would sit and glower at me in the building complex playground, and the Pollyanna aspect of my personality told me that I was being paranoid, thinking that she had it in for me. But, I was not. She hated my guts.

She had three or four children who were older than my toddler/preschoolers; I'll never forget the time that I was strolling my snack-toy-diaper-laden double Mountain Buggy laboriously across the parking lot, as I was en route to the pediatrician with my sick child. I was on my cell, asking the nurse a last-minute question. And then, I was honked out: Behind me was the Danny Devito Lady and her huge Lexus SUV blasting her horn; I was holding her up and she was not having it. If we lived in more savage times, I would have served her as a human speed bump. And I thought to myself:

"What a horrible, self-righteous, hypocritical...?!

Doesn't she understand?

Doesn't she have children?"

But today, I sort of get it, although I have much better manners: I would have cursed under my breath with the windows rolled up; unequivocally, there would have been no horn blast. We were neighbors, after all.

For those of us who are "done" with procreation, it is here, where "someone" might metamorphose into a real jerk; someone might sigh-hiss when some annoying, entitled new mother is blocking the Starbucks door entrance with her turbo Bugaboo; someone might not think that the random "22-month-and-five-days" infant is "cute enough to eat" as he scream-tantrums while "someone" is on a rarefied, uninterrupted phone conversation; someone might not be ultra-inclined to hold the door open for that cumbersome and slow mega stroller that is taking its own sweet time, as someone has her own children to pick up from the bus stop, as someone's children not only walk and run and eat by themselves, they (gulp) read. Yes, there are a few instances where "someone" may act like a "something".

When enough time has passed by; when the pregnancy weight and bad sleep habits are solely our own faults, "someone" might go to the other side: the self-centered side where someone thinks first and foremost of their own needs and agendas; the side we started from before the kids, and return to after they grow up...or after we drop them off for a few hours...or maybe this is just me, er I mean, someone?

But then that "someone" will get hers: she will be riding a crowded NYC MTA bus with her children; the bus will be crowded and she and her - adorable - twins will be blocking the back exit, causing a major annoyance for some irritated seemingly single or menopausal woman. And hyper-ironically, this "someone" will think to herself,

"Who the f-ck gets into a hissy-fit over a poor, sweet, innocent child with a too-big backpack?"

Uh, who?

Why We Can No Longer J'adore Dior

2011-03-03T17:35:00.000-08:00

John Galliano is over. For now, finished. Dior? Probably not - in fact, I predict that a Galliano-less Dior will come out swinging and fighting. But, the fabulous, fantastically-Galliano version of it? Over. It has to be -- Galliano was stupid, wrong, and now, disgraced. Everyone is blaming alcohol; "he didn't really mean all of that". Well, to me, that's a crock of stuff you'd never want to eat: I have been a crying, slobbering, sloppy mess after record amounts of drinks and youthful angst, it is true. But, I have never said or acted in ways that were not somehow, or someway, true to myself.

Where there is smoke, there is fire, and Galliano is not a champion of the Jews; if he was not an (angry) drunk, I am sure the world would simply not know just to what extent, or anything at all: vodka let the cat out of the bag.

Nowadays, we live in an ultra-PC world; it's not always easy. And it's cases like this, where the "politically correct" mandate sort of goes to sh_t, and we witness a repressed, sociopathic and *un-politically-correct* outburst of epic proportions.

In the case of Galliano, I loved his romanticized, seemingly naive, global appreciation; he brought the most exotic and far-reaching civilizations to the runway and made them into fathomable, wearable art. He was the first "big" fashion designer (along with Gaultier) that I heard of as a teenager in the Midwest - it's sort of shocking to me that he appears to be a vigilant anti-Semite.

The first accusation was that he told a woman that she had a "dirty Jew face" (and of course, "cheap and ugly boots"). There's definitely a red flag waving when one is insulting anyone in that matter, but these outbursts are not what made Galliano a social pariah; 'I love Hitler' is what caused Galliano to detonate - it's not an alleged occurrence, as the video proves the reality - and when he said that Jewish posterity is a big fat mistake and that the women in the cafe (incorrectly presumed to be Jewish) "should have been gassed", it was done. The unanimous vote is that he was provoked, and I agree: I most certainly think he was; no, I do not think that those people he was accosting were just sitting around innocently with a cell phone recorder on, minding their own business. No. They were looking for trouble. But, provoked or not, drunk or sober, when does a person "cross over" to the dark side and start digging up/throwing up some of the most barbaric racial insults known? And yes, in public? Who does that? A multimillionaire, globally-conscious celebrity fashion designer beloved and coddled by all of the beautiful and important people? Yes...if he is not exactly all of those things.

Galliano's fellow design colleagues and fashion vets, are pooh-poo'ing Galliano being caught in the act almost more than the act of anti-Semitism itself, like Karl Lagerfeld:

"I'm furious that it could happen, because the question is no longer even whether he really said it...the image has gone around the world. It's a horrible image for fashion, because they think that every designer and everything in fashion is like this. We are a business world where, especially today, with the Internet, one has to be more careful than ever, especially if you are a publicly known person. You cannot go in the street and be drunk, there are things you cannot do."

And Armani "feels sorry" that poor Mr. Galliano was unaware of the hidden video recorder. And although Daphne Guiness condemns the Hitler remarks via twitter, she also hopes that the video was "doctored".

Well, me too. I hope this diabolical Hitler ranting is a grand-scale technological farce; I hope there is a law suit involved. But until then, I'm forced to see the hypocrite instead of the "genius": John Galliano may very well love Tibetans and nomadic tribes, but he's pro-Holocaust/Hitler, which makes him just as much of an anti-Semite, as it does a globally-minded, "genius" fashion designer..an incongruous and ultimate disappointment to say the very least.

When Fashion Tries Too Hard.

2011-01-21T08:09:00.001-08:00

I may have played with intellectual dressing at various life junctures. I was probably creatively stunted and/or over-all frustrated, and so in a last-ditch life crisis effort, I turned "the eye" on to my appearance. Conceptual dressing just doesn't really work in the real world. I love Martin Margiela, I love everything that the label stands for, but honestly, not in the (weird) runway walking-sculpture jacket way; that said, I love my minimalist-severe Margiela Replica 70s cocktail dress; I have yet to find an event worthy of its striking impact, and no, I'll never part with it, even if I never am able to wear it.

It seems that Balenciaga is having a conceptual moment, however, no matter how bizarre or art nouveau an ad campaign is, the model(s) must be compelling, and the clothes, stand-out. Ultimately, everything should be covet-worthy; you should want to wear the clothes, be that girl, live in that world. And no matter how fabulous the brand is, even for the sake of fashion, the clothes must be great; if not beautiful, then, cool; if not edgy, than interesting: We're talking about (great) advertising, after all.

Conceptual fashion has to walk the most fine of all lines; it has to be comprehensible: that can mean different things to all of us. The latest Balenciaga campaign leaves the fashion patron with "Huh?" in not a great way. The lineup is killer: Gisele, Steven Meisel, Nicholas Ghesquiere. The effect? The weird wig on Gisele, and the boxy androgynous clothes on her Victoria's Secret gym body?? Not so much.

These pieces will probably end up in a local discount retailer several seasons from now, and in that venue, they may even look irresistible; you may even "get" them in the bad lighting of the store's community dressing room. It will be there that things will come full-circle, and the design process, actualized.

Time to Wear a Watch

2010-12-29T17:26:00.001-08:00

I never know what time it is; my cellphone is always at the bottom of my rabbit-hole purse, the clocks are not ubiquitous when needed, and I never wear a watch. Although my guesses are pretty spot-on (but not down-to-the-minute), with two kids and a full-time life, "down-to-the-minute" is often rather important...my NYR is to once and for all, wear a watch. And if there was ever a watch to be worn by me, it is my Grandpa's.

I was close to my mom's dad, Charles Fuhrmann Wolfgang: a dapper and chivalrous man who valued classic cars, delicious food, a good laugh, and yes, precision, as a partner in a commercial architectural firm. He reveled in being the glue of the family, the patriarch, and from the get-go, Grandpa adored me, and I, him. He was my advocate. And in my eyes, he could do no wrong.

Grandpa was 50s American Dream Old School: he had comfortable success, wore fedoras, wing tips, drove Cadillacs, drank scotch-on-the-rocks in high balls, ate a lot of red meat, played golf, and was in some semblance of a fraternity for the entirety of his life.

He married a "scrappy" orphan who grew up in foster care, and she (my grandmother) was the apple of his eye; he gave her everything he thought that she deserved. Grandma wore furs, bouffant Eva Gabor wigs, and had a pristine candy-apple-red Pontiac with a white top that remained preserved in the garage as she never drove. She devoted the entirety of her pink and black art deco bathroom to her Estee Lauder gold-cased lipsticks, scarves, hair pins and rollers. They existed in a Mad Men, man-of-the-house era: she got to go shopping as much as she wanted, as long as dinner was on the table at 6 and the house was spotless. She happily made him the king of his suburban castle. And they were quite a match.

When he passed away, I read an excerpt from Hemingway's last (incomplete) novel/memoir, and then (melodramatically) fled the church. My kindred spirit was gone, and I was on my own in every way; I always was, but I have never felt more alone than I did in that moment, in that church. I moved to New York City shortly afterward.

His watch: a sort-of tacky, rectangular all-gold Longines that still works; the back of the face smells like my grandparents' bathroom: hints of my Grandmother's pink soap are detectable years later, as his watch was never been worn by anyone but himself... It's strange to have tactile last traces of his life, encapsulated within my hands.

Major Asian Girls in Fashion

2010-11-18T19:39:00.000-08:00

"Asia Minor" Photographed by Steven Meisel, December Vogue 2010

"You're pretty...for an Asian girl."

Ever been served a back-handed compliment? You know, being handed an ice cream cone with a razor blade hidden inside of it: sticky-sweet, cold, deliciously wrong; and all is "just fine" until you've cut your tongue. Badly. Is almond praline supposed to taste blood-iron-y? (Are compliments supposed to have irony?)

Of course, beauty is never just about beauty. And after seeing ubiquitous blonde/blue-eyed Amazonian-esque "beautiful" women in fashion, advertising, the media, and the movies for decades, today, there are different shapes and shades of people who are making the cut.

In terms of global beauty, I think we are off to a good start -- perhaps we have been for awhile?

http://www.vogue.com/magazine/article/asia-major

And yet, the finish line; the be-all, end-all that would feel right to everyone, everywhere, is nowhere in sight, not just yet. But we may just get there.

(Thank you, American Vogue!)

Just Cavalli-ing Around...

2010-09-28T20:05:00.000-07:00

"I know that a lot of designers are doing minimalism these days," said Roberto Cavalli after his Spring 2011 show. "But I say, who needs minimalism when you could have great sex?"

Mr. Cavalli, you have just made me laugh aloud.

In all honesty, if you were to be given an option to look like a goth Twilight Eclipse vampire extra, or a bad-ass "Lady Boss", which one would you choose?

Quite frankly, Natalia Vodianova looks miserable in that picture, and considering that she was paid a reputed $67,000 to walk down the runway (in that outfit), what exactly does that say about Cavalli "sex"?

I have always been "minimal" - I have one rolling rack's worth of winter-spring-summer-fall clothing, and am a compulsive editor. Reduce-Reuse-Recycle was my mantra before it became a trendy green mantra. And as of late, some nostalgia for nineties minimalism, and a quest for a more pared-down existence has had appeal. So, I guess one could safely assume that if I had a spare $10+ grand and a fancy invitation, Roberto Cavalli on Madison would not be the first (or last) place I would hail a cab to. But, maybe after a few drinks and some broken mirrors...

10 Random Mid-thirties Realizations...

2010-09-06T21:47:00.000-07:00

1 - Leather shorts are not edgy; but, they can be bunchy, tacky, dominatrix-y, and slutty.

2 - People don't change/improve/mellow with age; age is just a number.

3 - Cigarettes will never quit despite rising taxes, death, and public outcry.

4 - A true glass of wine is half of the one I just poured, which means that I have drank twice as much as assumed for the past fifteen years.

5 - In order to get 8 hours of sleep (and cure most nagging health ailments), I must not work or have a life.

6 - Sweating the small stuff just makes my life sweaty and small.

7 - Prosperity is a bit like pregnancy: It's supposed to be a fairly simple and straight-forward process, but many people just don't achieve it.

8 - If you rush through life, you rush to death.

9 - Food will never just be fuel. Phew.

10 - Hand sanitizer is a false (health) safety net. There's only so much one can do.

The 90s

2010-07-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

Peter Pan, I am. Were the 90s that long ago? I am balking that they are being referred to in a vintage sense. Twenty years ago, the 90s were here: Caroline Bessette Kennedy, minimalism, alternative music, Nirvana, Grunge, coffee houses - it's been awhile. We are all young, stupid or free at least once in our lives - maybe lucky or unlucky to be all 3; and I was, back in the 90s, back in Minneapolis...I was going through the motions of college, trying to make all literal and figurative ends meet, and in retrospect, it was a tall order...I had been on my own for quite some time at that point and the novelty of being "away from home" et al. of my peers was not something I shared...I was a thirty year old living in an eighteen year old's body.

I had a lot of fun. So much, that despite all, there are no regrets. I loved the 90s and quite honestly, had I been young, fun, and a mess in any other decade, I probably would have loved the ___s, too.

So, in honor of the 90s, I will give posthumous props to Jeff Buckley; he is the perfect bard to give the 90s their proper due. He was a prodigy, a NYC music scene star, and like many before and after, he died before his time. I love to remember all of those things; the things I thought would never pass, the things I never imagined to be as past.

Here is his haunting and perfect rendition of Hallelujah:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKnxmkOAj88

Death and Dinner

2010-07-01T19:36:00.000-07:00

When you quit drinking, drugs, cigarettes, or any dirty habit that has a national/scornful campaign against it, there is often roaring applause.

Fair enough.

I've quit (daily) cigarettes, excess liquor and all drugs. I don't think meat is in the same category, but for several reasons - like chronic meat-based food poisoning - I decided to quit meat; I did this many years ago. No real regrets, save for the fact(s) that I imagine myself to be a "foodie" and in my heart of hearts, I want to go to Momofuko and eat the famed pork belly steamed biscuit buns - I know the veggie ramen would not do David Chang any justice - and in a past life, yeah, I did love to get my filet mignon o-n.

My practical vegetarianism has morphed into ethical pescatarianism (no lobster, no unsustainable species of fish) to honest vegetarianism. It's been a rocky road. Did I mention that vegetarianism is an obnoxious road, too?

As stated, I was a carnivore - a deluxe one: filet mignon? It doesn't get any more pretentious or decadent - well, save for fois gras, or lobster...

Speaking of lobster, I have had it twice in a month period - and - I have devoured it in a mass-market, mediocre-but-magnificent chain restaurant. Huh? Ethical pescatarian? Honest vegetarian?

You see, for me, the sea has been a reservoir of satiety for my ingrained meat-loving, carnivore instincts. Wild salmon, spicy tuna rolls, and copious amounts of shrimp have kept me hypocritical and comfortable in my little "veggie" world of ethics. But, this seafood-binging world has sort of posed a big problem in the current world, the one that has just been marred with a major gulf oil spill catastrophe - a catastrophe that we cannot bear to look upon and yet, take our eyes away from: the pelicans...blinking...covered in oil...

Dying.

Because we need oil and more importantly, money, we have taken a big bite out of one of the major hands that feeds our mouths, The Sea. The Sea and The Sea's food chain are fucked. Why don't we eat a few more vegetables and what-have-yous and leave the critters of the sea to the remaining critters of the sea? I mean, yeah, we're omnivores, so why not make the right choice?

We all go about our business in some curious ways. When the answer to stop eating fish, etc. came to me clearly, I did what any sensible person (who loves seafood) would do: I binged on all of the things that I loved and have fallen out of love with: one last fling with seafood, et al. I have been having a one-last-round, month-long, Death Row Dinner with the maritime world. This is it. Lobster, which I never cared to eat, spicy tuna and shrimp, shrimp, shrimp: I have eaten and eaten because I will not be eating any of it, anymore. I cannot enjoy it in the given circumstances; I may not be able to enjoy it in a few years even if I really still want to - once the species are gone, they're gone.

My bon voyage month, the month of June, is now over, and my month of last tastes, over, and my time eating things from our sea, for now, over. Of course, I'm keeping things open-ended and vague, as any mandate can quickly become something the opposite of what it should be, but it's just not practical or ethical or right to contribute to the global gang-bang rape of the sea at this time, or really, at any time. It, the choice to eat only what is sustainable and ethical and truly vegetarian, just sort of hit me - as "it" hit me to not eat cows or pigs or chickens or what-have-yous about ten years ago..."it" will pose some difficulties, I am certain. Conviction, unlike (and yet, like) commitment, is not about compromise.

When you hear a food ethicist talk about food, you often hear, "I don't eat anything with a face", which often has a few rips in the seams if one decides to look closely: "Don't you have a leather sofa?" (I do, long story.) "Didn't you just order a lobster sandwich?" (Why yes, and yes, another long story.) If you don't believe in a divine creator, fine, but there is this strange and interesting regularity among all of us who inhabit this planet: faces are pretty much the same, everywhere. Be it a doe-eyed cow grazing in a serene pasture, or a pesky bat, or an oil-slicked pelican, or a 600-lbs. tuna in the Atlantic. I know, I know, there is a thing called The Food Chain, but the great chain is broken; it's missing some important and big links, connectors. As it has been pieced back together in these years and decades of our ingenuity and greed, it is undeniably shorter than ever. It's getting harder to stitch back up, again and yet, again. No, the oil spill and vegetarianism are none of the same and on paper, have nothing to do with one another, however, greed remains to be the biggest link. Huh.

Greenberg's NY Time Magazine article, Tuna's End:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/magazine/27Tuna-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine

Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals:
http://www.eatinganimals.com

Simon Doonan: Eccentric Glamour

2010-06-25T20:32:00.000-07:00

I Heart Simon Doonan

2010-06-25T20:15:00.000-07:00

As quoted in NY Magazine:

Simon Doonan doesn't consider the cast of Jersey Shore classy, but forgives them since they're "at least fun." "I love the Jersey Shore. It's great," he told us. "I met Vinny and Pauly D at a party, and [my husband Jonathan Adler] and I were so excited to meet them that I think we scared them to death, 'cause we were just fizzing and squealing like demented fans." But Doonan didn't freak them out too much. "My sister-in-law, fortunately, was there and she's very busty and sexy, so it made it okay. She was there to kind of decoy them a bit, so they weren't so terrified," he explained. "I said, 'I love you. I've written about you in my column. You're so great.' I said, 'Do you know the New York Observer?' And they didn't."

I think it's the "Jane Goodall championing her gorillas" vibe that made me laugh at loud. He must be bored: Jersey Shore?

Mr. Doonan is a genteel, verbose, uproariously funny, genius Barney's Creative Director and New York Observer columnist wit. I wish the world was covered wall-to-wall with real-time, real-live Simon Doonan wall paper.

More of Simon Doonan at The Observer:

http://www.observer.com/author/simon-doonan

American Dream Gods

2010-04-26T03:52:00.000-07:00

I have always been drawn to Hellenism - why settle for mere mortality when there were once gods and goddesses abound, or supposedly so, or probably not.

"What's it like, there?"

I have an official "gisele tom" Google habit, and they're mortal gods (and quite a match) if there ever was such deities: A fifty+ million/year dual income. Jet-setting on the Seine. A picturesque, pain-free childbirth. Bodies that don't quit. Cheekbones. Manes of hair. Charitable deeds abound. Perfectly supportive families and the seamless-outcome realities. Yes, American Dream-like gods: the supermodel and the quarterback. Married? Procreating? Happy?

Mythology if there is such a thing.

The biggest clincher of them all? They seem like normal people, as normal people are often prone to hypocrisy: Miss Environmental Goodwill Ambassador has just built a very un-eco-friendly 20,000 sq. ft. mansion complete with an elevator, fake lagoon, and almost ten thousand dollars worth of toxic Christmas lights to burn at full-voltage this holiday season. This is all of course, for a family of three, *sometimes* four. And yeah, she sounds like...a model. And he gets in locker room fights...over his Justin Bieber-inspired hair, which supposedly camouflages bald patches and/or hair plugs.

The blips that 'keep it real...

(They're still perfect.)

Adriano Celentano

2010-04-21T19:41:00.000-07:00

The below video is one of the coolest things I have ever seen: It's the world's first-ever disco/rap named Prisencolinensinainciusol, a song composed of utter nonsense (on purpose).

"P" is supposed to emulate how we Americans (and our American pop music) sound to the rest of the world.

"Prisencolinensinainciusol", 1972: still cool, still current, still wow.

Here's more info. if you're as enraptured as I am:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisencolinensinainciusol

So mad, so genius and yeah, so very Italian.

Prisencolinensinainciusol

2010-04-21T19:34:00.000-07:00

Rebecca Gayheart: Crack-head

2010-04-16T08:25:00.000-07:00

I am not a hater; 'hate' is a very strong word that requires an immense amount of focus and frankly, I don't have that type of focus these days...but, I can;t stand, maybe even hate, Rebecca Gayheart. I have never met her, and honestly, there is not a single thing about her professional existence that warrants hatred; I mean, it's not like I am sitting here, festering in my apartment, saying: "That Horrible Noxema Girl...", or "That intolerable Law & Order extra. I can't deal with her." (Don't know if she was actually a L & O extra, but I also don't know what exactly she has "acted" in, either.)

I sort-of hate Rebecca Gayheart for strictly personal reasons; I guess because she is a sleazy, crackhead, murdering car-flipper, who has seemingly gotten away - with it all - scott-free. I also sort-of hate her because I just sort-of know that her race and celebrity status have warranted her an innocence that a Shaniqua in Chicago's South Side would never have.

And the truth is that I wonder how in the world this is all possible.

Rebecca Gayheart killed a 9-year-old Mexican pedestrian while chatting on her cellphone; the cellphone didn't kill him; the boy is dead because she impatiently sped past the two cars who stopped ahead of her for the boy to cross, and then, she ran smack into him: now, I could talk about Rebecca Gayheart and potential racism here, but I am not going to go there.

Where was I? Oh yes: Rebecca Gayheart likes to smoke crack and publicly, cigarettes, (especially while pregnant), too. She is married to a Gray's Anatomy actor who likes to film her participating in threesomes: With a crack pipe. In the bathtub. Slurring. Classy.

Rebecca Gayheart is also a new mom; apparently, those recent crack-pipe, manslaughter-murder-days are galaxies away. She is glowing in Motherhood bliss. And wow, all of this with no rehab! Or wow, maybe she is still smoking crack and killing people, but just on the down-low...

'Ya just never know.

What bothers me are the facts that RG is not nineteen, poor, or desperate; she bothers me - to sort-of hatred - because she is insufficiently "repentant": a $2k+ fine, and a nasty drug habit formed out of anxiety and guilt just doesn't cut it for me. And nor should it, legally: this woman should have a criminal record and serve time behind bars.

We have a funny justice system in this country; justice served is almost lottery-like. Although certain examples of the privileged, jet-set are made i.e. Paris Hilton, Martha Stewart, many cases, horrible, criminal cases, slip through the cracks. So, if I were an alien looking in on observation, it would appear that the un-poor and un-dark can get away with almost anything with no notable consequence: Murder, crack...anything goes if your bank account has enough zeros, your skin tone has the right amount of melanin not in it, and your lovely eyes can bat their lovely eyelashes in just the right way... Just sayin', 'cuz here is a woman with a noted drug problem, who is a manslaughter murderer; she cannot safely operate a vehicle (if she is not killing kids, she is flipping cars unexpectedly in parking lots) and yet, wait a second! UsWeekly, et al. is checking out her postpartum crackhead butt in skinny jeans and serving up the photos with a greasy spoon....in her car, smiling. With the baby in the backseat - probably playing with Mommy's crack pipe.

Oy.

How the Ebony Hillbillies Save NYC

2009-11-19T19:24:00.001-08:00

The other day, I entered the Herald Square subway terminal after a necessary kid-errand, and saw The Ebony Hillbillies playing underground as I got off the 2 train.

The Ebony Hillbillies are a New York MTA underground sensation. They are absurd. They are talented, hilarious, and hell, if they're still here, I can be here, too.

And as of late, I have contemplated being here, in the most expensive and "diverse" city of the world;Whole Foods, Whole Foods Wine Store, T.J. Maxx and Michael's - a one-stop craft store (I once - proudly - didn't know what Michael's was) are across the street from my apartment. Modell's. Crumbs. Cupcakes, soon to follow. As a result of this oh-so-convenient "suburban" strip mall, I am becoming much more desensitized to the enticement of "natural" salad bars, artisan pizza, and am drinking almost every night (mind you, one glass of wine - I have two small kids who get up early each morning) after nickel-and-dime-ing away in Retail Wasteland...after enough years of lusting after unaffordable things on Madison Avenue and beyond, perhaps a great majority of New Yorkers are getting their grooves on with the lower end of the retail chain?

I now know my way around (and out!!!) of the Michael's photo framing and scrapbook areas and I just bought some glow stick bracelets and made my first-ever pink glitter glue purchase (and return). Costco (never been) just opened up a monster of a store several blocks east in Harlem and another bank is sure to open up around the corner. The "Old-schools" of the UWS and Harlem are becoming safe, sterile, suburban strip malls as of late, and I am clearly reaping the benefits of such gentrified transformations. I might as well be in Short Hills, NJ or Burnsville, MN. But, no, I am in Manhattan, residing as an adamant, "big city girl" advocate, while calmly and covertly binging on suburban inspiration and trying to remain calm about it.

But, if you take the train on a random day, you just might see The Ebony Hillbillies, or an impromptu street-break-dancing troupe, or a panhandler shaking believably in a Glad garbage bag.

Yes my friends, you are still in New York. And it's still way cooler than you.

2009-08-14T20:59:00.000-07:00

Bon Jovi, Springsteen, Short Hills, the malls, the people, the "gardens": New Jersey. No thanks. I get why people hate on the "Garden State". Aside from suburban banality and strip mall tackiness, Jersey seems to be a keeper of people, places and things not gritty or cool enough to hang in the Big Apple, yet many Jerseyians cash in on all of the neighboring benefits...

No offense.

We may end up there.

The worst Jersey offenders must certainly be the ones who cannot properly drive, in New York; the Jersey drivers who run into Mexican food delivery guys on bicycles, (perhaps?) killing them. Those drivers...you'd think that people who need to drive everywhere, would be pretty adept at doing so.

It's nothing other than stunning to see death, perceived and live.

A chain-wearing, tourist-spot-T-shirt-wearing, fat, balding and hairy dolt in a Kia SUV -with Jersey license plates - ran into a delivery guy on a bike at 81st and Broadway, today, August 14. And then he got out of the car and just stood there, bug-eyed: If you hit someone off their bike and send them spinning through the air, landing to their end, wouldn't you make a fantastic, dramatic, or apologetic gesture? Not this guy: bug eyes and shock don't cut it in my book. He hit the bike and body with his Kia SUV; I heard the freakishly-loud, crushing impact of vehicle to metal to ribs. I saw a man fly through the air, double-somersaulting; I heard him thud mid-street on the concrete cross-walk, face down, landing without an utterance or scream. There was no director or "Cut!!!" or set trailer to soften the blow; the man did not get up and bow to a clapping, relieved audience. I and about three other people instinctively screamed from across the street. Five people immediately called 911 on their cell phones. Broadway, usually bustling, became dead-locked and silent.

I love how New Yorkers pull together in tough times.

In flush moments, we curse out one another. We curse the crowded city, the smells of all of its inhabitants on crowded subway cars, the noise, the humid heat, the gray cold; the toxic sewage from the street rain puddles that splash our toes...

We dream of just a tad more space just so that we can swing our arms without hitting a stranger mid-crotch.

Pigeons are crunched under taxi front wheels and no one blinks. Dogs sniffing on sidewalks are spit at. Slow, smelly and demented old people are wished an expedient expiration date, while children in large, cumbersome strollers are eye-rolled and loud-sighed. However, when a man flies through the air like dandelion fuzz and lands on concrete, potentially becoming a paraplegic or worse yet, dead, we act and we act fast. Our phones are flipped, our heads are level: 911 is dialed unfaltering and well. Some sane and well-educated person always steps in, authoritatively giving a calm assessment and steady hand until "the professionals" arrive. And all of this is done shoulder-to-shoulder without any emotive demonstration, or idle chit-chat. We get the job done. The Seventies riots, 9-11, the 21st century Blackout...the daily tragedies that would make front page news anywhere else...we can pull together in a crunch, here.

Three people took cell phone camera pictures of the license plate, as if the driver had any chance of fleeing the scene. Five phones, all at once: "Yes, he is breathing but not moving. 81st and Broadway, North-East corner. Come quickly. Please." Five people quickly went on their ways.

I walked over twenty blocks in the opposite direction, muttering to myself, processing, grief-stricken in the heat. When I walked back a good two hours later, past 81st, towards home, there was nothing left and nothing left resonating in me.

No, not a Garden City.

Not a City of Angels or of wind or lone stars or sunshine or anything golden...

New York: City of Soldiers, empires, and the occasional imperious attitude.

2009-07-28T10:29:00.000-07:00

I often vacillate between Eeyore and Pollyanna.

Glass half-full, half-empty, half-full...should I play the game or play The Glad Game? Usually Polly wins, but this summer, I have to say that Eeyore of Winnie the Pooh fame has been a strong contender. I can't blame vitamin D; the sun has been shining almost all of July. I can't blame vegetarianism or any stringent, ultra-healthy diet: I have been consuming cheese, chocolate, variable high-starch carbs and red wine and vitamin B-12 pills nearly every day. The serotonin and vitamin levels in my brain are so abundant and bouncy that they must be having a rave somewhere within. I can't blame any extenuating circumstance: our lives are pretty good with the increasingly rare not-so-good. Nevertheless, I have caught er, Eeyore, me, subconsciously digging up things to bitch about just because --

the glass,
can also be half-empty.

I was walking home from the Columbus Natural Store on 97th and Columbus. I loaded up my to-go box lunch with probably a pound of organic veggies, some errant tortellini and some wilted Indian okra/curry. All of it was jumbled together, mismatched and just the way I like it. I was carrying an iced coffee in my right hand. My cell, in my pocket. My keys around my right pinky. My mind, totally elsewhere. For some reason, I was holding on to the to-go box with four of my five fingers of my left hand. Pretty stupid to have both of your hands full and not hold the things in them with the entirety of your hand(s). Pretty stupid to do this all while wearing a sheer, white T-shirt in the fogged, humid heat of New York City in near-August; pretty stupid to do all of this - risking your lunch to fall unto the sidewalk - when you are RAVENOUSLY hungry, because all that has been consumed is coffee and a burned smidgen of a child's sandwich all morning long.

I almost dropped my lunch; I even cursed aloud and it was an almost, not an actual splat. After looking like every other crazy person in New York, cursing to myself aloud for no apparent reason, I then realized that I was REALLY lucky to have five working fingers. I was really lucky that I could maneuver a last-minute save with those five fingers, so that I could gorge myself and flat-line my blood sugar level. I then thought to myself: How the hell would I juggle my life per se, if I was a crippled or simply, with four fingers instead of my taken-for-granted five?

I chilled out. I inhaled, exhaled. I walked: right, left, left right. I reverted back to a quasi-normal person. I made it to my apartment, three blocks away. I was grateful that the only REAL problems I really have are chronic time-mismanagement skills and occasional bouts of idiocy. This all of course, made me feel fervently guilty. This guilt of course, inspired me to write about the inanity of the first half of my day, yesterday.

The real wake-up call came while walking home with my kids from the park on 100th Street and Amsterdam. We typically pass by the Bloomingdale Library, which is right next door to the free health clinic, which is across from the police precinct and fire house. Needless to say, due to the world's often-dire health problems, crime rates and devastating fires, 100th Street in between Amsterdam and Columbus is not usually the most chipper half-block of real estate in my neighborhood.

In front of us, a couple, male and presumably gay, were walking. They had just left the clinic. They were somber. The man on the left: slight, ashen pale, silently consoled the other with his arm on his shoulder: his shoulder belonged to a vibrant, tanned, muscular and bald man who was crying and in doing so, dropped his wallet and Blackberry onto the sidewalk. He was openly sobbing. There were no words uttered. I picked up his wallet and phone and handed it to him; this man was so engulfed in despair that I could have been a crack addict with a knife, running away with his wallet and he would not have cared less. The man on the left said Thank you"; the man who dropped the items remained speechless in grief. Apparently, there was no good news relayed at the clinic that afternoon. The girls, miraculously, wonderfully, did not ask any questions or make any embarrassing, innocent observations. (They are four.) Somehow, mercifully, they were silent. Within ear shot (we were right behind them), I heard the men talking about blood; I heard the word "A positive" and "positive" and I heard not much else discernible. Presumably, this man was been diagnosed with HIV-positive: I'm willing to place all bets on yes.

Watching the two men light cigarettes and walk-pause-hug-cry-walk down the remainder of street, it was clear that the grieving man has much to grieve for, and more importantly, much to live for.

Lost and Found

2009-07-24T15:04:00.000-07:00

So, in the age of shameless and endless self-promotion, I'll contribute to the collective. Check out the massive anthology of NYC-centric stories edited by Thomas Beller, hitting stores now. Within it, you will find many interesting and talented writers and their stories and I do mean MANY: the work is textbook-sized. In it, you can find my essay about Korean nail shops and me, an occasional nail shop patron and a full-on Korean-American who can't (comprehensibly) speak jack-shit of Korean.

A review:

http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2009/07/so_hot_dog_vendors_do_charge_y.html#add-comment

From Flatbush to Full-circle

2009-07-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

Almost ten years ago, I met this guy, David; he had this weird hyphenated last name that I can't remember in its entirety. He was an Ashtanga yoga practitioner, and strange-randomly albeit not creepily, had a massage table in the middle of his apartment. He was in his early forties, which was somewhat old to me in my mid-twenties, but he had an amazing, nineteen-year-old surfer's body. And he was well-read - and weirdly, elegant. He was balding, blonde, and not really my type; like many of his Creative kind, he was a jack-of-all trades, master-of-none. But he was so much fun.

On our first date he ordered a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in mid-afternoon at an unmemorable cafe overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge. Out of nowhere, he "Cheers'd" me: I think the bubbly was purchased with a rare and scant seventy bucks within his wallet. Later, I went into Urban Outfitters to buy a pair of shorts and he waited for me patiently as if we were a centuries-old couple. We ate a random, gourmet meal out of his refrigerator condiments, courtesy of his chef neighbor, who entered the apartment via David's living room window via the fire escape. I think ours was the most bizarre and perfect first date ever. So perfect, that I (subconsciously) halted things shortly afterward, in order to preserve the integrity of our fantasy date and all of the things it could never possibly make good on in reality. Ours was at best, a fling.

So candidly, in my first New York summer of love, David Zeller-something was not one who got away: I wish him all good, well and happy things, but by the second or third date in, his lack of direction and cad-like tendencies weren't really in good taste, and they definitely weren't in my taste. The cool quirkiness of the first few hours of our acquaintance started to grate with perceived and exaggerated, metrosexual fayness. And he lived in Flatbush; Flatbush was once a super-bad neighborhood.

The second and last time that I ever left his apartment, there was red-black blood and viscera scattered outside of the Walgreens across the street. It was ugly and common, he told me. We kept walking and walking, faster and faster, toward the train stop. We kissed; it was good-bye. He called me for dinner, I declined. He called me for late night conversations/early morning drinks; I declined, and swiftly, he stopped calling.

I read about Flatbush fairly recently; I think it was in The Times, but I could be wrong. Regardless, Flatbush seems to be a new covenant of hipster. The old and bad neighborhood, Flatbush, is indeed, one place that has gotten away. Go figure: almost ten years, almost half of a half of a generation, can change a lot of things. I read an email dated years ago, almost to the very date, to one of my best friends that I had recently left behind in Minneapolis. We have both left Minneapolis long behind us. In my letter/email and in hers, there was wistfulness, there was energetic youth, and there was no sign of any fear.

There was however, the omnipresent and lurking weight of the unknown and optimism behind each and every action: traveling alone, relaxed and confident to meet a strange man I had just met (and meeting him in his bad neighborhood), along with many other nonchalant and wonderful and alarming things that can only happen if you don't even think about them happening...

The uncharted; the ultimate privilege of experience.

Revolving Door

2009-07-07T06:37:00.000-07:00

Kayleigh is a fabulous twenty- (?) twenty-one-year-old (?) gypsy-like yoga teacher from Woodstock, New York. She's great at inversions, drinks six coconut water boxes a day, has lined cat eyes, wears dangling wind chime earrings, and demonstrates a perfect grasshopper arm/chin balancing pose. She's leaving New York and headed to Spain this summer to go find herself. I'm able to do it (grasshopper pose) with one leg, but I can't hoist the other damn stiff one up there to meet it; I need Kayleigh's help. Well, Spain and more interesting things beckon her.

I ran into an eccentric fifty-year-old mother of twins from an original baby playgroup strolling on Columbus and 88th. We were never close as she is a little out of my range of motion and comfort, but I like her. I've gotten used to seeing her around once every nine months. And now, I will not. She is moving to a probable mansion upstate to give her children an idyllic childhood, as Academia calls her. Many other families that we know are headed out. Not everyone is finding a manse, however, many have found lush lawns of green paradise outside of Urbania; I have recently learned that another "best friend" of my daughters' is now planning her own (reluctant) ascent out of concrete. Two fashionisto favorites of mine have found solace in other fashion week cities that have better beaches: Sao Paulo and L.A. "Lucky f-ing boys", I grumble to myself as there is no nearby beach in sight within The City's fried-chicken/rancid-garbage/curry/shit-smelling humidity.

No matter. I'll travel. We're staying here. And as long as I have my two legs and don't need a walking stick to cross Broadway, I ain't leavin'.

NYC and I are happily, comfortably married.

It's a different game, making friends here, or it is at this post-childhood, post-college, post-marriage juncture: in NYC, connections with friends, acquaintances, yoga teachers, et al. is all about convenience; where we work, what neighborhood we live in, who our children play with at school, which yoga center we go to, etc., all determine who are friends are.

Do you have the same life that I do? This question/ultimatum may apply to many outside of NYC, or people with kids, careers, marriages, what-have-yous. But, I don't think so. Meeting friends with this objective in mind means that there will be a lot of different people, and a lot of them different from me. In my former lives - in adulthood - I was friends with whoever felt good. Whoever was funny. Whoever was crazy-interesting. Whoever was talented. Whoever just looked cool. But most importantly, I was friends with whoever most resembled me (or what I hoped was me). Admittedly, things got to be a bit homogeneous.

NYC friends are found via a casual courtship of minute exchanges and few noncommittal get-togethers. Once things are sniffed out and everything is kosher, things blossom into full-fledged, typical friendships with universal expectations and codes of conduct. This 30's-something, established-life, NYC-centric process of friendship keys in to what I love most about this autonomous place: We all walk shoulder-to-shoulder and yet are totally immersed within our own lives and agendas; we have no expectation (or regard) to the person invading our physical space(s). I love that.

I imagine that if you don't absolutely love being on your own, you would suffer incredibly in New York. How one (typically) loses friends here: they move, we move. Sometimes people don't go that far, however, a two mile radius here can feel trans-continental. Urbanites become suburbanites. Temporary big house people race back home to cramped city space. Trailblazers set out to gentrify bad neighborhoods. Disillusioned corporate moneyed folks try to find themselves (again) in Park Slope and other hipster, outer-borough neighborhoods. New money/new-Wall-Street-Bonus folks buy into glass skyscrapers in desirable neighborhoods. Our kids grow up, we grow apart. We go back to work full-time. Jobs are lost and expensive yoga, boxing, personal training classes (and the friendships within) are put on hold. We are just plain busy.

We change here in record-fast moments. There is no time to adjust, or double-think or over-think. We live our lives, people move in and out of them, and our surroundings vary from day-to-day...we stumble upon experiences, we find ourselves, and inevitably, we move on and along. And yet, it's all very subtle. Here today, and imminently, gone tomorrow; no notice or regret. And the door keeps going, 'round and 'round.

Thriller, gone

2009-06-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

When I was first introduced to Michael Jackson, I was a skinny-skinny kid in the Midwest with long black braids and a precocious scowl. I wore a swimmingly-large, green tartan Catholic school uniform with cordovan penny loafers (with pennies in the slits). I fiercely clutched onto my laminated Thriller folder with the record-shaped top until it was shreds and scraps. I cut off the fingers of my winter gloves and bemoaned that my navy-blue Member's Only jacket was not a shiny, plastic red. I moon walked disastrously on my bedroom carpet when I was supposed to be fast asleep and I pined, pined for MTV just to get a glimpse of the Thriller video.

Fifty thousand birds could fly overhead and immerse my head in deplorable, white goo and I would fail to flinch or notice if I saw Michael Jackson dancing; when he morphed into a thousand Fred Astaire(s) with rocket-feet, and ceased being human, the world stopped. We open-mouthed, drop-jawed watched. He connected generations of people throughout the world.

I can't believe he's effing dead. I am...Devastated.

4sight

2009-06-24T20:01:00.000-07:00

Today, June 24th, is a very special day: it is my daughters' fourth birthday.

Four is an interesting age; it is a number well over the fragility and exposed helplessness of infancy, and yet, well under the layered mysteries and baited breaths that await; at four years of age, we are kings and queens of Oz.

At four, we have real conversations about real things that flourish with imagination. We assert ourselves inappropriately and ostentatiously: no one seems to pay much notice; people smile and think such improprieties and misappropriations are endearing, cute and expected. We may remember things silly and profound at four; we may discover our first tastes of exhilaration, fear, bravado, heartbreak. We may even be the very person that we will always be: this is what is so cool.

At four, words like "hate" and "hell" and "death" and all of "the swears" are met with unsure footing and innocence and trepidation, as "they are not nice and "not nice" things remain foreign and indecipherable and far away in legend fairy tales. Circumspection and self-consciousness and muddied slates are galaxies beyond.

Everybody loves you, when you are four years of age.

Happy Birthday, girls.

Me and (My) Calvin

2009-06-14T19:49:00.000-07:00

The other night I went to a dinner party.

This is an epic concept, these days: I have not been to a real, bona fide party with dinner and drinks and seating in ages. The party was thrown by my fashion designer/yoga friend, Calvin.

Calvin's dinner party deserves a blog posting, as it exhibited a slice of the New York microcosm that everybody seems to be part of at some point in New York City.

There was the metrosexual Brit investment banker who texted mysteriously underneath the table, as his date pretended not to notice; the amusing make-up artist angsting over her 29-year-old shriveling ovaries and lack of suitable romantic prospects: no one is as hot or dysfunctional as her hot, dysfunctional British ex-photographer, kilt-wearing ex-boyfriend --

she asked me to close my eyes: "Yeah, they're real - your eyelids - you know Korean women get their lids done, right?"

There was the vamp fag-hag favorite-amongst-the-gays with the low-low cut maxi dress - a direct Gauguin image - in contrast with the forties law firm founder stand-by fag-hag who insisted that she was happy-happy to be single/childless despite the fact that her face fell several inches towards bottom-sinking depression over the course of the evening.

There was the requisite gay, side-kick, just-friend in his high-forties, sporting his own version of hipster, complete with faux-hawk and Gen-Y t-shirt...and then, there was me, the newcomer, the yoga friend and mom of two, who was displaced but tolerable as I am fashionable.

For the most part, I like parties; I like the mix of high and low, the element of anticipation, the quiet spy moments in corners when hopefully, nobody notices... I come out of my surly habit in the presence of interesting people, a good bottle of wine, a glass or four of champagne and some palatable cuisine. Calvin is Vietnamese and he casually cooked about six delectable (he started cooking when I arrived) "basic" Vietnamese dishes for us all to nosh on. The table was beautifully set and the seating, inconspicuously contrived.

One of the main reasons Calvin quickly grew on me, was because he carries the pretensions of "sophistication" very well. He plays the game: everything is no big deal and casual. There is not a hint of eagerness or self-deprecation or egoiste about anything that he does - I don't think he's a liar, I think the spiel is genuine: he makes no apologies and there are no second thoughts. Calvin is casually, fabulously, Calvin. Notes of casual: his homes, his boutiques, his obligatory celebrity dinners; his advanced yoga practice as a beginner: all of it, casual: "No-body dress-up in New York at night; only Jersey people do (that)...you always tell who no New York...people here, casual, re-lax."

That's right: glamor is never glamorous if it (gasp) requires any effort...

1+1 = 2

2009-06-01T07:08:00.000-07:00

Generally speaking, we New Yorkers move fast and romantically-speaking, we move-in (together) fast. I think it's just a simple economics-thing. We're not especially needy here, or at least we women aren't before our high-forties; when that inevitably happens, one must be single and childless in order to get to the classic needy status: then, things begin to get a little bit hairy.

Miss Independent, Miss Take-the-Road-Less-Traveled (me) met my husband at age twenty eight: way before any notion of menopause and way before I ever had the chance to get ripe, much less, hairy-classic-needy. I was pretty relaxed: quite frankly, I have gone on more one-time-only-dates in this city than a person should care to admit to. At the time, I was a workaholic for a fashion company that was definitely not improving me or the world: I was not saving lives, I was not stopping world hunger, and I was not saving anything for myself, as I was not properly compensated or even appreciated. Nonetheless, I was going out, all of the time, skimming the surface of life, and enjoying the iconic and other underground aspects of The City in ways only the carefree can. I was pretty happy. And I had no idea that Don (my husband) was going to be a "be all, end all" character in my play on Life. Personally, I could have cared less.

In a freak anomaly and great contrast to my character, Don and I moved in together...after the third date. After three months, we were engaged. In five years, we have had the opportunity to spend 1,825 nights together. We have spent a total of 8 apart. In the beginning, that's a lot of sex; in the middle -with twins - that's a lot of interrupted sleep patterns and now, it's Life.

In the beginning of our cohabitation and certainly in the beginning of our marriage, there was all sorts of basic craziness and adjustment issues: I am surprised that both of us are still standing after all the shoot-'em-up fights we had. People who have come to blows, you have nothing on us: my husband and I have come to BOMBS. We have survived a fast-forward existence together - with twins - and all of the unparalleled stress and mismanagement that one could possibly afford. Amazingly, all of our bumps are now basic and household related: Pick up your socks, don't f*ck up my folding in the linen closet when you get a towel, and clean out the sink drain stopper before you go to bed. Banal-banal, boring-boring, tedious, nagging, crap. But, it exists as we do: we are the odd couple. I am the instinct-driven writer, he is the ever-logical lawyer. I am gauze, he is sediment. I grew up in a house with covered furniture, dusted plant leaves and glass-shiny floors that you could safely eat off of; I used my pants as hand towels: Mom didn't want kid-grime on her good bathroom linens.

My husband lived in a hurricane house. Everything, everywhere. Shockingly-mockingly, hand towels were used for dirty hands and used and used and used before they were ever washed. Nothing was precious, everything, practical and yes, things were organized, as in Organized Chaos. Anyway, put the two breeds of us together, and you end up with a dachshund body and wolf hound legs. It's not always a go. As we look into compatible housing with the New York public school system, I have a recurring light bulb moment:

WHY DON'T WE BUY TWO ONE-BEDROOM APARTMENTS ACROSS FROM ONE ANOTHER?

I really mean it. I LOVE MY HUSBAND. I just want to divorce his living habits. Me and my habits are a perfect match for Don, however, our living habits together are not matchy-matchy: Don likes having a live-in, dust-buster-maid that cooks well and smothers his children with love. Don't get me wrong - I have a fairly good gig here - but, I'm not - not - sweet on the maid bit. We've had cleaning ladies. They don't help. They shrink my jeans, dry my bras on high heat and have permanent, deafening wax in their ears, as they do not seem to hear the words: "NO bras in dryer", nick the legs of my furniture with the vacuum, take almost a hundred of my bucks a week, and yet, they are never available at 1 a.m. when I blow a gasket over a mound of raisins spilled under the couch: my husband is an exterminator's nightmare and a roach's romantic fantasy.

I don't need a maid...I need a self-clone robot.

I need my own apartment, so that my husband can:

Strew his stuff about EVERYWHERE! ANYWHERE!
Watch baseball 24-7
Listen to The Grateful Dead, 24-7
Cook his smelly eggs and toot his smelly farts...24-7
Let his dirty socks pile up and up and up
Un-fold-fold ANYWAY he likes

Ah, I can just imagine: The girls would dart across the hall and back to Mommy's-to-Daddy's-to-Mommy's; every night could be date night - how novel, how exciting:

"My place or yours?"

I think this is a fantasy, or better yet, a description of an ultra-amicable divorce: a fantasy.

My mother-in-law, once-widow, once told me:

"Appreciate it all. In the end, you won't remember all of the dirty socks."

Good Bums and Bad

2009-05-26T15:23:00.000-07:00

Living in New York City, bums are a given sight; some of them, neighborhood regulars. We live on Central Park West, but, we live across a project conglomerate. There is a skuzzy Rite Aid, a few questionable bodegas, several musty supermarket delis, and a weird hole-in-the-wall art gallery, all of which sprinkled with vagrants. Contrarily, there is a chi-chi Whole Foods going up across the street and there are several (vacant) gazillion dollar apartments going up all around us. This is New York.

My favorite neighborhood bum looks like a cowboy who only has muddy stream access for hygiene and she sleeps, begs and eats right outside of the skuzzy Rite Aid. Cigarettes always dangle from her brown, rotting teeth and she faintly smells in the hot summer heat. She is over six feet tall with a crooked mullet, speaks with an indistinguishable impediment and I think she may be lesbian: she patrols the grounds of our apartment building as she regularly and admiringly yells up to a female neighbor on the north side of our building, unknown, several floors up. I have seen her for four years in the shadows, peering up and up. I don't know her name, and it's sort of creepy to see her patrolling around in the darkness, but she has some rather impeccable bum manners. Despite her hoarse-tomcat-screeching to parked-at-light vehicles, "Spare chaaaaaage?", she never asks any of us in the neighborhood for a dime, regardless if we have or have not given; cowboy/girl bum has better manners than any telemarketer or collegiate Green Peace street peddler that I have ever come across. I have guiltily handed her embarrassing Rite Aid impulse purchases: caramel Nibs for her already-rotting no-teeth, half-full bottles of water, but I have mostly given her my dollar bills and the contents of my change purse: it's all I can do and it's never enough and she doesn't discriminate; the Nibs were as appreciated as the five dollar bill. Others around here see her appeal: I've seen her holding neighborhood dogs (while their owners are inside, buying her lunch), she smiles benevolently and hideously at our children. Cowboy is a bum. Cowboy is a person; I might even say, a good person.

The exact opposite of her, is a disabled, African-American lady who wears a filthy, once-khaki Obama hat. She hates all races, except of course, her own. I call her, Oh-Bomb-Oh. She is a Turret's Syndrome, racist, horrid bitch-bum who has slurred indecipherable hate at my daughters since they were two years old; I see her not-as-regularly as Cowboy, but she is always lurking, fearless, and maniacal, as she accosts people at eye-level with her racial slurs and angry rants in the middle of the cross-walk, in the middle of traffic. Oh-Bomb-Oh has a thing against Asian and Caucasian women, or perhaps, those are the ones that she is not afraid to violently pick on. Anyway, most people recognize that she is obviously impaired and incoherent, but they do not know what I do: Oh-Bomb-Oh is entirely in control of her faculties. Like Cowboy, Oh-Bomb-Oh is a person, a bad person. Sooner or later, bad things happen to bad people. This is called, karma.

I was leaving Rite Aid, sans kids and Oh-Bomb-Oh was entering in, gingerly, with her disability and with the rain. She paused as she saw me and a somewhat-lucid, ironic smile spread across her face; she recognized me. But instead of calling me a "chink", "gook", "Philippino-bitch", or "Chinese-slut-bitch", she was silent; she needed my help with the door and possessed enough manipulative skills to know that calling me those names wasn't going to get her lumbering, fat, handicapped ass into Rite Aid. I smiled back - I really did. And then, I did the the right thing to do:

I slammed the door shut in her face and walked out to the street, quickly. I could hear her screaming behind me. The rain began to pour. Justice was thrilling.

Pilates 101

2009-04-05T16:38:00.000-07:00

Joseph Pilates

People let out their demons, "exorcising" them at the gym. It's a place of vanity, insecurity, intimacy, and insanity. People have their varying reasons for being weird at the gym: exercising is exorcising.

At my gym, there are always a trickle of males in the female-predominant Pilates classes. This isn't sexist, as Joseph Pilates, Pilates founder, had a penis; this is a result of marketing: What typical red-blooded male is going to listen to Daisy Fuentes Pilates infomercial testimonials ("Pilates transformed my body") and then, run out to buy her DVDs and then, run to a gym Pilates class in vain effort?

?

Well, I know of a creepy, old, and red-haired man who likes Pilates - and if not for his lack of proper underwear and leper-like Psoriasis patches, he would go unnoticed. The moment of disgusted indignation came when he was doing cat/cow stretches on his mat with his splotchy, itching balls 'a swingin' out of his L.L. Bean swim trunks in front of my face.

I began to openly scowl, hiss, and sigh very loudly with the hope that either he would turn around so I could run my mouth off, or more diplomatically, that his wife would hear my racket and be mortified when she looked over to see that half of the gym was looking up her husband's shorts in terror. None of these things happened.

So, I threw up in my mouth, and trooper that I am, deepened my breath and went on to do my hundreds arm splashy things. I am proud of myself; if this not restraint, I do not know what is.

(Wear underwear to a Pilates mat class! And if you have white, patchy things on your legs, please wear pants, too.)

Minnie-portal

2009-03-30T18:16:00.000-07:00

For as long as I can remember I wanted to be a resident New Yorker. I'd like to think I have always been one in spirit. When the opportunity to live in New York, or lack of opportunities - I came here with nothing but my boxes - dangled golden carrots, I rabidly gobbled them up. I dotted all of my stray "i"s and "t"s, tied up my loose strings and jumped the mother ship: "Bye-bye, Minneapolis." The process of swimming to Manhattan's shore and establishing respectable roots has been anything but easy, but after almost a decade, the foundation of my life is laid and here I am: resident New Yorker. Even better, ever-gratefully, I am able to be a writer - a major reason for living and relocating - in New York.

When I left the mini apple, Minneapolis, I braced myself for many worst case scenarios, however, my instinct told me that regardless of the outcome or sacrifice, the move was something that I needed to accomplish.

And it wasn't so easy to leave. I saw many brazenly do so only to come back as the proverbial dog with a tucked tail; it's not so easy to be reduced to small fish prey in the panoramic ocean. Luckily for me, it's never been so much about ego, as it is about adventure, so the peon-thing never demoralized me. You see, my first love, young adulthood, the party of all parties, was winding down: the lights were flicking on and the buzz, rickety-rickety...the wonderful music that none of us ever foresees ending, was beginning to do just that.

It was time to go.

When I finally left, Minneapolis would remain the place that my mind always went back to when things in New York weren't meeting my expectations, so after two children, one husband, and five years, it was time to go back. Of course, I knew that I would visit friends and family on occasion, but (on my last trip) I went back with the intent to re-live the past, if just for a weekend. That was the first red flag. The second? I departed on Friday, February the 13th. I should have known. My flight was delayed three hours and I grumpily arrived in the bitter cold (one does forget how bitter north-north winters really are) to find that all of the scant cab drivers are Somalians, as most people there, in the service industry, are, which I found to be racist and backward. Unfortunately, the cab drivers are also entirely incompetent, cavalier speeders on icy highways with no clear sense of direction, which does not help their cause for advancement.

Minneapolis has changed and so have I. The only problem is that Minneapolis isn't supposed to change.

I was supposed to be impressed by the expensive hip-hot-modern-cool Chambers hotel, whose New York version in the West Fifties is way too touristy and sterile to be appreciated in the same context in New York. I was supposed to ooh and ahh over the new fancy Foshay Tower digs of the former dive, Key's Cafe, whose former cramped, smoke-hash-browns-coffee-smelling hole-in-the-wall on Nicollet Mall was much better appreciated with better tasting food. Same thing goes for the Uptown Diner, unrecognizable as a strip mall island w/parking on Lyndale Avenue with strip mall quality food to boot: what the hell happened to the rock and roll grunge hang-out that everyone would barrage, early morning/late afternoon? Finally, gone was the iconic Marshall Field's department store where I found fabulous, under-the-radar, under-appreciated Chanel and Missoni mark-downs. In its place: a floundering, depressing, disarray of a mediocre Macy's.

To sum up my assessment of the once eclectic and interesting downtown Minneapolis, it's now a massive Target store: brand-spanking-new, vacant, and void of any character or characters. The key haunts of my freedom days: The Lounge, Nikki's Bar, free Happy Hour gourmet sushi at the Metropolitan Club, First Avenue DJs and Danceteria nights, immortally fabulous adventures with my gay best friend cum stranger...now gone, restructured, or under new ownership.

Of course, I can only see the world through my own eyes, but it's always a valiant effort to see it as someone else. I can see me in my former city, a scowling and impatient visitor from New York: intolerant by anything not razor sharp or record fast, livid by the lack of of cabs and concise answers...looking straight through Midwestern nice and curiosity with irritation or indifference. Me, the New York, so-called stuck-up bitch: bored to the point of exhaustion with the mass-market stores, so-homogeneous-it-must-be-incest couples, and lack of industry and variety. I see me: a cranky shadow in head-to-toe neutrals, reeling within all of the Midwestern accents.

A person ca usually get what they wish for in literal or ironic ways: I am a New Yorker; my home, the Midwest, is no longer. This sinks in...

It's alright: "home" never really was.

Rude-a-toot-toot

2009-02-05T16:34:00.000-08:00

I remember sitting next to my mother in silent dread, as she drove me to some activity camp/after-school Korean cultural type of thing. I was roughly nine, as I do know that definitely, I was in the fourth grade. I was anxious and beside myself with agony as I had done the unthinkable that day in school: I farted. The entire class erupted in panic and laughter.

Beet-red-faced, I then had the audacity to lie and blame my odious crime on Tim Jacobson, the smelly, curly-haired, long-long-faced "Bert" string-bean kid who lived in the big, square "salt box" house on my bus route. I sat behind Tim on the bus ride home on many unfortunate occasions, which is why the elementary school bus is synonymous with a poop smell in my brain. Everybody in the school knew that Tim Jacobson farted several times a day and most-likely did not give a damn that he did, or had some brain damage, as he always gave the same just-woke-up slow-blink stare when anyone confronted him about his stinky activities. Needless to say, poor Tim was the BUTT of everybody's joke: his uniform pants were too short for his long, super-skinny, in-turned legs, he was a bit slow on the mark, and he smelled faintly of a dirty diaper. For reasons exceeding flatulence, Tim was not one of the cool kids. Nonetheless, I was a bully to use him as my scapegoat. (Sorry Tim!)

"He did NAWWWT, Sami!" growled Stephanie, the classroom loud-mouth bruiser who had enormous almond eyes, huge goldfish lips and a voice that was at least four times bigger than her short, pug-like frame. Stephanie sat right in front of Tim and she was right, as she always liked to be: it was "NAWWWT" Tim who farted.

"Turn aroun-duh, STEFF!", I hissed back. Thanks to the teacher's prompting, the whole class begrudgingly went back to their math worksheets, however, I could sense the buzz going around the classroom: WHO farted???

At that moment, the world stopped. I felt doom, despair and the leaden weight of anxiety. How uncouth. How terrible. I committed a natural bodily function, ALOUD!

This all happened in 1985 and "Everybody Poops" was not in print. And nurturing, New Age, "let-the-child-lead" parents were not on every street corner or driving every station wagon. Farting aloud was considered to be inappropriate for a well-mannered little girl. And I was mortified. And the whole thing was so damn funny.

Well, Mom being the enigmatic person she is, can come at you from a few different angles depending on her mood; I was preparing myself to be berated and to have just about the worst end to the worst day ever, but instead, I just remember her zoning out straight ahead behind the wheel; she was probably bored to tears, maybe even tipsy? After a few suspenseful seconds, she mumbled:

"Well, I don't think that anybody is going to give a rip about it tomorrow." Classic zinger if there ever was.

a) People fart.
b) People laugh about it.
c) Sh*t happens.

A Pause for President Obama

2009-01-20T18:46:00.000-08:00

Today is Inauguration Day!

President Obama made my cry five times in his 19:07 speech after swearing in; unfortunately, I watched his speech this evening via the Internet, after my children were tucked into their beds, as I am a goof and forgot all about THE most important televised news event of this year and possibly, this century. How could a person not cry? I mean, everything from the clips of the Kenyans watching in dusk light, to Obama's own personal account of his journey:

"This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed—why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath..."

Our sincere and brave president asks us to not operate on fear, however, I must restrain my pounding-outta-my-chest hope with caution, as we all cannot avoid seeing the bold patterns that Hate and Fear have weaved: Lincoln, Dr. King, the Kennedy's: John and Robert...visionaries, revolutionaries ahead of their times and martyrs for their causes of a greater good. The camera shot of Obama speaking from above and behind sent me chills. I saw our president for who he is: a tall, skinny man standing in the open air, surrounded by two million people...infinitely vulnerable. If there is a God, please, "God bless" this man and grant him adequate security...all it would take is one sniper at the right given moment...

I believe that this man will change the world and not with his astounding brilliance, prophetic eloquence, other-era elegance, staggering Big Picture visions...

President Obama is the perennial good guy: the sheriff wearing the white hat on the white horse, the guardian on duty at sunrise, sunset; the one you want on watch...and today, the entire world took a pause, together, looking at what he considers to be the horizon; the future.

Fruit

2009-01-19T18:10:00.000-08:00

I remember my first account of a gay person in childhood: it was Richard Simmons, effeminate clown-head, world-famous exercise guru. I asked my mother at the ripe old age of six,

"Mommy! Why does Richard talk in such a high voice?"

My mother, a meticulously proper woman (who I could usually fluster easily), quite breezily replied,

"Sweetie. Richard Simmons is a fruit."

She either went back to folding the clothes expertly, or resumed rolling her perfectly-rolled crescent rolls: two (of many) tasks synonymous with my childhood memories of Mom. Either way, my mother went on with her day without missing a beat. Meanwhile, I remember, yes, I really do, sitting after our exchange, utterly baffled amidst my paper dolls at the kitchen table:

Just what exactly is a man-fruit?

To complicate an already complicated matter in the complicated world of a rather complex child in the Midwestern eighties, my father also used the term fruit, this time, referring to the musician, Little Richard:

"But, Dad! Why does he YELL and get so excited and wear all of that make-up and -"

"Well, Sami, Little Richard is a...fruit."

Hmmm. This was coming from a man who called Charo a "pig" and Janet Jackson a "fox", which was utterly maddening to a literal-minded kid in the first grade.

Speaking of fruit: Apples don't fall too far from the trees that they bloom from; my own daughter, Olive, has asked on several occasions after seeing unfeminine looking (most-likely lesbian) women, "Mum-ah is dat a man oh a lady?" Conversely, after seeing effeminate (most-likely gay) men, I have heard from both of my children:

"Mum-ah, why does dat lady have a bee-yerd?"

I just simply say:

"Well, Olive, (or 'Well, Iris') I don't know." Because really, we just don't always know.

Recently, at the New York Sports Club, I muscled my way through the cardiovascular equipment; January often brings about all of the out-of-shape New-Year's-Resolution-folk, as they fervently try to make good on their ill-fated promises. Huffing through the more-than-usual concentration of body odor and stale breath in the air, I noticed a few other regulars who have the whole lifestyle fitness thing going: a group of nondescript, yet muscular and fit "guys' guys" who are always in the weight room.

As I made my way through the weight training machines, I noticed that one sort-of good-looking guy was zoning out on the chest press machine. We sat right across from one another (I was on the dreaded quad machine); I thought (?!) he was staring at me.

Now, mind you, hogging exercise machines due to zoning out, fatigue, or what-have-you, is one of my ultimate pet peeves, but, this guy was sort of cute and uh, hey! Woo-hoo! The dude was (maybe?) checking me out, man! It's funny: people at the gym master the corner-eye-check-out technique, so it really is hard to tell who is doing what and what is looking at who. Anyway, I shouldn't care: I am married, not dead, but, married.

Meanwhile, an annoying narcissistic tendency shot up her hand in my brain, "Ding! Ding!" which in turn, translated to my brain's messengers, "Aha: all of those gym hours have paid off. Looking good, Sister!"

Well, flattery will get you anywhere, but not always for the long haul. As I proceeded to do my weight-bar dead lifts (Omygawd! He's following me!) where one sticks out one's butt and bends over repeatedly, Slacker Man didn't miss a beat. In my ego-ridden brain: Sheesh! I hope he doesn't hit on me, I hate the whole married/kids spiel... but alas, too late! He sidled right over...to the blonde, Captain America pretty man doing squats next door,

"So, uh, what's the secret to having great delts?" Verbatim. I kid you not.

Captain America blushed, "Well, I uh, did football and stuff in high school, but, here I'll show you...this is more of a finishing set, but first, you can..." Are you kidding me? Slacker Man has friggin' beer cans in his shoulders...what the -

You get the picture.

After Slacker got his tutorial, his eyes followed Captain America across the gym: sort of like a Rottweiler hopelessly tied up and whining, as the German Shepard runs past, free and mangy with a juicy bone in mouth...

I'll never forget my incredulous disbelief, upon learning long ago that a tomato was indeed, a fruit:

"Well, yes, dear...anything that has seeds is a fruit. See! Some things you just cannot be sure of, so you really just have to..."

Check...'yo self, before you wreck 'yo self.

Love Sees None

2008-12-17T11:01:00.000-08:00

Bruce Lee fight scene, Enter the Dragon

"Mum-ah?"

"Mum-ahhh!"

I hear "Mum-ah" no less than one hundred times in an eight-hour period. Swear.

"Yes, Iris?"

"Is dat man Chinese?"

"Dat man" is the delivery man I just paid from the Chinese restaurant. "Well, uh, yes... Why?"

Scowling, dark eyes flat: "I! Don't! Like! CHINESE Pee-Pulls. No."

My daughter, one of two (both are three-and-a-half, half-Korean) "Don't! Like!" Chinese people. Her sister is a bit more tolerant, but not too fond, either.

Why?

"They look funny."
"They not nice." Uh-oh.

This little phase of pot-coloring-kettle-black (we are Asian!) bigotry is completely organic. I, pretty much, am Korean and my husband is a Heinz-57 of Europe with a distinct and deceptively-ethnic Spanish surname. Our best friends are collectively gay, Jewish, black, Cuban, Asian (including CHINESE), blonde, or a great mixture. We ain't prejudice, hee-ah. Our children: long-limbed and sturdy with upturned profiles from their Germanic heritage, yet angular-featured and sorta-dark (courtesy of me), are a complete melting pot.

I was of course, mouth-wide-open stunned and barbed on a personal level: my kids not liking Chinese folks logically, meant that my kids didn't like me, as I am Chinese-like, I am Korean. This feared realization left me in a less-far-away-than-I-thought place of paramount vulnerability. I remember my incredulous and pained laughter when my daughters pointed to my Kindergarten Halloween picture:

"Mum-ah, dat girl CHINESE!"

That's Mama.

"Noooooo!!!" Tears, T-E-A-R-S, follow...

There was also my calm and measured "Okay, um-hmmm" when my other daughter, Olive, insisted that she only looks like her Daddy and nothing like me - ouch! Forget race: uh, ugly?

Ever-dysfunction-ally, I ask:

"Do you like Mama? Mamma is Korean - and - YOU are half-Korean."

I was bracing for a howl and in truth, was self-satisfied plotting, Dr. Evil-like: "These little brats WILL like who they are...Y-E-S, they will..."

Instead:

Iris, breaking into a chubby-round, gap-toothed pumpkin smile,
"Oh, Vuvey-Dovey!!! (my nickname)
I vuv you!!!
I vuv-your-face-I-vuv-your-Kowean-I haff-Kowean!!!"

This moment, sublime: her sweaty, squat starfish hands claw all over my face.

Throughout all of the puke, poop, slobber, and tantrums, these are the moments that make a parent speechless and entirely grateful.

Mexicans

2008-12-12T11:49:00.000-08:00

An always-in-the-know woman that I know recently took the leap out of concrete and headed west to Los Angeles, which everyone who is anyone seems to be doing these days. Los Angeles: land of cars, beaches, smog, no-style style, relocated artists and mostly-homes, which often need help tending to. Los Angeles, the newly-anointed New York of living standard expenses. (Coherently so: the city is filled with transplant New Yorkers!) As with many places, L.A. people hire people to help them with the domestic tasks of manicuring their lawns. My friend, a then-L.A. homeowner, nonchalantly pointed out in our own mid-lawn care conversation:

"Everybody here just finds a Mexican to do it...
Whah-at? That's what people call them here..."

Me, on the other end of the line, cringe-cringe: "Oh..." It was the "a" and "Mexican" that made my lip curl up in embarrassment: she didn't mean that?

My friend's gaffe, an honest portrayal.

Certain folks in L.A. that are able to hire lawn help, want to do it cost-effectively, which is fine, and they hire a...Mexican innocently enough, as most - if not all - are "hate-free" without any urge of bigotry or malicious intent. And the literal term, Mexican is correct: a person of Mexico, but, it's the the implied "us" and "them" discrimination that just shows up without warning or invite that deserves scrutiny: we - US - pay them less and work them - THEM - more. Why? How?

Oh.
They are Mexican.
They could be anyone, but they must be less.

I remember in one of my all-time favorite movies, Giant, the main character, Bick Benedict (aka Rock Hudson) is up-in-arms and exasperated (!) by his modern-age, headstrong Yankee wife, Leslie (played by a still-beautiful Liz Taylor) who insists on fraternizing with the Mexican help on his sprawling Texas ranch; this movie was made in 1956.

Fast-forwarding through the movies, almost fifty years later, the attitude, shockingly similar. On a recent field trip to the movies with my kids, we saw Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Piper Perabo, so perfectly portraying the main character: a lazy, spoiled, vapid ingrate crowing ignorantly to the "gardener", a Hispanic hero/heartthrob character. You involuntarily kick your leg, or twitch-wince as you are forced to listen: "Oh-la! Oh-la! Can you like, get your dog...Ugh!" (She goes on with more of the same, as she struggles to speak valley girl Spanish.) Of course, she acquires an intellect and a soul, two-ish hours later and heartthrob turns out to be an educated architect/designer who has blue eyes, is light complected and looks like Entourage's Adrien Grenier: he ends up getting the date, after all. I doubt his fate would have been as gratuitous, a few skin shades darker and a few inches shorter and a few notches less on the good looks scale. Ode to Hollywood!

If you read the dismal reporting articles on migrant workers and their struggles to get here: living a cramped, exploitative existence, while evading all of the American workers who hate them for doing so, you get the sense of who these "Mexicans" are and how hellish and disgusting their struggle is to survive. Here. Whether you are for or against them being here, working jobs at wages most Americans would never consider doing, you have to feel something somewhere as a human with a heart. Let us dare to relate: it clearly sucks to be a migrant, or like worker; seen as a sub-person without a name, story, personality and without emotional well-being. It sucks being a person summed up in one sneer of an ethnic word - someone who is ignorant, happy and grateful to clean filthy toilets, pick up dead rats...used condoms off our streets...someone who walks blocks upon blocks in the rain to deliver a bagel for a coined tip, or someone whose professional glass ceiling is to clean or landscape a wealthier person's home. The rallied response: "Who cares? They don't belong here." The words, Illegal and Alien established this adopted consensus: Illegal is a crime and Alien is not human = criminals not a part of humanity...we treat them accordingly.

Our lives have become so efficient with such ease and at such an economical rate, that at some point, shouldn't we STOP to wonder,

"At what cost?"

Metro Diners

2008-12-05T06:49:00.000-08:00

A great way to experience the diversity of New York is to go to the most reputable diner in your neighborhood for lunch from twelve noon to about four pm. Anytime before or after is either tediously boring, or mildly depressing; who wants to see a bunch of drunks - clinical or social - trying to sop up their alcohol with hamburgers and ranch dressing? Or the early dinner self-same stroller brigades? No thanks. At lunch, you'll see the restaurants peppered with rich people "slumming" it, along with the real and slumming - mainly frugal old ladies and gents, eating the most expensive meal of their month. The old-school old New Yorkers and the old-money old New Yorkers: all together at the watering hole, for a tab under twenty dollars! The rest of us fill in all of the spaces with very little of the interesting.

I had the chance to spy on the future of the rich who "slum" yesterday, as my daughters and I became privy to some of their madness at the Metro Diner on 100th Street/Broadway via a table of private school "Gossip Girl" high schoolers. These were definitely the cool kids and they were a wannabe Motley Crew, only "Chicks and Blokes" Barney's style: Five boys (four Jonas Brother look-alikes with one dead-ringer for High School Musical 3 crooner, Corbin Bleu) and one odd-girl-out non-descript girl; most were strategically "downtown" sloppy in $250 designer jeans with rumpled cashmere over American Apparel T-shirts, topped off with that so-cool-so-Strokes $500 haircut. My mouth was watering: over french fries, or casual chic "school clothes", I am not sure. These kids were all under the age of sixteen, as I heard the loathsome distress of one particularly fetching boy settling for Mom's BMW - when he gets his license - and how "it wasn't fair that so-and-so would be driving his Dad's 'sick' Masserati" to school - in The City -

Incredulously, I think my targets were part of the middle tier of rich private school children: they were on the West Side and in the 100's - not a place of ostentatious cash. I saw no driver out front to pick them up, there was no upper-crust accent of any sort, and the labels, albeit expensive, were understated and mixed with plenty of "street". No, these were not Joe the Plumber's kids, as I overheard one Corbin Bleu boy calling Dad's driver for a ride home with Daddy from Wall Street, but I'm sure the kids in the mid-sixties on Park with live-in white glove service and designer last names are sneering. Anyway, I was happy to have the distracting "cover" of my messy, spaghetti-clad three year old preschoolers in front of me, as I indiscreetly salivated over nonchalant $2k "10-spots" among many other luxuries that us "commoners" with salaries under seven figures simply cannot afford:

"Dude, like, my tutor takes the same percentage rate per hour as those lawyers do. I think he probably makes just as much, too! HAHAHAHA!!!" (Hubby would be curious to know this, as he, undoubtedly, is one of "those lawyers"...)

Despite my repellent disgust/material envy, I found myself smirking as the boys compared notes of their mothers' "sniffing tests" after coming home late, confirming their worst suspicions of "boys being boys".

What I heard next, was completely in its own category:

Corbin Bleu boy was loudly telling all of his friends while gesturing to his girlfriend (?), "Yeah, she was so mad that I put her head on my DICK!!!" (Simulates pulling her head on top of his penis.)

Lots of loud laughter erupted between all of the boys, while the girlfriend (?) just sat there, smiling quietly, listening as a bystander and not as the derogatory subject. The bay of mommies-with-babies around me averted their eyes and tuned out the conversation, happy that their precious little ones could not walk or talk yet. Me, the writer-spy that I am, moved in for the kill, ears-wise, thinking: "I gotta get to the bottom of this", as I maintained my cover of harmless, deaf-and-blind-to-the-world-outside-of-my-babies "Mommy".

The conversation went around and around about their fabled penis sizes, sexual bravado and brushes with drugs - I became fascinated by the skill-level of this little liars club: confidently competing in their bull-shit contest about so-called, late-night smack conquests uptown. (I swear: the kid said "heroin"!) "Plain Quiet Girl" (and no one else) looked back absently toward my table in a small reality check of self-consciousness. I was openly staring at this point. I wanted to smile a "I'm old enough for you to care, Missy" steely smile, however, she turned before I had the chance.

Suddenly, I heard the distinctive squeak of entitlement: "WAITER! W-A-I-T-E-R! Check, please." (Phew) The restaurant staff looked on with curiosity and resentment at children who expectantly see them as having no purpose, but to serve them.