32

The day I turn 32, I take a self-portrait then weave my arms through my t-shirt of David Bowie’s mugshot and into a jacket that looks like I skinned Elmo. It is a Tuesday, Election Day, and I have resolved to spend the day as I wish, which thus far includes bundling myself up tight and heading downtown on the ferry. On the top deck, I tie my hair up so it doesn’t become one giant knot and the wind courses over my ears. I should probably have a hat, but I don’t. Exiting at Stuyvesant Cove, I trot in my black leather boots over to B&H for a grilled cheese and tomato soup and coffee. I know I’m one year older; it's nice it's not something that makes this day any different for any strangers walking past me.

I sit and read Charlie LeDuff’s Work and Other Sins, his collection of writing from The New York Times, in Washington Square Park. Youths skateboard and an old man sits on the bench next to me reading the newspaper. My hands and my nose protest that it’s slightly too cold for this, but I persist as I read a story about a pimp trying to make it in New York City after great success in Boston. When my hands and nose give up, I amble over to Mercer Street Books to buy myself a birthday present. Despite over 10 years in the city at this point, I hadn’t been there before Steven Jude took me there on a warm day this past summer. I had already bought too many books that day, and in trying to decide between Anais Nin and Sherrill Tippins and Frank O’Hara, I ultimately decided to leave them all on the shelf. But today, peering amongst the stacks while fielding birthday messages, my birthday present takes the shape of David Rakoff’s essay collection Half Empty, and I look forward to consuming his intellectual snark after I finish...yet another book I probably didn’t need to buy.

As the clock ticks ever nearer to 4pm, I make my way to Cafe Reggio to meet Meena, a new friend I met at an art gallery a few weeks ago. It is nice to know that even after a decade, there are still more good, interesting humans to include in my life, that I haven’t a threshold of friendships, even though it’s something DJ Khaled might prefer. Meena wants to take me for birthday “tea and cakes,” she says because she is British. We sit in the nearly 100-year-old cafe on MacDougal Street that’s normally crawling with tourists but today is merely a venue for working or meeting New Yorkers. There is an eclair and a croissant and blackberry tea and talk of politics, music, food before we cross over to Thompson Street.

“Do you want to play chess?” Meena says, and what a question! I don’t think it’s something someone’s asked me since middle school and, delighted by the novelty, I say yes. We go to Ches Forum. I have not played in years and my minimal skill is evident. As I remember the game minimal confidence erringly grows to hubris that correctly shrinks down again in fits of laughter. The music in the background is classical and “very chess-y,” Meena says, sort of intellectually crowded and complex in ways that make us laugh at both it and ourselves.

Walking down Bleecker Street later, bars with outdoor seating have propped up flat screen TVs so people can sit and watch the election results come in. It’s still early, a bit past 8pm, but my home county of Broward in South Florida, so far appears blue, which is a welcome change from years past. But of course I have already voted and it is my birthday, so I prefer to think about that instead.

I take myself to dinner at my new favorite spot, Kimika, on Kenmare Street. My plan is to indulge as much as I did for my birthday in Hawaii last year, to take care of myself and not worry about anyone else, a luxury I don't normally I afford myself. I remember the freedom in that, in just making myself happy, and that translates to dinner this evening. I don’t have to share, I don’t have to order anything I don’t want to order, I can eat as much of every dish as I want, and I don’t have to make clever conversation. All I have to do is enjoy the food, and I do indeed: their spicy shishito pepper margarita, olives in chili oil, figs with shiso and prosciutto, their signature rice cake lasagna with kimchi, various broccolis cooked in beef fat (!!!), apple crostata with melt-in-my-mouth pastry, and those miraculous, sinful, fabulously unholy mochi bomboloncini with warm nutella centers. Chef Christine Lau comes out and we do a birthday shot of tequila together because hers was the week before.

I leave with a feeling of having taken care of myself. This was a day I asked myself what I wanted to and my goodness did I answer with aplomb.

Miss Manhattan in Paris

I found out I was going to Paris nine days before I got on the plane. It was for work, to write about different aspects of the trip (more on this after the articles come out!), but I also ended up having a nice amount of time to myself to wander the city aimlessly, which is usually my favorite thing about traveling.


My first day there, we landed at about 9:30am, and my free time began shortly after that. I set my sights on a touristy option first, a visit to Shakespeare and Company on the Left Bank, and then resolved to amble about in hopes of not looking like an annoying American after that. Visiting the English language bookstore,  named similarly but not actually related to the one in New York, would cross another literary establishment off my list, right behind City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.

I resolved to take the Metro there, as it was a shorter trip than it would be from my house to Union Square, and huddled in front of the ticket vending machine, hoping I did not look like a tourist. But the line I used, Line 1, was very easy to understand, and I shoved my tiny Metro tickets into the entryway like a non-tourist (I hoped, anyway). Shakespeare and Company was a lovely space, with a practically ancient staircase, twisty, turny bookshelves, a piano, a designated bookstore cat, and spaces for their legendary Tumbleweeds to sleep.

I had asked HanOre if she wanted me to bring her back anything from Paris (she lived there for a semester while in college), and she had only one request: "I would like you to leisurely eat a fresh baguette, preferably in some garden or park, and have the time of your life." So, after Shakespeare and Co., I discovered by way of the website Paris By Mouth (recommended to me by another gal on the trip), that the baguette voted the best in the city in 2016 was a mere seven-minute walk away at a bakery called La Parisienne. I walked in and waited in line for one of their baguettes, asked in French for un baguette, s'il vous plait, and was answered in English. Well, I tried, at least. I got a traditional white baguette for about 1.2 euro, and wandered out of the store. It was a Monday when lots of things are closed, so unfortunately the nearby fromagerie was not available. I bit into the baguette and it crunched under my teeth in a way that no attempt at a baguette in America ever had. Its insides were fluffy but chewy and just a little bit eggy in flavor. It was nice to know what a baguette was really supposed to taste like.

I made my way past Notre Dame, crunching along as I went. It's funny, but at the time I forgot that the French actually sit and eat their meals in places like humans, not like Americans who want everything on the go. So I perhaps looked my most American as I crunched over the bridge past the famous cathedral and through Ile St. Louis. To my credit, there was a gentleman walking out of La Parisienne crunching on a baguette as he walked down the street when I got there...but hindsight is 20/20 and he may have been American, too. Le sigh.

I decided I was finished crunching my baguette as I found myself in front of the The Hôtel de Ville, which is not a hotel, but the Parisian city hall. If only New York's city hall could be such a feat of architecture, people might actually want to go. I was on my way to Kilo Shop, another recommendation by HanOre, where consigned and vintage clothes are sold by the pound. Miracle of miracles, I ended up with an '80s hot pink leather jacket for 16 a mere euro, a feat which would never, could never happen in New York.

Time before my evening engagement was winding down, I had a baguette in my purse, and a plastic bag filled with a leather jacket, so I made my way back from whence I came. Not before sitting and enjoying a latte as the French do...though if I'm honest, I was jonesing for a hot take-away beverage all day. They don't do those in France, silly American, unless you go to Starbucks, and j'ai patently refusé. Coming all the way across the Atlantic just to have Starbucks, can you imagine? My soul was crushed simply thinking about it.

*

The next time I had a moment to myself, I went to Jeu de Paume. Though 'jeu de paume' actually was a ball and court game that was a precursor to tennis, Jeu de Paume is a museum that's set up in a former 'jeu de paume' court outside of the Tuileries gardens. It's dedicated to modern and post-modern photography, video, and cinema work. While I was there, I was able to see the work of surrealist and documentarian Eli Lotar and video artist Peter Campus.

As I left the museum as the sun was setting, the Eiffel Tower and Roue de Paris in the distance. I stared and whipped out my camera, not worried for once about my tourist tendencies. I watched the blue sky fade to orange, then hopped back on the Metro.

Word.

"I don't know where I'm going!"

A girl is standing on Bedford Avenue next to a gentleman of some nature, her phone in front of her face. Her finger swipes down repeatedly on the screen as if trying to find herself on a map.

It was an interesting phrase to hear as I walked past them toward the L station from Greenpoint, as it perfectly summed up my day.

A big, if not arguably the biggest, part of my job is to pitch articles and photographs to various publications. Once they're accepted, I then get to write or photograph (or both) whatever topic I've submitted. The weeks where I have to do this, though, are often quite taxing. Not because coming up with ideas and sending emails is difficult, of course, but  because it can feel as if my ability to pay my rent and all of my bills rests within a single email to an editor or even a subject at a given time. It's stressful, spending sometimes literally hours on a website to understand their content only to have the ideas you've spent all this time on, sometimes days at a time, get unanimously rejected or not even acknowledged. This is the nature of the beast, of course, a thing that every writer deals with all the time. It's a life I chose and ultimately I'm happy to be living it and making a living doing it. But that doesn't mean that some days I don't want to kneel in front of my computer and pray to Moses or Jesus or RuPaul or whoever runs the universe for this pitch or that pitch to be accepted. Because often, if not most of the time, that is what I want to do and the sole fact that I am in a coffee shop surrounded by people with interesting tattoos and sneakers is often the primary reason I do not end up doing so. Please just let this go through, I think to myself instead. Please.

Today was one such day, in one such week. I spent hours agonizing over a food website to make sure my pitches were tuned in to what they might want, and ultimately I think I made some good decisions. I submitted them around 5pm, so I imagine/hope I'll see sometime later this week. I left the coffee shop once I finished this task to head to Word Bookstore in Greenpoint. The event tonight was "Ask Polly Live" where "Ask Polly" advice columnist Heather Havrilesky of New York Magazine's The Cut would be discussing her new book, a collection of her column entitled "How to Be a Person." Heather's column has developed a cult following, and soon the bookstore will be flooded with 20-something women all seeking their own interaction with Polly. Joining her would be two more very well-respected writers, Meghan Daum and Kate Bolick. I had even studied Meghan Daum's work in college, when a professor assigned her delightful essay "Music is My Bag" for a class. I was excited to be in a room with so many inspirational writers at once.

As is my MO, I arrived early, mostly to peek around at the bookstore--I lust after books in a way that most certainly lacks sanity; the Louisa May Alcott quote "She is too fond of books and it has addled her brain" always blares in the back of my mind whenever I enter a bookstore of any kind, and I am often left wondering to myself how to pick just one to take home. Shortly after perusing the stacks, I felt the back of my throat close up the way it does when it is trying to suppress water from spilling out of my eyes, my tongue springing to the roof of my mouth to hold my jaw closed. I was surrounded by ravishing cultural critiques, essays, and histories by celebrated authors, memoirs in hardcover by people perhaps a decade younger than me, anthologies I would have longed to contribute to bearing the names of writers I know on their covers. It was no different than any other trip to a bookstore, really, but today I internally prayed for an article about breakfast food to be accepted to a magazine. How was I supposed to go downstairs now and listen to these giants talk about writing? I felt an inch tall. I wanted to run out of the store, find a stoop to sit on, unhinge my tongue from the roof of my mouth and release saltwater down my face in fits and starts until I couldn't breathe. Breakfast food.

"I don't know where I'm going!" indeed.

But I knew I was just feeling sorry for myself, and I certainly wasn't going to turn around and go home after I had gone all the way to Greenpoint. "Suck it up," I thought to myself. "You will learn something and it is important for you to be here to listen to strong, smart women who once were where you are talk about writing."

And listen I did. To Heather Havrilesky's deliciously sharp, confident tongue that mirrors her worldly, tell-it-like-it-is "Ask Polly" column; to Meghan Daum's advice to celebrate one's comfort zone--but to go deep into it and not stay on the surface--because "the things that work are the things that feel authentic to you" and the trouble starts when you force it; to Kate Bolick's celebratory "courage of her eccentricities" and "This is the cake I bake!" a personal manifesto for self-acceptance encouraging those who don't like your cake to visit another bakery. They made me think about the writing I want to do and why I don't do more of it, about emotional truth in writing, about the steps I need to take to get where I want to go. They can seem like daunting steps, of course, but they are required if this is what I want.

I got the most hope, though, from a story Kate Bolick told about Heather Havrilesky, when she discussed one of the first columns Heather did something like 20 years ago. One of the first. 20 years ago. "Oh!" I thought to myself. "I have time!" It seems like a 'duh' point to say so, but of course nobody who has been at anything for 6 years has mastered it. In another 14 years if I don't have my shit together then we can worry. Maybe in 14 years, if I just keep doing what I'm doing but also make the changes I need to make, breakfast food and all, I will have a career like one of these women. The event ends and they are milling about, but I don't have the guts to say hello and I love your work and you inspire me like I normally would. I am unfortunately still hearing breakfast food in the back of my head, simultaneously feeling dwarfed by their accomplishments and knowing how far I still have to go, while trying to think, based on their advice, how to grow next.

I go to leave the bookstore and by the door is Heather, who is signing books for a long line of young women. They say things to her like "You changed my life," and "You saved me," and she smiles a true, genuine smile to each of them and says thank you. I press the door open and her eyes meet mine. I have noticeably not been in the line of the tiny bookstore to come face to face with her before now. "Thank you for coming!" she says. I can only manage a nod and a half-smile before exiting, but I think, thank you.

I walk past McCarren Park, chasing twilight as the sky quickly turns from lavender to heliotrope to navy back to the train, when I walk past the girl whose face is in her phone. "I don't know where I'm going!"

Me either, I think. But I think that's okay.

A Few Notes on Public Masturbation

Like albino animals of all sorts and a man who genuinely “just wants to cuddle,” there may be some things in life you understand happen but have never actually seen.

Until a random Thursday evening when you decide to sit in a corner of a bookstore and notice, after sitting for a bit perusing your stack of books, that a man is jerking off to the sight of you.

You may gasp in surprise, have the urge to laugh incredulously and nervously (“Oh my God, that actually just happened!”), feel wildly violated, or be filled with violent rage (“NOBODY is allowed to expose themselves to me without my express permission!”). Or perhaps, if you are addled with naiveté and shocked at such a sight, all four at once will occur, manifesting themselves in puddles of saltwater collecting in and around your eyeballs. Artfully applied eyeliner and mascara will run down your cheeks and collect on tissues provided by kind store clerks. But, as you will soon find out, this is a common course of events in New York.

Your friend will say, “Yeah, a guy did that to me in Central Park once. Another time I saw a guy doing it in front of a girl on the subway and when I turned to warn her, he ran off the train.”

Your mother, from New York originally, will tell you the story of a flasher on the playground when she was 9 or 10.

Your father, also from New York, will say “Welcome to the club.”

You will, however, know none of this as you chain smoke outside the bookstore with the very friendly female clerks that have decided to comfort you as you wait for the cops to arrive. When the store manager asks if there’s anything he can do for you, you will fight the urge to say, “Uh, free books for life?” but instead say, no, nothing, thank you. The store manager tells you that, though the cops will come and search the store, it may very well be an instance of “Oh, Charlie’s at it again,” or some such phrasing that notifies you this is not an uncommon occurrence. Apparently, especially, in sections of the store including but not limited to Human Sexuality, Erotica, and Crafts (as in “Arts and”).

So, being flashed or masturbated to in a public setting is a rite of passage of sorts in New York—as if all the positive things that also happen to indicate your New Yorker-dom (seeing Woody Allen around town, finding your way home in a drunken haze from a borough not your own, knowing where to catch cabs during shift change) mean nothing if they are not also punctuated by the unpleasant ones. Though you may have already decided to use the “New Yorker” phrase to describe yourself, this is a moment that will test you. Now that you’ve been here for two years—entry-level New Yorker-dom, one might say—do you now have what it takes to live and occupy the same city as not just brilliant artists but sick, sick bastards? How will you react? What will you learn from this experience? How will you react next time if, and dear God you hope not, there is a next time?

Mindfulness is key, of course. But so is the ability to keep your shit together and simply get up and say, “Oh, get a room, asshole.” Lesson learned. Next level New Yorker-dom achieved.