She's Writing a Novel

Before I moved to Philadelphia, my only experience with taxis was watching them on TV shows.

These shows always took place in Manhattan, and it seemed that no one could ever catch a cab. Taxis were forever passing people by, or, if one happened to stop, they had to fight over it with the guy next to them. People never fought over Furbies or Molest-Me Elmos the way they fought over taxis. Starving people would be more civilized fighting over bread than these white-collared guys and stiletto-heeled chicks were fighting over cabs. Yes, to my suburban eye it looked like a very cutthroat operation, getting a taxi. Some episodes made me wonder which was the more elusive, coveted, and scarce resource on the island -- a cab on a Friday night or an apartment on a budget.

(I also wondered who these people were that had to rely on taxis -- they were obviously too good for subways, but not good enough to have their own chauffeured town cars. Semi-important, sorta lazy, and kinda rich?)

The cab drivers were the providers of immediate gratification when it came to transportation, and everyone wanted a piece of them. They were the power brokers of point A to point B, and the pedestrian population was helpless before their whims.

Well, things are a little different in Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia, people don't fight over taxis. The taxis fight over you. Yes, that's right. The supply and demand curve is perfectly inverted down here in the sixth borough, with many more foreigners driving taxis wishing to take people places than there are people wanting to go somewhere in taxis. Mostly this is because downtown Philadelphia is tiny. You can walk from one end of center city to the other in about 30 minutes. For the most part, you live, work, and go out all in the same small circumference, and it feels silly to cab it 10 or 15 blocks. The pedestrians are many and those who proclaim "I'm cabbing it" are few; therefore, the cab drivers must try to recruit passengers from among the pedestrians.

Cabbies slow down next to potential fares and tap their horn lightly. Two gentle taps that say "Hello, hop in!" Potential fares in Philadelphia are people carrying bags, people who are walking without an umbrella on a rainy day, young professional girls who are walking alone, and well-dressed couples out on dates (as long as all of the above are Caucasian).

In my time living in this city, I have not just been pursued by empty cabs; I've been stalked by them. Most cabbies slow down as they pass you and "beep-beep?" a polite query. If you don't jump up after them, they quickly speed off again and leave you in peace. However, there have been those cabbies who would slow up behind me (you know, the way kidnappers, murderers, and ne'er-do-wells do in the movies) and BEEP-BEEP at me. And as long as I refused to acknowledge them, they would continue to creep along beside me as I walked and BEEP-BEEP at me. It's like they think if they can just wear me down enough, I'll finally decide, Oh what the hell, why don't I just grab this cab right here?

Being pursued by Philadelphia's taxis is like being pursued by Philadelphia's men; you don't want them, but some of them are going to give it a shot anyway. Most can take a hint, but some become persistent nuisances.

And then you have to spell it out the same for both of them:

No, I don't wanna ride you.

The Russian lover and I had dinner in SoHo a few weeks ago. We drove up on a Saturday afternoon, and after some pretense at considering going anywhere else we ended up at Felix. Last summer we ended up there almost every Sunday evening. We liked it because it was... boisterous. It was the place where people went to eat and drink and be unruly in a very civilized way.

Well, we found ourselves there again this year, and while the crowd seemed smaller and tamer, the food was still good, the mojitos were still strong, and the staff was still friendly and indifferent.

We finished up dinner and a bottle of wine, and teetered out into the street where we (almost literally, thanks to the mojitos) bumped into Jessica Simpson and John Mayer. This was after the news had broke in People that Jessica was in love with John and dating him seriously, but before Jessica set the ladies on The View straight and informed them that the truth was in fact the opposite.

Anyway, in my semi-drunken euphoria I mentally observed: Oh, that's Jessica and that guy she's with before my celebrity-obsessed brain sat up straight and noticed: That's Jessica Simpson. And John What's-His-Name! Followed by doubt: Was it really? Maybe it just looked like them. Did I just see Jessica Simpson in person and almost stumble drunkenly directly into her person? Why didn't I get a second look? Maybe this convoy of black, tinted SUVs here belongs to someone else. And then I became obsessed with the idea that I had maybe seen Jessica and John on a date, live and in person, but also maybe I hadn't and only thought I did. The lack of closure was maddening.

And then I started to wonder why this was all so distressing to me, anyway. Why did I care about having seen or not seen a person I neither admired nor liked? Why does an otherwise rational, intelligent human being such as myself become a sputtering star-struck puddle of pathetic?

I don't really have answer, but here is my theory du jour:

Seeing a media personality in person is like seeing God incarnate. Stay with me on this. Our only exposure to this caste is through media filters -- images and sound bites, the collected rumblings and rumors of gossip columns and tabloid shows. These people exist as abstracted ideas -- in my life experience, Brad Pitt and Bill Clinton and Madonna cannot be confirmed as any more real than Harry Potter. So if I see Brad at Starbucks, or see Madonna live in concert, there now exists a real person where before there was only the idea of a person.

And anytime this happens, whether I care about that person or not, it confirms for me that the lattice of reality I'm being asked to believe via the machinery of media does in fact exist as the objective reality. And what a relief THAT is.

I'm sure centuries from now this vague existential anxiety will be well understood and dismissed. By then, it will have become as natural as breathing for our species to accept reality via the senses directly and reality via media exposure as one and the same. We already do, intellectually. But maybe one day it won't matter whether someone exists as a flesh and blood person at all; maybe one day all we'll have is media projections -- shadows signifying nothing. Celebrities will be nothing more than the equivalent of complex computer programs, and we will all accept this, and we won't need to see the man or woman behind the curtain anymore, because he or she will not exist.

It's not that crazy; I mean, we've been doing something of the kind for millennia already.

It's called religion.

Hello,

First of all, let me say that it's lovely you've decided to join a fitness institution. It is rare to see girls of your age decide to exercise, especially when it's much less work to just not eat things. There are, however, a few things I've been meaning to tell you:

1. Here at the Grown-Up-Gym-For-Adults, we take our workouts fairly seriously. Oh, we have fun and we chat while stretching and whatnot. But while we're here, we get down to business. I guess your life is just so funny all the time that you can't help but giggle at everything you do. Awesome. I hear laughter is great for the abs. Now, go do three sets of shut the hell up.
2. Your Juicy booty shorts are adorable, especially the way you have them rolled down to your pubes. That bra-top thing that isn't really a bra or a top is cool; I like how you've pushed it up to your chin. I'm sure your parents were thrilled with the naval piercing. Did you guys get matching butterfly tattoos? Because that is so cute and I can totally tell you are bff. Not to mar your expression of individuality here or anything, but do please try to put on clothes and then actually wear the clothes you've put on. Everybody's doing it.
3. The walls of mirrors are here to help you correct your form during the work out part of your workout (which I assume you will get to once you're done the social part of your workout?) But hey, I guess they work well for helping you reapply lip gloss, too. Omigod, you missed a spot. Right there. Ok, got it.
4. I'd love to know what this new exercise you're doing is called. You know, the one where you stand side-by-side holding barbells, and then pump the weights into the air while jumping up and down? Oh, girls. Such a transparent effort to have all eyes on your bouncing tits. Maybe you'll learn the subtle arts of seduction later in life. For now, let me save you the trouble of straining your mammary tissue and let you in on the obvious: all the male eyes on you here are gay.

And remember, beauty is only skin deep but stupidity goes all the way down. Best of luck meeting your fitness goals.

I always thought Jessica Simpson was one of the most annoying celebrities in existance, until the world was introduced to her little sister Ashlee. Then I was forced to divide my time between mocking Jessica and deriding Ashlee, and every week I had to reevaluate which one I hated more. Jessica - the ditzy blonde walking pair of tits, or Ashlee - the whining, bratty, walking mess of insecurity with an entitlement complex? They both had horrible style, so I couldn't use that as a tiebreaker. And then I thought that maybe I shouldn't be hating on them so much at all, but rather blame the primum mobile of the Simpson universe himself: Daddy Bad-Touch.

But it is more fun making fun of the girls, and there will be time enough to villify Joe when the girls try to extend their cameo roles in the spotlight by releasing the salicious tell-all book What Daddy Made Us Do.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that the Jessica/Ashlee dynamic is going to get really, really fun with the emergence of New Ashlee. Because one of them has to be the "hotter" sister, and while the title has long belonged to Jessica without question, the balance may be shifting. Ashlee is winning by a nose (sorry). She's also discovered the hot body secrets of Hollywood: speed and anorexia..I mean, stress and exhaustion....I mean, eating right and exercising.

So, the burning question in my mind now is : will Jessica keep her nose? Because before, you only noticed Ashlee's nose and the fact that her profile was just some green grease paint and a pointy hat away from making her a dead-ringer for a cauldron-stirring, broom-riding bride of the devil. Now when you look at them, all you notice is the slightly crooked stump on Jessica's face. I can't imagine that she's OK with that. Because while little sisters may be allowed to share the spotlight, they are never allowed to usurp it.

In any case, I expect that we're going to see a pair of rapidly diminishing sisters over the coming months. Men face-off with fist fights, but women prefer to compete in self-starvation showdowns. The thinner is the winner!

So, the race is on. And I've got a twinkie waiting here for whoever gets to 85 pounds first.

Last night I had dreams. Terrible dreams. The kind where you spend most of the time trying to speak or scream and nothing comes out but desparate wheezing. The kind where you wake up whimpering because you're still trying to scream at the horror. And it is moments like these when I am ever so glad I decided to become a dishonorable woman and live in sin, because nothing is worse than waking up from these dreams to your own tears in a dark, empty room - it just becomes an epilogue to the nightmare. But, nothing is better than waking up in the arms of the person you cried out to from the mazes of your dreams.

I won't go into the vivid detail of this particular terror-go-round, as it implies I am in dire need of psychotherapy. Suffice to say, the visions of what we can do to others are more horrifying than visions of what they can do to us.

I was able to fall back to sleep after many words of reassurance from the Russian lover, and this time I tumbled into a dream with a much lighter theme - the apocolypse.

The Russian lover and I were standing on a suspension bridge watching some shit go down in the distance. It was apparent that the shit going down heralded the end of civilization as we knew it - at least in this part of the world. While it was a great vantage point from which to observe mushroom clouds, we decided a suspension bridge was probably the worst place to hang out during armageddon. But the end of the world had proven distracting to most of the other motorists, and we found ourselves unable to get anywhere.

So the Russian lover recruited a middle-aged eastern-european man driving a convertable sports car, and we made our escape via an improbably fast and wild ride. None of us wore safety belts.

We arrived in a quiet suburb that was slowly reconciling itself to the fact that the end was nigh. One neighbor was having a small picnic. She had prepared a number of dishes to take to a cast party that evening, but the closing night of her play and the party had been cancelled due to the apocolypse. However, she didn't think that was any reason to waste a perfectly good crab and avacado salad. We stopped and helped ourselves before moving on to find other provisions for survival through the end of days.

Our first looting stop was a shoe store. Because nothing says "I'm prepared for the end of all things" like a great pair of black thigh-high suede boots.

Today I was on edge. By early afternoon, I thought I would run screaming out of my skin. I did a mental inventory; post-period, not stressed about anything, not thinking about anything in particular...what was my problem? The Russian lover noticed something was wrong the way you notice something is wrong when you're standing next to the lit fuse of a bomb. "You're about to snap, I believe," he said in the bored voice of a man who is used to having women snap all around him. "Uhhghhluhh." I replied, in the strained voice of a woman who is trying not to snap.
"Maybe we could leave the city for the afternoon," he suggested.
The mere idea created even more anxiety for me.

"I think...I think I want to go the gym. I think I want to run and stuff." I mumbled.
"Ok" he shrugged with the shrug of a man who has learned it best to let women act on their whims.

I changed and trotted across town, buoyed by the thought of stepping inside the sterile air of the gym and working myself into a euphoric exhaustion. But when I reached the gym, I realized I had forgetten my pass tag. The staff at the front desk saw my face. "Is something wrong?"

"I forgot my tag," I said in the horrified voice of someone confessing to murder.
"Ok, well-"
"I don't have a photo ID either. But I'll give you my social security number, anything..." I said.
The manager just took my hand held it. "It's ok, honey. We don't even have your social security number here. Just give us your name today, OK?"
My relief was immediate. I was a drug addict with my next fix in hand.

Once on the treadmill, the mystery tension started to immediately loosen its noose. But it was when the wind changed and the skies opened and I saw that outside it was raining like all hell that I really started to feel the release.

Apparently, my agitation was merely barometric in nature.