She's Writing a Novel

My least favorite holiday is Easter. On the one hand it's a ritualistic celebration of human blood sacrifice; on the other its this orgy of chocolate and bunny-rabbit-themed kitsch. Either of those is terrifying enough as it is; mash them up together and it's just macabre dissonance. Also, I hate spring.

My second least favorite holiday is Valentine's Day. It fell quickly down in ranking after grade school, when my friends all had boyfriends and I spent weekend nights at home with my parents. When Valentine's Day rolled around, I could count on boxed chocolates from my mom. I imagined that chocolates from a boy would taste better, but since I had never received any gift from a suiter it was really just speculation. I yearned for flowers from a secret admirer, or a romantic surprise in my locker from that guy I'd had a crush on forever. But every year I was reminded that while I may have discovered boys, none of them had discovered me. So I stayed home eating heart-shaped meatloaf while my parents went out, wondering how I'd managed to be so tragically alone. I didn't have acne. I had boobs. Surely that was all it took to attract the attention of a male adolescent.

Now I dislike Valentine's Day for different reasons entirely. I dislike what it represents, what it promotes, what it perpetuates. I don't care about the fact that it commercializes love; Valentine's Day hardly has a monopoly on that. What bothers me is how it reduces love to romance; that it makes love out to be a set of superficial rituals instead of the meaningful day-to-day actions that go unannounced and uncelebrated. It tells American men that it's OK for them to be useless jerks 364 days of the year, as long as they bring it on VDay, the day when it really matters how you treat your lover. The rest of the year? Those are just regular days. What does she expect - a guy to make some kind of effort every day?!? Psshhht!

Romance is lovely, but the only kind of romance worth having is the romance built on living love. I don't care about getting flowers from a guy who will never be bothered to take out the trash. And if a guy always takes out the trash? Then I don't care so much about getting flowers from him.

A woman is lying if she says she doesn't want to be surprised by jewelry or gifts. But Valentine's Day isn't about being surprised - it's about being obliged. Because it's Valentine's Day. I guess I don't understand what is so flattering or exciting about being given something you're expecting someone to give you. It's not so much romance then as it is passive-aggressive.

Love is what happens every day, and if it's not there every day, one wonders why go to the expensive trouble on one day just to celebrate a vacuum. Love is lived in the mundane details - the laundry that gets done, the dishes that are washed, the meals that are made, the time carved out of busy days to spend together. It's the patient endurance of each other's quirks and the willingness to be a little bit uncomfortable if it means the other one has it a little bit better. It's finding a balance with another between selfishness and sacrifice, so that in giving things up you find that you are only given more.

And a day to remember to tell your lover that they are loved? If they don't know it, telling them on an appointed day won't make it true and will only make it trivial. But a woman who hears those words each night as she falls asleep in strong arms doesn't need to be given diamonds to know beyond doubt that she is somebody's treasure.

I returned from the gym today tired and hungry, and just wanted to get back to my desk. I dragged myself through the revolving door and tried to lug myself through the lobby. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that since I left, the usual security guard had been replaced by some snippy-faced-looking bitch with a bad haircut. I hoped she wouldn't bother me. The usual security guards know me, and when I come back from the gym late in the afternoon they just smile and nod. So I don't bother remembering my ID badge when I leave.

"Can I help you?" snippy-faced bitch asked as I headed for the elevators.

There have been days when a substitute security guard was so unbelievably annoying that I just pretended I didn't hear them and got in an elevator. Because it's not like those fat bastards are going to jump up and chase me.

"Can I help you?" This one asked a second time, because I ignored her the first time.

I stopped, heaved a sigh, and turned. "I work here." I said it slow and deliberately, so she would know that I thought I was talking to an idiot.

"Do you have your ID?" she demanded.

And I didn't, of course.

So here is what the geniuses of building security have me do. I "sign in" on a piece of paper at the front desk. Now keep in mind that I don't have to show any form of ID when I sign in. It is a completely arbitrary process of writing something on paper which the security guard doesn't so much as glance at.

So usually if I am in this situation, I sign my name as "Emily Dickinson" and note that I am visiting [indicipherable]. Sometimes I just write a whole line of illegible scrawling. Sometimes I sign my name as Joseph Stalin, or Lucifer McSatan. If we're all going to waste each other's time with this sham show of "security," I might as well make it interesting.

I haven't yet worked up to signing in as Elvis. I have to make sure to do that on a day when we have some really uptight jackass at the front desk, so that if they confront me about it on my way back out that day, I can have fun feigning innocence: "Elvis? No, I think he's already left the building."

I got my very first credit card last year, when I was 25. Before then it was strictly debit, or check, or cold hard cash. I had never felt the need for a credit card - if I didn't have the money, what was the point of tempting myself with the thought that I did? I believed credit cards were for people who wanted to play pretend and live beyond their means.

I didn't know anybody who had credit cards without having long-lingering frivolous credit card debt. Everyone I knew seemed to have a few thousand outstanding, at best. And years later, they were still paying off some trips to the mall or some dinners out at 20%APR. I wasn't willing to live like that, so I avoided credit cards altogether thinking that was the smart thing to do.

Well, it was at least not the dumbest thing to do. Turns out the smart thing to do is have a credit card and pay the balance every month. Now, I have the power of a charge-back and other consumer support. I also have the ability to keep my cash stowed in an interest-bearing account, so that when the credit card payment rolls around I've earned a few morning coffees worth in interest meantime. And if I have an emergency and therefore no cash? I have the safety net of being able to carry a balance. Turns out that credit cards are these really amazing and tremendously helpful little things...if you are just as financially conservative with one as you would be without one.

I used to be hysterically afraid of debt. Taking out student loans for college horrified me; I felt like I was being smothered with a pillow. At 18, I didn't know how I could live with the knowledge that I was going to owe almost 20k by the time I graduated. It seemed like a small fortune that I would never be able to outrun. But, there is nothing like not getting a free lunch to motivate you. Taking on debt in addition to paying out of pocket every year, I was determined that the very expensive piece of paper I would have to show for it would include the words summa cum laude. And it did. Now I've paid off nearly half of that debt, and it doesn't seem nearly so crushing as it did at first.

And I started to understand that debt is, fundamentally, good. Debt DOES let you live beyond your means; and as long as you appreciate that fact, debt is your bitch. Debt, when utilized well, is like bus fare - sure it costs you to get somewhere - but in the end, you get somewhere. Too many people are paying the bus fare, and then sitting on their asses watching the bus go past. No wonder they feel cheated.

I don't fear debt anymore - I simply respect it. And I'm grateful that it's there to give me a lift when I can't get somewhere on my own.

There comes a moment where you stop thinking of your life in terms of possibilities, and begin seeing life as a set of limitations. This is the transition into the “real world.” It usually happens after college graduation.

The shiny college brochure, which featured smiling faces and architecture of questionable taste and considerable cost, told you all about exciting worlds that awaited you. You could become an empowered traveler to lucrative destinations, with a college diploma from this institution as your passport. Yes, success was imminent, nay, inevitable! Your mind plus their rubber stamp and voila! Your dreams would come true.

College brochures are full of the most damnable lies, more damaging to young minds than Disney fairy tales.

I would have found it extremely helpful to have found the following nuggets of wisdom nestled somewhere between the map of campus and “Exciting careers with your major in Psychology!”

-- The only people that want to see you succeed are your parents. They’ve put up a lot of cash, and they would like a return on their investment. No one else cares, at best. Worst case scenario, others see you as a threat and will sooner actively undermine your success than lend you a neighborly helping hand in the workplace.

-- Thanks to the plummeting educational standards in America, the Bachelor’s degree is the new high school diploma. It doesn’t put you anywhere near the top of the heap – it only prevents you from falling to the very bottom. Maybe. You might still end up flipping burgers or waiting tables indefinitely, depending on how much you counted on your college degree to be the all-access pass to success.

-- You are paying for college. Like a whore raving about a man’s miserable performance in bed, the school and those on its payroll are going to tell you whatever you want to hear in order to keep you there paying 20k a semester. Your grades are these lies, and you should ignore them. Just make sure you are learning something useful, like reading and writing and how to intimidate the bitches in the student accounts office. Otherwise, it will be a very rude awakening when you leave college and expect people to pay you.

-- Don’t get fat. Appearances aren’t everything, but damn if they don’t come in very helpful in the high stakes world. If you let yourself gain the freshman 15 (or 30, or 50, or whatever it is now), you will probably never get rid of it. And ladies: smart, hardworking girls don’t always get hired and subsequently promoted – smart, hardworking girls who look sexy in a skirt and heels do. And if you don’t let yourself go at 20, you’ll still have the rich husband backup plan available to you for many years to come. Finally, men spend money on attractive girls; those hours on the elliptical will pay off in the form of free dinners and drinks.

-- Your professors are extremely liberal because they work in the ivory tower and have something called tenure; i.e., they don’t have to give a shit about how the real world works. You may as well avoid embracing liberal ideas and liberal causes while you’re in school, because you will stop being an enthusiastic Democrat after graduation.* This will happen when you get your first paycheck and see what has been taken out of it in taxes, and you realize this money is going toward paying the welfare check of the family next door to your apartment in the ghetto. The ones who sit at home all day smoking pot, listening to rap, and letting their babies run around a dirty porch without clothes or diapers. You will realize that if you didn’t have to help buy McDonald's for these reefers and their offspring, you could afford an apartment that wasn’t in the ghetto.

*You may not have this realization if your parents don’t immediately cut you off financially. In which case you will become a hipster, fighting for the rights of the ignorant to have their unemployment subsidized by the taxation of your upper-middle-class parents.

I have this pair of black knee high boots that are possibly the best boots in the existence of the world. They are made of supple leather, in a sexy slouchy but not too slouchy style. They are comfortable to walk in, with a stacked heel and a round toe. They allow me to pull off skinny jeans.

I wear this pair of boots almost constantly, unless it is 90 degrees outside and sometimes even then. I walk miles in these shoes every day, and I've had to have them resoled twice. "You have to help me make these last forever," I tell the shoe repair guy. "The leather is so nice" he says, and I know he understands.

These are the boots that get compliments on the street from strangers. Yesterday while standing at an intersection waiting for the light to change, I heard a woman yell "I LOVE YOUR BOOTS!!" I looked up, surprised. A black woman driving a minivan had made her (very embarassed) husband roll down his window so she could tell me this.

These boots are that good.

Women love them, and so do the men. Walking down the street, men sometimes try to pick me up with "Hey there, boots." One guy even tipped his hat. These boots have commanded more attention and respect from guys than even my most dangerous stiletos. I don't know why this is, because nothing is sexier than the sound of a stileto on pavement. I sound like a soldier on the march in these boots. But then, that's probably the appeal. American men love nothing more than letting women walk all over them.

I keep trying to write something, and every time I get started the Expensive Kitten starts up with her mating calls and I feel my hold on sanity start to go.

Part of me feels bad for Expensive Kitten. When I'm horny, I can just say to the Russian Lover "Hey look, I need to borrow your penis for a bit." Then I can go on my way with a smile on my face and a spring in my step, and I dare say the Russian Lover isn't exactly put out. But there is no satisfaction for the Expensive Kitten. She just has to writhe around in the agony of lust until we yell at her to shut up.

I remember what it was like to not get laid on the days when it was absolutely necessary to get laid. Biology has set it up so that men WANT to get laid all of the time, and women NEED to get laid a few days each month; anyone who thinks that male horniness is more potent has not been around an ovulating woman. It's like we condense all of our sexual desire into a day or two. This is good news for men, because women tend to be picky. Most days of the month we have standards, and we evaluate men based on their intelligence, their socio-economic status, their charms, etc. But for a few days each month, every man that walks by looks attractive to us. And this is why women have vibrators. Otherwise...we shudder to think what we might drag home.

If you're a guy that gets a call from a woman once every month or so to come over...don't worry about dinner, she'll just grab take out and wine...then you are just a dildo that doesn't need batteries. Some guys might find this demeaning, but most guys will appreciate that they get to sleep with a girl every month without also having to bring her chocolate and listen to her btich for an entire week afterwards. The common term for this is a bargain. And women, they appreciate not having to do the work of getting off themselves. Everybody wins...unless you are trying to use your sexuality to validate some sense of intrinsic self-worth. In which case, the part where she tosses you out so she can get her beauty sleep instead of cuddling for hours will probably be devastating. But I'm sure she'll be happy to console you and your honorary vagina with some chocolate.

I lost my virginity today. No, not that virginity. That one is long gone, though not that long gone, and pretty much forgotten. (I know the saying goes that you never forget your first time, but I am living proof that you can, in fact, forget your first time - and it wasn't due to drugs or alcohol or amnesia. I think it happened sometime in 2002. I do remember the who... unfortuantely).

Anyway, I'm talking about my hair. Until today I had completely virgin hair that had never so much as encountered a set of highlights. In high school all girls give themselves box dye jobs at some point, but for some reason I never bothered. It wasn't for lack of angst, and I certainly hadn't resolved my identity. But hair was just something that grew out of my head that had to be dealt with - I was strangely detached from it.

And even after becoming a suscreen addict, a skin care fanatic, a gym rat, and something of a wannabe fashionista, I was still oblivious to my hair. It was there and it wasn't hideous so I happily ignored it.

This year, something changed. My hair was as long as it's ever been, and beautiful, but I was suddenly tired of dragging it around. Literally. Soaking wet it added 5 pounds to the scale, but more than that I was tired of the neck pains and the headaches and the constant tangles. Most of all, I was tired of simply having hair instead of enjoying it, even reveling in it.

So I made an appointment with an upscale award-winning stylist for a makeover, the kind of event that costs as much as a car payment. She was going to cut, but most importantly color, my virginal and very inexperienced hair. For something like this I was willing to spare no expense, having learned since my sexual deflowerment that if you want memorable results, it is always better to go to an expert rather than entrust yourself to a relative novice.

So I have new hair, and -cliche ahead!- I feel like a new woman. At my consultation the stylist listened to me ramble about what I envisioned, and when I came in today she created a look that I can only describe as total sex kitten. Full bangs, long layers, deep rich color...it's hair that you want to look at, that I want to look at, and damn it I can't stop looking at it. I'm obsessed with reflective surfaces, trying to correlate the image I see with me and my idea of myself as a pretty but plain looking girl. It's more shocking than the first time I ran a mile, or fit in size 2 jeans, or went a month without zits.

Change isn't about denying I am but about embracing I can. Whether it's changing your career, changing your realtionships, changing your address...or changing your hair. It goes beyond affirming who you are to seek out who you can be, and surprises everyone, including yourself, with your discoveries.