Make it work

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I may eyeroll about fashion magazines, but that’s not because I don’t appreciate fashion — I do, I am just selective about who I allow to advise me on it.

At the top of my list, however, is my good friend Amira Marion. I’ve known her since my senior year of high school when I moved from Florida to Michigan, and she has taught me 90% of what I know about fashion. Her kind of style can rarely be found in a mall (except for when the stuff she designs ends up there), but rather in thrift shops. Name brands matter, but not as much as fabric, and nothing matters as much as a perfect fit. She taught me that all fashion rules are myths (eg: you should never wear black and brown together), to embrace my natural waistline, and that everything essentially comes down to confidence.

Today she came over and helped me pack up my closet. In only two hours, we went through every item and decided whether it should be donated, sold to Beacon’s Closet (a thrift store in Williamsburg that selectively buys quality/unique clothes), sold in her personal online vintage store, put into storage, or taken with me. It’s great to have a friend who studied under Tim Gunn in times like this. Now I’m all set with a minimal travel wardrobe suited for business meetings and lying on a beach in Thailand.

Packing up my things from piles into bags, I folded all my storage items with care, remembering the times I’ve worn them in NYC. I thought about how exciting it’s going to be to take them out in a year or so and rediscover forgotten items. But I couldn’t help but feel the sad sense of not knowing when the next time I would see these things again will be.

And these are just clothes. I am doing everything I can to not think about the fact that I’m going to have to go through this with actual people. This is why I’m on the fence about having any kind of goodbye party. It’s not even goodbye, it’s just “see ya later,” but if I had a goodbye party I’d just get drunk and cry the whole time, and who wants to go to that. Not me, no thank you.

Anyways, I’m leaving soon, very soon. If you want to see me, come to Bushwick to cowork/eat/drink and meet my new parakeet, Twitter. In some kind of freakishly weird twist of fate, he flew into my apartment on Saturday and he’s pretty happy hanging out with me. I don’t know what I’m going to do with him yet, but it will involve a loving home, so if anyone has any ideas let me know. Twitter, we’ll make it work <3

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Why people are the way they are

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I think this is the single most fascinating topic. Sometimes you can spend an entire lifetime researching why someone is the way he/she is, but you can never fully know the answer. True friends are infinite quests.

I get drawn in to a lot of weird situations because when I first meet someone and they come across as mean or cold, instead of not interacting with them, I make it my quest to figure out why they’re acting like that. I can never resist a think wall. Ironically, most of the time, these countenances are a subconscious manifestation of a fear that people don’t want to talk with them, or won’t like them if they do. Sometimes these people are the best, the rare earth gems invisible to amateurs but treasures to the true people connoisseurs. It doesn’t take much to scratch the surface and peak at what’s underneath — a single contextualized question will usually do it. There are plenty of duds, but there’s nothing like seeing that sparkle and embarking on a psychological journey to the center of a person’s being.

Even connoisseurs can be fooled though, as the world is full of con artists. You usually don’t have to look too hard for them, they conveniently pop up near you by a seeming stroke of luck and look pretty close to the real thing. They do such a good job convincing you that you stop digging. You trust them. Then one day, you observe a crack in the varnish, so you peel back another layer and discover they are not who they have been pretending to be. They’ve been playing the part of, a genuine person, a true friend, but deep down they’re a fabrication. Funny how the appearance of these cracks often coincides with the other person getting something they’d been desperately wanting, something you helped them obtain.

It’s kind of like how in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Jones is enchanted by Dr. Elsa Schneider, but she turns out to be a con artist Nazi who was really just using Indy to find the Holy Grail. These discoveries hurt, but whatever, it’s better to find out sooner rather than later. People who use other people as stepping stones to get what they want generally seal their own fates.

Ok, I’ve taken this metaphor far enough. The moral of the story is that even though the fakes can be disheartening, the real gems make it worth the dig.

Isolative tendencies

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I’ve been sort of withdrawing from Twitter lately. I’ve been closing Tweet Deck for days at a time, only tweeting from the web browser or my phone if I need to. I guess it’s because I’ve been more focused on productivity and other adult things lately, and it’s just so busy and blinky that I can’t focus. But also something feels different lately. It’s not as fun anymore. Or maybe I’m not as fun anymore, or drawn to the fun. Maybe I’m taking it on as my responsibility to focus on serious things. I just don’t geek out like I used to on Twitter, mainly just in person, with people. I feel like Twitter has become this frantic ego-stroking competition. Maybe I’m noticing more because it’s my job to be a front-facing journalist instead of a back-end editor. I worry that I’m being judged, and the more I worry the more I want to give the finger to the judgers. How dare they.

Maybe I just need a break from Twitter. Who me? Queen of the Internet? Nobody’s called me that in a while, The science bloggers used to, back when my entire life was devoted to getting their work out into the world. I miss being able to do that for the scientists. Everything’s changed so much.

But I digress. The whole point of this was to remind you that 40% of Americans never leave their home towns. Can you believe it? A friend told me that on the road trip we took to Pittsburgh last weekend. It’s places like that that make you remember how true it is, when you walk into a diner and everybody knows you’re not from around here. It’s kind of like how the majority of Americans have never used Twitter either, or use it once and think it’s stupid and never use it again. I don’t know how they do it, but I’ll allow it to comfort me about closing Tweet Deck for a few days so I can write, and think.

Spring hot dog contemplation

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Tonight I went out to celebrate the 3rd year anniversary of the first email sent on Rachel Sklar’s XX in Tech listserve. There was an open bar, but I drank only water. I think this may have been a first for me. It wasn’t hard or anything. I’ve had a few debates in my day with people who were looking out for my well-being and those who were simply self-righteous hypocrites about whether or not I was an alcoholic. I’m not, I just like to drink. But I like not drinking just as well.
When I was at this open bar I didn’t get cravings, I didn’t sit in the corner isolating myself from all thoughts of alcohol. I happily drank water and said no thank you whenever anyone offered me a drink.

On my way home I stopped at a hot dog restaurant because all the windows were open and it was nice outside, and also because I wanted a hot dog. I sat down in the far corner with the latest edition of n+1 and began reading about our post-sociological society, when a woman sat down next to me, also by herself. I told her I liked her skirt. “Thanks, it’s actually a dress,” she said. We chatted intermittently while I waited for my hot dog and she waited for her beer. I learned she was from Russia and worked at an Irish pub on the West side. It was pleasant conversation, but I kept burying myself into my reading material. I like n+1 because it’s the kind of text that makes you get lost in thought. I read a sentence, and then zone out for a minute thinking about what I just read until I realize I’m making some start realization about my life, so far away from the content that I snap my attention back into it to digest. It’s kind of like how dolphins sleep, I’d bet.

Then I realized that this was the first time I’d read printed material for my own intellectual enjoyment in a while. Something besides the news, or research for an article. I’ve had that edition of n+1 for two weeks now, and I’m still only on page 10. The Russian chick kept chatting at me. She was trying to make friends, and five years ago maybe we would have become best friends. Five years ago, I met my best friend in a similar way when she spilled coffee on me at Atlas. But now, I’ve long past that theoretical capacity where you can’t mentally add anyone to your social circle. I love making friends and having friends, and it’s not like that number actually exists in a rigid way. I just have no time for myself lately which lowers the quality of friendship I can offer, so I try to resist unless it’s so compelling I can’t resist (which still happens at least once a week).

Two of the Russian’s friends walked up just as I was finishing my hot dog. She asked me if I wanted to go to a show down the street with them. Five years ago I would have. But I told her I had to go home and work, and referenced my n+1 like that had anything to do with it. In a way it did. I needed to go restore my sanity by sitting alone in my apartment on Friday night, practicing the flute and going through my starred email list and doing the things I needed to do so I don’t have anxiety dreams. Those are the worst.

But I’m glad she offered to be my friend. It makes me all the more certain that I can go anywhere in the world and experience the best of the place, because something about me makes people want to invite me to experience things with them. I haven’t quite figured out what that is yet, but I’m glad it’s this way and not the other way around.

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