Dressing Like a Princess, and Other Concerns

I recently read Peggy Orenstein’s Cinderella Ate My Daughter, which examines the numerous sociological trends that affect the upbringing of the young American girl, from Disney Princesses to an obsession with pink to the unhealthy emphasis placed on beauty and romance. Orenstein posits that while there have always been difficulties in raising confident, not-defined-by-gender-stereotypes daughters, there has been a recent turn towards “pink power” that sees hyperfemininity as something to be celebrated and—also—commodified. She asks: what harm are we doing to our daughters by allowing them to buy into this type of girl culture? And is there even a way around it?

This got me thinking about my own childhood, and the gender stereotypes and plastic role models I was raised on. Was it better or worse than what’s available to girls today? Walking around toy and kids’ clothes aisles in Target, everything seems familiar: Barbies, Polly Pockets, Dream Phone (yeah I totally owned that). But is Orenstein correct in saying that this lifestyle, these values, are more insidiously ingrained than they were in the 1950s to early 1990s? (Yeah really—the 1950s??)

In response, I did a quick mental review of all of my Halloween costumes from childhood to high school. Halloween costumes are the one time a year that all children, and not just those attending Disney On Ice shows, exorcise their inner aspirational identities whether those are found in the professional (astronaut, cheerleader, ballerina) or the fantastical (princess, skeleton, Muppet) worlds. And it's surprising how many of these aspirational identities reflect the desire to properly align with gender conventions as displayed by both role models and peers, even in the so-called pre-"pink power" era. I realize it's a little early (late?) to be talking about Halloween, but bear with me-- let's just say I'm keeping the whole post in the strictly anti-normative mode---rejecting media---and commodity-driven holiday industries---yada yada yada.

Kindergarten: Cat. Because my parents chose my costume. I vowed never to do it again because I couldn’t deal with the face paint. Question: have you ever seen a boy dress as a cat? Why the close association between the feline and the feminine?

First grade: Princess. Really, the pinnacle of my aspirational fantasies, not duplicated in subsequent years only because I didn’t want to copy myself. My princess image was ripped straight from the pages of early ‘90s Mac kids’ computer game Storybook Weaver: a long white dress, a tall pointy damsel-in-distress hat with a delicate veil flapping from the top, loose flowing hair. I was, for that night, I think, truly happy.

Second grade: Fairy. Because I couldn’t be a princess again. Blue wings, a silver-pipecleaner-encrusted wand (something I for a brief time collected at every street fair my family took me to).

Third grade: Ballerina. I knew how to be a ballerina because I took ballet for two weeks when I was five. I actually quit because they told me we couldn’t wear tutus, which I had mistakenly thought was what ballet was about. Took the cheap route and wore my never-used tutu over my hot pink one-piece bathing suit.

Fourth grade: Witch. Major paradigmatic shift. I was getting older, and it was starting to be cool to be not-pink. Instead I went all-black.

Fifth grade: Cowgirl. My gender-based evolution led me to privilege chic fashion over ultra-femininity, and I felt like with a cowgirl costume I could show off my cute denim skirt, throw on a cute denim vest, and accessorize with a charming cow(boy) hat, Western-style kerchief, and boots. I felt pretty good about this one. I felt grown up.

Sixth grade: Gypsy. My rejection of commercialism (not wanting to call the store-bought costume an “Esmeralda” from The Hunchback of Notre Dame) led me to label it in an ethnically essentialist way instead, but what is Halloween if not a whole bunch of essentialism/racism? (I don’t do this anymore.) Same thing happened in eighth grade when I labeled my I Dream of Jeannie costume a “harem girl” (yikes).

Seventh grade: Sorceress. Honestly, I was just lazy and wanted to reuse my witch costume. I wore more makeup. My mom wouldn’t let me on normal days.

Eighth grade: See sixth grade.

Ninth grade: Geisha. Yes, I lampooned my own ancestral culture. I just happened to have an ornate kimono-style dress from my grandma lying around, and I stuck two chopsticks in my hair and called it a costume. Troubling that two of my childhood costumes involved ethnic caricatures that imply prostitution and sex work.

Tenth grade: Buffy. Finally, I got it right. . .

Who did you dress up as as a child, and what do you feel like that says about your particular upbringing? It’s kind of an interesting exercise. Especially when considering the (much thornier) question of, how did I turn out as a result?

Meet the Local: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Meet the Local is a series designed to uncover the differences (and similarities) in how we think and live in different parts of the world.  Over the upcoming months, I’ll ask locals from places all over the world the same set of getting-to-know-you questions.  This week, meet Neno, who was born in Sarajevo and has lived there ever since, including four years spent largely underground during the siege.

What do you like about the place you live?

I like, first of all, the people.  The people and the size of the city.  Sarajevo is a quite good city to live because it’s quite a small city---it’s only 400,000 people---so you know everyone.  It’s like one big family.  And also the history, the culture.  But mainly the people.  The people are very friendly in this city, so you can always count on someone helping you in the city.  I like that feeling.

 What don’t you like so much?

I don’t like politics in the city, and the politicians.  It’s affecting the every day life---we could have better public transport, we could have more investments, we could improve many things in this city.  But unfortunately we have a lot of bureaucracy.  We have three governments, and three presidents.  It’s a small country---only four million people---so to make one decision when you have three presidents. . . it’s quite impossible.  Nothing gets done.

What do you normally eat for breakfast?

I drink tea, or sometimes coffee.  Then scrambled eggs, with cheese.  No pies!  Because people think we are eating the pies for the breakfast.  The pies are more for the lunch or for the dinner.  People think we are eating pies every day, but it’s very, very heavy on your stomach.  It’s more like a fast food things.  I eat pies only maybe two times in a week.

What do you do for a living?  How important is your job to your sense of self?

I’m a student of political sciences and diplomacy and international relations, getting my masters.  I lead walking tours when I have free time from my studies.  I think I will stay in tourism.  I’m studying political sciences, so people always think I will be involved in political life but I think I like history, I like the political philosophy, but I don’t see myself in a political life.  I want to send a message from this city, this country.  I think we have more to offer than just the recent history.  That’s the reason I started doing walking tours.  Unfortunately, this country still has a reputation as a war torn country.  When you say Bosnia, the first image people have is the war in Bosnia, Sarajevo under siege, but I truly believe this country is a country with a long and rich history, friendly people---I think we have a lot to offer.

My job is very important to my sense of self.  It’s very difficult life in this country.  You know, I’m 27 years old and I’m still living with my parents.  But in some ways, I have freedom because I earn all of my money.  So for my self-confidence, it’s very important that I also earn something.  Most people live with their parents till they are married, because they are close with their family, but also because of the economy.  It’s a very high unemployment rate---43% at the moment.  So unfortunately people can’t afford to have their own flat.  And also Sarajevo is a very small city, so even if I rented a flat, I would go every day to my mother’s to eat something.  So at the moment, I think it’s better to stay with my family.

What do you do for fun?

I like to hike, when it’s sunny weather, in the [1984 Sarajevo Winter] Olympic mountains.  I also like photography---I like to walk around and take photos.  I like to bicycle---there’s one part of the city that has bicycle infrastructure, so I go there and I bicycle.  I also like bowling, so I go there with my friends for bowling very often.  I also like to read, and to travel.

How often do you see your family?  Tell me what you did the last time you saw them.

I live with my family.  We are very close, because I was here during the siege so we were always together then.  The sense of community in this country is very strong.  The people are close to each other; the neighbors are close to each other.  The siege made us closer, because we survived together the most horrible moments. I think the siege of the city affected people in a positive but also negative way.  I think that people in this country appreciate small things more.  Maybe like some other countries or the younger generations in this country, one small thing is nothing.  For example, I like to eat everything.  I’m not choosy, but I have a niece, and she was born after the war.  And we all have a Sunday lunch together and she is so picky---I don’t like that, I don’t like that---and I get so frustrated, like, you need to eat everything, because you don’t know the feeling of when you have nothing to eat at all.  I appreciate the food.  I try to enjoy small things.  But also the war had negative effects---like, I never celebrate New Year’s Eve on open squares.  I don’t like fireworks.  Whenever I hear fireworks, I get flashbacks, because it’s the same sound as the shells exploding.

What’s your biggest dream for your life?

To travel around the world.  Now, I’ve traveled almost all of Europe, except the UK and Ireland.  Personally, I think that’s the best spent money.  When you learn about other cultures, you start to appreciate more about your own culture, and your own life.  But after traveling, to again always return to this country.  No place like home, no place like home.  I experienced the worst things in this country, so why not stay?  I think this country deserves a better future with smart and educated people.  We will not have a bright future if all the smart and educated people leave the country.  So we need to stay, and we need to fight for the changes.

 If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?  Why?

I like Spain and Portugal.  The people are very similar to us here---they’re also very friendly, very open.  They also have not very good economy, like this country, but they’re like, let’s enjoy life!  Things will improve!  I can imagine myself living in Lisbon for one or two years, but like I told you, I then want to come back to Sarajevo.

What are you most proud of?

I’m proud of my family.  I’m proud of my mother, my father.  Because I think they directed me in a good way, they raised me to be a good guy.  My mother for me is like a big hero because I was with her during all of the wartime.  She was also working every single day, walking back and forth through the snipers, because she needed to do something, to occupy her mind, to not be in a basement all the time.  She was working not to lose her mind, and a little bit to keep her job position. She was working for free.  Sometimes she got paid in cigarettes.

How happy would you say you are?  Why?

I am very happy because I have a good family.  I have my mother, my father, my sister, my niece.  It’s a very small family, but we are very close to each other.  That’s my biggest happiness.  Also, I’m happy because I live in Sarajevo.

To read the answers of a local Londoner, click here to meet Carleen.

Swept Away

Hello Sibyl,

Last summer while at the Paris airport on a layover, I met a guy who was also there on a layover.  We emailed and texted and he came to visit me in Amsterdam in November, and again in December (he lives in Venezuela). During these first visits, he opened up and told me that since meeting me he was thinking about a future with me and that he has never done that before.  We fell in love, discussed marriage and where we could both live together (he has a 5 year old son, so cannot move here, and after a recent visit, I know I could never live in Venezuela).

Once he was home (in January), I mentioned something about the future, and he said he could not talk about it.  I wrote him a long email explaining that HE was the one who brought up the future and talked about plans, etc.  He said he was sorry, but just needs more time, and for me to please be patient.  

I do understand we need to be patient and get to know each other better, but it seems like he has changed.  He used to be very open about sharing feelings and affections, but now seems to have pulled back (I visited him 2 weeks ago in Venezuela).  Plus i wonder if there is a future between us given the distance and the fact that it would be difficult to find someplace to live together.

I wonder if I should end it now or just enjoy the times when we see each other?

Thank you very much and kind regards,

Futuretripper

Dear Futuretripper,

In the short time since I started this column, I have received several quandaries like yours.  They are from women who are disappointed by the men in their lives, but claiming that they love them, and hoping for a future with them still.  Here is what is missing in these letters: any indication of what there is to be loved about these men, why they are worthy of such undying love, and what makes them eligible to be a good life partner.

From your letter, it's clear that the two of you had an immediate connection that went very deep, and made both of you want to hang on it to forever, by planning a future together.  However, other than the fact that he's a father, and he lives far away from you in a place that you never want to live in, what have you told me about this man?

Paraphrasing The Little Prince, I want to know what his voice sounds like, what games he loves best, and if he collects butterflies.  I want to know why he is worth the struggle of a long-distance romance.  Just the fact that he changed his mind and no longer wants to talk about the future with you is not enough to end the relationship, as most people have trouble with commitment.  However, it does seem like there is some denial of the reality of the issues the two of you are facing, if you chose to go forward with this relationship long-term.

You had a lovely Before-Sunrise-esque connection with this man.  However, not every connection one makes with another person needs to be followed to the fullest extent.  Some people, no matter how deeply we feel we are cosmically drawn to them, are meant to just be brief interludes in our lives.  It's hard to make meaning of those experiences and let them go, but otherwise, it is like trying to hold the ocean in your hands.

Of course, there is a chance that you do indeed have a future with your cross-continent lover.  However, my advice to you is to hang back, and give the relationship room to grow.  You need to let it breathe, and see what transpires in the space between the two of you---which for you, is a lot of space!  Just let that be the reality.  Don't force anything, and use the time you used to spend planning the future reflecting instead on why this man is so special, and what he can really offer to your life.

And then write back and tell me of all his stunning substance, and how it resonates with who you are and what you need.  But please, if you find that you only like this man for nebulous reasons, and if he doesn't seem to really want all that you are willing to give him, release your hands, and let him float on.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here. 

On Reading Fiction and Ethics

By Carrie Anne TiptonIllustration by Akiko Kato

I have many faults; some are known fully to me, and many, I am sure, are felt more expansively by others. But this one virtue I have in spades: empathy. Such a strongly-buttressed wall of my interior house, it has, ever since I was a child, prevented me from being able to read descriptions and view depictions of people being unkind to one another; in fact it is almost impossible for me to stomach any graphic rendering of suffering at all. I enter easily into others’ pain, a trait I can only attribute not to some oustanding moral fibre, but rather to my childhood gorging on fiction—which trains the mind and soul to inhabit the skin of another in a way that little else can.

It has always been difficult for me to comprehend the willing and cognizant visitation of pain on an innocent party: given a choice, why choose to hurt? So on that bitter cold Chicago afternoon, riding the schoolbus home from fourth grade, I did not understand why the young boy a few seats ahead of me cracked his window, casually tore pages out of a paperback, and sent them lofting away on the wind. That was someone’s book, I thought to myself, aghast and angry and pained, for my little mind grasped that he had perpetrated two sins: one against the book and another against its owner. To be fair, he first held the volume up high and asked if it belonged to anyone before cheerfully ravaging it. I remember the scene now as he brandished the tattered, faded copy of C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair above his head, whole for the last few seconds of its life while he waited in vain for its owner to claim it.

I recall thinking quite vividly, How strange that he should have found a copy of the very book that I have in my backpack (for I was once again working my way through the Chronicles of Narnia). Thought number two: I’m so glad that mine is zipped away in the outer pocket. I didn’t think to doublecheck, naively gazing on at what I thought a complete coincidence.

When a thief takes something outright, to kill or to destroy, one is chagrined. But when a thief half-steals, with the half-permission of the thing’s owner helping him along, the burden of pain doubles with a measure of shame. At home, the vision still seared into my head of great chunks of paperback hurtling against the grey winter sky, I realized the pocket was unzipped after all. It was mine. He took mine. He ripped mine. He savaged mine. It had been mine. It was still mine, in all its pieces on the sidewalk blocks away. We didn’t have much money. The copy had belonged to my mother.

I’m sure I cried. My mother also felt my pain keenly (this makes sense: another great reader of fiction, she) and sensed the book’s pain sharply too. Soon she had ordered another copy. I remember her shaking her head and asking no-one in particular, why would someone do such a thing? As I write this I turn around and see on my shelf six faded and tattered volumes of the seven-book Chronicles, tucked into a shabby old case, and a glossy fourth volume nearby that doesn’t fit into the case. And together, they make me wonder: if he had read books, if he were in the practice of walking in the roads trod by make-believe people, would he have so readily hurt a living person and a living book all at the same time?

I will read to my child.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Hi Sibyl, I was at brunch the other morning with some friends and my husband and our 4-year old daughter. When we got up to leave the restaurant, there was a woman seated at a table with her friends who had no hair, eyebrows, or eyelashes. My daughter proceeded to laugh (I don't think in a mocking way---just surprised), and yell "Look, Mom! She's not real! She's not real!"

My solution was to hurriedly pick her up and carry her out of the restaurant (as she was making a beeline towards this woman's table--perhaps a better verb than "pick her up" would be "tackle her"), explaining that the woman was real and that she just looks different and pointing and laughing like that can be really hurtful. I was also mortified, and didn't know whether to address the woman and apologize or just pretend like my daughter was talking about something else or to just abandon her at the restaurant and pretend like she wasn't mine.

I know I could have handled it better, but I don't know how. What's your advice for these types of situations that are definitely teaching moments, but where the teaching happens at the potential embarrassment of someone else?

Thanks!

Abashed Mommy

Dear Abashed Mommy,

First of all, I understand your reaction and love that you still want to do even better.  Let’s break down why you were so mortified.  The honesty of children can be adorable, but not when it is public, culturally inappropriate, and has an implied power imbalance, like the situation you wrote in about.  But you know what?  It’s not just kids that say seemingly-ignorant things to perfect strangers—adults do this all the time, too, so it is great that you are the kind of person trying to navigate such situations with consciousness.

My family is multicultural, and not a week goes by that some nice, well-meaning person, usually from the race that holds the most power and privilege in our society, says some stupid racist bullshit to one of us.  They are not racists, but, speaking from their own ignorance, social awkwardness, and unconscious internalized racism, my husband is jokingly called a token minority, I am assumed to be the nanny, and our child is considered "exotic" for having brown skin and a big blonde afro.

It is exhausting to hold all these projections, and though I usually find a way to forgive the perpetrator of these (and many more) awkward statements, I really wish someone would, in the moment, acknowledge that they said something messed up and that they still have some work to do on themselves.  But then I think, how could they, if it has never been modeled for them?  They are like little children who have never been taught to handle faux pas in a graceful way.

I think we can change this, starting with our own children.  In the situation you wrote in about, you and your daughter, who assumedly have all your hair, are in a position of privilege in regards to the woman with alopecia.  You have the expected, preferred amount of hair on your body, she does not, and it's not because of a fashion statement.

Therefore, it could have been a powerful statement to your daughter, and to the woman without hair, if you had been able to manage your own shame in the moment and, in front of everyone, say to your girl, "Honey, I know you are surprised to see someone that looks differently from you.  You didn't mean anything by it, but that woman is a person, just like you, and calling her ‘not real’ could have hurt her feelings.  Now that I know that you have never seen a person like her before, I’ll teach you all about it when we get home.”

Then you take your cues from the other woman.  Is she pointedly ignoring this conversation?  Then just smile apologetically at her and leave, as it’s clear she doesn’t want to interact.  However, if she is paying attention to what you’re saying to your daughter, address her, “I’m sorry if we surprised you in the middle of your brunch.  My daughter is still learning about people who look differently from her, and I’m doing my best to teach her.  Enjoy your meal!”  Then go on your way to answer the myriad questions your daughter is bound to have outside the woman’s earshot.

I know that this approach seems like it will be awkward.  However, it’s already awkward, for all of you, so you may as well name that, and approach it head-on.  Through doing this, you’ll be showing your daughter that mistakes happen, and it’s best to stay calm about them but admit them, apologizing but then moving on.  She can then use this experience whenever she makes a well-meaning but still offensive social faux pas, in any arena.

Which is going to happen.  There is no way to avoid, sometimes, putting our foot in our mouths, in ways that offend due to differences in ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, politics, age, size, or health.  That is part of being human in a diverse society.  However, if we can start recognizing power and privilege in even the most innocuous environments—like Sunday brunch—and doing so publicly, perhaps our kids will grow up in a more self-aware society, seeking to make changes that start within.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here. 

Prop Up

A lot of hay has been made this week in reaction to the release of Sheryl Sandberg’s new book, “Lean In.”  As appears to be the case whenever any notable woman tries to impart a few kernels from her experience, Ms. Sandberg has been met with a range of zealous responses---from impassioned support to bitter resentment.  As these things go, water coolers everywhere have been trembling with activity and public focus has turned once again to the struggle of women to advance educationally and professionally in stride with men.  Inevitably, the word “feminist” enters the picture (at times, spat out like so much epithet) and questions abound as to whether the Facebook COO should be identified as such and whether she is the appropriate person to take up this mantle. Let me be perfectly clear: Sheryl Sandberg is a feminist.  I am a feminist and chances are, if you are reading this, SO ARE YOU.  According to Merriam-Webster:

Definition of FEMINISM

1

: the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes

2

: organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests

In fact, we might be hard pressed to locate any person willing to go on record denying her feminist credentials based on the actual definition.  Imagine even Melissa Mayer, (I discuss her role in this conversation in a previous piece) with cameras rolling saying, “No, I don’t believe that women should have political, economic and social equality with men.”  And yet, when presented with the “feminist” moniker, in her interview for the film, Makers, she immediately rejected it as something toxic that didn’t apply to her and to which she couldn’t relate.  And she is not alone.

According to a Time/CNN poll conducted in 2009, only 24% of American women self-identified as “feminist” and only 12% considered being called a feminist a compliment.  Meanwhile, 82% of the women polled said their overall status was improved relative to 25 years ago and 69% had a sense that the women’s movement, in particular, had directly improved their lives.  Despite this, less than half the women believed that there remains a strong need for the women’s movement.  It would seem that many women understand the concrete ways in which the advocacy of “feminists” has created meaningful and positive change in their lives and simultaneously consider “feminist” a dirty word.  They also aren’t clear as to whether the movement is pertinent today.  What’s going on here?

My sense is that it is a confluence of factors. Conservatives have done an excellent job portraying feminism as something radioactive.  Women are still expected to subscribe to traditional roles and any deviance from the placid maintenance of home and family is seen as damaging to the fabric of society and even the well-being of children. Even with more subtle messages about returning America to its “former promise,” they describe a collective yearning for a tranquil era-gone-by, one in which women, people of color and “others” did not have a place at the table.

Women, themselves, appear to have internalized the notion that there is some archaic version of feminism that has 1) ruined the label for modern women and 2) might not even be necessary anymore.  Could it really be that our generation believes the problem is solved?  And why don’t we recognize how we got here or the work still to be done?  To decide that we no longer need people safeguarding the progress of women in this society is like a diabetic thinking that because she now takes insulin and her blood sugar is stable, PROBLEM SOLVED.  Somebody has to keep manufacturing that insulin, testing it, packaging it, selling it and you have to keep taking it.  Institutional inequality and gender bias still exist and still require the vigilance of activists on both a macro and micro scale. 

Sheryl Sandberg, then, is perhaps the perfect torch-bearer for the new movement.  She is a woman who has had phenomenal success and achieved impressive accomplishments akin to any and all male peers.  She has done this with many fewer barriers than the women who have come before her, but grants that the system remains stacked against her and conveys how conscious she has had to be along the way to claim her status.  She is receiving flak from every direction, including a most refined criticism that her message is only relevant for women of a certain social class.  I actually love this---the fact that there is an entire category of women with privilege to whom she might be speaking, is, in itself, a huge enhancement.  I also think it is false---she is specifically interested in shoring up women at all levels of the workforce (as well as domestically) and much of what she promotes requires more of an internal shift than access to actual resources.  Her ideas don’t solve the whole problem or even many of the problems, but they are a fine place to start.

I believe that with a message to women already in positions of power about reaching out to peers and subordinates still striving, Ms. Sandberg reminds us all that incorporating more traditionally “female” qualities, such as being supportive vs. cut-throat, lifts up everyone of any stratus.  Her ideas about women owning their authority, taking appropriate credit, keeping the pedal to the metal in their career trajectory and demanding better support at home and at work during the child-bearing years is at least 40 years old and still fresh as a daisy.  When a woman who has attended the finest institutions and flourished in the most demanding jobs stands on her pedestal, leans into the microphone and tells us we have a ways to go, we had better listen.

My Celebrity Best Friends, Emma, Jennifer, and Anne

As Lindy West put it best: “Fuckin' Emma Stone. So good at her job and so nice and cute. So funny! So getting to make out with Ryan Gosling that one time. What a dick. JK, I love her. (Dick.)”

The first time I watched Superbad on Netflix around 2008, I remember I was simultaneously underwhelmed and diverted by the sophomoric teen-boy humor of Jonah Hill and Michael Cera, but more than that I remember encountering Emma Stone (as Jonah Hill’s much hotter love interest Jules) and thinking, “Who is that awesome girl who I’ve inexplicably never seen before and who I have an irresistible compulsion to hang out with?”

She was funny. She was charming. She had a deep tomboy voice. She was gorgeous. And yet she also looked like a regular person.

Since Superbad, Stone has pretty much carried all of that currency straight to the bank and general superstardom. And while it’s easy for starlets who enter the Hollywood machine with trace amounts of spunky individuality to get assembly-lined, streamlined, and de-interesting-ized, she’s come through it all remarkably well.

The other day, three years late, I finally watched Easy A, which was Stone’s big breakout leading-lady role. The movie was fun, if a bit uneven, but again, Stone basically made the whole thing. And again, I felt that odd compulsion where I wanted her to be my best friend at the same time that I wanted to be half or one-fifth as cool as her.

The tomboy/best friend/still irrepressibly talented and gorgeous shtick is big in young female Hollywood right now. Jennifer Lawrence is currently riding a wave of adulation with her self-deprecating, down-to-earth manner and her cool-girl vibe. She’s been nominated for two Academy Awards, she just won Best Actress, she’s played fantasy characters like Mystique and Katniss, and she’s starred romantically opposite the likes of Bradley Cooper and Michael Fassbender, and yet we still feel like we kind of know her. Why?

I’m just gonna take a moment to say that I love Emma Stone. I love Jennifer Lawrence. I love Mila Kunis, who has also recently re-launched her cool-girl brand (though I’m kinda like, Ashton Kutcher? Eh.) But I also love Anne Hathaway, who is riding a media wave going in the exact opposite direction, mostly because of what was deemed a disingenuous, cloying Oscar acceptance speech. Why?

Anne Hathaway is gorgeous, but relatable. She’s funny (watch how amazing she is hosting Saturday Night Live). She’s incredibly talented. She’s hard-working. And she really, really seems like a nice person. So sometimes she comes off like that overly bubbly, overly earnest girl at your high school who was always running for and/or organizing things. What’s so bad about that?

To me, it seems like there should be room for admiration and affection for multiple types of Hollywood personalities. You don’t have to like them all. To use an over-used cliché, if these girls were my best friends and we were on Sex and the City, Jennifer would be Samantha and Emma would be Miranda and Anne would be Charlotte, who can be annoying sometimes but we still love her and value her as part of the group.

But this whole anti-Hathaway movement feels incredibly mean-spirited, spiteful, and very, very high school. It feels like resentment of too much success; it feels catty. Anne has become a lightning rod for people’s general, often unfocused dislike of the rich and the successful in Hollywood, a transference for personal problems and shortcomings, a target for some kind of chorus of real-life comments sections, and, as this New Yorker blog points out, an embodiment of the "happy girl" who doesn't know her place. Think about this: how many male actors have engendered a similar reaction when their Oscar speech wasn’t pitch-perfect? I mean, why was Ben Affleck so surprised and emotional that he won an Oscar for Argo—he’s won before! What a phony. Not to mention the fact that he let slip an uncomfortable comment on the “work” he has to put into his marriage to Jennifer Garner. Yet no one’s attacking him.

I’m over it. I’m so over it. Anne Hathaway doesn’t have to be universally liked, the way Stone, Lawrence, Kunis seem to be. But she certainly doesn’t deserve to be universally reviled. When are we going to stop vindictively policing the behavior of women in the public eye—or at the bare minimum, policing members of both gender to the same degree? Why can't we all be friends?

Meet the Local: London

Meet the Local is a new series, designed to uncover the differences (and similarities) in how we think and live in different parts of the world.  In the next few months, I'll be traveling to Zagreb, Sarajevo, Spain, Portugal, Ghana, Morocco, and Scandinavia.  In each place, I'll interview someone who lives locally (although they may have originally come from somewhere else, as you'll see in today's post; I find that to discount people who have immigrated is to deny a core part of a city's makeup, especially in places like London).  I'll ask the same set of questions everywhere.  This week, meet Carleen Macdermid, from London, England:

What do you like about the place you live?

First of all, I love that it’s London, because I’m Australian---I moved here about eleven years ago.  I love how central it is.  I walk everywhere nowadays. I almost never get in the Tube.  It’s a 40 minute walk home, but I’ll still walk, because you see so much more of London.  I’m right by the river.  I’m in the middle of everything.  I love it.

What don’t you like so much?

It’s made me harder as a person. Australians are notoriously chilled out and easy going.  I’ve not become more English because to an Australian it’s very important not to be English but I’ve definitely become a Londoner.  I’m hard.  People get in the way in the Tube.  I’m always in a hurry.  When I first moved here, I would see celebrities all the time and now I just see idiots that are in my way and I don’t like that about myself.

What do you normally eat for breakfast?

I almost never eat breakfast.  I’m terrible at it.  I’m fully aware that it’s the most important meal of the day but I so enjoy my sleep that breakfast gets sacrificed every morning and has done since I was about fourteen.

What do you do for a living?  How important is your career to your sense of self?

I currently don’t really do anything, because I’m in the process of being made redundant.  I did get kids into apprenticeships for four years, and I was a teacher for seven years, and now I’m on the cusp, so if anyone thinks I’ll be useful to them, they’re welcome to contact me.

I worked really hard over the last six months to get that balance back.  For a long time there, my work was absolutely everything, it took all my free time, it took all my focus, and I kind of think if you’re working with young people, that’s important. Now, I like the fact that my focus is more on myself.  A better social life, a better work/life balance.

What do you do for fun?

I was a drama teacher for years, and for a long time I didn’t do any of that at all.  Now, I do improv, I rehearse with groups, and I’m just in the process of trying to write, to attempt for the very first time, stand up comedy.

How often do you see your family?  Tell me what you did the last time you saw them.

I see them very rarely---they’re on the other side of the globe, so the last time I saw them was three and a half years ago, and I helped them pack up and move out of the house I was raised in and move to the other side of the country.  My sister and my niece get here in two weeks, and it’ll be the first time they’ve ever visited me over here.  After that, I’ll be redundant, so I’m going to pop home to see mum and dad, and it will be the first time in three and a half years.

What’s your biggest dream for your life?

To find something that really satisfies me.  I’ve always had jobs that I’ve enjoyed elements of, I liked working with young people, but I’ve never really had anything in my life where I’ve kinda sat there and gone: yeah, I do that, and I’m really happy about it and really proud of it.  So I’m determined to track that down, be it in my work or be it in something creative.  It’s out there, and I’m gonna find it before I get too old.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?  Why?

I would invent a magical place that was similar to London and had the lifestyle and the get up and go but had my parents a lot closer than 24 hours away by airplane, and had some of the warmth of Australia without turning into the awful, shabby parts of Spain where people go and conglomerate and do awful things.

What are you most proud of?

I am most proud of the fact that my job has always contributed to young people.  I spent my entire career in education and training and I can point to literally hundreds and thousands of kids that I’ve helped.  I’ve got young people now who are teachers like I was, and other young people that have really good professions because they did apprenticeships with me, and I’ll always have that to be proud of.

How happy would you say you are?  Why?

I’m gonna go with 85%.  Even at my most unhappy, I never manage to drop below about 65 or 70%, I’m just naturally an upbeat person, but I like the fact that I’m starting to do more for me for the first time in a long time.

International Women's Day Art

Happy International Women's Day. As is true of many struggles, the women's movement has inspired some amazing poster art. Enjoy.

Original Source Unknown

Faviana Rodriguez

Lenthall Rd WorkshopArtist Unknown

European Parliment; Artist Unknown

Marc Rudin, 1981

Finally, not really poster art, but an amazing photograph. Hat tip to Elise Peterson.

Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes, taken by Dan Wynn

Celebrating International Women's Day by Respecting my Girl's 'No'

By Rhea St. Julien “Can you hold my hand to cross the street?” I implored, my arm stretched back behind me to my two year old, Olive.

Her hands were crammed in her peacoat like a mini Bob Dylan. “Not today.” she said, not looking up.

My husband and I cracked up in laughter, at how serious of a refusal she gave me, and since street safety is important, I grabbed one of her little hands out of her pocket to skip to the other side.

We retold the story several times that day, of how adorably earnest she was about not holding hands at that time. But I felt a ping of guilt, as all the feminist texts I read about raising a strong daughter tell me not to laugh at my girl’s “no”s, but to respect them.

It’s good advice. In my life, I have had people be shocked, offended, and outright dismissive of my no. I had my share of experiences in the young days of burgeoning sexuality in which boys did not listen to my no. But in many ways, I was able to get through those body manipulations less scarred than the times my no has been rebuffed in educational, professional, and personal settings. The power of a woman’s no. What is it worth?

I know the world Olive will grow up in is not much different than the one I did. And despite the fact that people are often appalled when I say no, I keep doing it. My parents can attest to the fact that I was born with a certain strain of defiance, a gene from my father, a steely commitment to protection, of myself and my loved ones, when that is needed. I want to impart this to my daughter as well, though I think all I’ll need to do is nurture what is already within her.

“Mama, can you not sing that right now?” She looks up at me, a concerned look on her face. I was grooving, but she’s asking me, seriously and politely, to stop. I let out a chuckle, at how much it means to her that I stop singing my silly little song in that moment, but I say, “Okay.”

I’m trying to cut out the laughter, and skip right to either telling her, “I hear that you don’t want to wear your coat, but you have to, it’s cold out!” or saying “Alright, you don’t have to go upstairs yet. We can wait here until you’re ready.” It’s hard, since she’s so flipping cute, her eyes big and imploring, her unibrow knitted into an expression of concern, or determination.

“No Mama, I don’t want to smile right now.” “Oh, alright. No smiles.”

Today, that meant not getting a kiss goodbye when she left for preschool. I wanted one, and asked for one, but when she said no, I decided, in honor of International Women’s Day, I wouldn’t steal one. I’d let her no be no. And off she went.

This piece is also running on Rhea's blog Thirty Threadbare Mercies today.

Wasting Away Again in Judgey-Mama-Ville

Dear Sibyl, As a new mom, I find myself HATING 'mom-talk.' I find it awkward listening to my friends tell me the new developmental leap their kid has taken.   How do I respond if my kid has already been doing that (for months)? I hate how it makes me feel.  If I disengage and reply with "That's great," I feel sad I didn't take that moment to brag about my own kid. BUT if I engage and be truthful about what my kid is doing, does that start an unintentional "let-me-one-up-you" war? I don't want to prove anything---I don't want to put that pressure on me or my little man who is just happy banging stuff around and laughing about it.  

I hate mothers who are scared of germs---who won't let their kid play in a public park.  I hate mothers who won't let their kid sit in dirt or GRASS (for crying out loud who cares if a dog peed there once a million years ago. . . and yes. . . I heard that come from a lady once).  I hate them because they tell these things to me AS MY KID IS PLAYING IN DIRT. . . AS MY KID SITS HAPPILY IN THE SHOPPING CART WITH NO CLOTH PROTECTION.  What do I say to them?  (You are neurotic?)   

Is there a polite way to disengage from this?  I'm not into the 'mom-shop' talk.  I don't mind talking about motherhood but I hate when it turns into what people’s kids are doing and when they did it and just you wait. . . and oh I would NEVER let him do that. . . you let them eat what?  From the whole foods salad bar???  GERMS!!!!  I especially hate when they talk to me as if I have no idea what is coming next.  I find it patronizing.  

For the love of all things---how do I deal with them?

Trapped in Momville

Dear Trapped,

You’ve got to take it all less personally.  Let me explain, because believe me, I know what you mean---I’ve been there.  And it never goes away.  Parenting brings out a level of anxiety and neurosis in certain people that even that mom who is armed with antibacterial hand gel just to let their kid use the swing has never known before. That does not mean you need to get caught up in it, or identify yourself with that woman in any way.

New moms are trying to define themselves in their new role, and some women do that by getting very particular about everything child-related.  These moms are unsure of how to be a parent, so they equate it with Getting It Right, and then work hard to shore up their definition of “right” by forcing you to feel their anxiety and agree with them about this worldview.  You have to fight not to be sucked in to the crazy-making conversational dance about what food you introduced first to your baby and what that means about you as a person.

And that probably means you feel alienated, and lonely.  Which is an uncomfortable space to be in, but a normal way to feel.  What you've got to let go of is the hatred.

When I became a mother, I was shocked at the level of discourse of the mothers I encountered on the playground, at playdates, and just out in the world.  The level of competitiveness was striking---moms even found ways to put down my child's early verbosity ("She's going to have quite a mouth on her when she's 13!") and would urge their kids to draw like my child was ("Hunter, draw a circle!  You can do it, see hers?  Just like that."), looking over at me to prove my kid was nothing special, after all.  I was saddened that all they wanted to discuss was diaper changes and when to wean, while I had read three books and watched several documentaries that week that I was eager to discuss, but my attempts to shift the conversation fell on deaf ears.

From observing this pack mentality over several months, I realized a few things: I was going to find "my people", eventually, but these folks were not it.  Therefore, I separated the moms I knew into two categories, "co-workers", and "friends".  The co-workers were the moms I always saw on the playground but knew I was never really going to connect with, the ones obsessed with germs and growth charts.  I delegated them in my mind to the annoying co-workers I once had in the professional setting---I talked to them when I needed to, stayed emotionally detached from them, and, if anything, found compassion for their exquisitely neurotic states.  If they pissed me off too much to have compassion for them, I moved on to just pity their children.

The ones I found to be friends with were always slightly off.  The moms who would plunk down on the park bench and say, "I almost dropped the kid off at the Fire Station last night.  This latte is the only thing keeping me from doing it now."  The ones who talked about their sex life, or lack there of, the ones who cracked wry jokes at their family’s expense, yet still daily inspired me with their devotion to their kids.  Also, I found that I could often relate more to the nannies, who were invested but just removed enough from the children to have more of a sense of humor about all of it, and more likely to invite me out for a drink after my husband got home.

You are going to find your people.  You will know, when you walk into their house and their homes are not neat as a pin with family portraits hanging everywhere and cookies baking in the oven, but rather, their home looks lived in.  You will know, when they ask you how you are, and they really mean you, not how well your child slept last night.  And they are going to make this wild world of parenting so much more fun.

So, the way you deal with the new moms that are driving you nuts with the comparison-based mom talk is you don't hang out with them.  You take out a magazine at the park when a mom you don't know is hovering over their kid and yours, and smiling crazily at you like, "Aren't you going to follow your kid around?!"

You decline the playdates to the houses where the moms have disinfected the bottoms of all their shoes, even though they never wear shoes indoors.  You do this even if that means you are lonely sometimes, and just end up hanging out with your own kid.  This will force you to go find the parents you can actually relate to.

You go find your people, and you try, really hard, not to talk shit about those other moms.  They are fighting a terrible battle that they will never win, the battle to protect their kid from struggle, and from life.  Leave them to it.  Be your own kind of mother.  Go play.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here. 

Semiramis: Ancient Woman of Mystery.

The first reason I wanted to write about Semiramis was because of her cool name, and the second was because I hadn’t written about an ancient historical woman since my first post on Hatshepsut. Lack of sources and all that.

But after just a cursory scan of her Wikipedia page, my interest was very much piqued, more because of what wasn’t there than what was. It’s true that with ancient figures, as opposed to modern ones, the lack of sources can be crippling. Photographs and phonographic recordings are certainly easier to interpret than crumbling papyrus scrolls. But even as far as ancients go, Semiramis’s life is a complete mystery. And yet, this hasn’t prevented a whole bunch of people—mostly men—from liberally inventing her life story in a whole bunch of ways.

The real Semiramis was probably actually an Assyrian queen named Shammuramat who, following her husband Shamshi-Adad V’s death, ruled as regent for her young son from 810 to 806 BCE. Her actual looks, personality, and accomplishments are shrouded in that aforementioned mystery—though, at the very least, we know she spent a few years in charge of the Neo-Assyrian Empire at its powerful height, with a rule spanning from Asia Minor to western Iran. The neighboring Greeks, Iranians, and Indians probably fueled the Semiramis legend due to their contact with the Assyrian empire during her reign. Average Greek/Iranian/Indian guy: “Those Assyrians are badass and they’re ruled by a woman? Man, she must be super hardcore, bro.” (It’s my theory that bros are not a new phenomenon.)

Beyond that, Shammuramat/Semiramis’s life gets murky. But like I said, a whole bunch of people over the centuries—mostly men—can tell you plenty about her. Here’s a brief rundown of the, shall we say, creative Semiramis interpretations:

Ancient Greeks and Persians believed her to be the legendary queen of king Ninus of Babylon, who oversaw the building of the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, who lived in the first century BCE, devoted a lot of ink (or stone chisels, or whatever) to Semiramis in his The Library of History. According to Diodorus, she was the daughter of a fish goddess (!) that was raised by doves (!!) and then married to the Babylonian king Ninus. When Ninus died, she pretended to be her son for forty-two years (kind of a more soap-opera version of serving as regent), and during that time commanded armies, conquered Libya and Ethiopia, built palaces, and waged an unsuccessful campaign in India which included an army of mechanical elephants (!!!). However, Dio S. refuted the popular claim that she built the Hanging Gardens, noting that these were built after her time by Nebuchadnezzar (owner of one of the best names any king has had, period).

Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman historian, claimed Semiramis invented eunuchs— yes—initiating the practice of castrating male youth. Others also said she invented the chastity belt. (I hear those words, my mind still goes to Maid Marian’s steel padlocked underwear in Robin Hood: Men in Tights.)

Armenian tradition depicted her as a harlot—in a traditional story, she killed the Armenian king Ara the Beautiful after he refused her hand in marriage.

Dante put her in the Second Circle of Hell, along with Helen of Troy, in his Inferno. Probably another one of those “harlot” things.

Alexander Hislop, the 19^th-century Protestant minister, wrote about her in his The Two Babylons (1853) and placed her in biblical tradition. According to Alex H., she was the consort of Nimrod, builder of the Tower of Babel, and she deified herself as the Sumerian goddess Ishtar, mother of Gilgamesh. Later Catholic tradition was based on Semiramis’s Ishtar legend—including the Virgin Mary—which, essentially, allowed Hislop to equate Catholicism with paganism. (Which leads me to question, where does that leave Protestantism? But I haven’t read this masterpiece of theological inquiry, so I won’t judge, beyond the fact that I just sarcastically called it a masterpiece of theological inquiry.)

On top of all this, Semiramis has been the subject of silent and talkie films (Queen of Babylon, 1954; I am Semiramis, 1963), operas (Rossini’s Semaride; Meyerbeer’s Semaride), plays (Voltaire’s Semiramis, a brief mention in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus), and 18^th-century paintings (both paintings shown here; Jean-Simon Berthélemy’s Semiramis Inspecting a Plan of Babylon), among other things. Now all that’s missing in terms of namesakes is a feminist pop culture website (a la Jezebel).

Like Jezebel, Mary Magdalene, Cleopatra, and a host of other ancient women, Semiramis has become synonymous with female licentiousness and sexual immorality, a symbol of woman’s role as earthly temptation. But she has also been attributed qualities of leadership, daring, ambition, courage, and empire-building. She’s even been called a fish goddess’s daughter---which sounds like the name of an Amy Tan novel.

So the stories are obviously all a little different. But for me, the striking common thread is, again, the way that Semiramis serves as an empty vessel, whether that’s for themes of sexual immorality, leadership, divinity, or what have you. Basically, she served whatever purpose the dude---storyteller, scroll-writer, Enlightenment playwright, or silent film director---had in mind, informed by the cultural context of the times through which her legacy was passed down. And these contexts tended to be supremely male-centric, Bible-obsessed, and probably Orientalist.

In this, then, Semiramis's story is not so different from the story of women today. Sure, we’ve come a long way. Yet women often continue to serve as symbols of societal morality, to be talked about with or without women’s participation. There are public debates about how women should dress, how women should behave sexually, how women should balance work and home life. There are political debates about rape, birth control, abortion. There are humanitarian debates about women in other countries---most recently, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s Half the Sky made a splash---and how their dress, rights, cultural roles represent the relative freedom and, perhaps, morality of their societies. (And maybe whether or not we should invade them.)

So as awesome as all the stories about Semiramis are, as an ancient woman of historical legend, I think the most interesting thing about her is that she has secrets. That, maybe, I can relate to.

How To Train Your Dragon: Letting Doubt Into Marriage

Dear Sibyl, I am writing because I feel afraid. I got married in August to a man I adore and feel such a comfort with, but we are so different in every way (not the least of which being that I am a minister/chaplain and he is not a person of faith, and our cultural differences). We have had conflicts over the last four years that I would call "normal" for most couples but this weekend was one of those conflicts that left me wracked with doubts.

Doubts like "with this divorce rate what am I thinking?? Are we going to make it?? Is this rocky adjustment period a horrible sign or is it just the reality of marriage?"

He is a genuinely good man. My family loves him. I can be myself around him---except on nights like this when I am super defensive and analytical and miss my parents like a two year old does and cry nonstop. Then we have to go to separate corners.

Anyway, I thought that better than blogging about this would be writing to someone who seems to find the beauty and depth precisely in the imperfections of life and relationships. So I am wondering if you are someone who has somehow made all this work, against all odds.

I hope against hope that we can too.

Sincerely,

Newlywedded but Doubting Bride

Dear Newlywedded,

It's beautiful that you are allowing doubt into your relationship.  Doubt is the creature that lurks at the door, and you fear it, imagining a dragon, when really you should let it in and set a place for it at the table.  Once it's been well fed and seen in the light, you'll see its scales will fall off and transform into something more human.

My husband and I have been married for nearly a decade.  We have had our share of bitter heartbreaking periods in that ten year span, but are now in a place that is so good, that we often joke that we should produce some "It Gets Better" videos for young couples who are starting out and wondering why on earth they should stick with something so tragically difficult.  The fact that it is hard is the very reason it turns out to be so rewarding, as time goes on.

Everything gets better if you stick with it: the sex, the communication, the spiritual connection.  Just this past weekend we lay in each other's arms, totally naked, wrapped around each other like ribbons on a May Pole.  Our time together was brief---soon we'd have to hit the grocery store to get food for dinner, pick up our child from the babysitter, and be back to the grind of life.  But that moment felt infinite, as we bared our hearts and bodies to each other.

So, what advice would I give to a newlywed, especially one with some big differences to overcome?

1. Let each other grow and change, even if it looks like you are growing in different ways.  Lets go back to the ivy branch image from last week, as a metaphor for a relationship.  As you grow, you branch out in different directions, but you also twine together in places, always coming back to the same root and source, which is your love for one another.  Don't be afraid of his interests that are different from yours---encourage them.  Give him time and space to explore those very things that you don't enjoy---but also take an interest in them, at the very least asking him to explain to you why they are so meaningful to him.

2. Learn to fight.  One of the first lessons my husband taught me, when we were first dating, was that I couldn't curse at him and lose my mind in our arguments.  It took some practice, but rather than saying, "Aw, forget it, I just won't talk about this stuff with you", I worked on it, and we found a way to talk about the hard stuff with respect.  The biggest mistake I see couples make is avoiding difficult topics.  I have seen that ruin marriages more than anything else.  Marriage is all about getting in to those sticky places in life that you were hoping to just skate by, together.  Try to have a sense of humor in the midst of it---my husband and I have found that being able to make each other laugh is the best way to defuse an argument and get to the bottom of what's really bothering us, without our defenses up.

3. Keep having sex.  Just keep doing it.  Sex is a huge bonding agent.  Have you ever noticed that if your communication is just off, and you are snapping at each other more often, that just getting laid really helps?  Yeah, that's because when you meet each other nakedly in the bedroom, you can see each other in kinder light. My husband and I have had major dry spells with sex, but in those times, we have never been okay with it.  It's never been "Oh well, I guess I'm not such a sexual person".  Sex is the glue of the relationship.  So, even when it was infrequent, we were talking about it all the time, trying different things to get it going again.  You have an entire lifetime to figure out each other's bodies, so enjoy.

4. Ask for help when needed.  The early years of marriage are like resistance training workouts---you build the muscles of finding a way to heal what seems totally broken, again and again. You live in hope. And when things seem just too foggy for either of you to see the way through, you get help. I know a couple that goes to a therapist when they feel they need a "tune-up" or have a conflict they can't settle on their own, OR every five years, whatever comes first.  I love this perspective, because it takes the stigma off of the desire to have someone help you with your issues, and creates space for you to allow things to arise between you that are unexpected.  And please don't tell me you can't afford it.  If you invest in making your home nice to live in, your car run well, or your body to feel good, you can spend money on your relationship.

It sounds like you have a good partner at your side, one willing to do the difficult work and share in the spoils of love and creating a life together.  Hold on to one another, for when the really hard times come, you’ll remember that you sailed through stormy waters in the beginning, and came out afloat, doubts and all.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Petya Grady writes about books, art and style at The Migrant Bookclub. The Eastern Europe of her childhood is a frequent point of departure as she explores issues of place, identity, memory and (un)-belonging. She currently lives in Memphis, TN with her husband. I am on a Jackie O kick recently. This comes as a surprise to me so, naturally, I want to talk about it. I grew up in Bulgaria and moved to the States for college in '99. I went to a small private school in rural Tennessee and even though I majored in Political Science, there was not a single thing in my life that ever signaled to me that I should be curious about the former First Lady. Heck, I didn't even care much for her style. Where I come from, a black turtle neck is considered the epitome of chic and although I don't think Jacqueline would have hated that, I did not think we would have much to talk about if we were to ever meet. Until.

About two years ago, I noticed that the New York Times was reviewing not one but two biographies of Jacqueline that focused on her years as a book editor. It came as quite of a surprise to my bookish self. Not only had I never even heard that Ms. O had ever held a job in her life but now I was faced with the very rare experience of having to choose between two books on that very same subject, coming out at the exact same time. What were the chances?!

I picked up William Kuhn's "Reading Jackie" because I liked the cover better. (Please tell me you do that too!!!) Kuhn is straight-forward about the fact that he never had any personal contact with Jackie and that he had very limited access to any of her personal artifacts and/or memorabilia. Jacqueline after all is notorious of her privacy. However, he makes the argument that when one looks at the books she worked on as an editor, first at Viking and then at Doubleday, one can learn quite a bit about her taste, her interests, and her personality. It's the autobiography she never wrote, he says! Reviewers have questioned the rigor of Mr. Kuhn's research and described his work as quite speculative, BUT, the book did leave me with this great feeling of wonder and surprise about its famous subject---a woman touched by so much sadness and tragedy and yet unchanged in her appreciation for beauty, literature and art. What books did she edit, you are probably wondering? William Kuhn's has shared the complete list on his website but here are some highlights: The Firebird and Other Russian Fairy Tales by Boris Zvorykin, My Book of Flowers by Princess Grace of Monaco, Secrets of Marie Antoinette by Olivier Bernier, Blood Memory by Martha Graham (Graham's autobiography). The range in format and subject matter is astounding and Jacqueline comes across as a woman of infinite curiosity and professional drive---so different from her rather vapid public image as a stylish {but somewhat ostentatious} woman.

I've read parts of the book many times since and gifted it more times than I care to remember. I obsessed over it so much that it wasn't actually until I started writing this piece, that I recalled I never went back and picked up the second book that came around that same time---Greg Lawrence's "Jackie as Editor." I've been re-reading some of its reviews and realizing that it may actually be the stronger book of the two. It documents Jackie from the perspective of her co-workers and HER BOSS and is based on Lawrence's meticulous study of her in-line edits, letters and notes she sent to numerous writers, artists, photographers. It sounds so delicious (if a little gossipy) that I am fairly certain I will go ahead and order it as soon as I am done telling you about it.

The book that got me back on this track, however, is Alice Kaplan's recent "Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis". Kaplan draws a surprising group portrait of three of America's most memorable women and sets it in the beautiful, romantic, daunting, lush, and sometimes seedy city of Paris where all three spent significant amounts of time in their most formative years. Each part of the book is wonderful for so many reasons but Jacqueline, again, charmed me most completely for her earnest pursuit of PARIS and herself. Of her time there, she would write later in her essay for a Vogue student writing contest, "I learned not to be ashamed of a real hunger for knowledge, something I had always tried to hide." Which, of course, broke my heart a little bit but also made me so happy for her because I knew that after college, after Camelot, and after always being defined as some important man's beautiful significant other, she would grow old in a way that completely nurtured her constant hunger for knowledge without even trying to pretend it was necessary to hide it.

Marissa Mayer's Easy, Breezy Climb

In the PBS Documentary that premiered this week called, Makers: Women Who Make America (about the history of feminism in this country), Marissa Mayer, President and CEO of Yahoo! and the 14^th most powerful business woman in the world (according to Forbes) said that she does not consider herself a feminist.  In her brief interview, she went on to associate feminism with a “militant drive,” a “chip on the shoulder,” and with a perception of negativity.  You can watch exactly what she said here: Her comments came to my attention because my husband’s Twitter feed was all aflutter (also, aTwitter) with varied responses to her statements.  I had intended to see the documentary the night before, but ultimately decided to save it for the weekend, so I hadn’t seen the clip.  He asked me if I had heard what she said and wasn’t I outraged?  My initial response was tepid — after all, I have heard women (and men) talking about feminism this way my whole life.  I totally understood and in some way related to her desire to dissociate herself from the more “outlandish” or “angry” version of feminism, so dismissed by the mainstream.  After all, this version of feminism is threatening and flips the script on men in traditional positions of power.  The more we discussed it, the more I wondered if it was that Ms. Mayer had been so privileged in her career and social trajectory that she had truly never experienced barriers or that she had so internalized the narrative that women should “go along to get along” that she sincerely couldn’t empathize with “radicals.”

Marissa Mayer, you stand on the shoulders of the women throughout our history who acted out in a way that you might consider ugly.  By all accounts, you earned the daylights out of the position in which you find yourself today.  You are eminently qualified for your job in terms of your education and experience.  You have a reputation for being an unapologetic workaholic.  And yet, you don’t seem to realize that the reason you had access to your education, any of the jobs you have held or the resources and social sanctions to work as hard as you have is because of feminism … the bra-burning kind.  Or, even worse, you are so disconnected from that struggle and have no sense of why women have been forced to be so reactive, that you don’t want to affiliate with that identity.

I want to say here quite clearly that I obviously don’t know Marissa Mayer at all.  I don’t have true insight into what she was thinking when she said those words (that I now can’t stop watching on YouTube).  I also haven’t seen the entire context of the interview, which might soften the seemingly cut-and-dried indictment of her sisters in arms.  I do know that when you have achieved that kind of status (breezily climbing the ladder, she seems to believe), the public has a tendency to hang on your every word, particularly in the context of being interviewed about your extraordinary accomplishments in a documentary about FEMINISM.

This also comes on the heels of her establishing a company-wide ban on working from home.  Flexible scheduling and telecommuting have been cornerstone achievements in establishing equality in the workplace.  Introducing the idea that the work environments could and should be more flexible has boosted the careers of both women AND men in recent decades and allowed both parties to be more available for childcare, among other things.  Many studies, including this 2009 study by major corporate employer Cisco found that people are actually more productive and satisfied with their jobs when they have this flexibility.  This is particularly salient for women, for whom the traditional work structure is still punitive when they have children and prevents them from keeping pace with their male counterparts in terms of advancement.

And what about Marissa Mayer and her own, personal, work-life balance?  She made history when she was hired by Yahoo! as the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company ever and immediately announced that she was also five months pregnant.  Working mothers everywhere glommed on to her story, waiting with bated breath to see how this would all play out.  She ended up working from home during the end of her pregnancy, took only two weeks of maternity leave and had a special nursery built next to her office at Yahoo! so she could be close to her newborn after her lightning fast return to work.  I don’t have to tell you what a poor model this is for working women and how nobody else on planet earth has the money or power to build a nursery next to their office and bring their infant to work.  Maybe Oprah or Martha.  Maybe.

I write this on a day when Congress has finally voted to re-authorize the Violence Against Women Act.  Shockingly, despite the description of what the act aims to prevent being right in the title, this wasn’t remotely a done deal.  In fact, it was kind of a squeaker.  138 Members of Congress (Republicans, all) ultimately voted against it.  It sort of makes me wonder where we might rustle up a bunch of feminists to demonstrate the appropriate level of fury?

I hope that as Marissa Mayer evolves in her career, she might reconsider her notion of feminism as negative.  It is, rather simply, the entire reason she has a career.  I get that she pictures feminists only as wearing combat boots and reading poetry about their vaginas.  But, she is in a position of vast power and has great wealth and we could use her in the trenches.  We could use another woman who fits all the classical norms of beauty and prominence to publicly recognize that there is still so much work to be done.

I've Got a Perfect Body

The title of this post most definitely does not reflect my personal relationship with my own body, oh no of course not, though (as we will discuss) I wish it did. It’s a line from a Regina Spektor song (“Folding Chair,” from 2009’s Far) that rolls through my head sometimes, which I absolutely love:

“I’ve got a perfect body / But sometimes I forget / I’ve got a perfect body / ‘Cause my eyelashes catch my sweat”

I love how this little sentiment subverts our expectation as to how one’s body should be judged. What is the “perfect body” anyway? Who is it for? Yourself, or everyone else?

Last week I visited the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, a dark and morbidly fascinating collection of medical specimens and wax models of human oddities housed in a physicians’ college. Most of the specimens date back to the early twentieth century and have that curio cabinet look about them, though they were ostensibly used for legitimate research purposes.

A lot of it was interesting—all of it left me feeling a little queasy. The models and specimens were, for the most part, divorced from the experience of the human who was afflicted, and were presented as isolated parts (syphilitic skulls, tumored eyes). Cold, scientific. But one exhibit I found to be sympathetic and particularly heartbreaking.

This exhibit showed a series of photographs of a boy who lived in the middle of the twentieth century. In the first photograph, he is a beaming 5-year-old boy who has just recovered from a fractured leg bone and is standing tall in his little 1940s shorts. In the next photograph, he is about 7, and we can see that something is wrong with his leg—it’s growing a bit crooked, skinny, weak. The photographs continue over the years, and soon we see that the malformation of his leg has also affected his posture. He can only stand with his head stooped forward, one shoulder collapsed, as he shoots up over six feet with one healthy leg and one long, crooked, bone-thin leg. In each of these later photographs he stares straight at the camera, stoic, defeated, with an air of despair. He died when he was about 40.

This was someone who would not be able to walk through a crowd without attracting strange looks, revulsion and/or pity. This was, I suppose, an imperfect body, one that had trouble functioning, one whose skeleton (or a facsimile thereof) was placed on display in a goddamn curio cabinet. Because of one long, pronounced flaw.

On the other end of the spectrum is the story of the Ukrainian Barbie “trend” that’s been circulating on the Internet—girls who are quite literally striving for physical perfection. Through plastic surgery and hardcore makeup regimens, women like Anastasiya Shpagina and Valeriya Lukyanova attempt to achieve the exaggerated proportions and pert, doll-like features of Barbie dolls and anime characters. It’s alarming and simply cannot be healthy, physically, mentally, or emotionally—yet this is their choice. This, according to their interviews, is what makes them happy and comfortable. Including possibly having ribs surgically removed to get that perfect tiny waist.

What is perfection? I think it’s worth asking ourselves that question. Whether or not we admit to it, there must be some idea of “the perfect” that we consciously or unconsciously believe in. If there was no “perfect,” there would be no such thing as flaws. Or if there were, they would be things like a malformed leg that made walking difficult and required medical attention---not a bit of cellulite or ears that turn out too wide.

In a recent Jezebel piece, Tracy Moore points out that it is often realism, not insecurity, that informs women’s reluctance to describe themselves as “pretty” (or, when they do, to qualify it with their numerous flaws or non-normative traits).

“For them, it wasn't that they couldn't think they were pretty. It was that they all knew, after lifetimes of being shown images of what is pretty, cute, beautiful or not in staggering detail, EXACTLY what kind of pretty they are or aren't, to what type of person they were most appealing, to what degree their prettiness abounds. Just saying they were pretty without acknowledging the exceptions seemed to be like admitting that you didn't understand how pretty works. And ‘pretty’ isn't a permanent state, either: it's a complicated, evolving assessment, discussed with a detached, almost economic appraisal.”

I get that “pretty” or “beautiful” are extremely abstract signifiers that we never like to imagine ourselves as fully qualifying for. But if not us, who does? Hypothetically, what would the erasure of all these supposed “flaws” get us to? A fake Barbie?

Whether it’s insecurity or realism, I don’t think there’s any problem with celebrating the body and face you have. It’s not perfect in the literal sense, but it’s not supposed to be. If it works, for the most part—if you ever feel good about yourself—if anyone has ever paid you a compliment—you might as well have a perfect body.  The women who started and/or participate in The Nu Project, a photography blog of female nudes who embrace and celebrate their bodies as they are, seem to know this. (Warning: NSFW.) What I love about this project—besides for these women’s bravery in bearing all despite deviations from supposed “perfection”—is the sheer diversity of their bodies, the oft-needed reminder that there’s more ways to be and to look and to appear than the narrow parameters of beauty presented to us in the media.

Maybe all of us are perfect. Or maybe none of us are perfect. All I know is, it's a waste of time to feel shame---whether that's shame at feeling unattractive, or shame at feeling attractive and expressing that confidence aloud.

But also, I think it’s important to remember: we have bodies but we are not bodies. We are more. Accept the physical reality, then concern yourself with more important things, like being an awesome person. Right?

The end.

Does Being an Adult Totally Suck?

Dear Sibyl, I finally feel like a real grown-up and I find it horribly disappointing. I can't imagine a better husband, my two-year-old daughter is awesome, and I love my work. Unfortunately, there's a big but. I was prepared to have a big, important career and I don't think that's possible as a mother of a small child (without being independently wealthy).

My parents told me I could be anything I wanted to be and my husband regularly says he's waiting for me to strike it big, so he can retire. Unfortunately, my career options are high in intellectual, social, and personal rewards, but not so much in financial rewards. My husband isn't going to be retiring on my salary anytime soon, which means his job needs to be the priority.

The part that really gets me is that I will never fully realize my potential career. If there are two working parents, one parent always has to be the one who will figure it out if the babysitter is sick. One parent has to make sure there is food in the fridge and favorite pajamas are washed in time for bed. One parent has to sign on as parent #1 (at least to provide the kind of support that I envision providing to my child). Maybe there is a system where both parents share all child-related responsibilities, but I'm not sure I can imagine it. After all, one of the major tenets of management in a professional context is maintaining individual responsibility: if everyone is responsible no one is.

Most big, important careers demand to be the priority. And I think the realization that made me a grown-up is that you don't get to have two priorities at once in life. I want my child, and eventually children, to be my first priority, but I also want to know what I could have done with my professional life had I been able to give it my all.

Sincerely, Two Paths, One Life

Dear Two Paths, One Life,

Are you sitting down?  Okay, because I’m about to deliver a series of blows that may hurt at first, but hopefully will settle in as the best kind of truth.

First of all, no wonder you are disappointed in adulthood, since you are completely missing the point.  The goal of life is not to be a big, important person who is responsible for everyone and amasses wealth for retirement.  I totally understand why you believe this, as this is our culture’s greatest falsehood, one we shout and whisper and slip into the food we serve.

But, Honey.  Oh, Honey, no.

The choice is not between being a mother and being a big shot.  It’s about being a person of substance, no matter what tasks you find yourself doing.

First of all, we need to address your sign off name.  There are three lives you are talking about here, and three paths, but you have submerged them all into one life---yours.  Of course there's no space to spread your wings!  You have both your husband and your child on your back, and you're stumbling around blindly.

A better metaphor for what should be going on is: One root, three vines.  Your husband and yourself formed the roots of your family tree when you bonded yourselves to one another.  Your lives climb like an ivy plant, branching off in some places, intertwining and holding one another up in others.  Your daughter's is an offshoot, that right now gets all of its nourishment from the roots of your marriage.  However, she'll branch off on her own more and more, and eventually she'll start her own vine, on some other wall.  The way things are now, both of their branches are choking yours, and no one can grow.

I think the problem is that you need to redefine success.  What is “making it” as an adult?  Is it a life of growth, or one you read about in the newspapers?  Because the people making headlines, especially ones with big, important careers, are always falling from grace, in big, important ways.  Just this month: Jesse Jackson Jr., Oscar Pistorius, THE POPE.

You don’t need a big, important career to be a happy adult, you need to be a big, important you.  Be the biggest star of your life.  Be the most important person in your child's life.

Do you want to make something happen?  Then follow your passion and do it!  But if you just want to feel important, then I don't think you will find that kind of validation in a high-paying, high stakes job.  That kind of validation only comes from within.

I want you to let this dream of being this powerful figure die so you can see what rises from the ashes.  I want what rises to be you.

In order to do this, you cannot use management tenets to run your family---your family should be be run on love, and love means everyone pitches in.  So, let go of some of the responsibility for being “Parent #1”, and let your husband plan back-up childcare for once.  And tell him to stop putting pressure on you to strike it big so he never has to work again!  What the hell?

So, perhaps you are not going to be on the cover of TIME magazine.  But, I doubt very seriously that that is because you are devoting your energy towards being a mother, instead.  I believe that you can still have what you want---have a feeling of being a successful adult who makes waves in the world, while still showing up for your children---but it is going to require a worldview shift.

Being an adult means we get to weave together the life we actually want, which, yes, is really difficult, but has the potential to create something totally unique and beautiful.

You are not missing out on fully realizing your potential career, if you are fully realizing your potential self.  You will need to give up the goals of prestige and leisure and take up the goal of love, but I promise you, it’s a better investment.

Love, Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

Josephine Baker: Dancer. Spy. Subverter of Racial Assumptions.

 

About six months ago, I wrote about the racist moments that cropped up on the latest cycle of “America’s Next Top Model." (I realize in reality TV-land that this might has well have been the last century, and that about seven seasons have aired since then.) One of the moments that struck me as the most insanely questionable was when a designer dressed up black British model Analiese in a skirt of dangly plush bananas, while he dressed the other two models—both white—in more traditional, Marie Antoinette-style outfits.

It was pointed out to me that the tropical getup may have been purposely evocative of today’s Historical Woman, the amazing Josephine Baker: an American-born French singer, dancer, and all-around entertainer who fought Nazis and racists on the side. One of her most famous stage costumes was a skirt made of dangling bananas, usually accompanied by a complete lack of a top. This throws the whole ANTM affair into a much more complicated and ambiguous place—especially considering Ms. Baker’s agency in marketing her act and image in this way. How to feel about it now?

Let’s start with the banana skirt. The garment has been alternately described as problematic and empowering, as an accessory of European colonialist fantasy and as a tool that Baker knowingly used to subvert racial and gender categories. In this way, the skirt is really a microcosm for her entire career, at least in the early decades.

When Josephine Baker, born Freda McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri in 1906, arrived in Paris in 1925, France was obsessed with black culture. For them, Josephine—who appeared in a show called “La Revue Nègre”—was a safe venue for their fantasies about “the savage,” a figure often extolled as the antidote to a spiritually oppressive civilization. That Josephine was from Missouri and not deepest Africa seemed to mean little to her French fans and critics.

“The white imagination sure is something when it comes to blacks,” Josephine quipped. I like to think she meant: “White people sure can be racist!”

Baker appeared in a number of shows in which she was usually scantily clad, often portraying a “savage” who meets a French colonial explorer and dances to the accompaniment of African drums. See a video of one such dance here. Critics rhapsodized about her primal vitality and her exotic looks. Picasso extolled her “coffee skin, ebony eyes, and legs of paradise,” and she was admired by everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Jean Cocteau (oh, Paris in the 1920s!).

While the banana skirt and the “primitive” dances, as well as the audience reaction, may induce discomfort in a modern mind (like mine), it’s possible that in the context of her time Josephine was exercising an unprecedented kind of power, even as she reproduced the stereotypes that still popularly characterized her race. Her particular brand of entertainment was insanely marketable and earned her great success and admiration. She herself may have been the one who invented the banana skirt—thus it was not, as the liberal imagination (like mine) might like to infer, foisted upon her by a racist white stage manager. Either way, she certainly took advantage of its popularity, advocating for everything from banana moisturizers to pomades to custards that bore her name. (This last was actually created by Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein’s GFF. Oh, Paris in the 1920s!)

Josephine Baker’s crazy whirlwind of a life was by no means limited to her stage career. During World War II, Josephine was a spy for the French Resistance movement. Thus, she joins Julia Child in the “unlikely spy” category. (Waiting for Josie & Josephine.) Her Europe-wide performing career was the perfect cover for her to casually participate in—and then remember-- all sorts of important conversations, and she passed the info on to the Allies, aiding Charles de Gaulle and his Free French buddies.

What motivated this singer/dancer to enter the world of political intrigue? It’s true that she was a devoted nouveau francaise and that she loved her adopted country—but even more, Josephine hated Nazis. “The Nazis were racist,” she told Ebony magazine in 1973. “They were bigots. I despised that sort of thing and was determined that they must be defeated.”

As a result of her service to France, Josephine became the first American woman to receive a full French military funeral upon her death in 1975, an event that shut down the streets of Paris. She even got a 21-gun salute, which, apparently, is more than just a Green Day song.

There’s really too much more to say about Josephine in this confined space. For example: She adopted twelve children from different countries and called them her “Rainbow Tribe” (way before Angelina Jolie). She lived in a fifteenth-century French castle. She had pet cheetahs. She participated in the Civil Rights Movement and was asked by Coretta Scott King to help lead it following the assassination of King’s husband. (Baker declined, probably for safety reasons.) She refused to play to segregated audiences on her U.S. tour and thus helped accelerate integration.

Josephine Baker’s legacy continues to inspire many women to this day, and her image—often, but not always, including that infamous banana skirt—pops up in the most unlikely of places. Look for her cameos in Midnight in Paris, The Triplets of Belleville, and the animated Anastasia. Even Beyoncé has paid tribute.

I wonder now what Josephine would think of where we are now, both in the U.S. and Europe. She was happy with the progress that had been made even in her own lifetime. But how far have we really come? To what extent do we still exoticize women of color? Even as overt, sickening racism becomes less frequent, what subtler forces are at play that continue to reveal and reinforce power imbalances between whites and minorities?

I’m optimistic that, at the very least, the visceral discomfort induced in liberal-minded minds (like mine) by seeing a black woman dressed in a banana skirt by a white man on TV means we’ve at least made some progress.

A Beautiful Life

Dear Sibyl, What do you think is the best and most gracious way to keep social life simple? I get a lot of requests to do things both for fun and on the professional level (i.e. sit on a committee or board) and I also want to have a good amount of unscheduled time, because I know that is what works for me, to keep me sane. But what is a good way to do this in a world that encourages frantic activity?

Sincerely, Lil’ Miss Popular

Dear Ms. Popular,

The most frequent answer to the question "How are you these days?" is "Busy!"  What if people answered this question a bit more accurately and said, "I have a lot of tasks to complete all the time, but inwardly I feel a little disconnected."  Because that is the true definition of a busy life.

Time is social capital.  First of all, I'd like to commend you for taking the time to consider your social commitments and seek to knit something together that supports you individually as well as helps you feel a part of a greater community.

Much of our lives are made up of the people we spend it with.  Some of that we don't have a whole lot of choice about: the co-worker that is hired after you and talks your ear off about their skydiving obsession, the fellow dog owner who tries to get you involved in puppy politics at the dog park, the neighbor with the backfiring van who will never move out.

So, when you have a rare hour of free time, you want to be sure you are investing it in something or someone who will add depth and continuity to your life, rather than feeling like you are flitting around from one commitment to the next, always playing catch-up with each person.

Personally, I often find myself falling head over heels for a person or an organization, and throwing myself into that friendship or activity with great fervor, only to find out a year down the line that they were not who I thought they were, or that I've outgrown them.  If I stopped doing this, however, my life would remain stagnant, and I would eventually feel isolated from my own lack of willingness to risk and put my whole self into my relationships and endeavors.

Carl Jung had the idea that we are drawn to people who have something that we need, and can help us realize those parts of ourselves.  Over time, we are meant to start doing those things on our own, and when we do, we may find that what we were meant to learn from that person, and what we had to share with them, has made the relationship redundant.

Does that mean you need to stop calling your best friend from elementary school, who have little in common with now but love seeing, for the tether she gives you to the past?  No, but I would suggest saving visits with her for special times: her birthday, when the band whose songbook the two of you have memorized comes to town, or a holiday you love spending with her.

This may free you (and your old friend) up to do some new things.  When you do, consider, "How is this going to help me grow as person?  What is it about this activity or friend that I am particularly drawn to?  Is that something I really want more of in my life?"

For instance, you may be excited about a certain couple because they have great parties that look cool on Instagram and give you blog fodder.  If that is really your only connection to them, I suggest giving them a very slim slice of your life, perhaps accepting only every third invitation.  However, if you have a friend who is exceptionally kind to your child, and who could teach you how to make terrariums, and remembers to ask after your sick cat, see if she can meet you for coffee tomorrow.

I have to say I am quite taken with your idea of preserving unscheduled time.  Perhaps you can block that out in your calendar, and write "Reserved for Spontaneity" in the square.  Then, when you are asked to fill that time with volunteer work or a baby shower, just say, "I cannot.  I have an engagement with my mind."  Then everyone will think you are weird and won't invite you places anymore anyway and you'll have lots of free time!

I am being a little silly there, but honestly, you have the right to curate your own life.  Consider your calendar like an art exhibit, and choose the pieces that inspire you the most and that you want to look at all the time to hang on the walls of your days.

Feel free to create something beautiful with your community and your time, even if this means turning down some invitations.  Choose beauty, however sparse that may be for you, over busy-ness.

Love, Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

Snow

I was going to post the animated trailer for Stranger Here today, but the big social media release date is 2/25, so I'm going to have to wait. . . So instead I’ll tell you a story.

I met a guy the other night who asked me, “Have you ever made a business plan? Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and said, ‘I can achieve my goals?’” “I haven’t,” I said, “but I guess I should.”

He asked me, “What percentage of you is committed to achieving your goals? On a scale of one to a hundred, what percent committed are you?” I thought about it, I looked down, I looked up at him. “I’d say 95 to 100 percent,” I said. He laughed. “It’s not a test, you’re not on a game show.”

We had just watched my boss compete for a job, on a reality television show. He didn’t really want the job, but it was a chance to be on television, which is what he really wants to do. His actual job is owning a restaurant, which is where we were, drinking boxed wine. It was really snowing for the first time this year.

We went outside into the snow. We threw snowballs. Mine went in gentle arcs, smashing to powder on people’s coats. The business plan guy would hide behind a car until we were all ahead of him and then hit us from behind, hard.

The staff of the gelato place was outside and we had a snowball fight with them. After a while, a girl on their team asked a guy on our team whose team he was on, and he said, “I don’t even know anymore!” I yelled at him and threw a snowball at him. “You hit me in the dick! You hit me in the dick!” he yelled. But he wasn’t mad and I didn’t feel bad. I said, “That’s what you get for being a traitor!” He said, “Yeah, I deserved it.”

There were tequila shots inside. Aida and I told the boy I hit in the dick that he should shave his beard. He said, “Sometimes I shave off this part, so it’s just a goatee.” “Noooooo!” we said, “that’s worse!”

We went down the street to a bar and there was dancing in the basement. We danced with two 22 year old fetuses. One of them said to me, pointing to my hair, “Why the bob? I love it! You’re so retro!” I wanted to say, I’m not retro, I’m just ten years older than you, but I didn’t want to kill the moment.

Aida said to me, “Attack them with the hair!” and we shook our hair in their faces, her long black hair and my retro bob.

Sometimes everything comes together---how things look, what you’re doing, who you’re with, and who you are right then---and you can feel it all existing as one thing, separated out in time. Like a knot in a string.

The next day I thought about  my business plan. I don’t have one. But I have looked myself in the mirror and said, “Go for it.” I have had a flash, while carrying a stack of glasses across the restaurant where I work, and thought to myself, “This is my life! This is my life this is my life this is my life.” And thought, I want to get that tattooed somewhere so I see it every day, but in French or something, so I don’t get sick of it, so it can become just letters most of the time.