Growing old not growing up

I was out yesterday, I took a much deserved vacation day after dealing with liars, babies and whiners for a solid month I felt it was my time to sit in the tub with my drug of choice, nothing to get your panties in a bunch over I'm not an addict and doing anything hardcore even near a body of water no less in it is not something I would put on my to do list. So there I was sitting in warm water up to my neck and hoping to god that I could just relax for five minutes, I swear I'm at the point where the kinks in my neck have kinks of their own, and all I could do was stress about missing a day at work and what I would have to face when I returned.

To reiterate, I was approached on Wednesday by one of my many co-workers who was denied a comp day by our supervisor. He knows that I can usually finesse the boss and get what I want, which has made me quite the commodity as of late. He told me a sob story about himself and his partner, his partner it seems had done quite a load of work and truly did deserve the day, however this man did not, simply showing up at work and not actually working does not a comp day make and I firmly told him so as to not create confusion that because his colleague did viable work that I would go to bat for him, but that like many of his fellow employees who showed up that Sunday, he did not deserve one in our bosses eyes and that my hands were tied.

Cut to Friday and an email in my inbox instructing those above him to grant him a comp day because of all the viable work he did. Now this insults me in two ways, first does he think I'm an asshole, does he think that I don't remember what he said to me or his response to my statements? Did he think I wasn't going to say anything now that he's put me in a delicate situation, I mean please he fucking CC'd me on the email, was he waving it in my face as defiance? The second thing that bothered me even more was his presumption that he was more deserving then every other person who worked and toiled just as hard, if not harder that day. To lie to get what you want without realizing that as a group you were denied is to say I'm more important and the rules simply don't apply to me. Now I'm not the "go team!" type person but an iota of solidarity means a lot to someone like me. I spoke my peace and hated every moment of it. This man, this co-worker, at least twenty years my senior had turned me into a rat, a school yard snitch telling on her friends because they did a "bad thing."

And today as I cleaned up bits of boxes and garbage from the supply drawers because office manager is one of my many titles and it is my job to keep things organized and neat, I faced another problem. I've been cleaning garbage all along but I hoped that things would straighten themselves out once we relocated apart from the other departments. I secretly had convinced myself that the culprits were not those that I worked with but some external force I could disdain without having to smile to their faces. I was wrong. I work with children, children who lie and steal and drop their messes on the floor hoping someone else will come along and pick up after them. I hate what I'm becoming but my only choice is to resign my position or be resigned to it all. Working here I've realized that aging is simply a physical process that can't be helped but maturity only comes to those who embrace it.

A voice for the masses

I am stuck in an interesting position, I am halfway between management and the common worker. Please don't mistake me for actually being a manager, its just that in my position I work close enough with them to have a good grasp on the manipulation tactics that someone with out such exposure to the "elite" may not have. I know how to stroke an ego, and placate a bullshit need. I can gaze deep into their eyes without flinching or looking at the floor because really they don't scare as much as they should. I attribute this lack of fear to one factor, I am not yet a real adult. Okay I have rent and bills, car insurance and such, but when it all comes down to it I support me, only me and no one else. I have no children who need my source of income to be assured a well developed and normal life. I have no spouse at home waiting for my paycheck so we can stock up at costco. Its me and me alone. If I loose my job, then I'll find another one, they're not as rare as the Wall Street Journal wants you to believe. And hey, if it gets really bad I can go back to bartending and Go-Go dancing at night clubs, sure the work sucked but I think I was making more back then in my "shameful" profession then I am now as an upstanding member of society.

All that said, I voice my opinion without hesitation on a regular basis. With some management I have found a soft spot, being a young attractive girl who can flirt without coming off as being aggressive they tolerate my bizarre requests and strange actions (making faces at them though the frosted glass doors of their offices seems to have humored more people then I thought.) Others view me as a daughter figure, I am the youngest person in the entire building then second youngest being a good four or five years my senior. I however have the distinction of being known. Everyone knows my name, everyone knows my face. Why, because I'm not shy, I'm loud and abrasive and will tackle an issue no matter how dangerous the topic may be.

We were told to come into work on Sunday, the company had just moved and we were told we should show up to test the systems and begin unpacking. A good amount of people showed up, some brought their family some brought no one (I belong to the latter group. If I've learned one thing in this place it's that privacy is the only way to survive.) We worked (kind of) and tested and left and those who were applicable put in for a comp day earned. I believe that this was rightfully so, they worked on a Sunday, and though it may have not been a true had days worth of work, people had to put their weekend plans on hold to travel to the office to check systems. They were denied, and not by HR but by our manager, a man who decided not to show up but to have me call him on his cell phone while I checked his systems as well as mine. He denied every single person, no comp days no credit, and there was an outrage. I called him on it. I told him it was wrong. I was denied, and this time I didn't want to just go with the flow. That said I have an interview on the 1st. If anyone out there knows of any job openings where a conscience and a sense of humanity is valued drop me a line. I can't sell out like this.

No Time to breathe

No less blog, so I'm sorry to those who like to read on a regular basis, today the company moved and between dealing with the bitching and the complaining, and if I get time to do the unpacking I just can't be witty or angry or even pretend to care today. Check back tomorrow. Something juicy, I promise
*-t-*

Plan ahead

The department is moving tomorrow, moving to a different office in a different building. I have been placed in charge of this assignment, well I was in charge until it was ripped out of my hands and given to a woman who "needed something to do." Even though I protested it was to no avail, I work for a foreign bank and if your country of origin happens to be the same as the banks then yay for you! Because of this I take no responsibility for any work that has not been done this far, however others still believe me to be responsible. This means that if the project goes poorly (and it has thus far) I get the shit. If it goes well, I don't get the credit where it counts and its bonus time so it really counts.

I have taken some of the stupidest requests from the minds of people who are considered "luminaries" in their fields. To me they are just out of touch children who need the occasional spanking and ass wiping. I have gotten their dollars back from the big bad vending machine that gave them peanut M&M's when they specifically pushed the buttons for plain ones, (this situation had nothing to do with the fact that said managers fingers are the size of sausages because of those M&M's and the buttons on the machine are on the small size.) I have wrapped personal photographs taken at lavish locations on resorts that are designed to reflect nothing about the countries they may have been taken in, the Bahamas, US Virgin Islands, Turk and Caicos, they all look the same from the lounge chairs of immaculate beaches devoid of any culture or personality. I have bought with my own money, plastic forks and spoons because facilities did not provide said necessities and with the amount of complaints about this one would think that plastic forks and spoons cure cancer. But today, one day before we move, today is the day that the important requests start flowing.

"-t-, we need a room for the FED for 18 days.."

"All the un occupied rooms have no furniture."

"Then have them order some."

"It takes 6 weeks to get here."

"Then have them priority it."


"-t- I need you to book three hotel rooms for Monday in midtown."

"But it's thanksgiving week I don't think that I can find vacant rooms in Manhattan during thanksgiving week."

"Call around find them."

I sat in a bathroom stall and cried for four minutes today, I didn't want to stay for five because then I would have been gone too long. I pulled my legs up and propped my feet against the door so that they wouldn't show through the bottom opening of the stall. I've become a cliche, I'm overworked, underpaid and not getting what I deserve. I thought I did this for a reason, but I'm not so sure. I feel like a greyhound chasing those mechanical rabbits they run along the track to encourage the race. I'm tired of stretching and pushing myself trying to reach it, extending my fingers to their last joint hoping that I can touch it. I used give myself some credit thinking that if I wanted it bad enough it would happen. I've sold my soul and I don't have anything to show in return. At least the greyhound gets a wreath of flowers and permission to bone the pick of the litter.

Plan ahead

The department is moving tomorrow, moving to a different office in a different building. I have been placed in charge of this assignment, well I was in charge until it was ripped out of my hands and given to a woman who "needed something to do." Even though I protested it was to no avail, I work for a foreign bank and if your country of origin happens to be the same as the banks then yay for you! Because of this I take no responsibility for any work that has not been done this far, however others still believe me to be responsible. This means that if the project goes poorly (and it has thus far) I get the shit. If it goes well, I don't get the credit where it counts and its bonus time so it really counts.

I have taken some of the stupidest requests from the minds of people who are considered "luminaries" in their fields. To me they are just out of touch children who need the occasional spanking and ass wiping. I have gotten their dollars back from the big bad vending machine that gave them peanut M&M's when they specifically pushed the buttons for plain ones, (this situation had nothing to do with the fact that said managers fingers are the size of sausages because of those M&M's and the buttons on the machine are on the small size.) I have wrapped personal photographs taken at lavish locations on resorts that are designed to reflect nothing about the countries they may have been taken in, the Bahamas, US Virgin Islands, Turk and Caicos, they all look the same from the lounge chairs of immaculate beaches devoid of any culture or personality. I have bought with my own money, plastic forks and spoons because facilities did not provide said necessities and with the amount of complaints about this one would think that plastic forks and spoons cure cancer. But today, one day before we move, today is the day that the important requests start flowing.

"-t-, we need a room for the FED for 18 days.."

"All the un occupied rooms have no furniture."

"Then have them order some."

"It takes 6 weeks to get here."

"Then have them priority it."


"-t- I need you to book three hotel rooms for Monday in midtown."

"But it's thanksgiving week I don't think that I can find vacant rooms in Manhattan during thanksgiving week."

"Call around find them."

I sat in a bathroom stall and cried for four minutes today, I didn't want to stay for five because then I would have been gone too long. I pulled my legs up and propped my feet against the door so that they wouldn't show through the bottom opening of the stall. I've become a cliche, I'm overworked, underpaid and not getting what I deserve. I thought I did this for a reason, but I'm not so sure. I feel like a greyhound chasing those mechanical rabbits they run along the track to encourage the race. I'm tired of stretching and pushing myself trying to reach it, extending my fingers to their last joint hoping that I can touch it. I used give myself some credit thinking that if I wanted it bad enough it would happen. I've sold my soul and I don't have anything to show in return. At least the greyhound gets a wreath of flowers and permission to bone the pick of the litter.

In demand

I have taken a phone call today and am contemplating whether I should follow up or abandon it. It was a recruiter, again, I feel so popular, every body wants some.

This one was recommended my name by a friend of mine. To them I'm a nice size commission, to me it could be an entirely new disaster. Do I really want to partake in the absurdity of the interview process? Sell my self like a product, listing my abilities like additives displayed on the side of a box. Do I want to get wrapped up in office politics all over again, learn a new place, new people, a new set of rules and regulations? I'm to old to adapt so quickly and yet to young to settle down comfortably.

I want to follow in the footsteps of people who I admire, people who were able abandon caution and proceed with what they knew would make them happy. My problem is that I've been involved here too long. I've grown up a bit because I work here and I have financial responsibilities, I can't skip out on my rent and run amok across Europe because that's what I feel like doing. Some where along the way I picked up habits and skills, not only am I fluid with MS office, but I've become fluid in adulthood.

I still stand on the sidelines, toes pointed inward hands clasped behind my back, looking much like the little girl I imagine myself to be, but the other day I received my 401K statement and analyzed my investments to see where I should consider vesting a higher percentage. What????!!! Am I the same person who held onto the AOL stock my family gave me when I was 14 until it had made me over 4,000 dollars , and then held on until it lost me 3,000? The girl who couldn't call for customer service because I hate how they bully you into believing that you are the cause of the problem. I made a "genius" cry at the Tech bar in Soho the other day. I called him some bad names and threatened to come back day after day after day unless they unwrapped a new iPod from the front shelf, no conspicuous foil packaging for me, I paid good money for this piece of shit!

What's happening, is it too late to undo the damage this place has caused? Will the next place help or hurt more. Can I face it, can I put myself out there and play the game like a novice all over again. I have my routine, I have a sense of tomorrow.

I didn't always.

Progress

I had on a suit that didn't belong to me and high heels that I had yet to grow accustomed to. I sat in the large office squinting a bit under that flattering corporate lighting, and looking around hoping to pick up a bit of the person I was to talk to. The recruiter had prepped me over the phone but his estimation of the man I was to meet was lacking in clarity. So I waited and I sat and he typed on the computer almost pretending as if I didn't exist.

"So, you were recommended by J-- B----- of the ____ group?"

"Yes."

"He's not the greatest man you know?"
I didn't know, I never met him, I only had received a phone call at work one day asking if I was happy in my current employment situation.

"Oh?"

"Yeah he usually sends me dead-beats and thieves, no offense."

"None taken."
What was I supposed to say? "Well which one does that make me?"

"But you seem solid, graduated honors, 3.86 GPA. Is there any reason you attended a public university?"
(Yeah I wanted forgo resume strength in order to obtain a sub-par education.)

"I put myself through college and I didn't want outstanding loans when I graduated. I plan to get a Masters at some point and I figure I'll go into debt then."

"You know we have an extensive tuition re-imbursement program. It's a full ride, and there are no contracts that you need to sign afterwards..."

I was shocked, was he offering me an education, an expensive education in return for donning the grey and neutral office gear and pretending to be an adult?!

"You would just need your managers approval and I'll be your manager, did I tell you how I worked and put myself through school for an MBA? I liked it so much I taught nights there after I had graduated."

Wow this was going great, twenty minutes into my interview I already had school paid for and knew some personal stuff about this man as well.

"Yes, that's what I did, I'll be happy to approve your tuition as long as its in a business related program."

Cue the record scratching sound effect, I wanted a masters in English or journalism not numbers or tactics.

The interview ended and I took the train back to my mothers. I explained to her about how the job offered better benefits, better pay and a better location then my current employment. She was happy for me. Offhandedly I threw in the part about paying for an MBA, and I thought I was going to have to bury her in an early grave.

"My baby's going to get an MBA?! I'm so proud of you, I knew you had potential, you went through some hard times... I always believed you would pull it off... Look at you, you're all grown up... You are so smart, don't you ever forget it...."

It was too much for her, coming from a family where the majority of the daughters went to college as a hobby or as a method to finding a husband. The old Italian mentality dies hard. But me, I was going to be something, I was going to be a professional with a high level of education. I was going to be a provider, a doer, an accomplished individual.

Cut to me 12 months later sliding the papers over to my boss. NYU acceptance and program registration, I was on my way all I needed was a signature and I was going to jump in, no more wavering back and forth.

"What is this?"

"Um...papers for school, I need you to approve them so I can submit them to Accounts Payable."

"NYU huh?"

"Yes, I'm enrolled in their evening program."

"I'll have to take a look at these. I'll get back to you."

That was four months ago.

Why I should be sterilized

I have a disorder, and though it has gotten some media attention as of late, it will never be anything fabulous like anorexia or chic like cocaine abuse. There are no celebrities openly seeking "help" for their bi-polar tendencies, and the only time you see someone afflicted by it in media portrayal they are off their rocker and undressing in the street, or killing themselves with a shotgun.

I have said it before and I'll say it again, I'm crazy. Now don't go all patronizing and tell me we're all crazy, or no ones crazy, or there's no such thing as sane. I'm nuts, I know it, I live with it, and I suffer for it. Every morning I ingest small capsules of sanity to assure that I can go through the day and blend in nicely with the faceless masses. I blend well and can pass on most days. There are those when it becomes uncontrollable. The tics, the hyperactivity, the volatility and sadly there are no "crazy" days at work, I can take a sick day but what doctor is going to write me a note for that?

To whom it may concern,
Please excuse -t-'s absence on __/__ she was suffering some short term manic behavior.
Sincerely,
Dr. ___

Yeah, that would be the quickest way short of blowing a superior in plain sight to get fired. I try to keep it under control but sometimes, it just isn't having it.

So I'm sure by this point your questioning the title of this post. Please allow me to clarify.
If I breed, by some unlucky chance I have a child, that child has a 50% chance of being born bi-polar. This means that until the age of sixteen or so that child will lead a fairly normal life, occasionally exhibiting a level of high intelligence that supposedly goes hand in hand with the disorder. Now keep in mind when I say normal life, it means as normal as a child with a whacked out mother can be. It breaks my hearts to think that I could bring a child into the world knowing that their lives are doomed as mine is, as my fathers is, as my grandfathers is.

I used to be the "smart" one, teachers would beam down on me and give me extra credit, whispering in my ear that they wanted to challenge me. I'm sure if I looked hard enough into a mirror I would have seen that my nose was a bit brown but I didn't care. As I aged I transformed from the "smart" one to the "troubled" one and from there ever so often I was pegged as "just plain bad." I should have been crushed with my turn of events but I was too busy with the notions and ideas I was suffering.

Every day I take a pill, every day for the rest of my life. Its like waking up and restarting the timer to a bomb, every day you have to reset it for 24 hours, and if you don't then it goes off, but never when you expect it to.

Relocated

After years of habitation in New York "fucking" City, I have been forced to move. I am not alone in my exile, many of those who grew up and went to school with me have also been forced out of the city limits they called home. Now keep in mind when I say New York City, I mean Manhattan, don't go all 5 borough postal on me, just understand that if it was all NYC then your mailing addresses would say NYC, not Queens, NY not Brooklyn, NY...etc. Its a Manhattan mentality I apologize its just the way it is, ask anyone born and raised on the island, they'll tell you.

My home, my city, my neighborhood, its all just gotten too fucking expensive for those who aren't standing in front of some trust fund or inheritance. 650,000 dollars for a shitty one bedroom above 116th street, are you kidding me? My mother, god bless her, has a three bedroom on the upper west side with a terrace for less then seven hundred dollars a month! Rent control, the curse of the upper class, oh how nice things would be if we could just displace all of those who can't afford a nice dinner at Sparks or Nobu when they so please.

Growing up in my neighborhood I could count the different colors to the tops of crack vials,

"Look mommy a green one! I haven't seen a green one before!"

Now I can count the different colors of the Bugaboo baby strollers pushed by Yoga mom's and Jamaican nannies as they walk to the park that used to be too dangerous to enter after dark. Decrepit old buildings have been dozed and new condo's stand proud and gaudy in their place, exhibiting their noveau riche with their shiny lobbies and starched doormen. The real rich, the Manhattan rich would NEVER live in a new building, no matter who built it, its all about prewar, with the molding and latticework. The Manhattan rich look down on these transplants as much as those who have been deported to the outskirts of the 4 other boroughs and Jersey do.

I can't score weed a bodegas anymore, they've all been replaced by "gourmet markets." I can't find an apartment for less then a thousand dollars a month that's worth stepping foot in. (Now don't tell me to take a room mate, that might be your solution, but I'm crazy, and I pity the poor fool who would even think that living with a bi-polar would be any sort of life.) The more the city "improves" the less it feels like home. I hate starbucks, well, I like their desserty type drinks but for muddy coffee I have to patronize the guys in the delis who sell it for a dollar in those "thank you for your business" blue cups with the Greek statues on the sides. I hate the fact that every third store is now a starbucks, a Duane Reade/CVS or a bank, New York has lost its diversity. Don't give me that shit about multi cultural oneness, and raising children together crap. I don't buy it. I was raised in it and look what it has done. We must all hold on to our individuality and culture, I can appreciate Kwanza or Ramadan, but I won't celebrate it. Why? Because PC bullshit has destroyed my home! I want the squeegee men back, bring in the panhandlers, bus back the poor and welfare needy. Scare the fucking Westchester/New Jersey/Long Island rich back to the white communities they grew up in. You want to experience the big city, then fucking experience it, don't change it to suit your needs, then its not the city that attracted you in the first place.

It has to stop before my home is simply another suburb with big buildings and the occasional housing project. How depressing.

Career Paths

My old job, or what ever one would call it was working for a family company that produced kosher, healthy, vegetarian frozen products. There was also a side business of importing hardware fixtures such as knobs and pulls. It wasn't so much a career as it was a way-station on my path towards adult hood. The hours were okay, on Fridays I was dismissed before 2 as to keep the company Kosher, and any single odd random obscure Jewish holiday was mandatory off time. What I did there, to put in laymans terms, sucked balls. I was an assistant to the President of the company, sounds really impressive, but keep in mind the entire office consisted of five or six people out of which two were not relations. When people asked me what I did for a living I told them professional bitch. All I heard all day long were the rantings and requests of an overgrown six year old.

He made me return pillows for him. He had bought pillows at Bed Bath and Beyond but took a trip where he stayed at a W hotel. He loved the plush luxury of their pillows and had to buy a set of overpriced bags of goose down to validate his position in life. I in turn had to drive 35 miles to the closest Bed Bath and Beyond store to return that which was un befitting of such a well off individual. I remember the frantic phone call I received from him while he was on vacation in Turkey (being that the owner of the company was his father if of course was a fully expensed as a business trip.)
"-t-."

"Yes..."

"I need a huge favor from you."

"What?"

"There's this hotel, its in the Hamptons I don't know the name. Its attached to a club the Cabana club or the Bananna club, something like that."

"Okay"

"I need you to find the hotel and book me and ____ two rooms for the weekend of August 19th."

"But you don't have the name."

"No but your a smart girl."

"I really don't understand how I'm supposed to do this."

"Hey listen this is a long distance call, I gotta run. Thanks so much."

Cut to me an hour later on the phone with a friend of mine who is fabulous enough for the Hamptons set. She wasn't familiar with the hotel but knew of the club, and was kind enough to give me the unlisted number.

"Hello ____ club how may I help you?"

"Hi, um....This is an odd request...uh...you guys are ... attached to a hotel right?"

"That's correct."

"Well, could you....I...can you tell me the name of the hotel please?"
There was a dead silence that led me to believe that the sheer idiocy of this question was validated.

Upon finding the name of the hotel, getting the number through Googling for the website, and waiting on hold for twenty minutes I found out that the hotel was booked for the next three months, and I should have known that because this was a prestigious hotel and the likes of myself could never afford such grandiosity unless I were sleeping with money.

All that said, at my new corporate proper job with my 401K and stock options, I spent the entire day finding proper driving directions to the Grand Hyatt in D.C. so that a superior wouldn't have to figure out how to use his onstar. At least my old boss understood his condescension.

Family

We had a beach house. Well, it wasn't just ours we shared it with two other families and to be perfectly honest it wasn't mine it belonged to my grandparents. They bought the house about thirty or so years ago with my grandfathers sister, her husband and a third couple with whom they were friends with for a long time.

It was a modest house, large but a summer home with no insulation and exposed nail tips and weathered shingles. It faced the bay and was one of the few places on the east coast where you could watch the sun sink into the ocean. It stood proud and tall against all sorts of weathering and storms holding tight to it's foundations though very little actually held it in place. The roof leaked and the pipes were semi exposed, if you ran your hand along a wall you were apt to get a splinter, but it was ours.

As the family grew so did the house. Three couples with multiple children became six grandparents with married children and tiny little babies who would bathe in the sink and catch toads in the sand as we ran around with our diapers sagging from the water we would play in. The house in turn transformed from a modest four bedroom into an albatross with 10 bedrooms two living rooms and a rather large kitchen. Still it was simply the shell of a house, no insulation and now even more exposed pipes.

As my generation grew, the house took on meaning and life, it grew with us. One summer a pool sprouted from the ground out front another summer the decks were restored. But the house stayed the same skeleton throughout it all. Then something terrible happened.

Now greed is a tricky thing. A little bit of greed is good, it is a driving force that urges us on to get more, to work harder, to strive for that which may be slightly out of out reach. That is hunger greed, the greed of those who are still of want, who have not yet tasted the fatty side of the good life. Then there is fat greed, fat greed is that which is slowly running our country into its war mongering ground. Fat greed is possessed by those who have much and still want more. Gluttons who steal from the mouths of the hungry because they can. The elite, the rich, the cream, those are the greedy that destroyed our house, our family commune.

A single family with a net income of more then the rest of us combined, unable to share, unable to compromise. They wanted it and they wanted it yesterday. Contracts were drawn and lies were told. We were bought out, voted off the island, cast into that dark night. But worst of all we were lowballed, taxes they cried, taxes will render us poor, (now when they say poor please keep in mind that their oldest son, at a ripe old age of 25, owns a 1.5 million dollar apartment in Trump UN Plaza.) And so it was done, and that which I called home, the house that I spent every summer since conception, the house my parents (now divorced) met and fell in love in will no longer be mine, (not that it ever technically was but give me some space to wiggle around in.)

I just hope that you're happy, and I hope you know who you are if you read this. You may have your large account balances and your fancy cars. You may buy and sell the undesirables like myself, but I have worked hard for the meager amount I have received. There is no fat in my life I am driven by the greed of hunger. And perhaps one day I'll get that house back.

Two views from our old front yard

At work

Some one quit today and as they traipsed out the front door for the last time I thought I caught a whiff of freedom at their heels.

Or maybe it was just maple syrup.

Transition

When I was in middle school I hated it. All I wanted to do was grow older and go to high school, because lets be honest, do you remember what a little shit you were back then? Classes of 25 to 35; 11, 12, and 13 year olds experiencing puberty and responsibility for the first time, herded together in some sort of "only the strong survive" environment.

Then there was high school, surely it had to be better then what I'd already seen in 6th through 8th grade. (If you've taken the time to read the side bar then you already know that I didn't fare so well.) High school was important, it would reflect on the rest of your life. Well, between cutting class to get stoned out of my gourd and dealing with the idiosyncrasies of sex I thought I was never going to make it out alive. (Unbeknownst to the majority of my friends I remained a *gasp!* virgin until I was almost twenty.) All I could think about was graduating. Getting out of the petri dish of teenage angst and melancholy and going anywhere else. It didn't exactly pan out as I had anticipated, I switched high schools in the middle of 11th grade and some credits failed to transfer over. Two weeks before I was set to march to that god awful "Pomp and Circumstance" so I could smile like a jack-ass and mug like a money for the cameras of my family members who never thought I would make it that far, I was told that I could not graduate. I would have to attend summer school (again), and then receive my diploma in the mail. I didn't go to summer school, I had to work and the night school was so god awful scary that I just said fuck it and took my GED test. Four hours of an examination and two weeks to receive my scores and I was a bona-fied high school graduate, with my Good Enough Diploma. A piece of paper that let me know, no matter how I did it I managed to pull through.

I did a walk in admission to a fine public college in New York and was accepted on the spot based on my SATs. (Hey I said I didn't graduate, I never said I was an idiot; a fat, lazy, bastard perhaps but not an idiot.) And four years later I walked away with a new piece of paper that rendered the old one moot.

Here I sit in my mid twenties staring at a computer screen every day, wondering when I will feel as if I have grown up. I see the split in my friends, those that are willing to make an attempt at creating a life for themselves and those that wish to revel in the life that was:

You have your over achievers, the ones with high paying jobs and flashy apartments. They may still be clinging on to the shreds of a college relationship torn and battered over time but still viable, or so they think.

There are your run of the mill slackers. These are the individuals who live with their parents or perhaps in an apartment with five or six other people attempting to re-create that beer filled amniotic sac that is college.

There are the wastes. Those who "showed such potential" and did nothing with it so now every time their names are mentioned people hang their heads nodding as they say to themselves; "such a waste."

The marriage bound, who believe their lives are as "carefree and interesting as those on 'Sex and the City'!" But would quit their jobs and lose their well crafted identities if the right size rock was presented to them. Usually with the marriage bound are the mommy seekers. They have tried to cut it on their own but just can't seem to do their laundry and shop for groceries.

Hangers on who aren't even in their twenties anymore but their girlfriends/boyfriends are and it makes them feel so damn good. These are the people who know the secret number to Nobu and who can breeze past the hulking guards outside the cities finer night life establishments. They are usually well endowed in the inheritance department while severely lacking in the pants.

And then there's me, and those like me who are just too confused to even try to pull our heads out of t a collective ass that is our mid twenties. I don't feel like an adult. I still cry for my mom when it hurts too much but there's that massive stack of bills on my desk at home that reminds me that if I wasn't "grown" I wouldn't have to deal with them. I'm torn between the friends who sit at home and take odd jobs and seem to have nothing stressful to care for. Such a seductive life to not have to worry and hustle, commute and stress. I unfortunately have neither the funding nor the abilities to live such a grand life, and when I really think about it I'm not sure I would want to.

Part of me wants to find the exotic in life. Quit my job and run away to someplace I've never seen. Do something risky for a living or something that would make for great stories. I look at her or see the people he's met, and I stare at the unoffending neutral colors of my workspace and I think about how my once risky and interesting life has grown as mundane as the beige and tan I'm forced to surround myself with everyday.

I'm in transition folks, you sell your soul and loose your spark. If you find it let me know, I really could use it about now.

What I learned today

Never question a superior, even if said superior is a bloated, know nothing, jack ass. They are your superior and therefore are superior to you.

Sexuality

A co-worker stopped at my desk today, scanning my photographs as she asked about an accounting publication I was supposed to have been working on. Her eyes paused on one particular photograph, one of my sister and I hugging in front of my family's old beach house.

I cherish this picture because it reminds me of the house we never should have sold and the pure unabandoned love that I can feel for my sibling. My sister is nothing like me, tall, popular, imposing, and ever so shallow and lazy. Once in a blue moon we get caught up in our familial positions and express our true protective nature for each other. This photo captures us at our most open moments with each other, moments that rarely occur and are often forgotten.

"Is that your girlfriend?"

Now I'm not sure what made her think that I was a carpet muncher, because I'm not, I adore dick, but that's not the point.

My entire life I have been mistaken for a lesbian. It started in middle school because I played sports and didn't wear lipstick, (my mother said it was enough that I had breasts I had to paint my face to prove I was a woman too?) In high school it was spurred by a fit of insanity. Literal craziness, I woke up in the bathroom with a chunk of hair in my right hand and scissors in my left. Black outs were frequent for me, they hadn't balanced my medication properly yet. In order to repair the damage I called my friend Raquelle to come over, too embarrassed to go to a salon to fix the mess I had created. She cut my hair to even it out and I was left with what could best be described as an angry bowl cut, it looked like my head was growing a mushroom cap. The short hair didn't help people's confusion when it came to my preferred sex.

I cut it even shorter in the eleventh grade, walking around with a pixie haircut because I couldn't be bothered with my physical appearance (I was such a rebel!) My boyfriend in the twelfth grade would tell me about how people who saw us in the street from a distance would ask him later who the little boy he was walking with was. He begged me to grow it out, which is probably one of the reasons why we didn't last.

But it wasn't just my hair, I was an awkward female. Carefully hobbling in high heels, forgetting to cross my legs on the rare occasion I was forced into a skirt or a dress. Slouching, burping, yelling, and pretty much refusing to give up on the tomboy persona I had wrapped myself in for so many years.

My summer job during high school and college was working at a day camp as a life guard. One of the first girls I worked with hated me so much that she ran around telling everyone I was gay. I can still remember one of the directors, notorious for being a dirty old man, following me around asking questions. Adding to that the fact that I was in a bathing suit (a full piece functional racing suit but none to good at providing coverage) and he was fully clothed, I just wanted to drown myself.

"So do you like do everything with them?"
"Have you had a long term girlfriend?"
"Does she have a nice ass? How about her? The tits on that one slay me!"

I guess to him it was like having an attractive guy friend to shoot the shit with, well perhaps not exactly. I think he was storing images and ideas in his mental spank bank, the idea of which makes me cringe to this very day.

As I continued to work there it because obvious through my hormonal teenage exploits that I was in fact a boring hetero like the rest of them. But that one manager held on with desperate hope that I was bi-sexual, reminding me till the day I quit about the conversations (there were never any conversations just him rambling on and on about the underage girls he wanted to do dirty things with while I listened in horror and amusement,) we once had.

The funny thing is even though I was so "butch" I never had issues attracting men. But once they had me it was all about changing how I looked.

"Tanya, you'd look so nice if you wore a skirt once and awhile."
"Tanya high heels turn me on."
"Tanya I love you but you dress like a bum."

I kept none of them around too long.

The ironic thing is that my current man, well besides loving me for who I am and letting me have the big balls in the relationship, has been encouraging me of late, to cut my hair again. After years of letting it grow out into long brown locks, he thinks I would look hot with a bob! He also finds it quite amusing that when we go out I get hit on by girls. I don't know perhaps he's trying to encourage something that might benefit his fantasies later on.

Youth is wasted on the young

I am the youngest person in my department. Perhaps by as much as 5 years junior. I only say this because not a day goes by where I am not reminded of how my status is a direct reflection of my age. Those with "experience" look at my face, devoid of any signs of a life well lived and smile to themselves about how I have so much to look forward to, so much to experience. I imagine that in my few years walking this earth I have seen much more and done more then most of them put together.

True I have yet to obtain that stupid piece of paper that would value my worth at least 50,000 more then its current price. But dignity is cheap these days and who isn't willing to "shill out" for the comfortable ignorance that allows us to believe that we are working for something down the line. Some sort of nest egg, an IRA, 401K and various other letters on the eye chart that is retirement.

Should I take my cues from the older gentlemen in my midst; those on their second marriage, those who are mourning the death of their first, those that wish that it would die, those who proclaim to be madly in love, yet only the pictures of children adorn their desks as if they popped out of mid air? Where are the pictures of the wombs who carried and labored for these children? Perhaps I should take the path of the younger Asian women with whom I work. All married or working so hard for it. I believe pregnancy to be contagious, it seems when one woman finds herself carrying life that others must follow suit in order to feel validated as a woman. We are looking forward to at least three different cases of maternity leave in February alone.

Perhaps this is all simply the ignorance of my "youth." I have seen and done much, and yet when you look at my face none of it is reflected. This may be the blessing and curse of the young, the ability to bounce back from that which would mar or damage those with more time. I can smooth out the night before with an hours sleep. It appears to those with an aged eye that I have yet to "live" and I can feel the mental head pats when I do something of worth or perhaps speak with words that colloquial conversation of a twenty something generally lacks.

Though I have been around for 24 years I posses the lolita looks of an eighteen year old when I wake up in the morning with no make up on my skin. I must play dress up in order to be taken with any ounce of seriousness. I put on the clothes of an adult and apply color to my face like it was a paint by number canvas, yet still my eyes reveal my youth and then some. So sit in worldy, knowledgeable judgment of me and brush aside my ideas and abilities with the simple notion of youth, someday, I hope, I will be able to prove you wrong.

Halloween

Sometimes we forget what its about. Its not the drinking, or the French maids with their panties peeking out from the hems of their skirts, I don't even think its the candy (though I may have gorged myself on a few too many peppermint patties last night.)

I watched a tiny Flash Gordon jump up and down while his eyes smiled broader then his mouth ever could screaming " Mommy, mommy, look, Batman! Batman mommy Batman!"

I think I may have forgotten what it was like to find such joy in something so simple. I am an adult and must act accordingly. But for a few brief moments yesterday I too jumped up and down screaming to my mother and anyone else who would listen about the wonderful things I was witnessing.

The Halloween parade in the village, one of the few times of year that the neighborhood is stripped of pretension and is allowed to breathe and act as it once did. That once seedy den of crack whores and sex shops, now filled suburban transplants and yuppies with their Starbucks and Barnes and Nobles. (Oh how tired of me to jump on the same bandwagon as every other angsty born and bred New Yorker. But perhaps we have a point.) But as the trannies, puppets, stilt walkers and those who jumped the barricade to march, snaked their way from Washington Square park up sixth avenue I could see past the gentrification and remember that this is what New York was about.

I giggled as young thugs howled at the go-go dancing cop who along with her ass was shaking an entirely different package as well. It strikes me as odd that even though they appear to be the most vocal and insulting, I have yet to see these thugs in costume. They wear their baggy uniforms while their girlfriends squeezed into tiny outfits scamper alongside them, feet forced into tall skinny spikes in hopes of achieving that much strived for "Halloween hooker" look.

I walked into some random bar with Rob, Jake and Shashie, and drank a beer that was at the same time too warm and too expensive. A small reminder that I was not in the Village of my childhood but transported to the modern day.

I can still remember ditching class in 8th grade and hopping the C train down to Washington Square park. Hiding low behind the concrete dividers taking my first puff of pot, not yet knowing for it to work I had to inhale. Faking the high along with the rest of my friends as we traipsed up the side streets looking for Benny's Burritos, (which we never found.) Approached by a pimp who told us all how pretty we were and how someone like him could take care of someone like us.

I don't visit the village too much anymore. Somewhere along the way it lost its' charms. Perhaps its because its feel like a big campus for NYU, or maybe because the streets are cleaner then they have any right being.

But last night the village, just like the rest of us, was allowed to dress up in costume and pretend for one night without being called silly.