Picture Window

storm clouds

Around the Way

sun + stone

Picture Window

rainy morning

At Home

studio + reflection

Around the Way

sun, shadow, and stone

Bluebird Tattoo

We have family reunions every summer on my father's side, which unite the English and French Canadian descendents again. I got tipsy for the first time at one of them in Maine, as a preteen. My aunt asked me if I wanted "white" or "red". I thought she meant wine, something my mom kept in our household. I wasn't sure what to pick, so I hesitated. She laughed, "It's 'Moonshine', honey! It's homemade." She held up two clear glass jugs for me to choose from, swirling the liquid in the bottom around for me to see it. It tasted awful. She laughed looking my expression, knowing I wouldn't like it, "Tastes like turpentine, right? It'll strip the paint off of cars!" 

I also found out on that trip that we had a cousin who ran a boat over the border to sell contraband, because I overheard my godfather asking him what he did for a living: "Oh, I sell pot to the kids over in Canada." My cousin smiled and raised his eyebrows, "Yeah? How do you do that?!" This distant cousin looked like an extra from the Deliverance movie set, with an unfashionable bushy beard, dressed in army fatigues. He laughed, too. "I run it over the border in a boat!" Naturally. How else would one run a small time international drug ring on the sly? "You can dodge the border pretty well if you know where to go." They proceeded to have a discussion about where he stowed the goods and what coves he hid out in to evade water patrol.

There was also a water fountain that had been rigged to pour beer. We went over to investigate. There was a keg hidden underneath, in the compartment where the water works usually went. "See?", one cousin opened the front panel and demonstrated it to us, "The beer comes out of here." An arc of beer shot out of the spigot. "Instead of water, it's beer!" How novel. Around dusk, we snuck over to this unmonitored miracle of science to pour sips of beer into plastic red cups that had held soda during the day. The adults were already blitzed by then, satiated from freshly caught lobster, hauled in from traps, off another speedboat that pulled into camp from the lake.

Another year we had the reunion at our house in New York. I was glad I wouldn't have to make the pukey car trip along the winding wooded back roads to Maine. Great! The party would come here. During the day, it was surprisingly dull. The adults were talking amongst themselves, smoking and drinking. I was going in and out of my house, bored by it all. Once I ate my fill and drank some soda, there was nothing for a kid to do. On one trip indoors, I was going into the house through the garage when my aunt (the same one who offered me Moonshine) pulled me aside. She asked me to get a band-aid for her, and I was concerned. She seemed subdued, which was rare for an ebullient personality like hers. She laughed, "No, I don't have a cut. It's hot out and I want to change into shorts, but I don't want anyone to see my tattoo."

Oh! I had never seen one before. We don't wear them in my family, which included my extended relatives, too. I went to the upstairs bathroom and got a bandage, returning to the garage. She waited there, with the shorts she got from the trunk of her car. She changed in the downstairs bathroom, and told me to wait for her. "I'll show it to you before I put the band-aid on it." I waited for her this time, in the garage. She came back in long white Bermuda shorts, and gestured me to the side of the garage, out of the doorway. "Come here". She pulled up on one leg of the shorts. "I got this when I was a 16 year old kid and now I'm stuck with it forever." It was really childish, I had to agree with her. It looked like something a teenage girl would pick out, even a really young artist like me could tell that much.

It was a silly, cartoony bluebird. She must have been a little bit tipsy at this point in the party, because she laughed and told me a joke that I would hear again in adulthood, when I could fully appreciate how wonderfully smutty she was. "I still have the bird, but no one wants to see the nest anymore!" I must not have registered much of a reaction, because she grew serious with me again, and gave me some incredible advice that I would never forget. "Promise me you'll never get a tattoo, Marie. Because who you are as teenager is not the person you'll be when you grow up." It was great advice, and I kept my word to her. God bless you, Aunt Marilyn. Rest in peace.

Nighttime at the Annual Jones Family Reunion

Around the Way

Prospect Park West

Born Agains

I knew two religions growing up: Judaism and Catholicism. One of the Rockland County-born boys (who'd later challenge me to a fight after school one day) said he was "Christian" when we asked around at lunchtime, which started a conversation about what exactly that was. We figured out in the fourth grade that a "Christian" is someone who believes in Jesus Christ, because the word "Christ" is in it. I remember it because the doors to the cafeteria were open, and the weather was warm. I even remember some of the kids at lunch: Molly, Vinny, Michael, me, and a few others. We were all Catholic except for Michael; a Gerlach with Dutch/German roots, whose family did not like the "ethnic" people moving up from the city during the 70s.

During my post-college career, my fiance/husband chafed under the conditions that New York City imposes upon the individual. He was struggling, and he needed my help. I knew a change of scenery wouldn't cure his alcoholism and manic-depression, but I was up for an adventure. My career and my hometown would still be there when I got back, and I knew that, too, despite a former classmate's prediction that I was committing "career suicide" by leaving New York. I didn't actually believe in my impending suicide, though, so we made the move out west to Colorado, anyway.

I'd never been to Colorado before, but I'd seen enough pictures and done enough research to have an idea of what was there. That, and I already scheduled an interview. We reached Boulder at night, and the hotel room looked like anywhere. The next day, we woke up to a blizzard with lots of snow, which I liked. I love the mountains, having grown up near the Adirondacks and the Catskills; hiking, camping, and exploring rural New York. I discovered during college that my genetically thick skin was still intact after that first winter in Oneonta: a city in the hills, where winter begins in October and ends in May.

After a bout of altitude sickness, I adjusted quickly, as is my way. Culture is another story. It's very different from New York, as anyone who's ever been to both places can attest to. Within a week, David found carpentry work that was easy to find during the town's construction boom. My work? Not so easy. It took me six months to get an excellent freelance position at a museum, which launched my career there. During that time, I got a lot of flack from both sides of my family, even though I lived off my savings and paid all of my bills on my own, without my husband's help. I am the first professional working artist in my family, and the time frames are different. It's slow and hard to find, but the work is exciting and challenging. It's worth it.

Of course, there are a lot of other differences than just geography: the weather, the people, the food, etc., but the first real bristling always happens at an office, where people brush up against one another. Needless, the women I encountered at my first job didn't like me, so I moved on. The excuses were the same as New York, though: the hemming and the hawing, the awkward avoidance in hallways, the gossip and the sniping....how....human. The next job was a fun, frat-like, all-male recording studio. It was filled with emigrés who couldn't tolerate the East Coast lifestyle, like my then-husband, but I wasn't bent on recreating myself into a mythic Western ideal like they were. I had an identity already, and from an early age. Part of the secret handshake of that world, I learned, was a disavowal of one's past life, with fretful hand-wringing about my time in New York. There's even lingo devoted to it; a sub-culture of hatred, envy, and regret, for "escaping" from New York. I was barred entry for not performing my lines correctly.

Another bout, this one with severe flu, no health insurance, and my husband's arrest, brought about some quick changes. My marriage was over, I had no health plan, and I was alone. So, I got a corporate gig with regular benefits and "stability", though I know those aren't real, either. I was part of a design group within a large company that went bust. Working right next to me was a woman who'd gone to my high school. She was immediately freaked out by me because she'd hoped to be a pioneer out west, cobbling together a "fun" identity borrowed mostly from Seinfeld episodes. My appearance blew her cover and her routine, which made her skittish and uncertain around me. Naturally, she wanted to be my "friend", which is called a "frenemy" nowadays. She hadn't lived in "New Yawk" since high school, and I threw her off because I wasn't serving up Brooklyn cliches just for entertainment. She was also the only practicing Catholic I knew out there.

We had a mostly Colorado work group, people who alternately avoided me and competed with me, which I expected. They feared and disliked me, making an uneven peace with my presence through an avoidance that they played off as their folksy, country reticence. The other out-of-towner was an unfortunate transplant who shivered all winter long in his resort-wear from Arizona. No amount of talking could persuade him to buy a coat, a scarf, gloves, or a hat. He had a large poster of a tropical palm tree in his pen, which shouted out his climate preferences to anyone who passed by. We got along well, though, as outsiders. He's a devout Christian and a wayward soul, wandering among the scriptures like a beach-comber looking for treasure. He doesn't quite get it, but he loves to talk about it. 

During another slow union-funded afternoon, he made the mistake of handing out religious pamphlets at work. I felt an obligation to tell him the truth, albeit discreetly, that he was breaking the law. He's originally from Mass., so I used that as a reference point, guiding him along as gently as I could. He wouldn't do that if he was in New York, would he? What if he handed this to an Atheist or a Jew?! It's not only offensive, he could lose his job over religious solicitation during office hours. He had the fire of a new convert, but it was also extremely condescending to anyone with a serious religious background. As a Catholic, my parents and family had introduced me to our ancient faith before I could speak. These spiritual concepts were not new to me.

Years earlier, my then-fianceé and I lived in my aunt's old apartment to save money for our wedding and moving expenses. I often went to other neighborhoods to shop and run errands they weren't available to me in the Kensington section of Brooklyn. I don't often take the bus, because I prefer to walk within distance, so I usually take the subway for further trips. I took the bus one time, a real rarity for me, and I was delighted when a normal-looking young woman asked if she could sit down next to me. Oh, good! I lost touch with a lot of female friends during the post-graduation phase of my life, and I welcomed an opportunity to make a new one. She was an average white woman, clean, neat in appearence with straight brown hair. She asked me a few questions to break the ice, or so I thought. Wow, friendly, too...nice!

Then, she dropped the "freak" bomb. She became chirpy and glassy-eyed, a little too keen to talk, speaking much quicker than before. "Me and a group of friends like to meet every Wednesday." Okay...."Would you like to come by?" Uh, what for? Shit. Too late. "Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Your Savior?" Yeah, and a long time ago, too. Welcome to the club.There's no gift basket, by the way. Since then, whenever I'm approached by a zealot, I just blurt out "I'm Catholic!", which seems to frighten them off right away. And, yes, I also carry an "I'm Catholic" card in my wallet.  

Blessings to you and yours this week.

At Home

Brooklyn Morning

Around the Way

stone—strength

Take a seed, make it grow

Look me up! I'm on there.
http://bit.ly/Lw9yg9 

Picture Window

rainy day

Street Art

Street Signs

At Home

Kacey is missing!

Around the Way

sun and shadow

Around the Way

Baptist Church, Sixth Avenue

Righteous Indignation

Killing in the name of!
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Huh!

Killing in the name of!
Killing in the name of

And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
But now you do what they told ya
Well now you do what they told ya

Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, 

 they're the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge,

 they're the chosen whites
Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, 

 they're the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, 

 they're the chosen whites

Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Uggh!

Killing in the name of!
Killing in the name of

And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control (7 times)
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control
And now you do what they told ya!

Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, 

 they're the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, 

 they're the chosen whites
Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, 

 they're the chosen whites
You justify those that died by wearing the badge, 

 they're the chosen whites
Come on!

Yeah! Come on!

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Motherfucker!
Uggh!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righteous_indignation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_Against_the_Machine 

Cooking with Gas

My next kitchen mission was the search for another unknown food to me, jicama*.  When I looked for it in the grocery store, I started looking amongst the most common tuber in the U.S., the potato. No go. A nice clerk led me to a top shelf in seasonal fruits, and I asked him about its' preparation. He laughed and said "I don't cook!", but he did tell me it was sweet. I could see it was a root vegetable.

I had it pretty solid in my mind that I would do a savory dish, since the green banana adventure was still fresh in my mind, but I was open to ideas. The next most popular recipe I found online for jicama is a slaw very similar to the humble cole slaw, our summer BBQ staple. Nah, I didn't have the fixings for that, nor a main dish to go with. I stuck with fries, always a solid idea.

They came out great! A little bit of garlic powder, salt, pepper, paprika, a dash or two of hot sauce, then fried in olive oil, and they were as good as any limp fast food offering. Since they have a sterner texture than potato, you can go well done with this root, and the fries will still be fluffy inside. It's a pretty fibrous and tough root, chewy and a bit sweet. I could see it doing well as a salad, too. So here it is, my first jicama dish.  
Happy cooking!

* http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-jicama.htm

Around the Way

Storefront on Seventh Avenue

Around the Way

Hydrangea season

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Show me some love! 

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Block Party

Me, Sheepshead Bay block party, on a midget pony

Here in the hood, every summer is a party. We have street fairs, festivals, outdoor concerts, fireworks at the beach, every type of party you can think of. After months of winter, we emerge outdoors and spring to life, just like the greenery around us. We slowly stir and awaken, rubbing the sleep from our eyes, to take advantage of the blessed bounty we have around us. They say here that as the sap rises in a tree, so a young man's fancy turns to love. New energy sprouts vividly to life, energizing the very air we breathe. As we pour out into the streets, culture clashes become inevitable, and the block party serves as the battleground. 

A couple of summers ago, a guy from our dojo had a barbecue and naturally, half of our small school came out to celebrate with him. As the neighbors across the street got drunker, their salsa jams became louder and louder, a tribal sign of pride. Not that we needed that particular cultural cue: their Puerto Rican flag was huge, just to drive the point home. Yeah, we get it, guy. Ghettos and booze do not mix well together—you can feel the latent tension building up right under the surface, like a seed pushing through the soil, desperate to reach the healing sunlight. The tipping point chooses a side, and at this point, the night can erupt into the best time of your life, or the crowd turns violent and angry. Whoops, wrong energy. 

Every New York kid becomes an expert early on at reading the vibe of a crowd, assessing party goers and bailing if it looks like a group will flip over into the dark side. We then bail quickly, or as I like to call it "pull a ninja", because a drunk guy who wants to brawl needs people to do it with, and he can turn on you quickly if he notices you leaving "early", so its best to come up with a plan, and make your exit on the sly. Me and my girls usually hatched a scheme like this, "Alright, lemme go to the bathroom first, wait about ten minutes, then you go, and I'll meet you outside." Boom, you're outta there, safe and sound.

Back to my BJJ homie and his block. Word spread that a group of martial artists were on the block, because they knew where my friend trained, and we stood out. When we are together, we are a group of every color, size and shape on this beautiful planet, diverse as this earth can get, united through our allegiance to learning the art of fight science. I guess they might have wanted to impress us, but more likely they were actually afraid, a feeling that doesn't come often to that small territory. Thugs congregate in groups, and gangs are brave only in numbers. It's a sure sign of the coward. Unlike shows of aggression, we can actually fight, which causes posers to flip. First they drained 40s on the stoop, then the music blared uncomfortably loud, and when that didn't bust up our good time, things got weird. To get our attention, they actually started to rattle swords. No, really. Stick with me on this one. 

My cousins' block, 4th of July, Sheepshead Bay

This guy got up from his place on the stoop, weaved over to a car, and started bangng on it. His drunk rational was that there were signs all over the block advertising a "No Parking" policy for the party, so this car "deserved it", because by being there, it was a blatant sign of disrespect. It's twisted, but in this guy's mind, the car is a stand in for the owner, and those feelings of class war get transferred onto the object, thereby the absent owner of the car must be a white guy who hates him. It's that fucked up. Alcohol and a high school dropouts do not mix well. He ripped off a rear view mirror after a couple of limp tries. This must have angered him further, because we placidly went back to our barbecue. Food and famished fighters is like feeding time at the zoo. We briefly lift up our heads then start grazing again. As the token fighter female in our crowd, I felt an obligation to speak up and be the rational one in the crowd, "Should we do something about it, like call the cops or something?" Our sensei blew it off, so I forgot about it and went back to the party.

Next thing I know, this guy comes banging out of the front door to his place and goes back to the SUV with, I kid you not, a FUCKING SAMURAI SWORD. At this point, we're in full blast of a good time, so as long as he and his homies don't fuck with us, it's that time of the night to sit back and enjoy the show because this is better than any movie or t.v. sitcom could ever hope to be. So, he takes out this sword and proceeds to puncture a tire, and this is the key point, he actually does it in one fell swoop. We have some artists in our crowd who teach weapons training, so at this point, some of our dudes are impressed! I'm like, am I really seeing this guy attack a car with a fucking sword or what?! I'm overjoyed. He very deliberately slashes each and every tire with a cut, then sheathes his sword and weaves his way drunkenly back inside, to return his precious symbol of manhood back to its' holy place in his rathole. God knows what that must look like—every Karate Kid ghetto douchebag has Bruce Lee posters in their room. But you what? Job well done, asshole. You wanted to kill a car, and you did. Congrats.

On some level, he must have suddenly realized that we could swarm on him and his crowd and snap their necks if we wanted to, because he actually weaved over to my shirtless barbecuing BJJ friend and delivered a slurred speech of apologies and half-baked justifications for his recent actions. Now that his violent thug energy is spent, he feels remorse, just like every other abusive motherfucka in the hood does. It's a crazy up-and-down ride that I jumped off of a long time ago, and for me, unlike some kids in our crowd, this isn't some fun tilt-a-whirl ride in Gritty Disneyland. This is my home, and these are the kind of people I grew up with and have in my family. As funny as it is, it also sickens me. It's a double-edged sword. But, we emerge safely from this cultural brush up, so I'm happy with that. Besides, the big draw of the night is a live UFC event, so we make our way inside to support a fighter our teacher knows well. The saddest part is, for all his rattle and hum, he's a sideshow freak for us.

This all came back to me Saturday, when I walked out the door to see my street blocked off for our annual party, as I cross the street to get my chores done. Kiddie pools are set up, am inflatable ball room is in the works, kids are drawing on the sidewalk with chalk, but this is not the party it will be in a few hours, and I know that. Sure enough, I come home a few hours later, and start doing my thing—cookin' vittles and looking forward to putting up my feet to watch a movie. I got the window open and I'm enjoying a great cool breeze, a rare treat on the 4th floor. By then, my neighbors are drunk and shit gets loud. They haul out their speakers in ghetto fabulous fashion and crank up the bass. I see these people around all day every day in the hood, so I know they don't have day jobs, but they sure as fuck have money for the precious symbols important to their tribe—the boom box.

Don't get me wrong, I worked in a recording studio and I love my tunes, so I can handle just about any type of audio situation except one, and that is loud, shitty music. There is absolutely no need to advertise that you have rotten taste for everyone to hear. If we thought you dropped out of school in 10th grade, now we KNOW for sure that you did, because you just fucking broadcast it to the entire world. Asshole. Not that that's news to me. These hood rats avoid my gaze, and in all the years I've lived here, not once (ONCE!) has one of their crowd even deemed me worthy of "hello" or "how you doin'" and I know they fucking know who I am. But, that's the hood, man—same rules, different year. Not that I want to know them, anyway, so we follow this fucked up street hierarchy protocol that lets me know that I am several rungs on the evolutionary ladder above them, and we all play these roles that they assigned to me. Why? Because of fear. I'd be flattered if I also didn't think it was so chickenshit. That's right, readers, it's a double-edged sword.

Some pic of back in the day I found online

It's not even worth addressing it with them, because they don't speak my language anyway. You just get into some drunk, drugged, and weird round robin of an exchange with a bunch of damaged characters who feed you some line of shit about how you should relax and join the party and its only one time of year, so what the fuck? Oh, right, I'm the asshole. I forgot! Thank you! The worst part is, there's little kids sitting right next to these speakers having their hearing damaged so one day of the year, their dad can feel like the Mayor of the Block. It's such a vicious cycle, where would I begin? The sound is so bad, readers, that I could still hear it after I closed all the windows, closed the shutters, turned on my A/C, two fans, and cranked the volume to 40 or 50 (LOUD) on my t.v. I could feel the floor of my apartment building shake as they rattled their swords ineffectually to the world, desperate as always. 

But like all the encounters I have, I'm up in arms at the same time I have sense of humor about the situation. So for you, my dear audience, I culled the best of the worst I could find online to give you a taste of our block party experience on Saturday. It was layer upon layer of dueling boom boxes, as two factions battled it out for supremacy; sad, poignant, and funny, life in our little corner of the world for you to laugh about, as you shake you head, just like I did. Have great week and stay safe out there everybody. Temps ain't the only thing that rise on the block during the summertime. 

Welcome to my Guantanamo Bay.

 

http://youtu.be/UE4WokN5Z6s?t=6m10s

http://youtu.be/raGKrFQP0hk

http://youtu.be/qw5-_J63Uh4

http://youtu.be/HujQ-ZoqAq8

http://youtu.be/0i4Wfyn8cjU

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http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/116572

At Home

signs of life / green and water

Curly Girl

The perfect bowl for 70s kids

My early life was defined by battles with my hair, and like most war zones, it was a lonely place. I'm an army of one, and that won't change much, because my work is dependent upon me, and just me. I am the steam that generates the whole works because I make the stuff. But hair and beauty care is different, because it was long ago co opted by the advertisers in this country who seek to define how we view ourselves so they can sell us shit, and the 70s were no exception to this rule. After America's brief fling in the late 60s with natural hair and an immature concept about freedom that was marked by shows of teenage rebellion, people ran back in droves to the comfort and security of Capitalism, into the waiting arms of "Marketeers".

My hairs' version of a bowl

The barrage started for me at a very early age. I did not look like the ads, shows, magazines or movies would have me look, and those around me readily absorbed these messages, because they didn't like the way I looked either. For as long as I can remember, my hair has been a topic of conversation, something that still baffles me, though I have accepted it as my fate. The bulk of my days consist of work, periods when I become oblivious to how I appear because I am wrestling with far bigger ideas. My first bad brush up with popular culture would be the bowl haircut: a horribly unattractive hairstyle at best, but for most of us, it was a totally unrealistic tearjerker of a hair style.

Dorothy Hamill and the perfect bowl

I have, and will always have, curly hair. In my childhood, it was the bane of my existence because culture made it the center of my world. My hair didn't fit in, and neither did I. Trends were brutally enforced forms of peer pressure that I would struggle with then, and happily ever after. But when you're a kid, you hemmed in by the adults in your world, because they have the resources. My mom is a science major and a feminist, and she also (this is key) has a different type of hair than me. She would jerk a comb through my hair after baths, a routine that became so infamous throughout America that a baby shampoo coined the slogan "No More Tears", and it wasn't solely from soap in the eyes. She bought detangler solution to comb it through my hair post-bath, but the damage had already been done in the cleaning process from the harsh stripping agents of cheap, commercial shampoos that are stronger than most household cleaners. I would learn many years later as an adult that those products are the worst for my hair type.

Another hatchet job of a hair cut

My stressed out mom would throw up her hands in frustration and have my hair cut off every summer. It was very hard on me because I am much more of a "girl" than my mom. I adore long locks, dresses, shoes, experimenting with make up, hair, jewelry, and clothes, things she lacks a feel for. Every summer as a little girl, I would over hear questions about whether I was a boy or a girl. Believe me, I have nothing against gender neutrality, but I was (and am) who I was, and I did not like hearing those comments at all. I will never forget one Boy Scout event that I attended as a young girl. I was waiting in line (by myself) to look at something, in front of a rambunctious little boy and his dad. He must have become antsy and bumped into me accidentally, because the dad said to him "Just wait until the little boy in front of you is done." It rocked me to the core. As I left to find family and leave the place, I remember that the bright, sunny summer day seemed completely at odds with the dark clouds that had rolled in on me. I am not a boy, and that should be as clear to everyone as it was clear to me. I made a promise to myself that when I was older, I would let my femininity be loud and proud and apparent—I wouldn't hide it any longer, and so it is :)

The perfect 70s "wings"

It didn't help that we were surrounded by 70s images of perfection, and those images were mostly defined by white, blond, blue eyed women and girls with long straight hair. The only example around me I had of that was my Barbie doll. I simply didn't know anyone who fit that bill. It wasn't like we didn't try. My hair went through the same excruciating blow dry, setting with hot rollers, and bobby pinning that the rest of the girls in America went through. My hair would start the day looking one way, and by midday, would be a totally different hairstyle. Curly hair doesn't take to "hairdos" like the ones I saw in magazines. I would also learn in high school, when I took over responsibility for my care, that a razor cut is the worst way to cut curls.

My version of "wings"

But it was everywhere that I looked. We live in different times, so it's kind of hard to explain how conformist society was, but any (any) deviation from the norm was suspect. Children have it rough enough growing up, but when it's done under watchful, judgmental eyes, the angst factor raises exponentially. Our parents were very young by comparison to today's standards, thanks to better healthcare and enlightened attitudes. My mom had one guidebook and that was by a man named "Dr. Spock", which had advice from everything to behavior and socialization. I'm gonna let that sink in for a bit. One book. My mom had 3 toddlers under the age of 4 by the age of 27, and the burden of that showed. She stayed at home while my dad got dressed up "Mad Man" style to go to some big, important job in the city where he spent most of his time. We were left with t.v. shows, magazines, and the advice of aunts, or Ann Landers' column in the paper. There was no one to ask about all the day to day issues that come up in a young, busy household except the family doctor or a priest, if the people around you lacked the prowess to navigate life well.

The ubiquitous ideal

It wasn't like we didn't have a million other things to think about and go through anyway, so my styling and wardrobe was a pretty low item on the to-do list, though I was always neat and clean and dressed and fed, which was more than some kids at school got. There was simply too much going on for me to be fussed over, and education was my parents top priority, then as now. Plus, we were raised in a faithful household that taught about matters much more weighty than someones' appearance. It wasn't until I went to school and got made fun of, that I was even made aware of how I looked, because then (as now) I really didn't care that much until someone let me know I should care, and like, A LOT. Like, duh, Marie. I was bookish from a very early age, so I didn't actually think like my schoolmates, and my lack of self-consciousness about trends didn't help me to blend in and get by anonymously. For that class pic of me in a striped shirt, I tightly bobby pinned the wings to my head with about 20 pins, sprayed it down, put on a white painters cap, and slept with the works on overnight, and that was what I got for all my effort.

Same thing here

Oppression is a hard thing to describe because it functions so covertly and subtly. Back then, there was one ideal and one only, and the masses followed. In the 70s, it was this: blonde hair, blue eyed, a white girl who tanned and had big teeth, appeared rich, very thin, and tall, and I was none of things. When I say it was everywhere, I mean it. Those images were on billboards, commercials, magazine ads, cereal boxes, movie heroines...it was invasive and unrelenting. None of my family looked like this media assault, and neither did my friends. I guess it was supposed to represent some California Girl ideal, but I had no idea what that was. I'm a New Yorker. Why would I care what other people did? But every day and in every way, these signals were telegraphed that I should. I am not a follower, so I guess I shrugged it off at an early age. Those images were just fake fantasies to me, not half as interesting as a Grimm fairy tale, dark and mysterious and fascinating. Who cares?

Again...the same look

But the people around me did seem to care to some degree, and much more than me. I figured out pretty quickly, since I was on my own with beauty, that with items bought in a drug store, you could transform yourself. So, if anyone can do it, why is it special? Well, it wasn't, and that was the whole point. Just fit in, for God's sake, fit in! Safety in numbers, and kids learn about panicky mob mentality very early. Men like blondes, and that was that. I never felt pretty or special as a girl. I felt awkward and weird and the bullies let me know that they felt that way about me, too, almost every day. The earliest boy crushes in school were on the same blondes that the men at home liked. Deviation came to my doorstep, so I just let it in. Fuck it, I'm already a freak, why blend in? I never had a choice, and to this day, I still have a wondrous envy for people who do. It must be a solid comfort, like having the same sandwich to eat for lunch every day; the steady lull of routine.

More of the same

Even though it was a dull ache of sameness, times do change (oh, thank GOD), and so did I. The 70s fazed out to be the 80s and pop culture moved on. The masses finally got bored with sameness, slowly and surely, light years behind me, same as now. Hair got livelier and so did the music. I started seeing some bounce in the magazines, stirrings of life after the flat-lining of a culture gone dead. I read Orwells' 1984 in junior high school, and it changed me forever. It was the right book at the right time, and it confirmed every notion that I was starting to form as a young intellectual: conformity is killer. People who must follow the "rules" (and who makes those?) do so out of fear, not by choice or out of careful consideration. OK, so I didn't look like the magazines. Fuck it! I was surrounded by Asian, black, Jewish, Hispanic, and ethnic city kids anyway, so this shit must be for the rest of the country and not us. Fine, they can have it.

Another failed attempt at "wings"

It was around this time that I started flexing the muscles of my real identity. I had been a dancer for most of my life: tap at age 3, ballet by 4, gymnastics by 5 or 6, all through grammar school to junior high. I wasn't fitting in there, either. My ballet teacher told me I had too round a booty for ballet and I should stick to gymnastics. She said I was "too sexy" for ballet, and for an adult who was depending on my parents cash to run her school, she must have meant it. By that time, we started to go "on pointe" and that is a big decision. Pointe required much more of a commitment. In addition to my classes, I would have to stay another hour or more. The ballet shoes back then had pieces of wood in the toes that was wrapped in wool, more wool was placed on top, and stood on: it could permanently damage young, growing feet, so it was a big deal. At that point, girls were sending out feelers to the city about companies and other programs, and my parents were no different. 

My version of "ballet" hair

Ballet becomes your life when you're in it. I began thinking about Julliard High School and their audition process. And then I had a conversation with my teacher one afternoon about my progress. I asked her about going further. She asked me in turn, "But, do you really have a passion for it, Marie? I mean, I see you in class. You're not really there. Do you enjoy it? Do you want to be a dancer? Because it's something you have to want more than anything else in the world." I took a look around at the girls in the advanced class, putting on their toe shoes. They fucking hated me. I was much prettier than them (though I didn't really think about it), and I didn't spread bitchy gossip like they did. Needless, my hair didn't cooperate to conform to the look, just like my body supposedly didn't. I spent about 30 seconds thinking about the answer to my teachers questions. You mean, do I want to spend the next 20 years of my life competing with a bunch of skinny, bitchy, boring girls? The answer is...hell, no. I realized that I simply didn't fucking belong there; it was not my world. I quit, gladly hung up my shoes, and never looked back or regretted it since then, and readers, I mean not once. My parents still bemoan my decision today (Which I find cute. They are such fans.), but I had an artistic vocation already.

et vous?

I didn't look, act, or think like a ballerina and I knew it. I was reading as much as I could possibly inhale, and I was writing and drawing like a girl on fire. I knew what real artistic passion was from time spent on my private island of one. Those things came to me as naturally as breathing. I lost myself in my activities for hours on end. No one coached me, instructed me, or had to tell me what to do. Besides, boys were getting interesting, I mean school, SCHOOL was getting interesting. We started learning the real meat of stuff and I loved it. Adults were telling us about actual historical events. As they trusted us with this material, I leaped past them and started voraciously exploring information on my own. I always read far ahead of my level (I'm a year or two younger than my former classmates), so school became a counterpoint to my education during high school. The students became a lot cooler, too. I had a friend from England living with a family as part of an exchange program. We immediately clicked.

moi?

I was learning French (avec plaisir!) at the same time I befriended another girl from overseas. Caroline was living with her grandparents after a brief and intense affaire with an Arab boy, which was taboo in racist 80s France. He was part of a gang that rode around on mopeds, slashing rivals faces with razor blades they held between their fingers as they zipped passed each other. She showed me how they cut each other in the face with their blades "like theese, phht, phtt" and how they held them, because she rode on the back of his bike. Once they progressed to sex and birth control pills, her parents shipped her out. To New York and city kids. Smart move! She brought with her an international, European look, and tons of cool French magazines. It was a revelation to me. I had never never seen a brown-eyed brunette model on the cover of a magazine before, and it meant so much to me. That seems really odd now, but like I said, it was a rigid society. Our ethnic parents wanted badly to blend in, so they could make money and have the mythic "American Dream", which is a marketing mirage that doesn't exist anyway. It was Cindy Crawford, and Cindy, thank you. She looked like us; she had different hair, wore mad stylish clothes, très moderne et très chic. Bon! I started in earnest to find and define my personal style.

at the beach

Times for my hair improved dramatically, too. It was like my childhood in reverse. As the other girls struggled to keep up with perms and curling irons, I could finally let my hair do its thing. Instead of setting my alarm for 5:00 am so I could fight with my hair AND make the 7:15 bus, I rocked bedhead like I was born with it, which I was. I spend most summers at the beach, where all your efforts at a sleek, straight-haired look are fucking pathetic attempts at control anyway. I couldn't hide my hair at the beach, and now that the times had changed, I didn't have to. The 80s were my teenage years and like any other adolescent, they became my road to freedom. 

relaxed, like my hair

I woke up, took a shower, turned some heat on my bangs and voila! La mode. This was my time, finally. I started coming out of my shell and wearing better clothes. I had a job at 15, and after that, a series of shop girl jobs at clothing stores. I devoured fashion mags for the hair and make up tips, swimming in style. I ditched my moms' Argentinian hairdresser at the mall, with the fake blonde dye job and 70s wings, who hated me anyway, for a young, hip Italian-American girl at the hottest salon, in the closest town to my house. They blasted new wave music, and everyone who worked there wore lots of black, lots of big silver jewelery, lots of dark make up, and they partied in the city all the time.

letting my hair down

My amie Française and I hit the stores hard. I soaked in her nonchalance and natural manner, the joie de vive she had about herself and her look. She custom styled her earrings and cut her t-shirts whenever she wanted to. We made clothes suit our tastes and not the other way around. Times became arty, and standing out instead of blending in became de rigeur. Our music reflected this new attitude about how we presented ourselves to the world. Instead of getting flack for being ahead of the pack, my peers suddenly wanted it. At the same time I hit my style stride, me and my friends widened our circle geographically, too. We started taking bus rides into the city. At first it was just to look around and walk, but then we became more targeted and focused.

mags, lifeline to the world

We found music stores and art galleries that had the kinds of stuff we were into, the bands and outfits that we saw in the funky magazines we were eating up at a fast pace. We had to. Our parents marriages had fell apart, kids were dissolving into madness, drugs, or alcohol addiction, and people were already dying. If we had a shot at defining a real future for ourselves, we had to go out there and get it, because our parents had no idea what was going on with themselves, let alone the big world outside their doors. We were a generation who thrived on mixing tapes and passing them around, because mainstream culture had given us the middle finger a long time ago anyway, when the Boomers realized we didn't buy into their shit.

ankle boots and my real hair

It wasn't rebellion so much as survival and a voice which, due to the relatively small population base that is GenX, we were denied. After all, if you aren't the things you buy, who are you? Our world was busy turning dysfunction into new syndromes like hoarding compulsions and OCD, as vulnerable people spun out of control and clutched desperately at the objects advertised to improve their lives. When that didn't work (because a fucking couch or bracelet can't love you back) they turned on us. We got the message loud and clear—you better be more substantial than some shallow marketing message or you became a casualty of life. Those magazines didn't reflect us truly, because that shit could turn on us any minute, too. Society and the rest of the hoard were as fickle as a two year old. Best to get your head down right with your own vision.

punk is in

I coasted through senior year, which I didn't need for the grades or credits because I got all I needed to enter college by my junior year of high school. My parents had put me back for my older brother because it would embarrassing for him to have his sister in classes with him. It was mostly fine with me because like I wrote, I was younger than the other kids by a lot and it showed in my very youthful looks. So, I survived by collecting imported vinyl by new acts like U2, sleeved in their original Irish album covers and sold in record stores in the city, singing about class warfare, right wing privilege, and religious bias. It was the perfect energy for me. I wanted change, too.

High school graduation, and I was already gone

As I sit here writing this, I still can't believe I'm alive. Man, I am happy to be here!  Violence exploded in the late 80s and 90s with race riots, AIDS flared up like the plague and decimated entire populations, as crack addiction swallowed up the projects and ate them whole. Car jacking and random crime, over shit like new sneakers or gold jewelry, overtook those who were too impoverished and beat down to do anything but hurt themselves and others. I started getting a rhythm again for the city and my roots, riding the trains with the beat box boys, the skaters, and the graffiti guys. They spoke my language, and as artists, we could give voice to what was really going on. I started breathing in reality in huge lungfuls as I unplugged from a false, corrupt, and fat suburbia that crippled me and my friends families, and I wanted more. Our fathers had left town and were gone, taking their issues and broken dreams, leaving us free to explore our environments as best we could, while our mothers worked jobs for the first time in years, no longer housewives. We were freed.

 

I left for college, and as I've written before, my life improved overnight. There have been times when trends have turned the masses against me again in tidal waves, but I don't give a flying fuck. The 90s brought a return to straightened, boring "white girl" hair, with baggy beige clothes and blue denim shirts from The Gap, fueled and funded by the Friends sitcom frenzy that packaged conventionality once again for frightened people, but by that time I was far ahead of the loop. I found a type of hair dryer with a brush attachment, so I can dry my hair before leaving the door on cold winter days. It takes some of the curl out, but never all of it, and that's my flavor, that's me. Years later I would work for a small publishing company that employed a dissatisfied young woman who bounced angrily from job to job within our tiny company, and lo and behold, she took it out on her Spanish/Irish hair with a Japanese chemical straightening process so damaging that it left two dead pieces flopping limply on her forehead for years. When I listened to her average (by now) tale of woe, I didn't get ruffled one bit. I smiled, and handed her my copy of the book Curly Girl. This Christmas I gave an updated edition with a how-to CD to my very curly niece, so that she, and the next generation, doesn't have to do it all on their own. Now she knows she's not alone. http://www.amazon.com/Curly-Girl-Handbook-Lorraine-Massey/dp/076115678X/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Much love to you.