Hello Beautiful...

“When you have big eyes, you shouldn’t roll them so much.” He says.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because it makes people feel stupid. You make me feel dumb Auna.”

“How am I supposed to respond to that? Thanks for the advice?” I laugh.

“You’re welcome.” He smirks.

“I wasn’t actually thanking you; it was hypothetical gratitude.”

“One day when you’re talking to an important person with a low IQ, you’ll thank me.” His dark eyes sparkle with wisdom, or so he thinks.

He leans over the bar, “So beautiful, tell me about this new man. Are you happy?” He is genuinely curious. He has this way of calling women beautiful so platonically, it’s as innocent as a grandmother complimenting your prom dress, but yet, not ingenuous in the slightest.

“I don’t know Raj. It’s sort of an odd sensation, a tingling all over when I see his number light up on my phone. I can’t quite explain.”

“Odd, eh? Like heroine or more like herpes?” He retorts.

“Like neither. Get your head out of the gutter.” I try to smack his arm.

“But why…. It belongs there.” His vowels slowly drool over consonants, his voice sing-songy in a masculine way.

“Like butterflies. Like lemonade on a hot summer day. Wholesome. It’s effortless. You should try nice on for size. It might fit. Are you still dating, that woman?” I pry.

“Of course not.” He pauses, and then continues. “Okay, maybe. But back to you. Whatcha been writing doll face?”

He knew my soft spot… my favorite topic, and he was an avid reader of my articles and blog, but I couldn’t veer of course, “She isn’t healthy for you. Is she still pushing for more?”

“Oh boy is she. Screw her research on stem cells she is the new expert on diamonds. She even took up fly-fishing. Can’t she hold out the baby talk for awhile?” He whines.

“How old is she? I ask, pushing his buttons.

He counts on his fingers like a kindergartner, then stares at his feet in shame, “She turned 33 a few weeks ago.”

“Well, duh. Her clock is ticking and is only getting louder. Dude, if you don’t want to be in this, then gets out.” I say.

“What’s so wrong with playing it by ear.” He answers honestly, visibly exhausted in his batman sweatshirt.

“Playing it by ear doesn’t have ovaries.”

“Ha. You’re a funny one.” He says.

“I’m serious Raj, you should consider ending it. If not for her sake, then for his own.”

“It just sucks, the whole alone thing,” He says in complete vulnerability.

“I know, but it’s better than staying miserable.” I reply.

He face reverts from sullen to excited instantaneously, “So, I want to meet this nice man of yours.”

I know at this point he already knows his answer in regards to his love life. It just took some courage, and I could tell right now he couldn’t find any.

So I talked about some cool articles and my big authorial dreams, because for the last three years we’ve been friends, I’ve learned that he cares. He is one of the few who actually give a damn. Maybe it’s the Gemini in him, maybe it’s the way he was born. So I give him permission to change the subject so he can listen to the details of my budding relationship, my woes around work and pretty much anything else I felt the need to share with my loyal, free therapist. Our interactions always ended with, “You know I love you, right?”

And I’d respond, “Yeah dude, love you too.”

And that was that.

A brilliant investment banker from New York, he wears flip-flops in December. He has two pet cats and randomly inserts quotes from Shakespeare or statistics from the Economist into elevator conversation.

Eccentric, they all are.

April 17.

Slung over various limbs I’m balancing three bags, they’re overstuffed with clothes, shoes, books, a bottle of vino and lord knows what else. I’ve reached floor 25 and cursing whatever reason the buildings electricity went out. The stairwells are empty and the echo of my heavy breathing is reminding me I need to visit the gym. My guess is that this is a screwed up fire drill and all 600 residents must be in Vail or the Rockies’ game.

And I’m so irritated because for the first time, in a long time, I was actually going to be on time to dinner. I’m notoriously late. And now karma had her plan and insisted I trek down 28 floors. Grrr.

When I’ve finally pushed open the last door on the ground floor I’m greeted with dozens of worried faces. John, the guy who works our front desk is breathing through oxygen tubes and firefighters with intense black masks are whispering things of gasses being found in an apartment. John finding a dead body. I’ve entered the twilight zone and unfortunately I don’t really have enough minutes to figure it out. Running out to 16th street there are cameras from TV stations and orange cones blocking off the corners, my car is in the middle of all the drama. My only option is find a cab two blocks over. Sweating through my cute top and running mascara, I book it to 17th.



It was Tuesday and quite possibly already one of the worst days of my existence. My life at the magazine had reached its end. It was a shocker. And I was trying to identify my new existence; a student, a writer. Who knows? Climbing into my car, late to a birthday dinner, I run into a dear friend from the building. Sitting on the bench waiting I tell her how much I adore her jacket. Then she sits down next to me for no apparent reason.

“Isn’t it sad.” She says.
“Yeah, totally sad.” I glance at my watch, not in the mood to recount our building’s newest drama.
“My boyfriend is really upset. We saw him earlier that day and were going to meet up for beers.” She has tears in her eyes.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know who it was, right?” Surprised I’m so nonchalant.
“No, who?” I figured it was one of the older workaholics, who commuted and gave up their families, one of the people I’d never met. So it didn’t really affect me.
“It was Raj.”

Silence. Then face fell into my hands.
“What? No.”

“Yes, they found him that afternoon. He was such a troubled soul.”

“What?” I repeat.

“Yeah, we’re all really bummed.”

I started crying. Raj had sat up on my leather couch so many nights, complimenting my orchids, toasting Pellegrino; we explored the innards of our lives; our decisions, our futures. I knew he was depressed and I often asked him about it. He would shush me and say he was fine.

I weep and through my tears tell her, “I saw him on Friday and I was on the elliptical glider. I brushed him off. I was busy. Then he emailed me to hang out. Oh my god he emailed me, and I never responded.”

“An email wasn’t going to save him. There’s nothing you could have done.” She says.

“I know an email wasn’t going to save him, but maybe I’d get another beer or another talk, or a hug or something. I’d get a few more minutes of him. Now there’s nothing.” Then it wasn’t just silent tears, I was sobbing.

“It’s going to be okay.” She comforted me, I know she meant well, but each of us had a special relationship with Raj. During my darkest hours he always picked up the phone. I could knock on his door at 2am, an insomniac like me, he never yawned at my bailiwick, he’d give advice, and he’d tell me stories of his childhood and his family back home.

I started missing him Tuesday night, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop.

People always say that suicide is selfish. Religiously, I want to agree. But something deep inside holds me back from being angry. Sure, there is that plea I could tried to save him.

But, life isn’t simple. And while it sounds crazy, death is very simple. A person just leaves. Everyone loved being his friend, but at the end I don’t know if he had any. He mastered the art of loving people, because maybe for some reason he never felt loved. I’m convinced wherever he is, he knows love now; he is hanging out up there watching out for the rest of us.

He wanted out, someplace new… a mood antidepressants won’t fix, a place where planes can’t fly.

He wanted out and so he left us. I wish I could hug him again and at least say goodbye.

The Intangible Asset: Hollywood

The Intangible Asset: Hollywood

While the world is running to our movie stars, they’re running away from our financial systems. What gives?

“Inside Job” narrated by Matt Damon was a film I saw several weeks ago at an Arts theatre on Broadway. I found it surprising that Matt Damon would take the time and energy to create and produce a documentary, abundant with facts and interviews exposing the Wall Street crash in 2008 and its global implications, but more so a documentary with such a political bias.

He marketed the film on the Internet and through interviews by claiming it as a “historical documentary” which truly broadcasts the global financial crisis… But never infers there is an obvious political agenda woven throughout the film’s seemingly benign credentials. The first scene is a beautiful landscape of Iceland, where simplicity equates to happiness and those who habituate the small country take pride in the culture and work ethic. Then, the capitalistic conglomerate banks appear on the scene and financial chaos ignites. But before the rabid bankers hungry for unrealistic returns, the audience sees how the banks literally manipulate academics into supporting these false reporting systems.

While their still remains arguments in Washington on how to approach large financial institutions, there is no doubt in any international mind that bankers took total advantage of the flexibility the free market system has embraced. That said, many believe that the debt DC has undertaken, and endorsed, whereas a happy-lending China can easily buy has thrown us into a spiral far more injurious than the economic collapse.

What Damon disregards in the documentary targeting and exploiting Wall Street is that the same argument could be turned around on Hollywood. He blames the loopholes, the middle class for buying into what Wall Street is selling, and the result? Job losses across the globe, utter chaos and some would say anarchy. Albeit the circumstances, which are transparent and easily calculated, Damon doesn’t dare look in the mirror at his own paycheck, or the “art” that this free market, first amendment country has provided to him and his fellow filmmakers. There is a convergence of government rights… the right to make films, the right to produce media.

So while Hollywood is capitalizing on the Adam Smith ideology that has shown proven failure in the banking world, the rest of the world is waiting to see the returns of many decades of bullets, cursing and sex…. Drama. Scientists at the same universities (Harvard, Stanford, Columbia) Damon condemns argue that his work in Hollywood has indeed exploited the minds of innocent civilians, suggesting through media something that the American dream is not.

Americans have bought into the Simpsons and US weekly, the reality shows and trash television that takes up hours and hours of time… Indian, China, Africa, South America… many nations which are fighting us for international market share, not only in exports, but pure intellectual property aren’t wasting their time eliciting in a fantasy land. Matt Damon makes $20 million a movie, if not more…. While by and large creating things that are in no way feasible? He fights for the second amendment to be removed, but readily uses guns in his action packed movies. Who are the predators? Which is worse, selling a house to someone who can’t afford it? Or influencing the minds of young children? Why bother pouring money into the education system, when Hollywood has already figured out how to capture the attention of American’s future generations.

While sure Damon donates a large percentage to charities, he still reaps those tax deductions… is he really someone who can jump up on a pedestal and tell America where NOT to put their money, but more importantly… their minds.

When wrong makes right?

Until a restless leaf flutters to the ground, it’s quiet. Instead of luscious green with lively veins exhaling oxygen into a suffocating world, it’s now cracked and dry. Yet even at its death, the burnt orange and raspberry color is stunning. Then my eye catches something else. I sit on the concrete bench at the Botanic Gardens. Today is my birthday.

Gravity beckons the fallen leaves, but like a salmon trying to span, I notice a monarch lifting herself up into the warm air. I wonder where she will go now the visitors hours have changed, the soil goes into hibernation and the once budding lilacs are crumpled and shriveled… I ache to throw the pitiful flowers into a garbage bag, or a gardener to haul them away.

A crisp breeze reminds me that the seventy degrees of perfect weather is a façade…. Soon the sun will set and the chill of any October past will awaken goose bumps that are Colorado. The bipolar state where ugly weather doesn’t just disappear; instantaneously, it becomes glorious. A morning thunderstorm of lightening and hail will flip into a cloudless afternoon where cocktails can be toasted on the patio swing.

And like all birthdays, this too shall pass and the reality of autumn; snowfall and frigid holidays are watching me sit here. And once the first snowflakes fall from the fluffy clouds, then too, the last leaves hanging onto the bare branches, with some dignity remaining, will turn to slush, and people will dust off ski gear.

Driving over here I received a phone call from someone I was very close with on my birthday last year. Oh to waddle twelve months ago and take stock of life. The portfolio of mistakes you paid the premium, and the luck you found dirt-cheap.

Most chapters, the years never have the luxury of completed endings, sure… there are photos glazed with smiling faces, some strangers, some close friends who’ve somehow over the years turned strangers again. There are the farewell fetes and the amicable breakups, the career paths which go rerouted, and the farewells to grandparents… the final kind of goodbye where you don’t get to hear anymore stories of your parents growing up, or advice from eight decades of mistakes and good decisions.

The butterfly lands next to me. I wonder if she knows I’m sitting here. I’d prefer to think that she does. That she has human thoughts, she is excited to unearth a human friend at the Botanic Gardens, because only the birds and the grasshoppers appear visit here nowadays. She sits with me, ready and eager to go down the long stretch ahead dubbed, “memory lane.”

Selling Heartbreak on Ebay!

How starving kids in Guantanamo can benefit from your heartbreak.

Two weeks ago in Dallas.

“Just throw it. Pretend it is a football. It was cheaper than a football anyway.” I encourage my Emma, my dearest childhood friend, who is clutching a cheap porcelain figurine like it’s the crown royal.

“Auna, that is harsh. It’s just so, so, I don’t know….” She stammers, racking her brain for any excuse not to heave the reminder off her balcony. Unearthing nothing…. She sighs exasperated by my persistence. So in order to get me to shut up, she arches her back, winds her arm… and from her third floor condo, hurls the colorful representation of a union-gone-wrong into the parking lot.

We both stare in disbelief as the ceramic pieces fly into the dark night. The sound of smashing startling us both…. She turns to me for reassurance that she wasn’t going to hell of this 90210-type activity. The silence of the broken memento below is purifying and my words are worthless. Her face had transformed from traumatized to empowered. The simple act of destroying something into smithereens reignited vigor, a first step toward dismantling the pain her ex heaved on her two weeks ago. There is something so liberating when something is so busted, that there is no way you can glue or tape it back together. So instead, you pick the broken pieces up off the tarmac and throw them in a garbage bin, knowing they’ll be hauled off to some compound far far away.

Wet mascara is smudged and her nose is runny, but we walk back inside where a large cardboard box packed few of stuff is staring at us, mocking us, daring us to do something totally crazy with its contents. There is a gold necklace, a pair of diamond earrings…. A bracelet from Tiffany’s, and then the books, movies and ticket stubs that occupied Saturday nights. And finally our eyes fall on the framed sketch of her beloved asshole displayed prominently on the table…. But I remind her that luckily that “stuff” doesn’t include mortgages and children and a lawyer.

“I have an idea.” I say, thrilled that my physics has taught me Newton’s principle of energy; it cannot be created or destroyed, but simply converted.

She holds up a ‘Learn Hindi’ DVD in one hand and the diamond earrings in the other, “Seriously, what am I supposed to do? It’d be bad juju to hand this stuff off to my friends. Who’d want it anyway? I feel bad, it was all so, so expensive.” She explains, staring longingly at a pink silk nightie on the on the chair.

“Where are you scissors?” I demand.
“In the top drawer in the kitchen.” She replies, confused.
I grab the pink nightie, “Cut it.”
“What?” She shrieks! “Are you crazy.”
“Clearly. Come on. You know it’s good for you.” Sometimes tough love is necessary.

With a newfound sense of confidence, she begins at the delicate lace, until all that is left is tattered, unrecognizable silk with a la perla label hanging limp. She gropes the leftovers to her chest like it’s some meowing kitten.”

“Garbage bin.” I point.

Next, the jewelry, pulling out my digital camera I hold up the weighty Tiffany’s bracelet, “Do you still have the box for this? It is always better to have it look as new as possible.”

Tears begin rolling down her tender freckled cheeks. I wasn’t being very sensitive. The reality of removing each memory piece-by-piece from her apartment was slowly hitting her. The “getting over” a relationship is sometimes more painful than the breakup itself.

Hell, I hadn’t fallen in love is so many years; I forgot how impossible it is to try and climb out.

I hand her a tissue and pat the space next to me on her white leather couch, “Okay, let’s take a break.”

Weeping, she sniffles “Sometimes I don’t know how I didn’t see it coming. But all the romantic dinners, the flowers, bringing my family champagne, it was blinding. And now a year of my life is gone.” She snaps her fingers, “Signora.”

I’m at a loss. Mostly because I agree with her, I’m baffled how she didn’t detect, or foresee this nightmare from unfolding? She is an engineer. She is logical and doesn’t hurt people. So how someone could cheat on such a kindred soul is beyond me. But this guy managed to not only cheat on her, but he led her to believe that he wouldn’t do it again. Then, did it again. This isn’t something about male bashing, but more about analyzing cheaters and their behavior in general. Are we genetically wired to be either the “good” or the “bad” guy, or can good people do bad things?

But what about the good people who just get screwed over? Are they at fault because they fell victim to something they believed was perfect? I just can’t reconcile it – I mean Emma, she defies innocent and has been abandoned, baffled as to what she did wrong and emotionally crippled. I wanted to rip his head off. But since I didn’t have access to a rifle, nor had access to his address, I decided the best way to retaliate would be to auction off the “loot”.

I begin explaining, “We’re going upload the photos of the jewelry on ebay. And then we’ll sell it to the highest bidders.”
“Wait, wait.” She starts to interrupt me.

I hold up my hand, “I know what you’re thinking. You feel guilty selling this stuff, plus you think the money has nasty karma attached to it.”

She nods.

I continue, “So that’s why you’re going to a choose a charity and we’ll donate the proceeds. For instance, those diamond earrings, easily a caret each, well those will go for at least $1000. Some woman in Detroit will be ecstatic for the deal she scored, and some starving kids in Africa will eat for the next few months.”

Starting to understand the methodology, she is mentally calculating how much she could accrue from the jewelry, but her eyes rest on the earrings a little too longingly for her to be 100% game for this exercise.

She needed more convincing, “And even more important than the malnourished children and the stranger in Idaho, you’ll be free of this stuff. You don’t want his dirty energy collecting dust in your jewelry box! I’m warning you: If you don’t throw the old stuff out, how will you have room for the new stuff that someone fabulous, someone even better, the next person will bring you? Let’s think of your jewelry box like your heart.”

I got serious, “How will you ever have space for the future, if you can’t let go of the past?”

“You can get too metaphorical.” She laughs.

“Yeah, but it’s the metaphors, all that esoteric BS that actually dictates our choices, our decisions, if we’re not emotionally engaged, invested in something bigger than that moment, than why should we care if someone cheats on us, or we made a mistake, or love anyone at all? If eventually hearts will get ripped out of chests. Then why bother?” I frame the rather hypothetically, curious as to what my little nerdy engineer will say.

“Because I don’t know…. I guess I want to believe that the right guy is out there and he hasn’t found me yet?” Smiling, clearly proud of her astute response, she whispered, “You haven’t seen the worst of it yet… he bought me this ridiculous dress. It’s heinous with sequins, some weird French designer, but guess what? The tag is still attached. Watch… we’ll make a fortune.”

Wonder Woman for the night?

“If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?" -Chuck Palahniuk

IDENTIFY THEFT

I’m jealous. Wow. It has taken me twenty-plus years to finally admit that I wish I had the guts, creativity, chutzpah to pull off that flawless, “no you didn’t” “that must have cost a fortune” Halloween thing, but I’m lazy. And I need to go to the gym. The days of leotard and spray-painted bras aren’t gone, but currently in hibernation along with anything smaller than a size 27.

The wooden bowl sitting by the door is empty except for a lone Reses’ Peanut butter cup, which I unwrap carefully and then nibble, the familiar taste that has quenched my sweet tooth for two plus decades melts on my tongue. Chocolate, like a Dave Matthews song, or a new poinsettia is this unyielding time capsule throwing me years away from this quiet moment.

Maybe I will opt for a sparkly mask with feathers and tell everyone my name is Zena, I’m from Ohio and I play professional Billiards for a living. Oh how fun it’d be to take Halloween to a new HBO or a reality TV level. I would reinvent myself. Lately, I’ve been listening to Kelly Howell meditation cds at night… she does manifestation visualizations of being calm, it is the non-narcotic approach to curb UOA (ak: under-organized over-achievers)… who systematically suffer the most with to do lists, mostly because we forget to write them. But why I bring her up: Her distinctly tantric (I say in a calm/mellow/yogi meaning) aids people into climbing into the “subconscious” layer of our cerebral craziness. Only to discover… hidden meanings, lost desires, secrets beyond… that might be the name of one of her audio cds actually.

Not to get too Freudian, but what about the costumes we’ve chosen? Or why we’ve chosen them? Are we fulfilling some childhood fantasy by pulling on an NBA jersey, or covering up those ten pounds we gained over autumn by cutting a pretend snowflake out of mom’s sheets?

I digress.

If so, what would I change? Like beyond Oct. 31…. Who would I want to come back as? Would I turn into a socially inept nerd, who subsisted in a sphere of dusty library books? Maybe a gym rat with the abs of granite, the skin tone of a tangerine. Or maybe a different version of me? A goblin, hamster, princess… shark? Halloween is this weird invention us, Americans, consumer driven and creative bunch we are…. As little kids we consider what we want when we grow up… simple costumes. Doctors, Firefighters, astronauts, you know the occasional golden retriever or witch here or there. But as we grow older we choose themes, or even situations (ak: A guy attacked by a shark), cultural inside jokes (____ in the box), or icons Marilyn Row or Jack the Reaper. And I got to ask myself, have I lived up to those 4th grade Gypsy expectations of myself or rather, have I exceeded them in some unidentifiable (and frankly immeasurable way).

Dying my hair brown was a weird in cognito act out of complete rebellion, but doesn’t quite cut it in terms of the overall renovations (albeit the common boob job) in which I’m referring a la moment.

The sky has gone from chilly to deserted… other than a few stars separating the blackness, I sit in silence on the porch swing at my parent’s home. My condo building downtown doesn’t entice the typical trick-or-treaters… more the normal homeless guys on the side of the road, looking for change instead of Snickers bars. Quasi-political incorrect, I know.

Tonight, there was no snow, so the little ballerinas needn’t need their parkas and snow boots. Children from two-years old to the adults who are staggering home awaiting Monday morning hangovers…. Halloween is this odd holiday, paving way for the real holidays… the days in which deserve calories and days off of work. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and Valentines… I include Valentines because let’s frankly say it, who doesn’t?

While it is easy to recollect your past through birthdays and trips, it is easy to identify through a space suit, or a “jack in the box” or a Steelers’ fan, or TV, or whatever you were that one Halloween where you happened to be the designated driver, or your costume fell apart, or you got stuck in a storm, or met the man of your dreams…. Or the night your best friend was arrested (yes, try Vegas ’07) or when you plain ol’ looked in the mirror and liked what you saw…. And honey, if you were impersonating a pinup girl circa 1950s then that is fabulous…. But I ask you to look in the mirror this Halloween and see who it is staring back? It’s surprising how much someone can learn about themselves through some face paint and Lycra, but to see us through the mask is rather revealing….

The bottom line. Halloween is a special holiday that allows us to draw upon situations and take stock of our lives. Birthdays, sure… but you can’t identify a year by a number, when it is so much easier to say, “the year of the gorilla suit.”