Phone Photo Op - Their Job is So Much Cooler

While walking to work the other day, I saw "Good Morning America" news anchors bouncing on trampolines in Times Square; two blocks away, I got to answer phones, schedule meetings, create spreadsheets and process data charts.


A Year Ago Today:
Phone Photo Ops - End of East Village Servitude
Creating Coincidences
Reviving my Greek Life
Two Years Ago Today: No post

One Degree from Michelle Obama

Texts you're more likely to receive living in New York City (or Washington, DC): I'm at the time warner center wrking the first lady till 10pm (sent by my secret service buddy).

Thoughts you're more likely to have living in New York City: OMG. The First Lady is at the Time Warner Center - less than 10 blocks from my apartment!

A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: Subway Talk

In the Wake of Tough Love

Partied with our girl Natasha and her friend Abiola at the "Tough Love" Season Finale Charity Soiree last night at The 40/40 Club. I'm sure there are photos online somewhere.

In the meantime, check out Natasha's new Shop NYC Tour blog, where she dishes about her company, ShopNYC Tours. Whether guiding tourists or locals, shopping vintage or high fashion or visiting the East Village or Meatpacking, you'll hear about the best shopping NYC has to offer.

For more information about New York City shopping tours, visit www.shop-nyctours.com.

Other irrelevant reports of the day: My boss sat next to James Worthy on a flight from JFK to LAX today. If you are not an avid basketball fan ... you may need Wikipedia or a basketball-savvy boyfriend to find out.

A Year Ago Today:
Brunching and Walking on a Sunday Afternoon
City Walk #19 - Upper West Side 4: Church and Gown
Phone Photo Ops - City Walk #19
Two Years Ago Today: No post

Who's That Girl?

It was a warm day in May. Jessica was nonchalantly flipping through a magazine in an Atlanta parking lot. Apparently Walter was taking his time in the local fresh market. A tiny bead of sweat formed above her furrowed brow. Impatiently, she turned another page, and there in the "What they were wearing" section ... a familiar face ...

That's not how it really happened. We had actually been tipped off that she was in it ... but that's how we like to tell it. I mean, it's not every day that your best friend is 8x10" in a national magazine.

A Year Ago Today: Phone Photo Op - Disappearing Acts
Real Estate LOL - Embracing the College-Dorm-Life for Life
Colleague Convo - Shoe-In Kitchens
Two Years Ago Today: Phone Photo Ops - Through Windows

Another Day, Another Dollar, Another Headline

Just another day in New York City when three of your bosses are in The NY Post.

A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: Phone Photo Ops - City in Bloom

Out in Public

On our way to The Public Theatre to see "The Good Negro", we apparently passed someone from Desperate Housewives coming out of the subway at Broadway-Lafayette. I didn't see him, but Tokii did.

And I finally realized that we were next to Sterling Brown in the theatre.
Special thanks to Gina for walking up to him and starting a conversation because trying to match his face with his character in "Army Wives" was driving me crazy.

Side note: Rachel Nicks, a close friend and former Juilliard classmate of Tokii and Gina's, was incredibly moving in "The Good Negro." If you missed her on stage at The Public Theatre, you can see her onscreen in "Life Support" with Queen Latifah. She is a talented and promising young artist.

Public theatre, street fairs, outdoor cafes, gorgeous weather ... Days like today are why I moved to New York.




A Year Ago Today: Dear Younger Self
Two Years Ago Today:
Six Months to Almost Furnished
Six Months to Final Repairs
Phone Photo Op - Free Ben & Jerry's

Shameless Plug

I was at a TastingNYC event at Taj tonight with Natasha (M. - not to be confused with my roommate Natasha S.), chatting about her "real" life without the "Tough Love" cameras while our friend Stacey flirted with a handsome guy named Larry over $6-wine specials. Natasha is no longer working with the Sex and the City tour group since she began her own tour company ShopNYC Tours.

Natasha has created a series of comprehensive shopping tours catered to your retail needs and preferences with convenient door-to-door mobile transportation, eliminating the stresses associated with available parking, slaloming crowded sidewalks, or lugging bags through subway turnstiles. At an affordable price (especially relative to the costs of parking and taxicabs in New York), she really does create a memorable VIP shopping experience in some of Manhattan's best-kept retail secrets and hidden gems.

If you are ever in NYC, you should go shopping with her! Tell her I sent you.

ShopNYCTours.com (Use code TUFLUV for 10% off any shopping tour!)

A Year Ago Today: "Things I Love" Thursdays - Random Acts of New Yorker Kindness
Two Years Ago Today: Connecting in Chantilly & Beyond

The Best Things in Life are on The Dollar Menu

My boyfriend's best friend plays for an NBA team out west, and on a recent trip east, his live-in girlfriend made the journey to New York City to see him play in Madison Square Garden. It wasn't your usual first trip (ever) to New York. It involved all of the perks of dating a multimillion-dollar athlete that make you want to hate her - but you can't even be jealous because you are giddily watching the fairytale actually happen to someone who deserves it. A girl from his hometown, who never made it her goal in life to date a professional athlete, and who - despite her dramatically transformed lifestyle - manages to somehow remain untainted, unabsorbed, unoccupied by the hype.

A season ticket holder at their home arena has become close friends with us over the past few years and emailed me prior to her trip: And she told me that [name eradicated] would be taking her shopping on 5th Avenue, and she's asking me...What's 5th Avenue?!! Haha! Won't she have a blast!

In addition to Fifth Avenue shopping, her first trip to New York City included a few Midtown sights, gourmet meals, club seats at Madison Square Garden, and a room key to the W Hotel in Times Square. Club seats she shared with me, I might add! And because her boyfriend had to fly back west immediately after the game and her return flight wasn't until the next day, she shared her room at the W with me, too, and we made it a girls' night. With anything we could possibly desire at the press of the W's Whatever/Wherever button, we really lived it up ... with cotton pajamas and McDonald's parfaits! The floor-to-ceiling-window view over Times Square was merely incidental (wink).

A Year Ago Today: The Perfect City
Two Years Ago Today:
Colleague Convo - Through Swayze's Tree
Commute-Associated Hazards

The Reality of Likelihoods

You are more likely in New York to have a friend go to L.A. for a few weeks and then return to tell you that she was filming a reality TV show.

Catch our girlfriend Natasha on VH1's "Tough Love", Sundays beginning on March 15.

A Year Ago Today: M-I-C-K-E-Y ... M-O-NYC
Two Years Ago Today: Size Does Matter

Other Natasha-related links:
VH1 Profile
NatashaMalinsky.com
ShopNYCTours.com (Use code TUFLUV for 10% off any shopping tour!)

"Things I Love" Thursdays - Movie Premieres

It may be just a coincidental pattern, but some of the best recollections of pivotal moments in my life have fallen on Thursdays. Maybe it's true what they say about the power of positive thinking. In any case, today's Thing-I-Love Thursday is "movie premieres."

Who doesn't love movie premieres? Whether you are the quintessential New Yorker, born and raised, who simultaneously loves and hates everything that makes this city what it is -- or the trite and contrived wanna-be, who - in an effort to feel like less of an outsider - does not respect their role as a transplant New Yorker -- either way, it's cool as hell to turn a corner in the streets of Manhattan and roll up on an A-list celebrity event (no matter how long you've lived here as noted in Exhibit A or Exhibit B). But how cool would it be if you were ever actually invited?

I found out on Tuesday morning when my best friend called me on my cell phone. I slipped out of my cubicle and into my boss's empty office to take the call.

"Guess who's coming to tomorrow night's premiere?" she squealed. With a small - yet substantial role - in Tyler Perry's latest film, she was in New York, crashing at my apartment and meeting with her agent, publicist and stylists for Wednesday night's red carpet event at the AMC Loews on the Upper West Side. Not to mention that a BET camera crew would be following her through her premiere day preparations. When she walks out of an apartment door in Hell's Kitchen and introduces herself, I am proud to say that the apartment door would be mine. (The previous sentence is meant to be read using Chandler-from-"Friends" inflection.)

Looking out over my boss's high-rise view of Bryant Park, I blurted out viscerally, "Denzel Washington!"

"Nope," she replied. Michelle Obama. Nope. Oprah? Nope. Angela Bassett? Nope. Will Smith? Nope. Diddy? Nope. I went through my personal list of top Black actors and entrepreneurs. Impatient, she began to drop hints.

"She's a secretary."

"... Of State?" I said. "Hillary Clinton?"

"No!" she finally exclaimed. "You!"

"Me?!?!?!" I could barely contain my excitement, jumping up and down and struggling to keep from screaming in my boss's office. However, there was one issue that I had to address before I let the exhilaration consume me. I momentarily stopped bouncing around the office and said matter-of-factly: "But, Tokii ... I'm not a secretary. I'm an executive assistant."

With less than 24 hours to the premiere, I left my office immediately after work and went hunting for a dress, which I found quickly and easily at a store in Columbus Circle. I wanted to find something classy, but not overdone. Something that looked like I was meant to be there, but didn't look like I was trying too hard. Something that said, I'm so proud of my best friend and put careful time and thought into honoring this invitation, but without drawing unnecessary attention. How does one dress for a movie premiere? That's already a tough question for the people who actually have to fear widespread post-event wardrobe criticism. It's an even tougher question for someone who was just invited solely because their friend's agent was able to get an extra ticket. I went with a low-cut, sleeveless black trench dress that seemed appropriate for a guest of an actor and was also appropriate for my wallet - especially after I applied the $100 American Express gift card that my boss had given me recently.

When I arrived at the theater, I met my best friend's agent at the side entrance and we found a front-row spot near the end of the red carpet, adjacent the E! and BET camera crews. The stars arrived, one by one, pausing expertly with their best angles projected toward multiple shutters. I waited eagerly, tiny digital camera at the ready, for when I would see her appear on the red carpet, and only slightly aware that I was lightly trembling and intermittently forgetting to breathe. As the seconds ticked away, I tried to mentally process what was happening immediately in front of me. And to enjoy the moment. Because, from what I've perceived of an industry like Hollywood, you have to indulge in each blessing you receive. Actors - and the people who know and love them - can just never be sure when their next blessing will come around. One moment you might be the next up-and-coming sensation, another moment you might wine-and-dine at the very top of the A-List, the next - the tabloids are publishing your most unattractive photos and reveling in your demise.

And as I stood gazing down the red carpet, watching the shutters flash and the reporters thrust their microphones into the faces of Tyler Perry, Derek Luke, Keshia Knight Pulliam, Sofia Vergara, Mary J. Blige, and Ray J. to name(drop) a few, I thought about how much work has gone into these few strolling red carpet moments. And I don't just mean the rolling out of the carpet and setting up of the lights. As often happens whenever I get exciting news regarding my best friend's acting career, I could not stop the mental reel of flashbacks over the last ten years - filled with shining moments and false hopes, extreme highs and incredible disappointments, a rollar coaster of emotions, physical strife and the risks of the unknown, all which leave you simultaneously anticipating the next thrill and dreading the next fall. I'm not going to go into the clichés of Tokii's starving actor story, but the clichés for actors - or anyone with a dream - are the mere truths of entire lives - most of which goes unseen, unnoticed, unacknowledged, unrewarded. The camera catches the glamour of the Hollywood red carpet, but not many outsiders really comprehend the volumes of proverbial blood, sweat and tears that go into a few snapshots and sound bites. I certainly don't have a fundamental grasp of it all - at least not more than peripherally.

And then, there she was. My best friend. Smiling for the wide-angle lenses and chatting comfortably with reporters. As I strained to get a shot of her on my own tiny Canon digital camera, a bodyguard poked a little fun at me: "Why are you taking that picture from so far away?"

"Leave her alone," a woman wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard said over his shoulder, "She's with the talent."

In characteristically-corny-Katie, the headset-and-clipboard-woman's brief statement went on repeat in my head. She's with the talent. If I were a peacock, I would have been slowly pacing along the end of the red carpet with a huge, open plume of feathers. If pride were helium, my head might have exploded.

"Why don't you go out on the red carpet and get a closer shot of her?" the bodyguard whispered to me.

"No way!" I hissed back. "I can't do that."

"Sure, you can," he insisted. "Hurry before you miss all the good shots."

I hesitated, too timid to set a foot on the red velvet in front of me. The simultaneous anticipation and fear of the unknown washed over me, much the way it did when I was riding up I-81 to begin my new life in New York City over three years ago. Much the way it did when I went apartment and job hunting to open the next chapter of my life. The risk of embarrassment at being shooed away as an outsider on this coveted Hollywood landscape loomed. But the idea of the personal shots I could get of my best friend being interviewed and photographed sparked some courage. I leaned toward him, "Will you go with me?"

He laughed, "Sure! Let's go."

So I did.


"Things I Love" Thursdays are inspired by "I Love New York" (BNY, February 14, 2007).
A Year Ago Today:
Official Quotes of Our NBA All-Star 2008
NBA All-Star 2008
Two Years Ago Today:
More Reasons to Love New York

You Say Potato, He Said An Entire Life

A few months ago, I took a picture of Joe Ades on my camera phone and forgot to blog about the entertaining potato peel sales demonstration that Terrence and I watched one Saturday afternoon at the Farmer's Market in Union Square. You rarely witness people, who truly love what they do, in the middle of what they're doing.

I guess it's never to late to be remembered.

"His Stage, the Street; His Rapier, a Peeler"

James Barron, New York Times, Feb. 2, 2009

A Year Ago Today: No post

Two Years Ago Today:

Brunching in the City

A Reason to Love Soho

Madison Square Park at Sunset

Impromptu In Review

My best friend had called me in New York at 10am to see if I could join her for a few entertainment industry events in Washington D.C. surrounding the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama. She joked that as an H-List celebrity, she does not often receive much advanced notice for events, and since her husband could not attend at the last minute, she hoped I would join her for the three-day MLK Weekend and pre-inauguration festivities. I was on a plane out of JFK by 3:30 in the afternoon.

The focus and highlight of the weekend was watching my best friend find her place amidst Hollywood minglers. After ten years of watching her perform at WCU, The Juilliard School and in the small but gratifying array of professional stage, TV and film credits to her name, it was incredibly surreal and exciting to join her in this weekend's perks of her budding success and act like I attend stuff like this all the time without also appearing trite and contrived.

If my best friend ever becomes an A-List celebrity, events like these may likely become commonplace routines in her life, which will ultimately lack the electrifying amateur excitement of rookie Hollywood minglers. I can only hope that her talent and love for acting breeds a career that makes her a famous A-Lister - not because of socialite association or shock-valued scandal - but because the skill in her craft touches the spirit, moves the soul and inspires the creativity of art imitating life. Until then, her "H-List" status will ensure that industry events, to which she may be invited - even if her RSVP is not A-List priority - will continue to make us giggle like school girls at the end of the night.

A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: Becoming 27 in New York City

Phone Photo Op - Commuter Keys

In New York, you're more likely to hear Alicia Keys perform live in the Good Morning America studios while walking to work.


A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: Reality Soon Sets

Published Photo Ops

Living in New York, you are more likely to see images from a recent event you attended in People Magazine.

A Year Ago Today: Phone Photo Ops - The View from the Top

Two Years Ago Today: No Soup for You!

You Want to Go Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Yesterday Natasha and I were sprawled on our couch immediately after work - already in pajamas - when the infamous promoter text messages began to beep in. One after the other. Like clockwork. We ignored one after the other, absent-mindedly deleting them as they came. But one prompted me to read it out loud: "Hey katie! Tonight jermaine dupri bday party @ tenjune + dinner at [restaurant eradicated to preserve the promoter's identity since I'm about to bash the mass text messaging strategy that he and other promoters enlist]."

I do not mind mass text messages from promoters. Sometimes they lead us to fabulous evenings. Sometimes they are fruitless promises of open bars and celebrity-infested affairs. But I absolutely despise when promoters send out mass text messages - which most of my friends receive at the same time because we all know most of the same promoters - and then resend it with "Hey katie!" at the beginning to make it seem like a personal, private invitation.

Promoters, I know you sent the same bait out to reel in dozens of beautiful women. I do not need to feel like I have an exclusive invitation to a nightclub to motivate me to respond. Honestly, I don't want to go to something to which only I - with my personalized text message invitation - was invited. I can drink alone at home and usually in my underwear with a bag of chips, a pint of ice cream, a spoon and a greasy napkin; I don't want to go somewhere that no one else was invited because it was so exclusive that you only invited me.

I find "exclusiveness" to be the most incredible, contradictory cliché. Many want to go to the most "exclusive" places, but we're only happy when the most "exclusive" places are packed to the brim. Perhaps "exclusivity" implies a night of multiple celebrity sightings. I am certainly guilty of the star struck-ism. I won't deny that I have seen Sarah Jessica Parker walk into the GRACE building on 42nd Street with TMZ cameras in tow (at 2:11pm on September 23, 2008) and stopped dead in my tracks to gawk, text my girlfriends and send an update to Twitter (which I recently joined despite my personal affirmation to avoid signing up for yet another online social networking site).

But bobbing my head in a nightclub full of celebrities, like Natasha and I did last night at Tenjune, is not always everything that it is cracked up to be. While we had an above-average good time drinking and dancing with each other, nights like that can sometimes leave me feeling pretty dull when I wake up the next morning. Even when reviewing the photo I took with Coco and Ice-T on my digital camera - which I finally had the courage to do after a few standard Vodka Sodas at our promoter's table - and others I shamelessly took of Irv Gotti and Busta Rhymes, who were all at tables immediately adjacent ours, I ultimately realize that I always have the most fun when I'm out with my girlfriends in a sea of no-name faces. The photos felt lame. I studied them for a moment and wondered why so many of us ask to take photos with people who have no idea who we are.

It was not as if we were unwillingly being fed to sharks.

But there is a conventional emptiness that often follows parties like those when you reflect on the type of night you had - yet duly realize your role: that no one in attendance cared whether you were there or not. You gained entrance through a promoter who was hired to market you as a glorified seat filler to take up the empty space between celebrities.

Sometimes you really just want to go where people know, people are all the same. You want to go where everybody knows your name.

A Year Ago Today: To Aspiring Transplants
Two Years Ago Today: Six Degrees of NYC

Stilettos Versus Strollers

My friends in North Carolina and other old connections from my days as a military brat have recently (and when I say recently, I mean within the past few years) begun posting pictures of their children on facebook and myspace. It often makes me wonder what I've missed over the past 10 years since high school (and the five since college). With Halle Berry and J.Lo having their first children in their 40s, I certainly do not feel old at 28 nor do I feel in any rush. But I still consider the conscious decisions I've made to redirect my course away from marriage and motherhood. For example, breaking up with Matt after high school instead of getting married like many of our classmates did. Pushing back Rickey's discussions of marriage proposals in 2002. Or moving to New York in 2006 instead of Atlanta, where Terrence lives in the off-season. Or choosing not to live abroad with him in the exciting foreign countries in which he has made homes.

I've had three serious relationships in 12 years and dozens of forgettable encounters in between, and I've always consciously fought to keep my own path. But am I subconsciously fighting something else? Am I afraid that I am too selfish to even fathom decisions between having my own space or incorporating His and Hers towels? Or researching family-size cars and learning how to make more than Ramen Noodles or my awesome signature salads? Or have I naively and stubbornly assumed that I've already had my one great love? Or have I just not found "the one"? Will "the one" understand my needs to be just a "me" and parallel my path until I'm ready to be an "us"?

Today the other executive assistants and I overheard our Executive Beauty Director scolding her children via the speaker phone in her office while reviewing RFPs. It was entertaining to witness a corporate woman, who is the epitome of grace under pressure while pitching advertising packages, unravel into a soccer mom right before our very eyes. Ah. The multiple hats we learn to wear.

Rather than pull out the mommy hat that I willingly allow to gather dust on the shelf next to my biological clock, I rounded out my week by dining at Buddakan and partying at Butter on Monday night, attending a New York Women in Film & Television screening of The Women at Clearview Chelsea Cinema on Wednesday (with my girlfriends, of course, where we sipped wine and ate tiny, crustless sandwiches). Then, I accepted a spontaneous invitation to join my secret service buddy and his friends for dinner at Brick NYC, a brand new Italian wine and antipasti bar that opened recently in Tribeca. Instead of calling a babysitter to tell her I'd be late - which is what mature, settled, family-oriented women my age do - I was sending "Gossip Girl" text messages to a few friends containing a phone picture I had just taken of Danny Masterson in his trademark bowler hat seated a few tables away.

For documentation purposes, of course:


Will K ever pack up her single gal city life and trade it for diapers and family packages of Hamburger Helper? That's one secret that is too soon to tell. You know you love me. XOXO ... Gossip Girl ...

A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: It Gets Late Awfully Early Around Here

Starry Nights

On a Monday in New York City, you're more likely to party at tables in Butter adjacent Leonardo DiCaprio, Evan Ross and Baron Davis.

And you realize you would never have noticed Leonardo, Evan or Baron if a zealous club promoter hadn't pointed them out to you. And then you wonder as you squeeze your lime into your Vodka Soda, is Leonardo attractive just because he's famous?

He went up at least 10 points in celeb-crush potential when I learned he drove a Prius.

A Year Ago Today: This Weekend's Round 2
Two Years Ago Today: No post

"Things I Love" Thursdays - The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

When it comes to loving New York, you have to take the good with the bad ... and with its ugly pretention. Pretentiousness exists here, as it does in any other money-ruling, celebrity-obsessed, materialistic society, but this city still beats L.A., where I swear it's nearly impossible to gain any level of respect unless you are "somebody" or you have a name to drop.

In New York, for instance, you are more likely to be in a nightclub, where a wealthy patron orders four rounds of 10 bottles of Cristal during a birthday party, then buys a bottle of Cristal for every table in the club, and then further instructs waitresses to pop bottles of Cristal and spray the club goers.

My roommate recounted this exact scenario to me this morning while we were getting ready for work. After a Nike event last night, I had opted to retire for the evening while she continued on to Pink Elephant, where she witnessed the "look what I bought" sparkler parade of bottles constantly circulating the club. I replied in total Debbie Downer-mode with "What a waste of money! Think of all the charitable contributions they could have made instead!"

Ever the Devil's Advocates, we agreed that people with that much money must certainly make plenty of heartfelt donations, even if it is for the tax write-offs alone. Yet I still could not help but feel disgusted thinking of all the additional contributions that could have been made to the needy of New York City, the United States - and even the world - in lieu of hosing down already well-to-do nightclub patrons with champagne.

But as I walked to work, I had to ask myself if I was Debbie Downer about it because I would truly prefer to see the world become a better place or because I cannot buy bottle after bottle of expensive champagne to consume or waste as I please. Was I repulsed or envious? Being one to always question the deep-seeded motives of my own feelings, I decided to call Terrence while walking to the office and see what he thought of what my roommate had witnessed. His response was similar to mine: "Wow. That's annoying."

Good, I thought.

But I'll take New York either way. Give it your tired, your poor, your weary and your pretentious. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the freedom to be any (or all three) are, after all, what makes it so great.

"Things I Love" Thursdays are inspired by "I Love New York" (BNY, February 14, 2007).

A Year Ago Today: When I See New York
Two Years Ago Today: Wisdom and Chocolate

I Do So Like Green Eggs and Ham!

I have seen New York City from a taxicab, a pedicab, a double-decker bus, on horseback, and now from the back seat of a drop-top Bentley. Former SNL Actor picked up my roommate and me in "one of his cars" from the HBO Bryant Park Summer Film Festival, where we watched the last movie of the summer, the original Superman starring Christopher Reeve, Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman. As we inched through the traffic jam in Times Square, random people shouted at our driver: "Yo, [eradicated]! ... What's up, [eradicated]! ... Hey, you're a funny dude!"

I inched down low in the back seat so that only my eyes were visible at street level over the side of the car. But it was kind of hard to be incognito with the top down and people peering over you at intersections under the glare of a million Times Square light bulbs. I tried not to put on that annoying, nonchalant I-know-everyone-is-watching-me face that you see on the unknown wives and girlfriends of athletes and entertainers, but it was really hard not to feel self-conscious - especially with the bits of dirt and grass that were probably still in my hair from laying on a blanket in Bryant Park for five hours.

Finally we were on the West Side Highway, the wind in our faces and Manhattan was streaming by on our right, its reflection on the Hudson sparkling on our left. I leaned back in the seat of the coolest car in which this little New York transplant has ever ridden, stretched my arms toward the night sky, and watched the lights of the city flow along like a huge volumetric display.

A Year Ago Today: Shameless Attempt for Page Views
Two Years Ago Today: Week Recap & Michael Kors Highlight

The Anatomy of Beauty

There is a high fashion photo shoot going on right now on the corner of 56th and 8th. I walked by it on the way back from jogging in Central Park a few minutes ago. Pedestrians and passengers alike were rubbernecking to get a look at the sleek, big-haired, made-up model. All the expensive photo shoot equipment aside, I probably would have noticed her anyway. Even from behind, she was stunning. Waiting for the light to change at the intersection, drenched in sweat and my thighs sticking together under my shorts, I glanced at her long, slender legs posted on 5" stilettos and haloed by a short raincoat. Her back was to those standing at the intersection while a make-up artist ran brushes over her cheeks. A woman near me said, I wish she'd turn around so we could see her face. But her tone was less of one who was genuinely curious and more of one who was hoping to see that the model was not as pretty as her retouched pictures would surely turn out.

Yesterday I was sharing pizza with some of the other executive assistants at work, discussing the Olympics and someone said, I just wish Michael Phelps was nicer to look at. Another nodded in agreement: Yea, his gums are bigger than his teeth. I was quiet during the conversation, running my tongue along the inside of my own teeth, feeling the inside of my bite, made nearly perfect by braces and a procedure I've kept secret from anyone who came to know me after I was 16. Even now, those who know me well and read my blog will be learning of it for the first time. My shallower friends may feel deceived. Others will claim that the hidden truth would not have made a difference; unfortunately, I won't believe all of them.

There is a preoccupation with beauty in almost every human society that is never more intensely felt than by those who aren't beautiful. I know because I felt it throughout most of my youth. Just before puberty hit, it started to become noticeable that my lower jaw was growing beyond my upper one, and my protruding underbite would subject me to the mental anguish of cruel childish ridicule well into my teens. I spent hours locked in the bathroom, viewing myself in profile between the mirror on the wall and another held at an angle in one hand, trying to imagine what I would look like if I had a regular bite and wondering what it would feel like to be noticed for being beautiful. It would seem ironic almost 15 years later when Super Bowl Champ would shout at me over the music in Tenjune that I have a pretty profile. Huh? I would yell back. You know, he would reply, Some girls look good from the front but not from the side.

I dreaded going to classes in middle school and my first two years of high school. There is a fundamental difference between simply undergoing the awkward stages of puberty and being legitimately unattractive. When I hear others discuss the trials of their youth, they often make generic references to gangly limbs, baby fat, bad hair or braces. As amusing as their stories are, few can recount their own instances of the intense, daily derision that I felt. The mean boys taunted me and the mean girls passive-aggressively reminded me that my lower jaw was longer than normal. The boys I had crushes on never knew my name. I don't know which hurt more, to be noticed because of a dramatic flaw or to not be noticed at all. The latter stung less so throughout middle school, I gravitated toward general hallway and classroom isolation, team sports because the athletic girls didn't seem to care as long as you pulled your weight, and the class clowns because the funniest people tend to be too absorbed in their own personal problems to notice yours.

I've had orthognathic surgery twice; once during the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school and again in 2006 to correct some discomfort caused by the slight regrowth associated with having the first surgery at too early of an age. Immediately after the first surgery in 1996, my father incidentally retired from the Navy and we moved to Asheville, North Carolina. With a new face and a new life at age 16, I never mentioned the first, and more dramatic, surgery to anyone I ever met thereafter.

I've dealt with ugly duckling syndrome, learning how to accept compliments from those who assume that I have always looked this way. The surgery didn't turn me into God's gift or supermodel material, but maybe I never fully accept compliments because I feel like I am falsely packaged. As if who they see isn't really me. By my senior year of high school in 1998, I had lots of friends, was on Homecoming Court, tied in nominations for Most Friendly in the Senior Superlatives, and dating the guy who was voted Most Attractive. My life was a complete 180 from my middle school, freshmen and sophomore years. When I was later elected to Homecoming Court in college, too, I wondered all the way across the football field if any of these people would be cheering for me if I looked how I used to look. Even now, Michael Phelps' Olympic gold medals do not save him from the mockery of abnormality.

This past July, I received a message on Facebook from a high school classmate in freshmen algebra, a boy who sat right in front of me in class for an entire year but never spoke to me beyond asking to borrow a pencil. He wrote: Hey Katie. Everytime I look at your profile, I'm just like, "Damn! I used to go to high school with this girl. She is so beautiful that it doesn't make any sense! Her boyfriend is blessed." I hope that makes you smile. As an added bonus, you have some fine ass friends too. Me and [eradicated] were talking about you about 2 weeks ago. Anyways, I hope all is well with you.

But who am I really? Am I shaped by personal experience or by the saturation of societal standards? Am I caught up in the preoccupation of beauty because I know how it feels to be justifiably ugly or am I preoccupied with beauty because I am the product of a preoccupied society? Or am I driven by the ultimate revenge of subtly flaunting my New York life in front of anyone who was mean to me in middle school and high school, where I now jog by high fashion models without shrinking in envy and discuss the Olympics with coworkers on a top floor of a Manhattan high rise?

A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: Corporate Monday