What not to do to earn my business

The other day an acquaintance (let's call her "Helene") from my high school graduating class emailed me through Facebook. 

I use the word acquaintance loosely. Back then Helene, like her friends, rarely acknowledged my presence whenever our paths crossed in hallway or classroom. Helene, though average-looking, was one of those popular girls who hung out with the "mean" crowd and did things like somehow garner enough of a vote to get nominated for homecoming queen and ride on the homecoming football float, all with a Vaseline-lined smile and a painstakingly practiced wave that made most of us want throw tomatoes at her. But that was 11 years ago and people change, or so popular theory states. 

"Hi Crystal!" the subject line read. I saw it in my inbox, along with her name. My first reaction was 1.) Why does this name sound familiar, and 2.) Ohh yes. Helene from high school. This is random.

After extending the obligatory formalities such as "How are you" and "Hope you've been well," she mentioned she had talked to my friend Laurel recently (the one I grabbed lunch with a few months ago) and "She said you live in ----- -------- now. How do you like it?" Insert various generic questions about why I moved here. "I lived there for five years cause I went to college at ----- -----, but now I live in --- -------- with my husband and our new baby girl..."

Okay, why all the chit-chat and background info? I did not know her 11 years ago, and to be completely honest I didn't care to get to know her now. And then the next line made it obnoxiously clear why she was reaching out to me:

"I work for J. Rockcliff Realtors as a real estate agent, so if you or anyone you know are looking to buy a house, please keep me in mind."

My audible reaction was a loud groan, followed with "You've got to be kidding me." Not only do J and I already have a realtor we are working with, but the fact that someone who just happened to walk the same halls as I did 11+ years ago thinks that's reason enough to give me a sales pitch and secure my business really irritates me. Probably because it's so blatant and contrived and desperate. It'd be one thing if it was an old friend of mine who I'd lost contact with, but for an essentially complete stranger who acts like they aren't a stranger to try and make commission off me feels tacky and in bad taste. Like a flagrant exploitation of the past.

Helene was not my past, though the people I occasionally wonder about were. Those who were good friends of mine, who I lost to either time or disagreement, rarely seek me out. Those were the people that knew me. They knew what I looked like at 9am on a Sunday after staying up all night watching the first three Texas Chainsaw Massacre films consecutively. They knew what boy broke my heart freshman year simply because he preferred blondes. They knew what my favorite type of pizza was at our preferred pizzeria by the beach, and that at 17 one of my favorite past times was cruising around listening to Third Eye Blind in my Miata. Helene was never one of these people. To her I'm just another face in her yearbook, some person she might recognize in "real life" now if our paths crossed again.

A very small number of old friends have reached out to me. I am just as guilty as not reaching out to them. Perhaps it's because those that matter and are lost in time would rather be content with the memories of who we were. Back when our biggest problems weren't mortgages and calorie counting and breast cancer, but rather which movie we'd see that weekend, or whether that cute guy from fifth period would be at a nearby house party. Our futures were ripe with possibility, and this excited us. But the lightness that comes with youth vanishes with age. Maybe its easier to cope with the passage of time by allowing your past to be exactly that -- the past.

And those, like Helene, who didn't know you before, back when you were a walking personification of invincibility, vulnerability, bravery, cowardice and contradiction? 

Well, they'll be there to sell you a house.

A Biutiful Life

Last night I watched Alejandro Innaritu's latest film, Biutiful. I am a huge fan of Innaritu's work -- both Amores Perros and Babel are in my top 20 favorite films of all time -- and though they are both crushingly depressing, in many aspects there is optimism and hope within his characters' pain and tragedies. This is why I love them. Innaritu never ceases to pull the beauty from the devastation.

In Biutiful I was expecting something similar of the main character, Uxbal, masterfully played by Javier Bardem. But as the credits rolled in the end, all I felt was an extension of Uxbal's profound pain amid unfinished business...of the fact that maybe -- no matter what catch phrases and greeting cards may make us believe -- there is no such thing as atonement and redemption...not even when we're at the very end, desperately trying to do good in the final moments of our last breaths.

Uxbal runs a counterfeit ring in the slums of Barcelona. You know those Nigerian guys slinging fake Gucci bags and Chanel sunglasses on the street corners of every European city? Yeah, Uxbal is their boss, and he's also got a hand in the underground Chinese sweatshops who produce the loot. Immediately he's not a guy you'd think to empathize with, since he's...well, in the business of exploitation.

But Javier Bardem does an excellent job of making you feel for his character, who is essentially a single father with two young children and a bipolar, borderline drug addict wife/ex-wife, depending on what day it is. Uxbal's trade has not made him a wealthy man, as evidenced by the rot on his bedroom ceilings and the cereal he feeds his children for dinner every night. Then he starts bleeding urine and you know this definitely can't end well.

After finding out he's going to die in a couple months of terminal cancer, Uxbal tries to reconcile for all that he has struggled with -- not giving his wife what she needed, the crimes he has committed, being a better father, how his children won't have a proper caretaker once he's gone, who he will pray to when his time comes since spirituality, at some point in his life, seems to have taken flight and never returned.

Seeking atonement is a common theme, and one this movie illustrated well. But the hardest pill to swallow during viewing was the suggestion that atonement may not exist. Good deeds done in desperation, when your back's against a wall, may backfire and cause even more strife. People you think you can rely on, who you need to depend on in your weakest moment, may take what they can from your pocket and flee.

Though I found very little hope or optimism in the message of this movie, I liked it nonetheless. It was, like reality, raw and abrasive. Sometimes I think we need to be reminded of that: that most lives, unlike the way most films would make you think, do not end on a positive, reparative note. And that is biutiful.

An open letter to women, or “how to be your own best friend”

Yesterday I woke up to a text message from a friend who's going through a (pretty) terrible break-up with her boyfriend. Said friend has a fear of abandonment, and a history of staying in not-so-great relationships in lieu of being alone. I know this is a debilitating feeling for many, and often translates moving from one relationship to the next, searching for outward love and acceptance when that internal love and acceptance is M.I.A. This may or may not lead to emotionally abusive and (hopefully not) physically abusive relationships that further weaken poor self-confidence.

Even though it's a common theme, it hits close to home when I see it happening to one of my friends. She didn't have the best of upbringings -- both of her parents basically abandoned her at different points in her life -- so it's easy to see where this lack of self-esteem stems from. But she's an attractive, intelligent woman now who is one of the few females in her department at the prestigious international biotech firm she works at (think pipettes and cell cultures and petrie dishes – she is a bona fide scientist). A lot to be confident about, right? But you wouldn't know it by speaking to her, and that is beyond depressing to me.

When did people stop realizing their worth? After this recent breakup, she told me over the phone a few days ago that as sick as it sounded she still wanted her (now) ex. I was shocked, considering they had a history of bad arguments and sad times. “No you don't,” was all I could reply. “You can be happy, you know. You're worth more than that.” She said she wanted to believe that, but couldn't. It was as if a thick and weighty gauze had been tamped down and hardened around any semblance of confidence she had.

Her text this morning asked a simple question “How can you be your own best friend?” The question broke my heart, because it's so simple yet the answer – if there even is one -- is so complicated. “I have an awful habit of relying on my boyfriend to be my everything... How do you rely on yourself?” she asked.

Good question. How do you rely on yourself?

We kicked some more texts back and forth, and I told her I'd email her. I initially thought writing to her about this would take some thought, but when I began typing it all just starting spewing out like verbal diarrhea:

Dear XXXXX:

Hope you're hanging in there. So you asked me earlier how to be your own best friend, but I don't think anyone has the definitive answer for that or else it would be easier for more people to depend on themselves. I think the first thing to do is start trying to perceive yourself differently. Continually tell yourself that you are valuable, you have worth. Remind yourself what you love about yourself, or what makes you proud.

When people look in the mirror every day, their perceptions of who is looking back at them are often warped. Past experiences, upbringing, etc. can shape many people's minds to see a skewed image in front of them, but you must stop allowing that to happen. You can't change your past but you can change your future. It's never too late. Tell yourself that from this point on, that person looking back at you in the mirror is beautiful, strong, compassionate, intelligent and doesn't need a boyfriend to feel valuable. All of these things are true about you, so you must see yourself in this light. The only way to begin to chip away at the low self-esteem that makes you depend on others and not yourself is by repeating that you are an amazing human being. You might not believe it at first, but you need to affirm this over and over again to yourself.

I think the most important thing you need to remember is that being alone has no projection on your value as a human being. You are a great person, and great people are okay with being alone because they know they can rely on themselves. This stems from self love. You need to love yourself before you can love anyone else. If you don't love yourself first you will only be giving half of yourself to whatever man you're with, and that isn't fair to either of you. Self love takes a lot of nurturing, a lot of repetition, a lot of alone time that might be really scary at first. But realize that this scariness in the beginning is just your low confidence talking. It is not scary to be alone; it is merely an illusion put there by your past to frighten you. You must break this cycle or else it will repeat for the rest of your life and you will always be unhappy because no one else can love you as much as you should love yourself. Depending on others to fill this void may work temporarily, but it will only make you weaker over time, and you will never be happy. You deserve happiness.

Love,

Me

Royal observations

This week pictures hit the Internets of the Royal couple's first meeting with the President and First Lady in London.  I find these pictures oddly fascinating. Not because of the fashion (me likey) or the fact that half the room is official royalty, but because the photos are so deliciously staged. Who just stands around chatting in a room like that? Obviously, I run in the wrong social circles.

The pictures remind me of visiting those natural history museums on school field trips, when my fifth grade class would scamper between exhibits and stare in awe at all those stuffed animals from the Serengeti, posed behind their respective glass walls. I remember every scene having painted horizons, foam rocks and cardboard trees that authenticated the viewer's experience as to "what it was like" to have been there.

Not that those books behind William and Kate are made of painted styrofoam, or that Kate's hair is made of yarn...but still. I can almost hear the tour guide now (in a British accent, of course): "...And in this corner, we have the first meeting of the POTUS, First Lady and the newly married Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, still tan from their recent honeymoon in Seychelles. Notice William's gaze at President Obama's hairline in the last picture, no doubt silently lamenting the demise of his own."

A small (I swear) rant about pet adoption...with a cameo by Clothilde!

So one of my biggest pet peeves, aside from homeless people and sneakers on men, is store- or breeder-bought dogs. People, if you want a dog there are plenty of perfectly good ones out there for dirt-cheap and on Death Row, waiting to be adopted before being given The Shot and tossed into a dumpster.

When I was a kid my parents bought us children a dog from a breeder in Los Angeles. We'd never had a dog in the family before and it was promised to us in exchange for behaving ourselves for the weeks that followed my parents buckling us into our red Isuzu Trooper (this was the mid '90s) in Boston and driving cross-country through the southern United States. Three kids in an SUV through the desert. You do the math. A dog was excellent blackmail.

After what felt like years on the road (and my first driving lesson, on an isolated strip of highway somewhere in the middle of Texas) my parents made good on their promise and we were bought a dog once we hit the West Coast. In my defense I was a child, I didn't know anything about breeders or shelters. I just knew I wanted a dog. Now that I'm older and I know better, these days it kills me -- kills me -- when I still see sane, responsible adults buying animals as if they were commodities.  

Enter Clothilde. 

Burt and Clothilde (who you may know as J's brother and brother's girlfriend) were in the market for a dog recently. Something small, that they could keep in a pen while they're both at work every day. When assessing their choices it did not help that they they'd fallen in love with my sister's maltipoo (who I am coincidentally currently babysitting). My sister bought said maltipoo from a local breeder against my insistence that it was a bad decision, and now everyone -- including Clothilde -- loves the goddamn dog. Which definitely takes steam out of my cause.

So Clothilde texted me the other night, asking where my sister got her maltipoo. I replied that I didn't know, but then went on a Bob Barker-style mini-text-rant about how adoption is a better choice than buying, blah blah blah. WELP,  what do I get a few days later? A picture she texts me of their new breeder-bought maltipoo, Chai (named because Clothilde is obsessed with drinking Chai. Sigh.). I would post a picture of Chai here but unfortunately I can't snag one off Facebook so here's a lookalike I found on the web:

I know, miniature polar bear, very cute, etc. etc. etc. (PS: It better be cute, they spent $650 on the thing.) But every time a dog like this is bought a dog somewhere else dies! <said between exasperated breaths> I get that most people are specific about what breed or color or gender they want, but this isn't like shopping for a sweater. It's a living, breathing thing. I'm sure any dog within certain parameters will suffice.

Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless"

A few nights ago I watched the classic Breathless for the first time in my life (I know: bad cinephile! No Milkbone). I don't know how the film flew under my radar for so long especially since it's a benchmark in the French New Wave movement, but I finally got around to it on my Netflix queue and was smitten. Kind of makes you want to lie around all day chain-smoking in a Parisian hotel room with a shirtless Frenchman.  

My favorite scene:

Michel and Patricia

Patricia: Do you know William Faulkner?

Michel: Someone you slept with?

Patricia: No, my pet.

Michel: Then I don't care about him. Take this off.

Patricia: He's a novelist I like a lot. Have you read "The Wild Palms"?

Michel: I told you, no. Take this sweater off.

Patricia: The last sentence is very beautiful.... "Between grief and nothing, I'll take grief." What would you choose?

Michel: Grief is stupid. I'd choose nothing. It's no better but grief is a compromise. You have to go for all or nothing.

How much money is enough?

Great car, great man, great weather. Life is good.

The other day something my dad told me when I was young crossed my mind and since then I can't stop thinking about it. 

"As people get older, no matter how much money they have, it's never enough," he told me. "You have more bills, more responsibilities, bigger desires." Of course when he told me this back when I was around 16, money was fun but it wasn't everything. I was in high school and worked part-time at Pacific Sunwear (not like I wasn't already at the mall enough without that job). My biggest concerns were friends, boys and clothes. Money was an afterthought. As long as I had my bi-monthly paycheck and I could afford to pay for frivolous amounts of clothing at Forever 21 and all the gas needed for cruising the strip downtown (yes, we were very American Graffiti) then I was happy. 

From age 16 to 25, my father's words never quite rang true and so I assumed they must have only applied to him. But then this crazy little thing called 30 started knocking on my door the other day, warning me of its impending entrance into my life in about one year, when I realized, suddenly, that my dad was completely right. I have more money now than I've ever had since leaving the comfortable confines of my parents' house for college many moons ago. If I see something I want then I buy it. Rarely do I have to "save up" for most of my purchases (purchases like homes aside) -- a far cry from where I was just one year ago in DC. I now dine at fine restaurants, drive a nice car, tote around my stash of Nars as though I've owned it my whole life. So why isn't it enough?

Needs aside, I think what it basically comes down to is the more I have the more I want. I know that money isn't everything (in fact if I could pick just one sticking point for my entire life it would be perfect health), but money is amazing. It's fun and so far it's freeing. Suddenly things I never imagined owning or doing in my 20s -- designer things (aka not from Forever 21), trips to cute destinations like Napa, routine massages -- are a reality. It's surreal. And as disgusting as it sounds, it's not enough. I don't know why I should feel ashamed or apologetic for saying it.

I want more; I want better. Not just material things, but experiences, tastes, sights. I love where I am right now and I enjoy myself in the now, but I never want to stop fine-tuning our guage so the only way is up. Maybe I'm turning into a full-blown hedonist. Who knows.

We all have different wants and needs, but I think my dad was right: The more comfortable you grow to be, the more your standards rise. In turn many of us are forever playing the magpie -- reaching for that sparkly whatnot just out of fingertips' reach. And once you're able to grab at it, then there's something else even sparklier on the horizon. Your nest and your memories become more distended by better things and better experiences but you continue reaching. Because everyone should see a sunset over the Mediterranean once in their life, because that wine aged 18 years was the best you ever tasted, because that nice car you commute in to work makes you smile each time you fasten your seat belt. 

I guess we continually strive for more because we want to top what we've already done, no matter how great.

Will today's man ever grow up?

When Wedding Crashers came out in 2005, there was major buzz going into opening night. Fresh out of college and just starting our careers, my friends and I were a key demographic for the film. Weeks after its release some of my friends had seen it twice, even three times in theaters, pegging it as "one of the most hilarious movies of all time."

Where have all the cowboys gone?

At this point I hadn't witnessed the alleged comedy magic they spoke of, but was reluctant to do so. "Why," I asked multiple times, "would I want to spend money and time watching a bunch of adolescent men make like they're back in high school?" I know it sounds so bourgeois when it's down on paper, but seriously -- why was this concept so hilarious? After finally paying my 10 bones and watching the damned thing I still didn't get it. What was all the hype about? Was this supposed to be funny? Because to me it was just depressing watching older men act like idiots by choice. Like freedom equates the desire to regress, which is just not attractive. Period.

Now, seven years later, we've got yet another film glamorizing regression in Hall Pass. Roger Ebert's  film review begins pitch perfectly:

"I was just reading an article about the oddly prolonged adolescence of American males, especially those in the movies. There's a common fantasy where the guys get away from their wives and girlfriends, and escape to where they're free to guzzle beer, eat sloppily, belch, fart, leave pizza boxes on the floor, scratch their butts, watch sports on TV, and in many other ways become irresistible to hot chicks. When was the last time you saw a man under 30 in the movies who had a stable marriage, a job, children, and a life where he valued his wife above his buddies?"

Ebert writes that the most honest words in Hall Pass are spoken by Joy Behar, "as a more experienced older woman who tells the two wives that their husbands, like all men, believe only marriage is preventing them from being irresistible to women. It is probably a good thing for the species that so many men believe they're irresistible, because so few are."

So this begs the question: What happened to all the real men? And by real men I don't mean you need to be putting up drywall and chopping wood, but where are those men who embrace maturity and look forward to being the responsible head of households that they were before the Brothers Wilson made movies like Wedding Crashers and Old School, trumpeting how "cool" it was to regress into frat-boy college students?

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but there are facets about traditional roles that I love, and the career-driven, confident, organized man is one of them. Not that I think every man needs to be a briefcase-wielding accountant, but whatever that career is -- art, business, communication, law, medicine, science, etc. -- that's driving said man, why does he need to backpedal into adolescence to feel himself again or to "have fun"? Last I checked you can be a rock for your family and be goofy without doing kegstands with your bros and getting stranded on the rooftop of a Las Vegas hotel.

I read a great article in the Wall Street Journal recently called "Where Have All the Good Men Gone" by Kay Hymowitz who argues that too many men in their 20s are living new kind of extended adolescence. In her words:

"I see it as an expression of our cultural uncertainty about the social role of men. It's been an almost universal rule of civilization that girls became women simply by reaching physical maturity, but boys had to pass a test. They needed to demonstrate courage, physical prowess or mastery of the necessary skills. The goal was to prove their competence as protectors and providers. Today, however, with women moving ahead in our advanced economy, husbands and fathers are now optional, and the qualities of character men once needed to play their roles—fortitude, stoicism, courage, fidelity—are obsolete, even a little embarrassing.

"Today's pre-adult male is like an actor in a drama in which he only knows what he shouldn't say. He has to compete in a fierce job market, but he can't act too bossy or self-confident. He should be sensitive but not paternalistic, smart but not cocky. To deepen his predicament, because he is single, his advisers and confidants are generally undomesticated guys just like him.

It's almost as if the new parameters of what being a "man" means are debilitating to the pre-adult males who are suddenly being faced with having to move to that next level beyond video games and casual girlfriends. But why? Is it because staying the same is easier than stepping up to the plate?

Hymowitz continues:

"Single men have never been civilization's most responsible actors; they continue to be more troubled and less successful than men who deliberately choose to become husbands and fathers. So we can be disgusted if some of them continue to live in rooms decorated with "Star Wars" posters and crushed beer cans and to treat women like disposable estrogen toys, but we shouldn't be surprised.

"Relatively affluent, free of family responsibilities, and entertained by an array of media devoted to his every pleasure, the single young man can live in pig heaven—and often does. Women put up with him for a while, but then in fear and disgust either give up on any idea of a husband and kids or just go to a sperm bank and get the DNA without the troublesome man. But these rational choices on the part of women only serve to legitimize men's attachment to the sand box. Why should they grow up? No one needs them anyway. There's nothing they have to do." 

I don't agree that "no one needs them anyway", but I do feel like we're quickly losing our good men to a generation after them that finds it easier to remain in pre-adult purgatory and eschew conventional responsibilities for whatever is easier. Easy is crippling. 

I hope things change course in this respect, but part of me feels that in general men will continue to regress while women become more complacent with doing everything on their own -- having children, raising them, having careers, etc. The disparity between sexes will grow and the already-changing nuclear family will become a shade of what it barely even is today. To me, this is unsettling.

Interest vs. Commitment

Came across this today:

via Bits of Truth

Hadn't really thought about it till now but it's so true. I think so many (myself included) think they're more committed than they actually are to things -- vocations, hobbies, people -- when in fact they're merely interested in them...not committed. And the Lie continues to dissipate...

Dolce far niente

A quick check-in post to say that for my first week off from work I have done absolutely nothing productive the last five days. Absolutely freaking nothing. 

I can't say whether this feels good or bad...it just "is." Not to get all yoga-ey and spiritual (let's not pretend I'm one of those hardcore yoga chicks, though big shoutout to them; I envy their wholeness), but I guess I'm just finding my center again, my balance. In another life I'm convinced I was meant to write novels and make cheese and wine at a farmhouse in the South of France -- totally low stress occupation, especially when imbibing on the job -- and I need to find that now. My cheese and wine life. I want to just "be." Live in the moment. Dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing. After the last seven months of stress, this week I've wanted to do absolutely nothing productive. It's my vacation and I'll do nothing if I want to. 

I hung out with my Nana this afternoon and of course the first thing she asks is "Have you heard from any jobs yet?" NO I haven't heard from any jobs yet, I wanted to bark at her, and I don't plan to since I haven't exactly been applying to many (read: I've applied to three freelance positions, total. And freelance doesn't constitute "real work" in her book). 

"No," I answered instead, politely. "It's only been less than a week since my last day at work. Jesus, lady. Give me a break," I wanted to say (clearly I am losing it). But I didn't because she's my Nana and she still owns a rusted old hammer from 1953 that she uses around her house to hang up art hooks and for her the world stopped spinning in the '80s when all her grandchildren were born and -- hello? -- she only recently got a cell phone that she still doesn't know how to check voicemails on. And using The Internets? Forget it. She currently uses my deceased grandpa's old boat-anchor of a computer monitor as a shelf to display her ceramic figurines.

Why would I take my frustration out on said sweet old lady who asks these questions not to frustrate me but because she actually thinks that's the way the world works? It did, after all, in her day. How could she know what I'm going through if I just came right out and said I need a serious break and a serious cocktail? Why can't people just leave me alone about my career plans and support what I want to do? I don't want a traditional job; I don't need a traditional job. The last six years of my life spent in myriad office positions weren't who I am, it was what I did. There's a difference. And I get that she (and when I say "she" I mean 75% of those I know) don't get that, but I'm so short-circuited from my last stint that I need to detox and recoup. And the last thing I need are people judging my choices and giving me their two-cents. I'll take their two-cents and raise them one whole dollar. Because at the end of the day I feel that I'M the one that's got it figured out. (Though I'm sure they probably think the same exact thing about themselves.) And therein lies the conflict.

Who's right?