Sheila Bair, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sir Richard Branson, Robin Roberts

Imagine handfuls of power players in the international arena at one conference. Now imagine all those power players in one place to celebrate and further one theme: Architects of Change. The California Governor and First Lady’s Conference on Women is a tradition in addressing the issues that concern women today and I couldn’t have been more honored to be asked to cover it as a blogger. Thanks to Lean Cuisine – one of the main sponsors of this estrogen extravaganza – I had front-row access to the main stage, got to sit in on panels and peruse The Village during this event, which sold out in literally the first hour tickets went on sale online last July.

The Conference – which originally was only one-day long but due to demand and subsequently a desire to meet that demand – started off Monday night with “A Night in the Village” which was basically sponsoring vendors showcasing their products and making their PR push. There were free makeovers, samples, raffles, coupons, discounts on product and sometimes attempts to collect mailing list info galore. This was the night where I got the privilege to meet and hang out with fellow bloggers also covering the conference. Amongst them: Tara Met Blog, Stevie of LA Story, Sweatpants Mom, SoCal Mom, Silicon Valley Moms, The Girl Blogger, Elizabeth of Traded My BMW in For a Minivan and Sasha of Little Pink Book PR.

Martha Beck, Paula Deen

Probably the most remarkable conversation that happened that night was between Paula Deen and Martha Beck. The theme was relevant to the life of Paula Deen – a Food Network star and two-time Emmy Award winner and who hadn’t started her career until her 40s. Listening to her story of getting out of a self-pitying rut, entrepreneurship (selling lunches and sending them out with her sons from her home) and overcoming agoraphobia was empowering to all who were there. “You are the only person who can prevent your own happiness. You are the only one who can stand in your own way.” – Paula Deen

The next day, the main session was hosted by Paula Zahn – complete with full Twitter disclosure – and headed off by powerful female executives of Safeway (Larree Renda) and Disney Media Networks (Anne Sweeney). Geena Davis, who created The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, also spoke on the inequality of female characters starting as early as G-rated features. The featured conversation, though, was with Sheila Bair – chairwoman of the FDIC, Arnold Schwarzenegger – Governator of California, Sir Richard Branson – Chairman of the Virgin Group and moderated by Robin Roberts – co-anchor of Good Morning America.

And if it seems like I’m name-dropping here, I’ll be the first to admit I am. I realized that the opportunity to witness the colloquy amongst figures who have really blazed their way to the amazing place they stand now was a privilege. Sir Richard Branson talked briefly about how he buttressed his new Virgin Airlines venture – starting with just one plane – with the then-successful record company by taking risks but protecting his downside. Sheila Bair (Forbes’ 2nd Most Powerful Woman of 2008 and one of the first people to recognize the threat of subprime loans according to LA Times) talked about the challenges of the economic crisis, recent bank consolidations and brokerage account insurance increases. With Schwarzenegger rounding out the conversation and Roberts asking pertinent, probing questions – the conversation eventually centered on women, risk-taking and fear of failure. In the traditional home setting, sometimes the girls in the family are more protected which is actually counter-intuitive to the necessity of taking risks, failing and subsequently learning from failure. “Without failure there is no success. Look at some of my movies – Jingle All the Way, etc…” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

Somaly Mam

Somaly Mam, a former sex slave in Cambodia and now with her husband leads an organization which provides a refuge for other children and adults in modern slavery, had the keynote speech with today’s urgent issue. Through her broken, 2-year-old English, she conveyed the tragedies of human trafficking in Southeast Asia and the horrific brothel lives children are subjected to. It was a true testimony in the urgency of action to help our brothers and sisters in Southeast Asia. Tears flowed profusely amongst the thousands of attendees while hearing her brave journey and courageous fight which continues today. (You can fight sex-trafficking by donating at Somaly’s website: Somaly.org.)

Kara Swisher, Joe Rospars, Randi Zuckerberg, Premal Shah, Ashton Kutcher

Dispersed in between the main sessions, there were two panel discussion sessions and a handful of options to choose from for each session. Naturally, I chose “Changing the World Through the Web.” Kara Swisher, co-producer and co-host of The Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital, moderated the conversation between Joe Rospars (new media director for the Obama Presidential campaign), Randi Zuckerberg (manages marketing initiatives at Facebook, sister of co-founder Mark Z.), Premal Shah (creator of Kiva.org) and Ashton Kutcher (needs no explanation here). The discussion was kicked off by a screening of a Jon Stewart Daily Show clip making fun of Twitter. The exchange that evolved focused on how the Obama campaign utilized user-generated content (gathering for parties and canvassing efforts), how Kiva has been able to provide microloans for entrepreneurs in Third World countries and plenty of jabs taken at Ashton Kutcher by moderator Kara Swisher.

Claire Shipman, Valerie Barrett, David Gregory, Madeline Albright, Amy Holmes

The next main session featured a conversation between Claire Shipman (Good Morning America), Valerie Jarrett (Sr. Advisor to Obama), Madeline Albright (frmr Secretary of State) and Amy Holmes (CNN) – and moderated by David Gregory (Meet the Press). Main points addressed the evolving game for women in a man’s world – including the responsibilities and desires for family time and the negotiation of such with male partners. In regards to advancement, Valerie Jarrett advises, “Be your own best advocate” whereas Madeline Albright encourages a little finesse: “Women don’t have to hate men to get ahead. It’s not a battle anymore. It’s a partnership,” as well as sisterhood: “There’s a place in hell reserved for women who don’t help each other” (in regards to women who work vs. women who stay at home).

Katie Couric

Katie Couric came up next and gave her story on failure and resilience. She told of her start – with the President of CNN at the time saying he “never wanted to see [Katie's] face again” on TV to demanding the same hard-hitting stories as her male co-ancher (Bryant Gumbel) on The Today Show before she took the job. It was an awe-inspiring speech and challenged everyone in the room to think differently about the permanence of failure.

The next pertinent conversation in the main arena was a mind-blowing panel on grieving. It was opened by Maria Shriver and the story of her days  the testimony of the last living days of her mother, Eunice Shriver. a true testimony in the realities of a necessary process that often goes unrealized – the reality being that it catches up to you, eventually. Presenting on the panel was Elizabeth Edwards, Maria Shriver, Lisa Niemi (Patrick Swayze’s widow) and Susan Saint James.

Elizabeth Edwards, Lisa Niemi, Maria Shriver, Susan Saint James

It was definitely a courageous panel – and one that everyone learned Kelly Preston (John Travolta’s wife, Jett Travolta’s mother) had considered participating in but decided, understandably, it would have been too hard. The discussion brought to light the necessity of the grief stage and how “no one is exempt” while understanding that real bravery is going through this realization and subsequently doing the hard, unpredictable work.

The Women’s Conference –  is worth the time out to hear noteable, even powerhouse speakers present the state of women today.

Further Reading/Listening:

Maria Shriver says ‘Mother’s death has brought me to my knees’ – LA Times

Hear any speech at Women’s Conference 2009

Dates for next year’s women’s conference:
October 25 – 26, 2010

The Women’s Conference
Long Beach Convention Center
300 E. Ocean Boulevard
Long Beach, CA 90802

We started out on the East Side and the East Side we’d stay. If you’re going to fill 5 yellow school buses full of Santas chanting “Ho. … Ho. .. Ho. Ho ho ho ho hooo!” then streets better be wide enough to handle the obstruction. And that’s not even including the few dozen Midnight Ridazz Santas on their trikes beating us to each location. El Cid and 4100 bar near Sunset Junction were good first stops (or maybe that was the liquor store) with bartenders prepped and ready to tend to our afternoon habit.

We were even prepped with a song book of rewritten Christmas carols. All day, Santas spoke of Santas in the third, improper person. ”Anyone seen Santa?” “He’s around here, somewhere.” Goodwill, cheer and merriment to all – including the “cheer” spread from our buses to pedestrians on the sidewalks. The scene was a spectacle. A day-long hootenanny. A study in … 21st century debauchery. We kept up on the digs through subscribed text messaging and were encouraged to hash tag our tweets (#lasantacon) for a searchable archive. Probably 1 out of 0.75 santas had his iPhone or Blackberry out at all times. Updating. Taking pictures and sending them via MMS. And then the cameras…

I didn’t last all day. Okay, okay – I didn’t even last til late afternoon. My excuse was my company holiday party, but I was secretly glad to have it as an out. I missed out on uWink bar (:\) and Power House at Hollywood & Highland, Boardner’s and Jumbo’s Clown Room – with even an “after-party” at The Echo. Apparently, I also missed out on a concocted “snowball” fight outside the first location.

But I was honored to have been part of this mob, if even for only a little bit. Other than the lagging at the beginning for a straggling fifth sleigh, the experience didn’t disappoint. This is a recommended pub crawl that you should do – at least once. Check the nearest, upcoming Santacrawls here.

Other links:

e*star’s L.A. SantaCon Flickr Set

Caroline’s Santa Post (LAist)

The con is on – L.A. SantaCon, That Is (LATimes)

I also enjoy a view that is of the Presidential Box variety, as my cubicle is in an open-air mezzanine area shared with only a couple other coworkers. My coworker, Chris, and I have turned it into a sort of peanut gallery. We’re removed from the actual boiler room (read: we have our privacy) but are free to spectate and heckle to our heart’s desire. And no one below knows what’s coming. 

To complete the picture of my workday, I have a sales job. Actually, I think almost every single career – including in academia – is a sales job at the core. You have a product, which you have to convince a buyer or otherwise consumer of that product that it’s your product that they want, in exchange for compensation. But this career is a sales job at the core and on every appendage shooting out from it. It raises the temperature past those of other careers – especially in this market – but I have reason to feel extremely blessed. With all the market drama that’s been going on – I can honestly tell you that with our niche, there is NO other place on Wall Street I would rather be standing. (No “Main Street” mention here – thanksforlooking.) It would be modest to say that the company is having a pretty awesome year.

But back to the boiler locker room dynamics.

“Dude, so I was on this date with this Asian girl last night…” He stopped, because he saw that I was making my way down the aisle. And then he greeted me, “Oh, hi Esther.”

I had to ask. “Yeah, man – was she hot? Or was she just Asian and that was enough?”

I actually wanted to know – as a point of inquiry and curiosity, not an accusation. Necessarily.

I like to ball-bust nip things in the bud, and it’s probably the most valuable thing I’ve learned here. Part of it definitely stems from the need to actively push back because otherwise, that testosterone, that “other force” is overbearing. And the guys, likewise, know what they get from me. If you tell a Bro Story within my earshot with the intention of getting the guys to think more highly of you as a result of your latest conquest, you better know it’s fair game for me.

I’m also the most avid belcher in the office. Make of that what you will. One time after one of my impromptu performances, a rookie seeking solidarity with his newfound coworkers said within earshot of everyone, “Well, that’s ladylike” as if it were the aim of every female to be viewed as “ladylike” in the minds of all her coworkers. That the highest she could aim would be to fit her lifestyle and mannierisms to all the accepted mores, norms and indications of “Ladylikehood” to the acceptance of all men worldwide officewide. To their credit, my longtime coworkers said, “Just wait; you’ll see, man.”

I told him, “Oh honey – you don’t even know. Are you the PC or employee conduct police around here now? You can bring up ladylikeness when you can get rid of the sexist locker room talk that goes on around here.”

Yes, it is too much to expect some sort of friendly coworker camaraderie from me or even divested attention to your self-indulgent small talk after I hear you make misogynist comments and gestures every single day.

Salesmen.

Adaptation is a skill, but if you betray one face for another then the ante on your credibility is on the line. The creep factor amongst salesmen, period, is seemingly more obvious.

Jimmiwin said it best: “Guys are creepy only if the attraction isn’t reciprocated.”

Good point. Because then it would just be flirtation, now wouldn’t it? But seriously? What if you just exude creepiness overall? While I think Jimmiwin is mostly right, I think it may just be an excuse that takes the responsibility off the guy. There are undoubtedly guys whom many women think are creepy.

What is creepy, then? Lack of selectivity? The sometimes-perpetual feeling you get that they want something from you that you’re never going to give to them? The type of guy who plays the numbers game – and in that respect, should we not hate the player but hate the game? I know a large part of my overall jadedness with my coworkers (not to be confused with my career) is the fact that I’ve worked here for 5 years. While the work may be an inspiration to my daily routine, more coworkers simply aren’t than are. Anyway, this is fine because hey – don’t poop where you eat. Just get in there and get out!

It’s been a serious year and a half growing it out. Prior to that was 4 straight years of short, spunky hair. It was fun. What with a cut every 8 weeks to prevent it from looking too bushy and grown out plus the daily product to keep it from looking like bedhead – it put a serious dent in my wallet. The decision to conduct the study in fiscal conservatism, while still achieving a new look, was easy.

In some ways, dealing with the new “look” achieved by simply growing one’s hair out was to just put it back up again in a sort of bun or knot. Of course, it always fell out precisely 27 minutes later because my hair is thick and I have a ton of it. The comments went from “cool” and “edgy” to “earthy” and “you, with the Pocahontas hair.”

Really going for that earthy, long-haired look is not as easy as it looks. I mean, sure, the preparation in the morning is simple – you just brush it out – but throughout the course of the day I found myself annoyed that I was getting it in my face, in my mouth and even my sight. When I sat down in a chair with a back, I realized I couldn’t lean back onto my hair before attempting to do a simple task, like turn my head. And then when it wasn’t stuck between my back and a chair or wall, it was stuck in my armpits. Seriously. Come on now.

Sure, yeah, I was supposed to look more feminine. I guess. You see, I just don’t want to be mistaken for one of those types who use it as a crutch. The reality is, you can cling to guns, religion or your femininity. Or the tons of stuff you have. But as far as clinging to your femininity instead of owning it as an attribute through which you create your true expression is, to me, the difference between the creation of art and the boasting of mere biology. My friend Tim, for years, has described that biology-boasting as the way of the hoochie.

I guess you could say that the artist in me right now is screaming for shorter hair.

Anyway, I’m going to stop waxing political on hair about now. The truth of the matter is, it’s Spa Week right now, so while I’ve been flirting with the idea of getting my locks chopped – I happened to notice a participating spa as the one my stylist had moved to. That is, my favorite, awesome stylist who had been cutting my hair regularly before I decided to grow it out. And if you don’t know already, Spa Week is the week of $50 specials at participating spas. Each spa picks 3 or 4 services to offer at this special price. So I will be getting a cut and highlight job at a pretty special rate. I really didn’t need any more reasons to make the appointment.

I don’t think I’ll go above the shoulders, this time. I’m not keen on mere length; I just want shape. And color. So I will be flirting with some subtle, non-natural hues as highlights. I have had blue and green, before, but I will want some professional input before going forward with it. I can’t wait!

P.S. – Don’t forget to check the Spa Week specials in your area!!

After they left, my parents – and I – would fill in the following blanks as to who they were; that is, with my being the audience. That is the thing about filling in the blanks. When you don’t really know anything about a person, others can make them out to be whomever you want them to be. You can also project on them any sort of role you feel they need to fill and they won’t be there to dispute that portraiture. So though I never knew them as well as even one of their high school acquaintances, there was an extremely high bar that their absence created – even bars that weren’t true to life. But they were created for me to overcome. When I did – I got the violin scholarship, played last in the piano recitals – it would prove that I was worthy of being loved. I even fulfilled their role as lawn-mower, as I probably mowed the quarter-acre lawn more often than my Dad did after the brothers left the nest.

The absence of my brothers created a need in me that went created yet unfulfilled. I have always had the love and approval of my Dad, so I wouldn’t say I had your stereotypical “Daddy Issues” you always hear about in women’s magazines regarding sexuality and equating the aforementioned with approval. Also, my mother is not the girliest of the girly so female sexuality for the most part went repressed – or, shall I say unexplored for the moment. Instead, I had “Brother Issues.” I have had, for most of my life, a need to be accepted by men as peers – whether I admitted it or not. It was something I had never had, but wanted. It was something I could see beyond my reach.

An example of a comment that really lit me up recently came via email, when discussing politics with a coworker (not something I recommend – especially via email). Regardless, he told me after a valid argument I made that I “seem really emotional.” While I was incredulous that he had made the personal attack first (telling me to “do a little reading, study a little macroeconomics” - when it was a major I flirted with in college) and I ignored it in order to keep the conversation on the issues, he had to go still further and reduce my arguments to the downfall that is my female tragic irony. Well there I go again – getting emotional on tax structures. Typical.

After I thought about it, I was content to conclude that my actual arguments had actually exasperated him enough that he had to default to personal attacks. If it’s one thing I’ve learned about politics, people stoop to the entire character summations when they are about to lose on the issues themselves. Men and women do this. But enough about politics.

A positive to the environment in which I grew up is that I have had practice at discerning whether a minimal amount of respect for the complexities and capacities in another human being is there or not. This is directly in contrast to people who only connect with others if they can see the end result of benefitting themselves – for the sake of vanity, obligation, networking or romantic interest.

I admit that I used to be a “one of the guys”-type of girls. In college, this necessarily meant having trouble ”finding good girlfriends” because all of the others were so catty, but I wasn’t. But after awhile it was a point of self-examination for me. It is so much more likely to have nothing to do with everyone else and everything to do with me if the common denominator was my ability to relate to them. In retrospect, I felt that there was very little that connecting with other women would do to benefit me, perhaps simply because the option was never even in my peripheral vision growing up. But as is often the case, I’m thankful that my vision has expanded and is better than I could even dream of at a prior time in my life.

Sometimes, our vision is so narrow that it can only go one of a couple ways. We project things that we ourselves are dealing with on others – but what that really says is more about ourselves than the person or object we project that upon. We can’t handle being wrong or even leaving room for another person’s view, so maybe we press the hot button issues in order to distract everyone’s attention. And then there are people who are content to leave things open, to leave things uncertain.

“Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Certainty is.”

-Anne Lamott

I favor stillness. Because the real irony is that we have faith that the things we believe are 100% correct. All this, despite the fact that our imperfect life, experience and perspective is one in a trillion lives, experiences and perspectives that have come to pass.

Even now, I still have more guy friends than girlfriends, but now I’m blessed enough to have a girlfriend or two I can trust in every situation. And most recently, I’ve been befriending handfuls of other women I just cannot wait to get to know. I treasure girls’ nights out more than any other, because together we share, relate, cheer on, envy, back up each others’ experiences. I’ll push for every opportunity to get girls who can keep up with my snowboarding group to come along. In a way I’m reclaiming a sisterhood I didn’t have biologically and making it that much better. I want everyone to know that there are no excuses, no pre-written roles for you that you didn’t buy into yourself. Continually ask yourself, what do you really want? Just have faith to follow that through and become the person that can appreciate it in its purest form.

Location: The main bar at Nic’s - a martini bar on Canon in Beverly Hills
Day and Time: Friday, 11:39PM, summertime
Music: Live jazz
Characters: B – married friend of E; Joe – guy in workclothes
Bystanders: E – friend of B; John – guy in workclothes, friend of Joe

JOE offers a handshake to B.

JOE
Hi, my name is Joe.

B shakes Joe’s hand.

B
Hi, I’m B.

JOE
What do you do?

B
I’m an actress and personal trainer.
[pause]
And what do you do?

JOE
I work in private equity.

Joe proceeds to give B a schpiel about what private equity is.

B
…Oh I know what private equity is.

JOE
Do you? Are you sure you know what private equity is?

B looks at E and shrugs.

B
I don’t know. Maybe not.
[thinking, "Maybe I just said that to get you to shut up."]

E finishes the last of her drink.

We zoom in on E.

E
voiceover
This is interesting, because my initial reaction is to pass off this guy with one of those “Wow, what a jerk” dismissals. And then I think about the core of what he said and it’s actually pretty intriguing. I mean, Joe apparently is in need for us to understand the magnitude of private equity, truly. Not only that, there is a crisis ensuing because of the mere prospect that my friend B might not really know what he does for a living as she says she does. That would make B out to be a liar.

It is up to Joe, here, to inform us either on our ignorance or praise us on our still-scant knowledge of private equity. Clearly, we only qualified for the former. I know, somewhere, the vast divide between the expectation that B and I be impressed at his career thoroughbreeding in contrast to our bleak knowledge on private equity is lost upon us and I order another drink instead of searching for where that flying something flew off to.

As the importance of being impressed by matters of private equity is lost on B, I note that my friend Sean had said that that field was the thing to go into after B-school. After all, it’s supposedly the most lucrative. Yet, I’m not really buying into this “should” business. I’m just not feeling it, and we are both feeling especially disgusted by Joe. The type of guy who’s defined by his career, by his spending power, by matters of prestige – matters of which “private equity” is to be included. Typical. After all, we were in Beverly Hills. Still, disappointing.

I’d take interesting over prestigious, any day.

Thankfully he wasn’t talking to me.

END SCENE

“Hey, your hair is so long!”

or,

“Hey, your hair looks good!”

And I answer this with a scrunched nose and either, “I know!” or, “Thanks!” respectively. The scrunched nose, which happens no matter what, comes about from this reflexive thing that goes on inside my head – which feels undeserving of receiving compliments since I haven’t gotten a trim or cut or anything done to my hair for about a full year. Only I know this, and only I know my ends are dry and split. And every observation or compliment seems to be a reminder of this.

See, I used to spend boatloads on my hair. It never came down past my shoulders for over 3 years – and most of the time it was probably above my chin. “Appointment with Lauren” - with Lauren being a very talented Vidal Sasson grad - was its own item on my balance sheet about every other month. Every time I got a new cut, it was like taking a beauty-slash-fashion hit. I could wear a fuzzy, Juicy pant- Hanes sweats and I’d feel great out of the salon.

There’s something to having short hair, I think, that’s more revealing. See, with short hair I think you just have to have your “face on” all the time. Your face is more out there and there’s a tendency to feel … nekkid, so I tended to dress up a little for that girly component when my hair was short. I’ve even had hair “Winona Ryder short,” before, and there’s not much I can tell you about that time except that I felt the need to “glam up” in a few more ways. I needed to balance that ish out. In addition to that, I always had to have product in my hair, so overall the upkeep was also a lot more damaging to my wallet.

A major plus to short hair, though, is I think I looked older. It was a good image fit to my career. I think that since I even really enjoyed the attitude it projected at times it’s indicative that it was probably more reflective of my personality.

Long hair, you can hide behind. Guys generally like it better because, heaven forbid, their imagination doesn’t have to go into overdrive to imagine you as feminine. Maybe it’s just an L.A. thing; I’m not sure. Maybe it’s as simple as the fact that long hair means there’s an increased likelihood that the head from which it flows belongs to a girl. It’s as if we’re willing to cut out the work for you: “Good-bye, guesswork!”

I loved the way Lauren cut my hair so that it could be styled in so many different ways. I could spike it; I could leave it tousled. There was a lot of versatility and attitude involved. Though it could be a case of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence, I could swear there’s an Underground Society of Short-Haired Women (USSHW). It’s the coalition to which daring women everywhere belong and their mantra is: “No, I don’t freak out at seeing 10 inches of my hair on the floor next to your barber chair.”

I might have had a dream about it once. (Isn’t that so extreme?? It’s like having a piercing, or something.)  

Meanwhile, I’ve saved a crapload of money on this ‘do, so I’m milking it. When I “go back to my roots” (har), maybe I’ll try donating to Locks of Love. Or maybe I’ll just sell it and donate the proceeds to a non-profit org of my choice.

I’m just a short-haired girl trapped in a long-haired woman’s body.

I’m not mad at you.

Heck, I still remember the first time I overheard a girl, I think in college, complain to someone for not putting the toilet seat back down after he was done using the bowl. Even if it took the tone of a sister teaching her younger brother the social norms in life, it was a foreign language to me. Never before was I even aware that such etiqutte even existed. Put the seat down? In consideration of saving that job for a woman who – God save us all – might have to do that before she used the toilet? What are the implications of that, exactly, and in what other manner am I doing too much work for myself? Needless to say, I didn’t really wanna miss out on my own scoop of life – the part of it I was entitled to for being born with … less muscle mass, for one.

Of course, I was not a gal who grew up in-the-know when it came to female matters. Three dudes (and no dudettes as siblings) paved the way before me, and heck if I wasn’t noticing the additional urine drops on the rim as they collected every successive time I had to put the seat down for myself. So really, I don’t know if it was nature or nuture which made Barbies and every other kind of human doll unappealing to me. I picked stuffed animals over infant dolls and was taught chess and baseball card trading were more interesting than playing House. I’d (try to) catch softballs with a leather mitt before ever being curious about mother’s high heels. I was never the most girly girl you ever met – but then again there’s just never a control value to which to compare our lives to; we can only speculate how we might be different if things around us were different. So who knows?

From what it looks like from here, being a benefactor of chivalry, to me, would not seem a free pass. I can see why women have taken a sword through the heart of it as certainly as I’ve helped in trampling on it while completely unaware it was even underfoot. To be on the receiving end of gallantry is to be considered in a separate class. I have trouble expecting things of others based on sex – or tradition, for that matter – just because it’s the way it’s always been done. It can only mean one of two things: That I need help (which is fine but might not be true all the time) or that I’m entitled to a free pass.

Chivalry is just an avenue by which we’re able to make excuses for ourselves. I’m not talking about taking offense at a door being held for me or groceries being lugged on my behalf (only if he is empty-handed mind you – otherwise, I can deal). I’m talking about killing it on my own behalf so that when I’m judged not on my ability but based on my looks or gender, whether favorably or unfavorably, I have reason to complain since I never asked for that free pass in the first place. I’ve a hard time leading someone along on the false hope of outward appearances. How then, do we differentiate when we expect others to take us seriously? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder – and if the beholder needs you in a neat little box, leaving the rest of you unappreciated or worse, taken for granted as if non-attributes, then it’s time to move on til you find a beholder who has the well-rounded vision you can complete.

(Hopefully,) Eventually, we all get a little more selective about our beholders because we grow enough as people ourselves to want that sort of compatibility with our partners and friends. Priorities and values. It’s not so much what you can get out of others, it’s about working on yourself so that you become a person who can be proud of the character you’ve developed on your own merits.

Chivalry is dead – but really. So what? Good riddance.

“Naw. I think it’s like, the crazier they are, the more guys are driven crazy or nuts. So, they just think that they love ‘em more.”

I understood. “Ohhh… So like, it’s kind of a ‘hurts so much’ -type thing where the emotion is so strong, even though it’s a bad emotion, the drama makes them feel alive and intense or something. And it feels like love for some reason.”

“Yeah.”

“Got it.”

Let me do the honors:

• “You’re better than this.”
• “You don’t have to live like this.”
• “He/she doesn’t deserve/appreciate you.”

Anything else?

I admit I was probably a crazy girl, once. Crazy in that angry kind of way. I waited for people to fail me, whether I trusted them prematurely or not. But sometimes you just gotta look at yourself and see if your perspective was right in the first place–if you’re making too many excuses for any one person, including yourself. Generally speaking, extraverts operate by deriving their energy from other people. I’d learn eventually. Trial and error, really.

Unless you pretend to be better than everyone else all the time.

While I was still sorting stuff out, I gained a quality of reclusiveness while becoming desperate for more connections. (Don’t ask if that’s even possible.) It’s a dichotomy of sorts. There are different behaviors associated with both–that is, devolving into the black hole you’ve created for myself, while other times passing on the bitterness and projecting your anger and fears onto others. With other people, you might even become too forgiving just to have the companionship of, yes, crazy people. It’s a way of dealing with the pain of being yourself or something. (Cue the addiction post.)

Where is the point where it all becomes too unbearable–making us determined it’s time to change things for good? When is the crazyness a charade to deal with things and where is the point where it becomes who we are? Some of us just need a sort of intense emotion fix. Drama for your mama.

Just calm down. Please. Be nice to people. Be nice to my friends.

Besides, that stuff so early-twenties.

*e

I reach out my right hand. When I do that, my elbow is straight and my arm is almost ninety degrees from my body. My palm is flat, my fingers are together and my thumb is at a forty-five degree angle to them. This means I want to shake her hand. A lot. And I always want to shake it, even especially if she doesn’t want to shake mine. I am grinning at this point, with teeth showing (and I could use a teeth whitening). The colder she is, the wider my grin and the more teeth I show.

I try not to laugh.

She looks at it. And then she looks at it a half-second longer. The colder she is, the more earnestly I extend my hand, just waiting … waiting for the hand shake exchange.

She chooses her own adventure.

Of course, I know what kind of handshake I’ll get by this point. It is usually a variation of the tips of her fingers and thumb just grazing mine. At most, she clasps the center and back of my palm with the insides of her digit joints. But always, always, she shakes my hand with as little contact between her thumb-finger-webbing and my thumb-finger-webbing as possible. The up-and-down motion of a normal handshake conveniently throws her off her weak grasp.

The boyfriend, the really nice guy who introduced us, probably has a free subscription to Maxim. “Hey, it’s free,” he tells her. And what she doesn’t sarcastically respond with is, “Of course it’s free, Dickhead. See all the ads all over the place? That’s how the magazine is funded, by all those ads of products you actually need with enlightening ‘articles’ on how to figure out women–because that’s how we really work.” Instead, she protests, “Dude. The girls aren’t even that skinny. They’re all airbrushed.” He reaffirms, “It’s just entertainment, honey.”

We all have little (and big) quirks and hangups to us that’ve resulted from our respective pasts. But after awhile, we stop pulling the pity card and realize that someday, we just gotta enter the real world. Anyway, everyone has their own own issues to work on. Hopefully-eventually, we learn to adapt.

The Midwest Native learns to adapt to “big city cut-throat culture.” Or so they call it, anyway. In reality, if you look at it clearly in the Capitol of Entertainment, you see a city that feeds upon its own superficiality. People have their defense mechanisms up in some areas (disguised as the one-up on you) while cannibalizing on others…as long as they are queen in their own little world.

The people who are here to make it count? They have too much going on to play silly games. But if you insist, let’s play, baby. Here are my dues.

Some genuinely kind women learn to dodge a girl who throws the bitch hat at them. They learn to feed a girl’s bitchiness back to her. Even though she threw the bitch hat first, eventually you learn in your mid-twenties (one would hope) that the “she was bitchy first” excuse doesn’t work and your reactively turning into a bitch yourself makes you no better–the hat-thrower was just successful in dragging you down with her. Your behavior and mood have been successfully altered by her.

What quarter-life crisis? What ticking clock? I feel blessed to be out of that ignorant hole. Instead, it’s so much more fun to just … pour it on. More niceties, more smiles and more positive vibes–more, more, more!! And sometimes, just sometimes, she senses that I’m not a threat and I love being pleasantly surprised by that webbing-to-webbing (firm, even) handshake after she warms up ever so quickly. The defenses go down and no hard feelings.

And in the whole grand scheme of things, Who does she think she is? She doesn’t even know me.

When it’s time to part ways, the higher her threat-o-meter, the bigger the bear hug I give. That old game? She might as well eat it. At least the menacing ones are conniving enough to hide it. Might as well spread the love to everyone…

Love,
*e