"No Place to Stand": Manhattan on the Move

It was another day in my shiny office, 7 World Trade. Another overcast morning, another sticky subway ride, another jet fuel cup of black tea, another wade upstream through the crowd pumping from the PATH train entrance. For all those who came back to World Trade this morning, it was also "another day" - one that, unlike mine, looked completely and irreparably different. For me, an office building. For them a memorial. For me, a groggy thursday morning. For them a mark on the calendar when everything they knew changed.

When I finally made it through the thickened security and up to my office, I went straight to the window and watched as the sun rose mustard yellow over downtown, sweeping the thick crust of people around theGround Zero fence. I had a perfect bird's eye view of the private ceremony starting below amidst the haggard steel spine and mean-looking cranes of the ground zero construction. Lofted in glass above the scene, it felt almost like I was a nosy neighbor peeping in through the window's at a stranger's funeral. What did I know of this place's memories?

There were huge crowds gathered to hear the city leaders' speeches, family members returning to the site to remember and read their relatives names and relive the pain of that day, all among the buzz of another Manhattan morning, the roar of a anti-government protest outside my building and all of us just creaking in to another day of work. It seems like an uncomfortable, totally unfair and yet appropriate juxtaposition. Pockets of sacred moments never allowed to lie still among the constant movement and muscle of life that continually moves forward, even when we want to stop and grieve for what is lost.

When I sat down to my desk during the quiet of the early morning (anyone who has worked for a digital group knows the office stays uncannily quiet until around 10 or 10:30...) I looked up all the pictures of September 11th on the internet just to try and imagine what this place must have looked like back then. I never saw the world trade centers in person. I only know the look of this place without them and I try to imagine what it must be like now for those who remember. And it's a funny feeling because, although sometimes, late at night especially, you can still feel what happened here, for the most part this place for me has an entirely different meaning and feeling from those returning here this morning. And I got to thinking - its funny how places, no matter what happened there or what they mean to us, unforgivably and inevitably change. That the heart is the best place to keep things…the spirit the best place to let them go. Can New York, can my family, can I…do both?

It seems like a good day to both remember whats gone from these places of ours and also to celebrate re-growth and the perserverence of the human spirit. Most things never remain the same among us - change is the only thing you can count on. But I couldn't be more glad to be changing alongside people that I consider this courageous. People I know in my life, just like those who came here this morning on the anniversary of this day, who 'keep on keeping on'. Showing us, together, just what takes to hold up an entire city ...or an entire family... from the ground up.
Yesterday when I left my building late, Ground Zero was dark in front of the two beams of blue light shooting up from downtown to commemorate 9/11. Looking up at them from way down here where they began, those light beams seemed to be symbols not of the twin towers themselves, steel and glass and magnificent height, but instead of the people who hold up cities, nations, families, marriages, hospital wards...and anything else that needs holding up or prodding on. In that dark instant when I first saw them they made me think of my two parents. Two perfectly parallel beams of light in the lives around them, each one on their own path, never crossing or blending but always next to one another on their way up to where they burst into blue flame of light on contact with an overcast sky. I couldn't see where these spotlights began – and if I could, the site would no doubt look just like regular spotlights, not divine orbs or shooting stars – regular old cheap casino spotlights shooting up inspiration among the construction rubble of human struggle, triumph, cigarette butts, coffee cups and all the rest. But out of this they still create these brilliant lights that are visible to everyone in the city. Near and far, New Yorkers see those lights and they remember that this is their city – our city. Everything from the filthy sidewalks to the gorgeously lit peak of the empire state. Its theirs and they help it to keep on changing, keep on moving, keep on keeping on. The currents of our lives carrying us through these places we wish so hard would hold the water weight of our memories. If they could hold our memories for us, then we could swim back to the way it was, to remember past happinesses, because things were so different then. But rivers leave no marks, no trails, no footsteps in the sand or blood stains on their ripples. You can tread water against the current and look back for them forever or you can keep your feet out in front of you to brace the rapids, the way they tell you to do in river rafting if you ever fall out of a raft in white water. And so I watch the PATH train rumbling rudely and thoughtlessly behind those holding silent vigil amidst the mounds of dirt and construction. In some mean, toothy way, it is just New York's way of giving them what they came back for... "Another" morning that refuses to sit still.

Growing Pains: America's Got Guts

Ok get ready. Here comes # 3,809,899th blog post on the DNC acceptance speech hitting blogosphere – you know I can’t resist!’

It’s ironic that I had written my past blog post about great speakers before I watched Obama’s speech. Quite obviously, he hits all the high notes when it comes to a talented speaker – and I don’t need to paraphrase once more what everyone else is saying about the impact of the speech (that was more than self-evident) nor the terrific tactics of his delivery. But I felt as I watched that I owed this man a blog post. After all: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

It was perfect how I watched it. On cnn.com streaming video the morning after in a high rise above ground zero. Yep. I didn’t even make it home in time to catch the live speech last night. At first I felt like Id committed some kind of treason to the crown punishable by disenfranchisement, guillotined from my own Gen Y, excommunication from my Obama facebook group, or hell, even social media altogether. ME? Miss THE DNC acceptance speech? Or, in the words of a friend of mine when he found out I missed the live broadcast, am I really “slipping”?? But I did watch it. And it seemed appropriate that I’d watch this man deliver this speech of the future under my wide-open, dusky Colorado evening sky at our very own Invesco stadium, while I ate instant oatmeal over ground zero in glassy 7 World Trade and picked up a voicemail from my sister and cousin who had called me from the crowd at Invesco the night before to tell me I was there in spirit.

The man’s got guts. And that really means something. Because life takes guts. Things like families, economies, day jobs, politics, break ups, deficits, careers, international diplomacy and Biphenotypic Leukemia – they take balls. Big ones. But not necessarily ones of steel. Just (at the risk of being graphic) regular, everyday ones. Obama did rise to the occasion – he didn’t leave McCain with any excess praise or unneccessary competitive compliments. Nor did he leave him with too much mud on the old mug – slinging one or two small handfuls of mud is probably healthy for the pure scale of a pending presidential election. He showed that he’s got ‘em. And I like that. Be brave America. GOP republicans like to talk to Americans like theyr are babies. Don’t you wowy, lil guys, big president gonna take care of dem big bad terrorists for you. You just sit back and suckle, hushed sweetly by downloaded videos of Monica Lewinsky and rocked gently to sleep with inactive phrases like moral fiber. No, there was none of that. Which will probably thin the ranks a little by those who, lets face it, just want to have a presidential sugar daddy. Obama even talked about individual and mutual responsibility. This isn’t about me, he said, its about you. Hey guys, this isn’t just my problem. And its not yours either. It’s ours. Now there’s a moral dilemma for you. Government wobbling on the psychological divide between you and I, us and them. The ever-present political pickle – how do we make a thing work for US, both united and divided (depending on the issue). But I thought he dealt with it well – ok, then you do your job. So I can do mine. And We can do ours. Whatever that looks like. Isn’t that just the real kicker anyway. Think about the moral ambiguity of having cancer – well your own cells are turning on you, so we are giving you a medicine that is supposed to kill a part of you but not all and hopefully the part of you that lives is the part you want to keep. When I was sitting with my brother in the hospital while he finally slept through a tremouring fever that visibly shook his shoulders, I told him one thing in his sleep because it was the only thing I could think of to say. And it was similar, in my opinion, to what Obama could think of to say to America yesterday under the sky of my homestate. I said “Be Brave, Alec. Be brave.” What would you have said?

And Obama did say some other great things. It was a magnificent middle class message, aimed tactfully at the hard workers of this country. He said things I liked about education (and would like even more if I saw them in actualization), led an interesting counter-attack on outsourcing strategies, paid simple homage to the Divided We Fall bumper stickers and rhetorically marched steadfastly among middle Americans, never straying too far to the coasts in vernacular or subject matter. He didn’t pay a fleeting compliment to the Nouveau riche, not even a tip of the hat to the Main Line. It was a squared shouldered handshake with the middle managers and the working class. Risky, yes it was. Brave? It was that too. He would have wasted a lot of time trying to make oratory eye contact with all socio-economic segments of America. The results of this election should be more than interesting. Above all the other things Obama said (many of which were both powerful and moving), I liked that he told us to get our s*#t together. Buck up. Face the morning. Because there is no going back now. This is where the rubber hits the road. You can do it at top speed hanging halfway out the window of the passenger seat or you can buckle up and drive. Reverse doesn't work on the freeways of international politics or the 6 lanes of life.

It seems that at this point in my life, I am surrounded by the pain of growing up. As if my number has at last come up and its time to turn in my term paper and freakin graduate. Most adults (who are adults) remember this painful phase of their own, when IT happened and they had to take responsibility for their own lives and not the life they had been “given”. Moving far away, building a life on your own, paying bills, finding that that laws of logic also govern the laws of relationships (and that the Beatles were 100% wrong when they said “all you need is love” - what is that statistic, is it financial discord that causes 70% of all divorces?), watching your parents struggle or someone you love fight hand to hand combat with mortality. It’s like watching Cinderella die an unclimactic (and a very adult) death. Many adults remember the day Cinderella died for them. What’s different is just how she met her untimely end. Was it the wicked stepmother in the kitchen with the frying pan, the prince himself with the knife in the ballroom, or a freak middle aged liposuction accident in the conservatory? However it happens, her fate is inevitably sealed and the screenwriters have really got it out for her, one way or another. She’s like Kenny in South Park. She and her awesome (free) dress, perfect life and flawless relationship. But its not all bad. Once she is dead you can forget about being perfect. And start focusing on being brave. Thats where the real change, the real growth and the real good stuff happens. So maybe that is what Obama was asking of America last night. Maybe he’s asking us to just grow up at last.

Mathematics and Metaphors: What Makes People Listen?

My job here in New York is all about listening. And those of you who know me well know that listening, being the antithesis of talking, is not my strongest suite. As my work now requires that I do so more frequently, I’ve been doing a little more listening than usual. Now, as someone who works out life’s issues verbally instead of cognitively, I found to my surprise that listening occasionally leads to thinking. And thinking hard. This is all just to say, “so I’ve been thinking”…

about what makes people listen-worthy. They say in presentations, the audience will remember some miniscule percent of what is said – some 5 or 10 minutes of a 1 hour presentation. What material gets listened to and, better yet, what delivery can make plain material worth listening to?

I’ve met people in life who are great speakers. And most of those great speakers are also great people. Which makes sense simply because being a great person, thrown in with a little sing-songy syntax and a subject the speaker really cares about, is just plain compelling to other great people, as well as people who are good people looking to be great…you get the point. So I’ve been thinking through these people I’ve met – my parents both more than qualify, a political leader here and there (I like the way Obama has turned “Hope” into more of a verb than a noun), as well as this New York City spiritual leader I’ve been following named August Gold, my friend the master of mutual inspiration Simon Sinek, and a few others I’ve met along the road. Another one of these people came to our offices this morning and as I found myself yet again mysteriously, well, actually listening, I started asking myself why. I was sure it didn’t have everything to do with just how white his teeth were or the way he referenced his eight-year-old son in a conversation about business communication. No, there was surely something that all these people whom I enjoyed listening to had in common. A common trait, trick, knack or know-how that made me pay attention. I’ve decided the answer lies in two things:

1) Gravity. Good speakers have gravity. When they come into a room and sit in front of you they really sit there. And you can feel Newton’s second law at work on you. This seems frivolous and, well simple, and it is. But to get a commitment from a listener to listen the speaker must first commit to, literally and figuratively, sit with the listener. The good ones can sit with large groups of people even. When someone approaches you with a weight and a presence, being with only you for that whole half an hour instead of with their horrible mother-in-law, their cross-dressing Austrian burlesque dancer/ lover or their breakfast….People worth listening to can somehow sink to a sublevel below that frequency at which most people operate hovering above the ground, buzzing from apartment to office, lover to coworker, project to project, struggle to bliss, all just a foot’s length from the ground but never quite touching down.

Most of the successful people in the world learn quickly that life isn’t that condusive to growing “roots” – the minute you root yourself somewhere and say “this is forever”, your life goals change, your dog runs away, your career path takes a mean right turn into the trees, your supposed life partner leaves you for a (much prettier) Minnesotan, or someone steals your doormat. That’s life -you can sign in blood but there will always be a plasma-proof legal loophole. Great speakers, though, these really great speakers Im talking about who are usually at the same time really great teachers and leaders, they manage to grow roots everywhere for whatever temporary period of time. Every relationship, every conversation, every project, every moment, they grow roots. It takes lots of extra effort, risk, vulnerability, time, loss and an extraordinary amount of trust in strangers. But for those who can do this, those who can touch down to the ground and bring a gravity, a realness to their conversations, they are always listened to. Because others know that when those with gravity talk, they talk from the bottom up. Not just from themselves as a business executive, an entrepreneur, a mother or an underpaid divorcee from Kentucky, but as all these people, as themselves. You see how I try to explain it and can’t with any words other than one? Gravity. You’ve met these people too. You know what I mean.

2) Metaphors. Good speakers and teachers make all subjects into familiar, tangible metaphors. This includes things like unusual and interesting phrases of speech (such as “kick him out of bed for eating crackers” or “5’2” soaking wet and hanging from a pole”) to break up boorish business babble. Every day metaphors that simplify and domesticate complex, intimidating subjects. Personal anecdotes that reminds the listener, you and I are just the same, just people trying to be successful at both life and business. This is where speakers break what I call the B2B barrier – a business to business suit and tie conversation turns into two very real (last time I checked) people who happen to be in business and are having a conversation. The web is conveniently mimicking this move – businesspeople are now connecting via facebook, high-brow executives are making themselves vulnerable to the masses with informal, stream-of-conciousness and (gasp!) open-for-commentary blogs, Gen Yers are pouring into the business world with new expectations around work-life balance and it all converges in one crashing, match.com-meets-linked-in virtual reality online called web 2.0. However comfortable or uncomfortable this may make the aristocrats of an old-world school of business, its happening. So that even the most traditional executives might want to have a snazzy headshot and favorite movie quote ready for their next product release or webcast. Not sure if you got the memo – but if you’re the CEO of a company, part of your business’ brand is your brand. If not your blog then your management style, if not your own social community then your vision and your visible purpose for being in business at all. What you are all about defines what your business is - and its getting easier for the world at large to see both you and your company. If you don’t believe me ask Google.

And this is what makes good executives like my mom, great. Not only are they sharp, strategic, efficient, managerial and articulate, they are personable. You can relate to them. And they speak in a language you understand, they can storybook a business plan better than Hans Christian Anderson could cannonize socio-economic dynamics. How? Its all about the metaphors. Stories. A way of approaching things that harken back to our childhood days. Stories that carry real meaning for us, about life and love and death and families and money and sunday baseball games and all that riffraff. (What is life anyway if not a series of different stories, all of our stories, told and retold in all different forms?) Suddenly "Return on Investment" turns into "Would you rather spend eight years doing something you hate for the title that you want or spend eight years holding titles you hate doing all the things you love." Get it?

You’ll notice also that these metaphors are never boring – they touch on something that the producers of Gossip Girl have down pat –namely that if you are writing a speech and trying to think of a metaphor, if at all possible, choose one with the most amount of blood, sex and scandal. It has a better chance of making it into that 5 minutes of material that the audience retains.

Overall, I am in utter admiration of these people who have this skill. The business world, and (case and point) the world at large that so informs the business world, needs more of them. My dad always says “life is all about showing up.” This is true on so many different levels –showing up at all, showing up authentically, showing up for others when you are needed, etc etc. And so to all those who are aspiring great speakers, teachers, leaders...a brief public service message from a recent listening convert – if you want people to listen, you’ve first got to “show up”. And when you do, make sure you show up as yourself.

Putting the "Heal" in "Health": Life Lessons Learned in Whole Foods

I take vitamins now. Yep, I am now one of those people. Those vitmin takers, those, worker-outers, those I-Can't-Believe-Its-Not-Butter-ers. I am that 16th girl in line in my work-out clothes at a crowded Whole Foods in New York City, waiting to buy a salad, a tub of yogurt, all-natural cookies that taste a bit like the lipstick I ate out of my mom's makeup drawer when I was 5, and a multi-vitamin that costs more than all the rest of it added up, not to mention the last DVD I bought. But all that does not matter because as I get closer to the cashier, I am feeling oh so trendy and healthy. All I need now is a good self-tanner (real sun would scramble my DNA and comprimise my current temple of health)... I look around at all the other aspiring healthy people in line around me, eating salad instead of ribs, buying all natural deoderant instead of lady speed stick, flipping through gluten-free cookbooks, tapping their feet impatiently so they can return to their Grammercy apartments and pop in their favorite yoga DVD, and I can almost hear their collective thoughts ringing down the line "Less trans fat, more crunches, gym tonight, bar tomorrow, no you canNOT have that, chapstick with antioxidants, thank God they finally thought of that." I turn my multivitamin over in my hand and remember why I ended up here in the first place looking for a superwoman multi-vitamin.

“Hi” said my brother.
“Hi, how are you, how are you feeling? Chemo today? More tests? Are you walking much, whats up whats up?” bumbling idiot. Stuffing his head with questions wont help him forget that he has cancer, Kate…
“I’ve been better.”
“Oh. Right. Yep.”

A girl next to me is talking loudly to her friend while trying on a too small, cosmopolitan-red Theory dress in Bloomingdales. “Why does this make me look so fat? My shoulders are huge? What shoes should I wear, they have to be the right color” Her face looks so pained that the desire to to shake her and say “yes but do you have leukemia??” passes and I go back to simply recognizing that familiar feeling I see in her face as she surveys herself in the mirror. A girl in a pink dress passes behind me toward the BCBG section, dragging her tortured boyfriend behind her. The mimes of everyday trifles, troubles and insecurities pass by me in the form of all different colors, materials and lipstick colors. Bloomingdales. A watering hole for the unfulfilled. And here I am in my usual spot among all the usual suspects under all the magnifying mirrors desparately inspecting my external imperfections in order to neglect the internal ones, buzzing from dress to dress...while my family watches the hospital parking lot empty car by car as they wait for my brother's bloodcounts drop into neutropenia (which is supposed to be a good sign).

“So the bad news is this second chemo treatment isn’t working they way it needs to. They are starting me on a new regimen.”

Heart hitting the floor and I am pounding on God’s (whoever that is) door and screaming profanities before slipping back to earth and sliding down the wall of Bloomingdales, taking a $500 dollar silk dress with me. I consider tearing it to pieces with my teeth and tying it around my forehead while the sky falls in sharp little pieces around me. Grief is 100 times sharper when you're not the one whose loosing something. You're just here to watch. Nothing. Makes. Any damn sense.

“Ok.”
“The good news is – you are a bone marrow donor. A 10 for 10 genetic match.”

Merry Christmas, Kate. You’ve been a very good girl. Well, most of the time anyway. I know you asked for a Barbie mansion. Then a pair of rollerskates. Then a red iPod. I know you really wanted that red iPod. But this year, I thought you might like the chance to save your brother’s life. We don’t give many people this kind of gift here at the North Pole, as you can imagine. But I guess you earned it. Well, he did anyway.

They say the scar over his heart where they pulled a blood clot the size of a baseball out of his stretched atrium in a record 17 minutes (the biggest one they’d ever seen) is healing nicely. He hasn’t lost his hair yet, despite the battery of chemo drugs charging over his immune system, scything through his cells like pirates through a victim crew (except these are supposed to be the good guys). Its hard, they say, to look at him, at his current life sealed inside a hospital room without white blood cells, locked in an epic battle for but against his own body, without, well, crying. Or hating God. Or...something. He doesn’t wimper, my brother. He never really did that, not even when we were young. His is an ever-so adult struggle with an oh-so-adult life challenge. But oh do I want to whimper for him. Throw a fit against the unfairness of life and beat my fists on the table of whatever celestial monarch pointed to him and said "You. Leukemia. One year. Take him away." Those fits turn out to be for my benefit only. He just doesn't need my kicking and crying. No hero ever needs to be cried over. Only your sincere belief in their victory. This I can also give him. Along with a couple of stem cells.

Maybe someday that heart scar, along with the four other angry scars on his chest from various drains, chest tubes and biopsies, will barely be visible. Someday he’ll be able to distantly retrace his steps through hell, high water and late-night, perpetually well-lit hospital wards only via those scars as they happily fade. But I hope they never completely disappear. Because that’s what they are. Heart scars. People keep saying “things will never ever be the same”. Cancer or not, when do things ever stay the same anyway? I had a brother that I knew once. But this weekend, I’m taking my multi-vitamin and I’m going home to Colorado to meet the new one. I hope he likes me. Because I love the hell out of him.

So about this Whole Foods line. "Thinner, happier, prettier, cleaner, higher, firmer, purer, fresher, better, faster!!” Webster’s definition of healthy-“enjoying health and vigor of body, mind, or spirit”. Where is the whole foods aisle for mind and spirit? Is there an all-natural mineral oil for that? We health nuts, (from Boulder, Colorado or not) spend so much time saying No to ourselves. Maybe we just need to say Yes to the right things. And if we stopped saying No so often…that might be easier. Saying Yes often enough to remember how good Santa was to us this year, - these great legs (ok maybe with a little cellulite here and there) to stand in this endless line with. And the appetite to want that delicious, humongous chocolate bar at the checkout. I think I’ll skip the gym tonight, maybe walk home instead.
I put down the Lipstick-cookies and back away slowly. Then slip the chocolate bar in my basket next to the bank-breaking multi-vitamin. Viva la Revolución.

Magic Mountain: Take That Ride

Today is my brother’s birthday. 21 Years of hanging out in the world together. Ever wonder what its like to be 21 and have leukemia?

I wrestled with myself for weeks over wether or not to include my brother’s recent saga in my blog. Too public? Too exposed a forum for such a delicate topic? Too heavy, too self-important, too scary? Too presumptuous to discuss a topic that isn’t mine to share? But when I woke up this morning celebrating not only my brother’s 21st year of life in general but also the way he’s living it…I figured if we built the blogosphere to share everything except empathy and inspiration along with business best practices, then we’re moving backwards instead of forwards and the web 2.0 movement is simply a 21st century online reprise of the industrial revolution. Eat your heart out, Dickens.



But let me get this straight -I'm not speaking for him (when he decides to speak about this, believe me the world will listen), I'm just speaking for me. A person like him is just too precious not to be shared with the rest of the world

It’s not really the details that matter. They matter to him, they matter to us, but details aren’t what is worth celebrating in life so I wont include them here. Don’t get me wrong, details are a necessary part of getting things done and even for moving forward through life. Nothing gets you out of bed like an unpaid rent check or a crowded Laundromat that opens at 7 or intimate results of an abdominal CT scan. Details can be a blessing in comparison to the things that make you not want to get out of bed in the first place. In general, details are a necessary, trifling and yet ok, kind of mindlessly satisfying aspect of life. I mean, how else were you planning to spend 31025 days of being alive? Just as long as you use them for what they are – not something you’d write a novel about. In New York, everything is about details. You can spend, if you so choose, your entire life getting to the Laundromat, let alone picking up your laundry, getting it home and putting it away in your closet. I realize that normal people don’t have the distgustingly high number of dry-clean only knit tops that I do, but you get the idea. You see? Even thinking about details, I digress…

Ok, so my brother got cancer. It took me months for me to think or say that word in association with someone I love so much, let alone write it. You know, that feeling that THAT word just doesn’t apply to me. It’s a phenomenon of human conciousness developed acutely during the, what was it, anal phase of pre-speech psychological developement? (oh I dunno, ask Freud) – there is "me" and "not me" – and THAT word, cancer, is decisively not me or us. Kind of like no matter who you are, “them” doesn’t ever apply to you (and you can arbitrarily choose the peramiters of your core group of course, then redefine them throughout life as you choose). I guess that’s how I felt about cancer and my family- like that is the kind of stuff that happens on Lifetime and then goes conveniently away once primetime news come on. Once again I find use for this darling paternal phrase of mine – denial is more than a river in Egypt. You don’t need to tell that to my 21 year old brother.

Here are all the details you really need to know –

One. Life can be like a head-on collision – a lot can happen in 1 second of it (no doubt right while you are idiotically and self-absorbantly fiddling with your air conditioner and botching the words to Madonna's "Like A Prayer") and chances are you’ll be damn near unrecognizable afterward. College graduation with honors today, leukemia, chemotherapy, open-heart surgery and a bone marrow transplant tomorrow. No need to buckle your seatbelt – you’ll get used to your new face. And you know what? The new one will be even better. Long live the resilience of the human spirit and the synergies of real-live unconditional love once all else falls away.

Two – Doctor’s usually know 30% less than they say they do. I wouldn’t suggest getting statistical with any Doctor, especially not oncologists. That said, the good ones have mastered this thing called hope. Optimism. And honesty. And these things (among others) are crucial to any human undertaking. To all those in the medical community-- the harsh reality is of course that you’ll never beat death full-stop. None of us can. But you can sure as hell get in some really good rounds if you give death a few worhtwhile reasons to sit back and watch for another 60 years.

Three –Is there a rule against having a role model who is three years younger than you? If so, I suggest the books be reviewed. Because you just don’t meet a man like this every day. And I still can’t believe we happen to share the same last name.

21 years ago my brother and I turned up on the same doorstep of existence. Maybe every other day since then I’ve taken for granted being able to share things with him (after the age of 6 he stopped wanting to share them of course, which was fine, more Dancing Disco barbies leftover for me). Life is a hard thing not to take for granted. If you happen to know someone who lives every single second to the absolute fullest then I’d like to meet them, chances are they’ve never been dumped cruelly or had a yeast infection. But there are people out there who, simply through their presence in a room, a family, a life or a world, remind us to go ahead and ride the big roller coaster while we’re here in this derranged little human amusement park. The lows are pretty darn low on this ride but it’s only down there you’ll learn how to enjoy the highs. Why spend the whole day on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and the Teacups (a ride which could potentially be used to simulate what regular chemotherapy must feel like...)? When you get off you’ll be glad you went for Magic Mountain.

And as for you, Alec, on your birthday. You’re an inspiration. To me, to your parents, your family, your friends, your Doctors, your community…and now to the blogosphere. All that inspiration in 2 months, not to mention the last 21 years. Now that’s an achievement. Good on ya, kid. Happy Birthday, Mr. (future) President.

Doing it and Doing it and Doing it well: Keep at it Manhattan

They say in business, and life in general, you should do one thing better than everyone else instead of trying to do many things well enough. New Yorkers do three things really, really well. Cut corners, drink and keep out boredom. Oh, and make egg bagels. No one does a bagel with egg better than New York delis...


#1- New Yorkers have the absolute best strategies for getting there faster, getting it cheaper, finding that extra inch that puts them first over the line. If its just before rush hour, then take the 6 from 23rd to Union Square and transfer to the express. This will take you approximately 20.47 minutes. If it is rush hour or off hours, then its faster to walk to the express instead of waiting a lifetime for the 6 train or bargaining for 6 inches of body space on a crowded train for just one stop. These hindrances can cost you up to 8 minutes, where are walking the extra few avenues will take you approximately 5.8. If it is neither rush hour, nor off hours, then its a toss up - you can then make the decision based on how your legs are feeling or the quality of shoes you are wearing. If you go to the very last car on the train, you will save 45 seconds walking accross the platform to your daily exit and instead will arrive right in front of it. The best grocery store to shop at is Trader Joes - it is right next to whole foods and the same groceries will cost you at least 20 dollars less. However, you must go to Trader Joes ouside of rush hours, or else you will spend literally an hour waiting in a line of nearly 1000 people to check out. Right before closing at 10 is the best time. There are also several staples you cannot get at Trader Joes, which will necessitate another trip to another bodega or grocery store. Go to Brooklyn for the best sushi for the best price and the little laundromats on the upper east side for the cheapest tailoring. You'll still want to wear closed toed shoes in alphabet city. Dont go out at night in the meatpacking district unless you know someone - for we New York nobodys, its time better spend dressing to the nines and going to the lower east side or the swankier side of soho...you get the idea. If there is a corner to be cut, an edge to be gained, a dollar to be saved, New Yorkers will be the first to cut it.

#2 - I used to wonder how New Yorkers spend such an outrageous amount of money and liver function on alcohol. The first time you order a martini here, expect to turn out both your stomach and your wallet. Its damn expensive. So expensive, you'd think that people would boycott, protest, rise up, start patronizing local liquor stores instead of putting all of New York's fashion students through school with four shots of jager. Nope. New Yorkers are street smart on everything except alcohol. Its the one rip off that manages to continually slip underneath our radar. Maybe its that a 16 dollar mix drink doesnt seem THAT outrageous after you've already had three. Then you wonder how Manhattan's ER's manage don't get overrun every Friday night with alcohol victims. Particularly by the heavily bronzed fashion avenue aspiring models who subsist on crytal light. How do these leafy waifs down three grey goose and vodkas in an hour and still stay standing while Im white knuckled against the bar? It is one of the great mysteries of this Great Big Apple. But I suspect it has something to do with expensive bottled water, top shelf liquor and really, really forgiving friends.

#3 - I've been planning on writing a book. I figure, it would be really great to really commit to my one true love (hopefully mountain biking wont get its feelings hurt by being my #2) and finish my first novel by the time I'm 25. It doesnt even have to be that interesting these days - I've got it all worked out, it just has to be about New York, hopefully about the fashion publishing industry and be easily converted into a screenplay featuring Amanda Bines. Everytime I think about this commitment I get very excited. I can see myself up at night, writers glasses on in my underwear with a glass of water and a laptop, breezing through my life-changing new novel. Tonight, I say to myself on the train, tonight I go home and I write. Then the night comes and Im working late, spending 20 minutes on the train, an annoyingly long 15 minutes walking, an hour running, another hour showering, 20 minutes making dinner, 10 minutes cleaning, my glorious 30 minute daily gab with Ericka, 20 minutes downloading hte new Coldplay album and suddenly its 12:15, Im getting up at 7 and instead of my image of myself on the train, Im drinking wine out of a starbucks mug and falling asleep against my bedroom door after writing one measly line, that isnt even that good. This is a great example of how New Yorkers never get bored. And if you ever do, gasp, have the time to even think about being bored, there is the toothpaste you need, the dreaded work-out guilt, Pinkberry, Gossip Girls reruns, brunch dates, things that you forgot to tell your roomate over Gchat that day that you were DYING to tell her, and, when all else fails, SOME kind of bar within a 30 foot radius of your apartment (and a garunteed good one within a half mile radius). Good thing most New Yorkers commute or all newspapers would quickly go out of business. And Barnes and Noble for that matter. Those hot, never bored commuters will just LOVE my new novel...its all about them! Sidenote - not enough New Yorkers recycle their newspapers, magazines and bottles. We really need to work on that... Maybe Ill dedicate my novel to New York's devoted recyclers, 10% of proceeds go to Eco-Cycle in big green letters...

Welcome to the Concrete Jungle: The Beginnings of a Swampy New York Summer

Drowning in split pea soup - you try to scream but your nose and eyes and throat fill up with hot, thick, grainy broth, your limbs try to thrash but they only wave slowly in the stiff broth, you want to close your eyes and just expire but you cant force your lids down over the hot mess covering your entire body. Yep. Thats kind of what its like.

"Heat Wave crashes in to the northeastern seaboard." "New York under fire." "Scorching temps to continue through Tuesday." "New York - Its HOT!"

These are the headlines crammed into subway trash cans, sweat stains running the ink. Walking, standing, talking, eating, no matter what you are doing, you wish you were either sleeping or dead. The whole city waves with heat, runs with sweat, reeks of bloating, humid rot like a corpse in the southern sun. Subway cars blow sticky hot air through molten underground vats of stagnant hot air. The long canyon of Park Avenue fogs with dirty humidity. The City moves slower than usual, struggling to flex its bustling limbs in sweltering wet temperatures. Ugh.

OK ok let me back up. Saturday morning, 8:30 am. Im jammed in a corral with hundreds of other women, waiting to run a 10K. We'd all love to be doing some last minute stretching, but we're packed in back to back behind the start line, listening to the pre-race speeches, waiting and sweating. Looking around at my fellow runners, most of us are looking like we already ran the race - sweat running around our ears and shining on our top lips. None of us had the heart to ask what the current temparature was. We knew we were screwed when we left our apartments and the hot breeze made us sweat harder instead of providing any relief. The gun goes off and we're off and running.

The first few miles are uphill and genereally enjoyable - steady pace, saving the real energy for a big push the last two miles to beat my last 10K time. All around all you hear is clop clop clop of hundreds of feet on the payment, steaming breath, the friction of sweat-drenched nylon reluctantly rubbing together as your shorts stick to your inner thighs. I start my Ipod.

By the time we hit Harlem at 9:15, its somewhere in the 90s, Im sure of it. The whole neighborhood has an industrial yellow haze, like soupy smoke rising from a factory, except its the smog and humidity condensing in the rising sun, souping over the neighborhood, leaving lower Harlem looking juandiced, shabby and spoiled. We turn into the park and the group has hit the normal slow-down around 2.5 miles, accented with heat exhaustion and the weight of our own sweat. We hit another hill and you can almost hear the group of runners groan collectively. My hot and tired body is asking, why, why must I do this??

Around 4 miles the the training kicks in, and just in time. I feel refreshed, energized and steady, comfortable in my pace enough to push it back up to race speed, grounded in my heavy legs, solid in my body's intertia. Im passing people now, hanging round the left side, my favorite spot to be, frinding on the edges of the moving, sweating, flexing mass and bouncing gradually toward the front of my wave. My training helps me make up time on the hills when the rest of the group lags and soon Im back up to 8 minute miles, breathing is fast but easy and Im all warmed up and ready for the finish. This wasn't so bad at all, now was it?

Mile 5. Im a dead weight in the dead, dead heat. The humidity has taken an unexpected turn for the worst, the sun has brought the lower layers of the atmosphere to a boil, leaving central park like an oil bubble in a skillet in between hot lumps of buildings. My time stays almost where it is but now those 8.5 minute miles are labored, beat to death out of my heavy legs and dragged out through this steaming swamp of a park. Breathing is like sucking sand through a straw. Waves of heat rising up from my body's overheating core sindge the backs of my eyeballs and when I emerge from them Im somehow still running, still moving toward the finish line like a ladybug through hot tar. Im not going to stop and walk because, well, I dont want to, but also because it takes too much energy to stop - the law of intertia has set me in perpetual motion until I either reach the finish or pitch forward face first one my thighs run out of glucose.

Mile 5.8. Oh. God. This is awful, terrible, miserable, woe is me and my exhausted body, now just a mass of muscle and guts liquifying in the oven of my thin, deep frying skin. Every once in a while a thought hits me, wait a minute, this is VOLUNTARY?'

Finish line is .2 miles ahead. Normally this is the time to use your last burst of energy and speed to shave off that last half minute. I reach for it...and find that it is 100% not there. My gunpowder is gone and my reserves thrown overboard in sweat by an overheating nervous system. I dont even see the people lining the finish, and I cant even focus on hte clock long enough to see those final seconds. The women around me are falling like flies, red in the faces, dry heaving, swearing. I cross the finish line and my vision shrinks to half. Pass out or vomit, which is it going to be? Out of courtesy to those finishing behind me, naturally, I crash into the portapotty just accross the finish and choose vomit. Well hello first heat wave of the summer.



Heat waves make New Yorkers excessively grouchy. The normal energy that it takes to live life as a New Yorker is now augmented by doing it in 85% humidity. I remember feighning heat exhaustion on those long training runs in Colorado summers, leaving at noon in July, coming back parched and violently grouchy but proud that I could endure such unnecessary suffering. This, I now realize, was silly child's play in comparison to a 7:30 pm run at sunset in the chicken pot pie that is now New York. New Yorkers simply cant shower enough in days like these. The energy it takes to towel dry after a shower is enough in this heat to bring sweat back to your upper lip. The pits of your knees and arms are perpetually sticking with your movements like the back of a curling sticker. And you are just never, ever fully clean. New York in summer is Marc Jacobs on a safari - it might be designer but now its drenched in sweat and reeks of 20 perspiring bodies packed into a subway. Getting dressed up feels like covering a spoilt, rotting dead body with that makeup they put on corpses for funerals. If we could run in between air conditioned buildings we would - but running in this heat is out of the question of course. Did I mention how hot it is?

Sunday I went to Brooklyn to watch the basketball game. Brooklyn is one cool place - Ill have ot write another blog entry about the glories of Brooklyn some other time...but believe me, its just plain cool in every way. The train took nearly 45 minutes to come - heat waves tend to screw the the electrical systems in subways like other forms of extreme weather conditions. 10:30om on a sunday, me and 200 other New Yorkers are sweating it out together on a tiny Union Square underground subway platform, vying for space under the silly little underground ceiling fans, blowing hot air around and finding new ways to express our annoyance without drawing too much attention to ourselves. Ah, new yorker bonding. You would think that because the subway is underground that it would be cooler than above ground. Not so. I think it may have to do with the fact that if you take an underground drainpipe that would normally be cool and fill it with hundreds of warm-bodied, disease carrying rats squirming over each other and emitting however many BTUs of body heat, then its probably enough to raise the temparature of the drain pipe by X amount. In New york of course, the rats are of both rodent and human origin. The train finally comes with ample air conditioning that nearly sends your body into shock, like throwing you from two days in a mid-summer Vietnemese swamp into a fishing hole in an artic lake.

Its a hot Brooklyn night, and the heat has churned up a fiery lightning storm. Im headed down a dark street unknowingly in the wrong direction. As I readjust to being above ground, the usual film of sweat soon recovers my face and my pores prickle as they reopen to the steamy night. Brooklyn, being a little more open than the streets of Manhattan stiflingly cloistered in by tall buildings, feels a little cleaner, a little less oppressive than stinking, steaming, sweating manhattan. The street goes uncomfortably darker - this is definately not 5th avenue. I pass by a spiralling old parish church- tall, spired and black in the molasses hot night, eerie in the lack of street lighting and backlit by a raging lightning storm in the distance, shots of yellow fire igniting the sky as if someone was taking a match to the sweltering, combustable humudity in the air. I somehow felt I had been suddenly transorted into a chapter of The Scarlet Letter, or maybe Heart of Darkness. He saw me before I saw him. Tall, thin, so black he was almost the color of the black church to my right, his head hooded in white. It was the eyes. I saw them from the whole length of the street. Fixed on me, burning, like white orbs in a black whirling sea. He walked slowly, as if in a dream, his eyes fixed on me with a not alltogether human glow. As if he saw only me and didnt see me at all, all at one time. My intuition had been throwing red flags the second i started down this street- now it was setting off flares. If I ran, would he chase me? The closer we came, he and I, the more I didnt like the whif of his presence. My knees refused to bend, the immense heat pressed out on my chest. I held my breath. Just as he reached me, lighting lit up the church behind us. I couldnt stand to look at those eyes up close- I shut my eyes and felt them looking at me sideways as we passed. A man emerged from a nearby building enough to shatter the silence, his front door slamming in the dark enough of a disturbance to allow me, the cornered rat, to scurry from the trap. I ran the rest of the way to 5th avenue, only to reach 3rd. I crossed the street, told myself I was being silly and superstitious, and as punishment for my silly fear, forced myself to walk back the way I came on the other side of the street. Sweat poured down my body and licked my hairline. As I passed the church a second time, I saw a tall, hooded figure in white pacing back toward third avenue - back down the long, spiny black fence of the old parish as if guarding it or confined within in. His arms swinging slowly and purposefully, like the mechanical murder of a beef rancher. He turned his pupilless eyes on me from accross the street. It took me .08 seconds to break into a run, thunder rolling behind the sound of my feet pounding the steaming street.