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#52essays2017/#4
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Tight black mini-skirts with thick-soled clown shoes,
bright red matte lipstick from Ricky’s,
hoops in our ears as big as bicycle spokes
hair slicked back, baby backpacks filled with Marlboro Lights and Wrigley’s wrappers.
In the days of the copper token with the Y,
we huddled in front of the velvet ropes, pushing our friend with high cheekbones to the front,
The one with braces to the back.
$5 cover that’s the highest we’d go
A quick pat down, free drink tickets from the bouncer on the down low.
First ones there, open bar Sticky Mike’s 10-11,
I’ve had it down in my Filofax for a week.
Velour couches, an industrial cafeteria table and no fire exits.
a room with red light bulbs
bathroom stalls with busted locks.
Your girl is holding the door shut with one hand and refreshing her lipstick with the other;
“Oh shit, that’s my jam!” running out to the dance floor,
“The Bridge Is Over, The Bridge Is Over, Biddy-bye-bye...,”
as you form a pile with your shearling coats in the center of your dance circle.
Only amateurs check their coats at $5 clubs
you never know who might be rummaging through that broom closet they call coat check,
you never know when you’ll have to be out because
A) your girl had one too many tequila shots
B) her man who thinks she’s out seeing Friday the 13th unexpectedly shows up
or C) you hear a pa-pa-pa in the air.
You always order vodka straight up at open-bar
cause the mixed drinks are watered down.
You always situate your posse near a group of guys who look like they can and will buy you drinks,
but dance with the cuties that you know can’t and won’t.
When you’ve had enough you tap your friend for the bathroom escape.
You’ll be right back  Mr. “Why-are-you-dancing-in-a-triple-goose down-jacket, when it’s 90 degrees in here?”
He scribbles a telephone #, a pager #, his grandmother’s # where he stays a lot, on the back of a Soul Kitchen flyer, or your old receipt from The Village Cobbler.
sometimes the # ends up on the cab floor on the way home,
sometimes it’s stuffed in your wallet
and on a rare occasion push pinned up on your bulletin board.
It’s 4 AM, there’s always the draggy friend who wants to leave early.
She didn’t meet a guy and she’s sulking on the couch near the bathroom while you say, “Right after this song, I promise.”
Jackpot night is when you meet a guy crew that’s equal in number to your girl crew,
and even if they’re all not cute they buy all your friend’s drinks, drinks, drinks, and ding, ding, ding! have enough weed, weed, weed to pass around.
They roll fat blunts the size of baseball bats
and if you’re lucky enough to be at  Nell’s they order Moet in an ice bucket.
Time to go…
and you realize two of them have fat Jeeps and they offer to drive each and every one of your friends to their doorsteps.
The scent of coconut air-freshener permeates the air and “Outstanding” streams from surrounding speakers.
It’s the best night you’ve had in sooooooo long,
you danced for like two hours straight and had drink after drink, placed in your sweaty palm.
Now resting on leather interior…
A diner???? Yes! Yes! Yes!  We all have munchies!
23rd and 9th, open 24- 7.
We roll up at 5AM,
It’s packed with clubheads and the occasional strange man with a baseball cap, the New York Times and his dog tied up to a meter outside.
Pancakes, cheeseburgers, fries, grilled Swiss on rye, bagels and cream cheese, eggs cooked every style.
You thought the guy you danced with was cute until he orders veal parmesan from a place that has paper placemats with diagrams of cocktails such as a Sloe-Gin-Fizz or a Pink Lady.
Your girlfriend doesn’t finish even half her burger. She’s stuffed.
Skinny bitch, you think and put napkins on your plate to hide the emptiness of yours,
Toothpicks and powdery mints fisted into your purse, now you’re really ready for bed.
The Jeep silent from food coma, the sun coming up,
the busboys running up the N station stairs, bleary eyed yet quick, ready to stock wait stations with ice and fresh milk for the breakfast rush.
Your friend from Queens is staying over.
You’re giggling because she has to pee so bad and you can’t find the right key for the front door.
You’re inside, she clip-clops too loudly in her clogs to the bathroom.
“Shhhhhhh!” your mother turns restlessly on squeaky springs.
You guide your friend through the pitch black hallway to your room. You know every curve and possible toe-stubber like Helen Keller.
Peeling off smoke-saturated black clothes, she asks for a extra-big t-shirt and a hair scrunchie.
Contemplating whether you have the energy to wash your face,
Naaaaaahhhhhhh.
Move over, she’s hogging up your side of the bed,
you say goodnight and dream of what you will wear tomorrow night.
 
The first club I can remember going was “The World”. Off Ave D. This is when the lower east side was shady. The best night was Wednesday night. Hip Hop and Reggae Night. The guy who worked the door wore a coat composed of white feathers, black eyeliner, and a scowl. When he went inside he was replaced by a skinny chick with a Kate moss face, a clipboard and a cigarette that she smoked out of a flapper- like elongated cigarette holder. Seriously. I can’t believe I thought this looked cool but I’ll be damned if this girl couldn’t pull that shit off. 
The door duo gazed out over the shivering crowd, and would point to people in the crowd deemed interesting or beautiful enough to get in.

Luckily my crew had our secret weapon. Myra Nikona.

Myra was the most beautiful, freak of nature girl I’d ever met.
An exotic blend of Japanese, Black and White, she clocked in at about 5’10 with high cheekbones, full lips, jet black hair, and presence so sharp she could cut you with one glare of those perfectly spaced cat-like eyes. 
Gay men, straight men, straight women, lesbians all melted wicked witch style upon laying eyes on her. Like Sade but with attitude and an ass. She stood in her brown shearling, looking like she simply fell out of the pages of Elle Magazine. It would be enough if Myra was simply beautiful but was she was as equally fierce and vivacious. She’d could beat down a dude if she had to and just be the cool bug out chick when need be.

We did not need to explain the drill to Myra.

When we approached the velvet ropes Myra stood in front our posse until she was quickly noticed and waved over. “How many?” they’d ask and we’d strut our way past crews of guys in bubble coats and a few corny private school chicks who thought they’d try their luck. On a generous day Myra would let some boys get in with us.

Crews of boys never got in alone.

Once inside Myra didn’t need to take care of us anymore. We were a crew that could pretty much hold our own. We had every flavor. Myra our exotic goddess, my girl Ray who was another tall beautiful mixed goddess with green eyes, Valerie another more curvy girl Puerto Rican girl,

and me… the chubby Jewish  girl with braces.

But what also made us stand out the most is that we could hang. Hard. Unlike other crews of girls that got fucked up on some pussy shit like a Seabreeze, we could drink and smoke as much as any male crew.
The more underground clubs like Milky Way or Hotel Amazon were mostly in abandoned ground floor school lunchrooms or gyms. Sometimes they had live performances with up and coming hip-hop groups. These groups included Queen Latifah when she had the two backup dancers the" Safari Sisters" and Third Bass.

We went out every Friday and Saturday night without fail even when we were enrolled in early Sunday morning SAT courses. Hung over with remnants of black liner on our lids Ray and I sat glazed among peers who were thinking ahead about scores and college.

This was when the real differences between the different public school students came to light.

The Stuyvesant High School kids were the natural geniuses. They could rock a standardized test tripping on acid. Data just sunk into their pores like those speed-readers in the Guinness Book Of World Records. They are now scientists and authors of award winning blogs about global warming.

Bronx Science kids were super smart with a conscience. They partied but they had to work hard for their grades. They possessed this thing I knew nothing of called :priorities.  They went out only on weekends, and stayed home Sunday afternoons to study and write college essays, rather than eat chicken Lo Mien and puff blunts in Chinatown watching King Fu flicks. 

LaGuardia and Humanities kids were pretty much neck and neck in terms of getting completely getting fucked up and pushing the boundaries. We all had the potential to do really well, but lacked discipline.
But Humanities?  They really went the extra mile. They were already club promoters and shit at 16. 

And I don’t think many of us saw having the traditional go away and live in a dorm story. Why? There was so much right here in NYC.  But there was more than Clubs keeping me in NYC.

​You see I didn’t even know if I wanted to go to college. In my senior year upon visting colleges with my mom, I went to visit University of Maryland and noticed all the white people sat at one table, and all the black people at another.  So wack!  Ray said I should apply to Howard, but my Mom said, “There are some limits, Vanessa.”

​#52essays2017/#3
 
In the 90’s Under The Stairs was an Upper West Side Bar & Grill that served as nightlife to all the neighborhood drug dealers. It wasn’t your usual bar employed with aspiring actors and dancers but rather was filled with old time career bartenders, friends of the boss, and South Americans new to NYC.

I somehow managed to get hired for a waitressing stint.

It was owned by a short, pinstriped- suit–wearing, flirty Ecuadorian man named Miguel who had an annual pool party for the employees in his New Jersey home every summer. My uniform consisted of a white tuxedo shirt, black pants and a royal blue bow tie. The men ordered bottles of Moet, rum and cokes, and Johnny Walker Black straight up. The women ordered Amaretto Sours, White Russians, Orgasm shots and Sex On The Beach. The restaurant bathroom was a constant in and out of coke sniffing patrons, while on Sundays the place transformed into an after church lobster spot. 

Miguel was ambitious.

We were in the middle of the Gulf War. The television a constant stream of tanks and missiles. The jukebox favorites were Madonna’s “Justify My Love”, Lisa Stanfield’s “Been around the world”, Sinead O’Conner’s  “Nothing Compares To You,” and my favorite, Earth Wind and Fire’s” Reasons”, which I played at the beginning of every shift.

The employee- friendly policy at Under The Stairs  was; if someone walked out on your check you were responsible for the money, making us waitress/ security guard. My first week I emerged from the kitchen with extra blue cheese dressing ramekins to find an empty table, empty Moet bucket, and strewn napkins on my five top that seven rowdy guys had been sitting at. I went home with no tips; even with a discount Miguel had given me on the Moet. 

The next day this big fat guy they called Cabeza, (who did have a particularly big head) came up to me “You went to P.S. 166 right? Yeah, I think my little brother Tone was in your class.” I remembered Tone. We sat next to each other in 3rd grade. He was a lefty and I was a righty and we’d get annoyed because our elbows always bumped. “I heard you got mad jerked last night. I’m real sorry preciosa, some guys don’t know how to act. You let me know if anyone fucks with you again. Aiight?”

Word.

With Cabeza as my newfound bodyguard I didn’t have any more knuckleheads walking out on my checks, but the scandalous vibe at Under The Stairs demanded more than just getting by.

​ I had to get my hustle on.

I don’t even remember how it actually began, but I somehow befriended  Diana a friend of Cabeza’s. I think it was because I always remembered she liked extra cherries in her Amaretto sour. Without a reminder, I’d bring them to her on a tiny bread plate. Diana was older than me, wore strappy high heels and short dresses, ordered baked clams and smoked Virginia Slims. She lived in the projects on 93rd street dubbed  “Nam”, (short for Vietnam.)
Diana had really amazing legs and pretty narrow feet, but no ass or waist. I had a waist and an ass but thick legs and flat feet.   As the story always goes, Diana wanted an ass and a waist and I wanted amazing legs. She would tell Cabeza “look at that, she’s got an nice ass for a white girl.” And then she’d twirl me around in my stupid little tuxedo outfit.  I’d always be wearing the tightest jeans I could sausage myself into, cause as all waitresses know, if you have to wear a uniform, you WILL find SOMEWAY to hype that shit up.

Diana worked those gams of hers like nobody’s business.  Clicking her way into “The Stairs” every Friday night. I admired the way she walked in heels, and was fascinated with the way she managed to flirt and put all the guys in their place at the same time. She was probably only 24 but at that time it seemed a lot older to me. She had a son Brandon, which she showed me a picture of in a little plastic cylinder on a Great Adventure keychain that you squinted your eye to look through.  When I went to her house I also saw she also had a photo of him on a huge button that said  #1 MOM propped up on her mirror. She introduced me to Brandon as “Titi Vanessa “and I never felt so special.

Diana and I never discussed the hustle. it just happened. I would bring her and her girls rounds of Amaretto sours, not charge them and they gave me a phat tip at the end of the night. This was before all bars had computer systems so we just called out our drinks and hand wrote the tally on a bill that the bartender Ricky would then ring up on an old clunky register. It didn’t take long before Ricky figured out my scam and then (again all unspoken) I was forced to tip him extra as well. Diana’s table began to multiply weekly until there was a whole little crew that requested to sit in my section.
 
I was running shit.

​Diana had one friend Lucy that seemed annoyed that Diana  liked me so much.  I understood enough Spanish to translate, “Why you always hanging with this white girl?“  But then one night I got stoned with them after my shift and made her pee in her pants laughing  when I did my Yoda and Charo imitation.














































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From then on she fuckin loved me.

​Aside from Under The Stairs and Copa, another bar Diana liked to hang at was a bar uptown in the heights; Coogans. Eventually she invited me to come up with her and Cabeza, and the rest of the crew. Coogans, was a local bar known for being a favorite among cops. It was there that I sampled my first and last coolie. A cigarette laced with cocaine.

I   started seeing a cop Manny until one day I got a message on my home answering machine from a girl telling me, “I don’t who the fuck you are Va-nes-sa, but you better back the fuck up off my man, Va-nes-sa.” She kept breaking up my name into syllables as if was it were an alias.
So as you can see it was a charming little scene, but that didn’t deter Diana, Lucy and I from consistently going up to Coogans, getting wasted, then calling La Familia Car service to get back down to the Upper West Side.

Diana was like me; a heavyweight drinking champion.  Lucy was one of those girls who couldn’t handle her liquor. And even worse was that Lucy was one of those girls who seemed to always forget this important fact. Always trying to keep up with the champions, she’d do shots and end up in the bathroom over the toilet, Diana and I taking turns holding her hair back.But there was always that one golden hour before Lucy got sick that we’d all be in that perfect fucked up zone dancing, the ways girls do with each other when they want men to notice them, but also want act like they don’t need guys to have a good time. 

One steamy Thursday night I was chillin at Coogans with Diana & Lucy, We were sitting at the bar enjoying free lemon shots when all of a sudden Diana jumped up from her stool. “Oh no, he’s got to be fuckin buggin. That motherfucker thinks he’s gonna come to my spot with some fuckin hoe.” That motherfucker turned out to be Leo, her son’s dad. I had seen pics of Leo before but had never met him cause he had moved to Miami a year ago.  “Oh shit, its on,” said Lucy as I watched Leo and a skinny blond with big tits walk into Coogans and sit at a table. The skinny blond was clearly not a New Yorker and looked out of place among the curvy, dark haired  world she had entered. Everything from that moment on went very quickly. I remember feeling that pit in my stomach that one has right before some shit is about to go down. That slow motion moment of " I’m going into to survival mode” as I suddenly saw Diana pounce onto Leo. For some reason I had expected her to pounce the blond chick, but Diana lunged for him, which in turn had the blond chick pounce on Diana, which then had Lucy and I pulling on the girl. I remember seeing Diana’s beautiful face looking wild and that the blond chick was wearing a red bra that Lucy yanked at. I remember being impressed that my instinct was to defend. I remember being impressed that Lucy sobered up and she managed to get the blond chick off Diana. Then the bouncer got to us and broke the whole thing up. Leo started screaming at Diana and then argued with the bouncer who was making them leave. The blond chick adjusted her big fake Miami titties in her red bra and tried to regain her exposure.

The craziest part was when they left we all sat our asses right back in our seats, smoothed our hair, applied lipstick and went on with our evening while Diana recounted the drama. “Did you see that stringy white girl’s face? Ill smack that bitch right back to the trailer park she came from.” Did they have trailer parks in Miami? Who cared, We all laughed holding high court as the bouncer had clearly chosen us as the Coogan’s Queens. I could tell Diana was upset but she comforted herself in entertaining us, her eager audience, dissing Leo and the girl, sayin how they looked like fools being kicked out. And as she dissed that stringy haired trailer park white girl, somehow my being a white girl never came up. In its natural journey my identity was more importantly; New Yorker, a brunette with real little  titties, Diana’s girl who had her back, A Coogan’s queen, and definitely not a trailer park bitch.
 
In the Fall I quit Under The Stairs telling Miguel I needed to focus more on school. This was total bullshit of course, but when windy October came, Under The Stairs was getting really lame. I was thinking about getting a job in the village, maybe near 8th street. As a professional hang out girl I felt it important to work on my social resume.

​So as the quickly as my hot and heavy friendship with Diana and Lucy began, it then trailed out. I think Brenda and I called each other once or twice, but without Under The Stairs our friendship dissolved.  Not in a bad way, but in that young way, that New Yorker way, that party girl way, that get lost in the shuffle of the big city way, with new adventures, new guys, new jobs.

It’s the natural course of social evolution in these parts.

I bumped into Diana once years later with her son at Sal’s pizza on 94th and Broadway. She was still sporting those heels and hot legs and we laughed about old times. Her son was now tall and gangly, in that awkward, sullen pre-teen stage where he chewed on a soda straw and looked away while we bugged out. She smacked his arm, “Papi, you remember Vanessa?”  She used to come over when you were real little.” He shrugged, and I felt sad that Diana and I lost touch and I had missed so many years. He probably had met tons of her friends, friends that had given him birthday presents and come by year after year. Friends he now called “titi.”

As we parted I told Diana I was going to start taking acting classes in the village. She said considering my Yoda and Charo imitations, she thought I’d be real good at that.
 
 
 

​#52essays2017/#2
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Growing up there were two times I was inexplicitly told to not disturb my mother. When Masterpiece Theatre was on, and when she hosted group therapy sessions in our living room. I was instructed to stay in my bedroom until these events were over. The only time I disobeyed was when I felt it imperative to inform her that I had chicken pox in my vagina. I had seen the scene in The Exorcist where Linda Blair pees on the floor in front of the dinner guests, and I felt this was a close dramatic second.
 
My mother told me group therapy sessions were where grownups discussed their feelings and got “support.” Hiding by the staircase I strained to hear people’s “feelings.” Men and women on folding chairs, circled around our glass coffee table talking  in flat tones. Every once in a while there would be a sniffle, and a box of tissues would get passed around like the hot potato game. Occasionally there would be a big hearty group laugh, which I found very disconcerting.
 “Mommy, why were people laughing at someone’s feelings?? That’s so mean! “
 “Sometimes we have to create humor in the face of grief”, quipped my mother clearing away the coffee urn.
 
It was then and there I learned I was a Jew.
 
My mother believed in expressing feelings. My father did not. At the age of eight my parents sat my sister and I down to announce my father was leaving us for a woman he taught with. Folklore says I broke into a full fledged Oscar worthy performance. “You are breaking up our perfect family,” I screamed. I didn’t think we had a perfect family but I had watched a lot of television and this seemed like the appropriate thing to say. My father never forgave me for that night. For years after he muttered, “You are just like your mother. Overdramatic”.
 
After my father left I fell into deep bouts of sadness and considered asking my mother if I could join the therapy group. Some days I would get so overwhelmed with rage that my mother would give me stacks of newspaper to rip up to get out my “feelings”. The ink turned my hands black and blue and I felt better.
 
I was sensitive. After watching the scene in The Lord of the Flies where Piggy gets killed by a boulder, I had a complete meltdown. My mother sat me down and explained to me that Piggy was played by an actor, and that right now he was most likely at Burger King eating a Whopper. The image of Piggy eating a Whopper at Burger King was so comforting  that I used it every time I couldn’t separate reality from make believe.
 
My father had no idea what to do with me and my sister when his court assigned dates came up. He took us to grownup movies he wanted to see like “Silent Partner”, in which the opening scene depicts a decapitated head in a fish tank. Next he took us to “Kramer vs. Kramer” the saddest fuckin film on divorce ever made. My mother was livid. She set me up with more newspaper and put on the “Free To Be You and Me” album. I loved Free to Be You And Me. It talked a lot about feelings.
 
By fifth grade I took to sitting on my windowsill, closing the wooden shutters around me listening to Lionel Richie.  I would write the names of boys I liked in hearts in pencil, and erase them after my crying sessions.
 
My father stopped taking us to the movies and married his mistress.
 
At fourteen I wrote a poetry book in English class titled “My Talkative Pen.” 

​Heres an uplifting entry:

My father read  “My Talkative Pen” and was  disturbed. My mother and teacher thought it was fantastic. He called my mother and complained about me as if he he wanted a refund. My mother held her ground. “Harold. Vanessa is expressing her feelings!”
​Truth is, I was completely aware of what I was doing. If he had bothered to read the preface he might of understood.
 






































​In my early 20’s I went to see my first therapist. I got accepted to a NYU program where I was to work with a therapist in training. Participants paid a cheap sliding scale fee, but the catch was I had to go to sessions three times a week. I hated it. An older man in khakis and orthopedic shoes wanted me to lie down on the couch and talk about my father. I wanted to talk about why boys I liked always disappeared. My therapist and every therapist after assured me this was connected. I remained stubborn and spent numerous sessions refusing to talk. This was not what I expected.
 
When the NYU program was over I was more fucked up then when I started. I hated my therapist and my father. I dated boys who were unreliable and cocky. My adolescent crying sessions turned into heavy blankets of sadness that my future therapists labeled “depression.”
 
My depression hit its high point when I moved to Rhode Island to get my MFA at an acting conservatory. Every presentation or assignment that was criticized sent me under the heavy depression blanket. Competition gave me anxiety. Soon I had chronic insomnia and stopped getting my period.
 
I found a new therapist in Rhode Island named Debbie D’Agostino. Like the supermarket chain. I really liked Debbie. She offered dieting tips and convinced me walking was great exercise if you clenched your butt muscles and pumped your arms. She asked me if ever considered taking anti-depressants. I remembered my mother had once had a  boyfriend from group therapy that had taken Prozac and claimed it saved his life. I was game. Debbie was so un-Jewey and upbeat that she could convince me of anything.
 
Debbie had to send me to the kind of therapist that could legally prescribe medication. A psychiatrist. Soon I learned the drill. The therapist you talked to about all your shit, and the psychiatrist you checked in with every few months to convince them you were still fucked up enough to get your refill but not fucked up enough to jump off a bridge under their care.
 
My first month on anti- depressants I called my mother and asked her if this is how “normal” people feel all the time? I couldn’t get over how light I felt without the blanket. How I was able to deal with daily tasks without getting overwhelmed and crawling into bed. I felt like my brain had turned from a garden of weeds into a budding zucchini patch. My sadness for the first time felt bearable.
 
I spent the next 10 years on medication.
 
I never discussed my medication with anyone except my family. Even my grandmother took something to keep the edge off. One time I made the mistake of confiding in a girlfriend who didn’t even believe in taking Advil. She looked at me like I’d been duped. “Anti-Depressants are a conspiracy from the pharmaceutical companies to keep you addicted. It’s a crutch! You just need to meditate”.
 
I convinced my therapist and psychiatrist that I needed a medication break. I was a great actress and it worked.
When the heavy blanket came back I mediated. When the weeds cropped up I told myself I needed to be stronger.
I tried to rip newspapers and think of Piggy eating the Whopper. Nothing worked. I was drowning. 
 
I reluctantly went back on my medication and never told my friend. Or anyone ever again. It scared the shit out of me that I felt better. It felt like the medication fixed a busted fuse. I stopped fighting my brain even when Tom Cruise told the world people like me should take vitamins instead. 
 
Up until the week my father passed away, he accused me of me being overdramatic. I visited him more in the hospital, then I did when he was healthy. When I tried to say goodbye to him on his deathbed, he shushed me and told me I was getting myself  all worked up for nothing. I didn’t flinch.
 
I must have looked like my mother sitting there so full of feelings.
 
My father was so scared of feelings.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

#52essays2017 / #1
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When I was 38 I ran away from home.
 
I was done with New York men and their lack of passion and mystery. I wanted to ride on the back of a Vespa in a hiked up maxi dress. I wanted to chain smoke cigarettes at an outdoor café with slow service. I wanted to fall in love with a boy with stubble and an accent in my ancestor’s homeland.
 
So I did what American Jewish girls do at 16..
I booked a trip to Israel.
 
A friend of mine connected me with his friend Lior, who had a spare bedroom. I stalked Lior on Facebook prior to my trip and decided we would make a fantastic couple. He was Moroccan, a writer, spoke 3 languages, and loved Hip Hop. The first humid night I dragged my luggage into his basement apartment, we made out after smoking hookah. I never spent a night in the spare bedroom. Lior had a Vespa, a cute little dog and wrapped Teffilin around his arm in prayer every morning. My plan was falling into place exactly as I had imagined.
 
I was on my way to becoming a Sephardic bride.
 
Things first began to fall apart on my first Shabbat. I got lost on my way back from the market to get groceries for dinner. I have a very poor sense of direction no matter how many times I take a route. I had tried to make visual breadcrumbs for myself on the way, blue car on my right, playground on my left, but got confused because there were no street numbers. The streets were deserted and it was starting to get late. I had to make it back in time for food to be prepared prior to sundown. This is what Sephardic Brides do. My finger creases burned from the weight of the plastic grocery bags, sweat poured down my brow.
 
I thought of my father. How when I was nine he scrawled a map and a compass on a napkin to teach me the avenues of the Upper West Side. I was going to visit a friend on 96th and Broadway and he insisted I was old enough to go alone. I made it as far as 96th and Amsterdam before crying and calling my mother from a payphone.
My father was irritated  “For crying out loud, you were almost there. You just needed to go one more block west! ” 
 
Since then I always let men read maps for me.
 
I called Lior from my cell phone and he came to find me on the Vespa. He was annoyed. I was a mere 2 blocks away.
 
That night at dinner his sister asked me how old I was. I lied and told her I was 35.
Lior’s friends stopped by and he told them how I got lost in Hebrew. Everyone laughed. So fuckin American. It was then discovered I had bought the Pareve Nutella instead of the dairy version that I was instructed to, because I couldn't read the label.
 
The next day we went to he beach to meet more friends. We bumped into a gaggle of girls and Lior didn’t introduce me. My thighs flabby and pale, we planted a blanket smack in the middle of the scorching beach. I disappeared to the bar.  No one noticed.  I met a soldier and told him I wrote poetry in New York City. He was impressed. I got lost again trying to find my way back to Lior and the blanket.
 
When we got back to house it became evident I had gotten a terrible sunburn. Large red splotches covered my stomach and back. Lior told me I was the “whitest Sephardic girl he was ever with. “
“Half –Sephardic” he corrected himself. It was true. My sister had gotten our Syrian side’s olive skin and black wavy hair, while I inherited the Russian peachy hue with a mysteriously gentile nose.
 
My plan was slowly crumbling.
 
The following Shabbat I ate a picnic floor dinner with a friend from New York who subletted an apt near the beach. I talked about Lior excessively. When I came back from the kitchen with another bottle of Kosher wine, she looked weary. “I mean… even if he was all into you, what would you do, drop your whole career at 38 and move to Israel?? And you aren’t religious. I mean you wrote a poem titled He Fucked Me Like Brooklyn?? “
 
“Don’t tell him about that” I snapped. I didn’t care about New York and my career. I wanted to be a nice, fertile Jewish girl who made Shakshuka and didn’t get lost on Shabbat. I wanted an elder to stain henna on my hands and to bake in the sun with my people. I wanted a rabbi to bless my head under a Chuppa and make my father proud.
My poems, my wild performances, my one-night stands, seemed so insignificant. So wasteful.
 
I did not know myself the last few weeks in Israel. Trying to make someone love you is the most unattractive of actions, and trying to make yourself something you aren’t is the saddest. I lost ten pounds trying to shrink into something pure. I risked traveling to occupied territory in Bethlehem to pray for a husband. I got lost in the fruit market and had a mere child guide me back to a McDonalds.
 
It was just too fuckin late for me to be a Sephardic bride.
 
Back in New York, I resumed to what I do best. My gay husband gave me a makeover and I threw myself into performing. I painted henna on my own hand because I was a Sephardic goddess. I gained back my curves and broke the Yom Kippur fast early.
 
I was back.
 
I met a man who didn’t even know what Sephardic was. We talked about old New York and cable news. Lior came to visit and looked pale. He got lost on the D train and ended up on Tremont Ave. He rewrote history and remembered that summer as a “blast.” I cringed to remember myself the emotional peasant. I sharpened my fangs and told him I hope finds a good Sephardic bride. I wasn’t angry anymore, now content in my blasphemy.
 
His last day on Shabbat I swiftly guided him to synagogue with a subway map that I read him, right off the top of my head.
 
 

* Sephardic Jews are the Jews of Spain, Portugal, North Africa and The Middle East and their descendants.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

LaGuardia High School Part 1
 
In 1984, Music & Art High School (“the castle”) in Morningside Heights and Performing Arts High School in Hell’s Kitchen merged as one in a spanking new building behind Lincoln Center, now called Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of the Arts. These were the schools that were the inspiration for the movie “Fame.” My claim to coolness among the Long Island Jews in sleep-away camp was being introduced as “Vanessa who went to the ‘Fame’ school.”
 
To keep consistent with every other venture I had embarked on in my life, I entered LaGuardia mere moments after its heyday. The now forever lost, original Music & Art loomed above the new freshman class like a reminiscent Woodstock. The upper classmen that had been transferred, thus unwillingly torn from their original artistic wombs, buzzed incessantly about the “good ole days” uptown. Refusing to use the newly coined name LaGuardia, insisting they still went to Music & Art or Performing Arts. They scoffed at the new school’s modern architecture. It held little charm compared to the Gothic Music & Art building. And now, two rival institutions came together: musicians, singers, and artists vs. the dance and drama majors.
 
Unlike Elementary and Junior High school, we were now in a school not dictated by home zone. LaGuardia was an audition based artistic utopia worthy of long train from the depths of every borough.
 
We were the Kings and Queens of Baptist choirs, J.A.P.’s who scored the lead of Annie in summer camp, violin players who donned neck welts from hours of rigorous rehearsing, ballerinas on point from the age of three, loners who drew Captain Marvel masterpieces with a number 2 pencil and thespians who dreamed of being on General Hospital. All here to sing and dance on lunchroom tables and “Make it Forever.”
 
We said goodbye to our Junior High friends who were going to Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science and Humanities, the all coveted ones who made it into Stuyvesant and the few Benedict Arnolds that transferred to private school.
 
Let me introduce you to the now aspiring stars strutting the halls, fighting for who could be the loudest, most dramatic, freakishly unique and ultra talented.
 
The Hard Core Punk Rockers
Girls and guys sporting pink, green and yellow mohawks spiked with Crisco, an abundance of black eyeliner, black torn jeans with a surplus of safety pins, Doc Martin combat boots (they were only ones who could get away with the tall maroon ones with black laces) and t-shirts sporting bands like The Sex Pistols and The Dead Kennedys. Highly prone to acne.
 
The Ska People
Boys who wore porkpie fedora hats like the Blues Brothers, black or grey dress pants, oversized dark blazers, “creeper” shoes and lots of check pattern things. Some got so carried away that they went as far as to have Alice in Wonderland-esque stop watches dangling out of their pockets and carried antique flasks. The girls had bangs, short mini skirts, tights with the black combat boots and matte red lipstick. If done well, this look was very attractive. They listened to The Specials.
 
The Antique Boutique-ers
An off shoot of the Ska people except they delved into more colorful attire, busting out paisley and Hawaiian prints, and seersucker fabrics that resembled canasta players in old school beach clubs with kidney shaped swimming pools. They listened to The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs, Depeche Mode and any songs that had that annoying British surfer sound. “Yesterday I got so old I felt like I could die. Yesterday I got scared I shivered like a child.” They secretly enjoyed some top 40 and hip hop, but were fearful of being considered “posers.” Probably the most racially diverse clique on the scene.
 
The Antique Boutique Female Components
The only clique I felt I had a good shot at Freshman year. Sometimes looked like  cast members of “Grease,” adorning poodle skirts, neck scarves and pearl button down letter sweaters. On other days they were 1920’s flappers in string dangling dresses, or classic movie stars in faux rabbit stoles. Tripping over floor length taffeta dresses on staircases, maybe adding a little hat with black netting and accessorizing with a beaded evening clutch in one hand and a knapsack in the other. Rubber bracelets trailed up arms, and during the Madonna days there was even a brief parading of lace gloves and splashes of neon earrings. Favorite group U2. Former Yaz fans. Bought shoes at The Village Cobbler.
 
The Heavy Metal Crew
Guys: long hair (sometimes feathered in layers) form fitting jeans, cowboy boots and either gorgeous or pimply faces - no in between. Females were pretty much the same style. They usually had huge boobs and no asses. Big weed heads. Mostly white. Listened to Led Zeppelin. Always in long-term relationships.
 
The Dance Majors
Girls with hair in tight buns, very pretty, stud earrings and those plastic looking sweatpants rolled down. Lots of them named Jasmine and Andre. They wore flash-dancey cropped shirts and tights, even to Social studies. Walked with that dancer’s waddle (looked overly exaggerated if you ask me) super cliquey, sometimes tried to branch out in fashion but never looked relaxed out of dance clothes. All smoked cigarettes but couldn’t handle liquor or weed. In short… perfect, but kinda boring on the hangout tip.
 
The Hip Hop / R&B’rs
Acid wash jeans, gold “door knockers”, dolphin or “shrimp” earrings, name plate necklaces and rings, sheepskin jackets dyed pink or blue, fake Louis Vuitton and Gucci bags, track suits with matching sneakers, Gazelle glasses and Kangols. Too many hairstyles to go through but extensions, perms, flat tops, gumbys and waves were popular. Baby hairs brushed down with a toothbrush, “Pink Hair Lotion” was a staple in purses. Listened to LL Cool J, Slick Rick, New Edition, Bismarck, El DeBarge and Prince.
 
The Renaissance Fair inspired Drama Majors
Girls in long patchwork or velvet skirts with dangly tassels and macramé satchels, which I always imagined were filled with marbles! Long sleeve leotards (the v-neck Saturday Night Fever cut). The guys wore Theatre Festival quoted t-shirts from Maine and The Berkshires. The females were usually large hipped with pretty faces and long hair to their waist that was in need of a good trim. They might have necklaces or journals with that annoying “comedy / tragedy” mask. They looked forward to nothing other than playing Beatrice in “Much Ado about Nothing” or Medea, as they were serious about being actresses for purely the art of it. They sat on the floor a lot, braided each other’s hair and conducted “massage trains.” They read books by Theatre guru Uta Hagen, played hackey-sack and practiced stage combat in the hallways. (Jennifer Aniston was one of these.) I want to say they listened to Annie Lenox or Alphaville, but this is unconfirmed.
 
And lastly of course…

The Gospel Chorus/Church Queens & Kings
Girls who dressed in yellow bell shaped skirts, blouses, pantyhose and matching patent leather heels. Guys wore satiny textured button downs, slacks and dress shoes and used briefcases as book bags. Usually named Desmond or Marlon. Amazing singers. Fierce, sassy and confident. Sang in hallways, listened to Levert, Luther Vandross, Shirley Murdock and The Winans. Believed the only white woman that could sing was Tina Marie.
 
My friend Gloria was a Gospel Chorus/ Church Queen/ R&B hybrid.  A first soprano, her voice was so high she could hit a high C with no warm- up. Gloria lived in a house in St. Albans Queens which required a train and a bus commute to LaGuardia. Gloria was the biggest New Edition fan in the entire world, but the focus of her intense fan-ship lay in the lead singer Ralph Tresvant, who she referred to as “her husband.” Her love for Ralph was so deep that I was convinced Gloria whole-heartedly believed she might actually meet and marry him. I admired the kind of fan she was. I used to be that way about Michael Jackson, but he was so “junior high school” and I had caved into peer pressure, rolling my eyes when my mother asked why I took down my beloved poster of him in his chick-yellow vest and bowtie. My greatest childhood memory was when I got the “Off The Wall” album for finding the afikomen at Passover. I used to read Michael’s biographies and have my mother test me on his life. “What is the name of Michael’s pet llama?” she’d ask. “Louis!” Gloria was loyal like this, and didn’t care what anyone thought. She’d trot the halls in her yellow patent leather heels with her Minnie Mouse voice, constructing her entire life around Ralph. Her love for him, similar to mine with Michael, was not sexual.  It was cuddly and akin to that of an imaginary friend in a tree house. I just wanted to be best friends with Michael and browse through his walk- in closets. Possibly eat ice cream and take a privileged stroll through his petting zoo. Then retreat to the mansion where we would sit in his home theatre with his chimp Bubbles and watch the long version of the “Thriller” video. I’d prod him as to why he never made a video for my favorite song, “She’s Out of My Life.” I’d tell him about how I would so ever gently pick up the record player needle to rewind the part of the song, where if you listen carefully enough, you can hear his muffled sobs. How I understood when pain “cuts like a knife.” Michael would confide in no one but me. He’d fly me home in his jet, and would frequently call to check in, telling me not to worry that no one believed that we were best friends. And one day he would simply show up at my Junior High school in his limo to pick me up and I’d turn to Rachel Blumberg and say calmly, “I told you so.”
 
Gloria understood this connection with all her heart. She’d rush home after school to tape any New Edition videos from Video Music Box. She collected every issue of Black Beat and Fresh magazine, and could only hope and pray that Ralph would be singled out for a solo shot. Gloria could relate to how I’d once had my mother take me down to the Waldorf Astoria to leave a letter for Michael Jackson with the concierge. But Gloria’s game plan was much more sophisticated than mine had ever been. Like an air traffic control operator, she had a United States map and lit pushpins following New Edition’s tour dates. She once went as far as to take a bus to Lake George on a freezing Saturday morning to wait outside a stadium gate to meet Ralph. When I confessed my Michael Jackson obsession to Gloria she gave me a blurry photo her brother had taken of Michael behind a velvet rope in Disney World. She made me feel the texture of the photo paper and turned it over to point out the Kodak stamp on the back. “See… it’s a real photo!”
 
While all my friends and I were entering our rebellious “We’re so over it.” phase, Gloria was a splash of innocence and fun. Truth be told, I was struggling in my wannabe Antique Boutique existence. I never quite mastered the look. I was starting to resemble Eliza Doolittle. More importantly, I didn’t feel that I belonged with the Antique Boutiques. As much as I tried to listen to my Violent Femmes album, I had the uncontrollable urge to put on LL Cool J’s “Rock the Bells,” and  Gloria could simply not understand why white people wore second hand clothes and sat on the ground.
 
I started to hang out with Gloria and her friends more. This adjustment meant that after school I had to walk back and forth from the “white side” to the “black side” of the school.  Different races did overlap, but in general, there was a clear visual split between the two sides of the building. On the black side we listened to Dana Dane, smoked Newports and weed in blunts. On the white side we played hacky sack, smoked Marlboros, Merit or Camel Lights and weed in pipes. On the black side I was known as “white girl Vanessa” and on the white side, I was known for hanging with lots of “homeboys.”
At this point my dialect became a montage of words from the two different worlds. “Awesome, cool, it’s totally beat, let’s jet, fly, dis, dag, fresh, let’s squash this, dude! He’s got juice, mad beef, no way!”
 
Being the “artsy” school that we were, we treated any occasion as an opportunity to compete to be seen and heard. Loudly. We relished in various “dress up days” declared by the senior class president. Hat day, tie day… I think we even had “All White” attire parties before P-Diddy ever started doing them. Using them all as perfectly valid holidays to justify cutting music theory class. But of course, no day compared to the almighty HALLOWEEN!!! In LaGuardia we started planning our Halloween costumes in July. This was our Debutante Ball. The art students, who had the advantage of working with paper maché and sculpture, were the most adept and grand with their costumes.  One year a guy came as the Keebler Elf, building an exact full size replica of the Keebler hut on top of his father’s car. His father drove up Amsterdam Ave, while his elf son in elf garb handed out Keebler elf cookies from his elf post. A trio once came as “The Crest Toothpaste Team,” complete with a huge handmade toothpaste and toothbrush.
 
The vocal and drama majors were more into characterization along with precision of costume. Three guys once came as the TV show “What’s Happening” crew of Rog, Dwayne and Rev Run, played basketball in the cafeteria and committed to staying in character all day. A 6’3’’ drag queen once came as Diana Ross in a floor length sequined gown. My two friends and I were Donald Duck’s nephews, Huey Dewey and Louie, with orange tape on swimming flippers and white garbage bags as diapers.
 
And lastly, the dance students who struggled to look “silly,” managed to risk drawing cat whiskers on their faces and don black construction paper cat ears glued on a headband. Our teachers gave in and knew not to expect much of us on Halloween. Classes were cut and we all knew which bathroom we could go to smoke and drink cheap Georgi vodka out of water bottles.
 
While other high school students might practice their debauchery outside the premises at lunch or between classes, we at LaGuardia were virtual prisoners in our new, still under construction modern building. There might have been a chance for outdoor lunchtime, but our school was directly across the street from Martin Luther King High School. The rough and tumble school that had no patience for our artistic expression. After a number of hair pulling fights, hacky sack interceptions and egg throwing episodes, one of the schools had to have lunch privileges revoked. Us Laguardians, being the more sensitive of the two, were sequestered in the building from morning to afternoon. Our attendance was marked by check-points with electronic plastic ID cards, our virtual Metrocard entrance to school. Once your ID was recorded in the system like airport security, there was no turning back. Martin Luther King students taunted us, basking in the sunshine while we stared down from sealed windows.
 
But some Laguardians planned their uprising. They refused to be considered punks because they went to an arts school. Representing their boroughs, they patiently waited ‘til 3 o’clock to show Martin Luther King students what a saxophone player from East New York was all about.
 
Stay tuned for LaGuardia Part 2 coming soon…

​Blame it on Great Neck.
Great Neck, Long Island.  
The Bat-Mitzvah Mecca.
My public-school -teacher parent’s… worst nightmare.

It’s 1983. I’m at Robin Silverstein’s Bat- Mitzvah. Robin spelled with an “i”, not to be confused with the Robyn spelled with a “y”.

I’m wearing a Gunney -Sax white princess dress, lavender Chinese slippers and Maybelline’s Frosted Brownie lipstick. It looks like I just took a bite into a powdered donut …or did a big 8 ball of blow.
My father drove me here and bitched about the traffic the whole way up. He is distressed that I now have so many friends in Long Island. But he sent me to Jewish Y sleep away camp, and there are only two of us from New York City. I don’t think it’s fair that Long Islander’s call themselves New Yorkers. Great Neck is very clean. They have pink stores that sell big rainbow pillows, and stickers. I love stickers. I have a sticker collection, in a photo album. Stickers of ice cream sundaes, unicorns, hearts and ballet slippers. My friend Josh Walberg says sticker collections are “JAPPY.” You don’t ever want to be called a J.A.P.  I’m more of a roller disco queen. I try to walk the J.A.P. walk, but my mother refuses to pay for an alligator sewn on a shirt, when the one with a tiger is cheaper. So I get “LE TIGRE” shirts from WINGS on 96th and Broadway. I like them best when they still have the creases from the cardboard folder. I’m also too chubby for Guess Jeans, which is probably for the best because my mother says they are nothing but overpriced jeans with a triangle on the tush. I wear corduroys called “Prime Cuts”, because they have elastic around the waist, and as mom says “they’re roomy on the thighs”.

I want to like camp but I hate it. Being fat in the NY public school system is one thing, but being fat in Jewish Y Sleep away Camp is a mini death wish.

I’m a popular fat girl. Which means I’m friends with all the prettiest girls, and all the guys are best friends. The boys want to consult with me day and night. They all talk to me about my girlfriend’s that they like. I’m like a little teenage therapist.

My mother says I’m very verbal. One time I was talking so much that a bee flew straight into my mouth, and stung me right inside my cheek. When I was five my father tried to get me into this alternative public school for smart kids. I scored incredibly high on the verbal section, especially when I told the lady she was a “riot”. “You’re a riot,” I kept saying, “You’re a riot!” And then I blew her away when I mentioned her blouse was “absolutely stunning”, which she thought was a very mature compliment for a five year old.  My mother was beaming. But when it came to the logic section, I had a short circuit breakdown. They had me fitting shaped blocks into their congruent slots. I kept trying to squeeze the triangle into the circle. They carried me out screaming, chubby fists wielding, and told my parents I was severely undeveloped in the right side of my brain.  So my dad bought me this funky fractions game in the shape of an apple pie. It just made me want to eat pie.

Robin Silverstein has a lot to live up to with her Bat-Mitzvah. Cause Sharon Goldfarb’s had invitations that unfolded into life size posters of Tom Selleck. Also, Sharon’s dad owned like all of Broadway, so he got the cast of “Cats” to come out of garbage cans on the dance floor. But I heard he got pissed cause one of the “Cats” was smoking a cigarette outside after the party, and everyone saw, and he thought that ruined the “magic.” I began fantasizing about what cool famous people & gift bag swag, my parents could arrange for my party. They only brought home teachers with channel 13 tote bags, number 2 pencils and half fare bus passes.

Robin ended up hiring the New York City break-dancers for her Bat- Mitzvah.  This felt like a big rip off because two of the dancers went to my school, so I get to see them dance for free all the time!  She also had a reggae band, and the band guy was annoyed because Robin kept making him sing her favorite Phil Collin’s song. “I can feel it coming in the air tonight.” Then they had a drumroll and the band guy said, “Hereeeeeee’s the Silverstein’s.” And the Silversteins came out on the dance floor enveloped in a flooding spotlight, arms linked in gowns and suits.

On the drive home my dad kept muttering that the Silverstein’s spotlight entrance was “excessive.” I thought it was awesome. I liked that Robin was placed in the middle. My parents were divorced and probably wouldn’t want to link arms.

But hands down, the most CRIMINAL thing about Robin’s Bat Mitzvah was that she didn’t even have to go to Hebrew School to earn it.  I had to go THREE times a week since the third grade, and learn how to read my Torah section IN HEBREW!!!  Robin went to a crash course called “Quick Bat” where they wrote out her Torah section in English letters. How unfair is that!

The summer before my Bat- Mitzvah my mother sat me down and broke the news that my Bat- Mitzvah party was going to be…(drumroll please) in our apartment. You’d think she was telling me, the family cat had died. She explained to me that the Greatneck Bat- Mitzvah’s were outlandish, bordering on “obscene.”  I never heard her use that word before and it sounded… scary.

“Oh my God. Can I even get invitations made???” I panicked.

“Yes, we will get some nice invitations. But they can cost no more than the price of a regular postage stamp.”
Welp. This was just great. Scratch my idea of invitations unfolding into Michael Jackson with his pet llama Louis.  

My mom looked tired. She assured me it was going to be a very nice party and that we have a beautiful apt. She mumbled something about go complain to your father, and reminded me of how nice my sister’s party in the apartment was.

“ Is there going to be a band?” I knew the answer. No.

“Photo booth?” Nope.

“But.. You can have a special kids after party in the living room after the adults leave.”
Yes. I liked this.

“And we will go to Alexander’s and find a Gunney Sax dress.”

Deal.

Over the next few weeks I kept hearing my mother use the word “modest” on the phone with her friends, to describe my upcoming Bat- Mitzvah. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant by that but I forgoed asking her to come out with my dad in the spotlight.

All fall, I practiced my Haftorah portion with my little Casio tape recorder. Cantor Kornreich made little notations on my script as to when my voice should go up and down. I had just gotten the role of Princess Leah in the Hebrew School musical Production of “The Empire Chicken Strikes Back” so I was feeling a little cocky. “Darth Veys Mir” and I were quite a team up there.

I barely remember my 15 minutes of Bima fame, but I remember being proud all my hard work paid off.  I remember everyone thinking the after party was really cool.
I eventually lost touch with my Greatneck Friends. My father got tired of driving me out there, and well.. Let’s be real, I never really fit in.

I’m forever grateful that I now understand what “modest” and “obscene” mean. I see my sister teaching her children down to earth values like we had. They understand that getting a manicure is a treat, and that homemade birthday cakes are better than store bought.

Today I have a tinge of guilt that I was so affected by my Bat Mitzvah Mecca phase, but I’m grateful my mother put her foot down, and gave me everything a public school, right brain deficient, chubby teenage therapist needed.