........I am turning over a new leaf in life. Starting right now––at this very second in time––3 p.m., March 15, I will get out of my work rut, stop allowing fantasies of finding Mr. Right (and bouts of depression about not finding him) to invade almost every second of my life. I will start down the road to award-winning, top-notch freelance writer, rather than third-rate, barely-paying-the-rent freelance writer––as I have formerly been.
........I know very well that I have said this before. And the reason I know this very well is because, when I called my friend Joanne a moment ago, she reminded me of just that. She called off specific dates and everything. “Well there was September fifteenth, and then October fifteenth, and then of course you swore this exact thing to me on November fifteenth . . .” and by the time she got all the way through to last month, she said, “Darling, isn’t that the day you get your rent bill every month?” Okay, so there is a pattern. But what she doesn’t realize is that this time is different.
......I. Am. Going. To. Change. My. Life.
......I am ready.
......Perhaps it took me a while to get here.
......But, now, I am ready.
........I can just feel creativity and energy oozing from every single cell in my body.
I am equipped with the essentials for embarking upon the path to success. My tools, as I sit down with them at my couch, are one brand-new red suede-covered journal, a purple gel pen, and my sharp-as-a-whip journalistic mind. You need a new notebook if you are going to begin your career anew. You can’t very well start fresh on a crinkled page in a notebook that has served as the palette for hundreds of rejected article ideas. For someone who does this for a living, a notebook like this is an investment. You need to surround yourself with beautiful, creative things if you ever hope to write beautiful, creative things. The government agrees with this, because you can even write those beautiful, creative things off on your taxes.
........Gently, I turn back the spine to the first crisp, gold-leafed page to begin brainstorming article ideas. I breathe in. I breathe out. I pick up my pen and sit poised, like that famous statue, The Thinker, but with a pen––I am The Freelance Thinker. No, The Creative Thinker. Perhaps I am not The Thinker so much as The Writer. Yes, that’s it, exactly. I am The Writer. I love the way that sounds.
........I have to say that everyone loves the way that sounds. When I meet people, they are uniformly impressed with my profession. And then, of course, they ask me exactly what I write, and this is where the men usually drop right out of the conversation. This is because they are completely uninterested in the new spring fashions, the fact that big belts have made a comeback, or that pink is the color for lips this season. But the next question is even worse, because that is inevitably, “So which magazines do you write for?” It’s not that I write for Penthouse or something you need to be ashamed of in a moral way. It’s just that nobody has ever heard of the magazines I write for, like Love Your Hair, or For Her.
........I’m sure you understand, then, that sometimes––not very often––I find myself embellishing the truth a bit. That is to say, rather than name the magazines that I actually write for, I name the magazines that I have most recently pitched for. But I always follow it up with, “Freelance writers are constantly pitching. You never know what’s just around the corner.” This makes me look like a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants girl, rather than a how-sad-she-can’t-give-up-the-ghost girl. And then I can just go into all of the cool people that I’ve met along the way, and men, especially, get drawn into the exciting lifestyle I (supposedly) lead.
........But after today’s work, I will never have to “embellish” again. Never. I begin by putting today’s date at the top. Surely, when I look back at this page, from my new desk, in my new SoHo loft, which I will buy the moment Vogue hires me on as a permanent columnist, I will sit back, a vision in preseason Prada samples and custom-designed Manolo Blahniks, and remember this day with joy.
........I peruse some old magazines I’ve got in hopes of stirring the creative juices and lose myself in admiration of a stunning charcoal bias-cut gown. The girl in the picture is draped over a velvet sofa, a mass of pearls twisted around her neck, one black beaded pump dangling from one very elegant foot. I can’t help it. I picture myself in the dress, only with crystal-beaded sandals to match (I think that would go much better), my highlights glistening in an explosion of paparazzi flashbulbs. I’m waving and smiling in that polite way I’ve noticed royalty do all these years. Yes, it’s all coming clear: My purse will be one of those Lulu Guinness flowerpots, with the adorable sayings embroidered inside like a little secret only you know about.
........My breath quickens, grows shallower, like I can’t get enough air. My eyes go fuzzy. All at once I feel it, that overwhelming urge in my gut to know just how I can have this dress. Because if I get it, I’ll feel different than I ever have before. I’ll be glamorous in that everything-in-its-place way that has always managed to elude me in the past. When I open my silky flowerpot, I’ll know exactly where my lip gloss is for the first time in my life; and it won’t be that play-it-safe pink I always wear. It will be red, because once you’ve become that woman in that dress you’ll be that woman who can pull off crimson lips, too. If I want to pass a business card to someone, it will be precisely where it should be. I’ll be taller, more slender than ever before when I wear it; my eyes will somehow look greener than they ever have before. My eye makeup (always tastefully done) will be applied with a bit more drama, maybe with some smudging around the lash line and a shimmery bronze in the crease. It’s as if my whole life has been one big training session leading up to this one purchase. Now I feel this dress and everything it will mean so close in my reach; I am suddenly positive it will actually be mine––that it was destined to be mine––just because I want it that much.
........I turn ravenously to the back of the book for the buying information. I estimate with sharp, rapid breaths of the sort only the “have-nots” with serious “have” tastes are familiar with just how much the dress will cost with a description like “price available upon request.” I figure in the mile and a half of silk, and embroidered roses on each and every inch. Finally, I conclude I could definitely afford it if I exist solely on a diet of ketchup packets and free drinks and sell every item in my possession on eBay. I begin tossing said possessions into a “sell” pile. It is only after I estimate the value of most of my belongings that I realize the magazine is two years old.
........Devastation overtakes me and I am ready to call it quits on the changing my life thing when it hits me. This sort of experience could make for a fantastic personal essay for a magazine like, say, Bazaar. “In Search of the Charcoal Gown,” I could call it. I begin writing, “When one woman falls for Badgley Mischka vintage, absolutely nothing less will do.” Those are the sorts of tiny descriptions you need to write with your pitch to explain what the article would be like and in what style you would write it. I leave out the part about the slight heart attack I suffered at learning the price was “available upon request” as Bazaar readers somehow always have budgets for such things (“I bought one in every color!”), and instead take on the air of a wealthy society woman as I always do with such sophisticated publications.
........These things come to me almost instantaneously. All I have to do is look at a pair of shoes, watch a television show, overhear a conversation and––poof!––there’s my idea. This is why I am positive that I will make it. But then I send out the ideas and nothing ever comes of them and then I am even more positive that I will never make it. Depending on the day, my outlook can vary drastically. Mysteriously, the outlook pattern has an inverse relationship to the chocolate intake pattern: outlook up, chocolate intake down and vice versa.
........I make some mental notes about the cute adjectives used in lipstick descriptions: slick, pouty, glossy, shimmery––words that lend themselves to magazine writing, but most definitely not for everyday banter. Imagine being greeted pre-caffeination by some coworker with, “My you are looking so slick-lipped today!” It’s no mystery what you’d think of that person. Magazines should come with a disclaimer, “Kids, do not try these words at home!” Still, they are my words and I absolutely love mastering them despite the fact that I am more than aware of how dorky that is.
........Twenty minutes later I am truly engrossed by a story of romance on page eighty-seven in the June issue of Vogue. It turns out this stunning princess (who can really pull off that tiara look like a star) and her debonair shiny husband have been married for fifty years and wanted to share their story with the world. Theirs––like all true loves––was born of the most star-crossed of circumstances. She was meant to have tied the knot with some highly decorated, scarcely interesting older man from a neighboring nation. He was merely a dressmaker. For years and years, the princess had come to his atelier where he would admire the curve of her spine, the angle of her shoulder, and with every pin inserted, every tape measure pulled taut, she would shudder. Never a word was spoken between princess and dressmaker––yet he knew exactly which dresses to bring her each and every time she came to him. She always loved what he put her in––simple, long silhouettes that paid homage to shoulders, neck, long slender arms, and that is because he lovingly designed each with her in mind.
........“Cutting patterns, slicing through the most rare crepe de chine with the precision of a surgeon to perfectly envelope a hip, a breast, I felt I was with her; we were making love in the most magical, mystical way. We were always together, even when apart. There was never another.”
........He had no need for measurements or even to see her (these were merely excuses to be near her)––he knew the dresses would encase her ins and outs, rounds and straights with the delicate intricacy of a glove, as each was crafted from love and knowledge of her each and every inch. After fifteen years of silence, they fled to Madagascar and there have lived ever since.
........Under one photo in which the couple sits before a sparkling blue sea, the caption reads: “‘We love the mussels there!’ they both declare in unison. The ex-designer turns to the princess and with one brow raised in mock-suspicion admits, ‘But we cannot share them because she eats them up so quickly I never have a chance!’ The princess’s smile betrays her.”
........This story holds me in a trance. I read it once. Twice. Three times. It strikes me as the most beautiful story I’ve ever come upon. I search to find something about bronzing powder that could inspire so much passion in readers. Although the right shade could drastically revitalize a winter-worn complexion, or for that matter, give a girl the beauty boost that just might help her survive a lethal bout of PMS, it still doesn’t provide the same high the princess love story offers. I should just skip right past this story and back into safer territory––how to wear hats, new fragrances for yoga––but I can’t draw myself from the idea of romance. It pulls me in, beckons me to follow.
........I’d always dedicated a large portion of my personal time to thoughts of romance, and at an increasing rate, since my youthful ideals seem to be weathering and decaying and daring me to abandon them. Especially lately as I have spent the better part of the month mourning the one-day, one-week, two-week, and one-month anniversaries of the day I broke up with James. My mourning ritual has consisted mainly of drinking cheap red wine, and, well, whining––to anyone who’d listen––about my hopeless, lonely, boyfriend-less existence.
........Unfortunately for her, my friend Joanne just happens to be “anyone who’ll listen.” Most of my other friends have rather quickly tired of my treatment of Bridget Jones as an actual human being, and henceforth, a bona fide point of comparison to my own predicament: “I can’t believe she (wine slurp) wound up with a rich lawyer with a great personality (wine slurp) and an English accent and he truly was her Magic Man (failed attempt at wine slurp as no more wine to slurp).”
......“Her what?” Joanne had asked.
......“You know, her Magic Man. There was something there and, of course, it was there all along, but it took them a while to figure it out and so she almost lost him, but then they realized it and he was perfectly magical.”
........Well, over time (and wine slurps) Magic Man became MM and eventually, the similarities between the perfect man and the perfect candy of the same initials (you only need a couple every day to get your fill; melts in your mouth, not in your hand) were discovered and MM became M&M and now I see that the name is perfect as it represents comfort and home and happiness and simplicity and sweetness. And if you eat enough of them—the candies, that is—and chant “I want my M&M, I want my M&M,” while crunching, it eventually starts to sound like “mmmmm” which is exactly the cry of the satisfied and of the (ahem) “satisfied,” which is why that tiny ancient woman next door has probably been looking at me strangely.
........James is one of a long line of men who turned out not to be my M&M. And hence, turned out to be another ideal-weathering beckon towards reality. Needless to say, I have been eating more than my fair share of M&M’s––the candy––to make up for my lack of The M&M––the man.
........So, now, in addition to receiving blubbering I’ll-never-find-my-M&M telephone calls that can only be classified as pathetic attempts to get her to spend some time with me (ironically they were more than likely the actual reason she “couldn’t” come over), Joanne now receives blubbering you’re-my-only-friend-in-the-world phone calls from me, too.
........I need to get back to the more practical matters of Mediterranean-inspired lipsticks and the benefits/hindrances of high waistlines on variously flawed figures (and, of course, that most tragic of all categories, “thin”), and so I turn to a British magazine, Beautiful, which is famous for never addressing anything of a serious nature (and would in fact encourage Badgley-Mischka-induced heart attack chronicles). Here I am inspired to pitch “Beauty on the Go: What to Take, How to Pack; Hairstyling and Makeup How-to from the Jet Set.” After exhausting the host of related themes: “Beauty in a Flash,” “The Spring Face,” and “Facial Index,” I once again find myself searching out that princess love story.
........Was there something in the eye of the princess that could teach me to find true love? Her face had a superhuman strength (in a strictly Katharine Hepburn not Hulk Hogan way) in just about all of the accompanying photos. If you looked at her with your head cocked to the right, turned her portrait ninety degrees to a horizontal position, and squinted your left eye, she definitely appeared in possession of a secret. Why had the secret evaded me?
........Outside my window it appears everyone but me is qualified to write a story about love. I count thirty-five happy couples who happen to be qualified on account of menacing actions such as hand-holding, talking, and laughing even––all of which are quite obviously efforts exerted for my benefit.
......“People can see you!” I scream because, well, I can’t exactly say why.
......And that’s when I hear the cry, “What?”
......Taken off guard, I quickly withdraw my head from the window and begin to feel an intense blush at the sort of mortification one can only suffer when one has just been called on asocial, unstable behavior. But when my doorbell rings and my upstairs neighbor Chris screams through the door, “Are you sitting by the window counting couples again?” I rip myself from my embarrassment coma with the comforting knowledge that Chris is already well versed in my weakness in the rational arena.
........“No, absolutely not! I am working!” Was there not a notebook lying open on my table? Had I not come up with lots of great ideas?
........“Well, then let me come in and see what you’ve done.” I scan the room. The bed is unmade. There are junk food and candy wrappers where there used to be the top of a coffee table. Blankets I had piled around me all morning are still strewn about the couch. I panic, lest Chris think I have somehow sacrificed another day to The Young and the Restless. I have to act like I’ve been working hard all day. Otherwise, I’ll never hear the end of how “resilient” I am. Chris can be rather sarcastic, especially when it comes to my breakups and the idea of M&M’s. (“They will will just make you fat.”) So, to keep up appearances and prevent him from drawing any connection between the princess love story and my current mind-set, I close the notebook, shove the magazines under a sofa cushion, scramble some papers on my desk, jiggle the mouse to get my laptop off sleep mode, open a document I’d written ages ago, and jam a pen behind my ear. Now, that looks like a busy workingwoman who never draws parallels between her own life and those of The Young and the Restless characters, I think, glancing in the mirror. That is, except for the greasy hair propped up in a wild bun and the snowman-printed pajama pants, and, of course, the bit of ketchup on my cheek.
........When I finally let him in, after he’d spent a moment clearing his throat in the hallway, he says, “So you really are working on some real, saleable story ideas, huh? You haven’t just opened some old document, shimmied some papers around your desk, and stuck a pen behind your ear, right?” Although Chris is a photographer, he would really be better suited to manning a psychic hotline. If he’d seen the magazines, he’d be able to flip right to the princess story and repeat back, word for word, what I’d been thinking. I walk over to the cushion currently concealing them to sit on top just in case.
........He looks stunning, as always. His dark hair is perfectly combed back so it’s just beginning to fall by his ears––in the sort of way that, on a straight man, would make you want to run your hands through it to push it back. But, as often as I’ve wished he were, Chris is not a straight man. Once I learned (the hard way) that he would not show any romantic interest in me, even if I rang his bell wearing only the cutest Agent Provocateur teddy beneath my coat, and holding a bottle of champagne and two flutes, I began to take him for what he is––a fantastic friend with fabulous insight into the male psyche, and someone who lets me run my hands through his hair when I am feeling especially deficient in the area of male tresses for such a purpose. He also functions as mother, father, brother, sister, therapist, superintendent, personal chef, and date. He glances at my coffee-cum-buffet table and shakes his head despairingly.
......“My darling, what are we going to do with you?”
......“I don’t know what you mean. This?” I ask, waving my hand The Price Is Right––style, at what would be a very unfabulous prize. He doesn’t answer, only lowers his lids to half-mast as a way of saying he isn’t buying what I am sloppily attempting to unload in lieu of the truth.
........I continue anyway, “This is––er, the research for an article I’m working on. Yes. It’s research.”
........“So what exactly are you researching? The fastest way to put on twenty pounds? Or is it a home-brewed recipe for a creamy pity soup with artichoke and . . . Oh, Lanie, barbecue chicken wings? Yuckk. C’mon. Pull yourself together and get your head out of this . . . this bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. What is this, kettle style? Any good? (Crunch.) Not bad, actually. Still, when was the last time you actually had an article published? Not to be the bearer of bad news, but you know the rent is due soon.”
........I can’t prove he actually has telepathic powers or that his taste test wasn’t some sort of sleight of hand just to set this whole thing up, but it seems like an awfully big coincidence that the bag of potato chips just happens to come crashing down into a carbohydrate avalanche at exactly the same moment he finishes this sentence.
........For some reason, I hate when Chris knows how awful I feel. He’s just so practical. Like, I’ll go on and on about spending Christmas or New Year’s or even Valentine’s Day alone and he’ll be so sweet––making me dinner or wrapping thoughtful gifts in gorgeous wallpaper remnants with regal ribbon-work and strands of antique glass beads––and all the while never say anything about his being alone, too. He’ll make me feel pathetic, like I should be thankful for the life I have. But it doesn’t matter what I say, he always knows the truth anyhow, so either way I walk away feeling bad about having felt bad, which makes me feel even worse because I hate that I can’t be as strong as Chris.
........“For your information, I am actually working on an article right now––about the favorite clothes of this famous writer-woman––in addition to this food research thingy I’m doing,” I say, defending my existence.
........“Well, I was about to see if you wanted to go out and get a breath of fresh air, but I see you’re busy, so I’ll just leave you to it.”
........“Thank you. Yes, I am extremely busy today.” And with that, I nudge him through the door. “But don’t forget to call me later,” I scream down the hall.