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Seriously, who grows up to say “I want to be a doorman at a famous nightclub and stay up all night.”  It isn’t exactly something you consider when you’re young.  It isn’t like being a fireman.  And frankly, it’s a bit of a deadend job.  It can only really lead to something else in the public eye, so if you are at all an introvert, this can be greatly problematic.

Let’s discuss this ‘introvert’ thing.  Yes, we function perfectly well in the public eye.  For a time.  Then we need to get away to recharge.  Alone somewhere, where there are no people at all.  It’s like charging up your iPhone.  Even with a full charge, sometimes we can be awkward with people.  Sometimes saying the wrong thing, or something that is seemingly insensitive, which is just our nerves at work, as trying to come up with something clever isn’t really natural.  So I became extremely good at foot in the mouth disease.  I lost friends over it.  It’s the old saying that honesty is NOT always the best policy.  In fact, it can get you in a LOT of trouble.

There are certain words in life that we take for granted; words we use every day without the slightest notion as to why.  Like beautiful.  Why do we think one thing is more beautiful than another?  There are plenty of logical responses… balance in the human face, color combinations, and what about beauty in nature?  Why do we look at an empty beach on a blue day and say, “it’s so beautiful”.  What in us makes us discern that this is any more beautiful than something else?  What makes us capable of having taste, and what purpose does it serve us?  Same thing with love.  But. We have been discussing love for millennia.  I can’t think of when anybody ever said that there was a biological reason for discerning beauty.  And why do we all think that different things are?  And what about scale?  Why do we think one thing is better than another based on size?  Again, logical reasons abound.  A smaller artichoke is better because of its taste.  A taller man is better for basketball because he is closer to the hoop.  A wider plank on the floor is better if you want it to look historical.  We measure things to exact size and dimensions, which all makes sense in a world where we are constantly making things fit.  But for some things, it is purely aesthetic.  Why do we do that?

I have always had trouble sleeping at night.  I wander helplessly around the house, or read a book, or check my email.  I used to smoke during those times, now I vape on my tiny Juul.  Much more convenient in bad weather and winter as sometimes I would wander outside, waking myself up even further.  When we lived at 45 Wall Street, there was so much security on the block that I could wander out front in my bathrobe at 3am, and be completely safe.  Never did wear my bathrobe outside however…

I always attributed my insomnia to these questions. And of course, the size of the universe.  I would literally make my head explode.  The only thing that worked was to think about what to wear the next day.  I would always finally fall asleep before I had finished my mental inventory, and usually when I woke up with little of the outfit I had planned remained in my memory.  And partly because I would wake up after 4 hours, fully awake, wondering if I should go outside for that cigarette.  After I started flying, the outfit planning became a moot point.  I lived in a uniform.  And my sleep patterns changed daily, as one day I might report to the airport at 4:30am, and the next day not until 11am, and work until midnight.  So eventually I started to wake up every 3 hours.  Then every 2.  My life span was being shortened each day.  And still, the endless questions would sit on the front of my brain each night, along with the replay of everything I’d ever said to anybody that I regretted. Each opportunity I passed up because of my stubbornness.  That whole story about having integrity in following your dream and knowing exactly who you are and what you want, only works in very, very rare instances.  For most, it is recognizing when something good is staring you in the face, and having the flexibility to know that it is a lot better than the plan you had created sometime in the cradle.  

Anyway, my life story rambles across the page like a frightened rat, seeking a place of shelter with moments of levity.  Life does not occur without that… now back to that universe issue… 

Of course none of this was evident in the 1980s.  I had all the same thoughts, but little time for them when every moment of my life was filled up with… me.  Photoshoots, art openings, parties, TV appearances, interviews, dinners, and everyone beautiful and/or so very famous.  Or infamous.  Back then it was difficult at times to tell which was which.  The winds changed so often.  But I was in my 15 minutes, which at the times seemed to go on for several years, until it didn’t.  My own choice.  I did my time as a Paris Hilton before Paris Hilton was Paris Hilton, and then ran off, desperately afraid of the term, “has been”.  And yet, I had perpetuated it based on that stubborn side of me that was determined to be an exhibiting artist.

I had a gallerist boyfriend at one point who told me that if you were a painter, you would just paint.  As if the sky would open up and bestow me with paint and canvases, food and money.  This did not happen.  And at the time that I was selling the most paintings, I was also one stop from complete poverty.  I had no credit cards or outstanding loans, but likewise, no emergency cash.  I was vulnerable.  It was at that moment that someone I was dating told me that maybe I should become a graphic designer.  Perfect alignment for when the internet was becoming a retail tool and everyone needed website designers.

I stopped painting.  I had lost my vision.  And lost my body of work in 9/11.  All the same time.  So for the first time in my life, I was actually earning. A good salary, with room to grow.  But I was also too old for my experience to make sense in this new world of online life.  The designers I managed at R/GA, the best digital design agency [now, in the world] in a word, hated me.  I got everything wrong.  For me, it was a wonderful year where the world seemed so fresh, the lounge music that was popular at the time was cool, the home and product design was forward thinking and fantastic.  It was the turn of the millennia.  But my happiness was short lived as I slowly discovered that even my personality of smart edges was no longer applicable.  And I was booted out of there so harshly that I wasn’t even allowed back in the building.  This was my first real experience with finding that I was not who I thought I was.  My first experience with realizing that I could be a real asshole.

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