Start Living the Life You Want To Have

Most of you know I'm completely at the feet of the impeccable
Mad Men. Every week I take away some juicy bit of writing to gnaw on and savor as I while away the day at an office that shares an address with its fictional counterpart but only dreams of its edgy, smoky productivity.

And then there are the gals. Oh, those are my kinda broads. Kept, some of them, burdened by gender politics, all of them, but each desperate to define herself and fighting like hell with perfect, red oval fingernails to scratch through the surface of Brill Cream, bourbon and boy's clubs.

A couple of episodes ago, one of my Mad babes, Bobbi Barrett, wife of an obnoxious, of-the-time comedian who'd been carrying on with with the leading man (Creative Director at the ad agency where her husband was under contract), had a scene that will stay with me forever. She'd been in a drunken car accident with aforementioned lead and was in pretty bad shape. She couldn't go home with a black eye and explain how it'd happened, so to her rescue came Peggy, the homely young copywriter from the office. Peggy put Bobbi up in her modest Brooklyn apartment for a few days while she healed. Naturally, as storylines like this go, the women had a few things to learn from each other. Peggy's discretion was foreign to Bobbi, who lounged for days and smoked cigarettes on her couch in a lacy black slip. But to Peggy, Bobbi was what she seemed to me: sultry, fragile, calculating and absolutely magnetic. At the end of her stay, as Bobbi patched up her face so she could go home and slide comfortably back into her role as domestic femme fatale, she told Peggy that you decide who you're going to be and that to get where you want to end up you just simply "start living the life you want to have".

I don't know why, but that line got inside me. And it was still banging around in my mind days later when I had a martini with a friend (going for style points) and we talked about how much has changed in the last year. I've moved, decided that I'm applying to school, finished the pilot. But I still can't cut myself loose from this job. It's my last anchor to the life I'm so ready to move on from.

So, what would happen if I just started living the life I wanted to have? My friend suggested that I urge things along by cleaning out my desk at the office. Hey, okay. Since I'll be leaving soon anyway, right? Why not start packing up? See what happens. I actually gave my email address to our IT guy the other day and said "hey, don't think I'll be around long. Here's this for when I'm gone. We'll grab a drink." I'm living the life I want to have. I plan to submit my application to The New School this weekend. I have no idea how I'll pay for school, or how I could continue working this job and be in classes. Oh well, I can't worry about all that now. I'm busy living the life I want to have. Right?

I'm gonna try on Bobbi Barrett's lace slip for awhile and see how it suits me. I've already tried the other method--living the life I don't want to have--and that hasn't worked for years. So, let's just see how this goes. I'm taking my desk plant home tonight.

Running WOman

Before I left for the desert, I had a formal running shoe fitting. I'd never done anything like that before, preferring instead to fit myself in a corner at DSW, hidden behind the bargain shoe rack and the fall boots display. I'd always be wearing my coat, sweating, carrying a purse or a Stop & Shop sack, walking no more than five or ten steps in the prospective pair to test them and then heading to the counter to drop some ungodly sum and get the hell outta there.

Now, I have to admit I've been off the sweat sauce for some time. My daily runs slowed at the beginning of the summer when we moved and slagged off completely when life became a daily grind of unpacking boxes, editing the show, crawling to the dreadful office and finally burying myself in all manner of frozen alcoholic concoctions to dull the noise. And through it all, I was desperate for an outlet, a hiding place, the old familiar knowing that comes from pushing myself really hard and getting past it. But as has been my pattern since conception, instead of balling up my anxiety and letting it explode somewhere outside of my body, I sent it further inward where it could get good and filthy and wash over me like a swollen, dirty river. That was the summer: me as still life. Necessary, yes, in order for other things to be in motion. But the pavement's been calling me back and besides that, my my jeans don't fucking fit right.

I felt totally sheepish going into a formal sporting goods store to buy running shoes. I've never seen running as a sport. For me, it's more primitive than that. It's like I'm tapping into some inner Clan of the Cave Bear tribeswoman, as evidenced by my threadbare leggings and cotton t-shirt running costume. Maybe I don't see myself as an athlete when I'm out there. But I think that's starting to change. It's not just about surviving a run. I can be faster, more efficient, work harder if I give myself the right tools.

I walked around for fifteen minutes, trying to avoid the "sign up sheet". See, the deal was, you couldn't buy shoes at this store unless you were professionally fitted. No standing in a corner, juggling a Sephora bag on one arm and a mini backpack on another. It's serious shit. You go in, they put you on a treadmill, they film your stride and they fit you. And every one of them is a version of the super hot cross country running captain you kinda dug in high school--lithe, willowy, lean. It takes major nuts to get your Hefewizen-ridden ass on a treadmill and let some clipboard-abbed, natural beauty analyze your stride imperfections. It takes absolute cojones of titanium to let a similar lovely help you find the right sportsbra after wearing the same uni-tit ace bandage of a bra through every run for a year. But I did both. And I ended up with a steel trap for my rack and the most gorgeous pair of silver and chartreuse Sauconys I've ever seen in my life.

I put them on for the first time this morning. They were gleaming new, awaiting a name. Gogol Bordello blaring, I got my ass outta bed at 5:00 a.m., laced 'em up and started running. It was everything I remembered: too hard to think of anything else and exhilirating as hell. I've set a few small goals to start. No marathons, just some consistency. I sorta see myself as running toward the close of the first installment of the Chrysalis Year. I've got some serious miles to put in before I get there.

I'm kinda feeling "Flash" and "Gordon" for my shoes. I think it fits.

These are the Only Words That Have Ever Made Sense To Me On September 11th

Riding the Elevator Into the Sky

By Anne Sexton (1975)

As the fireman said:
Don't book a room over the fifth floor
in any hotel in New York.
They have ladders that will reach further
but no one will climb them.

As the New York Times said:
The elevator always seeks out
the floor of the fire
and automatically opens
and won't shut.

These are the warnings
that you must forget
if you're climbing out of yourself.
If you're going to smash into the sky.

Many times I've gone past
the fifth floor,
cranking upward,
but only once
have I gone all the way up.
Sixtieth floor:
small pants and swans bending
into their grave.
Floor two hundred:
mountains with the patience of a cat,
silence wearing its sneakers.
Floor five hundred:
messages and letters centuries old,
birds to drink,
a kitchen of clouds.
Floor six thousand:
the stars,
skeletons on fire,
their arms singing.
And a key,
a very large key,
that opens something-
some useful door-
somewhere-
up there.