This Is Why I'm Single

"Now, this is why you're single..."

A guy got kicked out of a bar for telling me that. It helps that he was pretty drunk.

The "this" he was referring to was the fact that I didn't swoon at his aggressive advances, that I didn't immediately give him my phone number and accept his invitations for lunch, dinner, drinks, a sleepover, and anything else he had in mind.

So is he postulating that by not succumbing to every drunk hit-on that comes my way, I'm closing myself off to true love? There was a time when I did succumb to every advance, and I still was single then. Even when I thought I was dating someone, it turns out I was still single, even THEN.

The nature of my single status is the age-old question that has plagued me since puberty. Actually it started during puberty when my Aunt Betty and Uncle Glenn would call and the first thing they would ask was, "Do you have a boyfriend yet?" When the answer was always a guilty "No...", the question evolved into, "Why are you single?" And then it seemed like everyone was asking it.

For a long time, I could blame my circumstances: my parents lock me in a tower, Colgate is a hook-up school not a dating school, I just moved to NYC, I'm working too hard...But when you start to realize that you have enough time and you are interested in a relationship and you have lived here long enough to socialize with a lot of people, you also realize: everyone around you is taken.

So by age 33, I've tried a few times to make it work, mostly with musicians and DJs and other music biz folks that didn't want to be a boyfriend (and then married the next girl they dated) or didn't have any money or were too obsessed with their own lives to think of anyone else. But now all those guys have someone else. Some of them even have babies.

Does that mean I've missed the boat?

At this point, when people ask me why I'm single, it sounds like an accusation. My cable guy spent a long time telling me what I need to do to attract a man. The drunk guy in the bar last weekend saw himself as Everyman, so that if I was turning him down, I must turn down every guy that comes my way, therefore putting me in a self-inflicted mode of perpetual singlehood. Others think I just must be too picky or looking for someone in the wrong places. Everybody's got advice.

But when you're approaching your mid-30s and you have never had a serious relationship (at least one that was serious on both sides of it), your friends try to be supportive and tell you that you're too good for most guys, too smart, too pretty, too successful, too intimidating. And although it's meant to be encouraging, it still sounds like a criticism. What's wrong with me is that I'm too much of a catch. Can that be right? There must be some guy out there that's as amazing as I am. Or some guy who's somewhat less amazing but brave enough to make up for the difference. Or how about some guy who's even more amazing and doesn't mind slumming it a bit?

Quite frankly, the reason I'm single right now is again circumstantial. My year-long existential crisis has eclipsed my need for nookie. My Peace Corps recruiter warned me against getting into a serious relationship before being shipped off to Central Asia. And, given the stresses I've been under, I've preferred sitting alone in a bar with a nice bottle glass of wine than talking to drunk dudes who try to take me home and then never call.

The moment I found out that Peace Corps didn't accept me in the final rounds of the application process, I kind of thought, "Huh, well at least I can try to date again." But now I've booked a trip to spend the summer in Joshua Tree, CA, and something tells me I won't find my prince in the next two weeks before I leave.

Will I find him out West? Maybe. As my friend John says, I need an adventurer. I haven't come across many of those in the Northeast.

Jeffrey Eugenides Live at B&N

If you know anything about me, you know that I hate being read to.

But this clip of Jeffrey Eugenides reading from his novel The Virgin Suicides, one of my favorite books, is a must-see, must-listen. He even sings.



Why do I love this book so much, so much that I'm willing to have it read to me? Maybe I always identified with those Lisbon girls who were locked in their house, and lepers at school. No, my parents never burned or threw out my LPs. But I too could express my feelings only through song, not yet having developed a vocabulary for the hell I too was going through at home, at school, everywhere.

The idea of a young schoolgirl being suicidal sounds too absurd, but when I was about eight years old, I understood that I wanted to die. In a fit of crying rage in the basement one day, I actually was able to tell my mother that I wanted to die. And she didn't believe me. After that, it didn't seem worth doing anything about it, because it seemed like no one would care if I did.

It was the first but not the last time I thought about dying. Thoughts of death have been so present in my life that I'm not afraid of it. But - much to the relief of my friends and therapist - many times along my strange and winding life, I've been glad I'm still alive. And baffled as to how I actually survived, feeling the way I did at such a young, visceral, unreasonable and inconsolable age.

The movie, although very good, doesn't do The Virgin Suicides justice. Go read the book.

Facing My Fears

This whole existential crisis I'm in now really started about a year ago, when I took a weekend for myself - by myself - in Death Valley after a business trip brought me to Las Vegas. The only desert I'd ever visited before was Las Vegas and the nearby Valley of Fire. I didn't know what I was in for.

I was a little scared in Death Valley. Maybe it was the name. Maybe it was all the signs that warn you of having enough water and not overheating. Maybe it was being the only car on the road for miles, with no rangers in sight. Or, maybe it was the sign on top of a huge volcanic crater that showed a man falling into it, with no railing or anyone around me to prevent me from meeting that same fate.



I drove a little too fast in Death Valley, hypermiling in my rented Prius, coasting 80 mph down a huge hill across a dried, salt flat riverbed. Sometimes I would take a bend around the Panamint Mountains a little too fast and scare the crap out of myself. And when I slept in the Panamint Springs Resort, a couple of ghosts - real or imagined - did the scaring for me.

But I conquered a lot of fears in Death Valley. It's not that I wasn't afraid anymore - at the time, my life was terrifying - but I was able to move past the fear. I came back to the real world and stood up for myself at work, and faced the consquences of retaliation. Four months later when I went to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, I even drove in the desert at night, something I refused to do in Death Valley.

Sometimes I think that the things that scare you the most are those that are most worth doing. I'm not talking skydiving, though I've done that too. I mean taking a real leap, like quitting a job to reclaim your sanity and sense of self, and giving yourself over to the universe.


Things have gone pretty well since I left my job in January, and whereas last year I sought solace in the desert, I now am drawn to it for inspiration. My trip to Joshua Tree in February has given me the opportunity to return there for the summer and be inspired further, to once again feel small, as I did at Badwater in Death Valley. It's the lowest point in North America and my visit there immediately preceded the lowest point in my life. But it's good to see the bottom, so you know how far away from it you are once you're not there anymore.

What I Learned from "Felicity"

During the recovery from my gum surgery, I decided to plow my way through Season Four episodes of Felicity, the NYU-based TV show that was part of the WB teen drama heyday. I figured it would be comforting.

Throughout the four seasons of the show, Felicity would be constantly faced with the metaphor of a "drawer," presented by her guidance counselor. She was badgered with "So what's in the drawer?" in order to face the question of the unknown. By the fourth and final season [SPOILER ALERT], Felicity had cheated on her true love Ben by consummating her longtime attraction to Noel, the devoted and puppy-dog-eyed best friend. When she confessed it to her counselor, Felicity was once again asked, "So what's in the drawer?" and she finally responded, "I know you think it's Noel." The counselor retorts, "Oh, so now it's a who?"

Yesterday I was watching an interview with Felicity creator J.J. Abrams on Charlie Rose, promoting his new Star Trek movie, and he refused to reveal any details of the final season of LOST by saying, "Why do you want to know what's in the box? Isn't it better to not know?" But I don't think he meant it's better to never know, only that it's better to let the answer be revealed to you in due time.

The lesson? Don't rush it. Let the answer run its course and come to you when it's ready (not when you think you're ready).

Felicity's freshman year roommate Meghan had a mysterious box, literally. She would rebuff anyone who asked her about it, looked at it, or dared think of touching it. When we finally found out what was actually in the box [SPOILER ALERT], it was kind of disappointing, but freaky in a way that foreshadowed J.J. Abrams' future career: the "Twilight Zone" episode revealed that Meghan actually kept Felicity, Ben, and Noel in the box and was orchestrating their every move like a puppetmaster.

Sometimes it's better to not know what's in the box.

All of this reminds me of how I don't like figuring movies out, and never try. I get mad when I do figure it out before the big shocking ending. I'm watching LOST with baited breath but I don't read the blogs or the conspiracy theories that supposedly help you figure the show out. I just watch every week, continuously baffled, and will do so until the big f-ing disappointing ending next season.

Right now in my own life, outside of the TV world, there's a drawer (or a box) with something (or someone) in it and I don't know what (or who) it is. But I'm not really trying to figure it out, either. I'm just trying to get from month to month, make enough money to live on, and try to take advantage of every opportunity as it comes. It's unsettling not to have a long-term plan but I've probably never been so free.

One day I'll get to look inside the box, and maybe I'll be disappointed with what's inside. For now, it's more fun to imagine what it might be.

You Will Definitely See Me

I kinda thought that when I quit my job, I would make my acting dreams or my writing dreams come true. That I could immediately make up for 12 years of failure by releasing myself from the shackles of a dayjob. That I would immediately get an agent (talent or literary) and suddenly everything would start moving forward.

That was always kind of the plan anyway: to make enough money in a real career to give me enough of a cushion that I could quit and then pursue acting, unlike the dozens of waiters and bartenders I know who spend all their time working and sleeping rather than doing the acting jobs they really want.

It hasn't exactly worked out that way, but I did just book an acting gig, based purely on my resume and headshot. I didn't even have to audition.

For the first time in my acting "career," I got a paying job as a "featured background" performer, and shot a scene which I'm pretty sure will make it to the final cut and in which you'll definitely see me.

You can kind of see me in the Will Smith movie Hitch, but you have to know to look for me. And, as the word "background" accurately describes, I'm pretty fuzzy in the background.

This time I shot two scenes for the IFC comedy TV series Z Rock. And not only can you see me, but I'm sharing a scene with Marky Ramone, the drummer for The Ramones. He's not much of an actor, but of course, he's a legend. When the other extra said to him, "Man, big fan of the music," Marky retorted, "Yeah, who isn't?"

Of course, when you're an extra, nobody really cares about you. You try to introduce yourself to the other actors, but they either ignore you or stare at you blankly. You get encouraging comments that are so over-the-top you realize they're actually just condescending. And because you have no lines to say, you realize any idiot could probably pantomime their way through a scene.

But not everyone does. And not everyone is persistent enough to stick around long enough to get cast in a role that people will actually see you in.

What's even weirder for me is that I left my role as head of marketing for the #1 kids' music series in the country partially because I didn't want to work in kids' music anymore, and the whole concept of Z Rock is about a rock band who plays kids' birthday parties during the day to make money. I guess in a way it was the perfect show for me to be cast in.

The new season of Z Rock starts in early June. Hopefully a clip coming soon.

The Power of No

I first came up with the idea of "avoiding regret" in the office, when I was surrounded by marketers and music industry executives who made decisions about spending money because they were afraid of what would happen if they didn't. Marketers are do-ers. They have to at least try. The hardest thing for a marketer to do, I think especially in the music industry, is say no to something.

Which explains why I found my professional path in marketing.

But I do have the rare skill of saying no. I've turned down many dates. Given out many fake numbers. Even turned down job offers (sorry Tommy Boy). And in the most ballsy move ever, I quit my job in the worst economic recession most of us have seen in our adult lives.

Some things are easy to say no to, like a job that makes you so depressed that you gain 15 pounds and cry every day at work. Some things you really want to say no to, but you just have to buck up and do anyway.

So big deal, my gum receded from one of my teeth. You could actually see the root of the tooth, one of those parts of your body you hope to never see. But it had been like that for over a year before my dentist said anything, so I figured it could wait another year or two or three. However, when I finally visited the periodontist, she advised that she would not wait six months to get it fixed. Great timing, me with no dental insurance.

To complicate matters, in September I applied for Peace Corps and actually received a nomination for volunteer service. Peace Corps has been criticized for their arduous application process with their nearly-impossible-to-pass medical evaluations that include statements from every doctor you visit, and true to form, when they saw that I needed a gum graft, they sent my dental records back and threatened to not send me my assignment until I got the surgery completed.

So do I give up on the idea of Peace Corps just because I don't want gum surgery? If so, I should have never applied in the first place. But do I get gum surgery now just for Peace Corps when I'm not even sure that I'll accept their assignment when it finally comes?

These are the questions I've been facing for the last month. When faced with a difficult decision like this as a child, often I would choose not to decide at all. But in this case, not deciding was equivalent to not getting the surgery and not doing Peace Corps. I just wasn't ready to say no to that many things just yet. In the end, I reminded myself that I haven't had dental insurance for the last few years despite having a job, and that I was unlikely to acquire dental insurance within six months even if I didn't go volunteer abroad, so I might as well fix the damn gum now and not risk losing a tooth. The potential regret of a lost tooth outweighed the regret associated with anything else in this very complicated situation.

Now a week after the gum graft surgery, my jaw still aches and I'm still not sleeping through the night. I still haven't received my assignment from Peace Corps and am not sure when it will come. I have never been so unsure of my future as I am at this very moment.

But I've done all I can to be open to signs from the universe and to give myself as many options as I can when the time comes to make the big decision. True freedom is having the choice to say no to something (or some things) and not just take whatever comes your way.

I've Outdone Myself Again

A lot gets me choked up lately. Maybe it's all the time I spend alone. Maybe it's all the daytime TV. Or maybe it's just the bronchitis that spontaneously erupted in my chest. I do always cry when I'm sick.

Regardless, I couldn't help but get a little emotional yesterday when I was standing at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Court Street in Brooklyn, staring at an open manhole surrounded by a few orange cones. I'd stood at that intersection in 2002, underestimating the number of people who would show up for an art installation by Ars Subterranea in an abandoned underground train tunnel, and was told there was no way I was going to get in. There were people lined up as far as the eye could see, seemingly down each side of each of the four spokes of the intersection. Looking at that open manhole, I knew I was missing out.

I found out last year that the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association had started doing tours (apparently, again) of the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel, which they tout as "the world's first subway tunnel," but every month, something prevented me from going. Either I was travelling for work or I found out too late about it or the reservation list was full, and every month I suffered the pangs of missing out like I first experienced with the tunnel six years before.

The BHRA took the winter off but they're back on schedule and I finally booked a tour of the Atlantic Tunnel, which can only be accessed through said manhole in the middle of a busy Brooklyn intersection.

Once I finally got there, I wondered how many more of these urban archaeological excursions could possibly be on my Bucket List? At one time in my life, as I crossed an item off, another one would be added, but now I seem to be making my way more quickly down the list than I'm adding to it. Maybe I'm just preparing to maybe leave New York when my lease is up in August. Or maybe I've one-upped myself so many times that there just aren't that many more activities that could trump the prior one?

The Atlantic Tunnel certainly trumped our tour of the abandoned City Hall station, and our visit to the Brooklyn trolleys last summer (which were rebuilt and restored by the same guy who rediscovered the Atlantic Tunnel in 1980, Bob Diamond).

And not just because it's harder to get into and because I've been trying for nearly seven years.

Or maybe that is why.



When Bob Diamond first cracked open the manhole cover in 1980 (well, actually it was the gas company), it led to a four-foot drop filled with loose, sandy dirt. Bob knew there must be more to it than that so he used his feet to feel around and submerged himself in the dirt, finally finding a wall that he broke through, leading into the infamous tunnel that, at the time, no one was really sure even existed. (It was falsely reported that it had been destroyed, but it was actually only sealed off in order to save money.) Bob had been warned of poisonous gas, flooding waters, and maneating rats, but what he actually found was a half-mile long tunnel made of Manhattan bedrock and red brick, stained black by the steam trains that once ran through it.

The dirt from under the manhole was pitched through the hole in the wall and now supports a wooden staircase that you have to climb down into the tunnel. Crawling through the hole in the wall - its edges still jagged from when they first burst through - felt like when I used to lock myself out of my Newell Street apartment all the time and would have to break in through the window. Except on the other side this time, it was dark, dank, wet, dirty, and deep.





There are a few incandescent bulbs that light the way, but mostly you're led by your own flashlight, which doesn't always catch the unevenness of the ground below or the rubble that's scattered about. The left side of the tunnel still shows the impressions of the train tracks that once lie there, but the right side has been smoothed out by the horse-drawn wagons that trotted alongside the trains in the tunnel's later years. I kept looking for traces of human (or even animal) life, but all I saw were bricks and a wheelbarrow. It's strangely preserved down there, unlike a lot of abandoned sites that have fallen prey to vandalism or construction. At places like the NYS Pavilion or Bannerman Castle you usually find folding chairs and barbeque kettles among wooden two-by-four's and tool chests. But down in the Atlantic Tunnel, it's just dirt, and the slightest cool breeze that chills you colder as you advance deeper towards the other sealed end. You think about the rumors of dead bodies behind the walls and the spirits of workers who may have perished there. It's not deep enough for the bends, but who knows what ailments might befall a construction worker using the cut-and-cover method (inspired by the Old Croton Acqueduct)?

Even for Bob Diamond himself, more mysteries lie ahead. He's trying to get funding to break through the other sealed-off entrance to the tunnel (the westernmost terminus), hopefully with the help of some documentarians who are trying to get some attention and financial backing for the project. Another rumor states that there's a train engine sealed off back there. What you can see now is some pipes (water or sewer, you'd better be prepared to find out), a shoddy job of cobblestoning it up, and another huge pile of dirt. The dirt is practically sand down there, an indication of how close to the water's edge you are (strategically located to connect underground trains to the Brooklyn harbor industry for transporting goods). As Bob reminded us, all of Long Island (including Queens and Brooklyn) is made up of topsoil dragged across New England by a glacier long ago...

And he may finally get those trolleys up and running on a brand new Brooklyn above ground rail system. I've got to say, I'm pulling for the guy. He's trying to avoid regret too.

Lots of further reading at the BHRA website.

For more photos, click here.

Ziggy Marley at the White House

Click here to see Ziggy's story about his White House Easter Egg Roll performance and some photos I took during the shows.

Videos below.

Back to My Cage

I can never really enjoy things in the moment. I’ve always got my eyes on the next thing. On my way to a concert, I can’t wait to get there. When I get there, I can’t wait to get home. During nearly every trip I take, I can’t wait til I can get back to NYC and move on to the next thing.

I just spent a week in Washington D.C., though, and was living pretty in-the-moment. I didn’t pressure myself to see all the touristy sites, but rather enjoyed staying in Amanda’s nice house and keeping an eye out for her cat and dog, who woke me up with a lick-in-the-face in the morning and bid goodnight by jumping on my bed and rubbing her head into my comforter. Working from Amanda’s home seemed better than working from my cramped apartment, where the sound of animals usually comes from the mice in the walls.

As I recall, I’d only visited DC three times in my past:

1. for the NOW Women’s Rally in 1994 when I got terribly sunburned by walking around the mall in my bra with Liz Green and we stayed on a Colgate alumna’s floor in Virginia somewhere. We visited one of the Smithsonian Museums but we were more interested in goofing off than being cultured, so we pushed each other around in a wheelchair we’d absconded with
2. for the Billboard/BETJazz Awards when I worked at Atlantic, which is when I first met Amanda and when I realized Herbie Hancock is a pervert
3. for Amanda’s baby shower last summer, though I was only in town for a day

I had no real impression of it and didn’t have much desire to be a tourist, but since I was going to be alone rather than shown around by friends, I had to get a little proactive in terms of planning things to do. There would be no Rodeo Bar around the corner. No Marshall Stack a bus ride away. And I knew that even with the animals’ company, I would be stir crazy enough to have to go out, even if that meant spending the day in the center city, going back to Brookland (an hour away) to feed the munchkins, and then going back into the city for a couple of hours before catching the Metro before it stopped running or finding a cab that I could direct to the near northeast suburbs.

Fortunately, it doesn't take much to entertain me. A wine bar in Dupont Circle. A massage. Trying new beer at The Big Hunt with a new drinking buddy. On my way back from the Govinda Gallery’s Bob Marley photo exhibit in the rain, stopping and snapping a photo of the stairs featured in The Exorcist, which look less ominous now that they’ve added a railing to the precarious and fall-inducing non-walled side of it.

Although DC was unseasonably chilly and sometimes downright cold, I caught the cherry blossoms past peak but still in bloom, framing the Jefferson Memorial and catching the sunlight as they inevitably dropped from the low branches to the ground with each passerby. I’m not one much for monuments – obelisks and pyramids and giant statues of political figures – preferring instead historical usable spaces like train stations, cathedrals, and factories, so I didn’t bother to walk up to the Washington Monument, though I caught a good look at it from afar. I found out later that you can climb up into it. That’ll be something to do for the next trip.

All of these pit stops, though, were peripheral to the real reason I was in town: for Ziggy Marley’s headlining performances at the White House Easter Egg Roll, a popular event on the south lawn attended annually by 30k people. I missed Fergie’s performances, though I could hear the last one from outside the SE Gate. I caught the end of a kids’ cooking demo by Top Chef’s Spike, who apparently has a burger joint on the hill which I didn’t find out about until it was too late to go. I stood in front of actor James Cromwell, who holds a special place in my heart as the farmer in Babe. I even got a free commemorative wooden egg, only given out to children under 10 and available for sale on the White House website.

Once I got there, I realized I didn’t really need to be there for my consulting gig, but I was so happy to be welcomed by three generations of the Marley family and to witness first-hand how much a lot of people would love to be in my shoes. All ages and races reached over the fence that I was behind to get a photo with Ziggy, even just on their camera phones. They asked for photos with Ziggy’s mom Rita, who they recognized immediately (I did not). Even one of the PBS Kids costumed characters reached into a furry pocket to retrieve a camera, and leaned over and whispered into Ziggy’s wife’s ear, “That’s Ziggy’s kid, right? Can I have a picture?” Truly one of the most bizarre fan moments of my career.

By the time Tuesday morning came, I was ready to go back to NYC. I needed something to make me miss it. But give me a day or two back and I’m sure my wanderlust will kick in again….

Ticket For One

Somehow growing up in Syracuse, whose downtown was once bisected by the Erie Canal, must've influenced my taste in recreation more than I thought because I keep taking weird boat rides.

After my toxic cruise on the Gowanus Canal last summer, in February I found myself in a much cleaner but not much more habitable canal during the worst snowstorm in London in 20 years: the Regents Canal, living for a few days on a houseboat. I was freezing and cramped and ever so damp, and despite my deep love for its owners, I was glad to leave.

So what on earth brought me to the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal today, Easter Sunday, to sit on a boat again in the biting wind (improperly dressed for the weather of course) and once again freezing?

Maybe it was the mules that drag the boat along the original towpath.

Plus, the C&O is a national park, and my recent travels have proven to me that I have the same taste as parents with young children and senior citizens. Now that I've left a fulltime job behind me, maybe I can really pretend I'm retired under the age of 40.

And finally, it was Easter Sunday, and although I am in Washington, DC alone, I felt like I needed to do something special to commemorate the day, as all my friends are roasting lambs and having seders and spending time with family. Easter has never meant much of anything to me, but I don't like to be left out, either. So I took myself out for brunch at the Peacock Cafe, and bought a $5 ticket to the boat ride.

"Just one?" the costumed visitors' center clerk asked. He then quizzed me about where I'm from and tried to ascertain what on earth brought me there. It was he who blamed the Erie Canal.

In the end, the ride seemed pretty uneventful from inside the boat, but it sure drew a lot of spectators - who especially liked the two mules that towed us along. The mules' efforts made for a much smoother ride than the Bobby Dazzler provided, despite having an engine...

And the excursion did feel like a hidden treasure of DC, one that might only be discovered after exhausting all the museums and monuments. In typical form, I skipped the Smithsonian and the Spy Museum and a lot of that other stuff and instead found myself at a Bob Marley photo exhibit at the Govinda Gallery with Bob's widow. I saw the Hay Adams from inside the Presidential Suite. And tomorrow I'll see The White House from the green room and the dressing room, two places a ticket will never get you into.