Everyone in the city is an addict.



I have this notion that the city can be a vice, a recreational drug for the senses. But in excess the city can also be the onslaught of illness. The intoxication seeping out of the steam vents, taxi exhausts, street food carts, fashion houses, tapas bars, and magazine stands can send you on an acid trip- but the high is rarely noticed until the fall. Rarely appreciated, just like home.

It took an island of 8 million people and endless entertainment to appreciate the simplicity of the place I grew up. It took meeting art school students to realize the endless opportunities my education affords me. It took being treated like an intern to grow a backbone and define my own importance.

It has never been so blatantly obvious that you can't appreciate a couture gown until you learn the painful art of hand-sewing. You can't appreciate the power of Dorthy's red slippers, until you have left Kansas. You can't appreciate the simplicity of life until you are dropped into chaos. You can't appreciate a high until you've experienced a low.

Just as fast as the city builds you up, it can tear you down. One hit of the city won't hurt you, but hooking yourself up to an IV constantly filtering the city into your veins could be lethal.
The same with fashion. Snorting a Spring '10 line won't hurt you, but constantly inhaling fashion cycles could send your body into shock.


While there are those capable of dependencies to hard drugs like the city, I'll stick with the street legal drugs like cheap shoes and my dad's homemade salsa.

Walking in this this city is a dance.

Not the kind of dance you unleash at the Brass Monkey, but a much more vulnerable and choreographed dance. One that takes dedication and precision to perfect.


Glissade. Jeté. Pas de bourrée. Glissade. Jeté. Pas de bourrée. Glissade. Jeté. Pas de bourrée.
For all those ballet illiterate


New Yorkers know the streets like a stage they have danced on for years. They know every plank of wood by heart. Know the depth and width of the stage, and how to move gracefully across it. They cut you off so their moves can be seen, studied like an art, and respected.

For "natives", though it seems only a handful of New Yorkers are natives, tourists and their maps are like nails in the stage. Something to trip on breaking elegantly fluid movements.

New Yorkers are the principal dancers, and all else who dare to share the stage with them are forced to know their place in the corps de ballet (body of the ballet). Behind them on the curb.

The fashion industry isn't much different. Interns stand in the corps line glissading 'to and fro' in the back on rotting wood all to make the principal dancers movements on the shiny wood gracing center stage seem even more intricate and beautiful.

Monotonous moves on the back of the stage have led me to realize that it takes far more stamina, and dedication to dance in the corps line than it does to flawlessly fouetté until the curtain falls.

Without a doubt, corps line dancers have far more heart than the principal dancer who is more concerned with picking up the roses on the stage than stepping on your toes. Corps line dancers must love what they do, because there isn't much glory in dancing behind someone who is no better than you. Their belief in their art keeps them going, not the applause at the end of the show.

Tourists are far less fearful than hardened New Yorkers. No matter how many wrong trains or wrong turns tourists take, they keep at it, hoping the end result will be worth the much allotted effort. The desire to see and learn is far greater than the fear of the unknown or rude "natives" putting them in their place.


Just as tourists have been knocked around on the side walks, I have been shoved into the curtain so the principal dancer could be seen. I've been kicked in the face so someone else's arabesque extension could be more developed than mine. I've been standing behind the curtain watching someone else pawn off my moves for an audience who paid far too much for what they are receiving.

But I still go. Everyday. Even though my toes are bleeding, and my shoes are rubbing my blisters. I go.

Tourists still tour. Even though it might not be the place they set out looking for.


My place is the corps line is stable, but not indefinite.

My fouettés might not be as fluid as a principal dancer, and I might not know the stage as thoroughly- but my turnout rivals theirs, and my legs look just as good in tights.

Sad as though it may be, you truly never leave high school.

There will always be the pretty girls, the guys who have the world at their fingertips because they can catch a ball, the geeks, the art freaks, the granolas, and the inevitable wannabes.



Life is compartmentalized and clique-ish in New York. There is a status, a membership, a label attached to everything. You are either in or you're out. There are neighborhoods, bars, floors, and even sewing machines that restrict entrance/use.



After proving my ability in turning paper patterns into prototypes, my days seem to be spent listening to "Livin' La Vida Loca" in a hot, sticky sewing room. For the first couple of weeks I was shunned by the sewers and forced to sit in the corner sewing on a rusty Juki with feed dogs so ravenous so as to eat my fabric.



As if the language barrier wasn't excluding enough, I sat in the corner in a somewhat wannabe state of mind, with my back towards the professionals, the locals, the geeks you befriend so you can stay eligible for the Friday night game. The sewers are the heartbeat of fashion. So often forgotten and overlooked. They turn your vision into reality, your failing trig grade into the winning touchdown with no recognition. Their name isn't on the garment, or the MVP trophy you walk away with at the end of the season.



After doing my time as the "new girl in school" desperate for acceptance, I was finally allotted a seat next to Louis, master sewer, valedictorian. I felt oddly validated, and terrified of failing to deserve such a sacred seat. As I began loading my bobbin for winding at my shiny new Juki complete with a personal fan, Louis looks over at me and shakes a pre-wound bobbin in my face nodding at me to use it. He just gave me a sharpened pencil before the final.



He might not be the quarterback or voted most likely to be famous, but he is the one cheering you on at the big game, or voting for you so you can receive coveted yearbook space.



He is the one sewing the labels into your clothes so you can feel constant indulgence. He winds your bobbin so you can sew. He holds the seams together as they are falling apart.

People often say there is beauty in the breakdown. But I find the beauty to be in the formulation.

The formulation of relationships, seams, and Spanglish.

Confucius says: You cannot open a book without learning something.

The New York Public Library. Home to books, pictures, and dust.

I find libraries to be completely fascinating. Getting lost in a sea of books helps you stumble upon something you would have never sought out, quite like the adventures a directionally challenged girl finds in a city like Manhattan. The air is filled with knowledge waiting for someone to absorb the information like skin absorbing sunshine. People can feed off it. Long for it. And feel quite pale and unwell without it.

Libraries are also quite tragic. The lost books that sit on the shelves waiting for someone to choose knocking off dust over a shiny cover. Waiting for someone to turn the pages and let the smell of old wise words intoxicate them, breathe life, and infuse the lessons of yesterday into the present. Such an un-tapped resource.

Books and people are a lot alike. We put on clothes to get attention, draw people in, and entice them to know us more- just as the cover of a book does. We categorize and define ourselves by key words and phrases. We do not share shelf space with those who do not promote the same level of knowledge, passion, or glossy printed pages. Some even find comfort in the multiple check out cards placed in their cover pocket to solidify their pretentious nature -their checkout cards scream "I'm important. See everyone else thinks so too."

The fashion industry is a genre all its own. Shelf space is a hot commodity. Do not expect to sit next to Gianni Versace or Donna Karan. Don't even expect to sit next to those anonymous designers who design for them. Interns are all in a bin waiting to be revised before placing on some obscure shelf.

Perhaps that is why I enjoy the art of getting lost in a library. Finding those shelves behind bathrooms or in dark corners, that house those books that have something important to say but didn't make Oprah's book club making a prime library locale impossible. Lost words, forgotten wisdom, undiscovered genius paint the pages of a deserted book.

Sometimes the arrows in life point you to what you think you want. But choosing opposition and defying the direction others choose for you, is what you need to find yourself nestled in a corner hoping no one finds your secret. Your hidden gem of a book. Your garage sale Yves Saint Laurent blouse.

Sometimes you have to get lost to feel at home.

Boarding an elevator in New York is like trying to get into the Crillon Ball.







If there is one thing I've over-indulged in throughout my time in the City, it is observation. I'm a self-proclaimed glutton. I notice all the small things. Sometimes it is at the expense of missing the big picture, or the bus headed towards me. But I notice the lucky pennies, the makeshift gardens, the names carved into the Brooklyn Bridge, and the "door close" button rubbed raw on elevators.





The "door open" button, due to its seemingly virginal appearance, is unexplored territory. Threatening to those who fear the unknown, question dark spaces, and search for a crutch when pushed out of the nest.

I will admit, elevator rides are chronically awkward. For those days when you are packed into a freight elevator like sardines, you watch the floor as if it is a Broadway show, and long for a solo ride in which your nose isn't pressed into the delivery boy's armpit.

For those who shut the doors on others, deeming themselves worthy of a ride in solitude, there is something prestigious and magical about elevators. The carriage rises up the spine of the building and drops them off into an unknown abyss. People see them get on, but where they escape to is a mystery.

Riding alone to the top affords those who do the notion of importance. Like walking in glass slippers. You can't very well walk up stairs in glass slippers. Alas your carriage awaits you, and only you. It lowers to cradle you and your fragile shoes high into the sky into a land of make-believe.

You have reached the ball on the penthouse floor, in you fabulous shoes nonetheless, but at the expense of what?

Just like Cinderella couldn't have finished her chores and made it to the ball without the help of mice, designers couldn't make it to Bryant Park, let alone the showroom floor, without the vermin that are interns. We haul samples, swatches, and patterns around the city like mice with crumbs. We lurk in the corners when fabulous people arrive, as if we don't exist.

But those unfortunate things, coupled with freight elevators, and running errands in the rain, make seeing a garment you had a hand in on Style.com worth every pin you picked up, every armpit you had your nose in, and seam you ripped.

Cinderella enjoyed the ball more, because she worked to get there. She scrubbed the floor on her hands an knees. She appreciated the pumpkin transforming into a carriage. She didn't expect it, or deem herself worthy of it.

But just like Cinderella, your magical carriage, that is your elevator, turns back into a pumpkin at midnight, and your glass slippers suddenly become impractical and debilitating.

Think about all you are missing when you choose an elevator ride in solitude. You miss the laughs on the way up, the meaningless conversation that turns into a life-long friendship. You miss the opportunity to be the first finger to grace the "Open Door" button.

Instead you are choosing solitary confinement. All you are missing are padded walls and you've got yourself an asylum.

People always wonder why it is so lonely at the top. Because you choose the "close door" option. You wouldn't share the ride with anyone else. You let mice help you do your chores, but when it came time for the ball they were nothing more than an infestation.


Cinderella shared her experience with the mice that helped get her there. Granted, if memory serves me correct, mice were merely horses that drew her carriage, but at least she wasn't ashamed of her help.

That infamous night Cinderella didn't ride alone.

Clearly Cinderella was doing something right-She ended up with Prince Charming and killer shoes.

Stepping out onto the street, rather than waiting on the curb is so New York. One small step for locals, one giant leap for a newbie.

I often find myself with my heels pressed against the curb as if it is some safe place in a game of tag, no one can touch me, I can't be it. From this place I can calculate my next move, get my bearings, plan my attack.


Red light.
Green Light.
Heel.
Toe.
Curb.
Street.

It has become devastatingly apparent that even when a New Yorker stops, they are still going. Odd as it seems, the notion of breaking, stopping, coming to a halt is as foreign to a New Yorker as a street without a Starbucks.

Life is in constant motion for New York. Stopping would throw off your balance, lessen your feelings of importance. If you can't order a latte while simultaneously emailing on your blackberry, reading page six, and confirming your reservations dinner- pack your bags you belong in Jersey, or anywhere else but Manhattan taking up precious space, for that matter.

Inhabiting this island is an art form. There is a method to the madness. A disillusionment of ease, like a splatter painting hanging in the MET. But behind that painting, behind that "glamorous" city life, is a sad story of a truly tortured soul married to their work. An insomniac with all the signs of corporate spousal abuse.

In city where some people have the depth of the ocean and others that of a puddle, I'm in constant search of a truly happy face, a face with laugh lines and forgiving eyes that pay homage to the joy found in the balance of life.

It has been a month since I landed on this planet, and with people in constant motion, I have only managed to capture one truly happy face.

She had blue hair, opaque skin, and shoulder pads. She had the swagger of someone who had been there, done that, and has a story to prove it. She was pretentious in just the right way. Pretentious for protection; if you look feeble people will chew you up and spit you out. She stood behind me at K-mart, in a line that could have put the Jonas Brothers Today Show crowd to shame. But her smile never wavered.

As we moved closer to the cashier, I noticed she only had one item for purchase and it was cradled in her veiny hands, held tight as if someone might try to take it.

Never one to take exclusion from a secret well, I couldn't leave without knowing her secret. Whatever she had in her hands made her smile, made her wait in line, made her day worth living.

Alas, there it was. On the counter. Clear as day.

Red lipstick.

How ironic, that the one thing that motivated a woman to stand in line, was red, the color of impedance. After over-analyzing the purchase of red lipstick, I came to determine that true happiness comes from the things in life that force you to stop. Creates in you a desire to dwell, meddle, and dissolve in the emotions that come with it.

That afternoon, as I stood in the Model as a Muse exhibit at the MET, I couldn't help but feel as if I was sinking into the floor as people passed by me. I didn't care if my mouth was open, I didn't care if I was drooling. It was as if the world kept moving around me and I somehow got stuck in limbo. Just like the woman with the red lipstick, I was content being still and reverent. Unconcerned with the squealing girls who salivate over designers and use hair flips in exchange for drinks. I was fixated on vintage Yves Saint Laurent, and ancient Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, and litany of other things that paralyzed me- just as red lipstick created a paralysis for the woman longing to feel the power red lipstick gave her as it stains her cracked lips.

Regardless of what others might think or say. It is not what your passion is that matters. It is your ability to have passion. It is the implication that passion has on your life. It is your ability to leave the safe zone and save the heels of your shoes by moving away from the curb and into the street. It is your ability to stop when everyone else moves on. It is your ability to accept a red light as just as much of an adventure as a green light.


Let your passion stain your lips and speak of it often.

I hate to break it to Pat Benatar, but she got it all wrong. Love is not a battlefield. The city is.

When the sun rises in New York, it is as if the city, who spent the night doubled over, rises slowly, one vertebrae at a time. A movement so subtle and so contrived so as not to disturb the inhabitants before it attacks. The clouds seem to lift higher as the skyline takes their place. The sky-scrapers act as watch towers, where those who have deemed themselves important and convinced others to do the same, can watch as soldiers wage war on the streets of their enemy.

Soldiers leave their posts every morning in full armor. Their faces are hostile and cold. Breaking their concentration could be lethal. Their guard is up from the moment their soles hit the pavement, until they return to their makeshift campsite of a home.

As I walked past a fallen soldier on my way into a building that en-housed so much beauty and "glamour" I couldn't help but spend my day thinking of the harsh realities in such a hostile and brutal city.

It is a war in which camaraderie does not exist. It is every man for himself. If you fall in the streets, someone will pave a new path right over you. If you run out of ammo, good luck and asta la vista.

No matter which way you slice it, you can't help but feel personally attacked by the city and the people in it. To make it out of this city alive, you have to dress for the occasion.

Upon entering this city I was cashmere, an innocent bystander, destined to the feel the wrath of a roadside bomb as it tears through my delicate exterior. The veterans playing chess in the park are leather. Tough, all knowing, hardened in a beautiful way.

I am a cadet, they are captains.

I might not have earned my leather jacket yet.

But, if Spartans can fight a war in skirts and no shirts, I can fight in cashmere.

His helmet was stifling, it narrowed his vision. And he must see far. His shield was heavy. It threw him off balance. And his target is far away." Dilios (300)