Dear America

Dear America,

8 years ago, I watched, somewhat amused, at the debacles of your election, and mocked you, the (quote, unquote) “most powerful country in the world” at your inability to conduct fair elections…(Remember Florida?)
4 years ago, definitely not as funny watching you purposely this time, elect George Bush: How you thought he could fix problems he didn’t think existed (i.e. the Abu Ghraib scandal, the insurgency oh and that whole “mission accomplished” thing he was convinced of) was beyond me. But still, you sent us “I’m sorry” pictures via the World Wide Web and it seemed you were as disbelieved as the rest of us was, and were truly promising only four more years.
In less than 5 days, you will be hitting the voting booths. Although it seems Barack Obama is leading in the polls, I know better America! Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice…and come Election Day, safely tucked behind a curtain, a lot of you might be convinced that McCain is The Republican worth voting for. So to help you see the light, here are ten reasons why you should listen to the rest of the world and NOT vote for John McCain.

10) He has stated that he doesn’t really use the computer. Which means it’s only a matter of time before he gets Dells for the oval office. And we know all the cool people have a Mac!

9) He is concerned Obama might be a terrorist.
No he meant Obama pals around with terrorist.
Is it because he is a Muslim? Err, sorry black?
Well, half.
Come on America: You do not want to add racist to your resume.

8) McCain will continue building that fence near Mexico.
Do you think the Whopper will still be 99cents if the $2/h tomato pickers get deported? Will Joe the plumber work for minimum wage because it’s what the country needs?

7) He doesn’t really understand what “socialism” is.
Has an impromptu airline strike erupted on Christmas Eve anywhere in this country? Ever? The same should be asked about nurses, the subway? (New York doesn’t count: They actually had to pay a fine for striking!) Garbage collectors and teachers? What do you mean striking is not legal? Do you work less than 40 hours a week? Do the extra work hours tally up to more days off? Do you have over 4 weeks of paid vacations? Was your doctor’s co-pay ever under $1? Is your health insurance free? Is College government owned and will cost you under $100 a year? If you have answered yes to one or more of these questions, look around: you’ve actually been living in Europe this whole time. Until then, you’re not even close.
-PS: he seems to confuse socialism with communism. Hum John? 1962 called: it wants its cold war back.

6) He claims to be a maverick.
Well John, I saw that movie and Mel Gibson sucked in it!
(So did Jodie Foster)

5) The next President will appoint one or two Supreme Court Judges.
According to conservative hype, Obama’s picks will turn America into a land where the gays teach a special course to second graders on how to turn yourself gay, the Four Seasons are government owned homeless shelters, teenage girls get their abortions in bulk at Costco’s and everyone is forced to drive a Prius!
Fear is how you got yourselves into the war. And we all know how that turned out.

4) He clearly feels Palin will be a better VP than Biden: And why not? It’s not like she preaches abstinence instead of safe sex and has a pregnant teenage daughter or anything, clearly proving that her experience as head of the household has prepared her to lead the country successfully. Besides, the woman can see Russia form her back yard for Christ sake: She’ll be able to keep an eye out for those commies! (Insert sarcasm)

3) Eventually if McCain is elected, some of you will want to flee to a different country. An obvious destination? Canada. But no can do: it’s filled with soldiers who refused to return to Iraq. You know? That war the Republicans lied to you about?
And don’t even think about applying for refugee status in France: They haven’t forgotten about that whole freedom fries thing.

2) You clearly don’t know what you’re doing: 83% of you thought that Bush was doing a good job back in 2002.

1) And if nothing else, America: You’ve f****d us over for the past 8 years. You owe us b*tch!

Sincerely,

The rest of the world.

Knock, knock knocking on Democrats' doors

“To be honest, I want to find a way to help that a) doesn't need me calling middle America (with a Brit accent - not so good) or b) talking to people about Props (not a fan of "following the ticket" or propositions period for that matter, plus I think everyone will do the right thing on them in general).”


My friend Mike’s attitude reflects that of most normal human beings when it comes down to canvassing on behalf of … well, anyone!
It is a very ungrateful way to spend a Sunday afternoon; even when it’s 70 degrees, sunny and you are being fed the most delicious quiche in the world.

Now, until then, I had thought of canvassing as what Jehovah’s Witnesses spent their time doing, where one knocks on the opposition’s door and hustle to try to change their mind and get them to see the light. So I was surprised when I realized it was the exact opposite: we would be spending three hours trying to convince Democrats to still vote for Obama and the whole ticket.
Although it would be nice to bond with my neighbors over our shared ideals and hope and show the world the new face of America, both my husband and I were convinced this would be a waste of our time. I mean, what’s the point in preaching to the choir? I was ready to walk back into the DNC’s offices and explain to them that there had to be a better, more productive way to use volunteers. So there we were, my husband and I, walking the streets of West Hollywood in Los Angeles, not very enthusiastically I might add, to knock, knock, knock on people’s doors, a stash of flyers in hand, a volunteer sign-up sheet, a cheat-sheet with all the various propositions on the ticket and how to vote on them, a map of the area and a the addresses of all the registered Democrats on Genesee street.

Well, imagine my dismay- I was after all strolling through a pro-gay, pro Obama neighborhood- when instead of hearing one “Hell yeah!” after the other, my afternoon went more like this:

“ Knock, knock
Who’s there?
Hi, may I speak to Joe?
Who are you?
I am a volunteer with the Democratic Party and I …”

Door slams in my face.

Take two:

“ Knock, knock…
blah blah blah
Door slams in my face.

When doors did not slam, or someone chose not to sic their Chihuahua on me, the answers were disappointing, and once translated, not very hopeful:

“I do not need to tell you. It is my right to not tell you.” The means: I have changed my mind because I either don’t want to vote for a black man, don’t want to vote on gay rights or a teenager’s right to choose, but I would never admit it since you know where I live.

Or:
“Don’t you guys have anything else to do on a Sunday afternoon?” Which really means: “I’m a closeted Republican. Don’t make me say it. My neighbors might hear you.”

How about: “I haven’t made up my mind” (More like “Sarah Palin made me switch on you guys cause she’s a maverick”)

My favorite? “I don’t speak English” (Well, not if I have to admit I am under 40, not from Texas, and voting Republican)


All of a sudden, canvassing did not seem like such a waste of time: No Democrat is for sure. Unless it has been cast, no vote is guarantied! So it may be ungrateful, it may be the least satisfying hours of my life, but until Tuesday, 8pm, I will knock on everyone’s door, and remind you, the Democrats of America, that every one of you count. You need to vote for Obama, you need to respect the party’s complete ticket and you need to help change the country.

Because a lot of others won’t.

10 Reasons to keep the Ipod OFF your Christmas wish list

With only 2 weeks left until D-day, confirmation that yes, the Xbox 360 is sold out everywhere and that no, your father will not buy you a $600 pair of shoes- even if they are Manolos- you might resort to asking Santa for the trendiest, most recognizable MP3 player of all: The Ipod.
But before you become one of these commuters, living in a tech-bubble, watching the latest Lost episode downloaded for $1.99 on the colored screen, a few lessons that were learned the hard way:


1) After weeks of manual-reading, Apple-website-surfing, you have finally figured out all the features on your Ipod, set the language from Japanese back to English and discovered you can be woken up by the chorus of "Life on Mars" at 7 every morning. The very next day, Apple announces the launch of a newer, improved version of the model. Cheaper.

2) Buying all the "skins", "socks", and other covers to color coordinate your Ipod with your outfit have left you broke.

3) At 99 cents an I-tune, you emptied your piggy bank downloading songs. Your next vacation will thus be spend tanning in your parent's New Jersey backyard, and not sipping Pina Coladas in Costa Rica.

4) You signed up for your first Road-Runners' race, ready to circle Central Park for 9 miles. That's the day your Ipod flat-lines. Literally: No songs, no lights, just a flat line across the screen. You absolutely cannot run without sound. The huffing and puffing of the other racers does not constitute music. Good Luck!





5) Have you seen the lines at the "Genius Bar"- aka "We're too cool to call it a help-desk"? By getting to the NYC Prince street store at 11AM on a Tuesday morning, you'll be informed that there are no more appointments available: You cannot sign up to reserve a time for a following day. You are advised to invest in an extended warranty and look online: Somewhere on the website, you can make an appointment! Found it yet?

6) The "AppleCare" Protection Plan costs $59.00: it extends your warranty to two years and enables you to ship your dead Ipod for free in exchange of a refurbished one. No plan? It will cost you $30 for shipping EVERY TIME you need it replaced.

7) Too much drama: according to www.consumersearch.com, a proposed class-action lawsuit was filed last October in California, alleging that Apple knew about the rampant "Nano issue" (which screen scratches so quickly it makes the video-feature useless), ignored complaints, and deleted postings related to the issue from its Web site.

8) There are cheaper, just as good versions: Circuit City consumer reviews gave the Ipod ($299) a 4.4 rating-out of 5. Creative Lab Zen Sleek ($249) was awarded a 4.5 one. The Ipod 1GB shuffle received a 4.2 rating. The Samsung 1GB got a 4.8. They both cost $129.99. Yes, this means there is a better alternative!

9) The MTA has issued warnings for all Ipod owners that take the subway: Apparently, it could cost you your life. The bright white earplugs give away the fact that you have "that" little MP3 player hidden under your coat. Someone squashed against you may be ready to kill for it.

10) Too busy learning Spanish by listening to Shakira's "La Tortura" over and over again, you never noticed the sexy stranger, with the brown hair and bright smile desperately attempting eye contact with you. And you wonder why you're still single?

Snap! I've got the power.

The hand that holds the velvet rope

She's had death threats from drug dealers and men with a little too much to drink whose egos revolve around them getting inside. She's been offered bribes to look the other way while people walk pass her. She never takes them, she swears. Her workday starts at 10 at night and ends at 4 in the morning. She's one of three women to hold this job in New York City.

Tari is the "door person" of a prestigious Manhattan Night Club. Now don't get confused: the door person is not the one with the list you sign up over some promoter's newsletter. Neither is she the bouncer. Tari is "the one". The one whose "yes'" or "no's" are neither questioned or justified. The one with the final say on whether or not you will walk past the velvet rope, following the steps of celebrities and models.

I catch her on Halloween, at a friend's South Hampton villa. She's in her pajamas, giving out candies to kids, "Before I eat them all" she laughs.
" I represent the owner, the crowd they want inside. How they want to be perceived. It's harder than you think." She adds. "I'm like a Bartender, except I work with people. I have to make sure there's the right amount of everything to create the perfect vibe for a great party, so that those inside will want to come back, and those outside will do anything to get in!"

Tari is in her late 30's and has worked the door of Wax, Life, Lot 61 and Pangea among others. She got her start rather randomly: 8 years ago, she was working as an assistant for NYC promoters Irv Johnson and Billy Thompson, two very well-known and respected night-scene personalities. One evening, she does a woman a favor. Turns out this woman's PR firm is throwing the event at the club that night. It also turns out, she's best friends with Shalom Harlow, top-model of the moment. Next thing you know, Tari is working the VIP rope of Shalom's birthday party and being offered the door of the hottest nightclub in the city.

"How do you get paid? How much do you earn?"
Tari never gives me an answer. You don't discuss money because you're not in it for the money.
"What are you in it for then?" I ask…
Without even thinking about it, Tari answers me. "The people. They're the most valuable part of the job. I've met my closest friends because of the night scene. The money you make, that's just icing on the cake!"
"Is there competition between you and the other door persons?
"Sometimes, she says, it's competitive. We all want the door of the latest hot spot, so there's rivalry. But it's mainly a bond. Because, on this side of the rope, it's us against them!"
"Who's the most famous of you?"
"Henri. People know him because he worked the door at Lotus for the longest time."
After google-ing his name, I find out Henri Binje has had cameos in Zoolander and Hitch and that I actually do know who he is!
"Do you have fun most nights?" I wonder.
There is a long pause: "It's work!" she sighs.

I wonder if it affects her relationships. But it doesn't. When you start at 10 PM, it doesn't take much away from your social life. There's time for brunches, afternoon coffees, and birthday dinners, hot dates and afternoon workouts. Besides, when you work at a club, all your friends can stop by for a drink!

Sounds like a dream job, right? Well, that would be without taking into consideration the death threats from drug dealers who need to get in to make their money or the rich drunks who cannot phantom why you're not letting them in. I wonder if she's thinking about Dana Blake, a 32-year-old bouncer stabbed to death in the spring of 2003, for enforcing the smoking ban in the East Village club he was working at.
"Do your friends worry?" I ask
"Not so much about the violence. It's not like I'm alone at the door. There are big guys, bouncers. They mainly think it's a cool job to have. But they worry about my exposure to drugs and alcohol".
"What does your family think?"
"They think it's a novelty. Something I will grow out of. After all, I'm a writer…but pretty much everyone thinks it's cool…"

When I ask her of fun anecdotes, she laughs, and tells me she has thousands of them. When they get desperate, people will do crazy things to try to get in. She talks about this paparazzi, who walks around with an empty glass in his bag, no coat, and walks in the club, holding the glass, pretending he was out for a smoke. "Now, that's thinking outside the box" she adds. Another time, three guys offered her $100 each to get in. She didn't take it and didn't let them in. "I don't take bribes. Only tips. And Tips are given on the way out!"

I wonder how much of the job is about the power as well…

Parents, Friends of Lesbians And Gays

You can also read this published story, ("A Sunny Afternoon") on the stay close website, a parent organistaion of PFLAG. And while your there, you know, make a donation...

Coming Out

The first thing I do every morning when I get to work, is check my emails. I turn the computer on, type in my password and check my gmail account: This morning, there are 11 new messages. The first one is a spam advertising me on penis enlargement. Delete. The second one is from my cousin, in regards to the family reunion she is throwing in 2 months. I opened it. And just like I was afraid of, I read the dreaded question: "Why is your brother not coming to the reunion?"
“Psssss, Sofe? Sofe?”
It was the summer of 1999. I was reading a romance novel I had stolen from my aunt’s shelf. I looked up and saw my 18-year old brother’s head popping through the door.
“Are you bored? I am so bored.”
“Tell me about it!” I sighed back.
“You want to go for a walk? Let's go into town”, he suggested.

My grandma lived in Sfax, a small town in the middle of Tunisia. 3 PM was the very sacred siesta time and everyone else in the house was taking a nap. The only thing I could hear was my father snoring and the kitchen clock ticking. I wasn’t sure about going into town: most stores would be closed and the streets would be empty. But I was bored out of my mind, there was nothing to watch on the Arabic TV- and I didn’t understand half the stuff anyway.

I got up as quietly as possible and the two of us tiptoed out of the house and into the narrow streets of the Medina, the old part of the city. In this part of town, the houses had no running hot water; no heat for the cold and damp winters and the streets were dirty and filled with trash and abandoned kittens someone did not have the heart to drown.
We were alone in the street and walked in silence for 10 minutes before coming to the newly renovated plaza and the slightly busier road that separates the Medina from the rest of the town. We crossed and walked among empty shoe stores, closed ice cream parlors and almost-dead coffee houses. In some cafes, the waiters were getting busy, filling the water pipes with apple flavored tobacco, making sure there was sugar in the sugar bowls, wiping the dust off of the tables on the terrace. In an hour, the Imam will call out for the afternoon prayer and very quickly, the café will get swamped with men stopping in between the mosque and work.

My brother and I took a break at a Kebab stand to get something to drink; it was so hot, drops of sweat were drizzling down the vendor's tanned forehead, splashing on the ground. My brother frowned, watching me stick a straw in my can of Diet Coke.
“Why do you still get diet? I thought you were done with that. You’re still very skinny!”
“I like the taste better - I lied, looking down at my knees and what I was sure was cellulite wiggling around them.

We continued to walk across the center of the town, pass the one movie theater, which only showed old Bruce Lee and Jean-Claude Van Dam movies and head towards the sea and the boardwalk. I told Ismael about school, filled him on my apartment, crazy roommate and everything else that had changed since the last time I saw him. I told him that I had finally ended my on-again-off-again 3-year-old relationship with Ron.

" Men are stupid.” I concluded.
“I know”, Ismael squeezed my hand in sympathy before letting out a burp.
“Roger” he yelled out and before I could even react, he smacked my forehead. “Roger” was a burping game my brother, sister and I played: Whoever burped had to say “Roger” and everyone had to say it back. If you failed, you got smacked in the forehead.
“Ouch. What the…! You’re not supposed to put me in a coma with this!” I yelled out.
Ismael looked at me, my red forehead and started to laugh!
"So how about you, any new girlfriends? I asked
“Nope!”
“You don’t have a girlfriend?”
“No!”
“Someone you have a crush on? A sugar mommy?”
“No”
“Boyfriend?” I said, laughing.
“Actually, yes…”
I stopped walking and turned around, expecting him to smile and say “Gotcha!” but instead he laughed again, “Man, you should see the look on your face right now Sophie, so funny”
“You know, I have a lot of gay friends and it’s almost disrespectful of you to just, I don’t know, are you mocking gay people?”
He laughed for another few seconds, looked me straight in the eye and repeated:
“I have a boyfriend, his name is Mohammed. Ask Myriam. I told her at Easter; I wouldn’t joke about this.”

I didn’t say anything and that was the end of our conversation. We walked to the sea, sat on a bench, and every once in a while I glimpsed at my brother, trying to figure out if it was a joke or not; trying to decide if he looked gay or not…But he just looked like my brother. After 15 minutes of uncomfortable silence, we walked back to the house, Ismael rushing to bathroom while I ran to wake up Myriam, our older sister.
“Hey! IthinkIsmajusttoldmehewasgaybuthesaiditlaughingand…and…he said you knew?”
The words were flying out of my mouth so fast I wasn’t sure my sister actually understood me. But she nodded yes.
“Shit. He’s gay?”
“Yep”.
“You know- I lowered my voice in case someone was walking by our room- I used to wish he was gay. Just to teach Dad a lesson. Every time Dad got drunk and started yelling and being mean, I kept thinking: wouldn’t it be fun if his son was gay? Dad would get all upset and it would serve him right. And now, I am so ashamed I ever thought that… Like his punishment for having a drunken father is that he turns out gay…Like being gay is a punishment. Shit. I am such an asshole…”
My sister and I just sat in silence. I didn’t say anything else to my brother either that day. And when it was time to go to bed - the three of us slept in the same room; my sister and I on two benches so narrow, my brother, who slept on a mattress on the floor, was constantly afraid one of us would fall right on top of him- I pretended nothing out of the ordinary had occurred that afternoon; asking the same questions I always asked right before turning the lights off.

“Did anyone check for roaches? I said patting the sheets on top of my bed.
“I did” says Ismael.
He turned the lights off and I remember thinking: wow, my brother is gay!

And that was the only thing I thought of, every day, hour and minute during the rest of your vacation. Every time he spoke, every time he did something: buy yogurts for my grandpa, help clean the house, play with our cousins, even sneeze, all I could think was: my brother is gay.
Because I didn’t see “it”: He was my brother, a tall, skinny, bonny 18-year-old kid with a nose a little too big. He didn’t speak in a high pitch voice; he didn’t gesture or wear pink- the cliché my uncles sometimes used to make fun of the “Queers”.

It never crossed my mind. Not when he wore tight tank tops, not even when I took him to the gay pride the summer he came to visit and all the men stared at him. He was my brother, just being my brother. The way he had always been.

We never really talked about it again. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to tell him I was worried for him. He was going to come out, or someone would see it. His “gay-ness”. He would experience pain, shame; some people will make him feel abnormal; some would try to hurt him, shun him aside. There would be stares and hatred and fingers pointing. People would whisper behind his back. Some of his friends wouldn’t stay his friends… Some of his family would no longer consider him family but an AIDS patient in the making. Neighbors would pity my parents: what had they done to deserve this? How could he do this to them? They were such nice parents… Cousins would be afraid to leave their baby boys alone with him. “It’s a known fact that pedophiles are gay” they would say to justify their behavior. And others would nod their heads in agreement. His female friends would always wonder if he was trying to steal their boyfriends. My parents would cry, scream, and kick him out of the house or worse.

A day before flying back to our regular lives, we went on another walk. We got ourselves strawberry sorbet and sat, facing the sea, taking pictures with out tongue sticking out, red from the ice cream; and on the way back, I asked him if he had bought a souvenir for Mohammed, maybe one of those stuffed Camels they sold at the store near the bakery. Ismael just smiled and said: yeah, maybe we can go look for something on the way back!” And then he smacked my forehead…
“Hey! You didn’t burp or say Roger!” I yelled out.
“I know!” he laughed and started to run away. I chased him, attempting to hit him back, and when I caught up with him, I pretended that the tears in my eyes were from laughing too much.

I couldn’t tell him that every time I looked at him, I still saw the skinny 6-year-old boy crying, banging his head on the marbled floor, screaming “make it stop, make it stop”, because he didn’t understand why dad was yelling, punching the walls, stumbling while he walked to the car before speeding off in the night. Nor did he understand why mom was sobbing hysterically. So he kept banging his head on the floor until it all got quiet, mom stopped crying and we all went to bed.
I couldn’t tell him that I was afraid that the next time he would hurt this much, it might be because he was gay. And that despite being his big sister, I would never be able to protect him.

I click reply and start typing a message to my cousin, just like my brother had instructed: Do not lie. Tell the truth. Nothing to be afraid off and nothing to be ashamed off. So I wrote: Ismael won't be coming to the reunion because my father refuses to speak to him since he came out, six years ago. He isn't welcomed near my father anymore nor is his boyfriend of 4 years, Nicolas. I clicked "send" and waited for her answer.

Letter To God

Hey God?
…
Hello?
…
Anybody home?
…
Yo?
…
Hummm. Maybe I should leave a message. Humm. What’s God’s number again? Stupid Sprint PCS. I don’t have signal here…Like Hell it's Nation wide. I know it's because they want me to pay for roaming charges… Aaah I have a napkin. Where’s my pen. Here it is. OK…

*sits down*
Dear God, *nah, too formal*
*scratches that*
God.
*a little cold*
Dude?
*He’ll think I‘m high and won’t even listen to me…*
Got it.

G.

We need to talk.

I am leaving you this note because no one seems to be home. I am not sure which words to use. I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But everyone in couple’s therapy say that communication is the key to a good relationship and if we want to save ours, we’re going to have to be honest and considerate with one another.
So please, do not take this the wrong way!

G,

WHAT THE FUCK?????????????

I am sitting down, minding my own business, trying to make a reservation for Kittichai on Friday night (can you pull some strings? There’s nothing available for 6 people this week- thanks) when I get an email from CNN breaking news. White smoke. Ringing Bells. I kind of like the drama. Reminds me of the wrestling games. I wish the Swiss army would walk around in tight Speedos, signaling which voting round we were up too but I understand it might be too “Hollywood” for your tastes so I’ll take the cardinals in matching red outfits. They look kind of cute, if uniforms get you off and all. It’s entertaining though so I appreciate the thought.

But I’m drifting.

I guess I should have known when I saw how long it took for the curtains to open that the new Pope was a bit on the old side. I mean, talk about moving slowly. I will make a mental note to donate money so we can buy one of those little wheel chair with a motor and help him move a bit faster.
But still.
The German guy? Are you kidding me? The GERMAN guy? Is it because Jean Paul and him were hommies and he just died and now you feel kind of bad, so you did him this favor?

First of all, the fact that his nickname is “the Rotwiler” (that inspires police brutality more than Christian love) should be a big red flag. Hello.
A lot of us are kind of fleeing the Church. We don’t respond well to orders and the “Police of the Vatican” as the new Pope wasn’t really a good move! Tss tss tss…
Also, I’m not sure if you noticed, looking from above and all, but looking at him from here... The guy looks kind of creepy you know? In a sort of white-supremacist-pedophile-kind of way. It’s not helping for the image. Which reminds me. WHO INVITED THE BOSTON CARDINAL?

Oh. And Also: What on earth is up with the name? You'd think if you were going to get rid of "Ratzinger" you'd actually try to get a BETTER name. But noooooo. Benedict 16. Okaaayyyyy. B-16? B? Jam Master B?

Now G, by now you and everyone in the music industry knows that changing your name doesn't really work. It doesn't work for P.Diddy. Didn't work for Prince/the Artist formerly known as,/the Symbol... Whatever. My point is... Well he chose a sucky name that won't inspire a fan base.

But I am really rambling again.

I just don't think it was a wise move.
Ratzinger aka: “I’m against homosexuality, condoms, birth control, women becoming priests, priests getting married Cardinal Ratzinger”. What else? Bye-bye chocolate flavor wafers for communion (I think we should also offer different shapes: you know, Christmas tree on Christmas, low-carb for those on a diet. There’s a market here to be explored!). The only good thing the head of church in France had to stay was “Better a smart conservative than a dumb moderate”. So you know... that says something.

I’m disappointed, G... I am.
There. I said… I had such high hopes:

See, I’m turning 30 at the end of the year and by then, I’d like to see a world where my brother will be accepted into the church (I’m not moving too fast am I? I mean we can wait a generation or two for gay church marriage but at least let them pray!) And maybe if not a pro-choice Pope, at least someone who advocates safe sex (you’ll slow down the spread of AIDS that way too, you know, kill two birds in one stone…) and abortion for rape victims. Oh, Oh, OH… I almost forgot… Hello? Darfur genocide? Maybe “Church” could do a little something something about that too?


So, if you could correct this terrible mistake ASAP. Not just for me, there's a list of peeps waiting to sign the petition.
The guy is 78. It shouldn’t be too hard to come up with something. I'm not saying he should... "disappear"... Maybe... Maybe he could decide he wants to be in a band and change life? You know, join Eminem's B-12 and become B-28? Or... retire early cause he wants to play Bingo on Sundays and not have to you know, celebrate Mass in front of thousands of people.

But can you please make something happen fast?
People are still lined up in the plaza St. Peter. Cardinals are still at The Vatican. If you do it now, you could even make the church save money on air-fair (I understand though that if you wait one or two weeks, everyone will be able to add miles to their frequent flyer programs so it could be a valid options as well!)

So I have a few suggestions. I would really like to see an Arab guy as Pope. Maybe someone from Lebanon? They’re making the headlines these days so people will even know how to place it on a map. However, considering “no one” -JP2? Would you like to say something?- elected an Arab dude cardinal it might be hard to do….
But I want to compromise.It's not all about me. it's about us finding an alternative. So how about the African or Hispanic Guys? Plus, let’s not overlook the fact that red looks better on someone tanned. Oh and it doesn’t go with purple either. (It’s Ok if you didn’t know. I subscribe to InStyle magazine.)


Thanks. I appreciate.

Love

Me.

PS: If you could take care of Bush while you were at it…
PPS: Still need a green card. No rush. Have until 2007

The Office

Click, click, click, click... The keys my boss Brett always carries in his pockets warn me he is coming… Muffled footsteps on the green carpet of the office floor… Click, click, click… I hear a bang as he slams his hand on the edge of the cubicle and starts taping his fingers on the wooden edge.
I lift my head up and stare at his tie: It’s navy blue with yellow and red flowers with green stems.

“Nice tie”
Brett turns the tie around, looking at the tag on the back, and proudly points at it: “it’s Hermes. I got it in Paris.”

My computer chimes and a little square pops up on the IBM flat-screen.

“Who are you talking to?” he asks, twisting his neck, trying to read into the little blue-and-white MSN box.
“My mom”, I answer, before clicking on the cross on the top right corner of the pop-up, closing it from his sight. It was in French and I doubt he could understand what I am writing but still.
“You are so international. Look at you, talking to your mom in Algeria, your friends in Canada, your brother, your sister…”
“I am just talking to my mom right now” I say.
Brett taps his fingers faster and faster on the edge of my cubicle. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap… I look at my blue scissors and for a split second, I wonder how bad it would hurt him and how good I would feel if I actually stabbed his hand with them.
“You spend a lot of time on the internet or emailing all your little friends…”
“I’m sorry Brett, I smile back, it was just so quiet around here, I didn’t realize you needed me. Is there something you need me to take care of?”
“Yes, there are a lot of things that need to be done. Why don’t you come to my office when you’re done chatting!”
I quickly change my online status to “be right back” so my mother knows I haven’t deserted her, and speed-walk my way to the back of the office, almost tripping on the carpet.
“Ok, Brett, what can I do for you?”
Brett hands me a sheet of paper: “Can you shred this for me?”
“Uhm, sure”. I take a couple of steps and shred the sheet of paper, and return to his desk. ”Anything else?” I ask.
“Not right now, he answers, I’ll let you know”

“OK. I plaster a big, fake smile on my face. Just let me know” and I race back to my computer

I haven’t even sat back down on my chair when my intercom buzzes and I hear Brett’s voice ask me through speakerphone: “Did you print my schedule?”

“Yes, I have it right there”. The click-click sound is already approaching my desk. I lift a sheet of paper I had printed earlier and notice my Cosmopolitan magazine under it, with the title: “The best sex moves to drive him crazy” in big, bold, white letters, on the red dress of Britney Murphy’s cover picture. I discretely push today’s Wall Street Journal on top of it, hoping Brett was too far to away to notice my choice of reading material.
I hand Brett his schedule. He grabs the sheet of papers and, motioning at the pile of Marie-Claire, Cosmo and GQ sitting on the corner of my desk, asks: “Now, see, since you work in finance, wouldn’t it make more sense for you to read Fortune?”
I ignore him, instead focusing on his fingers that continue to tap on the edge of my cube, one finger at a time: first the thumb, then the index, fast then slow, in a musical rhythm.
“Are you nervous?” I ask as kindly as I can.
“No…”
Brett examines his calendar square by square, making sure I wrote the correct information in for each day.
“Pass me a pen please? I need to add something for tomorrow.”
I rummage through my plastic cups filled with pennies and plastic pens Brett stole from a Virgin Atlantic flight for the office, and hand him a yellow one. Brett clicks the pen open and starts to write.

“It doesn’t work!” He says, scribbling it all over the sheet of paper. I hand him the pen I was using, a white and red pen from New York Adorned-Tattoo, Jewelry-Piercing.

Brett writes on the sheet: August 26th, 6:30, Hope.

“Here, add this to the schedule and run it again.”
“OK”.

I open the program, type in the latest appointment and click on the printer icon on top of the screen. I get up to go to the back of the office, and take the sheet off the printer.

“Have you heard from your lawyer?” Brett yells out across the office floor.
I walk back in silence and sit down. I pull my chair in, and hand him the sheet of paper.
“Have you heard from your lawyer?” Brett asks me again, in case I accidentally turned deaf in the last minute and didn’t hear his question the first time around.
“No, I already told you, I probably won’t hear anything until the end of September.”
“I still think she applied with the wrong job application.”
“I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.”
“Well if she did, you wouldn’t be in so much trouble right now. I knew it when I read it. Not the right approach…Maureen and I both agree she seems to be incompetent; With your degree and this company, there is no reason why immigration should question….”
“ Well, Brett, I am sorry you and your girlsfriend have nothing else to talk about at the dinner table but me, my immigration lawyer and the trouble I am having”. This is really what I want to scream. But instead, I say in the most neutral tone I can manage: “Brett, why didn’t you or Maureen say anything when you read the first application?”
“Well Sophie, it’s not my job.”
“It’s too late now!” I click “Send/Receive” on my outlook express and see a dozen of emails from my girlfriends in Paris. Boy trouble, I assume.

Brett walks around my cubicle, towards my chair, and opens the grey, metallic drawers on the right. I move my legs a bit so he can open it wide without scrapping my skin off.

“What do you have good to eat in there?” he asks.

Not waiting for my answer, he rummages through the pile of nail polish remover, nail polish bottles, a miniature, Secret Deodorant, gums, hand cream, tampons and floss; a bag of jalapeno chips, a cup-a-soup and trail mix.
“You should put paper clips and properly seal the bags of food. It’s not hygienic otherwise… No chocolate?”
“I didn’t get a chance to buy some today!” I push the drawer back in.
“Wait, what’s this?” Brett grabs a Ziplock bag, and sniffs at the mixture of nuts, chocolate covered raisins, and seeds.
“Trail mix. I am going for a run later tonight.”
Brett puts his hand in the bag and grabs a fistful of the mix. He takes a few nuts and shoves them in his mouth.
“Mmm,” I don’t really like this”, he says, shoving what’s left-over in his hand back into the bag. I cringe.
“You don’t have to eat it!” I say.
“It’s better this way anyways. Maureen always complains I am getting too fat”
“You’re not fat.”
“I think I’m losing weight. I ran 30 miles this week, pretty good for a 50 year old man like me?”
“You’re not fat”
“Yeah well tell that to Maureen, last night she picked a fight with me and called me fatso.”
I wonder if this is right after he called her “lazy”!
“You’re not fat, Brett!”
“Now why can’t I be anorexic just like you were and drop to 80 pounds and be all skinny and not have to worry about weight? Life is good for you, you don’t really have to work out or go on a diet now!”

Don’t say anything, don’t say anything. I grab a cup of water and gulp it down and make a mental note to ask for a raise to pay off my therapy bills.

Brett picks up the black stapler sitting on my desk. He presses it down, until it makes a thug sound, and brushes the staple from the desk off to the floor. I so badly want to take the stapler from his hand and staple his mouth together; instead, I get up, walk to the kitchen and grab Clorox spray and a paper towel. Brett is still at my desk when I walk back to it and doesn’t move as I spray the bleach all over the desk and start wiping it clean.

“So we went to couples counseling again last night and the second I walk into the door, she starts slamming me. Everything is my fault when I have done everything to make her happy. I gave Maureen a job, I gave her shares, I’m paying for the closet at the loft and I’m not even going to be using it and I do so much for so many people and no one is ever grateful. Just a “Thank You” every once in a while but no, what I do is never good enough. I am a good person. I help her family out, I help you, you know, getting a visa so you can stay here. And it’s never appreciated…”
Just as I am about to accidentally spray something in his face, the phone rings. I pick up line one.

“Good morning, this is Sophie, how can I help you?”
“Hey is Brett there?”
“Sure, who’s calling?”
“It’s Steven, Hi Sophie, can I talk to Brett?”
“Sure, hold on”

I press the red hold button and turn around

“Brett, it’s Steven for you on line one”
“I’ll take it in my office. Oh and instead of saying sure, why don’t you tell people: “let me check if his in”, in case I don’t want to talk to them”
“Brett, I’m the receptionist. Don’t you think they’ll find it odd that I don’t know if you’re in or not?”
“No…line one?” he asks, finally walking back to the other end of the hall, into his office.
“Yes, line one, are you deaf?” I mumble under my breath. Turning back to my screen I open the first new email: Claire’s ex-boyfriend has started dating another girl…

We wish to inform you that tomorrow, we will be killed with our families

This is the book I am reading at the present moment.
I picked it up after reading a series of article commemorating the ten-year anniversary of the Genocide in Rwanda. I picked this particular book because the Author had reviewed a book written by three former UN peacekeepers. On the back of the green, hard cover book, a man named Philip had said, Emergency sex was a true read. An eye opener. Something we should all read if we truly want to live our past-world-war-two lives under the slogan “never again.” Next to his name, were the titles of the two books he himself had written. So I bought one of Philip’s books.

Ten years ago, in the spring of 1994, nearly one million people were exterminated for no other reason than the fact that they were from a slightly different ethnicity: their hair was a bit straighter, there noses a bit longer, their skin maybe slightly lighter…Neighbors had killed their neighbors, children had chopped their school-friends with machetes, husbands had let a mob of drunk Hutus rape and shoot their Tutsi wives… Ten years ago, a radio station in Rwanda was promoting Hutu power.

Ten years ago, I was an eighteen year old girl living in a dorm in Paris; a dorm run by a few catholic nones. Every night, I would head to the cafeteria, grab an orange, plastic tray and place on it a bowl of soup, a plate of salad, and whatever crapy entrée the cooks had made us. They liked to combine the oddest food, such as a cheese omelet with a side of plain, dry couscous and a piece of onion pie.Every night, after my tray was filled up, I would sit myself amongst 130 girls from very respectable French families and start complaining about how stupid it was that we weren’t allowed to dine with our slippers on, because the nones thought it was too “indecent”. Ten years ago, I thought, it was even more retarded to have an 11 PM curfew on Saturday nights: Apparently, there had been a study done and the sisters concluded that a girl was more likely to lose her virginity late on a Saturday night. Therefore, they made sure we were nicely tucked in our beds before midnight. Just like Cinderella. This also insured them we would all be well rested for 10 Am mass the next day. A priest from the neighborhood church – Paris, Montparnasse- came every Sunday to lead us into a yawned version of “our father in Heaven”; palms facing up towards to sky, asking us to pray for those less fortunate.

Ten years ago, in April, a Rwandan pastor had lead Tutsi refugees to a church, where they prayed not for their lives, but for a quicker death, a death by a bullet as opposed to having half of their neck cut open and slowly bleed till their heart stopped beating. In that church they prayed and prayed for three straight days. Then, the genocidaires came. At first, they chopped hands and feet off, leaving them there over night. They came back the next day to finish off those who had survived the night. On the third day, they threw rocks on the bodies that were pilled up one on top of the other- blood and body parts mixed in together- to see who was still alive or not. And if some of the children that had managed to lie underneath their dead parents screamed from the pain of the rocks hitting them, or were not able to hold their breath long enough, then they would be discovered and killed. After, the Hutus set the church on fire and left to drink banana liquor.

How on earth did I miss that moment of April 1994, sitting in the TV-room watching the news with a chocolate sundae I had snuck in from McDonald’s, waiting for Beverly Hills 90210 to start? How did I miss that reading the paper in the metro on my way to College?
When I was still living at home, we used to watch it as a family right before dinner but that year, when I came home for Easter, I came home to discover that my father would watch the news alone, lying on the couch, the remote control in his hands; the rest of the family upstairs, sitting on my mom’s bed, telling my sister not to cry because my father was not speaking to her. And then Myriam would say through her tears that she didn’t give a shit and he could just die as far as she was concerned. The problem was that my sister, the eldest and favourite daughter, had decided to talk back to the drunken slurs coming out of my father’s mouth. So he had disowned her. “Shut up” he kept telling her. “You shut up” she’d snap back. “You’re a failure” he would spit out. “Like father, like daughter”.
Every night during my visist, Myriam would be sent to her room because my father was getting angry and every night, my mother, brother and I would finish our plates with tears running down our cheeks. I didn’t like eating wet and salty food. It made my stomach sick. So I stopped eating. And I didn’t eat for three whole years.

In April 1994, a Canadian General was sick to his stomach as the UN ignored his warnings. General Dallaire made phone calls, wrote letters, send faxes that were quickly read, then shredded: it’s part of the recycling program to save the environment. When it was all over, the General quite his job and lost faith in the world.The few Tutsis that were hiding in bushes, under corps, in the tiny back room of a church, trying to survive also started losing faith: They would ask God why? What had they done to be punished like that? They were sending faxes from hotel rooms they were hiding in to anyone they knew that was abroad, hoping someone would catch on and notice that the local Rwandan radio was advertising the genocide. “Do your work and help us get rid of the cockroaches". So Hutu men, women and children picked up anything they could use as a weapon and went to work. And the Tutsis were wondering why no one was fighting to stop the genocidaires. How come they never got tired of killing? Why nothing was slowing them: they were not getting sick; it didn’t rain…The ones that survived wondered why God wasn’t giving them the strength to run away? Instead they stayed, accepting that tomorrow; they will be killed with their families.

I was asking God why he didn’t make my dad stop: stop drinking, stop yelling, and stop making me so scared, that I never could sleep properly, even miles away, kept up in my dorm room, on the 4th floor, wondering what was going on at home, wishing I could go there to make sure they were safe. I kept asking him why my mother didn’t fight back, leave my father, and take us away. Or force him to go away. I asked God why, when my dad got so drunk he started to drive the car too fast on a rainy road, he always managed to make it home safe. i didn't want my father to die. I just wanted it to go away... Every morning I woke up more tired than the day before; every evening, I bought a calling card and called home from the pay phone at the corner of the street to talk to my mom. And every night, I would pop sleeping pills and hope they'd work this time. But they never did. And my mother never left, accepting that tomorrow, she will cry again in the arms of her family.

Reading this book, I am discovering details of the three first weeks of April, 1994, during which over half a million people were exterminated. Half a million: that’s the number of people who marched on August 29th in New York City to say no to Bush. Half a million.It's a lot: blocks and blocks filled with people. But I do not remember the genocide as it was happening. I only remember it after. When the UN finally went in, and mass graves were found, school rooms filled with dead babies were being shown on front pages of outraged French papers. Because by May, we were finally outraged. After our government had provided the guns and the money to the Hutu power regime we were finally crying, watching images on our screens. Tears in our eyes: that poor little black baby with no family, standing half naked in the middle of rubbles; so we took out our check books and wrote on to the Red Cross or Amnesty International, and we all felt better.
Today, I cry reading my book, ashamed because I should have noticed. Even if it wouldn’t have changed much. I should have noticed. How one earth did I not? How on earth did no one? We all have a drunken parent, an eating disorder, a depression lingering in the back, somewhere. We all have a hard time at work, in school, with cancer, making ends meet. Is it OK for us to have it take over our lives to the point that when 800,000 human beings are shred to pieces, we actually missed it?

Last week, a group of Chechen terrorists took a school hostage, kept 1200 children and parents locked in the school gym for 3 days, without food or water, forcing them to drink their own urine, they were so thirsty. And then chaos happened and over 335 beautiful children died trying to run for their life. Most of them shot in the back. It was on the cover of the New York Times, Metro and AM New York, and on every news channel there is.In August, on Friday the 13, millions of people worldwide settled themselves in front of their TVs to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. That same night in Burundi, a Tutsi refugee camp was attacked by a Hutu rebel group and 160 people, mainly women are children, were killed. I don’t even know if it made it onto the writings that scroll the bottom of the CNN screen… And on Thursday September 9th, Collin Powell labeled the deaths of 50,000 people in Sudan a Genocide. This, on the other hand does not make it to the front page.
This summer marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Paris from the German Nazis…
“Never again”, we still claim.

A slice of pizza

On January 25th 1997, I had my first floor meeting on the 10th floor of the Hunter College dorms in New York City.

About twenty girls assembled in the common area: some sat on the couches covered in blue fabric with little white flowers and coffee stains. I sat on the floor, on cushions that were once white, but had turned gray from laying on the floor for months, and pressed my back against the wall. A skinny girl with brown shoulder-length hair stood up under a sign that read “WELCOME” in big red letters. She tugged on her black sweater and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Hi my name is Amber and I will be your RA for the semester.” She turned and pointed to the boxes of pizza stacked on top of each other. “Before we eat, I want to go around in a circle and introduce each other. I’ll start. I am Amber as you all know, I am in room 1024. This is my second year as an RA. I’m majoring in business law and I’m from New Jersey.” The crowd answered back in unison: “hi, Amber.”

The next girl up was the Asian girl who had the room across from mine- she always kept her door opened, and I had noticed that the little cloud of steam floating around came from the rice cooker she constantly kept turned on. The smell of rice overtook our half of the hallway and sometimes made me want to throw up. “Hey, I’m Lisa and I’m in room 1032 and this is my last year at here because I finally graduate this summer. And I cook a lot and like to experiment, so I apologize in advance for all the smells I’ll be infesting the floor with!” The group laughed.
Then a girl with long blond hair tied up in a messy ponytail and a boyish figure stood up. “Hi guys, I’m Kaitlin, I’m 22, from California. I don’t have a major yet so I am just taking Liberal Arts class for now. Oh, and I’m a surfer. Oh, and I’m in room 1010.”I was the fifth person down, so like the four girls before me, I stood up when I said: ”Hi, my name is Sophie, I am 21 years old. I am half French, half Arab and I am here to study for a semester and I am in room 1031.” And like they had done for the girls before, the whole group responded with a united “Hi Sophie, welcome.”After we had gone through the twenty girls, including Joanna- a blond-pony-tailed girl who also happened to be half-French- the RA Stood up again. “Let’s eat!” she said. She opened the first square, white, red and green box and took out a triangular slice of pizza, bigger than my head, and placed it on a paper plate. She handed it to Kate, a pale, blue-eyed girl with short brown hair, who then passed it along to the girls sitting on the couches.

My mind automatically wandered back to a year and a half ago, starring at another pizza.

In the summer of 1993, a few months before my eighteenth birthday, my aunt Claudine, my mother’s oldest sister, an overweight, diabetic woman with a double chin and thighs as big as my waist, came to visit us with her four children and her husband. That day, my father – a French Chef- decided he was on strike and wouldn’t cook, allowing us to eat whatever we wanted. My cousins had chosen to feast on Mc Donald’s chicken nuggets, dipped into sweet and sour sauce and a mountain of French fries. I got one of the individual pizzas from Dr. Oetcker, a famous frozen food brand in Germany. I had chosen the spinach and mozzarella one. The first bite was a delicious mixture of cheese, tomatoes, garlicky spinach and soft dough. I was halfway through my pizza when I heard my aunt speak.“Sophie”, she said, “are you going to eat all of this?”“Of course, it’s an individual pizza… it’s for one!” I answered back.“Well, it’s none of my business, but you should watch it or else, you’ll end up like me. Pizza has a lot of grease and cheese and it will make you fat!”
I didn’t finish my plate.

“Sophie… Sophie?” I looked up at Amber; she had a cup of Diet Coke in her hands. “Daydreaming?” she asked. “Yeah”. I grabbed the cup and took a sip, while watching the other girls eat. A few of them folded the pizza in the middle of the crust, eating it like a sandwich. I bit off a piece of the crust. Thick, bread-like and most importantly for me, no cheese or oil on it. After two or three bites, I felt knots of panic forming in my stomach and my throat, making it painful for me to swallow. The knots were telling me not to eat, because pizza was against the rules. It was rule number four. Forbidden foods: Pizza, fries, burger buns, sauces, pasta, any form of cake, chocolate, full fat milk or yogurt, butter and salt- it makes you retain water and get cellulite. The rule came before rule number 5: Lunches have to be made out of 1/3 cup of fat free cottage cheese mixed with 2/3 cups of fat free plain yogurt, slices of grapes, mangoes and peaches and one apple, sliced very thinly, to dip in the creamy mixture. My dinners were usually made out of a cup of fat free soup, and a baked apple, with fat-free cottage cheese.
My hands started to shake, I worried someone would noticed that I had barely touched my food, nibbling on the crust, picking off the mushrooms and peppers, and putting them in my mouth so it would look like I was eating. I folded my paper plate in three, making it seem like there was no pizza left.
I got up, walked towards the kitchen and threw the plate out in the trash. I went to bed, feeling slightly dizzy. But that was OK. I had felt that way a year ago, in Paris. I knew that it would go away if I drank a lot of water and ate an apple. So I did.

Later that night, I woke up convinced the ceiling was spinning out of control and falling on top of me. I lifted myself up and drank out of the plastic bottle of Poland Spring water I kept by the side, and lay back down, my head under the pillow so I wouldn’t hear my stomach growl. I started to panic. Usually the hunger went away after a few gulps of water. This time it didn’t. After 15 minutes, I got up and walked towards the little fridge I had placed under my sink. I opened it: There was a can of diet Pepsi and cottage cheese. I picked up the pink box, with the white dove on it and FAT FREE in big blue letters across the lid. I grabbed a spoon and shoved a spoonful of lumpy, cold cheese in my mouth: the texture of it against my tongue made me feel sick. I went to the sink and spat everything out. I looked at the clock: it was already 11:48!!! I frantically emptied the whole box into the sink, running water on top of it to make sure it went down the drain. I wouldn’t be tempted to eat it if it was no longer there. I wouldn’t fail like that night in Paris, where after 2 hours of tossing and turning in my bed, I had given in and eaten a piece of baguette before crying myself back to sleep, feeling like the failure I was. I couldn’t even follow a simple rule, rule number three: You can’t eat after 10 pm…

I tried going back to bed but started feeling dizzy again just 5 minutes later. The water I was swallowing felt like a ton of bricks in my empty stomach. I opened my bedroom door and walked to the kitchen. The floor was cold against my bare feet. I passed the common bathroom, the elevators and found myself in the kitchen. I didn’t want to turn the lights on and attract anyone so it was a bit hard to see, but I managed to lift up to cover and take a look in the trash can.I had to take a step back: the smell of rotten apple cores, potato peels, bagels hard as rocks, coffee filters with day old coffee made me want to throw up.

I couldn’t bring myself to use my hands, so instead I grabbed a plastic fork from the brown kitchen counter and started moving things around until I found the left-over slices of pizzas. I was hoping I could find mine, still neatly folded in the paper plate. Instead I found myself picking up pieces of over-cooked pasta stuck to one another in a big lump, empty bags of chips crumbled into a ball, slices of orange, cigarette buds, wrinkled tea bags, cereals soft from the milk they had soaked in, and stale slices of pizza with bits of napkins stuck to the cold, hardened cheese. I felt dizzy. I leaned on the wall for a few seconds to catch my breath. Touching and smelling all this made my stomach turn even more. But I knew that I would not be able to sleep unless I ate something; and there was nothing else to eat.
So I grabbed a slice that was stuck to an empty plastic bag, turned it around until I was sure it was the least disgusting one. I took a knife and scrapped the cheese off. I had to, because the cheese was the part that had the most fat; and I knew the rule. I carefully placed the pizza in a napkin that was lying on top of the stove and looked for the microwave. But except for a dirty pan soaking in the sink and an empty bottle of Coke on the counter, there was absolutely nothing in the kitchen.
I remembered Amber mentioning that the closest microwave was in the third-floor kitchen. If I wanted to eat it hot, I would have to walk down to the third floor and take the risk of having someone see me.I stuck my head out the door, looking left and righ and right and left. No one in sight. I ran back to my bedroom, slamming my door shut, locking it twice: top lock and bottom lock. To be safe.

I sat on the bed, lifting up the pizza to my mouth and just putting it down. It smelled. It was cold. It had garbage on it. But my stomach was hurting, my head was pounding from hunger, my heart was beating so fast I could feel it in my temples, so I knew I absolutely had to eat it. I forced myself to eat the dough. The salty taste I had in my mouth was coming from my tears. I kept eating it. I ate it all. I ate it as fast as I could, trying to swallow it without having it touch my tongue. Holding my breath not to smell anything. Just forcing it down, down, down, to my stomach as fast as possible. I was almost done with it when I felt everything come back up my throat. I ran to my garbage bin, fell on my knees and stuck my head in the bucket, waiting. My mouth was full of acid saliva and I could feel the pizza up my throat. But nothing. I tried sticking two fingers deep into my throat, but still nothing. And I forced myself to cough, hoping to bring it back out. My throat was too dry and there wasn’t enough food to throw up.

And I kept thinking I was being punished. For failing. I had not been able to resist the hunger and now, something terrible was going to happen. Someone was going to die because of me. Because I couldn’t be a better person and not eat the forbidden food.I laid down on the floor, next to the trashcan, on my stomach, the pressure of my weight pressing my body against the floor made me feel a bit better.

I kept thinking about the time I was 6 years old, and the kids at school had nicknamed me “Sophie Gharbi the garbage”, because they thought the two words sounded the same. I stayed on the floor for a few hours thinking they were right.

I'm sorry Miss Jackson

If you ask many men, they would tell you the hardest words to say, the hardest three little words that they have to spit out of their mouths, rated as a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, would be I love you. Because of what it means (for most women, let's get married), because of the weight they carry (I love you forever? Forever ever ever?) And because the woman they are saying it to has most likely been dying to hear them since the night they first had sex, made love, bonked, hooked up, depending on your degree of inebriation.

I, on the other hand, think that the hardest three words for most people to say, (men and women, I am not being misogynic here) are very different little words. It's the sentence: "I am sorry." It seems that truly apologizing for something bad that you did is harder than anything else in the world. It's harder than winning the Million-dollar prize on Survivor. It's harder than competing on Fear Factor, running the New York City Marathon, performing open heart surgery or eating the most amount of hotdogs in the shortest amount of time (unless you’re a little Asian dude).When you truly have done something terrible, something that hurt a loved one, made them cry, on purpose or by accident, saying you're sorry does not come easily.
Most people I know like to share the blame.

Take the ex-love of my life- aka X-lml (who said I love you a year after we were completely broken up by the way). It's two in the morning of a fabulous party I just got to. People obviously have started drinking way before I got there so it's fair to say I was the only sober one. It's the first warm, beautiful night of the year. The skirts are short; the legs are bare, and long and lean from fabulous heels. The push-up bra is on (hey, I make money in tips, don't judge) and I am feeling good, flirting and having fun. Just as I am explaining to friends my opinion on The Passion of the Christ, the Mel Gibson movie I saw the previous night, charges in X-lml. Like I would have a debate with him over religion, after he dumped me for not being Jewish! After a little conversation over Jesus being a Jew, the last supper really being Passover and different believes ( my words: I think Catholics really think of Jesus as being the first Christian and the last supper being, well his last meal cause he kind of died right after), X-lml ends up saying: "you're an ignorant repulsed by the idea that Jesus was a Jew."He seemed surprise I got mad. Well geez, I wonder why? It's not like you just implied I was anti-Semite or anything….
We parted ways that night extremely pissed at each other. In rolls Monday morning, I open my email box to find a: I am sort of kind of somewhat sorry about Saturday night. With these words: you're angry stare during our conversation made me overreact.
Excuse-me? Was that an apology? No, saying sorry is actually very simple. You write down: I am sorry. Period. No buts, ifs and what not. I am sorry. I did something bad. No I am sorry I punched you in the face but the pizza was cold. No, I am sorry I stole your wallet, but you have a shit load of money and I have none so it's kind of your fault. And definitely no I am sorry I cheated on you but you had your period and didn't want to have sex so I had to get it from someone else!
If you truly want to apologize than you need to take responsibility. X-lml did not. Which is why I turned down his apology. X-lml basically said: he emotionally overreacted because of what he saw in my pupils. (I am not even going to go into the fact that with the amount of alcohol X-lml had consumed, I'd be surprise if he could even see the color of my eyes, let along the feeling passing through them, but never mind). What really shocked me (besides the insult) was how hard it was for him to simply say, he had done wrong. Instead, his email (AN EMAIL! Not even a phone call) simply stated that he didn't think I was anti-Semite but had been taken aback by my reaction.
Hummm…

Another apology I turned down (yes, it's starting to be a trend) was when my friend, Hip Hop teacher (HHT) disrespected me.
After 3 months of his commenting on the status of my skin (a pimple, a second pimple, oh look Sofe, skin's clearing up, ah no never mind, this week you must be stressed out you're breaking out again, you really shouldn't wear concealer on top of zits…) I had confronted him and mentioned how hurt and self-conscious this made me feel. That I liked to live in denial. The very next week, as I am innocently standing next to him, he grabs to flab fat of my stomach and shakes it. Now, keep in mind this is someone that knows I have issues with my body (unless the words recovering Anorexic lead to confusion). My "Fuck you!" shocked him.
What shocked my was that a few days later, he came up to me and never said the words I am sorry. He actually attempted to apologize without having to use those words. It started out with: that was quite a reaction, an explosion. (Again, my fault, I overreacted, he had nothing to do with it). When I told him I felt he was going out of his way to make me feel like shit, he seemed surprised. "But you know me, this is the way I am. Don't be so sensitive."
Can you imagine if everyone got away with this excuse? The Oklahoma bomber, Saddam Hussein. Well Yes, I am a dictator, but that's just the way I am. You guys know me…
Well, yes, I molested a child. But that's how I am. You guys knew that!
That was HHT's apology. Basically implying I am too sensitive. How come it never occurred to him HE might not be sensitive enough?
Why is it so hard?
It took an insane amount of years before the American Government apologized for slavery. It took also an impeachment before Clinton said he was sorry for lying about covering his under the desk, oval office…"fun". And Bush still has not apologized for lying to us about the WMD.

People see saying you're sorry as a sign of weakness. Admitting you were not right. Not perfect. In the wrong. Hey, none of us are constantly right. Admitting this makes you a better man. Not having to fight to hear someone apologize for what they did to me not only makes me forgive them for everything, it makes me appreciate and love them more… And as much as I hate to have to ask someone for forgiveness, I know it's something I have to do if I want to remain friends. I don't like it either. I don't want to admit I made a mistake, was mean to someone else; I don't like the guilt I experience while thinking about apologizing. I don't want to admit I am that kind of person sometimes. It makes me have to question myself, question my issues and try to correct them. How else am I going to be a better person if I can't even apologize?

The truth is, we all hurt each other. It is sadly unavoidable. And we all need to forgive each other. Saying you're sorry is the least I can do…Come on, you can practice. I apologize a trillion times; I'm sorry Miss Jackson… I am for real!

12:12:48

I need to apologize to my body.
Really.
For mistreating it, taking it for granted. Not appreciating wll it has done for me. Mainly, being ungratefull it has managed to keep me alive and strong, when so many would have just collapse. Karen Carpenter's body wasn't as amazing as mine and gave up. My body never did.

I started abusing it in December 1993. Just when I turned 18. I left for College and gained the usual few pounds. That winter, I started punishing my body for changing a bit: forcing it to run in the cold, not eat enough so it would learn it's lesson: my hips shouldn't get wider; my stomach should not get softer. My thighs should remain thin. And then, in 1995, I decided it needed to pay for the changes it made. So I starved it.
I didn't feed it enough: for breakfast, it was only allowed 3 slices of toast with fat-free-fake butter and fat-free-green-packaged-ham. Lunches, it was allowed a few pasta shells mixed with steamed spinach and an apple with cottage cheese. And for dinner, I would only give it fat-free soup, an apple and two fat-free yogurst. Fat Free. That's all it was allowed.

But my body just worked harder to keep me warm; it pumped harder to keep my heart beat strong. It struggled to give me energy so I would be able to work, and study and move.
It was starving yet it kept me going. I never ended up in a hopsital bed, a tube in my arm. It enabled me to stay warm. It stopped ovulating to help me preserve energy. I was 80 pounds and my body kept on going...
And I never thanked it for it.


Sunday May 2nd, 2004. It's 4:45 in the morning. My alarm clock is buzzing and buzzing like crazy and I can hear a few minutes later the sound of a bell. Just ringing and ringing: the ringtone is called crossroads. A train honks, and the bells just ring and ring and ring until I finally remember what day it is and why all of my alarms are going crazy.


I jump out of bed. Ouch. My legs are sore, my bones are cracking. I am tired. I waited tables all night last night, until midnight, running up and down the stairs, back down to the kitchen: "Table 40 says his steak is not cooked enough." The Chef will scream back at me:"It's supposed to be this way, he ordered it rare!!!" And there I went, back up to my table... All night long.... More ketchup for the 5 fries you have left on your plate? Sure. No it doesn't bother me at all. Want me to go milk a cow so you can have really fresh milk with your coffee while I'm at it?
But it's OK, I'll go down 19 steps, to the back of the kitchen get a little white cup, fill it up with ketchup, go back up 19 stairs and politely smile as I watch this jerk dip in the cold, last fries on his plate.


But this morning, as I stretch my stiff body, I don't care about anyone. I am happy. Today is the day that I have been training for, for the past 4 months. My first race. The Long Island Half Marathon.The adrenaline is already rushing through my veins; I have never put on sweat pants and sneakers so fast. I get out and hail a cab (who knew that I'd have to fight for a cab at 5 in the morning- sorry to the guy standing on the opposite corner, but I saw that cab first and I claim it). I pick up my friend Zuta on the way and we barely make the Long Island Railroad train on time. At Penn Station, we see people of all shape and weight, proudly wearing their black nylon "Long Island Marathon and Half-Marathon" backpack, and waiting, a cup of coffee in their hands, for the track number to appear on the screen. Track 19. Go, go go! It's fun; we make friends with a Brittish guy named Scott, and slouch on the seats of the blue/gray train. An hour later, we step off the train: It's cold and damp. It's supposed to rain soon so we hurry up the the starting line and start stretching and warming up. Zuta is like a good mom; helping me figure out how to put the chip on my aasics sneakers, already dirty from the wet grass. Talking me through my first experience with portable bathrooms (do go on the way in, the way out is so much worse! Apparently, running is good for bowel movements!). I pin my number under my crunch team shirt with the slogan: "when you shuffle the letters is spells MEAT". Some people laugh reading it.


It's 7:55 Am; the DJ plays Earth, Wind and Fire as the countdown starts. Zuta and I gather around the 9-minute mile sign, looking for others sporting the same shirt we are. In front of me, 3 very buff guys wearing tight pink T-shirts and very feminine short gray shorts. "Tough men running for women" reads there shirts. I am so excited, I feel like I am back in high scool, on the very first day of the term. Everyone is laughing, clapping. The national anthem is sung. Funny how in our world, everything has to be about patriotism, about belonging to a country. I'd be happy with just the Rocky theme song for every sporting event! But that's just me.We finally start. I follow Zuta's pace. I cross a group of men, in their 60's with a "senior feet" bright yellow t-shirt; another group of women who raced for "the cure"- breast cancer- the previous Sunday; fathers running for their sons in Iraq, mother's running for children they lost on September 11.


I am running for this body I have hated so much.
Mile 1... Smooth running. Zuta and I are laughing. Our breath is fine, the cold air is actually envigorating. We run at an easy pace that allows us to gossip. Sheldon is dating Hitmomi and they are also running their first race here this morning; who got fired from crunch, which hip hop song Zuta will choose for her next dance routine... I am surprised at how smooth the first 3 miles seem. My breath is steady, my pace regular and my legs strong.
At mile 4, Zuta and I bump into four other Crunch team members, including Karen and Rob, who are running the full Marathon. We decide to slow down our rythme and join them for a mile at a slower pace.
At mile 5, we notice that a lot of men are running for the bushes. I try not to think of the little cups of water I grabbed at mile three and have to force myself not to think that I already have to pee. A few people are standing on the sides, clapping and cheering; a little girl with pink gloves yells out "daddy, daddy" and starts running along his side.
By the time we get to the sixth mile, I am more than ready for my poweraid cup. I always hated the chemical taste of sports drinks but this morning it tastes like the best thing I have ever swallowed. You know how, when you watch the New York Marathon on TV, you wonder how they can grab that little cup, swallow a few drops, and toss it? Surprisingly not that hard.
Miles 7 and 8 are not as easy. I unconsciously slow done and only pick up because Zuta challenges me to keep her rythme. But it's getting harder and hareder to breathe. I feel the breath getting caught in the back of my throat. It's dry and I am thirsty but cold...
By mile 9, the weather got bad: It's drizzling. I am cold and hot and cold and wet. My legs hurt, I think I might have shin splins. I hate my sneakers, I hate this road and the trees and everyone else who doesn't seem tired. But I keep running. One foot in front of the other. I need to keep my rythme, one-two, and breathe, one-tow and breathe...
I feel like I am going to die. I start getting cranky and annoying. It's damp, it's cold, it's raining.
But Zuta catches my before I drift into self-pity and miss out on the experience. She is right: it is a great race and we are lucky because we can run and enjoy it and are alive. The rain is not annoying. It's refreshing. So I get my whole body into it, match my feet to Zuta's feet. Concentrate on my breathing. I come accross a 70-year-old man with a shirt that reads: Iron Man Hawaii, 2002. Just the boost I needed: If he can do an Iron man at his age, then I can finish this race. I am already at mile 11, just 2 and some left to go. Up hill? I can do this. One foot in front of the other. I speed up again.

Mile 12. I am now running my last mile. Last mile… I am running like I have never run before. I know it's just a half Marathon. But 5 months ago, I wouldn't even have been able to run 5 miles straight. 5 years ago, I was getting my periods again. 5 years ago, I started eating again. Allez les petites jambes, come on little legs. Come one little legs, come on. My knees are cracking. They are not used to the pavement. My thighs are so tender; every step vibrates up my left leg. People are now screaming: You' re doing great. You are almost done, almost done…Allez, les petites jambes, I can see the finishing line… Come on…. I glance at my watch; it's around 10:10... Allez les jambs, allez, allez, allez, Go, go go!


When I pass the finishing line, I understand. I understand why some people cry, or lift their arms in the air. I did it. I finnished it. My body did it! My body with it's fat ass, flat breasts and flabby abs managed to run 13.1 miles in 2h and 12 minutes and 48 seconds… the body that I found disgusting and fat is in fact strong and amazing. My body some have made fun off, my body and didn't use to stand up for, has managed to run 20km in the cold, the rain, with only four hours of sleep. Nothing matters any more. Not the fact that my fingers are frozen and turning blue (apparently a sign of dehydration), not the fact that we end up running the mile back to the train station, face cramped from the pain in our legs, so we can make the train back into the City. Nothing else matters anymore but the fact that my body did not let me down.


Which is why I have to tell it I am sorry.
Body? I apologize. For the abuse. For the insults and under appreciation. I am sorry I made you work so hard at keeping me warm, awake, and strong. I am sorry I forgot what was truly important. That the perfect body is not about a size. It's about strength. That I need to eat, eat well and eat enough. You might get bigger or you might not. ButI promise, I will make sure you get stronger. Because that's what matters.


They say normal people run races because it makes them feel extraordinary. I think it's because people are already extraordinary that they can run races.

Crossing Over

On Thursday, March 11th, 2004, two and a half years after 9-11 -yes we all did the math, thank you CNN-; almost five years after Columbine; bombs exploded, blood and bodies covered the tracks of beautiful Madrid.

Once again, we were under an avalanche of images of screaming faces, crying children, and also body parts. An arm on a track, a body torn in half, covered by a piece of cloth. The media had access to everything and showed us anything- provided the government gave it its OK and none of the images involved a dead American Soldier in Iraq-

This propelled a mass of email correspondence between my friends and I. Mainly inquiring about who could have done "it". ETA? No said, A. Not their style. They try to avoid harming civilians.I guess they don't cross the line between killing a politician (apparently not a civilian) and killing "innocents".A few days later, suicide bombers killed Israelis civilians. The "fence" is apparently not that hard to cross. Again, to the bombers, owners of an Israeli passport are not considered "innocents". I am sure for them, no lines was crossed either. After all, they find nothing wrong with sending an angry and confused 14-year-old boy - who had been brainwashed with promises of a better after-life and money for his family- to a checkpoint so that he can shred himself up in little pieces…
For the Israeli government, putting humans behind a wired wall is not crossing the line of humanity either. It is not "asking" for another bomb to tear apart a bus or a mall. After the elimination of the Spiritual Leader of the Hamas, Sharon praised the attack, claiming they got rid of a man whose ideology was simply the assassination of all Jews. He was a terrorist.
Mr. Sharon, when you killed 11 children last summer while targeting the military chief of the Hamas, would it be fair to say that your ideology is the assassination of all Muslims? Ah, wait, no, never mind. That's different. It's part of the defense program. No line is crossed then.

The line between terror and assassination and self-defense clearly depends on whose side you're on.I remember the arguments I had with an old boyfriend. For most of us French, Arafat and the PLO is not quite considered a Terrorist group. I understand that technically, it is terrorism. However, back in the 80's, the cause seemed so noble, it was hard for us to admit he was crossing the line between defending his rights as a human being and becoming the leader of a group of murderers…

After a heated argument with my boss, he raised a point: how else are oppressed people supposed to fight back against an oppressor that has one of the strongest and well-trained army in the world? Is everything really allowed in a fight for Freedom? Is there a reason why Malcolm X was much more effective than Martin Luther King? Why the "Gandhi way" most of the time results in a no way situation?Is there a line at which freedom fighting stops and terrorism starts? And if so, what is that line? Where should we stop in our quest for a solution to a problem?All is supposed to be fair in love and war, right?

Certain "terror" planters have some sort of moral line they will not go over- For instance, they will only kill or kidnap public figures; people who are "against" them, not innocent bystanders. Only people who "ask" for it by being into politics, or soccer even. (Ask French-Basque soccer player Lizzarazou how he feels about the death threats on him and his family because his is playing for the traitors, that is France).

And then, you have the others, like the murderers of Madrid, who have a line that visibly seems to be pushed way back where you can barely see it. To them, maybe the line would be not to place a bomb in their own country.

For me, things are different. September 11th made me aware of the fact that they are no more lines left to be crossed. Not for Terrorists, not for political leaders, not for most of us people… Just like the borders disappearing from Europe, there is no border left a terrorist will stop at. Hijacking planes, destroying buildings and thousands of lives…Bombing a kindergarten in Oklahoma, a bus stop in Jerusalem, a night club in Bali, a refugee camp in Gaza…Killing 5 kids but hey, also two "important" Hamas leaders in the same blast…
In France, kids dug out Jewish thumbs to protest against Israel.
In Great Britain, a prime Minister went against the opinion of his whole country and waged a war with America, apparently forgetting he is supposed to be the representative of "the people"…
In Columbine, a city banished a pastor for doing the funeral of the killers…

and we just let them all get away with it.
Very few people here questioned the government's motives for a war in Iraq. No one paused and reflected on the fact that maybe there was a reason behind Europe's hostility towards America. And if they did, then they were labeled unpatriotic. Politicians went through a great extend, manipulating votes, then fact sheets and the media, making a mockery out of the UN, to go through their own agenda. It seems there are no place left where a line cannot, will not, be crossed. There is nothing stopping us. After all, we- regular human beings without any supernatural powers- play God; we decide who gets to live or die, punishing them for a crime they committed with…another crime?
Do we not cross the line they themselves have crossed, calling it Justice when we sentence someone to death?

My question is, if we allow our representatives to take big steps across that invisible and weak line, do the little things in our life without thinking twice about a line we may be crossing, if we interact with people in that same ignorance… well, how else is the world supposed to function?

The other night, at the gym, a guy I helped out with a translation stopped at the bottom of my treadmill to say hello. Then he burst out laughing that I was getting all these zits on my face.
Two days (and many scrubs and masks that burnt the shit out of my skin), my dance teacher advised me, in the middle of the class, to drink more water and not wear so much concealer on my pimples, let them breathe, he said.
Apparently, everyone and their mother has an opinion on what I should use, not use, do, eat, drink to help with my acne breakout.Because apparently, the fact that it is my face and my skin, does not play a role, whatsoever, in the decision making process. Apparently, I cannot know what is best for me.

No, it's not inappropriate of them to comment on the six (yes I counted them), six white, huge (well, when I stare at them pressed against the mirror), making-me-self-conscious-spots I have on my face. Apparently, giving other un-requested advice is not crossing the line.

I bumped into some friends, lounging on a couch, chilling and chatting. L. got up and pinched the fat of my stomach. I felt so violated. A lot of women understood how insulting this was. To me, it was more than insulting. I felt disrespected. I felt like my body was not sacred. I felt hurt that someone I consider a friend would mock the fat of my stomach. What happened to flattery? It WILL get you anywhere. Or at least further ahead than with mockery. The worse part was that when I told him how offended I was, he asked me what my problem was? Why couldn't I be chiller? Oh I don't know. Maybe because I was expecting more from someone who knew I was celebrating my 5th year recovered from anorexia? Perhaps I thought someone who knew me and knew my issues in regards to my body would be a wee bit more considerate? Or at least would know that comments on my body are things that truly affect me? I starved myself for three years for crying out loud. I crossed the line and punished my body.

Another night, at the snotty french restaurant I wait table at, the chef mentioned that my stomach was getting fat. That I should stop munching on fried food and do more crunches. And later on, when some of the other waiters and I were sharing a plate of curried onion rings with an Asian plum dipping sauce, so tasty I was licking it off my fingers, S, one of the French waiters said: no thanks. I try to watch my figure and not pig-out. You should be more careful; you're not that young anymore. Sophie, I'm saying this for your own good!

Last summer, I was also told my breasts were too small and that I might want to consider implants.

Is it me, or does it seem like my body, my boundaries, my lines are being stomped on? Is commenting on other's bodies not stepping over? Is that not going to far? Being rude? Don't cross the line and make fun of my body. How dare you think it's up for crabs? It's funny what happens with skinny people. Others think that commenting on your body is fair game since you're lucky enough to be skinny. No one tells a fat person she has flabby abs. However, just like for a fat person, everyone watches and comments on what the skinny girl should eat.

Nothing is sacred. Nothing is private. Everything is fair game, good gossip. Everyone has the rights to everything. A heartbreak is exposed in public, for the world to judge who dumped who and why.
On TV, couples get engaged, married, divorced; others are tempted on Paradise Island to break up.
Others eat eyeballs and worm for a few thousand dollars.
Any day, you could turn on the screen and see your boyfriend breaking up with you on Oprah. Unless he chooses to dish you with a music video that makes it to number one on MTV's TRL…
We will stop at nothing to get 15 minutes of fame, or simply our way. There is no line that won't be crossed for good ratings. There is no decency line left…

A TV Show called "The Swan" auditioned ugly ducklings to pick, I guess the ugliest, and transform them through intense plastic surgery, diet, exercise into "beautiful" women who will participate in a pageant so that one can be crowned swan. Are they not going overboard when they -the producers- use women with poor self-esteem to create sensational TV? How about telling these women that they are beautiful and some things like, let's say, their whole face, should not be touched? No, instead we give them a new nose, new lips, new cheeks, new teeth, new breasts, new legs new everything… And we applaud when they stare in the mirror and cry out: I am a new person, a beautiful person. That other girl is now gone"…Is it not crossing the line when we allow "that other girl" to just die, because she didn't fit into some network's body standard? Whatever happened to being "beautiful no matter what they say, words can't bring us down"?

NBC also had a movie re-enacting September 11th. Are the executive producers not crossing the line when they decide to tell us what happened on the planes, in the buildings, in the Pentagon that day, considering no one that was there is still alive to tell us the truth? Is that not too much? Going too far?

We interact with others without asking of them that they respect our boundaries, and without even thinking that maybe, we are not respecting theirs. If we cross the lines and let others do the same for every day's little things, then how on earth is anyone supposed to remember to look on both sides before crossing the one regarding the bigger things?

At first, the lines got confused. We no longer knew what was what… OJ Simpson walked out free. The killers of Amadou did as well. The New York Post printed pictures of American soldier cemeteries in France telling us France was not appreciative of the sacrifices America had made for it. We weren't sure where to stand on homosexuality, Things were just blurry. But soon, it was clear that the lines had just become ridiculously insignificant.
So organizers of demonstrations started to be investigated. Foreigners, as they stepped out of a plane, got fingerprinted like criminals. "For prevention purposes". An Air France pilot with a terrible sense of humor ended up in jail, I allowed assholes at my restaurant to treat me with such lack of respect for a good tip…. laughing with them when they ask me if I am on the dessert menu, instead of throwing a glass of water on their pants. I should be ashamed of myself. I crossed the line with them. I left my self-respect behind.

Is the problem just like The Cingular adds for long distance calls? If you can't see the line, how are you supposed to know you've crossed it?Is the problem that we do not know where the line is? That others do not tell us when we have gone too far and we do not tell them that they too are just way out of line? Or is the problem just that life, the world, is much more passionate and "interesting" without a line? Why don't we expect more from everyone?Why do we watch it disappear and just breathe out :Oh well! ???

Miss-emotional

Ah, those feelings, those feelings…
It seems like we always have too many of them. You are always overreacting or being too emotional. People seem to never be shocked by lack of feelings. No one will accuse a woman of under-reacting…

What really drives me off the wall is to be told I am too emotional. I have been told this many times over the years…I am seven years old, watching E.T. It is the part where you think E.T. is dead and Elliot has lost the best friend he ever had, but then, E.T. opens his eyes and you realize he is not really dead and you're just so happy, tears roll down your cheeks.
I am twenty-seven, waiting for my brother to call and tell me how his coming out went. It has been 3 hours since hour H and still nothing. I am worried; I am calling all of my friend to find out what I should do…should I call and pretend I don't know anything, act surprised? What if something really bad happened?
I am ten years old and running out of class; accused of stealing a pen my father actually gave me, called a thief, an Arab thief…
I am fourteen, and there are thousands of people on top of the Berlin Wall and the soldiers on the East side are not shooting; my friends and I are in the streets of our town in Germany, Bonn, Capital city by default. We are talking, and screaming and just being silly happy, and yes, our hearts are so joyous that our voices start to sound funny, and our eyes start to get a little wet! And we all talk at the same time, about how it felt when we touched the wall. About sending orange juice to the East side. And then, someone actually broke a piece of the Wall…
I am nineteen and jumping up and down in the middle of my bedroom because a boy called; twenty-one, and clapping my hands because my visa got approved, twenty-eight and excited because I want to see the last episode of Sex and the City and my HBO on demand finally works or because I feel happy listening to the new Maroon 5 song…

The problem is, I do not know what people mean when they say I am too "emotional"? Do they mean, too happy? Too sad? Laughing too hard, screaming too loud? Do they mean I have too many feelings?
"Emotional"
Let's see… Emotional…

e·mo·tion·al pronounced e-m sh -n l:
the dictionary explains that word as: Pertaining to, or characterized by, emotion; excitable; easily moved; sensational; as, an emotional nature.These are the definitions I found:1: determined or actuated by emotion rather than reason; "it was an emotional judgment" [ant: cerebral]
Last summer, my roommates kicked me out of my apartment in Hell's Kitchen. They said I was being too emotional in my political discussions and it was creating tensions in the house. Apparently, while I was smirking at FOX NEWS' image and sound show, with some catchy title, "emotions" affecting my ability to be logical and make sense overcame my brain. My Roommates Matt and Rob (both on the lease, not me: note to self, make sure your name is on the lease before letting people know what you truly think about the President) started getting upset at what was apparently an emotional display of opinion…
Maybe I should have refrained myself and said something more like: Dear Matt and Rob, I want to let you know that the war in Iraq is not a fun idea. Quite expensive in fact. But what's a few lives compared to the greater good of the people of Iraq. It does not matter what the rest of the world says, nor what I think I might be thinking. Because, as we all know, opinion is a thought, not a feeling. I should agree with Mr. Bush because he is the president of the country I live in and love. I should shush up that knot I have in my stomach and admit that yes, maybe somewhere, over the rainbow, there are WMD, and even if not, it doesn't matter because the goal of this war is really to free the people of Iraq…
But no, not me. The emotional woman that I am yelled while watching CNN, throwing up one sarcastic comment after the other as Saddam's statue was dismantled in a big show, rolling my eyes at the numbers of death: "well what did you think was going to happen?" And I said it. this is the most fucked up, fucking retarded lie ever told to conquer the world. No weapons will be found because none exist. It's for the oil. And the people of Iraq? You have left them to die for the past 20 years and NOW you want to save them? What a joke…
To my roommates, these "emotional" outbursts meant that I was happy that soldiers were dying…And therefore, was against them, and had no place in this house… I was too politically emotional… My arguments were determined by feelings rather than reason? Hummm…
I don't know about you. My opinion seems pretty reasonable to me…

2: of more than usual emotion
"his behavior was highly emotional" [ant: unemotional] It is a bright, warm and sunny Tuesday morning. It is September 11th 2001 and the first tower is crumbling apart while I stand on the balcony of my apartment, at the corner of Bleecker and Thompson screaming: OH my God, Oh my God, Oh my God… The neighbor that is standing right next to me, a filmmaker with a camera in his hands, stops pressing the record button and looks up: Are you OK? He asks… I am shaking and I just stare at him and say, yes I am fine. I walk back into the apartment and over hear him say something about "emotional breakdown"…
Was I displaying more than usual emotions and therefore could be qualified as someone having an emotional breakdown in the sense that it was totally inappropriate at that time? Had I been witnessing a fight between a pretzel vendor and a cab driver, maybe! Watching my view forever be altered, and I am not just talking about my view down Broadway, my answer is NO. No I was not displaying more than usual emotions for this horrendous, unusual situation

3: of or pertaining to emotion
"emotional health"; "an emotional crisis" The first person I really remember using this as an insult was one of my ex-boyfriends. We were sitting in front of plates of baked ziti and penne a la vodka. It was in the middle of winter and a few days past a snowstorm. My giving a dollar bill to a homeless man on the street had prompted the discussion. Ex-boyfriend had proceeded to explain to me why it was wrong. Because it gave the homeless an excuse not to work. Not to do anything and keep bugging others for money they would spend on a bottle of J&B or a pack of cigarettes. Never food nor shelter. (Apparently ex-boyfriend is very familiar with the habits of every single homeless person in this city).
His solution to the homeless problem? Pack them on a bus and send them to Florida. In fact, he did not understand why they didn't go themselves! At least they would not be cold and could survive on less food. I was so shocked by that that I got up, told him to get the check and walked out on him…Later that night, he mentioned that he did not understand why I had to get all "emotional" about it. But the problem is, I did not feel like I had been "emotional" about it. Passionate and upset-which is true, are emotions- but emotional, as in having an emotional crisis? I don't think so. And if I was emotional, then him being insensitive and obnoxious- which could also count as emotions- was just well!

4: extravagantly demonstrative
"insincere and effusive demonstrations of sentimental friendship"; "a large gushing female"; "write unrestrained and gushy poetry" [syn: effusive, gushing (a), gushy].
OK. So I give a lot of hugs. And not just to the people I know. I hug the whole kitchen staff of the restaurant, kiss-kiss on the cheeks (but I am French, it's not emotional, it's genetic). I hug my friend's friends, I sometimes hug the homeless I chit chat with. And I tell my friends that I love them, and miss them, and bring them stuff back from vacation.I grew up with a father who did not know how to let people know he loved them. With a Grandfather who never kissed my grandmother. I grew up seeing how much it hurts not to be given a hug, a handshake or a smile. How can there be something wrong with smiling too much, when the smile comes from the heart?

How can you tell me I am to happy, too emotionally demonstrative when too many live their life without being told how much they are liked, appreciated, wanted?
I spend 2 years with a man who never told me: I love you. Who never let me know he thought I was beautiful. No one tells him he is undemonstrative. Restrained.
My emotions are always sincere. Effusive but sincere. I would not hug those I detest. I would not kiss-kiss on the cheeks someone who is racist, homophobic, against abortion, and who wears white sport socks with loafers…that person, I might shake their hands or smile briefly at, but I would not touch them. Not even with a ten-foot pole. And it would definitely be a sincere, effusive demonstration of dislike. Except when it seems to be a negative demonstration, no one tells me it's emotional…

5: of persons; excessively affected by emotion
"he would become emotional over nothing at all" [syn: aroused, excited]
Affected by emotions…over nothing at all... I am going through a slide show of some of the 2,000 couples that got married in San Francisco over Valentine's Day weekend. I have tears in the back of my throat. Yes, I have feelings, why; some might even say emotions, in regards to this event. Not only towards the couples, but also extreme pride as I can only wish to be half the man the Mayor of San Francisco is. In a split second, I have fallen in love, yes in love, with this amazing human being who did something just because it was about time someone did…Defying authority to do what he believed was just! Looking at the pictures, you can feel the love, the joy…there were rose petals and grains of rice covering the steps of City Hall… And people pouring out of the building waving a sheet of paper in the air. Some wore costumes, some wore kilts, some had matching shirts tucked into they're washed out jeans, and some wore tuxedos and beautiful white dresses. Some were pretty young, and some were definitely pretty old. Some were white, others blacks, some were Hispanic, others Indian, Arab, Asian…. Some had amazingly bright rainbow scarves around their necks, and some just had a sticker that read: justly married…But they all finally had a wedding ring around their fingers, and they all had a smile that was so wide, so bright… Hell yes, it stirred emotions in me. Because I can only hope one day, to be this much in love with someone and this happy that I'd want to marry that someone. And finally be allowed to marry that someone. But it doesn't mean it stirred "too many" feelings or that it was excessive. I keep wondering how it could not stir any… Good or bad (if you’re a homophobic asshole for instance- and how's that for an emotional outburst?) but those kinds of events should stir something…
I am watching the pictures taken by a straight, male photographer on AlterNEt.org. His comments? "Behind a camera, there was a straight guy weeping". Would you say he had become emotional over nothing at all?Was he too emotional? Am I too emotional?

I am certain that in my life, I have over-reacted to things. To be honest, I know I have displayed a somewhat higher emotional behavior at some point! Sue me…I screamed in the streets when France won the world cup in 1998; I hit my sister with a pillow (beats my fist if you ask me) during a fight; and spat in the coffee of a customer who called my friend -his waitress- a fat bitch (it was in 1999, in Little Italy)…Was it highly emotional? Yes. And maybe it was a little too much.

But until you have been called a fat bitch by one of your customers, until you have had client treat you like shit, do not tell me what the appropriate reaction to a certain situation should be.People have told me my writing tends to be emotional. What other way should it be? Bland? Neutral? Un-opinionated? People tell me that when I write stories, my comments seem to be over-reacted. Well how should they be? I mean, this is my story, my feelings, my opportunity to vent. Venting and bitching and just being angry are not meant to be polite and contained. Feelings are not supposed to come in a nice little package with a bow on top, small and squared and just non-intrusive.No…

You can call me a lot of things. Tell me I take things too seriously. Tell me I am too sensitive. That's fine. I probably am. Tell me I have mood swings and that I have a tendency to over react-that's acceptable. You can tell me all that. You can tell me I am moody, bitchy, PMS-ing, on fire, cranky, not being fair, reasonable and so on. But do not tell me I have too many emotions. Do not tell me I have too many feelings…Do not tell me I care too much…I do not tell you, you care too little! I do not break out into a Top Gun soundtrack song letting you know that you've lost that loving feeling…I am too emotional?Fuck you. Maybe YOU are the one who is not emotional enough!