Photo Credit: Breck Brunson

I don’t want to do anything right now. I was born into a culture of the work-a-holic, the indentured servant, the slave with no wages, the wage slave and more currently, the hustler. You want to eat in America?  You want to go to the beach, and eat avocados and play sold out shows, you have to push your body to the brink. It’s not like that everywhere. Mexico invented the pastime of the siesta and Jews don’t work on the Sabbath. People need to rest.

And I don’t have to buy in to any pressure, now that I’ve worked almost half my life. I can take half days on Fridays and pull all-nighters to pick up with my deadlines if I want to sleep in, but I paid a price: my teens and 20s. While kids were partying, I was listening to Malcolm Gladwell books on tapes, reading, studying, traveling and developing.

I couldn’t get by like other kids who went to art school and worked 10 hours a week. I wasn’t privileged and worked to compensate.

A Grade A hustler, I am.

But you know, after 13 years, I’ve learned that it all means nothing unless you have a relationship with the world as an environment, as an independent entity. I take long walks and look up at the moon, and lately, I’ve been taking afternoons off the hike and go the beach (it takes effort to do this on the East Coast) – but not in a privileged way, on the contrary, it is all still for survival.

Not only does America push you to the brink at work, but at the same time it forces you to be “nice”, easy to get along with and compromising, while you win, succeed and standout. If you’re not likable, doors close. If you’re too confident, you’re a threat, if you aren’t attractive, you’ll “never get far.”

What a culture. What a conundrum.

I won’t buy in…because I’ve already paid. My mother asked me after I was published in the Village Voice what will I do if I hit my bucket list goals early in life. I told her, I’d go swimming for a few years……

Stage fright

Depression

Exhaustion

Lost Years

Lost Time

Learning How to Love

Eating What Sustains

Vitamins for Health

Garlic for the Heart

Moisturizers to Stay Young

Pedicures to Heal the Effects of Miles

Flat Shoes for the Knees

Reading Glasses for the Aging Vision

Light Makeup to Cover Dark Little Circles

Dinner Parties to Figure Things Out

Responses to Questions Because It’s What I Do

I still have a long way to go.