The Visa Diaries

The purchase I’m about to tell you about was actually made by my mother, probably over 30 years ago now. It is this fabulous, floral-issimo, polyester-issimo, pantsuit that I found in the attic. My mother called it a “hostess suit.”

I was frantically looking for a Halloween costume on Saturday, and was overjoyed to open a box in the back of a closet and have its bold lime and orange pattern jump out of the darkness at me. I am terrible at Halloween costumes. I mean they have to be so high-concept these days, like going as “The Walk of Shame” or a “Bachelorette Party.” It is totally not acceptable anymore to go as a “cowgirl” – minimum it would have the be a “Cowgirl-Killer Zombie”or “Paris Hilton on the Simple Life.” We are all so post-modern.

The stakes are perhaps even higher at art school. We throw the best party on campus for Halloween, in this fantastic huge old industrial space where the sculptors work. Some people go all out on amazing costumes – my favorite last year was a perfect Edward Scissorhands, and this year there was some sort of zork-creature straight out of Lord of the Rings. Oh, and my friend Rebecca who went as Nicole Richie. A girl who regularly wears no make-up, she was so utterly transformed, she was disguised in plain site – nobody recognized her.

So back to me and my hostess suit, thanks to Mom, I went as a Desperate Housewife, circa 1970. I figure Eva Longoria and co. have no monopoly on that role. I accessorized with a martini glass, a bottle of prescription pills, ironed hair and a middle part, and was more Sigourney Weaver in Ice Storm. The best thing was that the hostess suit was made for dancing, so I was comfy comfy comfy as I boogied the night away.

I realize there is more to say about a camera purchase, so I’m going to linger on this one a little longer. That thing I want to say, is what is up with the group shot of people out partying? Ok, this is just a starting point, but to clarify, I am talking about the type of photo that litters sites like mySpace and FaceBook, of ensembles of young, dressed-up, wasted people, out and about the town, suction-cupped to each other like they are the last living beings on earth and wearing smiles meant for tooth-whitening commercials.

I think these photos are a bid to say that their subjects exist. They are a form of evidence, a plaintive “I was here” in a our media-saturated, media-validated culture, where nothing is real until its on tv or in print. I mean, being young with money isn’t enough anymore, heiresses have to hire PR firms to make them famous for being young with money, for god’s sake. And how many stars are more famous for their “real” life dramas played out in tabloids than for any film or music career they might have. Is it any wonder then that Joe and Jane Schmoe want to get in on the action? Short of having real paparazzi on one’s tail, the next best thing is to whip out the pocket digi at every turn and document it oneself.

The thing about these pictures is that the evening, the friendship, the emotion – all of it – might as well exist in order to take that picture. The snapshot is not merely a document of something that was real and was happening anyway – the snapshot is a crystallization of what we wish was real, a coming together of all the “I am a joyous young party thing” that we could muster, but we muster it for the camera, because that is the evidence that will remain.

Ryan McGinley, one of my favorite photographers, who specializes in seemingly off-hand photos of exquisite debauchery, has said, “A lot of people look at my work and assume it is all just an autobiography and that my life is as wild and fun as the images I take. I like that assumption but it’s not true. My photographs are really closer to a documentation of my fantasy life. People still take photographs as truth. They look at them and think what they see really happened and while it did really happen, it didn’t really happen like that. It is more like pseudo-fiction because it did happen but it might not have happened if it weren’t going to become a photograph.”

What McGinley said could equally apply to any image we see in a fashion magazine, or frankly most of the photos we see. What does that mean, when we are trying to model our lives on images that are not really representative of real lives?

I’m rather ambivalent about cameras for this reason. More often than not these days, I can’t be bothered to take at events pictures and the camera stays in my purse. But I do have my share of above mentioned party-pics from over the years. The irony is that I totally enjoy looking back over my old party snaps, and reminiscing about how fabulous it all must have been. Once the memories of the complexity have faded and all that remains is the smiley surface, it looks pretty damn good. Maybe that is a blessing.

I call my doorman “Santa Claus.” His real name is Dave, but he is a friendly, portly fellow, and, more to the point, he gives me lots of packages. Ones that I have ordered and paid for, fair enough, and that have been brought by the postman, been too big to wedge into my pigeon-hole mail box, and so been left with Dave to hand on to me when I get in. But despite the fact that all Dave does is go to the closet and hand them over, he gets all the emotional benefit as if he had painstakingly chosen and procured them, specially thinking about my wants and tastes. They seem all the more like special “gifts” because they generally arrive a week or so after having been ordered, and thus I always have a moment of wondering “now what could this be??” which is of coarse the fun part about presents.

Since I don’t have much time for shopping, and also don’t have a car, Dave has been the bestower of the majority of my new things recently. A lot of them have been books. A big, exciting one the other week was a vacuum cleaner. And just yesterday, Dave gave me a new camera. Now that was a fun package to open.

I got the Canon Powershot SD800 IS, which if you are like me, means very little. I find it actually incredibly confusing that they have so many models and numbers, especially when they explain all the model numbers with more numbers: numbers of megapixels, numbers of focal length, numbers of shutter speed, etc etc. I usually go to Cnet, read the reviews, and then find myself even more dismayed, because many of the cameras seem rather good, but all of their flaws are also picked out. How am I to know if it will matter to me that this model does not have a manual shutter speed adjustment? How much is that worth to me, in terms of extra cost and perhaps a tradeoff for a bigger size or a different brand? Its enough to make the head spin.

So usually, my MO would be to get good-enough technical specs and then go on style. My camera of choice in that scenario would have been the Sony Cybershot – much most stylish than the Canon, I’d say. But this time I was a bit more responsible. I polled everybody in my class who has one of these small digital point-and-shoots, and the general consensus was that the Canon takes the best picture quality. So I let practicality override my style-slave, and ordered the Canon (I was going to get the Sony in white as well, so it would have had that whole cool iPod look going. sigh…)

Anyway, it remains to be seen how this practical decision will work out. Not that the Canon is hideously ugly, it just doesn’t have that extra stylistic je ne sais quoi. Will I regret it every time I use it? Will I have that internal sigh that wishes I was whipping out the Sony instead? Or will the glory of the picture quality make it all ok? In the battle between style and substance, I tend to want both. So I sit on the fence and get skewered. I’ll have to get back to y’all about how this decision works out for me.

weee-hoo. Grad school and bloggin’ do no mix. When you’re staying up regularly till 4 am for mad crits, not to mention not shoppin’ so much cuz, like, you don’t have any income, well then maybe a regular blog about the things you buy isn’t such a good idea! To anyone out there thinking of starting a blog, my advice would be to wait until you have a nice, comfy, or at least predictable 9-5.

But then, whining aside, it is a really good idea because its really fun, and now that I’ve started mine, I’ll keep on going. Soon enough, I’ll be out in the easy-livin’ world (yeah right) of professional graphic design, making a buck and enjoying plenty of free time… right?

Anyway, I will buy something and talk about it soon. Like, tomorrow.

I just paid 3 dollars and 45 cents for a bottle of water.

It does come “From the Island of Fiji,” and is “Natural Artesian Water,” which, when you put it that way, almost makes it sound like a bargain. But, puh-lease, it’s still water! I know reams has been written about this, so I’m probably not treading any new ground here, and it makes me sound like an old curmudgeon. “I remember when movies only cost a dollar!” type of thing. Next I’ll be saying, “Next we’ll be paying for oxygen” blah blah blah. But really, when the whole bottled water thing got imported from Europe sometime in the 80s, did we really know it was going to go this far?

Curmudgeonly-ness aside, my bigger question is, why do I feel better about drinking water that comes in a bottle, and why do I feel particularly good about drinking Fiji water? As a first line of defense, I do think Fiji tastes better than other waters. Then there is its packaging, with that funky 3-d effect where they make you feel like you’re looking through the spring, from the flowers at the front to the palms at the back. Then there is the price – it is more expensive, it must be better! That is crazy, but its also human nature – one of the metrics we use to judge quality is price. Anyway, Fiji makes me feel like I am wearing white and, if I close my eyes and imagine hard enough, almost like a palm frond is blowing a soft breeze on my cheek.

For all these reasons, Fiji is, like, my special occasion water – I drink it when I am feeling particularly excited or celebratory about something. This afternoon, however, was not a special occasion. It was just a bit of a Friday the 13th I’m-overwhelmed-with-work and feel-like-freaking-out occasion. Rather than water, such occasions might normally call for a big chocolate chip cookie or a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. And when you think about how much that would cost me – I mean in mental anguish, not to mention lost time as I went to the gym to work it off, or the expense of having to buy new clothes to fit in my new plus-cookie size, well then I actually felt very virtuous about my $3.45 bottle of water. I mean really, water is so insignificant, such a non-thing, that really it was like I didn’t have to buy anything at all to cheer myself up.

I know they are the ugliest shoes in the world.

I know that wearing them telegraphs to the world that I am trying to get rid of my cellulite… even though (I swear, I am not saying this because we are discussing my thighs on a blog) I don’t really have much cellulite.

I am referring, of course, to my MBTs. MBTs, of course, being the phenomenon that lit up ladies’ mags a year or two ago, as being THE CELLULITE CURE! (God, I am getting embarrassed talking about cellulite so publicly, as if just the mention of the stuff will make it spread its bubbly little curse over my butt. Or worse, will make everybody scrutinize my butt to see if that has happened… Anyway.) In case you had more sensible things to worry about and missed the fuss, MBT stands for Massai Barefoot Technology. The hype is that some German scientist, who looked like a throwback to WWII based on the video that accompanies the shoes, realized after years and years of study that (drumroll)… the pavement is the problem! People were not evolved for the hard, flat ground that on which we tread in our modern cemented and asphalted world, and it throws our alignment and skeletons out of whack. Hence, Massai Barefoot Technology to the rescue, which builds into the sole of shoe a mechanism to replicate walking on uneven ground, just like the Massai – who apparently have fantastic posture, and never get back problems.

And yes, you need a video to learn how to walk in them, the movement is so different from walking in regular shoes. So really, they were developed for people with back problems, the cellulite bit was just a happy accident having to do with better muscle use and increased circulation to “the region.” A happy accident, both for millions of women all over the world, and I’m sure, for the MBT marketing department.

So if I don’t have cellulite, then, what could possibly be the reason for wearing these monstrosities? I recently got my second pair, too, so it wasn’t just a quick fad. One honest answer is that they are just really comfortable. I know that is boring, but I haven’t had any problem with shin splints since I’ve been running in them. And, they make me stand taller, butt and abs pulled in – I swear I get checked out more when I am wearing them, I must stand with a more regal air. And, ok, let’s be honest, even though I don’t have cellulite now, none of us is immune to the bubble curse. I like the fact that MBTs are combatting it – an ounce of prevention, like taking my vitamins.

I got accused by one of my classmates for “not living the student life” when I told him about my time in New York last weekend. Amongst the general New York-ish activities like going to a show (the now-closed Absinthe “sexy circus” down at Pier 17), stopping by the MOMA (the current exhibition “Out of Time: A Contemporary View” is pretty flippin-fantastic), brunch at Balthazar, etc, we also spent a fair amount of time at Soho House New York. Arvind is a member in London, and gets entry to the entire family of clubs.

I used to be anti- the members club. Why bother when there are bars and restaurants aplenty? Why go back to the same venue over and over when there are so many new places to try? Why hang out with a bunch of twats who need their co-bar-inhabitants to be vetted? Members clubs are an urban uncle to the beer-guzzling fraternity member rampaging over college campuses across america, and I never liked fraternities for the same reasons.

However, it was our lovely friend Indira’s birthday (she is filming a pilot of an exciting new tv show in town), and what with none of us being exactly local, Soho House seemed like a good bet. And it was just that – a good, safe, bet, where we didn’t have to wait in line or waste time equivocating, where there were contemporary cocktail mixes with cucumbers and such, and where there were enough people but not too many. It was comfortable and well-executed media-yuppy lounge. Apart from the fake tin panels tacked on the ceiling (”Soho” House feeling it had to live up to its name, despite being in the meat-packing district?) it was all a comfortable, benign blend of contemporary/ old-boys-club – somewhat the same tone of decor as a Banana Republic.

Well, we had such a nice time, or have become so lazy, the we returned Sunday afternoon. The roof deck with the pool, overlooking the Hudson River at sunset, was what got me accused of not living the student life. Fair enough. And now I see the benefits of the members club. Compared to the airless confines of the average New York apartment, where you are lucky if you have a view across a shaft, this roof deck complete with wifi and bar service was absolute nirvana. Even sans roof deck, the members club is a comfortable public space to hang out, chat, work, occasionally eat or drink, whatever. A place where the chairs are cushy and reconfigurable, to take you from coffee to cocktails, and where you do not feel like there is a stopwatch ticking for your table. Kind of like an upmarket version of Starbucks, actually. Yeah… Starbucks House. Sohobucks…