Celebrity

As child with undiagnosed Attention Deficit Disorder until my mid teens, homework was never something that was completed easily, and no one could ever pinpoint exactly why. Maybe my mother was right, I am lazy. Or maybe it wasn’t anything that I could help at all. Always, after fifteen minutes of math problems, my brain would shift to a burning desire for better, more important things to focus on. And what better to focus on than my predestined career as a celebrity?

Initially, the idea was this: I would move to New York and somehow become involved behind the scenes with Rolling Stone magazine where I would inadvertently capture the heart of a rock star. Slash from Guns ‘N’ Roses. I was painfully sure. I would move to L.A. where we would marry in a nightclub on The Strip. Besides five-inch stripper heels, what I would wear to the ceremony was a mystery—almost unimportant. What was of utmost importance, however, was Slash’s attire. He would be shirtless, wearing leather pants; a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, wild mass of tight black curls falling well below his shoulders. Exactly like on the September 5, 1991 cover of Rolling Stone. I didn’t know how any of this would happen. But I felt certain that it would happen. And it would, I figured, secure me a spot in the history of Rock music as the incredible and exuberant wife of Slash. Incredible how, I wasn’t sure. But it didn’t matter.

The fact that I was humiliatingly shy and hated myself was not an issue. Because shyness and self-loathing are easily overcome, was my thinking. Once I became, like, seventeen and naturally got really beautiful, the rest would pretty much take care of itself.

The unmistakable knowledge of this future distracted me.

But then I discovered Dave Grohl, the drummer for Nirvana, and I decided I didn’t want to marry Slash. The future had changed but not entirely. Now I would become the incredible and exuberant wife of Dave Grohl, who would also remain shirtless during our wedding. Dave, I knew, would teach me how to play the drums. That way, I could also be the drummer in my own all girl punk band called The Lit Fuses, a name that took me many hours of distraction from homework to come up with. Sort of like if Josie and the Pussycats and Jem and the Holograms combined, looks-wise. Only we would play feminist punk rock and open for maybe The Breeders and Nirvana. Not only was I going to have a spot in the history of Rock music as a rock star’s wife, I was going to be a rock star, myself. It was win-win.

Inevitably my mother would open my bedroom door to find me lying on the floor examining a copy of Rolling Stone rather than solving math problems and the dream would be interrupted. But only temporarily.

This dream, it seemed to me, was fail proof. How was it not possible was the only real question.

In the end what I got was sort of halfway there.

While not working for Rolling Stone, I did wind up in magazines. As a graphic designer. And I did move to New York.

I worked for a dance magazine. It was a non-major newsstand magazine in the arts and entertainment and as far as I could see that put me only two steps away from Rolling Stone.

But then I got laid off and my priorities shifted. The future had changed once again. Only, this time it wasn’t so clear.

And that’s when Ben came along, whom I met on Match.com and whom I immediately knew within the space of an instant and with the clarity of a more-idiotic-than-funny e-mail was not the one for me. But he was in the music industry. So.

Ben invited me to dinner at Candle 79, a semi-upscale vegan restaurant on the Upper East Side. I was thinking this was worth about ten points because Ben was not vegan. Or vegetarian, even. Ben preferred to eat meat. “Are you sure?” I’d asked. “We can go to a place that has both.” But Ben said he was sure. So I went to Candle 79 with Ben and suddenly, in the low light over Seitan Chimichurris, I knew that I was beginning to like him.

Ben showered me with attention and praise. When I told him how I’d been laid off and was currently looking for a new line of employment, he asked, “Like modeling, right?” Normally, this is exactly the sort of comment that repulses me—has the instant effect of committing a sin as monstrous as if the perpetrator were to suddenly pull out his penis and flop it on the table like a dead fish. But at the moment I was in desperate need of exactly this kind of validation. I felt my cheeks turn red with coy embarrassment. This fueled Ben further. “You’re very cute when you blush,” he said.

That coupled with the fact that he was in the music industry. I was sold.

Months later, I found myself standing outside of a popular Brooklyn night spot arguing audibly with Ben. We had just been out to dinner and somehow, the whole time I’d felt disconnected. I’d been sitting there through the meal wondering what we were doing together and then feeling left out when he took a phone call and informed me of a party he had to go to later. It was a birthday party for one of his famous friends and it didn’t seem like I was invited. I hated that feeling.

So I began asking myself, if we were a couple—like an official couple—would I feel the same? No, I would probably clearly understand that Ben and I were going to his friend’s birthday party together. As a couple.

“I just don’t want to label anything,” Ben said. We were standing in front of this popular Brooklyn nightspot, having abruptly paused to argue before entering to attend the birthday party. “Why does there always have to be a label? Like, why can’t we just hang out?”

“I don’t know,” I said. And I really didn’t. But there was just something inside me that was saying, this is not right. Like, that hanging out after months either naturally became dating or friendship or maybe just sort of ended altogether. I couldn’t figure Ben out—what he wanted—and that drove me crazy. Just for a little while I wanted to imagine that Ben and I could become a couple. That he would smile and with a playful twinkle in his eye say, “What are you talking about? I thought you were my girlfriend? No?”

Ben turned his entire body to face me and looked into my eyes. Then he looked down at his feet and pouted, then sort of let out this sad, pained sigh. “It’s just like, what if something better comes along?”

He said this with the heartfelt sincerity of a five year old.

I found it endearing how honest Ben was and yet the biting rage inside me had now built to a disastrous level.

I looked at Ben and could feel, really feel, my eyes narrow. “You don’t think I could find someone better than you?

I hadn’t wanted to hold back. And with this statement, I didn’t. Because the grass is always going to be greener. For everyone. But eventually, when you find a person you really enjoy spending time with you make a choice to close certain doors and form an actual real relationship with that person. Or else you make the choice to let them go. But either way, you make a choice.

Ben looked down at his feet again. “That was mean, “ he said. He looked like a very sad little boy who had just had his toys taken away.

There, standing in front of a popular Brooklyn nightspot is where Ben and I decided to stop hanging out and go our separate ways. But not until after the party. Because it couldn’t hurt to meet Ben’s famous friend. Maybe he was looking for an incredible wife.