No Accounting for Cheap Wads

Flavor Of The Week: No Accounting For Cheap Wads
While dating her cheapskate boyfriend, MAURA KELLY received the best relationship advice from the man she hired to do her taxes
The New York Press
April 8, 2009


As someone who's been making a living as a freelance writer for four years, I started fretting about money long before the recession. There are certain months—sometimes two or even three in a row—when I don’t receive a single paycheck. I’m always trying to stretch a dollar. I buy my groceries at Trader Joe’s; I get my underwear at the 99-cent store; I almost never go out to dinner. And last year, when tax time came, what I wanted to save on was an accountant who would help me itemize all the right deductions.

My tightwad boyfriend, a college professor, recommended A & A Brothers’ Legal and Accounting Firm and when I stopped by to drop off the necessary paperwork, I realized that one way A&A kept costs down was by saving on decor.Their office, on the Lower East Side, did not exactly reek of prestige and power. Instead, it just... reeked. Like the house of a very old person. There was no furniture made of polished mahogany, no chairs upholstered with green leather, no wainscoting. Instead, the waiting room was distinguished by a landslide of tattered magazines obscuring a coffee table and a forest of half-dead rubber trees wilting on one long windowsill, which was also cluttered with dead flies. I felt a bit like I’d stumbled into Krook’s Rag and Bottle Shop, or a Charlie Kaufman movie.

When Bernie, one of the brothers, came to retrieve me, I saw he’d invested about as much in his personal appearance as he and his siblings had in their environs. Bernie was an overweight, pear-shaped man in the throes of middle age—the dandruff on his shoulders resembled heavy flakes of new snow—who was wearing wrinkled khakis, a washed-out polo shirt and a baseball hat with the call letters for a radio station. In his windowless office—cluttered with unruly stacks of paper and decorated with degrees from universities I’d never heard of—he invited me to sit down in a chair from an old kitchen set before squeezing past me, into his own similar seat. After flipping through my 1040s, he looked up and said, “So, you’re an Aquarian, right?”

I was a bit baffled. “My sign, you mean? I’m a Leo.”

“Impossible!” he bellowed. “I mean, look at you!”

Obediently, I glanced down at myself. I’d just come from pumping iron at the YMCA, and was still in Lycra exercise pants and an old hoodie. I crossed my legs.

“Look at me, what?”

“Never before have I seen a Leo who is so bad at presenting herself in a way that would attract money!” He slapped at my paperwork for emphasis. “And yet you’re a writer, correct? So you can’t be a complete dummy.”


I gave a quick look behind me, hoping someone could confirm that the minor insanity I was being subjected to was only a hallucination.

He pointed at me with a slug-shaped finger. “But something is not quite right. Because you want money. All Leos want it.”

“Nobody becomes a writer for the money,” I said, trying to defend myself. And yet, I did want money, of course. Gobs and gobs of it. Ever since giving up my day job—and a steady income—so I could pursue my dream of writing a novel, I’d been scraping by. And by then, I was dying to live in a neighborhood known for something other than cash-checking spots and liquor stores, for a new winter coat—for decent undies. But what I probably wanted more than anything else was to be comfortable enough so that I could take myself out for a meal occasionally without agonizing over the cost.

“Look,” Bernie said, “I’m no astrologer, or even a psychologist—”

“As long as you are an accountant, that’s fine.”

Bernie smiled and gestured at some paper on the wall that had the initials CPA after his name. “I’m also a student of the human condition. So I know that really, anybody who’s being honest with herself will admit she wants money. And Leos want it especially. And therefore, the only way you’re going to be happy is if you get better at attracting it.”

I laughed. “Who says I’m not happy?”

Bernie gave me a smirk, like trying to fool him was useless. “You must become the change you seek in the world,” he said.

That was a paraphrase of one of Gandhi’s best-known lines, which I recognized not because I’m a scholar of nonviolent protest, British colonialism or even famous bald men, but because a printout of the saying was pinned to the corkboard at the YMCA. I’m fairly certain, however, Gandhi wasn’t alluding to weight loss or financial gain when he said it. And those kinds of bromides, when repurposed by self-help gurus—or astrologers’ manqué—always sound flaky to me. They make me want to mutter, “Should I visualize ‘whirled peas’ while I’m at it?”

At the same time, my fear that other people could see my flaws far more accurately than I did made me a sucker for sidewalk psychics, subway prophets and even a modern-day Tiresias. So, as such, Bernie had me in his strange thrall.

“If you want money, you’ve got to project that it should be given to you,” he continued. “That you’re not cheap.You come at a price.”

I was slightly amused, slightly outraged—and completely compelled to listen. “What exactly do you suggest?” I sputtered.

“Let’s start with...” He looked at my sweaty clothes, seemed to think better of insulting them, then glanced down at the papers in front of him. “Well, with this address.What neighborhood do you live in?”

I told him of my Brooklyn nabe that some would describe as “gentrifying.” Others might say it’s ghetto.

He was outraged. “A small girl like you, there? Someone with such expressive eyes? It’s only a matter of time before ... something terrible happens!” I blinked.

“But I see what you’re doing,” Bernie said, tapped his finger vigorously against his temple. “Living there: That’s a cry for love. Maybe you’re trying to say, ‘Daddy, save me! Get me out of here!’ Or—well—maybe it’s not the father. You have a boyfriend? You want the boyfriend to marry you?” I shook my head, horrified. “No. And even if I did, he couldn’t save me from anything. He’s a young professor. He barely makes more than I do.”

Bernie did not approve. “You’ve got to get away from that. Find yourself a nice...a Capricorn. Someone who will lavish money on you.”

“Easier said than done.”

“For you, maybe…because you project the wrong image,” he said and sighed. “Of course you don’t have a nice boyfriend.What man in his right mind would visit you in that neighborhood?”

Bernie’s pro bono philippic had started to wear on me.

“No guy has ever complained about my locale,” I said.

“That’s because decent men hear where you live and write you off immediately. They think, ‘This girl doesn’t treat herself right! Why should I?’”

I stood up, excused myself, thanked him and high-tailed it out of there.

On the subway ride home, I decided that even though Bernie was a crackpot, he might have a point. Maybe it was time for me to break up with the skinflint. After all, the professor’s lack of generosity wasn’t limited to money matters; he was also stingy with his time and emotional attention. But his miserliness was expressed most clearly for me by the fact that we’d been dating exclusively for almost four months, and he had yet to treat me to a single meal. If we went out to the movies or a bar, we always went Dutch—and we’d never gone to a single restaurant together. When we ate, we always cooked at home for one another. At first, I was fine with it. I assumed he was only making just enough to get by and that he thought restaurants were a waste of money.

About three months in—after he mentioned that he was considering buying his apartment once his building converted to condos—I realized he was in better financial shape than I’d assumed, and I increasingly began to resent his cheapness. His reluctance to buy me dinner seemed to reflect a reluctance to treat me well in general. Granted, I hadn’t taken him out, either, but I wasn’t about to offer—not when he had tenure and was probably making about 25-50 percent more than I was. Plus, I suppose I’m a little sexist, but the fact that he’d never taken me out (not once!) offended me. My shrink, who knew about my growing dissatisfaction with the professor, wondered why I couldn’t simply ask him to bring me to my favorite brasserie. That sounded reasonable enough, yet it also seemed a little like saying: “Hey, why not just ask ol’ Kim Jong Il to open up North Korea’s borders.” Because, see, the professor had drawn a line in the sand early on: when he told me he’d broken up with his last girlfriend because she was so demanding—both emotionally and financially. And I wasn’t ready to rock the boat by requesting too much. I’ve never been very good at asking for what I want.

A few days after my encounter with Bernie, the professor made a point of mentioning that he’d like to hang out on Valentine’s Day. “Finally!” I thought. “He’s going to take me out!” But February 14 was a huge disappointment.That morning, the prof called to ask if we could hang out at my place, since his roommate’s long-distance girlfriend was going to be in town. Clearly, the prof hadn’t made any special plans. I muttered that I didn’t have much in my fridge and didn’t feel like shopping. He told me he’d take care of “everything.”

When he arrived—without a bottle of wine or dessert—he handed me a couple of clementines.“Instead of roses,” he explained.

“My mom’s a florist, so I don’t do flowers.” I felt like saying: And Louis Armstrong’s momma was a prostitute, so I don’t do it for free! I was frustrated. I wanted a generous partner who was willing to signal his affection, at least occasionally, by taking me out for dinner. I didn’t want a sugar daddy, but maybe a grilled-tuna-with-garlic-mashedpotatoes daddy.

So I broke up with the professor. I was talking to my shrink afterwards, when it occurred to me that though I’d been in relationships with a number of guys who’d taken me out to dinner regularly, I never felt quite at ease with those arrangements. Because even when I get the things I want without having to ask for them, particularly things that can be purchased with greenbacks, I never feel deserving of them. And the more I’m given, the more anxious I get. The relationship becomes tense. It’s like this psychological study I read about once: people who have a poor opinion of themselves tend to partner up with people who see them as nega tively as they seem themselves; they feel most comfortable that way. My shrink hinted that I had a tendency to subtly communicate to men that I didn’t think I was “worth” very much. “You sound like my accountant,” I said. “But would you care to let me in on how I can subtly communicate that I think I am worth something?” She gave me one of her typically tautological answers: “By feeling like you are.” How the hell was I supposed to do that? It wasn’t until earlier this month—a year after my first encounter with Bernie— that I began to calculate my yearly expenses in anticipation of another trip to see my soothsaying accountant that I began to understand the true message behind his madness. Becoming the change I was seeking in the world didn’t mean swearing off cheap bastards like the professor.

It meant becoming less of a cheap bastard myself. I’ve pinched my pennies so tightly that even as a freelancer I’ve managed to stash away about half of what a down payment on a decent apartment would run me. And I know everybody is singing the praises of those who save money these days, but I tell you, it’s a lifestyle that has come at a personal cost. I always feel deprived. And regardless of how much I’ve piled up, my annual salary is still so dodgy that nobody is going to give me a mortgage anytime soon. So surely, I can afford to spend $40 on a nice meal every now and then. Isn’t it a small price to pay if it will help me finally believe I’m worth at least that much? It’s not that I think going out for grilled tuna every few weeks will miraculously result in my finding the perfect life companion. I doubt he’ll sit down next to me, by chance, at some copper-topped bar. But I do think getting into the habit could teach me to have higher standards for myself. And even if I never find a dude who will treat me the way I want to be treated, I’m sure I’ll enjoy life a little more if I can treat myself that way. Regardless of what happens, though, I refuse to visualize world peace—or whirled peas. But garlic mashed potatoes? Well, those are another matter.

MAURA KELLY recently finished her first novel and is looking for a publisher. Her personal essays have appeared in the New York Times, the New York Observer, the Washington Post and other publications.She writes a dating blog under a pseudonym.

The 30-Year-Old Orgasm Virgin

The 30-Year-Old Orgasm Virgin
by Maura Kelly
The Daily Beast
May 13, 2009

Despite having worked at Glamour magazine and coming of age in the Sex and the City era, I was 30 years old before I made up my mind to give masturbation a try. Thirty before I ever used a vibrator. Thirty before I had my first orgasm.

Sex has always made intuitive sense to me—the human connection, the intimacy—even if I didn’t actually have sex till my late 20s. (Blame Catholic repression.) But the idea of anyone, male or female, masturbating? That grossed me out for a long time. It seemed tawdry, seedy, shameful—in a category with sex shops, colored condoms, and porn videos. On top of that, I’ve never been someone who pursues pleasure for pleasure’s sake. I eat what’s healthy, always refuse dessert, and even when I go to the movies, it’s in the hopes of learning something that will help me develop as a storyteller. A typical type-A over-achiever.

Guys don’t need electronic devices purchased at stores with names like Good Vibrations, books with names like Sex for One, or DVDs called Viva la Vulva.

Like me, Mara Altman, the author of a new memoir called Thanks for Coming: One Young Woman’s Quest for an Orgasm—a 377-page exercise in what might be termed “vagina-gazing”—wasn’t that interested in making time for orgasm either. (Not until she landed the Coming book deal, that is, at age 26, which more or less required that she give it a whirl.) Her shrink’s diagnosis: that she couldn’t allow herself enjoyment unless involved in the accomplishment of a task.

Other than that, though, Altman and I don’t have much in common. She was raised by two hippie-ish parents, Berkeley dropouts who were so open about sex and sexuality it could be embarrassing; her theory is that she rebelled by never touching herself. Sounds feasible, at first. But she never quite squares that hypothesis with the fact that she lost her virginity at an unremarkable age, when she was a high-school senior, at her parents’ house, in her very own bedroom—and the next day, after “proudly” telling them what went down, they gave her their copy of The Kama Sutra—none of which seems to have bothered her much.

Still, she did have masturbation-block. Altman, a former Village Voice staff writer, had “always hoped some man would hit a bull’s eye and save me the trouble of exploring myself.” I know plenty of women who have felt the same way. Perhaps this expectation is another iteration of traditional gender roles; maybe it comes of the belief that men are more sexually experienced. But that’s not because they’re particularly sexually talented as a gender, but rather because the mechanics of male masturbation are so much simpler. Dudes don’t need electronic devices purchased at stores with names like Good Vibrations, books with names like Sex for One, or DVDs called Viva la Vulva.

Once women ask around, however, it’s no big secret that a vibe—not a man—is the best route to getting off. That’s what all my lady friends told me, anyway. Altman gets the same advice, and on page six of her me-moir, admits she could “just shove one of those rabbit vibrators ... down there and probably get it over with.” Yet she doesn’t actually use one till page 240. And almost immediately after she finally does—no surprise—she has that elusive orgasm. It’s a moment that’s, ironically, anticlimatic for the exasperated reader, who long ago figured out that the main reason Altman procrastinates so long is because she wouldn’t have a book otherwise. Were she a particularly funny or talented writer, she might have pulled off being a tease for so long, but I lost my readerly erection by about page four. Despite the energy she brings to her task, Altman doesn’t have the chops to make a Don Quixote-length book about her quest worth reading, particularly because her personal story isn’t especially compelling—she doesn’t delve in a meaningful way into the existing literature, scientific or otherwise, nor does she have very interesting insights.

Without insight or self-reflection, discussing this path to orgasm is, well, just masturbation. My own self-analysis goes like this: I was raised by a construction-working Irish immigrant father, a widower who never discussed the birds and the bees with me and was angered by the vaguest reference to sexuality. Thirteen years of Catholic school only intensified all the shame and fear I associate with sex.

It seemed to take almost as long to de-program myself, with therapy, as it had to get inculcated. I was in my 20s before I finally lost my virginity, and it was even longer before I made it across the masturbatory threshold. Though all my boyfriends encouraged me to give it a go, saying it was the only way I’d ever have an orgasm, I held out, not understanding what all the fuss was about—till an ex suggested that learning how to climax might help alleviate my chronic back pain. That sounded promising. (After all, as Altman notes, orgasms are natural analgesics.) Though sexual realization didn’t seem particularly exigent, physical relief did. And because I already had a vibrator—snagged years earlier off the Glamour giveaway shelf (still in its packaging, I assure you)—what did I have to lose?

When I first started using the “Jungle Smoothie”—a dildo with a vibrating “bullet” attachment for clitoral stimulation—the pleasure was so intense it was uncomfortable, almost like tickling can be. After only a few seconds each time, I had to stop. But within two or three weeks, I was getting the hang of it.

By then, I’d heard about “spank banks” – the mental-picture libraries men carry around in their heads, full of images of ex-lovers, coffee-shop crushes, and media darlings that they flip through to get turned on. But the images that floated through my mind as I learned to masturbate were not of former paramours, fantasy boyfriends, or centerfolds from Playgirl or Pitchfork. Rather, my memories were of my mother, who died a couple of weeks after I turned eight: hugging me on her lap, soaping me up as she sat by the side of the bathtub, or squeezing me to her as I sat in the front seat, crying, on the day I was banished from kindergarten with lice. And the first few times I climaxed, I wept.

Apparently, my reaction isn’t all that unusual: Masturbating often releases traumas and old memories, according to a sexpert Altman talks to—referred to only as “Zola”—even if Altman herself didn’t “break down and cry or have... some crazy epiphany.” The crazy epiphany I reached after spontaneously associating those childhood remembrances with masturbating? That enjoying an orgasm is as innocent as feeling deliriously happy and protected in a mother’s arms. It wasn’t till then that it occurred to me that maybe I’d held myself back from sex for so long because the feeling of being naked and vulnerable and yet safe in a lover’s arms is like nothing so much as being held by my mother.

These days, I come occasionally during sex with a partner, but the most reliable method by far is the old vibrator. Apparently I’m not abnormal: 30% of females who can climax on their own never do it during conventional intercourse, and only somewhere between 20% and 35% almost always have an orgasm during sex, says Dr. Elizabeth Lloyd, author of The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution. I can get off anywhere between three and seven times without breaking a sweat in the time it takes for a few Radiohead songs to play, as long as my rechargeable vibrator batteries are good. Furthermore, about half of all women, like me, don’t feel satisfied after one climax, and many can have anywhere between 15 and 25 in a row, as Lloyd also points out.

What I’ve learned on my own is that physical self-love is a means to psychological self-love. In the same way that my literary preferences and career aspirations and clothing choices help to define me, knowing what I like and desire sexually has helped me better understand who I am, too. Plus, my newfound ability to orgasm has made me take an almost ridiculous pride in myself. Contrary to the way I feel when I’m sick, or itching through an allergic rash, my bod doesn’t seem to be fighting me when I strike vaginal gold. Rather, it’s on my side. Fond of me, even. It regularly amazes me, kind of like babies can dazzle their parents. Would you look at that? I often want to shout afterward, beaming down at myself. Isn’t that something?! And I have to agree that it is.

Maura Kelly just finished her first novel. Her personal essays have appeared in The New York Times, The New York Observer, The Washington Post, Salon, Glamour, Marie Claire, Penthouse, and other publications.

Stranger in the Night

New York Observed
Stranger in the Night

By MAURA KELLY
Published: January 23, 2009
The New York Times


I was brushing my teeth around 11 o’clock the other Sunday night when someone rang my doorbell.

The digitized chime approximates the booming gong that might sound in an old horror movie at the moment the innocent girl dashes into the haunted mansion in the middle of a terrible storm after her car runs out of gas.

Which is to say the sound can be pretty spooky under the best of circumstances, and hearing it so late at night sent a chill down my spine.

I wasn’t expecting anyone. The U.P.S. man would never come at that time, and it was far too inappropriate an hour for any of the religious proselytizers who sometimes stop by my building urging me to find God.

I crept to my bedroom window, which overlooks the street, being careful to leave the light off as I peeked through the curtain. In the darkness, I saw a strange man in a white baseball hat looking up at me. I shrank back in terror, wondering whether he had seen me. A moment later, I seemed to have gotten my answer: The bell rang again.

If the person was someone who knew me, wouldn’t he have called out something like “Hey, Maura, it’s me! I need to talk!” But really, who would be looking for me at 11 p.m.? Many wonderful people populate my neighborhood in deep Brooklyn, but they are largely family types, and none are in the habit of coming by for a chat, especially not unannounced late at night.

The mysterious visitor also could not have been my incredibly sweet landlord, who would have tried my cellphone if he needed to reach me. He lives just below me, in a brownstone where I enjoy the best apartment by far I’ve ever had in New York, a floor-through with two skylights and four huge windows, trees visible from every one of them. Even better, at $1,075 a month, it is the cheapest one-bedroom I’ve rented in the five boroughs.

I had taken the place under duress. The lease on my old apartment was up, and I had no other options. My main concern was the area. I’d never even lived in Brooklyn before — only Manhattan and, very briefly, the other “safe” borough, Queens. Could I really live in a neighborhood full of liquor stores and dollar shops?

The streets seemed peaceful enough when I walked around to check out the environs. I saw people with friendly faces sitting on the stoops, window boxes filled with flowers, cheerful-looking children riding bikes through the local park. But would I feel O.K. walking home from the subway at night?

I voiced my concerns to my landlord, who promised that if I really didn’t like the area, he’d be lenient about letting me out of my yearlong lease, adding that he was sure I’d feel perfectly safe.

And I had. Maybe a little too safe, because as I grew more comfortable in the neighborhood, I did all sorts of irresponsible things. I strolled home way past midnight on weekends. I wore low-cut tops and short skirts. Sometimes I even ran from the shower to my bedroom with no clothes on. Granted, the curtains were usually closed, but not always.

It was no wonder a rapist was after me!

Telling myself I was probably overreacting, I called my landlord, who promptly went outside to see if the suspect was still around. No dice. I asked him if there was a note on my door, or any sign that Jack-the-Ringer had decent intentions. There was nothing.

My landlord told me someone probably just had the wrong address. But if that had been the case, wouldn’t the person have called up to me and said something like, “Hey, is this the right place?”

I telephoned the local police, hoping, really, that they’d tell me I was being ridiculous. No such luck. “Fifty percent chance it was nothing,” said the officer on the other end of the line. “Fifty percent chance it was a psycho looking for trouble. You know what the neighborhood is like.”

“Yes!” I replied. “And I’ve never felt a bit unsafe in a year living here!”

“Come on down to the precinct any time if you want to see the stats on assaults, murders, rapes,” he said. “All that fun stuff.”

It was true that just months earlier someone had been randomly shot only a few blocks from my apartment, and at least two people in the area had been murdered. Man, was I an idiot!

A few hours later, having removed both my air-conditioners and locked all my windows, I fell asleep — or didn’t — clutching a pen knife and thinking that the rapist must have had his eye on me for a while. Why else would he have rung my apartment and not my landlord’s? Clearly, I was going to have to move, I told myself grimly.
* * *
I WOKE up the next morning in desperate need of a little human contact and strong coffee. As I began packing up my things for a trip to the great little coffee shop around the corner so I could search the real estate ads over an espresso, I discovered that my wallet was missing.

A light bulb went on in my head. I ran down to mailbox, and there it was — my black leather billfold, which had apparently fallen out of my bag and been run over by a car. My credit card had broken into two pieces, along with my library ID, but everything was there, down to the $27 in cash that I had left when I’d last opened my wallet at the corner market.

I was so thrilled that I told a few of my neighbors, including a couple of older men who work at the laundromat down the street. “That was Jesus, returning it to you,” one of them said.

His buddy gave him a funny look, then winked at me and smiled, flashing a gold tooth. “Nah, not Jesus,” he said. “But someone very close to him.”

For all my heathen ways, I couldn’t disagree.

Maura Kelly’s personal essays have appeared in The New York Observer, The Washington Post and Salon, among other publications.

Crashes, Big and Small

Wednesday, December 31,2008
8 Million Stories: From Wall Street to Main Street - or the Sidewalk
MAURA KELLY worried about one crash but found another

The stock market is crashing, the sky is falling and the wheel of fortune keeps turning.

Was the little morality play I got swept up in a couple months ago a reflection of the heightened economic tension in the city? Or just another iteration of the age-old war between the classes? I myself can relate to both the white collars and the blues. Back in the day, I did some time as a wage slave—most memorably in my hometown’s K-Mart—before becoming an office type after I graduated college.

Since I left my full-time job a few years ago to write a novel, however, I’ve been making a hand-to-mouth living on the fringes of the magazine world. And given the dour financial situation—which is translating into fewer ad pages, slashed budgets and smaller staffs—I fear that, soon enough, I’ll no longer get enough writing assignments to survive and I’ll be forced to consider retail. Or phone sex.

Not surprisingly, like so many other New Yorkers, I was fretting about money on Oct. 16. The Dow had taken another huge hit—losing 733 points in one of its worst days in history— and the full-time freelance gig I’d been doing was about to end. I didn’t have much else lined up. After checking the headlines one last time, I shut off my computer, left my cubicle and headed over to Ess-A-Bagel for a snack before an evening session with my shrink.

As I ordered, I kibitzed with the baby-faced Bangladeshi man who works there. The talk was about our recent run-ins with the law: He’d gotten a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt while waiting for his wife outside a grocery store. I’d gotten a summons for riding my bike on the sidewalk in Bumblefudge, Brooklyn.

I’d clearly been doing something wrong. My friend’s situation was a bit more Orwellian: He’d been innocently idling in his car when one traffic cop told him he couldn’t be parked in that particular spot; and it was as he was moving a few hundred feet forward at five miles per hour that a different cop pulled him over.

We’d finished trading tales of woe and my friend had just popped a multi-grain carb-ring into the toaster for me when some young woman wandered in, mumbling into an iPhone. Though she was wearing casual clothes—Mick Jagger–inspired spandex and a hoodie—her shearling boots and monogrammed Vuitton purse made it clear she had dough. My friend asked if he could help her. She seemed somewhat irritated that he’d interrupted her call and even more put out by the tiresome task of actually having to communicate what she wanted. (The expression on her face as she looked at my friend seemed to say: When are you people going to learn to read minds?) But—good sport that she was—she managed to bark out some kind of barely discernible order regarding “salad” before returning to her very important conversation.

My friend held up a small plastic container and pointed to it. “Do you mean something this size?” he said quietly. “Or on a sandwich? “I want a sal-ad!” the woman shouted, in a way that seemed to indicate she assumed he had trouble understanding English. He doesn’t. “With tuna!” “Oh, I see,” said my friend, polite as ever. “You want tuna salad on greens?” His attempt at clarification sent her over the edge. “You know what?” she said. “Forget it. Just forget it. I don’t have time for this.” And out the door she stormed.

The whole thing went down so quickly— and I was so shocked by her unexpected torrent of rudeness—that I didn’t have time to tell her what I thought of her behavior. But as soon as I managed to shut my gaping jaw, I apologized to my friend on behalf of humanity. He brushed it off. Clearly, he’d seen that kind of thing before.

The incident was still fresh in my mind the following evening as I headed off to a party at the Paris Review. I was supposed to meet a friend on the steps of the literary journal’s office, and I was running—or, rather, biking— late. At the intersection of Park and E. 19th, I pulled up to a red light, vaguely aware that another biker was on the other side of the street.

When I stopped, my attention was drawn more sharply to him—a Latino delivery dude with a thermal food bag in his basket. An altercation was beginning on the opposite corner between him and an unnaturally tan guy in a navy Polo. There was a frat-boy arrogance about the prep as he grabbed the delivery dude’s handlebars and said, “Think you’re going to get away with that?” Though the delivery dude was more muscular, he backed away, hands up. He could’ve taken the prep easily, I thought, but was trying to avoid trouble.

The prep shouted a few unattractive things and threw more shadow-punches—only because it was so clear the delivery-dude would never actually pummel him—before calling the cops to report that a biker had crashed into him. Upon hanging up, he announced smugly that the NYPD was on its way.

“The poor guy’s just trying to make a living,” I shouted over to the prep.

“I can’t just let it go. D’you see what he did to me?”

“No,” I admitted. “But you don’t seem hurt. And I know he wasn’t going fast.”

“But how many times am I supposed to let them get away this?” the prep asked.

“'Them'? There’s only one of him.”

“Nah, but these guys’re always running people over.” He was slurring his words ever so slightly. “I can’t let ‘em get away with it.”

The delivery dude, who did not seem to speak English, turned to me and put his hands together prayerfully. He was nodding his head like he agreed with what I was doing.

I pressed on, asking the prep. “How many times have you let this guy get away with anything?”

“Look,” the prep said, “I know where you’re coming from … But do you pay taxes in this city?”

People who bring up taxes in the midst of any kind of street altercation always seem slightly deranged to me. “Of course I do,” I replied. “And I’d like it if the police whose salaries I theoretically contribute to concentrate on fighting criminals, rather than wasting time pestering some hard-working guy.”

“Sorry, but no deal.”The prep shook his head. “They’ve got to learn a lesson.”

We seemed to be at an impasse when an attractive man in a suit approached. “Hey buddy,” he said, addressing the prep. “You ever done anything you shouldn’t have done--like, I don’t know, jaywalking?”

“Of course,” the prep said. “But come on.You know where I’m coming from.”

“Have you been drinking tonight?” Mr. Suit continued.

“Of course. But you know how it is.”

Mr. Suit lifted the bottom flap of his jacket to reveal a shiny badge attached to his belt. Waving his hand like he was shooing a pigeon, he said to the prep, “Why don’t you be on your way?”

The prep walked off, head held low, and Mr. Suit dismissed the delivery dude too. “Thank you!” I called out. He waved at me, and I biked off, pleased with myself.

About three minutes later, I was biking down Broadway when a well-groomed young woman darted into the road without looking. “Watch out!” I screamed as I braked. It was no good: On impact, she was thrown to the pavement.

“My goodness, I’m so sorry!” I circled back to her. “Are you OK?”

Without answering me, she picked up her iPod—which must have prevented her from hearing my warning—and walked off with scraped palms and wounded dignity. She’d been in the wrong, technically, for crossing willy-nilly like she had. But in a city like New York, where the rules aren’t always reliably enforced and we so often have to make our own in order to survive, I couldn’t blame her.

Hunger Strike: On Losing My Mind ... And, Almost, My Body

The Hunger: A True Story of Anorexia
When Maura Kelly's mother died and her family came unglued, she found a way to cope—but it nearly killed her too.
(originally published in the August 2008 issue of Marie Claire)



It was in the eight grade — four years after my mother died—that I first remember becoming unhappy with my body. Every night, after brushing my teeth and squeezing some blackheads, I'd look in the mirror and pound on my abdomen with my fists. Although I know now that it was just an early sign of puberty, I was disgusted by the way my belly had begun to protrude under the band of my underwear. So I got the idea to make it disappear by losing five pounds, then 10, and then 15. Pretty soon I was addicted to losing.

It's a control thing, doctors say, and in my case that was all too true: I needed to organize a world that had been thrown into chaos after my mother died. Her death had come as a complete shock to me; she'd never told me she had cancer, or that she was dying. And with her sudden disappearance, all the things that I'd trusted as absolutes—all the other foundations of my life—began to crumble.

I couldn't believe in God anymore, not when I'd been such an incredibly dedicated little Catholic and all I got in return was a vicious punishment. What kind of system was that? I couldn't believe in my earthly father, a construction-working Irish immigrant who'd become angry, depressed, and dysfunctional—a sad version of the charismatic and fun-loving dad I once knew. I couldn't believe in my own worth anymore, either. Catholicism had set some deep grooves in my soul, and even if I'd rationally given up on God, it was impossible to free myself from the magical thinking that goes along with religious zealotry: Deep down, I thought I must be damned if my mother had been taken away from me. Flawed, cursed, worthless. That was me.

Dieting became a way of imposing an external value system on my flesh: If I could control myself enough to lose another pound, I was that much closer to good. I hoped I could redeem myself.

That Fall, I started my freshman year at an all-girls Catholic high school, and kept chiseling away at myself, trying to purify my soul through the transformation of my body. By October, I was subsisting on almost nothing—about 250 calories a day. I'm amazed I had the energy to get up and go to school every day, let alone keep up with varsity soccer practice. But despite how uncomfortable my body was—I was exhausted and freezing because I had no body fat—my mind felt better than ever. If dieting was my new religion, I was on my way to becoming a saint.

The skinnier I got, the harder it was to keep the adults around me from noticing, although I did everything I could to hide my body. I'd spend lunch hour in the library. I'd change for soccer practice in the bathroom, instead of in the locker room with everyone else. I'd wear extra layers under my school uniform and baggy clothes at home—not that they did much to quell my father's growing suspicions.

He and I seemed to do nothing but scream at each other. Our fights almost always reduced me to sobs—which just induced him to get louder. "Why are you crying? I wish I could cry," he'd taunt. "But what would happen to us if I lay down and cried? This family would fall apart!" I'd despise myself for being a baby, but the more I hated myself, the harder it was to stop my tears.

Our fights often began over the news headlines, like abortion and capital punishment. On the surface, those clashes were political: I was a budding liberal and he was a Reagan-loving Republican. But I think I was also arguing that I deserved to have control over my body, and by extension, my mind. I wanted to be free of that miserable house, and the deadly gloom that had descended on it, and my own depression.

As I continued to wither, my father kept on shouting, but he also began to cajole. "Please eat," he'd say. "For me? A little food's not going to hurt you." As satisfying as it was to hear him plead, the better pleasure was knowing that I finally had the power I wanted—over my body, and over him.

So I stopped caring about what he thought, focusing instead on living up to my own standards of starvation. As long as I concentrated on them, I didn't have time to dwell on anything else—not when my head was so full of caloric calculations, and my body so empty.

By November, things started happening that I couldn't cover up with clothes or lies. My feet had gotten so thin that my soccer cleats had cut holes into the skin around my ankles; after several weeks, the resulting sores got so bad that I started to hobble. One day, when I could barely walk, my coach called me over. "You look terrible out there—like a drunk with two broken feet," she said, forcing a laugh. "What's going on?"

I made some excuse, but she had me sit out the rest of practice.

When I got home that afternoon, my coach had left a message for my father on our answering machine. "Could you please call me as soon as you can?" her recorded voice said. I erased it.

The next morning, when I tried to get up from my desk after Spanish class, I collapsed. The nun who was my teacher peeled me off the floor, and with her help, I was able to stand, then limp, but it seemed clear my left leg was paralyzed from the knee down. My father took me to my pediatrician, who told me I was so bony that I'd pinched an important nerve simply by crossing my right leg over the left. I'd probably be able to regain feeling—eventually—but only if I gained weight, he said.

As we drove home in my father's red pickup truck, he cried in front of me for the first time since my mother's funeral. He recounted a story about watching his 6-year-old brother die of lockjaw on Christmas Day, less than a week after stepping on a rusty nail. My father's parents were so devastated, his mother barely got out of bed for a year. He'd worried his father would drown himself in the tide off the coast of western Ireland, where they lived. "I'm not sure I'd be able to live with it if I lost you too," my father told me.

I felt sorry for him for going through all that as a little boy, and I knew he was only trying to get me to eat, but the way he put it annoyed me. He made it sound like my suffering was significant not because I was in pain, but because it made his life more miserable.

A couple of weeks later, my father took me to see a New York City eating-disorders specialist, Joseph Silverman. He was a bald man with a maroon silk bow tie that bloomed at the top of his lab coat. Sitting across from him in his fancy office, I felt underdressed in my school uniform, and embarrassed by my father in his jeans and work boots.

"You're in terrible shape," Silverman said after examining me. "I've seen a lot of bad patients, but never anyone whose leg has gone out like yours." I nodded, hoping he wouldn't notice how pleased I was. Being the worst patient meant I was the best at losing. It meant I was tough and in control.

"I'm sure you're happy to hear you're one of the worst cases," he continued, like a mind reader. "But keep it up and more important parts of your body will give out. Your kidneys. Your heart. And I don't have to tell you what happens to people whose hearts stop."

"What—they have heart attacks?"

He nodded. "And some of them die." Only when he said that did I realize death was what I'd been gunning for all along. Of course, the idea of not being alive was terrifying—but at the same time, I wasn't sure I deserved to live.

Fat tears tripped down my face.

Silverman pushed a box of tissues toward me. "Your father is here today because he thinks I can save you," he said. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my father pull himself forward toward the desk. "I'd give up my life for her, doctor. Whatever it takes."

Silverman looked at me. "Do you want to get better?"

I paused. "I used to like what was happening to me," I began shakily. "But now I'm scared I'll never be able to stop until . . ." I couldn't say it. "I do want to get better."

After four months I was discharged from the children's ward of Columbia Presbyterian. I weighed 100 pounds, and my leg had improved so much that you wouldn't notice my limp unless you were looking for it.

But it was another 10 years before I got all the feeling back in my foot, and even today, I'm still waiting to emerge from the emotional numbness. Now I realize that, more than anything, losing weight was an attempt to starve certain feelings—of depression and abandonment and worthlessness—before they could destroy me. It was a way to train myself not to care much about anyone else—like my father, whose anger I didn't have any power over, and my mother, who disappeared without giving me a chance to say good-bye—and to focus entirely on the one thing I could control: the size of my body. I became my own parent.

I'm grateful that my real parent, my father, came to my rescue. I wouldn't have made it through without him. But our relationship still isn't easy for me—no close relationship ever has been. Since I left home, I've never truly depended on anyone. I have a hard time staying with any boyfriend for more than three months: I refuse to get intimate with people I might end up losing. And although I don't hide what I eat anymore, I do hide my emotional needs from the men I date.

It seems like there's still so far to go before I'll feel "normal." I'm always worried that I'm not attractive enough, smart enough, young enough, successful enough for someone to love me.

Finally, though, I do feel thin enough.

Maura Kelly's essay is adapted from the anthology Going Hungry (Anchor Books), in bookstores this September.

Find this article at: http://www.marieclaire.com/life/healthy/health-tips/anorexia-battle-health-diet

Say "I don't!" to the pseudo-relationship

amNY.com
Kiss and Tell: Say "I don't!" to the pseudo-relationship
By Maura Kelly
amNewYork Dating Columnist
June 6, 2008

It's high time that we single people looking for legitimate love unionized against the pseudo-relationship.

Call it what you will: a friendship with benefits, a no-strings-attached fling or a trusty weekend booty call. But I can't call it anything but a raw deal.

Sure, you're both getting screwed, but only one of you is getting screwed over.

Or, as my 25-year-old friend Zac puts it: "There's always a hierarchy in those situations. The lover who's lower on the totem pole likes the other person more, and is convinced something serious is going to develop. Otherwise, he or she thinks, why would you-know-who spend so much time with me?"

That person -- whom I'll call the Paramour -- often clings to romantic hopes in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In fact, the dominant partner (aka the Dom Juan) will often state repeatedly that he or she is holding out for someone different -- an old flame, someone with more in common, an underwear model with a Harvard education.

Other Doms only send subtle signs -- never making plans until the last minute, talking about other love interests. They never call to just say hello.

Zac, who has experience as both a Dom and a Paramour, points out another tell-tale tactic: "If the dominator works at your office or is in your wider friend group and never acknowledges the sexual side of your relationship in public -- or in sobriety -- it's a dead-end."

What's a Paramour to do? The first step: Admit you have a problem, that your pseudo-relationship is going nowhere. Then realize you deserve better and that the clock is ticking. The longer you stay with Dom, the less time (and head space) you'll have to meet someone else. Finally, you've just got to dump the person.

"Rip off that dirty band-aid," says my other friend, Zack, 33. "It'll hurt, but hang tough."

Getting a little air on the wound will make it heal all the sooner, so that before you know it, you'll be with someone who understands that you're no Paramour. You're paramount.

Love in the Time of Xanax: A New High--or a New Low?

Love in the Time of Xanax:
A New High--or a New Low?
By Maura Kelly
(originally published in the June issue of Marie Claire)

When I met Hank at a jazz club in Brooklyn for our first date, he seemed like a gentleman — a mild-mannered Midwesterner with an MBA and some kind of straitlaced business job. He was rock-star skinny, and the physical chemistry was automatic: We couldn’t stop grinning; our knees kept bumping into each other. I felt jittery in a good way, and Hank seemed like he did, too. Conversation moved fast — spurred in part by Hank’s audio-visual props. While telling me about a recent trip to Sicily, he pulled out a tiny camera so I could see the short videos he’d taken there. Then, smiling, he flipped down the collar of his cargo jacket to reveal special hooks for his iPod earbuds. For his third trick, he showed me a Swiss Army pillbox attached to his key chain. The stylish metal accoutrement was covered by a clear flap of plastic emblazoned with the company’s logo, through which slender white tablets were visible.

“What are those?” I asked.
“Just Xanax. They’re prescription.”
Sheepishly, I said, “Remind me: What’s that stuff for again?”
“It’s an antianxiety drug. It helps me not be a stress case.”

I wondered momentarily if it was odd that Hank was packing meds on a first date, but then figured probably not. I didn’t know exactly how Xanax worked; maybe it was the kind of thing you took if your subway train got evacuated because of a bomb scare or the corner bagel store ran out of your favorite kind. There are so many things in New York that could make a person freak out — including the problem of excessive perspiration, which was plaguing me that night, since the club wasn’t very well air-conditioned. I excused myself to go to the bathroom, where I took out the Arrid Extra Dry I always carry in my bag and applied it to my underarms, the soles of my feet, and the underside of my panties.

When I returned, Hank and I decided to have another round, on my front stoop. Later on, we ventured upstairs to my apartment, even though I’d just moved in a few days earlier and it was a junkyard of unpacked boxes.

Hank sat down, and I immediately started clearing away the boxes and searching for wineglasses. After handing him a zinfandel in a nice stem, Hank said, “Okay. Now, will you finally relax?”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him. “You really need to chill out,” he said. “You’re kind of uptight.”

Me, uptight? I’ve been accused of many things, but never of being anal. I’m cool, dude! I wanted to say.

“Listen,” Hank said casually. “I have an idea. Why don’t we take some Xanax? It’s a great high if you’ve been drinking. It makes you forget all your hang-ups. You become the real you.”

“Ohhhkay, pusher-man.”

“Seriously, it’s amazing,” he said, with allure in his voice. “Kind of like smoking dope, without the paranoia. Or like getting really drunk, except you don’t get sloppy. And no matter how much you drink, you won’t feel hungover tomorrow — no headache, no nausea, nothing. Just a little spaced out. Plus, you’ll sleep like a baby.”

Now, you might wonder why I would even consider this proposition.

The thing was, I used to be a hard partier. It started back in high school in New Jersey. I’d booze it up whenever someone’s parents went away and there was a kegger; or when the Bergen Catholic boys would throw a party in a cheap motel room; or when my friends would drive into Manhattan and we’d go to some hole-in-the-wall bar. Once I made it to the Ivy League and saw how many of my fellow coeds were toking up — and still acing their classes — I joined in. Weed was the gateway drug to some more intense stuff.

Then one night I took a ride with a Russian limo driver and wound up snorting lines off his clipboard as he sped through red lights. Our joyride ended in a fender bender. After that, I swore off illegal substances.

I’d been 100 percent drug-free for a couple of years, and told Hank as much.

“It’s not ‘drugs.’ It’s prescription medication,” he replied.

He had a point. How harmful could it be? “You sure this isn’t a roofie or something?” I asked.

“Come on,” Hank said, placing a Xanax in my hand. “You invited me here. And I’m asking you if you want it — not doping your drink with it. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll take that one,” he said, pointing to the pill in my palm.

I nodded — yeah, take it — feeling like I’d dodged a bullet. But when he swallowed it, I took the next one he offered in a flash. A scene from The Princess Bride flickered through my mind — the one where the evil genius Vizzini thinks he’s outsmarted the Dread Pirate Roberts, in a somewhat similar situation with a poisoned chalice. Then Vizzini dies.

But I was already down the rabbit hole. The stuff worked fast, and my inhibitions were swept away. In no time, I proposed that we ... lie down and cuddle. (Sad but true: My deepest, darkest desire was to spoon.)

“How about we lounge around naked instead?” Hank suggested. “We’ll talk about our bodies. Like nudists. We’ll snap pictures. It’ll be liberating.” Did I consider the fact that the photos could wind up in the hands of his friends — or worse? Nope, not in that state.

“Sounds fun,” I giggled. This, despite the fact that I normally have the body confidence of Jabba the Hutt. “But no sex. I’m not into one-night stands.”

Once we were undressed, it became apparent that I had a few other anxieties too deeply entrenched for Xanax to erase — although so did he.

“Am I getting droopy?” I asked him.

“Nope. Still plenty perky. But do you think my stomach is kind of soft?”

“Come on. You look great.”

He took out the camera, and I did a pinup-girl pose while he snapped away — despite the fact that I’d never even gotten into bed with the last guy I’d dated till the lights were off.

The next thing I remember is waking up next to Hank with the early-morning light coming in the bare windows. He had on my red-paisley eye mask, pushed up around his hair, Mick Jagger–style. “Sex now?” he whispered.

“No, go back to sleep,” I mumbled, barely awake. “Didn’t you say Xanax makes you sleep?”

“I take it all the time, so I have a tolerance. Mind if I check my e-mail?”

When I woke up again — hangover-free but as groggy as a toddler after a midday nap — Hank had vanished. Everything was so topsy-turvy that I half-expected to find him under a pile of clothes or in an empty box, but no dice. I did, however, discover a pair of my spandex exercise pants at the foot of my bed ... and suddenly remembered how Hank had pulled them on, pushed his hair back with the psychedelic eye mask, and lip-synched around the room to “Under My Thumb.”

What else had I forgotten?

I texted Hank to ask. Then I called my best friend, who exclaimed, “Xanax? That’s, like, the thinking man’s date-rape drug!”

That’s when I remembered the pictures. Holy pornography! Was I going to Google my name and see myself in all my laser-hair-removed glory?

“Why’d you take it?” my friend demanded. Why had I? Especially when I’d given up drugs so I could avoid the kind of anxiety I was now feeling.

Well, I’d been motivated, in part, by feeling old: I’d turned 33 a few weeks earlier and had started to think that all the wild adventures of my life had already taken place. Plus, Xanax was prescription; it had seemed so harmless! So had Hank, for some reason.

I ran to the computer. There was a note from him on my screen: There’s a present in your butter compartment.

Checking the fridge, I found a small white pill on top of a mustard tube. Then a text message beeped on my cell. Don’t worry, Hank had written. We didn’t screw. But, hey, did I leave my camera there?

I spotted it on my desk. How serendipitous. I’d delete everything.

“I am getting too old for this,” I told my phone.

BFF or BF?

amNY.com
Kiss and tell: To commit or not to commit
Maura Kelly
amNewYork Dating Columnist
May 22, 2008

After spending years on my therapist's couch wondering why I was never in a healthy relationship, I figured out I had a garden-variety case of commitment-phobia: I was always rejecting guys who cared about me -- without even considering them as serious contenders -- or else pining away for bad boys.

Shortly after vowing to change my ways, I met a guy I'll call Adam. He was handsome, funny, brilliant ... and yet, for some strange reason, I didn't feel the burning in my loins for him. Maybe it had to do with the fact he was off-limits according to my new rules of behavior: He was simultaneously dating three women when I met him, and therefore seemed to be a fellow commitment-phobe. Still, there was no reason not to become best friends with him, so that's what I did.

Then, one spring night, after drinks, we ended up in his apartment for the first time -- and he kissed me.

I backed away, shocked. "Why'd you do that?"

"I've thought about this a lot," he said. "I want to give us a try."

Don't you dare! my gut shouted.

But my brain told my gut to shut up. Maybe the only reason Adam had never committed before was because he'd never found the "right" chick. And maybe I was the one! Maybe this was the way out of my dilemma!

So I jumped in with both feet.

Guess what happened next: A few months later, Adam dumped me. He said a certain je ne sais quoi was missing. I couldn't argue with that -- but, still, I sobbed in his arms. What had gone wrong? This time commitment-phobia couldn't be the problem -- could it? Not when I'd legitimately given it a shot.

After weeks of analyzing the situation (with my therapist, my friends, and -- most crucially -- my laser hair-removal technician), I saw that I'd been so determined to avoid an old, bad pattern that I'd developed a new one: Instead of running away from relationships, I'd tried to force one that had been doomed from the start. For whatever peculiar reason, Adam and I really didn't have chemistry.

Luckily, there was one thing I knew without needing to analyze it: I missed Adam. In fact, I'd been missing his friendship ever since we'd started dating. So after a few months passed, I was getting a haircut near his office when I texted him on a whim, asking if he was up for a drink. He was game ... and one thing led to another ... and now we're better friends than we were before.