I've made a terrible mistake...

So, my hair was pretty blonde for a while there. Pretty damn blonde. As in, I'd look in the mirror, and occasionally think to myself, "Gee, is it really that light? Is that really what's happening here? I'm really doing it, aren't I? I'm really, truly, shamelessly blonde." (And somewhere in the back of my mind, an insidious voice would whisper..."Don't you think you look trashy?")

Last time I saw Jason in July, he was very bold with my color. He told me "you're not going to believe this, but we're going lighter." He said he couldn't believe it himself, but that we were taking a risk, a risk he'd ONLY take with me because ONLY I could work hair that light, and well, I'm writing a goddamn book on being blonde, aren't I? So, we went for it. Bold was what we did. And when the smock came off and the hair was blown out, there I sat the blondest I'd been since I was a little girl. I was the same shade of blonde as my four year-old niece. And suddenly, I was a blonde who wasn't even pretending to be natural. My long goldie locks were just one small step away from platinum, and that was what it all was about.

Now, I trust Jason implicitly. I really do. He is amazing, and I highly endorse his services. If you go to see him, you will never leave his salon looking bad. So, when he caught sight of me while walking down the street one day, and a look of surprise and a mild shadow of concern flitted across his face like a small cloud traversing the sun, I was appropriately worried.

"What?!" I said. "What was that look??? You don't like the hair, do you. Oh my god, do you think it looks trashy?!?!?"

"No, sweetie," he said, his voice the same calm timbre as that of my therapist. "You? Never. You will never look trashy, even if you are wearing a trash bag and a pair of Candies loafers. But...you should come see me next week. I have the morning free all week, you can just call me and come in when you have a second, and we'll have a nice, leisurely morning together. Sound good?" He made it sounds social, like all we'd be doing was a minor touch up while spending some quality stylist-subject time at the sink over coffee and the latest 700-page issue of Vogue.

So I went in. I followed his instructions, because Jason is my darling, and because he would never do wrong by me.

Except now, after our nice, leisurely morning together over coffee & the latest 700-page issue of Vogue, my hair seems...darker. And I am in a mild state of panic.

Jason swore up and down as I was leaving the salon that it was not, in fact darker, rather, he'd added more depth to the color, infused it with more gold, given me a more natural, sun-kissed look, as opposed to the all-over, almost platinum he'd he'd faded me to in July. "I'm only doing this because it's you, honey. I wouldn't do this with just anybody, because not everyone can rock gold. I'd only ever do this with you."

But to me, it looks darker. Everyone I ask smiles, says it "looks good!" and "looks really pretty, I LIKE it!" But I know in my heart what is true, and that is that, no matter what everybody says, my hair looks darker than it did before.

Here is a before picture:



And here, my friends, is the after picture:

Yes it look more natural, but herein lies the lesson of the story: I know now that I do not want to be natural. Natural left the equation some time ago. Maybe once upon a time I sought to look like a natural blonde, before I undertook this stupid project, back when I was still a nubile young highlight virgin, hoping no one would accuse me of being some sort of blonde poser since I'd taken up the peroxide.

Well, the cherry's been popped, folks, and those days are long gone.

I'll tell you what I want now: I want my hair to be the same almost fluorescent shade of flaxen that it was just a week ago. I want it to be as unnaturally light as the hair of the girl on the bus this morning, and the woman in the grocery store this afternoon, or my little niece Caelan and her baby brother Griffen, and the blonde heads I am beginning to see everywhere I turn. What was I thinking? If those harlots don't care about looking trashy, why the hell should I?

There is only room for blonde on this head. The gauntlet has been thrown down, and for the duration of this experiment, the only way out is up the color scale. Blonde baby. Blonde.

And I am very upset about what to do next because now I am also kind of broke.

blonde lesbian

Yesterday, for the very first time in my whole entire life, I was mistaken as a lesbian.

Why this happened yesterday of all days has me completely baffled. I mean, I spent four years at "Queer in a Year or Your Money Back" Sarah Lawrence. I know tons of lesbians (some of my best friends are lesbians!) and have spent plenty of time with/among lesbians. In college I took women's Studies courses, every goddamn paper I ever wrote was about gender & stuff, and even spent a semester learning about the cannon of Gay & Lesbian Literature. I visited the lesbian bar, drank chamomile tea at the lesbian coffeeshop, marched in Boston's Gay Pride parade, and in my Sarah Lawrence days, I even adopted some lesbianic aphorisms, including making reference to straight people as "hets" and "breeders." And despite all of this, I still was never once mistaken for actually being a lesbian.

Yesterday, however, while sitting outside JP Licks located in the very lesbianic center of Jamaica Plain (commonly referred to as Gay P) a man approached me and my friend Jen as we chatted over coffee. We were quite clearly engrossed in our conversation--I hadn't seen the girl in over a year!--and in my opinion, we were quite clearly uninterested in making “friends.” Mr. Intrusive Straight Man decided to interrupt us anyway.

“Excuse me, may I ask you a question?” Mr. Intrusive Straight Man said. He had walked right up to Jen where we sat at a patio table, close to the entrance of the store and far away from where he was standing on the sidewalk . He didn't really look at me, and I couldn't really hear what he was saying. Perhaps Jen, who is about the cutest baby-dyke you ever saw, seemed more approachable. She sports a short faux hawk and is always riding her bike all over the place--she looks like a cute, indie-rock little boy. In any case, the Mr. Intrusive Straight Man was black and he wore a red shirt, and had some sort of accent. His English was broken and strangely proper, and I at first, I couldn’t really understand what he was saying.

"I want to ask of you a question," Mr. Intrusive Straight Man said, hemming and hawing, a bit.
"Okay," said Jen. When he still didn't respond, she rolled her eye and said to me, "Ugh, I think I know where this is going."

"I just want to ask you a question if I may," Mr. Intrusive Straight Man repeated.

"Yes, that's fine, dude, go ahead," she said.

"I want to ask you, what is it that you feel as love between two women?"

My jaw dropped. What? "Is he asking us why we're lesbians?" I said to Jen, incredulous.

"I think so," she laughed, her face exploding into a smile as she leaned back and started clapping her hands because this was so funny. That's the other thing about Jen, she's so laid back and cool. "I get this shit all the time, Kitty, it's okay, let me handle this."

"I just want to ask, when there are two women, what is it that they feel between them?" He just kept asking the same question, over and over, repeating himself in his confusing English. At first his stumbling sentences sounded innocent, but then they began sound mocking. There was something about his tone, his posture, his implication that I didn't like. It made me feel uncomfortable, and my gut was telling me to make him go away as quickly as possible, that if we didn't end the conversation immediately, he was either going to a) try to turn us straight, or b) start talking about Jesus. Or maybe something worse.

"Okay. That's enough. We're busy," I said. "Can you please leave us alone now? We're trying to have a conversation here."” I gave him attitude, lots of mean, lesbian attitude.

And he just kept standing there, stammering on at us, like we were exotic and slightly frightening creatures at the zoo.

"I just want to know, what is it that you feel between two women. I just wanted to ask you a question..." he repeated, this time acting a little huffy, as though he really wanted to know, and had every right to ask and be curious.

"Yeah, well you're gonna have to ask somebody else," I said. "Don't worry, there are plenty of lesbians in JP, I'm sure you'll have no problem."

It was really fucking annoying, I have to say.

I hear comments from men every day. Some days are worse than others, and some days, if I happen to be walking out and about a lot, and it happens to be warm, and I happen to be wearing my long blonde hair down and a short little skirt, I hear comments all day. These comments are are invasive, intrusive, and they make me feel vulnerable and angry. They nibble away at my self confidence, erode my freedom of motion, and make me feel as small as I did the very first time I was sexually harassed when I was only fifteen years old. And for the past year or so, I have been analyzing this state of being, this strange and uncomfortable existence, thinking constantly about how being blonde changes these dynamics, makes the comments worse or more intrusive, less respectful or more frightening.

But I have never dealt with intrusion or comments like these.

As he walked away, he mumbled something about writing a book (yeah, I am too, buddy), acted like we were making a big deal out of nothing for blowing him off. But it was a big deal. It was a big, invasive, inappropriate deal. Why anybody would think it okay to interrupt us, and ask us what it feels like to love one another, as though we were freaks, as though there arenÂ’t thousands of lesbians loving one another every day, in the exact same way that men love women, or that men love other men, is wildly inappropriate, and 100% none of his goddamn business. And I didn't like his tone. He had the same look on his face that men get after you ignore their calls of"hey sexy", and right before they say "hey you stuck-up bitch, who the fuck do you think you are???"

And I'm not even a lesbian, I was just having coffee with one! Imagine how I'd feel if this happened to me every day?

Perhaps the next title of my next book should be Undercover Dyke: My Personal Quest to See if Lesbians Have More Fun.

the blonde of the week: Aphrodite

Welcome to the Blonde of the Week, the first installment of a new, exciting addition to the Undercover Blonde blog.

This feature will differ from all other posts that you are likely to read on this site. It will not take you deep inside the inner-workings of the Undercover Blonde brain, discussing the minutiae of my blonde existence. It will not detail the ebb and flow of my self-esteem as I press on with this project, or the toll that my social experiment with blonding has taken on my psyche. Instead, this post will scale back a bit, offering a moment’s respite in honor of (and in some cases, to introduce you to) significant blondes that have left their luminescent impression on the world.

Without further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce you to the Blonde of the Week. This last week of August 2006 we'll be celebrating Aphrodite, the ancient Greek goddess who was in many ways the Original Blonde (if it didn’t sound totally retarded, we could call her the O.B.



Aphrodite was the Goddess of Love, Beauty, and Sexual Rapture. “She was tall, voluptuous, magnificent, with translucent skin as smooth as the surface of oil, and the graceful, ample nakedness of pure pleasure,” writes blonde scholar Joanna Pitman in her foremost work on the topic, On Blondes. Here Pitman describes Aphrodite as she was imagined in the form of the worship inducing statue, Aphrodite of Knidos, sculpted of Parian marble and tinted with gold by Praxiteles in 360 B.C. Aprhodite was the “universal blonde, the world’s original model of sexual fantasy and power.” Aphrodite was celebrated all over Greece with her own festival, the Aphrodisiac, and in Corinth, sex with one of her priestesses was considered a method of worshipping the stone-cold fox Goddess of Love.

Aphrodite was also something of a handful. Afraid that her beauty would be too much for the other Gods, and would cause violence and bloodshed over her attentions & affection, Zeus married her off to Hephaestus, the hard-working, steady God of blacksmiths, smithing, metalwork, etc. She was frequently unfaithful to him, and preferred to mess around with his brother Ares, the God of War (who can blame her, we all have our “bad boy” phase) among others of both the Godly and Mortal persuasion. She was also the originator of that little 10 year-long spat, the Trojan War.

Aphrodite, with her long, flowing blonde locks and her smooth, milky, hairless skin (we can also thank Aphrodite for popularizing the bikini wax) so inflamed the passion and desires of ancient Greek men, that prostitutes began to mimic her on earth. Greek women employed in the world’s oldest profession went to extraordinary lengths to dye their dark Mediterranean locks blonde, all in an effort to drum up business. Peroxide had not been invented yet, but these ambitious women were resourceful, and found ways to turn their brown hair blonde. They rubbed dye containing saffron into their hair, painted blonde highlights onto their hair with colored powders, set their curls with yellow muds. For really big customers, wigs purchased from far-off northern lands at considerable expense were employed.

I think of Aphrodite often since I first read up on her. I think of her when calling up Giacomo and Rondi, to schedule a bikini wax (Rhonda is amazing, by the way, if anyone is looking for a new aesthetician.) I think of her when I waltz into Liquid, and take my seat in Jason’s chair at the color table. Sometimes, when I’m walking to the T, trying to ignore the leering stares of the men I pass, and pretend their catcalls and hisses and whistles aren’t happening, I think of Aprhodite. With her in mind, all of this seems less intimidating, and somehow, less arbitrary. It’s as though all of us are paying tribute, in our own small way, taking part in a daily worship of Aphrodite, the ancient Greek Goddess of Love.

ecoutez les etoiles

I check my horoscope every single day. Yes. Every day. It's true. I, Kitty, an intelligent, Sarah Lawrence educated, savvy, worldly young woman of the 21st century, have the Virgo page of astrology.com bookmarked on both my work and home computers, and check my horoscope every goddamn day.

Say what you will, that it's silly, vague, made-up bullshit, written to make foolish people feel better about the fact that we have no real control over our lives. But I love it. Every day when I read my horoscope I feel that much savvier, that much more in tune with the universe. And it starts off each day with a breathless touch of anticipation: after reading, I know what the world has in store for me, and I can't wait to see how the next 24 hours unfold.

The other day, Wednesday, August 9th, this is what the stars had to say to me:

Tackle an activity that scares you. Sign up for SCUBA certification. Go surfing. Volunteer to speak at a high school for career day. Walking straight up to your fear vanquishes it and stimulates your brain in new ways.

And this, my friends, is exactly what I did:

Last Wednesday, for the first time in ten months, I saw my Ex. The Ex. As in, my Ex-fiancee, the Ex-future-Mr. Kitty.

Somehow, despite the fact that Boston is a tiny, tiny city, and despite the fact the we still both go drink at the same tiny South End bars, dine at the same cliquey Tremont and Washington Street restaurants, and hang out with many of the same friends we had when we were a couple, I have managed to avoid running into the Ex for no less than ten months--with very little effort on my own behalf.

It's not that I did not hear about him. In fact, I knew all about the goings-on of the Ex's life: I knew where he was hanging out, I knew who he was dating, I knew who she hangs out with, I knew how they met, and I was even among the first to know when he got engaged. I found out before several of his closest friends, and probably before some of his immediate family. But somehow, by some very forgiving twist of fate, I never once ran into the man that used to be my future husband. Not once.

And let me tell you, as I made my way over to the anonymous Back Bay coffeeshop I'd suggested for our meeting, I was terrified. My palms were sweating as I walked to over to Boston's very toursity, very Euro Newbury Street, chosen for it's neutrality (and lack of alcoholic beverages.) I'd never been to that coffeeshop before, and will probably never go there again.

My outfit (new trouser-style Sevens, kitten heels, brown lace shirt with a low neckline, tan clutch) had been chosen with great care, my make-up applied meticulously, and my hair styled into soft, smooth waves, so as to accentuate the blondeness. All to emphasizing the difference a year makes.

Curiously, I heard no comments from lecherous passersby as I wove my way through the South End streets to our meeting. This had me a bit worried: I mean, I usually can't walk across the street to buy toilet-paper without having some disgusting guy ask me for my phone number, even when I'm wearing sweatpants and the Mathematician's grey hoodie. Maybe it's because I'm exuding confidence? I thought.

The fact of the matter is, I had every reason in the world to be nervous. Last time we met for a seemingly cordial drink, we all know what happened. The final stages of my breakup with the Ex were simply awful: volatile and mean enough to erase any misgivings I ever could have had about my decision to end the relationship. But, what I had let myself forget, or rather, ignore in that past 10 months of estrangement is that the Ex is also a kind, caring, gentle and extremely intelligent man. ThatÂ’s why I hitched my wagon to his star in the first place, soimpetuouslyy, so many years ago.

But as he descended the small staircase to the garden level patio where waited for him, in a sundrenched corner at a green metal table, I felt pleasantly surprised to realize: the Ex still looks exactly the same. He was wearing different jeans, different shoes, and allegedly has gained about 15lbs, which is completely unnoticeable because the Ex is a tall motherfucker, a whopping 6'4". But aside from all of that, I still...I don't know...recognized him.

A lot has happened in the ten months since we last saw each other, and for 2 1/2 hours, we talked about pretty much everything. We talked a lot about his new relationship, with a brunette girl, his new fiancee. They have plans to tie the knot in some tropical location in six months. A year from now, they will be Mr. and Mrs. Ex. He seems to actually mean it this time, and I say, good for him for holding on tight.

All in all, itÂ’s amazing how much people stay the same, even when you are estranged from them, even when everything in your life changes and shifts around you, even when you thought for a second that they (you?) have morphed into someone else. Last Wednesday I realized: I still love talking to the Ex. I feel delighted that we are going to try to be friends; friends is something we always did very well.

And a supportive friend the Ex is: just like old times, I had to get his opinion on my jeans, because I wasn't quite sure about them & I bought them without Shanna by my side. He told me he loves my blog, and that he loves my book idea, and is so excited that I'm writing a book. He even told me he's happy for me and the Mathematician, which I know took a lot for him to say. And I also know that he means it.

And best of all: he told me that he loved the new, blonde, hair.

I told him it's not so new, it's been like this for almost a year.

And I felt delighted that I'd read my horoscope that day.

blast from the past

You know those pictures they show in Us Weekly and Star magazine, of Paris Hilton before she became the Paris we all know and gawk at? She is 25 lbs heavier, wearing little or no make-up, her hair is it's natural mousy brown, her nose it's awkward, pre-surgical shape, she's sports a velvet body suit and high waisted jeans, and a gaudy, gothic-looking cross circa-Claire's boutique 1994 hangs between her non-existent, pre-boob-job lack of cleavage?

We all love those pictures, right? Because we all have 'em. Well, here's mine, for you all to enjoy. And don't forget to thank my beloved Jamie for posting this on my MySpace page, and reminding me of my humble beginnings.


Happy Thursday.

there are some things the mathematician understands

I ate my words last Friday, after writing this whole long post about how this book is something that men, including the Mathematician, can just never understand.

It was a slow Friday and I finished my waitressing shift early. We heard that some people got mugged at gunpoint earlier in the evening, so the Mathematician picked me up at the restaurant, instead of walking home alone like I usually do. I stopped to say goodbye to some of my co-workers and a long-time regular, who were boozing it up on the patio as we walked out.

"You are a sex-pot!" the regular said, out of the blue and completely unsolicited as we stood there, talking. In truth, there was something really awkward about it, but he's a long-time regular, he's gay, and I know he meant it as a compliment, so I smiled, laughed and rolled with it. "More like a sex Kitten," B-lo said, and the conversation tapered away, punctuated by kitty noises, meow-ing and fake clawing at the air as we bid my friends farewell. While all of this was going on, the Mathematician stood there, silent.

Later, at home in my bedroom, the Mathematician brought the comment up.

"I thought it was kind of not that cool, what that guy said to you back there at the restaurant."

"What do you mean?" I said.

"Well, I just thought it was not that cool. It seemed inappropriate and not his place to say something like that."

"Baby, he's gay."

"I know. But, still. I just wasn't that into it."

And it's funny: I am so used to hearing stupid comments like that from men, gay, straight, what have you, that I didn't even think twice about the fact that this regular had just called me a sex-pot, or the way that he called me a sex-pot, or the dynamics of the interaction at all.

"Well, I just think it's not that cool that he said that to you," the Mathematician said. "I know he meant it as a compliment, but it came off sounding derogatory. Yes, you're beautiful, but telling you so like that just cheapens the whole thing."

Now, this regular of mine is a fine person, and someone who I've known in passing from the restaurant for years. He's gay, and because of this, I didn't feel hurt or threatened by the comment. In fact, I took it exactly as I presume he intended it: as a compliment. But as we sat there talking, replaying the incident, I began to realize that people don't talk like that in the Mathematician's world. In his world, of men and computers and systems processors and cache partitioning, compliments are paid in the form of praise for your ideas, respect for innovative concepts, and congratulations on a job well done. In my world, the majority of compliments I receive are in this objectifying form of flattery.

I realized the Mathematician is right: that regular was not complimenting my stellar waitressing skills, my killer personality, or my noticeable intelligence. He was not commenting about my creativity, my aptitude for writing, or my ability to dream up fresh book or PR ideas. He was complimenting me for being hot. And I was flattered,…very flattered,…so flattered that it didn't even occur to me that in reality I want to be so much more than just hot.

In this moment, the Mathematician had a little window into what it feels like to be me. "Well, you have to understand, baby, people talk to me like that all the time. In fact, oftentimes men say things to me that are a zillion times more offensive."

I know he didn't want to hear it. No one wants to think of their girlfriend/sister/mother/best friend being treated like an object. But for that brief moment, the Mathematician had a little window into my odd little world. And I'm glad for it. Because if he hadn't bought it up, if he hadn't taken issue with the comment, and pointed out to me that I am so much more than just a sex-pot and people should respect that, I wouldn't have thought of it either. At the end of the day, gay or straight, comments like these miss the point, reduce me to nothing more than just a body. They totally overlook who I really am.

I also undertstand that someday these comments will stop coming. Gravity will start to work against me, my breasts will sag, my hair will turn coarse and gray, and my skin will reveal its age with irrevocable cracks and crevices. And if people aren't respecting me for anything but my sex-pot body, what will I have then?

why guys don't understand

When it comes to the men in my life, I must admit, I am a lucky girl. So many of them are amazing: my brothers are all laid-back, down to earth; my father is so kind and the best dad a girl could ask for; my boyfriend is smart, handsome, and attentive to my every need. And that's just the straight boys--if I included the fabulosity of the gay boys I know in this discussion, we'd be looking at a tract of several volumes.

Yet I realized something interesting as I was thinking about this project the other day. It was Tuesday, a mild mannered afternoon. I had a spare hour between rushing here and there, and decided to write. You see, self-critical Virgo that I am, I have been having doubts about this project lately. Thoughts like:

"This is a fool's errand."
"No one will ever buy a book on this."
"Yeah, you get treated differently as a blonde. So what?"

You know, that sort of thing. Self-critical, deprecating thoughts, whispered to me from the back of my mind.

So, on this mild mannered Tuesday, I decided that it was time to have it out with these self-critical voices. I mean, really. Who were they to go around, getting all up inside my head and making me feel discouraged? I sat down with my journal, blank page open in front of me. It was time to take these voices down.

I armed myself with logical thinking skills and not a few generically affirming phrases ("I'm good enough"..."I'm smart enough"...)I wrestled them out, thought by thought, parced them out, feeling by feeling, and sifted through this mass of negativity. And as I did so, I realized something: these thoughts aren't thoughts that I dreamed up on my own. Sure, I've exacerbated them, nurtured them with insecurity and fertilized them with self-doubt. But, when I sit down and think long and hard about where these awful ideas come from I realize, they echo the words of some key men in my life upon learning the subject matter of this experiment: being blonde. Par example:

BROTHER #1: So, let me get this straight...you're going to dye your hair blonde? And then see if people treat you differently? Of course people will treat you differently. Blondes are hot. Duh.
BROTHER #2: You're writing a book that's based on research you do in a bar? Uh, okay.
GAY FRIEND: Oh. How interesting. (Turns his face into a smiling mask; the smile is fake; his tone betrays that he thinks the project is bullshit.) Anyway...(turns the conversation back to himself.)
THE MATHEMATICIAN: Truthfully, I think people are going to pay attention to you no matter what color your hair is 'cuz you're a stone cold fox. (Biased much?)

These comments don't make the aforementioned men any less great, but they do underline an important point that it has taken me over a year to realize: this book is not something that men are going to inherently understand. Very few men know what it feels like to be ogled at 7:30 in the morning when you're simply running up to the corner store to grab some goddamn milk, or to be degraded by teenagers while buying a pack of gum, or to be blatantly sexually harassed, then blamed for it because, well, "you are wearing a short skirt."

But women do understand. All women. Regardless of hair color, waist size, or age. This daily circus of testosterone is something that we all have to deal with, the minute we develop breasts and sprout hips. This is a universal thing and it happens to all of us.

So men of the world who get it: thank you for your support, I adore you and appreciate it.

And the men who don't get it: I just don't know what to tell you. You're never going to get the project, and there's not much I can do about it. So with all do respect guys, if you think the project is bullshit, keep those thoughts to yourself. You wouldn't understand.

And I'm no longer going to listen.

the brunette countdown

I have chosen my day.

It will be Tuesday, October 3rd.

In 62 days, I will cross the threshold of Liquid salon a blondie and walk back out a brunette. This will take many, many hours, cost me plenty of money, and lots of courage. I plan to have at least one cocktail beforehand, and to make sure that the Mathematician and perhaps one other very close friend can accompany me. On second thought, I might decide to do it alone. I will most likely cry, I will most likely be a mess, and this may one of those intimate moments that is better shared between stylist and client.

You see, as I've mentioned to many of you before, the blondeness has really begun to seep into my identity. So much so that I've even considered scrapping this entire project altogether, considered moving on to something less personal, something a bit less scary. A few weeks ago, the Mathematician said to me: "You're going brunette in October. Yeah, right. Are you really going to become a brunette again? Honestly, I don't think you have the guts." When he said this, I felt indignant. But the Mathematician had a point.

The more and more I read about blondes, about the image of blondeness and the potent symbolism blonde hair has had over the past 2,500 years, the more I realize I've found my most truly appropriate hair hue. I've come to find out that blondeness is a paradox. It is on the one hand a color of innocence and purity, and on the other a color of potent, sizzling, even dangerous sensuality.

And that pretty much sums up in one hair color how people often view me: dumb or ditzy because of the lilting patterns of my speech, oversexualized, like my bitchy restaurant colleagues, who started a rumor that I used to be a stripper. A lovely, commodifiable paradox.

What have I learned in my year as a blonde? That though my hormones betrayed me, and darkened my hair as a teenager, deep down inside, as my mother insists:

I've always been a blonde.

more toro blondes

Last night I worked the door at Toro again for my friend Alyssa. (They're hiring, by the way. She needs a host bad. If you're cool & competent, you should check it out.) After the dinner rush died but before I was free to go home, I had a considerable amount of time during which my job was to stand there and do nothing, look pretty, and say "hello, how are you?" to customers as they came and "thank you, goodnight!" as they went. I was tired and my feet hurt and I wanted nothing more than to go home. However, when you work as a host, they pay you by the hour, so it was truly in my best interest to stay on the clock til the bitter end of my shift. So, in the interest of making myself look a) busy (Toro wants to be getting their money's worth) and b) in charge (people always mistake hosts for managers--I allow them to do this until they have a complaint or a problem, at which point I simply explain that I'm nothing more than a hostess), I decided to count the number of blondes in the restaurant at that moment.

DATE: July 26, 2006
TIME: Approx 9:23
NO. OF TOTAL WOMEN: 38
NO. OF BLONDES: 19

Of the 39 women in the restaurant at that point, 19 of them were blonde. So, fifty percent of the total female population, or, 1 in 2.

As I counted, I wanted my mission to remain truly undercover--I was in no mood to explain my research or my methodology. I made my way through the restaurant, circling thru the room slowly like a blonde-seeking shark. I made my face into the blankest canvas possible, a clean yet appraising mask, and took the room in as though I were on some sort of very managerial, very important mission. In reality, I was scoping out all the other women in the room.

There were young blondes: a girl who looked maybe 23 on a date with her handsome, muscular boyfriend. They were generally a handsome couple. She had a sweet, innocent face, a stylish haircut, and seemed flattered that I was being so welcoming to them. She wore designer jeans and looked demureand cute.

There were blondes in their mid-30s: a woman on a date with her boyfriend or husband or what have you. They both wore white pants, not in a clueless European way, but in a "we're a cute, in love couple who looks hot in everything we do" way. And also in a "her boyfriend might be gay but he kinda looks like Clive Owen, so can you really blame her for trying?" kinda way. She was cool, poised, had bare, tan shoulders and was kind.

There was a bitchy blonde, a girl/woman who was most likely 28 or 29, who was so snotty to the manager Adam when he told her that we don't have a valet, I thought he just might tackle her ("Well, where am I supposed to park???" I suggested he direct her to the closest project, three blocks away.) She kept her sunglasses on well after dusk, and waved her stupid Louis Vuitton bag around as though it gave her carte blanche to be a bitch. I have no doubt in my mind that Adam couldn't have picked a Louis Vuitton bag out of a line up if his life depended on it. They weren't speaking the same language: he doesn't speak bags and she only speaks bitch. She was a bit heavier, which I think also made her act competitive towards me. (Who doesn't hate it when "the help" looks better than they do?)

There were middle aged blondes: two thin women in their 40s, looked like they might be from the South Shore, both wearing white pants and black tops, looking a little too tan, even in the low, forgiving light. Their hair was super, super light, and one of them looked like her hair had been damaged, it was so frizzy and friend looking: borderline..dare I say it...trashy. They both looked to be a 10 or 11 on the lightness scale. Too light for them. (Too light for me?)

There were older blondes: a blonde in her later 40s, whose cheeks turned pink with her first sip of alchohol, who was short and nicely dressed like a work appropriate soccer mom, but whose outfit still involved somewhat awkward looking shorts. She looked vulnerable as she sat down at the bar alone to wait for her three friends, but who lit up like a firefly as soon as the first friend arrived.

I watched these women, calculating their age, studying their blondeness: are they really naturally blonde? I studied their roots, their layers, their highlights and lowlights. And I'm almost 100% positive that not one of the 19 goldilocks were naturally so. And as I looked them all over it occured to me: they all looked as though they were trying. Trying to be something, making effort to appear a certain way. In that moment I realized that they all all undercover blondes.

When I woke up this morning I realized that I calculated wrong last night. There were 20 blondes in the restaurant, making it 51% of total blondes in Toro at 9:23 on Wednesday, July 28th. I forgot to include myself: a 20-something blonde, perched at the door in a tasteful but sexy dress, trying to look nonchalant as she ignores the imploring gaze of the 2 men who've been staring at her all night long, shifting her weight from left foot to right foot, back and forth from left hip to right hip, in a what appears to be a sexually charged gesture, but is actually an attempt to soothe her aching feet, in her stupid high heeled shoes. She tryies very hard to be something she thinks she's not. She wonders if anyone will notice.

the comments

Today was a day for reblonding. It was my second to last trip...as a blonde, that is. After swearing up and down that it couldn't be done, that it wouldn't be done, that my color could not go a shade lighter...Jason brought me up yet another notch. I'm now a certifiable 11 on the blondie scale. Who knows if you can tell, but here's a picture.

I had lots of thoughts on my impending brunette-ness during this visit, much witty banter with stylist Jason, and of course, loads to report on the entire process of banishing the brown from my roots. Yet all of that is trumped for the moment by what happened to me once I left the salon:

They don't let you use credit card payments to tip the stylists at Liquid (to anyone who wants to make a pilgrimage to see Jason the great, please note), so I had to make a quick run to the ATM at Kosmos before getting on with my day. Standing in the crosswalk, I step gingerly out into oncoming traffic, prepared to wait, as there appears no end to the traffic in sight. But the cars on both sides of me screech to a halt, ceasing their good clip to let me pass by. Perhaps they were blinded by the sun as it glinted off my hair--in any case, crossing the street is never easier than when I leave Liquid. I see several heads turn out of the corner of my eyes as I walk, but pretend not to notice, as if it's always this way, as if I was born looking this polished and trimmed and "gorgeous" and blonde.

You see, that's how I feel today. "Gorgeous" in quotes, as though allegedly pretty, as though theoretically so. Like a different person on the inside than the one you see on the outside.

Two teenage boys are walk out of Kosmos as I walk in. Young, black, hip-hop gear, from the neighborhood. "Oh, you look so cute today," one of them says, and I'm taken off guard and I blush. "How are you today?" says the other as he holds the door open for me. I smile politely but don't say a word, and think about how unusual it is for boys this young to be so forward with me. Guys talk to me on the street all the time, especially in this neighborhood, but rarely boys as young as these two: tall, lanky, baggy clothes, cool as hell, and goofy. They can't be more than 17 or 18. The big tongues of their Nikes poke out from under the hems of their jeans.

"Oh miss, excuse me miss," the Kosmos guy says, as I try unsuccessfully to shove my debit card in the machine. "That machine is out. It's broken today." I turn my head to look at him: "Oh, thank you," I say, laughing at my efforts to suck water from a bone dry well. His tone softens, brightens, and his face breaks out into an interested smile, "I'm very sorry, miss. Closest machine is across the street," he says, with meaning and feeling, as though we're having a real conversation. He crosses the room to wear I stand, and makes a big show of showing me the Aguadilla Market, pointing earnestly at the bodega across the street. My hero. "You are looking very nice today, miss," he says. "You have a very nice day."

I shake my head to myself as I cross the threshold of the door into the fading afternoon sunlight. It's one of those days--I feel bewildered by all the comments, and though I'm mentally chalking it up to research, I can't quite get my head around it. All of this fuss...for what? Some blonde hair? And suddenly it occurs to me: this is my life.

The two teenage boys are still there as I walk out of Kosmos. I am hectic, shuffling around in my purse, trying to get my debit card back into my wallet and my wallet back into my bag, then remembering that I'm going to need both in just a moment, and make a desperate attempt to fish it back out...I'm barely paying attention, but out of the corner of my eye I see the boys looking at me and, somewhere under the sound of keys and change jangling in my purse and the litany of my own thoughts I hear them half-heartedly try to get my attention. Then, somewhere between all of these sounds slips:"Yeah, that's right, that bitch can suck on my dick any time..."

Suddenly, I don't want to be blonde any more. But I don't want to be anything else, besides blonde either. I shuffle my wallet into my purse, drop my enormous sunglasses onto my nose, and look half-heartedly to my left then to my right before stepping out into the street. I do not mind the oncoming traffic--the law of blondeness dictates that it always stops. I try my hardest to pretend I've heard nothing. I don't want to be blonde, and I don't want to be anything. I want to to bury that comment, that moment, that series of events in the rustle of receipts in my bag, in the jostle of keys and pens and iPod and notes scribbled on sticky yellow paper and lipstick and lip gloss and lip balm and while I fish out my phone, glance sightlessly at the face, and drop it right back where I found it, in the black hole of my bag.

the kat came back

An addendum to an open letter to katherine kelly

If you read Friday morning's post, about the hellish, mercury retrograde-tastic disaster of an evening I had at the restaurant last Thursday, you'd most likely assume that we lost a lot of business that night. As anyone who's worked in a restaurant knows, word of mouth is a poweful thing when it comes to the food business: if people have a good time at your restaurant, they tend to tell 3 people; if they have a bad time, they will definitely tell 8. Suffice to say, if just half of the party of 15 that I waited on told 8 of their nearest and dearest about the multitude of snafus that happened during their dinner...well, I'll leave the math on that one up to the Mathematician, but that's a lot of people receiving negative messages about the restaurant that I depend upon to pay my bills.

When I got to work the next day, I was pleasantly surprised to hear the chef/owner's thoughts at our pre-shift meeting: "If it hadn't been for the great personalities of the servers, and their ability to do their jobs so well, I think we'd really have been in trouble last night--so thanks you guys."

I was even more pleasantly surprised to hear the following report from our Assistant General Manager, Emma, who ran into a customer I'd waited on on Thursday while out on the town a few nights later. I remembered him well--he was the English guy who sat at table 12, who was dining alone--I figured he was here on business or something. He was so sweet, and very patient, and miraculously didn't seem perterbed that his food was taking forever and the restaurant was in a state of disarray. I usually like to chat with solo diners, to make them feel welcome in case they are lonely, and kill time with them if their food is taking too long. That night, however, we were all too busy to talk, so the English guy was left to fend for himself, waiting...and waiting...and waiting for his dinner.

I assumed that Mr. England would simply go back to England and forget about us. Boy, was I wrong: as it turns out, Mr. England recently relocated from the mainland to join a local, very famous Boston-based seafood chain as their Very-Important-General-Manager-of-Managers (or something.) He's spent the past month dining out at various places in our fair city, researching food & service, and he was at 647 on Thursday to see how we stacked up. Total nightmare, right? But to my surprise, his report was overwhelmingly positive: Mr.England has apparently been very disappointed in his experience at Boston restaurants thus far, most especially in the quality of service he's received from front-of-the-house staff at restaurants throughout the city. His experience at 647, however, was "wonderful, the best he'd had in Boston to date." He could of course see that we were slammed, and he agreed that the food had taken a bit too long to arrive, but felt the waitstaff were amazing. He said we made him feel very well taken care of, and was very impressed by how we handled ourselves and our customers under such busy circumstances.

Gosh, I wonder what he'd have thought if he came on a reasonable evening?

But my weekend was truly made complete when I saw the one and only katherine kelly of katherine kelly party of 15 stroll into the restaurant for brunch yesterday morning. I had a feeling she'd be back, despite all the problems with her table, but I didn't realize how soon.

When I stopped by her table to say hello, she was as polite as she'd been on Thursday evening, and acted like all of the weirdness of her dining experience on Thursday had never even happened. She also seemed surprised that I was so worried, which kinda made me feel like we were all making a big deal out of something that actually isn't. And so, I was reminded of something that can be very easily forgotten when you're on the other side of the table, when you work as a waitress, and you actually take pride in what you do: At the end of the day, it's just food. It's not rocket science, it's not brain surgery, it's dinner. And no matter what, if the people you are waiting on are nice people, who have souls and good intentions and are actually worthy of your time and energy, they will appreciate your efforts to make them feel taken care of.

"you look like barbie!"

Last night B-lo, the General Manager at the restaurant where I work introduced me to his roommate, Tony, for the first time. We were outside on the patio, winding down with a cocktail and enjoying the gorgeous summer midnight after an otherwise slow evening, because our core clientele were all in P-town for the weekend.

"Kitty, this is Tony, Tony this is Kitty," B-lo said. "Kitty's fabulous, Tony's fabulous, you guys are both fabulous, it's about time you made friends...
"You look like Barbie!!!" Tony interjected.
"Pleased to meet you, too," I said.

Undercover Blonde reports: there were a lot of blondes in the restaurant last night, and I noticed myself feeling competitive with each and every one of them. There was a model thin blonde who looked like a poor man's Cameron Diaz, a big breasted blonde with tan skin, lots of blondes on dates, older blondes with rich-seeming husbands. After meeting Tony, however, all of those feelings of competitiveness melted away. After being likened to Barbie, I somehow felt like I'd topped them all.

I'd like to point out here that, before I started this project, I could never have imagined myself as even remotely comparable to Barbie. And though I loved to play with my Barbies when I was little, I'm not sure that I believe in Barbie as an adult. Her boobs are so big and her waist is so small, I'm quite certain she promotes an unrealistic body image ideal for young girls. And that is just so uncool.

Yet for some reason, I took Tony's proclaimation as the highest compliment.

an open letter to katherine kelly in boston, ma

Dear Katherine,

Thank you for coming into my restaurant last night with a very large party of what I presume were your co-workers.

Thank you for being patient with me as the restaurant filled up around you, and sucked up the attention I'd planned on lavishing on your table, like quicksand. We were short staffed, but that's not your problem.

Thank you for always smiling and saying thank you, and for speaking up about what you and the other members of your party needed without being bitchy. It's so much easier to be bitchy, but you weren't.

Thanks to your entire group for being young, well-dressed, attractive, and still nice. I know it sounds weird, but as all waitresses know, young, well-dressed, attractive people are often patronizing and bitchy. They can be a total nightmare, but you guys were a dream.

Thank you for your understanding when your appetizer came out of the kitchen in the wrong order. This left you full and entree-less when everyone else's dinner came. But miraculously, you didn't seem to care.

Thank you for your graciousness when two of the entrees on your ticket took extra long to cook, so long in fact that everyone was at least half-way done with their dinner by the time they went down on the table. You had every right to feel upset, and angry, and be 100% bitchy by that point, because so many things just kept going wrong with your dinner. Special thanks to the two members of your party who waited for their enchiladas and their steak, because they just drank and chatted and hung out, and seemed happy despite the fact that we effectively blew it on all counts with your food.

Thank you for acting surprised and delighted when I told you that the chef had comped your check, that he wanted to buy you those two entrees, and a few other items, to make up for the mess. Another table sent their check back angrily, you know, and demanded that their food be taken off the check because "it just took too long." They shook their heads at the waitstaff, like disappointed fathers. But you seemed so surprised, I felt surprised that you were so surprised. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to delight & surprise you, depite the fact that so many things kept going awry with your dinner.

And if you or any of the other members of "Katherine Kelly party of 15" are ever back in the South End, be sure to stop by 647 & ask for Kitty, so I can thank you in person for making an otherwise hellish night so much more pleasant.

xoxo,
Kitty

killer biscuits

So, I honestly think this is one of the weirdest things that I have ever read.

I am so gullible that I actually wondered for a moment if it was true.

I guess the joke is on both of us blondes.

p.s.--the regina spektor album currently playing on kittypod is not to be missed.

the blonde in the shirtdress

First I noticed her.

Then I wrote a blog entry about her.

Then I decided I'd rework my entire hair color plan to be like her.

Now it appears that I am trying to actually beher.

Today I am wearing a shirtdress. It has been hanging in my closet for three months. It belongs to Melissa, who lent it to me 4 months ago. I never wore it & never gave it back. It is red.

I have been looking at it longingly since I saw the blonde in the shirtdress exactly one week ago today.

Yesterday I even tried it on. But then, in a fit of PMS body hatred, I took it right off, proclaiming that everything in my closet INCLUDING AND ESPECIALLY THIS DRESS makes me look fat. (I was talking to the Mathematician, but he was still asleep.)

Magically, when I tried the dress on today, it looked okay. (Admittedly, this "magic" of which I speak may have been the fact that I was giving myself a once over in a more forgiving mirror at the Mathematician's house.)

It's a little short, which I didn't realize until I was walking into Emack & Bolio's to get coffee before work. Standing in front of the mirror, the length was deceptively fine. Only when I started actually walking did I realize I was showing a lot of leg. Length aside, though, I think it looks pretty cute.

Who needs a full-process? I think all I needed was a little shirtdress.

reactions

The conversations that ensued when I announced to a few very important people in my life that I had decided I was going to go-for-broke-blonde, get a full process, and thus be as blonde-beautiful as the girl I wrote about in this post:

JASON's reaction
Jason is the stylist extraordinaire who got me this blonde in the first place. I run into him outside of Toro, where I am dining, not working, with my brunette girlfriend.
JASON: Okaaaayyy, honey...sure...you've been drinking, haven't you?
ME: Yeah! I've had a lot to drink! We're inside, having dinner. But seriously, I think we need to do a full process next time. What do you say?
JASON: (nodding his head as you would while affirming for a small, gullible child that there is, in fact, a Santa Claus) Mmm-hmmm...yeah...sure, we'll talk about it next time you come in. You have fun tonight, honey, and try not to drink too much, okay?

SHANNA'S reaction
Shanna is the brunette girlfriend that I am dining with at Toro. She is a.k.a. my pretty, petite, publishing industry friend from previous posts and nights of general debauchery. She is standing right beside me as I announce my decision to Jason, and immediately interjects, as any good friend would.
SHANNA: Can I offer my opinion? I don't think you should that. I mean, seriously. You're blonde, honey. If anything, you might want to consider some lowlights.

THE MATHEMATICIAN's reaction
I announced my decision to him the next day, while meandering thru my cute little neighborhood, coffee in my right hand, holding onto his with my left.
THE MATHEMATICIAN: (heaves a very heavy, audible sigh) Yes. (sounding defeated) Sure. You should do whatever makes you happy.
ME: long pauseSo...you don't think I'll look good, do you?
THE MATHEMATICIAN: (he stops walking, turns to look me deep in the eye) No. No, I don't.

There you have it folks. As usual, my loved ones are there, ready to talk me down from the ledge as needed.

toro blondes

I've been picking up hosting shifts at Toro, while their usual girl is in Spain for a month.

My roommate Michael called me a traitor and an industry whore for doing this. I say, whatev--a girl's gotta make a buck. And since Toro is paying me almost as much by the hour as I make as a lowly publishing peon, how could I say no? Besides, working the door at one of Boston's hottest new restaurants, owned by one of Boston's most highly acclaimed chefs, is sure to give me lots of material for my little blonde vs. the world experiment. I've sat many, many blonde women, in the two shifts I've worked thus far. Last night, however, I sat this ethereal blonde woman who made me rethink my entire experiment: she made me think that I need to be striving to take my blonde-ness to greater heights.

Her hair was definitely a 12. It was so platinum, so light in fact that it seemed to glow. It looked almost white, like an ethereal (but not exactly angelic) halo around her head.

She was definitely a full process kind of girl.

She looked at once totally innocent and vampishly sexy. Her skin was tan, and her blue eyes popped with bedroom intensity. Standing next to her, with my level 10 color, in the same outfit I'd picked out to wear to my day job, where I hardly care how I look, I felt utterly dowdy.

As I felt that I'm-so-ugly-standing-next-to-the-prettiest-girl-in-the-room feeling seep into the pit of my stomach like spilled ink, I looked closely, carefully at her outfit, her body, did a part by part comparison of what this blonde had to offer that I didn't. (This is research, mind you--not sheer cattiness. Right.)

It must be the outfit, I thought. She's out on a date and I'm still wearing the same thing I threw on for work at 6am, over 13 hours ago. She's dressed up, and I'm just freaking tired--I bet she would be too if she had to work 2, sometimes 3 jobs. But the dress she wore was just a simple shirt-dress, black, short sleeved, well cut, but nothing to write home about. I think I even sat another girl wearing the exact same dress on the patio just a few hours earlier.

Well, the shoes must have something to do with it, I thought next. I'm wearing flats, and she's wearing heels. Heels increase your sexiness quotient by like 50%. But hers were low heels, 1 1/2-2 inches, and her shoes weren't particularly sexy. That wasn't it either.

I looked closely at her face, which was pretty: cute, ski-jump nose, square jaw, big eyes, pretty mouth. But pretty is all I saw, Kate Hudson or Reese Witherspoon style pretty. Not Angelina Jolie striking, or Gisele exotic, or anything more than pretty.

All of these parts on their own seemed so average, yet there was something about her that was absolutely striking.

Then I realized: It's the hair.

I have to talk to Jason, I thought. What is she doing that I haven't been doing? For this experiment to work, for the project to come to fruition at all, I need to be more like her.

Full process, here I come.

olivia and the goldie locks

Today we had a staff meeting at the 647. We usually have these about once or twice a year, to whip the new staff into shape, and to just generally make sure that we're all on the same page about how we do things here in Andyland. Staff meetings at 647 can be recognized by the following things:

• Some manner of food or treats, compliments of Andy. Today they were pastries from flour, the place where I go every day for coffee and they were delicious. I had a full-fat scone, thank you very much. And I even took half of one with me after the meeting, for the road.
• Some manner of race, which is intended to be a team-building activity, and usually entails running down West Brookline Street while balancing an egg on a spoon. Usually I am too tentative about this, speed-walk down the street instead of running for fear of breaking my egg, and talk all the while about how non-competitive I am, how I always lose the egg race and most other races because I have asthma, and how I don't know why I even participate in the stupid egg race anyway. I usually finish LAST or next to last, second only to, say, the cook who broke his foot and is on crutches, with a lovely, uncracked egg and confirmed suspicions that when it comes o all things competitive, I am a LOSER. Today, however, I had to hold hands with fellow waiter, Chewy, while balancing my egg. Chewy shared neither my fear of getting egg all over my new ballet shoes, nor my distaste for competition, and he made me run with my egg. And guess what? We WON...well, kind of. We got second place. First place was nabbed by the lightening fast pair of Tsering (the 60 year old Tibetan man who makes momos for us, who still has a bullet in his leg from the time he was chased out of Tibet by the Chinese Army) and Alex (a Brazilian prep-cook/busser, who has an equally insane immigration story, I'm sure.) But still. We were the first front-of-the-house team to complete the race. Yay, us!
• A run down of policies that I now know by heart, most of which end in the phrase "or don't work here." e.g. "Know the menu...or don't work here"; "be on time...or don't work here." You know, standard HR sort of stuff.

Today, they presented me and my co-workers Alexander and Tanis with flowers. Why? Because we've all worked at 647 for almost 5 years. It was a token of appreciation and thanks, and totally made my day. I've rarely gotten flowers "just because," and have never gotten flowers at all from a boss, much less "just because" flowers from a boss. Shucks.

A surprise guest of today's meeting was Olivia (who is pictured here) the amazing, gorgeous ten-month-old baby of Tanis. Olivia was dressed up all in pink: pink camouflage shirt, pink hat, pink cotton pants (not unlike the short pink Victoria's Secret sweatpants I'm wearing as I write this.)

Olivia was way into me when I was first saying hello to her, as most babies are. I think this is because I wear jangly, shiny jewelry and open my eyes real wide and smile as big as I can, and they like that. After just a few seconds, though, she started looking all above and around my head, like she was looking past me, with this pensive look on her little face. Whatever she was looking at, she was considering it very deeply.

"Blonde hair, baby, that's what that is!" Tanis says to Olivia.

"What? Really? Is she actually looking at my hair like that???" I am appalled. Now she is frowning, as though she doesn't know what to make of it all. Then she glances quickly back at my eyes, and breaks out into a big baby grin. Presumably this is because I am opening my eyes really big at her.

"Yeah," said Tanis.

"Oh my god, is she scared of it? I know it's really...voluminous today." My hair is in fact, enormous, a real tribute to my Jersey roots. Thank you 2 weeks of frizz-inducing rainy weather.

"No," said Tanis , bouncing beautiful Olivia on her hip. "She's just not used to seeing it that often." Which is true: Tanis's hair is brown, and Adam, her husband, rocks a Bruce Willis-sexy, shaved head.

An hour or so later, Tanis hands Olivia to Auntie Kitty while she cleans up the mess Olivia made by throwing bits of the aforementioned pastries from Flour all over the floor. Immediately the baby wraps her apricot-sized fists firmly around a chunk of hair on each side of my face and tugs. In fact, before I know it she is all tangled up, but tugging ever so gently, so we're cool.

Now I know why so many moms rock short hair.

Book Expo Lesson #3

Book Expo Lesson #3: You never know who you're gonna run in to at Book Expo.

It could be an agent whose name you remember, and at first you can't place it, until you reach back, way back in your memory and eventually remember that the reason his name seems like a part of your life is not because you were friends once or ever even met before, but because he did the same children's theatre as you when you were in middle school, and his name is so unusual it is like a tongue-twister, and your director made you chant it over and over as part of your theatre warm ups when you were just 11 years old. He played Peter Pan.

Or it coud be a diifferent agent, who it just so happens went to your Hebrew school, who knows all the same kids who went to the weird Quaker school downtown with you for 12 years, who's still in New York, who's still in publishing, and so are you.

Or it coud be a woman that you waited on once, maybe twice, at the restaurant where you work in the South End, who you can't stop staring at because you can't figure out where you've seen her before, who looks at you funny on the escalator because you won't look away, until you figure out why she has you mesmerized: she ate steak, medium rare, with a beet salad to start. She drank vodka tonics with a lemon, and the sweat beading off the glass in the close restaurant air formed constant rings on the table where it sat. And that drove you nuts.

Or it could be an old friend, turned agent, now pregnant and happy to no longer have a boss.

Or the next New York Times bestselling author.

Or Paula Poundstone, but all you can think is "bitch, why won't you take a goddamn flier???"

Or a guy from South Texas whose book about hydrogen gas is "perfect" for the Everything series, who won't stop grinning at you like a cat eyeing his mousy dinner.

Or it could be your neighbor, who covets your boyfriend's Audi A3, who drinks at your restaurant every week, who loves Sauvignon Blanc, who you never met until now, this moment, at Book Expo, hundreds of miles away from your apartment, in a completely foreign city.

It's a small world, and the publishing world is even smaller.

You just never know who you're going to run in to at Book Expo.

Book Expo Lesson #2: People go crazy for free shit

At this point, Book Expo was so long ago, I feel I can barely remember the event. It is effectively a big blur in my recent memory, that I remember through a thick haze as chaotic, fun, chaotic, overwhelming, and chaotic. Nonetheless, while sitting in traffic on the way to work today, it occured to me that my last post on Book Expo was entitled Book Expo Lesson #1, thereby implying that I learned more than one thing from the show. As such, I feel obligated to share more of what I learned at the show with you. Here goes:

The second key thing I learned while at the publishing industry's biggest yearly event:

2. People go crazy for free shit

Picture this: humbled and exhausted from our fliering experience, my brunette colleague and I schlep back to the booth, to commence with the full day of meetings which lies ahead. As we approach our booth, we see that it is mobbed with people, all clamoring around the table my company has devoted to educating the masses about our latest proprietary deal with popular internet info site, About.com.

"Wow," I say to my colleague, "these people sure are into that website. And they're like, really excited about this new companion book series."
"Yeah..." she said, giving me a somewhat funny look. "Well, they're giving away tee-shirts, too..."

I quickly realize that, while some people may in fact be totally into the About.com site, like About.com's biggest fans, and visit the site every day, multiple times a day, many of these people are mobbing my conmpany's otherwise completely civilized booth just for the free tee-shirt.

How do I know this? Because these are the same people who mobbed the booth the day before, during the two book signings we did which we also offered free tee-shirts. I recognized them, and the hungry, anxious look on their faces. Several of them came right up to me, got right up in my face, asking desperately: "CAN I HAVE A FREE TEE-SHIRT?" No regard for the long line that had formed in front of them, or the people who had been patiently waiting for fifteen minutes already to get their galleys signed, and the free tee-shirt that was rightfully their's.

It's almost as though they had never seen or heard of such a thing as a tee-shirt before. Or as if they'd go topless if they didn't get a free tee-shirt from me that instant.

"Get a galley, get a shirt," I'd answer patiently, and these people, these tee-shirt grubbing, tote-bag laden people, would waddle away in a huff. Suddenly I understood: these people are a type. They can be easily identified by their comfortable shoes, their frumpy clothing, and the 2,3, or more totebags that dangled from their shoulders like cartoon anvils. They troll the show, searching high & low for freebies publishers, and leave with their tote bags brimming with free books, galleys, tee shirts, stickers, pens, temporary tattoos, erasers, bumper stickers, you name it.

And here they were again on Day 2 of Book Expo, clamoring around my company's About.com table, freaking out about the enormous, over-sized tee-shirts we were giving away as though they had just seen Elvis himself in the flesh. Bear in mind, these are tee-shirts that would fit any normal-sized person like a house-dress, and bear the slogan "I'm About __________", with a line left blank, so you could fill in whatever it was that you are About with a tee-shirt marker.

"So," I overheard my saintly-patient Managing Editor say to one of the tote-bag trolls, "What are you About?"

The tote-bag troll's eye's grew very wide as she pondered the question. "What am I About?"

"I got your answer right here, sweetheart," I thought. "You're about mooching freebies off of publishers at trade shows."

The question remains: will these people ever wear those shirts again?