. And here is the rest of it. Read more!

BUST Music Review

My review of BETTY's sixth album, Bright&Dark, will appear in the music review section of BUST's Oct/Nov 2009 issue.


BETTY


Bright & Dark


(BETTYRules Music)


Just try to listen to BETTY’s sixth album, Bright & Dark, without dancing. They’ve come a long way since their a cappella days in the eighties. Their songs are at once hard-hitting and melodic, fierce and heartfelt. Disco-inspired beats provide back up as they sing about a girl who belongs in a film noir or banging a Jesus look-alike. BETTY isn’t afraid to get in your face as you’re bopping around your apartment and realize you’re singing along to lyrics taunting the girlfriend of the man you just slept with. But these women aren’t all bawdy and brass knuckles. They raise millions with their performances and record sales for causes like women’s rights and finding a cure for breast cancer (check out Elizabeth standing proud in a bikini with only one boob on the cover). So turn this up and take a trip with BETTY over to the wild side. [Celeste Kaufman]

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BUST book review

My review of Loorie Moore's new novel, A Gate At The Stairs, will appear in BUST's Oct/Nov 2009 issue.


A GATE AT THE STAIRS
By Lorrie Moore
(Knopf)


A Gate at the Stairs starts out strong. Tassie is a college senior in the Midwest who, out of desperation, takes a job as a nanny for a couple who is adopting a biracial child. As Tassie accompanies the parents, Sarah and Edward, through the process of fabricating a family rather than creating one, we’re given shockingly honest insight to the intricacies of human relationships and the realities of the business of adoption. Her sharp observation and biting humor move the story along at a rapid clip. Surprisingly, Moore manages to accurately portray the voice of a college student, which is a rare feat for writers of any age. Her other characters, all quirky and charming, are wonderfully painted as well. But, about halfway though, Moore suffers from a flaw that clearly comes from a history of writing short stories: boredom. The story unravels and completely loses focus, falling into more of a series of pointless vignettes than a complete novel. And while her commentary about race, gender and politics was subtle and fascinating in the beginning, she starts to bombard the reader with it by the end. She succumbs to cheap twists and turns that fail to liven up a plot that had become dull chapters ago. Unfortunately, what started as a touching, fresh take on family, ultimately becomes a race to the finish line, praying that it’ll be over soon. [Celeste Kaufman]

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BUST Test Kitchen

One of the highlights of interning at BUST is everyone gets to write three beauty review blurbs for their Test Kitchen (and to have a picture of your floating head to go with it). Mine appeared in the Aug/Sept 2009 issue.


Kheils Mascara


Rather than turning my lashes into a stiff, clumpy mess, this mascara gave them more volume and length while still looking natural. The jojoba butter made me feel like I was conditioning my lashes, rather than destroying them.


Bromme’s Leave-in Conditioner


This leave-in conditioner made me smell like hippies, but other than that I didn’t see much of a difference from letting my hair dry without product. It might be more suited for different styles that don’t require as much upkeep as my mass of curls.


Cupcake floss


I’m not a fan of flossing (don’t tell my dentist!) or artificially sweetened things. So it was a surprise when I enjoyed using this odd little novelty item. Just make sure to cleanse your palette first, cupcake doesn’t go with everything…

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BUST blog posts

This summer, I interned at BUST Magazine, a bimonthly national feminist publication. One of my primary responsibilities was contributing to their blog, http://www.bust.com Below are links to my posts.

HBO Thinks Feminists are Sexy : HBO's new comedy about a middle-aged woman running a porn mag for ladies.

Feminism on So You Think You Can Dance? : Analyzing inherent sexism in dance and how one choreographer on the show is breaking those traditions.

Parental Notification Laws: What do they Mean For You? : Examining the parental notification laws for minors to obtain abortions

Iran Caving in to Public Pressure : Iran has released some detainees arrested during the election protests and has closed a notorious prison.

Your (Slightly Delayed) Morning Dose of Art Part Three : Oscar Diaz' ink calendar installation

And On the Sixth Day God Created the United States of America : How Texas' school system is trying to integrate God into their social studies curriculum

Kopali Organics : Mini profile and review

Save Coney Island! : What you can do to help save Coney Island

** He Is Neda, Too : The first response I got to the I Am Neda project, from a soldier stationed in Iraq. (For more on the I Am Neda project, go to I Am Neda )

Yoo Hoo! : About Gertrude Berg and the upcoming documentary about her life and career

** Destino is Destined for 2010 : About Dali's collaboration with Disney, Destino, and its possible release in 2010

Virtual Book Club : A review of the site, Book Glutton.

They Say It's Your Birthday : A guide to how to celebrate the 4th of July in NYC

Pride Comes to India : India overturns legislature that criminalizes homosexual sex

Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves : Women in Peacekeeping exhibit at the UN.


For Any Ladies Across the Pond : Banksy exhibit


** Run For Congo Women : A report on the war in the Congo, the effect it has on women and announcing the registration period to participate in the Run For Congo Women


** I Am Neda : A personal post about Neda's death and the Iranian protests


Ann Coulter Disrespects Tiller's Right to Life : A reaction to Coulter calling Tiller's murder a termination in the 203rd trimester on the Bill O'Reilly show


Va Va Vroom : A mini-profile on Danica Patrick


It's the New BFF : The Bicycle Film Festival


Japanese Company's Got You Covered : A company that lets you hire fake friends, family and colleagues for your wedding.


In Lighter News : A blog that reprints old clippings of vintage newspapers


**I Think I'm Done Reading the News For Awhile : A report on a man who arranged the rape of his wife via Craigslist, and a man who videotaped his rape of his girlfriend and posted it online.


I Tell You If There's Anything Worse Than a Staunch Woman...: The release of the Grey Gardens book.


Tim Burton at MoMa : Tim Burton's upcoming exhibit at MoMa


** Patil Keeps Her Word : A report on India's first female president and her actions to elevate women's status in her country, including her National Mission on Empowerment of Women.


Watch What You Eat : NYC's Food Film Festival


Obama Pours One Out For The Ladies : Obama's inclusion of women's rights as an issue of international concern in his speech in Cairo.


Helping Hands : A report on Afghan Hands, an organization where women gain economic independence through crafting.


When the Heat Rises, Get WET : A report on the INKubator Summer Series from WET, a company that produces theater created by women.


Make It Work, Marvel : A new comic book series, Models Inc. that stars Tim Gumm as a character.


Have You Heard? Girls Like Pink. : A trend report on creating girl-friendly, pink alternatives to popular board games.


The Heart of a Women : An exhibit of the history of Harlequin romance novel covers.
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Connie DiForo

This is a profile of a Boston fashion designer, Connie DiForo. She also has a makeup line, DiForo Cosmetics, that is inspired by the techniques used to create makeup in her native country of Botswana. Her story is an inspiration. Written October 2008.


Like many women, Connie DiForo learned to love fashion from watching her mother get ready in the morning. She was raised in Botswana by her single mother, who spent most of her days working in the city, leaving DiForo with her grandmother. "My mother dressed like she really loved her clothes,” DiForo tells me over coffee in the Prudential Center, readjusting the long linen shawl draped around her shoulders. “She did herself up every day; red lips, high heels. Especially when she was home for church,.” While she was away, DiForo helped her grandmother sew the clothes her mother wore that she loved so much, and began to learn how to operate the old manual machine.

When she moved to Boston to live with her cousin and attend college, her family wished her to not waste her time studying fashion and learn something practical. Yet while she worked her way up in the banking world, DiForo could not ignore her deeply ingrained love of fashion. She studied the clothes sold in the stores and what people wore on TV and in the streets. In her spare time she picked up sewing again and slowly began building it into a full-time career. Yet DiForo hesitates when addressed as a designer. "Am I a designer? I don't know, you tell me. I don't believe I'm a designer, I believe I am a business woman.”

Her head for business led her to her simultaneous endeavor of creating cosmetics. While attempting to establish herself in the United States, she quickly grew tired of the makeup available to her here. "As an African woman, I have very sensitive skin. The foundation would do terrible things to my face, but I just kept on using it,” she explains, smiling, “ we women will do anything to look good!" She found herself longing for how things were back in Botswana, where the old women in her village would break rocks in two and use one half to crush the other into powder of shades of red and cream. They blended it with goat oil to create a makeup for their face that actually improved the skin instead of distressing it. It was so light, women could sleep in it.

“That’s when I realized, this is what mineral makeup was, back at its roots!”DiForo wanted to expose women to this product in the States; to save their skin and prove that beauty doesn't always have to equal pain. However, due to import issues, she was unable to bring the original rock into the country. Instead she works with researchers in New York City to recreate the elements of the makeup of her country. She pulls a sample out of her large woven tote bag to demonstrate and indeed the resulting product line of DiForo Cosmetics is smooth, lightweight and gentle.
The back-and-forth between heading a fashion design company and a cosmetics company feels natural to DiForo. "It's about creating the image women strive for. They want to be feminine, respectable, admired.” They’re about growing up, and becoming the person each woman imagines when they first make a mess of her mother's lipstick or try on her shoes left in the hall after work.

DiForo, therefore, does not equate fashion design with costume design. Leave haute couture, neon fishnets and micro-minis to the rest of them, DiForo designs for the real woman; for the working mom, for the city girl who lives an ordinary life. These are the women who want professional yet feminine work-wear, who want eveningwear that's beautiful and classy and can be worn on many different occasions.
With only three pieces she demonstrates the versatility of her design. A fluttery, one-sleeved lavender chiffon dress invites itself out to lunch. A dramatic magenta silk evening dress with a rhinestone neckline threatens to take the attention away from the bride at a summer wedding. A chic black satin shift dress with a bow along the lace neckline just bought itself drinks on a night out on the town.

All of DiForo's pieces are custom-designed so these stunning dresses have the added allure of being one-of-a-kind. Right now she's relying on word-of-mouth to keep DiForo Designs afloat and it's proving to be a good tactic. She is slowly making a name for herself in the Boston fashion world, having shown at Boston Fashion Week, selling at house parties and having her cosmetics sold at Rebecca's Salon in Walden. But she's not stopping there. "I want to be big. I'm not Martin Luther King, but I have a dream!”

There are many things to admire DiForo for; her beautiful designs, her innovation, her warmth, her creativity, but what is truly impressive is her head for business. "Everything is always business, that's what it really comes down to," She says, tapping her notebook with a manicured finger, “you can be an incredible artist but if you can’t market yourself, you’re finished.” It's difficult to find someone who is able to tackle both the business and creative sides of the fashion industry, but DiForo is the complete package. She admits it's not easy, but that doesn't stop her. "Of course it's scary; you're shaking all the time. I hate cold-calling people and setting up appointments or pitching to them over the phone. It's terrifying.”

But DiForo is a firm believer in never giving up. She is strong and tenacious and she works hard to make her dreams come true. "Out of the lot of no's, I get a few yes's. Once you get past the first, the second, the third no, all of a sudden you get a yes. And then that's all you need, just one yes. That's when you know it's doable."

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New Paltz, An Obituary

I grew up in a town in New York called New Paltz. Anyone can tell you that growing up there is certainly a unique experience. Sadly, while there is still a lot of its charm left, the atmosphere of the town is slowly changing. While I had been dying to leave for the city for college, I have been nostalgic lately for the good old days of New Paltz. Written April 2009.

New Paltz, An Obituary

New Paltz is full of yellowing photos of my parents’ generation when they were in their twenties, with their long hair and ripped jeans and dusty floral dresses. When they grew up, they flocked to the town nestled in the Hudson Valley, halfway between New York City and Albany, because it had just the right amount of culture to avoid being a bumpkin village and just enough nature to not be Suburbia. Some of them cut off their hair and commuted to work and sat on boards, complaining about the system. Some of them kept it long and reek of patchouli and still get high in the sheds behind their houses. But they all raised kids who smiled at these photographs, who spent their childhood barefoot in the woods, their adolescence organizing middle school walk-outs to protest the Iraq War, and their teen years in a haze. It was an environment rich with nourishment, urging creativity and individuality.

Like many people looking back on their hometown as they knew it, I feel like the town I knew is a snapshot of a place that only once was, and never will be again. It was eighth grade when I first truly got to know it. It was an anticipated rite of passage when our parents let you wander downtown after middle school to hang out. After a year of only stopping briefly in town to get a snack before going to our friend’s house, we started to make Town the main event. We took our snacks to the wooden bench by the main downtown intersection and sat there for hours, chatting and watching the world go by.

From our post in the center of everything, we got to know the workings and main characters of New Paltz quite intimately. There was the eighty-year-old Beat poet, who we all knew as Diggit, who introduced us to the literary world of New Paltz. There was the artist and puppeteer, Carl, who had tusks pierced through his nose and would have been rather disarming if it weren’t for the constant presence of his baby strapped to his chest. There was the trashy fake blond who owned the barber shop, who had an attachment on her pink motorcycle for her Chihuahua to ride in.

That Spring, our days in town became more frequent. Spring was always the best time to be in town. People brought out their guitars and played on the streets. They started walking their dogs, boa constrictors and ferrets again. The ice cream places opened up and our feet finally got to be free from their shoes and feel the hot pavement. We could spend the whole day outside, ducking in and out of the little shops on Main Street, all with their traditional display of incense and glass pipes, no matter what they were selling.

After a few months of being one of these townies on an amateur level we wanted a change. We didn’t just want to observe New Paltz, we wanted to be a part of it. We had had our eye on a group of older kids who were constantly in town. They didn’t seem to live by any rules or have any parents, or any homes for that matter. They mostly only had one set of clothes and we started to identify them by their unique characteristics. Didgiridoo carried a homemade didgeridoo strapped to his back. Pants wore a hand-sewn pair of patchwork pants. Spoons was often found playing Spoons on The Stoop, and so on. Little by little we gathered courage, working our way up from saying “hi” as we passed them on the street to striking up conversation. Soon enough, we were part of Them.

Our parents like to blame our friendship with these kids for what happened next but, in their defense, it wasn’t them who introduced us to drugs. In a town like that, with parents’ histories like our’s, it was difficult to find someone who made it to their sixteenth birthday without having gotten high. I had casually made the decision to try it months earlier, age fourteen, in a friends’ basement on a winter night, and eventually everyone else followed suit. It was, simply, the thing to do.

Our bench became a mere meeting place before we left for the river to smoke or drink. We’d sit in circles, passing whatever was on hand around, sharing our new philosophies on life and laughing about what didn’t make sense and kissing each other. It didn’t feel wrong, or dangerous. It felt like the lives we imagined our parents living in the sixties. We had exchanged our T-shirts emblazoned with logos for secondhand full-length skirts, our exorbitant makeup and hair gel for chapped lips and halfhearted dreads. We wrote poetry together and made art. We wove needles dipped in ink in and out of our skin. (The moon-shaped scar on my foot still sometimes appears, in the right light.)

Our love of nature from our childhoods reawakened, and we lived to explore. One day we emerged from the woods behind our friend’s house that we thought we knew so well to discover a huge open field. On the opposite side was a line of trees through which we could see the river. “It looks like Africa,” one of us said, and thus it was named. It became a place where, as soon as we stepped into it, all normal rules and morals disappeared. We became bolder versions of ourselves. We went there to take too much. We’d collapse, the long blades of grass tickling our noses, and look up into the sky. On one particularly peaceful day, I looked around me and felt overwhelmed by everything Africa had come to symbolize, beauty and freedom and youth, and I stood up and I ran. And everyone wordlessly got up and followed after me, yelling for no reason, running until we reached the trees on the other side.

By the end of that summer, the whole town seemed to be in an upheaval. Our townies started slowly disappearing. Rumors abounded of arrests and organ failures; brains and livers finally snapping. New, suspicious figures came to take their place. They carried knives in their belt loops that they sometimes, “playfully,” held to our throats. They got people hooked on cocaine and heroin. Some of us started experimenting further, but many of us, like myself, stuck with what we knew. But, even when we would smoke through them, we had to pay for it – a concept that, in almost a year since we had started, had been unheard of. What used to be a communal gathering became all business, rushed and dark and dirty. While that didn’t stop me from returning to it, I tried to distance myself as much as I could from the Townie culture.

Instead I tried to spend my days in town the way I used to spend them back in middle school. I sat reading in Arielle’s, the independent bookstore, trying on clothes in Reanna’s Closet, the vintage shop, or picking out art supplies at Manny’s. I sat in the ratty armchairs of the organic coffee shop and listened to college students play the guitar. I would still walk the trail alongside the river and lie in Africa, but with a different purpose, just to relax and appreciate the beauty that New Paltz still had left. I only had two more years left in New Paltz, and this was exactly how I wanted to spend them.



It started with the wooden bench. We heard word it was being replaced with a stone bench in memoriam of the founder of Manny’s. On the day of demolition, we managed to get there just in time to salvage the plank we had scrawled our names on in Sharpie, claiming it as our own. The next day we sat on the new bench and it was hard and cold; it felt like we were sitting on a gravestone.

Then, it was Reanna’s. The owner had warned us it was closing by the end of the year because she was relocating to Florida. Despite our begging for her to reconsider, and our presentation of a handwritten contract drawn up at Jack’s that would sign the store over to a group of fifteen year-olds, Reanna’s windows were shuttered that Fall.

But what really broke New Paltz’s collective heart was when Arielle’s announced its closing. Half of the town’s population had grown up within those walls, moving from the picture book corner to the Young Adult shelves to the magazine racks and finally to the sprawling fiction section. It was a bold move to return from the malls of the neighboring city carrying a Barnes and Noble bag. But Arielle’s couldn’t fight the giants anymore and, after thirty years of business, it quietly disappeared.

During this time, New Paltz experienced a surge of immigration. New York City families that had just caught on to the Green Movement moved up in hoards, drawn to the charm that was slowly fading. They stopped us on the street and asked us where the mountains were and we’d jab our thumbs toward the lurking blue mounds of earth that were visible from virtually anywhere in the town. They’d squeal about how “cute” everything was and snap our pictures without asking. Huge Hummers and Range Rovers drove next to orange VW buses running on vegetable oil.

With them came the McMansions, which hungrily gobbled up the depleted farmlands and open fields. They shoved twenty of them at the top of my road, which used to house apple trees and rotating crops. Their construction made me actually miss the smell of rotting cabbage. It was when a developer started scoping out Africa that people started fighting back. The field belonged to a small organic farm and the threat caught the attention of the Nature Conservancy. Over the next few months we worked with them on fundraising and organizing a benefit concert where Pete Seger led us all in an emotional round of “This Land Is Your Land.” The effort ended up saving the open space but the farmer felt it was necessary to prove the land’s worth and actually started growing things again. When we went to celebrate the returning warm weather in Africa we discovered it was now a wheat field and our refuge was gone.

For the last two years we spent in New Paltz, our attitudes changed. We called it “growing up.” Our days spent in town were reduced to only going out to lunch or getting coffee. We went indoors. We stopped caring about much besides getting into college and getting out of New Paltz. It wasn’t a place we wanted to be anymore. It was different. It was boring.

When I find myself longing for my hometown, it’s the lure of driving up to those mountains and gazing down on the town below me. It’s really the only honest view of New Paltz anymore. I can still see some of its old ways peeking through, but mostly it is a series of rooftops and shrinking squares of farmland; a landscape that’ll no one will ever quite experience the same way as we did.

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Welcome To Rosie's

This semester, I had an internship with the arts program at Rosie's Place, a woman's shelter in Boston. Before I got to know the place and the people in it, I had a common perspective of the homeless, one of fear and ignorance. But Rosie's Place is a special, wonderful community, that completely broke down all barriers I had built up. The following is a feature article about why Rosie's Place is such an important part of our community. Written April 2009.

Welcome To Rosie's

Before I walked into Rosie’s Place, a woman’s shelter in Boston, I had an absolutely dreary idea of what homeless shelters are like. I imagined dank, grey cement halls, rows of cots, slop vaguely resembling food being doled out of vats onto the plates of a line of sad people. It didn’t matter that I came to Rosie’s Place to be a part of their arts program, which I knew gave daily workshops for every kind of craft you can imagine, I still didn’t envision any sort of life to be happening within their walls. I was nervous to come face-to-face with a population that, unfortunately, I had been raised to fear and ignore.

But as soon as I stepped through the door, my anxiety lifted. The lobby was bustling with women catching up with their friends and making appointments at the front desk for advocacy programs and field trips. The room was light and the walls were painted a cheery yellow, not an institutional white. I could see the expansive dining hall on the far side of the building, where the guests were served restaurant style at their tables. The smell of lunch cooking filled the building and it actually smelled – wouldn’t you know it? – appetizing.

Upstairs, a team of employees work one-on-one with Rosie’s Place guests to help find them housing, jobs, psychological services and an education. Two floors up is the small, but homey, residence, which provides temporary housing for sixteen women. But, I quickly realize, just because only sixteen people stay overnight here, most of these women consider Rosie’s Place their home. It’s not an institution, it’s a community, one that has been going strong now since 1974.

The founder of Rosie’s Place, Kip Tiernan, arrived in Boston in her early twenties, seeking independence from her grandmother who raised her after Tiernan lost both her parents at age eleven. She quickly became the center of the fight for economic and social justice, drawing on her roots in the Christian left movement. She lobbied and protested for affordable housing, health care, education and civil rights for all, rallying around the philosophy that the world can be changed if only everyone cared enough.

As she pursued a career in advertising, she continued to fight for the cause through advocacy and writing, publishing articles in the Globe, Phoenix and Boston After Dark. In 1967, she was asked to organize a press conference for the St.Philip’s House, and soon joined the team ministry. Her work required her to witness, first-hand, housing projects, mental institutions, jails and hospitals where she was deeply affected by the lack of government effort to address those in need. She was particularly struck by the amount of women who attempted to pass themselves off as men to get into men-only shelters, since at the time there wasn’t any place for homeless women. Feeling that the dependence on government aid and regulations was at the root of the problem, Tiernan organized a grassroots campaign to lend a helping hand to Boston’s homeless women.

On Easter Sunday 1974, Tiernan and four volunteers founded Rosie’s Place in the abandoned Rozen’s Supermarket on Columbus Avenue (which she leased for $1 a year) with a meager $250 donated from friends. She wanted to provide a warm and safe place for women to rest, drink some hot coffee and socialize. It was the first of its kind in the country. “Rosie’s Place” was thought to be a comforting name because it sounded like it could be a women’s coffee shop or a friend’s house. Volunteers distributed pink slips that read “if you need a meal, come here and we’ll help you” on the streets. Although there were more volunteers than guests present on opening day, word of mouth spread quickly and the numbers continued to grow.

In 1977, Rosie’s bought its first building, which housed nine women and served as a meeting place for meals. Yet Tiernan’s vision was quickly growing beyond the small walls of the five-story row house. Plans began to develop to relocate to the location of the St. Philip’s church, where Tiernan had originally volunteered. The new building was dedicated in 1986 and the first building was turned into a lodging house for thirteen women.

In the early nineties, Rosie’s started offering adult education classes, legal services and counseling. For the first time, Rosie’s was able to hire its volunteers. Tiernan has never been one of these paid employees. Relationships began to be formed with local organizations to bring help onsite. In 1996, the food pantry was established as well as the Women’s Craft Cooperative. In 1997, a Guest Advisory Panel was formed where guests were encouraged to give input about the wants and needs of the community. This remarkable step truly emphasized Rosie’s mission to reinstate dignity and self-respect in the women it served. Tiernan had never wanted her shelter to feel like an institution and now it was more like a club or organization.

By this time, volunteer numbers had reached the thousands. A movement for expansion began in 1998 and the building was renovated with a donated $3.2 million, reopening in 2000. The dining room now could seat 150 and more services were added like the clothing room, new showers and laundry facilities, an expanded food pantry and a space for Childworks, an afterschool program for the guests’ children. More education classes were offered and an art studio was created in the basement to extend the arts initiative. Rosie’s had officially grown from providing temporary relief from hunger to permanent relief from the strains of homelessness through advocacy, education and housing.

When a visitor realizes that the guests at Rosie’s Place represent only a miniscule percentage of Boston’s homelessness, the effect is more than humbling. The Annual City of Boston Homeless Census conducted in December 2008 showed that there is a total of 6,901 homeless people in the city and the numbers are only expected to get worse. Already the shelters are filled to capacity, forcing the government, which is legally obligated to provide housing for those in need, to put people up in motels. An article in the Boston Globe in October 2008 reported that 574 families were being housed in motels across the city, which was up from 467 families reported only a month prior. This is causing immense strain on the $87 million budget for emergency assistance for the homeless because while a night at a government-assisted shelter costs the city $89, a night at a motel costs an average of $99. At the time of the article there were 19,666 people on the Boston Housing Authority’s waitlist, which provides affordable housing through rental assistance programs.

But why is it necessary to have a women-only shelter? Women are the most at risk when homeless. Usually they also have children to provide for and therefore need more money to relieve them of homelessness. They also are more vulnerable to attacks on the streets. Many women become homeless because they’re running away from abusive relationships and have nowhere to turn to. Often, when women enter a mixed-sex shelter, they are exploited both financially and sexually by authority figures and other guests alike.

Rosie’s is a safe-haven. All it takes to become a part of the community is to identify yourself as a woman (transgender and gender-neutral guests, who run the risk of being assaulted in men’s shelters, are welcome) and to ring the doorbell. If any guests become abusive towards other women, volunteers or employees, they are banned from Rosie’s. What emerges is a tight-knit community. Lifelong friendships are created as the women meet new people, share their stories and help each other through their difficult times. The dining room and sitting areas aren’t far off from high-school as gossip spreads, information is traded, jokes are told and highly fueled debates rage on about anything from politics to style choices. Even though the majority of these women will leave after dinner is served and Rosie’s closes, many are quick to call this place home.

Just like the gathering Kip Tiernan originally imagined it to be, Rosie’s has developed a cast of regular characters. It doesn’t take me long to start knowing the regulars in the art studio personally, and that’s not uncommon for Rosie’s long-term volunteers. Guests and employees alike know each other’s stories and if someone doesn’t show up for a while, people start asking questions. The homeless woman on the street becomes humanized, a step most people wish to never see. By getting to know these women on a personal level, the stereotype of “the homeless woman” shatters. There is no better place to see this effect than in the art studio.

Down in the basement where the art studio is located, the stress of appointments with the advocates and life in a shelter is left upstairs. The only reminder of the business being conducted there is the constant ringing of the doorbell above, making it feel far more like an arts club in a private home than that of a shelter. Three worktables are shaped in a U in the middle of the room and boxes upon boxes of supplies line the walls, as well as a small library of art books and displays of finished works. It is arguably the most beloved aspect of Rosie’s. As I bring up the stack of freshly copied workshop calendars, I am swarmed by a group of women clamoring to get their copy first and begin planning out their month, discussing which classes look most interesting. Classes are held twice a day Monday through Thursday on knitting, jewelry-making, creative writing and everything in between. Alev Danis, the always chipper Arts Director, putters around the studio prepping for the next workshop.

“Having an arts program like this allows us to work with the woman as a whole. They’re not just this two-dimensional object. You can give them something to eat and a place to stay, and that’s wonderful, but giving them opportunities like these nourishes them completely,” Danis says of the arts initiative. It was because of her that the Woman’s Craft Cooperative was formed, since she thought that efforts to create employable skills in the women would be much more effective if applied to something they would enjoy, like crafting. After a four-year hiatus, Danis returned to Rosie’s Place as the director of the new arts initiative in 2006 and has been on ever since.

“Having the chance to create something gives the women an incredible amount of pride. They like the process of making something, of having that instant satisfaction. They can look at what they’ve made and say ‘that is mine.’ It really boosts their self-esteem.” The women who participate in the workshops come from all different backgrounds when it comes to the arts. Some have left behind a love of the arts because they no longer have the resources to create, such as Lisa*, who discusses her dreams of writing a children’s book about homelessness while she finally gets the chance to put her ideas to paper in a creative writing workshop. She’s a constant face in the art studio, and is considered quite the rock star by the other guests as she experiments with techniques and materials. During a self-portrait class, a few gather behind her to watch her work. “Isn’t it finished?” One woman asks, gazing at the layered collage of tissue paper and oil pastel. “When it starts breathing, then it’ll be finished,” Lisa says.

For many others, these classes are the first time they’re given an opportunity to be creative. They arrive in the studio, apprehensive about their abilities, but at the end of the session, when they have a finished work of art in their hands, their confidence soars. In the same self-portrait workshop, Deborah* came in warning me that she wasn’t going to be any good but she wanted to try it anyway. When she discovers that portraiture is more about expression than realism, she lets loose and is immersed in her project for the next two hours. By the end, she is asking me where she can get art supplies of her own.

The most popular workshops are ones where the women can embellish: jewelry-making, decorating ordinary objects, creating accessories. If there’s one thing all the women can agree on, it is a love of glitter. Any time the glitter glue is brought out is a time to celebrate. At a field trip to see Faith Ringgold’s story quilts, the guests zoned in on the one work of art in the accompanying quilt exhibit that involved glitter. “You know,” Martha* observes, “I was liking everything else alright but in the back of my head I was always thinking ‘man, these could use some glitter,’ and then I saw this one. Now that’s more like it!”

While the conversation sometimes veers into serious discussions about their lives outside of Rosie’s Place, the art studio is usually a place where the women can relax and socialize. Classic R&B is a favored choice of music to listen to and occasionally there is a break to sing and dance along to The Temptations and Michael Jackson. When Danis strolls around the room to see how everyone’s work is coming along the guests, who are always excited to see her, gently tease her about her British accent. Mostly, the conversations turns to dreams of what will happen next, where they’ll be going from here, because down here, they’re easy to imagine.

The arts program further emphasizes Rosie’s mission of unconditional love by working hard to offer workshops, field trips and performances representing all different cultures. Tie-ins to African-American and Hispanic heritages cater to the diverse population of Rosie’s guests. Guests learn about all different styles of art, from contemporary artist, Shepard Fairey, to the Renaissance to Frieda Kahlo. Danis hopes the varied calendar opens the minds of the women to different cultures and different ideas of what art is. They can point to similarities between an exhibit celebrating one culture to another and break down the barriers of seeing others as so completely different.

Danis attempts to balance doing art through the workshops and this seeing of art by organizing field trips. She estimates that about half of the women who join her on the trips have never been in a public art space before coming to Rosie’s. Joining them on a field trip is a refreshing experience, uninhibited from the usual snobbery of normal museum-goers. The women bring a fresh perspective on things, often asking the most intriguing questions and making unexpected connections. While most art audiences approach it with some level of jadedness, these women appreciate every piece. The two hour block of time allocated for trips is often barely enough. On one trip to the Museum of Fine Arts to see a photography exhibit, Maria* asked if she could stay behind at the museum when the group was set to leave at 11:30. After Danis was assured that Maria had her Charlie Card to get home safely, we left. The next day, Danis asked her how the rest of her stay was. She replied that she didn’t leave until closing time at 5:30.

When the trips and workshops return to Rosie’s at the end of the day it is just in time for dinner. Crowds of women are spilling out from the small sitting room into the lobby, milling about and perusing the crowded bulletin board announcing workshops and events. Many have spent their whole day there, meeting with advocates, socializing with friends, doing their laundry, picking out groceries. They will enjoy their meal and return to where they’re staying. Today they have gained essential goods, an education and advice, but most importantly they gained respect and dignity. And from there, anything is possible.

*names have been changed to protect the privacy of the guests
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Quick Notes

I have a few ideas for a collection of nonfiction essays.

The first is to explore the concept of family, particularly when you're left to sort of create one on your own. Up until recently, I really only considered my family to be my dad. My mom and stepmom's families faded out of my life shortly after their deaths and I wasn't really in touch with my dad's family until I moved to Boston where they all live. This lack of family is something that I used to resent very much and have always been searching for ways to fill that void. Yet, at the same time, this has led to creating extremely strong bonds with the family I do have, and with those I consider part of my surrogate family. The essays would talk about this sort of quest, as well as examine and broaden the definition of what family really is.

The other is to play around with the idea of Country Mouse, City Mouse. My childhood in my small town in upstate New York is something I hold dear to me, and I believe growing up where I did shaped me very much. Yet, I've always felt an attachment to New York City, since I grew up so close to it. There was this distinct moment I had in senior year of high school where I realized that I needed to be in a city, and it marked this turning point in my life. I ended up going to school in Boston, will be living in New York this summer and plan on moving there after graduation. Besides simply story-telling, I'd hope to explore the connection between childhood and the countryside versus maturity and the city.

I have a few pieces already that would work for each of these. I thought it would be a good idea to give myself some kind of direction in my writing, and when I looked at what I've written lately these two themes naturally stood out to me.

In other news, I'll be posting some new things up shortly. I have a handful that are all in the works, and once I feel they've been sufficiently revised enough, I'll put them up. Read more!

Excerpts

Last year I attempted to write a novel. I only had a vague idea of the plot so I tried to just let it take me where it wanted to on its own. Halfway though the part of the story I actually had a plan for, I realized that I hated most of the plot and quit. I still really like the characters, though, so I'm including a few excerpts here. Written July-October 2008.



One
I was born on the road with my father. Not born, exactly, as in the moment when I was brought to life, but born as in the moment when I was suddenly aware of it. It was like waking up, opening my eyes and adjusting to the light and through that blur I see my dad reaching into the inner pocket of his overcoat and pulling out a silver flask. All of the moments before this one are static, with spastic bits of memory bursting through, flashes of color and smells and voices. At this moment I look down at my hands, it is the only thing I can think of to do.

My father tips the flask over the mug of coffee before him and a brown liquid flows out, its stench makes my nostrils curl. I swirl my chocolate milk around in my glass hoping he doesn't try to put any of it in my drink. The milk, of course, sloshes over the edge a bit and splatters onto the paper place mat in front of me, making the ink of the photo of their hamburger special run. A woman enters my peripheral vision and I assume it is my mother until I look up and see the shiny gold name tag pinned to her white apron. I remember now that my mother is gone.

"Here's your nice healthy breakfast!" The waitress announces as she sets my sundae down in front of me. She is giving me a megawatt smile but her eyes are sad. I wonder if she's looking for something too, like my dad says we are, and can't find it no matter how many 24 hour diners she stops in. And then I think maybe those eyes are an attack. She is looking at my father with his smelly liquid and at me with my ice cream breakfast and is thinking what an odd pair of people. I know it, my dad knows it, I don't need her eyes telling me twice. I decide not to speak to her and reach into my daisy bag and pull out the weathered country map my dad bought for me at the beginning. "Help me find where we are Daddy."

He leans over from his paper, squinting down at the map. "We're right around here, Chloe," he says, pressing his dirty forefinger down into New York. It makes a little crease right where I should draw my circle. I have decided to mark our journey by the diners we stop at for breakfast each morning. I am too afraid that if I were to choose to mark it by where we spend the night I would get too sleepy and forget to mark it down. My eyes trace the path of carefully drawn circles with a sense of satisfaction, of getting somewhere, even though I'm still unsure of where we're going.

As the ice cream of my first bite melts on my tongue I look down at my lap. I'm kicking my feet and I feel guilty because my shoes are pink and all that movement just brings more attention to them. My dad does not want me to be one of those girly girls with pink shoes. In fact I think he'd much rather me be a boy, but I just can't help but want pink shoes sometimes and since I've been good my dad bought them for me. He tries to act like I am a boy. He always wants me to go out and play in the dirt and throw a ball with him and sometimes he touches me a bit too hard. He likes to tell me things that boys want to hear but I just find gross. He tells me about this bug called the tarantula wasp who paralyzes tarantulas and lays its eggs in them. Then when the eggs hatch they eat the tarantula alive and that's their first meal that keeps them healthy. Sometimes, I feel like a tarantula.

My dad hears the scraping of my spoon against the bottom of the bowl and looks at me again. "You ready to go, Sport?" I nod licking the last bit of chocolate sauce off the spoon. I like the way the metal makes things taste. He whistles at our waitress and she comes over in her squeaky shoes, rips our check out of her pad and sets in on our table. "Y'all have a nice day," she says and I don't like it because she's saying it in a way like she thinks we won't but I know better. My dad drains the last of his coffee, tilting his head way back. I can see the lump in his throat bob up and down as he swallows and I wonder what it must feel like to have something caught in your throat all the time. I slide off my chair, gather my bag and push my bowl over so the melted ice cream spills out onto the table. I don't want to make the waitress's job easy and my dad doesn't mind because he knows it's right.

Even though we tried to park in the shade the sun has moved a little and when we climb into our truck everything is too hot to touch. I pull my stuffed bunny out from her hiding place where it must be even hotter and I feel bad but I couldn't risk her getting stolen. I hug her, looking for forgiveness, and she flops in my arms. My dad is struggling with the map and muttering things under his breath and I'm silently asking him to turn the car on so the fan will start blowing. He groans, "forget it, just forget it," and, after failing to fold the map correctly, crumples it up and throws it in the back. I know he'll regret this later and it will make him even more angry. I'm glad he doesn't touch my map, seeing the way he handles his. He starts the truck and it shakes a little before easing into a working tremble. I like the way the truck bounces a bit like that, how when it moves it creaks a little and you can really hear all the parts working. It makes me feel like I'm in the old days, like a real adventure. I picture those people from black and white photographs, dressed up in their fanciest clothes out for a ride in their cars and posing for the camera.

We pull out of the diner's parking lot and back onto the highway. Well, at least it's called a highway but it doesn't look like much of one to me. It's nothing at all like those ones they show from the helicopters on the news, rows and rows of cars packed together at a standstill honking and screaming as they try to make their way to work. It only has two lanes and it twists and turns through the hills and valleys like a snake. My dad pushes his favorite tape into the player. He's listened to it so much that the words on the label have faded where his thumb goes to hold it. The sound from the speakers is crackly but I think my dad likes it this way. He keeps time with his fingers on the steering wheel and sings along as I watch the world roll past my window.

In a little while we pull over at a gas station to fill up and so that my dad can use the pay phone. These stops always start with him complaining about how few pay phones there are nowadays and end with him slamming the phone down, making it jump back out of its cradle. He'll storm back to the car and we'll sit in silence for a bit while he strokes the stubble along his chin and thinks about what to do next. It always ends up being just to keep driving on. I always ask him who he's been on the phone with but he'll wave away the question like it's a fly buzzing in his face. I want to say it's a man because of how he talks while he's on the phone but, I hate to say it, he'll talk like that to anyone, man, woman or child. At these stops my dad always buys me a candy bar at the little convenience store where he goes to pay for the gas, even though it's usually pretty soon after my ice cream breakfasts. I keep these tucked next to me, fingering the plastic wrapper for comfort now and again.



Two
My dad rolled on until he sees an old mailbox painted in pinks and blues, the paint chipping off like a sunset. It seems that the number used to read 172 but the black lettering is so scratched off it's hard to tell exactly. I can imagine the owner trying to give directions in desperation to someone who lost their way, finally giving up on relying on the number alone and saying "oh, just look for the brightly painted mailbox." My dad makes some remark about it under his breath. I hate when he does this, hides what he's saying from me, it makes me all the more curious to what he could be saying that I shouldn't hear.

He turns into the driveway and begins the descent into the woods, the gravel creaking and groaning under the weight of the truck. Slowly the house comes into view. It reminds me of the pictures in my mother's real estate classifieds whose captions read "rustic charm." I had never quite understood what that meant until just now. It was made of wood that looked soggy and had a bright yellow door that looked like it was painted the same time as the mailbox. The front porch seemed to sag under the weight of the furniture on it that I had always thought of as strictly indoor furniture like armchairs and sofas, and it had a lot of those wind-chimes like the ones at the store. There were a lot of gardens, both flower and vegetable, that were set up in little plots around the yard. The property was surrounded by great thick trees casting everything in shadow. From one of their branches hung an old-timey wooden swing and I got my hopes up for a cousin to play with. There was also this strange structure that looked to me as if someone had piled their junk into a corner but there was something about it that looked a bit too purposeful and I wondered if it was supposed to be art.

I caught some movement in one of the windows and in a few seconds a man stepped out of the doorway. My dad said "speak of the Devil," even though neither of us had been talking. He was a skinny older man with bits of gray spotting his hair and squinting eyes behind oversized glasses. He wore a light purple tank top with a peace sign tie dyed onto it and cut-off shorts cut off very short, the frayed edges grazing mid-thigh. He was very tan and his skin looked a bit leathery, like he had spent his whole life out in the sun. his reaction to our arrival was hard to read. Eventually he raised his hand in a half-hearted wave as we came to a stop.

All three of us hesitated for a moment. Then my dad cleared his throat and pulled himself out of the car, walking with determination towards who I had by now assumed was my Uncle Jack. Looking at the two of them standing before one another it was very difficult to believe they were related at all, let alone brothers. My dad thrust his hand forward which my uncle took tentatively in a shake and said,
"hello, David."

"Please, Jack, call me Dave."

"Don't you think at this point in your life you should be a David?"

"Don't you think at this point in the millennium you should no longer be wearing tie-dye?"

The two stared at each other then released their grip. "Jack, I'd like you to meet my daughter, Chloe." My dad gestured down to his side but when he saw I wasn't standing there he whipped back towards the car and gave me a bewildered look. "Well come on, Chloe, get out of the car!" I noticed he wasn't calling me Sport of Kiddo or any other of the boy names he used.

I climbed out of the truck and shuffled toward them kicking pebbles into my shoes. "Chloe, this is your Uncle Jack. Technically you've met before but you was just a baby." Uncle Jack bent over a little to reach his hand toward mine. When he saw I certainly wouldn't be taking it he straightened up again and put his hands on his hips. "Well, well, Chloe, aren't you a lovely young lady?"
I don't know why I didn't want to talk to him. He scared me, a little. I didn't like that there was this full grown very real person in front of me who was supposed to be a part of my life, who had been existing all along, yet I didn't know the first thing about him. I couldn't help but feel like my dad was putting me on, like I was being led into a trap.
"Well, you both must be famished from your trip, why don't we go inside and have something to eat, hmm?" Uncle Jack motioned for us to follow him. I grabbed onto my dad's shirt, trying to warn him, but the cloth slipped from my fingers as he walked forward and I could do nothing but follow.

Three
After our pancakes my dad and I went back out to the truck to bring our things into the house. Uncle Jack showed me the room I would be staying in. It was the only room upstairs, which was really just a loft like in a treehouse, besides the sitting area which was open and could be seen from downstairs. The ceiling was slanted and was bare wood and I liked that. It felt like a grown up version of a fort made of a sheet draped over chairs in the living room. I remembered my uncle's comment about fort-making earlier and liked to think he bought the house for that very reason. I let my suitcase sit leaning against the dresser for now and brought my daisy bag back downstairs with me to go look around outside.

The backyard had some of the lushest grass I've ever felt between my toes. Plopped down right in the center of it was this giant stone bird bath that had a collection of songbirds gathered around it. Behind it were the woods, stretching out for what seemed like forever. I sat myself down in that grass and really looked hard into it. I saw two Daddy-Long-Legs crawling around on either side of me. I haven't been afraid of them ever since my dad told me they couldn't ever possibly hurt me. I'm not even afraid when they crawl onto me, like other bugs. I don't know why, I'm just not. I wondered if they were even aware of each other, these two spiders. What was only a foot or so of earth for me was an entire world to them of tangled green. It was like an entire state. And these two spiders were meant to be with each other and they're searching for each other and think that the other will never be found. Yet they're right there, so near.

I picked one of them up by the leg, its other legs wildly grasping at the air. It was such a simple little creature. Really it was only a little circle and a couple of lines, like a doodle, like something even I could create. Pressing my lips together I opened my daisy bag and went to drop him inside it when I heard a sharp intake of air behind me. "Chloe! What are you doing holding that bug? Don't you know not to touch those? They're dirty!" I twisted around to see Uncle Jack looking down at me with his hands on his hips. I pretended to just let the spider go, knowing full well it would drop into my bag and hoping Uncle Jack wouldn't see. He had changed from earlier and was looking a lot more dressed-up. "My friend is going to be here soon, the one I want to introduce you to? I was hoping you would come inside and change out of your traveling clothes." I wanted to tell him I didn't have different sets of clothing, traveling and standing still, but instead I got up quietly and followed him back into the house.

I climbed the stairs up to my room, liking the sound of my feet hitting them. I was excited to let my new spider go into my room. I had a little box I kept my crayons in and was going to just dump those out somewhere and let it be his home. I threw the bag onto the bed and dug into my suitcase for the box. When it was found I carelessly held it upside down so that the crayons fell onto the floor and put it next to my bag. I hopped onto the bed and opened the bag with fervor, peering down inside it to find my new pet. I had expected to see him crawling around right near the top but he wasn't there. With mounting anxiousness I threw the notebooks and books and things out of the bag and looked harder. And there he was, crushed into the bottom corner of my bag, still looking like a doodle just a little bit messier. With a sad sigh I replaced the items of the bag and went over to my suitcase to change.

I assumed Uncle Jack was hoping I would look a little cleaner, so I reached into the bottom to find the one dress that was brought with me. My mom had gotten it for me for my last birthday so it was my special dress and I wasn't allowed to play in it. But I figured this was the kind of occasion that called for a special dress so I carefully put it on and smoothed out the wrinkles as best I could in the mirror. Suddenly I had the urge to make myself look as pretty as can be. I brushed my hair out as much as it could go and very delicately placed my favorite butterfly hair clip in the best viewing spot on my head. I looked at my reflection for a long time. My dad, I don't think, will be happy to see me like this but something tells me that I would be doing my uncle proud.


Four
The next morning I woke up and my stomach hurt because, despite what Uncle Jack had teased me about, we didn't end up eating until real late. Still in my pajamas I slipped out the back door, daisy bag in tow, to go exploring in the woods. They didn't seem so scary anymore, instead they were inviting. I had stuffed the bedsheets into my bag hoping to find a good spot to construct a fort where no one would be able to find me. I tried to imagine my dad and Uncle Jack playing in these woods when they were little, back when they were brothers and being brothers meant something. Before Uncle Jack did whatever terrible thing he did to drive my dad away, twice. And now he was leaving me here alone with him and who knows what he would do to me.

The woods smelled damp and this made me sleepy. All of the birds that were singing to me seemed so far up in the trees that I felt smaller than usual. But I wasn't scared, no I was not. I had visions of never being able to find my way back to Uncle Jack's house, forced to live out here in my little fort made of sheets, picking berries for food. I would learn to steal things, wander until I found a house and take what I please. Soon my fort would be overflowing with my stolen treasures and I would become the feared bandit of the woods. People would rally up to attempt to capture me but I would always trick them and escape. People would want me.

My foot sank into the mud I had not seen coming that bordered a dirty stream trickling with great effort against the boulder plopped arbitrarily in the middle of it. One side of the rock was covered in slick green moss dotted with bird droppings. The light filtered through the leaves and made the water sparkle like a river of crystals. This was where my journey would end. I pulled my foot out of the mud with a satisfying sucking noise and tromped through the stream over to the boulder. I spread my fingers wide and pressed them into the sponge of moss, moisture seeping out and dripping down the back of my hand. It left a trail of brown on my skin. I moved around to the other side of the boulder and saw that it was slightly at an incline, the surface dry and untainted.

Fighting against the slick of mud now covering my pink shoes I scrambled up the face of the rock and sat myself at the top. The view disappointed me. I thought things would look so different from up here but only the pebbles in the riverbed looked smaller. The trees still towered over me, the birds still flew higher. I pulled the sheet out from my bag, let it unfold in my hands. With a shake of my wrists it unfurled before me, fluttering down through the air. I swung my arms back so that the sheet gently came to rest all around me. My eyelashes blinked against the scratchy fabric as I tried to see through it into the woods. Nothing. Finally, I was safe.



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