I Had to Write About Race, Eventually

When I started my blog, I began the "About" section (which appears at the top of the column along the right side of most, if not all sites hosted by Blogger) with the phrase "Musings of a multiracial Manhattanite..."

This implied that I had the intention of commenting on things from the perspective of, of, how would you say? A "person of color"? Well, a black latina, actually. But that's where it gets kind of complicated. So I haven't paid much attention thus far to what must have been my original intention when I wrote that early this year. But now is as good a time as any.

I was born and raised in middle class suburbia, and my skin is like my mom's: very, very light. Rosy, even. My hair, on the other hand, is a nappy, tightly curled, wild mass, like my dad's. My mother is Puerto Rican -- born in San Juan, moved to Spanish Harlem when she was ten, and, when she became old enough to take responsibility for her mother and siblings, proceeded to move them all to a 3-bedroom apartment in the South Bronx (where abuela, and, on and off, some of my titis, still live, near the Morrison-Soundview Ave stop on the 6). At 19 she met my dad, and they eventually moved to a very quiet, very white town in central New Jersey, where I grew up, and where my mom still lives.

My dad was a software engineer for RCA. He grew up in Queens, the son of a tailor from Curacao and his Jamaican wife, who died before I was born. His hair, like his dad's, was cottony and Brillo-like, but he kept it very short (note of warning: black people are obsessed with hair issues, and I will therefore ruminate about hairstyling constantly -- if you are not black, well, you just don't understand). He would slick it down with pomade after washing it, and then put on a cap he had improvised from an old pair of my mom's pantyhose. I believe that this method of using pantyhose turned into what is today called a do-rag, but I'm not sure. Whatever. To my dad, it was a way to keep his hair down and neat as it dried.

My dad's family, being of mixed Caribbean heritage, did not choose to define itself as "black", despite the fact that several of the family members were quite dark. But the Caribbean black person's experience in the United States is significantly different from the native born black person's experience in the United States. I can't really speak authoritatively on this subject, but there are several books published by well-known anthropoligists that you can read to shed light here.

My dad was in the Air Force for a few years after he graduated high school. In those times, military regiments were strictly segregated, but my dad was light-skinned enough that he made it into the white regiment. I suspect that there may have been some tension between my dad and his sister (my favorite aunt, Gloria), as she is considerably darker skinned than he, and, I am told, Jamaican mothers sometimes will favor the lighter-skinned children. This is just theory, though. One day, I'll talk to my aunt about it. I cannot talk to my dad, because he's dead. It's too bad, really, that I never had a conversation with him about this.

I didn't grow up speaking Spanish (the reasons for which will be documented in other posts about how my mom feels about being Puerto Rican), but I learned in college, as a Latin American Studies major. I also learned Portuguese. I speak both more as a result of experiences outside the classroom, though. I love Brazil, and I've tried to talk to some of my Brazilian friends about race, and they just look at me funny. Like, "You weird American. Why do you always try to complicate things this way? Have a caipirinha."

OK, well, I've already blathered on for a bit, and this post is too long. So this "race" thing will have to be a series. I'll figure out how to categorize all of my posts, so the "race" ones can be easily accessed. They'll end up being what is probably the only content worth reading on my blog, really. I mean, all of these silly posts about cavorting in San Francisco, administering wheatgrass enemas, or seeing photography exhibits? Who has the time? I must get serious.

Day 6: Coming Back to New York

No matter where I've been, for how long, for whatever reason, whenever I come back to New York, an overwhelming sense of relief washes over me.

I was in the taxi, speeding along 287 after having landed at JFK, and the skyline came into view.

I exhaled, and I literally clutched my chest. I'm so glad to be back, it hurts.

I really don't understand why I feel this way about New York (the chest-clutching gladness I feel upon returning, whether from a silly conference for a few days, or after two failed marriages and 8 lost years in Miami), because I did not grow up here. I grew up in suburban New Jersey. Yes, I am the child of two NY veterans, but they grew up in Queens and Spanish Harlem, and their lives are NOTHING like mine. When I grew up, frolicking in my back yard with my golden retriever Sunny, I thought New York was a scary, polluted place.

New York is a scary, polluted place, but I love it. Somehow. Not in a Carrie Bradshaw, running-around-in-fantastic-shoes-and-being-seen sort of way, but just in a very quiet, everything-is-available-to-me-and-I-don't-have-to-explain-myself-to-anyone sort of way.

It's an expensive lifestyle to maintain, particularly considering the fact that my office is in White Plains. I've been back, since the last time I left, for some time, but I'm getting restless again. I get restless whenever I am somewhere for more than a few years. I don't know why. I come from a family of very stable, boring people that didn't think that much about where they needed to be. At this point in my life, I should have a nice house, one or two children, and a talent for cooking for several people on a daily basis. I should be happily settled somewhere.

I don't have any of that. I just have a really nice apartment on West 57th Street, and a drawerful of takeout menus.

Lately, I've been thinking, I really need to relocate to Europe. I would like to be somewhere in Spain, or maybe Portugal, but I would consider a position in Brussels, where Starwood has a corporate office. I could probably make that happen sometime in the next year or two, if I were serious about it.

But leave New York? Again? Can I do that? I don't picture myself growing old here. But I don't know if I can feel as much at home as I do here. Well, that doesn't mean I can't live somewhere else. That just means I need to keep an apartment here, always, and come back here a lot. Many people do that, right? I just need to make some more money to manage that properly.
Oof, that means I should go to sleep, so I can wake up tomorrow and think of ways Starwood can market better, so I can get the right promotion.

But first, lemme just finish the paperbacks I bought in the airport bookstore. A really tall woman helped me pluck Augusten Burroughs' "Dry" and "Magical Thinking" off the "Biography" shelf. Having finished off "Running With Scissors" in what seemed like minutes on my way to the west coast, I was enthusiastic about consuming his other titles during my return flight. I spent the ride back from SF reading "Dry", and, I have to admit, I was disappointed to learn it was about his adventures in getting sober. Sober? I applaud him, really. It's great that he got sober. I just really wish he had written several other books before doing that. Or maybe he has, and I'm just not reading them in the proper order.

Day 5 in San Francisco: DMA06

I'm sick of being here and I just want to go home.

The W staff keep sending up amenities, and I really don't understand why. So now I have several trays of figs and dried cranberries and fancy nuts gathering dust in my room. They pair each assortment with heavy, severely over-oaked half-bottles of Murphy-Goode wine that I cannot manage to drink. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm all wined out. I just need to get back to New York, and detoxify. I need to lay off wine (California labels in particular) for a few days, and drink sparkling water instead. And maybe some cachaca and lime juice to go with that.
I miss my dance classes and my friends and the farmer's market. I hate traveling -- it's a very lonely endeavor. I just pretend to like it, because it sounds neat.

I blame my lack of enthusiasm for being in San Francisco on the DMA and my job. I should come back when I am free of obligations and not in this weird business mindset.

I hope my SFO-to-JFK flight tomorrow morning passes uneventfully. And I hope my upgrade request was granted. Maybe somebody fun will be sitting next to me. Or, at least, the airport bookstore will have a full array of Augusten Burroughs titles in paperback for me to buy and enjoy on the trip back.

Day 4 in San Francisco: DMA06

I wore an absolutely fantastic red silk Versace suit to the ECHO Awards gala, and had an absolutely awful time. I don't really know why I was hopeful that this would be an exciting, entertaining event. Well, I guess because I find Dana Carvey to be somewhat funny, and I was hoping he would serve up great comedy this evening. Plus, I looked really, really good.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that Mr. Carvey is a very talented comedian, there is not much you can do to liven up a drawn-out ceremony celebrating innovations in Direct Marketing, attended by a bunch of bleary-eyed, exhausted participants. The awards went on and on and on. Dana tried his best, and I also tried. I tried to laugh and be filled with merriment, as I poked at the unappetizing plate of salmon, steak, and, I think, potatoes, that was laid out in front me by the dismissive banquet staff. There was a bottle each of nondescript white and red wine provided to the table, which seated about 10 people. I found this to be a crime (i.e., instead of just plonking a couple of bottles down on the table, they should have been attentively topping off our glasses constantly), as my blood-alcohol ratio was reaching unacceptably low levels. Our fellow attendees at the table were from somewhere in the midwest. They were completely dreary and humorless, and had really bad haircuts. They worked in banking, or maybe retail catalog sales. I had a hard time paying attention to what little they said.

I heard this morning that some OgilvyOne spot featuring a cat, and, I think, milk, won the Diamond, the premiere award of the evening. I had to be brought up to speed, because I left the event early, thinking it much more worth my time to head over to the W bar for martinis with a couple of my colleagues before the end of the evening.

Ogilvy's triumph just reinforces my feeling that all you need to do to achieve award-winning advertising is feature clever humor, or animals. Crafting engaging humor is very tricky, so I would recommend that advertisers stick to featuring animals. Who doesn't love marketing messages that have cute puppies or kittens in them? It's a no brainer. A wiggling, enthusiastic Newfoundland can easily convince me to buy a pallet of dishwashing detergent, or jeans, or a trip to Jamaica. It amazes me that advertisers don't exploit animals more, because they are so memorable. We are wasting our time in endless conversations agonizing over marketing effectiveness. Just get some dogs.

This morning I went to breakfast with 4 suits from Merkle, a direct-marketing agency with offices in Washington DC, Atlanta, Denver, and a bunch of other places. It was a great meal, at Vitrine in the St. Regis. I ordered the Black Truffle Omelet. And, after listening carefully to their pitches and explaining in detail Starwood's needs, I realized Merkle will not be part of the RFP I will be issuing in a couple of months. They don't support foreign languages, or real-time email campaign reporting. Or, the sales rep guy assured me, they don't support them YET. Ok, well, thanks for breakfast.

If I'm too lazy to drag my butt out of the immediate area for dinner this evening, I think I shall return to Vitrine to enjoy my final meal here in San Francisco. I love the atmosphere -- very clean, very calm, very service-oriented. The St. Regis brand team in White Plains produced, during their tortured brand-development sessions last year, this completely ridiculous word to encapsulate all that is St. Regis -- "Bespoke". The reason I think it's ridiculous is not because "bespoke" doesn't accurately describe the brand essence, but because no one uses the word "bespoke", EVER. I remember the first time one of the St. Regis people told me that was their signature word. I'm like, "BESPOKE?? What the hell is that?" If no one knows what it means, why use it to identify your brand? Sheesh.

They should get a basketful of kittens. Those long-haired, white ones from the Fancy Feast commercials, and feature them on a variety of ads. They just need some very high-end-looking kittens. It's quite simple.

Day 3 in San Francisco: DMA06

I woke up at 4:15 am this morning in a panic. There was no really good reason for me to panic, but that's what happens to me when two conditions are present:

1. I feel a responsibility to accomplish some task, usually for my job; and
2. I have been consuming a significant amount of alcoholic beverages, and have therefore been frolicking instead of making any progress towards accomplishing said task.

Last night was the Harte Hanks event at Farallon. Our hosts were lovely, but I ended up trapped at a table with some of my colleagues, a woman from Columbia House (can you believe people still join that?), and four vendor reps. I ordered the steak, which was awful, and so sat there, unhappy, wishing I were somewhere else, eating something else. And then I did something incredibly rude: I excused myself to go to the bathroom, and left the restaurant without a word of explanation to anyone.

When I got back to my hotel room, I passed out, and then woke up in the aforementioned panic. I realized today was the last day the exhibition hall was open, and my mission here was to identify the proper candidates for an RFP we'll issue early next year to designate a new email services provider. The only conversation I had had thus far was with Equifax, and that was not at all enlightening.

So I frantically worked the floor today, running from vendor to vendor, grilling them on their ISP relationships and campaign reporting capabilities. But really, I would very much have preferred to spend the day in bed. I was exhausted, and not really caring much about anything any of these companies have to offer.

And gradually, during my frenzy, I realized: the vendors don't really care, either. Everyone I spoke to today was bleary eyed and ready to go home. They were all more exhausted than I was, having spent the better part of the previous 2-3 days and nights entertaining clients and prospects. Some of them looked and sounded ready to kill themselves or the next person to visit their booth. I learned that I probably should have done all of this investigation yesterday, because today, I was getting a lot of this kind of reaction:

"Why don't you just give me your business card, and our NY rep will call you. No, sorry, we don't have a demo to show you. We'll call you...later."

So I've pretty much just deferred all of my oversight and research to next week. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that. Why do today what you can put off for tomorrow, next week, or indefinitely?

My colleague Jason informed me yesterday morning that the ECHO Awards gala taking place this evening was "sold out", which I found difficult to understand. However, I stopped by the Harte Hanks booth this afternoon, and lo and behold, they had two extra tickets. So I must get dressed and go over there now. I wonder if Dana Carvey is as entertaining in person as he is on TV.

Day 2 in San Francisco: DMA06

I'm managing surprisingly well today, considering the fact that I spent yesterday (Sunday, Day 2 of my visit to San Francisco to attend the Direct Marketing Association's annual conference and exhibition) drinking for, well, pretty much 12 or 13 hours straight.

This was not my fault -- it was the marketing-industry vendors that insisted on plying me with alcoholic beverages incessantly throughout the day and night. They are to blame.

Acxiom (www.acxiom.com) started the activities off at 9am by transporting us and several of their favorite clients to Napa Valley in a gigantic, obnoxious white tour bus, where we toured Markham Vineyards (nothing like breakfasting on salmon tartare, nestled in tiny endive leaves, paired with a crisp, grassy '04 Sauvignon Blanc, to begin your day properly) and Domaine Chandon, then had a picnic lunch at some other winery whose name escapes me right now. The folks from Little Rock (location of Acxiom's illustrious headquarters) bought a case of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay at the picnic winery before boarding the bus, and proceeded to continually pour the selection for us in paper cups during the entire ride back to San Francisco. I don't really remember much about any of the wines I tasted, but the sound of twanging Southern accents still rings in my ears.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was almost 5, which left me a little bit of time to try to sleep off the winery haze, shower, get dressed, and head to the San Francisco MOMA for the next event: the Equifax (www.equifax.com) party, which included an intimate concert performance from Bruce Hornsby. Mr. Hornsby was quite entertaining, inserting clever references to Equifax services and delightful anecdotes about his credit history into an updated rendition of "The Way it Is". While he was singing, I realized that a full 20 years have passed since he released that hit record. Where has the time gone? I instantly became both depressed and anxious by these thoughts, but luckily, my account manager, Erin, was there, ready to assuage my fears about getting old with an endless supply of refreshments from the open bar. We gathered a rather rowdy table together, consisting of Erin, me, my colleague Jason, Mike (an old direct-marketing buddy from my Royal Caribbean days who now works and lives in Seattle), and Matt. Matt works for an adventure travel company located somewhere in Colorado. He looks, dresses, and acts just like the character Hyde from the sitcom "That 70's Show", and has lots of interesting stories to tell about safaris and white water rafting and whatnot.

When last call was announced at the MOMA, we decided to move our little gathering over to the bar at the W down the street. There is no better way to spend an evening than drinking with interesting, good-looking people on expense accounts. Matt was big on vodka, so I ordered a gimlet. I'm not sure how many I ended up having, but a few hours later, when, inevitably, last call was again announced, I was delighted to find out that Matt was also staying at the W. It really is such a relief to know, when you have a very limited ability to stand upright, that your hotel room is merely an elevator ride away. Our other unfortunate colleagues had to walk or hail cabs to get back to their lodgings. Matt and I cheerfully saw them off, and headed upstairs.

I woke up this morning with mercifully mild hangover symptoms, but, unfortunately, late, at 7:26am. I had slept through the Travel and Hospitality breakfast, but had enough time to shower and scurry over to the keynote session at 9. I was suffering from a bit of a headache and a severe case of impatience, and had a hell of a time running around the Moscone Convention Center, trying to locate a cup of coffee. I had to wait a full 20 minutes, lined up with similarly groggy conference attendees, desperate for their morning dose of caffeine. As I waited there with my empty, too-small paper cup, I looked around, hoping I wouldn't run into Hyde. I mean, Matt. Whatever. I was way too tired and fed up to deal with an awkward moment. I have absolutely no recollection of what occurred last night, and I really didn't want to be reminded of how fickle my memory can be. As I shuffled closer to the coffee service, I crafted the perfect response, lest he appear and start apologizing for what he may or may not have done the previous evening.

"We were both very drunk," I would say, amicably patting his shoulder. "Everyone KNOWS that being drunk is a perfectly valid excuse for virtually any behavior." And then I would grin widely. And he would chuckle, and go away.

I was able to score a cup of disgusting brown liquid without incident before heading into the main ballroom for Sir Richard Branson's keynote address.

Sir Branson is a charming, charming person. He talked about his many brilliant ideas, and how much fun he had launching his airline, after having built an entertainment empire. It was lovely. The thing that really bothered me, though, is that he had the nerve to show up in a wrinkled shirt. It was a gorgeous shirt, really. You could tell it was made of the finest material, and very expensive. But it was horribly wrinkled. If I were a bajillionaire, I would never dream of showing up for any speaking engagement in anything other than freshly-pressed apparel. So, despite the very inspiring talk he gave, I left the ballroom an hour later in disgust. The Queen knights him, and now he thinks he can do anything. Feh. I barely make six figures, I do all my own laundry, and I managed to claw through my hangover cobwebs to make it there dressed up quite fetchingly. I found his lack of attention to grooming details completely unacceptable.

After that I showed up for a previously-scheduled meeting with Erin, my Equifax contact, who had wanted me to discuss Starwood's latest marketing needs with the email-services account representative she had in tow. I strode across the exhibit hall floor and found their booth. Erin was visibly woozy. She and the scary, pinched-faced, horribly accessorized rep she had with her struggled through a tortured conversation with me about data privacy and email address acquisition, before I excused myself to get some lunch. I left the conference center and proceeded to a nearby Japanese restaurant, to nourish myself in peace. I thought about Erin and the exhibition-hall hell she must be going through. The look she had on her face was priceless, as if she would have paid me good money to shoot her point blank in the head right there, putting her out of her hangover misery. I wondered how early she had to get up this morning.

I had a great plate of sushi, and haven't mustered the will to head back to Moscone yet. It's about 4 pm right now. I guess I should go back. Tonight, Harte Hanks (www.hartehanks.com) is hosting a dinner at Farallon. I've been told I should order seafood. I have no appetite, but hope to muster one in the next couple of hours.

Day 1 in San Francisco: DMA06

I flew to San Francisco today to attend the Direct Marketing Association's annual conference event ("DMA06"). I haven't been to San Francisco for about 2 years, and back then it was for a marketing conference as well.

I suppose I should make some time to spend some personal time out here, really get to know the city. Practically every time I've been here, it's for work, and I stay in the general vicinity of Union Square. This inevitably leads to disappointment -- I have this idea in my mind that San Francisco is the one city in the United States where I could live and not yearn to return immediately to New York City (as I did when I moved to Miami in the 90's). I can name several things about Boston, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, Santa Fe, and Dallas (and even LA and Miami) that I like, but none of them seem to have enough of the total package for me to consider permanent residency there. I always felt that perhaps San Francisco has that great mix of architecture, organic development (not like the LA or Miami sprawl), cultural/economic/ethnic mix, liberal viewpoint, vibrant history, and frenzied creative activity that make a city great. But I haven't gotten the chance to experience that walking around here yet. That's probably because I've only been exploring the area within a 10-block radius of Union Square. That's like the equivalent of walking up and down 5th and Madison in midtown and trying to pass judgement on New York City. So little that's truly interesting goes on there.

So I'm staying at the W San Francisco. They just sent up a bottle of wine (Honig Sauv Blanc) and a tray of figs, dried cranberries, and assorted nuts (almonds, brazil nuts, and cashews). I don't understand why. And I'm just not in the mood to eat this, um, lovely dried-fruit-and-nut-assortment. They oughta send nachos or something.

Anyway, the conference begins Monday, but I flew in today because one of my vendors is hosting a sojourn to Napa Valley tomorrow, and then another is hosting what looks to be a fun event at the MOMA here in the evening.

I'm hoping to get some good blog fodder out of this, as I haven't managed to write a single thing worth publishing to this blog (I won't even mention where the bar is here, but it's definitely not set high) in many weeks. Well, if this doesn't inspire me to write stuff and make fun of myself and those around me, I'm sure the elections next month will.