If you're cool, wear a sweater

Cocaine Chic.

It's what I branded the cool kids to see if it would stick. 

To say someone is cocaine chic doesn't necessarily mean that person actually does drugs, although it may hint at some hedonistic proclivities. Rather, it refers to a certain aesthetic you would recognize instantly. And I call it an aesthetic because it is--literally--an artistic movement. 

Cocaine chic is about looking affluent, but totally disheveled. Effortless, but frantic. Eager to demonstrate how few f*cks are given. And of course, desperate to distinguish themselves, to find something "unique" to make part of their brand.

Very Unique.

I was at Matoska Trading Post sniffing loose-leaf and sweet grass when the person I was there with came to show me a buffalo horn he was considering getting as a gift for his friend. I noted that it would be a "very unique" gift. A moment of silence passed, then he began to speak. 
"Unique is an absolute," I interjected. "I know." 
While it's true that something can't be "very" unique, I still like to use the qualified version ironically. It's like a private, pretentious little joke with myself. 

In the quest to find something "very unique," it seems that the cool kids have collapsed into the same cultural chimera: think Winona Ryder 90's-era nihilist grunge, the slow-burning early-2010's hipster thing that refuses to quit, and a bit of Holly Golightly-esque materialism and crippling neurosis. 

At least, as far as I can get a reading on them. I've always been somewhere between nonthreatening and anonymous, someone whose presence is tolerated but not sought after, which you would think would make me a great student of coolness. However, cool kids always seem to keep you at an arm's length. In the few instances I have been on rides with a cool kid, I've felt vaguely like a Sal Paradise who has just gotten in the car with a Dean Moriarty. They might be a lunatic, dead inside, or a magnificent, colorful hero. And those things certainly aren't mutually exclusive. 


On Fleek.

In 2010, during one of the first conversations I ever had with Mike, I had cupcake frosting smeared on the front of my dress and tied my sweater around my waist, backwards like an apron, to cover it. I was not cool. I had a Taylor Swift poster in my dorm room and wore American Eagle camis. I listened to Paul Simon and the Twilight soundtracks. 

Mike was cool. He wore $50 t-shirts, desert boots, and rings. He listened to DJ remixes of other DJ remixes of obscure electronic indie songs. He had cool hair, a cool girlfriend, and a cool car. He had opinions, but did not share them, which back then was the hallmark of cool. 

I honestly had no idea why he wanted to hang out with me, but I hopped in shotgun and went for a ride with a cool kid. The next couple of years there were stops at lomography stores and bonsai gardens and organic markets and trendy coffee shops with only three orderable items. There were links to cool songs and a mix CD or two. There was one horrible Guatemalan patchwork jacket I test-drove way too seriously on my own quest for uniqueness. 

And then I had an original thought: what if hanging out with me is so NOT cool that it's cool? What if I'm part of the brand? What if I'm just the key to unlock the highest hipster badge available? 

I don't know. I don't care. I try not to think about what I mean to them. When it comes to cool kids, you treat them how you would treat anyone else. You enjoy them, love them, seek to understand them, show yourself to them. After all, despite their best efforts, they're just human. 

If you feel jealous of someone cooler than you....

It helps to imagine the conversations they have with the photographer before they take those awesome Instagram photos. "Get one of me. Long ways. Okay take another one. Make sure you get my shoes. Take another one. Okay now one looking away from the camera. Take a couple more." 


Epilogue: "Chill" as an adjective

I should note, there is an entire subgroup of cool kids, the "chill" kids, who are the ultimate pedigree of human. "Chill," which at some point became an adjective, refers to a personality trait, whereas "cool" is more of a cultural savvy. Chill kids, with their constrained emotional spectrum and indifference toward the actions and opinions of others, are extremely likable social chameleons. They can adapt their interests and personalities to any group they happen to be in. It's a remarkable thing to see. 

A modern millennial couple discovers they're running out of things to talk about

OPEN SCENE. It is a late Sunday morning in early October. Brunch rush is in a full swing at a trendy, steampunk-themed restaurant in Los Angeles. Nikolai and Suzette are seated in the outdoor patio area in the far corner, closest to the sidewalk.  

Nikolai, 30, is unbrushed and unshaven. He can't be bothered to wear real pants on weekends, so he is wearing basketball shorts and a plain white tee shirt. Suzette, also 30, is wearing overalls and Birkenstocks. Nikolai's oversized cardigan is draped over the back of her chair. She put it on this morning when it was chilly, but they are seated in the sun and it has since gotten warm out. They have finished eating and are slowly working on their lukewarm coffee. 

SUZ: I forgot to tell you, we're going to Angela's next Friday.

NIK: Who's "we?"

SUZ: You and me. 

NIK: I can make my own decision about whether to go to Angela's, thank you.

SUZ: Nope. You forfeited that right when you married me.

NIK: Excuse me, I'm an independent being. 

SUZ: Your MOM'S an independent being.

NIK: That she is. She's also wondering why you haven't called her lately.

SUZ: Nice try. If I haven't talked to her, then you DEFINITELY haven't talked to her.

NIK: I was hoping you could talk to her for both of us. 

SUZ: I have nothing to talk about with your mother.

NIK: You don't need to have anything to talk about with my mother. You listen to her gossip about her friends for a few minutes, and then when she suggests a weekend to come visit us, you make up somewhere we have to be. 

SUZ: Savage.

A few moments of silence pass. 

SUZ: Callie and Jason are getting divorced.

NIK: I know. We talked about it yesterday.

SUZ: Really? I thought I told Sarah.

NIK: Nope. Do you often get me and Sarah confused?

SUZ: Sometimes.

NIK: Do you wish I was Sarah?

SUZ: Yes, I pretend you're Sarah when we f--

WAITRESS: How's everything going over here? 

BOTH: Great, thanks.

The ponytailed waitress disappears into the muss. 

SUZ: She hates her job.

NIK: Yup. 

A few more moments pass. Suzette's mind starts to wander. 

NIK: Christ, we need to have kids so we have something to talk about. 

SUZ: No kids.

NIK: Why not kids?

SUZ: My body, my decisions. 

NIK: Nope. You forfeited that right when you married me. 

SUZ: I don't think that's how this works.

NIK: How does this work?

SUZ: We live together and I put your name on my tax returns. And sometimes I use your razor.

NIK: That can't be sanitary.

SUZ: We do less sanitary things.

NIK: Touche. 

A few more moments pass. An old-fashioned car drives by, puttering a black cloud of diesel smoke. Somewhere on the patio a baby starts crying. Someone has brought their baby to brunch. 

SUZ: Oh my god, check out this lady's hair. WAIT. Okay, now look.

NIK: WOAH. It's like her head is doing lotus pose.

SUZ: Yeah, I took physics and that shouldn't be possible.

NIK: Wait, YOU took physics?

SUZ: Don't act so surprised.

NIK: You never cease to fascinate me. 

SUZ: I got 22% on my final. It was multiple choice. Which  means I would have done better if I had just guessed on all the questions.

NIK: You have other talents.

SUZ: And my professor wore the same shirt every day. 

NIK: That's offensive. 

The waitress returns.

WAITRESS: We still doing okay over here?

NIK: Yeah, can I get a box for this?

WAITRESS: Is a big box okay? We're out of small boxes.

NIK: Yeah, that's fine.

The waitress dispatches. Suzette opens her front-facing camera to check her hair. 

NIK: What if I had said no?

SUZ: What?

NIK: What if I had said 'no, a big box is not okay'?

SUZ: You're an idiot.

NIK: But you married me, so.

SUZ: Because you're a handsome idiot. 

NIK: I'm not just a pair of tits, Suz. 

The waitress returns with a big to-go box and the check. Even after a year of marriage, Suzette still reaches for her wallet because she is an independent woman and wants Nikolai to know that she still considers herself an independent woman. Nikolai throws down his credit card.

SUZ: Thanks babe.

NIK: Of course babe.

SUZ: I need to stop at Home Depot on the way home.

NIK: What business does my woman have in that orange, cedar-scented hell?

SUZ: Need some bolts. The shelf in the closet fell down last week. 

NIK: I hadn't noticed.

SUZ: I noticed that you hadn't noticed.

Nikolai signs the check. He and Suzette scooch out their chairs in unison and Suzette puts her cardigan on. As Nikolai departs from the table, Suzette pulls a 5-dollar-bill out of her wallet and throws it on the table. 

END SCENE.

Cosmic Latte

I love science.
In theory.

Being able explain "everything" sounds nice, doesn't it? Wouldn't that finally elevate mankind to the God-status that we've already arrogantly granted ourselves? 

Once you get into it, however, science is infuriating. Crossed-out numbers and tedium and a lot of dropped expletives and dropped beakers. Type-As with unusual social mannerisms obsessing over finding small things and smaller things and teenier tinier things that are so teeny and tiny that you can't tell where they are and how fast they're going at the same time. Then it turns out they actually might not even exist. 

Reduce reduce reduce. Repeat repeat repeat. Fail fail fail.

Then, one day, mostly through luck and the unbreakable tenacity of scientific will, something coagulates the right way, or whatever, and there's a brief period of Mars-Rover-landing-type celebration. Maybe your PI buys your team pizza and gets sloppy drunk in front of you. You get rejected by 100 journals and one publishes you. Then you realize your study bred more questions than it answered and they're dividing and multiplying like a super-strain. The answers must be smaller. If there is truth, it must be infinitesimal. 

Reduce reduce reduce. Repeat repeat repeat. Ad infinitum until you find something so small that it's infinitely vast. 

Into the void we go again. 

The only time God ever talked to me it was about science. Despite what they say, there is a realm where God and science coexist. I stumbled into it when I was 10. I was really into astronomy at the time, and one night was immersed in a kid's astronomy book called Galaxies, or something. Reading about the Universe (which, apparently, is a latte beige color), an eerie and ominous feeling came over me, like I had suddenly wandered into someplace I wasn't supposed to be. I came to know it as the feeling of "vastness," but at the time, I felt like a kid who went looking for the bathroom but stumbled into the teacher's lounge. It felt wrong. So I asked God if it was okay that I was there.

"Is this right? Are humans even supposed to know about things that are so....big?" 

In a seizing and otherworldly voice that was not heard, but rather implanted into every neuron, "Why would they be there if not for you to discover them?" 

"Wow, okay," thought 10-year-old me, and I went to sleep. Then I grew up to be an acceptably mediocre scientist.

Just in the way that science is seeing things happen that already happen, someday we will come to see what already is. What is indivisible and endless. 

I think that God and science can't "co"exist, because they are the same thing, and they only exist to be discovered. 

Ichthyostega

In times of heaviness, darkness, despondency,
I have clambered in a reverie toward the ocean  
With the will to go under.

But at the brush of skin to swell, I realize it was not to drown,
But the primordial yearning to float, that brought me here
The desire to be
With endlessness above
Endlessness below
Endlessness on all sides
With my own body and spirit
Nothing else
Supported, enveloped 
In the cosmic soup where all of life began.

And when I crawled ashore 
It would be as if I was the first. 

On Beyonce, and having opinions in general.

I can't figure out how to do the accent above the "e" in Beyonce, but I'm going to assume everyone knows who I'm talking about. 

I'm sick of hearing about her. I'm sick of her like I'm sick of Gigi Hadid and Kylie Jenner's lips. Beyonce is a beautiful and talented woman. I enjoy working out to her music at the gym. A still shot from one of her music videos has been my Twitter background for like, 3 years. But she is not an idol to me. When she tells me, a fellow bitch, to bow down, I do not feel obligated to do it. I am not empowered by the propaganda. I am not empowered by her third-grade reading level lyrics. I am not empowered by her talk-singing about giving Jay Z a blowie in the back a limo. I am not empowered by her mugging a smartphone camera while pouring a college-tuition's worth of liquor into a hot tub. I am not empowered by her Met Gala dress that looked like she Silence-of-the-Lambsed a dress out of Becky's horribly diseased skin.

I do not find Beyonce empowering. But that is an opinion that I have. Saying that I am not empowered by Beyonce is not the same thing as saying that Beyonce is not empowering. If there's one thing that really has my buttcheeks clenching lately, it's people who state their opinions as facts. We need a LOT less of that and a F**KTON less of that on social media. If you find yourself empowered by Beyonce, then she is empowering. My opinion matters not, and I am not the audience she seeks to empower anyway. I'm just a Becky.

Namesake

My name is Brett. I am a woman.

My dad named me Brett after Lady Brett Ashley, a character in The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, a novel that neither of us particularly enjoyed or even think much about, ever. 

(I have no idea where my mom was during the naming process. I can totally see her handing me off to someone and being like "here you deal with this.")

Brett is a thoroughly modern girl. She is progressive, charming, charismatic, and beautiful--"damned good-looking," as Hemingway calls her. She is fiercely independent, brazenly sexual, and unabashedly promiscuous. She is often surrounded by a gaggle of men--straight ones, gay ones, old ones, young ones--and they all adore her. She wears pieces of men's clothing and wears her hair short and brushed back "like a boy." 

In short, Brett, by name and by character, represents the "masculinization" of women in the 1920s. 

By description alone, Brett sounds like the prototype of Bey before Bey was Bey. Modern women would worship Brett; she sounds like an anthropomorphic middle finger to patriarchy, doesn't she?  

Well, yes and no. Ernest Hemingway was part of the OG American misogynists. A lot of early 20th century literature is a giant Boys' Club, and there are tones of misogyny everywhere. Hemingway's works in particular are "by men for men," and reading him kinds of makes me feel like I feel whenever I walk into the fight gym--my presence is tolerated, but not preferred.

Lady Brett, although she gets highest accolades from Hemingway through his protagonist, is a threat. She, being the sole female in the Boys' Club, is a major disruption. She "makes" all the men fall madly in love with her, effectively turning them against each other, and then friendzones the shit out of them. Brett invented the friend zone. And Hemingway probably felt about the friendzone how you might expect any modern fuckboy to feel about the friendzone. 

Not to mention, Brett's confidence and independence are a farce. She can't go anywhere alone, and can't truly be validated unless he is surrounded by a group of adoring men. She tells Jake that she's utterly miserable, and Jake is kind of just like, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, while also wishing he could have sex with her. 

Hemingway is pretty clear in his opinion of the defeminization and sexual liberation of women in the 20s. It's dangerous. It disrupts camaraderie. It leads to nothing but unhappiness for men and women. Bullfights are for boys, get on home sugartits. 

My namesake and I are alike in a lot of ways, but different in many ways. I am also adamantly independent. I am also witty and intelligent. But I prefer to be alone. When it comes to my friendships, I prefer the company of powerful, independent females over simple "chaps." I respect men and don't manipulate them for my own pleasure. I find no fulfillment in frivolous, physical relationships, but I don't judge or reprimand women who do. 

Brett Ashley was a warning from Hemingway of where women's liberation might take us. Brett Lalli is more telling of where women's liberation is actually going.

Be not afraid, simple chaps. 

"Where's the Joie de Vivre?!"

^ Quote from Jeremy Piven's character in The Family Man. Every time I think of it I LOL.  

.....
........
..........

I've reached a plateau. 

And THANK GOD for that. 

In almost any other ring of life a plateau might be considered a bad thing only because it is not a good thing. But I...no. I rejoice in this berth of flat land where I can enjoy the stunning vista of "meh" and just catch my breath for a while. 

I've always been extraordinarily high-functioning, but for the first time I may actually be truly functional. Maybe admitting that will invite mortal peril, and admitting that that is still a real fear of mine speaks to the miles of vertical climb I still have to go.  

It has been over a year since my last major depressive episode, which is over 365 consecutive days of NOT feeling devastatingly shitty. I will attribute that partially to a drastic change in environment and the total upheaval of everything that I once perceived as safe or comfortable. 

That was the easy part. The difficult and frustrating part was the hours of therapy I can't afford, the drugs I don't believe in, and the self-help books I couldn't finish because no matter how they started they all seemed to end up at "Well...you just have to CHOOSE to be happy." Which would be a very offensive and frankly stupid thing to say to someone with any kind of perceptible illness. "You just have to CHOOSE to not have lupus." Erm, no though. No one gets to choose which genetic predispositions they may have, or the unfortunate circumstances that occur in life to fan the first spark of hellfire. It's just something that happens. 

At some point you have to accept that the world is full of people who don't understand or think they understand because they have experienced some kind of acute sadness. I don't mean to undermine the very real and devastating grief that accompanies a broken heart or the loss of a loved one, but anyone who has been unfortunate enough to experience depression and grief can attest that they are two very distinct feelings. Because one is a powerfully bad feeling and one almost seems to be an equally powerful lack of any kind of feeling at all. 

So on that level I have no choice but to believe that depression is some kind of overreactive mental defense mechanism against heightened emotional sensitivity. Your body can't possibly react to all the feels at once, so it packages them up and throws them into the creepy Sarlacc pit of your mind. And if you ask anyone with a depressive disorder what an episode feels like, they will probably describe something similar to peering into a Sarlacc pit and feeling an insurmountable urge to jump.

The eeriest part is that you can feel that there's something deeply beautiful and meaningful hiding out in that void. If I truly believed that I could survive the fall, I may jump in just out of curiosity, to see if my hunch is true and that depression is about something bigger than a dysfunctional coping mechanism or wonky brain chemistry...maybe something bigger than me....maybe something bigger than humans. 

Maybe some day I'll have that kind of courage. For now I'd like to hang out on my plateau and enjoy the abundance of beautiful and meaningful things that are already here for me. They are everywhere, they are just a little hard to find if you don't know what you're looking for. It's kind of like finding shapes and figures in clouds.

I once had a vision in a meditation of being born in the ocean. I swam to land, climbed up through the trees, and floated up into the sky until I entered a colorful stratosphere, where I saw a human figure floating listlessly, covered in rock-like skin. I watched as its skin started to break and light poured out through the cracks. Then that figure was me. I clawed off my rock-skin and lifted off my rock helmet so I could see. And I saw. 

The world was sad, so I became sad. 

But the world was also beautiful, so I became beautiful.