Following my college graduation, my family hit the city to see the Columbia University campus, my soon-to-be-home for the next two years. For those who’ve never seen it, Columbia has a large, beautiful campus that’s hundreds of years old so, there was much to see. From there, we went out and about on a quick adventure.
We had a typical New York City day, milling around, eating at a bunch of restaurants and dipping into whatever stores interested us. Le Monde, a French restaurant near Columbia’s campus, may take all of my disposable income by the end of the year due to its proximity to where I live. We made a pit stop at Kinokuniya, a Japanese bookstore, and then had dinner at Bryant Park Grille. After a long and almost-over stimulating day of doing that and more, we went to see a Broadway show.
New York, New York is the remake of the 1977 film by the same name, starring Robert Dinero and Liza Minelli. This is from where we get the song “New York, New York.” It was a beautiful musical about being in New York City, and trying to make it there, in the post World War II era. Fun fact: when the Yankees win, they play “New York, New York,” by Frank Sinatra. When they lose, they play the version by Liza Minelli. That sexist ass bullshit aside, it is an incredible song no matter who is singing it.
Now, with Lin Manuel Miranda’s help, the show has been remade and brought to Broadway with some key changes made to the overall show. Needless to say, the performances were incredible. It was funny, the singing voices were powerful, and the two main characters had more chemistry than the periodic table–– exactly what you’d expect from a Broadway show. The lead actress gave such a stunning performance with a show stopping voice that brought the house down. People were jumping out of their seats, cheering, and singing along, making me realize that perhaps this was the finale. The show was nominated for 9 Tonys won a Tony for best scene design, to the surprise of no one.
Afterwards, we called it a night, having had a very New York, New York day.
–The previous school motto of Sarah Lawrence College
The previous school motto, as seen above, was changed around the time I arrived. The students and the administration liked it, but parents didn’t like the pronouncement that their child was “different.” So, it was changed to the less threatening, “Ahead of the Curve,” which made everyone ask, “…are we?” The important thing isn’t that we are ahead of the curve. The important thing is that we are on a different curve entirely.
The photo taken of me when I found out I got in
My mother knew that I would go there when she pulled up the website and saw the cover photo which featured a bunch of students having what appeared to be a literal drum circle on the campus lawn. My father knew that I would go there when we toured the school together.
Trying and failing to carry my package to my first dorm room
Me in my said dorm room
There was a free speech wall where students could write whatever they wanted (so long as it wasn’t hate speech), gender neutral bathrooms, and every girl we encountered had either a shaved and/or pink head, a crop top, or combat boots, or some combination thereof. We knew that I belonged there.
Apparently, I told my mother, although I don’t remember it, that if “I don’t get into Sarah Lawrence, I don’t want to go anywhere.” I do not often put down college education, by implying that I won’t be going to college (my parents wouldn’t have allowed that anyway), but I will take my mother’s word for it. Fortunately, I got in early-decision, so this was moot.
Walking up a *very* long hill on campus.
It is a small school with no Greek life or football team– the running joke is that we are undefeated when it comes to football. On top of that, it was a small school in New York that was famous for its writing program. I would have put up with any treatment in order to learn how to write from the very best, but fortunately I didn’t have to. I got to go to the school that was perfect for me.
My first day RA-ing
The universe had spoken. It wanted me there.
The school had such a strong, quirky personality: the way that people would snap instead of applaud when they heard something that they liked because we adhered to coffee house poetry rules, how everyone introduces themselves with their pronouns, how during RA Hill House meetings we would all collectively knock on the table in unison when someone jinxed something, and how every person I encountered knew their star sign, moon sign, and rising sign.
Everything about the school seemed to scream “no judgment.” It is a school for former, and current, dungeon masters, theater kids, filmmakers, poets, and, my personal favorite, writers. It was, therefore, the place where I most felt like myself.
I had many good times there: the time that I accidentally leaned back in class at a round table and caught a glimpse of the laptop beside me and saw the picture that his boyfriend had sent him the night before. I was then offered anything I wanted: meal swipes, a vital organ, to pretend I didn’t see it.
I overheard many great conversations:
“So you’d give a frog a lobotomy but not me?”
“My grandparents can be sorted into either bigoted or dead.”
“The media wants you to think that sharks are evil and dolphins are good.”
“My spotify playlist is all just sea shanties right now.”
“I told you, I lost my virginity to Paul Blart, mall cop.”
And, my personal favorite:
“You’re only into God when you’re not getting [redacted]”
I attended strange on-campus events:
Rocky Horror Picture Show live, The Untalented Talent Show in which one girl performed the “cool girl” speech from Gone Girl and someone else performed the slam poetry scene from 22 Jump Street, and the Midnight Cabaret- which is just sketch comedy performed a little bit before midnight I’m pretty sure. I played lame drinking games with my not-so-lame friends.
Most of all though, I loved my classes and my professors. My writing classes were exactly what I dreamed they would be. My classes were socratic seminar style, so I was graded on the quality and quantity of my contributions. We sat in small numbers at round tables and discussed our own works and the works of others, having our material workshopped little by little.
It’s been a wild ride Sarah Lawrence. I passed every class. I graduated on time. I spent the last part of my freshman year and the entirety of my sophomore year on zoom and the first semester of my senior year in Florence. I was all over the place, in more ways than one, but the school nurtured and prepared me perfectly for my next phase of life.
Sarah Lawrence looks very disapproving in this picture
And now, I have the opportunity to do it all over again. I have recently been accepted to grad school at the Columbia School for the Arts where I will be earning my MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction. I am ecstatic by this opportunity and ready to continue the storytelling that Sarah Lawrence College cultivated. I have no idea what to expect this upcoming fall (my current plan is to not topple into the school sideways and hope that everything goes smoothly) but I know that I will rise to the occasion.
I was within days of my graduation. The celebrations were in full effect. Everyone was attending every senior event until it felt like graduation was just another item to cross off the itinerary.
This also meant that I was nearing the time for my school’s Senior cruise around Manhattan, otherwise known as the booze cruise.
The school rents a ferry boat and serves the seniors alcohol for the night as we drive around the various New York City landmarks, dancing the night away. Naturally, everyone I knew was in attendance.
On the bus ride over, a woman addressed us directly.
“There is an open bar,” she explained.
“WOO!” I shouted and only one other person joined in.
“…But please drink responsibly,” she added, looking dead at me.
Drink responsibly I did, although that could not be said about everyone around me. More than once, I was with a friend as they swayed perilously close to the railing and had to grab it for support.
Staying in the boat and not landing in the East River was my don’s advice to me. He said that I was not likely to fall in due to inebriation but just leaning too far over the edge to see something. He knows me so well.
I stayed on the boat with my friends, downing some bottom shelf liquor in plastic bottles as we circled around the Statue of Liberty and made our way underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. There was a dancefloor with a DJ who was having a love affair with Pitbull.
This was a welcome change, coming on the heels of an excruciating week in which I had to forgo a graduation trip to the Adirondacks with friends in exchange for a much-needed extension on two essays.
Strangely, I would have much preferred to go to the Adirondacks with my friends instead of staying in the library to work on my 10-15 page essay about the usage of the Bible in western literature, which eventually became a comparison of the various Hogwarts houses in Harry Potter. Remaining chained to a desk at the library when I could have been out spending the weekend with friends was not how I expected to end my senior year of college, but circling Ellis Island at night with my friends wasn’t what I had anticipated either, and oh, was it a delightful send off!
Sleaze ball lives up to its name, being a night where everyone wears their most revealing outfit and parties pretty hard. It is a Sarah Lawrence tradition and has been canceled for almost the entirety of my Sarah Lawrence stay due to COVID. Now, in my last two weeks, Sleaze Ball was ready to commence.
It started pouring down rain but at some point you’re dressed up, made up, and liquored up with no other choice than to leave your house.
To be dressed appropriately is to be dressed inappropriately. The attire is lace and leather and strings. Your outfit has to be held together by safety pins, thread, and the will of God.
I went with my crop top/sports bra that says “Don’t Date Frat Boys,” sage wisdom that can go unused at Sarah Lawrence where there isn’t a fraternity or even a football team, but there is a drag queen at every party. On bottom, I had the same skirt I wore to the Spring formal that could double as a sweatband. Not showing your nipples or your thong counts as modesty, making me one of the most modest persons there.
So, the sleaze ball was in full effect.
The event provided us with glow sticks, which we mostly kept strapped to our thighs. The music, much like at the Spring formal, was ear splittingly loud.
Everyone had an attitude of “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I have so much schoolwork to do.” That prevented absolutely no one from not staying until the end of the night.
By the end of the night my knees hurt, which is how I gauge how much fun I had dancing at a party.
I will tell you that I am going to miss Sarah Lawrence College, not just because I will miss getting grinded on by a drag queen on a random Saturday night. I am going to miss the atmosphere and the people and how everyone is friendly and the way that I will never be in the same environment again where everyone is praised for and embraces their weirdness.
When asked how sleaze ball was, there was only one acceptable answer: it was nice and sleazy.
On a glorious spring day, I went to Glenn Island Beach with my friend Alyssa and her friend Olivia in order to enjoy the apocalyptically warm weather we’ve been having. I’d made up a picnic of Mediterranean pasta, fruit, and sangria. We sat at a picnic table in the park as close to the water as we could and had our nice, almost-end-of-semester outing. It was exactly what you’d expect: a summer playlist that we curated and played along the way, books that we brought even though we weren’t going to read them, and the booziness of sangria in balmy weather.
We didn’t go swimming because the water was so chilly that we didn’t even want to step foot in it. We earned our keep, picking up a few pieces of trash before getting off the beach.
Following that, we went back to campus in time to see some of our friends open for a concert. The opening act was jazz; the act itself was disco.
The event was an excuse to lounge out on the south lawn listening to jazz and disco in the type of weather that has you half dressed or wearing the thinnest dress you have. Lights were strung up. The singing and playing was amazing. The vibes were good. Exposed bodies were strewn out all over the lawn on picnic blankets in a way that made you fantasize about Woodstock. Everything mellowed as the sun went down. You could sit on the grass with your bare feet out or you could get on your feet and really join in. All I had in me was a gentle sway.
That was going to need to change because the concert fed directly into the time slot for our Spring formal. The last formal my school put on was in the first semester of my freshman year, before everything shut down for COVID.
It was my last school formal, for which I did not dress very formally. I left my formal wardrobe at home and don’t own a single sundress, unlike all of my paisley-clad, gingham-and-floral-wearing peers. I therefore went full-tilt mini skirt and showed up at the party.
Everyone I knew was there and they all showed up drunk. Pretty iconic if you ask me.
It was pretty much understood that the school would not be serving alcohol there and that you couldn’t sneak any in so everyone did what they had to do. This did not stop the school from labeling the fruit punch as “Tequila Sunrise” despite the lack of a single drop of tequila.
The theme was Greek mythology. Statues, including a living statue that we all agreed “scared the shit out of us,” lined the lobby, mostly with boxes of Trojan condoms placed in their hands– because we are nothing if not mature.
We all agreed that the one thing that was missing was a Trojan horse.
The music was so loud you would have to be blackout drunk for it to not bother you. The whole room was pulsating with mostly early-2000s hits and a DJ who frequently shouted, “HELLO SARAH LAWRENCEEE” and expected us to scream right back. The amount of sweat that I accidentally touched on other people as I was dancing is not something that I want to think about, so I will be leaving it at that. I stayed there all night, dancing like a marionette being controlled by a drunken puppeteer, but that was kind of the mood of the night. Everyone else was on a similar wavelength to mine. And yes it’s pretty pathetic to dance in a way that lacks any sense of rhythm and coordination, but it is so freeing to dance that way too.
I stayed at the party until the end of it, exhausted from my long day of beaching, concerting, and partying (and classes. I’d had class that morning). In a real “thank God it’s Friday” move, I went home to sleep my way into the weekend.
My first and final semester was bookended by a school formal. This was the first moment that it really sunk in that this, my college experience, was about to be entirely behind me. This was also the start of many great last Sarah Lawrence hurrays.
A few weeks ago, I went in to visit my cousin Olivia for a night of red wine, followed by dinner at a Mexican and Mediterranean fusion restaurant cleverly called Mexiterranean, and for breakfast, bacon, egg, and cheese on everything bagels. It couldn’t be topped.
Keeping up this momentum, I stopped by a coffee shop in Crown Heights called Little Zelda to speak to a new acquaintance on a random, pleasant Thursday. In order to do this on a weekday, I had to first make my way into the city. Per my usual, I at least attempted to navigate the city by train, and managed to make it into Grand Central before taking an interminably long escalator ride into the bowels of Grand Central Station. It went so deeply underground that I swore it was nearing the outer circle of Dante’s Inferno. From there I became completely lost while trying to find the Long Island train due to Grand Central’s affront towards proper signage, before finding the surface and calling an Uber.
Little Zelda was exactly what you’d expect it to be: a cute coffee shop with a pin board for roommate listings, wedged between a Yoga studio named Arise and other types of artisal shops to wow its millennial patrons. I have never seen the show Friends and even I know that this is the type of coffee shop that could have passed as the set for Central Perk. Outdoor seating was in full effect now that Spring was upon us, so I cracked open my book and took a seat inside, watching the group of friends on the sidewalk live out a main character moment right in front of me. My mug of chai latte remained scalding and foaming at the table in front of me.
It was all and all a pretty typical jaunt into the city for me, getting mildly and harmlessly lost in Grand Central because it’s not a venture out of the house unless I “get turned around.” Fortunately, I would have far greater success a few days later.
Saturday was a point of pride for me. I took the train into Grand Central, took the shuttle to Times Square, and then took the correct train to my destination entirely on my own without getting lost in what was an unprecedented feat. I did get briefly turned around while walking, causing me to encounter the same smoking woman twice as she informed me that she “received the readings” and “had something important to tell me,” about my future presumably. While curious, I did not stop due to stranger danger, another thing that would have made my mother proud.
I arrived early at the restaurant that I was set to meet my friend at and stood outside in the giant line for nearly an hour. She joined me and we chatted, drinking tea and coffee as we waited in line. The restaurant was her idea: Breakfast by Salt’s Cure, a restaurant popular amongst the kiddies on Tik Tok. (What did people do before Tik Tok? And when did Tik Tok become society?)
Salt’s Cure stays in business by being famous for their oatmeal griddle cakes. Completely unsure of what an oatmeal griddle cake was, I ordered one anyway. As it turns out, it’s basically a pancake topped with powdered sugar and, depending on what you order, walnuts and chocolate chips. We split the banana walnut griddle cake and the chocolate griddle cake, which tasted like warm, buttered perfection with a mimosa to wash it all down.
Over our girdle cakes, there was much talk of bookish things, obviously.
On my way into New York City, I eavesdropped on the Italian conversation being had in the row in front of me in order to practice my Italian comprehension. On my ride back into Grand Central I was passed a clipboard by the woman sitting next to me to sign the petition to end “The Evil Chinese Communist Government.”
I managed to get back home just as easily as I’d left it, exchanging downtown for uptown and retracing my steps.
Between my proper use of the subway system and my waiting in line for a high-end brunch place in the Village, I’m getting my New Yorker moves.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever made it clear on this blog, but I love thrifting. Thrifting, or vintage shopping, is better for the environment and better for my bank account.
Disclaimer: I only thrift in very specific ways. I never go to the Goodwill or the Salvation Army because if you just want to shop you should avoid those places, since you run the risk of gentrifying them and making it more difficult for low-income consumers to buy clothes. I also rarely donate my clothes since they often end up in landfills in other parts of the world, so I sell them on Poshmark in order to guarantee that they are placed in an individual’s hands.
As far as the environmental claims go, wearing clothes made from non-virgin materials is always better for the environment and slows down mass consumerism (CBS This Morning reported that it takes 2,000 gallons of water to make a single pair of jeans, which, according to the United Nations, is how much water your average person drinks in seven years. 2,000 gallons of water for one pair of jeans. I can’t even fathom that amount of water, much less that amount going to something as inconsequential as a pair of jeans. Tell me that thought doesn’t make you want to walk into the woods and denounce all of society).
Me, dancing around the dressing room of the consignment store in my hometown. Yes, I bought the dress that I’m wearing
However, if you buy clothes second hand at a slightly more high-end store, you are being an ethical consumer. My blue velvet pants that are stacked with buttons, my black sequined pants, and my other pair of black sequined pants, were all thrift store finds. I practically lived at the consignment store near my house back home, which is how my impressive collection of jackets in South Georgia came to me over time.
Alyssa and I set out to go thrifting in the city one Friday afternoon, playing great music all the way through. L Train Vintage and Buffalo Exchange are down the street from one another on the Upper West Side, tucked between a few weed dispensaries. L Train Vintage and Buffalo Exchange are the two famous vintage shops in the city that everyone I know partakes in, not to mention is popular on Tik Tok.
We spent a few hours browsing through the racks and shelves, trying on countless outfits like a fabulous, badass vintage Calvin Klein dress, that I put back on the rack after I decided not to spend $45 on it.
I can now thank these two places for my new golden tank top and five dollar geometrically-patterned crop top from a brand that usually retails in the hundreds. Ah, the magic of buying clothes second hand.
The aforementioned crop top, being worn out of the house for the first time
Next stop was a place called Naruto Ramen a few blocks away for a perfect meal of curry and sake. Sitting there, you watch the chefs make your meal directly in front of you. It’s a pretty typical New York place where you’re seated wherever you can fit. I always loved the cramped booths of major cities, how you are practically part of the conversation taking place right next to you, but you shouldn’t dare join in on the conversations going on around you or else you’ve invaded someone’s personal space in a city where there is no such thing.
Now, I have a new favorite ramen place in the city and a few new pieces to begin my Spring wardrobe in the city. Happy Spring!
A few weeks ago, I attended another book event at The Strand. This time, it was for the first ever book event for “Chaos Theory” by Nic Stone, a YA novel about mental health and romance. This was my first introduction to the work of Nic Stone and I am sold. Nic Stone, one of the most banned authors in America spoke beautifully about censorship, representation, and content warnings, all while remaining upbeat and funny throughout the night. She wore an amazing skirt, green lipstick, phenomenal hoop earrings, and a t-shirt that said “we need more thinkers” (hard agree). Her conversation with E. Lockhart felt more like a conversation between friends that we were all lucky enough to witness than it did a regular book event. She was even kind enough to answer my question about content warnings with a great answer.
When I said to her, “I see that you open your story with a content warning. Content warnings and trigger warnings are relatively new in media. I was wondering what you thought that this shift signified in the industry and what this says about authorial intent.” she paused before jokingly saying, “Why’d you have to ask me a hard question?” followed by a response about how she felt that content warnings are important and that she cares more about protecting people than she does about spoiling her piece. As far as authorial responsibility goes, she believes that authors have a responsibility to research a topic as best they can before writing a narrative that could potentially cause harm, but that, at the same time, authors can write about whatever they want.
When speaking about the recent scourge of book banning that has hit school districts and libraries across the United States and the personal bannings that she has experienced herself, she stated that it is not a point of pride for her, that it is a point of great concern. It is infuriating and enraging, as it should be to all of us.
Nic Stone is a fellow writer from Georgia, (we love to see it) who wrote the bestseller “Dear Martin.” I can’t wait to read my signed copy of “Chaos Theory” and I think that others out there should do the same.
I was honored to hear Carmen Maria Machado read aloud a new short story from her upcoming short story collection on campus a few weeks ago. Many of you may have read her collection of short stories “Her Body and Other Parties” and if you haven’t, go buy it. I’d gotten my copy a few days earlier at Womrath Bookstore (cute indie bookstore in Bronxville, go there too) despite having read many of her works in the past. She is a modern feminist writer and as the title of her collection implies, she often works in the realm of female-driven body horror.
As far as the literary world is concerned, she is a celebrity, a darling of the short story, making her an icon in small circles. Sarah Lawrence College on a Wednesday night was one of those small circles.
She came on stage to present and spoke a bit about her upcoming work, admitting that she needs to work on her new material but has been putting it off, something every writer in the room could relate to. Somedays, I am writing a novel and other days I am “writing a novel.” It is all but theoretical at times.
Her reading was the perfect blend of seriousness and comedy that kept the audience enthralled for about an hour, something that she made look easy. As always with these things, the room was opened up to a brief Q & A, comprised of three different questions that had to do with, among other things, the current state and future of queer fiction. The good news is that she is optimistic about the future.
Afterwards, she signed my personal copy of “Her Body and Other Parties,” a genre-redefining work of speculative fiction, filled with short stories that have been staples of my creative writing classes for years now. I was happy to tell her that I’ve been reading her works for a few years at this point, inevitably encountering them in each of my writing classes. Funnily enough, I was just assigned her short story “Inventory” for my creative writing class this week. I will be rereading it in my new signed copy of “Her Body and Other Parties.”
And rest assured to any Machado fans out there: her new work kills.
I am so happy that I was able to attend the Feminist Press book event for the recently-released memoir “Warrior Princesses Strike Back” by twin sisters Sarah Eagle Heart and Emma Eagle Heart-White. The Eagle Heart sisters are members of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and wrote a deeply personal memoir that explores their upbringing and how they overcame a series of obstacles together.
The event took place at The Strand a few weeks ago on the third floor in the rare books section with a moderator and authors, discussing their book for about an hour, followed by a Q & A and a signing. It is rare for them to sell out and the tickets are reasonably priced. My advice, therefore, is to attend as many as you can as often as you can. The only issue for me is schlepping into the city on a school night, but I was happy to do it for a chance to experience firsthand an author event of this caliber.
Mark Ruffalo was there and, yes, we made eye contact. I then casually looked away since I am too cool to react to a celebrity, or, at least, that is always the hope. Piper Perabo interviewed the subjects whilst giving off Gloria Steinem vibes with her long, straightened blonde hair and bulky glasses in what I interpreted as an homage. She did a fantastic job interviewing the authors on their new book, which deals with connectivity and healing.
The two sisters discussed their upbringing on a Native American reservation and the hardships that they had to face, but how they came through it together. I was most moved by their discussion of spirituality, how they are Episcopalian but how they also hold onto their indigenous belief systems, and reconcile the two by acknowledging that there is one creator and that the two belief systems are therefore not mutually exclusive. There was such a strong element of sisterly love present that night. Afterwards, they signed and personalized my copy of the book and I had a chance to tell them how excited I was to read it.
This event was also my reunion with my friend Valentina, who I haven’t seen since I left for Italy. Afterwards, Valentina and I got pizza nearby and discussed what we thought of the event. There were positive reviews all around.
I ended the night after that. I now have “Warrior Princess Strike Back” at the top of my TBR pile and will let you all know what I think in due time.
The Tragic Queen 