Apron Anxiety (3 page)

G
rowing up, some young girls wish for ponies, Prince Charming, or perfectly symmetrical C-cups. Not me. Growing up, I only wanted New York. To be precise: I wanted Greenwich Village. I wanted the subway. I wanted struggle. I wanted culture. I wanted action. Therefore, the only thing I really cared about in picking a college was that it got me there.

Mischievous as always, I found a back door into Columbia University through a joint program with the Jewish Theological Seminary, where I ended up with two bachelor of arts degrees, one from Columbia and another from JTS. Applying to the joint program made it a little easier to get accepted into an Ivy League school because they wanted well-qualified Jewish students who were willing to take the double course load.

Once you got in, it was pretty much all the same. Even the elitists knew that with the killer syllabi, getting by was no picnic, not even a kosher one. Still, my Ivy League friends will now see that I am not exactly one of them. They probably had a hunch. I don’t quote Plato or Sylvia Plath. I sleep through foreign films and primary elections. Howard Stern is my NPR. I am sure that to them I sort of smelled like state school.

When my parents dropped me off on the Upper West Side
campus, they managed to keep it together, relatively speaking. I’m pretty sure I heard my mom repeating to herself, “You give your kids roots to grow
and
wings to fly … You give your kid roots to grow
and
wings to fly …,” as she made up my bed with new flannel sheets and filled my fridge with strawberries and grapefruit. As for my own separation anxiety, I had none. Because I’ve always been so close to my family emotionally, it was never hard for me to be away from them. I’ll admit that it was rough seeing my dad a little frazzled though. And I purposely asked Rach to stay home because that was one good-bye I couldn’t bear. Before my parents took off, we played “the trick,” which is a Shelasky tool that makes leaving one another a lot easier. We sing “See ya tomorrow!” with as much joy and enthusiasm as we can find under the big, fat lumps in our throats, walk away without looking back, and then sob in a fetal position for a few horrible moments. After that, we’re usually fine.

Independence came easy. I was ecstatic about living in New York, but instantly had buyer’s remorse about being trapped in the Jewish dorms and kosher cafeterias (which was part of the deal) and spending half my time studying all the theological rigmarole. I’ve always loved being Jewish—I grew up going to synagogue regularly and had fifteen amazing summers at the
hamisha
Camp Ramah, several pilgrimages to Israel, plus one awful trip to Auschwitz. I can read and speak Hebrew, I don’t eat pork, and I even lost my virginity on a kibbutz. Yet I’ve never been religious. My closest friends from home weren’t Jewish, nor were the boys I liked. I believe in God, but never wanted, or needed, to flesh him, or her, out. So the whole thing just felt way too restricting. And to me, well, lame.

On the other hand, down the street at Columbia, where the brainy student body was definitely more eclectic, I dreaded
having to reveal my joint-program status to potential new friends, so I kept to myself there as well. I should have been proud to be part of something so rigorous, but I was hung up on being in an academically “inferior” breed. It embarrassed me. If I were more mature, or able to laugh off the insanity of me shuffling back and forth from Sociology of Punk Rock Youth to Yiddish 101, it might have been an okay situation. But I resented everything JTS-affiliated, and felt overwhelmingly “less than” lingering around the Columbia campus.

I had only one close friend: Annie, a high-spirited sweetheart from Akron, Ohio, who called soda “pop” and sneakers “tennies.” She was also in the joint program, but much more secure with it than I was. She loved socializing around the dorms, but I was totally disinterested in Shabbat dinners, sing-alongs, and any of that Kumbaya shit. So I spent most of my time alone.

My family visited me every few weeks, lugging pots of frozen chicken soup, totes spilling over with nectarines and peanut butter, and suitcases stuffed with all my favorite junk food. Even while I was in college, Mom took care of my kitchen. Despite the over-the-top food shipments, which I always gladly accepted, my weight dropped to the point where my parents and sister became concerned. They had an underlying fear that I was developing an eating disorder, but I adamantly denied that I was struggling with any deep-rooted body-image issues. The real subtext of my food aversion had to do with tension and nerves. This was the first time in my life I felt unsettled. And it’s how my body would function for years to follow: when I’m unhappy, I have no appetite. The first sign I’m a wreck is when my jeans ride low.

It was not the time of my life as college is meant to be, but I channeled my mother, who wouldn’t give a summa cum laude about having friends, or the perils of fitting in, and by
sophomore year, I joined the one sorority I
knew
I belonged to: the sorority of New York City. I landed an internship at MTV News and hung out at the headquarters as much as possible, even if it meant bringing cappuccinos to Kurt Loder’s loft and sucking up to the hot anchor of the moment, Alison Stewart, who refused to remember my first name. It was the unfriendliest working environment, but the egos and attitudes made me feel very cool, and I welcomed it all with pleasure.

I also juggled a hostess job at a gritty Upper West Side nightclub, where I got harassed by the coked-up manager and groped by married patrons. The scene was pretty seedy, but it tickled my attraction to trouble. Riding the subway home at four o’clock in the morning after having to French kiss the boss for a paycheck was demoralizing, dangerous, and so much more exciting than school.

My only significant boyfriend during this time was a guy named Jesse, a handsome and brooding scholar who went to Columbia (by way of Beverly Hills), and who communicated so esoterically that I never knew what he was saying. So, we let our bodies do the talking. This, along with all my time-consuming jobs, got me to graduation (though I didn’t go). Jesse and I ultimately broke up because he was on a crazy intellectual binge that I couldn’t even pretend to understand, but we remained exceptionally close friends. I didn’t want any attachments then anyway. The moment college was over I would be free to be
me
. And by this time, “me” meant a bona fide city chick. Hardened, hot, and bothered.