Walking from the subway to the office this morning at 8:30am, I trailed behind a woman with three-inch candy-apple red high-heels, a dainty black fedora, and peg-leg snakeskin pants peeking out from underneath a beige executive-style trench coat, smartly belted around her wispy waist. Her left arm was bent to support the crimson stippled handbag that was hooked over her shoulder, and her right arm casually reached up to hold the sheet of glossy black hair away from the tasteful wireless headset into which she was talking.
Women like this fascinate me. Theoretically, nothing is stopping me from buying the same fashionable clothes and accessories and, presto! I’m a fascinating woman strutting down the street. But even if I could bring myself to spend $800 on a pair of shoes and actually wear them outside my house, I would not be so ravishing. This women has an intrinsic glamour that I and 99% of all women don’t have.
I grew tired of listening to the demure clank of the red shoes, tired of pondering her intangible excellence, so I increased my pace to walk past her. “Well, maybe you have to stop thinking about ‘your life,’ and start thinking about ‘our life,'” the woman murmured into her headset as I neared her. “Our life, together… No, it is different. When you’re making all these plans, you’re not thinking about me. You’re not thinking about us.”
I was tempted to loiter within earshot of her dialogue, but I walked on, confident I had nailed her otherworldly quality: She’s a living, breathing reality television show, always seeing herself through the camera lens, uttering dramatic soundbites, prepared for the glare of public attention. Some of us are performers, others, the audience.
