So some faux gangsta was all up in my business today on SM and wanted me to prove myself because apparently me taking offense to songs like Smack that, Moneymaker, I wanna love you was somehow disrespecting him! And since I've posted quotes about Jack Bauer and I am ugly he can’t imagine how anyone would take fashion advice from me. It forced me to retrospect. A definite good idea to retrospect over the past few decades and this might sound ‘sad’ but I swear to you it’s been the most exciting roller coaster…

After high school I ran away from home with no prospects for college. Lived with a Haitian co-worker in Flatbush Brooklyn for a year. Was told to sleep away from the windows. Heard gunshots on regular intervals, more during the summer. Attended Baptist church on weekends with her. Worked at Queens Center mall 6-7 days a week. Came home almost every day after 1:00 am and never had a problem on the street. Gave all my money to her. She ended up saving it all for me.

Moved out a year later to East Elmhurst / Corona area in a shared situation (shared bathroom/kitchen with folks that weren’t friends) and started looking at schools. Couldn’t get financial aid because I couldn’t declare myself emancipated because I wasn’t over 21 and went around in a circle of state and federal red tape. Took a loan and started night school at a community college. Still worked full time during the day. Moved up at work, nothing incredible to make any financial dent. There were days I had to ration money just enough for one meal a day. There were many many of those days back then. It was fine. I honestly never missed it. Occasionally a co-worker bought me lunch.  

Two years went by with night school and full time day work and I actually got an AAS in Business Administration. No one was more surprised than me. I made Salutatorian. At this point I had moved to the retailers head office in Williamsburg Brooklyn and gotten promoted to Assistant Buyer. It was on the waterfront and 15 blocks from civilization and subway and what seemed like eternity away with several feet of snow on the ground. I was attacked by a pack of wild stray dogs once during those grueling mornings. A passing semi driver saved me from getting killed. An angel. Then there was the year that the East River froze in many sections and I walked out onto the river. OK it was for 3 feet and all of 3 seconds but how many people can say they walked out onto the frozen east river?

But my Buyer really took me under his wings and taught me a lot. The owners Syrian Jews who hired a lot of South Asians because they believed in them as good people adopted me as the office child. I suppose I always had guardian angels along the way. People that saw some potential in me and pulled in or pushed me in the right direction. I have always been incredibly grateful for it. I am a true Sagittarian in that sense, ruled by the planet of luck, Jupiter. I have honestly always felt Jupiter's presence in my life. People have been very very good to me.

I've always had guardian angels watching over me.  Sometimes they were in the form of the delivery truck driver who'd give me a lift to the subway so I wouldn't have to walk in the cold and sometimes they took the form of the 90 year old man who came to my rescue after I got mugged and stabbed in broad daylight in Jackson Heights and people drove by and did nothing. Sometimes they were also in the form of a Pastor of a small church in Queens that was also my professor who hooked me up with free books and school supplies and sometimes they were in the form of my biggest angel to date, Karen Toussaint, the woman who let me live in her home no questions asked when I ran away from home. I don't know where she is today and it has been the biggest regret of my life. I think she moved to Miami but if I ever see her again I want to kiss her and tell her that she saved my life.

I also moved a lot of homes in the two years. They were all random and illegal basements in random houses in Queens where the landlords were always shady and always looking to take advantage of me. One of the places I lived in the landlord came down to my apartment any hours he felt like when his wife wasn’t home. He actually offered to ‘forget about the rent’ if I slept with him. I moved and moved again. Sometimes it was because the apartment was just too cold and there was no heat or hot water. I didn't even known I had a voice that counted. Someone who lived down the street on Elbertson Street in Elmhurst followed me everyday for months to try to convince me to dance. I was scared at times but never rattled. A lot of who I am today is because of those days on the street when I was just a little girl and had to hustle to just be. I was 20 going on 80. I still hustle sometimes forgetting that I don't need to anymore. I finally found a landlord from Bangladesh in Jackson Heights who was just incredibly generous and good to me and where I felt safe.

Decided to continue with the schooling. Yeah who doesn’t like to work 50 hour weeks and go to school fulltime at night and not eat or sleep much? You gotta love youth. I know I will never have the drive or the energy I did then. I was seriously like an energizer bunny. I was high on life. Nothing was impossible. I was Superman. Enrolled into Baruch for night school again but had a couple of day classes and Saturday classes. The people at work were incredibly kind and flexible though the number of hours never changed. I was doing well, going to a lot of trade shows and traveling to meet vendors. I developed a knack for spotting urban trends and predicting the hits.   

Graduated Baruch as well. Yet a big surprise. Missed Salutatorian by a hairy %. The desi in me was pissed!! That summer at the MAGIC show in Vegas FILA made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. My boss was there. He said I should take it. I did. I came back, resigned and signed up with FILA as a Trend Hunter. What was that? Who the fuck knows. Nike had EKINs FILA had me. I was supposed to be an expert in the urban hip hop market which was just staring to make a massive impact in the clothing and shoe industry. FILA had just gone public, signed up rookie of the year Hill who was dating Aaliyah at the time, Iverson, Jeter & Stackhouse so it was a nonstop party.

I banked on my buying days connections and worked with what seemed like impenetrable markets. Detroit, South Central LA, South Bronx, Trenton NJ and it was exciting and difficult all at once. The kids were tough. I learnt to bribe them with gifts to get the inside info. I learnt the gifts actually went to younger poorer kids in the hood. I got them even more hookups. Eventually they warmed up to me. I even got special status on the street. The information became invaluable in the company. People went nuts over it. FILA did very well with that information. I was a superstar for 10 minutes.

I went to a lot of pretty crazy parties and met celebrities I didn’t even know. I was young, very naïve and incredibly stupid about a lot of things. It worked to my benefit. It protected me from making a lot of wrong decisions. The party scene was awe-worthy by today’s standards. I didn’t know better. I didn’t even know who Ronnie Lott was. He had an incredible house in LA. Marcus Allen threw parties all the time. LL Cool J had one in San Diego. Ruben Sierra propositioned me. I had only learnt who he was 10 minutes before. Michael Johnson took a group of us out to eat at Spago then stiffed us with the bill.

Eventually I realized the continuous party wasn’t going to build me a career. I jumped at the opportunity of Jr Product Development Manager and took it. Trained at the Via Spiga factory in Italy and leant to make shoes from scratch. Pretty cool stuff. Worked exclusively with Stackhouse in the beginning. His one foot was significantly bigger and he had a higher arch in one than the other so every shoe was custom made. He went thru about one pair of shoes a game so half a production line went just for the season. Lived off and on in Italy. Leant a lot about Quality Control. Wasn’t any place glamorous. On weekends went into the Alps or roamed the country side. Didn’t have any money to spend, didn’t even have a camera but Biella was an amazing place to live in. People were generous and often invited you to eat in their kitchen with them.

I started working with the factories in Pusan Korea. The partying gave way to hours of technical drawings. My new boss was a youngin with a vision. He was brilliant. He was also best friends with Mark Wahlberg and Branford Marsalis. Yet again went to some amazing parties and concerts. Went to the Boogie Nights release party and walked into someone having sex in the bathroom with some model whose name I can’t remember now. Eventually FILA changed courses and shut down its NY operations. They had also changed their artistic vision from NY to Italy and badly botched their approach to the urban market. I got laid off.

I got my first “real” apartment, in a real building from my severance check. Started dating M at the time who took me to the shooting range with him nearly every weekend. Got pretty good at it. He also taught me how to drive on the Police course and I got pretty good at that too. Bought my first car, traveled like insane in those years we were together. Started writing. Actually got paid for it. Got a lot of people to hate me as well. It was pretty cool. I had a lot of youthful angst I wrote about. Worked out well for that point in time.

Couldn’t really find something I really loved so held out and collected unemployment. Did a lot of random consulting product development work for a bunch of companies from Martha Stewart to Victoria Secret to Disney Inc. No never saw any models naked but certainly met quite a few that I wanted to beat with the shoes I made for them. Lived off and on in Hong Kong for nearly 3 years and for quite a bit of time in London. On the side decided to dabble with style coaching and collected quite a clientele. Mostly boys on Wall Street with a lot of money and no idea what to do with it and zero style. I missed working in a real environment with real people. I had days I never got out of my pajamas. I also missed the insurance and I needed it for my asthma. I still had no job I absolutely loved. Decided to go back to the real world.

Sent a rather obnoxious and pompous letter to Liz Claiborne’s HR. No resume. HR lady was amused and called me in. I got offered two positions. I took one. It was Business Planning. Loved the girly yet very strong girl power environment as well. Went thru a slew of insane bosses I hated. 9/11 happened. I broke up with M, got a bigger apartment and let my lil bro move in with me. Wow that was some incredible challenge. Things at Liz stagnated. I got bored and annoyed. Eventually left to go work across the street. From 1440 Broadway to 1441 Broadway for the competitor Jones NY. Hated hated it. Amazing boss totally not what I wanted to do.

Got a call from L’Oreal Paris finally and left in less than 6 months at Jones NY to come where I am now. L’Oreal is where I see myself build a career but who the hell knows. That I manage a portfolio short of $400M today is something that still manages to amaze me. I still remember days when I felt like I would never finish school and would end up on the streets. When I look back at my Social Security statements and see that I made $12,600 the first year I ran away from home and still survived I feel nothing but grateful. I always had amazing love and support of my friends, people like Jigna and Charchita who fullfilled the role of sisters and sometimes mothers and always guardian angels that looked out for me and kept me from turning into a hooker or rolling a joint.

I'm sure you are wondering where my parents were. They were around. I chose to keep them in the background. Perhaps pride and a lot of youthful angst made me do it. I have however amazingly come full circle, a complete 180. I have the best relationship with my parents today and they are the most amazingly supportive people in my life, especially my mother. I wish everyone out there would find a loving, kind and open hearted and minded mother like mine.

I was a very very difficult daughter, fiesty, angry, a ridiculous wanderlust, independent to the core and a little rotten too. I pick up and go when I want, where I want. I don't think twice before I speak because I think it's from the heart. I'd jump down a well if someone asked me not because they influenced me but because I knew I'd surive the well and it would make a good story. I was completely insane, perhaps I still am. I make no commitments to anyone so I don't have to break them. I don't take opinions and advice and worse was never the kind of daughter that listened. It's amazing that my parents still think I'm their daughter.

But I've always had inspiration around me. New York City has been my home for 20 years and in it I've found the kind of comfort one doesn't in a lifetime. This city and all the people in it that I've crossed over the years have inspired me, comforted me and held my hand during some very lonely times when I had no money and no hope and thought it was the end of the road. I still wake up in the middle of the night in my new home completely baffled that I've come to this moment in my life because I still have memories of those cold basements in Queens when I didn't know what I was going to eat the next day and I was freezing all at once.

Everyone should be this lucky. There are people who don't have this kind of luck and inspiration and more importantly moral guildance in their life. Those are the people I hope to find in my life and pay it forward. Life has been such an amazing journey of different roads, why should now be any different? Perhaps I’m older and slower. Wiser? That’s debatable. I suppose I could fill in some of these paragraphs with stories enough to fill a book but how boring would that be. I like gists. Gists are good.