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The precinct was eight blocks away from my family’s apartment at the time. When the cop car pulled up, I tried to open the door myself. I thought it would be a good look, to be a willing prisoner. The cops didn’t think so. They made sure I stayed put. I was enrolled at a $50,000-a-year private school at the time, but I wasn’t yet totally aware of my immense privilege. I knew the nice cop was a weird thing to happen to someone, but the whole thing was pretty weird. My father had just filed for bankruptcy. I was feeling dramatic about it. I was feeling sorry for myself. It’s dangerous to feel sorry for yourself, and pointless, so I coped by making messes that were all my fault all on my own.
I sat in the holding cell and weeped. When it was time to take my mugshot, the cops told me to stop crying. Holding back my tears, I pursed my lips. I remember thinking I looked pretty distressed and also pretty pretty in the picture I saw projected on the screen.
I went to court and came out with a community-service sentence. I don’t remember much from doing the service, beyond Windexing a framed photo of Mayor Bloomberg.
I grew up on the Upper West Side. It wasn’t a typical upbringing, but I’m not an orphan yet.
As an adolescent, I was sure that growing up uptown would inhibit me from becoming the person I wanted to become. I longed to live downtown. I couldn’t think of anything else that could successfully turn me into a cool person. I thought I had smarts, but I knew I was missing cool. Around the time I first started shaving, when fashion magazines were my bibles, I read that Chloë Sevigny rarely even traveled above 23rd street (don’t quote me on that). Growing up on the UWS’s rat-less streets felt like solid proof that I was destined to be uninteresting. What I wanted to become was some sorta variation on a Factory Girl.
I left New York at 18 for California. I wanted to get as far away from my family, from the Upper West Side, as physically possible. I didn’t think I’d ever return.
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