At first, in the beginning, I wore fitted, tailored pants. I added in heels and cashmere sweaters. I began my training in an enormous hospital in Manhattan, funded to the high beams with a surfeit of money. The hot, gay social workers wore Paul Smith, the receptionist had an amazing colorist, the doctors had corner offices. With doors. Bookshelves. Plants. The even the nurses wore kitten heels.
My patients were the clinically insane and woefully addicted. And, with the exception of one, exclusively male. Soft broken hungry humans living as they could in the system that kept them in place and accounted for. I had my own office, with computers, a phone, a window. These men had twice weekly meetings to complain about the discomforts of their hospital stay: the DVD player didn't work over the weekend; my roommate snores too much, I need a private bed; the pizza we ordered for pizza night wasn't from the right pizzeria how could we be so moronic, they are living in a prison here, the least we could do is order real pizza for fuckssake. I conducted psychiatric interviews, timid and bold and unaccustomed to their short attention, their stock answers, their eyes on the buttons of my shirt. Staring them down, unremitting, sweaty heart pounding inside, tailored pants still neatly creased and fitted.
In the ghetto, at my next hospital, along the blaring streets of Brooklyn, one does not wear kitten heels, cashmere or anything remotely fitted. One does not arrive for work in hand me down Prada and, if one is small and white and inept, that one in particular should not wear sparkly, glinting, gawky engagement rings because one's patients live in the projects down the street and the nurses ride the train an hour in from Queens and one will never survive if one parades down the halls clicking, coiffed, and conspicuous.
Which is why, last night, when I ended up at a Chelsea art gallery last night for the opening of a friend's latest installment and meeting Andy's friend Zac Pozen (!) I was wearing loafers.
Loafers. LOAFERS. Zac Pozen. Chelsea art gallery. Loafers.
No, no. Please. It's not okay. Really, it isn't.
*****
Addendum: thank you, Flutter, for pointing out that it's Zac Po-Sa-en, Ssssssen like Stupid Girl in Loafers Who Doesn't Watch Enough Sex In The City or Gossip Girl not PoZEN like Stella.
