Folding your clothes in public is like inviting the viewers into your bedroom and giving them front row seats to your existence. The set up is ludicrous and a bit creepy. I personally, growing up, always felt unsure of how to make sense of my father's tidy whities recklessly drying on the clotheslines in our garden in plain view for the entire neighborhood. And this coming from a man so secretive and taciturn he thinks your doctor is a busybody by asking you about your symptoms when sick! 

It was the love story of the century and everyone was talking about it! Young farm girl from Florence and city boy from New York City meet at a Chelsea theater while she is wearing a very confusing dance costume with a penis made of clay and they fall in love. So in love that they can only stay apart long enough for the girl to finish high school and for the boy to buy an intercontinental ticket for her and two of her suitcases to move to New York City and be with him forever. So romantic! To this day, the only one who thinks it’s creepy that a 30 year old grown man would sweep an 18 year old girl off her feet and move her across the world away from her family to have his way with her, is my son. I kind of agree with him now, but hindsight is 20/20.

It is a misconception that New Yorkers are rude; they are just busy and minding their own business. Most of the time they are packed in each subway car so tightly that they need to learn to synchronize their inhales to allow for the next exhales. You wouldn’t be able to push a paperclip in between their bodies and yet, I have witnessed the strange phenomenon, which I like to call, the “circus trick” twice.

Domestic violence is complicated. Victims must first recognize that what they are experiencing is abuse. The perpetrators are skilled at having rules in place aimed at confusing and masking violent behaviors, maintaining financial or emotional dependency and promoting low self esteem in their partners. I only realized after years of therapy that I misconstrued my ex’s overly attentive behavior at the beginning of our relationship as genuine love for me rather than recognizing it as the systematic grooming of a teenager (I was eighteen when I met him).