The Clothes Do Not Make The Person

Recently, a very good friend told me an acquaintance of mine said I was very cute but I need to wear more suits.  When she asked why, the acquaintance said I would look even better and land a girlfriend. When my friend told her I was dating someone, she said well he should wear more suits.  

I took a few things away from the conversation. While there was a compliment about my looks, I would be more desirable if I upgraded my wardrobe. Whatever happened to take me as I am? I dress comfortably. Business casual during work weeks, with a blazer or sports jacket to round things off.  The suits come for important events. We live in a society where image is everything. We judge people based on appearance.  No matter how good our intentions are, it is sometimes deeply embedded in our subconscious to create a value on a person purely on looks alone. I’m guilty of it too. Person walking down the street in shabby will get a nervous glance or a long look. We don’t know the person but can quickly come up with characteristics. It’s human nature that causes us to react in such a way.  

Sadly some have that nature worse than others. Best I can think of on how we stop such behavior is to be aware of our thoughts and quietly admonish ourselves for thinking that way. While it is true more people would approach an attorney in a suit no matter he is a moron versus the one who looks like a hobo but is as brilliant as Justice Marshall, all we can do is remind a person that putting lipstick on a pig still keeps it a pig. 

This Was Forty

30 minutes is all that separates me from turning 41. No longer can I cling to my late thirties. My feet are firmly into my forties. It was bound to happen. Semi-clean living, working out and a will to live is what got me here. Also luck and fate. Forty wasn’t bad. I learned to get more comfortable with my body and aging. The white hairs don’t bother me as much. Gives me character as some of the women I love tell me. I have matured in relationships. Found my voice professionally and have taken my role in community affairs more seriously. I’m also one who doesn’t put up with bullshit. My main pet peeve. I’ve noticed my penchant for chasing women under 30 has waned. A combination of being an older guy and how I could be considered their fathers is one reason. Other is maturity and life experience. I just can’t keep up with the roaring ’20s. Yes, I have been embracing middle-age. Cheers to hoping it lasts a very long time.

Lost New York

So I came across one if my favorite local haunts and found it had closed after nearly 30 years of existence. Cut down by the all too familiar aggressor: potential sky risers. As I silently mourned the loss of yet another place I called home, I started to think that the New York City I have grown up in and loved is becoming a memory. Sure NYC as with every city needs to evolve, but with each evolution it loses a piece of what made it unique amongst cosmopolitan cities. Farewell Hudson Place, gone too soon has become NYC’s broken record.

A lot of “Firsts” and a lot of “Lasts”

This is my department’s last week at its current location. We have been at this location for over 17 years. I have never participated in a company moving to another location in all my working years so this is my first move. I haven’t even had the opportunity to move desks as wherever I worked, that became my office. Never having to pick up and migrate to another place. So, this move has brought about a lot of mixed feelings. I’m a creature of comfort and I didn’t mind my office location and the surrounding area. Whatever issues I had, I got over them in the first couple of years at this position. As time went by, this became just like every other workplace. You get familiar with where the bathroom is, what pantry is the clean one and better stocked and what is the best exit to the elevator bank so you don’t have to walk by the powers that be. I had it down to a science.  It is hard to walk away from all that knowledge I amassed over the years.

The biggest issue and saddening fact I have is the people whom I get along with and are considered friends in the office will not be on the floor I am moving to. In other words, our department is being split up. The group I work with, while a nice and civil bunch of professionals are just that. Civil. There is very little interaction among each other unless it is work related or serves a professional purpose (i.e. moving up in the company). People will chat and appear friendly but it is all on the surface. Try to peel back the layers of the onion and all you get is a stinky attitude. The other groups in the office, whom I do not work with, are a different bunch of people. They enjoy conversation, each other’s company and work well together in the process. In fact, I find them more efficient. Those other groups are the ones I found myself interacting with more so than my group. We could talk business and pleasure in the same sentence without being careful with our words. It was comfortable. With the splitting of our department, I fear that it will not be the same. Sure we are one as far as a legal group but not one in the physical sense. At least not after this Friday. It almost feels like with this move, that I will never see these wonderful people who made the work day decent just with their personalities.

I noticed today as I went outside for lunch that I will not frequent the delis, fast food places, stores that are close and around the office. Suddenly these places will be too far from the new location. My morning coffee or breakfast sandwich are closer to my current location than my new location. While on some days I can walk over to them and grab food and catch up, they won’t be my primary source.  Instead, I will have to find new places along the way to get my coffee. Establish new relationships with street vendors and other locations which I frequent during the course of a workday. As I picked up a tuna melt from the deli down the block, I thought this will probably be the last week I ever go to the deli unless I am in the area.

As the days get closer, I am sure there will be more lasts that I will encounter. While I will mourn them in my own way, there are a lot of firsts that come with a move to a new location. I will think of those only after we move. Until then, it is farewell to the work life I know and was so accustomed to.

I’ve Been Assassinated (Metaphorically)

Recently I found the pitfalls that are associated with being a chairman of a committee. You become the face of the group you lead, which means that you do not only get the good, but you get the bad and ugly.  I have enjoyed the positive responses that the committee has received since my ascent to chairman and the hard work that the committee and I put into making decisions that affect the lives of those within our community is greatly appreciated. I’m a firm believer that people would understand the effort and hard work that goes into running a group handling such critical issues and how the greater good is what triumphs over the issues of a select few.

Boy, was I wrong.

Two weeks after our committee meeting, I was subjected to allegations of purposely denying the community the ability to input on the proposed matter affecting their neighborhood. I had closed the door and held secret negotiations and came up with a resolution well before the matter was discussed was some of the other allegation. One person, who must have watched the movie Lincoln, stated that I used underhanded tactics that were used to push the 13th amendment. When I received these emails and then calls from the board office and local politicians on this matter, I was naturally surprised. I’m not gullible enough to think everyone in the world would like me. I learned long ago that there are many who in fact dislike my personality. Still, to have my character, morals and ethics being questioned was something I had never heard before. It brought on a hurt and angry feeling that goes when doing a thankless job. While the critics were small in number, they were vocal and vicious in their words. It was enough to make me think about why I was putting myself in the position to help a community that doesn’t appreciate or want to help all of society but only care about their needs.  That type of selfishness I can’t stand in my personal life so why would I want to deal with it in this professional, yet voluntary, role? I found myself defending myself, retelling how everything the past few weeks occurred and how I did not cross the line but in fact stayed within protocol. I had the support of the board and local politicians that my actions were unquestionable yet I felt the sting of being treated like a punching bag. When the dust settled, I still wondered why am I volunteering for this responsibility and the resulting hatred that goes with the position.

Well, it is cause I believe as a community we can be representative of what people can do together for the greater good of people who not only reside in our community but for those in all of NYC. We cannot exclude people because we do not want certain social services in our neighborhood. While we want our fair share, at the end of the day, we are here to ensure that everyone is well taken care of by the various services in place. When people ask me why should we have this type of service in our community, I ask them why not? Should we punish those who need it by sending them to the outer boroughs? We would not be good New Yorkers if we did that. We would only feed into the myth that New Yorkers only care about New Yorkers.

R.I.P. Hizzoner Edward I. Koch

“I don’t want to leave Manhattan, even when I’m gone,” he said at the time. “This is my home. The thought of having to go to New Jersey was so distressing to me.” – Edward I. Koch on why he bought himself a $20,000 plot at Trinity Cemetery on Riverside Drive

He embodied New York City. We all shine a little less with his passing.

Reuniting, Reminiscing, Reflection & Realization

Friday night was my high school’s annual beefsteak dinner. For years they have held it and for years I ignored it. Not that I had a bad relationship with the school. In fact I carved out a nice niche, balancing being liked by most, a part-time ballplayer who pitched decently for some really good and really bad teams, pulled in average grades but loved jokes and pranks. Yet when high school was over I was sick of my school. I swore up and down I would never give back to it and instead turned my back on it. The hatred stemmed from immaturity and stupidity but I didn’t know it at the time. I was a cocky college kid. Years went by and then something happened. I grew up.

In this century I started to realize and appreciate what my school brought to my life. How it shaped me. Taught me to stand up for myself. Learn that I can’t please anyone and that hard work did lead to something good and being a slacker only hurt yourself. More of my personality became defined in high school which is a reflection of the man I am today.

Being amongst old classmates and friends, people who knew me as Rajesh and not Raj, I was spending time with people who knew me during those awkward/angst-ridden teenage years. They knew the guy I was and now saw the man I am. Some things were different but there was also parts of me that remained the same. I’m older, a little grey around the temple and not much difference in appearance to others there. We were all older, some more mileage on our bodies and livers but for one night we were back in time. We celebrated life and our friendship amongst beefsteak and beers. Twenty-Two years after we stepped out of the school for what we thought was the last time, we were back for this night. It is a night that will become an annual tradition for me.

Originally this was supposed to be a blog entry about another type of realization I had during that night but instead my heart and fingers composed the above. My next entry will be strictly from my mind.

Envy Isn’t My Style

A few weeks ago I received a call from my old boss/mentor/good friend. We had not spoken in months and had to catch up with Post-Sandy talk and everything else that happened in the world during the lack of communication. As we talked, he let me know his grandson had been accepted and started at Georgetown University School of Law. Totally happy and excited for him. I like to see young people enter into law with optimism. A lot of that comes from the fact that I entered law for a different reason and was also well versed in the realities of the field so with that knowledge I was slightly tempered in my enthusiasm as well as realistic in what I could potentially accomplish in the field. I also went to law schools that I could afford and not the ones I wanted to go to. So that certainly jaded my approach towards law school and I wanted anyone who went to have a fresh perspective and do not pass along my personal reservations which I held prior to attending law school. Anyway, he went on and on about how his grandson loves it there and is enjoying the hard work as well as DC to the extent he can enjoy the city. It was a good conversation and we plan on meeting up in the new year for a group lunch.

After I hung up the phone, I felt this nagging creeping sensation. I couldn’t place my finger on it until I came to grips with it. I was jealous. Georgetown had been the school I had been accepted to for college and law school and both times I could not afford to go there. Sure I still have student loans from my education and law school wasn’t cheap when I went but it would have been much worse had I gone to Georgetown. So I sat there and was bothered by the fact that someone I knew was living the dream I had when I was in my 20s.

I hated feeling this way. It was all on me as to why I didn’t go and yet I was envious about someone getting the chance and being able to do the things I had dreamed of had I gone to school there. We all make our choices and I made mine but I shouldn’t regret it. What disgusted me most was that I was even feeling this way. I had my chance. I didn’t pick that road. Instead I went with what was practical for me and it still lead to a legal career. I can’t live with the “What Ifs?”. I didn’t do it and I was ashamed at myself for even harboring any negative feelings when I heard such wonderful news from my friend.

While I know I am only human and allowed to have a myriad of feelings, this is one type of feeling I do not like to just accept as being a part of me. I don’t need to envy or be jealous. Had I not chosen the school I went to, I would not have met one of my closest friends.  That first year of law school made some of the best relationships I have had in my life and what we went through has kept us in touch with one another.  I wouldn’t trade that for anything so I put aside the jealous and envy and have grown to be happy for my friend’s grandson.  I made the right choice for myself and there is no looking back. Only looking forward.

All a Titter Over Twitter

As I feel my insatiable need of verbal diarrhea has increased with age, I’ve taken to Twitter more and more. The days of just Facebook status updates, while fun, have slowed down. Mostly because my randomness of the status updates I felt needed to be carefully articulated because I had friends on Facebook who may not necessarily understand or appreciate my candor. In other words, I was pissing people off or opening myself to criticism over my status updates, even the humorous ones. So, I started to tweet and it has been refreshing. I can be random, political or opinionated and there is little to no repercussion.  Sure I use hashtags to either follow trends or create my own and I do have followers (most of whom I do not know) but still none of them attack me for my comments. My Facebook status updates were done for myself but when I started to get unwarranted or unwanted attention, I realized that while it is an open forum, your audience is the people you know. On Twitter, your audience is those you know and everyone else who you don’t know. Much like this blog. I write for myself and don’t worry about the consequences whereas on Facebook I had to consider them.

So I shall continue tweeting and blogging. Facebook is still in my life but not so much.

Personalities Orders and Disorders

Working in law, I come across a wide variety of personalities. For the most part they are colorful and that is in a good way. While those are the ones we take for granted, it is the shitty ones that stay with us. This is about the shitty ones.

Now, I’ve always been an outgoing person. Chatty and friendly. Easy-going and someone who had a joke or two up his sleeve. In other words, I try to keep a positive atmosphere around me and try to spread it to others I interact with. Normally, that works out well but then I come across formidably bland or mean-spirited personalities. Like dark clouds that go out of their way to block the sun, they just enjoy spreading their dour feelings. In fact, they seem to be especially gleeful to wreck havoc on shiny happy people. As I’ve gotten older, I try to surround myself with people who appreciate others and life but as the old saying goes, you cannot choose who you work with. So, I try to adjust and not allow their attitude darken my doorstep too much.

Recently, I have had an influx of negative people come my way. People who appeared to be down on life and thus made it their sole reason to exist to ruin the life experience of others. They are rude, demanding and just overwhelmingly grumpy and combative. Tell them the sky is blue and cloudless and they’ll argue it is not even when it is. Tell them you are having a good day and they pepper you with questions in attempts to make you doubt your happiness.

I’ve learned no matter how hard I try to minimize the effect these groups of people have in my life, I can’t completely avoid them. Much like Good and Evil, Up and Down, Left and Right needs a partner to balance out the nature of things, so does positive and negative. We can’t have one without the other. So, as I have done well to keep the negative to a minimum in my private life, in my professional life, I do not have as much control. Just realized that too must be the balance. Private versus Professional life. What an epiphany!