Be Brave Project, Day Four: Digressions and Accountancy

I have to tell you frankly that Elusive D. has not seen and will not see the Sex in the City movie, despite the fact that I am very pleased that its box-office has again forced Hollywood to wrap its mind around the fact that--gasp!--women can be big box office.

When I lived in London, from 2000 to 2005, I watched the tv show primarily for the NY scenery. But I always found the show to be a complete and utter post-feminst fairy tale. Which is fine, if that's your goal, except that it prided itself on its 'honesty' about how women New Yorkers live. I've never met anyone like any of them--though Miranda is definitely the closest to reality, with her intelligence, hostilities, and hit-and-miss wardrobe. Those ghastly neurotic entitled men they date? I'm sure they're around, though they don't even create a blip on my radar. (But then I am elusive.) Nonetheless I found the focus on shoes to be really fucking cutsey and patronizing. With a strong goddamn whiff of product placement.

But.

I have been playing around on Ebay all summer, and I have to say that the shoe auctions are somehow the most satisfying. I got a pair of Gucci loafers a few weeks ago, and the scent of leather made my nostrils flare hungrily. . .so much so that yesterday, less than 24 hours after my DMV experience, I found myself heading for the 125th Street Post Office. Had to pick up my new Coach flats. I've written enough, and too recently, for me to have to re-iterate the experience of dealing with NYC bureaucracy, but the experience is such that I had to pay some apologies to the S & t C producers: I was willing to brave the wilds for my new damn shoes. And, while I am coming down from my high horse, I state that Carrie was a flipping fool to let Aidan go. That man would still have welts from my death-grip on his ankles, if not other places.

Anyway, I got the shoes and they are fine--but not a patch on those damn Guccis.

Yesterday I took the day off, since it was my birthday, and I lay around with a celebratory ice cream cone and the Style section from the Sunday London Times. Once again they claim a social trend in NYC that I've never heard about (have you heard of SCUPPIES? Supposedly stands for Socially Conscious Upward Professional or some crap like that).

Sadly, cones only last so long--had to get down to the BBP; cleaning up my financial mess.

Today's girlish project was to get my financial summaries from 2007 and get them to the dreamiest accountant ever, Louie C.

Once again, why should this make me nervous/frightened? Because I am scared of what I am going to find out after this miserably stupid procrastination. After several calls to various people at the Death Star--oops, I mean Citigroup--I figured out how to print this information up. And then I looked at it. . .

And it didn't look too bad. However, I attended a School of the Arts where we studied fabulous and nearly useless things like European influences on the films of Preston Sturges. So I'll humbly wait to see what L. says.

But thanks to the BBP! I already feel so much better for just dealing with it--somehow having taken an action calms down the dread of the unknown. Considerably. In keeping with the flexible spirit of the BBP, which I appreciate and am taking full advantage of, I have added the following rules.

Yesterday I said that:

A Day's Brave Action doesn't count unless you follow up on it, if that is necessary.

2 new rules today:

• 2 Follow-ups on a brave action = One Brave Action.


• I get weekends off, not just Sunday. This stuff's emotionally exhausting.

So, if I do something about my financial mess + something about getting proper health insurance in one day, that = One Brave Act. I don't want to change the spirit of this project at all. I am just trying to maintain some impetus so I have a life enhanced by all of this astonishing bravery, not stalled for it.

In consequence of the new rules, the Second-half of my One Brave Act, which is actually the first step of a continuous brave act, was to find the Healthy NY website and print their information down. Then I emailed the sous chef I worked with at a European Consulate a few weeks ago, who recommended their health care to me: I usually am horrible about asking for advice (one of those people who are v. opinionated but secretly shy, that's Elusive D.)--so that, plus Health Care, plus financial stuff=

A Damn Good Day's Work.

Haven't spoken to the sous chef, but will tomorrow after I do my single big brave thing--

Take my cat Gigi for her dental surgery. Expensive and I really don't like the idea of general anaesthetic, which apparently is necessary. She lies on the floor next to me, softly blinking whilst digesting her Indoor Cat Chow. Little does she know what lurks in her future. . .