I’m not a rabid fan of the Olympic games. I’m never glued to the TV during football season. Soccer’s yawnsville. Baseball’s boring (I don’t drink beer!) So, I leave the yelping, belly slapping and squealing to the legions of hysterical sports lovers. I do, however, strive to learn the discourse of sports so I can have something to talk about with the men in life, besides politics and food. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy Laker Games which involves eyeballing Jack Nicholson from my seat while praying for Kobe Bryant to sweat on me. As a life long dancer and almost-daily runner, I respect grace, athleticism and rigorous discipline. Still, it was unusual for me to become completely sucked in by the London Olympics this past year and even weirder when I became totally obsessed with Oscar Pistorius, also called (after my favorite movie, ever) Bladerunner.

David Foster Wallace described top athletes as “profundity in motion.”

“To be a top athlete,” he wrote, “is to be that exquisite hybrid of animal and angel that we average unbeautiful watchers have a hard time seeing in ourselves.” Pastorius not only personified immortality and fragility, he was a winged genius, a revolutionary fighter and my personal hero.

Write Girl

Born with a disease that deformed his legs below the knee, they were amputated when he was just 11. But he couldn’t be stopped. After competing in the Paralympics and winning many races, he longed to compete in the regular Olympics and finally won that that long battle with the powers that be. What a stud muffin.

On robotic legs of fancy curved metal, sexy Pastorius sprinted ahead of the other runners with an unfettered, joyful grace. Not only was he visible proof that the next to impossible was very fucking possible, Pastorius was absolutely beautiful. With an underwear model physique and chiseled jaw, his gaze was magnificent and inspiring.

Look at him go, I thought. See, he can do it. Maybe we can too. Pastorius made me believe in human triumph as he sprung ahead on his amazing blade-legs. I joined the yelping masses as I clapped for him on my couch and cried in my soy latte.

Hot Damn, I thought. We can do the one true thing: protest and try harder and wake up earlier and never ever give up. He’s doing it!

Pastorius showed the whole world that it was possible to be the best, regardless of difficult circumstances. He was living proof we could better ourselves; We could succeed and rise above our petty limitations. Pastorius tattooed my brain with the mantra: “never ever give up.”

Never Give Up

It’s amazing how a person I’ve never met can inspire me to change the world one student at a time and plant a seed of tenacity and dedication and then come Valentine’s Day, that person could become the lowest of creatures.

I don’t know about you, but Valentine’s Day has always made me feel inadequate. As much as I want to be a person who celebrates love and is light and flirty and fun, Valentine’s Day usually makes me feel like a loser. I read the cutesy cards and want to hurl. I fixate on what I’m doing wrong. My relationships are unpredictable, doomed for failure and marked with protracted tension. Or else I feel elated and delusional—like everything is a-okay when clearly, it is not. My defects are glaring on Valentine’s Day; my failures flash like a tinfoil wrapped chocolate kisses. I’m a flawed lover who digs her high heels in when she should run like her hair’s on fire and runs for the hills when she should stick around. So, this shaky Valentine’s day, I turned on the news and there was my hero being tried for premeditated murder. Turns out, he shot his gorgeous model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.

Ironically, Steenkamp had planned to attend an event where she’d give a talk on domestic violence but was shot instead by Oscar Pistorius.

Write Girl

Heart sick and sad with the realization that first Lance Armstrong was a liar mouth and now this, I decided to hit the road and do my Write Girl gig. Screw it, I’d spend Valentine’s Day morning volunteering for the incarcerated girls camp. After all, it was songwriting workshop day—my favorite workshop of all. Two incredible, accomplished musicians showed up and performed the girls’ lyrics on the spot if the girls hadn’t given us their lyrics the week before. The musicians taught the girls rhythm and structure and made sure the girls knew that their stories were important and their lyrics beautiful. Many of the girls seemed like they’d never heard before that they were good at something.

The girls were in awe of the creative process and loved seeing their words come alive. They clapped, smiled and folded their hands in front of their mouths. As I watched them fall in love with the musicians, I thought that while some of our heroes become monsters, others are busy taking flight. The songs and their words were used to make something powerful and beautiful.

Write Girl

And then I went to Barnacle Books and signed my book deal with Tyson Cornell! There is hope, after all, Valentine’s Day be damned.

So, I’m still floating on a Sundance cloud and I still haven’t told you about hot tub night. Park City was a chilly nineteen degrees and the surrounding snow looked soft like a giant comforter you could fall into and not get wet. The chairlifts carried skiers up the mountain to the slopes above. It reminded me of skiing as a kid; leaning to and fro to make the chairlift swing hard until I got scared. Skiers and snow boarders blew warm breath into their gloved palms on the free shuttles. After buying lunch from a grocery store (with a fireplace!) a group of us went to a bus stop to see a movie about a teacher who slowly unravels due to falling in love with her high school student. It wasn’t great but I liked seeing the teacher regress into an adolescent as she descended into a forbidden obsession and that she got caught in the driveway by the kid’s dad and that it ended in a seedy hotel room with her curled into a crazy ball and her phone blowing up, totally busted—that curled up crazy you never recover from or escape. You, your shame and four thin cheap walls and a dirty peach bedspread. Great ending, but best part of seeing “A Teacher” was the way we got there.
At the bus stop, It was dangerously close to movie time and no bus. And the sun was so bright white and glaring, we peeled our layers off and got saucy. Stephen stuck his arm and thumb out all slick and charming when the ladies passed by in their full loaded SUVs. They totally looked him up and down with their car seats cluttering their back seats.
I stuck my fingerless gloved hands out next, feeling likea fifteen-year old in a bad slasher film with my cool sunglasses and tight shirt, inviting trouble. When none of our thumbs were up anymore, a guy turned around in his huge empty flatbed truck. It’s one thing to pick up a couple chicks hitch hiking to a movie during Sundance in Park City, but quite another to pick up 5 hitch hikers. The guy had balls. Turns out, he was just impossibly baked and good natured. He let us know right away he was looking for gas money. So after we smashed into the passenger side and the teeny back seat, Stephen and I palmed him a couple five spots and made it in time for the film which I already told you about.

My Panties

That same night, I attended a lady dinner honoring the creative women of Sundance. It sounded super intimidating and fancy. I imagined power bitches with blowouts doing juvederm shots, but it wasn’t at all. It was casual and fun and a bunch of confident women laughing and exchanging emails and cute tiny pink business cards. After those few initial awkward moments of shit, they won’t want to talk to me and I won’t know what to say to them and isn’t this weird, I was good. The dinner hosted by Jill Soloway and Elysa Koplovitz, a super sexy brunette who produced the other movie I worked on, “Ass Backwards,” a comedy like Thelma and Louise meets Romy and Michelle.

Jill and Elysa

The writers and actors from “Ass Backwards” were two ridiculously adorable chicks who handed out white cotton underwear with the dates and times that “Ass Backwards” was playing (say it with me: “Genius”). They gave me the panties because I was a stripper in their movie and hope to be a stripper in their next movie. Their movie was one of those amazing tales you hear where they stopped production a year into it because they ran out of funds then—poof—an angel swooped in and invested. I came on the scene when the whole crew was elated and blessed and had a really fun day with them on set.

Ass Backwards Girls

Jill Soloway helped me get over myself. She said “Go over there. That’s Naomi Wolf!” You know, Naomi Wolf (“The Beauty Myth” and “Vagina”) the feminist writer, pioneer. She was in a sea of more gorgeous, powerful, familiar looking women, but I elbowed my way to her anyway. She was my idol in the 90′s. Her and Camille Paglia were the reason I shaved my head and tore of my wig on stage at The Century Theater in the early 90′s. She was really genuine and pretty and her eyes sparkled like my mom’s. I told her she looked like my mom when she was young. She tweeted about my book and then asked me some questions about how sex work can possibly be empowering and we began a dialogue about Lovelace which appeared in The Guardian here.

Naomi Wolf!

Finally, we headed to the hot tub which happened to be in the Juno Temple and Kathryn Hahn lodge. Some of us were 100% commando but Kathryn Hahn wore some suspiciously untouched “Ass Backwards” panties that she may or may not have lifted from my purse. It was a yummy moment of girl talk and stories, some so private I can’t bear to reveal them here except for a very funny massage that Jill Soloway had by a dude. And even though I miss my “Ass Backwards” panties, I can’t imagine a cuter butt for those briefs to hug and I hope she thinks of me when she wears them.

Where are they?