At the time in 1996 when my cat and I moved into the alcove studio on the corner of 12th Street and Fourth Avenue that I was subletting, I’d recently begun a high-paying job at Elektra Records as head of their video promotion department. It was an odd fit, putting me squarely into the corporate side of the music business. Somehow I’d decided that working for a music magazine was not a corporate gig, and while that might have been true to the extent that I could pitch a story and write about an artist without too much outside influence, if you lifted the veil at SPIN even a little, you’d witness the dealmaking between the record companies and the magazine. Especially when it came to travel. Writers would go on junkets, trips that were set up by the record company to promote one of their artists or bands where everything would be paid for with the unspoken rule that the journalist would pen a good story, which in turn would promote the newest release of said artist, and on and on. All magazines were approached by publicists to do these types of stories. Some agreed and others refused. Rolling Stone did not accept junkets for their writers. SPIN did. In fact, that was about the only way we ever traveled for an assignment.

Working at Elektra, I immediately understood how my participation in music had shifted. Whereas before I was a joyful participant and observer in the sound and the fury of the music business— snickering along with the musicians about some corporate shill who was trying mighty hard to go with the flow in a tiny sweaty club—now I was the shill. I’d been hired because of my relationships with musicians and my ability to walk in and connect with them. But along with my career change came a subtle shift in my perspective. I felt it first on an assignment where I needed to position a certain band on a popular music television program. I approached said band as I normally would: loose and jolly. I was met with a chill and an expectation that I needed to make sure I was fulfilling their expectations, which ranged from what they wanted in the backstage greenroom to when the corporate car would pick them up at the end of the day. Unlike at SPIN, they didn’t need to impress me so I’d write a good story, instead it needed to be impressed upon me that my job was to get them seen by the right people.

This shift in perspective drove a pretty solid stake through my music-loving heart. Kurt Cobain had died a few months into this new job, and I was really scrambling to keep my passion for new music aflame. Not to mention, I was tasked with working only with the artists that were on the label. I wasn’t actually involved in finding new music to cover. It went a long way that Elektra had some good bands that I loved: The Afghan Whigs, The Breeders, Metallica, Busta Rhymes, Bjork, and Ween above all. Still and all, my soul was dying a little each working day and night. I’d come home to my doorman building, take the elevator up to my third-floor alcove studio, make some dinner, turn on the TV, and zone out completely. I was taking a break from boys, from intimacy, and, apparently, from my emotions because when I think back on that time, it all feels a bit numb.

Which is probably why on the weekends, I would go up to the outdoor flea market that used to be on 23rd and Sixth Avenue and buy things (a weird art print that caught my eye and ended up in my closet facing the wall, a too-large fringed suede jacket that I maybe wore once, a purse the size of a pincushion that was covered in sequins … I mean, for anyone who knows me, I’m not nor have ever been a purse-carrying gal. Sling bags, yes, very tiny purses, no, especially when I was still smoking and carrying a wallet and keys and, well … not a tiny purse. But all this was emblematic of how I’d spend money to numb out. I know it has a name: retail therapy yet at the time that phrase didn’t land with me. By the time I’d get back to the building, the doorman would be sprinting to help me carry my many bags stuffed with stuff along with some too-expensive candle and bottle of wine that I’d drink myself along with takeout.

And about those candles: One day the owner of the apartment, who also lived in the building, knocked on the door and scolded me. That was because I’d regularly put one in the front window that faced Fourth Avenue, light it, then leave to meet the ladies mentioned last week at some place like the Odeon or Nobu where I’d spend the rest of that week’s paycheck. Rinse and repeat for all the weeks to come until I realized how utterly miserable I was. It took two-and-a-bit years for me to understand what was happening to my soul/spirit. By that time, the people who’d hired me at the record company and who’d really been my only reason for wanting to be there had been let go and there was a whole new shelf of people at the top who I reported to. I didn’t care for them and ended up sabotaging myself in a few different ways. Being quite crappy at confrontation, my biggest stumble came when I pretended that a certain hip-hop video had gotten placement on MTV when it hadn’t. Naturally, this led to a domino effect of shame when, in the weekly meeting, I was forced to admit that no, actually, the video hadn’t been added and what I’d meant to say was it probably would be … soon? I was then called to the chairman of the label’s office to answer for my lie. I went home that night, took off the sheath dress (gray, light wool, leather trim) that I’d bought at a boutique in Soho that weekend, balled it up, and threw it in the corner of my closet. I’d never be able to wear it again. Even months later, putting it in a giveaway bag for the Salvation Army transported me immediately to the moment in her office where she didn’t fire me, but rather yelled and yelled as I prickled with shame. Obviously I wanted to be fired. (Sense a trend here? Take a beloved car=break up with me; lie at work=fire me.)

I still had some amount of months on my contract, and when those months were done, I turned down a new deal and stepped out of the revolving door onto Rockefeller Plaza and sweet freedom. It was September 1997. Fall in New York City. Still hot but with the every-once-in-a-while crisp breeze that promised fall. A new beginning. I was ecstatic. I signed up for a writing class at the New School deciding I would find that creative muscle again. I would spin stories and spend time scribbling them down. I would worry about how to make money later. I would find my love for music again.

As it turned out: I did write, I didn’t make money, and I couldn’t find the music. I was 37 and not altogether sure what my career was anymore. Having stepped off music journalism’s path, I’d lost some ability to hear the piper. In fact, I wasn’t even trying to listen that hard. I did absolutely find bliss in not being told who to listen to and what to promote and I reveled in that freedom even if I wasn’t seeking out any new sounds. I still went out with the same group of ladies but always had a good reason to go home early since I didn’t have a paycheck and therefore no money to spend on dinner, clubs, and the rest. I was living on credit cards and a plundered 401K, a nasty combination that I would continue to work toward correcting for years and years. And when the holidays rolled around, I discovered that doormen generally like to be tipped in cash. Something I didn’t really have. So I baked mini banana breads and gave them out in bright little boxes. As I remember it, they were all gracious in taking my homemade offering, but it wasn’t lost on me that I’d soon need to move because even if I’d sold all those clothes that still had tags on them, it wouldn’t be enough to pay my rent for much longer

As it happened, the end of 1998 found me in a relationship that I, with equal measure subconscious calculation and determined escapism, used as a getaway vehicle from my go-go nineties, tripping-the-light-fantastic lifestyle. I jumped aboard and ended up in Brooklyn a long way from home physically and emotionally.