At 12:30 PM 12/17/2008, Doug Henwood wrote:
><http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-12-17/the-bag-lady-papers/1
> >
>
>The Bag Lady Papers
>by Alexandra Penney
>December 17, 2008 | 7:42am
>
>Alexandra Penney—a NY artist and former editor of Self Magazine—lost
>her life savings in the Madoff debacle. Now, she shares her wrenching
>trauma in a Daily Beast exclusive.
>
>Last Thursday at around 5 p.m., I had just checked on a rising cheese
>soufflé in my oven when my best friend called.
>
>"Heard Madoff's been arrested," she said. "I hope it's a rumor.
>Doesn't he handle most of your money?"
>
>Indeed, he did. More than a decade ago, when I was in my late 40s, I
>handed over my life savings to Madoff's firm. It was money I'd been
>tucking away since I was 16-years-old, when I began working summers in
>Lord & Taylor, earning about $65 a week. Not a penny was inherited.
>Not one cent was from my divorce. I earned all of it myself, through a
>long string of jobs that included working as a cashier at Rosedale
>fish market in New York City in my twenties, and later, writing
>bestselling sex books.
>
>When I hung up with my friend, I turned on the TV, and began to scour
>Google for news until the message became nauseatingly clear: Forty
>years of savings—the money I'd counted on to take me comfortably
>through the next thirty years—had likely evaporated in Madoff's scheme.
>
>THAT MOTHERFUCKER!! The soufflé fell.
>
>I called Dennis, my consort of 16 years, and he canceled the dinner
>guests. I took half of a very strong tranquilizer that I'd been
>stashing for years in case of a death in the family.
>
>My son, in his late-thirties and my only child, called from
>California. "You can live in the back house, mom," he told me,
>referring to the cottage behind his Santa Monica home. I was immensely
>grateful to the point of tears. But I am not going to be a burden to
>anyone. I never have been and I never will be.
>
>I'd imagined living out my so-called "Golden Years" working on my art,
>living in my east side apartment, and god forbid having to hire an
>aide should I ever need one. Now, what will happen to me? The only
>thing I have left is the contents of one small bank account I'd saved
>for a rainy day. Terrifying thoughts of state-run old people's homes,
>and those slow-eyed attendants that drug you and strap you to
>wheelchairs suddenly became horribly vivid in my mind.
>
>I had a great fear of being alone that night, and Dennis came right
>over. He walked in the door and gave me biggest bear hug of my life
>and said "everything will be fine." Dennis is a well-known artist, but
>the art market is dead, dead, dead, right now.
>
>I began to think about my options: I'd have to sell the cottage in
>West Palm Beach immediately. I'd need to lay off Yolanda. I could
>cancel the newspaper subscriptions and read everything online. I only
>needed a cellphone. I'd have to stop taking taxis. And who could
>highlight my hair for almost no money? And how hard was it to give
>yourself a really good pedicure?
>
>Then, there is my jewelry. I've always collected nice watches and
>pearls. In the back of my mind I'd think "buy good stuff because if
>you're ever a bag lady, you can sell it." It might have been a
>rationalization then—but here I am now: the nightmare may be coming
>true.
>
>Before I reached for a bedtime Tylenol PM that night, I Googled the
>Hemlock society. I wanted to know a painless way to die. Would you
>believe the Hemlock society no longer exists?
>
>Park Ave. and the Fish Market
>
>I was brought up in very comfortable circumstances in a Waspy
>Connecticut suburb. My mother was a descendent of Greek royalty, an
>intellectual grande dame who wore elegant shaded glasses. But my
>father, a Greek immigrant, was a product of the Depression. He was a
>smart, strict Harvard lawyer who had seen bad times. I learned to save
>pennies from the minute I got an allowance.
>
>After graduating from Smith, I moved to New York, dreamed of being a
>painter, but needed money. I began to work at Vogue magazine and was
>married briefly to a talented industrial designer. We lived right off
>Park Avenue and had a son. But the chichi uptown lifestyle was not for
>me.
>
>My husband and I divorced, and I walked out without a penny. It was
>the 1970s, I was a feminist and I would make it on my own.
>
>I took three jobs to support myself and my son, including cashiering
>at the fish market, where my new style included rubber boots, overalls
>and a wrap-around aprons. I also wrote ad copy for Bloomingdales, and
>freelanced for the New York Times Magazine.
>
>We lived in a tiny two room apartment on West Broadway before it
>became SoHo, where I slept on a mattress on the floor so my son could
>have his own room with his toys.
>
>We lived cheaply, ate a lot of interesting pasta, but I always wanted
>my surroundings to be beautiful. Our life was more dash than cash.
>
>In the early 1980s, needing more money, I came up with a book idea:
>How to Make Love to a Man. My parents told me I'd lost my dignity and
>didn't speak to me for nine years. Lawyers have advised me not to
>speak in specific numbers, but the book sold millions of copies
>worldwide. Four others followed; all hit the New York Times bestseller
>list.
>
>Checks started rolling in. I bought a one bedroom apartment on Fifth
>Ave., the first thing I'd ever owned. A few years later, Si Newhouse
>offered me a job as editor-in-chief of Self Magazine. I worked there
>until the mid 1990s, when I left to pursue my art full time.
>
>The Madoff Connection
>
>I suddenly had a lot of money. I was in my late forties, and I felt
>that I was just too old to have it in a plain old bank account. But I
>was a creative person, not a savvy investor, so I asked around and
>talked to my smartest friends with Harvard and Wharton MBAs. There
>appeared to be a secret society of Madoff investors. A friend who was
>older, wealthier and more established somehow got me in. I've always
>had good luck, and I thought it was another stroke of good fortune to
>be invested with the legendary Bernard Madoff.
>
>Every month I got detailed statements, and my money looked to be
>growing around 9 to 11%. It didn't seem greedy because I knew people
>other people who were making 15 or 20%. I thought "this is just a very
>smart investor."
>
>I never even knew what Madoff looked like. But now I obliterate his
>face when I see it on television. I think he's a sociopath who said he
>lost $50 billion bucks for self aggrandizement, when it was probably
>closer to the bandied about number of $17 billion.
>
>The Studio
>
>I woke up Friday, the day after the news broke, at 4:46 a.m. in my
>pretty bedroom. (How much longer will I be able to stay here?) It
>takes a moment, but then I remember: Ohmygod, something TERRIBLE HAS
>HAPPENED! For several seconds I can't remember. And then: dear god! I
>HAVE NOTHING.
>
>It is too painful to think I will lose my Florida cottage, maybe my
>studio. This is everything I have worked for.
>
>I started out life as a painter. Since those days, my dream has been
>to have a studio to do the work I want to do, to be my own boss, to
>make the smartest art I can conceive.
>
>I finally found my studio two years ago: a small SoHo space awash in
>light and sun and energy and hope.
>
>I will almost surely have to give it up: it is an amputation I may not
>be able to bear. Not hearing the click of the key to "AP Studio" room
>803 makes my thoughts turn to those sweet almondy cyanide capsules.
>
>White Shirts and Telling Yolanda
>
>I wear a classic clean white shirt every day of the week. I have about
>40 white shirts. They make me feel fresh and ready to face whatever
>battles I may be fighting in the studio to get the best out of my work.
>
>How am I going to iron those shirts so I can still feel like a poor
>civilized person? Even the no iron ones need touching up.
>
>Yolanda makes my life work. She comes in three mornings a week,
>whirlwinds around and voila! The shirts are ironed, the sheets are
>changed, the floors are vacuumed. She's worked with me for seven years
>and is a big part of my life. She needs money. She sends it to her
>family in Colombia. I have more than affection for Yolanda, I love her
>as part of my family.
>
>On Friday, I tell her I have had a disastrous thing happen to me, but
>I don't have the guts to tell her I cannot keep her with me any
>longer. I'll wait til Wednesday.
>
>How will I make money?
>
>The art market, as everyone pretty much knows, is dead. If I can't
>sell my work, I am going to have to find some way to make money.
>
>I've lived a great and interesting life. I love beautiful things: high
>thread count sheets, old china, watches, jewelry, Hermes purses and
>Louboutin shoes. I like expensive French milled soap, good wines and
>white truffles. I have given extravagant gifts like diamond earrings.
>I traveled a lot. In this last year, I've been Laos, Cambodia, India,
>Russia, and Berlin for my first solo art show. Will I ever be able to
>explore exotic places again?
>
>Since this happened last Thursday, I have barely left my apartment, I
>haven't been out for dinner; haven't bought groceries. Can't remember
>the last time I ate a full meal. Food, which is one of my most
>favorite things in the world, has become meaningless. But I look on
>that as an upside.
>
>Yesterday, I took my first subway in 30 years. Dennis came with me to
>show me how to get a MetroCard. The world looks very different from a
>crowded Lexington Avenue number 6 train.
>
>Alexandra Penney is an artist, best-selling author, former editor-in-
>chief of Self magazine, and originator, with Evelyn Lauder, of the
>Pink Ribbon for breast cancer awareness. She had a one-person show at
>Galerie in Berlin in April and her work was shown at Miami's Art
>Basel. She lives in New York, has one treasured son in Los Angeles and
>more amazing friends than could ever be imagined.
>
>
>___________________________________
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