Mean Girl Magic

A 2004 time capsule of stylish disenchantment

Must I credit it? Ok, fine. Mean Girls, 2004.

Once when I was in my early 30s, I went to a Park Avenue penthouse party thrown by the daughter of old-money Manhattanites. At that age, I was equipped with most of the insight I possess now but little of the compassion. I led with a veritable boulder on my shoulder—the boulder being all the ways I felt the universe had screwed me over.

Aggressively thin, aggressively blond, and aggressively arch, I was at the absolute apex of my girl-about-town bullshit. I saw myself as the star of a never-before-seen romcom—think ‘90s-indie-meets-’30s-screwball—and I wasn’t invested in putting anyone at ease unless they’d already revealed themselves as worthy.

The party was being thrown by a friend of a colleague at the very mid-aughts magazine where I worked. If I’m being honest, the word “magazine” might have been too posh for this publication. It was more of a tabloid or a rag. When I said its name in progressive circles, at least one person would say, “Oh, I read that in the dentist’s office.” This told me that a. they secretly read it the minute it hit the stands b. they’d secretly voted for Bush.