5 Ways to Be Sexy like Obama, According to His Ex-Girlfriend
By Lauren Passell for HowAboutWe
Vanity Fair just published an excerpt from Barack Obama: The Story, by David Maraniss (which is to come out this month) called "Young Barack Obama In Love: A Girlfriend's Secret Diary". It's mainly comprised of blips from the diary of Barack Obama's ex-girlfriend Genevieve, (she called him "Bahr-uck", emphasis on the "Bahr") who wrote extensively of their relationship in New York City in the '70's. We learn a lot about Obama's life as a twenty-something and how he pursued women, and we should all take notes.
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1. Be Well Read Obama is probably the most literary presidents in US history (not that there's been lots of competition). "I had tons of books," he told his biographer, David Mendell. "I read everything. I think that was the period when I grew as much as I have ever grown intellectually. But it was a very internal growth." It has been said that after he left new York to work in Chicago, his colleagues thought he was gathering material for a novel because he was reading so much philosophy and literature. Herman Melville, Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, and E.L. Doctorow are among his favorites. He even has attempted to write short stories. Genevieve and Barack not only read separately, but used books to connect, reading black literature like Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Toni Cade Bambara, and Ntozake Shange, and then discussing. And don't just read things that everyone else is reading, find what you like, what is important to you, what makes you actually think. Obama's friend Mahmood remembers that "for a period of two or three months he carried and at every opportunity read and reread a fraying copy of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. It was a period during which Barack was struggling deeply within himself to attain his own racial identity, andInvisible Man became a prism for his self-reflection."
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2. Learn To Cook It's a great way to impress someone and appear that you are not a child. Have a go-to meal, something more complicated than opening a jar of spaghetti sauce. Get this one meal nailed, and it will help you in the end, guaranteed. In the letters, Genevieve says Obama cooked her dinner on the first date. "Then we went and talked in his bedroom. And then I spent the night. It all felt very inevitable." Genevieve also says that Barack loved to make a ginger beef dish that he had picked up from a friend, and was big on tuna-fish sandwiches made the way his grandfather made them, with finely chopped dill pickles. Genevieve bought him an early edition of The Joy of Cooking as a gift.
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3. Take Care Of Yourself Stay in shape. When Obama lived on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, he would run in Riverside Park. When he was in Brooklyn, he would run in Prospect Park. Genevieve called him "a virtuous daily jogger," something Genevieve was not. However, when she challenged him to a sprinting race, she won. From her journal: "Barack couldn't really believe it and continued to feel a bit unsettled by it all weekend, I think. He was more startled to discover that I had expected to win than anything else. Anyway, later in the shower (before leaving to see The Bostonians) I told him I didn't feel that good about winning, and he promptly replied probably cos of feelings of guilt about beating a man. In which case, no doubt, he'd already discovered the obverse feelings about being beaten by a woman." And take care of your apartment. According to Genevieve, Obama's place smelled like "his habits -- running sweat, Brut spray deodorant, smoking, eating raisins, sleeping, breathing." Note: not stale beer, weed and pizza.
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4. Don't Be Obsessed With Money Obama told Genevieve that he would never keep a job just for security, and Genevieve says the only time Obama raised his voice and got "really, really upset" with her was when she told him the only reason she wanted to remain a teacher in Brooklyn was for the pension. "He went berserk about the trade-offs he saw his grandparents make for some supposed safety net at the expense of something. He meant at the expense of their souls." He was also visibly embarrassed when he discovered how much Genevieve had spent on a gift for him. (An "expensive, Aran-wool dable-knit white sweater" at Saks, to replace an old one he had inherited from his grandfather.)
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5. Lounge Around, Drinking Coffee And Solving The New York Times Crossword Puzzle, Bare-Chested, Wearing A Blue And White Sarong Because, my fellow Americans, that is what your President did, according to this book. Obviously, it doesn't end well for the Barack/Genevieve duo. To find out what happened, read the whole story for yourself.
[Vanity Fair]
