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Nov 25 2007 1:12PM EST

Atoosa Rubenstein on Life as "Head Freak"

What's it like to be one of New York's most talked-about media stars? To hear Atoosa Rubenstein tell it, it's a little like being a paralyzed boxer who craves death.

Today, Page Six Magazine profiles the former Seventeen editor and Cosmogirl founder, who just can't stop gushing about how great it is to be out of the game. (The story's not online, as far as I can tell.)

In her final days working for Cathie Black at Hearst, Rubenstein says, she started to relate to the main character in Million Dollar Baby. "At the end, Hillary Swank is on resuscitators and asking them to unplug her. She was like, 'I don't need to live anymore. Everything I wanted to accomplish, I've already accomplished,'" says Rubenstein. "And I sort of felt like that."

Never one to scrimp on the metaphors, Rubenstein also likens her former life to a hamster wheel and a circus freak show. "And I was immediately swooped up into being one of the head freaks."

But as glamorous as it sounds hanging out with the Bearded Lady and the guy who drives nails into his nose, "I started to look around and see a lot of people who were unhappy -- they were anesthetizing themselves with gossip or alcohol or psychopharmaceuticals or affairs. Now I admire people who drop out and create their own circuses, based on their own values.... So many people in my life have left their jobs since I left mine."

So what kind of circus is Rubenstein cooking up now? She doesn't reveal much, beyond talking up her "Alpha Kitty" series of YouTube shorts. "I'd love to give young women a stage to perform on," she says, and that's not just a metaphor: She's also producing a project for The Box, the raunchy/ritzy downtown cabaret.

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