twenty two
happy birthday, me.
and since none of you have sent me happy birthday wishes…. well, that’s what the comment section is for, isn’t it !
cheers,
k
Archives for the month of: August, 2002
area woman asserts, “good time had by all.” in related news, it’s november in august.
lots of kisses and hugs for everyone who was at ma petite fête d’anniversaire. the following cool cats showed up to celebrate with me: wiley coyote, the hilariously cruel cruellittleman, the notorious w.a.n.g., the luminous maybo, claire so fair, kurtMD, and a few other charming folk.
bitherbee and smosher turned up early to make me cupcakes, pink frosted ones [pictures forthcoming, flood] and when the party was really a-swingin’, smosher and his trusty bassist, steve, played me a greatest hits medley of all my favorite josh dillard rockin’ tunes. he played “help” and “checkered vans” and “20/20 hindsight” …. he rocked out our living room.
and today, i woke up with absolutely no voice and torrentially pouring rains outside. i got soaked on the way to work and my feet are still cold. it’s 65 degrees here in the naked city – i need a coat. i’m thankful though, because texas this weekend will be really, really scaldingly hot. feh.
and yes, cats, remember – i’m leaving tonight for texas. and you should all call me on saturday to wish me a happy, happy 22nd!
in other news, the delightfully wicked erwin and i have hatched yet another vacation plan*. we’re considering ditching europe altogether (portugal and ireland were in the works for a few minutes) and instead, we’re going to california next march! we’re going to fly into san fransisco, hang out with friends and generally feel very hip indeed, and then rent a car for a few sunny days and trek down the coastline to los angeles, which should be smoggy indeed. but erwin has an uncle there, and friends that live north of san fran and i have an old friend from kenya who lives downtown.
why, you ask, i am forgoing the plan of going to europe? well, it’s expensive. second, all destinations in europe involve, well, complications. and i only get one vacation a year, people. i’m going to make it rock the casbah.
so if you’re going to be in california in march, let us know! we want friends!
cheers, and long live pink-frosted cupcakes -
k
* disclaimer: all of petithiboux’s wildly fluctuating travel plans are… well, wildly fluctuating. in no way, shape or form, can she guarantee she will be going anywhere**, so don’t get your knickers in a bunch. this is just her escape mechanism, okay?
** amendment: of course, when she makes plans with the fantastic erwin, they almost always happen, and they always rock. so, that said, cali here we come!
childhood, revisited.
floodtide‘s most recent entry, charming as ever, concerns his recent scurry to own the books of his childhood – cleary’s Ralph books, and the great Ramona books…. flood is so right, as per usual.
I have friends that make fun of the fact that I love the harry potter series, or that i still cry when i watch charlotte’s web or thumbelina. to them i say, feh. as a child, i didn’t have a lot of continuity. i was constantly moved around. beth might say it’s highly unusual [and she does] but i started reading when i was roughly 2 and a half. and i haven’t stopped.
as a child, i devoured louisa may alcott, roald dahl, c.s. lewis, george macdonald. i read the narnia chronicles about once a month. when we went to the british museum, when i was 10 or 11, i recognized the story behind a set of roman spoons found in Leeds because of a short story Dahl wrote in The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar. my mother tells that story to this day.
I read greek mythology backwards and forwards. i read through dinners with business partners of my father’s, i read on planes, i read in cars, i read on the beach and while walking down the street [okay, i still walk and read. it rocks. try it sometime.]
when i was 12, i moved on to the classics, because i was living in africa and there were no bookstores, really. i read Anna Karenina and Animal’s Farm [but didn't "get" it]. I loved the Jane Austen novels and hated the Choose Your Own Adventure ones.
In Kenya, when i was 16, I got a completely involuntary education in the greats of the 20th century, because again, no bookstores. I was so desperate for reading material [my mother says that when i was a child, if i didn't have a book, i would just read cereal boxes and billboards] I dug into my father’s extensive hardback collection. funny thing was, i didn’t realize at the time the caliber of great literature i was devouring like a hungry wolf. i read Styron’s Sophie’s Choice and The Arms of Krupp and Michener’s Kent State and Halberstram’s Best and the Brightest and Boll’s Group Portrait with Lady. I read a fair amount of John Irving, too, my favorite always being Hotel New Hampshire [another point of connection between myself and the wonderful floodtide.]
What’s my point with all this? for one, i could never see myself in the publishing industry. it’s like, loving hamburgers with your heart and soul and working on the grill at macdonald’s. reading is an escape for me, it’s a safe haven. when i meet people that say, ‘i don’t read’, a part of me looks at them like they’re alien life forms. you don’t read?! do you breathe?!
and the other thing – kids aren’t reading enough. they’re watching TV. they’re watching MTV for christ’s sake. they’re not expanding their minds and vocabularies. they’re not challenging themselves. they don’t ‘play pretend’ as much anymore. i know this – i’ve taken care of my share of children.
and you know what? the kids i have taken care of? i’ve read to all of them, different books – with molly and emma, it was the narnia chronicles and they loved ramona. with kat and annie, we read a chapter of harry potter every night – they loved how i could do all the different voices. they couldn’t wait until bed time. on rainy days, we’d cheat and read during the day, too. i read to them in the tub until their fingers turned into little prunes.
i even read to their baby brother, james. i read to him from the newspaper while i was feeding him, something my mother did to me. he would fall asleep much faster when he could feel my voice reverberating through the arms that held him.
i loved reading with and to the kids. and when i talk to them, months and years since i’ve seen them last, we still talk about harry, and ramona, and edmund and lucy, and hermione and dumbledore, and how silly dobby the house elf is.
that makes me feel like i’ve done my bit. it’s one of my greatest accomplishments.
cheers, all – especially you, floodtide.
k
greek and donuts
you know how everyone thinks that the diner in their neighborhood could kick everyone else’s diners’ asses? yeah, well, there’s a diner in my neighborhood that would flatten all your diner contenders. it’s called the blue sea diner and restaurant, and it’s at the corner of 30th ave and 31st street, underneath the subway at the 30th ave NW stop.
the blue sea rocks for many reasons, chiefly: cheap coffee, fresh donuts made at 10 p.m. (late night donuts!), blue countertops, yellow tiffany lamps, surly greek wait-staff, and niko.
niko is this guy that works there. he’s greek. he’s 22 but he looks 30. he wears glasses and has a great smile. when i go in there, we chat. it goes something like this:
krissa: niko, are the donuts fresh?
niko: yassou*, what, you don’t say hi?
krissa: yassou, niko, tikanis?
niko: kala, kala. etzi, come back in twenty minutes, the donuts gonna be fresh.
krissa: ndaxi. be back then.
niko: when you gonna let me take you to dinner?
krissa: tomorrow!
*yeah, the greek’s phonetical. duh.
niko is a really sweet guy. we made a bet a while ago about something, and he said if he was right, i had to go to dinner with him. genevieve teases me and calls him my boyfriend. (you know, in that childish sing-song way).
but you know what? i think it’s sweet. i think niko is sweet. i don’t care that he asks me out every time i go in there. he’s funny. and he’s charming. and he’s not really like anyone i ever hang out with.
so he can ask me to dinner. maybe i’ll even go.
p.s. take note! no more stupid annoying ad at the top of the screen. i forked over my $12 dollars to pyra and blogger because it’s an honest little company and that ad was really starting to bug me.
rollercoaster
it hasn’t been a particularly good day. for a variety of reasons, my emotions have been playing uproarious see-saw games with each other. today was a kind of climax – i didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, because vix and i were up late, talking about love triangles, and high school, and casual sex, and other traumas. and so today at work, volatile was where I was at.
and then, around lunchtime, right at my emotional top-off limit, this little slice of heaven was delivered to my desk, because her proud papa had some errands to run down on the 42nd floor.
so for twenty minutes, baby julia and i communed. i let her pull on my ear while i told her all about what it feels like to be 22, alone in the naked city, and putting on a brave face. she told me (in so many words) what it’s like to poop on yourself. we communicated.
and the dusty corner of my heart that’s been aching so for weeks on end, the ennui that has been troubling me, just vanished for a few minutes. she nestled into my lap and sucked on her bottle while i quietly looked up some words in the dictionary. she made a valiant attempt to pull out the page that started with hot flash, and later attempted to eat the page ending with ne’er do well (yes, that word is in the dictionary). she’s going to be a smart cookie. i told her so. she smiled at me and chewed lazily on my finger.
and yes, i felt my ovaries kicking. duh.
but better than that, i was calm. for the first time all week. and that made me feel like crying all over again.
cheers,
k
allow myself to introduce…
i met someone new recently. this doesn’t happen to me very often, as you all know, since i’m a creature of habit and i like all my old friends just fine. but i met floodtide through seastreet and while his living in Utah and being a busy actor over there prevents us from getting together and having hours of conversation over coffee somewhere in tribeca, we have been exchanging plenty emails and just talking about everything under the sun. Many a time in the past few weeks, he has been able to pull out just the right thing to say to get me to square my shoulders and smile.
so this is just a little mini-homage. thanks, you. you win the Cool New Friend prize for the month.
cheers,
k
and furthermore… some hilarity.
I answered the phone a few minutes ago here at work to encounter this conversation:
me: [insert name of Magazine-of-Employment here] -
him (french accent): excuse me, what time do you close?
me (stammering): close? we don’t really close, we just go home. can i help you?
him: but what time do the doors close?
me: we don’t have “doors”. is there someone specific you’re trying to see?
him: i want to buy some stuff for my kids. that’s all.
me: your kids? i’m sorry, what are you trying to buy?
him: you know, shirts, pants…
me: are you trying to call a clothing store?
him: isn’t this [mumble mumble] store?
me: no. this is _______. we’re a magazine.
him: a magazine?
me: yes. i think you have the wrong number.
him: sorry.
for some reason, the whole staff was standing somewhere nearby while this ridiculously inane conversation was happening. we all thought it was hilariously funny.
cheers,
k
css trauma
still trying to get my links to be bold. sadly, i am not very good at such things (audience, gasp) and am requiring the services of one cruel little man to patiently take me by the hand and explain this stuff as if explaining the concept of gravity to a five year old child. feh.
in other unrelated news, the smoldering victoria [see super-hot-babe to your right] has descended upon us like the empress that she is, for a few days, because she has an interview to become the next hip thing in the world, a title she surely deserves. so without giving too much away, be sure and send her encouraging vibes.
our own lil’ genie is currently looking for a new job – if you have any leads in new york, anything at all, let her know, through moi if necessary.
and someone seems to still be having a good ole’ time in a little place called estonia.
cheers,
k.
[ed. note]
the sensible, no-nonsense, down-to-earth wing of petithiboux would like to point out that the flighty, fashion-crazy, urban-outfitter-coveting wing of petithiboux is currently wearing the following:
1 cowl-neck, gathered sleeve, black-with-beige-dots top from bcbg
1 a-line kick-pleat dark denim skirt
and
black sling-black pointy shoes.
sexy elle girls in the elevator, watch out. mama’s got a brand new pair of shoes.
k
doing penance.
well, in exchange for my marvellous weekend at home (puppy was played with, barbeque was joyously consumed) i am at work super early this morning, and will be arriving early/leaving late for the whole two weeks between now and my triumphant departure for Texas.
In other news, c seems to have found himself in the most beautiful of places – sadly, i know this only from his diary since email seems to be spotty there and i have only heard so little from him (yes, i’m publicly guilttripping you now, c). but it sounds heartbreakingly beautiful and calm, and i can only sit at my desk, in the middle of midtown, and alternately curse him and count the days until march.
yes, march. planning on visiting c in estonia with my generous tax return from uncle sam and a few days leave from my job. i was going to go to england, all set to go to england in fact, and rent a car and drive around the british isle with a choice travelling companion. but, well, as genevieve put it so succinctly, visiting london takes five days to do and six months to emotionally recover from. and going to estonia is new, and exciting, and something for my wandering heart to achingly look forward to. and whatever else c is, he’s not emotionally traumatizing.
so as usual, i’ve started looking for tickets six months in advance, because i’m obsessive like that.
it’s not that i don’t like my job. i like my job. i just – well, there’s really no getting rid of wanderlust. some people don’t have it. i know people that are content taking one trip a year to see some beloved family, or perhaps disneyland (like a certain Ambiguously Married Duo is doing right now!). I am not one of those people. i feel i am wasting my life if i am not seeing new places and travelling all the time. sadly, i cannot afford to do this, so i don’t.
that leaves me sitting at my desk, typing in random destinations into expedia ($1,400 to Fiji! Let’s go!) and resisting the magnetic draw of my credit card to the “Buy Now!” button. [sigh.]
See you in march, c. hopefully i’ll hear from you before then….
k.
