thursday morning coming down…
well, yes – my date with myself went lovely. until around 7, when i got bored with myself and went out with about five other guys instead. at the same time. okay, they’re all my friends – but still:
1. ended the night at a bar called the zombie hut.
2. knocked back shots that had been lit on fire.
3. discussed sex – loudly.
4. arm-wrestled. almost won.
5. tried to convince the cruel little man to do tequila shots with me.
6. thank god he chickened out.
7. watched the wang work his special mojo magic on the bartendress.
8.i woke up this morning … with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt …
sing it with me now.

narcissus, behold!
i’m taking the load of my shoulders tomorrow. i really love myself, you know, but living together with myself sometimes makes it hard to appreciate how great i am. i mean, when i get home to myself at the end of the day, sometimes i think i look a little drab, or the color has gone out of my cheeks.
but tomorrow, i’m really going to make it up to myself. i’m taking the day off from work and showing myself how wonderful i still think i am, after all these years. i’m going to buy myself flowers and bake myself cookies, and giggle with myself and snuggle up on the couch with myself. really take myself on a date, like we used to.
ooh, i hope i put out.

growing up means finally appreciating daylight savings time
at work on friday, jc and i were discussing daylight savings time. he posited that it is simply a conspiracy on the part of morning people. i heartily agreed, thinking ‘i hate those people!’
when i was in college, daylight savings time meant two things: 1. that night, i got an extra blissful hour to study/party/sleep/all three, and 2. the sun was far too bright on my head in the mornings. and by mornings i mean 10:45, when i would roll out of bed and stumble to class. so you see, daylight savings time was always a mixed blessing.
so i grumbled about the advent of ‘fall-back’. and then, monday morning rolls around. and at seven thirty a.m., before my alarm goes off, i pop up in bed, convinced i’m late-as-hell. when i look at my clock and realize i have another half-hour of sleep, i’m delighted … only to wake up again every five minutes, convinced i was late-as-hell. i’d fall back asleep and have two minute dreams that i was not only late-as-hell, but naked as a jaybird.
but then, when i finally woke up at eight, i realized i wasn’t nearly as tired as i’ve been ever since this whole adult thing reared its head. my body naturally wakes up at eight thirty a.m. – just enough time to slam some clothes on, chug a slim-fast shake and race to the subway. but now, my body’s been tricked into thinking it’s waking up at eight thirty when really, it’s a whole hour early.
the brilliance!
the genius!
the extra twenty minutes of coffee-and-nicotine in the mornings!
the ability to change outfits not once, but twice!
aahh, that blissful extra hour of wakefulness. let’s see how long it lasts.
cheers, k.

africa? not so much.
the conclusion of this disappointment: jb one of our myriad of well-connected techie freelancers, is leaving for africa on the 4th. rh didn’t tell me that anyone had accepted the trip – which was kind of him.
but it turns out jb is going gleefully, to the continent where i stake my claim, carrying bejamins’ worth of camera equipment. he departs on a trip that has my name and heritage attached to it, rightfully so. closed doors, indeed.

grapefruits of the world, unite!
je suis un pamplemousse! [french]
sono un pompelmo! [italian]
ich bin ein pamplemuse! [german]
jeg er en grapefrukt! [norweigan]
jeg ar en grapelfrukt! [swedish]
how do you identify yourself as a grapefruit in your language?
particularly interested in: mongolian, zulu, latvian, inuit, icelandic, welsh, or tagalog.
cheers, k.

a hiatus from the hiatus …
and now, some lists, from the self-appointed wombat queen:
songs that should make you cry:
*wilco – how to fight loneliness
*mirah – archipelago
*r.e.m. – try not to breathe
*elliott smith – 2:45
*morphine – in spite of me
*etta james – these foolish things
*ella fitzgerald – they can’t take that away from me
*radiohead – black star
*bob dylan – if you see her, say hello
songs that should make you fall in love:
*chet baker – let’s get lost
*bob dylan – lay lady, lay
*edith piaf – la vie en rose
*morphine – let’s take a trip
*ella fitzgerald -someone to watch over me
*beatles -and i love her
*r.e.m. – at my most beautiful
songs you should play at your wedding (ahem, *raych*…):
*beatles – when i’m sixty-four
*ella fitzgerald – funny face
*paul macartney – maybe
*al green – let’s stay together
*elliott smith – say yes
*dean martin – that’s amore
songs i’m going to play at erin’s wedding:
*billy idol – white wedding
*angel is a centerfold
*the cars – just what i needed
*toto – africa
*sting – fields of gold
*beatles – come together
books you should read right now:
*michael chabon – amazing adventures of kavalier and clay
*john irving – hotel new hampshire
*zadie smith – white teeth
*julian barnes – history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters
*john updike – couples
*c.s. lewis – the chronicles of narnia
*j.r.r. tolkien – lord of the rings trilogy
*gabriel garcia marquez – love in the time of cholera
*gabriel garcia marquez – one hundred years of solitude
*alexandre dumas – count of monte cristo [unabrgd]
*e.l. doctorow – ragtime
*voltaire – candide
*thomas hardy – jude the obscure
*melissa banks – girls’ guide to hunting and fishing
*marguerite duras – the lover
non-fiction books that should blow your mind:
*adam smith – the wealth of nations [obviously important. read it.]
*karl marx – capital [don't even talk about marxism until you read this, not just the manifesto.]
*john maynard kenyes – general theory of employment, interest and money [boring as hell but very important.]
* roy teixera – america’s forgotten majority – why the white working class still matters [interesting perspective on how to really win elections in this country .. and what the elephants and donkeys are doing wrong.]
*david brooks – bobos in paradise [witty examination of the 'bohemian bourgeosie' - the bobos.]
*alan dershowitz – supreme injustice [america's lawyer takes on bush v. gore]
*ronald dwarkin – taking rights seriously [rights-based democracy, neatly written]
*eliot lebow – tell them who i am [a moving documentary of the real story behind the homeless]
*edward herman and noam chomsky – manufacturing consent [you'll hate it but you need to hear it.]
*michael sanders – democracy’s discontent [it's important to read the other half's viewpoint .. very smart man.]
*ann crittenden – the price of motherhood [a little cheesy, but still very important - and time-sensitive.]
one band i hate: pearl jam.
one author i hate: ayn rand.
two bands i love to hate: abba and the rolling stones.
two authors i love to hate: thomas hardy and bret easton ellis.
that is all. have a nice weekend.
cheers, k

imiating seastreet for a few days.
yes. hiatus. a few days. when we return, petithiboux will be brand spanking new, shiny as a copper penny [or a baby's bottom].
until then, the results of the dirty limerick competition are over – the pitifully small number of entrants – two – both had fantastically dirty endings. in the end, erin won out over cruellittleman, and not just because she’s my superhero.
and now, with flourish, erin’s dirty limerick from her dirty, dirty mind:
There was a young fellow named Cribbs
Whose cock was so big it had ribs
There was no doubt
That so much shot out
His girlfriends would have to wear bibs.
now that deserves a prize.
see you all soon. until then, be nice to the babysitter and don’t watch too much television, it’ll fry your brain. and stay out of mommy’s medicine cabinet.
kiss kiss.

something to keep you occupied …
and now, a dirty limerick for you:
there once was a queen of bulgaria
whose bush grew hairier and hairier
when the prince of peru
came up for a screw
he had to hunt for her cunt with a terrier.
and another:
o, pity the duchess of kent
whose cunt was so dreadfully bent
the poor wench doth stammer,
‘i need a sledgehammer
to pound a man into my vent.’
and, for extra fun – a contest!
here are the first two lines to a limerick, and whoever can write the most uproarious ending will recieve a little prize in the mail. and no cheating – i looked up the ending on the internet.
there was a young fellow named Cribbs
whose cock was so big, it had ribs …
post your answers here … there will be an impartial judging, sometime in the near future.
that is all.

and wherefore art thou ________?
yes, folks – mornings are slow here at work. so in a fit of curiosity, i decided to investigate some name meanings, starting with my own, which is odd, because krissa doesn’t usually come up on those searches. nonetheless, it was relatively accurate. the second most accurate name-read was, funnily enough, someone who’s almost completely indefinable -marnix. from the studious aloof part to the outdoorsy part .. very eerie. on the other hand, seastreet and
erwin were both pretty off. matthieu, flood, and genevieve were all pretty much on the money. the most shockingly wrong one, though, was beth. they were waayyyy off. and josh, “reserved and forbidding”? These people are crazy.
or, perhaps, i’m the crazy one for spending ten minutes reading these…. yes, i think that’s it.

the post-everything generation.
this morning, as with most mornings, flood woke up my sleepy, dew-coated brain with his erudite and compassionate revelations. he made me think of a few things, ideas that have been tumbling around my mind when i think about myself and my generational peers.
the kennedy assasination, to my generation, is something of a relic. it’s significance is dulled, the effect has worn off. we are the generation that was alive when someone took a pot shot at ronald reagan because he was in love with jodie foster. we are the generation that laughs at the pope-mobile. assasination is part of the political territory for us, as flood points out so eloquently. but there’s something else about the kennedy assasination that distances us from the generation that sat on their lawns and cried when it happened.
recently, i was at the book depository and the grassy knoll, and the modern memorial that overlooks the fatal ramp where a generation’s innocence was destroyed. we didn’t go inside the “museum” – i have a good idea what exists there and i was more interested in actually standing on the lawn, understanding what it looked like from there. for, had i been there, i would have been on the lawn. i would have been wearing some crazy dress, probably with a husband and child already, and i would have been imagining how terribly handsome our president was, and envying radiant jackie’s pink dress. so we stood at the memorial, and listened to the conspiracy theorist explain in graphic, explicit detail, how exactly kennedy could not possibly have been shot by one man alone, standing on the sixth floor of a building, obstructed by trees.
and as the conversation progressed where the man explained to me and i played devil’s advocate for the hell of it, something in our conversation stayed with me. i asked the man, at the end of his detailed tirade, why exactly it was so important to him whether kennedy was shot by one man or a whole plattoon of them. wasn’t it still an assasination? wasn’t kennedy still dead?
yes, he said, but what that meant – and here he got very angry indeed – that the government not only lied to us, but possibly was involved in it! he went on to point out several things that we all know … how johnson was thoughtlessly sworn in a matter of hours later, with blood-spackled jackie at his side … how the witnesses to the events of the shooting (including a female journalist who was in possession oswald’s only interview) were systematically eliminated by strange fates … how oswald had been standing calmly drinking a coke 90 seconds later, in a completely different part of the building, when the feds “arrested” him …
i heard all this, but the thing that really struck me was this … this man was angry that the government had lied! this man felt injustice done against him and his peers because he believed his government to have concealed something from him!
and i, a mere twenty two years old, hold faith in no such fallacy. i have no faith that my government isn’t lying to me, every day. i am of this generation – the post-kennedy, the post-vietnam, the post-watergate, the post-iran contra, the post-S&L scandal, the post-whitewater, the post-lewinsky generation. that pretty much covers every single president since the camelot days of jfk. we are not innocent. we hold no faith that the government’s first aim is to be honest, open and transparent in it’s motives. we are under no such delusion that our presidents are honorable men with charming families and good christian hearts. we are almost disappointed when there is no scandal. and when there is one, we do not stand there shocked, mouths agape, tears streaming down our faces. we attack it – hungry hyenas on fresh blood.
kennedy’s assassination taught us that even heroes have enemies (if you really think jfk was such a hero). vietnam taught us that you can never win a land war in asia, and that dissent has its place within the walls of national discussion. watergate taught is that dick was, in fact, tricky, and that even the president isn’t above dirtying his hands – it taught us the ugly side of political ambition. iran contra taught us that politicians can chide with one hand and bribe with the other. and lewinsky … well, that merely taught us that clinton’s philandering eventually was going to catch up with him, and that ken starr is evil.
our generation has been shocked by nothing until september 11th. and i wonder – what will september 11th, and the fallout thereof, teach our children’s generation? what will they say about the crumbling towers, the patriotic hoopla, the fabricated war in iraq? what will they say about john walker lindh? what will they conclude about the motives, the reactions, the ambitions of our government?
most importantly – and i speak from my post-kennedy, post-watergate perspective – what will they know about september 11th that we do not know now? if watergate taught us one thing, it was that nothing can stay a secret for very long. when my grandchildren go to college, their teachers will be my children’s generation. and what will those children believe, about the government, about the attacks, about the consequences, of the most terrifying event in my generation – they who did not live through it but see it through history’s tricky glasses?
i wonder.