ripped from the “how to deal with women” handbook.
important fact #47635.7:
when women are PMSing*, do not do any of the following things, ever: demean their anger. tell them there’s nothing wrong. be condescending. sigh exaggeratedly every time she complains about some minute little disturbance. apologize to other people for her cattiness. ignore her entirely. attempt to wheedle sex out of her. snap back. pat her on the head. explain rationally how illogical she’s being.
and don’t ever, ever say, “who is this madwoman and what has she done with my girlfriend/wife/mother/sister/friend?”
*yes, i am. got a problem with that, punk?
Archives for the month of: January, 2003
things i know with absolute rock-solid certainty:
our president is a gibbering fool surrounded by too-smart monkey-puppets.
i could totally seduce michael stipe, given the opportunity.
vodka, wine and tequila don’t mix.
if you sleep naked, you will dream naked.
ricky martin is gay. gay.
if you feed bread at a gaggle of geese, and then you run out of bread, the geese will attack.
the best mexican food in the entire known universe is at lupe’s tortilla, in houston.
flowers do not blossom in a bottle of gin.
latoya and michael are the same person.
texas is bigger than france.
no matter how immune you think you are, eventually, my fuck-me eyes will knock you down.
things i will never understand, nor care to.
tax law.
why there isn’t a continuation of the shuttle from grand central all the way to port authority, instead of that smelly walkway.
the appeal of emily dickinson.
imaginary numbers.
why perfectly awesome men date completely drop-dead insane women when i’m standing right there.
my mother’s mood swings.
the whole state of connecticut.
what it feels like to have a penis.
chess.
most philosophers.
french people.
how color doesn’t really exist.
cyber sex.
people who say they don’t like to read.
everything you need to know about ..[john irving].. but were always afraid to ask.
there are a lot of john irving novels. i have read a lot of john irving novels. i have even read his several [!] autobiography/memoirs. and in order to make your life a simpler, more thematically organized place, i will share a secret with you: there is only one thing you need to know in order to gauge the merit of a john irving novel. and that is my personal invention, the John Irving 5-Point Rating System ®.
you might think, why would i need this device? i can select a book based on its title/cover/subject matter/sexiness of author. no, my friends. for when you go into the bookstore – that innocuous little mega-chain you frequent – and you find yourself smack dab in front of irving’s cacophony of written word, you will encounter a snag in your happy, careless little plan. all the books look alike. they all have catchy titles. they all have wacky, somewhat absurd blurbs. and his face – his craggy little silver-spoon face – is the same on every, goddamned cover.
so i present you with the John Irving 5-Point Rating System ®. this system functions based on one simple principle: that in order for an irving novel to be good, it must have three of the five elements. the elements that drive an irving novel from jumbled confusion to witty, literary success are:
new hampshire
prostitutes
hotels
vienna
bears
bonus points for: characters suspiciously like irving himself, wrestling, incest
based on this system, i will provide you with a few examples of irving’s vastly different and fluctuating writing samples, and their corresponding successes, according to our John Irving 5-Point Rating System ®.
the hotel new hampshire
score: 5 of 5 (making it the penultimate john irving novel.)
briefly: wacky family owns hotel in new hampshire, decide to move to vienna to own other hotel, end up sharing hotel with prostitutes and a sarah lawrence lesbian who dresses like a bear.
extra bonus: really hot incest scene.
world according to garp
score: 3 of 5
briefly: another irving success, about a nurse in new hampshire who bears a son named Technical Sargeant Garp. they move to vienna. it’s wacky. i think there are prostitutes.
extra bonus: garp is a writer. from new hampshire. duh.
setting free the bears
score: 4 of 5
briefly: kind of winding, but interesting. it’s about vienna AND bears, and there are also prostitutes and hotels, and some bombs, and some references to nazi germany. it’s very interesting … if a little long.
bonus: a motorcycle, a character named siegfried and animal sex.
widow for one year
score: 1 of 5. okay, maybe there’s a scene at a hotel. but it’s not a wacky hotel.
briefly: this one is just … well, it’s irving trying to channel updike, i think. it doesn’t work. the characters aren’t idiocyncratic enough to be fun and still touching, and there’s too much realism.
bonus points: the squash games are kind of cool.
prayer for owen meany
score: 1 of 5.
briefly: surprisingly, this one only takes place in NH, and it doesn’t have really, anything else going for it. this is where the system broke down – because it’s a good book. instead of bears and prostitutes, vienna and hotels – there’s baseball, iconic red dresses, missing fathers, missing baseballs, granite mines, and an armless statue of mary magdalene. this is a good book.
bonus points: john wheelwright is definitely john irving.
cider house rules
score: who cares this book blows.
briefly: the only good thing about this book is the girl sucking off the horse.
see? my system works.
memo
to: new york city and god
from: krissa
re: fuck you, you fucking fuck, and your little fucking cloud minions as well.
new york city, you absolutely suck. you are a sadistic little dillhole. you have the brass balls to call yourself a city? this isn’t a city, this is hell frozen over. it’s cold, new york city. and you can’t tell, because you’re a bunch of buildings, and concrete, and steel. you have no feelings. you’re ice.
i know sometimes i didn’t appreciate you. sometimes, instead of romping in your parks and visiting your museums, i stayed at home, in beatifully balmy sixty-degree weather. i know. i’m guilty. and now you’re angry at me. i hear what you’re saying to me. “krissa,” you’re saying, “i’m hurt and i’m giving you the cold shoulder.”
but you know what, new york city? that might have worked the first day. maybe even the third. somewhere around the sixth day, i was still apologizing to you, begging you to bring me back into your warm embrace, pleading for you to stop torturing my delicate little hands and face.
but i’ve stopped feeling guilty. now i’m just mad. every time i turn a corner, there you go again, with your wind and your falling ice. now instead of shrinking like a wallflower into the embrace of yet another store, yet another coffee shop, i shake my fist at your violent, angry winds.
i say, fuck you, my old lover. i’m not going to stand down and give in to your blasts of dramatic furor. no, no. suck yourself, you shriveled up, frigid little bitch. i’m not going to take this crap from you anymore.
that’s it. i’m going to go sleep with another city.
love and sex – and never the twain shall meet?
Saturday night found me in an awkward position – feeling like I was a pawn in between a girl who’d dumped her boyfriend and the boy, whose heart was wounded. Walking away ftom the bar, tottering drunkenly on my heels and feeling low, I asked myself – what is it about sex and love that make independent, resourceful, otherwise rational people behave like spoiled children on a playground?
For a species whose biological imperative is to mate, why do we make it so complicated? We’re created to love sex. Why? So that we’ll have babies, of course. Then who created feelings, and why? Any first-year anthropologist knows the answer – because human babies are weak, unsupportable things that need many years of tender loving care, and the two people that created it often find a deep, instinctual craving to provide that. Fine, then why the connection between sex and love? So that eventually, two people will join the two and create babies. QED, right?
No. I live in a city with seven million people. Seven million unique, fantastic, completely individual souls, everyone, on some level looking for
love. Like my friends on Saturday night, it’s not easy. It’s sometimes not even worth it. Girl meets boy. Boy likes girl, girl likes boy. They decide to give it a go. After a few months, they walk away from it, pride wounded, heart broken. When someone takes a piece of your heart, they’ve got it. Forever.
The wedding I went to last weekend was remarkable in one of many ways – these two people had only ever loved each other. How blissful, I thought. When they closed the door on all the well-wishers at their wedding, when they put their arms around each other and had sex for the first time, that’s only two people in that bed. Her, and him.
Not so for the rest of us. When I have sex with someone, essentially, I’ve got anywhere from three to fifteen other people in bed with me. The girl who made him feel like his body was not sexy is the reason he might not turn on the light. The girl who treated him badly in the morning is the reason he won’t spend the night. The girl who got away might be the reason he’s here with me. Sex is complicated. We treat it like it’s not – we have one night stands, we have month long relationships where nothing is committed, nothing is shared, nothing is broken. We’ve alienated sex from love – ironically, because they two are so intricately linked.
The result? Couples who torture each other by flirting with other people after they’ve broken up. People who’ve convinced themselves that having sex with total strangers for animalistic pleasure is more rewarding than finding someone you connect with. People who fall in love with everyone they’ve slept with because the mere idea of someone wanting you is more appealing that someone really wanting you. People who find the right people, and then find the right reason to leave them because of fear. People who associate sex with power. People who are afraid to be vulnerable. People so wound up in finding love that they settle for the first reasonable fascimile thereof.
The result? A city with seven million fascinating, unique, and individual people, so many people looking for love and sex to mean the same thing, and so many people alone.
just like that radiohead song.
last night on the subway, i saw this guy who looked like someone else, and i totally almost jumped up and made out with him. it helped that he had the best hair ever. for real.
i get on the train and i just stand about
now that i don’t think of you.
i keep falling over, i keep passing out
when i see a face like you.
i hate you, radiohead, and your painful appropriateness.
ignore everything i’ve said in the past week.
nothing matters now. nothing, you hear? because, because, because -
june twenty-first.
oh yes.
ohhhh yessssss.
fulminous and i are going to shack up with the book, a weekend’s supply of food, and some liquor and smokes – and just read straight through. it’ll be like an orgy – only without sex. wanna come?
and it’s not even a monday …
this morning, i was rushing out of the house. as usual. i was gussied up in knee-high boots, a skirt, a generous down coat, and a fuzzy hat that stunts my peripheral vision. hurrying down the stairs [is there any other way to get to work?] and putting my gloves on, i encountered the following problem:
i started to fall.
only, i was putting my gloves on, so of course, my hands were rather occupied.
when i tripped the first time, i managed not to fall. but the first trip led directly into a opposite-direction re-trip, causing me instead to lurch forward, tripping over my own feet and overestimating the lean-forward it took for me to save myself from the first trip.
this is all very technical. the point is – i totally ate it on the stairwell. sliding sideways down five stairs, my hands still uselessly entangled in my gloves, i made a mockery of all things graceful and finally came to a skidding, ass-first halt on the cramped landing.
at this point, one foot is underneath me and the other foot is two steps above me. i have landed on my ass, and broken the fall by slamming my head against the wall.
fanfuckingtastic way to start my day.
but the best part was, it was actually really funny. and no one was there to laugh with me.
but i’ll tell you what – sliding out of the tub last week and smacking my head with extravagant, slippery force on the radiator? wasn’t funny. even afterwards.
nor , for that matter, was sitting on the couch naked and wet for ten minutes, listing all my ex-boyfriends and countries-lived-in lists in chronological order, just to make sure i didn’t have a concussion.
matt-michael-david-jacob-george-brian-jimmy-siegfried-flavio-matthieu-alex-max [not counting random flings] …. okay, argentina-aruba-morocco-newjersey-abidjan-tunisia-houston-kenya-newyork-egypt-rhodeisland-new york. okay. i’m fine.
bare with me. ha. ha. get it?
i’m still a little too braindead and busy to actually entertain you all with my stinging wit and imaginative funny bone. so instead, here’s seastreet’s answers. enjoy.
have you ever:
Ever been so drunk you blacked out: yes. once. at some inexplicable point in the evening, I broke the face on my watch. NO idea.
Missed school because it was raining: if by that you mean, simply not gone to class – yes. several times.
Put a body part on fire for amusement: no. this is a silly question.
Been hurt emotionally: I quote seastreet: “AHAHAHAHAHAHA.” and furthermore, *sniffle.*
Kept a secret from everyone: yes. except erin, who knows all my secrets. and isn’t bloody telling.
Had an imaginary friend: I was an only child and I grew up in africa. what do you think?
Cried during a movie: oh god. people, I cried in hocus-pocus. hello.
Had a crush on a teacher: yes. specifically, my writing professor, melvin. what a peach. I don’t care how old or married he is.
Ever thought an animated character was hot: the fox in robin hood. whoa. hottty.
Had a New Kids on the Block tape: sadly, yes. but in my defense, I also liked Queen at that age. so, I was still cool.
Cut your hair: yes. everyone told me not to cut bangs, so I DID. and they rocked.
when was the last time you:
peed your pants: ? I have no freaking clue. what an inane question.
hugged someone: sunday. *sniffle* it was erin.
kissed someone: and meant it? august 8, 2002. randomly? new year’s eve (thanks, cruellittleman.)
cried over someone: watching raychul and matt dance, bawling my eyes out because no one will ever love me that much. *sniffle*
favorites:
Shampoo: mmmmm, aveda.
Soap: lever 2000, baby. for all my body parts.
Color: this is stupid. I love all the colors.
Day or Night: again. why do I have to pick?
Summer or winter: autumn. HA.
Lace or satin: christ, neither. cotton. and silk.
Cartoon Characters: the simpsons. and the peanuts gang. because lucy is my alter-ego.
food: comfort food? spaghetti bolognese. cooking to seduce someone? pasta buonajuti. fabulous sunday brunch? quiche and a walnut mandarin salad. stoner food? anything with cheese. sandwich? BLT. morning food? french bread. after sex? a nice tall glass of water.
Ice cream: haagen-daaz strawberry, right outta the pint. oh yes.
Fave Subject: what is this, high school?
Normal Drink: non-alchoholic? coke. alcoholic? a balthazar – pineapple juice, vodka, and chambord, in a swanky martini glass.
Persons to talk to online: sarah b., wang, and of course, seastreet.
right now:
clothes you’re wearing: my lucky jeans, knee high brown boots, a brown cashmere sweater, a white down coat, “thursday” underwear, and my fabulous attitude.
feeling: like curling up in bed with a pot of tea and a pack of smokes and reading straight through the narnian chronicles. or, flying to estonia.
Eating: a donut.
Drinking: tea.
Thinking of: nothing. my brain usually shuts off when I get to work. but this morning, I was thinking about sex.
Listening to: NPR.
in the last 24 hours:
Cried: no. but it’s not unusual.
Worn a skirt: yes.
Drove a car: sadly, no.
Do you believe in:
Yourself: I get into trouble when I don’t, so yes.
Santa Claus: I was irrefutably proven his existence when I was 10.
Tooth Fairy: by which you mean, my mom giving me money? yes.
destiny/fate: not particularly. but bizarre coincidence and premonitory dreams usually rattle my psychic chain quite a bit.
Angels: not unless they’re giving me big wads of cash.
Ghosts: answer me this – if you were dead, why would you hang around THIS hellhole?
Cody Webster: who?
friends and life:
Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend: no, but I do have a smashing tendency to fall for exactly the wrong guy about once a year.
Like anyone: oooh, why, are you going to tell? *giggle*
Who’s the loudest: seastreet said – “I’m gonna have to take the fifth.” he totally meant me. I’d have to agree.
Who’s the shyest: I don’t trust shy people.
Who’s the weirdest: definitely, definitely, brandon and may.
Who do you go to for advice: erin, who knows everything. raychul, about spirituality. seastreet, about life and books and sometimes even sex. everyone else, about la vie quotidienne.
Who do you cry to: erin. bethie. my mom.
When did you cry the most: all of college.
What’s the best feeling in the world: love. outside of that, a nice game of squash.
Worst feeling: betrayal.
