why buy the cow, indeed.
i’ve made some interesting choices on the dating battlefield. i’ve dated various breeds of italians [always a wild card], fallen hard for a guy who lives a million miles away, stepped in the same stream twice with mixed results, managed to date/sleep with ex-boyfriend’s friends more than i’d be proud to admit, and spent two years in love with a man who’s favorite musician was jimmy buffet and greatest ambition was to be the Camel Guy. yeah, i’ve chased the impossible, cushioned the needy, dumped the perfectly acceptable, and kissed… well, a lot of frogs. but of all my dating war stories, there’s only one that my friends like to recount to complete strangers, just to get a laugh. [on second thought, this might mean i need new friends. hmm.]
his name was brian. we met at nyu, when we both lived in a washington square park dormitory during the summer of 2000. i had just finished my sophomore year, and my parents were abroad, leaving me to flounder, jobless, in the big city. the first night we met, a big group of us were going out dancing. when i saw brian standing at the other end of the hall, my jaw dropped to the ground. impeccable button down, sexy, lowslung jeans, and hip leather sandals. blond hair. firm jawline. blue eyes. even in the dingy dorm hallway, he looked like a million bucks, fresh out of a ralph lauren ad.
well, it took about two minutes of talking to him for the gaydar to spring into full effect. brian wasn’t a flaming ‘mo, he was more the ‘subtle pink’ variety of gay. but hey, i went to sarah lawrence, right? i was used to meeting impossibly delectable specimens who insisted on batting for the other team, much to the female detriment. so i linked arms with the gorgeous ‘mo, knocked back my cosmo, we started dancing, and there bloomed a friendship.
brian and i went everywhere together those first couple of weeks. we went to plays. we lounged in the park. we got soused every night, on that underage-drinking-mecca of a street, macdougal. we’d dance like fiends in any bar playing music. brian would dip me just low enough so that the bartender would get a good eye-ful and we’d get free drinks. we’d stagger back to the dorms, laughing and hammered, and make a big show of kissing each other goodnight and getting coffee first thing in the mornings, to nurse our hangovers. remembering those days still smells like espresso and brian’s aftershave.
and then, one night, we were at our favorite after-hours bar, where we’d go on our way home from some other bar – minetta tavern, where the bartender inexplicably called me his “fresh mozzarella” and predictably didn’t charge me for my cosmo habit. i don’t remember how the conversation happened, because i was sloshed, but the important part went like this:
krissa: penny [for your thoughts].
brian: you want the truth, or the lie?
krissa: the lie first.
brian: the lie is, i’m not attracted to you. the truth is, i am.
krissa:….
brian: krissa?
krissa: i think… i’ll be back.
after ten minutes of staring at my reflection in the bathroom and attempting to form cognizant sentences in my brain, i tottered back to the table. i had gone from fag-hag to femme fatale in ten seconds flat. suddenly, brian wasn’t pretty arm-candy, but potential pretty bed-candy. and to give myself credit, i really liked brian. predictably, for a girl like me, brian was the perfect match. well-read but a fantastic dancer, gorgeous, funny, charming, knew his way around a good restaurant and around bloomingdales … what girl wouldn’t have fallen?
of course, falling into bed with him may have been a little … well, short-sighted. we never really hopped on the good foot and did the very bad thing [secretly, i think it was just too much for his pink side to handle], but we did a number of other things, which are probably illegal in several developing nations. we couldn’t get our hands off each other that first night. i think at some point, i attempted to make tea – then brian accosted me in the bathroom and i accidentally left the water running for about an hour while i was preoccupied in the, aherm, tub.
a week after the hayrolls started, they abruptly stopped – having something to do with brian’s conversations with his gay posse back in houston, no doubt, attempting to knock some well-needed sense into him. we broke it off – for a day. on that day, my conversation with my best gal-pal, erin, was particularly amusing. after i told her the whole story, how we got together, why we’ve stopped, erin became uncharacteristically sympathetic, for a girl whose cartoon personality double was daria:
erin: oh, you poor thing, that’s just terrible!
krissa: i know!
erin: i mean, did he cry, or anything?
krissa: cry?
erin: when he came out to you. was that the first time he admitted it?
krissa: huh? no, brian’s been gay for three years now.
erin: what?!
krissa: yeah, i mean, i knew he was gay when we started.
erin:…
krissa: erin?
erin: yeah. i’m going to have to recant all previous sympathy, you stupid cow.
but we went on, brian and i – going out drinking, making out all over our dorm rooms, in elevators, in corners of hallways… and it was fun while it lasted. sure, there were times when brian would want to drag me to a gay club and i’d recoil in horror at the thought of competing with a roomful of gorgeous men for my gay boyfriend’s attention. there were a lot of stares, sometimes, from strangers at bars or acquaintances at nyu, and you could hear the words forming: “but he’s …” “yeah.” “and she’s not a ..” “yeah.” “and they’re?” “yeah.” “weird.” “yeah.”
and when brian and i parted ways, it was peacefully. we both knew it had a shelf-life, this little experiment in fluid sexuality. and i thought we’d remain friends, from houston to new york, because, well, why not?
brian thought differently. after we went back to school, i started realizing that i called to chat with him, not the other way around. so eventually, i stopped calling, to see if he would. there would be no reason for the silent treatment, we’d parted friends. but there was. because five days after we said goodbye, brian started dating a guy. and didn’t know how to tell me, which i told him later was absurd and unfair. we never talked to each other after i confronted him about ignoring me. we didn’t have anything to say to each other.
i don’t know what brian’s doing. his family has a lot of money, a lot. and perhaps, coming into that money, and realizing the world he was about to embark into – well, maybe brian wanted to see if he could play it straight. maybe he wanted to see how much easier it would be for his high-society, big-roller family to accept their heir when he could do the wife, the picket fence, the tow-headed children. maybe brian was trying to find a way to back-pedal into the closet, because maybe he hadn’t accepted his sexuality as normal, and natural.
i don’t doubt brian was attracted to me, and i still salute the bravery it took for him to admit it to himself, but i often wonder how much of his attraction was a desperate need to see the world from this side of the fence – the side where no one asks you, ‘so, why are you straight?’ because no matter how many shows like will and grace there are on television, coming out and saying “i’m gay” is still something of a show, something of a trial – as if it’s important to come out in order to acknowledge you’re different from everyone else. and in a world where “coming out” is still even a necessity – when pointing out that you’re gay somehow implies that you’ve chosen such a vastly different path – i suppose brian choosing to fool around with a girl is a little bit more complicated that just, well, fooling around with a girl.
and although i joke about being that girl, the girl that dated an openly gay guy … it taught me a lot about sexuality, and desire, and boundaries.
oh, and hooking up when you’re drunk. that too.
****
11:04am – random somewhat-related update: the best thing i took away from that summer, my darling friend stephanie, just reminded me why the brian story is so funny.
my screenname: are you… interested in andrew?
her screenname: no, he’s too gay.
her screenname: plus he has a girlfriend.
aahh, and it goes on.
oh delicious arm muscles irony
sometimes i love my life. i’m dear friends with two ridiculously hot men i can’t shag for various reasons, and another ridiculously hot man i could shag, except that he’s not sodding here, is he.
pity me.
or, just browse through some more sexy party pictures. i’m the one with the bob and the enormous smile.
april crushes bring may blushes
there are several main reasons i’ve picked this month’s boy-blogger-crush:
he writes charmingly and uses the queen’s english.
he hasn’t linked me [nothing like an aloof boy, honestly.]
and some auxiliary reasons:
he makes camden sound charming.
he plays proper six-a-side in the parks.
he has a regular pub, and there’s something irresistible about a man with continuity.
and so, for all this [and he's wicked cute, girls] the april 2003 crush goes to london mark*.
so, go flatter london mark. go have a cuppa with him. read his walking with mark series. it might make you cry. listen to his melancholy radio mixes but don’t be fooled. he can be absurdly funny sometimes.
and perhaps now, after some careful flattery, the cad will link to me.
*approved by both petit hiboux and mrs. kennedy.
mayday
crisis at petit hiboux. prior posts not showing. pandimonium and brimstone. hounds of hell. time for ultimate fighting move executed directly at blog*spot:
HIIII-YAHHHHH [the miss piggy judo chop].
come on, internet. is this all you’ve got?
disaster averted. the ever-cool-headed wang, aside from being a charming drunk, also knows how to slip into a girl’s template, take a quick look-see, and come back with a minutely detailed prognosis:
him: “you’re missing a < .”
me: “this is all because of a goddamned < ?!?”
him: “yes.”
so, that solves that, kiddies. some of you might have seen the tragically-short-lived post concerning the april crush. it will be revived, later today.
rockin’ the retro
saturday night’s house party produced three very memorable digital images.
the dining room table, holding about a third of the total consumed alcohol products.
fulminous, looking every inch the hottest man in the room. and those hip-hugging pants that decency won’t let us post? rawwrrr.
the third picture, we cannot show you. because it’s just a little too raunchy, and my reputation as a lady would be, shall we say, under duress. right boys?*
UPDATE: *apparently, ful had absolutely no reservations about posting said raunchy pictures. as i knew he wouldn’t. because he is a raunchy, raunchy boy. so, head over here to get the, er, ful story.
* * * * * * * *
le petit hiboux’s handy guide of signs re: impending apocalypse
carson daly
ryan mcginley, showing at the whitney
ice-skaters performing to creed songs
are all prime examples. but the most obvious one?
snowing. in april.
all that’s left is to see four horses galloping at breakneck speed down fifth avenue.
friday list
tonight: bend it like beckham with jason .. popcorn, movie-theatre-smell, pizza before-hand and beer after. hurrah!
tomorrow: cleaning house, buying flowers, getting nails done, setting out the ice bucket and the punch bowl … all classic 60′s housewife chores … in preparation for swingin’ retro house party. motown. rolling rock. gimlets and fizzy drinks. we’re going to shake-a-tail-feather until we drop.
sunday: classic hangover brunch with overnight pals, ryan mcginley at the whitney, and possible tra-la-la-ing around central park in predicted-gorgeous weather.
faboo weekend, kiddies!
you know what they say about time, and the wounds it heals?
the phone rings at about five. i answer it, with my usual stating of Magazine of Employment name. “_____,” i say, hoping it’s not some complicated agent/press-officer/writer/photographer on the other end, demanding another hour of work from me. “krissa?” the voice has an accent. is it..?.. no, it can’t be. “yes,” i say. “ciao, M.” it is, i think.
M. invariably, pals that read this just let out a groan of frustration. how many hours did they have to listen to this? how many beers did i cry into over this? countless. M and i knew each other in high school, in kenya. he was this lanky, awkward boy who had yet to grow into his long arms and brilliant mind. in that open-hearted way of naive schoolchildren, we fell rather in love with each other. nothing ever happened, of course, between us. but it was always there, this palpable tension. in all his affectionate gestures, in the way he looked at me, in the way i flirted with him and sidled up to him, in the mornings, at our side-by-side lockers. oh, i was coy. i knew. but that was then.
when we reunited, a couple years back, in london, it was though both nothing and everything had changed. M still had the same way of lecturing me gently while looking down from 6’3″ and smiling with that crooked smile. his mossy green eyes still did the same twinkly, half-shut thing when he laughed. only he had grown into this strong, tall, absurdly handsome man and his heart – it wasn’t the same anymore. M was less loving, less open, less reckless with his emotions. he’d made up for it by being recklessly devoted to his own hedonistic pursuits, but deep down inside, it was the same sincere, beautiful boy who’d tried to teach me archery and made me heart-shaped wooden picture frames and biked to my house on sundays.
this story is a retread, friends. you know how it goes. he came to new york. we rarely left the bedroom. it was magical, of course it was magical. it was seven years in the making. but what were we doing? trying to recapture the past? making up for our tortured platonic innocent love? it didn’t matter. deep down, i knew what i was doing – i was loving something that would simply never love me back. that simply couldn’t love anyone enough to hold still.
and he left, of course. and i cried, a lot, and looked at pictures of him, and had dreams of meeting him in exotic train stations, dreams of running away to london and making him love me. i did none of these things. eventually, i bucked up. i stopped thinking about M all the time. i stopped calling him at random intervals, trying to act as breezy and careless as possible, hoping the way to catch a wild animal is to pretend you’re not interested. it didn’t work. M was adoring and charming and kind – and not an inch more.
eventually i stopped calling him. we kept emailing – and then in december that trickled off too. until today. when i heard that lilting european accent on the phone. it only lasted a second, the heart’s little leap. it only lasted as long as it took me to remember the color of his eyes. but then, it faded. as i sat at my office desk, feet propped up, chatting and laughing about various absurd new medical discoveries, whether men can feasibly give birth children, how stodgy most english girls are, various good pranks to pull on roommates, and our mutual cadre of crazy friends – i realized something. i wasn’t missing him. i wasn’t thinking of ways to make him pace in front of my cage, and finally step inside. i wasn’t thinking of ways to tame him, ways to make him want me. i was just enjoying a conversation with an old friend.
and as we chatted, i was looking at a picture of another friend, a much more important friend – someone who knows me for who i am today, and not for some darling golden innocent child i used to be. in the picture, he’s sitting on my couch, looking at me jauntily, with that mona lisa grin of his, and as i talked to M on the phone, i inadvertently smiled and winked at the picture. I told M all about him. without any hesitation. whatsoever. M laughed and asked if it was any different than him. “completely different.” and i was right.
it’s been a year, more, since M swooped into new york for a week and swept me off my feet, like i knew he would. and it’s been a year since he slipped back into the ether of his own life, leaving me with nothing but a charming smile and a certain weakness for moss green eyes. but it took this phone call to convince me – my feet have landed on terra firma again.
and that, my friends, deserves a drink.
hurrah!
The Rape of Persephone, or Fruits to Avoid At All Costs.
i feel like telling you a story. sit down. relax.
so, we’ve got this goddess, her name is ceres. she’s the goddess of the harvest, the environment, that kind of thing. plants and shit. so she’s got this gorgeous daughter, persephone. really a looker, this kid. about seventeen years old. one day, persephone is out tra-la-laing in the fields with some pals, right? right, so hades sees her. he’s the god of the underworld, and zeus’s brother. and hades, he’s kind of an impulsive guy. so he just moseys on up in his fiery hellish carriage – and really just snatches his bitch up. he’s all like, “you’re MINE, chicky.” so she’s all screaming and shit, but the earth just, well, it swallows her. because you know, he’s the god of the underworld and has mad skillz like that.
so anyway, there she is, poor thing, and he’s like, “you’re going to be my bride”. and she’s like, “you’re straight-trippin’, boo.” meanwhile mom is up on terra firma, freaking out because she can’t find her baby girl. and she absolutely refuses to shine the sun, or let it rain, and the earth is turning into this agricultural war zone. famine, drought, plagues, pestilence… hades hath no fury like a wheat-goddess scorned, right?
so zeus tries to intervene, get his brother to give back the girl, make nice-nice among all the gods and goddesses, because obviously by this point mount olympus is a pretty divided place. but hades is like, “nothing doin’ bro. i’m keeping the girl. and what’s more, if she eats one iota of food down here, she’s my bitch forever. you know. magic curses and the like. wicked stuff.” so persephone refuses to eat, obviously, because she’s not stupid… or is she?
after a lot of back-and-forth, and some pretty heated plate-throwing up on mount olympus – zeus just can’t deal. privately, he’s probably all like, “go hades, you dog you!” but ceres is giving him such a terrible headache over this, he’s afraid he’ll have another child spring outta there. so, he’s heading down there with his bling bling thunderbolt, to straighten li’l bro out. only, before he gets there, dumb chicky eats just one little pomegranate seed, poor little twinky is so hungry, and she thinks, it’s just one seed, big bad hades won’t notice, right?
not so much, twinky. hades notices all right, does a little victory dance, and zeus loses a little of his thunder, because after all, sodding girl was told not to eat anything. so he finally strikes a deal between a ragingly inconsolable ceres and stubborn, pedophilic hades – they have to split the girl. ceres gets her six months, hades gets her the other six months. which, coincidentally, explains the seasons.
but the biggest moral you should take away from the story is – pomegranate seeds are evil and you never know what kind of deal you might be inadvertently striking with perverts who live in dark caves.
when you find your polar opposite, does the universe die just a little bit?
because what the world really needs is another guy like this.
all i can say is – he must have an enormous dick if he can afford to be that picky about women. but even if he does, he probably has no idea what to do with it.
twenty minutes later: let me rephrase that a little more eloquently, since that last attempt came out cattily and rude. guys like this really get under my skin. i fucking curse all the time. i’m a liberal. i’m a feminist – if by feminist, you mean believing that women are unique, important contributers to society, that we deserve to be given every opportunity afforded to men, and that we deserve to live a life free of discrimination, patronization, and bullshit patriarchical stigmas. i am pro-choice, rabidly so, and i chain-smoke. i have sex. i get drunk every now and then. and all in all, i’m still a pretty fantastic woman.
what this guy is looking for – that’s not a woman. he’s looking for an extra limb. or a car. or a baby-making machine. he’s not looking for a human being that will complement his life, who will challenge him to be a better person and love him with all his flaws. he’s not looking for love. love is about cherishing another person’s essence as equal to your own. love isn’t about finding someone else who will fit into a skill-set you’ve pre-determined – smart but not too smart, sexy but not sexually-threatening, woman but not too woman. that’s not love. that’s consumer-shopping. that’s how you buy a washing machine.
but maybe all this guy needs is a washing machine. bully for him.
