Dear Cashier at Supermarket who was Totally, Like, Sixteen, but still Felt it was Her Duty to Tell Me, as I was Buying Cigarettes, “You know, that’s really really bad for you, you should quit smoking, I have this friend who blah blah blah” and Continued to Talk at me Even After I Said, “I don’t need your advice” and Stormed out of the Store:
Honey, there’s no nice way to say this, but … you’re FAT. you’re downright OBESE for a sixteen year old. SERIOUSLY. and you were munching on cheezeypoofs. and you’re talking to ME about bad habits?
Love, Krissa
Dear Guy Who Stood in a Phone Booth at 50th and 7th and Unabashedly Stared at Me Crying on the Cell Phone to my Friend While Standing in Front of a Starbucks, Because If That’s Not Humiliating ENOUGH, It Helps to get Stared at Like You’re a Fucking LEPER:
CRYING ISN’T CONTAGIOUS, you ASSMUNCHING DILLHOLE.
Love, Krissa
the pH tea and sympathy cocktail hour
thirsty?
mint julep, cosmopolitan, french martini, sidecar, manhattan, gin rickey, or a stiff bloody mary.
got a sweet tooth?
pink frosted cupcake, key lime pie, banana pudding, hummingbird cake, or a glazed raspberry torte.
the jukebox will be crooning -
black coffee [ella]
these foolish things [etta]
all of me [sarah]
cry me a river [dinah]
them there eyes [billie]
i’ll get by [dinah]
they can’t take that away from me [ella]
unforgettable [nat king cole]
so what’ll it be, folks?
life’s little cliches
if you really love someone, you know when it’s time to let them go.
and if you let someone go, you know when it’s time for a shot of vodka.
or five.
BARTENDER!
in related news: being incredibly angry and stomach-knottingly furious is a lot easier than running to the bathroom from your desk because you’re blinking back brimming tears every 20 minutes. just so you know.
… and it’s got nothing to do with victoria’s secret
i recently asked a guy friend, jason – what is sexy?
this is what he told me.
“sexy is how you look, sure. it’s also how you move. how you carry yourself. the way you look around or pick up a cup. sexy isn’t just your legs, it’s how you walk, or turn around. sexy is how you smile, and when and why. sexy is what you say, to whom, and who you look at when you say it. sexy is what you do, and what you do TO and WHO you do it to.
clothes can be sexy, but not always nessissarily sexy clothes. sexy is looking good for weeks, then meeting someone for something special and bowling them over. sexy isn’t about looking good, it’s about letting someone know that you want to look good for them.
sexy is, essentially, unpredictable. people can set up ideals, sure, but every now and then a guy will meet a girl who’s completely against everything he thought was hot, and knock him over, and he won’t be able to figure out why. Now THAT’s sexy.”
this made me think back, to a few months ago. it was winter. i was chatting with a guy close to my heart, and we were having somewhat of a similar conversation – on sexiness, and how women present themselves versus how men see them. he told me what he found most sexy about me – and it was surprising. it wasn’t my clingy dresses or sexkitten heels, or my lipstick, or perfume. it was my smile, and the way i walked, he said. that i was sophisticated without even realizing it, he said. it was when i lounged around in sweatpants and glasses, he said.
ten minutes later, flush with sweetness, i went to get lunch. in line, at the deli, stood the kind of girl i always cringe to stand next to. tall, blonde, with an appropriately bored look on her face. her butt was tiny, her arms were long and tan and freckled, her body looked like it had been gracefully poured into her trendy clothes. i took a mental check of myself – and started to feel the usual pang of frumpy dullness. when suddenly i remembered what my guy had said, the easy way he’d rattled off his favorite parts of me, and i realized something. all those things he said – they couldn’t be found in a dress size, or a perfume, or the right accessories or hairstyle. everything he’d said, that had meant so much to me, was so intrinsically about me.
and so i stood behind the twig in line, and stared at her picture-perfect form and thought, if she’s lucky, she’s got more than a perfect ass. if she’s lucky, some guy sees her whole true soul and beauty the way someone sees mine, instead of just seeing her as a sum of perfectly shaped parts.
so that’s what sexy is.
stroke my fame, and i’ll stroke yours!
i always wonder what famous people talk about when they’re surrounded by other famous people. think about this: a photograph of Anna Wintour [Vogue Magazine] talking to Baz Luhrmann [romeo + juliet, moulin rouge], while Baz had his arm around Nicole Kidman, who was talking to Ingrid Sischy [Interview Magazine]. Donald Trump and his ever-present toupee hovered in the background. i can only IMAGINE what this conversation was like.
Anna, to Baz: “you must be so proud of yourself. your movies manage to please the art house elites while still catering to vapid average joes!”
Baz, to Anna: “well, i mean, look at you! you’re absurdly skinny, you snort cocaine off the backs of your overworked assistants, you’ve got the reputation of a snarling cheetah-dragon, and you STILL make a bazillion dollars a year! that’s not bad.”
[Baz and Anna share a snarky laugh over their accomplishments, meanwhile...]
Nicole, to Ingrid: “Honestly, Ingrid, you’re so ugly it’s unbelievable anyone ever photographs you!”
Ingrid, snarling at Nicole: “Nic, darling, you’re only famous because you’re impossibly tall and when you pull your hair back you look like an albino alien byproduct. And oh, your movies? they SUCK.”
[Sensing the presence of the cameras, Nic and Ingy throw their arms around each other and smile impossibly large smiles.]
Donald Trump, to no one in particular: “Man, i’d BETTER get laid tonight or I’m trading in for a better toupe.”
mortal coil, shuffled.
we’re rapidly hemmorhaging our best artists. gregory peck, katharine hepburn, barry white! and robert mccloskey, who wrote make way for ducklings.
so many sad deaths! of course, there’s always a delicate balance, isn’t there.
i must have left my ball and chain at home today.
marriage tames men?
what consummate horseshit. what absolute preposterous dung. the very idea that “After a man settles down, the testosterone level falls, as does his creative output,” is offensive to men, women, and love.
to the fools who spent money, time and manpower to write such a snivelling pile of completely ludicrous crap, i allow a great mind to answer -
“let me not to the marriage of true minds
admit impediments. love is not love
which alters when it alternation finds
or bends with the remover to remove:
o no! it is an ever-fixed mark
that looks on tempests and is never shaken[!]“
indeed, bard, indeed!
oh wait, shakespeare was never really married either, huh.
To: The Universe/Powers That Be/Various and Sundry Deities
Re: Request
Hi. I want to go home now, Universe. And when I get home, this is what i want. i want my apartment to be warm, but not hot. i want my bed to be clean, but not too clean – i like my rumpled sheets. in the refridgerator, universe, i would like there to be things like cherries, pound cake, apple sauce, sangria, peach juice, etc etc. i would like there to be a stack of unread books on my nighttable and a new set of silk pjs waiting on the bed for me. i would like tomorrow to be converted to saturday, and have two saturdays in a row. but most of all, universe, i want my bed buddy back. you can understand that, right, universe? i want to give back scratches in exchange for spoonings. i want to laugh in bed and i want to wake up being snuggled within an inch of my life.
i realize i can have all of this in due time, universe. i realize all you’re asking is patience, really. but the thing is …
I WANT IT RIGHT BLOODY SODDING NOW, UNIVERSE.
and if you say the word “patience” to me one more time, I WILL TEAR YOUR ARMS OUT AND BEAT YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH THEM.
that is all.
sincerely, krissa
what in an elevator?
what is it about the elevator? seastreet once posited that the elevator is all about the fucking. i think elevators are all about the self-deprecation. case in point:
my magazine is housed in the same building as a popular fashion mag, one of those uber-glossies you hate to admit you read. as i went downstairs for my midday smoke today, three twigs were on the elevator, doing what twigs do – standing there holding their impossibly large tote bags (as contrast to their impossibly tiny breasts/hips/legs?) and staring at their nails. these girls couldn’t have been more than a year younger than me, and yet suddenly, in my little black dress and tan heels, i felt like their forty-year-old dumpy chaperone.
flash to five minutes later – i’m sitting outside having a cigarette and the twigs come twigging out of the building, staring desperately at some sort of new york city map. they’re … they’re … they’re … not from here, i think! and look at them! they look underdeveloped and sixteen! they have flat, sexless butts, skinny arms, no tans, no breasts, even their hair is straight and limp and so very midwestern! in the elevator, they looked like amazonian goddesses, people who hung on the arms of famous photographers, people who knew all the best DJs. and here, in the bright summer sunshine, i realized they were desperate struggling models, with twig bodies and no femininity to speak of. as i sat there, three feet from them, i almost laughed out loud at my elevator-self. look at me! i’m tan, i have curves, i have a simple yet elegant look and shimmery curly hair and i smell nice and i know my way around manhattan blindfolded and i’ve never wanted to be a model. i want to be a lawyer! so i laughed at elevator-self.
and then karma walked in, right on cue. a guy wandered up to me. one of the hip mtv kids that works in my building and wears the right converse and the right deisels and knew when trucker hats were in, and when to hide his at the back of the closet. i’ve seen him around – our smoke breaks tended to coincide. so there he is, suddenly, sauntering right past the twig farm, to ask me for a light. and he flirts a little. and while i couldn’t care less about the flirting (i’ve got so much better going on, kids), i take the moment to point this out to elevator-self. on a giant post-it, i stick it to elevator-self’s forehead. see?
if only i could just take the stairs.
