not even you can make me smile.
you know when you’re having one of those mornings when you want to blame everything else for your sudden desire to burst into churlish raging tears? like, for instance, the copy machine, the weather, your stapler, your mother, your computer, the government, and your very own dreams?
where you sit there bemoaning all those little things that are making you batshit insane, and it seems perfectly reasonable to launch vitriol at them?
and then all of a sudden, you realize you’re hurling insults at a stapler, for the love of baby jesus, what the hell is wrong with you? and you realize, it’s not the stapler, it’s not jesus either, its not even your mother. it’s just YOU, sucker. YOU’RE the problem. call it dopamine levels gone wonky, maybe its that time of the hormone chart, maybe you just woke up on the churlish side of the bed.
i’m having one of those mornings. twice, the copier has personally selected 11×14 when i stood there demanding Letter size. my internet has been slower than molasses dripping off a spoon. emails i’ve been waiting for won’t come, while tons of emails i’m completely uninterested in have been flooding in by the boatload, making nail-grindingly annoying little *DING* noises every five minutes. the stapler – i can’t discuss what happened with the stapler, it’s too much. our office is so cold that my muscles are atrophying. irritation and tense muscles seem to be the order of the day.
i want my big cozy bed. i want a delicious meal cooked for me, IN bed. i want a book, i want some music, i want live music. i want a cupcake. i want three cupcakes and a vodka tonic. i want silence. i want company. i want to curl up on a big warm couch and watch a funny movie. i want to walk down an empty street. i want a warm hug. i want lots of warm hugs. i want to go shopping for vegetables on a warm sunny sunday morning. i want to fall asleep talking on the phone to people i love.
i want it to be tomorrow, yesterday, or tonight. i want it to be anything but now, to be anywhere but here, and to have any mood but my own.
you know?
UPDATE – 4:43 PM… the solution, it seems, is to make a squash court reservation so that you can anticipate SLAMMING A VERY SMALL BALL AROUND WITH A RAQUET for an hour. take THAT, stapler! take THAT, jesus!
how it is, with lamb
lamb roasts are fun. especially when you spend two hours on the train to get there, being so ridiculous with four other people that you nearly clear out the rest of your traincar. then even more so when your girl picks you up in an old-school merc. then it gets better when her greek dad gives you big hugs when he sees you and lets you try a dominican cigar.
then it gets better when you eat the lamb. then it gets topped when you ask greekdad where he got a whole lamb, and your friend goes, “mary?”
then it starts to get crazy. jacob gnaws on jawbone. penni shows the lamb who’s boss. inexplicably, a red cult is formed. people look at me like i know what i’m saying.
and even when everything’s everything’s copasetic, it still gets a little wild.
everyone’s happy. except the poor little lamb. and mary.
much thanks to my new pal jP for being so snap-happy.
rolling with the proles
yesterday, i had a short-lived epiphany. running seventeen different errands all over midtown, i decided to be brave and take a bus. so i took a bus from 38th and 6th to 57th and 6th, then a crosstown to 57th and 8th.
and i’m thinking, DAMN! look at ME! riding the city BUS!
later that night, i’m leaving inwood, so i decide to continue my streak of gleeful bus-riding with supreme confidence. i take the A downtown from my friend’s apartment and get off at 125th street, all set to take the M60 over the triboro into queens. why? because i have a NEW FOUND UNDERSTANDING OF BUSES, that’s why.
bus rolls up. i get on it, giddy with plebian pride. sit down and start reading.
ten minutes later, i look up, since we’ve just crossed a bridge structure of some kind. then i see the road sign. willis avenue. sinking, gnawing feeling. i know where willis avenue is. DA BRONX.
desperate to cling to my faith in the city buses, i turn and ask the girl behind me if there’s any damn chance this bus is going to queens. she lets out a howl. pretty soon, i’ve got six people, half of them drunk, trying to tell me how to get back to harlem.
the bus spits me out, chewed up and alone, onto willis avenue. and i’m thinking, i’m cool, i can handle this shit.
did i mention it’s 3 in the morning at this point?
and here’s where the spiritual tug of war begins. there’s no problem,, my sarah lawrence educated brain told me, you’re not like those people that’s terrified of the bronx and the projects. i steel every inch of my 5’2″ self with my LV handbag and my shopping bag from lord & taylor. i’m not a pansy, i swear. and then some guy drinking out of a paper bag tells me from across the street that he’s SURE he can tell me my star sign, JUST COME OVER HERE BABY. then the other side took over.
OMG I’M TOO YOUNG TO DIE HOLY CRAP THERE’S GONNA BE A DRIVE BY OR I’M GONNA GET RAPED AND MY POOR MOTHER IS GOING TO THINK, “WHAT WAS PUMPKIN DOING IN THE BRONX!” AND SHE’LL THINK DRUGS WERE INVOLVED, HOLY CRAP, TAXI!
i throw out my white-bread bougie arm at the nearest passing livery car, jump in, and pay $30 to get driven ten minutes over the triboro bridge to my safe little corner of queens.
i’m ashamed of myself. and i’m never taking the M60 ever again.
making it float.
krissa and matt, thanksgiving, 2000.
happy birthday, matthieu. here’s to coming into the gap to ask me out six long years ago. to afternoons at starbucks. to the freak dating the cheerleader. to driving down memorial seeing who could beat the traffic lights. to cafe artiste. to leaving notes on each other cars, to kudos bars, to formal dances, to breaking up and making up and making out. to letters from france. to late night laughter, to sudden cooling breezes, to IHOP. to smacking me in the face with your shoe, to volvos, to hellos and goodbyes, to all the times i swore it was the last time i’d stand on your curb and hug you goodnight. to misundersandings and awkward silences and pigeons who eat sweet’n'low. to breaking my heart, promising you’d fix it, and succeeding. to zoos and llamas and plastic penguins. to crying over your bullet wound and making my mother finally like you. to every time you’ve been the only person who could make me laugh so hard i can’t breathe, and every time you’ve taken my breath away with your kindness and gentle spirit. to long drives, slow drags, sweet goodnights and durable friendship.
here’s to you, matthieu. je t’aime.
cocktease
seriously, men, back me up here. you take your date out, you listen to her drone on for three full days about storm barriers and tidal waves and flying debris her nails and hair and galpals…
you expect to SEE A LITTLE LEG.
case in point: tropical pansy isabel. don’t take this personally, People Who No Longer Have Roofs, but i canceled half my evening’s plans expecting to sit in my window and watch the storm roll in. i half-expected to not have to go to work tomorrow. and now i’m just going to get soaked by virginia’s sloppy seconds and i’m not even going to SEE ANY ACTION.
if i were a man, i’d have blue balls.
pc, schmee see.
if you* resist the urge to call your boss a “ridiculously incompetent cock-chewing dingbat who couldn’t find his brain in an EMPTY PAPER BAG” two things will happen.
1. you will keep your job
but
2. you will fester on the inside.
* and by “you” i mean, “not me”. i’d never want to call my higher-ups anything involving the word cock-chewing.
To: Kate
From: Krissa
Wednesday, September 17, 2003 10:49AM
Subject: URGENT TELEGRAM
I MISS YOU ALREADY AND YOU HAVEN’T EVEN LEFT THE STATE.
To: Krissa
From: Kate
Wednesday, September 17, 2003 12:22AM
Subject: Re: URGENT TELEGRAM
TELL ME ABOUT IT STOP ON ONE HAND I CAN’T WAIT TO GO HOME AND WRITE LOADS ABOUT HOW SPECTACULAR YOU ARE AND POST GORGEOUS PICTURES FOR ALL TO SEE STOP ON THE OTHER HAND I DON’T WANT TO BE SO FAR AWAY FROM YOU MY DARLING!
_______________________
seriously, she’s the absolute fucking best there is. there’s a lot of fucking good out there and she’s the FUCKING BEST. all i can say is, when the Big Shit hits the Fan, i can only hope kate is at my side, swilling vodka and laughing at the chickens falling out of the sky.
fashionista!
and how was the catherine malandrino show, you ask?
fabulous. fabulous, fabulous, fabulous, most fabulousest.
