I turn twenty four today. In the past year, I’ve:
1. Walked over the Brooklyn Bridge in the pouring rain at three in the morning.
2. Taken my LSATs.
3. Applied to law school.
4. Decided not to go to law school.
5. Watched one of my dearest friends get her heart broken and spectacularly mended and happy again.
6. Met Kate.
7. Tried two different relationships with two different great guys. Neither worked.
8. Spent a wonderful Christmas with my family.
9. Bitched and moaned through January and February.
10. Found the Boot equivalent of a soulmate – my Fryes.
11. Drunk countless morning cups of coffee, smoked countless cigarettes, and had countless glasses of wine. Vices: Check.
12. Found myself surprisingly happy and satisfied in the middle of winter.
13. Gone to a US Open game and loved it.
14. Spent more time in parks.
15. Had weekends of fun that would blow your mind.
16. Went to Brasil with my brother.
17. Lain on beaches, had cairpirinhas, wore flip flops for whole stretches of time, laughed with my brothers and my sister and my niece.
18. Come home to the States, thinking that was as good as it gets.
19. Been wrong about good.
20. Met a man. Saw his smile. Saw his heart. Fell in love.
21. Walked through streets arm in and arm, and seen the most beautiful possible future.
22. Said yes.
23. Went to England.
24. Been happier than I’ve ever been in twenty three years so far.
All in all, I’d say, if life keeps getting better, I might have to get a bigger smile to match.
Happy birthday, me.

It actually occurred to me the other night, in a haze before falling asleep, to engrave the following into Stuart’s wedding band:
4 5683 968
Yep, you guessed it. That’s text-message-speak for I Love You.
Somebody hit me.

I rarely post about the daily drama of this InternetLand we call home, because, well, other people do so well. But I can’t help pointing to this, in hopes that it drums up some more notice. And because Caroline Dwyer is the most fun to hate since, like, Karl Rove.
The strikingly original and funny Fish wrote a post that got blatantly, unapologetically, and immorally plagarized. She hasn’t responded to Fish’s email or taken down the offending stolen copy.
Our catty little thief has also been publicly lambasted for other vicious thieving, and she’s apparently been blacklisted all over the internet for being a terrible nanny and forging references and stealing things and being in the States illegally. At this point, the girl is being accused of everything except being Osama bin Laden. I give it a day or so.
You’d THINK I’d need my PPBoSaD. I don’t. Because the Sporadic But Brilliant Sour Bob is taking her on. You plagarize Bob and Fish? I don’t even need my baseball bat. The fury of the internet will probably erupt in spontaneous fire and burn that Inflatable Emu right to the ground.
I, for one, can’t wait until Monday.

I really love my big brother. Doesn’t it show?

In 15 days, Stuart will have his interview at the US Embassy in London. They will be the final step in the process we began 100 days ago – applying for a K-1 fiancee visa for Stuart to move here.
In 16 days, we will (fingers crossed for success) be buying a ticket for Stuart to arrive in early October. This time, it’s an open-ended ticket. There won’t be posts about spending 4, or 5, or 6 days together. This time, it’s for good.
In early October, I will have had the luminous presence of this man in my life for a grand total of 220 days.
Since then, 99% of my days have started with a phone call from him, and his days have ended with a goodnight phone kiss from me. We have chatted, texted, sent letters, written emails, and left voice messages in the intervening hours.
Of the 220 days we’ve known each other, only 20 of those have been spent basking in each other’s company. I sleep at night knowing that in 20 days, we spent 28,800 minutes deliriously happy to be in each other’s company, each other’s arms.
But even the remaining 200 days, that I have spent far away from Stuart, that have been hard and required putting a smile on or remembering a joke or tender moment, or even just calling a friend to complain about how much I miss him … every minute of those 200 days has been worth it, too. Because I’ve been happy, even if I’m crying.
And that’s 288 thousand minutes of happy.
And as far as math goes, that ain’t bad.

We’re both up at eight fifteen, carrying shoulder bags full of lotion, wraps, hair clips, books, sunglasses. Bikinis under tank tops and skirts – Kate’s white, mine Hawaiian. We walk down the street to meet Jen at the subway, “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” still running through our heads. We pat ourselves on the back for knowing that Sunday would be beautiful, for having faith through the downpour of Saturday. We gaze up at the crisp blue sky with it’s crown of morning sun and feel very self-satisfied indeed.
**
“Beach!”
“Beach!”
It’s the greeting du jour, as the seven of us throw our towel-laden arms around each other in greeting at Penn Station. We muck about getting tickets and looking for platform numbers and drinking coffee. Kevin is new and still blends in seamlessly. Fish looks perfectly upper-east-side and cute enough to bite. Jen’s excitement is palpable and Biscuit’s sort of jumping around like a puppy. Mike took the day off and Kate and I sit there mock-fighting about how many miles wide Manhattan is. She was almost completely right, it turns out.
I don’t mind, though.
“Beach!”
**
My cowboy hat, being passed around on the train, ends up on Fish’s fair head from the moment we get to the beach. We strip down from tee shirts and shorts and skirts and Biscuit runs down to the water as soon as his flip flops are off.
I stand next to the towels with my toes digging into the sand. Flopping down on my red wrap, I ask the general public to remind me that my beloved toe ring is tucked safely in my wallet zipper pocket. I stand up again, throw my sunglasses to the sand, and race to the water.
**
We’re lying on our stomachs, sun gliding lazily over our backs.
“I’ll bet Osama hangs out in a resort,” I say.
“Yeah. Tora Bora Resort. And Spa,” says Kate.
“I mean, the man needs mudbaths.”
“Mudbaths and facials.”
“Mudbaths, facials, and Jihad.”
“‘What are you doing today, Osama?’ ‘Hm, four o clock mudbath, then we JIHAD!’”
Kate and I find this infinitely amusing. I’m rolling around on the white blanket, giggling and throwing out Osama reality show ideas. Kate starts doing funny accents. We’re so bad for America.
**
I’m trying to get out a string of expletives over the fact that Harry is tickling my foot.
“Mother-”
A wave crashes into my face and I bob under only to come out and finish the sentence. Kevin points out that half the children that were frolicking around us are gone.
“Well, they pee in the water, we curse,” says Kate.
Before I can laugh too hard, another wave comes and tosses my body into a tumble. I’m laughing under water and there are salt bubbles in my nose. But I don’t mind.
**
Biscuit and Mike and I sit under the boardwalk, feeling somewhat rebellious even without the requisite making-out or pot-smoking. We watch the two young guys throw a ball back and forth as we lean into the shade of the creaky wooden planks above us and stretch our feet into the sand.
Later, Kate and I are walking along the shore. We talk about friends, and how nice Long Beach really is.
“It’s nice to be wearing so little clothing, isn’t it,” I say. She agrees. We’re quiet for a minute. We watch little kids run tirelessly in and out of the surf, parents half-heartedly watching them while scanning the horizon.
I realize it’s grownups that scan the horizon for nothing in particular. Little kids are so caught up in the immediacy of the nature-made watercoaster that they don’t often grasp the immensity beyond. Even as a child, when I played games with my cousin in Greece by “taunting Poseidon”, it never occurred to me to simply stare at that sparklingly straight line and ponder its unique unending beauty.
There are some ways I don’t mind being a grown-up, I think as we wander along the shore, toes digging in wet shifting sands.
**
Mike and I decide that the seagulls are plotting. They’ve ceased their cawing, swooping searches of the sky. They stand motionless, in a diamond formation, between two pylons at the top of the beach. Their ostensible leader, a brownish fellow with particularly shifty eyes even for a seagull, stands separated from the perfect formation, two feet in front of the diamond.
“What are they doing?” Mike asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, momentarily stunned by their military cunning.
We stand there for another minute, contemplating the force of evil we’re clearly being faced with, when I realize what to do.
“Run.” I say, and we run towards them, Mike and I, arms flailing and voices howling. The evil cadre of seagulls disperse, doubtless to regroup, assess damages, and meet elsewhere for their evil plottage. But we are satisfied. We walk back to wear Biscuit is standing, laughing at us.
“I’ve done my part for America today,” I say. I’m pretty sure that cancelled out joking about Osama’s jihad.
**
We talk long into the night at the Bohemian, still in bathing suits and patchy sunburns. We talk about cheezwhiz and musicals, friendship and glutens. The boys kiss each other cutely, Fish is convinced into several more Hoegardens. Kevin talks about his first day with the tribe, Kate and Jen tell cute grandparent stories, and I get a little emotional talking about Stuart. We discuss true love, eat keilbasa, and drink pitchers of beer until the sun has long gone and the weight of the day’s fun and sand and laughter bears heavy on my shoulders.
We all kiss goodbye, at the bar and at the subway, and hug each other like we do every time we meet and part. I tell my friends I love them, because I do, and as I walk home with Kate and marvel at the Perfect Sunday and its components, I realize it’s not just the sun and the sand and the bikinis and the jokes and the seagulls and the waves.
It’s the company.

Overhead from the other room, while Kate on phone:
“Spelled with an F? As in F like.. Fuck you?”

While it’s impossible to recount the hilarity that was my weekend with Erin (feat. The Kate as Roommate Extraordinaire) in town, I can declare with some confidence that the most brilliant idea we came up with was:
Me: I’d like to think that Fidel and Kissinger and McNamara still keep in touch, you know?
Erin: Maybe they get on the phone every afternoon and complain about back pains and how great the Cold War was.
Kate: Pinochle.
Me: Online.
Erin: And they totally watch the West Wing together.
Me, Kate: Totally.
Any other nuggets of brilliance from my weekend are either STRICTLY CLASSIFIED or COMPLETELY NONSENSICAL.

I hear you’re trying to crash the party. And by party, I mean: the Tampa Bay Area. I hear you’re thinking of doing this somewhere around noon on Friday the 13th. Smooth, Charley, very smooth. And by smooth, I mean: you stupid twatface, get away from Florida.
Look, I know you might think I’m okay with this. Well, not okay, because I’m not PURE evil, but perhaps you’re under the misguided impression that my reaction would be noncommital at best. After all, you read my blog, right? You’ve seen me slam the state of Florida as being “the wang of America” and “unfit for intelligent consumption”. You’re dead wrong, Charley.
I only know two kinds of people in Florida, Charley. No, not steers and queers, shut up, you assface. The two kinds of people in Florida are: Exes, and Brother(s).
Perhaps you’re misinformed about my relations to exes, Charley. I have a fair amount of exes, cutting a hurricane-like swathe through the rougher sex like I’ve done. But I like my exes, Charley. With the exception of two or three, I’m in vague to frequent contact with all of them. And while one of my Florida Exes isn’t on my speed dial, he’s not a bad guy and I’d certainly think it wise he remain alive. The other Ex, Charley, is a good friend of mine. And he’s a skinny guy, you wind-blowing little shit, so you could probably lift him off the ground and make tree-fodder of him (no offense, dear). And I’d like him to stay mostly on the ground, please.
Then there’s my brother, Charley, you wave-swelling bitchypoo. And I really like him. And right now, he’s in a car driving the way our mamma taught us (fast) away from your stupid face. He has a nice house, Charley. There isn’t one part of that house I’m going to let you get away with munching on. So you’d better just steer clear of his house.
Do you get what I’m saying, Charley? I am one mean stiletto-wielding curse-screaming bat-waving little woman. And as much as I’ve maligned Florida in the past, there happen to be people there now who could use my violent threats against your person.
So stay the fuck away from Florida, Charley. Or else I’m going to have to take my troika, my baseball bat, and my ATTITUDE down there, and show you what a force of nature REALLY LOOKS LIKE.
Love,
Krissa

I am too busy to post. I love you all. So stealing directly from Stuart’s post today, I’m doing the same thing – offering some amusement. Here. Take the Owl Quiz and then compare your score.