blugh or: how i learned to love short man's complex

Originally uploaded by kristalynn.

yesterday was one of "those" days.

it all started when i woke up screaming from a bad dream. i lay there with my heart pounded when my boyfriend bound into the bedroom holding a frying pan, asking "what is it?! what happened?!"*

then while doing yoga, a car careened into three others right outside my window.

then my boyfriend and i quibbled about how unsupportive and unnice and uneverything i am. so by this time, i was tossed into the depths of despair. and my thoughts turned to how much of a boob i can be.

i once attended a dinner of a man who was fairly well off. and the people in his presence fawned and applauded every move he made. this short little man, once he had enough alcohol in him, turned to me and said, "you know krista, the first time i met you, i thought you were a real bitch." silence befell the table.

he had a point. the first time i met him, he said something completely unimpressive and, therefore, i was completely unimpressed. i guess tiny little man had been affected by my unresponsiveness to his money, his widgets, and his playthings.

then he got 3 gimlets in him.

and so, silence befell the table. i can't remember if anyone awkwardly dropped a fork, but let's say someone did. no one came to my defense. was it for fear of insulting the host? or because he has more financial clout than i?

i retorted. "well at least i remembered who you were." because when i had shown up earlier that evening, he looked at me and brusquely said, "who's this?"

charming.

so after my retort, his table of admirers piped up with defense. "well, you totally changed your hair color." "you met him in winter - you have a tan now." all sorts of hooey and humbug.

there was a second incident where he reminded me of my bitchiness. i ran into him at a restaurant and, i guess, didn't greet him with the perfunctory glee to which he is accustomed. "gawd krista, you're such a bitch."

"enjoy your meal." i replied.

have you ever told someone who is feeling vulnerable that they're not a bad person? that person basically crumbles, because for some reason, some how, we all think that a part of us IS bad: we're not smart enough, friendly enough, skinny enough, athletic enough, social enough, talented enough, pretty enough, nice enough, educated enough, good enough...

it may not seem like it, but i've dedicated the better part of my life trying to figure out who i am and make myself a better person. if you grab me by my shoulders and look me in the eye and tell me i'm not a bad person, i will crumble and cry.

so i certainly don't need some tiny little man who can barely reach the peddles of his standard-issue suv to tell me otherwise.

* frying pan may or may not have been present.

hey roller boogie boy

Originally uploaded by kristalynn.

i have an impending trip to vancouver where i'll visit with my sister, my new niece, and several friends who moved from east coast to west.

i just got an email from one of those friends who works for a talent agency. one of their clients just died. he was 38 and rollerbladed and she used to yell "HEY ROLLER BOOGIE BOY" at him.

she says, "It's sad because he just dropped dead. Blammo. Dead. And all I could think of was that he would never get to sing that part in "Hotel California" about you can check out any time you want but you can never leave and that bummed me right out. Because it's the little things. You know?"

i do know. when a friend of mine died, i was struck by the fact that he would never see anything beautiful again. images would exist, but his eyes would not be around to take in whatever he considered beautiful, like a flower, a girl, a wicked piece of cake... it's hard to explain what you go through when people die, but as my namesake in vancouver says, it usually is the little things that strike you the hardest.

she went on to say, "Or like right now that song by Toto about the rain falling in Africa is playing and it's so gay and I like to sing to it - like he won't hear that again. And that disturbs me. So let's hug for ten minutes when you arrive."


people tend to get really uptight about funerals. i remember thinking, "how the hell can people eat at a funeral?" i was all uppity. but then i went to a funeral, catholic nonetheless, and was all, "oh, is that a zucchini dip?"

the strange thing about a funeral is that it somehow turns into a magical celebration about life.

did you not get my memo?

Originally uploaded by kristalynn.

the doors in my building seem to be configured to mercilessly slam. so i posted a note in the hallway asking my friendly neighbors to make a concerted effort not to slam their doors, so that we all can live harmoniously.

yesterday my neighbor must've forgotten my memo and walked out of his apartment and slammed his door. the next thing i hear is "oops! sorry." aimed clearly at my door.

my sister and i, when we lived together, once posted a memo in our small apartment building. see, someone had kidnapped her captain jean-luc picard cardboard cut-out. she got him as a birthday present because she loved him. he hung out in our living room for a long time. he was great. you could see him from the street and i really liked coming home to him. then came the day that we decided that he should move into the hallway and welcome us as we return home. he lasted a day or two before he was abducted. we lamented his loss. it was as though our really great, silent, hot roommate had left us.

only about a week later we got the idea to post said communal memo, asking for whomever stole captain jean-luc picard to return him. full amnesty would be granted. later that night captain jean-luc picard rang our bell. we were so happy to see him. a word bubble was taped to his mouth, written in star-trek speak, which i don't really understand. apparently he had gone on some inter-galactic journey, fending off foes. he was sorry for the worry he caused us. i was just happy to have him back. he had a chill, so i gave him a cardigan.

he hung out with us again, back in the living room. but it wasn't the same. captain jean-luc picard was distant. we knew he was thinking about someone else. he hid it well, but i knew what was coming. "i don't want him to go! i love him!" "but they love him more," she reasoned. we had to make the ultimate sacrifice: captain jean luc picard left us the next day. he went back into the hallway, with another word bubble. the two geeks at the end of the hallway were beaming.

dancing with tears in my eyes

Originally uploaded by kristalynn.

i just came back from a run and this ultravox song that someone jokingly put on my ipod came on. i started to laugh and then remembered an ultravox-related story:

when i was living in ny, a girlfriend was dating an ex-member (are they still "ex" members if the band just fades away...?) and a bunch of us went out for beverages one night. a friend of mr. ultravox found out i was a photographer and asked to see my portfolio. he needed someone to shoot the cover for his album. we met, he looked, he liked, i shot.

we later reconvened to go over the images and he asked me out. i said i was seeing someone. he said he didn't like the photos. he later told my girlfriend that i secretly yearned for her ultravox boyfriend. she looked at him like he was crazy, "krista? oh, he's so not her type."

thank gawd for loyalty. i could have been on huge damage control and easily lost a friendship due to his baby ways. i totally won't go after your ultravox boyfriend.

i've set the comments so that you don't have to register or sign in. i really like hearing what people have to say.

gay

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Originally uploaded by krista.

this is how ridiculous the montreal bar scene can get. we were having drinks at mile end (which was THE place for, like, 3 days and then fell into disfavor, like every other dumb bar) and this guy here decided to walk in wearing sunglasses. well, we took about 90 photos of him.

he was fabulous.

martha's vineyard

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Originally uploaded by sassie70.

mauritania

so. last nite i was talking to someone who had recently come back from india. and he was saying how you just get beyond shock when you see the things you do when you travel to these amazing parts of the world. and of course it changes you forever. seeing things you otherwise would never see. learning things you otherwise would never learn (maybe?). anyway, i was thinking back to when i was in africa, and this one image in mauritania that was so beyond surreal (is this when charles the semantic cop attacks me again?) that i often wonder if i made it up or dreamt it: there was this horse. and he was dead. and he was in a dumpster that was filled to the rim. and he was in this state of rigor mortis, so his four legs were sticking straight up into the air. incredible. a dead horse in a dumpster. just piled there on top. these things are so wild, you just don't have the ability to deal with it.

thanks to my sister for plugging my blog. check out her artwork and thoughts here.

she just had a tiny little baby that i'm going to visit in less than a month.

ny

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Originally uploaded by krista.

i did it! uploaded an image, i did. took this while visiting with joe in ny.

recently, a friend went out and got drunk and danced to david bowie on a chair. that aside, she told me that marta was dj-ing. the fact that she mentioned marta like i should know who she was got me suspicious. soon followed a slew of photos of this marta planting kisses all over this friend. i inquired. i knew something was astir.

"you mentioned marta like i should know her.  do i know her?  did we go to high school with her?"

she told me that, no, i did not know her but that marta was her pretend new lesbian girlfriend. but not really. and that she was trying to make it casual so that i didn't think she was insane. because she isn't.

i told her not to do that. because it could easily be mistaken for gay (and not gay as in lesbian) name dropping, as per the following scenario:

'oh, i was at a party and i spilt my crantini on trent."

"trent?"

"uh huh.  trent."

"who the hell is trent?"

"uh, only trent reznor.  9 inch nails. hello!?"

that kinda thing.

bullying

there's been a ton of stuff on the news about middle and high school bullying of late. i've been harking back to my high school (before italy) - gloucester high - and of all the bullying/black eye getting/shoe burying/small breast pointing out i was subjected to. no thanks to stephen stupid ambrose and his sidekick ken. my good friend little steve was mocked and called "prince", after that great purple genius. but nothing compares to what this girl who took my school bus was subjected to. her name was kimberly meek, and EVERY SINGLE MORNING, the cool kids in the back of the bus (one of whom i know for a fact only recently moved out of her parent's house) called out, "kim REEEEEEK". this amazing girl simply took her seat, every single day, and tolerated this. the only thing that really stuck out about kim was that she had this great hair that kinda flew around in every which way. but she was gorgeous. she certainly didn’t reek.

i've been thinking about her - i even googled her. even though i had NOTHING to do with the name calling (i was no where near welcome in the back of the bus), i want to apologize on behalf of those evildoers, for calling her "kim reek" every single school day of her life.

clay aiken says that we're even guilty of bullying if we don't stop it. and i didn't try to stop it.

let's look in awe at people's frizzy awesome hair!