collisions!

Originally uploaded by kristalynn.

a friend of mine invented a game with some friends when he was young. it was a winter game and the basic rules were to yell out "collisions!" and then run your friends over with a sled.

"wow. that sounds like a really great game." i said.

"collisions!"

"were there ever any injuries?"

"ALL the time."

"collisions..." i murmured.

the other day i had a collision of my own. a head on one with another biker. and i'll be honest here - i was biking the wrong way down a one-way street. but there were no cars - and he was coming straight at me. i veered to the right, as everyone who is not in the UK or australia would do. but he stayed straight on his path. i stopped. but he decided to hit me straight on.

"oh hey. how ya doing?" i said dryly.

"i'm not wrong! i'm not wrong!" he screamed at me, arms flailing. "i'm TIRED of people going the wrong way down this street!"

"so you decided to teach me a lesson by hitting me straight on? you're friggin' high."

"i'm NOT high, and i'm NOT wrong!"

"you're totally gay."

"yes, i AM gay! so what. i'm also tired of stopping for people going the wrong way on this street."

"you're tired of stopping, are you? so you decided to hit me straight on?” i palmiculated* at him. “look… you're stopped anyway." i poised myself for imminent departure.

he sucked in his breath. he saw that he was, in fact, stopped and that i had a valid point. as he snitted away on his bike, he concluded our collision! with a prosaic "fuck you".

as i turned on the next street, going the right way, my lower lip started to tremble. i never like being told to "fuck me". but i bucked up and it was soon water off a duck's back.

collisions. no one comes away unscathed.


palmiculate * \P[A']-mik-yu-lAt\ * verb
intransitive verb
1: to gesture or indicate using one’s palm facing upward.

sad thongs say so much.

believe it or not, a friend of mine was digging in the archives of this blog.

"tell me about this ass monkey who called you a bitch at dinner!" she barked.

"must i?"

"yes, you must. no wait - did he have a girlfriend?"

as luck would have it, he did. "yes."

"tell me about her instead."

little-mr-in-constant-need-of-attention-and-praise's girlfriend's catch phrase for the earlier part of the evening was, "oh! is it ever hot! i really need to remove my sweater!"

once she had garnered enough attention of her own, she finally did remove said sweater. everyone finally saw what her big buildup was about: rising a good 5 inches about her low-cut jeans was a diamond-encrusted thong. it caught the light in the most magical way: beaming tiny rainbows up to her proudly-peroxided smile.

"wait," my friend interjected. "diamonds?! diamonds or cubic zirconias?" she seemed mad.

"oh, i don't know. cubic zirconias. rhinestones. whatever."

"okay. fine. get your story straight."

so here was the cubic-zirconia-encrusted thong. she pranced it around the kitchen, like a proud show pony, tittering all the way.

even though the median age of the men present at the dinner was probably 45, each one of them poked, prodded, and snapped away at the beautiful, semiprecious stone-encrusted thong.

[clop, clop] "tee hee. stop it you guys! this is the LAST time i'm going to wear a bad pair of underwear!"

sometimes my mouth speaks before my brain has a chance to plan anything. "who are you kidding? YOU'RE the one who put them on!"

within minutes, the sweater was back on. i guess she felt a little chill in the air.

no shit

Originally uploaded by kristalynn.

i drove down to new york for a weekend of respite, repose, and potent margaritas. i love returning to new york for a good dose of insanity and friendliness (yes, friendliness). i was at whole foods in columbus circle where another customer was smelling some organic, homemade, hippie soaps.

"mmm.... smell this!" she shoved the 2 foot long bar into my face. it was the kind where you had to cut your own chunk.

i sniffed. "lovely. almonds. it's so marzipany."

my boyfriend and i were looking for parking one evening. "what about along here?" he suggested.

"nuh uh. this is where i got... attacked." i hesitated to use the word "mugged" because they didn't get any money.

"attacked? what do you mean attacked? did you get mugged?"

"two guys grabbed me by my hair and pinned me down, with my face on the pavement."

my boyfriend didn't ask about the resolution of said mugtack, but it got me thinking about that night and the two people who saved me.

i was having drinks with a girlfriend and her boyfriend who used to play in ultravox, who i was later accused of secretly loving by some guy with a bad perm and a big ol' bag of chips on his shoulder. i was about 20 blocks from home, so i decided to walk. i knew it wasn't necessarily the best idea, but money was scarce.

i started walking and got lost in thought. i noticed about a block away two people walking towards me and i thought, "shit, something could happen here." as they got closer, they split up to be on either side of me, grabbed me by my hair, and scraped my cheek against the sidewalk.

"fuck."

"give us your money."

"i don't HAVE any money. do you think i'd be walking home if i HAD money?"

"give us your money!" i then felt a hand reaching into my pocket.

i elbowed the hand away. the pressure of my head against the sidewalk increased.

i then heard a car stop about 20 feet away. their grip on my head eased up and i freed myself. i looked up to see a cab. a girl was looking out of the back window.

i stood up, my heart pounding. one of the culprits ran away. the other one was staring straight at me. i stared back. i wrapped my hand around the can of mace in my pocket. this is why i elbowed their hands away - i didn't want them to get their hands on this first.

we had a stare down for what seemed like minutes. i was deciding if i should spray him and then run for it.

"get into my cab!" yelled the cab driver.

"fucker." i whispered at the malefactor as i walked by him into the cab.

"are you okay?" asked the girl and the cabbie.

"gawd, thank-you, thank-you for stopping."

the cab dropped off his fare and then took me straight to my door. he waited until i got into my building - both doors. i turned around and waved to him before he drove off.

i know the girl and the cabbie will never ever read this, but this happened years ago and i am still so grateful. how easy it would have been to simply drive by me and the mess i got myself into.

not taking any shit is what makes your city so great.

that's $1.47 a liter, my friend

i got the email about not purchasing any gas today about 15 times. each time got my ire up even higher than the last. but not for the reason you think. first of all, i really don't think the oil companies will "choke on their reserves". they'd probably just be like, "hmph, sales were down by .03% today."

it's not like we're running cars on prune juice. we got no where else to go. we'll be back tomorrow.

the reason why this stinky, stupid, spammy email got me so mad was because this is what it takes for us to finally react: an extra $4 per tank of gas and unaffordable peaches. what about the years of perfectly unjustifiable wars and senseless deaths of innocent people? what about land mines that are designed to look like toys so that children pick them up and blow off their limbs? and what about people who can't complain about expensive fruit because they simply don't have anything to eat? we could sleep through those nights. shame on us.

and on top of these tiny horrors, we now have to pay more for our fancy-panted jeans and botanical facial creams? we are a lackadaisical, spoiled, and cushy society. we make me ill.

on september 1st, i'm filling my tank to the brim. it'll cost me $30.