Sunday, July 23, 2006

Easily swayed

I was out this past week with a friend from California at dinner. He and I were discussing some things, and jean shorts were brought up, somehow. I told him that I hadn't worn jean shorts since I was 16, and that I didn't get them.

When I was 16, I spent the better part of my summers in cut-offs and teva sandals chasing children who were recently taken off their ridalin around outside. It was always an exciting choice-- which jeans deserved to be immortalized by scissors. Jean shorts to me are a time and a place that I could pull up in a capsule of time.

When I think jean shorts, I think my father gardening in 1991. I think being in middle school where whomever had the longest acceptable fray on their shorts was the coolest. I think about tourists and Middle America and the Gap.

My friend said he didn't understand the East Coast snobbery, because when he showed up freshman year of college, he wore jean shorts out on one of those first few awkward group outings where 30 18-year-olds do the same thing. He said he got made fun of something fierce for wearing jean shorts. I laughed at him AGAIN. Like I did, lo these many years ago. JEAN SHORTS? GIVE ME A BREAK!

I see hipsters walking around now with the knee length jean shorts. They look pretty cool on skinny girls with converse and a few tank tops, it's true. I am easily swayed by hipster nonsense like that.

So, I did something this weekend that I haven't done since I was 16.

I made cut-offs. To be like the hipster kids with the converse.

Only mine were old brown Gap chinos.

I rule.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Apparently, Buster the Bunny was a HUGE Digital Underground fan

I had the unique displeasure of watching a rabbit go to town on my slippered foot this evening.

Buster, my rabbit-friend who is taking a vacation from his daddies while one daddy is in Ghana and other daddy is biking across the country, is currently in love with my foot. Via my slipper.

I was sitting on the floor in shorts and slippers with my feet flexed watching some "Good Eats" on the Food Network while I slipped out of my "drrrr spreadsheets" coma. I was watching him make pad Thai with renewing vigor when I sensed some OTHER renewed "vigor".

There was Buster, holding onto my toes for dear life while he pounded away at the ball of my slippered foot. I couldn't shake him off. I was frozen-- staring at this creature hammer away like he was an awkward teenager who was mistaking speed with skill, while I watched my foot pray for this drunken mistake to just END ALREADY. In about 15 seconds it was all over. For the time being.

A wave of emotions washed over me. I went through the normal cycle.

Guilt.
Violation.
Shame.
Pride.
No, no. NO PRIDE.
ONLY GUILT.

Buster has two daddies who are raising him to be an open-minded, worldly, and knowledgeable citizen of the world. And then my Catholic upbringing realized that I HAD HELPED THIS RABBIT GET OFF. Being paralyzed by the horrified fascination of this rabbit mistaking MY FOOT for a foxy lady rabbit had inadvertently gotten him hooked. Apparently, my neon green slipper is a machine in the sack, because that was it for him-- the deal was sealed. He became more adventurous-- different positions, different speed, you get the picture.

I'd like to thank a friend for giving me this slippers. I'd like to thank my mom for the yarn that I stuffed into the toe after my foot was rammed the first time so hard that I felt like I should start charging this fellow and we should share a celebratory cigarette. I wore these slippers religiously for over a year, and I am sad to see that they met their whorish demise. At least until I can wash them a few times.

Then he tried the same deal with my ankle. Up on his hind legs with a good grip on my calf muscle. That got him put back into his cage. I was raised Catholic enough to laugh after the fact, not be ok with Rabbit-to-skin contact. I can't help a brother out THAT MUCH.

Now that my slippers have been deflowered by a rabbit with two daddies who clearly HAVE TAUGHT HIM WELL, it's at least helpful to look at the positives. Apparently, he's a five-minute-man, but at least he owes the slippers the courtesy of multiple lovemaking sessions. Kudos, gentleman. You are raising the boy right.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Letters unsent

Dear Jay McCarroll:

I love that one skirt in your Project Runway Season 1 collection. So patchwork-zen, blue-green glory. Should I get this (fingers crossed) apartment, it's the inspiration for my living room. This is geeky, but I really like fabric and paint swatches so it's just heaven to me. Rock on, sir.

-K.

Dear mail guy at work:

You are very short. Your hair is decidedly slicked-down. But very pleasant. I always say hi to you in the halls with my head cocked to one side bemused by the combination.

-K.

Dear skinny blonde woman with the eclectic wardrobe that always looks work-appropriate:

I really dig your clothes. I'm glad you work in my work 'hood and manage to look like you have some spunk. Also you look like my friend from high school. She was a little kooky.

-K.

Dear Pilates Instructor:

I am going to miss your classes since I cancelled my gym membership. I thought about keeping it, just for you. But I then remembered that you teach other places too and I'll track you down that way. Seriously, your classes make me feel like a Gazelle. In a long and lean way, not in a "I'll start walking on all fours" way.

-K.

Dear lady who is always working at Peking Garden:

I love that you asked me once "that's it?" when I ordered food without the DK present. I don't come in super often, but you've started to pretend to recognize the two of us together, which makes me feel fuzzy inside. Also, the general tso's chicken does that too. Nice and spicy. No messing around with too much broccoli filler. Just sweet, sweet chicken filler.

-K.


Dear friendly cafeteria worker who makes the killer wraps:

You rock. Seriously. "good sandwich-maker" is something to aspire to. Also I tend to flush when you call me "baby" while I ask for hot peppers. Makes it seem so natural to have so much hot peppers on a sandwich. You're a nice lady.

-K

Dear the ONLY nice lady at Comcast I have ever spoken to:

You make me want to maybe not think about getting "the dish", but then I think about all your colleagues and I giggle about how I'm going to maybe get "the dish".

-K.

Dear random older gay gentleman who asked me to dance in the middle of Sonoma last night:

You were a good dancer and your partner seems very nice, though confused how we knew each other. I understand you wanting to help your buddy Carlos score some ladies, but the gay bbf angle doesn't work on us. Three taken-ish women sipping white wine on an idle Tuesday would much rather just talk to you, because you were drinking the same wine and it would be easy-- don't you see?

-K

Dear Amos Lee:

please please please please please please please come to DC. I saw that you were playing in Vienna, and thought, "you know? I'd TOTALLY go to Virginia to see him" but then I realized it was Austria. And I pouted. Please sing me the phone book any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

xoxoxoxoxox
K


Monday, July 10, 2006

I am currently wasting my life

Looking for an apartment.

House-hunting is currently gnawing away my social life. Friends are decidedly SICK of me discussing where I am going to live. They are sick of hearing the logistics of the what-ifs of timing. I'm at work bitching to EVERYONE who listens about all my apartment woes. The woes of the lack thereof.


I've seen a basement apartment that was 300 square feet and the ceilings were so low I could put my hand up (the hand above my 5"7 head) to touch the ceiling. It was painted the most putrid mustard yellow color and had two windows the size of my ibook.

I saw a very cute studio, cozy. But the floor plan was so awkward that I couldn't put much more than a bed in it. It had cabinets older than me, and a bunchy carpet that looked like it had been smoked on and then tidied up, trying very hard not to gather my attention.
It's hard when you are too young to have saved up a lot of money, and get paid less than your old college tuition bills PLUS room and board. And I just got a raise! If I had $1500 a month for a one bedroom, I wouldn't be whining. But I don't. So I am. A little.

I think I ONLY have about another few conversations of the "pleasantly quirky new neurotic girl whose eyes twitch when she jokes about putting a cot in her cube because REALLY, I THOUGHT about the dimensions." I have an eye-mask. It could totally work for a while. I already eat 2 meals a day there, why not just make it 3? There's a TV. There are chairs and a microwave.

But I suppose that this is what you do, in order to find your home. Today in ALL honesty, I said to a potential landlord "you know, I can bake pretty well. Seriously, think about that come the holiday season. I could make it worth your while in sprinkles." She wasn't very impressed, but I hope she at least denoted the sense of urgency in my voice.

When I found my current apartment, I did everything but shove a check in the face of my very pleasant yet slightly shady landlord, who took pity on my roommate and I because he had a son my age and "knows how it goes". We had a lease and the *perfect* apartment stolen from under our noses, but it was much better how it worked out this way. We both walked to work and both made some friends by saying "well if you're out in Adams Morgan you should call me".

I have until August 6th to find an apartment. AUGUST 6th. AT. THE. LATEST. Like sign a lease and move some boxes. It's pulling apart at the insides of my stomach when I eat, and keeping my eyeballs peeled open at night. It's refreshing websites every 30 minutes and pulling my brain away from other important things. It's doing fervent math on my cell phone calculator and making lists only to cross possibilities off.

So that's why I'm not blogging. Also cuz my new work blocks gmail, blogger, and for some reason the EFFING Washington city paper classifieds. DAMN YOU!