New Word #1

Here is my new word. It's my word and it makes me happy. It's hyphenated because I think hyphens are cool and because the word hyphen is both fun to spell and almost slightly dirty.

I'm going to use it in a sentence.

That hamburger looks so good and juicy that I'm about to make it my mouth-bitch.

Thanks for reading.

Love, Krankiboy.

Posts I haven't written yet

1) The big burly mexican dudes who found my phone that I had dropped who I had to convince to let me buy it back for a shit load of money.

2) Why I'm barely ever at home anymore - the Roommate DramaRama

3) My dream invention - the Kid-a-pult: Capable of launching kids to their parents place of work by stuffing them into a large inflatable safety ball. FIRE!

Happy Kranksgiving!

Ah, Thanksgiving. A time for friends and family who rarely see each other (usually by choice) to have quality time to sit around a table and aggravate one another.

There is something joyful and hassle-free about not having to travel anywhere on Thanksgiving. There is no awkward family tension to sit through, no taboo topics to avoid, and no intrusive conversations with estranged relatives to tolerate.

Oh, but the food makes it worth it you might be thinking. I tend to disagree.

Many people make Thanksgiving meals that are just mush. If you stop to thing about it you're really just eating something that amounts to adult baby food. Soft mashed potatoes, pureed yams, creamed spinach, slimy cranberry sauce, and soggy stuffing. Even the turkey with gravy is pretty mushy.

There are of course exceptions to the uninspiring meals that most people serve at their tables, but even if you find one of those it's no guarantee that you'll have a good time. The chances of you enjoying the company of all the people you're with even after the drinking starts is unlikely. There's always the asshole who somebody felt obligated to invite because they didn't have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving dinner. That person usually has some irritating personality traits and a whole bunch of dull conversation that they want to unload on you and you feel obligated to be nice to them since it's Thanksgiving. Drinking only makes them more chatty and clingy and when you step out to get some air, there they are. The problem is only compounded if they're attracted to you.

Important footnote: If you don't notice one of these people at your Thanksgiving dinner it's probably because that tiresome and/or rambling drunk person is you.

As for me, I'm going to get some Indian food see a movie and then sneak into another one as I continue a tradition I started in college.

Happy Kranksgiving!

Hand Me My Stabbing Knife!

I am cranky like a mother fucking fuck-fucker today. I don't know where it's coming from but I am irritable and angry. Things that would normally not phase me at all are getting under my skin. I'll provide an example. My coworker went to get coffee and paid for my coffee and a pastry but took fifteen minutes longer than it would normally take and I was hugely pissed off.

Things that happened today that were actually annoying were magnified by a factor of 10. It's amazing none of the little kids got punched in the mouth today. Fortunately for them I have extreme reserves of patience for children and almost none for adults.

Maybe I need to break something or fuck something or break something by fucking it. I just have these strange swells of anger today. Maybe some deep repressed memory is coming to the surface. Pent up hostility? Perhaps I've realized that I have wasted the last 10 years of my life and I'll never get them back. Maybe I'm tired of living in San Francisco and being a teacher. Today I even hate the word "teacher." Maybe I feel like I'm being a good human being day in and day out and I'm not getting anything for it. Maybe I'm angry because I've realized that it doesn't work that way. Maybe I'm extra angry because I don't know why I'm angry.

Instead of trying to analyze this mental state I find myself in any further I'm just going to sleep. You people with more energy can go out and find a deserving recipient that you can bitch slap right across the face. You can wear your pimp rings or not as long as you leave a mark and it makes a loud, satisfying smack sound. I don't enjoy feeling this way. I'm not even experiencing an adrenaline anger rush or anything remotely pleasant feeling. If this keeps up for a few more days I'm thinking of going on a crime spree. Maybe that would help get it out of my system.

I hate the fact that I'm in bed but I have to get up to brush my teeth. Stupid fuckin' teeth. Somebody should punch teeth right in their face.

Bad Beans

Last Monday I was taking a break out in the Farm and Garden area of our school and I had only eaten a bit of a bagel for lunch. Normally people munch on the snap peas and cherry tomatoes from the garden and I was a bit hungry so I opened up a few of the bean pods and nibbled on them rght off the vine. They were pretty crunchy but some were tender enough to eat and why not have some extra protein, right?

It was a stormy afternoon of heavy rain. I managed to bike home during a lull in the storm and cleaned off my dirty bike like an OCD person. A few minutes later I was hit with a wave of nausea the likes of which I can't recall. I was in the middle of leaving a message on my friend's voicemail and ended it with. "Good lord, I have to go I'm going to throw up." I did throw up. In fact I threw up every five minutes for the next four hours and fourty minutes. I immediately called my nanny. Yes, I have a nanny. She's really just a good friend that gives me a lift and helps keep me organized at times but I call her my nanny and she doesn't mind. So this throwing up baffles me until I see these tiny bits of bean coming up and taste what I can only describe as a bile and poison mixture in my mouth. Vile.

My nanny arrives to find me sprawled out on the bathroom floor. By now my stomach is empty and nothing but bile is coming up. There is a searing pain in my stomach that continues to build. Then the other end of my body starts to do the same thing. Nothing quite like puking while already on the toilet. And the good times were just beginning. I ended up just getting into the shower and lying down.

My nanny googles beans + poison and discovers this.

It was quite a torturous experience. She called the doctor and they told her to get me to a hospital if I was still throwing up at 9pm. I stopped at 8:45pm and was happy not to have to take a trip to the E.R.. I was already pretty dehydrated before the nastyness started and the cramping was pretty unpleasant. Then there were the toxins that made me start to shake pretty violently and the soarness in my muscles that made it feel as if I had be hit with a hammer in all my muscles. At one point the only parts of my body that didn't hurt were my earlobes

I've had food poisoning a few times before and it was nothing like this. I was worried at one point that I had done myself in and it was quite scary. I spent the next day recuperating from the physical toll that had been placed on my body. When I finally was able to drink some tea and eat a grape it tasted like the finest thing I had ever eaten. A few days later my chest muscles were still sore and I needed a belt for jeans that were normally quite snug.

So kids. Don't eat raw beans.

xoxo

Kranki

October Madness

October in San Francisco is a perpetual blur of costumed madness and parties. Sounds awful, doesn't it? As an extropervert* it's just about my favorite times of the year. You can tell how much fun I'm having by how eggregiously messy my room is. Some of the fun events include. Lovefest, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Halloween Critical Mass, Folsom Street Fair (if you're into gay men having sex in public), Castro Street Fair, Octoberfest and today's Decompression. I met so many people from the slew of people I've crossed paths and rus shoulders (etc) with since I moved to this strange city. On top of the October festivities there are at least half a dozen people throwing birthday bashes this month. Here are a few photos of the day. I'll put a few more up on Flickr tomorrow. It felt good to get the camera out again and see that I haven't gotten too rusty.

I didn't realize it but these shots all have a couple theme to them.

Now I just need to come up with a costume idea for Halloween. No ideas are leaping out and French kissing my brain yet.

* only compared to truly boring people

Life Coasting

While there a about 47 things I need to take care of from haircut to new phone purchasing to finding a dentist I am consistently able to do none of them. I'm so good at it that it might actually be a skill. I think I'll call it Life Coasting. It also involves lots of keeping yourself busy doing nothing that moves you forward with your life goals. So given the options of going out for a couple of beers or finishing the next chapter in the book you started you would obviously go for the beers... every time.

I'd just say that I'm lazy, but I'm not a lazy person at all. When I get into doing something I work hard at it. I don't cut corners at my job even though it would be very easy to do.

There are just so many shiny social distractions gleaming at me every day and night of the week that doing anything but Life Coasting would be downright adult. I'm hoping to change it up so that I'm only spending part time in Never Never Land and part time in Gets Shit Done Town.

And now a random offensiveish photo I found on the net.

Keep it Swayze!

Keep it Swayze! That's my new way to say good-bye to people.

It stemmed from the idea of using Swayze as an adjective.

It's almost like swanky and crazy combined.


Here, I'll use it in a sample sentence.


"After we met those hot, coke-fiend girls at the house party the night got particularly Swazye."


I genuinely think the late actor would have appreciated the homage.



As a guy named Ritik pointed out, the term Swayze could be used to describe anything that was Swayzelike. This could include dirty dancing, robbing a bank with an ExPresident mask on, skydiving, or simply stiching up your own wound.

R.I.P. Patrick. You were at times cheezy, but mostly you were a cool fuckin' dude.

Y'all keep it Swayze now!

Kranki

I Love Me Some Crazy

I have a problem.

It seems that in order to be really attracted to a woman she has to be a bit crazy and have serious hurt potential. San Francisco provides a vast bounty to choose from. It offers up everything from Serious Daddy Issues to Attention Deficit Disorder to the Classic Manic Depressive with serious committment issues. They're interesting and complicated creatures that hold my attention far better than sane, well-adjusted women. I'm not happy about this but it's a reality that I've had to accept about myself. It's probably a biproduct of growing up with a mentally imbalanced mother for so long. At any rate I'm trying to ignore my instincts and stay the hell away from them long enough to get to know somebody who is well-adjusted and genuine. Unfortunately my brain tends to register this as dull even when it isn't. I tend to rely on close and trusted friends to meet them and give me an unbiased opinon as to whether they might be good or bad for me. In the last few months I've made a bit of a breakthrough that has enabled me to recognize if I'm making a bad choice or being drawn to an unstable lady that might blow up in my face. Now, armed with crazy detecting radar my new mission is to find one of these saneies rather than one of the crazies and stick with them long enough to feel connected. The problem is that in order to overcome the attraction boost that a crazy woman has the "sanie" has to be physically more attractive than her looney counterpart. I may have to become an accomplished musician or invent something brilliant that will make me a boat-load of money.

Perhaps there is some mildly crazy and compatible lady out there for me. You'd have to be at least a bit touched in the head to get involved with Krankiboy. I realize that I just spoke about myself in the third person. Normally I feel that is a right that should be reserved for mobsters and professional basketball players but it amuses me and it's my blog.

Somebody should create an Alcoholics Anonymous type group for people who continue to date crazy people who are bad for them. It could be a very lucrative venture to make a 12 Step program to help people wean themselves off of dating people who end up hurting them. That way I could call my sponsor if felt myself slipping and the urge to call that nutjob narcisist chick back and my sponsor could talk me down.

"Kranki, don't do it, my sponsor, Harold, would say. It will feel good for a while but you've come so far to throw all your progress away."

My imaginary sponsor would then try and set me up with fantastic women who had been pre screened by a staff of experts to ascertain that they are free of madness, mania, or compulsive hurtful behavior.

Maybe Tough Love would be a good name for the program. Although that might be too generic.

Hi Elaine!

Hi Elaine the Pirate!

How's your weekend going so far? I had a pleasant but no sparks date with a nice, mature, stylish woman but the chemistry only really extended to the conversation and it wasn't one of those "I'd like to suck her face" connections. I tend to think that if it's not all the way there that it's much neater not to try and squeeze sexy from a stone even if the stone is a lovely person whose company you enjoy. Definitely one to place in the 'Friend' file, rather than the 'Naked Fun' file.

In the past I was worried that people I know would read my blog and make judgments about me but now that I have a more cozy and 'select' readership I'm going to say fuck it and just write whatever I damn well please once again.

My energy towards dating is really starting to wane so I'm sure the blogs will get progressively more amusing, more bitter and more kranki. It's just lovely to have a written record that my grandchildren will one day be able to treasure and read aloud to their children at Christmas time.

I'm still thinking about the space suit. You see, Joe, Elaine is a talented and crafty lady. I'm still doing a mental cost benefit analysis of having a handmade semi-personalized spaceman outfit and just what such a delightful garment should look like. It will at the very least be useful if I decide to alienate my friends and family and dedicate myself to roaming the greasy, city streets. It will make it far easier for the San Francisco locals in my hood to both nickname and identify "Crazy Spaceman Dood."


Talk to you later, Elaine.

hugs and such,

Kranki

Abstract Blue Lines

So, yeah. Here are some abstract shots I took in the nocturnal section of the Berlin Zoo. It was too hard to shoot the animals in the super low light so I messed around with some cool light effects.

I'm trying to decide if I like them enough to blow up and frame and if so which ones would go well together.

Man, kind of a boring blog tonight. At least there were pictures.

Babble Time

Met up for a date with a lovely designer I met. There was good coffee and a nice mix of serious and comedic conversation. We even discovered we have a mutual friend that neither of us knew we had that doesn't even live in our city. Small world. She asked some questions that went into serious territory for me. I was doing most of the talking and things got a tad bit heavy duty and I wasn't totally comfortable sharing so much but I also felt at ease and figured that if it was going to work out she'd hear the stuff sooner or later. I forgot the three or four things that I actually wanted to ask her. I walked her back to her bicycle and for some reason got really nervous. I didn't know if she wanted a good bye hug or a kiss on the cheek or if she just wanted to get the hell out of there. I proceeded to start to just ramble in a caffeinated blur of comments trying to perhaps be amusing and lighten the mood and prolong the time we were there so I could read her body language. This seemed to really confuse her which made me more nervous and caused me to talk even faster with slightly disjointed trains of thought whose connections were barely understandable to my own mental synapses. I guess I must have liked her and found her intelligence and sense of style slightly intimidating. I pretty much crashed the date into a brick wall. I'll send her an email and attempt to asses the damage and try to make a clever self deprecating salvage of the events. I could just be being really hard on myself. Perhaps she found it endearing? Doubtful. Next time I'm just going to fake confidence instead of being myself. People say to be yourself but that's a bunch of bullshit. You can get there eventually but until you start to grow on somebody and they become attached to you and dismiss your baggage as lovable quirks it's best to fake a blend of self-confidence and depth.

I just wish I'd recorded audio of my date. The level of babble was impressive. Maybe even a personal best. Perhaps I'll bring a voice recorder on the next date I go on. Then I could figure out how to post audio for your listening amusement. Somebody should get enjoyment out of my awkward derailed attempts at romance.

Effort, Fear & Sandwiches

Is it inherently more worthwhile to do something difficult than it is to do something easy?

Does it matter if nobody else notices that you did something difficult or does it only matter what you think about your own abilities?

Is doing for others that you don't know altruistic and unselfish or just stupid?

If you're afraid to do something, does that indicate that you should do it to grow as a human being?

Why build anything that you yourself won't live to enjoy?

Does a sandwich taste better if you have to wait in line for an hour before you get it?

New Logo

A new logo for a new blog? Or perhaps just a bit of inspiration to write for a month or so before getting bored and going back to a mainly dormant blog state. Most everybody I know who had a blog back in the day no longer had one. It was once a little cult from which I met many lovely and talented Aussies. I'm glad there are a few of us left. The taste of 2004 blog stardom was sweet but those days of virtual wine and cyber roses have gone the way of the Do Do. Enough with my yammering blogstalgia.

My kind and talented friend, Joe whipped up the new logo. Did I already say that he's talented? I worked with the kid before he was a profeshanul back in the day. We didn't get to finish the kids book we started but I hope to work on something with the lad from Oz in the future. You can find his stuff over at...
The Shiggy Blog

Tell him Kranki sent ya!

Role Reversal

I went to a party at a neighbor's place earlier this evening and I had the pleasure of having a cool chick use a line on me. The experience was so unfamiliar to me that I didn't even realize it was a line until a few moments later. She put her fingers on my chest and said "I hear you took some cool pictures in Berlin. Maybe tonight you can give me a 'slide show'." It was even accentuated by her lightly rubbing and squeezing my shoulder and giving a coy smile. Oh double meaning. A bit crass but also clever.

I think I'm finally growing up because I declined the offer initially and then politely declined a second time when she followed me as I headed out the door to go home, asked me why I was leaving, and indicated that her room was where she wanted me to be right then.

Okay, so, why did I decline? I declined because she lives directly across the street, and that hasn't worked out so well for me in the past... with the last "girl" that lived in her apartment. If I made the same mistake a second time, with somebody who also clearly is not a long term prospect I think it would be appropriate to blast my brain with electroshock paddles. As a wise character from the feature film DC Cab (starring Mr. T) once said... "Don't let ya dick, run ya life." Sage advice for the ages for men of all ages.

At any rate, I liked the attention I got. It was a good little refreshing ego boost. I wondered briefly what it would be like to be female where you have lines used on you and to be the one who was typically approached. It would probably get old fast in some cases but still feel validating if it was attention from somebody you found attractive, right?

The Search for the Bike

My good friend S hustled all over town with me walking (so sad) to six different bike shops and finding just about nothing that was what I was looking for. I almost went with a single speed which would have left me walking the bike up the steep hills to Noe Valley.

I ended up riding a bunch of bikes and then just going to a shop I like where they will build a bike up from scratch and modify it with all the parts I want. It ain't cheap but it should yield a very sexy silver and black piece of rideable art.

I will have to keep it handcuffed to me at all times.

Bike Hunting

I'm shopping for a bike to replace the expensive one that was stolen from me back in June. I wish I could place a curse on the crap stains posing as humans that snatched it. Maybe you can wish some evil on them with me. Let's all hold cyberpunk hands and chant. Or better yet wish me some good bike karma for my next purchase to stay close to me.

I find bikes very alluring for some reason. They have a certain sleek, aesthetic beauty to them that makes me wish I had a huge garage where I could own a dozen different kinds.

This one on the left was quite cute and light. Pretty decent price at $475 too. It's a rebuilt used bike that might be everything that I need for commuting. I was thinking of buying it but it's one of the first that I've looked at. I'm tempted to buy it just to have it and then have another bike custom built. I'm pretty lost here without a bicycle.

I really should learn how to fix and build them myself but it seems to be pretty involved if you want to be able to do more than change a tire and tube or adjust the brakes. I've never been the kind of person that takes things apart and puts them back together. I also thing guitars are beautiful but I can ride a bike a lot better than I can play a guitar. Maybe one day I'll get that big bike garage. Are you listening sugar mommas of the world?

Back in SF

The trip is over and Berlin and NYC are starting to fade into memories. I do have 2135 pictures which have kept me quite busy, deleting, uploading, selecting, color correcting and transferring them to my laptop.

Being back feels like a bit of a let down. While it's wonderful to see my bed and my dogs and some of my friends again there is a bit of an emotional dip that comes when any grand undertaking comes to an end.

I'm looking forward to grabbing a beer with my buddy tonight and bringing my dogs out to the bar where they are treated like canine royalty.

For the moment I'm off to test out a potential new bike to replace my brand new and stolen steed that was lost before I left for my summer excursion. City bus travel is not sexy. Necessary at times, but not sexy. I did get to overhear a strange conversation snippet. A girthy fifty-something mustached black dude was talking to the forty-something black female bus driver. It sounded like a very dirty conversation at first.

He: "I am telling you, you are miss-missing out!"

She: "I ain't missing out on anything."

He: "I could show you the way. It would be a fingerlickin' good time."

She: "It just ain't up my alley?"

He: "Girl, I bet you ain't had anything good up yo alley like what I could give you."

She: "Why you givin' me such a hard time just because I'm a vegetarian?"

He: "It just ain't right."

Ah, bus conversations. If I was going to ride them more I could do an entire blog about them.

Almost Semi-Famous

I like traveling back to NYC. I have dozens of friends here and when I let them know I'm coming to town it gives me the illusion of having semi-celebrity status. I enjoy the delusion that I fall somewhere between Kobe Bryant and what's his name from that show on the celebrity spectrum. This time I went one step further and had some friends fly from the left coast to meet me. It's always tough to cram in seeing everybody that I want to catch up with. Usually you can tell people "Hey, I'll be at the Blankity Bar on this day at this time. Come soak up my magic and mystery then."

Now however there is The Baby Factor. Some of my friends have these little humans that need to be cared for and they rarely like to bring them out to bars. Then you have your pregnant friends. Pregnant on purpose is certainly better than pregnant in college, but it still makes for a hard sell when trying to entice them join you at bar. Then you try and make drinks into dinner and your poor and alcoholic friends get bent out of shape. It isn't easy trying to make yourself feel more popular than you are so I recommend you either don't try or just take the easier route and be just become rich and famous. Otherwise you'll spend all your vacation time catching up with old friends and no time to do the important things, like, wandering aimlessly about buying random things that you have no room for in your luggage and taking photographs of street art and strange-looking people.

Peaches & Leaches

There seem to be two categories that friends fall into. There are the Peaches; sweet, inviting and ready to enjoy types of friends that are refreshing, healthy, and good for you.

Then there are the Leaches. The unfortunate friends who want to unrepentantly suck you dry of your life blood, don't give you anything back, don't apologize for being draining and can end up leaving you covered in scars and stricken with hepatitis.

Peaches:

Be kind and caring to the peaches in your life. Nurture them with kindness, sunshine and compassion. Appreciate them for their fine qualities as much as they appreciate you. Don't drop them and give them bruises. Savor them and enjoy their flavor.

Leaches:

Avoid the murky waters that these parasites live in whenever possible. If they get close enough they will attempt to cling to your skin and bleed you. Quickly pull them off before they can fully attach. If they're persistent and prove difficult to tear away then you may have to burn them off. Don't get angry or judge them too harshly. That's just what leaches do.

Note: Peaches sometimes have leaches hiding inside them. Good luck out there.