How to Annoy Your Friends

One good way to bother your friends is to constantly ask their advice about your complicated relationship. The thing about some of your friends is that they won't let your sharing the minute details and obsessing over them bother them right away. If they are good friends they might even be able to put up with hearing the same story about your text message conversation two or three times before they try to abruptly change the conversation or start looking at their cell phone to see if anybody more interesting that you has called them. You need to be persistent. A few of these friends will even check back in and actually call you to hear more about your situation and how you're handling what they might refer to as "your unique and challenging situation." Now it is these friends who do genuinely care about you and your happiness are the toughest ones to irritate. Simply doing repetitive musing and rehashing the tiniest details is not a guaranteed way to bore them. You may have to dig even deeper into your bag of dysfunctional, relationship insecurity. Remember there is no such thing as too much mundane detail. It also helps if you go out of your way to avoid talking about any other topics the entire time you are with your friend so they don't accidentally get something of value back from their interactions with you. Nobody said it was easy. Now get out there and irritate!

Sex Francisco

Since moving to San Francisco a year and a half ago I've had my fair share of dating excitement and more than my share of misadventures. I've been told that some of the more detailed accounts are worth writing down for posterity and perhaps to allow others to laugh at me.

There was the 23 year old from the hostel with the amazing tattoo of The Little Prince on her arm and the shreadded Courtney Lovetype dress who was utterly wasted and jumped in front of a moving van and flashed her undies at the scary dudes in the car. They heckled her and my friends and I pulled her off before I got my ass kicked. Later on, after showing virtually no interest in me, she abruptly and awkwardly pulled me in for a kiss while my mouth was filled with nachos and guacamole. This took place in the in a loud, brightly-lit taqueria. Not the most romantic of settings. She did this a few times until I decided the best thing to do was just leave. While walking down the street she started trying to remove my pants to have sex with me. I had to ask her several times to please keep her clothes on until we got to my place. I found out later that she had consumed almost an entire bottle of Jagermeister shortly before I met up with her.

There was the social worker gal who I met on-line who neglected to mention that she was on crutches and suffered from osteonecrosis. A rare and terrible disease that had begun to kill the bones in her legs and would likely force her to become wheel-chair bound in the near future. The literal translation of soteonecrosis is "death of the bone."

There were a handful of utterly forgetful on-line initiated meet-ups that were forgotten almost before they were over.

There were a three amazing women that I met and became very close friends with.

There was the attractive, clinical psychologist puma* who literally picked me up via MySpace. On our second date I ended up helping her euthanize her cat and had intense grief sex. This turned into a routine of bi-monthly appointment sex. After a few months of this I was wondering how best to end things with her when I got a very well-written and professional diagnosis of how "we were not adequately meeting one another's socio-emotional needs." It was so technically worded that I almost expected to find an attached bill for services rendered.

There was the recent divorcee who suffered from acute adult A.D.D. who couldn't sit still for more than five minutes without getting up to move around and would become utterly mesmirized by shiny things and trinkets in stores. On one occasion she brought her car to a screaching hault so she could get out and run over to look at some flowers in somebody's yard. There were cars that had to stop behind us. She also liked to randomly share the most intimate details including the time she had a botched laser eloctrolisis performed on her bikini area and now had a "cheetah pussy." Her words, not mine. Then when I pulled away from her and her "issues" she became incredibly persistant in calling, emailing, texting and facebook messaging me a few times a day. She just left me another voice mail message telling me how she was listening to "our mix CD" and realized just how much she missed me and my company.

There was the woman who was a few inches taller than me that weirded me out. She also seemed to be surgically attached to her pot pipe and smoked it continuously to the point that her clothes were so infused with the scent of ganja that they'd probably give you a mild high if you were to smoke them.

There was a short-lived flirtation and one time fling with a gal who was in a bicycle dancing troup and was only into non-exclusive open relationships. She told me she was currently seeing five different guys.

Now, after wading through all that social muck, I find myself in the longest and most enjoyable of all my San Francisco relationships where the young woman and I really care about each other, we click really well physically and we enjoy spending long stretches of time with one another. Strong feelings have begun to form and of course she's going to be moving out of the country in a few months time. So, I find myself balancing having a good time with protecting my feelings in what feels like some kind of expiration dating. Life is short and you have to find enjoyment where you can.

It's been extremely interesting and eventful and I've left out half of the other missteps and embarrassing twists and turns that frequent social drinking and a summer of not having to work can help create but really I'm getting quite exhausted by it all. While I want to have all kinds of interesting experiences and explore the mysterious world of women, I must admit that this city and it's women are starting to seriously wear me out. I'm hoping that I'll be getting my second wind very, very soon. Otherwise it could make for a long, cold, lonely, winter.

*young cougar

Kids and Consequences

Hey, remember me? I used to write stuff here and people would sometimes read it.

I thought I'd try writing a bit and see if it got my juices flowing a bit. I feel a bit like an athlete going back into training. Hopefully it won't be too painful an experience to get back into the swing of things. Ideally it'll be as easy as riding a bike. Perhaps I could even coin the new expression "It's like writing a blog."

So, I'm back to teaching kindergarten this year and I quite like it thus far. Trust me, adults are overrated when it comes to keeping you entertained.

One cute kid moment involved me talking about the rules and consequences. I let them help me set the classroom rules so they feel empowered. It's new age teaching crap.

I gave the kids an example to help make it more clear. "What if Oscar kept forgetting to put the colored pencils away even after he got several reminders? Then the next day he left the materials out again and even broke a point of the pencil on purpose? What would be a good way to help him remember?

Kylie enthusiastically raises her hand.

Me: "Kylie, what do you think should happen?"

Kylie: "You should give Oscar more fish to eat. Fish is brain food! That way he will remember better."

The kids are smarter than me. Send help.

48 Hour Film Festival

It's hard doing an entire film (even a short film) in 48 hours. You write it, cast it, shoot it, edit it and do the music and there may only be 2 minutes left before the thing gets turned in.

I hope it turned out well. I'll know when I see it on the big screen next Monday.

Wish me luck. I'll post a link to it on You Tube when it's up.

www.48hourfilm.com

For My Consideration

So, I'm considering some things. I thought I'd write them down and be able to look back and see which I actually chose and which ones I didn't fully embrace.

I'm considering...

1) buying a fancy camera so that I can be a mediocre photographer with an excellent camera. It's like giving those thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters word processors so they can work even faster. Eventually I'm bound to take a good snap.

2) giving up on heterosexual women and just being the male version of a fag hag. I'm thinking of calling myself a Dyke Rider. Maybe I can start a trend. I wonder if I'd have to buy new clothes? I'm open to helpful input here.

3) getting around to paying my taxes for 2007.

4) a radical career and life change and move after my next year of teaching. Yep, another one.

5) dropping out of civilization to live off the land. No, wait, that sounds tiring. Much as I'd enjoy not getting any junk mail it would suck to have to teach woodland creatures to be my friends AND have to eat the very same creatures to survive.

6) opium, opium, opium. Light me up!

7) getting up to go pee and then getting a refreshing beverage.

Three Pennies

Last night I met up with some friends at a drink to help charity event. I think this particular charity was about abolishing the Prison Industrial Complex. I don't really know what the fuck that means but it matters to somebody so why not raise some money for the alcohol appreciation society at the same time. It was a fairly friendly crowd.

After my friends and I closed out the bar we got some lovely pizza. I treated because I'm frighteningly wealthy and generous. I had to leave because they started using some kind of nasty smelling cleaner. So while my friends finished their pizza I met a loud homeless woman who told me that it was her birthday and asked me if she looked good for 49.

I told her she was 49 and looked just fine because I am a dynamic street poet with crazy rhyme skillz. She continued to speak to me about her uncle and her sister who were down the street and not taking care of her. Finally my friends came outside and we could leave, but the woman insisted that I'd promised to give her three pennies. I actually had three pennies on me but I was taken aback by the idea that I had promised her anything. Also I thought giving her three pennies would just piss her off more. I told her I hadn't promised her anything but she insisted that I absolutely had. I told her that I no longer believed her that it was her birthday and I was leaving. She got very annoyed and said that she should kick her size 14 shoe right up my ass. If somebody lies and then threatens you does that automatically take back your compliment?

It's not always good to get attention.

When I'm an angry homeless black woman I'm going to remember to be nice to people. Especially on my birthday.

An Open Letter to Facebook

Hey Facebook,

It's Kranki here. I see you've been in the news a lot and you're getting more popular every day. That's awesome, congrats. Listen, you and I have spent a good amount of quality time together. Remember when we stayed up all night and I drank too much and passed out right next to you? I had the keyboard imprint on the side of my face. LOL! ROFL! Good times, good times... Anyway, I know you're busy and don't want to pressure you or anything because you know that's not my style. I do however need to made a simple request. Can you please make me look cooler? Please?

If I wait for my friends to do it, it'll never happen. They're far too busy finding terrible and embarrassing pictures of me to share. Pictures where I'm in some idiotic pose with a stupid prop or where my hair has grown out into a mullet because I was on vacation and didn't care. Pictures where I'm clearly going to be hung over the next day and doing something "zany" or "wacky." Or they'll find the one picture where I accidentally Frenched one of their dogs. That kinda thing. As you can imagine while it shows I have a fun side it doesn't really convey cool. And while I know I'm not some runway model with brooding good-looks I still think I deserve better from you, Face. I mean, I don't want to have to remind you that I left MySpace for you. I've only spoken through MySpace a handful of times in the past year. I've made a commitment to you. Lately though I've been having my doubts about your commitment to my happiness and my needs. So, I really need to know where our relationship headed. I didn't want to say it but with you my sex life has really gone down hill. MySpace was helping me get ass pretty regular. MySpace helped get me laid by nearly a dozen* women. What kind of action do I get from you? Zero. Sure you helped get me back in contact with some dear old friends from high school and college and you've certainly introduced me to some interesting Australians but get your act together, dude, they live in Australia. I'm here in San Francisco.

I'm getting off track here, it's not all about hooking me up with attractive women.** I also want to be taken a bit more seriously as a creative artist. Look, what I'm basically saying is you owe me for my loyalty. You need to start making me look like a cool, sophisticated, man about town. If you can't do that I may be forced to do something drastic. That's right, if you can't hold up your end of the deal I may be forced to leave the house to meet people. Let's both hope it doesn't come to that. Get it together, Face. I want to work this out. I love you, man.

p.s. I'm still kinda ticked off that you made me use my real name. So much for an intriguing mystery name that implies I'm a jaded malcontent with a playful edge.


* really just 7 times

** it isn't?