Half Armed Man Swings Penis Wildly

May 9 was my roommate’s birthday. Our group of friends has had a surplus of Birthdays these past couple of months. The common thread…..surprise adventures. For mine we rented out a karaoke room, for another a boat ride around Manhattan, bowling at a super hip cool kids bowling alley. I needed to find something my roommate would love.

Burlesque Night at Coney Island.

When she arrived she was pretty much freaking out. Coney Island is an extremely sketchy place at night. The theater that the show was at specializes in freak shows so she thought that’s why she was there. We were laughing at her ignorance, but it turns out we were all in for a surprise.

They invited Emily on stage for her birthday for a magic trick. Well, the trick didn’t work out so well and she got electrocuted. Oops. A woman hula hooped her clothes off. Then a woman danced to the song “Camel Toe” and repeated pulled spandex out of her crotch while sipping Budweiser through a straw. Then an awkward looking man walked out and was shaking his arms in a way I thought was meant to be silly. Then, he oddly took off his shirt and to reveal he had half arms. He kept covering up his nipples with his hands because his hands lined up with his nipples!!

Intermission……oh wait, first Emily has to go up on stage and crawl through the legs of each performer while they spank her, even the half armed man spanked her.  The last woman clenched Emily between her thighs and wouldn’t let the poor soul go.  At this point I was giving entire credit for the evening to Katrina.  (I didn’t want to suffer Emily’s birthday rage)

Things carried on as any usual burlesque night would.  A woman pulled off a million pairs of underwear and threw a seemingly blood soaked tampon at our friend and fellow party goer.  The Camel Toe lady danced in the creepiest monster mask I ever seen and topped off her performance by sitting spread eagle at the end of the stage inviting the audience to shoot squirt guns at her vagina.  Needless to say I moved down a few rows and got right on grabbing one of those guns.  It’s not everyday I’ll get a chance to squirt water into a vagina.

After intermission I got excited when I saw a huge jug of Carlo Rossi and a stack of red cups sitting on the stage.  I mean Carlo Rossi sucks but I was thinking, as I usually do, “Free booze!”  Little did I know the Carlo Rossi was about to be poured all over the naked half armed man.  One audience member actually drank the wine that cascaded off the naked man’s body.  At that point I almost thew up every last ounce of my PBR.

After that ribald display of disgusting I needed to heavily imbibe on a variety of the cheapest beer known to man to erase from my memory that horror I had just voluntarily paid to witness.

The experience  has significantly soured me on birthday surprises.  My friend Katrina, who’s birthday is next, will just have to understand our groups’ eyes cannot take another assailing like burlesque night at Coney Island.

I’m continuing an attempt to drink copious amounts of alcohol in an attempt to kill any and all remaining brain cells that contain memory of that infamous Friday night.  Thus far I’m proving unsuccessful since I’m writing this May 28.  However, it’s New York City, there’s plenty of booze to go around.  I have a goal, and I’ve always been ambitious.

Rage Transcends Road

I thought living in the city without a car was going to do wonders for my rage problem. On those numerous drives home from Madison to Chicago during rush hour I spent a great of time banging my steering wheel, screaming obscenities and grunting. I’m lucky I was never one of those fabled stories about drivers that go berserk and end up shooting someone with a crossbow. I guess it’s only because I make it a point not to own any weapons.

However, when I packed up and moved to New York I left my darling silver cavalier parked in the garage at my parents’ house. I thought I was also leaving my transportation rage behind.

Never have I been more wrong. Well, ok, I’ve probably been more wrong, but…..

I try to catch the 9:49 bus every morning to the L train. This schedule usually put me at work about 10-15 min early. Lately, I’ve been clocking in at about a half an hour late. The bus doesn’t come. The next one is supposed to arrive at 10:03. It hasn’t even been making it for me then! And I get angry. I stand there, pacing, sometimes angrily smoking cigarettes. I sigh loudly, I hear others do this too. Then, when the bus finally arrives I glare at the bus driver and defiantly shove my metro card into the slot. They need to be aware of my RAGE. I especially don’t like it when I’m still a little drunk. I’m still drunk from the night before and they expect me to stand there waiting for over 20 mins!!!! I can’t even imagine who they think they are! Then, those screeching breaks!

When my bus comes late it’s nothing but bad news for the state of the L train. It sometimes says the next one won’t arrive for 7 minutes. As I once drunkenly proclaimed at 3 am “7 minutes!? That’s soooooooo long!”

I never end up getting a seat. The train crawls.   The other day I noticed a woman get up and the girl closest to the seat didn’t notice it was open.  So I went for it….as I did she suddenly realized what was going on and took it before me!  She’s lucky my size 11 boot didn’t end up knocking out some of her teeth, like Kristin when she woke up to a chipped tooth after a night of heavy drinking.

I become enraged, soooooooo monstrously enraged and indignant!

Thus, road rage ensues even when you replace the road with highly electric, dangerous tracks.

A Day in the Life – Laundry List of Beth’s Job Duties

Elizabeth: Long lunch…..we spent about 20 mins blowing bubbles on the people on the street with our bubble gun!  Bryan goes, “These bubbles represent your dreams.  Notice how the big ones burst right away and only the tiny ones make it”

This has been a brief installment in the saga of Beth’s ludicrous yet sweet job.

How to Clap Your Hands

http://www.wikihow.com/Clap-Your-Hands 

I just had to. 

Awkward and Incriminating Outbursts

So, I started a new job this week.  Brand freaking new rookie here, I’m on my 5th day tomorrow morning!  As you might imagine, this status comes with a certain degree of nervousness, and maybe even feelings of paranoia (well, it is me we’re talking about).  I know jack shit so far and am trying to retain every piece of info as fast as possible. Given this, I find myself recently to be quite “highly attuned” at every single second of the day.  For example, I’m noticing lots of things I used to take for granted, like wearing clothes and speaking.

I feel an overbearing need to don clothes that look like everyone else’s, and also a strange urge to utilize the never-before-seen filter between my brain and my mouth.  I.e. I feel I must not say things that will make me appear “weird” or awkward in any way.  It’s been pretty difficult so far.  I mean I can’t just go around telling everyone about “Grizzly Dads” and laughing about poo and balls constantly, while also randomly extending my thumbs for arbitrary insertion, “BRATWURST!” style.

SO, as hopefully you can imagine, this “getting to know things” stage is rather taxing on my poor, aged, and long term alcohol abuse-dulled brain this week.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE this new company– location, people, actual work –everything already.  BUT.  I feel like since I’m so paranoid about hiding my true self until I get to know people (and/or become good enough at the job where people respect me and so I can say and do whatever I want anyway), I keep blurting out random TMI’s and awkwardly incriminating statements all the time, especially in the presence of my new boss.

Maybe I’m making a bigger deal out of it than it actually is, but this morning when my boss and a coworker told me they didn’t realize how long my hair was (I had worn it up until today) I started extrapolating on my showering regimen and why my hair was down as opposed to when it’s up because that’s when I shower in the morning and oh.. they stopped talking.  They’re kinda staring.

“Oh yeah well… I just got it cut recently do you believe that?  …yeah umm… well YOUR hair is REALLY CUTE!!  Really.  It’s so… neat.” (It’s a pixie bob type thing and really blonde.  Actually is super cute.  And I choose… “neat” ?!?!).  Neat-o.

Then there was the time where on my first day, my boss and HER boss took me out to lunch at Shaw’s Crab House.  So first I’m sitting there internally spazzing about what to order – they’re way richer and more important than me and I don’t want to look stupid for ordering something too cheap or too expensive — when they start talking about the Bears’ Cedric Benson and his most recent accomplishment, a boating DUI.

“Oh my god I mean the cops had to MACE HIM!”

Having recently been ARRESTED MYSELF–for having a can of beer… although I’m 24 years old… yeah — on my beloved alma mater campus, at an annual block party that used to be one of the best days of the year… my brain gets angry at/for me.  My mouth opens:

“Yeah well also sometimes cops just get on huge power trips and abuse people for no reason, that’s just how they get their joys out of life and it’s really not fair a lot of the time.”

Silence…staring…

Kelly (my boss): “Yeah well you know all those pro sports players are such divas though they just think they can get away with anything.”

Me: “Oh totally, so true.  You’re right though they are yes,” (she’s right but what the fuck did I just say?!?!)

Kelly: “I’ve never been arrested or anything like THAT anyway so I wouldn’t know though hahahaha!!”

Me:  “Mm.”  I chug my Diet Pepsi dry.

Then there was the time when I asked about how the hours work, since they say 8:30 – 5 and I’m on salary, yet we have hour lunches and are supposed to work 40 hours a week.  I somehow impressively managed to word it exactly in a way which made it sound like I was trying to see exactly how little I could work each day.

“So, we don’t punch in or anything right?  And it’s salary, so..”

Kelly: “Yeah well unfortunately, Doug (her boss) is really strict about it, so we don’t get Flex Hours like some of the departments.  But if you want to bend the rules eventually after you’ve been here for a while, I don’t see why n…”

Me: “Oh no, no no no no!!!  I’m just not used to… I just… I always used to work 8-5 so I was so surprised that I got a break by having it be an 8:30 start time!!”

Oh.  My.  God.  Tell me.  Help me people.  Did I make my boss think I’m a lazy manipulator who tries to do as little work as possible, showers obscenely infrequently, and gets arrested for beating up cops with their own nightsticks?

Or am I just paranoid?

Or is it somewhere in between?

I’m pretty sure, as my loving boyfriend so fondly puts it, that I’m “a little peculiar,” which could account for this recent highly guarded sense of conversation, as opposed to my normal verbal diarrhea.  I only hope I can find a kindred soul or two somewhere in my group of new coworkers relatively soon, so that at least if I have to small talk with people about weddings and shopping and work very much longer, I at least have a confidante to rest a piece of my true soul with from time to time.  Ok so that was dramatic.

I do know that at least one person on my team is in 2nd City.  I bet he knows what the Hot Carl is and has seen at least a few episodes of “Flight of the Conchords.”  Maybe there will be others too.

Otherwise, I’m going to have to settle for purely working while I’m at work.  Which could/will eventually be made enjoyable by the re-institution of Gchat into my life.  Don’t get me wrong, I am honestly and truly grateful for the opportunity I have right now, and definitely excited about the work aspect for sure.  But I do think some sort of outlet for the true Big Kris — and soon — would help me avoid some of these awkward outbursts.   Otherwise, I’m doomed to remain acutely aware that each time I open my mouth there is a high chance that what comes out will severely threaten my facade of sanity and normalcy.

“I have a small mouth, so when I give head I get cuts on my lips”

Umm I mean I’ll have the sushi/asian salad combo.

Thank god it’s the weekend =)

24 Yeard Old Woman Searches for Holy Grail

***WARNING: MATURE CONTENT***

We are not living in Victorian England. The thought of a man’s bare calf no longer makes women swoon, and women wear a lot less than pantaloons and a million layers.

I am a 24 year old woman in 2008 and I have never owned a vibrator

I never have been prude. As a reference point see the Facebook group devoted to seeing my boobs. I have now been living in New York for 8 months. However, for some reason the last couple of weeks have pushed me to the edge. The far too intermittent sexcapades are no longer enough! After much mental anguish I came to a very reasonable, logical conclusion.

I need a vibrator.

I decide this at work, but since I work in an office solely inhabited by males I can’t Google “sex shops in West Village.” Therefore, I solicit the aid of a friend who graciously conducts the search for me and finds one mere blocks from my office. I decide to leave a couple of minutes early, thanks mostly to the prompting of the aforementioned friend. As I gather my things to leave, my coworker who lives by me, asks for the first time in our professional relationship if I want to take the train home together. I waver for a second and consider going with him, I’d been kind of fantasizing about just such an occurrence since I started working there. No, fuck it! He has a girlfriend anyway. I politely decline and say normally I would, but nope, not today. Today I am buying a vibrator! (Our actual conversation concluded when I declined a tryst on the subway).

I walk in and what do you know. It’s the sex shop from Sex and the City. If you ever watched, it’s where they get “the rabbit.” I casually start to walk around and, wow, I am legitimately overwhelmed. If you think shopping at Forever 21 is daunting with its choices, you haven’t been to Pleasure Chest in the West Village. I want advice. I need this sales clerk, who appears younger than I am, to impart her wisdom on what to buy that doesn’t look like a swizzle straw or cost $100. However, I can’t obtain any of her sage sexual know-how because there are three very nerdy 30 somethings, two guys and one gal, bugging her. They’re looking at every single item she has in the glass case. So I wait, quietly admiring the erotic masterpieces around me. (I suppose now is the time to point out I have yet to visit a single art museum the great city of New York has to offer). Now I overhear them talking to her about Jackass the movie. Really? I’m waiting to buy my first vibrator and you’re rambling on about this store’s relevance to a movie about men in their 30s who hurl themselves over things in shopping carts!? All the while I’m trying with every fiber I have not to notice the creepy businessman who just walked in…..

Finally! She looks at me! We pick out a nice little blue item and I’m ready to check out. They even have batteries right there to give me! As I’m checking out she praises that this number I’ve picked out actually has a travel case.

“That’s great!” I admittedly beam. (I had already been contemplating this device’s storage and travel capabilities. They don’t confiscate vibrators at airports do they?)

She then informs me they also have it in pink.

“Oh, I hate pink!” I exclaim. However, as these hasty words exit my nervous being I realize this clerk is decked out in a hot pink sweater with matching hot pink eye shadow. I may have just insulted the girl who tried to help bring me pleasure. Then she puts it in a very elegant shopping bag and I’m out the door.

As I take the subway home I silently muse to myself what the women sitting on either side of me would think if they knew there was a shiny new vibrator riding between them. I start to feel only slightly guilty when the younger of the two women pulls out math worksheets and begins grading them. I think, “Great! She’s grading children’s papers and I’ve got a sex toy.”

To cap off the experience I talk to my mom on the walk home from the train. (I do not mention the vibrator. However, I can imagine she would prefer it to the alternative).

So that’s it. I am no longer a 24 year old woman that does not own a vibrator. However, I am now a 24 year old woman who runs the risk of never leaving her bedroom.