KRYSTAL FINALS PART2

Krystal Hamburger Eating Championship

Does anyone have a video of this?

I was actually in the Krystal Hamburger World Eating Championship last year as an honorary guest. (Chattanooga. Cold ass. Marching band. Fried beef patties. Stomach ache.) People were busting nuts over the fact that Kobayashi destroyed 67 Krystals in eight minutes, with Joey Chestnut right behind him. But ninety-freaking-seven? As a woman who is not so easily impressed, consider it done. (And a shout out to my awesome friend Pat Bertoletti who is closing in...)

I have never known quite exactly what it's like to be inside a broken angel. Until now. Though it is as beautiful and sad as I would've imagined.

I kind of want to live here. I saw it biking through town the other day. Let me know if you call this "home" and tell me if it's as good as I imagine.

Everywhere you go in France, you see these signs. For me, it always
evokes people of weak character, but really, it just means you should push.

I moved to yet another new city at the beginning of October and since then, I've lost all energy to push. Like, I've found myself at one of those mega home stores agonizing over cotton sheets for an hour, only to end up ditching the ones I finally decided on in a random aisle on my way to the cash register because, well, I don't know why. But not to worry, heightened states can only endure for so long. I'm slowly getting back on it.

Moises says that this is our opportunity to start over, that we can be whatever we want to be. He can begin wearing dresses and noone will know that he didn't before. Moises is a writer from Brooklyn who moved here with me and ended up getting a place not too far from my house. A week later, we were drinking beers over my kitchen counter as we waited for my aptly-named Neuro Fuzzy Japanese rice cooker to finish up and digitally sound out "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." He told me he'd enrolled in dance class and plans to find an adult gymnastics school; he's always wanted to learn how to do backflips. I pressed my bottle against my lips, once again pondering the things I want in life, breathing in the warm aroma of slowly simmering chicken curry from across the kitchen. Now there's something I'd dreamed of for some time, having lived in cramped New York City walk-ups for years: an "across the kitchen." A cheerful melody of beeps erupted. The rice was ready.

Anyway, I was in Reims, a quaint, Champagne-producing region of France three weeks ago, too. Jet lag and wine always does me in, which might also explain the lingering neuro fuzziness. Here are some snapshots.