Sunday, February 21, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
ROAD TRIP!!!
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
in the spirit of valentines day!
Rewind five years back to 2005…
After enduring eleven years of attending an all girls catholic school, I decided to leave the only thing I knew and transfer to a school a good 45 miles south of San Francisco. At School for Independent Learners, I combined my junior and senior years together so I could graduate early, the school only had 10 full time students ranging from sophomores to seniors. We had two kick ass teachers, Terrell and Elliott, who quickly became our mentors over the course of the year.
Back in the city, my best friend Zelda, who went to different high school, called Urban, was apart their after schools’ climbing program. For months, Zelda had been begging me to join her climbing for one afternoon. Of course, me being a ditsy shallow city girl, at the time, was finally convinced to go to Mission Cliffs after being informed that the guys there climbed without their shirts on! So my over protective crazy mother came with me the first time to sign a wavier and pay, she left with a friend, the guy working the counter, Ryan.
Back at school, one of my classmates had really poor social skills and as a joke of an assignment, Terrell, assigned every one in the class to get a picture of us getting a kiss on the cheek from someone of the opposite sex. When school got out, my mom picked me up and we began to drive back into the city so I could go climbing again. On the drive back I was telling my mother about how excited I was about this assignment!
When we arrived at the gym, my mom walked me in yet again. Ryan was working that day and as he was giving me a belay test I was explaining my newest homework assignment. I don’t remember if my neurotic mother told him to kiss my cheek or if I asked him to, but I ended up with a picture marking the day that I consider to be my anniversary with climbing.
Here’s to you climbing! Happy Valentines Day!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Flexing on bassforyourface
Friday, February 5, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
The Survival of the Hipness
As many of you know, I recently moved to Bushwick. In my new loft space ‘walls’, more than anything solid or impermeable, are a loose sense of the boundaries between where we each throw our stuff. This aspect of my new living situation is not a problem in itself. It only becomes an issue in tandem with the fact that a person can’t impregnate anyone until he buys jeans larger than waist size 26. It is by a lucky coincidence, then, that in Bushwick the uniform of hipness disallows the sexual reproduction of its wearer. The clever hipsters who surround me are thus free to bone like bunnies in Mr McGregor’s whorehouse. And do they ever.
But wait, the most brilliant part! Unlike most human societies, it’s not just a few fortunates born into beauty who grind away the cold winter draft (and oh boy is it draftee in a circa 1900 factory). No, no, there is a certain glorious justice to this scene. By constructing a cultural community in which nothing is hotter than being ironically ugly, every dog can have his day in Bushwick. In fact, it seems the hardest part of a successful pull in our neighbour is actually finding glasses lenses thick enough, soiling hair until its greasy enough and stalking nursing home post-mortem garage sales deftly enough to beat the others to that jewel of a heinous mauve sweater. Maybe my neighbours were all out looting a lumber camp of its flannel when ‘The Origin of Species’ was assigned as mandatory reading. Or maybe it’s just that apathy tastes real good with vegan carrot-caraway bread. Whatever the reason, the guy next to me at ‘Arcade’ (Bushwick’s own Obscure Video Rental and Coffee Shop) is donning a homemade campaign pin that reads ‘fuck fitness, survival is for the hippest’. Truly, with the right uniform, anyone, really anyone, can be part of the BK anti-conformity orgy (Jeeze, Joe, aren’t there two paradoxes in a row in that sentence? Oh my dear reader, how it pleases me when you underline my literary technique).
Dandy as this all seems, I’m uninspired by my brave new world and plan to get out of this tunnel of love indubitably (get one of these references, we’re friends; get both, we’re tribesmen). Let me emphasis that there is one Bush-ette who is not attending this year’s Billy-berg pork parade. That’s right - I’m referring to yours truly. This Crusherlady is just not that into you nor your eau de PBR hangover cologne, so take that heavily underlined copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and go serenade one of your own kind. I can appreciate the beauty of the sex life of Williamsburg as an objective observer – as we know, all you need is love, and I’m glad there’s a place on earth where all can get some – but there is no beauty for me here in a more visceral sense of the term.
The problem is that my expectations of what constitutes an average guy have flown way off the chart. Why? Well, it’s thanks to being surrounded nearly daily by Adonis’ (what’s the actual plural conjugate: Adoni? Adonises? It doesn’t change the meaning of the sentence however you spell it). Trying again – Thanks to being surrounded by Adoni, my standard of attractiveness is now so unrealistic I really cannot merge my notion of hotness back into everyday reality. As a girl who climbs, my usual weekend involves performing feats of strength with shirtless men in the woods. This lifestyle had almost begun to seem normal until Saturday morning in Bushwick showed me that I live on planet hunk and that real life is not even happening in the same galaxy. In the long term, there will most likely be negative consequences to living some of my most formative years in a perpetual dude Disneyland. But for the moment, let me say some thank yous to the climbing community at large for truly and deeply warping my mind. There is nothing, really nothing, that brings me more pleasure than sitting here and registering the complaint that just too many of my male friends are so good looking I can no longer consider 90% of boys in my species without yawning.
In general terms, this posting ends here with a shout out to all of you. There are, however, a few special mentions that I ought to include before signing off. You can please find these below. Otherwise, this – my friends – is Crushlady once again saying thank you my darling readers for being so effing beautiful. You can crush VMe next please!
Hearts and kisses,
- CL
P.S.:
Dear Hunk in the Gunks (also called Guy from Rock and Snow). Last night I slept in that verve sports bra you sold me. It still smells of your Climb On. Why would you leave me for Buffalo? With kindest regards, CL.
P.S.:
Dear James Franco. You don’t actually climb, but you will on tv. That’s pretty close. Call me. XoXo, CL
P.S.:
Dear Friends on the Farm (well, in the gym). This gets a little awkward because where close friendship precedes physical attraction, backtracking on feelings of platonic affection feels a little icky and weird. I do, however, want to include a special mention to you all in order to clarify that you, nearly every one of you, belongs on CL’s list of fine young gentlemen. For that, I thank you most sincerely and encourage you in all your future endeavours, even while politely excusing myself from these pursuits. With all my love, in a friend kinda way, CL.
P.S.:
Dear I Don’t Know Why I Bother with Code Names, it’s not Exactly a Secret at this Point. Please visit http://loveletters2lupe.tumblr.com for the heartfelt thoughts of random strangers who I, in my utter speechlessness, entrust to communicate on my behalf. Patiently yours, CL.
And finally P.S.:
Dear Rob D’Anastasio. I hope you don’t google yourself often cause I think I’d be genuinely embarrassed for you to read this. But you probably google yourself all the time cause if I were as crazy amazing as you are, I would do just that. In fact, if I were in your shoes, I might even hire an intern just to google me all day everyday. Do you need an intern to do this? As it turns out, I already have experience in this area of research. Ever expectantly yours, CL.