January, 1995
Dear Diary,
Last night was so cool. Me and Kris Alexanderson went to Pure, got in for free, and met Stopher and his friend Tim. Then we went to Tim’s house and put ourselves in a K hole.
Stopher was so cute all night and he was flirting, but he has a girlfriend—I don’t even care. I just love Kris so much. She’s so smart and cool and her opinion means a lot to me. 3 things I love: Kris Alexanderson, special K, and cool new friends.
November, 2003
Meanwhile, three apple martinis and one broken Manolo Blahnik later (or whatever Carrie Bradshaw would say)... I have to say that Kris was my ultimate high-school girl hero. Besides introducing me to special K, she also introduced me to wearing my pajamas to school and having the balls to cut my hair really short and bleach it blonde. When she was in junior high, she was a cheerleader who wore frosted brown lipstick. Eventually she graduated from that phase and became the first girl I knew to dance on tables during “spirit week,” and then sit alone in the courtyard reading Siddhartha. Her favorite band was Jellyfish and she had a sticker on her car that said “STAY AWAKE,” which I thought was soooo cool. She would pick me up and take me to get coffee (another very cool, very grown-up thing) and would confess over a cup of Good Morning America that she wasn’t opposed to getting crushes on girls (“We’re all just people”) and shooting heroin (“I only did it once—I didn’t like it”). She told me she wanted to be a dancer or a historian, and I’m pretty sure she became both. I actually think she danced (a.k.a. stripped) her way through four years of college. Today she lives in Hell’s Kitchen with her trannie boyfriend and has a lot of good stories to tell at parties.
LESLEY ARFIN
