Tag Archives: creepy boyfriend obsession

That Time When My Boyfriend of Six and a Half Years Broke Up With Me

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R.I.P. KamKat
2006 – 2013

Kamran leaves for California tomorrow for a new job and a new life close to his family.

I’m 99% sad about this and only 1% mad, but I still find myself wanting to listen to, like, girl power songs. This is my favourite one of the moment, even though I totally don’t agree with the message and think I 100% work better with Kamran than without him. I’m basically going to spend the next two years blogging about this breakup, but for now, I just want to know your best “sisters are doin’ it for themselves” kind of anthem recommendation.

Except way, way less lame than that song.

Adventure Time with Kat and Kam: Princeton

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When we met six and three-quarters years ago, Kamran told me that he had gone to school “in New Jersey”. Later, I found out that he had spent six years at Princeton, getting his PhD in physics before deciding to go into law. The first time he took me to visit the campus was magical, since:

1) I had only lived in a NYC for a year and had never taken NJ Transit, which was completely different from the subway in that it was expensive and comfortable, and
2) living in NYC for a year was long enough that I’d forgotten what nature looked like.

Waiting for the dinghy to take us from the Princeton campus back to the Northeast Corridor station on that first visit, Kamran asked me to “go steady” with him after a month of trying to convince himself that he didn’t want to be yoked exclusively to this lady ox. Aww.

So, all these years later, we decided to go back a couple of weekends ago to relive his golden years and the birthplace of our looooove. We were supposed to leave Penn Station on the 11:15 a.m. train, but of course we got there at 11:16, so we made a stop at the Tim Horton’s inside the station and then casually watched a guy threaten the life of his girlfriend in the midst of a fight while we munched on a bagel in the alley out back. On the 12:15 train, we tucked our tickets to Princeton Junction into the slot on the back of the seat in front of us and alternated between solving the mysteries of the universe and napping.

Princeton, NJ

We took a cab straight to the graduate college (Kamran wanted to show Princeton that he’d left and conquered the world and didn’t need to wait an hour for the dinghy to campus), which was, um, gorgeous.

Princeton, NJ

Princeton, NJ

Princeton, NJ

Princeton, NJ

On our way down to the D-Bar in the basement of the grad college to see where Kamran drank tens of beers during his tenure, we went inside to the dining hall, where adorable/smelly/geeky grad students were eating bananas with their parents and stopped to stare at us, the stylish/successful/handsome people they hope to someday become.

Princeton, NJ

Then we walked up the hill

Princeton, NJ

to the main part of campus

Princeton, NJ

to begin the real reason we’d come: to eat everything Kamran remembered from his six years there.

The first stop was Hoagie Haven, where Kamran got a cheesesteak and I got a meatball hero, and he was so sure everyone inside was going to be like, “Hey, Kamshaft! Kameroon! Kamburger! What are you doing back here after all this time? Didn’t you go off into the world and make something of yourself while we stayed here slinging hoagies?” But no one was the same, and no one was there to congratulate him on becoming The Most Excellent Physicist-Lawyer Princeton Has Ever Produced™.

Princeton, NJ

Next, we walked up to the electrical engineering building to burn off our hoagies and then circled back to Zorba’s Grill for chicken gyros, where the guy in front of us was super rude to the kid behind the counter, and I said we should publicly shame him, but Kamran didn’t want to get knifed.

Princeton, NJ

Next door was Thomas Sweet, where we got cake batter ice cream with Butterfinger and sprinkles, because that combination makes sense.

Princeton, NJ

Princeton, NJ

This is Kamran eating ice cream just like Einstein, who lived/worked/died at Princeton. Only I had handed him both of our spoons to keep my hands free to take the picture, and you can see he’s using both of them at once. And that there’s no ice cream on either of them. Also, there’s a huge glare on Einstein. This could not have failed worse.

Princeton, NJ

But the ice cream was awesome. And then we were full and were mad at how old and small-stomached we are.

Continuing our walk through campus, we came this crazy fountain

Princeton, NJ

and these way crazier heads of animals, which we decided were Chinese zodiac symbols. And we were right (of course). It turns out they’re Ai Weiwei’s “Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads“.

Princeton, NJ

It’s hard to describe how huge and affecting these were.

Princeton, NJ

Cutting down a side street on our way to the physics building, we passed by the Princeton eating clubs, which are like the frat houses at your college except classy/elegant/full of much more money. I mean, but still not immune to keg parties in the backyard. (Two weeks later, Kamran is still bringing up “the time we went to that keg party with the live band at the Princeton eating club”. I’m 99% sure he’s joking.)

We stopped to pet the tigers outside the stadium

Princeton, NJ

and then walked through this huge Richard Serra sculpture called “The Hedgehog and the Fox” made of giant panels of rusted metal where one path gets wider and brighter and the other path gets narrower and darker. And where the immaturest of the Princetonians hang out, evidently.

Princeton, NJ

I saw some nature

Princeton, NJ

and then some more

Princeton, NJ

and then still more

Princeton, NJ

and then some involving Kamran,

Princeton, NJ

and then it was time to go home, so we stopped at another of Kamran’s most-remembered haunts, the Wawa, for some water. (Which I would call wa-wa if I was a child or just that much lamer.)

Princeton, NJ

And then we were back on NJ Transit,

Princeton, NJ

and then NYC skyline was coming into view,

Princeton, NJ

and then we were right in the middle of it again.

Princeton, NJ

And that was that.

Happy Sixth Anniversary!

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Dearest Kameroon,

Being with you is so fine that you’ve ruined my appetite for everyone else! You’re a five-star Yelp rating, and all other boys are a 2.5 (and they’re only rated that highly because a bunch of tourists from Ohio who didn’t know any better wrote glowing reviews). You’re as lowbrow as Oh! Taisho and as highbrow as Le Bernardin, as cool as Ko and as silly as Mars 2112. Even on your saltiest days, you’re still only as gross as a pickle end.

You are the smoked salmon to my cream cheese, the oyster to my caviar, the jalapeño sauce to my hen-of-the-woods. You are a Sauternes with foie gras and a Lola duck terrine with the finest 2009 Prüm. I want to spread you on Parmesan lavash and eat you with some tomato tea. And then take a kitchen tour and poop you out into a liquid nitrogen cocktail so I can enjoy you all over again.

Who I became over these past six years is made up of you. I don’t regret a moment of what we’ve done together, only that we didn’t get to do more.

Love,
Your Katie-Kay

Adventure Time with Kat and Kam: the East Village, Lower East Side, and Chinatown

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Kamran and I had no plan in mind for this walk but to drink some bubble tea and to eat some noodles at Xi’an Famous Foods, which is beloved by Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern and which we’ve talked about visiting approximately every five seconds of our five-year relationship. It was closed that day for no apparent reason, but at least we still got our bubble tea.

I know I’ve shown you versions of this next picture ten times already, but walking out of his building and seeing this against the sky just never fails to make me think, “This is New York City! I LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY!” The architecture in Tudor City is unmatched for me, as much as I love the glass-and-steel highrises in newer parts of the city. I think it’s because it makes me think of 55 Central Park West, the Ghostbusters building:

East Side, NYC

East Side, NYC

East Side, NYC

Kamran in Tudor City, being gorgeous:

East Side, NYC

The Chrysler Building, also being gorgeous:

East Side, NYC

Kamran outside of Thirstea in the East Village, where we stopped for bubble teas. He got honeydew, because he always gets honeydew, and I got Pixy Stix, because like there was any way I could resist that:

East Side, NYC

I always think this sign is going to say “Burger King”. It does not:

East Side, NYC

We went to Economy Candy and bought chocolate-covered s’mores and ate them in a park with a camel statue in it:

East Side, NYC

This thing actually tastes better than it looks. And it looks like The Best Thing Ever, soooooo . . .

East Side, NYC

Kinda want this sign painted on the gate over a store’s window to be recreated on my bedroom wall:

East Side, NYC

East Side, NYC

Kamran and I took pictures in front of this graffitied building just because it looks badass, and when I Googled 90 Bowery just to see what it used to be, I thought the place had been turned into condos. Then I realized that the sign actually says 190 Bowery and tried that instead. It turns out that HOLY SHIT, THIS IS SOMEONE’S HOUSE.

It’s a 72-room, six-story, 35,000-square-foot former bank that a photographer bought in the 60s for $100k and turned into a studio/gallery/home. That was back when the Bowery was known for drugs, prostitution, and rent-by-the-week apartments with a shared bathroom in the hallway where you were likely to get stabbed. And now it’s worth $35 million. But it’s priceless to those of us who need graffiti to look cool.

East Side, NYC

We stopped at Banh Mi Saigon so Kamran could have his first of the famous Vietnamese sandwiches:

East Side, NYC

You know it’s more authentic than Paris Sandwich down the street both because it has Saigon in the name and because it’s hidden in the back of a store behind a jewelry counter.

East Side, NYC

Notice the daze in Kamran’s eyes and the crumbs on his lips:

East Side, NYC

Just a bucket of frogs in Chinatown:

East Side, NYC

My second bubble tea of the day, an Oreo one from Bubbly Tea. Wait, I’m sorry. Did you see that I said it was an OREO BUBBLE TEA? One person should not live a life this decadent:

East Side, NYC

We stopped at Malaysia Beef Jerky next to buy pounds and pounds of what is totally not beef jerky at all but bakkwa, which is grilled so that it’s not so hard and chewy. It’s a little saucy, too, so we refer to it as “that wet beef jerky”, usually in a redneck accent:

East Side, NYC

This is a shrimpy pork jerky, because Kamran likes gross things.

East Side, NYC

Kamran looking a little bit lonely and lost with his bubble tea and bag of jerky:

East Side, NYC

Billy’s Antiques & Props closed a year or so ago, and we found it so fitting that the only thing that remains is a coffin in the midst of debris:

East Side, NYC

And some more pretty buildings to bring us back full circle:

East Side, NYC

East Side, NYC

Wouldn’t you just die to live on the upper floor of a building like that? I’m sure those apartments are just as awful as any other New York apartment, but they sure seem special.

ADVENTURE TIME!

Khak Shir and the Brown Teff Garden

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A couple of weekends ago, Kamran was reminded of a drink he had on his grandfather’s farm back in Iran as a kid. He remembered tiny orange seeds that stayed suspended when stirred into sweetened water, and Google confirmed that this is in fact a real thing–khak shir–and not just the Sunday afternoon hallucinations of a mad Persian. We went to his local health food store and picked up the seeds–called teff–because this is NYC, and you can totally just remember something from your Iranian childhood and then go buy it down the street.

We came back to his apartment, attempted to rinse the seeds, and promptly spilled half of the bag into the sink. Kamran then made a glass of khak shir (does anyone else think that should be pronounced like “cocksure“?) using warm tap water and not enough sugar, so it was pretty gross, and both of us refused to have any more than a sip.

And then he went to visit his parents in California for a week while a beautiful teff garden grew in his sink strainer.

Brown Teff Garden