she's going to kill me for this.

i, too, am rather fond of this particular katie. we have known each other for the past 13 years. i have only been verbally abusive toward her for the past 5. that's when i really started to love her.

she's kind of cool, i suppose, if you consider people who manage to be good at just about everything on the universe to be "cool." she makes me model for her photographs. she also sells me clothes (clothes that would, on her, be perfectly acceptable, but prompt eye-rapage when i wear them only because i'm taller than her).

also, according to her, i "make [her] feel like a giraffe who has no friends." which is sad, because i really don't mean to. you know what else would be sad? an alien invasion. but, in the words of katie, "i don't think we should rely on aliens to solve our problems. i think we need to figure our shit out without aliens." (well put.) then again, maybe aliens would be a nice distraction, but THANK GOD for the big bang! because, after all, "what if the big bang didn't get around to...banging...big? we'd have world peace because we'd all be fighting the dinosaurs!"

yes, indeed.

but if the dinosaurs were still around, we wouldn't have babysitting opportunities to put on our formal résumés. "this one time," katie told me once, "i babysat and the girl was a lot like a cash register."

things like these will surely get her a job at anthropologie and give her ample opportunities to actually sell me clothes.

had i told her i was planning to post this, she would have told me that "it's all going to be out of context and a big jumble of fuck." alas, it's true, but sayings like these deserve to be memorialized.

and this is a key example of my relational aggression rearing its disgustingly ugly head. i really do love her; if i didn't, i wouldn't give her such a hard time. c'est la vie, i suppose.

(and i guarantee you, when she reads this, she'll think, "well, that was a nice trip down memoryfuck lane."

katharine, darling, i hope it was.)

in radically attenuated form: the origin of fear

my first surgery. tonsillectomy. anesthesia. my first bout with unconsciousness (sleep doesn't count because it's a natural process). for some reason excited to undergo the rigors of surgery. a perk of going under: choosing an anesthetic flavor. naturally opt for root beer.

on the operating table. blinding lights focused on face. dad on the right, moral support. the surgeon straps on a gas mask and hits a switch. dad counts down from ten. ten, nine, eight. gas hits the lungs. make a weird jugular noise. seven, six, five. lemon flavored. what the fuck. four, three. beyond pissed. two. fight back with valor and might. eyes antagonistically roll up. go limp. slip. one. slip into darkness. gone.

I have since garnered a fear of anesthesia, anesthesiologists, and lemons.

motion sickness

you know those houses that are set precariously close to any given highway, or any given train track? do the people who live there mind the constant transit so close their doors? the noise? the tumble? it's like trespassing -- being motion sick -- right outside their windows.

welcome to the show, this particular katie

it's official! look out for posts from our very own this particular katie! be beguiled! be stimulated! be aroused!

...uh, right. anyway, her posts are awesome, intimate, and even a little staggering. and they don't follow the unspoken rule of lowercase text only, apparently. but it's okay, because she's an individual, and we support that kind of thing around here. and so a little about this particular katie: she's an actor, a photographer, a writer, an illustrator, and she'll let you know if the food she makes and subsequently serves you is or isn't vegan. and she endorses black gypsy tea. but she doesn't openly support black gypsies. or any gypsies, for that matter.

I Guess I Just Wasn't Made For The(se) Times.

And so, in boxers and tank top (sans bra, sans glasses, sans all), I swallowed the last of some unsurprisingly bitter licorice, and tried to see if there was any good news in that issue of the New York Times that's been on my kitchen table since February 23rd.
There wasn't.

I've read it every day since February 23rd. I used to think that it was out of habit, but I know habits.
I bite my nails - that's a habit. Nuns wear habits. This isn't like either of those habits.
But I keep reading and re-reading, because, one of these days, I know that I'll come upon an article I missed: the only article in the world (of the New York Times [New York Edition {on February 23rd, 2010}]) with good news.
And maybe I'll become so sick of this search and so desperate for good news that I'll find it somewhere else in this paper.
It will, instead, be a typo.
Or a delightfully alliterative name in the masthead.
Or a petrified cornflake from February 23rd's breakfast that obscures a very large and very important-sounding word in an Op-Ed piece.

Because I can do without actual good news when I'm preoccupied by the amusement that comes with such small things.
(And those things are all quite small.)
"It's sensible this way," I'll tell myself, as I have since February 23rd. "It's better."
Because good news is big.
And I've been told that my kitchen is cramped.

how-to: go straight to my heart

-chocolate
-candy
-concertos
-send me shit in the mail (disclaimer: please, for the love of god, don't send justanything you can think of/get your hands on. see: van gogh.)
-fine poetry & literature
-through mordor
-belden jewelers

curious.

i came home today to find a sticker attached to my door. on it was a picture of a very happy looking westie underneath a giant "BEWARE!" and next to the words "GUARD WESTIE ON DUTY".

"Well..."
"That's odd. It looks like you have an admirer," said Taylor.
"Hmm. I mean, it's true, I guess, I am sort of a guard westie," I said.
"I mean, it's cute!"
"No, it is, but it doesn't look fierce."
"Westies aren't fierce things," Taylor said. "Well, either someone's trying to tell you that you're cute, or they want you to turn into a fierce guard dog that sticks its tongue out all the time because it's so happy."

and, apparently, i hate having to bury hookers after i kill them (then again, who doesn't?).

my life is a sitcom.

what a drive can do.

when you stay up until three o'clock in the morning worrying about what the hell you're supposed to do with the rest of your life (even though your mother reminds you you're only eighteen and aren't supposed to know by now (but you are) and you still have time to figure things out (but you don't)) and then you're only given more reason to worry about everything that's going on around you and there's nothing you can do to save yourself or anyone or change anything, for that matter, that's when you pull a still-soaked rug up from the basement, throw it in the backyard, grab your keys and go, just go, perhaps to survey the damage in your town or perhaps to see if the library has become a little less crazy or perhaps just to get out, to avoid any reason to stop, to find yourself merging onto the highway with no clear direction save your want to avoid stop signs and traffic lights and keep that speedometer climbing so you have to worry about nothing else but avoiding the cops. and when you find yourself driving by your high school, then coming so close to just walking into that airport or going further south until you get lost, and after you double back to find the other highway that can get you home, and when you roll those windows down and blast that music until you think you'll go deaf (the only reason the top stays up is because you don't want to be sunburned in march), and when you notice you've been driving aimlessly for an hour and somehow manage to feel somewhat better, but still not completely okay, then the only saving grace in your world (where you are, right now, because god knows there's only one thing in this world that can truly save you when you feel like losing it all and bursting into tears), the one thing that can bring you back to some semblance of reality and happiness is that sign that's nailed to a tree that you forget about every year until you drive past it again, that sign with a countdown (and you know all about those), the countdown that reminds you there's only one day left until spring begins.

unexcitable boy

one of my earliest memories (and coincidentally one of my fondest) is my father’s one and only karaoke performance: an ineffective yet totally heartfelt rendition of warren zevon’s "werewolves of london." the scene is this: my uncle’s house (my mother’s brother). it’s my cousin’s birthday party, perhaps her tenth. the year escapes me. all you need to know, really, is that she’s still considered a pre-adolescent. my brother and I are a few years younger. my uncle has ordered a clown to the house’s family room to accent the celebration. the birthday girl and I cower in the adjacent room, paralyzed by the clown’s presence. if you were once afraid of the malicious goofiness certain clowns seem to just, like, exude, then you know what i’m talking about. after the clown meets tepid applause from anyone actually paying attention, he beats a retreat to his vehicle, which is parked outside against the curb. this is when the karaoke machine lights with power, and the adults gravitate towards its promise: an escape from all things preadolescent birthday parties entail. I cannot, with accuracy, convey the horror of what occurred. I can only tell you that the machine’s absence at future gatherings was ominous, yet nothing short of fortunate.

I remember riding shotgun in my family’s white jeep cherokee several years later, my father driving in step with warren zevon’s familiar growl. I confused the chorus, "ah-hoo, werewolves of london, ah-hoo" with "ah-hoo, werewolves a blunder, ah-hoo." dad thought this mix-up hilarious for reasons I still fail to understand. and for the record, I'm still unable to comprehend any given clown’s supposed charm.

there is no honorable way to phonetically convey the annunciation of zevon’s utterance: "ah-hoo." it would be helpful to imagine the cry of a wolf whose voice occupies the tenor range. but when crying to the moon, it airs more of a howl via throaty falsetto. my father does not have the skill nor the wherewithal to breach this higher octave, and so he assaults the song, echoing his on-stage performance from just a couple years prior, a performance that could have been mistaken for an impersonation of a balloon coming to a brutal and unnatural end.

intelligent conversations, part 2.

"eat it before it's hard."
"like george clooney when he sees men."
"..."
"SHIT. FUCK. I MEAN WOMEN. I. MEAN. WOMEN."
"phil, i would like you to suck my dick. like george clooney. because he likes men."

mother goose, john hancock, and other zombies

mother goose, john hancock, samuel adams, and paul revere can be found in the granary burial ground, an old space on tremont street. the boston massacre occurred on what would have been four days ago. there are four massacre victims buried there. there's also benjamin woodbridge. he was, evidently, the first person in boston to die in a duel. so badass. there are other, and even older burial sites in boston, but i think the granary is the one tourists visit most. probably because of mother goose. other popular attractions in boston include swan boats and duck tours. boston's for the birds, apparently. birds that are just now flying back to the northeast, out of winter and into spring.

how you know it's spring in new york.

you break out the short dresses again and don't worry about layering them because it's actually warm out (but then you also realize that, oh shit, this dress shrank in the wash, but oh well, as long as it covers your ass you're okay, and that extra cleavage boost is actually a little cute). you start to look a little too urban chic when the sunglasses have to go on. after class you venture to the nearest urban outfitters and seriously consider buying those $60 booties but then are infinitely thankful that you intentionally carry very little cash in your wallet to help curb these impulsive buys. and then, well, fuck it, fuck food, you're having fro yo for lunch, the best peanut butter with peanut butter and peanuts and cheesecake bits and cap'n crunch and walnuts and delicious fro yo combination that you have ever constructed and even though there's no wildlife you can feel the spring in the concrete and hear it in the songs of the birds that somehow manage to survive around here and you want to just laugh or run or throw yourself onto that little patch of grass in that little park you have nearby and just fall asleep and not worry about exams or how cruel life is for making the most beautiful week of the year thus far the one in which you have the most work. and new york is beautiful, all the time, in its depression and its isolation and its despair, it's filled to the brim with beauty that most people just don't get. and it's spring. already.

or,

starbucks starts handing out drinks in the clear cups.