The (mis)Adventures of Miss Kate

Who let this movie happen?

2007-11-26T22:07:00.000-05:00

Why didn't anyone tell me that Happy Feet is the worst movie made in my lifetime? Sparky and I just finished watching it - barely. I lost count of how many messages contradicted themselves - or how long I waited for the movie to actually begin...

And if anyone understands exactly what age group or target audience this movie was aiming for, please fill me in... The movie goes back and forth from lame musical-style music video -> scary predators who promise to return, but never trouble us again -> to all kinds of ethnic stereotyping that would make Jar Jar Binks blush -> torture scenes where an old penguin gets strangled -> to a movie with a mission... and then back to, "Dance, I said!"

My head hurts and I want my 108 minutes back. I would do something that would make my head hurt less than what just happened... like maybe hit my head against the wall. clunk. clunk. clunk.

Do not adjust your sets

2007-05-08T11:45:00.000-04:00

Sparklestone and I have recently begun watching Star Trek: Enterprise on DVD. A year or so ago, we watched the entire 7-season series of The Next Generation. We geeked hard and we loved it. Still do.

For those of you not up to our geekiness quotient, Enterprise is the story of Earth's space exploration work prior to Captain Kirk's adventures. The captain of this Enterprise is Captain Archer - played by Scott Bakula. That's right, Mr. Quantum Leap himself... it really works. The ship is much smaller than any we have known - especially the interior, the Computer is not very smart yet, and most of the people on the ship are humans. It's very easy to relate to this crew as they are the first Earth team to go a-exploring - they're more like us now than any of the other crews we know. The Captain is wearing a baseball cap with the ship's numbers embroidered on it, for crying out loud.

But the lighting is really incredible. During the second episode that we watched, Sparkle stopped the DVD and put in a different movie just to make sure that nothing was going wrong with his (big, fancy, new) TV. Sure enough, the lighting for the show is different. It reminds me very much of the lighting in the original Star Trek series. The light is muted and there is a lot of soft-focus action. It certainly achieves the feeling that we're watching a little bit of pre-history - that we're looking back on events that have already happened, but that we just haven't yet seen. And that's fascinating because Enterprise is still a possible *future* for us, not old news.

Hippies make me happy

2007-04-30T14:59:00.000-04:00

Last night, our friends, The J's, took us to see Medeski, Martin, and Wood. It's only the second time in our almost 8-year friendship that we've gone to see music together. We have dramatically different musical tastes. They don't care for folk or country music and we don't care for squeaky frenetic jazz. Dave, Janette, and I can agree on some 80's post-punk/goth/rock bands, but even then, we're a few years apart from each other. The one single music show we attended together prior to last night was a Tori Amos show, in Omaha, in 2002 or so.

Last night the band played an acoustic show, which is reportedly rare for these guys. I had never listened to their music before because while The J's are fans, even they have told us that sometimes the music gets too crazy for them - so crazy that once even left an MMW show between sets.

We got to the show a little late last night, because The J's had to accept an offer on their house (woohoo!). By the time we got there, the only seats left were almost behind the band - we could only see the back of the percussionist (Mr. Martin, I believe) and the left side of the bassist (Wood). I don't know what kinds of instruments Medeski was playing, but I did notice a piano and some other huge keyboard on the stage when we walked in. Those guys played all KINDS of instruments! We got to watch the percussionist make some sounds out of a tambourine and a cymbal that had us asking, "How did he do that?" Most of the show was incredible - only about 15% of what I heard was the kind of music that really makes me feel like I'm completely crazy and makes me beg to be sedated. Admittedly, even less than I have the vocabulary to talk about music, I don't have the ear for comprehending that kind of sound. I don't like it. But they played "What'd I Say," by Ray Charles and it was just beyond exciting. I fully expected the audience to start singing "Aaaaayyyy, Ohhhhhh."

At the same table as us were 3 hippies - one of them had the whole look down to a T - hair pulled back in a head band, beard way too long and big for his face, big ol' baggy clothes on his skinny little body. They were SO fun to watch - dancing all over, hands pointing, yelling "YE-AH" in a big voice. It wasn't that kind of show - it was definitely a seated show, but these folks were just HAPPY to be happy. I had a really good time watching them. On the way home, Sparkle pointed out that it's amazing that current 20-something hippies look exactly like 20-something hippies looked 20 years ago. I certainly love to imagine Sparkle and all his friends, not quite 20 years ago, getting down, being happy, making other people happy like those folks made me smile last night.

Tiny little laughing at my tiny little self

2007-04-25T20:26:00.000-04:00

I like Modest Mouse. Sparklestone doesn't always care for them so much because, as he says, "I just can't handle that manic angriness right this second." But I have listened to Good News for People Who Love Bad News so much that I have started to get the lyrics and to uncover how very smart they are. I couldn't wait for the new album to come out, so when it did, I bought it that day.

Side note: for me to 1) know that a particular album is being released on a particular date, 2) anxiously await that date, and 3) actually purchase the album on that date is all new. It's the result of mine and Sparkle's commitment over a year ago to get back into music. It's very exciting!

I've listened to the new album We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank enough to catch a few really good songs and enough to know that I'll keep going back to it to dig deeper and get more out of it. There are songs that just keep getting really stuck in my teeth and I have to go play them just to find out if they're really as good as they taste in my memory. They're usually better than I remember.

My favorite song so far - the one I keep going back to over and over - is "Missed the Boat." The music sounds so sweet and the singer's voice (I'll go look up his name now: ah... Isaac Brock) is so calm and so soothing -almost like a lullabye-, while the lyrics are so damning. I love that juxtaposition - it's like a brick pillow (something I tried to explain to my almost-4-year-old friend, A, last weekend).

For those of you who don't know, I am trained in literary theory. Admittedly, I'm rusty, but I did spent a lot of time working on it. At the very least, I consider myself a feminist post-modernist, if not a deconstructionist. (Yeah, OK, that's how I consider it. But really, I haven't done this in so long that a true post-modern feminist would scorch me for even bringing it up. And a real deconstructionist would just take me apart.) Because of those tendencies, I don't put much stock in trying to figure out the intent of the author or "what the author is really trying to say." The exciting thing about a text is that it's up to the reader to get/apply/bring/create the meaning of the words. So here's what I'm hearing: this song is talking about how our country (you, me, all of us) got into the current war in Iraq.

A few of the lines that get me every time:

Our ideas held no water, but we used 'em like a dam.

and

We built ourselves a pillar, we just used it as a crutch.

and in the same verse:

We were suddenly uncertain, at least I'm pretty sure I am.

In another verse:

We didn't read the invite, we just dance at our wake.
All our favorite songs were playing so we could shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.

And finally, the verse that Mr. Brock (I might remember his name for 5 more minutes!) whispers in the sweetest little rhythmic story telling voice:

Tiny curtains open and we hear the tiny clap of little hands. A tiny man would tell a little joke and get a tiny laugh from all the folks.

Modest Mouse plays and sings the song so sweetly, in such an addictively lovely way, that it's hard to remember that missing the boat is a bad thing. Missing the boat leaves us in a place where we don't want to be. The song is SO good - the sweet music, the sweet voices - it distracts us from the point so that we don't even know we're not getting it. And that's the point.

When a work of art uses its own devices to hide the fact that it's giving you the point... that's good art. In fact, it's poetry.

Yowza

2007-04-19T19:31:00.000-04:00

Last night we watched Syriana, directed by Stephen Gaghan. The Netflix sleeve on the disc started with the following:

George Clooney (who gained 30 lbs. for the role) plays CIA operative Robert Baer...

...as if that 30 pounds were the most significant accomplishment of the movie! It must be fun to write those blurbs for a living.

Syriana is a spooky movie. The director did a fine job of playing the movie out like a drama, rather than a conspiracy film from the beginning - it wasn't really until the movie was over that I figured I'd been manipulated. I also acknowledge that I want to feel like I've been manipulated so that I don't have to believe that there's any truth in the movie. Unfortunately, I can't quite convince myself that it's all untrue.

I'm starting to realize that I really enjoy movies with settings in the DC area. I love living here and I do like to see our local places in film. We recently watched Breach, directed by Billy Ray, also filmed around here. One of my co-workers pointed out that it was a DC movie that was filmed very well - it really did stay true to the landscape and the area. Nobody's come out to our house yet, but that's bound to happen sometime, right?

Marie Antoinette

2007-04-18T16:05:00.000-04:00

I'm a fan of Sofia Coppola already, so I was pretty sure I'd like this movie before I even saw it. I was right. (I had the same experience with sushi too - I knew I would like it before I tried it).

There's no arguing - the movie is visually beautiful. And like other S.C. movies, there's a real stillness and quietness in the characters. There's not much dialogue - most of the action seems to be internal to the characters. I spent a lot of time imagining what the characters must be feeling or thinking. Sure, some people would say that the movie itself should spell it out for you, but the very act of thinking about the characters' internal worlds increased my empathy for the characters.

My favorite scene (not necessarily a spoiler, but you might wanna skip it until you see the movie): Marie has had two children already - we see them at their births. We learn about a third child when two workers carry in a large portrait of the Queen with her daughter, son, and a baby in a crib. Then the workers come back and carry away that portrait. Then, the workers come back carrying another portrait. As they move out of the frame, we see that it's the same portrait as before, without the baby in the crib. This scene is so well done - our characters don't even appear in that scene, but Marie's sense of loss over that child is so clearly expressed - even without words.

The movie gets slow in the middle, but it's not a fatal flaw. One point of the movie is that Marie was b-o-r-e-d and lonely and that on most days, time dragged for her like a chain around her leg. The movie doesn't get that slow for the viewer and it's worth waiting it out.

Everyone knows how this story ends - thankfully, the movie handles the ending gracefully. Of course, some people would say that in ending gracefully, it doesn't honor the actual events - that it's important to know that the Queen's excesses drove the people crazy and that the people were thirsty for blood. We get that. This is art and graceful endings are allowed.

I'm trying something different here. Instead of just trying to write about my life, which I never get around to doing sufficiently, I'm going to try to write about art that I'm coming across. As I read, watch movies, hear music, view paintings, etc, I interact with those objects. I'll write about that - and my writing will no doubt reveal what I'm thinking and living with at the moment. I'm not trying to write like an art critic, so please don't come here looking for deep insights. But if you've read or seen or heard anything that I'm writing about and want to discuss, please do! And if you have recommendations for me, don't hold back! Maybe I'll even post more than once a quarter this way.

Not quite my story, but I can learn

2007-04-18T10:43:00.000-04:00

On a friend's recommendation, I just read The Color of Water: a Black Man's Tribute to his White Mother, by James McBride. Since the baby we'll get will most likely be a different color than we are, I'm trying to prepare for some of the reactions and situations that our family will find ourselves in.

The book gave me lots to think about. For example, there's an incident in which one of the author's brothers (all of the children in the family look black) gets wrongly arrested. The judge is about to send him to jail for the night, until his white mother stands up and says, "He is a good boy, he didn't do this thing, let him come home with me." The judge lets the boy go. Yeah, that stinks. But what really got me was the author's confusion as a young man about how to identify himself socially. His mother was white and both his father and stepfather where black. They lived in all-black neighborhoods. Was he black and was whitey bad? What about all the good white people he knew? He struggled with understanding and defining his own identity. His mother didn't discuss these issues with any of her twelve (12!) children, primarily because she didn't want to talk about her own growing up. The author finally gained some clarity as an adult, when he got his mom to explain her own childhood to him.

I'm sure that our children will have some difficulties growing up brown with white parents. I expect that they will be confused about who's side they're supposed to be on in certain situations. I'm sure that they will have to decide those questions themselves, but I am also committed to being aware of those questions. I want our children to know that it's OK to have questions and that it's OK to be confused. And that I will personally kick anyone who gives my babies any grief.

The mom's reticence to discuss her childhood challenges me. I anticipate that there will be a lot of stories that I won't be able to tell my children until they're older. I am incredibly fortunate that my real parents (NOT my birth parents) were near me throughout my childhood, so that they are able to help me remember the happy parts of being a kid. Talking about birth parents with our children will surely test me, as I know first hand how terrible birth parents can be. (Just to be clear: having a baby of your own biology does not make you a birth parent - that makes you a parent. You're a birth parent if you either give your child for adoption or if your child has to leave you because you're so bad at parenting.)

The Color of Water is much more complex and interesting than I've uncovered here. The details of how this woman raised twelve children on almost no money (because really, how much money IS enough to raise 12 children??), how she managed their educations, and how she was so determined to raise her children to be strong and proud and loved... that story is amazing.

Questions for mothers

2007-01-29T22:13:00.000-05:00

So, we're going through the home study to get OK'd to adopt a baby and we are getting asked some annoying-assed questions. I'm sure that if most parents had to go through this process before they could get pregnant, we wouldn't have a population control issue. A sampling:

how much cash do you have in the bank?
how long have you been married?
how much is your rent/ monthly mortgage payment?
how do you feel about your mother?
why do you think you view her that way?
are you sure you won't mind if your baby isn't the same color as you?
do you think your mom will mind?
are you sure? what if the baby isn't white?
really? are you sure?
what is your fire escape plan for your house?
ask your doctor: are you expected to live a normal life span?
now let's say that you get a baby that is, say, not white. will that be OK?
so, how does it make you feel that you couldn't get pregnant?
what if your baby is a different color than you?

My mom is helping me to look on the bright side of these stupid questions: 1) she says that if everyone did have to go through the process prior to pregnancy, somebody wouldn't be carrying my baby right now and 2) it's either this or throwing up for three months straight, then not fitting in any of my clothes, and doing all of this without coffee in the morning or wine at night.

So I'll answer your stupid questions, just pass the espresso - and hand me that baby.

Dynamism

2006-12-20T15:33:00.000-05:00

Everything's always changing and it's GOOD here.

Our apartment, though small, is GREAT. The location is so sweet - easily walkable to shops and movies and grocery stores (plural grocery stores!); it's closer to work; there are trails and trees all over the place ... Our quality of life has improved so dramatically that it's shocking. Yes, our 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment is dramatically smaller than our 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath house was - but even that's easy. It's cozy for real - everything is close - it's just good. Our books are all in storage ('cept for some cookbooks) - and I miss them. If we were going to stay small forever, we'd have to at least get room for the books.

We've given up on the quest to get pregnant and that is such a huge relief. We are in the middle of a home study for adoption. And although we don't know how long it will take till we get a baby, we at least know that this process will end with a baby in our arms. It's also a relief to not worry about "am I or amn't I?" I can run as much as I want to, I can drink as much wine as I want to, and I don't have to give up coffee. Somebody else is doing the hard work of carrying my baby - I'll pick up after that.

We went to New York last weekend. We were in the city for 25 hours and we got to connect with three different groups of people who are important to us. We stayed with red balloon and her family - it always makes me so happy to see those two brilliant people who love each other and the brilliant little boy they are raising. There aren't many other people in the world who make me feel so at home. We went out with my friend from Lamar, Jim Sims, whom I haven't seen in ten years. I was very happy to get him and Harris together - they have a lot in common and I think they hit it off well. And we met my sister who lives in upstate NY with her family - she is an incredible mom and her two little boys are so funny and so good. It was a hectic, busy, whirlwind trip, but it was so rewarding. I'd do it all over again.

House Love

2006-10-30T15:58:00.000-05:00

Our House = Sold.

The house we wanted to buy this summer (when the losers had the contract on our house) now has a renter in it with a lease that lasts until August. We've been trying to contact the owner to see what we can do to help her decide to get out of that lease and let us buy the house, but we haven't heard from her yet. We love these houses. The are mid-century modern beauties - and we've decided that if we can't move into one by the time we have to move out, we're going to move into an apartment and wait.

On Saturday, we made an adventure with our realtor: We took a letter that she wrote introducing me and Sparklestone, explaining that we have just sold a house and are ready to buy, and inviting anyone who's interested in selling to call us. We knocked on the doors of the houses with floor plans we liked, left letters for people who weren't home, and talked to some people who were there. The second house we stopped at could be good; we are not going to buy the crazy cat lady's house; we may be one step closer to getting in touch with the owner of the house we wanted earlier. One owner laughed when we told him what we were doing - he said that they had bought their house in 1966 (when it was brand new) and they love their home and they are NOT moving. That's what I'm talkin' about.

In any case, we're having some fun, doing some strange stuff. We don't want to buy a house now just because it's available and drive by these houses for the next 20 years, wishing we lived there.

See? I can learn. I'm starting to really get the hang of this patience thing.

High Time

2006-09-18T16:23:00.000-04:00

So much good news going on around here:

Saturday was my birthday and it was a significant one. It was the first one that I ever had trouble with, because in general, I love me some birthday. Thanks to some good friends who are excellent listeners, I got OK with it and am enjoying the celebration. Sparkelstone's amazing gift of some sparkly stones certainly take a lot of credit for the happy vibes too.

We spent last weekend in Florida for a big family to-do. I really had a great time hanging with the entire extended family - even before the honoree of the party said that SparkleFlash and I are the coolest of the cousins. When a 13-year-old says that aboutcha, you can't help but feel like you got it goin' on.

My sister just found out that her divorce is final! She's been separated from her ex- for years now and we just weren't sure that he was ever going to make a move. She made a call on Friday and they told her that it's a done deal, effective July 14, 2006. Now she can get on with her life. Way to go, Sisto!

We got a contract on our house last nite. Mind you, we had a contract on our house back in June, but that cratered for real. This contract looks really good and the buyers were actually anxious to hear from us (their realtor called our realtor to just get a feeling for which way we were leaning b/c they loved our house!). And the contract actually provides us with a decent amount of time for house prices to drop a bit in the town where we want to move.

The person in this world who has been my voluntary friend (that is, not my sister) for longer than anyone else on the planet called me yesterday after a long silence. He called to tell me happy birthday. I've missed him so badly and am so glad he called.

What's goin on wichoo? What kinda good news is happenin' in your sweet world? Do tell!

26.2

2006-08-15T14:20:00.000-04:00

I've recently started running again and it's going very well. Three years ago, when we moved to this area, I had decided to train for a marathon. I was really enjoying running long distances - and I was well on my way. I had a running partner who lived just down the street from me - she and I would meet at 5:30 a.m. to go for 4-5 miles -- it was often dark at that time of morning, so it was great to have a partner for safety and company. Also during that time, I had a really crappy job where my bosses had no work for me to do, so it was no problem for me to take 2-hour lunches to go run for 6 miles and then lift weights, shower, etc, and get back to work. I was running a LOT.

I was running too much - so much so that I hurt myself really badly. Thousands of dollars of physical therapy badly. Badly enough that my longest run ever was 16 miles and my only race was a half-marathon. It was a real disappointment that I wasn't able to run that marathon. It has taken a very long time for me to heal and to learn how to take care of myself when running - I think I'm there.

It feels really good to run, both when I'm at it and the other 23 hours of my day. I'm slowly working on adding distance - I'm much more interested in distance than speed - and I'm now up to about 16 miles / week. Without pain.

I'm gonna run a marathon at some point, dammit. I want a bumper sticker that says 26.2.

Crisis in the Office

2006-08-08T12:51:00.000-04:00

I am out of chocolate.

I keep a bar of dark chocolate in my desk drawer so I can have a little bit every afternoon. I finished it last Friday. I was not in the office yesterday because my hormone levels are out of control and I was feeling really sick.

High hormone levels + no chocolate in the office = it could get real ugly around here.

Catching up

2006-08-04T14:17:00.000-04:00

Last week I got an email from someone who knew me in high school. One of my high school pals (one of the few who knows how to find me) keeps an email directory of some of our classmates online and he keeps all the women's maiden names there. Occasionally, some blast from my past will find me there and we get to catch up. However, last week, I got an email from someone and I could not remember who this person was.

I vaguely remembered his name, but couldn't see his face. That led me to want to look in my senior year book. However, when my birth parents divorced and sold the house that I grew up in, the box with all those books and photos in it got lost - I didn't live there any longer and didn't think to rescue it. So before I wrote back to this fellow, I decided that I needed to get my hands on that year book. I finally had the brilliant idea to go to the source - I tracked down the current year book sponsor at my high school and asked if there happened to be any extras of my year lying around. You know what?! One's on its way to me now!

But since this email was growing old in my in-box, I decided to just reply and hope that I could get some more clues about this once-friend. I wrote back, said it was good to hear from him, sent him some brief details of my current life, and a photo of me and Sparkelstone at our wedding (slyly thinking that it would encourage him to also send a photo, while also very clearly setting the boundaries of this correspondence. Sparkle says this guy is doing a Hi Fidelity thing here.). Well, he didn't take the hint about sending a photo, but he did write back and included some details that made me remember him. He was in 11th grade when I was in 9th grade and he actually took me to his prom! I had completely forgotten about that episode!

It was fun to catch up a little and to learn about the path his life has taken. His eldest daughter is now 15 - one year older than I was when I went to prom with him. Most days I don't feel how much time has passed - but damn, that brought it home.

This whole email and the subsequent search for my year book has inspired in me a desire to reconnect with some old friends. I had a group of girls who really meant the world to me for a LONG time in my life and I would love to know how they are. I wonder what they're doing, where they're living, what adventures they've had. The danged thing about looking up old girlfriends, tho, is that most of us don't have the same last name that we were born with. And me, I don't even use the same first name that all those girls would know me by.

The "P" Word

2006-08-02T13:03:00.000-04:00

I am a do-er. I'm a planner and director - I'm very good at setting goals and then making things happen so that I can get where I want to be. That is, I've been very good at those things until this year.

This year, I've learned the hardest lesson - that just because I've made up my mind and I like the timing, things don't just happen. And really, I think I get it. Really. I'm not just saying that I get it so the Universe will ease up. I'm cool.

Sparky and I moved into our house just over 2 years ago. When we did that, we immediately started trying to make a baby. Well, it's been 28 months now and there's still no baby on the way. That's had some hard moments. I even had a couple of months when I was trying to talk Sparky into saying that we just wouldn't have kids - that we'd be DINKs for the rest of our lives. I'm so glad that Sparklestone already had a great command of the P-word because he just wouldn't go for it. We're still trying and we've made a deal that if I'm not preggers after 2 more assisted tries, we're gonna adopt a baby. Or four. And then I'm sure I'll get pregnant.

We've also been trying to sell our house in this seriously cooling-off market. Only we didn't have any idea how cool the market was getting when we listed our house - so we had a bit of anxiety over the fact that it took 2 months to get an offer. Then after getting the offer - get this - the buyers didn't settle. That's right, they backed out of the deal after 2 stinkin' weeks of being in default of contract. So our house is back on the market. We had a week of serious bile - serious bile - but what are you gonna do?

July was a tough month, but we're just plowing ahead. I can't control everything. You hear that, Universe? Now you might as well start cooperating b/c I'm not fighting anymore anyway.

And speaking of patience, I'm a little astounded that blogspot still has my blog active. Dang.

More changes

2006-03-19T20:55:00.000-05:00

So, I started working for Nils waaaaaaaaay back in August and I've obviously been fairly occupied there. Life is good: the work is good, the family's good, the new PDA is good. There's only one stinky thing going on now and that's our commute.

Sparklestone and I enjoy the fantastic advantage that we commute together. We listen to all kindsa new music and some funny comedians on XM radio, we make plans, and when one of us is feeling generous, we let the non-driver nap. We have time for all these activities: every week day morning, Sparklebaby drives us the 22.59 miles from our door to my office and then drives the remaining 6.75 miles to his office. After work in the office is over, he drives 6.75 miles back to my office and then I drive 22.59 miles home. On a good day, those two trips take us at least a total of 2 hours.

That's right: at least one hour to drive less than 30 miles on a good day. On a bad day, we're in the car for a total of 2h, 20m. It's wrong.

SO, we have decided that we have to move closer to our jobs. It was a hard and sucky decision at first because we've only been in our house for 2 years and we put SO MUCH sweat and bread into the place already to make it ours. And now SOME OTHER PERSON is going to get to cook in my kitchen. However, we've been looking at townhomes in the area we've decided we're going to live (we'll only spend 20 minutes each way commuting to work... we're going to gain at least 8 hours a week) and we've found some very cool mid-century modern designs... very Brady bunch. We're putting our house in the market in 2 weeks.

Now I gotta pack.

Joy (and pain)

2005-08-12T22:31:00.000-04:00

Starting at 3 p.m. EST today, I am officially between jobs until 8:30 a.m. Monday morning. Tomorrow, my plan is, "I ain't gettin, I aint gettin outta bed today."

Today my headache is that I am between PDA's. I am a librarian at heart who believes that I don't have to remember everything, I just need to remember how to find it. PDAs have been a salve to my soul since Sparkle bought me my first one for my birthday 5 years ago. Since then, I've owned or operated no fewer than 4 devices, but I had to return my latest companion to my workplace this week. When I reset the thing, I felt like my brain had fallen out of my head.

Sparkle is very kind to lend me his PDA, which he got as a hand-me-down from his boss a year ago. It's not quite the same model as my last love and a far cry from the device I expect I'll be working with soon.

It took 5 minutes to "backup handheld databases." Good thing I don't have much on my agenda this weekend. If I did, I sure wouldn't know about it.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2005-08-09T21:59:00.000-04:00

I'm finishing up my last week of a job that I thought I'd be at for at least 4 more years. Unexpectedly, I had an opportunity to apply for a job working for Sparky's sister. Although I expected to stay in my current job for years, I have always told my sister-in-law that I'd love to go work for her. When I said that, I didn't even really know what she did, I just knew that I would dig working for her. She's got workaholic tendencies like me, she's a superstar, and she still knows how to have a good time. In short, she's a good role model for me in my work life.

So one day about 2 months ago, Sparkle picked me up at the metro station, as usual, and when I got in the car, he said, "Now just listen, this could be good. Nils has a job open and I think you'd rock at it." He had already gotten Nils to send me the job description so I could take a look and think it over before he even told me about the thing. Now get this: Nils works in a completely different field than librarianship. True, she works in health care the same way I've been working in health care -- working in the field without actually having much to do with sick people. But I've never done the kind of work that Nils does; I don't even know the language she speaks at work.

The short story is that I competed and got the job and I start on Monday. I have loads to learn -- LOADS. I'm leaving a career that I started about 7 years ago (it's what I got my master's degree to do) and a field where I'm on top of my game and I know how to win. I'm going to a new world where, like I said, I don't even know the language.

When I was in high-school, my aunt-mother (see previous posts about my good family vs. my birth family) put me to work for her. She paid me real money for my work and when work was over, I got to hang out and play. Working for a-m has been, by far, the best work I've had. Working for family is right -- the work part has a completely different kind of accountability and rewards than working for strangers. The real life part is even better -- I'll get to know what's going on with my nieces, my family, I'll get to develop a deeper relationship with Nils. I'll also get to commute with Sparklestone.

So yeah, I've got a lot of changes going on and it's all good. My only question is: should I wear my hair curly or not curly?

Take it where you can get it

2005-07-19T21:35:00.000-04:00

I don't often accept that my birth father has anything to offer me, but sometimes I hear his voice in my head and it just fits. Today he told me, Never let 'em see you sweat.

If this is what it means to honor your mother and father, then I can dig it.

A new obsession

2005-07-02T18:35:00.000-04:00

Everything has its own special place where it lives.
There is a right way to do it and it doesn't work if I don't do it right.
When I'm done, everything is ordered and tidy.
I can make each one work.
aaaaaaaaaah, sudoku.

listening to myself

2005-06-22T10:12:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I took some bad professional advice and I regret it now. Nothing terrible happened, but I made a valuable employee feel slightly less valued because I didn't trust my instincts. It was a silly situation and it's all smoothed over now with no loss of property, but I really wish I could erase about 5 minutes of yesterday.

At first I was irritated with the person who gave me that advice -- that person was minding my business. But I'm the one who took the advice and acted, so I'm irritated with myself. I'll forgive myself and move on -- my employee has forgiven me -- but I have to record my blunder so I'll be sure to learn my lesson. Sometimes I'm just a dunce.

Now I've got that 311 song in my head. I'm gonna have to buy it and put it on my iPod... that'll make me feel better!

Dang, it's been a while

2005-06-14T10:12:00.000-04:00

I'm at home sick today and I'm in that place where I can't sleep right now. I watched bad TV for 3 hours straight last nite and I just can't stand one more second of it. I don't think we get Sesame Street here.

How shall I try to catch up? I'm reading a fascinating book titled, How to Say it for Women: Communicating with Confidence and Power Using the Language of Success. Oh, it's good! It deals with writing and speaking and identifies ways that women's use of language makes them seem puny and weak. It's forcing me to look at my own business writing and speech and allowing me to speak more clearly and forcefully. And for the record, my writing here breaks every rule -- this ain't biz-ness. There's another blog for that.

What else? Oh! My job has made me cooler, can you believe that? This smart lady who's working with us wanted to investigate using iPods and podcasting for educational purposes, so she wrote a proposal that funded everyone in my department getting an iPod. Can you dig it? So now I've got a mini and I've put lotsa good music on it and I've found some pretty good podcasts that I can listen to on my long commute to my job. Not too shabby, eh?

The best thing going on lately is that it's finally HOT and HUMID outside. Over 90 degrees and sticky puts me at my best. I've even gotten on my bike to ride with my husband a couple of times in the past weeks. I'm happy to have any reason to be outside in it.

I can't believe I didn't write yet about my neices' dance recital. Both girls (ages 6 and 4) are the youngest girls in their classes and by far the cutest. The 6 year old was born in awe of older girls, so she worked hard to keep up with them and gave a strong performance. I recognized a look of intense concentration on her face. The 4 year old is amazing in that she always has her head in some alternate plane that none of us can really see. When she was on stage and the other girls were dancing, she was very involved with the beaded leash connecting the poodle on her skirt to her waistband. Watching her live her own reality gives me deep joy. I got the news about the recital at the last minute and had to scold everyone around me. Next year, I'll have that recital on my calendar on the day they start classes. Aunt Miss Kate is all about dance recitals. Heck, Aunt Miss Kate is all about the dress rehearsal for the dance recital.

And now, I will sleep.

livin' it

2005-05-09T21:25:00.000-04:00

On Friday, our good friend retired from active duty in the military. After 20 years, it's a big deal, so he and his wife planned a big celebration with his birth family and his chosen family (we are of the latter group). His birth family gave him and his wife some reasons to be stressed and cranky, so mine and my husband's job this weekend to was to make both of our friends as happy as possible during all the party-giving and family-transporting. We did our best to give him the celebration he deserves and I believe we were successful.

Later this week I'm going down to Texas to see my good family where one of my sisters is graduating from college. Another of my sisters graduated from high school last weekend. I can't wait to see them and help make celebrations for them.

My husband's birthday is next week, and we're going to start the celebration in a couple of days, since birthdays are really birth months around here. This year I won't wake up with him on his birthday, and I don't like that at all. I'm planning to work extra hard to make that up to him.

My mother taught me and all of my brothers and sisters that we each have our own moments, but that not all moments are our own. Any time one of us stepped out of line and tried to claim another's moment, Mom would remind us, "This is not about you."

But it sure is. Being in it, being behind it, making them feel special, giving them their moments-- that's all about me. She did a good job, my Mom.

the good stuff

2005-05-01T00:05:00.000-04:00

I've got this friend in my town with whom I'm pretty close. She and her husband eat with Sparklestone and me (our house, their house, or out) at least 3 times a week. We spend the night at each other's houses on the weekend (even though we only live 6 miles apart). We camp together all summer, and we just started investing together. She and her spouse have a big black doggie, very much like ours. Even though we don't look alike, people get us confused, calling us by each others' names. The cool thing about that is, neither of us minds being mistaken for the other (most days, anyway). She's my business partner at our day jobs and we share an office, so I see her almost every day that we have to go to work. She's also a virgo.

Our jobs are very busy and can get stressful and we really rely on each other to get through the days and to keep each other from killing a lot people who really deserve it. We are both super achievers (see the virgo thing, above) and we work our butts off. We had gotten into a rut where we were working all the time -- even when we were supposed to be having fun and hanging out with our boys, we'd spend hours and hours bitching about the jobs.

But today was good! Sparklestone and the other husband drove out to West Virginia today to close on this condo that we're buying together and my pal and I stayed in town with our doggies. After we got the human boys on the road (the dogs are boy dogs, hence the distinction), we spent all damned day shopping. Neither of us are endurance shoppers and we usually go home after 2 stores. But today we wandered around even did some good coaching on purchases.

Her: Miss Kate, you would look great in this blouse! Just buy it. You'll be so mad at yourself if you don't buy it.

Me: You know, those shoes just aren't the right color. But these shoes are. Do you need me to ask for another size for you?

After we finally gave up and came home, we had soup and salad for dinner and then we watched this chick flick that we would have never been able to watch when the boys are home. It doesn't matter that I didn't love the movie, what matters is that I got to watch it all the way to the end and find out that I didn't love it.

Hanging out with my girl is just good fun.

But now it's midnight-thirty and I'm wishing that my man was home. If I go to sleep now, it'll seem sooner that he gets back.

A little boy I know

2005-04-27T22:12:00.000-04:00

Last summer I got to know a little boy who looks just like his mother, my sister. Before I met him, I hadn't known anyone who look so much like he belongs to me. I don't know if it's just because he looks like me/mine that I feel so connected to him, but I do know that the only other time I've ever fallen in love at first sight is when I first laid eyes on my husband, Sparklestone himself.

The joy of my life is that when I fell for Sparkle, it all worked out right. I'm not so sure that everything is gonna turn out OK with that little'un who's related to me. It weighs on me. I want to fix it but I don't have the power to do it.

Since I kicked my mother and my sister out of my life, I'm doing much better. I don't just cry all day anymore and I don't feel like I need psychotropic drugs to deal with my life. I am a healthier person without them. But they have the little boy and I can't even talk to him without going through them.

Does every family have some monumental heartache that they have to ignore in order to move on? Is this just the human condition? Am I being a big baby?

How do I harden my heart enough to keep living and yet keep it soft enough to do the right thing?

I have a video of him dancing and singing. It's one of my most prized possessions.

I yam what I yam

2005-04-22T12:22:00.000-04:00

I am a Virgo. All the way down to my bones, I am pure virg. I am the virgiest virgo you will ever meet. I tried for a long time to be less virgo-y, but I'm smart enough to know when I'm beat... there's no hiding it.

We virgos have incredible work ethics. We are often said to be the hardest working sign in the zodiac. People say lots of other not-so-nice things about us too, but no one can argue with the fact that we know how to work. Couple that with a relentless attention to detail, and you've got the stuff to drive people insane.

When I start something, I really hate to stop until I have finished it completely. I mean, all the way, doing it right, no shortcuts, and it's not over until the mess is all cleaned up. And then I just have to straighten this. And maybe that should go over there. And now I can see that this thing should be different. And it goes on. When I do this, my husband says that I'm in the Zone. He gets really nervous when I'm in the Zone and he usually tries to avoid me then. Sometimes that works out for him fine and other times not so good.

We have both fallen into the zone with these house projects that we've been working on. We have been killing ourselves with painting, repairing walls, replacing vanities, changing light fixtures.... The house is looking great, but we're both exhausted all the damned time and we're not having that much fun any more.

So this is it. I am using my blog as an accountability tool. I am announcing to the blogosphere that from now until the weather turns crappy (crappy means that the days are short and the trees are bare), our house just doesn't need to get any better. We're gonna hold right here.

Yes, I am a Virgo and I can't change that. But I'm smart enough to surround myself with people who aren't exactly like me so that I can be a more well-rounded person. And I can take a hint, however subtly delivered.

abiding affections

2005-04-18T23:11:00.000-04:00

There is a decent amount of scientific literature on the bonds that humans form during the transition between late adolescence and early adulthood. Apparently we are incredibly malleable during our development between about 19-22 years of age (in Western cultures, anyway. The textbooks I've looked at aren't really concerned with a global view) and the people we bond with during those years greatly determines what we come to value as adults. I guess, among other things, that explains why military recruiters really work on those kids just about to graduate from high school.

I have a love with whom I bonded during that time in my life. She and I went through all kinds of heavens and hells together and we even inflicted some of the same on each other. We took different paths and moved to different cities when we were still in our mid-20's, but any day of the week, I can call her and there's no doubt that I'm still talking to the same person. It's common that we'll go for months without contact, but when we call each other, it's like we've never stopped talking. It's not that we know every detail about each other -- it's that we know the important stuff and all the rest falls into place. There's nothing that she can do that will surprise me -- I know her nature. And I love the luxury of having a friend who can't be surprised by me -- she's not overly impressed when I'm a superstar ("Yeah, I expect that of you.") and she's not shocked when I sink to new lows ("Yeah, you've got sleazy tendencies, so what?"). She is always with me and in some of my best moments, I hear her speaking through my mouth. I am going to Texas next month and I'm making plans to see her then -- it will be like falling into the happy, fun, safe, laughing childhood (pre-adulthood?) that she and I created together.

My husband and I spent this weekend with two of the people (who are now married to each other) that he bonded with during that same period of his life. I didn't know my husband then -- we didn't meet until we were both well out of those phases of our lives. We've spent numerous weekends with these friends of his and I've slowly been building my own friendships with each of them. However, that young adulthood bond is really impossible to crack -- those three know each other in ways that I'll never break through. That's not a bad thing -- it's what it is: just like my husband will always feel slightly on the outside when the Princess and I get together.

This weekend with these two friends was different for me than others before. It's not as though we were all transported back 10-12 years and we had the chance to make those bonds, but something definitely happened. I've already written about how slow I am to make friends -- and I'll use that as a testament to how special are these two people (now three). They have continued to give me chances and chances for years until I think we've finally hit our stride. We'll not be able to say, "We've been friends since we were in college," but (ulp, god willing) we will be there, telling each others' grandchildren, "I knew her before your daddy was even born."

That is worth waiting for.

Y'ate Whut?

2005-04-15T14:17:00.000-04:00

We ate paint. and when we didn't have any more paint, we ate paint.

Saving medical education

2005-04-10T21:17:00.000-04:00

68 degrees, sunny, all the flowering trees in full bloom.

I think I'll go spend the best part of my day inside a dark conference room, saving medical education.

You see, my business partner and I are really good at what we do and people know it. So when the big boss at our Prestigious Medical Center asked us to make a presentation at an international conference about something that we do that he's never even seen before, well, we couldn't say no. It's not that we couldn't say no because it's such a great opportunity, it's that he's the big boss and neither of us are so good that we can tell the boss, "No."

So today, instead of enjoying Spring, or instead of getting a lot of work done on our house, I went and saved Medical Education. You can thank me later.

By the way, it is my goal to be my own big boss and to be so good that I can say, "You know what? Sunday really isn't a good day for me. What else ya got?"

red velvet pocketbook

2005-04-07T16:00:00.000-04:00

rowdy village people, royal value price, regular view picture, rockin' vixen punk, rare variegated petunias, racy violin player, (rvp, where are you?) raw vegetable platter, rainy valley palace, recreationally veiled player, Rita's voluptuous pout, rising venus' path

I'm in a bad loop

2005-04-05T11:57:00.000-04:00

As you can tell by the time-stamp on this post, I'm at work as I write this. This week I have to finish an article, prepare for a class I'm teaching on Thursday, and put together a presentation for a conference on Sunday. So what the hell am I doing blogging?!

I am procrastinating. And I am making myself nutso. This is not good behavior.

And I know that the only people who are reading this blog don't have a problem with this behavior and will in fact encourage me to continue. But I am stressing myself out here! So please, friends, how about a little tough love?

I unpacked our champagne flutes this weekend

2005-04-02T09:40:00.000-05:00

When I was growing up, my mother had a very fancy set of china and silver that she received when she and my father got married. Those dishes lived in a cabinet and I never remember eating from them even once. I am of a different mind about using nice things. My husband and I use our special dishes every Friday night and on any other special occasion that we can think of. I think that the fancy goods get more special the more we use them, not based on the rarity of their use.

I have been known to make a celebration at the drop of a hat (or a leaf or a dishtowel or whatever). When my husband and I left our comfy-but-cloying life in the American midwest to move to the exciting-but-draining life on the East Coast, a confluence of stressors conspired to make me forget that practice. That's a shame.

But I'm back! I'm remembering how important it is to make a big deal out of the little deals. If we don't do that, then months and months just pass without any recognition of all the fun, laughter, joy, accomplishments, and friendship that we live through every day.

Plus, I really like champagne.

I think I'm becoming a social creature

2005-03-29T18:31:00.000-05:00

My enormous and amazing family was here for most of last week and I spent every minute possible with them. We all crammed ourselves into our kitchen, we all ate dinner together every nite, we went to ESPN Zone together, we did museums together, we rode in the bus together, on the train together... And when they pulled away from the city on Thursday morning, I was truly sad to see that bus leave. I LOVED having them all in our house and I enjoyed all the craziness of preparing meals for so many people. In truth, I never cooked alone -- there was always some teenaged person standing next to me, asking me if I needed his or her help. We stayed up until almost 1 a.m. every single nite, just because I didn't want to end our conversations.

So the family left on Thursday and then Thursday evening, we met our two local friends (yes, there's two of them) for dinner together, since we would be gone for the entire weekend. After dinner, we hopped in our car and drove ourselves to Brooklyn to see our two grown-up friends and one toddler friend there. I loved being with each of them every minute. When we weren't hanging out in their always hospitable house, we were walking the streets, mingling with the crowds, being a part of the world. I didn't feel misanthropic at all.

As soon as we got back to our town, we drove straight to our local friends' house for dinner. And then we had them over for dinner last nite. I just can't seem to get enough of people. I can't explain it.

I wish I understood why I'm having this sudden change of attitude. Is it because I've been hanging out with such good people that I can see more good in the world? That explanation has some holes in it -- it's not like I've been hangin' out with creepos for the past couple of years or anything. Is it because we've been working so hard at home that our house feels good to me? Is it because the days are getting longer and I'm actually getting some of those good sunshine drugs that my body needs? Whatever the reason, I wish I could bottle it and save it for those days (months on end, actually) when I want to hide from humanity, or worse.

Since I don't know where this comes from or how long it will last, you oughta just come on over and hang out with us right now. You know, get it while the gettin's good!

Aunt Miss Kate

2005-03-20T17:16:00.000-05:00

Last nite we had 13 people here besides my husband, the dog, and me. There were adults talking and cooking and young women hanging out, comparing notes. There were kids running all over the place and a wrestling match full of stinky boys... There was hanging out on the sofas and talking and looking at photos and 5 conversations at once and lots of coffee...

It was good. I told my LM (Little Mommie) that I could really stand to do this every Saturday nite with them. This is just how they live.

One 3 year-old nephew is here and he is SERIOUSLY cute. And funny and smart. There's something about a kid saying "Aunt" in front of my name that makes me want to spoil him to pieces. It's so automatic that it makes me wonder if I'm hard-wired for that.

I had some fun being the aunt for my new niece and nephew too. To them, I'm an adult and therefore have the qualification to possess some authority. At about 10 p.m., when everyone was getting ready to watch a movie, my niece (7) asked me what is for dessert. I told her that a cookie sounds good to me, so she ran and got one for herself. About 5 minutes later, her dad came upstairs and said, "I can't believe my daughter -- she's eating another cookie, without permission." I had to confess that I was the bozo who gave her permission and I apologized because I don't know any better... I had to go find my niece and tell her I was sorry for messing up -- and then I told her that she just can't rely on me for that kind of information any more because I obviously don't know what I'm talking about.

But the good part of that story is that because she asked me, she got the cookie. I guess that's what being an aunt is all about.

My (good) Fambly is on the Way

2005-03-18T13:25:00.000-05:00

I have an Aunt and Uncle who, for my entire life, have been my models of sane and good parents. They have cared for me the way that my birth parents should have done but unfortunately, they didn't have the authority or power to just make it official and be my legal parents. But they are the ones that I call my mom and dad.

They are really good parents and they are into parenting. They have given birth to 3 children from their own biology, but they have adopted others so that there are 7 children with the same last name. And then there are my sister and me, who they count as their own -- They call me their eldest daughter. When I was 15, I wished more than anything that they could adopt me and that I could live with them in their house with them.

It's a strange family set up. It's even stranger because my dad (not my birth father, but my real dad) is a Baptist minister. He has been either a minister or on his way to becoming one since I've known him (and he's almost always been in my life). My family is deeply and faithfully christian -- more deeply and faithfully than any other group of people that I've ever known. They represent a paradox for me -- they are all extremely intelligent, but they have the kind of faith that tells them that god is interested in every movement, every moment. Those two characteristics just don't jive for me. In fact, the idea of god being interested in what I'm doing but not doing anything to stop the bad stuff really gives me the heebeejeebees. Really.

But I love these people so much. They have loved me and protected me and they can't wait to come see me and my husband, even though they know that we don't believe that they believe. And for them, that belief is not the kind of thing that they can just agree to disagree about -- this is real-eternal-life-business to them. I don't know how they've worked it out that we are OK... I suspect that they are praying for us every day that we'll see the light and convert. I don't know though, because they don't say those things to us and we just don't discuss it. We also certainly don't discuss the fact that my husband and I marched at the March for Women's Lives or that we voted for a different president than they did. Somehow, we've implicitly decided among us that we are not going to focus on those big differences.

When we're together, I feel loved. I don't feel like I have to do anything differently except laugh and relax and enjoy the craziness. Because you know with that many people, it's really just crazy. But the good crazy, not the crazy crazy.

So with my parents and my 7 brothers and sisters from that family, that sounds like it would be 9 people. One of my sisters has 2 little boys -- and at least one of them (the 3 year old) is on his way right now. But my sister from Boston is also coming tonite and she's bringing her freshly minted fiance and her 2 soon-to-be step-children ( my soon-to-be niece and nephew!). So that brings the total to about 15 people. My husband is freakin' out.

These are my choices?

2005-03-08T21:35:00.003-05:00

Sex and the City OR The Hunt for Red October OR the Trinity channel with the chubby people singing about the city of god... TV is bad. Now we're watching House for the first time. It's about some cranky maverick doctor and I'm pretty sure I hate it.

I work with doctors and people on their way to becoming doctors and I like most of those people. Working in health care has made me realize what a huge and growing industry is health care in the U.S. I've also learned how to spell health care.

One disturbing thing about my job is that sometimes I have to evaluate the materials that we use. Sometimes I accidentally open a book or a file that has some grody image in it.

I know people who had once been doctors who become librarians, but I don't know any doctors who started out as librarians.

Aw Geez.

2005-03-06T23:34:00.000-05:00

Well, I did it again. I commented on my work blog while logged in as my personal self.

Sheesh.

If you got here from our work blog, be warned that the blog here is that of my personal life and not related to work at all...

Read at your own risk. You can turn back without penalty or regret now.

Working with my Man

2005-03-06T22:55:00.000-05:00

My family is coming to stay in our house in about 2 weeks. My family -- the ones who get to stay with me -- will number about 12 when they descend upon us. They're willing to sleep anywhere and they cook for themselves and they talk to each other and to anyone around them constantly. I cannot wait until they get here! I talk more around them in about 24 hours then I normally talk in a week!

My husband is very nervous about their coming, and I don't blame him.

There's one good thing about their impending arrival for him -- we're painting and that means that we get to hang art on the walls. When we moved our stuff into the house over a year ago, he wanted to hang up our pictures immediately. I insisted that we would not hang art on the ugly, dirty, papered walls -- I insisted that we live with the bare ugly walls, lest we lose our motivation to beautify the place. So here we are -- we've now done everything that it takes to get to the point of applying paint of an actual color to the walls.

My husband and I both like color. The only white paint that will be around when we're finished here is on the ceiling and trim. We've had some fun choosing colors, but sometimes it leads to a little bit of anxiety. We are currently painting our living room a Magic Color. When we first started applying it, we were both pretty scared. It looked like some peach color that came straight from one of Don Johnson's t-shirts when he was on that Miami show (I don't think that my husband ever watched that show). But right now, the color looks even better to me than I expected it to.

Before it had morphed away from the Miami color, though, my husband and I spent a few minutes feeling each other out on what would happen if the paint didn't turn out the way we wanted it to. We each took turns being positive and negative about it, until we finally mutually agreed that we would paint the room with the paint we have and if we don't like it, we'll deal with it later. In this case, later most likely means about 24 months down the road.

I like working with this guy. Not a lotta pressure. And he is sooooo good-lookin'.

I'm Bloggin!

2005-03-02T16:19:00.000-05:00

Yo.
When my friend redballoon posted her first blog entry, she said that the hard thing about starting something new for her is the starting. For me, the hardest part about starting something is knowing that I'll get distracted at some point and won't have time to keep it up. What can I say, I'm a busy lady.

Today my boss suggested that we start a new blog to communicate with our users and I'm now an editor on that blog. Well, darn it, you can bet that if I'm gonna have to do it for work, I'm gonna make an extra effort to keep up with my bloggin' for fun. Besides, in case you haven't heard, there's a new blog in town that I need to keep up with.

Peace.

What we got here is a brick red kitchen!

2005-02-13T21:29:00.000-05:00

We finished painting the kitchen this weekend. Everything is painted, ceiling to trim. We even hung a new light fixture with fancy halogen spot lights (the original ugly-ass fixture from 1969 went out with last week's garbage -- sorry if you had your eye on it!). Our new kitchen is a thing of beauty and I am so excited about getting the rest of the house in shape.

When my husband and I each moved to Omaha (before he was my husband), we each had our own apartment. Within 6 months of me and the pooch arriving there, the three of us rented a house together. We looked at lots of houses before we found the one that we lived in for over 3.5 years. For me, the deal-cincher was that when we walked in the door, the floors were all hard wood and every room save one was painted a color other than white. I loved living in that house. I was so comfortable there. The house had many problems. To name a few: the basement was a hideous swampy place; the bathroom was the only room in the house with carpet in it and it was what you would imagine bathroom carpet to be; and the walls behind the shower were crumbling. In fact, the walls in every room lost about 3 ounces of plaster each time I hung a new piece of art. But the bathroom was painted a rich tan, the office was green, the living room and our bedroom a muted yellow, and the dining room was, yes, imperial red. Color on the walls allowed me to forgive a multitude of sins.

We started painting the kitchen last week. Between the crazy disarray of a kitchen in progress and my crazy out-of-control job, I was ready to sell the house and move out of the area all together. But now that we have a red kitchen, I think I can stay here for another month. We'd better get the other rooms painted quick-quick.

Don't do Anything Else Until You Look at This!

2005-02-10T13:16:00.000-05:00

http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html

My Man has a Good Ticker

2005-02-09T22:30:00.000-05:00

It's just shaped a little funny.

"Healthy white baby?!," I says. "What else ya got?"

from The Plague, by Albert Camus

2005-02-09T22:17:00.000-05:00

"But what had he, Rieux, won? No more than the experience of having known plague and remembering it, of having known friendship and remembering it, of knowing affection and being destined one day to remember it. So all a man could win in the conflict between plague and life was knowledge and memories. But Tarrou, perhaps, would have called that winning the match."

"They knew now that if there is one thing that one can always yearn for and sometimes attain, it is human love."

"Nonetheless, he knew that the tale he had to tell could not be one of a final victory. It could be only the record of what had had to be done, and what assuredly would have to be done again in the never ending fight against terror and its relentless onslaughts, despite their personal afflictions, by all who, while unable to be saints but refusing to bow down to pestilences, strive their utmost to be healers."

One good thing

2005-02-09T22:11:00.000-05:00

When I was in jr. high, my dad came home one weekend with a ceiling fan for every room in our suburban ranch house. Since I was the oldest kid, I won the role of helper to him for that day. Because of that day, now I can install the light fixtures in my own house.

That one thing worked out O.K.

ketchup on the walls

2005-02-07T22:15:00.000-05:00

We started painting the kitchen last nite. We're going for a deep brownish red. The guy at the paint store told us that it'll take 3 coats at least.

When I started cutting in on for the first coat (that's right, I said cutting in. I've been studyin' up on dis) it looked liked I'd smeared ketchup all around the edges of the walls.

The only reason I can even mention ketchup is because I am so certain that it will not look like ketchup when we're done.

progression of the disease

2005-02-05T16:24:00.000-05:00

I haven't spoken to my mother since the first week in December. My youngest sister lives with her and I haven't spoken to her either. It's painful. I had to stop speaking to them because the choices they make and their actions are only pointing toward destruction. All my speeches to them were how they must change direction. They refused to listen, no matter how I pleaded, how much evidence I presented, how much of my own heart's blood I spilled over them -- they refused. So I had to get out of it.

Last night, I found out from my Aunt that my mother spent last weekend in jail. In jail. Neither my mother nor my sister who lives with her called me for help. That's a relief because I can't give it -- it's too late for the kind of help that I can give. Bailing my mother out of jail so she can continue what she's doing is not help.

When I was in high school, before I could admit to myself that I hated my father, I played a game with myself. I would ask, "What if he died tonight?" I tried to imagine if I would be sad at all or if I would just be relieved. I could only very secretly admit to myself that I would be relieved and that I would have to pretend that I was sad just so the rest of the world wouldn't know that I was a monster. Today, I can say that I would be relieved and I won't even have to pretend that I'm sad about it -- I know which one of us is the monster.

I played the game with myself about my mother today. The answer that I got is not the easy one. If I lost my mother today, I would weep for her. No pretending. I weep for her now anyway.

There's just this sadness and pain that won't go away. I have learned to put it aside for periods of time -- sometimes I can ignore it, sometimes I can forget about it, sometimes I can work around it. But there are days like today when all I can do is cry. I don't want to share it with anyone personally -- it gets so old and so heavy and it's such a black hole. I get so self-conscious about asking anyone to listen to it or to comfort me -- it doesn't leave any room for anyone else's pain or joy.

I know that I used to find distractions that would avoid these things that I can't change. Too much booze and drugs, terrible relationships -- those things kept me from doing the things that I needed to do to be stable. When I was sad then, I knew that there were things I needed to change to fix it -- I knew that if I changed my actions, I could make my situation better. I've gotten rid of those distractions but the pain isn't gone.

Do I get to ever escape this? Am I going to do this for the rest of my life? If I can't feel better by being good, then why am I wearing out myself to try? On days like this, I fight the seduction of self-destruction. I could go on a bender, wreck my job, spend too much money... create situations that I would have to fix, but that are fixable. Why not?

I only have one reason that I maintain self-control -- it's for that man who's in the other room playing a love song on his guitar. Because of him, I can imagine what my life can be like without this darkness. For how long can one person soothe another? Does the image of my life without this pain make the pain more terrible?

I need some relief.

go blog yourself

2005-02-03T14:19:00.000-05:00

There's this lady that I work with who is really quite a dynamo. She's with us on a one-year fellowship and she's really into her work. She's great for keeping us informed about what's new in technology and in the world and she's given a big shot-in-the-arm to our professional development. I really like her and am trying to figure out a way that I can hire her when her year-long fellowship is up.

But now she's done it. She has introduced blogging as a tool that my workplace can probably use. She and our boss are posting all kindsa work related blogs and are wanting us to comment on them. She did a really cool thing by showing me how I can get RSS feeds from the blogs that I like, but dammit! I really don't want an RSS feed of my work blog.

Blogging is for fun. Work is work. The twain don't need to meet. Sheesh.

Damn! 285,000 hails!

2005-02-01T22:05:00.000-05:00

We're watching the Star Trek where Worf is caught in a quantum reality fissure. He is some kinda confused and then all of a sudden, there are 285,000 other Enterprises.

I can relate. Sometimes I feel like life is coming at me that way. Worf had all those alternate realities to choose from... None of them seemed to involve a nap though.

Disjointed thoughts

2005-02-01T21:34:00.000-05:00

I used to say, "I'll sleep when I'm dead." When I said that, the conditions of my life were very different than now and I spent my waking hours in very different ways.

I am working my tushie off these days. My job is challenging and rewarding and I've got good prospects for professional growth there.

One year + 2 days ago, my husband and I bought our house. Since then we've painted our bedroom, had the kitchen remodeled, and today we had our tall staircase painted.

Last weekend, my business partner and I made a presentation at a conference in New Mexico. We each took our husbands with us.

There are so many things that I want to do with my time. I want to make our house comfortable. I want to be a superstar at my job. I want to publish and make presentations and I also want to go back to school to learn Spanish and read and write English better. I want to start a family with my husband and be a good wife and mother and daughter-in-law.

If I don't sleep, I could get a lot more done.

Revising, not revisionist

2005-01-24T21:12:00.000-05:00

After reading yesterday's post, the Love of my Life expressed concern for me. He said, "That reads like the writing of an unhappy person who's trying to convince herself that she's happy."

In fact, I have quite a few journal entries where I have written like that... I'm not going to share them with you here because they are sad and they embarrass me. However, because I've written that story before, I know that yesterday's post is not the same story. The problem with yesterday's entry is that it reads like the writing of a person who says she cares about writing but was too lazy to write well.

Here's the story: this weekend was dull. It wasn't fun, it wasn't busy, there was nothing doing and it was just dull. When I wrote about it, I was trying to get some perspective on it and I didn't do a good job.

My husband asks me on a fairly regularly basis, "Are you happy?" When he asks me this, he's not asking if I'm happy on a superficial level... it's not "Are you happy with your salad dressing?" or "Are you happy with the way your lipstick goes with your blouse today?" When he asks, it's because he knows that in my life I've had plenty of reasons to be unhappy. I struggle with it -- I don't want to suffer all the time precisely because it is dull and heavy and it's a drag on the person who I love most. It also bothers me when he says that my writing sounds like unhappiness because it doesn't do justice to my life now. I have things in my life worth being unhappy about. A boring weekend is not one of those things.

So let me be clear on this point: This weekend was dull. Years ago, I would have never considered a weekend like this possible because I lived Friday nite at least 3 nights a week. It was fun. During that time of abundant Friday nites and fun, I had no hope of any real future, no hope of a permanent partner who is good and kind and trustworthy, no hope of having my own house, and no hope of having a job other than waiting tables or tending bar. It might seem I've made a deal with the devil: I've given up all those Friday nites (or I've spent more than my lifetime allotment), now I get stability and wholeness and goodness. If I have to sacrifice the occasional 48 hours to the demon gods of boredom, then so be it. The glory of Starz and Some and the duplex on Broadway is over. But since then I’ve had some moments that make those old Friday nites seem like dry toast. I’m not finished, y’hear me?

It has come to this

2005-01-23T17:25:00.000-05:00

This weekend's itenerary:

Friday night: cook dinner and eat with my husband's parents. They are funny, intelligent, interesting, and entertaining people and it's a pleasure to spend time with them. They don't even read this blog and I still say those things about them. Definitely the highlight of the weekend.

Saturday: the area expected big snow, so we took the dog to the P-A-R-K (can't say it, he knows that word) when it was just snowing a little to let him get rid of some energy. Then to grocery store where we bought groceries as though we wouldn't be able to leave the house for 4 days -- it was mostly eggs, coffee, cheese, and wine. Then we watched some Star Trek; exercised a bit; watched some more S.T.; watched Anchor Man; more S.T.; fell asleep watching SNL.

Sunday: did some work (yep, for my job) while sitting in my PJ's; shovelled some snow; finally got dressed and went to the store to buy stuff for my job.

I might not be the most boring person in the world, but I think I'm a contender. The kicker is that I'm not even upset about it... I am what I am and this weekend is what it is. How can I live this way? Why is this OK for me now? It's gotta be because my life is so good that I don't have to honkey-tonkin' to chase down something that I don't have. I've got it and it's at all at home.

Inauguration

2005-01-19T22:29:00.000-05:00

I think that tonite I became the president of our Home Owners Association.

"How in the hell could that happen?" one might ask. The quick answer is that I'm a sucker who likes to be in charge of stuff, no matter how stoopid the stuff. The long answer is that I'm a sucker who likes to be in charge of stuff.

I believe that I shall close traffic on our street, declare that our county must pay for our expenses out of the homeland security budget, and that my spouse shall wear Oscar de la Renta to the ball. Join me or be left behind.

Can I call it a mandate if nobody else wanted the job?

Ms. Manners does not approve

2005-01-18T21:33:00.000-05:00

I have this thing about manners: I love 'em. Manners help us live comfortably with one another and are an obvious way to show respect to others who happen to share the same space as you at any given moment.

The best gifts my birth mother gave to me was to teach me to always say please and thank you; to put my napkin in my lap before taking a bite of food; and to chew with my mouth closed. I loved learning the proper way to set a table and if I'm faced with more than 4 utensils at a setting, I can cipher which fork to use. I'm proud that my best friend refers to me as an authority on protocol because she considers me a Southern Belle. (Yes, she grew up in a different country than this one and she doesn't know many other Southern Ladies -- I'm still proud).

My love of manners puts me in the habit of wanting to avoid embarrassing another person. That's why when a student in an advanced degree program at Prestigious University buuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrppppppped during my lecture today, my reaction was a very subdued, "That's Nice. That's Very Classy," and then I proceeded with my point.

What I really wanted to say was, "Look, you spoiled, punk-ass medical student! You don't know what I'm talking about and I do. So sit up and pay attention!" However, that's his momma's job. If my mother could do it, I know his momma could.

I have dreams that out of those 140+ students sitting in the auditorium during that lecture, one of them will suffer embarrassment on behalf of that classmate and email an apology to me. One of the things about having good manners is that you expect that someone else in the room will know how to respond. However, another trait of a person of good manners is that she treats others personally while she avoids taking personally most of the actions of others.

Fucking brat.

Snow, the book this time

2005-01-12T18:55:00.000-05:00

I've finished reading Snow, by Orhan Pamuk (translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely). It took me longer than usual to read this book -- I read Life of Pi in the middle of reading Snow. At first it was the overall sadness of the book that slowed me down, then it just became the book itself. I finished it because of a kind of contest -- it came down to that book or me.

How's that for a review? My real problem with the book is that I just don't care about any of the characters -- the only character with any promise dies as a teenage boy. The main character is a 42-year old man who can't make up his mind about anything. He's whiny, insecure, and worst of all, he doesn't think about anything besides chasing his own happiness throughout the entire 400 pages. The protagonist, a militant named Blue, says it best in a pithy quote about how when one only seeks his own happiness, he ends up miserable. I could give you the actual quote, but I already returned the book to the library.

If you must know, I did a very geeky thing and went looking for reviews of the book to see if I just completely missed the boat. Doesn't look like I did. John Updike reviews the book for the New Yorker and Margaret Atwood gives a review for the NY Times Book Review -- just in case you're interested.

So, can anyone recommend anything to read? I'm wide open.

Snow

2005-01-09T09:55:00.000-05:00

Snow is the title of the book I'm reading right now. I've not digested enough of it to talk about it here.

But I'm in Weston, MA right now (a woodsy place outside of Boston) and they got TONS of snow yesterday. I'm not going out in it.

I was in Boston last year in January and it was the coldest winter in 17 years. I promised myself that I wouldn't make the same mistake and go to Boston in January ever again. I told myself that I'd go somewhere warm and sunny and green in January if I needed to take a trip. Funny how those promises I make to myself are the easiest ones to break.

I gotta learn how to make my own weather. You might think I mean that in some metaphorical, psychological sense, but you're wrong this time. I'm talking about some Dr. Evil / Mr. Burns make my own weather kinda thing. It'll be just right, I promise.

Life of Pi

2005-01-07T11:28:00.000-05:00

** Warning: This post contains a mild spoiler. If you haven't read the book yet and plan to, you might wanna skip this posting. --Miss Kate**

I recently finished reading Life of Pi, on loan to me from my sweet friends in Brooklyn. Early in the story, a friend of Pi tells us that "this story will make you believe in God." I was dubious of that claim when I read it, since I'm fundamentally skeptical of any such notion. One of the questions for group discussion at the end of the book asks,"Did Pi's tale alter your belief in God?" My answer is a simple, "No." What Pi's tale did for me was make me think about the power of forgiveness. Specifically, about the power of forgiving oneself for being strong.

In order for Pi to survive, he had to do many, many things that he never wanted to do. But he did them and became good at doing them. His reluctance to do those things wasn't out of laziness or squeamishness -- he didn't want to do those things because he felt the pain that those actions would bring to others. But he survived because he did those things. The question is, how can one survive while acting in ways that are completely at odds with the ideal that one has established for herself? Pi did it by telling his story. He says, "The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? Doesn't that make life a story?"

Pi tells two stories, one full with an orangutan, a zebra, a hyena, and a tiger. That story contains all of the pieces that allow him to forgive himself for surviving when others did not survive. At the request of two investigators, he tells another story and he describes the story before he tells it. He tells the men, "You want a story that won't surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or further or differently..." After he gives the men that story, all of them agree that the first story with the animals is the better one.

Survival is not for the weak because it is brutal.

I hope to learn to tell my story in ways that allow me to be compassionate with myself for surviving and that help me forgive myself for not meeting my ideals during every trial. Every minute is a new chance that I can make it and reach for my ideals again. Writing helps.

Here's to those stories that help us see higher and further and differently. Be well, R.P.

January 5

2005-01-05T21:46:00.000-05:00

When I was in 1st grade and she was in preschool, someone gave her a Sesame Street alarm clock. It was in the shape of a school house and the clock face was set in the school house like you'd expect it to be. Sitting on the steps of the school house were Big Bird, Ernie, Oscar, and Little Bird. We slept in the same bed then because we were little kids and she liked to talk me to sleep at nite. When the alarm clock went off in the morning, it was Big Bird saying,
"Good morning, it's me, your friend, Big Bird. The old school house clock says, 'It's time to get up!' Ernie and Little Bird and Oscar and I hope you have a nice day. Now brush your teeth, wash your face, and don't forget to wind the clock!" When Big Bird finished his speech, the clock would make a cha-click noise and would start it all over again. When we had memorized the speech, cha-click and all, we used it to bug our mother on many occasions.

She is my sister and I will do anything for her.

January 5 is what we call Sammy Love Day.
6 years ago today, Harris and I brought home our dog. That night, we asked ourselves many times, "How can something so little smell so bad?" We still ask a variation on that question, except he's not little any more.
He is spoiled and stinky, but he's still the best dog you'd ever want to know.

The Yellow Wallpaper

2005-01-03T21:40:00.000-05:00

My high school held a contest every year for dramatic reading. Students were to pick some piece of literature and learn to read it with drama and inflection and had to finish within a very strict time limit. I was lucky in high school that in my senior year, I had a sister who was a freshman. She is a very dramatic person. I had never considered entering this contest in my previous three years of high school, but in her very first year, she had signed up to compete on the very first day the contest was announced. She brought home this incredible short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, titled The Yellow Wallpaper. I stayed uninterested in this contest until I heard my sister read this piece -- and then I had to have it. My sister is so nice to me -- she really should have told me to shove it -- that she let me start practicing with this story to read it for the competition. Throughout the story, the narrator loses her mind and her demise is brought on by some wretched wallpaper in the room to which she's confined. This is a dramatic short story. I read it and practiced it at home, in my english class, and for anyone that I could make sit still for the very strict 5 or 6 minute time limit. At the competition, I gave it my all (the key is under a plantain leaf! UNDER A PLANTAIN LEAF!), but was disqualified because I was a few seconds over time.

Two or three years later I learned that Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent feminist in the late 19th / early 20th centuries who was called crazy for thinking like a woman. She was my first introduction to feminism and I was thrilled to meet her again when I was older and could appreciate what she was getting at.

My husband and I moved into our first house that we own last February. When we bought the house, I knew immediately that two things had to change: the kitchen and the wallpaper in the dining room. When we saw this wallpaper, my sister and I both immediately called to mind that narrator's description of the wallpaper in her confinement room:

I never saw a worse paper in my life.
One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.
It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide--plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.
The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.
It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.

It is that bad.

The kitchen is now finished, except for some paint. I've finally worked up my nerve and have attacked the wallpaper. I'd like to say it's a satisfying process, but this wallpaper is printed on gold foil, which makes removing the paper a real s.o.b. I've gotten half of the paper down now and it has cost me 10 precious hours of my precious life. This process is so bad that I find myself using my fingernails to pull the paper off in strips, like my narrator. I haven't done it yet, but by the end of the fight, I'll probably have gone to work on the walls with my teeth. I will win this battle. You're not gonna find me hanging out a window, telling my hubby to pick up the key under any damned banana tree.

Would Charlotte Perkins Gilman be impressed? I wonder.

My Friends

2005-01-02T21:26:00.000-05:00

I am a shy person. People who know me professionally never believe me when I say that, because my job is a very public job. I do a lot of public speaking and I do much of the public relations for my department. It's very easy for me to get up in front of a crowd and talk or teach or do whatever has to be done because none of that is about me -- none of that is personal.

It usually takes me a very long time (or some very intense circumstances) for me to trust someone enough to purposefully reveal myself to him or her. I am also often more comfortable not talking when I'm with someone -- I would rather speak only if I have something to say. I'm not good at that art of finding things to say -- for me, it's either there or not. My mother has told me that when I was little, before I started school, she and I would drive around doing errands together and that I would sit quietly and not say a word for miles. She told me that I got more talkative when my younger sister started talking, but by then it was just so that I wouldn't feel like anyone forgot about me. I think I still live like that.

With all of my reticence, it's a wonder I have any friends at all. But there are some amazing people in my life who have let me open myself up to them in my own time. The people who are my friends -- those whom I've trusted enough to let them see my vulnerable self -- are such rich, good, beautiful, and trustworthy pieces of art that I am humbled when I think about what they're doing in my life.

I live very far away from many of my friends. I am fortunate to live close to three of them and I see them almost every day (My husband is one of them -- it's a bad day when I don't see him!). Those friends who live close to me are very important to my daily life. We don't talk on the phone much, unless it's to say, "I'll be right over," or "will you bring some wine when you come?" With my friends who live far away, I almost never call and rarely email. I do my best to call on birthdays (the most important holiday of the year), but due to the nature of birthdays, I usually only get to leave a message. It's perfectly conceivable that I can go for more than a year without hearing the voice of one of my friends. It's back to that driving for miles without talking pattern: I'm really comfortable in that silence.

Maybe part of the reason that I don't have to talk to my friends so often is because I can often hear their voices as I live my life. In that whole process that it takes me to become friends, I'm learning about those people as much as they learn about me. Once we're friends, that person is a part of me and I start to see parts of the world through his or her eyes. Sounds a little like We are Borg, right? Well, maybe, except that the Borg are not selective and I am.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much I love my friends. When I am in trouble, I usually withdraw and don't talk to any of my friends about what's going on in my head. When I start to come out of a phase of trouble, I find myself trying to reconnect with those people whose voices sustained me without their being aware of it. I have also been thinking about how I feel when I am able to help one of my friends. I feel needed and loved when a friend trusts me with some frustration or heartache and when I have the opportunity to try to do something to ease my friend. It is so difficult for me share my troubles that I tell myself that I'm doing my friends a favor by not laying the heavy on them. I wonder, though, if I'm really being a good friend when I do that. Would I be a better friend if I ask my friends for help when I need it?

I want to learn how to be a better friend to the beautiful people who are in my life. Those who have saved me from unhappiness and despair many times over deserve my attention and evidence of my affection. I think I'll start looking for a book on how to be a good friend... and I'll work on letting them know where my head is. I'll bet they'd be interested to know what their voices say in my head when they're not around.

Working through some holidays

2004-12-29T22:58:00.000-05:00

I'm going to work this week, in between Christmas and the New Year. Although I don't celebrate the Christmas holiday, I completely enjoy having a couple of days off surrounding that day. In fact, I might enjoy that time off more than many people do, since I don't have all that holiday stress that people wear from December 1-25. However, I find it pretty irritating to go from a few very easy days of no work to 3 in-between days of work, knowing that I'll have some nice time off coming up. My motivation at the workplace this week is about as scarce as staff in my workplace this week.

And wow! that's a whiny paragraph! Keep Moving, Miss Kate.

This evening, I went with my family to a restaurant that we'd not tried before. Passion fruit juice + tequila + ginger + jalepeno is a good combination. Cheese + wild mushrooms is another combo I recommend. I ate almost as much cheese tonite as I ate at NYE a few years ago. On that particular New Year's Day, I woke up with a belly ache that lasted until nighttime. Hopefully I'll do better tomorrow, since I have to go to work and all. And since I'm doing enough bellyaching already.

I'm reading The Life of Pi -- and it's g-double-o-d. If I stop now, I might be able to read a chapter before going to sleep. So, bon nuit.

Posting, the First

2004-12-28T22:58:00.000-05:00

I've been reading the blogs of my friends and listening to them speak about the writing. I am interested in what a different picture I get of a person by reading his or her writing than just by living with the person. I wonder if by writing regularly, I can get that kind of different perspective on myself.
I imagine that this blog will be pretty boring to others. I am not clever like my friends and I have the feeling that I'm much more self-centered than they are -- I'll wait to see if what I write shows that to be true.
When I was in college studying literature, one of my friends and I really wanted to be writers. I decided that to be a writer, I needed to see and experience every kind of thing that I possibly could. At the time, that meant drinking a lot, smoking a lot, talking smack a lot, and sleeping very little. Somehow I also worked in a couple of rides in two-seater planes and on a sailboat. And somehow I didn't do the writing for which all of that experience was supposedly priming me.
Maybe writing requires a more stable mind. Maybe writing can help me produce a more stable mind. I have lots of things to get out of my head and maybe I can do it here. I hope that I'll be able to clear most of the voices out of my head so that I can hear my own -- or at least get enough of them to shut up so I can take count.