I don't know....

It's true. I don't. I have no idea what's going on. This may be because I've been drinking since 3pm and it's now 2:30am -- though it's been sporadic drinking, consisting of a bottle of beer, a bottle of red wine, and two gin and tonics *aka. YOU DON'T GET TO JUDGE ME!!!

I can't help but thinking about things, and now that I've come to my computer screen the thoughts seem to allude me. Though I will say that I have no idea what I'm doing day to day. I don't like being unemployed as much as I like it. I try to keep calm and cool about it, but I can't help but feeling a panicked failure about the whole situation. A sort of why am I not good enough? material. This is the 'woe is me' coming out. Things change. They always have, they always will. I just need to breathe. And I know this, but sometimes things are easier said than done. Remember this.

I'm getting older. I didn't feel it so much until I returned home and saw my people essentially two years older. It makes me want to cry as happy as it makes me to see the growth. I see it in myself. I have laugh wrinkles around my eyes and my metabolism doesn't take care of my alcoholism like it used to (which has grown exponentially since I left America --- ass and alcoholism, though it's not an affliction if the whole country you live in is affected by it. Korea. I love you).

I don't like starting my paragraphs with "I," it makes me feel selfish. I was just lying in bed and feeling restless. I've been overwhelmed with a bevy of thoughts from ecstatic-ism to severe panic of being back home. From seeing my family (friends included, as they are the family that you choose) happy and healthy to the corners of job interviews where I would stay if I accepted. I don't know where I belong, and like anything I assume it is something that will take time, as much as I feel like a visitor in my old life with all these recollections and such happening, new bonds are forming. I'm confused. Obviously.

America pisses me off. This fact upsets me in so many ways. Ignorance is bliss. I am no longer ignorant to the injustice that is happening on our soil: healthcare, education, the warS, taxes, other things that I can't even begin to go into because of my lack of knowledge. It infuriates me that we are the only modern nation without universal healthcare.  SERIOUSLY!?!?!?! Seriously?! That is shit. Corporations, fuck you. That we are bleeding ourselves dry in wars that are shitlessly unwinnable (but when is war ever a win?) -- there are no better terms, and I'm pissed -- that we can't educate and engage students properly and successfully as a whole, and that regardless of income people pay the same percentage on taxes (essentially, I need to look into this, but I know it's bad news bears). I don't understand!! And I'm angry. We're supposed to be great. And we are! Really!! I believe it with my whole heart that America is amazing! Without her I would not have been myself! I would not have been afforded the opportunities to do the things I have done. But I'm angry that we, being the children of revolutionists, are so complacent with the shit hand we have been dealt. Life can be better, not only for ourselves, but for our neighbors in this country and in this world. And if that sounds frou-frou for you, I'm sorry, but take a look around and realize that there's much more to this thing called life than you or me. Humanity. This earth is larger than everything, and the universe is even greater, and none of us knows what it is that it holds, but you have to try with all of your heart and soul to make it the best that you possibly can.

Why can't we do this collectively? I don't understand.

I'm just curious. And I'm trying.

I may not be perfect, but I'm doing the best I can. And I started rhyming, so it's close to time to sign off. But I've been thinking about things that my mind can't get off... of. I'll say no more and end in this. Beatles. All You Need is Love, and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band leading into With a Little Help, most likely via that Wii stuff:

*how amazing would it be if everyone - EVERYONE - in the whole world felt this way? Beyond magic.


I love my friends. (family and those chosen included)

PS - how amazing would it have been to scream at the television screen when your favorite Beatle (John, Paul, George, Ringo) came on the Ed Sullivan Show? Pretty incredible I bet. My Korean students loved "Yellow Submarine"s album to no end, and that might've been because I played it on repeat, but whatever, they're golden, like the rule: treat others how you want to be treated.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi

Summer Songs

We'll add more as the moments progress.


"Chin Music for the Unsuspecting Hero" Foster the People


"Where I'm Going" Cut Copy

Machu Picchu was rediscovered July 24, 1911. CELEBRATION BY "Machu Picchu: The Musical" a work in progress by P. Sumner & Co.


"Goshen" Beirut
(7.25.2011)

Awwwwwkward.

I wish I wasn't so awkward. Or is it endearing? "Oh, that Kate is so awkward it's endearing. I didn't know someone could be so socially inept and blind to it at the same time, but it's kind of cute. Like she doesn't know what's going on around her. Awwww." And then they would move on to the next cage. They being aliens, and moving on from one type of human to another. The overachiever. The lazy bones. The fast walker. The lolligagger. The ice cream seller. The irate. The pacifist. The endearingly awkward. Among others. The collection is slowly expanding. All things in time.

Pitter. Patter. SWOOSH!!

It's been raining a lot in Northwest Missouri recently. It didn't rain last night, but it rained the night before that. And maybe even the night before that, but I was asleep in Kansas City, so I'm not really sure.

And not just rain. It's been thunderstorming, which is apparently not one word, but because I want it to be I am not going to insert the "appropriate" spacing/hyphen.

I'm never going to be famous. And no, I'm not drunk. It's just something that I'm slowly coming to realize. I'm in the process of "applying for jobs" right now which means I spend a lot of time aimlessly looking at facebook, profiles of people I haven't seen or spoken to in years; scanning Twitter accounts of strangers and famous people; unnecessarily updating and re-updating any and all accounts' statuses; eating wasabi peas until my nose starts to run; looking at pictures of animals in awkward situations; watching hilarrrrrrious clips of "Portlandia". It's a wonder I'm single, I know.

I always wanted to be famous when I was a child - actually up until this point, but while there's a part of me still clinging onto the fact that people will shout my name in the future, and not in the sense of "Kate! Kate! Put down that bottle! Kate! Stop the car! Stop! The door is open. Kate. Put both hands on the wheel." Yeah, in my soon-to-be realized future the policemen will know me on a first-name basis, I'll be like the woman in this anti-drug commercial. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that when I was a kid I thought I'd be an over-night celebrity like John Travolta. (I remember a vision of him strutting down the street in that white suit from "Saturday Night Fever" and hearing a VH1 announcer's voice-over in the background talking about how John was just an average Joe slinging burgers at the local Tastee Freeze when his life changed in a single moment; chance encounter, the rest they say is history. The next thing America and John knew he was a celebrity of the rarest kind: overnight.) One day I would wake up and Barbara Walters would be calling to interview me, but I wouldn't be able to make it because I was having lunch with Steven Spielberg - who stopped me on the street the week before. He wanted to discuss my upcoming movie with my boyfriend, Johnathan Taylor Thomas - who pleaded with me to date him days prior. That dream died when I was 16 and driving a Hyundai Accent in St. Joseph, Missouri instead of a Ferrari with Tia and Tamara Mowry through Malibu, but I was still holding out that maybe, just maybe, I could make it on my own one day. Nope. I went to LA. I walked among the people, and nobody batted an eye. I'm average, and that's okay. Because when I die at the ripe old age of 104, instead of leaving behind a massive wealth, my lawyer's, as instructed by my will, will dole out millions of my words to my descendants - if I don't outlive them - and I will become posthumously famous and they will never have to work a day in the rest of their lives. This is my dream.

But oh, the thunderstorms are so lovely. I haven't experienced one of those in a long time. The smell of the earth and lava rocks moistening. The sound of the grass growing. Splish. Splash. I can bathe outside. But then the lightning strikes, and I'm forced inside to peer through the blinds as the flashes of white dance across the sky to nature's crashing cymbals.

The other night it sounded like legions of leprechauns were throwing rocks at my windows. It was hail. HAIL!! I haven't seen snow in over 14 months!! I felt like I was at the beginning of Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude! Cold to the touch. I wanted to gather a handful and put it in a glass of water to give someone (I prefer room temperature; I have sensitive teeth), but everyone was asleep. Sheets of rain and driving winds woke me up at 4am. It was either that, or my bladder. I stared into the darkness in between the flashes of light, watching the blinds clang angrily against the window. Worried. The window was open because I like falling asleep to the sound of nature, but in waking up in the middle of the night I convinced myself that it was an early warning system of sorts. I needed to be able to the hear sound of an approaching misplaced train - or tornado - over the thunder. First alert to holler to the family and run down into the cellar. Or basement, Dorothy.

Is that a green sky, or metallic blue? Pewter. Ochre. (That wouldn't be right. But at 4am when I wrote it, it made perfect sense, and the sailor's say to 'take warning' in the event of a red sky at night... oh wait, it's morning...) A flash of lightning simultaneously coupled with a crash of thunder, indicating the storm was directly overhead. I moved away from the window and back to my bed. As I drifted back into a fitful sleep I imagined downed trees and power lines, crushed roofs, ruined dreams, upon waking in the morning.

The sun shone slanted through the blinds the next morning as my mom's dog, Ditka (a Foxoodle - Fox Terrier/Toy Poodle mix) licked my face awake. I was still average, and all was well in the world. Except I was still unemployed.

***Do yourself a favor, and imagine the following story as if it were a Robert Stack "Unsolved Mysteries" narrative:
Did you know: Lightning can go inside houses. It doesn't even have to knock or be invited in, like the Land Shark or vampires, respectively. Well, a door or window has to be open, so maybe the thunder knocks and the next lightning comes in. My mom said it happened to her once when she was a small child in Lincoln, Nebraska. The front door and back door were both open, she and her siblings were playing a board game in the middle of the living room and her mother and father were on the couch, when BLAMO!! Lightning cut straight on through her house. My mom remembered being scared, and said that grandma ran to shut the doors and was very hesitant to have open doors in storms ever after that. Just another reason to close your windows, close your doors.

The Bus

I missed the bus tonight. At the Art Walk in downtown LA with my girl, KTO. We crossed the cross-walk. I stopped midway to take a photo of this Merry Prankster-esque bus. A blonde Otto at the wheel. Kids hanging out of windows all over the place. Upon completing the crossing a raccoon-hatted Asian chick (on said bus) beckoned to me and KTO. "Hop on! Come with us!" The light changed green and we were all left hanging in open-mouthed awe, looking longingly as the distance gained. I've always wanted to ride on a magic school bus.

SHIT!

Not a bus, but about missing opportunities.


It was probably for the best. The bus-ees looked a bit young and they were probably boring and sober, or on the opposite extreme, high on heroin. Regardless, I'm going on the "things happen for a reason" route and trying not to imagine all the fun they're having right now... in jail.

Does this mean I'm getting old? I mean, I'm almost 26. Almost. Not yet there. If I was five, I'd totally be telling people I was six right now and my older brother, Alex, would embarrassingly correct me.

The tide is going out.

The tide is going out. The land increasing.

Sometimes I imagine it keeps going out, the water getting lower and lower, receding beyond the horizon.

Days pass.

The fishing community baffled. The farming community overjoyed. And I'm just confused.

I miss the water. I miss the waves.

I grab my boat just in case and I head out at first light.

I don't tell anyone where I'm going, they'd just try to stop me.

Halfway into the first day I'm exhausted. I didn't think this mission through. My boat is heavy from supplies and damaged from being dragged over the unavoidable coral.

Panting and wiping the sweat from my face I sit on the edge of my boat and shake my head at myself for acting on my foolish thoughts.

I'm too ashamed to turn and go back without having found anything to tell. I could lie, but what good is that when someone else could easily come out and prove me wrong.

I wondered where all the fish went. I suppose they went with the water. Sea cucumbers, urchins, starfish and the coral weren't so lucky I thought as I passed their skeletons.

Night began to fall and I climbed inside my boat at the end of an uneventful and lonely first day.

I dreamt of my family and village searching the island for me. Calling out my name and holding lanterns in the night. My heart broke as I thought about the pain I was surely causing my dear mother. Needless to say I didn't sleep well.

I awoke in the ocean desert, blinded by the sun shining bright in a cloudless blue sky. I was moving east toward the fabled New World. Fisherman spoke of having been there, but it took weeks, if not months, by boat.

I cried at my stupidity. I didn't want to die, but I didn't have a plan, or enough rations to last the predicted duration of such a voyage. No fish in the sea. No sea to see. In the end it all resulted in no me.

Days three and four were full of much of the same. Fear and anger.

Hunger came on day eight as the rations dwindled to bites.

The mirages started on the tenth.

I heard water on the eleventh and my heart leapt with joy.

The ocean was below me. Vast and wide as it had always been. I looked up from where I came as if the world had pushed my island upward without us knowing, or perhaps pushed this place down.

I had to get back to my people, to tell the fishermen their livelihood was not dead and gone. I had to shout to them what I shouted now, "The sea is alive. She is here!"

Reflected in the water, the sunlight danced on the sand like veins of continuous golden lightning as the clumps of green algae swayed in the lolling current. I was overwhelmed at the sight and smile at my luck of finding myself in this place.

The beauty was boundless.

I ran to the water to ensure it was real. It was cool and gentle and soothed my hot, sticky skin. I laughed and cried as I jumped and splashed for some time, basking in the glory of my discovery.

In my taking a breath of refreshing pleasure, I noticed an island I had not seen before on the horizon. About a two day row away, I decided I would rest and restore my stock for the rest of the day and upcoming night and again take off at first light.

I speared fish and feasted next to my driftwood fire. I smiled sprawled under the blanket of the sky, with the stars twinkling bright in the calm black night.

I set off rowing with the sun beating down, warming my back. I smiled at the possibility of people on that place. People who I hope would welcome me and help me home...
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I stopped writing because I noticed I was sitting on an ant hill, or very near to and I didn't like their tiny little bites - sorry guys! Geeze!! (me to them, not you). Plus my shade was dwindling on the treeless beach. I waded home in the low tide and it was magical and I had moments of bliss throughout. LIFE! I LOVE YOU!!

This probably needs to be edited, and yes, it also needs to be finished. Maybe you enjoy? Criticize away, please. On this and the "now she just mourns." Any other posts, you keep your mouth shut! I kid. I kid.

now she just mourns

I had wanted to stop. Really, I did.

I had wanted to stop, but I was in a hurry, and the fact that other people on the sidewalk did nothing seemed  as good an indicator as any that nothing was the matter.

I looked back as I ran away. The little boy screaming and wailing as he stood motionless on the pavement.

I figured from everyone's reactions - which were none at all - that he was being punished for being a naughty boy. I was a foreigner in a foreign land unaware to their customs.

I really wanted to turn and go back, but what would I have said? What could I have said? I didn't speak the language, and children tended to be frightened by my appearance more often than not.

No one else even looked at him, but their eyes followed me as I ran past.

I later learned that the boy had been separated from his mother earlier in the day, and sometime after I saw him he had wandered into traffic probably in hopes of finding her.

Upon reflection I can see that his behavior was more out of fear than the anger or shame that comes as a reaction to reprimanding parents.

Why didn't anyone else stop?
Were we all on the same page?

What about when he started toward the street? Was it because he was so small, and it was so dark? Did no one see him? There was never a lack of people in that place.

I was sad and confused when I heard the news. Why hadn't I stopped?

I had to log miles before dinner with friends.

That boy will never have a chance to log miles, or dine with friends, or do anything else for that matter.

I still think about him and what should have happened.

His mother would've been so grateful, now she just mourns.
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I saw a boy throwing a fit on a sidewalk I was running in Korea's late fall 2009. I hope he was being punished and that his mother or father or caretaker was watching from a shop window... a tragedy only in my mind.

PS - I was semi-inspired ("slash" robbed/stole/thieved) by Ms. Joyce Carol Oates' "Heat" http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/heat.html beautiful story. Today was beautiful. I'm happy and I hope you are too.