OK, See I...

...find myself doing things simply for the story they'll give me. So far this hasn't got me into any trouble, but there's a first time for everything. As they say.

I signed up for online dating. Or re-signed up, cause I've done it before. I know!! Why did I do this? Because I want to trick someone into loving me. Oh, that sounds sad. Rephrased: I want to find a cool dude to travel with, who will end up falling head over heels in love with me, and I with him, and apparently I don't know how to approach men in public, when I'm sober, and may not remember it or keep my composure when I'm drunk.

First fun story to come out of this and also bad news bears; one of the first messages I received reads:

haha, all your pics are super goofy but i like it because you're kind of cute. let's go get a drink when you're not busy, but that's everyday! 

Awesome! I'm almost tempted to respond to this guy with a "You shouldn't tell people they are kind of anything. Either they are or they aren't. And I am busy every day, so I can't meet you - ever." Just because I don't smile in photos and I'm currently unemployed doesn't mean I'm not a catch!
  .

I probably won't tell you any more about this foray into the 011000110010101 forest of men, but I just might. Oh yes, I just might. Or I'll delete this post after a week and you'll never read anything about dating from me ever again and I'll just write about all my wonderful cats.

So I am

Sometimes I don't realize things about myself until other people point them out. Oblivious to myself, but extremely aware of you, your scent, your odd behaviors and terrible spelling. I'm very much a type of person with my head in the clouds, thinking about some awesomely strung together words I'll later forget about before I have a chance to write them down, and/or creating relationship fantasies with the babe-a-sauruses sitting across from me on the EL or passing me on the street that I won't even say "hello" to or look at directly.

Occasionally I'll come to conclusions on my own, like when I'm happy I look happy, or when I'm sad I look sad; I wear my heart on my face. (Why on your sleeve? I don't like this reference. I don't spend time looking at peoples' sleeves, unless they're covered with colorful tattoos or if a bird just shat on them.) But usually, I'll just hum along completely unaware until someone says something.

The most recent occurrence was when I was hanging out with my step dad's neurologist in my hometown. He's an Indian from India. I love India! LOVE IT! A few months back at one of my step dad's appointments, the doc told my parents he had just returned from India. "India? Really? My daughter went to India and she loved it." The doc said he wanted to meet me. My mother told me all this and I groaned at the thought of her trying to set me up with any available man she might meet. "He's skinny though, Kate. He's really skinny. But he likes yoga, and he's from India, and he wants to meet you!" I told my mom we would see.

June came around and I was back home, and my step dad just happened to have an appointment my fourth day in town. I went along for the ride. The appointment seemed less focused on my step dad, and more focused on me. I was embarrassed. This is a set-up, I kept thinking the whole time. I don't want to be here anymore. I never should've come. My mother was smiling with visions of grandchildren dancing in her head. It didn't help matters that he asked me to coffee, which seemed harmless enough, although in front of my parents it again made me feel awkward. He wrote down his number and email and said "Tomorrow. Starbuck's at 6pm," with the slightest head wobble.

My mom asked me what happened as we were walking to the car. "What do you mean 'what happened?'" She explained that she couldn't understand him most of the time and was impressed that I was able to have such a long conversation with him. I told her I was meeting him for coffee the next night, and she beamed and got that glossy look in her eyes once more.

He stood me up at Starbuck's. I waited for 15 minutes and then I called him. I shouldn't of called him, I didn't really want to do any of this. He couldn't hear me, so I had to leave the Starbuck's to talk because I was shouting and the people trying to read their Kindles scowled at me. Wednesday we decided. I would go over to his house the next night.

When I arrived he was excited, and I was sweating because NW Missouri heat and humidity is enough to kill a cat. We talked about where he was from and his story in coming to America, and he was happy that I knew places that he was talking about and that I had lived abroad. He smiled and told me it was always nice to meet an international. I laughed because I didn't consider myself as one, but he assured me I was, and then told me I didn't belong in America. So he took me up real high and then he pushed me off the platform. It wasn't intended as an insult, but being an international, one would assume that they belong everywhere... and also nowhere. It's lonely.

Needless to say, things didn't work out between the doc and I. He started monopolizing all of my time and for a couple days I let him because it was nice to drive my mom's car alone and away from my parents' house and applying for jobs, but then it seemed like he wanted to be more than friends and this confused me. And then he started sending me poetic reflections via text and since I was on a prepaid plan I put everything to a stop - and when I say that I really mean that I just stopped responding to his texts after the first one and told him I was too busy to see him (I'm a terrible person, but I've known that for a while). That has nothing really to do with the rest of the story, but it does at the same time; there's closure for you there.

The first time I recall someone pointing out something true about myself was when I was a freshman at DePaul University. I lived in a communal dorm hall, and we were all friends, or we pretended to be. One of my roommate's boyfriend was coming in town, and the other one was out of town, so I was to find another place to sleep for the weekend. I ended up taking my friend Jen's bed because she was spending the weekend in the suburbs with her boyfriend.

I went to sleep with no one in the room, and I woke up to see a large lump in Stacey's bed, but two voices talking. "Good morning!"s were exchanged and then a man propped himself up behind Stacey. He said, "Oh! It's a woman." And again I laughed. A woman? I was 18. I was wearing my retainer and had to wear glasses to see 10 feet in front of me. If anything I was a dork, but this guy said I was a woman, and not a girl. All that day I walked around with birds singing on my shoulders and flowers blooming in my wake. No longer a Disney princess, but well on my way to becoming a queen.

There have been other instances of people telling me what I am, but they're not appropriate to share in this forum, so we'll leave each other knowing that I am an international woman of mystery, and you're amazing and probably bored - or were bored, but now you're enlivened by the entertainment I've provided. And so we are.

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.