The Kitty Voice

Hellooo..ooo...ooo

2006-07-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

Is there an echo in here?

Does anybody still check The Kitty Voice in hopes that I've returned? Well, good news, kiddies: I'm planning a comeback for August 2006 after I have moved (yet again) and hopefully have access once again* to stolen wi-fi services. New look, new posts, same good down-home fun. In the meantime, get yer ass on MySpace and bother me on there or send me an email so I know there will be readers when I return.

Until then...no rest for the wicked.

*At my current apartment, my signal has disappeared. I think whoever I was stealing from moved. It's so rude and inconsiderate not to think of those who may be depending on your wireless service when you pack up and take off.

Oh my God.

2006-05-16T20:37:00.000-07:00

I have let this go for a ridiculously long time.

I am moving in a few days and have been packing, getting ready for my sister's wedding, and being happy.

I promise to return. And soon. Don't give up on me.

and y'all thought i got kidnapped by hillfolk, didn't'cha?

2006-04-19T18:17:00.000-07:00

And so I have survived Appalachia and made it home in one piece. Never mind that there are mysterious clusters of bruises (see visual aid below) on the backs of both my calves that showed up Sunday after my crazy night of salsa dancing, hysterical drinking, and hitting on band members.

Speaking of which, there will be a MEGA TKV POST EVENT this weekend that will include a daily run-down of my vacation as well as links to my photos from the trip. I’m putting it off because I want to be able to dedicate an entire day to writing and downloading photos so it all shows up at the same time, so those of you who are writhing in anticipation -- sit tight.

In other news, my emotional crisis has been averted and I’m back to being Me. I’m sure that’s a relief to everyone.

I got a new bridesmaid dress that fits and isn’t about 8 sizes too big. Also a relief, but mostly to me and my sister since this now means I won’t get arrested for indecent exposure at her wedding.

I’m thinking about going back to school and studying ecology/environmental science/wildlife conservation & protection.

I’m subletting my friend Heather’s apartment for the summer so that takes care of my pending homelessness. While it did get hit by the recent tornado, it’s still intact.

There’s nothing like a vacation to put things in perspective. That’s all I’m saying about that.

Until then...

Doin' it Hillbilly Style

2006-04-11T18:13:00.000-07:00

Yes - that's right, friends. Starting tomorrow (Wednesday) night, yours truly will be roaming the vast wooded wastelands of Appalachia until Monday. It will prove to be a most crazy time - my bestest buddy Bridget and I will be reunited after six long years of separation and now that we're both legal, it's hard saying what might happen. I suggest that the state of West Virginia take the proper precautions and batten down the hatches. Here's to no work, no responsibilities, no alarm clocks, perhaps even no shoes if I feel like bonding with the locals. Stay tuned -- stories, photos, and who knows what else will likely start popping up around here next week upon my return to civilization.

In the meantime, Clementine (top) and Oliver have been little packing helpers. They really know how to fill a suitcase.

(Mis)Adventures in Formal Wear

2006-04-09T11:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the first time I'd been able to try on my bridesmaid dress for my sister's wedding next month. I remember when I ordered the dress, I tried on one size in the store, they measured me for one size larger than that, but yet encouraged me to order yet another size larger than THAT because it's easier to take the dress in than it is to let it out. Due to my emotional crisis, I've lost 10+ pounds since originally being measured and ordering the dress, and when paired with ordering a dress that's too big anyway, well... the photos speak for themselves.

It's an ugly and treacherous situation. I tried on another of the girls' dresses that's 2 sizes smaller than mine and it fits:

If the orange dress in the store fits me, I hope they will allow us to exchange since they bullied me into the larger size from the get-go. Whether or not this is a feasable plan remains to be seen.

PS - I made the necklace I'm wearing with the pink dress. Those shall be our wedding jewels!

Raw.

2006-04-07T22:06:00.000-07:00

I always wondered what a nervous breakdown feels like.

Not that that’s what this is, but, you know. It might be similar.

Let’s say: emotional crisis.
Or: psychological plight.
Or: meltdown.
Or: existential predicament.

It’s the kind of thing where every little action or event or occurrence has the power to set you off or bring you completely down. Like, the kind of thing where you wish you could say to a complete stranger, “Excuse me, but could you please move outside my line of vision because I’m really not in the mood to look at a face like yours right now.” Or, “Please stop having that conversation within earshot of me because I just cannot listen to it at this moment in my life.”

But you can’t. That’s just how life works.

When you are 25 years old and realize that this is essentially the first time in your life that you don’t have a really strong connection with anybody and that you don’t really know how to deal with that or what to do, it’s hard. And it hurts. And you cry and have anxiety attacks and then you get mildly happy for a few minutes but then your heart starts pounding again and all you really want to do is sleep but then you don’t want to be left alone with the idle thoughts that run through your head when you’re laying alone in the dark. Because having idle thoughts turns quickly to thoughts of fear and ugliness and you panic. Because the thought of dwelling inside your own head is just too fucking much.

Shit happens and you learn to deal. Life changes and you adjust accordingly. Everything is connected. Things happen for a reason. The universe straightens things out in the end.

This much I know.

It will all be OK.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
(Actually this is the first time in about a week that I haven’t felt like crying and that my heart was going to pound straight through my chest and explode into a million bloody red fireworks. What made me feel better tonight was eating an egg roll, singing to Rilo Kiley’s song “Portions for Foxes” at the top of my lungs in my car, and watching “Six Feet Under” because the characters’ lives are way more fucked up than mine. I think.)

One second of your life was in order...

2006-04-05T06:15:00.000-07:00

Coast to Coast AM's website posted the following trivial tidbit last night:

Once in a Life Time
Early on Wednesday, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be: 01:02:03 04/05/06.

To those night owls I know, I'm a little envious that y'all got to see it and I didn't. I think its very cool: there was one second in time that came and went that made the old number sequence seem somehow magical and special. And it will never happen again.

Fleeting moments, my friends. Fleeting moments. That's what it's all about.

Indiana Jones-ing

2006-04-04T16:58:00.000-07:00

This is a teeny tiny possible tentative embryo of an idea/plan, BUT... it's exciting to think about. And if I start saving now (or soon), it just might be possible. This winter, my oldest pal Amanda and I might make our 4th grade dream come true by traveling to Egypt. Pyramids, sand, the Nile, sun, Cleopatra, lost ancient kings... oh yeah. That's all I'm saying.

As you may have noticed...

2006-04-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

...I have been quite neglectful to TKV in the past weeks. That's because I'm going through a phase where I am bored with blogging. That's not to say I will never blog again but I really don't have anything to say at the moment. But to sum up, here is a recap of my recently absent weeks:

-- the wedding photos are still not all edited yet
-- I got my new Nikon D50 camera and he/she/it is my new best friend
-- there is a boy
-- I'm going on vacation to West Virginia in 9 days
-- I have been contemplating the following theories in relation to physics and philosophy: energy is never created or destroyed (thanks to the boy)! everything is connected! everything happens for a reason! there are no coincidences but chains of interrelated events that propel one forward through life! the universe is interactive and we cause events to occur by our thought patterns! and so on and so forth.
-- I have had no appetite for over a week now and have been subsisting on coffee, water, and occasional tidbits like granola bars, occasional Chinese takeout, and microwave samosas
-- the previous two notes kind of go hand in hand as my unintentional fast has opened the door to deep thoughts and enlightenment
-- and no I have not developed an eating disorder, anyone who knows me should know it is utterly impossible for me to ever develop an eating disoder
-- I am experiencing anxiety over having to move in a little less than 2 months (on a subsequent note, my mom told me yesterday that she dreamed I moved into a hobbit house and the cats enjoyed frolicking among the flowers growing in my little hobbit yard), plan my sister's bridal shower, finish the jewelry for me and my fellow bridesmaids, etc
-- I wish I didn't have to wait for my hold on the second volume of Six Feet Under's fourth season to come in at the library because that is a fucking brilliant show
-- I continue to be inspired by Chuck Palahniuk's disturbingly sick writing that somehow manages to be eloquently minimalistic and beautifully moving while completely revolting at the same time
-- I just watched "Good Night, and Good Luck." and wish I had been there to see Edward R. Murrow stick it to McCarthy

...and that brings us pretty much up to date, I think. I am feeling too consumed by my own self to comment on the outside world at the moment. Assuming, of course, that outside world is still there. I've been so self-indulgent lately that I haven't really poked my head out to check.

New Photos, numero tres

2006-04-02T21:02:00.000-07:00

Yeah that's right. Two new photo posts in one day. So what if it involved me sitting around in my pajamas all day, tracking storms, drinking coffee, listening to cats snore... Finally, nearly one year after my trip to Atlanta, GA to visit my dear pal Chrissy, the photos I took during that trip have found their way online. Go here to view my long-awaited (for some people) Atlanta photo album.

Oh, and special props to Amanda for nagging me persistently about uploading these. Huzzah for Miss Amanda, my Sunday muse.

New Photos, part deux

2006-04-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

I wandered up my street a bit last night until I got cold, snapping things here and there that appealed to me. Go here to see the fruits of my chilly labors.

F for F'ing Awesome

2006-03-30T11:55:00.000-08:00

Run, don't walk, to see the flick V for Vendetta while it's still in theaters! Somehow it manages to be both a "turn-your-brain-off and watch cheesy violence and action sequences" blockbuster AND a smart and sharp political commentary on the state of our affairs. It's set in futuristic London, but if you squint your eyes you'd swear it's modern Am'urka. Two thumbs up.

New Camera, New Pix

2006-03-28T19:25:00.000-08:00

...and here I resurface just long enough to post a link to my new Photobucket album -- the KRUI radio studio! KRUI is the University of Iowa's student-run radio station, and my new pal DJ Samlive invited me to sit in on one of his broadcasts. I took the opportunity to get in some practice with my fancy and fabulous new Nikon D50 and snapped a few photos from inside the booth.

I'm STILL working on editing the wedding photos from a couple of weeks ago -- they are slow like molasses but oh... they are also sweet like honey. Hopefully early next week I will have waded through the 140+ shots and edited them to be presentable. More on that later.

And with that, I will return to looking at the world through a camera lens...
Take a deep breath... and... go.

Deep Thoughts on the Issue of Man v Machine

2006-03-21T15:44:00.000-08:00

An email conversation between me and "Mitch" from "Detroit" today:

TKV: Last night I bought a new coffee pot.

"Mitch": i was working all night again, AND trying to write my paper. which is actually almost done. tonight i will revise it and sort of put it together. which is funny, because the paper is about how technology influences the writing process - planning, revision, writing, etc.

the article i was reading started talking about how people and computers aren't really separate entities, they become one unit, cyborgs. say what? and how people need to embrace the machines... huh? that's when it took a turn for the weird.

and then he said that his 5 year old son prefers multimedia computer games over the mono-media email, but that if he improved his typing skills, he might be a better emailer.

TKV: So your teacher makes you read stuff about cyborgs? Maybe grad school is cool after all. Actually I don't like cyborgs but whatever. Maybe it's all a clever ruse to prepare us for when the machines really DO take over. Imagine: there will be no more jobs. No more need for cooking. Machines will do everything and we will find ourselves enslaved by them, bowing down to cyborgs and robots every hour because they have become god. And since you'll know ahead of time what this all will be like you will be leading the human's rebellion.

WTF am I talking about, you ask? I have no idea.

"Mitch": sort of like the matrix. when morpheus says we don't know who struck first, but we know the the humans are ones that caused all the destruction. and yet the machines still are in control. very much like that. makes you question your purchase of a coffee pot after all, huh?

or what if the simple machines took over? screws, levers, inclined planes, wheels, wedges and pulleys.

you really don't know what you're talking about, do you?

TKV: My coffee pot is very primitive. It's shiny bad ass black exterior easily fools onlookers into thinking it's very high tech, when in reality it doesn't even have a clock on it. I don't think something with just an on/off switch is really going to take over. Of course when I get home it could have the cats all bowing down before it, so I'll let you know.

If simple machines took over I think we will go back to the bartering system and use sticks and rocks for currency. I don't know why but that's what I would imagine. And everyone would wear Amish clothes.

"Mitch": dude, you think the coffee pot doesn't have some kind of something some stuff in it?? auto shut off? a machine is a machine. i'm totally anti-technology. as i email. not really, though.

if the simple machines take over, they won't just be looking to keep humans down, like planet of the apes. they'll be looking to annihiliate civilization as we know it

TKV: There's no auto-shut off. It was $17.99. You don't get anything for $17.99 except an on/off switch. But you better believe I'm gonna keep my eye on it. I might leave the kitchen light on at night in case it gets any dark ideas.

Do you think the simple machines would be that evil? They're S I M P L E. They're not smart enough to be evil. It would be like if the retards suddenly decided to take over the world. We'd all probably just eat pudding and watch cartoons.

Although… the simple machines could want things to go back to the way they once were (i.e. SIMPLER) and would then annihilate civilization in order to start over with a more basic society. I see your point now…

"Mitch": you spent that much for a no frills coffee pot? you can get those for like $8 at walmart. brand name? not only is it a machine, it's like the kid that gets beat up in the bathroom during class change.

simple machines... well, for one thing, they're so far to right, beyond conservative, they're downright reactionary. imagine being a pulley. you're the shit. but who gets the credit and spotlight? the elevator. sure people say, "man, that's a nice set of wheels!" but they don't mean the wheels, they mean the candy apple red 1969 Dodge Charger that's ON the wheels. or maybe the hubcaps at best - but the actual wheel, who makes the car GO, gets overlooked. they are a jealous lot, and not to be trusted. have you ever tripped over a little rise in the sidewalk? inclined plane.

don't let the simple part fool you.

TKV: It was the cheapest one they had at Target. I refuse to shop at Wal Mart so if I have to go to Target and spend more, so be it. It's a Mr. Coffee brand. It looks nice on my counter next to the toaster. That's important. Actually it's mismatched because the toaster is white.

You are so right about the simple machines. I don't know how I could have overlooked it for so long! You see the building, not the screws that went into holding it together, not the levers and wedges that go into so much dangerous highway repair. Simple machines are a bitter, nasty bunch that I would imagine is getting fed up with being taken for granted. It's like BEYOND technology, like back to the primitive savage machines of old, the ones who rely on their basic animal instincts, who only want to reclaim a world that was once theirs. Dude. I am terrified.

"Mitch": the simple machines are all a bunch of bastards. even the wheel feels eclipsed by the pulley, since the pulley actually has a wheel as a part of itself. they're all jealous, trust me.

Overheard on the Bus

2006-03-20T19:24:00.000-08:00

Last week I left work early one day and there were different people on the bus than usual. Among them were two Christian missionary-type guys (the ones who wear suits, even in the summer, and go door to door trying to convert you) and one black guy who looked to be either homeless or very down on his luck. The black guy was chatting with one of the missionaries while the other one looked on. I pretended to be reading but was really eavesdropping on their conversation, and it got to the point where I had to start writing things down because it was too good to let go. It got to be too much and I found myself laughing out loud and catching the eye of the second missionary, who laughed right along with me. Here, some snippets of their conversation that I observed:

Black Guy (BG): “You know who’s running this show? Satan. This is Satan Planet.”

BG: “I’m gonna tell you something. Satan’s got a lot of sons walking this earth. But I know I’m God’s son. I love the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees.”

BG: “I weep (he meant reap) what I sow. If I go out there and do something God doesn’t like, Satan doesn’t care.”

BG: “Lemme ask you something - what’s God’s name?”
Missionary guy: “I don’t know.”
BG: “Shee-it. You preach the word of God and you don’t even know his NAME? And guess what his favorite color is. BLACK.”

BG: “Do you love dat nigga (Jesus)? You respect that nigga? Well alright ‘den.”

And my personal favorite:
BG: “Have you ever seen a wicked spirit walking around?”
Missionary guy: “No.”
BG: “Then you ain’t no God-loving man. And guess what - I’m an angel. You can quote me on that.” [Taps his left and right shoulders.] “My left side and my right side? They's itching. I feel my wings growing.”

Halle-frickin'-lujah. I wonder if he got his wings when I dinged the bell to get off.

i'm too tired to think of a witty title

2006-03-20T18:44:00.000-08:00

I went to the mall tonight. I went to the mall for two reasons.

1. I needed cat food. The little pet store/adoption center downtown opened up a store in the Coral Ridge Mall (aka Evil Mall), and since they stay open later and are closer to my apartment, I went there to buy a 16.5 lb bag of cat food for a lot of money because it’s really good food and it’s also the only kind that doesn’t make Sunshine barf on the carpet. And I’m OK with spending a lot of money on their food if it means less barfing and more nutrition. This was a simple task.

2. To buy a new coffee pot. Mine died this morning, much to my surprise and displeasure. This was a personal trauma far too dramatic for 6:30 am. ‘It worked fine yesterday!’ I kept telling myself. Telling myself that, however, did not give me coffee. Looking now at the two on the counter, I see that my new coffee pot Means Business. It is black, whereas my other one was white. (Black = bad ass). The new one is a 12-cupper, whereas my previous white coffee pot was a wussy 4-cupper. So, I have a Big Sleek Black New coffee pot and the other one is going to that big Coffee Pot Graveyard in the sky. This (while it did involve navigating the crowd and dangerous cart activity in Target) was also a simple task.

The ugly part happened when I decide I wanted new clothes. I don’t know why I torture myself by thinking that I need new clothes. Actually going into a store, picking things out and trying them on, well, that's one small bit of it. The Entire Experience of shopping for clothes is another thing entirely.

Apparently - and I don’t know when this happened - but apparently clothing manufacturers stopped making clothing for real people. Or, at the very least, jeans. Jeans in modern society are made for little teeny girls with no hips or butts who like for the little bit of a butt they have to hang out the back of their pants all the time. I have witnessed this phenomenon many times, as I live in a college town, and I can only assume that since I don’t like to look at everyone else’s ass that others don’t want to see mine either. This leaves me in a conundrum that ends with me not buying jeans and me getting mad that I must have a misshapen body. More trauma, that resulted in me polishing off way too much mac and cheese.

Really I ate the mac and cheese because I was very hungry.

The shopping experience soured me for the evening. I had big plans for starting a new story I dreamed up today at work, working on the wedding photos, reading, and generally being creative and productive and doing intelligent things. Instead I watched an episode of Seinfeld on DVD, then watched Clementine and Oliver chase each other, and then sat around wondering why I was so tired at 8:30 pm, all while going "derrrrrr" in my mind.

I think I’ve endured enough today. Maybe I should just call it a ridiculously early night.

my new favorite photo

2006-03-18T08:21:00.000-08:00

Sunshine loves the camera, and obviously it loves her back.

The Opposite of Negative

2006-03-16T19:40:00.000-08:00

I'm not dead or anything. Just so you all know.

What I am is tired. Ex-frickin'-hausted. I've been trying to tell myself all evening that I'm in the mood to edit these wedding photos, but nothing remotely artistic or creative is coming out of me right now, unless you count chili-induced fiery belches. While some of them have been impressive, they are more painful and disgusting than artistic and creative.

Things are happening. Good things. I am feeling happy and fulfilled but so god damn tired. I contacted the local chapter of FAWN (Farm Animal Welfare Network) about doing some writing for them. I submitted a story to Word Riot. I sent a short, 250-word piece to a friend’s new site. I bought a camera today - a professional camera that will hopefully further my prospects as an amateur photographer (and also set up a time to do some publicity shots for my friend’s production of “My Fair Lady” that is coming up in a couple of months). Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day and I plan on wearing a green necklace and then drinking beer after work. Clementine jumps into my arms (literally) as I’m getting ready every morning. Oliver sleeps at my feet. Sunshine sits on my lap as I eat breakfast. These are all good things.

There is more that is still a wee bit foggy that I will hold off on for now. But it’s good. Very, very good.

2006-03-13T19:10:00.000-08:00

Stay tuned, my dears, for details on this weekend's affairs, including the Awesomely Fabulous Wedding Shoot. I have permission from the bride and groom to post photos, so in the days to come, when the photos are edited and ready, they just might begin popping up around here like tulips and daffodils.

psssst.....

2006-03-13T19:06:00.000-08:00

"Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire."

-- François de La Rouchefoucauld

New Photos

2006-03-08T21:39:00.000-08:00

These are photos I took inside the Shack, the abandoned rental property next to my parents' house - formerly inhabited by crackheads, whores, deadbeats, and sexual deviants, the Shack is now owned by my parents and tentatively scheduled to be torn down sometime in the not-too-distant future. I'll pose the same question to you, faithful readers, as my dad posed to me this weekend as we stood inside this monstrosity: "Can you imagine stooping so low as to live in a place like this?"

No. No, I cannot.

Woe and Wireless-less-ness

2006-03-08T16:40:00.000-08:00

There is still no wireless signal in my apartment. I did, however, e-mail one of the administrators from the network I use and found out what the problem is: the ginormous hole the City of Coralville is digging right outside my door. Apparently sometime over the weekend, some hard hat-wearing Neanderthal got a little overzealous with his back hoe and somehow knocked out the signal that usually emanates from the fire station (two or three doors to the west). While the fact of the matter remains, it is comforting to know this is not a problem with my beloved iBook, who I know deep in my heart would never do me wrong. (Excuse me while I find some wood to knock...)

This vast wasteland of non-wirelessness came at a good time, as I find it to be a suitable and justifiable excuse for not posting. I am feeling whiny and slightly depressed of late, and I know anything I write will smack of that. Is it the weather? Probably not, as I’m a fan of overcast and rainy days. That time of the month? Well, that’s an intrusive question and is none of your business. Maybe it’s something astrological, for I know of another Sagittarius blogger who, like myself, is finding it difficult to share her innermost thoughts with a reading audience. Yes, I think I’ll take the New Age route and blame it on the stars.

I sit here now, waiting to hear from the friend who is loaning me his camera to shoot the wedding this weekend, not knowing when when to expect his return phone call, trying to keep Sunshine’s head out of my glass of water, watching Clementine and Oliver turn tail and chase each other as though one stole the other’s last cupcake. It’s always a bitch to wait for someone else when your evening pretty much revolves around them. Not that I should mind - he is being kind enough to loan me his fancy-pants camera, not to mention setting all the widgets such that I can strut into this wedding on Saturday and just start doing my thing. But in all honesty it is a little bit annoying, anyway.

My Eels With Strings CD and DVD came in the mail Monday. While I have not yet watched the DVD, I can assure you all that the CD - which features frontman E backed by, at one time or another or all together, piano, acoustic guitar, xylophone, organ, a string quartet, accordion (!!), a musical saw, and more - shall have a special place on my Eternal Playlist till the end of time.

I am almost finished with the book I’ve been reading, called The Undertaking. It is written by a man who is both the sole funeral director in his small Michigan town and a published poet. It’s been a long time since I’ve fallen in love with the mechanics of someone’s writing, but I can say with confidence and conviction that this man has reached in and tickled my heart with his choices in words and sentence structure. The book, while at times sad and morbid and even quite graphically disturbing, is one of the most beautifully written pieces of literature I’ve ever read. The other day I thought of the part in The Catcher in the Rye where Holden is talking about his favorite author Ring Lardner, and he says that you can tell when a writer is good because you want to call him up after reading something he/she has written and just shoot the breeze. I wouldn’t mind doing that with this guy. Or, rather, just writing him a letter and telling him what a lovely book he has written. He seems like the kind of person who would truly appreciate it, and maybe even write back.

In that same vein, last night I sat down with a notebook and began plotting out characters and story lines for a Big Writing Project. You know of what I speak. It’s not much, but I feel it’s a step. And a step in any direction means I’m no longer standing still.

2006-03-06T13:03:00.000-08:00

This is just an FYI. There is a chance that posts for the next day or two or twelve will be, well, not posted because last night I came home after spending the weekend at my parents' house to discover that I couldn't get a wireless connection in my apartment. I was picking up all my usual networks but for some reason, none of them wanted to let me in. I tried again this morning but - again - nothing. I am crossing my fingers that whatever entity is blocking my wireless access will have gone on its merry way and I will once again be free to roam the wireless halls of stolen internet.

In other brief news: TKV spent her Sunday evening/Monday suffering from recurring killer stomach aches after Sunday night's veggie lasagna. This Saturday (March 11) she is photographing some friends' wedding, so hopefully they will oblige to let her put the photos online. She also took some inside The Shack yesterday, which is the abandoned, crumbling rental property next to her parents' house which they recently purchased and plan to tear down. Believe it or not, there's something lovely about a run-down decrepit garbage heap that was once a home. She hopes to have them edited and on her Photobucket site this week.

Fun with the Kids on a Thursday Night

2006-03-02T20:10:00.000-08:00

Top: Clementine almost fades to black.
Bottom: Oliver is too cool for school.
Absent: Sunshine declined participation, as she was napping on her special sunshine bed. She asked not to be disturbed.

"Eels with Strings" Makes Life Worth Living

2006-03-02T13:19:00.000-08:00

I can't WAIT for my new CD and DVD to come in the mail. Then I can spend every night on the sofa with E, my favorite misanthropic musical heartthrob, and his string quartet. Pitter patter indeed!

Ash Wednesday

2006-03-01T20:40:00.000-08:00

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. This means nothing to me, as I am not a Christian. But in our predominantly Christian society, I’ve noticed it’s a pretty big deal. Surprisingly, I only saw one person today with the black cross smudged on her forehead and it reminded me of a time a few years ago on Ash Wednesday when I didn’t realize what day it was and came very close to telling someone they had "a little something smeared on their face.”

As I am quite obviously generally ignorant of most Christian traditions beyond Christmas and Easter, I looked up Lent today to see exactly what was going on. I had the basic idea right - that Lent is a time of fasting from one thing or another in preparation for Good Friday or Easter or whatever - but I wasn’t sure what the root of it was. Yes, I’m that ignorant of Christian religious practice and I’m obviously not ashamed to admit it. For all you other Lent-o-phobes out there: The forty day period is symbolic of the forty days spent by Moses and Elias in the wilderness; the Jews wandered forty years traveling to the Promised Land. Jonah in his prophecy of judgment gave the city of Nineveh forty days' grace in which to repent. Jesus retreated into the wilderness and fasted for forty days of temptation to prepare for his ministry. So by observing Lent, many Christians join Jesus on His retreat. (Goodness bless Wikipedia, by the way.)

I was raised in a non-religious household and while my dad is Catholic and my mom is Methodist, we never really went to church or anything or even talked about religion beyond saying the “Now I lay me down to sleep...” prayer before bed and singing “Jesus Loves Me” every once in a while. In high school, my friends had me convinced I was atheist, and for a long time I didn’t believe in anything. A few years ago, a series of events occurred in my life that led me to believe that SOMETHING was at work behind the scenes, and whether it was the Christian God or Jesus or Buddha or aliens or whoever, I didn’t know - I did, however, know that SOMETHING was there, and I knew it was big and powerful and a force to be reckoned with.

I knew vaguely of Jesus and the Bible story and all that, but (embarrassingly) it wasn’t until my last year of college that I actually read anything out of the Bible - and that was for my Classical and Biblical Literature class (for which I once wrote a paper on the religious implications of The Simpsons). It was kind of cool in the way that I could say “So THAT’S where that story came from” but I didn’t see anything in it beyond it having immense literary value. I don’t really believe in Jesus as the Messiah or the Son of God or the Savior of mankind, but I’m sure he probably existed at one time or another, and I bet he was a pretty cool dude.

For this Lent ‘06, I kind of want to go around and ask everyone who is participating what they’re choosing to give up. I live in a college town, so 8 times out of ten, the answer is probably “drinking.” I also get amused when I see fast food billboards during these 40 days advertising their fish sandwiches, because apparently among the fast food-consuming Christians giving up chicken and beef is the thing to do (or maybe it’s something they HAVE to do - please refer to my previous statement declaring my ignorance toward Christianity). Maybe people should start fasting from being jerks or give up leading lives of empty consumerism instead. Maybe Lent should evolve from giving up booze and fatty foods and be about living as a better person for 40 days. I think that would make Jesus happier than knowing you’re not going to get hammered every night for the next five weeks or so.

**********
In other news, I purchased the album “Rabbit Fur Coat” by my new songstress du jour Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins today. If you have recently hit rock bottom and lost all faith in humanity and the divine and are bellied up to the bar in some dark, smoky, wood-paneled shit hole, this is the music you want coming from the stage. It will lift you up.

2006-02-27T19:50:00.000-08:00

Sunshine and Clementine enjoyed snuggling on my clean towels and watching Bringing Out the Dead with me a couple weeks ago. They were such polite movie-watching companions: they didn't talk or ask "Who is that?" or spill popcorn all over the carpet.

It's been consuming me.

2006-02-27T19:09:00.000-08:00

Don’t laugh, but I want to write a book about a haunted hospital.

I realize the vast corniness of this statement. However, my haunted hospital is different than what one might perhaps think of when they see those words placed together back-to-back in a sentence.

To answer some questions you may have: Yes, I work in a hospital. No, I have never witnessed any strange phenomena. The first and most immediate reason for that would be because right now I do not work physically within that hospital - my office is located in an outside facility. But I used to work in one. I used to work in one on weekends, when the place was virtually deserted. It was haunting all on its own, especially the intensive care units. That’s where so many people take their last breaths. I never liked going up there but sometimes I had to.

The second and less plausible reason is because my hospital is frickin’ huge. The building is 8 floors high and spans 3/4 of a mile from one end to the other. There are hallways and corridors and alcoves I’ve never even seen. If the hospital WAS haunted, the chances of something haunting happening in the exact place I happened to be is pretty slim, due to the sheer enormity of the place.

My haunted hospital story is not just about ghosts. There will BE ghosts because, well, it’s a haunted hospital story, but just the idea of that word has led me to ask questions like ‘What IS a ghost?’ ‘What does it mean for something to be haunted?’ A place can be haunted my a memory. A person can be haunted by another person, or by just the thought of something. It’s a very broad plane.

I’ve had this idea for a very long time, and in the months I’ve been mulling it over it has taken on many different forms. Finally, in recent weeks, it has finally started taking shape, like, for real. I remember telling Henri-V one day through e-mail that I felt so excited because it was like these characters were coming to life inside me and their stories were screaming to be told; like they were telling the story through me. Then I felt like maybe she would think I was schizophrenic but I think she understood. I think anyone who has spent time preparing to dive into a project that is a million times bigger than they are knows what I mean.

I feel as though I need to buckle down and take this seriously. Like, if I’m going to do this, I need to DO it and quit making excuses or putting it off to do more “research” or whatever bullshit excuse I come up with next. A friend of mine, though he was quoting a movie, recently said, “A writer writes. Always.” That kind of punched me in the gut, and then when I was doubled over clutching myself it spun me around and kicked me square in the ass. It was so ridiculously simple and obvious that I couldn’t argue. I was caught out in the open, with no where to hide and no more excuses up my sleeve. If I’m gonna write, I’m gonna write.

So there.

The Good Doctor Checks Out: 1 Year Later

2006-02-22T20:37:00.000-08:00

I was so wrapped up in my own selfish little pity party this week that I completely blew past the second day this month that I’ve been dreading: February 20. The one year anniversary of my hero’s suicide. Not only did I want to commemorate the sad occasion with a post, but I also wanted to swallow a shot of Wild Turkey in his honor. Crap.

Then
I remember my morning ritual of reading the paper over coffee, sitting at the hospital at 6:40 am because that’s the time my bus put me there for my 7 am shift. I remember that morning, opening my paper and seeing a blurb on the bottom of the first page that said, “GONZO GONE,” and immediately calling Chrissy, who was on her way to work in Atlanta, to share the news. I was sort of in shock all day. Two or three people called me to make sure I’d heard. I remember sitting at the kitchen table that evening, alone in my apartment, feeling numb, feeling like I should cry, feeling empty. But I just stared at the wall thinking, I can’t believe he’s dead.

Now
I did some digging today and found something I thought to be both quite sad and interesting: HST’s alleged final written words. According to this marvelous story on rollingstone.com, they were “scrawled in black marker...appropriately titled ‘Football Season Is Over.’ Here, published for the first time, are perhaps his final written words”:

"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun -- for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax -- This won't hurt."

I also looked today (again) at the piece on Raw Story in which HST’s VERY final written word was dissected - because the first time I read it, it gave me hope and made me feel a little less sad that he had parted ways. (For those of you who don’t know [and sorry to those of you who don’t care], his suicide note was merely the word “counselor” typed in the middle of a blank page.) Writer D.A. Blyler turns to the Bible to decipher this cryptic message, and finds the answer that journalists and friends of HST had been missing right there in the Gospel of John, v. 16-17:

“16 And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.”

I really like what Blyler goes on to say:

Thompson surely would have felt drawn to the Gospel of John, the most lyrical and mystical of the four Gospels. It’s there that we find the pronouncement: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It is a decree that has resonated with writers from Twain to Whitman to Fitzgerald to Miller—a revelation that words are transcendent, that a writer’s vocation is more than just a job. It should be a calling, wherein the “Spirit of truth” (Counselor) is followed unfailingly. No mean trick.

It makes me sad. We have someone like HST in the world for a while, and then he’s gone. We have a truly and fiercely intelligent mind out there, cutting through the bullshit, knocking down the barriers of writing as we’ve come to know them, and then one day *POOF* he disappears. But that’s the way it has to be, I suppose. That’s how legends are born.

Beyond
Words ARE God - they are one I can believe in and understand. They are little bolts of lightning that have an infinite number of jobs and meanings, but the most important and profound one is to tell the Truth. To evoke one of my new favorite quotes by Jean-Paul Sartre: “I would like to see the truth clearly before it is too late” -- and HST was adept at telling it. Now we need someone to carry his torch.

There’s so much I would like to say about him and so much I know I never could say the way I want to. But oh, that man... He’s still very much alive in some of us. Too weird to live...ah, you know the rest.

the pop-in

2006-02-21T20:33:00.000-08:00

Yes, I realize the posts have been few and far between. And yes, I also realize that what few posts do appear are pathetic and superficial and not really worth reading. I've been pissy lately, but rather than use this space to whine and bitch and complain, I've been doing that off-screen. (Oh, and thanks to those of you who have been listening: Heather, Henri-V, "Jerry," Mom, Jenn, and others of you who know who you are and who hate complaining but seem to listen anyway.)

I'm hoping this is some sort of temporary funk brought on by the weather and job-related issues that even Office Tramp can't seem to find humor in. {I was going to start complaining here but I stopped myself.} I should take pleasure in the details: a kitten who sleeps on my hair; purified water; magazines that come in the mail; Nag Champa incense.

So that's where I've been: in my own little pouty hole, dug by several days' worth of self-pity and introspection and loathing and annoyance at the world. I'm not ignoring you. I'm sparing you. It's an act of kindness, borne out of my own tiresome frustration at others who complain so steadily.

I'll be back one day.

The Poet Returns

2006-02-19T19:50:00.000-08:00

This weekend went much
too quickly. I am dreading
going to work. Shit.

It has no meaning
therefore it is meaningless.
My job, I mean. Ugh...

"Refund this." "Credit
that." "Fix this, you did it wrong."
Well, fuck you, Cyclops.

I got a raise this
week. But that still doesn't make
me want to be here.

Take this job and shove
it so far up your ass that
it turns your hair brown.

Dear Jebus, save me from
this hell I call work and I
will stop mocking you.

I feel like I should say something.

2006-02-15T20:42:00.000-08:00

Like I should at least share what’s been on my mind since I haven’t posted in a few days.

1. The roses my dad gave me for Valentine’s day. I don’t want them to die. They’re too lovely.
2. Getting out of town for a couple days.
3. My job is stupid. I wish I could not do it anymore.
4. Writing a book.
5. Persistent heartburn.
6. That damn Rilo Kiley CD. I STILL can’t stop listening. I think yesterday I was going through withdrawls.
7. “The Exorcism of Emily Rose.” I watched that last night and it scared me.
8. “Closer.” I watched that tonight and wondered why people have to hurt themselves.
9. Relationships past and present; how things can change in the blink of an eye.
10. Projects I have to make.
11. Three cats who make my day everyday.
12. Why someone hasn’t called in 5 days.
13. Cutting out dairy products.
14. Sleep, or lack thereof.
15. That we could all die any second.
16. That I haven’t posted in a few days.
17. That I have too much junk food in my apartment right now (Thanks, Mom! The candy is good but it hurts my teeth.).
18. That it’s funny. Everything.

bewitched

2006-02-13T08:37:00.000-08:00

Seriously, I can't stop listening to this album.
I think Jenny Lewis has cast a spell on me.
I'm beginning to think I might have to see someone about this.

Paradise

2006-02-12T20:34:00.000-08:00

I stopped reading the news a long time ago because it just made me mad: war, incompetent leaders, death, spying, natural disasters, lawsuits, murders. I have enough things in my immediate vicinity to put me in a horrible mood that I decided I didn’t need to incorporate outside sources of depression and ugliness into my current milieu. So the only things I read in the paper are my horoscope and the movie reviews. I quit looking at Slate everyday because even though they are witty and left-leaning, they still TOLD THE NEWS. Not only did I not want to read about it, I didn’t want to be AWARE of it, period.

And thus it has become such that I get my news mainly from Coast to Coast AM, which many of you now know is the radio show I loyally listen to everyday - a show dedicated to the unknown, the supernatural, the paranormal, and that which cannot be explained within the normal parameters of human experience. Each show begins with newsbites, and those newsbites range everywhere from politics and current events to science and/or space news, kooky happenings around the world, etc. On Thursday night’s show, which I heard Friday at work, I heard something that made me so uncharacteristically happy that I could hardly believe it was “news” at all: in the Foja Mountains of western New Guinea, paradise on Earth has been discovered.

During a December expedition, a team of scientists/naturalists/researchers discovered a 3700 square mile area of pristine tropical jungle along with “hundreds of rare birds, more than 20 new species of frogs, five kinds of previously unknown palms, four new breeds of butterflies, and giant rhododendrons with white blossoms the size of bread plates — believed to be the largest on record.” Scientists also found 40 rare species of mammals who, so unused to human contact, “approached the naturalists unafraid, allowing themselves to be handled easily and photographed” (L.A. Times).

Can you even begin to imagine what that must have been like? To travel to a chunk of land that has not only been left in its beautiful natural state, teeming with rare animals so tame as to let you pick them up and hold them in your hands, but to venture to parts of that land that have been estimated to have never been visited by humans, EVER? To stand on a patch of soil and know that you are the only human being to ever have stood on that spot? To understand that you have found one of the last NEW places on the planet? It blows my mind. It really does.

And it makes me so happy; it reminds me that Mother Nature still has managed to maintain Her dignity as well as Her secrets and Her surprises. As a whole, we may ravage Her and treat Her like a two-bit whore and make Her our own personal garbage can, but there are always those individuals who DON’T and who respect her and get so excited to see Her put on a lovely new dress like this and knock us all on our collective ass.

And even though this means that there is now one less chunk of land out there that has gone untouched and unseen by human hands and eyes, the important thing is that it exists at all. And even more important yet, it doesn’t mean that it’s the last.

*For the articles, maps, and photos, go here, here, and/or here.

Mom and Dad Come to Town

2006-02-11T20:22:00.000-08:00

My parents came to visit today, and I took them to Granny’s Antiques and Consignment, the store I went to with Henri-V a few weeks ago and purchased the 1950’s Polaroid camera and other fabulous vintage items. We all found some kick-ass stuff there but since I don’t remember what all M&D got, I’ll just share my new items wit’cha:

1. Vintage silver and glass coffee carafe (light a candle underneath to keep the coffee warm!), $5

2. Red glass candle holder, $2

3. “East of Suez” Indian music record album, $1

4. E.T. Card Game, $2

I took M&D to India Cafe for dinner, which was a new experience for them as they have never dined on Indian cuisine before. There was some mild trepidation (on their end) going into the ordeal, but once we sat down and they smelled the masala tea and mulligatawny soup, all was well. We ate until our bellies almost popped, and then we had rice pudding for dessert. You can’t NOT have rice pudding for dessert.

I scared my dad with my driving. Once when we were heading downtown, the car in front of me put its breaks on and I didn’t slow down soon enough to my dad’s tastes (he’s a professional semi driver, he knows this stuff) and he apparently was in the backseat grunting, which I didn’t hear but my mom did and she proceeded to laugh hysterically about it for the next three minutes. Then, on the way back from the restaurant, I sped up to try to make a green arrow for a left turn but missed it - I COULD have made it in front of the cars that were coming but it would have required some slick maneuvering of my little Hyundai Elantra and driving skills that I seriously doubt I have anymore (since I ride the bus to work everyday, I rarely drive). As we turned the corner after the oncoming cars passed, my dad grumbled, “You’re the kind of driver that pisses me off.” In an odd way, that was almost a compliment.

Speaking of my dad, he gave me my Valentine’s Day flowers today. Every year, my sister, mom, and I all get special flowers from Dad on Valentine’s. This year, it was a 1/2 dozen pinkish/peachish roses and some red and yellow tuplips. The photo doesn’t do them justice, and my god do they smell lovely. My dad is the coolest.

He's Back.

2006-02-08T18:31:00.000-08:00

Chuck Norris gives style a roundhouse kick in the pants.
This post is dedicated to Bridget and Heather with fearsome, savage love.

2006-02-07T20:45:00.000-08:00

Hey Kids! I spent the evening over at Office Tramp's place. She hadn't been around for a while but we caught up and BOY did she have some fun stories to tell.

It is my estimation that Red = Sassy.

2006-02-06T15:45:00.000-08:00

I feel like I'm throwing up a lot of pictures lately. It's not for lack of substance (OK, maybe it is A LITTLE) but anyway, I recently returned to the Way of the Redhead and wanted to share a photo. Mind you, this is END OF THE DAY HAIR punctuated by that gosh-darned 5:00 shine that is soooooo attractive. But wouldn't you know that for the hour or so during the late morning when my hair and my face actually look presentable*, I didn't have my camera handy? That's the way it works, isn't it? But now that I'm a sassy and fiery redhead, I can be, you know, sassy. In public even!

Anyway, this is henna and not chemical dye so it's supposed to last 4-6 weeks before it fades, but I'm told that it does in fact stay in your hair for longer than the approximated amount of time. No matter. I like being a redhead. Molly Ringwald, eat your heart out (if you had one, you neurotic stone-cold bitch!).

*Or "shaggy" as a certain anonymous commenter said the other day when I ran into him at a local coffee shop... I explained my sexy bed head hair, but I think any real meaning was lost. Eh.

Happy Birthday, Sunshine!

2006-02-06T06:10:00.000-08:00

Today is Sunshine's birthday, such that two years ago today she came home to live with me. It's been a damn fine two years, Sweet Pea. I hope for a hundred more.

Stupor Bowl Sunday

2006-02-05T20:17:00.000-08:00

Just when I think it’s safe to venture out into the world, I am reminded of why I avoid the public arena.

I spent the morning wrapped in my own little cocoon of solitude and it was quite delicious. After waking at 11 am, playing with the cats, fixing a breakfast burrito and coffee for a late brunch, I settled in to knit and watch one of the movies I had checked out from the library this week, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

-----> Let me just digress for a brief moment: What a cool movie. Starring Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell, and George Clooney, the film tells the story of Chuck Barris’ secret alleged life as a CIA operative throughout the 1960’s - ‘80’s. It was directed by George Clooney, who, after careful consideration, I have decided is The Shit (and goddamn sexy too). Rent this movie if you get a chance.

Anyway. After doing all that and still being in my PJ’s at 4 pm, I felt it necessary to go to Target and purchase the 4th season of Sex and the City. This was important, as I recently finished watching the 3rd season (for about the hundredth time) and also did not want to feel like a crazy knitting cat lady shut-in, which is where I appeared to be heading. I got dressed, brushed my teeth, and left.

I timed my trip very carefully, you see. I called my dad earlier in the day and asked what time the BigGame was on today because my rationale was such that everyone would be at home watching the game and not at Target clogging the aisles and check-out lanes, and I could dash in and out quickly. Not so. The store was still busy and people, perhaps inspired by the fact that today is Sunday and is the unspoken ‘Lazy Day,’ moved so slowly that I had begun to reevaluate what I know about physics and the laws of motion to understand how these people were moving at all.

I really hate to shop, to be honest. Nine times out of ten, I want nothing to do with it. People are rude and oblivious to the world around them. They block aisles with their carts and fat asses. They let their kids run willy-nilly all over the place and scream and yell. They are so wrapped up in themselves that even when you shout “EXCUSE ME” at them, it takes three times before they hear you.

The checkout line was the worst. I was trying to make a break for the express lane because it was empty, but a family of three darted in there ahead of me. I am usually considerate of what others are carrying and if they have visibly less than I do, I let them go ahead. But other people don’t do that, and I think this family was breaking the rules of the 10 Items or Less checkout. The mother was obviously wearing the pants of the family as she piled their items on the conveyor belt. Among their purchases was a candle in the shape of a pig (heh, that’s Iowa for you), spandex workout wear, and Teddy Grahams. I noticed that the much-ado’ed book A Million Little Pieces by that dude who lied to Oprah was among their items, and I thought it was funny that more than likely, had that big hub=bub not gone down a few weeks ago, they would have never even heard of that book. They didn’t look like the reading type.

The daughter was the worst. She was obnoxious, loud, and wouldn’t stand still. She and the father were wrestling in line while the mother pretended not to notice. Finally the mom looked at the daughter like she wished she’d been stillborn and said, “Get me a pop.” The daughter, still caught up in her wrestling match, stopped and said, “Me?” The mother, stone faced and looking heartless, bored, and irritated, said, “Yes. Now.” Then the daughter tried throwing a pack of batteries on with the other items, inquiring to her mother whether she needed them, for apparently the daughter had seen something belonging to the mother that required battery power. I didn’t catch what, exactly, the daughter had seen, but she pranced around the aisle shouting, “I saw it! I saw it!” I stood as far back as I could manage without directly blocking the main walkway at the front of the store. If I hadn’t been next, I would have hopped into another line.

After all this ranting, I’ve forgotten what my point was. Maybe it was to say that I should know better than to leave the house, I don’t know. I probably didn’t have one, anyway, besides that people are stupid but that’s nothing new coming from me. I should stick to PJ’s, coffee, and DVDs on Sundays from now on. I’m so antisocial sometimes.

moving on

2006-02-05T20:03:00.000-08:00

One night last weekend, I sat up late at my computer searching online for houses in Iowa City that I could possibly afford to buy. I figured, if I’m going to live in this town, maybe I should think about growing up and buying a house and quit throwing money away on rent. I’ve nothing to show for the thousands of dollars I’ve given landlords in this town, except a few good references for the next landlord and improved packing skills. My current apartment is being torn down when my lease ends in May. While that does close the door on having to deep-clean this place when I move out, it also means that I will have to move... again. In the middle of the week. Four days after my sister’s wedding. It’s kind of a waking nightmare.

The thought of buying a house appealed to me for several reasons, the least of which being that I could finally utilize the painting skills I honed while living at home with my parents (my room saw white, yellow, and purple walls over the years I was capable of redecorating myself). Other reasons included: not having to lie about the number of cats I have when landlords like to charge extra fees per month/per cat, not having to worry about moving or renewing a lease every year, the fact that depending on when I closed, I could move in before my lease was up and wouldn’t have to fret about moving on a Wednesday. I went so far as e-mailing a friend of mine who had purchased a house in the last year - a friend in my age bracket and who I knew had to have an income similar to mine - and asked her if she wanted to get together to talk about the process. I was actually getting kind of excited about the idea of me owning a little house, just like a real live adult.

And then.

It occurred to me that being a homeowner in Iowa City would tie me to this town for at least another five years. That means another five (or more) years lingering around town, going to the same bars and same restaurants, griping about my same stupid dead end job, while all my friends had since grown balls of their own and flown the coop. Two of my better local friends are talking of moving out of town in the next few months/years, which means I would either have to make new friends or just live out my destiny as the Crazy Cat Lady, alone and weird with an overgrown lawn.

A life in Iowa City is not what I have envisioned for myself. It’s a nice town: lovely to look at, not too big but not too small, cultural, intelligent, fun. But unless your aspirations include being a professor or an office clerk or a cab driver, you’re pretty much S.O.L. when it comes to gainful employment. Moreover, while it is not a typical Midwestern city, it’s still in the Midwest. I have lived 25 years so far in the Midwest, and I have always imagined myself, you know, getting out. It’s a hard thing to say because my family is all here. But.....

If not now, when? I have nothing to keep me here. My job is disposable, I am not involved with anyone. I can pack up myself and my three kids and head West, into the mountains, the sunset, to the very edge of my current world. The thought of it is exhilarating and buzzes through me like electricity.

I’ve been asking myself lately what the next few years should hold for me. I’ve gone though a variety of scenarios in my head and only one of them seems to be the right choice; and it’s scary, it’s big, and there is a perfectly good chance I will fall on my face, but nonetheless...

I’m in a place I’ve never been in before. And that means I can go places I’ve never been before.

If not now, when?

If not me, who?

Why?

Why not?

tagged - the meme of fours (further modified)

2006-02-04T22:16:00.000-08:00

Henri-V tagged me...
Now I'm tagging Chrissy, Amanda, and Emily (who hasn't posted in F O R E V E R). Hop to it, ladies!

Four jobs I've had in my life:
1. Student library assistant.
2. Furniture salesperson.
3. Waitress in a pizza house.
4. Patient Account Rep (aka Office Tramp).

Four books that changed my life:
1. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
2. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson
3. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
4. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Tom Robbins

Four TV shows I like to watch (on DVD):
(because I don’t have any TV channels)
1. Firefly
2. Sex and the City
3. My So-Called Life
4. Arrested Development

Four movies I can watch over and over again:
1. Fight Club
2. I Heart Huckabees
3. Donnie Darko
4. E.T.

Four things that piss me off:
1. Narrow mindedness
2. People who litter
3. Others’ inappropriate feelings of superiority
4. Wind

Four men who could rub my tired feet (literal; not a filthy euphemism):
1. Johnny Depp (in his Captain Jack Sparrow outfit)
2. Christian Bale
3. Adrien Brody
4. Luke Wilson

Four favorite foods:
1. Macaroni and cheese
2. Pineapple
3. Edamame
4. Indian cuisine

Four places I'd rather be right now:
1. Portland, OR
2. Holland
3. Tucson, AZ
4. A parallel universe or alternate dimension

Four things I wanted to be when I grew up:
1. Writer
2. Movie director
3. Abnormal psychologist
4. Cat lady

Four things I miss:
1. Bike riding (too cold now)
2. Cheeseburgers
3. Late night phone calls like Ryan and I did in high school
4. Kissing

Four things I wish I could make happen by snapping my fingers:
1. Kick Shrub out of office (and in the balls).
2. Stop animal abuse/maltreatment.
3. Revamp the Western healthcare/Big Pharma system.
4. Winning the lottery so I can quit my stupid job and write a book.

Four things I have wanted to say to someone's face at some point in time but never did:
1. Why do I want to quit my job? So I don’t end up like you.
2. I want to kiss you. Now.
3. Please shut the fuck up about D&D. (inside joke)
4. You are a fat loudmouth and I hate your guts. (work-related)

thinking of a beautiful girl, part 3

2006-02-03T17:40:00.000-08:00

Thanks so much for the flowers yesterday, Mom and Dad. I know you miss her too.

thinking of a beautiful girl, part 2

2006-02-02T17:02:00.000-08:00

I've said it today already, but Mabel deserves a black-tie string quartet and 100 pink balloons released into the sky at dusk.

Damn, was she beautiful.

thinking of a beautiful girl today

2006-02-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

In Memoriam:
Mabel
May 1999 - Feb. 2 2004

Down the Drain

2006-02-01T14:51:00.000-08:00

FYI: I've decided to scrap the TKV Photography site for now. I'll post a link back to my original Photobucket page, but I'm not as enthusiastic about the photo blog as I once was or as motivated with it as I thought I would be. For now, this and HYSTM are sufficiently keeping me on my toes.

very important

2006-02-01T11:23:00.000-08:00

Note to self: Do not read a book containing the phrases "decomposing bodies," "dark, damp orifices," "grainy, yellowish-white masses of fly eggs," or "tender young maggots" while trying to eat lunch. Ever. Again.

from the book Death's Acre by Dr. Bill Bass.

Going on Vacation

2006-02-01T08:14:00.000-08:00

It won't be for another couple months yet, but friends, TKV will be doing something she has never done before: mingling among the hillbilly folk of Appalachia!

Come April, I'm a-gonna pack up my banjo, my chaw, and my best overalls and fly on over to Morgantown, WV, to visit my bestest buddy Bridget who I've not seen in about 6 years.

While Bridget herself is not a hillbilly and will not be providing me with any direct hillbilly influence, I do hope to witness some hillfolk activity while I'm there: inbreeding, illiteracy, and bare feet.

NOTE: I don't mean I want to participate in any of the above activities. I just want to experience first-hand the rich cultural heritage for which Appalachian America has come to be known.

Yee-haw.

A Case of the Mondays

2006-01-30T19:42:00.000-08:00

I decided today that I would like a job in a morgue. It would be cool (temperature-wise), quiet, and peaceful. There would be no one around to bother me. At parties and such when asked what I do, I would say, "I work in a morgue," and suddenly become the most fascinating person in the room. Likewise, my life would be the most exciting at work because, well, I would be the only one in possession of such a thing.

That's why I would like to work in a morgue.

What I Learned Tonight

2006-01-27T23:26:00.000-08:00

1. Laura needs an iron.
One of the points of me going to Cedar Rapids (about 25 miles north of Iowa City) tonight was to start work on the Top Secret Wedding Gift Project. However, one of the crucial tools needed to pursue such an exercise is an iron. So, instead of finally getting started on this huge undertaking of a present for my sister and her fiance, we ended up going through her books and trading stories about our recent single-ness. Still a good time, but not as productive as I’d hoped.

2. Whole wheat pasta is good.
Laura fixed dinner for us which consisted of spaghetti sauce from a jar and some rockin’ whole wheat pasta noodles. I don’t believe I’ve had the whole wheat pasta before and I think I might be making the switch. For dessert, she provided some sort of chocolate volcano thingie - a small, round chocolate cake with a chocolate truffle in the middle. Upon taking the first bites, both laura and myself nearly had an orgasm over this delightful treat. We slowly drew our forks out of our mouths in order to fully savor the sweetness and made “MMMMmmmmmm” noises over the course of our consumption. While neither of us were able to finish ours, I think we both came away satisfied. In more ways than one, so to speak.

3. Most Importantly: Dawn hates clubs.
After dinner, Laura and I took to the streets of Cedar Rapids. We had plans to meet some of her co-workers later, so to kill time she took me to a half price bookstore that had just opened. My mouth gaped when we entered, as is the normal protocol for when I suddenly find myself surrounded not only by thousands of books, but HALF PRICE books. We headed toward the fiction section in search of Gregory Maguire (her) and Chuck Palahniuk (me), then drifted into the religion (her) and occult (me) sections, and then finally ended up in the science section where I found the book on physics I had asked for for Christmas but no one got for me. A fairly new hardback copy of The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene cost me a whopping $6.98. I was so pleased.

We left there and went to R.G. Books, a bar of which I am now enamored. The atmosphere is that of a hip college English professor’s basement: dark, walls lined with books, empty wine bottles used as decoration, leather sofas, and blues music playing pleasantly in the background. While I paid approximately $4 for a Blue Moon, it was probably the highlight of the evening. If I had been monitarily prepared, I could have stayed there all night. But...

We were meeting Laura’s friends at a place called Element. Element, to give you some idea, is a dance club in a strip mall - a strip mall that also houses a Godfathers Pizza, a Thai restaurant, and a tattoo parlor. Outside, the sign lights up the parking lot in a sickening neon blue. The windows are blacked out so you can’t see in or out. Inside it looks like it was once a department store that someone painted black and threw up shabbily drawn murals of cityscapes, installed a DJ booth and dance floor, and screwed laser spotlights to the ceiling. The BUMP BUMP music instantly gave me a mini-migraine and upon setting one foot inside the place the one thought that raced over and over through my aching brain was “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

But no. This was for real.

We met up with Laura’s friends and I scanned the crowd: fat chicks in clothing inappropriate to their size, guys with gelled hair and sparse facial pubes, gyrations, air humps, and I think I even saw an early 1990’s teased hairdo on some poor girl. I felt and probably looked out of place in my gypsy jewelry and white-painted nails.

It was 2 for 1 drink specials so I ordered an amaretto sour and started double-fisting it. I saw one remotely attractive male but other than that it was a dog pound. The music was awful: everything from Michael Jackson to that horribly irritating and insulting ‘Thong Song’ that was popular with the kids a while back to -- are you ready for this? -- Boyz II Men. Swear to god. I don’t think I have heard “Motownphilly” since I was about 13 years old and friends, I can honestly say that until tonight I never thought I would hear it again. But there it was - bringing back those junior high dance memories while people cheered and mouthed the words around me.

Laura, bless her heart, caught on to my discontent from the beginning. “You don’t like music like this, do you?” I shook my head. “What do you listen to?” she asked. I didn’t feel like listing off the current heavy rotators in my CD player: The Raveonettes, Mirah, Devotchka, The Ramones. A song I understood to be relatively popular came on and she asked if I knew it. I shook my head again. Jokingly, she asked,“What do you listen to? NPR?” This time I gave a half smile and nodded. Yes, I am an AM radio nerd. And right now, I am in hell.

The crowning moment of my time at Element was this fellow I took to be a regular: one who appeared to be in his late 30’s, tall, lanky but with a paunch, glasses, T-shirt into his jeans. This fellow strutted his stuff on the dance floor alone - his act included leaning forward with his hands on his knees and “seductively” shaking his ass, yelling with his hands stretched over his head, lots of twirls, and cartwheels. I watched, mezmerized, while those around me screamed at each other over the music. I was in a trance. Finally I asked someone, “Is that guy retarded?” I was told no, that he just likes to dance. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I can’t say that he made my time at Element worthwhile but he came damn close. DAMN close.

Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and asked Laura to take me back to my car. I felt slightly snobbish and like a total party pooper, but that shit ain’t my scene. I drove home fast, ran up the stairs to my apartment, and breathed a sigh of relief when I come in to nothing but silence and three sleepy kitties. Having a wild night out is fun and all, but other times the coming home part is even better.

Except that now I think I hear my upstairs neighbors having sex.

I like my horoscope for today.

2006-01-26T07:00:00.000-08:00

"Sometimes there's nothing that feels quite so good like being bad. It's your time to catch up on all the things that you usually deny yourself. Go ahead and plunge into some hedonism. Revel in the earthy pleasures."

from Yahoo! astrology (Sagittarius).

The Greatest Thing Since, You Know, Just Eating Cereal at Home for Free

2006-01-25T19:52:00.000-08:00

Across the street from my office, a new business has opened its doors. It is called the Cereal Cabinet, and it is, from what I understand, one of the many new cereal bars that are springing up all over this vast countryside we call the United States. I understand the point of the Cereal Cabinet to be thus: to exist as a quirky and trendy new eating establishment wherein one exchanges an inappropriately large sum of money for a bowl of cereal. It’s simple. It’s fun.

I give them one year.

The Cereal Cabinet has their menu displayed in their front window, which I think is a bad idea, and here’s why: no rational human being is going to go in when they see the Cereal Cabinet charges anywhere from $3-$5 for a bowl of cereal. That’s $5 WITHOUT toppings and/or other accoutrements. I imagine if one were so inclined, one could end up paying upwards of $7 for a bowl. At least get them inside because then they will want to avoid an embarrassing “Cereal is five bucks a bowl? WTF?!? I’m outta here!” scene and just suck it up and buy some stupid cereal. If they had half a brain, they’d realize that they could go to Hy-Vee and buy two whole boxes of cereal - and probably even some milk too - for that amount. But since most people don’t even have that much brain, the business will probably boom.

Here’s my two cents on that matter: Why spend that much on cereal when you can go to the Z’Marik’s noodle house right next door and get a steaming bowl of orzo noodles smothered in butter garlic sauce with broccoli for the same amount? Or better yet, Why not just pop across the street to the Deadwood during Angry Hour and get like, three beers (minus tips). For real, yo.

It is, of course, the talk of the office. And since I have the seat by the window that directly faces the storefront, guess who gets asked about it all the time. On Monday, it was “Are there people in there? Is it open?” -- this in spite of the fact that they had about four signs in their windows saying YES WE’RE NOW OPEN! Yesterday, people were trading their own first hand stories about it. Today, it was, “How many people go in there? Has it been busy?” I look at the inquiring person and deadpan, “I really don’t pay attention because I don’t care.” My supervisor has taken to tacking their menu up to the outside divider of her cubicle, as though she has sealed some advertising deal with them. It’s bad.

Today L felt compelled to point out, “Everyone on the street is stopping to scan the menu! It’s hanging up in the window. Everyone is STOPPING to look at it. I wonder how their first week is going?” First of all, anyone who has EYES can see the menu is hanging up in the window. There is no need to announce it. Secondly, and more importantly, you should know how their business has been, I’ve seen your fat ass waddling out of there two or three times so far this week. Now go fill your talk hole with some Cap’n Crunch and shut up.

Seriously, a year. 18 months tops. Because $5 for a bowl of cereal is fucking stupid no matter how whimsical or trendy it may appear.

I Really MEANT To...

2006-01-25T06:16:00.000-08:00

Yes, I meant to post last night. However, the following things stood in my way: Heather inviting me to the Deadwood after work for I Hate Tuesday drinks, beer, conversation with pals, more beer, stories about wealthy friends of friends, yet another beer, mac and cheese with organic peas, "Curb Your Enthusiasm," the arrival of a new JANE in the mail, catnapping on the couch while I waited for my laundry to dry, reading magazines in bed. With obstacles like that, well...

You understand.

In Case Anyone is Curious:

2006-01-23T14:06:00.000-08:00

Here is what I found out about my new Polaroid camera today online: the price for the camera is pretty standard, according to eBay and other such sites (listing prices averaged about $20-$25). It is a Model 95A "Speedliner" circa 1954-57 and it took roll-format Polaroid film, which was discontinued in 1992.

My Talented Friends

2006-01-21T18:55:00.000-08:00

My good friend Chrissy designed this for me as a possible new tattoo. But since I don't have the money for a new tattoo now, please feel free to make a donation to the Buy Dawn a Tattoo Fund.

Lucky Day at the Thrift Store

2006-01-21T16:40:00.000-08:00

1. Oriental folding fans, $1 each. Will be used in further Asian-inspired kitchen decor.

2. Blue abalone-shell pendant/necklace. Also came with earrings but I gave those to Henri-V since I don't wear earrings. $3!!!

3. Purpley-blue glass & silver Gypsy-esque Necklace, $12.

And saving the best for last...
4. Vintage Polariod Camera. Included flash, 3 filters, developing wax, instruction booklets, and carrying case. It's in perfect condition and looks like it was rarely used. There are no nicks, smudges, or scars. A steal at only $20!

I also bought a skirt and silk scarf from another store, but those aren't really worth posting pictures of. i'm most excited about the camera because it's in SUCH good shape. It's the new pride of my vintage camera mini-collection (I now have 4) and shall sit atop the bookshelf in my living room for all to see and be jealous of. I hope everyone's Saturday was as fruitful and thrilling as mine!

untitled

2006-01-18T20:23:00.000-08:00

I have no words right now.

I feel like I’m either neglecting this blog or I’m filling it with fluff, and I don’t know which is worse.

For some reason, I am dry.

Partly I think I’m still adjusting to my new, er, surroundings. And it’s not that I don’t have anything to say because it’s hard or because I’m sad.

It’s just the opposite.

If it is possible to be painfully happy, then that’s what I am. I don’t recall ever having been this happy in my entire life, and I don’t really know what to do with it. It has blindsided me and left me completely flabbergasted. I suddenly know how it feels to be that fish who was given a bicycle.

I am having internal battles over what I can or should say on here now. Because, in spite of my current state of bliss, I don’t want anyone to think that I don’t have a heart that was aching pretty badly just a short time ago.

But......

The vastness of my space and time is overwhelming and a little intimidating, like when you think very hard and finally understand what the sky really is.

I feel like the world is a banquet laid out before me, and I don’t know where to begin; like I’ve been asleep for a hundred years and I’m experiencing things for the first time all over again.

Like I have only just now been born.

Focus Your Attention Elsewhere

2006-01-18T18:51:00.000-08:00

Allow me to introduce a revamped version of The Kitty Voice Photography!

In lieu of using Photobucket's services, which, while they may be sufficient, are not overly attractive. I have built a new space to house my photos, and you can get there by clicking here or from the link at the right. I plan on updating this site DAILY, adding 2-3 new photos per day. And should any parties be interested, they are available for purchase. Contact me at thekittyvoice@hotmail.com for more info.

In the meantime, enjoy TKV Photography.

TKV Presents: Single Gal Movie Reviews

2006-01-16T09:56:00.000-08:00

What does a newly single gal who finds herself with lots of free time on her hands do, besides finally getting around to those pesky craft projects that have been piling up in her brain? Why, she heads to her local library and becomes a movie-checkout fiend! Here, friends, are seven mini-reviews of movies I’ve watched in the past week, including one I saw this weekend in the theater. For your ease, I have incorporated a very easy rating system (anywhere from 1-5 stars) into my reviews so perhaps, judging by my judgment of these films, you will know if you wish to see them yourself. Happy viewing!

1. 13 Moons, 2002. 4 stars.
One of those “people are thrown together by forces beyond their control and they bond and cope with the hardships the night throws at them” kinds of movies. The ensemble cast, including Steve Buscemi, Pruitt Taylor Vince, the sister from Fresh Prince of Bel Air (she is actually not a bad actress), Jennifer Beals, and a fabulously wacky and scary Peter Stormare (the nihlist from Big Lebowski), works very well together. There are some plot holes and actually one whole part where I was like, “Why are they there?” but it’s a weird enough movie that it doesn’t really matter. An indie flick shot on handheld camera, ‘13 Moons’ is a bumpy and exciting ride through a rough night.

2. Kissing Jessica Stein, 2001. 2 stars.
Single neurotic girl in New York can’t find a boyfriend so she decides to try being a lesbian. It’s a tale of love, friendship, and uber-whiny bitches who need to remove whatever rods are up their asses and then maybe they will stand a chance of being tolerable to the opposite sex. If Jessica Stein was supposed to be cutesy and loveably high-strung, I wasn’t buying it. I can see why no one wanted to date her, man or woman; she was certainly one writer-heroine I was NOT cheering for. Her pseudo-girlfriend Helen was kind of cool but the fact that she chose to date Jessica cost her major points in my book. Leave the single NY gal antics to the ladies of Sex and the City, please.

3. Spoorloos, aka The Vanishing, 1988. 3 1/2 stars.
This Dutch flick promised creeps and chills but, in my opinion, took too long to deliver the goods. While the ending was deliciously creepifying, the movie had a hard time getting there. A couple is on vacation when the wife/girlfriend disappears at a rest area, never to be seen or heard from again. The husband/boyfriend becomes obsessed with her disappearance and dedicates his life to figuring out what happened. As a story about a man searching for answers about his lost love while a calculating sociopath watches his every move, this movie works as one of the better thrillers I’ve seen. I just wish it didn’t take so long to get the buggy to the top of the mountain, you know?

4. Carnival of Souls, 1962. 3 stars.
This movie features the most awesome pipe organ I have ever seen, I’ll say that much. I had been hearing about this film for years and was intrigued to find it at my local library. In a nutshell, it is a low budget B-horror/wannabe zombie film that has achieved cult status in some circles about a woman who is traumatized by an accident and flees the scene to take up residence in Utah as a church organist. She is haunted by hallucinations of a dark-eyed man and finds herself mysteriously drawn to an abandoned lakeside carnival and bathhouse. I won’t tell you why, because like I said, it’s a mystery. ‘C of S’ is pretty tame by today’s standards, but I would imagine to 1960’s audiences it was quite terrifying. I was actually a little afraid to turn the lights out afterward. I’m not ashamed to admit.

5. Syriana, 2005. 4 1/2 stars. (This is the only one I saw in the theater.)
A very complex, rather depressing (Henri-V turned to me afterward and said, “Now I feel fucking terrible.”) tale about the global oil industry and all it destroys. It was written by the same man who wrote ‘Traffic’ a few years back and you can tell - the narrative is woven together so tightly, yet you have no idea where one thread begins and another one ends. I found myself thinking, “I know all of this has to be connected somehow, but HOW?” In fact, I read a review by Roger Ebert, and he summed it up succinctly by saying, “The...plot is so complex we’re really not supposed to follow it, we’re supposed to be surrounded by it.” Well said, fat man, well said. It’s a brilliant puzzle that, when all the pieces came together, took my breath away.

6. Scotland, PA, 2001. 3 3/4 stars.
This movie dares to both ask AND answer questions like, “What if ‘Macbeth’ was set in a 1970’s small town burger joint?” and “What if the three witches were a bunch of stoners who hung around an abandoned carnival?” Instead of offing the king of Scotland, this McBeth (aka “Mac”) deep-fries his boss, Duncan, at the local fast food restaurant and builds his own burger-and-fries empire. Instead of Lady Macbeth hallucinating blood on her hands and going insane, this Pat McBeth burns herself with fry-grease and screams at the local pharmacist for her ointment. Christopher Walken shows up as a vegetarian detective investigating the murder of Duncan. Chaos, mayhem, and murder ensue. The classic Shakespearean tale of greed, power, passion, and love meets 1970’s American pop culture with a twist of black humor. And a side of fries.

7. The Kid Stays in the Picture, 2002. 4 stars.
Documentary about the rise, fall, and eventual re-rise of Hollywood big shot Robert Evans, the legendary producer behind The Godfather, Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story, and Chinatown. Visually, it is a series of postcard-esque snapshots and archive footage, and is unlike many movies I’ve seen. Evans narrates the piece, which works to his advantage as he manages to sound brazen, humble, smart, funny, and self-deprecating all at the same time. It’s like a backroom tour of 1960’s/70’s Hollywood, straight from the biggest cheese of them all - intimate, glamorous, balls-to-the-walls bad ass movie making. Watch it with a martini and a cigar.

I still have one more movie to watch (8 Women), but for the sake of time and space, I shall leave that off this list. Seven is a good number, and this has gone on long enough. But in the name of folks everywhere who suddenly don't know what to do with their time, I will push on into the movie frontier.

2006-01-13T08:18:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday the 13th!

I Swear I Really Have a Hedgehog

2006-01-12T16:50:00.000-08:00

I realized that I have never posted a photo of my surly hedgehog Margot. She is quite antisocial and makes grunting/wheezing sounds when you invade her space but DOG GONE IT is she precious to look at! This is her angry face, which she has most of the time when she's not sniffing out intruders or running on her exercise wheel. Her ears and nose are the cutest!

why i love photography

2006-01-11T11:55:00.000-08:00

"A photograph is not created by a photographer. What he does is just to open a little window and capture it. The world writes itself on his film. And the act of the photographer is closer to reading than it is to writing. He is the reader of the world." --Ferdinando Scianna

I read this on Slate today. They hit the nail right on the head.

A photograph is memory for you to hold in your hand. It's more than a tangible object - it is a sliver of time and space, one you were lucky enough to not only witness but to pluck out of the eternal fabric and print on a piece of paper. It allows others to look through your eyes; it's almost like whispering to someone, "Hey... come here... I've got a secret world to show you." It's as close as anyone is going to get to literally catching a glimpse into another's mind's eye.

As a natural voyeur, I must say that photography is the best kind of voyeurism. Everything happens around you, and you are both a part of it but also something separate. You are in the moment, you are a part of the environment, but you may not be participating. You are of the blanket, yet you are your own autonomous entitiy. I've noticed that lately I live my life in a constant state of observance in which I am always looking at things in terms of "would that make a good photo," or "THAT would make a good photo." I see a shadow cast on the wall and find it beautiful and wish for my camera. I see someone with a sad or quirky look on their face and wish I could take that look home, try and figure out what they were thinking.

I see my old photos and I remember everything. I rememer the day my late kitty Mabel posed so beautifully for me in the sun, and instead of working on a paper for school I took pictures of her (which turned out to be some of my favorite photos I've ever taken). She is gone now, but that day is still there.

Photography can be such a sneaky, secret, yet beautiful act that captures one split second in time or in someone's life, and while they may not be aware of it, that moment will last forever. It might not be a happy or even a slightly nice moment, but there it is - an object to last until someone or something destroys it. Everything about that moment is there, suspended. It's achieved immortality, in a way. And without you, the photographer, it would be lost forever.

Guinevere, meet Clementine

2006-01-09T18:29:00.000-08:00

I've decided to change the name. To me, she's kind of been Clementine all along. At first, it was all I could do to not call her Clementine. It will take some getting used to, but I think she'll like it. Better than Booger Face, anyway. And I made a promise to someone that Guinevere can be her middle name.

So, say hello to Clementine Guinevere Frary.

Well, Have You Seen It?

2006-01-09T10:30:00.000-08:00

I would like to draw everyone's attention to the link at the right for MY OTHER BLOG. It is one I got the idea to start back in Oct/Nov and built it but then let it fall to the wayside. No more wayside! I have revived HAVE YOU SEEN THE MEMO? and it is ready for your reading and/or submitting pleasure.

While it is still in its infant stages, I assure you that my alter ego (Office Tramp) and my associate (Bitter Assistant) are gathering ammunition as I write this. This means I might not post as much work-related stuff on TKV, so you will have to start reading HYSTM? on a regular basis if you want to keep abreast of what is happening in my work life. And I know everyone is very interested in that, so get readin'.

Wet Noses

2006-01-07T18:31:00.000-08:00

Oliver has been feeling under the weather for a couple of weeks now, but today he finally came out of his funk to enjoy the sunshine that we've all been missing so much. Here's to his restored health, his return to the attention-hound he has always been, and the fact that his regal plume of a tail has burst back into its magnificent state.

Opinion Poll

2006-01-07T17:58:00.000-08:00

So, say you were in a relationship with a person, and that you lived together. And one of you wanted to get a kitten but the other was hesitant, so you basically bullied that person into letting you adopt the kitten, and then you felt like a jerk and let the other person pick out the name in a feeble attempt at fairness. But then, say you broke up with that person and you don't live together anymore, and there's this kitten running around with a name that person gave it. And say you LIKED the name OK, but it wasn't the one you had been envisioning and saying, "The next kitten I get is going to be named _______," for months and months. Say now you kind of want to change the kitten's name to the name you had picked out LAST time you got a new kitten, except it was a girl's name and the kitten you got LAST time was a boy. And the new kitten doesn't even know her current name anyway, and she thinks her name is Booger Face (because she sneezes everywhere and you call her Booger Face) or PeeWee (because you call her that 'cuz she's so small) and she's only like 4 months old so her time being known as her current name is a minor blip on the radar of her 9 lives. Is this wrong?

Fiddling... UPDATED

2006-01-06T09:52:00.000-08:00

Hey people, I'm twiddling with the colors on here today so if you see it and it looks ugly, that probably means I'm in the middle of something. Check back later for a new, improved TKV.

LATER:
So now I'm done twiddling. New year, new me, new look for TKV. Tell me, though: is it too colorful? Does it hurt the eyes or offend in any aesthetic sense?

Year of Me

2006-01-05T20:55:00.000-08:00

And so it has been proclaimed that 2006 shall be the Year of Dawn. I actually did not coin this phrase myself, but dear Henri-V threw it out there the other day and I decided to run with it. Because in a way, it is exactly that.

There have been recent changes to my personal life that are both difficult to deal with and a relief at the same time. I will not divulge details because that would be tacky, but I will say this: endings are beginnings, and vice versa. I realize how horribly cheesy and vague this sounds but it applies. Sometimes a change has to be made, and while it might hurt for a while, it is often clear that it was the right change to make so that things can get better. And things will be better - that much I know.

This is essentially the first time in nearly five years that I have been a free agent. There was a few month span back in early-to-mid-2004, but that quickly became consumed by another and I found myself again a part of a pair. It was great and there were many, many good times. I don't regret one second of it. The previous three years however...that is another story. But now, I am not only at the threshold of a new year but essentially a new way of life as well. This will be something completely new for me, something I have not yet done as an adult. It is exciting and scary and thrilling and daunting all at the same time. I wouldn't want it any other way right now.

To live as an entity of one, to allow myself to live for and by myself -- while it sounds selfish in a way, I assure you it is the kind of selfish that needs to be dealt with. The kind of selfish that ends up in self-improvement and self-knowing and contentment. The kind you need to deal with before worrying about the wants and needs of others. WE are the most important people in our lives. If WE are not happy with who we are, then it’s hard for others to be. I know some people think that’s BS, but who wants to spend time with someone who hates themself or doesn’t know who they are? It’s not healthy for anybody.

I feel like I can do anything and go anywhere.
The door is open. All I have to do is walk through.

That's Friendship, Right There...

2006-01-04T06:18:00.000-08:00

My pal Henri-V posted this for me and it's so awesome that I wanted to share it with everyone. Mom, you will enjoy this one too. Yow.

Plus you should all be reading Henri's blog too because she's cool.

2006-01-04T06:14:00.000-08:00

Check out the New Year's photo post below...

More Than Just a New Year

2006-01-03T16:56:00.000-08:00

Things are changing.

Check It, Yo.

2006-01-02T00:22:00.001-08:00

www.cautionarytale.com

My work haikus live there this month. Even though you already all saw them on here, visit Cautionary Tale and read them again with a new background color!

I'll also pimp Cautionary Tale a bit because it's a wonderfully funny site that never fails to amuse. My favorites include The View from the West Hill series and the Dictionary of American Diction. The former because it's just damn good entertaining stuff. The latter because it's a hoot to make fun of people who are stupid and can't use the English language properly.

Piecing Together my New Year's Eve

2006-01-01T23:19:00.000-08:00

I know how it ended up, that’s for sure. It ended ugly. How it all began is another thing. Actually I know how it began, and I know the culprits included several pitchers of Sierra Nevada pale ale, two Irish car bombs, Chinese food, a couple of Blue Moons at home, and company all too willing to suggest/push/buy drinks.

I spent a lot of time outside on the phone with Chrissy, who was also slightly tipsy. And by ‘slightly tipsy’ I mean ‘tanked.’ Or, to reference a recent reference, ‘oiled.’ I regaled a poet with tales of Guinevere’s recent cold and subsequent frequent snot blasts. I took lots of pictures. The pictures are what I’m proud of.

The Sanctuary, swanky non-smoking bar.

Self portrait.

This man is a published novelist. Read his book or he will eat you.

The group: Tali, Rich, Jen (poet), Bart (novelist), Bryan. Me behind the camera, of course.

A toast, to years gone by and years to come. Happy New Year, 2006. May you bring happiness, love, and peace to all those who seek it. Cheers.

Go here to view more images from New Year's Eve.

Musings: Out With the Old, In With the New

2005-12-31T13:04:00.000-08:00

There is always something about New Year’s that seems so final.

It’s one more year that is now behind us, one more year that we watched pass by like a ghost through the night and most of us probably did just that - sat back and watched it pass. But that’s OK because if you don’t watch, you don’t see.

It’s always sad to say good-bye to something, even if it was just a year. Good and bad things happen, people meet, people connect, people end up going their separate ways. Kittens are born, friends are made. Laughter and tears flow as freely as water.

The year is ending. If there was anything you hoped to accomplish in 2005, you have a few mere hours to accomplish it in. 2006 is relentlessly rushing toward us at this very minute, so all we can do is put on our protective headgear and batten down the hatches. What will 2006 bring us? Happiness? Love? Prosperity? Sorrow? Probably all of the above. It’s a smorgasbord of emotion out there and we all need to fill our plates and dig in.

Less than 9 hours now. Let the countdown begin - to endings, to beginnings, to the infinite possibilities that lie up ahead on the unknown road.

We Work Hard for the Money

2005-12-28T13:21:00.000-08:00

Before break, our department secretary sent out the following email. But first, a little background on what the hell she's talking about: while my department is part of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, we are not physically located within that facility. Instead, we are housed in the second floor of the US Bank building in lovely downtown Iowa City, but will soon be movind to the newly purchased and renovated former Younkers space in the Old Capital Mall, also in lovely downtown Iowa City. Apparently we have been given the opportunity to name our aisles, so the department secretary is trying to engage us in a little intellectually stimulating naming exercise. And notice how she misspelled "aisles." She's a moron.

Email from Secretary:
Hey there all!
We may get the opportunity to literally “name our isles” at the new facility.
So I’m just checking to see if you have any ideas.

Examples of what they’re looking for…
Wellmark Way, Medicaid Drive, Credit Alley, Physician’s Road….
Chocolate Names (Hershey Ave, M & M Parkway, Milky Way, Milk Dud Lane)
Cities and towns in the area…
Hawkeye names…
types of trees…
etc…

Give me some examples from our bright FPP Staff!
Thanks!

Heather was the only one who wrote back to the secretary and suggested the following name:
Hershy Highway
She did not receive a response.

Jeff suggested to me, after putting in his resignation and slipping away quietly into the night:
how about "the Jeff Shields memorial parkway"?
So has anything been said about my vacant desk?

Meg offered, between us:
Upon perusal, our “isle” may be:
Prozac Place
Xanex Cul-de-sac
Wellbutrin Way

Thus are the suggestions…
I think this may have been a “connection committee” idea.
We should infiltrate that organization.
It may be the only way…

My ideas were:
Fuck You Blvd.
Lick My Hairy Balls Lane
This Job Sucks and I Want to Commit Suicide Ct.

* * * * *
As of this date, nothing has been decided. This is, however, a prime example of that bright FPP staff she was talking about. I think we're all in the wrong line of work, to be honest.

Local Groceries Have Something Against Me

2005-12-27T19:43:00.000-08:00

I came to this conclusion after shopping today at both Hy-Vee and the co-op. At Hy Vee, I looked for the new Ben and Jerry's flavor, Oatmeal Cookie, which I tasted only once but that one time was enough for me to realize this is the scrumptious, perfect ice cream flavor I've been yearning for. My Hy-Vee, however, does not carry it.

So a few minutes ago, I decided that ice cream would feel really good on my sore, head-cold-ravaged throat and popped over to the co-op. I got it in my head that the oatmeal cookie flavor would taste, er, FEEL so much better on my poor throat than any other flavor, but I got the shaft again because the co-op doesn't carry it EITHER.

I'm starting to take it personally.

TKV Presents: What I Did on my Christmas Vacation

2005-12-27T17:10:00.000-08:00

MY HOLIDAY WEEKEND SPECTACULAR!

Driving
When I bought my car in February, the window sticker advertised that it had cruise control, which led to my assumption that it did in fact have cruise control. After finalizing the purchase and being approved for the loan, etc., I drove it off the lot only to discover that the god damn thing does NOT have cruise control. The point in that little story is that I am a rather aggressive driver on the interstate, and when I get into The Zone and am able to become entranced and Zenned by driving, I oftentimes snap out of it and look at the speedometer only to discover that I’m usually at approximately 80 mph. This is good because I get places faster but bad because it puts me in danger of getting a speeding ticket. My trips to and from Monmouth were no exception, with speeds topping out at 88 mph at one point. But I do wear my seat belt at all times so, you know, that’s something.

I made a special Eels mix CD before I left town Saturday morning and ended up rocking out to it the entire trip. I couldn’t rock out to my normal hardcore rocking capacity (volume somewhere around 23, me bopping around the driver’s seat and singing along at the top of my lungs) because Bryan couldn’t handle the noise. I was in my height of glory with all my favorite Eels songs at my fingertips though.

The drive back was kind of gross because we left Monmouth after breakfast and my belly was pretty full - I grabbed a Diet Coke for the road and anyone who has spent any amount of time with me knows how DC (or, really, ANYthing) makes me belch like a madman. Only instead of just plain belches they were egg-and-asparagus soufflé belches. Poor Bryan. That’s all I have to say.

Ryan
After arriving in Monmouth, I promptly picked up friends Amanda and Ryan. Amanda and I have been friends for nearly 20 years, and Ryan joined the picture around our freshman year of high school. Our relationship is a special one - we each have our own special dynamic that we add to the group. As Amanda so succinctly summed it up: “I (Amanda) just sit back and watch those two (me and Ryan) go at it, and I laugh.” She is right. Ryan’s and my relationship is comparable to that of a seven-year-old brother and sister where the brother constantly insults the sister and the sister keeps telling him to shut up or F off. We incessantly insult and/or make fun of each other and do things like throw crackers in restaurants (which Ryan did to me Saturday when I dipped my cracker into his spinach bisque). This time, Ryan’s insult of choice for me seemed to be the term ‘douche bag’ whereupon I laughed hysterically at him to the point of crying. I made the mistake of thinking I could reference The Catcher in the Rye and said something to the effect that I was going to “get oiled up” that night (i.e. I was going to drink a lot) and that just became more reason to make fun of me. I quote great works of literature and get shot down. I think i called him an illiterate bastard.

Ryan has a penchant for pissing off my sister as well, so I brought him back to the house for a while. He had never met Jenn’s fiancé, so since he’s practically a member of the family, I decided it was high time they become acquainted. Ryan was in top form -- it took him about 10 minutes to effectively piss Jenn off and when I asked Eric what he thought of Ryan later on, Eric said with a smirk, “That guy’s special.” Ba-zing.

The Gifts
My mom did something terrible this year that nearly turned everyone against her and started a Christmas mutiny. Before we started the official gift-opening, she brought out a mystery package along with a packet for everyone. The packet was 50 Christmas trivia questions which we were all to answer in order to see who had the highest score and would thus win the mystery gift. The event was met with violent protest and much yelling (Jenn hollered, “I don’t like tests, that’s why I’m a college dropout!!” -- good times), but we all answered the questions anyway. In the end it was a tie between me and Bryan, and our tie was broken with one question: something about which company started the popularity of Santa having a red suit in the 1930’s. I correctly guessed Coca-Cola and won the mystery gift - a nice fleece blanket which I am actually wrapped up in right now. But the real satisfaction came not from winning a blanket but from beating everyone else’s asses. I can be quite competitive when I want to, and I am oftentimes a sore loser.

In my family, all the gifts are opened one at a time so everyone can watch everyone else open and see what they got. This takes like, 100 years but it’s fun, really. Some of my gifts this year included a Princess Leia watch from Burger King (I used to be obsessed with Princess Leia when I was little), some Hello Kitty merch like socks and a stamper (I got the idea that I could use it on all the faxes I send from work but then reconsidered on the grounds that that might be considered “unprofessional”), a framed vintage peacock postcard, a cool Asian-inspired purse and fan from my sister, and a kitty bobble-head doll that looks like Sunshine. The highlight of my holiday was the gifts from my dad, who, year by year, is proving himself to be the coolest gift-giver ever. In the past, gifts from Dad have been things like beautiful antique cat statues and Janis Joplin and Ramones records. This year, however, he outdid himself - he found a vintage movie camera that actually still might work and has film in it (who KNOWS what’s on that?!). But even more wonderful than that was mint condition issue of Rolling Stone commemorating Hunter S. Thompson’s life and death. He found it at a flea market after saying he felt that he had to go there one day because he would find my present. And there, lying on top of a pile of magazines, it was. I cried when I opened it. It was the perfect gift. It was unexpected and thoughtful and personal and he - well, anyone - is going to have a hell of a time topping it, like, EVER.

From Bryan I received the special edition DVD of “I Heart Huckabees,” which is a funny and brilliant film and I was really hoping that’s what he got me. His parents got me a gift card for Hobby Lobby (yarn!!!), a cat ornament, some kitchenware and some other stuff. His brother and his GF got me a Hello Kitty necklace and the craziest and scariest purse I’ve ever seen -- it looks sort of like a monster from “Where the Wild Things Are” crossed with a cat crossed with a demon. It’s so frickin’ cool.

Happy Tears
I cried three times on Christmas Eve: twice from laughing and once because of the awesome HST gift from my dad. The second time I laugh-cried was because of my sister, who usually is guilty when it comes to me laughing so hard I cry. For instance, during the holiday season a couple years ago, she and I were driving in Davenport, IA on Kimberly Road - one of the busiest and most used roads in the city. I had in my Nutcracker CD and Jenn decided to sing to it. Not like, make up words or anything but just make really loud noises and hand motions to the music. Of course it doesn’t sound funny now, but I assure you we were close to death as I was laughing/crying so hard i couldn’t breathe or see or drive. I love to laugh like that but I prefer to do it when I’m not behind the wheel of a car.

Anyway. Jenn makes me laugh. A lot. And Saturday night was no exception. What happened was probably not all that funny again. Mom gave each Jenn and myself a copy of the cookbook she was recently published in, and an Ov-Glove (for pulling stuff out of the oven/welding/changing light bulbs/etc.). Jenn got Mom an Ov-Glove last year, and made the comment, “A gift given is a gift received.” She meant it such that the gift she gave Mom last year is the gift she was then receiving a year later. But it sounded so cheesy and funny that I started laughing hysterically to the point that tears were streaming down my face and I couldn’t breathe and for a brief moment wondered if I could in fact die from laughing - which made her laugh, which made ME laugh harder, and everyone else was kind of like, “What did I miss?...” If I add that this was after I drank one beer and about 4 shots of rum, does that make more sense?

* * * * *

And so this Christmas comes to an end. Laughs were shared, insults were hurled, rum was drunk, and tears were shed. I think we covered all the bases.

Hope you and yours had and will continue to have a happy holiday season.

Love,
The Kitty Voice

VISUAL AIDS:
Ryan being an ass at the restaurant. This was pre-crackers throwing.

Amanda, her man Bush, and Ryan, who was pouting because he believed I was trying to interrupt his conversation.

Excitement: Ryan, me, and Bryan.

Me getting oiled, Bryan stares at the wall.

Christmas Love with Jenn and her fiance, Eric.

Jenn's reaction to the Christmas trivia quiz. Grrr!!!

Ryan and I put the insults aside and make nice for the camera.

Dad feels the joy of the holiday. Really, he does.

THE END!

back to fiction

2005-12-23T21:17:00.000-08:00

An image popped into my head yesterday. Here, the short short story that resulted from that image.

Quiet
by Dawn Frary

It was quiet except for two things: the sound of cars somewhere far off in the distance, and the soft splashes made by the whiskey being tipped back and forth in the bottle. It was very dark and the hood of the car was very cold. The sky was black but it was an expansive - not pressing - blackness. It was as though it had stretched out further to give them room.

She took a drink and let the bottle come to rest in her lap. She exhaled and made a face, her breath a cloud in front of her. It was still quiet as she passed the bottle on to him.

He started to lift it to his mouth but then stopped. “One of us should have said something,” he said to her. “I mean, after all these years.” Then he took a drink.

She lightly tugged at a string of yarn hanging from her mitten. “I know. All these years and we never knew.” She reached her hand toward the bottle but he caught it with his and held it. Their feet dangled next to the headlights. They stared straight ahead, their warm breath like ghosts before them.

“What would she say if you called it off now?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I can’t even imagine.” He shook his head.

The sound of more cars, far away. Then, silence. “Do you want to call it off? Since, you know...” She trailed off. A tear rolled from her eye to a point halfway down her cheek. It was warm, and she wondered briefly if it might freeze there.

He took a drink but did not say anything. She listened with rapt intentness for the sound of him drawing in a breath, the sound of him forming a thought, the sound of him agreeing to be hers now.

But she heard only the distant cars, and the splash of warm whiskey against glass.

Thoughts on a Christmas Eve Eve

2005-12-23T19:14:00.000-08:00

The Outside World:
The town was so dead today, it was almost surreal. The students are gone, apparently a lot of people took the day off work, and even the shops in downtown Iowa City seemed sort of deserted. There was no traffic going to work, and after work the roads were equally as empty. The bus was empty. Usually people have to stand and cram in all the way to the back. I was reading Catcher in the Rye and clearly understood how Holden could say he always felt “so damned lonesome all of a sudden.”

Panhandlers:
There is a man that stands in the Ped Mall and plays the accordion for money. I haven’t pinned down his schedule yet but it seems like a possible every-other-day thing. I saw him Wednesday and gave him some money, and he was back today so I gave him a little more. He looks very cheerful, always smiling at both himself and the passers-by. Today he wore a Santa hat and some cheesy 80’s sunglasses. I don’t care what he plays, as long as he keeps playing. God, I frickin’ love the accordion.

This Might Not Fare Well for Me Getting that Promotion:
Yesterday my supervisor -- we’ll call her W -- returned a refund sheet I had done back in October. Apparently I had refunded too much to the patient and now it was creating a balance on his account. I pulled it up in the system today to correct it, expecting it to be a case where I'd delete something here, adjust something there...but was greeted with the biggest mess I think I’ve seen since being forced into the credit department. And what sucks most is that it was all stuff I had done so I couldn't even say, "That Cyclops, man, what a moron." I sat with W for about 40 minutes while she worked through it, untangling the unholy mess I had created. I silently awarded myself the Most Impressive Mistake Award for 2005, and told my boss, not in so many words, that “I wish I could travel back in time and kick myself in the ass for this.” We were ready to toss it out as a lost cause when W finally figured it out and declared that while it was fixable, it was currently best described by the infrequently-used acromyn FUBAR. I walked out of her office commenting to my co-workers about my superhuman ability to F things up, and W hollered after me, “Believe her when she says that!” At least we agree.

My 10-Day Weekend
Starting today at 5pm, I am on vacation until January 3rd. Because of the university holiday structure, I am able to spend a mere 3 days of vacation but get 10 days off. I don’t think I’ve ever had 10 days off. I’m already wondering what I’m going to do with myself. But here’s the thing: I have three DVD’s checked out from the public library -- Curb Your Enthusiasm season 1, Six Feet Under season 3 (disc 2), and Brotherhood of the Wolf -- two books to read from there as well, a scarf to finish, two to start, a hat to re-start, arm- and leg-warmers to make, photos to edit and upload, new photos to take, friends to call or email or see, stories to write, a kitchen and bathroom that need a good hard scrubbin’... I think I’ll be just fine.

Misc:
I have three gifts left to wrap and three cats to keep out of the way.

I wish it was quiet.

There are some people I wish lived closer to me. You know who you are.

the in-between time

2005-12-23T16:35:00.000-08:00

I received, today, something from my friend Emily who I have met only twice but feel a kinship with because secretly I think we are nearly the same person. She sent me a copy of her first poetry chapbook which is lovely not only as an object but as a piece of abstraction; not only as small groups of words but as a forest of meaning. I am touched to be a recipient and to have my name among the enablers.

She will read this and know how happy I am. Thank you.

Lock Your Windows and Doors

2005-12-21T21:21:00.000-08:00

Tonight is the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. Get settled in, folks. It's going to be a long night.

a story about a dog going pee

2005-12-21T18:52:00.000-08:00

Today I saw a three-legged dog take a pee. I’ve never seen that before. But since it only had one back leg, it didn’t have to go to the trouble of lifting the other one. I was incredibly amused. And it was a pretty dog.

So there is this new job opening at work. It’s an internal promotion, available only to me and my fellow Crediteers, and it’s basically an assistant to the supervisor. The workload involves approving all the refunds we put through the system, doing payroll, heading up the weekly credit meetings, and performing basic supervisory tasks in the absense of the regular supervisor. It pays more. Who ever gets it will probably get to boss people around.

I’m applying because I don’t want my co-worker, Cyclops, to get it. Cyclops is, of course, not her real name. Heather and I made that up one day when we were feeling particularly snarky and immature because she has a lazy eye and bears a striking resemblance to a cave troll. And yes, we’re fully aware that we’re going to hell so there’s no need to point that out. Anyway, Cy has worked for the U for about 100 years and is unbearable. She is a know it all, she won’t help you if you ask her, she acts like she’s more important than anyone else. She either makes lame jokes and laughs at them when no one else does, or she will revive some sort of stupid inside joke from 50 years ago and then laugh at that. Everyone hates her, even our current supervisor. But in an effort to thwart her grab at power, I am gallantly pretending that I’m a good employee and submitting my resume and cover letter by the end of the week.

The thing is, we have to act like we’re applying for a new job by submitting the resume and cover letter. We even have to go through an interview with our current supervisor. I suppose I can see why she’d want to do this, but it’s annoying. She knows what kind of workers we all are, she knows what kind of work we produce and what kind of people we are. Hell, one day she, Heather, and I traded stories about our pets farting for about 15 minutes. And now, we have to interview with this woman and act professional and not like we laughed about how my late cat D’Artangnan could clear a room with his raunchy farts.

Getting paid more would be cool. Getting to boss people around would also be cool. But I don’t know that I’m up to the responsibility. By all accounts, Cy is probably the most qualified for the position being as she’s been employed by UIHC since the dawn of time. But the thought of her in a position of semi-power makes me want to drive a truck through, well, her.

I will do my part. I will apply in hopes that my supervisor can overlook my status as the lowest-productivity person for the last 2 months running and actually consider me over the wobbly cave troll. Am I petty? Maybe a little. But do I want to beat the little dwarf pants off Cy? You bet your ass I do.

And what does the peeing three-legged dog have to do with any of this? Absolutely nothing. Sucker.

this one's for you, bopper

2005-12-21T17:18:00.000-08:00

This is Henry. Henry is my cat-nephew. I received word today that he was disappointed that he has not been featured on The Kitty Voice. So like a good auntie, I decided to fulfill his wishes and share a photo from this past Saturday with the world. He has beautiful fur that's white at the root and gray at the tips. He's fluffy and fuzzy and likes to ride in the car. And I hear his litter box really stinks. Right, Jenn?

cats are easy to amuse

2005-12-20T21:57:00.000-08:00

Give them a box...

...or a buddy...

...or another kitty butt to use as a pillow.

Presto. Amused cats.

Merry Grinchmas, Vols. 5 and 6

2005-12-20T07:04:00.000-08:00

Vol. 5
My mom send this in an email today:

The toilet here at the house has to be flushed manually (i.e. sticking your hand in the main tank to wiggle the chain, it's a pain in the ass, but dad doesn't know what to do to fix it - he's tried). It's not pleasant, but we can show you what to do if you need us to. It's annoying as hell - believe me - but that's what's up with that right now.

I suppose the bright side would be that we don't have to reach our hands into the toilet BOWL and wiggling anything down there. I'm trying to be positive about this, since Xmas looms so closely now.

Vol. 6
The second thing I had for today was not really a Grinchmas thing but something I thought was cool. Go here and check out the photo someone sent in to Coast to Coast AM's website of their cat. And have a merry Christmas, would'ja?

Supplement to Previous Angry Narnia Post

2005-12-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

I decided to throw on some pictures of the White Witch's bad ass dreadlocks as something positive about the Narnia movie. Her hair is, however, the ONLY positive thing.

My mom told me if I can't say anything nice, not to say anything at all, but that's not my style. And it's too late since I already railed on the film. So here's my something nice, with visual aids.

Merry Grinchmas, Vol. 4

2005-12-19T06:13:00.000-08:00

The...Santas entered another downtown convenience store and carried off beer and soft drinks. "They came in, said 'Merry Christmas' and then helped themselves," store owner Changa Manakynda said.

Anarchy. Chaos. Drunken Santas.
Merry friggin' Christmas.

Read the article here.

Nutcrackin'

2005-12-17T21:41:00.000-08:00

O the intensive weekly rehearsals that begin in early summer and don’t end until just before the holidays, with dress rehearsals running to the cold wee hours! O the selling of chocolate bars door to door to pay exorbitant costume and shoe fees! O the excitement and hard work and exhilaration of being onstage and delighting children and adults alike!

As former cast members, my sister and I felt we were entitled to critique this year’s annual Nutcracker Suite, as performed by Ballet Quad Cities. We were dancers in the production some 10+ years ago. We knew all the dances by heart, even the ones we never did. We expected great things (at least I did, I guess I can’t speak for Jenn). We did not receive these great things. It’s one thing to be a part of the action, but it is certainly another to watch it from the balcony, years later, and rip it to shreds when it’s over.

The battle scene between the good soldiers and the evil rats and mice, led, respectively, by the Nutcracker prince and the Rat King/Queen, was awesome. Both Jenn and I had parts in the battle scene at one time or another, she as a mouse and I as a fighting rat, and it was never this cool when we were part of it. They added special effects, like flashing red lights, to make it more visually appealing. The rat costumes were MUCH better than what we had in my day (the heads looked as though you could actually see out of them). The swords were better. There was actual dancing rather than just people running around. I actually sort of cried when it was over because it was really cool and I started missing dance so much.

I was especially looking forward to the second act, because that’s when the “real” dancing happens - the Spanish, Chinese, etc. all perform for Clara and kick-ass performances are usually given. The Arabian dance was very passionate and bordered on sexy, which I liked. As cool as it was, though, it was no match for the first year Jenn and I danced in the show: the Arabian dancer was clad in a magnificent peacock costume, the tail of which was rumored to weigh 50+ pounds (which surely was a lie, but my god was that thing spectacular), and she was carried onstage in a huge gold cage by two shirtless slave men. It was utterly breathtaking. The rest of the dances this year, however, were mediocre at best. The dancer who performed the Spanish and Dew Drop Fairy roles was wooden, stiff, and put no emotion into her dancing. They may as well have been moving a cardboard cutout across the stage. The ‘paper shavings’ (i.e. the gingersnap dance, the dance Bridget and I both did the first year we met) was nothing but six little girls running around the stage, doing cartwheels and waggling their arms everywhere. The Chinese costumes looked like pajamas. The Waltz of the Flowers did not utilize the music correctly, nor did it ever put all the flowers onstage at once so the audience could be dazzled by the array of colors in the dancers’ costumes. And the Grand Pas de Deux, the BIG ending dance between Clara and the Nutcracker prince, the SADDEST MOMENT OF THE PERFORMANCE because they are saying goodbye to each other, was devoid of feeling, passion, and impressive moves. It was, in barely a word, blah.

I’ll stop talking about ballet now because I doubt many of you reading this care. But I feel very strongly that today’s performance could have been ten times better than it actually was. Either the quality of dance has gone down or I’ve just gotten pickier. Maybe we expected too much. Maybe we expected it to be the same production we were in back then. Maybe the new choreographer for the ballet company just isn’t on par with the one we had. Or maybe we’re just bitches.

The Chronicles of Stupid: The Boredom, the Annoyance, and the Girl Who Couldn't Stay Awake

2005-12-17T00:19:00.000-08:00

Do not, I repeat DO NOT under any circumstances go see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. You’ll regret it, I promise.

I’m probably not the most qualified person to be “reviewing” the film since, well, I slept through most of it. I went into tthe movie already tired, and on the drive down to the theater I was thinking as I slightly nodded off, ‘Maybe I should have stayed home...” I was temporarily revived by a liter of water and sat through three dumb ass trailers for some upcoming animated films, but then was given a treat from some divine force -- they showed a trailer for the next installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean series and I got to ogle Johnny Depp in all his smudged-eyeliner, knee-weakening, near-orgasm-inducing-just-from-lookng-at-him glory. That put a big smile on my face.

The smile didn’t last long.

The movie started and I immediately realized three things:
1) The main characters are children.
2) The children are terrible actors.
3) I hate child actors in general so this is going to be painful, tedious, and generally awful.

I somehow made it through my childhood without ever having read any of the Narnia books so I didn’t have anything to base my opinions or expectatins on, which could be why they were perhaps a little higher than others’ (like Bridget’s, who went on a tirade over the summer about Hollywood capitalizing on her childhood; much like I went on a tirade a few years ago when i learned that they were “remastering” [aka tampering with] E.T., or MY childhood). I knew the general plot of LW&W: kids find mysterious closet containing a wondrous world of mythical creatures, kids venture in and save the day all while acting out some sort of allegorical retelling of the story of Christ, where He is this wise talking lion. I think I outgrew talking animal movies a long time ago. I’m not a fan of the fantasy genre in general. All more reasons I should have stayed home.

And as if the movie itself wasn’t bad enough, someone had the audacity to bring their three probably three-year-old children to the late show of a very long movie. And they had the further audacity to sit behind us. At one point, something cute did happen: one kid hollered, “DAD, IS THIS MOVIE THE MONKEY (King Kong) OR THE LION?” But after that it was child-whispers, whining, moving around, etc. I thought about turning around and asking them to please stop/sit still/etc. but then I realized, “I’m not paying attention to the movie anyway and I in fact don’t care that they’re disturbing me.”

WARNING: HERE LIE SPOILERS.
If you have not had the misfortune of seeing this movie, you might want to stop reading here. But if you already have seen it or are not planning on doing so, by all means please read on.

On the way home I tried to recall exactly when I fell asleep and began retracing my steps: I saw the beavers, when the wolves chased them through that tunnel, then they were all running across that big frozen lake or whatever, and then... oh yeah. Santa Claus showed up. Earlier in the film, the smallest child freaked out in her controlled, polite, British way that they didn’t have Christmas in Narnia anymore and was all, “No presents?!?!” Whose ever idea it was to do a callback to that and bring in Santa needs to be drawn and quartered. I remembered that it was precisely that moment that I metaphorically threw up my hands and said, “That’s it! I’m outta here,” and promptly fell asleep.

I woke up again when they were just about to kill the lion. Having missed a big chunk of the movie I was kind of like, “WTF?” and was a little sad that they had the lion tied to this big rock and were going to stab him. But then I remembered that he was supposed to represent Christ and so they kind of had to kill him. It looked kind of cool actually, like some sort of paganesque Bohemian Grove type of sacrificial ceremony with fire and yelling and your basic murderous mayhem. You’re not, however, supposed to root for the bad guys. More on that later.

One thing that really bothered me was the relationship between the little girl and the Satyr. I mean, here we have this girl who is like 6 or 7 years old and she starts hanging out with this Satyr guy who looks like he’s probbaly in his early 20’s. He’s naked from the waist up and from the waist down, well, he’s a GOAT and he has horns. Maybe if he had had a shirt on, it wouldn’t have been as bad. But running around in the woods, naked in the snow...creepy. I particularly didn’t like when the Satyr took the girl back to his house where there were candles lit and a fire going and he’s all winking at her and then after a while tells her he’s going to kidnap her after giving her tea and playing his little flute for her. Creepy times two. It all just seemed so inappropriate.

Speaking of inappropriate, I found myself wondering on more than one occasion, “Is this REALLY supposed to be a children’s movie?” I mean, there were some scary looking dudes commiting acts of such violence that a small child might have come out of it severely traumatized. There’s things cutting legs off other things, the whole lion stabbing, a kid gets nearly impaled on a spike... In the time I had fallen asleep, it had gone from tame hide-and-seek games to beheading Minotaurs. I wondered what all I really missed or if as a joke, my fellow movie-goers moved me into another theater.

I think the one thing I liked about the film was the villain. The White Witch, man, she was something. She was so icily scary and intimidating in the way a five foot dangling icicle is intimidating: it’s lovely but when it snaps, you’re so dead. In the beginning she had these magnificently long snaky dreadlocks that she would wrap around each other and make into the most bad ass hairdos. The dreadlock thing kept up for most of the movie (I think) and I kept thinking, ‘I wonder how long it would take me to grow my hair like that...” Her costumes were awesome too - white felted gowns that looked vaguely like icy moss, black feather ceremonial accessories, a big fur battle collar and a crown of ice. Fabulous. Is it wrong that I sort of wanted her to win?

Boisterous laughter issued from my group of seven throughout the final half hour. At one point, Bryan couldn’t take it anymore and yelled out, “DORK!” at the witch’s dwarfy sidekick. I whined, “Why isn’t it over yet? Wait - did the Satyr just pull that hanky out of his armpit?”

Do not see this movie. I think it was the most expensive nap I’ve ever had.

MD or DJ? You decide...

2005-12-16T13:26:00.000-08:00

There is a doctor at the hospital where I work named Dr. Funk. I just think that's funny.

2005-12-16T08:46:00.000-08:00

Going to see The Nutcracker tomorrow.

So very excited.

So many memories.

In Praise of StatCounter

2005-12-15T20:26:00.000-08:00

In the last month or month and a half, I added a feature to The Kitty Voice called StatCounter. StatCounter is a tool that keeps track of how many hits I get per day, where the hits come from, how long the visitor is on the site, etc. It's quite addicting and I check it just about everyday, not only to see how many people read my blog that day but to see WHO read my blog that day and how many new people maybe stumbled upon it.

A lot of the hits I get, I can figure out who they are by the location. Like I know who my readers in Georgia, West Virginia, and Ohio are. Hi guys. There are some frequent readers from Texas and Arkansas who I have no idea who they are but it's exciting to think that a stranger happened upon TKV and now reads it regularly. Thanks for stopping by, Plano, TX, and Little Rock, AR!

Today in my stats, I was particularly happy because I had a reader from Amsterdam, my current fantasy vacation spot! Amsterdam reader, if you should return, when is the best time to come and can you please get me a deal on a hotel/flight package? Thanks!

I was a little disheartened, however, to see that someone in Panama City Beach found my blog and read it for a whopping 27 seconds. It's quite one thing when someone new finds TKV and clicks on past. Those zero second hits don't bother me. But a 27 second one...that means someone started reading, and after nearly half a minute, decided it sucked and moved on. 27 seconds, now that's just borderline insulting.

Merry Grinchmas, Vol. 3

2005-12-15T10:29:00.000-08:00

These people win the award for Most Creative Xmas-Bashing. Three cheers for them!

Holy Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

2005-12-15T09:53:00.000-08:00

Look what I just found online! Maybe it's some secret society no one knows about...

But it goes to show I'm not the only one with the idea to form a Church of Chuck Norris. Or maybe he started it himself. You know, because of the beard and all he probably believes he's holy.

O Chuck, Where Art Thou?

2005-12-15T09:06:00.000-08:00

I am having trouble finding more Chuck Norris jokes. If anyone has a link to some, please send it to me and I will credit you with being the Hero of the Day (after Chuck Norris, and if he knows you're sharing his hero status, you'll probably receive a sound roundhouse kick-related punishment). I have some Vin Diesel jokes, would anyone be interested in those?

In other recent Chuck Norris news, last night Bridget and I briefly tossed around the idea of forming the Church of Chuck Norris. After we got off the phone I thought that if the two of us named ourselves High Priestesses of Chuck and learned how to roundhouse kick ourselves, it might seem like a more legitimate cause.

An Afternoon with Chuck Norris

2005-12-13T15:55:00.000-08:00

I received the following forward through my work email today. The events that followed were a direct result of this hilarity.

The Email

Little Known Facts about Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead
decided to punch his way out of his mother's womb. Shortly thereafter he
grew a beard.

When Chuck Norris plays Oregon Trail his family does not die from cholera
or dysentery, but rather roundhouse kicks to the face. He also requires
no wagon, since he carries the oxen, axels, and buffalo meat on his back.
He always makes it to Oregon before you.

Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and
unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was
finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his
soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn't stay mad and
admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second
Wednesday of the month.

Chuck Norris recently had the idea to sell his urine as a canned
beverage. We now this beverage as Red Bull.

Chuck Norris's girlfriend once asked him how much wood a woodchuck could
chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. He then shouted, "HOW DARE YOU
RHYME IN THE PRESENCE OF CHUCK NORRIS!" and ripped out her throat.
Holding his girlfriend's bloody throat in his hand he bellowed, "Don't
fuck with Chuck!" Two years and five months later he realized the irony
of this statement and laughed so hard that anyone within a hundred mile
radius of the blast went deaf.

A man once asked Chuck Norris if his real name is "Charles". Chuck Norris
did not respond, he simply stared at him until he exploded.

Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK
assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his
beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.

To prove it isn't that big of a deal to beat cancer. Chuck Norris smoked
15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and aquired 7 different kinds
of cancer only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat
that, Lance Armstrong.

Chuck Norris was the fourth Wiseman. He brought baby Jesus the gift of
"beard". Jesus wore it proudly to his dying day. The other Wisemen,
jealous of Jesus' obvious gift favoritism, used their combined influence
to have Chuck omitted from the Bible. Shortly after all three died of
roundhouse kick related deaths.

The original theme song to the Transformers was actually "Chuck
Norris--more than meets the eye, Chuck Norris--robot in disguise," and
starred Chuck Norris as a Texas Ranger who defended the earth from
drug-dealing Decepticons and could turn into a pick-up. This was far too
much awesome for a single show, however, so it was divided.

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

Chuck Norris can make a woman climax by simply pointing at her and saying
"booya".

Chuck Norris once shot a German plane down with his finger, by yelling,
"Bang!"

Chuck Norris lives by only one rule: No Asian Chicks.

The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.

After much debate, President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on
Hiroshima rather than the alternative of sending Chuck Norris. His
reasoning? It was more "humane".

Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are
trademarked names for his left and right legs.

Chuck Norris found out about Conan O'Brien's lever that shows clips from
"Walker: Texas Ranger" and is working on a way to make it show clips of
Norris having sex with Conan's wife.

Chuck Norris took my virginity, and he will sure as hell take yours. If
you're thinking to yourself, "That's impossible, I already lost my
virginity.", then you are dead wrong.

Chuck Norris once went to a frat party, and proceeded to roundhouse every
popped collar in sight. He then drank three kegs and shit on their floor,
just because he's Chuck Norris.

If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck
Norris you may be only seconds away from death.

When God said, "Let there be light", Chuck Norris said, "say please."

Chuck Norris punched a woman in the vagina when she didn't give him exact
change.

Chuck Norris frequently signs up for beginner karate classes, just so he
can "accidentally" beat the shit out of little kids.

Hellen Keller's favorite color is Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris once tried to sue Burger King after they refused to put
razor wire in his Whopper Jr., insisting that that actually is "his" way.

One of the greatest cover-ups of the last century was the fact that
Hitler did not commit suicide in his bunker, but was in fact tea-bagged
to death by Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris doesnt see dead people. He makes people dead.

When Chuck Norris's wife burned the turkey one Thanksgiving, Chuck said,
"Don't worry about it honey," and went into his backyard. He came back
five minutes later with a live turkey, ate it whole, and when he threw it
up a few seconds later it was fully cooked and came with cranberry sauce.
When his wife asked him how he had done it, he gave her a roundhouse kick
to the face and said, "Never question Chuck Norris."

________________________________________________________

The Events that Followed

This is the resulting email conversation between myself and Bridget, one of TKV's oldest and dearest friends, and also the sender of the email.

TKV: That was so funny I nearly cried. For real.
BRIDGET: I know. My roommate had provided a few of these zingers he found on a website last week. I thought I was going to pee my pants. What a goldmine! All I have to say is "Chuck Norris always makes it to Oregon before you."
TKV: I shared it with a bunch of people and I hope they laugh like I did, otherwise I’ll feel silly for saying “I was crying over this.
BRIDGET: No, I think they'll like it. It's funny...I was going to say something similar when I sent it to you, and then I thought, "Wait, what if she thinks this is the most retarded thing she's ever seen? She'll think I'm a total dumbass." But that's why this is so hilarious--it IS one of the most retarded things I've ever seen!
TKV: It’s funny BECAUSE it’s retarded. And probably all true. But sometimes I’m not sure others share my love of retarded funny things so I have the same thoughts. That totally made my day. I can’t pick a favorite though. They’re all gems – DIAMONDS.
BRIDGET: Diamonds in the ROUGH, wouldn't you say? Diamonds rough enough to supply a roundhouse kick to your funnybone. Dear god, did I just say that?!?!
TKV: Yes and now I’m crying all over again. I just looked back at my friend Heather and she’s also in tears. You are the hero of the day, behind Chuck Norris of course. I hope to god he didn’t hear me say that…
BRIDGET: Oh, thanks. Now I'm going to have to spend the rest of my night cowering in my basement, hiding from "Law" and "Order". But that's what I'm doing anyway--the spending the night in the basement part. I'm actually studying. Yuck.
TKV: Um, it doesn’t look from here like you’re studying. Oh well, I’m supposed to be working.
BRIDGET: Well, I meant that I WAS studying. For, like, the last 3 hours! Heinous. I just took a break to eat some oatmeal. I'll bet that Chuck Norris NEVER eats oatmeal. Or if he does, only with shards of glass.
TKV: Stop it! I’m seriously going to piss myself. And I even just went pee.
BRIDGET: Okay, okay. It's been my only outlet today. But I do really need to study and I suppose that you have to "work". So I'll save any more Chuck Norris jokes until tomorrow. But, you know, instead of waiting, I could just have Chuck Norris give the earth a sound roundhouse kick and send it spinning until tomorrow. But that'd be no good 'cause I'd be unprepared for my finals. Hmmm...

Merry Grinchmas, Vol. 2

2005-12-13T10:29:00.000-08:00

"...if shivering in the dark outside a Best Buy at 3:30 a.m. in frigid November drizzle waiting for a half-price deal on a cheap-ass Chinese-made DVD player isn't the very definition of self-immolating karmic torture, I don't know what is."

Mark Morford, SF Gate columnist and my longest-standing e-crush object, gets it too. Wake up America! YOU ARE ANIMALS!

Read his whole column here.

The Many Shades of Me: A Story about Hair

2005-12-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

Don't worry Jenn, I don't do anything until after the wedding. But I've been thinking recently about cutting my hair. Like, short. Like, how I used to wear it when I was 19/20. I've been saying for several years now that I want long hair but yet now that my hair is semi-long, I usually just put it up because it bothers me. I like how it looks sometimes, but that's when I have to dry it and/or do stuff to it, which I really don't like doing. With short hair, I could just throw some goo in it, mess it up a little, and go. It was easy as pie.

I've been looking back through some old photos and I've decided to take you all on a journey through the many lives of my hair. I haven't colored it now in like 3 years or more, but way back when I started dying it one day and didn't stop for something like 8 years. For a long time, I didn't know what my natural color was. By all accounts, I probably shouldn't have even HAD hair for a while after all the torture I put it through. It has been everywhere from red to brown to platinum blond to black to pink. Yes, pink. That drew some attention.

But anyway, the cut I'm kind of drooling over is the uber-short, red thing featured in a couple of the photos below. I'm taking votes. Enjoy.

1. Me, very blond. Yes, you are seeing correctly: my hair is platinum blond with trailer-trashy dark roots. And yes, I'm wearing cat ears and a furry, shiny coat. I was 16. I was a wild woman.

2. Me, brunette. This shade is darker than my natural shade. I'm not exactly sure when this was, I would guess it was maybe Christmas when I was 17 or 18. Me with my dad, goofing around with gas masks. Happy Holidays.

3. Me, not as blond as before, but still blond. This was after my high school baccalaureate, which is why I'm grinning like a fool and clutching a bottle of Apple Pucker in my Rocky Horror T-shirt. I think I was drunk most of that day, actually.

4. Me, short hair. This is my most favorite picture of myself, ever. This was the summer after I graduated from high school - I was 18. My hair was brownish with a sort of burgundy/purple chunk in the front. Suckin' down the Diet Coke.

5. Me, short red. This is the cut I was talking about. I love it. It was very short but I think I looked kind of pixie-ish and adorable (if I may toot my own horn). (But then again this whole post is sort of self-indulgent so humor me.) Anyway I think this is when I was about 19.

6. Me, again with the short red. I was going to a concert, hence the pink boa and the gussied-up-ness. I don't incorporate those into my everyday wardrobe, in case you were wondering. Also age 19.

7. Me, the Snow White years (with best buddy Ryan at a friend of ours' wedding, 2001). I loved my hair dyed black and got tons of compliments on it, i.e. Ryan's step-dad saw me at the wedding and said with enthusiasm, "That's the best one yet!" It was much too hard to keep up, though, so I grew it out. And that looked really, really stupid for a long time.

8. Me, now. Brown and blah. This was during my recent "I don't comb my hair" phase. Usually it looked better than in this picture - it usually had a vague sexy-bedhead quality rather than just a nasty, 'my hair is tangled' thing. Anyway. This is from Thanksgiving this year. And this is why I want to do something about my current state of hair.

Ew, and now I notice I look quite bloaty in the Thanksgiving picture as well.

So if anyone has an opinion one way or another, I am interested to hear what y'all think. Because that's what this blog is for. So other people can decide which hair cut looks best on me.

Oh My Darling

2005-12-11T20:31:00.000-08:00

At the grocery store today, I got suckered into an advertisement and ended up buying a 5 lb box of clementines. They were on sale for $5.88 when normally they're like, $9 for five lbs. So I felt I was getting quite the bargain. I really like clementines - they're sweeter than tangerines and easy to peel, and they're so tiny you can eat like 4 of them before you start feeling bad. Plus they don't make a big mess and most of the time they're seedless.

I don't, however, know how I'm going to manage to eat five pounds of them before they go bad. This will be the ultimate experience of my citrus tolerance.

Damn, Girl, You FINE!

2005-12-09T06:46:00.000-08:00

I saw the Holiday 2005 issue of the NY Times Style Magazine in the breakroom this morning (I don't know who in my office would read that, they're all a bunch of middle-aged, jumper-wearing haus fraus) and gasped when I saw the stunningly beautiful photo of Scarlett Johanssen gracing the glossy cover. I snatched it right up to read on my break and drool over her photo spread. After the lovely and quirky Miss Drew Barrymore, ScarJo is my girly crush du jour. I might have to rip out some pictures and hang in my cube, like I did with my locker in junior high.

ADDENDUM: FYI - the Tiffany & Co. "Majestic Diamond Necklace" ScarJo is wearing is priced at $1.3 million. And the "Diamond Regal Drop Pendant" at $2.5 million. Both are set in platinum by the way. Shah. I'm going to run out and buy two.