katherine elise! you give us no peace! we'll call the police!
old quotes old times send me mail



29 March 2005

Shudder


Must destroy the Gap commercial where Sarah Jessica Parker is all flouncing around and singing about how much she likes being a girl. Destroooooyyyyy! As if SHE weren't bad enough, there's that part where she claims that her "teeth are not teeth, but pearls!" and then I am disgusted because I am thinking about her already-alarming face, only full of horrible little nubby teeth, worn down to rounded pearl-shapes. EW EW EW. No thank you!


27 March 2005

Round-up


I have perhaps unwisely signed many forms indicating that I would like less money in my paycheck, different tax exemptions, flex-$$ for my (my) metrocard, more flex-$$ for health stuff. The health stuff is a little bit annoying, because you can't carry any money over into the next year, and you can't change your withholdings once you've decided, and how the hell should I know how much my dental work will cost? I figured it was safe to assume my dental work will cost approximately a zillion dollars, since I have not been to the dentist in at least three or four years, and my flossing is not the most faithful flossing. If I am wrong, and my teeth are miraculously intact, I will just have to go on a health-related spending spree and get new glasses or contacts or acupuncture or something.

On Thursday, I went after work to the Slipper Room to see&hear the Cross Gender Caravan reading. I came a bit before seven, because I am incorrigibly punctual like that, and of course the place, being a bar and all, was still closed up. I wandered around the corner and into a bookstore called Bluestockings, which turned out to be not only adorable, bookful, and slightly Swarthmore-esque, but also the sponsor of the reading, so I could just follow people out of there back to the bar when it opened. There was also a small, muttly, black-and-tan, Chihuahua + something bigger and longer-haired dog. I tried to take a picture of it, but in the time it took me to stop petting the dog and retrieve my camera from my bag, the dog had wandered off to find someone more attentive. Hm.

Anyway! To the Slipper Room, where I sat at the bar drinking a beer and spinning in slow circles on my barstool, until a girl in one of the booths invited me to sit there with her. (Which was very nice but also kind of funny, I thought, as I always do when I realize again that being alone is... I don't know... a state to be remedied? To be rescued from? Peculiar.) The reading itself I enjoyed very much, some parts more than others... it was an ok-sized crowd, laidback, not too interactive (not that I can escape blame there) ... but appreciative! Mostly I came to see Charlie Anders read from her new book, but she also sang a song: Genderdiscophoria! Heh. Bonus! I bought Choir Boy, but have not finished reading it yet. Must ration for the subway. Discipline! Then, aus-hangen, pizza, home regrettably early. Stupid weeknights. Stupid work.

Friday night: pajama/dinner/movie party with Roban and Emily. Saturday: laziness, followed by a visit from Roban and Emily in the evening for beer & Trivial Pursuit. (Ach! My worstest game! Or perhaps second-worst, after volleyball.) Today: sorting and ripping and tossing and filing of many accumulated papers. I always worry that people will rifle through them and reassemble my personal information, but I bet if I clean the litterboxes directly into the trash bag on top of the papers, and then maybe pour in the aging buttermilk, no one will touch it.

Holy shit, Tiffany is watching a documentary about Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog right now, and it is utterly hilarious. Kinski is a total maniac! And screaming all the time! Herzog is narrating: "The Indians came to me and said 'Shall we kill him [Kinski] for you?' and I said 'No, don't kill him, I still need him for shooting, leave him for me." Totally serious! This is awesome!

Blah! I should have more to say than event - event - event, but I have a hard time. Elsewhere I scribble (and type) notes to myself that seem vital but upon re-reading seem useless. I plan out webs of things and then look at them blankly the next day. Zounds! I require something to collect the scraps.


23 March 2005

No, but I wish I had!


If you (and by "you," I mean "me") were looking for a hummus recipe so you knew what to pick up at the store, and you searched on the Cook's Illustrated website, and typed in the word "hummus," this is what you would see:

There were no matching recipes.

Did you mean: humans


22 March 2005

Resolved!


A new era! Today I have brought (in a little shopping bag, sadly, so now I am one of THOSE people except it's not a Victoria's Secret bag and I only took it because it was convenient) a lunch! Crackers, cookies, apple, carrots, a little wheel of cheese. That's good, right? From now on: I will bring my lunch! (Except for Wednesday and Thursday when work feeds us.) I will save money! I will make tea downstairs instead of buying coffee from the deli, I will eat my crackers and carrots instead of buying sushi or soup from Whole Foods and the diner. Yes! I will drink my bottle-full of water instead of buying expensive juice. I am resolved! (This time for real.)

And then I will save enough money to have a savings account in which to save yet more money and buy those things that make more money for me! Mutual funds or something! What? Also I will save money for a new apartment with doors. And maybe a puppy.

All because of cheese and baby carrots!


21 March 2005

The Revelry Report


Yes! To Philadelphia on Saturday for Laurel's Second Annual Birthdayfest (not that she is two, rather that she had a -fest last year, also): fun was had! Drink drunk, toilet paper acquired before the situation became dire, One-Two Punch assembled and also drunk, kegstands performed (good heavens not by me though), the across-the-street hipster hang-out 700 Club visited & there gyrating accomplished. Dan appropriately-overalled for Come On Eileen. Birthday celebrated! Couch slept upon! Hangover happily absent. Instead in the morning a diner-visit with L., Abram and Roban for tasty omelets and urgently-needed coffee. Three cheers!

On Sunday I was embarrassingly cranky-fied, having not slept all that much on the couch and not much at all on the train home. So I lounged about all evening in sweatpants, made faces at all suggested activities, drank tea, went to bed by 10.

I need a purpose! My myriad latent powers are worth nothing if I don't do something with them. Hut-hut!


18 March 2005

Q & A


1. Why is there avocado smeared on my pillow?

Because the bed is up against on the wall on the other side of the kitchen pass-through, and the immersion blender did its work vigorously indeed last Wednesday when I was making guacamole.

2. What was I thinking when I decided to trim my own hair this morning?

DESPERATION! Even slightly slanted-bangish-ness and messy rest of hair is better than wedge-head!

3. Why has my loan consolidation not been processed yet?

Who knows! Bullshit! I would like to be paying less now please any day now thank you yes.

4. Why is there a pasta-scooping fork-utensil between the bed and the wall?

Dirty! No, see #1, but scratch the part about the immersion blender and insert something about a dish drainer weighed down by silverware and tipping over.

Hm, if I think of more questions I will add them.


17 March 2005

Additionally: Smart


Sometimes my mind reverts to Roman numeral logic, like when I am buying something at the grocery store and looking to see if I have exact change, and I don't have four pennies, and I have to catch myself before I try to hand the cashier one penny and then one nickel in sequence. It makes sense for a second. It would work in the other direction!


Crankitude


Agh! Something about the way my hair is growing out and the way I blow-dried it this morning is making it look now like wedge-shaped early-90s-newscaster hair. Is there even such a thing?? I don't know! But it sucks! I could grow it long again, but that was annoying. [insert me collapsing with hand across brow here]

[but not as AWESOME a collapse as Rebecca on Models last night! THUNK!]

I have a concern, and the concern is: I think if I were dropped on a desert island alone and lived the rest of my life there, I would be ok. Devastated at first, naturally, but... then I would get over it. "Eh, people. Whatever!" Is that bad? It is like that in my head all the time. I like you, though! I just... am funny.

There was more I was going to say, but we had a sudden coworker exchange of tragic family stories and now my mind is all jumbly, and I must go.


16 March 2005

Kateholio!


Whoa! Whoa! I guess I'm not addicted to coffee anymore.

Last night we went to the gym and so I took a shower in the evening and so I didn't have to take one this morning and so I had time to go to Java Girl before getting on the train and so I had a small coffee while I sat with my reading-book and my writing-book for half an hour or so. And and and! I had not had coffee since last Friday morning, shockingly. And and and! Now I am SUPERZOOMGIRL with PLANS in my HEAD and also ZOOOOM!

Quick, to the pile of papers on my desk and shelves, before this dissipates!


14 March 2005

Lately Things


Two weekends ago, the Shirelles!
Dude, the Shirelles! Ok, only one of them was an original, but that's still pretty impressive, and both of the Shir-extras were most excellent, too. They got a bunch of middle-aged guys up on stage for "Met Him [only they changed it to 'Her,' I guess because it's more fun to embarrass men, but only in a careful heterosexual way? Sounds likely...] on a Sunday" and had them all sing certain lines, lines that they promptly forgot and botched and giggled about. It was kind of cute, but also I had to hide my face. Also two alarming women in the row behind us were hitting alarmingly on this one poor alarmed man who pretty much latched onto his wife/girlfriend/date when she arrived (and sat between him and the other women) and didn't let go. Protect me!

The weekend just past, Tiffany helped a co-worker pick out a cat from the shelter and managed to come home without any more animals for us. Three cheers for restraint! She even had to go back the next day by herself to properly adopt the chosen cat, because co-worker was going away and the cat was still in its pre-adoptable waiting period the first visit. She successfully worked the pound-bureaucracy and got her name first on the list, much to the chagrin of the people who thought writing "adopted" on the nametag on the cat's cage would somehow help their case. Ha! Suckers!

Also headed up to Monica's (waaaayyy up) for cheese and snacks and games and a couple episodes from Jim Henson's Storyteller series. The hedgehog one and the magic sack one. Now there are plans afoot to make a low-budget (well, obviously. unless someone wants to pony up $$$$) porn film involving frequent use of the line "NOW GET IN MY SACK!"

The train trip back late at night was awesome X100, as the train went directly from 242nd Street to 96th Street. I would go up there every damn day if it would always do that. It's kind of funny the kind of protective and conspiratorial relationship I seem to have developed with public transportation... even when the trains fuck up and I'm terribly late, I'm pretty patient about it. Like, "well, there are a lot of people, and the rain or snow or whatever messes it all up, I guess I'll just have to wait for the next train, or the next. Or go to a different line. The train won't fail me, in the end!" I am oddly stoic.

The cats have made many friends on Catster! It's so pleasing! I don't know quite how to describe it. It's like all the bad parts about Friendster (are you a creep? is that your real name? what exactly are you doing when you're looking at my pictures? do I know you in real life? are you going to want to meet me?) are gone, and instead, other people have cute cats and like my cute cats and their cute cats want to be friends with my cute cats. !!!! Ok! Click away! I cannot yet envision a downside to this. Yes, friend, yes, click, yes, friend!


11 March 2005

Uber-cool!


Have I no shame? You decide:

Squid

Pigeon

Friend them!

It's snowing again today. I understand that technically it is still winter, but: bullshit! Did nature not get the memo about my website? Purple, green? Hello?

Amelia, if you are reading this: last night in my dream (after the part with the rotating-elevator staircase, and my fourth-grade teacher, and the dianetics lecture) we were in the mall and you curled up defeatedly on a chair (as Laurel and I tried to comfort you) and exclaimed: "Call security! I CAN'T FIND MY SWEATER!"

Whoa DHL dude is here, gotta go scan stuff.


7 March 2005

Experiment


Observation: In the morning, Pigeon harasses me beginning at 6 or 7 by running up and down over me, crying in my ear, and tapping me with her foot until I get up and feed her. When I am away, she doesn't even try to wake Tiffany.
I wonder whether she will try to wake Tiffany if she sleeps on my side of the bed.

Hypothesis: If we switch sides of the bed, Pigeon will either try to wake Tiffany, or climb over to find me and hit me until I wake up. Either she is dumb, or she is smart (and also cruel.)

Procedure: We will switch sides of the bed so that I am sleeping by the wall, the less accessible side. Duh. Then we will wait for the cat to do something.

Materials: Bed, me, Tiffany, cat.

Data: When we switched sides, Pigeon did not try to wake me OR Tiffany in the morning, although she did move from sleeping by Tiffany's feet (where my feet usually are) because Tiffany kicked her off the bed three times. She waited until we woke up at 10:30 to eat breakfast.

Analysis: The cat is either kind of dumb, or smart enough to realize that it's hard for me to climb over Tiffany and feed her, and that there's no way in hell Tiffany is going to wake up and feed her.

Conclusion: New sleeping arrangement for weekends! Holy shit: UNINTERRUPTED SLEEPING IN!


3 March 2005

Unspringy


New colors, for spring, which I suppose somewhere it must be. Somewhere where the 12-degree wind chill doesn't super-chill my glasses until my sinuses ache from it. I guess it is a few weeks early, still. Hello, tulips?

P.S. Top Model started last night: WHOO!