The time I got in a windowless van with a stranger.

A few weeks ago I had the absolute pleasure of being in my pal's Diane & Jon's wedding. At their rehearsal dinner, I was badgered by another bridesmaid into giving a toast (badger might be too strong a word since most people know the three things I love most in the world are: 1. telling stories and 2. making people laugh and 3. the spotlight) so I happily gulped the rest of my margarita and delivered my toast. In it, I told the following story which took place in the 10th grade. (Sidenote: at the wedding I was wondering why the groomsmen kept high-fiving me and telling me I was cool. Finally the groom told me that when I delivered my toast instead of saying "I'm one of Diane's Stone Ridge friends" (the name of our school), I said, "I'm one of Diane's stoner friends.")


Diane and I had just finished play practice. We were the resident drama nerds (something that did and continues to haunt us. Earlier this year when we chastised for ever believing that we could win Student Body President & Vice President (respectively) by the girl that actually won.)
DRAMA GEEKS.

But that's beside the point. Anyway, it was a crisp Fall day and rehearsal had just ended. Both of us were sitting outside (probably talking about the boys that Diane dated and not talking about the boys that didn't date me) and waiting for our parents to pick us up. I was excited cause I was on my way to Driving School (which is a story for another day & post) We were looking good, we were both in our school uniforms, we were both blonds and we were both rocking super awesome denim jean jackets.

While we were chatting, a windowless white utility van drove up the long driveway of our school. The young, handsome black man driving slowed when he reached us rolled down the window and said, "What's your name?"
We both stood their in shock and silence. He laughed.
"Sorry which one of you is Katie?" Neither of us said anything.
He tried again, "I was told to pick up a girl with blond hair and jean jacket so which one you is Katie? Your Mom sent me."

At this point, stunned into silence, all I remember thinking is "Pancake!" As a small child I was a perpetual worrier. I was constantly worried that someone would kidnap me from my room in the night. I was positive that every time my parents spent an evening out they would end up killed in a car accident and leave me an orphan. I was scared of the guy with the motorcycle down the street. I cried at sleepovers of any kind and once physically made myself sick in order to go home early. I also spent most of the 3rd grade convinced that my parents weren't really my parents but that my babysitter was my actual mother and it was all just a great scam to trick Katie into a life of agony. So when Pancakes popped into my mind it was because when I was a small child (and I mean young, like 7), I remember reading an issue of Readers Digest that had an article about protecting your children from predators. In this issue they said that every family should have code word in case of an emergency and the parent needs to send someone else to pick the child up. The author of the article and his kid had chosen "Pancake" as their safety word.

It would work like this, "Hey Billy, it's me Mrs. Smith from across the street. Your Dad sent me to pick you up!"
"What's the word, Mrs. Smith?" Billy would ask.
"Pancake!"
If Mrs. Smith didn't know the word, Billy would know that she was a child molester and mustn't go with her.

Even at 7 I remember thinking, "This is a stupendous idea and since it seems like my parents aren't going to do it, I must remember to shelve this until I have kids... that is if I survive this childhood with all it's pitfalls."

So there I am at 15 wearing a denim jacket, staring at a strange man in a windowless white van who is telling me that my mom sent him and all I can think about is pancakes when Diane leans over to me, breaking me out of my spell and says "Um, I don't think you should get in the van." True friend.

Eventually I did get in the van. He called my mother on a ham radio who assured me that she was working late and I should go with him to driving school. And he was a nice guy, he befriended my parents and even moved me into my dorm freshman year of college. So the next time a total stranger drives up to you while your standing next to your best pal and asks you to get in, I hope you do get in, drive straight to iHop and get some pancakes.

The time I rode around with APD

A few weeks ago I had the chance to spend my Saturday night riding around with an officer of the Austin Police Department. It was honestly one of the most fun things I've done in ages. The officer was super open and friendly so I ended up getting a TON of audio which I'm currently editing.

Below is the story of the time I rode around with the APD:

It’s 3 AM and Officer Adam Krueger is exhausted. He has just pulled into the gated parking lot of the Clinton Hunter Police Station, a substation in Southeast Austin after an almost 10 hour shift. In the last 45-minutes alone he has dealt with drunks, people fighting who were drunk and a middle-aged man who was so drunk he needed to call his mom to come pick him up. He is yawning and as he moves his gear from his patrol car into his personal pick up truck, another officer pulls up next to him and blows his siren. Everyone jumps and is still for a moment before the laughter starts. They’ve made it through another night.

“Some of the officers I work with are the best people I know,” says Officer Krueger. He has just finished briefing his back up officer who was called in to help with a domestic disturbance. A maintenance worker at a Southeast Austin apartment complex got into an argument with one his residents. The resident -a Texas A&M fan- was offended when the maintenance worker threw up the University of Texas at Austin hook ‘em horns hand sign. Both officers work the area known as Frank-2, the area bordered by Ben White, 1-35, South Congress and William Canon. It is a mostly Hispanic area and the language barrier often leads to frustration and confusion among the non-Spanish speaking officers, Officer Krueger included.

At 25, Officer Krueger does not fit the seasoned, beer-bellied stereotype typically conjured when one thinks of a police officer. He is a tall, muscular and imposing figure juxtaposed with a baby-face typical of someone much younger. “I hate that stereotype… that we’re all overweight or we don’t take care of ourselves.”

*****

Brent has just been pulled over for jaywalking. Before he spots Brent illegally crossing against the light at the corner of Pleasant Valley and William Cannon, Officer Krueger explains that because of an increase in accidents involving pedestrians this year, there has been a push on behalf of the Austin Police Department to crack down on illegal street crossing. He is quick to follow up saying, “But it’s not a quota. We don’t have quotas.”

At 30, Brent looks like young Ricky Schroeder. He hands his license over and Officer Krueger takes it back to his car. In a matter of moments, all known information about Brent is blinking across the screen, including an old mug shot where he has shoulder length hair. The picture of the young boy staring back from the screen looks nothing like the man sitting in front of the police cruiser, visibly nervous and chain smoking cigarettes. Officer Krueger finishes writing a summons and walks over to the sidewalk. Brent puts out his cigarette and stands up ready to make one last argument. His attempt is brief and ends with Brent taking the ticket saying, “I understand. I’m not trying to make your job any harder.” Just then another man walks across the same intersection, Brent points and shouts, “Look! Go get him!” The two men smile and Officer Krueger gets back into the car. As Brent walks off, Officer Krueger muses, “Of course it’s going to make (him) upset. But, so does everything else we do.”

Most of what Officer Krueger does is mediate. He mediates between neighbors and gang members, between relatives and strangers, between deer and I-35. The truth is that the police are the net through which so much falls through. For a young officer like Kruger, who has not even finished his second year on the force, it is still a balancing act. Halfway through the night, he responds to a noise complaint call in Southeast Austin. It is a new apartment complex and the noise is coming from a long hallway filled with revelers. “Break it up,” Officer Krueger shouts to the college-aged kids and young 20-somethings holding red Dixie cups. With an officer as imposing and tall as Krueger, the partygoers waste little time dispersing. He knocks on the door of the apartment “Whose apartment is this?” he demands. Another partygoer sticks his head out.

“You gotta shut it down for the night. Everybody.” says the officer.

“Yeah?” asks the man in the door.

“Yeah,” Officer Krueger nods.

“Kick everybody out?” the man presses.

“If I…” Officer Krueger relents, “Y’all can stay here as long as it’s quiet."

“I’m so sorry,” another young man interjects. He has just emerged from the apartment. He’s glassy-eyed and introduces himself as Erwin. He apologizes and explains that it’s his 23^rd birthday party. “I’m really sorry about this,” he apologizes again. The officer takes down his information and walks back out to the car.

Like most people his age, Officer Krueger still has a lot of living to do. He is not married, doesn't have children, he has lived in Texas his whole life and he has yet to complete the Masters degree he abandoned halfway through to join the academy. In the middle of the sirens and handcuffs and police badges, it is easy to forget that Officer Krueger was Erwin’s age just two years ago. Back in the car, Officer Krueger reflects on Erwin’s birthday party. “You know, I’ve been on the other side of that before.” He then continues, “But I had common sense.”

hold onto who you love.

So I have some really fun projects in the works. I'll post about them soon.

In the meantime, I would like to post something sappy & gross. If you care about your teeth, read no further. If you decide to continue on, I will not be held responsible for any cavities that may result from the saccharine nonsense I'm about to write. This is a love letter.

Tomorrow I am going to see one of my favorite bands EVER. I'm going alone which is because when I bought the tickets, I had just moved to Austin and had no friends. In retrospect, I am sort of glad I am going alone. This is a band I have loved since I was in high school. I have followed them across state lines, I have waited outside venues to meet them, I have waited at Tower Records at midnight the night of their album release just to be the first one to hear it, I have gushed over my love of them while on various stimulants and then cursed myself in the morning for telling strangers about my obsession.

Then I grew up. Over the past few years, I have left friends and moved cities, started jobs and quit them, made new friends only to leave them and start anew again. But this band has always come with me. I may not have been to one of their shows in years, I wouldn't be caught dead waiting outside a venue for them, I bought their last album a few weeks after it came out cause I forgot about it and don't really put myself in precarious situations with strangers anymore - but I still love them.

Hopefully, if you are lucky, you have something that means this much to you. Whether it is a band or a book or just a really good fucking sweater, hopefully you love something enough that at one time you would have driven to New Jersey just to experience

I have a sinking suspicion that tomorrow will be the last time I see them. From what I'm heard whispered around the proverbial water cooler, they may not last long enough to make another album. And, like most relationships do, this one has probably run its course. They have given me the soundtrack to nearly 10 years of my life, I have given them a few bucks in ticket revenue.

For me, this isn't just about loving a band, it's about loving a time in your life when you loved that band. It's about packing up a Mazda Protege with you best pals and chain smoking Camels and giving the middle finger to your middle class suburban high school experience and going to the 9:30 club in your school uniform and scrubbing the stamps off your hands so your parents wouldn't know where you had been all night. It's about all the stuff that comes along with listening to a song and knowing it was written for you. It's about being 18 and truly believing that you wanted to stay 18 forever. It's about being 25 and being a little more jaded and realizing that being 18 wasn't all it was cracked up to be but wishing you still cared about music or art or almost anything as much you did back then.

NEW DESK. NEW CITY. NEW BLOG.

It's been a hectic few months. I've be in LA. I've been in Spain. And England. And NYC. And, now, Austin. As I foray into this new chapter of my life, I have decided to suspend the blog briefly while I re-vamp and reassess why, in a age where everyone has one, I deserve to have a forum to speak out. When I come back, it's going to be with a little more direction and a lot more energy.

The time my friends were badasses

This is a video I took of Michelle teaching Danny to ride her motorcycle. It was taken in LA a few weeks ago. It's always such a treat to get to visit with my friends that are living and working out there. They remind me that so much of what is important in life is doing what you love.



Michelle is my requisite badass friend and always impresses me with her gutsiness.

The time Anderson Cooper saved my life.

I've been traveling a lot this year and I will continue to be traveling well into August. So in honor of all of this traveling, I would like to share the story of Hammond, Louisiana.

A few years ago I took a road trip. In retrospect I realize I have a pattern: every time I'm about to embark on a life changing event, I go on extensively long adventures. This trip I took right after college around the US of A. About two weeks into the trip, my traveling buddy and I hung a left and went down through Mississippi towards New Orleans. If I am not mistaken, our original plan was to drive straight from Memphis to New Orleans in one day but we got side tracked in Oxford, Mississippi and ended up stopping a few hours north of New Orleans to get a cheap motel and a six pack of Budweiser (discriminating ladies have discriminating tastes).

The little hub we ended up in was Hammond, Louisiana. Of Hammond I have a few word associations:
Used Car Lots
Meth

In regards to Lousiana and methamphetamine, the United States Department of Justice says this:

Methamphetamine abuse is rising in Louisiana, especially in the north of the state. Substance abuse counselors in some treatment centers in northern Louisiana report methamphetamine is now the drug of choice in their areas. Many police in northern Louisiana report an increase in domestic violence related to methamphetamine abuse. Increasingly, methamphetamine is being manufactured in mobile laboratories, using a simple technique known as the "Nazi method." Methamphetamine is also produced by Mexican criminal organizations and transported into the state. In general, methamphetamine is distributed by independent Caucasian dealers, producers, and OMGs.

I don't know what an OMG drug dealer looks like but I'm pretty sure I don't want to meet one.

This is the first picture that comes up when you Google "Hammond Louisiana":


So we drive our silver Mercury Sable into the heart of downtown Hammond (which consists of a truck stop and various fast food restaurants that were, of course, closed) in search of a cheap motel. Eventually we spotted a glorified shanty town that passed as a motel and pull into the parking lot. I jumped out of the car and ran into the lobby of the shanty motel where I was greeted (or, rather, tolerated) by an older woman. She did not speak to me. Instead she pointed to a sign posted on the bullet proof glass that separated us which read "NO VACKANCIE." At this point I probably laughed- I don't remember- but I do remember getting back into the car and telling Michelle about the lack of vackancies.

As we were pulling away we were approached by a woman who was high on methamphetamine. How, you may ask, do I know this? Because EVERYONE IS. EVERY SINGLE PERSON WE ENCOUNTERED ON THE ENTIRE TRIP WAS HIGH ON METH. Now that may be a slight exaggeration but it's not a total lie.

So this totally tweeked out woman comes up to the window (which is open cause we're in Louisiana in the middle of July and it's freaking hot) and asks if we are looking for a motel. We say that we are and she directs us to HER motel which is right across the street. We take a look at the characters standing outside, drinking and smoking their Pall Mall's. We notice that every room door of the motel is painted a different bright color that after being abused for years and years and years is now starting to chip and fade giving the entire place an atmosphere akin to Hansel and Gretel Gone Wild. We look at the woman who is twitching. We look at each other and say "I think we're ok actually." As we start to drive away the woman comes back up to the window and through her broken Cajun/Southern/drug-addled crazy speak we are able to decipher that there is another motel down the street and it's run by Indians whom she hates. And so we go there.

We drive down a long boulevard which is basically one long used-car lot promenade until we happen upon a small roadside motel. We park the car, walk into the lobby and are greeted by a man who is indeed from India. "We negotiate the price ($40 bucks, 20 each) and hand over our money. But before we do I asked him, "Now, we're traveling through and it's just us girls. We're safe right? We'll be ok?" to which he replied, "Oh yes, yes, very safe, very safe." Assured, I filled out a form with my home address, phone number and license plate number (a surprisingly common thing at less reputable motels) and We our keys and parked the car in front of our first level room.

Now an explanation of the room is in order. There is this part in Steel Magnolias where Shelby is asked what the "colors" are for her wedding. She replies, "My colors are blush and bashful." Her mother chimes in "Her colors are Pink and Pink!" That's exactly what the colors of this room were. From top to bottom, door to bathtub the ENTIRE place was pink. Pink rugs. Pink bedspread. Pink TV stand. Pink dresser, etc. etc...

Now at this point in my life I watched Anderson Cooper religiously. Well, the same is still true. So I guess that should read: "Needless to say I was watching Anderson Cooper." So there we were, lying on a filthy pink bed spread watching Anderson Cooper when we heard:

clip clop clip clop/murmur murmur/ door opening/door closing/clip clop clip clop

Intrigued, we went to the large picture window that overlooked the parking lot and pulled back the heavy pink blinds. Over the next hour or so we continued to watch as people of all shapes and sizes completed the same dance down our walkway and to the door directly next to us: clip clop clip clop/murmur murmur/ door opening/door closing/clip clop clip clop

Because we are smart we deduced that they we were drug dealers. Because we are naive we deduced that it was perfectly acceptable to take a "I won't bother you and you don't bother me attitude" towards them.

As Anderson Cooper entered his second hour, we got up to go outside for a break. As we reached the door, we heard high-pitched murmurs. I took over the peephole while Michelle pulled back the gross pink curtain that covered the window. At first we saw nothing until a young man was violently pushed back from the doorway of the room next to us. He nearly stumbled and as he was composing himself a young woman in VERY high heels jumped out the car that was parked next to mine and ran to him. She screamed at the still-unseen figure that I assume pushed her boyfriend or brother or John or whatever. He screamed back at the mysterious figure and suddenly everything got really quiet. I remember looking at Michelle as she threw herself down on the floor and thinking "that's a weird thing to do." As she hissed at me to "get down", I looked once more through the hole in the door and saw the young man holding a gun pointed about three feet to my left, into the doorway of the room next to ours. I laid down on the floor for a moment and got up just in time to hear the car peeling out of the driveway. I looked back through the peephole and saw two very fat men in their tightie whitie underwear running after the car containing the high-heeled girl and gun-boy waving guns of their own.

In retrospect I realize it's weird that they were dealing drugs in their tightie whities but at the time it didn't dawn on me.

So there we were, sitting in a Pepto-Bismol room in Louisiana with Anderson Cooper on mute, a few string cheese wrappers in the trash can, lookin at each other in silence. A discussion ensued where we weighed the pros and cons of leaving. On the one hand, the room was so cheap it was hard to leave. On the other their were gun-toting, immodest drug dealers sleeping in the room next to us.

Eventually we called a Days Inn a few miles away who would give us a room for $60. We agreed and -in total silence- packed the car. As we pulled out, it dawned on me: the man in the lobby had a piece of paper with my address! And my phone number! And license plate number! What if he was in cahoots with the undie drug dealers? What if he gave them my information and they follow us? Not to mention our 40 bucks! So in the middle of escaping from the Scariest Place on Earth, we pulled over and I walked into the lobby.

"Hey, um, I forgot to put something on that paper with my address. Can I have it real quick?"
"Sure," the man said.
He rifled through his things and handed me the paper. As I clasped it, he looked out into the carport and saw Michelle waiting in the car. He pulled the paper tightly in his hand. "Give it to me." I said. "No" he replied. I looked at him "Give me the paper. We're checking out." I handed him the room key. He took the key and released the now crumpled sheet.

Then something happened. I grew a pair! It wasn't fair that this was happening. It wasn't fair that he was going to get 40 bucks from us for watching an hour worth of Anderson Cooper in his weird pink motel. It wasn't fair that I asked him if we were going to be safe and he put us in a room next to drug dealers. It wasn't fair that he scared me and my best friend and put us in the position of seeing guns waved around in front of our door. So I said, "And I need a full refund." He laughed. "You put us next to drug dealers. You said we were ok and you lied to me. Give me my money." He shook his head. At this point I took out my phone and said, "Ok, then I'm going to call the cops and tell them what just happened." He looked at me, sighed like this happens all the time and turned back to his safe. He took out two twenties and threw them on the counter. As I was leaving I turned around and said "And you're a very bad man." And then we spent the night at the Days Inn.

The time I went swimming in a dirty pool.

When you attend the same all-girls, Catholic, K-12 school your entire life, there are certain absolutes. For example, you will absolutely never voluntarily purchase or wear black-watch plaid. You will have weird traditions that only you will understand: the word "gouter" will always make me think of brownies. You will have strange talents: I can sing "Couer de Jesus" in it's entirety in pitch perfect French. And inevitable insecurities: I still have to resist the urge to courtesy when I see a nun.

And because you've known them since you were four, by the time you reach your mid-twenties you will have known a majority of your friends for over two decades.

Now this is a unique thing and something I like to brag about. Often. However, it can also be embarrassing. You see, for every good thing people remember about you from the ages of 4 and 18, there are fifteen not so good things they also remember. Last night I mozied on up to the Upper West Side to have dinner and some laughs with two such people. After we caught up on work and school and boyfriends and the like our attention turned to a book that my friend made for our high school graduation. It was full of pictures and quotes and some very funny postcards and LISTS. One such list was entitled "8th Grade Memories." #1 on that list?

Remember when Katie Friel had the band aid between her eyes for like two months?

Yes. I did. I had a band aid on my face for about a week (NOT two months, thank you) in 8th grade. Why? Please let me explain.

I've always been slightly susceptible to weird infections. I blame my parents for taking me to the Jersey Shore during the 1987-88 "Syringe Tide" fiasco. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syringe_Tide

Anyway, so I get weird things. Some of my friends in New York may remember "Crazy Eye" of 2006-2007. In college I used to get horrible allergies to things like my roommates fresh cut flowers. When I was 4 I had chicken pox so bad that my parents will STILL talk about them to anyone who will listen. I've had pink eye like a zillion times, countless ear infections and a heart murmur. Ok the heart murmur doesn't really have anything to do with it but I was running out of ailments to make my point. Also, if anyone wants to stop being my friend for actually writing and posting this list, feel free to delete me from your iPhone.

But 8th grade. That was the worst. One morning I woke up and the space between my eye had gone from concave to convex:

Went to bed like this:



Woke up like this:


Sitting in Spanish class that morning Senora da Bonta stopped explaining verb/subject agreements, put her chalk down and in front of the entire class said, "Katalina, WHAT is wrong with your face?"

(I remember not really being embarrassed but more nervous that I would have to answer in Spanish.)

"Well, I went swimming in a dirty pool (ed: lie) and when I woke up I had this thing between my eyes."

At this point she stopped speaking, stared at me for a moment and said (in English),
"Class, it is very important to remember to wash yourself. You must wash your face every day. And take a shower every day. It's very important."

Around this time, in my attempt to call attention away from my face, I started to wear the band-aid on the thing between my eyes (it was a cyst). However in my backwards attempt to be cool, I didn't just go for a plain, run of the mill, flesh-colored band-aid. Instead I used the colorful band-aid's my mom bought for my 7-year old brother. They had characters on them like Elmo and Barney. So for a good solid week, at the tender age of 14, I was walking around my school with a colorful, character band-aid wrapped around a cyst protruding from my forehead.

Around this time I went to the doctor who put me on steroids in order to lance the cyst. I went to get it sliced and diced during my lunch break. When they were finished they put a MUCH larger bandage complete with tape that took up my entire forehead. Rather than save her daughter from the humiliation that would continue to haunt her two schools, six moves, two cities and ELEVEN YEARS LATER, my mom drove me right back to school and dropped me off for my afternoon classes with the instructions, "Not to touch that thing."

The cyst is still something that comes up. (And I am totally flattered it was number one on the 8th Grade Memories list.) Oddly enough it's a good party story. It grosses people out and unites them with a basic hatred of all Spanish teachers. It also comes up at family events where my mom doesn't even attempt to hide her horror at the fact that her spawn could spawn something so gross. And, to my mother's defense, she still to this day will shake her head and say, "I can't believe I made you go back to school."

Me either.

The time I had really, really bad neighbors.

I've had really, really weird neighbors. In college I lived on Franklin St NE right where Capital Hill and Brookland and a giant cemetery meet. At this house we had a downstairs neighbor that for this little story I'll call "Scavid Dot" Scavid was an ex-Marine who split his time between Texas and DC. I know he was an ex-Marine because I went into his apartment once to turn on the circuit breaker and did some snooping. God I hope he never reads this. So Scavid the Marine was a creep. He was so creepy that one time my roommate Jim caught him going through our trash. In August. When Jim said "Uh, hey what are you doing?" Scavid said, "I'm going through your trash." And that was that.

Then I lived on Newton Street in a duplex next to an old black woman who had probably owned her half of the house since the beginning of time. Considering the first thing we did when we moved in was spray paint a giant gargoyle by our front door fluorescent pink and then throw a party, we didn't make an ideal first impression on her. Below is an actual picture of our front porch:

a. Unkempt hedges and yard. My dad came over uninvited one day in the fall to mow our lawn. We didn't touch it again for another nine months.
b. Loud music.
c. A bucket of various foodstuffs and other debris.
d. Charming, filthy patio furniture. (The chair folded up in the corner broke in September and wasn't thrown out until June. It just sat there in the corner ALL YEAR.)
e. Dead, dry leaves piles on which cigarette butts were thrown.
This culminated in one of roommates coming into the house one day, slamming the door and simply proclaiming "That bitch!" Now none of us were sure which bitch she was talking about so when pressed for more information she explained:
She was sitting outside on the patio, minding her own business when the old lady next door came home from grocery shopping. She hobbled up to her porch, shuffled over to the door, scrounged around for her keys, turned to my roommate and said "You need to clean your porch." Now I don't remember exactly what my roommate said but in my head she replied, "You need to mind your own business."* Shocked, the old woman paused, looked at her and said,
"Girl, you must have been raised white trash."
That's when my roommate, indignant, stood up and walked into the house.

Now I would like to conclude this by saying our neighbor was never anything but nice to me so this is all based on other peoples experiences. She even went so far to help me out in a snowstorm. I was late for class and picking the ice off my car windshield with a high heel when she graciously offered me her ice-scraper.

But this leads me all up to my neighbors in New York. I feel that karmic retribution is being paid for me taking advantage of having such passive neighbors in Washington. First, there are my upstairs neighbors or as I like to call them "the delightful family of running centaurs and shrieking banshee babies." Then there is my next door neighbor, XXXX, I write "XXXX" not because I want to protect her but because I have NO IDEA WHAT HER NAME IS. To make it worse, not only does she remember my name but she remembers really specific details about my life. Here's the conversation we had the other day in the hall.
"Hey Katie!", said XXXX.
"Hey you! Long time no see? How are... things and stuff?"
"Oh, they're good Katie, how about you? Are you still going to the beach this August with your family? Do you think some of your college friends will be there like last year?" says XXXX.
Now, this is slightly exaggerated but she's on this list cause of the massive amount of guilt I feel everytime I see her and don't remember her name.

My other next door neighbors were a family with a bird. Nice enough but they always made curry and always sent the crippled, hobbly grandmother out to throw the trash away. She would have to hold onto the wall as she walked down the hall to the disposal. They're on my list for the curry and the fact that I never saw an able-bodied member of their family take out the trash.

Eventually they moved (after putting a post-it note on my door asking if they could buy my apartment- weird) and the Grunter moved in. Here is a composite sketch:

Any similarities to my Dad with long hair is completely accidental. Also it's not the guy from the Ugliest Haircut Ever a few years back. It's simply to illustrate that he has long hair and is bald on top. (Again, God I hope my neighbors don't read this.)
The first time we met was in December when, while walking down the hall I said "Hi, how are you?" and he said... nothing. And NO he didn't have his headphones in cause I checked. So that was that until today when I walked by him and said, "Hi" and he "grunted." The dialogue is actually the same as in the drawing so I don't really need to go into it much further.

The point of this entry is not to air my neighbor grievances but rather reminisce about when I was the obnoxious neighbor... the one that was dirty and loud and thoughtless and didn't bang on the ceiling with a broomstick. I miss that and hope one day I can live in a world where I can spray paint a gargoyle and grunt and piss my neighbors off.

*Ex-roommate if you could be so kind as to provide some sort of transcript of the argument between you and the old woman, I would be most grateful.

The time the president asked me "what's up?"

Every year, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, my family gets a bunch of wine, makes a ton of pasta and then sits around for hours talking. It's hands down one of my favorite days of the year. Somewhere between the last course and the sixth bottle of wine, various friends of mine come over to join in the festivities. It always ends with dancing- often to the Roots (my mom got really into the Seed 2.0 during Thanksgiving '05 causing Caroline mid-dance to sashay over to me, furrow her brow and say "Does your mom know what this song is about?")

This year we went around and asked various questions like "Tell us something that no one at this table knows about you" or "What's your dream dinner date?" It also included the question "Who is the most famous person you've ever met?"

Now I've been pretty fortunate in this category. I chalk it up to simply noticing famous people in my vicinity and then going up to talk to them. Granted, I can't talk to a cute hipster at Union Pool but give me Elvis Costello in the Uffizi and I can go on for hours. Anyway, in honor of last nights White House Correspondents dinner this is the story of the most famous person I've ever met.

In 2006 I was an intern for a production company right outside of Washington, DC (this actually was video production but having it on my resume got me a job as a PRINT production project manager, something I knew nothing about. But that's a funny little anecdote for another day.) ANYWAY, in addition to cataloging hours and hours of B-roll footage of things like airplanes, I also got to drive a big SUV around Capital Hill (it was used to haul all the equipment but no one wanted to pay to park it anywhere so I had to drive it around for hours while the real employees worked inside) and go to Starbucks. One particular day I was in one of the Senate buildings making sure that no one tripped over the light cords. This is literally what I did for eight hours. I stood a bunch of cables that were taped down to the floor and pointed them out to people like Joe Lieberman. (similar to shown) "Oh excuse me Senator, please mind the cords." No one tripped so I consider that a success. Funnily enough (again, foreshadowing) the only person I really, really wanted to see that day was Hilary Clinton. I saw a bunch of B-list senators like Dianne Feinstein but, alas, no Hilary.

About half way through my day I was leaning against the wall when I saw a tall black man heading towards me. Wanting to make sure he didn't trip I cleared my throat in preparation of the "Please watch the cords" I was about to say. As he got closer, I realized who he was: Barack Obama. Now this was at the time when I could never remember if his first name was Obama or Barack (whatever, I'm not ashamed to admit it and you shouldn't be either) so rather than risk calling him Senator Barack which would have been weird, I just said "Hey Senator, what's up?" I COMPLETELY forgot to tell him about the cords putting both him and (as I know now) our great country's future in grave danger. Luckily for us, Mr. Obama is a smart, intuitive man who is capable of STEPPING over cables taped to the ground with not only ease but grace! So he stepped over the cords, looked at me, HEAD NODDED and said "Hey, what's up?" and I said (giggling) "Not much."

And that is the story of how I met the most famous person in the world.

A Trip Down Memory Ln.

Lately I've been really hurting for something to write about. I've been going through old blogs, old pictures, old emails and old journals. Most of it has been fun, some of it has been sad and a lot of it has reminded me of what an absolute dork I am.

Exhibit A.


That was at the height of my pop-punkdom. I at one point seriously believed that I was going to be the lead singer of band called "Kill the Light." I would be the only girl and get my own hotel room on tour. It was going to be awesome.

This is an excerpt from an ENTIRE BOOK of song lyrics. I believe it was written circa 1999:
"that's alright, that's ok
just don't expect to find me sittin' here next saturday."

May I just remind you that aside from a few guitar chords, I don't play an instrument so this entire book isn't really full of songs as much as really, really bad poetry.

This journal goes up until late 2002. Around this time I started college and continued writing bad poetry. I also started a live journal that in retrospect was really just documenting my social ineptitude and various college crushes and relationships which, at the time, seemed like the be all, end all.

A sampling:
"so i've been selected to tell the girl that used to live here but now has her own place and is still here anyway that she has to leave. she leaves huge piles of grease on the stove. she left a cup of bacon fat for three days in the sink and everyday she side-hugs me and says in a half-whisper "hey roommie."

and

"my house smells like cheap vodka and in order to take a shower, everyone has to remove beer cans from the bathtub. and the cops were here last night. and i feel so bad for my neighbors i am hiding in my house even though i am starving and there is nothing to eat."

Then, in 2005, I backpacked around Europe before finally ending up in London to study. This journal starts with about two weeks of me being painfully, horribly homesick in various Western European cities.

Then I landed in London and wrote "It's shocking how much I hate Jack Johnson. He should be arrested and ordered to never make music again. This is solely to protect frat boys and Australians." As of right now, I believe this revelation is the pinnacle of my life and it will all be downhill from here. I loved London immediately and sort of stopped writing cause I was having the time of life.

I returned to school and the last year of college is journaled through a small notebook where I just wrote down things the people around me said.

For example:
"oh god, i love dunkin' donuts. their donuts are great. (long pause)*
you know what's amazing? they're always so fresh! oh god, boston creme! jelly! chocolate cake! they're all so good."
*i actually wrote (long pause)

The rest of the journals talk about a friend of mine who passed away and the sudden realization that I was becoming an adult.

Then in summer 2006 I set off on a cross-country road trip with a very good friend of mine who, despite our best efforts on the trip, remains a very good friend. During this trip I attempted to write a journal that everyone could read without me being embarrassed (i.e I left out the poetry) I did however come up with a list of things that I learned along the way. They are peppered throughout the journal however here I collected them all together:
1. There is pretty much a McDonalds everywhere.
2. No matter how much you love music, 7 days in a car is all it takes to make you seriously consider the quiet solitude of monastic life.
3. The entire state of Texas is backwards (this is what we call "foreshadowing"). There are strip clubs next to churches that condemn stripping on their billboards. The capital, Austin, despises the rest of the state and probably wouldn't mind ceding from it. Texas also produced Bush, is longer than Hell and twice as hot.
4. Just when you think you've seen the most vile restroom in the Western world, you walk into the next one. (I've actually had a flying cockroach land on me in TWO separate bathrooms. It's the only two times I've seen a flying cockroach.)
5. Man cannot live on Diet Coke alone. (We subsisted on Diet Coke, string cheese & Budweiser)
6. No matter how much you like someone, you run out of things to talk about in Nevada.
7. San Francisco smells like urine, has more panhandlers than Rome has gypsies and hills that give me shin splints. (I had a bad first impression of San Fran, something that has yet to be rectified)
8. Formerly endearing mannerisms often compose the short lists of reasons you never want to see your travel partner's face ever again (a slight exaggeration as I still love my travel partner. Although she did move across the country from me... coincidence?)

So that's a little sampling of some things I've written over the last ten (TEN!!!!) years.

It's been a crazy few days. If there is anything I've learned about living in New York it is this: the winter makes people disappear into hobbit holes. When the temperature reaches 60 degrees, they come out of said hobbit holes, whip out their iPhones, and begin calling all the friends they forgot they had over the last five months.

Despite the craziness, nothing really strange has happened or weird or even funny. Nothing I feel warrants a story. Some drunk frat guy puked a few seats down from me on the F train on Saturday night. It held up the train for a half hour which I found disgraceful. A cab driver gave me his personal card in case I ever needed him (after a hilarious cab ride in which he told me about his salsa-dancing roommate he's convinced is a whore) and said "Listen, when you call me to pick you up, TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE! Don't just call and say 'Come get me' cause if you don't tell me a location, I won't know. I'm not magic, okay?" I met a cat I actually liked named "Balzac:"
I went to Brooklyn Flea and found these:
There is, however, something I would like to address. Like most people, I have a stat counter on this blog. Because I refuse to actually spend money on it, I only have the basic one. Included in the basic one is the most common keywords that bring people to my blog. For those of you who don't know what that is (Mom, I'm talking to you) the keywords are the words that people type into Google or another search engine that bring up my blog. Usually it's Katie Friel or Anna Friel and Katie Holmes or vodka or Mormon housewife sex.

However, over the last few weeks, OVERWHELMINGLY, the most prevalent searches that bring people to my blog have been things like:
"what does it mean when pet boa lies alongside owner" "snake stretching body" "sleeping on the same bed with pet boa constrictors"

How many people are out there and sleeping with their boa constrictors? If you are reading this and I do not know you and you sleep with your boa constrictor, why? Please let me know. I really, really need to know the answer to this. Is there a secret subculture of people that Dick Hebdige failed to uncover of people who sleep with their snakes?

Blondes, Boston, Rachel Zoe & Witches.

I tried. I tried really, really hard. I even said things like "I feel more like myself as a brunette" (which is true cause, you know, I am). I got into a fight with my mom about it. I took a mental tally of how many blondes I saw on the street versus brunettes. And I did like it. Until it became a brassy, red as a Macintosh apple color that reminded me of strawberry's gone rotten. It wasn't until this weekend, sitting with Amelia in Salem, Massachusetts that I turned to my consummate blond friend, looked her in the eye and said "I hate my hair."

So I'm back to being a blond and for CHRIST'S SAKE the next time I say I'm dying my hair, remind me of this post.

Now that the requisite narcissism is out of the way...

I went to Boston this weekend. At 10 o'clock on Thursday night, I realized I was beaten down by the city, sick of not getting replies from jobs and internships (INTERNSHIPS- NON-PAYING JOBS), tired of spending time in my apartment, so I sold my old iPhone and with that money decided to hop on a bus to Boston. Under the pretense of checking out the city for next year, I called Amelia and told her to save me a place on her couch cause I was on my way.

At the bus depot, she picked me up in consummate Amelia style, cranked up the first of the 11,000 Lady Gaga songs we would listen to over the weekend and we were off. When asked if we were going back to her place first to freshen up and chat, she looked at me and actually said (verbatim) "No. We gotta get started if we're ever going to finish."

This weekend wasn't only just a wonderful because I got to spend time with my friend. Oh, no, no, no. This weekend was magic. MAGIC! Why you may ask? In 1993 a gem of a film was released by Walt Disney Pictures. It starred Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, Omar Katz, Thora Birch & Vinessa Shaw. In the movie, which took place in the small, idyllic town of Salem, Massachusetts, a virgin lit the Black Flame Candle thus unleashing three sisters from Hell who were hanged for being witches in 1693! This movie is, of course, Hocus Pocus.

On Sunday, I was given the opportunity of a lifetime to go to Salem. Salem is the location of the Salem Witch Trials, a showplace for quintessential New England, the literary inspiration of The House of Seven Gables, and, of course, the hometown of the Sanderson sisters. It was, in all honesty, a dream come true. Something I literally get to check off my life list (#167- Go to Salem, Massachusetts).

A quick recap:
First we saw Bunghole Liquors and indulged our inner 11 year-old little boy.



Then we saw it again. This time we got matching Bunghole Liquor key chains.

Then we saw a scary cemetery!

Then we went to a museum! With dioramas! (We weren't allowed to take pictures there.)
Then we saw this:
Why yes, that is the house where ALISON LIVED IN HOCUS POCUS.

The time Lyle told a story that haunted my LIFE.

“Australian Aborigines say that the big stories—the stories worth telling and retelling, the ones in which you may find the meaning of your life—are forever stalking the right teller, sniffing and tracking like predators hunting their prey in the bush.” (Robert Moss)

I love stories. I love hearing them, I love telling them, I love reading and listening to and seeing them. They are truly my great passion.

That being said there are certain stories that haunt me. Stories that make me shudder and think and laugh and cry and recoil in horror. From the books I was read as a kid (most notably "Tikki Tikki Tembo" and "The Crack of Dawn Walkers") to the things I remember growing up to the stories people tell me now... every once in a while I come across something that truly HAUNTS me. They are few and far between and when I hear one it consumes me. I think about it and find myself retelling it over and over again to anyone that will listen.

The last story to do so involved a dead girl on the New York City subway. It was so upsetting that when I retold it to my friend Amelia, she wrote me a few days later and chastised me for giving her nightmares and introducing her to such horrifying thoughts.

This past Monday I heard another such story. While sitting in a Williamsburg restaurant with two friends, I was told the following by Lyle:

A young woman had a boa constrictor for a pet. The snake lived freely, out of a cage and followed its master around through this room and that room. The woman and her snake were so close that they even slept in the same bed. At night, the girl would stretch out on her mattress and the boa would curl up by her feet, undoubtedly enjoying the heat his master's body was giving off.

Needless to say, the girl and her snake were close.

Then, one day, the boa stopped eating. Not only did it stop eating, it stopped sleeping in it's normal position. Instead of spending the night curled up at the woman's feet, it started to lie stretched out alongside her body. Scared he was sick, the woman took her non-eating, stretched-out-while-sleeping boa constrictor to the vet.

While at the veterinarian's office, the woman explained what was wrong with her beloved. "So you're telling me that your snake doesn't eat anymore and is now spending it's nights stretched out alongside you?" the vet asked. "Yes," the woman nodded. "You have to get rid of your snake immediately" the vet said. "Why?" the woman asked. "Because you're telling me it no longer eats and it's spending every night stretching itself alongside you in your bed. It's preparing its body to EAT you."

I've found that the stories that stick with you have a few of the same elements: an incredibly strong visual image (a dead dog; a terrified girl; a boa constrictor), an element of humanity (a moral dog-sitter; a strong subway neighbor; a vet who tries to break the news gently) and an element of mortality (again, a dead dog; a dead girl on a subway; death by snake). What makes the snake story so sad, so funny, so tragic, so haunting is: (a) that this woman obviously loved this snake (b) that she slept with the snake (c) the snake wanted to kill her (d) this woman who loved a snake as a pet did not realize that this animal she had raised and fed and kept healthy wanted to eat her alive while she slept.

On a completely different note, I saw Anderson Cooper, Ariana Huffington, Mike Huckabee and DL Hughley speak at Radio City Music Hall last night. It was truly a remarkable and memorable experience. And Anderson has cheekbones so sharp they would probably cut that snake in half.

(he could probably hack down that vegetation behind him with those cheekbones!)

another day, another bum steals your candy.

This afternoon I had lunch with my old roommate, Sandra and some friends. She and I worked and lived together for about a year. During this time, she and I spent many meals together. During many of these meals, we shared different variations of delicious gummy treats. Today, for a laugh, I picked up a package of gummy cola bottles on my way to lunch.

Over lunch, only about half the bag was eaten and I threw the rest in my purse to eat later at the theater (I saw I Love You, Man- deliciously awkward). I left lunch and jumped on the subway to go back to Queens for the movie. While on the V train between Queens Plaza and Steinway, a pan-handler got on and began jingle-jangling down the car, asking for money. Normally at this point a pan-handler and I usually engage in a quick one act play where I put my head down and pretend to be enthralled by something like my iPod. The pan-handler sees this, registers that I am pretending to be deeply enthralled with some inane object and doesn't ask me for money.

But not today.

Today I was unarmed. My iPod was dead and therefore the buds were not in my ears, my magazine was rolled up at the bottom of my bag just out reach. I searched my purse frantically for something to distract myself. With pan handler just a few feet away I reached in blindly and and pulled out... the gummy cola bottles. I quickly popped one in my mouth and pretended be reading the nutrition facts with unparalleled interest. Just as I thought I was safe, a hand, palm side up, was shoved in front of my face. I sighed, defeated, and looked up to see the pan handler smiling at me. He didn't want money. He wanted my delicious gummy cola treats.

At this point I had a decision to make. I could: (a) pretend I thought he wanted money and shrug my shoulders (b) pick a few out of the bag and hand them to the pan-handler (c) gently shake the bag and allow a few to tumble into the mans hand or (d) succumb to my yuppie, privileged, middle class guilt and act like it was okay if a stranger, ANY stranger, asked me for my CANDY and then stuck their dirty, subway-germ ridden hand into my bag of treats, dug around and then picked out some of the gummy colas. Needless to say I picked choice (d). The man fumbled around inside the plastic, pulled out a handle full of candy, popped one his mouth, chewed, looked at me thoughtfully and said, "These really do taste like cola." I smiled, "Yup, that's why I bought them." At this point I was glad I had given him some of my candy. I felt a camaraderie with him, almost like I had made a new friend. That was short lived however when he attempted to hand the bag back to me. "No, you keep it," I said. "I've had enough."

a cacophony of sound.

I am very flattered that people are coming to read my humble blog. According to my statcounter, the majority is coming here through googling "Mormon housewife sex" which, if you are a regular reader, know that this particular phrase links directly to my rant about Twilight. Regardless of how you got here, welcome.

I apologize for not updating. First I was here:


I was given the opportunity of a lifetime to go to Antigua for a rest from my otherwise pretty non-hectic life.

This was taken on a catamaran while I was carrying a pretty harsh Antiguan Rum Punch buzz. I'll give you one thing about the Antiguan men, they like their ladies and they like their ladies liquored up.
I came home briefly in order to witness a man leave a box of latex gloves on the subway in a Duane Reade bag:


I then went home to Maryland just in time to watch Maryland cream California (and then get creamed by Memphis)


Then I was in Georgetown for a beautiful wedding.


And stayed just like enough to dress my parents dog up like an housewife:


Tonight I am going to meet my old roommate, Sandra. Tomorrow I will recount the story of the raspberry scone that got away.

super awesome single people

This is first image that comes up in Google when you type in "sad single people."

Thursday night while sitting on her couch in a food coma and distracted by 30 Rock, Maura convinced me to go to "a singles event." Now, what is a singles event, you might ask? Well, join me on this journey and you will find out.

Friday night I met some lady friends at the Slaughtered Lamb where we had a pre-singles event beer to calm our nerves and get the collective "are we really going to do this?" out of our systems. From there we mosied on over to Alibi in the West or Greenwich village (I still don't know the difference, I don't think I'll ever know the difference) for the "event." Walking in, the bar was empty and we were informed by the bartender that the other sad, single people were in the back room. There was a tinge of judgement in her voice, mixed with a look that said "I'm sorry you're so lonely that you're subjecting yourself to this."

Undeterred, we walked into the small, cavernous back room where we were met by Mike, our "leader" for this mingle and about 6 other sad, single people. Mike greeted us warmly, invited us to have a seat and started the introductions. Sandra, Mike, some guy from Queens who had a wedding ring on, an lady wearing scarves, Matthew, another women who looked angry and Adam all greeted us. I took my seat next to Adam and after a few minutes of exchanging pleasantries, I had learned he was an engineer, lived in Hoboken, went to Wash U, refused to give money to Wash U, liked to drop F-bombs, had a brother who went to Harvard, didn't like that his brother gave money to Harvard, hated St. Patricks Day but still wished he was Irish and was on the Autistic spectrum. He didn't divulge the Autistic part but I'm pretty keen on picking it up in strangers.

At this point, having added nothing to the conversation, I excused myself to go into the bathroom and twitter and text and check my email. I also used this time to figure out how we were going to escape.

Eventually, I returned and after another ten minutes of pleasantries and contemplating how a life of singledom really does not seem so bad by comparison, we gathered by the door plotting our exit. Quickly we gathered our coats in our hand and as we turned to leave I heard, "So, you're fucking leaving?" Slowly, we turned around to see Adam standing behind us wide-eyed and with a curious look on his face. We awkwardly explained that we had other plans and just stopped by for a drink. Then, something strange happened. One by one, Adam held out his hand to shake ours goodbye. Starting with Kate, as soon as his hands clasped hers, he awkwardly lunged forward as if to kiss her on the mouth. Startled, she leapt back. He did the same thing to Maura and by the time he got to me, I had locked my elbow and raised my left hand to block him in case he lunged at me, too. He did and the resulting move was a mixture of a bear hug and an arm wrestle during which I just kept saying, "Alright, buddy, take care."

Eventually, we escaped and walked outside into the fresh air of freedom. After a few moments of shaking our heads and giggling, we gained our composure and began our walk to a nearby piano bar. It was then the Maura realized she had left her umbrella inside. After of contemplating whether or not she should just leave it or risk another awkward Adam encounter, she decided to go back into retrieve it. As I watched her walk in I just kept thinking "I'm so glad I'm not her right now."

i'm addicted to organic party mix.

For the past few birthday's and Christmases, I have been given gifts that fall into a very specific category: the domestication of Katie. Here is a brief list of things I've been given over the past few years:
- a steam mop.
- numerous cook books
- a toaster
- a blender
- a gravy-stained lace tablecloth
- Martha Stewarts Housekeeping Handbook (which I have consulted for two things: cockroaches & mildew)

For my birthday my parents gave me this:


(I asked for it.)

Since yesterday, I've been in a sewing frenzy, hemming pants and fixing the hole in the armpit of my black dress that's been there since Sonic Youth this summer. I also made this:


So this domesticity overload has gotten me wondering how all of this happened. This time last year I was running around, going out every night, seeing a bazillion shows and gallery openings and other ridiculous events. I was NEVER home. But, for the past few weeks, I have been sitting in my apartment, knitting and drawing and baking and cooking and, now, sewing (and rather ironically, sewing something I can wear while baking... in my apartment). WHO HAVE I BECOME? Hopefully this will be alleviated by the coming spring weather.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

Growing up with a rabid football fan is hard. They jump around and scream and cry and get really bummed out and basically have there entire mood on Monday determined by whether or not there team wins on Sunday. Coming from this background, the last thing I want to do is watch a show about football. But then, about a year ago, my mom started to rant and rave about Friday Night Lights. Then, various friends started telling me "you have to watch it, it's amazing." Unmoved by their pleas, I continued my non-FNL life until one day in a moment of divine inspiration I added it on my Netflix queue and my life was forever changed. It's my favorite show ever. Even more than the X-Files (which if you knew me from 1994-1999 then you know that's a pretty strong statement.)

My top six reasons Friday Night Lights is the best show ever.

1. Because it has Tim Riggins.
Caroline said it best, "It's hard to have a crush on a fictional character."

This phenomenon is unlike any other. It's not a typical actor crush. Let me break it down: I would go see anything that Gael Garcia Bernal is in because I have a crush on HIM. Most of the boys I know would go see anything that Scarlett Johansson is in because it's HER. With Tim Riggins, that's not the case. I don't even know the actors name because I could care less about him. It's the 17 year old football player who lives with his brother in Dillon, Texas I love. And Caroline loves. And my mom loves (This summer my mom actually confessed to having a dream about Tim Riggins where he drove up in his truck to my parent's house and kissed her. Gross.)

2. Because at least once an episode I cry and I laugh and I smile and I go "Aww."
Every. Single. Episode. It touches on what it is to care about something and someone and how it can consume you while you're simply working away at Applebee's or on a used car lot.

Goosebumps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-MbgIgPQcY&feature=related

Last week it was during a scene between Matt Saracen and Coach Taylor where in his perfectly 17 year old way, Matt said ""I'll sit on your bench. I'll come to practice and do whatever you want me to do, but I'm gonna hate it, and you're gonna hate it."

3. Because of the music.
When you're opening credits have Explosions in the Sky and you had your State Champs riding on a float down Main Street while "Devil Town" was playing, you're off to a good start.

4. Because I think that if I watch it, that will be enough to keep it on the air forever.

5. Because in the way of Arrested Development and Family Guy (the first time), it will probably end before it's ready and that makes every episode a sweet, delicious treat.

6. Because deep down, I think everyone wonders what it would be like to live in a small town in Texas where football is life.

i'd like to fork edward

...But not really.

So another Valentine's Day has come and gone. I spent my February 14th on Staten Island and most of the early morning of February 15th trying to get home.

I've been meaning to write this post for a few weeks now. It's particularly pressing today because I'm about to watch the movie and I want to get this written before my thoughts are tainted by Robert Patterson's cheekbones. Now, I'm not one for literary crazes (except, I am, considering I've read every Oprah book, Pillars of the Earth and the occasional Harry Potter) but I decided to read Twilight after going on a bachelorette weekend where I was promised at least one vampire-sex dream. Well I did not have any sex dreams that week but I did have a TERRIFYING NIGHTMARE ABOUT VAMPIRES CHASING ME.


So I bought it at the bookstore and spent the next week trying unsuccessfully to hide the cover from my neighbors on the subway. I read it voraciously, I couldn't get enough and when I finally read the last page and put the book down it hit me: I hated Twilight. HATED it. Why? Well, let me explain.

1. It was written by a middle-aged Mormon housewife. Now I have nothing against the middle-aged, Mormons (except I do take exception to two lapsed Mormons who tried to drug me in Salt Lake City but that's neither here nor there) or housewives. I DO however have something against a middle-aged Mormon housewife who, in an attempt to rationalize her own submissive sexuality, writes a book about a domineering, sometimes cruel vampire (Edward) and the dumb, passive girl (Bella) whose blood he craves and with whom he starts a relationship. I also have a problem with this middle-aged Mormon housewife then marketing her book to tween-aged girls.

A few small examples of Edward's controlling behavior:
"You paid attention," he smiled approvingly.
"Are you going to tell Charlie I'm your boyfriend or not?" he demanded.
"Put on your seatbelt" he commanded.
"Are you okay?" (Bella) asked. "No," he said curtly, and his tone was livid.

A. No teenager smiles approvingly. Teenagers are, by nature, completely disapproving of pretty much everyone including their significant others.
B. No 17 year old boy in the history of the world has DEMANDED that his girlfriend tell her estranged father that they are now a couple. Oh wait, I think that has happened in EVERY single Lifetime movie about an abusive boyfriend (I'm talking to you Johnny Galecki).
C. No teenager commands another teenager to put on her seatbelt. That's why insurance rates are so high. Duh.
D. Just the fact that the middle-aged, Mormon housewife wrote the words "curtly" and "tone" and "livid" in the same sentence really pisses me off.

I know what everyone is thinking "but he's a Vampire, he's OLD, he's not a teenager." This adds a whole other layer of creepiness to the equation. If this guy is 109 years old and he's dating a 16-year old, isn't that's the definition of a pervert? And shouldn't we be discussing her obvious daddy issues rather than celebrating them? (In her defense, the middle-aged Mormon housewife does touch on the daddy thing by making Bella's dad Charlie an absent, clueless father).

2. As I mentioned earlier, it gave me NIGHTMARES. I read the part about the tracker chasing Bella right before I went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night, adrenaline pumping convinced that a Vampire was about tracking me. I'm a 25 year old woman.

3. The sparkles. So, middle-aged Mormon housewife (from here on out I will be abbreviating as M-AMH) you expect me to believe that when this vampire goes out into the sunlight, he SPARKLES? Well played, M-AMH, well played. You've officially crafted a multi-million dollar fortune by writing a book about a vampire with sadistic sexual undertones who SPARKLES.

So basically it goes like this:



+



=



So that's my Twilight rant.

Also, sidenote. When I googgled "sadism and masochism" to get the leather whip pic, this picture came up:

you're the other half of what i am

My cousin is getting married this week in Maryland. Rather than a wedding, they are having a simple court house ceremony followed by dinner at my parents house. I have been requested to make a banner which I'm currently making out of craft paper, rope and clothes pins with American Typewriter lettering. It sounds weirder than I think it's going to be.

In addition, I am making the reception playlist. While my cousin is a Southern Rock loving Mr. All American, his fiance is Brazilian. The result is this strange romantic indie rock, southern influenced, stupid top-40 alternative songs and wedding staples cacophony (read: my dream soundtrack). This has been hard. As of right now, this is the playlist I have:

Ain't No Sunshine- Aaron Neville
Jessica- Allman Brothers Band
Wedding Bell- Beach House
Blackbird- the Beatles
The Luckiest- Ben Folds
The Very Thought of You- Billie Holiday
Wedding Song- Bob Dylan
Skinny Love- Bon Iver
First Day of My Life- Bright Eyes
Lovers Spit- Broken Social Scene
I Love How You Love Me- Camera Obscura
Sideways- Citizen Cope
The Scientist- Coldplay
Colorblind- Counting Crows
Bad Moon Rising- Creedance Clearwater Revival
Our House- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Love Song- the Cure
The Blowers Daughter- Damien Rice
Red Right Ankle- the Decemberists
I Will Always Love You- Dolly Parton
La Vie En Rose- Edith Piaf
Tiny Dancer- Elton John
Can't Help Falling in Love- Elvis Presley
Where Will I Be?- Emmylou Harris
At Last- Etta James
1234- Feist
Do you Realize?- the Flaming Lips
I'll Be Seeing You- Frank Sinatra
Nocturne in E-Flat- Chopin
And Then You- Greg Laswell
I Don't Love You Much, Do I?- Guy Clark
Cat's in the Cradle- Harry Chapin
Such Great Heights- Iron & Wine
Piece of my Heart- Janis Joplin
First Time I Ever Saw Your Face- Johnny Cash
Heartbeats- Jose Gonzalez
Fools Gold- Katie Herzig
Danny's Song- Kenny Loggins (HOLLLLLLLLLLAAAA)
My List- the Killers
On Call- Kings of Leon
Simple Man- Lynyrd Skynyrd
Let's Dance- M.Ward
Dream a Little Dream of Me- Mama Cass
Can't You See- Marshall Tucker Band
Fade Into You- Mazzy Star
I Hear the Bells- Mike Doughty
I Loves You Porgy- Miles Davis
Always Love- Nada Surf
Here For You- Neil Young
Pink Moon- Nick Drake
Turn Me On- Nora Jones
Question- Old 97's
Today, Tomorrow & Forever- Patsy Cline
I Fall to Pieces- Patsy Cline
When A Man Loves A Woman- Percy Sledge
Two Hearts- Phil Collins
When Doves Cry- Prince
All I Need- Radiohead
You Are my Sunshine- Ray Charles
Wonderwall- Ryan Adams
Embraceable You- Sarah Vaughn
There is a Light That Never Goes Out- The Smiths
Chasing Cars- Snow Patrol
Ageless Beauty- Stars
So Romantic- Stripmall Ballads
The Good Life- Tim Myers
Sing For You- Tracy Chapman
Brown Eyed Girl- Van Morrison
Crazy Love- Van Morrison
Into the Mystic- Van Morrison
Maps- Yeah Yeah Yeahs

I'm proud because I've managed to work all of my aunts and uncles past first dance songs, my grandmothers favorite song, some god-awful country music, Phil Collins and Beach House into one playlist. Also, if you've never heard it, I highly suggest you listen to Bob Dylan's Wedding Song. I was obsessed with Planet Waves when I was about 16 and used to listen to that song about 23 times a day.