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.