adulthood.

Sorry, blogowebspherenets. I’ve been away for a very long time. It’s all my fault. I grew up.

I graduated in December, and began working at the Waco VA two weeks later. It was unexpected. Even more unexpected? I absolutely love my job. I rate veterans’ claims and give them the hook-up for their monthly compensation. It’s six months of training, so it’s been pretty intense. Also intense: confronting adulthood. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

1. Adults very rarely act like adults.
2. Going to bed early never becomes cool, you just stop caring about cool.
3. Drinking on weeknights is somewhat suspect. Getting drunk on weeknights is embarassing. But that’s always been the case for Drunk Kat, who at once wants to disclose every feeling she’s ever had and cry about how she’s scared of feelings. So, some things don’t change.
4. You have to schedule time to relax. Same goes for doing what you love. It becomes even more important once you start slaving for the man.
5. Dental insurance kicks ass.
6. A left-wing pacifist working for the federal government is ironic. Irony pays pretty well.
7. Never, ever, ever let your daughter be a Marine.
8. If they fought for our country, I have to tolerate some dirty old man flirting in the hall. Good thing I already love that business.
9. No matter what you’re doing, it kinda bothers people when you never show up on time. However, in a 40 hour a week/flex time scenario, you can lower that bar and get away with a lot.
10. Being someone worthwhile takes a lot of effort once you emerge from the academic womb.

That’s a start. Really, I just wanted to get that out there and start blogging again. There should be updates soon about puppyventures. And more pen reviews. And more….oh god, blog. I’ve missed ye.

Soon, loves.  

tick-tock goes the puppy clock.

“The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.”
Samuel Butler 

They say when a woman reaches a certain point in her life, she covets every baby she sees. Every infant that crosses her line of sight becomes the cutest, most desirable child to ever be born. Well, friends, I’ve reached that point — with puppies.

I’ve always been an animal person. When my jr. high peers were greedily baby-sitting, I was putting toddlers down early to play with the dogs. I know my neighbors’ pets names while having never once introduced myself to my neighbors (I’m looking at you, Sam and that blond lady you’re always with!). I try to be fair about the matter: animals are not, for all our romanticized personification, humans. They don’t operate on the same plane with the same needs as we do. I get it, really, I do. But that doesn’t diminish them. They might not love like we love, but they love in their way. A happy, healthy pet has a personality and disposition, a set of quirks and whims that enables a unique relationship. Many times I look at my cat, Liam, right after he’s horked up a piece of plastic or my sweater, and I think, “You dirty little animal.” Then he looks up at me with those green lamp eyes, jumps beside me, wraps his little arm around mine and starts purring, and I think, “You dirty little animal — you know exactly what you’re doing. God, I love you.” Their companionship is easy on good days, and still rewarding on bad — a trait they share with my closest friends.

I love my cat and, in his feline way, he loves me back. He is the first pet that was genuinely mine. I wouldn’t give him up for the world. But, truthfully, my life isn’t complete without a dog.

With the advent of a real job and adulthood, I’ve decided I can finally in good conscience adopt a puppy. Pet owners say you have the best chance of teaching a cat and dog to coexist peacefully if they are opposite genders and at least one of them is young. My own experience has taught me terriers are the best fit for me, because of their size, disposition, and general awesomeness. I’ve narrowed my search down to two breeds: a Yorkshire Terrier or a West Highland White Terrier.

I had a beloved Yorkie in high school. She was unnervingly clever, affectionate, and well-behaved. The joy of small terriers is that, unlike most toy breeds, they were bred with a purpose. The mill workers in Yorkshire weren’t trying to breed a lap dog, they wanted a hunter to catch the mice and rats in the factories. Later, they wanted a dog small enough to slip in their pockets when they poached on the local nobles’ land. Yorkies were bred with subversion in mind, and I don’t think that inclination has ever completely left them. Also, they are occasionally war heroes. So, assuming you didn’t get a sickly, inbred “teacup” Yorkie, you’re getting a real dog only in a very small package.

The same is true of the Westie (of Caesar Dog Food and Black & White scotch fame). Descended from a long line of hunting terriers, the Westie was developed so that its white coat would distinguish it from game and help hunters track it when its enthusiasm took it across the Scottish highlands. Though Westies can be two to three times larger than the Yorkie, they still have disproportionately large personalities — or, as the AKC website puts it, “no small amount of self-esteem.” They are known for their friendly, alert dispositions, trainability, and also general awesomeness. Neither breed sheds and both have a low to negligible amount of dander, reducing allergens and that “wet dog” smell. Also, both breeds are precious-pants. Consider the following:

A Westie puppy.

And a Yorkie puppy.

I’m trying really hard not to squeal over these pictures. 

So, the journey has begun. In six weeks I go for out-of-town training, and I’d like to have a puppy ready by the time I get back. Don’t tell Liam. And expect more ridiculous pictures in the weeks/months to come as I make my decision and welcome a new lil furball into the pack. 

teaching: going out with an inappropriate bang.

My little teaching experiment has come to an end. I’m graduating next week (!), I’m going to work at the VA, and I’m taking a break from academe for a bit. The last day of class, I’d planned a lesson on revision, since that was part of their final unit. That fell apart immediately.

I began by switching up the roll call question format. Instead of me asking them a question, they would ask me one. Ezra warned me that this was dangerous, but I expected my students to be too afraid to ask anything inappropriate. What was I thinking? Have I been in class for the last semester?

My 9:30 class had the unofficial goal of figuring out if I smoked pot. To quote one student after class, “Well, people wonder about you.” I got, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”, “Have you ever done anything illegal?”, “Have you ever run from the cops?”, and the phenomenally unsubtle, “Have you done multiple drugs?” I caught him on the multiple bit. What’s that supposed to mean? I got him to narrow it down to coke. Which, clearly if I did coke, they’d be getting their papers back a lot sooner. So no, I don’t do “extreme drugs” (wtf) but I told them stories about people I know who have. Look at me! I’m crossing lines all over the place! Just not those kind of lines. 

After convincing them I was boring, I got somewhat milder questions: “What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done drunk?” was a fun one that I totally answered. I cited my tendency to have heart-to-hearts when I’ve been drinking, and the emotional, very un-Kat melodrama that ensues. They liked that. I got questions about Ezra which he categorically told me not to answer, so I went out of my way to answer and volunteer unsolicited embarrassing stories (”Psssssshh! What is up with you and your jar?!”).

My second class cared more about my political leanings and what I was doing after graduating. One 12:30 student asked if I had to have basketball-sized elbows or knees, which would it be? I answered the only way a “teacher” like myself could: my elbows, because I have really nice legs. They were mildly scandalized. This confirms my long-held suspicion about my classes: 9:30 is quiet but infinitely mischievous, 12:30 is all talk. 

Finally one student asked what I liked best and least about the course. I said what I liked least was the grind. Trying to figure out how to fill class time in the best and most helpful way, being attentive but not babying them, and trying to not burn out completely proved for an unrelenting semester. What I liked best was easy: my students. I met 43 really cool people this semester. I don’t know if I always did right by them, and clearly I need to redefine some boundaries, but they were a joy. I’m going to miss those crazy kids. 

oh webs, how i’ve missed ye.

Dear Blog,

I’m sorry to have been away so long. I promise you’ve been on my mind and the object of many a late night pining.  I haven’t forgotten you,  I’m simply without regular access to a computer and/or a reliable internet connection. I hope to remedy that this weekend.

I have so much I want to talk to you about! In your absence, I’ve begun reading books again. Books! Twice a week, I teach 44 freshmen how to think and write (according to the course description).  I am equal parts enamored with and terrified of each of them. Many stories about that to come.  I’ve acquired new music and watched new movies — I hardly know where to begin.

Don’t think any of these experience have or could replace what you and I share. I am eternally yours.

Love & Snuggles,
mka

just interesting.

Excerpt from electronic conversation:

Joe: So, what have you been listening to lately?
Me: Black Keys, Beach House, She & Him…
Joe: Duos.
Me: Weird. I’m listening to Mates of State right now.
Joe: I stopped trying to analyze this.
Me: I didn’t.

I have theories. They’ll stay my theories for now.

the cupcake paradox, or the adams-mcclosky problem

I’m not positive when my cupcake obsession began.  I know it took a turn for the ridiculous around Halloween of last year when I spent the day decorating 50 some-odd cupcakes that looked like, well, this:

Ever since I’ve been captivated by the possibilities of The Cupcake (like all my obsessions, as soon as it catches my fancy it becomes a Platonic abstraction: see also, The Knitted, The Horror Film, and The Baby Animal).  Wandering through Barnes & Noble a couple of days ago, I stumble across a cookbook simply titled, Cupcakes.  In it are recipes for tiramisu cupcakes, pistachio white chocolate cupcakes, chocolate orange cupcakes, maple pear cupcakes — it’s gorgeous.

Giddy over my newest acquisition, I indulged in a little facebook gloating.  My friend Anthony requested that I bring cupcakes to a movie night he’s hosting this week, and that’s when we started thinking: people love things in miniature. I’m much more likely to eat a cupcake than a piece of cake or a donut hole than a donut. Anthony just bought a new ottoman that kicks ass. Why? Because of a smaller, identical ottoman stored inside the larger one.  As a child, when I’d start cracking open Russian stacking dolls, my question was not really “How many are there?” It was, “How small do they get?”  The smaller, the better.

This, we decided, is the cupcake paradox. One would assume that when we have a good thing we’d want more of it or to make it bigger.  Not the case. You want to make a popular thing (fried chicken) more popular? Make it smaller (hello, chicken nuggets.).  After some semi-intense pondering, we couldn’t think of a single, non-sexual example of something that is considered better when it is made larger.  Even possible exceptions, such as a drink, turn out to be inaccurate.  Liquid is measured by volume, not mass. So, you can’t really have a smaller diet coke (by which I mean beer), you’d just have a smaller glass. Which I’d just fill up over and over again because small things are precious.

Miniature trains, dollhouses, those monkeys that are the size of your finger when they’re babies: these are the things people get strangely obsessive about.  That’s The Cupcake Paradox at work.

poetry + me = poeme.

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

- Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”

Those of you who have spoken with me in, oh, the past year for longer than three minutes might have picked up on my professor worship of Dr. Davis. For those of you who haven’t suffered the weekly “Oh! In class? Dr. Davis said…” updates need only know this: he is the poet in residence at Baylor, my creative writing teacher, and makes a hobby out of saying things for me to repeat. One of the things he said in class has been rankling with me for awhile. I fear it’s true and it bothers me, for reasons I expect some of you with sympathize with. What I’m curious about is why it happens, if it indeed does. Dr. Davis posits that, usually, an author’s first novel is told in first person; likewise, earlier in a poet’s career, his or her poems will also be told in first person.  Now, as any good writer/reader knows, an “I” or speaker isn’t the author — but with younger or newer poets, the gap between the “I” and the author is significantly smaller. Or so says The Davis.

Being the difficult soul I am, it isn’t surprising that from the day he said this until the end of the class, the most common critique of my work was, “Who is speaking? Why isn’t the person in the poem? The third person speaker is all wrong. Blah, blah, blah.” Of course. Because I didn’t want the rules to apply to me. Now, I gave up being the speaker in my poems a long time ago, but I still run to the “I” as a starting place — or at least I do when I’m not deliberately avoiding such things. And I think this is natural for most people.  Is it something that we evolve past with age or maturity? Possibly. Empathy is certainly a watermark of maturity. But using “I” when speaking about someone else is strongly empathetic. Do we, with age and experience, move into more reflective, observational roles? Again, maybe. But that doesn’t seem the best or most complete explanation.  So what of the “I” trend in younger writers? Equally interesting, why is there an implicit value in moving beyond the “I,” when a first-person speaker is a clear way of connecting with a reader. I’m curious for your input — especially since so many of my beloveds are writers also, but any of you are welcome to muse with me. As a starting point, I’ve included two short poems by Philip Larkin, my favorite. One includes a self-indicating speaker and the other does not. These aren’t from specifically later or earlier parts of his career, but they illustrate the change in tone that comes with an absent speaker. (NB: These are also just poems I could find on the web without too much digging. So.)

Water
If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.

Going to church
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes;

My liturgy would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench,

And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly.

As Bad as a Mile
Watching the shied core
Striking the basket, skidding across the floor,
Shows less and less of luck, and more and more

Of failure spreading back up the arm
Earlier and earlier, the unraised hand calm,
The apple unbitten in the palm.

The Mechanic’s Wife

She’ll have to marry him now!

Petra is betrothed — to rich, eligible Sheikh Rashid. But she plans to ruin her reputation so Rashid won’t want her. Blaize, a fellow guest at her hotel, agrees to be Petra’s pretend lover — though soon he’s taken her virginity!

Then Petra makes a shocking discovery. Blaize is actually none other than the man she’s supposed to be marrying — Sheikh Rashid!

So reads the back cover of a Harlequin romance novel called The Sheikh’s Wife or The Sheikh’s Lover or Mr. Sheikh Goes to Washington or something like that. I can’t remember the title, but I wrote down the back copy as soon as I read it because, well, isn’t it obvious?

A few Wednesdays ago was one of the roughest days I’ve had in awhile. But it was also a reminder that I have some extraordinarily awesome friends, one of whom is Miss Lindsay Gafford. Lindsay, as a matter of practice, rummages through Goodwill’s bin of 99 cent romance novels to find the most ridiculous, repulsive, and sad of a patently ridiculous, repulsive, and sad genre.  Then she sits around and reads them to friends. Really, I can’t think of another form of entertainment where you get so much bang for your buck. “Bang for your buck…” I shall add that to my list of probable by-lines.

The Sheike’s On-Again, Off-Again Girlfriend doesn’t even have an author listed. It’s that sort of book. Since I’m in the market for a life’s calling, I decide I could write one of these romance novel things and pretty much did, all whilst walking around Target with LDG. I call it The Mechanic’s Mistress, and it goes a little something like this:

Will he get a peek under her hood? Or will their romance stall out?

Celeste is the daughter of wealthy and savage luxury car dealer.  Ryder is the a third generation honest and hard-working mechanic.  These star-crossed greasers passion for fast cars, clean burning fuel, and each other!

Pretty much it goes on to involve overuse of the words and phrases “chassis,” “driving stick,” “body work,” “humming [motor],” “revved up,” “pistons”…Surely you get the idea.

I was enjoying my averagely clever, filty self when suddenly I recalled something from my dark days of tending the fiction section of Barnes & Noble. Something I had worked long and hard (heehee) to forget:

Harlequin NASCAR.

That’s right. Combining not one but two of the lowest forms of American entertainment, Harlequin Nascar follows the Full Throttle adventures of Nascar drivers and the women who love them. The line includes such titles as Old Flame, New Sparks, Peak Performance, Out of Line, Hitting the Brakes…Again. I feel the picture is in HD.

The funny thing is I was actually disappointed that the romance novel had beaten me to the punch. For a moment I thought, “Perhaps, as an industry, the romance noveliers are aware of how ridiculous they are, how they’ve lowered the bar, how they manipulate the lonely, isolated, and disenfranchised.” Then I read the product description for Overheated:

Things Crystal Hayes could do without: her looks, men obsessed with her looks, and guys who think they’re God’s gift to the ladies. She’d rather be behind the wheel of a truck than navigating cheesy pickup lines. But when Crystal makes a delivery to a NASCAR event, she meets the one guy who could blow all her preconceptions away.…

All his life Larry Grosso has lived in the shadow of his well-known racing family—but it’s now time for him to take what he wants. And on the top of that list is Crystal—breathtaking, sweet…and twenty-two years younger. Their age difference is creating animosity within their families, and suddenly their romance is the talk of the entire NASCAR circuit!

I think I can find something else to do.

 

bang, bang.

In actuality, it was only one bang. But “Bang” was never a song by Sonny & Cher and covered by Nancy Sinatra…geezy-peezy I love that song. And Kill Bill Volume 2 with which it will ever be associated. Back to the action.  It was not my baby who shot me down, nor was it I who was shot down, but it could’ve been! (Not really. We’re asking Truth to scooch down a bit so that Drama can join us on the couch.)

I arrive at my DOWNTOWN LOFT last night around 11:15 PM. Sarah, Roommate Temporalis, was chilaxin’ on the couch, watching some Atonement. She asks the perfectly legitimate and not at all paranoid question of, “When do the lights in the parking lot go off? Because I feel like they already are and that doesn’t make sense.” She’s right. It doesn’t make sense. Enter Danger.

BANG.

Waco is not a buzzing metropolis. The central Texas pace makes it quite easy to forget that Waco is still crazy dangerous. There’s a hopping drug trade and a substantial amount of the population lives below the poverty/desperation line. So when a girl hears a gunshot outside the window of her DOWNTOWN LOFT, concern may furrow itself across her brow.

Me: “Uh. That was a gunshot.”
Sarah: “Yeah.”
Me: “Uhhh. It was pretty close, huh?”
Sarah: “Yeah.”

We did the only rational thing: we ignored it. We did not go to the windows. We did not freak out. Sarah continued to moon over James McAvoy and his sepsis while I tried to wash a shift’s worth of steamed milk off my shoes. Then we heard the sirens. And saw the pretty lights. And realized they were gathering our parking lot.

According to my count (punctuated by a lot of “Ooh! Ooh! There’s another one!”’s) there were no fewer than eight cop cars, ten cops, 30 yards of yellow tape, two witnesses, and four frantically sweeping flashlights. Shortly after arriving, one cop ran back to his car and took off after someone/something.  Since I’m a cat owner, sudden movement and rabid intensity after no perceivable threat doesn’t faze me, but I’m sure he was riding to the danger zone.

At this point Sarah and I are huddled at my bedroom window, trying to peek without really peeking.  We don’t know what happened. We don’t know if anyone was hurt. We don’t know much. But we do know this: our mother’s never need to know that we live at ground zero. And life in a DOWNTOWN LOFT is substantially more exciting.

 

exclamation point.

“Ooh, I have a blog! Ooh, I’ma gonna update all the time! Blaaah.”

But really, I am. This past week has been one of extenuating circumstances.

If you’ve seen me in the past week, you’ve heard me bitch about this already. But I know you want a recap. I stayed up all night last Sunday to finish the thesis; I turned it in at 5 AM and immediately started packing. I had to be out of my apartment around  noon Monday and it hadn’t occurred to me, not even once, that I should put my metric ton of worldly belongings into boxes first.  My parents and uncle came to help around 8:30, by which time my bathroom and half my closet was packed. It was a long day.

My mom and dad have helped me move more times than anyone is biologically obligated.  Since May 2005, I’ve moved seven times; my long-suffering parents have moved me at least four of those.  Moving always seems to happen in the spring, which is never a good time for me.  They usually walk in to find me huddled in a corner, crying into my cat, amid mountains of dirty laundry and booze that they wish I didn’t drink. To make the whole job more fun, I’ve been a literature student for the past 6 or 7 years, so I have an ever-expanding collection of books to heave along. The parents complain, they sigh, but they always help me move.  Now I’m just left in a new apartment with boxes labeled in my mom’s handwriting, “BOOKS,” “BOOKS - HEAVY,” and “MORE BOOKS!”. It’s the exclamation point that makes me laugh.  My mom’s little Sharpie reminder that I am crazy and only technically hers.

Despite my boxes and limited access to The Internets (I shake my fists at you, HP), I am pleased to be living in a DOWNTOWN LOFT. My DOWNTOWN LOFT is in a building built in 1914 ( or something) and has exposed pipes and brick and an elevator. It is also in downtown Waco. So. There’s that. It’s the only time in my life I’ll be able to live in a DOWNTOWN LOFT, so I try not to dwell on the technicalities.

The best and worst part about downtown Waco is that it is downtown Waco. It’s quaint and old and precious. Also, it is filled with the most unique homeless population in Texas, second only to Austin.  Earlier this week I walked Mary Z (future roomie) downstairs to her car. Up comes one of Waco’s premier transients, toothlessly laughing.  He looks at me and says, “Gimme sompin’ to eat!” Crazy laugh, crazy laugh. I admire his forwardness, but unless he wanted to gnaw on my keys, he was out of luck.  This story is better when I can do his voice, trust me. 

I’m getting tired of typing in the student union building. So we’ll continue this another time. In upcoming news, I’ll probably be moving the blog to my own space this upcoming week. Keep yer ear to the ground. Also, I don’t intend to do many “sooooo. this is what I did today” posts, but I felt the need to explain my absence. I also have some Netflix responses due. Soon, loves.