I'm Getting Controversial

i need to come up with something more controversial to drum up readers. i have now entered into a low-level competition of readership numbers with the reverend, who for some reason has a steadily rising number of visitors to his blog. it must be mentioned here, once and for all, that i am the one that made him start a blog, that he has admitted that 40% of his readers come from this very blog, and that i therefore am the sole reason he has any readers at all. so really i already won this competition.

but anyway.

what are your thoughts on gay marriage? i am pro. i consider myself an ally, i support the notion that people want to enter into lasting and legal bonds to show the world and each other how important they are to each other. as was always a popular chalking on campus on NCOD (national coming out day): love is love is love. i want to be married someday, and i see no reason why any other human being should be denied that desire simply because of who they want to marry. our wonderful christian fascist rightwingers would lead us to believe that if we allow them to marry the entire united states might just plunge forthwith into a fiery abyss where people marry donkeys, terrorists target america, and all children will fail to ever know what a true marriage is like between man and woman because they will only know the corruption that is a loving same-sex marriage. with the number of people currently in therapy over the divorces, trysts, abuses, and more that their parents have had and committed, i think our country is f-ed up enough already - what could it hurt to see two people who are so committed to and in love with each other that, despite all adversity and odds, they would have a public ceremony to declare just that? commitment and love are apparently not good things. who knew.

Cravings

late night food cravings are bad. i don't think eating chips & salsa right now would be the best plan. acid reflux is also bad. but who am i kidding...i have food cravings all the time. i ended up at the store after dinner tonight for brownies to put in my ice cream. my cravings are also healthy. super healthy. just like me.

Two Days in One

last night got away from me, what with the laying around and the reading and the talking on the phone. all i missed out on telling you was how i went to the museum yesterday to show my niece, reagan, all there is to see about culture in kansas city. i've taken her before, and she had three requests: to see the shuttlecocks, the lion (our lifesize greek lion), and the "horse with sticks" (a modern sculpture of a horse constructed of mud and sticks). so we ran around outside to see all of the shuttlecocks (there are 4), saw the lion and the horse, got a treat from the museum store, and watched tom & jerry for the ride home. the outing got rave reviews from the little one, so it was a hit all around.

today was a wonderful lazy day, largely spent lounging, facebook chatting, reading at starbucks with a chai tea latte, and then cleaning and mopping my house. then i was treated to a ridiculous dinner by my roommate: breadcrumb & peppercorn crusted chicken tenders with ginger mashed potatoes and stir-fried veggies all covered in a citrus honey asian sauce, ALL made from scratch. super good. and yet, even though i'm so full i'm comatose, i keep thinking about my starbucks lite coffee ice cream. to dessert or not to dessert...

So You Think You Can....

my mom and sisters are obsessed with the tv show "so you think you can dance." i watched some of it while living with my mom, and it is a good show - the people in it actually have talent, and dancing is always cool. so when their tour came to town, my mom bought me, my sisters, and my sister's mother-in-law tickets. tonight was the show. it was really cool, and i'm not sure how the dancers kept up the energy for over two hours of dancing, but they did. it makes me want to go take one of those dance aerobics classes like zumba or whatever it is. anyway, my sisters and i have the potential to act "special" when we are around each other, and this is what happened during intermission:we are cool.

Dang It

i'm too tired to come up with a stunning post in the next 7 or so minutes. i didn't do much today. i worked. i got my library card for the kcmo district. i checked out a john irving novel at the urging of the reverend. i went grocery shopping and somehow came home with toiletries, a loaf of asiago cheese ciabatta bread, and guacamole. and drano. all night i've just been reading and cleaning. i cleaned most of the apartment, all of myself, and all of my clothes. clean cleanness. so that was my friday night...way too exciting, i know.

Cavalierly?

a lesson learned from working in high-end retail: when you are setting the prices for $1500 vases and become convinced that people will surely buy them, you begin to treat your own money kind of cavalierly (is that a word?). oh sure $40 on whatever crap, that's not THAT much... not good. i'm going to be broke soon. i need a financial backer. anyone? anyone?

Swelles

tonight i gave a talk. that makes me sound important. all i really did was report to the kansas city wellesley club about what i saw and did at the alumnae leadership council two weekends back. but apparently me regaling them with tales of my exploits worked, because i got rave reviews from across the board. in addition, i met several very cool alumnae, and had some good snacks. being around all these powerful ladies always reminds me of what a strong network we have of smart women who may or may not secretly rule the country. ignore the fact that it took me three tries driving by to find the house where i was supposed to go. i blame it on the boy, who was distracting me on the phone. i can totally read house numbers.

Day Two in STL

our second day in the lou we got a later start than the first, but still respectable. we headed out for lunch, hoping for "handmade mexican" as advertised by pete's GPS navigator, only to find a completely desolate mexican restaurant in clayton, mo that didn't seem all too appealing. a short walk down the block and we found chipotle's. and even better, starbucks across the road. we hit both, leaving starbucks not only with our standard drinks but also two new gorgeous starbucks travel mugs, matching, of course. are we addicts? maybe.

from gorgeously cute clayton we headed to the equally idyllic park setting of the st. louis art museum and the st. louis zoo. first we spent a bit walking the front of the museum, largely because i am a super slow coffee drinker and needed to finish it up before entering. we then spent a bit wandering through the museum, pete setting off an alarm in the process, luckily not followed by a tackling security guard (actually, security never even showed).

next was a quick drive through the park to the zoo, another free st. louis hotspot. first order of business was a coke slushee, which i believe i may have paid about $17 for. then we saw the bears, the penguins, the big cats, the giraffes & zebras & gazelles and all of that, plus many interesting people, events, and halloween decorations. then it was back to the room, then back out for indian food (i took his indian-food-virginity, and he's fully converted). then a dip in the pool, then sleep.

our last morning in stl consisted mostly of me moping that we were having to leave each other. it also was spent at denny's for brunch doing the crossword while we ate. then a trip to starbucks (which was initally led astray by our usually trusty GPS, who decided we should go to the starbucks that was actually inside the airport), then back to the hotel where i pretty much lost it. this weekend was easily top 3 in my life (another one spent in memphis, so strangely 2 out of 3 good weekends have involved the reverend), and i DID NOT in all Capital Letters want it to end. hate it. nonetheless, we both had to get home, so we did despite my trying to hold him hostage at my car in the parking lot of the comfort inn. i can easily highly recommend st. louis, but go with company as good as mine and it will be perfect.

Tourism at its Finest

well, i ended up not even turning on my computer for the whole weekend. i think i turned it on once looking for a song - but no typing or blogging was accomplished. friday night after work i left straight for st. louis, making it there by about 9:45 pm. got checked in to our hotel, and waited on the reverend. he got to the hotel about an hour later, and we went and got steak n shake for a late late dinner - the only thing open around there that late, and right across from the hotel so it didn't demand much effort on our part.the next day we got an early start on being tourists, making it to downtown and the gateway arch by 10:30 or so. we spent a significant part of our walk to the arch looking for starbucks, talking about starbucks, whispering about whether or not we should ask that couple where they got their starbucks, and NOT FINDING A STARBUCKS. lame. i have never seen a business district that is lacking several hotspots for caffeine, but now st. louis has become the first.

despite not starting our day out with significant amounts of caffeine, we went on to have a blissful day of touring the city, following the arch with lunch at union station and the afternoon at the botanical gardens. the weather was perfect, the sights were gorgeous and relaxing, and the company was awesome. then we followed it up with a glammed-up dinner out at a restaurant called savor, a fantastic place that had the best bruschetta i've ever had and a really good amaretto sour. all in all our first day tearing across st. louis was a huge success, and i'll write about the second full day and our brief half-day this morning tomorrow. i would give a lot to be able to record saturday and be able to replay it in real time and kind of act it out over and over and over...although i might get in trouble with that since i'd just be slipping away from work to do that all the time.

STL

last night i totally thought hey, i should post on my blog. then i got busy what with surfing the internet, watching the tonight show, and showering. also, i was packing - i'm doing another weekend away, this time to st. louis. i always think of st. louis as the town i drive through; i've never stopped there, so i have no idea what the place is like. but i'm about to find out! or at least what a hotel is like right near st. louis. it's a good meeting point for certain reverends to come see me though, so that's where we'll be this weekend. updates and pictures to come. also, i predict moping once the weekend is over.

The Hurricane Effect

i have a problem i need help with. we have all experienced the hurricane-related phenomenon of a shower curtain liner getting sucked into the shower. i think it's something related to the temperature change, pressure vaccuums, and magical events. anyway, this is a daily issue for me. consider the following picture:what you may notice upon close inspection is that my shower curtain does not so much reach the ground. this is because i have a window that is partially in my shower and partially out, causing me to keep the shower curtain pole thing at an unusually high position. so my shower curtain liner too falls short, and the magnets designed to help me fight the magical hurricane effect do not quite reach the tub. i spend most of my showers fighting off my liner sticking to me, and have decided that this is not so much fun. any solutions you may have to offer me would be much appreciated. do you think they make long liners? i could investigate this but that would involve leaving my house.

What Time Is It? Now? Now?

time NEVER goes more slowly than when you are looking forward to something especially much. my something is leaving town this friday at 6 p.m....and more than that, getting to st. louis later that night. so today between 12:32 and 12:36 i looked at my watch approximately 7 times. i got to the point today that i took my watch off and put it away in my purse to try and stop myself from looking at the clock every other minute for the next three days. please someone out there reading, press a button to make the next couple days speed up - i'm begging you.

Apologies

so i have been paying left and right for internet lately, and it is officially uncool of hotels rhyming with larriot to charge for the internet. i only paid long enough to check my email and facebook, at the demands of some people.

so now i can finally sum up my weekend back in boston, quickly as the starbucks i am in for internet tonight (more on that later) is closing in 20 minutes. i flew back into boston friday morning for an alumnae leadership conference at wellesley, and the flight went awesomely well thanks to just half of one of my new favorite pills. got picked up and taken to my hotel, where my roommate was a fellow '06er who lived on my hall second year. i proceeded to take a nap.

then began the Wellesley Events and Socializing Extravaganza. first was a big dinner where we schmoozed and open bar boozed with everyone from classes from the '40s til we young '06ers. they fed us well, they speeched at us, it was nice. the next day was booked solid from 6:30 am until 9:00 pm, giving us pretty much no time to breathe. we had seminars on how to better our local wellesley club chapters, and finally a big banquet where i got to hear the new president speak. i can't decide what i think of her yet. i'll give her time.

next day was off to the campus at the crack of dawn again, where i wandered and sat and spent more money at the bookstore until 12:30. i also may or may not have taken approximately 70 pictures. then lunch with my boss from wellesley, franny, her niece, my friend ayako, and my hotel roommate, emily at shanghai tokyo, a favorite place to order from in college. i lived on their steamed dumplings for a while there.

i flew back in last night and used a whole one of my pills and spent the flight in blissful drowsiness. i even tried to muster panic at the bumpiness and it was there somewhere down deep but didn't feel like surfacing. fine by me.

ok so now there's no power at my apartment for various reasons (there will be tomorrow morning), so i'm off to read and shower by candlelight. romantical.

Ok I Give Up

ok i said i would post again tonight but i have to leave early in the morning and i really don't feel like writing anything. i'm bringing my laptop to boston though, so i should hopefully get a post in tomorrow. see you then.

I Know

i know i missed last night. i have no real excuse, per usual. i was at a college fair drumming up wellesley girls. then i was home. then i was on the phone for an extended period of time, pushing me past my midnight deadline. oh well. and i'm hungry now, for chipotle's (again this week? maybe so), so i'll post tonight.

Anxious

i get mildly anxious about a lot of things. being late. a messy room. merging on to the highway. but this mild anxiety is nothing compared to what happens to me when i fly. it used to be that even going to an airport to pick someone up or drop them off would land me sick in the bathroom and unable to eat. now i don't as often get sick before flying, but takeoff, any mild to major turbulence, and landing cause me to often flip my shit. actually landing is the best part because i at least know land is getting closer. even a shift in engine power freaks me out, i think that the plane's lost an engine and we're about to go down. but turbulence especially has gotten me to the point that i will literally sob from fear. this is not a fun state to be in. it's a completely irrational fear, i know, but it just wins every time. but this time, when i fly to boston this weekend, i have a little pharmaceutical friend. this minor tranq will hopefully keep me from losing it, for once, and make this a much more enjoyable trip. i'm kind of excited to take medication, for the first time in a while. everyone, cross your fingers for me.

Go With Christ, Brah

dog the bounty hunter may or may not be my hero. i am not religious by any means, but i can appreciate his finding god and using some actual christian ideals to catch and attempt to connect with criminals. they're better than barbara walters in getting people to crack and cry. and they always let them have a cigarette. there isn't much that is more sweet than seeing a huge beefy dude with a killer mullet all in leather and armbands lighting a cigarette for a handcuffed criminal. it's a goofy show and all but i actually have some level of respect for the dog.

also the south park episode pictured above is pretty much made of awesome.

From Heaven by Way of India

i have one constant food craving, one i think about about once a day, one that pushes me to urge people to go out to eat with me to one of five places, one that will just not let me go: indian food. and really, just one dish with one side - chicken tikka masala with a big basket of hot chewy naan bread. i just had it for dinner tonight and i'm already craving it for tomorrow. it is the one food that i keep eating until i feel the food hit the top of the back of my throat and i have to stop or i will literally throw up on the table. and then i have justonemorebite of naan soaked in tikka masala sauce. plus indian restaurants usually have great and quick service, and bunches of freebies. i love the free rice pudding with the candied ginger for dessert. i love the fried veggie thingy for an appetizer. i love coming out of a restaurant smelling like curry and cinnamon and all sorts of good things. uh, does anyone want to go out for indian food tomorrow?

Thoughts on Alcohol

so i might be a little tipsy. not much. a little, though. i never/very rarely drink, as alcoholism runs rampant in my family and that is a genetic time bomb i'd rather not mess with. but tonight i went out with my friend jen (longest running constant friend, we met in 5th grade) and her roommate and some other friends, and we went out for tapas. and i had sangria. two and a half glasses of it. for those of you that know me, that is pretty much a WOAH KATIE IS OUT OF CONTROL sort of amount. i basically stick to mike's hard lemonade or limeade, and usually about...one at a time. but then after tapas (Amazing, go to La Bodega under I35 on southwest blvd, go there now) we went to sol cantina on martini corner in midtown, and i had an amaretto sour. that's a lot for me. so i'm feeling a buzz. but i'm drinking water so i can easily get up for work tomorrow. and i think going out once every six to twelve months or so is probably not too crazy of a thing for me to do. and this post is totally coherent, right? so i'm fine. and it was a good night. oh, and try the bread pudding in apricot sauce at la bodega, you will marry the chef.

Life in the City

i am still getting used to certain factors of life in the "city," or midtown kc, which is the most city-fied i've ever been. for one, i hear sirens about, oh, every other hour. yes i live one building away from a major thoroughfare of this area of town, but it still kind of concerns me that there are this many cop cars and ambulances and fire trucks passing by. at least they pass by and aren't tearing into my neighborhood. then there's the sounds of drag racing, which i just heard tear by down aforementioned thoroughfare. super loud, super aggressive sounding, super dangerous. i'm glad i'm safe and tucked away on my island of comfort in my bedroom. oh, there they went again. i'll probably hear sirens again soon.

Horizontal Stripes

why am i currently obsessed with shirts with horizontal stripes? i wear them all the time, fashion no-no that they supposedly are. i have an addiction. someone stage an intervention...

To Tattoo or Not To Tattoo

every day i reconsider getting a tattoo. i've got the spot all picked out: the inside of my left wrist. i kind of want it in white ink, if i can talk a tattoo artist into it. it's kind of like getting a baby tattoo - a tattoo hardly anyone would even see. and i've narrowed it down to two sayings: col tempo (which obviously has meaning for me already), or drishta dharma sukha viharin (a sort of summary of the third noble truth of buddhism, meaning dwelling happily in things as they are). i guess both sayings are my ways of telling me to chill the f out sometimes, and remember that the bad times will pass, or that i need to better seize the good times since they are often fleeting. i feel like either of them would have a continuing relevance in my life. but then i remember that i will be 50 someday. and what will i think of a white tattoo on my wrist? who knows. what i thought was super hella cool 10 years ago is pretty much way not cool now. but the other part of me says that by the time i decide i don't want my barely visible tattoo, the technology to get rid of it will be cheap and probably commercialized. maybe i can get a starbucks and blast a tattoo all at once! that'd be awesome. so the vacillation continues. one negative point: lindsay lohan has a white tattoo on the inside of her left wrist. add that to the way not cool side.

Meet Huggerton

ok to start with, i am not one of those girls that names her stuffed animals or various other things names like snugglebugs and puffinface. i swear. example: pete won me a stuffed monkey at a dart booth at a memphis fair, and i named him phil. not phillysmooshyface, just phil.

today though, the naming had been done for me. meet huggerton the bear:
he showed up today accompanied by these:
huggerton brought me the flowers safely, and is now keeping phil company in my room. i think everyone should have a little huggerton in their lives.

Luck

i think i had other things to write about, but they kind of all left my brain. all i can think of right now is how lucky i am. i just...i'm really lucky. not to be a mushy girl or anything, it's just really all i can think about. so that was a boring post, but it's just where i am right now.