the breakup

Dear Katharine:

Thank you for your interest in the Secretary (1) position at DePaul University. We have reviewed your resume, carefully considered your qualifications, and have decided to pursue other applicants for the position who more closely match our job requirements.


wait. i thought i was just applying for a job!
i didn't realize i was also involved in a serious relationship.
and now you're telling me that not only was i in a relationship, but it's over between us?!
shit. had i known, i would've at least tried to get some free meals out of you.
thank you, though, for leaving the personalized fields in bold-face so as to remove any question about whether this is a canned email or not.

you send the same one to all of us, don't you?!
well, we're not whores! we deserve some respect!
i didn't even know we had something going. if i had, i probably would've put out.
maybe that could've been different.
alas, farewell.

FWD: this

i received a forwarded email from my parents regarding the apparent removal of the Holocaust from U.K. curriculum because it offended certain Muslims who claim it never happened. the email's author stated what an atrocity this was. one of the forwarders wrote this was an instance of PC going haywire. well, turns out upon further investigation, this pertains to one school way up North (out of 4500 schools in the U.K.) also, it wasn't removed from nation-wide required curriculum, but instead from an elective class one might take to obtain a specific degree that about 1/3 of U.K. students go for. thus, the number of students actually affected by this is, well, not too many. there were some other inaccuracies in the email, but that was the main one.
(oh, also. and this might be the best part. this email got into someones hands who didn't know that U.K. stood for United Kingdom and thus started another completely false email about how the University of Kentucky was removing the Holocaust from its curriculum.)

so really, this seems to be a case of not believing everything you read. or at least, being a little more critical. i'm guilty of this-- i know i agree with and accept certain information without questioning it much more than i should. in the case, however, it's quite ironic that the mission of this forwarded email was so people would never forget the Holocaust happened. to me, it seems one reason the Holocaust happened was because citizens went unquestioning and accepted the media and propaganda without digging deeper... which brings up one more cliché saying, something about the road to hell being paved with good intentions...

this instance along with watching fight club and being unemployed all stewed into a realization that freedom can end up being imprisonment. like all opposites sides of the spectrum, it's really more accurate to take those opposite ends and connect them so you have a circle where the two "extremes" are actually right next to each other. if you're free to do anything it can be so overwhelming you end up doing nothing. if you have no limits it can be more limiting than having certain restrictions. see everything from prisoners of Auschwitz being released to writing a term paper with no prompt.

today i got the shivers from a beautiful, simple song. i sang and hum. i played a guitar and made mistakes. i practiced scales forwards and backwards. i wrote an old friend and smiled at memories older than my nephew who drew a sun i photographed.

today i woke up breathing. i chewed, swallowed, and digested. i bled and cleaned myself. i washed and rolled my hair and cut my fingernails. i thought and rethought and talked about those thoughts with another person. i admitted faults and received compliments. i said thank you.

today i planned for my future. i stated my abilities. i sent letters and waited for responses. i thought about what i want to be when i grow up. i dreamed a little while waking and remembered the dream i had while sleeping. i told myself it was okay.

today i worried and rationalized. i fretted and moisturized. i plugged in and tuned out. i laughed.

today i thought about yesterday. today i thought about tomorrow.

LTLYM #44

today i got the shivers from a beautiful, simple song. i sang and hummed. i played a guitar and made mistakes. i practiced scales forwards and backwards. i wrote an old friend and smiled at memories older than my nephew who drew a sun i photographed.

today i woke up breathing. i chewed, swallowed, and digested. i bled and cleaned myself. i washed and rolled my hair and cut my fingernails. i thought and rethought and talked about those thoughts with another person. i admitted faults and received compliments. i said thank you.

today i planned for my future. i stated my abilities. i sent letters and waited for responses. i thought about what i want to be when i grow up, and i dreamed a little while waking and remembered the dream i had while sleeping. i told myself it was okay.

today i worried and rationalized. i fretted and moisturized. i plugged in and tuned out. i laughed. i observed beauty and felt calmed.

today i thought about yesterday. today i thought about tomorrow.

impromptu show

yesterday afternoon i received a cryptic voice mail from a friend who was, "coming to chicago for a great concert." no date, no time, no mention of the band. curious.

and indeed, later that day, after arriving at metro for an 8pm show with the lovely band cornelius, the whole experience was curious. there are few people who could convince me to pay $18 to see a band i've never listened to before, but this friend comes with particularly good taste in music. this is how i was whisked off my feet and into the world of wonder created by four, forty-something japanese music machines. they played for over an hour and a half, and, as promised by their intro, it was a sensuous synchronized show. i guess it's just because they're that good that they synced every songs with the ever-present videos playing behind them. i only experienced one time when it was a bit off and it wasn't for more than a few seconds. who knows, i could've been off. their videos, like their music, have an incredible range of style and substance. one second it looks like old-school claymation, the next it's super-sleek primary colors. not like any rock n' roll show, i've ever seen. more like a very long, very good performance piece that doesn't reek of pretension and piss. plus, i learned about and watched this instrument be played. look, ma. no hands!

lesson learned? once again, it's okay to interrupt the locally programmed schedule to do something i am unsure of. this impromptu show (the going to, not the show. i'm sure metro had planned on the show for quite sometime.) was well worth it.

and all the people said, amen.

hair down, glasses off

they say good habits take three weeks to form.* for that reason, i've been attempting to write (and smoke crack) on a daily basis. with that goal in mind, i make it about every other day, but that's fine for me. especially since this is only for me. that's right. no one else in the entire universe knows that i'm keeping this blog, and that secrecy is incredibly seductive. i was going to forgo writing tonight because my eyes hurt, but instead, i'll just write with my eyes closed. starting NOW. and since no one is reading this, no one can complain about typos.

i had hoped to refrain from writing about the writing-- meta writing? some word from college i've forgotten. i think it's annoying and worthless to say at the beggining of a blog, "this is a new start, and hopefully i'll be able to keep this one... blahblahblah." if you already have some failed starts, chances are this one ain't going to be no different.

so katharine, please forgive, but i'm going to go on for just a short bit, just this once about why i love keeping this.
you're forgiven, katharine.
awesome. thank you, katharine.

i like that in order to access this page you enter http://WITHNOWWW. isn't that neat? it's like it'se ven MORE hidden than other websites. it's like there's not even a chance someone could mistype an internet address and come here. it really is hidden in the depths of the interweb.

along those lines, i also love the fact that the address is something i invented. again, not likely someone will stumble across it, and if they do it's pretty hard unlikely they'll no who i am.

i also like the fact that, unlike keeping a paper journal, this comes out looking somewhat finished. it contains an illusion of publication, and although i don't have great aspirations for that, it does have a certain established feel. plus, it's nice to see progress.

i enjoy changing the settings. and the template. simple minds enjoy simple pleasures. it's true.

i like the chance that someone miles and oceans away might come across this and read it, and i'll never know. and that might affect something else i'll never know about and so on and so forth. because that's life. all the things we do that we never see the results of.

and finally, i like that i can write with eyes closed or open.









*invented statistic

PMS

it's undeniable. there are indeed differences between men and women. of course, some differences have been played up, even invented, to prevent one sex from doing one thing [to one another] at one time [or another] BUT disparities do exists. in light of the fact that i'm now on the first of seven tiny green pills, indicating that lovely time of the month has now arrived. it all comes down to menstruating.

i can't even spell the word without help of a dictionary, illustrating (can spell that one on my own) just how fucking sneaky the whole thing is. a simple inner-body alarm to signal the day before the floodgate release would avoid some hassle, even embarrassment-- no stained jeans, no surprised lovers. really though. our body signals when hungry, when tired, when thirsty, why not when about to menstruate? this would be logical, but nothing about the period is logical. the name itself suggests that it's the end, so everyone might as well just pack up and go to hell because mommy's going to be a bitch for the next several days.

in a perfect world only women who wanted to bear children would have their period. the men enlist in army and the women enlist in menstruation. these are prices we pay for the future generations.

before writing this, i had a clear idea of where this was going. there was a cogent conclusion, but due to extreme hormonal fluctuation i'm left clueless as to where it was going. maybe i was going to conclude by listing all the other things about being on one's period:
-lower back pain either accompanied or brought on my severe cramping that incites a desire to carve out the uterus and ovaries
-bloating. no one likes feeling like a two ton pregnant hippo.
-food cravings ranging from strange combinations like peanut butter and bacon sandwiches to rich baked goods like a brownie. covered with dark chocolate ganache. and peanut butter. with nuts. and milk chocolate chips. and vanilla ice cream. with whipped cream. and chocolate sauce. please.
-irritability, impatience, melancholy, mood swings. one second the world is a diaphanous, fragile flower blooming for your olfactory pleasure and then next it's a rotting hell hole.
-some females might, from time to time, experience slight cases of melodramatics. although this is extremely rare and could be due to sheer coincidence.

anyway, i think this started because of differences in men and women boiling down to menstruation. it's a sneaky and savage beast that changes our delicate body and soundness of mind. even years after the well has run dry, the gentle sex is still scarred by the ravages of such a primitive curse. and therein lies the inherent difference in the sexes.