Here in Katie’s Head

I am sick. Sick sick sick. Coughing and sneezing and dripping and such. I think I got it from Justin.

And I have been sick like this all week and it sucks. A lot.

But I did go to yoga yesterday and that was quite nice.

Today, I am drugged up on cough syrup, so I’m feeling not as bad as yesterday. Still, my roommate (uh, the one who always asks the odd questions and is way into Jesus) is trying to convince me that if I pour salt water into my sinuses it will make me feel better. And I’m thinking that this stuff dripping from my nose already appears to be some sort of salt solution, so how exactly would injecting more of it into my nostrils help?

On the other hand, I should probably appreciate I got more than an offer to pray for me. Hmm.

Posted: 4:50 pm · Category: Status, Weaknesses · Comments: 4

Andrew’s idea for Joe Millionaire 2. You can always count on him for ideas like this. Brilliant.

Posted: 8:16 pm · Category: Links · Comments: 1

So my roommate forced me into covering the middle part of her lunch shift today. I didn’t want to, I was quite sick, but…eh, she didn’t have any other options by the time she asked me.

So I was getting ready to take a break until she got back when the delivery guy got there. We get HUGE, HUGE mass deliveries of food each week. This was a typical one. Three stacks of cardboard boxes, each as tall as me, two of them being things that needed to go in the freezers.

Except that all our freezers were full.

Fantastic.

I spent a high-stress half hour rearranging all our freezers to fit all this stupid frozen meat in there SOMEWHERE [hoping the vegetarians would not mind that half their freezer's contents was frozen chicken, beef, and shrimp -- and since when do we get shrimp?].

And finally Roommate gets back and sets me free.

I went to class and when I got back, I found that the food was not for us, but for the guys next door.

After being very angry, I realized I should have known better.

Somehow only the guys halls are able to adjust their food budgets to include shrimp.

Posted: 3:17 pm · Category: Stress · Comments: 1

A few days back, one of my roommates turned to the two of us that were home and announced she had a bit of an odd question to ask.

“Um…do girls masturbate?”

Now, no one should wait until their freshman year in college to learn about such things. It can be attributed to a very conservative upbringing.

We told her yes, indeed, girls do engage in self-love with surprising frequency. [60% of women, according to the stats I once heard, in comparison to 90% of men.]

After I quit laughing, I couldn’t help but ask, “Haven’t you ever heard of a vibrator?”

She frowned. “Well, yeah, but I never understood quite…well…how that all works.”

More laughter.

I figure as the worldly one of the room [which is laughable if you compare me to any "normal" nineteen-year-old], I felt compelled to explain.

“Well…it vibrates…and you put it somewhere it tickles when it vibrates,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Oh. My. God.” my other roommate repeated several times.

“OOOH! I get it now.”

She sat there thoughtfully while the other two of us laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

The week before, we had to explain to her what “getting off” means. The fun never stops.

Posted: 8:54 pm · Category: Misc Friends · Comments: 12

I am happy.

Like, really happy.

Like, not moping about the earlier events of this week at all.

Why?

1. I went on a date today. Okay, it was not a date at all. We saw a movie [long entry about that can be found by scrolling past this one]. I paid for my own ticket. But if I say it was a date, it sounds worth mentioning. But the movie was great and seeing Jeff for the first time in forever was not bad either.

2. I went over to Justin’s on Thursday night and we talked and he said exactly the right things. So I am happy. And we are going to get together and cook on Friday nights. And next Friday is pizza. Woo!

3. I have a state of mental clarity that I have not had in about six months. I’d forgotten what it feels like to think this way. Mmm. It’s good. Suddenly, everything makes sense. I have gotten a mood makeover and it was about damn time.

4. I am going to actually put real effort into being vaguely healthy. Lest anyone mistake me for anything else, I am awe-inspiringly lazy and a real oinker when it comes to my eating habits. If this does not change, some day I will be fat instead of deliciously curvy. And we do not need a fat Katie. Accidentally adopted recent healthy behaviors have made a huge difference and I do not want to go back to my natural tendencies of playing an online jigsaw puzzle, calling it a “mental workout” and saying that makes up for a lack of realy workouts.

5. I am going to quit telling old friends that we’ll get together eventually and actually do it. Right now, I’m working on the “So, What Are My Former Flames up to Lately?” series. One down, at least three to go. Four if he’s forgiven me for being a dipshit all those years ago. Not trying to rekindle anything by any means, really just checking in on the people I care about to make sure their lives are still as interesting as they always used to be.

I’m a little worried about Justin, though. Yeah, this split is to prove we can be independently responsible for ourselves, but I know this will be a hard week for him money-wise and I’m not there to bail him out.

I’m tempted to write a whole essay on the issues of (in)dependence that this whole week has brought to mind. Maybe for the stories blog.

Anyway, thanks to all of you who have commented, emailed, IMed, or hugged me in this past week. It’s good to know I’ve got good friends and good strangers who’ve got my back. You’re all fantabulous.

Posted: 9:19 pm · Category: Justin · Comments: 4

Today I saw The Life of David Gale today. And loved it.

But, uh, if you’ve seen it, please email me (I want to keep the comments spoiler-free) and let me know if you figured out, uh, everything at the ending. It confused everyone in my theater (you see, an old lady next to me asked about it as we were exiting, and no one knew).

And if you don’t dig Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Mann (who plays Zach) is a really, really, really attractive guy. The picture on the site makes him look far too serious, though. Uh, not that I am a girl who likes to stare at pretty boys. No, not at all. Ahem.

Okay fine, yeah, I do like to stare at pretty boys. But, um…

BEGIN TANGENT

I used to work on this novel of sorts that I was writing. Eventually I just started writing whatever amused me instead of having a plot because I’d lost any real inspiration, and I left out a lot of the characters that I’d have liked to incorperate. Because my head is full of these great characters. Well, great characters that really overlap too much.

I started imagining them up, oh, five years ago maybe? I knew what they looked like, I knew their personalities, everything.

And what freaks me out is that, over time, I find that these people have escaped my head.

One of them, I met in a computer class in high school. He had a different name, of course, but he looked and acted just like one of the guys in my story. And now this Zach character in this movie…his name is John in my head, but he’s the same guy. Uncannily similar.

Sometimes, when I’m daydreaming, I become fairly certain that I can just imagine people into existance. If I’m ever for lack of friends, I think I’ll just imagine myself up a good set of them.

So yes, that was my totally not important musing that the movie provoked.

END TANGENT

Back to the point: Go see the movie, it will kick your ass.

And email me when you do and we can chat about the ending and the one thing that I totally do not get.

Update: Uh, yeah, got it explained. Well, that’s kinda dumb. Would be less dumb if presented better. Still a good movie.

Posted: 8:57 pm · Category: Movies · Comments: 6

So I’m back in Wichita for the weekend. Hanging out at home, drinking free Diet Coke, watching Trading Spaces. Later today I’m planning on catching up with my friend Jeff.

My current source of drama and excitement is The Great Scooter Tweak [oooh and aaah].

So I got that Honda Elite S for Christmas from my parents. When Dad was shopping for one [with my frequent input], the salesman had told him that Dad’d be able to do a simple tweak on the scooter to make it go around 35 MPH max, rather than a very wussy 25 MPH. Figuring 35 is enough to get me going about as fast as the rest of traffic [because high or low, any variance from the norm would increase likelihood of accidents], it sounded like the ideal ride [of course, they now have the oh-so-sexy Metropolitan models in stock at the dealership, and I'd have prefered one of those, but...].

It is black and I named it Killer.

So when it came time to go back to school for second semester, Dad declared that he would not tweak the scooter for me. He wanted me to get really, really, really comfortable with riding before he made it go any faster. I called bullshit and pointed out that he just didn’t know how to do the modification. Anyway, I went home to Lawrence with an unmodified moped.

Through this whole thing, Mom was on my side, insisting that I needed to be able to keep up with traffic for my own safety. And every time I ride around town, I get more annoyed with the slowness. I don’t want one of those Vespas that goes 80, I just don’t want a repeat of the multiple near-accidents that have already happened when impatient people try to pass me without fully considering oncoming traffic.

So when Mom picked me up yesterday, we brought Killer back with us. Mom’s brother Kelly knew vaguely what needed to be changed, and he’s a wannabe mechanic with lots of experience with all kinds of motors, from cars to lawn mowers to jetskis, and he’s had a couple mopeds in the past that I’m sure he’s worked on at least a bit. So Mom calls up Kelly and asks him to come over and take a look at it. Also noteworthy is my dad’s lack of faith in Kelly’s ability.

So I get out of the shower this morning to discover Kelly in the garage, surrounded by moped parts that he’d removed so that he can get at Killer’s vital organs. Meanwhile, Dad is standing around grumbling and making his general sentiment of doubt known.

I printed off some information about the possible speed-increasing mods from the internet and cheered Kelly on.

He’s currently reattaching the muffler that he modified. If we take off the air filter, it’ll go even faster. Hmm.

Update five minutes later: HOLY CRAP! I love it. Killer now has earned her name. She takes off like lightening. Granted, we probably didn’t add more than 4 or 5 MPH to it, but the acceleration is amazing. Once I get used to that, Kelly said he’d take off the plate on the clutch so it can go even faster. For now, the air filter’s staying put. And I smell like gasoline. And also, I know more about engines and exhaust and stuff than I did before. I’m pleased.

Posted: 12:29 pm · Category: Wichita · Comments: 2