Here in Katie’s Head

I’m breaking from my usual end-of-year review format because, well, there are better ways to reflect on 2004. So here are some lists of things that happened in the past year.

And as I’ll be out of town for the next week-ish, happy New Year in advance.

Things that scared the holy living crap out of me

1. The fact that under pressure, I get manipulative
2. Driving in the rain
3. The scary noises my car made when the brakes got completely and expensively fucked up
4. Dating again
5. Being serious about someone again
6. My roommate sneaking up on me
7. My mom sneaking up on me
8. My sister sneaking up on me
9. Creepy people on AIM
10. Having to tell my parents that I got engaged

Things that I learned

1. Don’t loan people money. Seriously, bad idea.
2. External forces and inevitablities are excuses. The responsibility is ultimately your own.
3. When the instinct says no and the hormones say yes, the least you can do is be honest about it.
4. Your instinct will not change its mind. Giving it time is wasting time.
5. Context is a tricky thing.
6. When you can’t be friends with the person with all the answers, be friends with the person who knows where you can find the answers.
7. It’s good to be a big tipper.
8. Don’t be afraid to take credit for those little things you do, as long as you do it gracefully.
9. That thing you thought you were never gonna do? Don’t be so sure.

Things that made it to frequent rotation on the iPod

1. The Candy Butchers, Hang on Mike
2. Garden State soundtrack
3. Metric, Old World Underground
4. Wig in a Box
5. Future Soundtrack for America
6. The Long Winters, When I Pretend to Fall

Things that made me cry

1. The series finale of Sex and the City
2. Realizing it was time for a change
3. Realizing there was still so much work left to do
4. My computer totally dying, right at the wrong time, both times
5. Realizing doing the right thing is going to be a lot harder than I thought
6. The series finale of Sex and the City, each time I rewatched it
7. Alfie

Things that made me laugh

1. The first words one of Q’s friends said to me, before we’d even been introduced: “I like you better than the last one.”
2. Running out of gas and getting locked out of the car on the way back from our little camping trip
3. Barely saving myself from falling down the stairs in front of a cute boy
4. The receptionist’s Republican jokes (“Why doesn’t President Bush have hemorrhoids? Because he’s a perfect asshole.”)
5. The drunk girl at a party who made a point to tell me exactly how much she loved my t-shirt
6. Uggs and the people who wear them
7. Yom Takaba

Things that pissed me off

1. That handprint he left on my windshield
2. Voters who confuse morals with politics
3. Voters who can’t see beyond party lines
4. Progressives who vilify the opposition — can we manage little objectivity, please?
5. Campus bureaucracy
6. My idiot methodology prof
7. Repetative and pointless group projects in my ethics course
8. The dude who comes into the lab reeking simultaneously of weed, BO and coffee, which combine into a foul, far-reaching and long-lasting stench of pure torture
9. My sisters losing my awesome vintage dress

Things that made me want to keep going

1. “Such Great Heights,” by The Postal Service
2. Garden State
3. Getting nervous on a first date
4. Perfect weather
5. Praise from my toughest prof
6. Letters and postcards from friends I only know online
7. Teaching XHTML and CSS to the un-geeks

Things that rocked my world in an especially good way

1. Skype
2. Switching to Mac
3. Getting a bobblehead Jesus from my web journalism prof and the newsroom coordinator on my birthday
4. Getting a comment from mathowie on my school blog
5. Quinton
6. Sour apple martinis with friends
7. The chocolate cake, too
8. WordPress
9. Dancing with the iPod like in the commercials
10. New car!

Posted: 1:05 am · Category: Memories · Comments: 7

My parents always told me they’d never buy me a car. They’d had to buy their own when they were old enough, and so would I.

Actually, as soon as I was old enough to comprehend of the idea that I would one day drive by myself, rather than be chauffeured by my parents, they told me that I would inherit their 1980 Honda Accord. It was brown and boxy, stylish enough when they bought it, and three years older than me. Even then I understood it was doubtful the car would make it to my sixteenth birthday.

They traded it in for their first minivan, a Ford Aerostar, in early 1989. My mother was in the middle of her third pregnancy and realized three crazy little girls would not be willing to be crammed in the back seat of an Accord. Cooties spread too easily in such confines.

But by the time I was in high school, I saw that a car would not come easily.

I was somewhat mistaken.

In high school, Grandpa Lohrenz moved into an assisted-living facility and Mom got his 1992 Grand Marquis. She kept driving the minivan, and when I got my license, I started driving the Grand Marquis. It had astonishingly low mileage and was extremely dependable. She never broke down on the road. I named her Big Blue and drove her regularly for four years.

During my freshman year in college, my parents insisted since the car was not technically mine and I didn’t really need it on campus, I couldn’t have it. I talked them into buying me a moped. I now consider that one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done, especially considering Dad was getting ready to replace his truck. If I’d been willing to learn stick shift and drive a truck with no air conditioning, I could have had four wheels and walls around me — instead of two wheels and bugs flying up my nose.

I put a CD player in the Grand Marquis (you don’t get to (safely) listen to music when you’re driving a moped, you know) and drove it when I was on break and during the summers. I think it rolled over to 50,000 miles last summer.

A few days before this Thanksgiving, Mom left the following message on my voicemail: “Hiii, just wanting to check to see when you’re coming home. We’ve got flowers for your birthday on the dining room table. Oh, and we let your cousin borrow your car” — she NEVER calls it my car except for when something is wrong with it — “and…yesterday-she-totalled-it-in-a-four-car-accident-although-she-wasn’t-hurt-the-car-is-completely-totalled-SORRY-BYEEE!”

So my beloved chariot was dead, pulverized, mangled beyond repair. And I didn’t even get to say goodbye. Interestingly, Dad had just been discussing the idea of trading it in for something for my sisters to drive — and maybe getting me a newish car, too, as part of ongoing negotiations — the week before the accident. As it turns out, the insurance company was generous and he got a surprisingly good payment for it.

The next week, Dad IMed me to announce he’d bought a dark blue 2001 Jetta with power everything, moonroof, CD player, backseats that fold down to access the trunk, low milage and no obvious scratches. He tauntingly described my dream car, exactly (minus the year) the car I’ve dreamt of since before I’d even earned my learners permit.

I informed him that this was my dream car. He responded, “it’s too goooood for youuuuuu.”

He reassured me that there was a teeny bit left in his “buy the girls used cars so we don’t have to drive them around anymore” fund. He’d blown most of it on the Jetta — which Mom told me in IM a few minutes later was now her car, and still too good for me — but he’d seen some car at the new, crappy used lot around the corner that he was thinking about.

And for some reason he was fixated on getting a Saturn.

I’ve never gotten the appeal of Saturns. They’re so, so, so very ordinary. Not a single distinct thing about them. Which makes them cheap but decent, I suppose. Maybe that’s the appeal. Inexpensive and they’ve got all the same features as the cool cars (except that sexy power moonroof), just in a far duller arrangement. No surprises, no oohs and ahhs, just the features you were looking for in a way that make those features seem so much more standard than they seemed when you wrote the list.

That is, of course, exactly the kind of car Dad had in mind for me.

Today he bought a boring, ordinary, completely mediocre silver Saturn L200 for me to drive, and I love it.

Okay, I’m learning to love it. I started things off right by taking her to the car wash on my first drive with her. Now she just needs a name.

Thanks, Daddy.

Posted: 11:22 pm · Category: Consumerism, Family, Memories · Comments: 10

Back at home for semester break, I offered to pick up lunch for Mom and me at her favorite deli. She loves this place, and I never really knew why. I still don’t know. Maybe it’s just closer to her lab than all the other good delis in town. But it’s what she wants for lunch, so it’s where I go to get her that Greek pita she thinks is so awesome.

I order our food thinking, why does this guy behind the register look so familiar? He looks a lot like this kid named Zach that I went to grade school with — the one who tried to do cartwheels to impress me — but that was so long ago and this guy is so much taller than the eight-year-old I remember. Sure, we’d all be a couple feet taller and a hundred pounds heavier now, but…in hindsight, I should have looked to see if he was wearing a nametag.

So I waited for my food thinking, maybe he’s someone I barely know from somewhere else. There’s no way it’s the same Zach. I mean, how often to I run into kids from my elementary school anymore? The only other one I see is Ryan, but we went to high school and still have mutual friends.

My mind wanders, and I people-watch for a while.

And then I hear the rustling of my order being put into a plastic bag, so I walk up to the counter to wait.

“Is your name Katie?” he asks me.

“Yeah!” My grin betrays all the second guessing I’d been doing.

“I remember you from, like, first grade.”

Yeah, I remember you too.

Posted: 12:43 pm · Category: Misc Friends · Comments: 2

There is no greater tragedy than running out of Diet Coke in the middle of semester finals.

Update, 8:45 p.m.:
Your prof announcing that he decided to make the first half of the exam multiple choice: the definition of awesome.

Posted: 5:48 pm · Category: School, Stress · Comments: 5

It’s amazing how the right walk in the right weather with the right iPod soundtrack can make the stress melt away into something so right.

I was walking out of the bank, having deposited the Christmas money that’ll soothe my shriveling account balance. Somehow the iPod, having reached the end of the album I’d been listening to, decided that rather than going silent, it would play just the playlist I needed to hear. And as the beats synched perfectly with my steps and the sun came out and yesterday — yesterday, when I wanted to cry because, Christ, what was I thinking when I thought I could break old habits? — was so very, very far away from me now.

It’s a good day to be alive.

ETA: And Quinton’s bought us tickets to see David Sedaris in April.

Posted: 1:01 pm · Category: Status, Weather · Comments: 5

So I’m working on the final (ha!) proposal/mockup for the new campus TV station’s website, as part of my web journalism class.

Because, of course, I end up being the only person in the class actually working on the actual code for the actual site. You know, it’s actually a lot easier to get things done this way.

And so, at 1 a.m., with a hugh roadblock holding me back from completion — ding! The breakthrough, the “eureka!” moment, the instant that I finally really understand the code that I’m writing.

Still, it still took ’til a bit past 1 a.m. to get here. But now it’s done, uploaded, and I can sleep.

Posted: 1:42 am · Category: Geek, School · Comments: 9

Two things on my mind right now:

Last night, I discovered sour apple martinis and they are my new favorite thing. Sorry Q, you’ve been demoted. And they go excellently with chocolate cake.

Also, today I bought a sign at an antique mall that reads: STREET GIRLS BRINGING SAILORS INTO HOTEL MUST PAY FOR ROOM IN ADVANCE EAST COAST HOTEL ASSOCIATION, NORFOLK, VA. It is my new second favorite thing. Sorry Q, but third place is still really good. So far, I don’t have anywhere to hang it, but I’m thinking maybe it would make a good Christmas present for, um, someone. Because it’s really, really awesome.

Posted: 5:42 pm · Category: Random · Comments: 3