Here in Katie’s Head

I deleted myself from MySpace. I couldn’t handle the suckitude.

Posted: 8:40 am · Category: Geek · Comments: 2

So I’ve been in Wichita a week, and today my internet finally (!!!) got turned on. Yay.

It’s weird, working at the newspaper I grew up reading. I’ve read the Wichita Eagle pretty much daily since I learn to read (of course, I really only looked at little more than the comics, Dear Abby and the Opinion Line for a long time). Everyone I’m introduced to, all of my new coworkers, seem like celebrities to me. Because since I could read, I’ve been reading their bylines every day.

And because, to me, they are celebrities, I have a constant impulse to post to my blog, “Maybe it’s not completely surprising, but __ _______ is completely _________!” Because I really don’t want to get fired, I’ll ask you to fill in the blanks with whatever Eagle staffer and adjective you want.

The person I can tell stories about is my neighbor. Joaquin.

He lives on the other half of our duplex. He’s crazy.

I imagine I’ll soon have lots of Joaquin stories. But for now, here’s what he said to me today, out of nowhere.

(Keep in mind that Joaquin is almost 60, Native American, sits on his porch with a beer most of the time, and always tries to offer one of his cheap beers to me.)

“You’re not an ugly girl. I’m serious, I mean, you hide it well, but you’re not an ugly girl.”

And then he told me about the Earth Mother. And how he got stoned with his daughter one time. And how some guy was parked outside my house for a long time a couple days, supposedly waiting for me, even though no one knows my address yet.

Joaquin is my tipsy, old watchdog. He said he’d set traps if the guy ever comes back.

Traps? Okay, man.

Posted: 10:29 pm · Category: Misc Friends, Wichita, Work · Tags: joaquin, neighbors, Wichita, wichita eagle, Work · Comments: 5

I started packing. I was prepared to finish for the night and come blog about how I crammed all my favorite shoes into one (one!) box — the rest are headed to Goodwill — and threw out a lot of other junk.

But when sifting through all that junk, I found some old photographs. I suppose I hadn’t entirely forgotten about them, but they caught me off guard. Portraits I’d taken of two people who I haven’t seen in years, who used to compete for my attention, who I no longer talk to, who I chose to sever ties with, and who I’ll probably never see again.

And some other photos of other things that don’t push my buttons quite so much, but still make me feel a bit unsettled.

It seemed clear enough that it’s time to throw them out. I’m not one for mementos, I hate keeping things that I can’t use, and I certainly don’t need any extra button-pushing these days.

At the same time, it seems impolite to trash such good photos. I’d have never kept them so long if I weren’t still so amazed at how vividly the subjects’ personalities are captured. I see them and remember exactly how I, exactly how they felt as the shutter snapped. I was always a crap photographer — terrible at composition — but I got lucky with these two shots.

I haven’t emptied my trash can yet, but they’re in there now. Maybe I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and rescue them.

Or maybe I’ll let go.

Posted: 10:02 pm · Category: Memories, Photography · Tags: letting go, mementos, Photography · Comments: None

When I moved to Larryville for college, I wrote a list of things I liked about Wichita.

But now I’m moving back in a week, so it’s time to write a similar list for Lawrence.

Things that I will not miss about Lawrence

1. Frat guys
2. “That guy” in the newsroom, the only person in the world that everyone hates (coincidentally, he used to be a frat guy)
3. Loud parties when I’m trying to sleep
4. The overly self-righteous liberal nutjobs who make the rest of us liberals look bad
5. Homework, term papers and group projects
6. Johnson County SUVs taking all the good parking spots

Things I will miss about Lawrence

1. All the great restaurants (favorites: India Palace, La Parrilla, Mad Greek, Pizza Shuttle, Vermont St. BBQ, Yello Sub, Zen Zero)
2. The hippies
3. Working on campus
4. The hippies
5. The nutty commercials for local businesses (“Dr. Lenahan. Dr. Lenahan! Dr. Lenahan!!!,” auto shop employees dressed up as Austin Powers characters for no apparent reason, Broadband Man being generally odd)
6. Flirty cashiers at World Market
7. Perkins Restaurant, for being open all night and for getting much better waitresses this year (the old ones were crap)
8. The smoking ban
9. The smoking ban
10. The smoking ban
11. The hippies
12. All the other awesome people who are not hippies

Posted: 12:54 pm · Category: Lawrence, Lists · Tags: kansas, Lawrence · Comments: 5