Here in Katie’s Head

I suck at packing. I was “packing” all day, except that I was actually playing games on the computer and daydreaming.

As of 7:30 p.m., my last night in the duplex, I have packed four small boxes (labeled: shoes, heels, lacy things, wine glasses). I have dragged all my clothes downstairs but haven’t put them in boxes. The spare room and the walk-in closet are empty, though.

As of 8:30, I’ve added three more boxes (drinking glasses (a personal weakness, I have three sets), misc. kitchen, and non-perishable food). That’s a pathetic rate of progress. I’m definitely behind where I should be.

As of 11, I packed up the truck with nine small boxes (the above plus books), two large boxes of bedding and towels, about a third of my seemingly endless supply of clothes, the toaster, my knitting gear, lawn chairs, and other crap I can’t remember. It felt like progress. Then I went back in the house where there is still a ton of stuff, including everything heavy and everything that doesn’t easily fit into a box.

I think last time I moved, I said I wouldn’t move again until I bought a house. Well, a lot has changed between then and now, but I’m tempted to swear the same thing again.

When people of work ask me where I’m moving, I tell them the name of the apartment complex (between Riverside and Midtown, just west of the county jail) and their eyes light up. “Oh, that’s like a rite of passage!” and then they start listing off newsroom employees who have lived there. If they’ve lived to tell the tale, I figure it can’t be too bad. And no more unfathomably high gas bills, yay!

Posted: 6:33 pm · Category: Duplex · Comments: 3

I have to move in 48 hours. I have no started packing and/or organizing.

I have a lot of empty boxes, though.

I decided, because this is how my procrastinator brain works, to start by eating everything in the freezer because it’s pointless to try moving any food. Tonight will be a frozen pizza fest.

Also, anyone want a small, old — yet totally functional — TV? And a crappy stand to put it on? And a DVD/VCR combo? All free. I just got better hand-me-downs from friends who’re fleeing the country, and I can’t stand the thought of being outnumbered by TVs in my apartment.

Posted: 9:49 am · Category: I am an idiot · Comments: 1

Dear internet,

Contrary to his claims, Kyle is a really, really bad bowler.

But he got better after that pitcher of beer, so maybe there’s hope for him.

Yours,

Katie

Posted: 8:58 am · Category: Letters · Comments: None

Forty minutes before the book’s official release, I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (yes, the real one; yes, I know about the fake ones; yes, I am smart enough to tell the difference).

God bless the internet.

It took me two evenings to get through it.

My totally spoiler-free reaction: Meh.

Posted: 10:50 pm · Category: Books · Comments: None

I took one history course in college, History of Journalism (subtitle: four hundred years of news and booze). The professor told us if we learn one thing, it should be that there’s nothing new in the world. Everything’s been done before, history just repeats itself.

This year I’ve been obsessed with making forward progress. Take better care of myself, lose weight, do good work, make my home into a place where I actually feel at home, let my hair down and enjoy being single, etc.

And for the past couple of months, the universe is making it increasingly clear that it’s time to loop back into the next iteration of whatever cycle I’m stuck in.

Last night I had a date. I’m driving to this guy’s house and marveling at how fluidly my muscle memory guided me there. Because my first serious boyfriend once lived just a couple blocks away. I drove that route countless times. I resist the temptation to pull onto his street and see if his old roommates still live there. Their kids must be, damn, five years older now? They probably don’t even remember stealing my glasses and making me hold them up in front of the mirror and giggling as if babies wearing glasses are the most hilarious thing that will ever exist. They don’t remember posing for countless pictures. They never knew their photographs decorated my blog for a couple of years.

On this date, I go off on my age-old rant about how frustrating I find it that a good half of my brain is taken up with the most useless information ever: song lyrics. We laugh about how we still remember the words to all the Raffi tapes we had as children. I may not be able to recite the song off the top of my head, but if you start playing it, the words spill from my mouth. Every lyric from every tape I listened to as a child, every Top 40 song I’ve heard more than a couple songs, every album I’ve ever owned, it’s all taking up space in my brain. And what utility is there in that? None.

Sure, they might help out with a few trivia questions. But because so little space is available to the vast world of non-song-lyric trivia, it won’t net me a win.

I could use that space for remembering work stuff or my schedule or those errands that I keep forgetting. I could use that space for attaching names to faces. But no.

And on my way home — remembering the many times that I tried to see just how fast I could take that highway onramp in my inherited Grand Marquis, the times I drove home floating on air because I was young and in love, the times I drove home in tears because I was young and in love, the times I drove home at 90 mph because I was young and under curfew — I listened to an album I haven’t heard in five years and sang along with every word.

Oh, and that five-years-ago boyfriend? He’s moving back to town and wants me to play banjo in his band. (Note: I do not play banjo. I do not play anything.) We’ll see.

Posted: 11:02 pm · Category: Boys, Memories, Music · Comments: 1

This is guaranteed to not be interesting to a single Here in Katie’s Head reader, but damn, the fake blog mocking Star Tribune publisher Par Ridder is really well done. It’s not easy to capture the arrogance, paranoia and feigned optimism of a newspaper executive. Ridder and his critics provide ample bait to a would-be satirist, but this blog gets the caricature just right.

I hope its writer wasn’t hit by the Strib layoffs. Wait, did the PiPress have layoffs too? Either way, this person deserves a job.

Posted: 7:58 pm · Category: Links, Media · Comments: 4

This is probably pretty pointless because my readership is so small, but I figured it’s worth a shot.

I’ve been waiting in anticipation of Blog Reader Project results for a blog I read, one with a muuuuch larger readership than my own. The results finally came out today and I was fascinated with the results.

So I signed up for my own Blog Reader Project survey. If you want to, take it. My understanding is that you can stop at any point — it’s really long, but if you stick with it you get to answer questions about tattoos and booze. I promise to share the results link with you when the survey closes.

(Has anyone set up one of these for the Kansas blog community at large? If so, I’d love to participate.)

Posted: 8:13 pm · Category: Meta · Comments: None