Here in Katie’s Head

To the random google user who found my blog by searching for “Katie’s fantasies,” I worry that perhaps you did not find what you were looking for. So, because I live to serve, a selection of personal fantasies that have not yet been realized.

The lottery fantasy

After years of daydreaming about it (but almost never actually buying the damn ticket), I win the Powerball. I quit my job, move back to Lawrence, get a sweet condo. Spend all my time writing. Or riding around on an Amsterdam. Or perfecting the art of the no pants weekend.

The answer-to-my-prayers fantasy

Boss approaches my desk office, stack of papers in hand. “We’re hiring a web designer,” he says, “Do you have time to look over these resumes with me?”

The answer-to-my-prayers fantasy: part two

Editor pulls me aside. “Katie, I’ve been hearing a lot about [insert buzzword here] lately. Can you explain that to me?” I happily explain. “Oh,” she says, “that’s all?”

The everything-is-right-with-the-world fantasy

I have just taken a nice, relaxing shower after getting home from the gym. I step out of the bathroom wearing a towel as Love Interest walks in the door, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “I just mowed the lawn,” he says.

Mmm. That one’s my favorite.

Posted: 9:40 pm · Category: Elaborate Fantasies · Comments: 3

It seems that at the end of every weekend, almost without fail, I find myself in the same place. After even the most fun, uplifting, relaxing or exciting of weekends, somehow Sunday night my brain decides to focus on everything that is wrong in my life.

My theory is that after spending, oh, the last decade of my life stressing out with last-minute homework every Sunday night, I have become hardwired into finding something, anything to panic about each week. The long-term significance of that something may be next to nothing, but for a good three hours, it will be the only thought in my head.

Maybe it’s bills, maybe it’s about a boy, maybe it’s that damn speeding ticket, maybe it’s the POS slipcover for my couch that I should really just return, maybe it’s a thousand things I’ve put off for too long. Okay, this week it’s all of them.

But this morning? All was well. Hell, I got to meet Matt Haughey. This afternoon? I was in the garage stripping paint with a heat gun and a sander, loving every sweaty minute of it. Tomorrow morning? I’ll happily rise and shine when my alarm goes off.

But somewhere around when Desperate Housewives starts, my thoughts turn to things that make me cranky. When Brothers and Sisters is over and I don’t have a TV show to distract myself, it gets worse. And then I think I need to write a blog entry about Sunday self-loathing in case I’m not the only one. Most weeks I decide to read a book or go to bed early instead.

This week I’m blogging it. So. Sunday self-loathing. Is it just me?

Posted: 9:26 pm · Category: Theories · Comments: 1

There have been nights where I realize that something’s got to change. It’s not that I’m unhappy, just that I could be happier. And so I blog what I’m thinking because maybe it’ll make me stick to my plans for self-improvement.

It hasn’t worked that well.

One night two and a half years ago, I was running around in a rainstorm and had a revelatory moment where I decided, damn it, I’m going to quick fucking around and get serious about something. I’d just spent a summer — no, let’s be honest, it was a whole year — doing stupid things, hanging around stupid boys and feeling guilty about too much of it.

I committed to change. I figured I’d take baby steps toward becoming the new and improved Katie. And I took one step, then another, and it was so gratifying to see myself actually abandoning bad habits and adopting better ones. I felt good.

And then I stopped taking forward steps. I spent all my time congratulating myself for making that first bit of progress, and I never really identified what the next few steps should be.

I stagnated. I stopped writing almost completely. It’s frustrating for me because I kept diaries since middle school, and I find it really helpful to read back through them — cringing most of the time — and see how I’ve changed. But for two years, I have nothing. No record of what I was thinking, what I was feeling, what I was worrying about, what I was passionate about. It’s all just a blur of school, work and 100% of my free time spent with my boyfriend. My memory is faulty and I regret not keeping a written record.

Last fall, I had another of those revelatory moments. I got frustrated about the lack of control I had over recent events in my life. I was tired of feeling like a pawn and embarrassed that I left myself be manipulated. And once again, I decided I needed to change.

I needed to quit thinking that I’m an adult while acting like a kid. I was suddenly living alone in an apartment that’s too big for me, saddled with new responsibilities and struggling to find meaning in My First Real Job.

And this time, I did a better job of identifying what baby steps I needed to take. And it’s only in the past week that I’ve felt any real progress. But now I look in the mirror and I see someone who had a shred of a clue — more than I did last week. And I think I look healthier, too.

I take a multivitamin every day so my hair doesn’t fall out when I’m stressed. I take Claritin every day so I can actually breathe — I don’t remember the last time I could breathe for a week straight. I put my laundry away instead of getting dressed out of the laundry basket. I don’t let ten thousand Diet Coke cans pile up in the sink. I put the car in the garage every night so that it doesn’t get covered in bird shit. I wash my dishes. I file everything in the filing cabinet. I keep my recyclables well-organized, and I will eventually — maybe tomorrow! — take my massive stockpile to the recycling center with the nice hippie volunteers. I intend to put all $353 of my federal tax refund into savings. I buy sugar-free popsicles instead of Bunny Tracks ice cream. I call ChaCha and make an appointment when I get the urge to take the scissors to my hair, and I listen to ChaCha’s advice and use the hair goop she gave me. And when I come home after dark and I walk up the driveway, I look up at the sky and the fact that I can see any stars at all from the city feels comforting every time.

The fact that all these small things seem like progress undoubtedly says something. But when I’m the only living soul who sees what the inside of my house looks like, I tend to slack off big time. And because the clutter in my house tends to be a reflection of the clutter in my head, the fact that there are no dishes in the sink right now means I’m doing okay.

Yeah, I’m doing okay.

Posted: 11:46 pm · Category: Deep Thoughts · Comments: None

When my plane took off from Wichita on Friday, I had a lot on my mind. I was staring out the window as we sped down the runway, and when the wheels left the ground, we were suddenly inside the thick, white fog that had been hovering over the city all day. All I could see was white. For almost two hours, everything was white.

I was freaked out after getting a phone call from the clinic where I’d had some tests done a couple days earlier. Turns out I really had nothing to worry about, but it sure as hell would have been a lot more helpful if the damn nurse framed it that way.

I took out my iPod and decided to listen only to all the songs I put on it in college and never actually listened to. It made me nostalgic for back when my life was tidy and planned out. When I knew what would happen tomorrow and the day after that. Before I started having bad weeks where my hair starts falling out from the stress. I never had to clean hair out of the shower drain before about nine months ago, and it never occurred to me to be grateful for that.

I could lie and say that I’ve learned to love my new, messier life. It’s far more interesting, it’s far more fun, and there are new things that I am profoundly grateful to have in my life now. But I miss the security, the control.

I had a book, and I kept trying to read, but I’d catch myself absent-mindedly turning the pages while I stared out the window.

When holes started to appear in the cloud cover, I was surprised to see mountains. To go from flat Kansas to enormous, snow-capped mountains without seeing anything in between only furthered my suspicion that airplanes use magic, not physics, to stay aloft. Even the snow surprised me. Now that I’m not in school anymore, I’ve stopped noticing the seasons. It’s really winter now?

And then in the airport, I was riding down the escalator and I saw a girl reach the bottom of the escalator and her boyfriend ran to her and gave her a huge hug, and it was clear that nothing made him happier than having her home again. My heart broke a little. The whole time I was in Chicago, I was doing the same thing: watching couples being cute and affectionate and so in love. Because what I want is to learn how to achieve that — I’m fascinated by the how of love. Towards the end of my relationship with Quinton, I was really beginning to hate who I’d become. I wasn’t the kind of partner I would want to be or to have. And while I no longer regret that relationship ending — it wasn’t right for either of us anymore — I do regret my behavior. And now I’m so afraid, regardless of my behavior, of losing someone again, and I’m entirely baffled about how to combat that fear.

The flight home was different. I had the same melancholy I always get on the way home from a vacation. Because I’m exhausted and ready to bury myself back in my big, comfy bed, but I loathe the idea of having to abandon my light vacation reality for the real reality back home. And this time there were no clouds, not a single one from Nevada all the way to Kansas. And so I had to watch every stupid, cold mile pass by underneath. And so many mountains. Too many mountains. I’ve never been one to get attached to places, and I could probably be happy pretty much anywhere. But watching the long miles slowly tick by, taking me farther and farther from someone I’d rather be much closer to? It sucks.

My high school and college friends who’ve moved away always ask what it’s like to be back in Wichita. They’re glad they escaped, and I wonder if they pity me for being stuck here. I don’t feel stuck, but I have finally started to develop a bit of the wanderlust my classmates have had since puberty.

And I wonder if I’ll ever stop writing this kind of blog post — the long, self-absorbed progress report on my identity crisis, which I vividly remember starting in 1994 (recess, standing by the side entrance on the south side of the building, envying the personal style of a fellow fourth grader).

Posted: 10:40 pm · Category: About Me, Deep Thoughts, Location · Comments: 2

Since the first time I got good and drunk at a house party (man, that was an awesome night), I’ve noticed a sort of post-drinking halo effect.

For about a week post-drinking, I’m just in a really good mood. The kind of mood where you want to go up to people at work and give them a big hug and then go back to whatever you were doing. And where every nice thing that someone does for me is just, wow, so incredibly touching.

This is probably further proof of a brain tumor, which has clearly fucked up my brain chemistry.

But it’s nice.

So I’m sober now, but I still love everyone.

Don’t worry, though. Next week I’ll be back to hating everyone.

Posted: 10:56 pm · Category: Drunk, Theories · Comments: 1

I have decided that if you stare into the mirror long enough, examining the shadows, the pores, the asymmetries of your face, eventually some great revelation about yourself and the rest of the universe will pop into your head.

I cannot control what I get in life. I cannot control whether people keep up their end of the bargain, whether it’s my boyfriend, my boss or the mechanics who suddenly need an extra two days to fix my fucking car. I cannot control that the neighbor left the hedge trimmer but took the cord for it, and I cannot control that the “hedge” (dead stumps with weeds growing up them) is growing like the weed it is, now long overdue for a trim. I cannot control that there are some stains that the Spray N Wash Stain Stick simply cannot remove on its own. I’m pretty sure I can’t control that so many things remind me of other things I don’t want to think about. And I’m quite sure that I cannot control whether any nearby shoe stores carry the perfect grey pumps that I designed in my head and now desperately want. All of these things are external to me, and whether I brush them off or spend weeks obsessing, they’re not going to change much.

That is what the mirror told me tonight.

But the things I give in life, those are the things I can control. I can control whether I show up at work looking like shit in addition to feeling like shit. I can control whether I finish the book on my nightstand or just glare at it, reminding me off all the other things I’d meant to do by now, such as trimming the hedge and getting that damn stain out. I can control whether I go back and fix the little mistakes that will drive me crazy later. I can control how many empty Coke cans need to be moved to the recycling bin (I walked away from my keyboard to round them up: two at my desk, twelve in the sink). And it’s all just a matter of taking that control and exercising it.

I’ve never been terribly motivated. I’ve never had any real sense of purpose. And it’s hard to find fulfillment from things you do out of a sense of obligation rather than out of genuine desire.

And so I’m back at this place where I always find myself, this place where I want, more than anything, to discover a meaningful goal, a finish line to aim for. Because I understand how to get across a finish line. The “how” has never been a challenge for me. It’s the “what” that has always escaped me. And I really, really want to want something.

Looking in the mirror, noticing that somehow there is more fat around the left side of my jaw than my right, even though I can’t think of a reason why that would be, it occurs to me that I am at least vaguely capable of setting short-term goals. Lose ten pounds. Reconsider that maybe cosmetics are not 100% the tools of Satan. Further develop my sense of craftsmanship by knitting a sweater that actually fits.

But the mirror has no advice for me on developing long term goals or discovering any real passion for anything. I’m still stumped there. I’ve read articles about how my generation suffers from perpetual ennui, so maybe mine is not a personal problem but a generational problem. Maybe, relatively speaking, nothing is wrong or abnormal about me at all. Maybe the fact that I find my happiness in small daily things, like a cold Diet Coke and puppies and kittens and sarcasm and television, instead of big things that matter, like curing diseases or passing good laws or being the best at something, is something I should appreciate more.

I’m not sure what my point is. I think it might be that in a general sense, I lack a point. And that society (read: television) has told me that I am supposed to have one. And I’m not sure if that means that I need to seriously start working on finding my point, or that I have actually discovered the real ultimate truth: that there is no point.

In conclusion: Lots of points. Can’t keep score of them. Willing to accept relevant advice or anecdotes.

Posted: 11:35 pm · Category: Deep Thoughts · Tags: direction, ennui, goals, motivation, revelation, Stress · Comments: 4

In the past week, I have become obsessed with the idea of buying a house.

It seems like the next step in adulthood, right?

Well, there’s always getting married, but we can take care of that when we’re in Vegas in a couple months. (Right?)

Mom pointed out that first I need to save up enough for the down payment. This didn’t really appeal to me, so I checked out the city’s first-time homeowner program, which gets you out of the down payment. It turns out that I’d have to pick a house in a shitty neighborhood (you know, anything that wasn’t built in the last ten years) AND I’d have to buy the house before I get any raises at work because I’m not far from the maximum income.

So I guess I have to stop spending all my money on stupid shit and start putting it in a savings account.

Or win the lottery. That’s always Plan A. Powerball’s at $75 million right now, and I supposed I could get a livable house with that.

Actually, I’ve had my dream house picked out since 6th grade. It’s been sold twice since then. I’m guessing it’s about a quarter million, maybe more. I have no idea how many bedrooms it has or what kind of condition it’s in on the inside.

There are at least a couple houses in my neighborhood for sale now. One’s right behind us, and they’re asking $190k. Another’s a couple blocks east and they’re asking $125k. I’m going to have to do a lot of saving if I want to stick around the area.

Posted: 11:09 pm · Category: Consumerism, Elaborate Fantasies, Wichita · Comments: 3