I’m not very original when it comes to music anymore, because I spend most of the day in a very quiet office.
But here’s what’s been on my mental playlist the last few days:
Not very interesting, I know. And kind of a jumble, but that’s how I roll, I guess. Just thought you’d want to know!
I apparently didn’t make a list in February. But this is what I finished, anyway:
I am now a fan of Dexter, and have started watching the tv series from Showtime. It’s interesting so far. Mostly, I like that I can identify all the characters from the book, although frankly, Dexter is nothing like I imagined him (but I am warming up to Michael C. Hall very quickly).
Twilight, as you all know, irked me from beginning to end. I can’t possibly make myself like it no matter how hard I try. I had the misfortune to sit through the movie as well, and spent most of it bored to tears at the trifling pettiness of the entire production. Ugh.
Finally, The Stand (spoilers follow!!) impressed me. There were certain parts that I felt dragged and became unnecessary. Over all though, it was a good read. If you’re going to start with a good Stephen King book, you should pick this one (although its length is definitely a deterrent). He did a pretty good job in the beginning, which was the part I found most satisfying. That, and I am so, so glad he didn’t kill Stu. I would have been so upset if Stu had died. This is one of his few books where the ending doesn’t completely negate the entire experience (coughItcough), and I’d definitely recommend it.
Anyway, since I won’t be starting or finishing any other books this month (well, Harry Potter, probably, but that hardly counts since I can finish it quickly), I’ll have to wait to get together my thoughts for next month’s reading list. There are a bunch of books I haven’t read sitting on top of my shelf, notably The Picture of Dorian Gray. Also waiting to be read is The Shipping News, which my grandmother let me have, and Saturday, by Ian McEwan.
So, new list coming soon!
Ugh.
The only thing worse than being sick is being sick but unable to sleep. So hopefully tonight I’ll be able to get some rest and be able to minimally function tomorrow.
Flying home while the gunk in your head begins to shift slowly to your right ear canal is not fun, nor is the pain, then the slight ringing that occurs as your hearing completely cuts out when the plane begins its initial approach to the airport. I feel sorry for the schlub that was forced into sitting next to me; even in first class, where we have leg room and squishy seats to recline in, there is no face shield for disgusting pathogens in the recycled-air of the cabin, no sound proofing from seat to seat to block out the juicy noises of a sick person having trouble with their sinuses. I suppose it’s much better than being crammed sardine-like into coach; in another time, another life, I probably was that annoying sick person whom you knew was going to get you sick because you were sitting only five centimeters away from her and could smell the medicinal sourness of her breath as she sucked down lozenge after zinc-and-vitamin-C-filled lozenge.
I’d like to get back, one of these days, to my old writing style. You know, practiced and thoughtful. I’ll have to work on that.
Anyway, the last week, in reverse.
Thursday: Work. And pretend like I’m really happy to be there and that nothing has happened. Sit with my back to the sun. Have several interesting conversations throughout the day. Eat udon soup quietly and top it off with fruity trail mix. It is an uncomfortably familiar scene. Sit through an uncomfortably long meeting with a coworker, and then rudely interrupt to go catch a flight. Arrive at the gate after everyone else has boarded, since the plane isn’t nearly full. Fly. Home again. It’s cold and windy, the roads dark. The greeting’s always the same, and for the life of me, I can’t understand why they would have missed me so much.
Wednesday: Work, unhappily, and watch the mottled clouds pass by the window. Traffic flows by the window in bursts. It is like any other day. I leave early and get to the gym in decent time. Cousin shows, and we laugh together conspiratorally before Julie shows. It is a rough night and I leave ready to pass out. First, we watch television and I pack for the trip. It is a short night.
Tuesday: Work, unhappily. Nothing really happens, and I leave for the gym early again, in order to fight through the long columns of traffic and into midtown. The dark parking garage winds around and around; I become disoriented. Smartly, I flee for the first exit. Become locked out. Enraged at the stupidly-designed parking lot I have stepped out onto, I begin to look for an exit. As it is mostly fenced in with barbed wire, I do not feel hopeful. After walking for a while, I do not see a door, and begin to look for places where I can climb.
Next to the parking garage is a span of fence about my width. It has been separated in order for the fence to complete its length right up against the concrete of the garage. However here, the barbed wire dips below the chainlink, and so I zip my purse and begin to climb. I’m not ten years old anymore, and with this is the knowledge that I’m about seventy pounds heavier and that the strength in my body is no longer in its upper half. That, and my purse keeps falling against my arms. I don’t dare toss it over first, though, just in case I can’t get back to it. I climb, and somehow manage to balance long enough to throw a leg over. Then, magically, I’m able to slowly will my other leg over. I feel momentarily like a dancer, like a gymnast, like I should have been, and then I realize that both hands are not evenly planted. One is flat along the upper bar of the fence. The other is between two bits of barbed wire–one edge cutting into the joint below my pinky.
Out of breath and suddenly electric from the adrenaline of doing something silly, I jump down into a ditch and nearly sprain an ankle. Then I jog back to the gym and get on the phone, angry, panting. My hands and arms suddenly hurt, and I realize it’s because I’ve been scratched up more than I knew at the time. Amazingly, my clothes are intact. After class begins, Julie comes by several times and glowers at me until I break my stony facade and grin back. It’s just a typical night at the gym.
Monday we go to class and it’s slow, but I’m tired nonetheless. There’s nothing much there; I spend the early part of the day learning and doing projects and straightening up. It’s a new week.
Well, it’s VD this weekend, as I’m sure has not escaped most people. I’m ambivalent. This holiday to me has recently come to mean glitter, teddy bears, horrid mylar balloons, and people, lots of people. It’s only my second year not having to deal with that, so my heart goes out to my friends who are still there. This year calls for something quieter. I’m hoping to have a picnic in DC (or at the very least, a brief stroll outside in DC and then an indoor picnic somewhere nice, like the National Art Gallery) for the day, for old time’s sake. Sounds like a good day.
These things have disturbed me, recently:
• The difficulty in formulating a sentence and saying exactly what I mean
• The quiet that’s settled over everything
• Not writing anything anymore and starting to be okay with this
• That I can’t identify a path or what I want to do
• My boss calling me impatient and unfocused
• That none of this upsets me more
Let me explain a little bit first.
I’ve resisted picking up the first book in the Twilight series (Twilight) first because it was in hardback only, when I first started hearing about it. Then when it got so immensely popular I couldn’t turn anywhere in the bookstore without seeing an ad for the new movie, or the black books with the deathly white hand on the cover, or for that matter, any other book vaguely related to vampires or teenagers, I decided that I was much too proud to buy into something so grossly “in” right now.
Keep in mind that I did the same thing with Harry Potter. Luckily, I realized the error of my ways in time for the fourth book, and was able to catch up with the phenomenon. Now, I anxiously await movie six, along with the legions of other HP fans in the world. I’m happy I got into the series, even as late as I did, because (yes, unabashedly, I’ll admit this) Harry Potter has had a huge impact on my life, both in a literary sense and personally. Go on, laugh if you want.
But alas, Twilight will not ever have that effect on me. Looking ahead, I don’t believe that unless I am captured and forced into reading the rest of the series (or maybe asked to by someone particularly attractive, and whose favor I’m trying to win, but with the books already purchased for me so I don’t have to spend money on them), I will not be reading the others. If anything, the only effect it will have is that it’s a good guide for teaching new writers what NOT to do.
Before I go into further analysis, let me say that I know there are people out there who are either close to me or connected in some other way, however distantly, that really enjoy this series. That’s fine. It’s absolutely fine. We all have our loves that do not make logical sense. This rant isn’t for you, and it happens to be one point of contention in the (probably wide) array of things we have in common. Read if you want, but otherwise… these are just opinions 
Hi, Atlantic Station. It’s me, Katherine.
I’m not sure how to start this.
Look, it’s been about two years since you’ve been here, and about a year and a half for you and me together. And believe me when I say that you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen when I first came here, the first to show me so many things. With you, I started to remember what it was like to be myself, but to be happy.
But now… it’s been a long time, right? We have some great memories. But we’re different now, you and I.
This… this is just so hard. So I’m just going to come right out and say it–I think we should see other people.
Please don’t be upset with me. I’ve thought long and hard about this, about everything, and all of the times we shared, but I keep coming back to this conclusion. Don’t believe for a second that you’re not good enough, because you are! Believe me. Um… something specific? Okay… well… No one has a theater as big as yours. And I’ve been to a lot of theaters, believe me. Heh.
Uh, anyway. No. You’re wonderful. You’re going to make so many people happy. And you made me happy, but we’re moving past each other in our lives, I think. I mean, look. You’re busy with Cirque du Soleil and the normal rush. I’m busy with other things too. My job, some different hobbies, now. It’s been pretty clear for about a month that our priorities are quite different. You haven’t been very easy to get in contact with this last month, even though I’ve been trying hard, really hard.
So I just don’t think this five-times-a-week thing will work anymore. Even if we were together, I would only be able to manage once, maybe twice a week with my current schedule.
What? No, that other gym has nothing to do with it. I can’t believe you’d think that…
Oh, we’ll I’ve only been inside it once. ONCE. And that was after you told me there was someone else, too. This isn’t what it’s about.
Okay, that is what this is about.
Honestly?
Fine. Just the Midtown location. I swear.
Okay, and Ansley Mall. But I haven’t even been there; I’ve already set a date though.
Yes, I do know that Midtown doesn’t have a theater. And yes, I know it doesn’t have a pool either. Thanks.
Look, you can’t say you didn’t see this coming. You have no right to get mad about it. You seemed to kind of shrug this off last month anyway. I came a few times, even, and you were closed. Closed! When I needed you most. Oh, and then you were conveniently unavailable over the holidays. I really don’t know what you expect.
This isn’t going to work. I stand by my decision. We have to see other people. It will be better for both of us in the long run.
I can’t do this anymore. I have to go. It’s too hard.
Katherine
PS: I still love you very much. I hope you know that.
I was thinking about some of my favorite memories earlier tonight while driving back to the house. Sadly, it had also occurred to me that I haven’t made many phenomenal new ones in the past few months, thanks to the stress of moving several times, getting myself out of a terrible situation, starting a new job, and beginning to come into myself as an adult. I’ve carried too much along, and rather than jettisoning this excess baggage along the way like normal people should, I’ve simply packaged it neatly into the back of my mind, putting it away for later, even if I should never return to it at all.
This means that, dammit, I’m going to make some changes. There are several people still sort of hanging on that I need to just cut loose and let go of, people from the past who helped define certain parts of my life, but who no longer play a role in my day-to-day living. There are several opportunities coming that I think I should take, rather than close myself off to the possibility of them occurring. Because I’m (stupidly) still a bit superstitious, I won’t tell you about them until after they pass. Mostly because it seems that every time I become excited about certain things and tell the people that matter most, they don’t pan out and then I have to go back to every one of them and say, right, well, that didn’t happen.
Anyway, the point of this was to talk about good memories. This also ties in with a sad realization that my paper journal has become less a refuge and more drudgery and habit. I don’t grow from writing in there anymore, and part of me thinks it’s because I have creative outlets here, now. Paper journaling isn’t something I feel I should give up on, though. I’ll have to keep an eye on that. My entries have become logs of what’s happening, just straight telling. No insight, description, whimsy. I used to be good at that. Now my life exists very much in front of me; imagination has receded into the cracks. I need to bring it back, and I need to inject happiness into what may be a tough start to 2009. So, a few random good things, in no particular order: