February 2, 2007 | Filed under: I Write About My Feelings

Yeah. Well, judging by the fact that it’s 2:23 AM and I’ve spent more time awake tonight than asleep, I definitely think I’m hung up about something a few things more things than my mind can possibly keep track of all at once. And more than overdue for a mental break, or perhaps a good cry. Trouble is, there’s no room in this weekend’s schedule for some quality time with Dolly Parton and Sally Field and Julia Roberts, so that’ll have to wait.

(Reason #4162 Why I Am Not Allowed To Watch Grey’s Anatomy: this, which nearly set me off earlier this week, but I was on my way to work with freshly done make-up, so that was definitely a “There is no crying in baseball” moment for me.)

There are so many things in life that I want right now that I simply can not have or might not have or feel like I’m on the wrong path to ever having and it’s driving me a little batty. And it’s entirely self-inflicted. My hopes, dreams, aspirations, some of which I can’t even bring myself to verbalize, oh, I do this to myself. Nobody’s forcing anything on me. Nope, this is my self-inflicted torture device, and mine alone. (Somebody, please, TURN IT OFF!)

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2:51 AM. Seriously, if I don’t fall asleep in the next 10 minutes, I’m going to have to clean the house and something tells me my neighbors won’t enjoy the vacuuming.

Happy Groundhog Day, everyone! Hope your team wins this weekend, as long as your team is not the Chicago Bears (ahem, Dave), and that if you’re awake at 3:00 in the morning, it’s because you’re out rioting somewhere in classic victory celebration style.

January 31, 2007 | Filed under: I Write About My Feelings

I’d like to think I’m fearless, but I’m not. I have a healthy fear of heights, high speeds, and reckless activity of all kinds (all rolled up into one foolish pasttime called skiing — good choice, Kate!). Now, thanks to the magic of the internet, I also fear dying alone and no one noticing until after the cats have eaten my face. I also possess what is perhaps an unhealthy fear of my brother sneaking up behind me and placing his hands around my neck in a fake-strangling move. God, I hate that.

In my high school, many of the best students went on to study at the University of Wisconsin. It’s a great school, you can’t beat in-state tuition, it’s close enough to home that you can drag all your dirty laundry home over Thanksgiving weekend without the airline charging you for overweight luggage, and the football team is first-rate.

When it comes to prospective students, I was the perfect candidate. I had the grades, I had the ACT scores, I had the extra-curricular activities. I loved the campus (progressive), I loved the people (50,000), I loved the department (top ten in the country), I loved the football team (recent Rose Bowl champions). I loved the price tag, and I was in line for a scholarship that would cut the price in half. It was nearly fait accompli that I would go to Madison.

And that’s what I hated.

I spent two years searching high and low for a school that met all of my needs, particularly the It’s Not Madison criterion. I focused my efforts on more distant locales, as location was a legitimate strike against Madison. I didn’t love the 40-miles-from-home thing on two accounts — (1) I was trying to escape winter and this certainly didn’t do it and (2) I wanted to experience another part of the world. So I requested information from North Carolina State and Kansas and Georgia Tech. My mother chided me that, if I lived in another part of the country, I’d be dying to go to Madison. I partially conceded that point, protesting that I still might not be interested in winter.

Then in the fall of my senior year, I had a little freak-out about the fact that I’d applied only to huge state universities, and I dragged my parents (mentally and physically) through a series of small- to mid-sized private universities: Valparaiso, Bradley, Marquette.

In the end, as we all know, I went to Madison. And I loved it. Even today when I think about things I might have done differently in college, I always picture them in terms of being on campus in Madison. I never envision myself in an entirely different setting.

To this day, though, I don’t feel like the decision was 100% mine. There’s a part of me that feels like The Fates won out. That, regardless of what I attempted, or what other options I explored, I was predestined for this path. That, if this were a Greek tragedy, I’d be killing my father and sleeping with my mother by now.

This, more than anything, is what I fear: The Inevitable. Not The Inevitable like dying, but The Inevitable like, the die has already been cast. That I have but little choice in the matter of what course my life takes. (Um, we’ve discussed my control issues before, right?) The Inevitable makes me worry, because it seems too easy. I was taught that good things happen when you work for them. Life hands me an opportunity on a platter? An opportunity that I haven’t been working my ass off for over the past six years? I’m instantly suspicious. Or, if not suspicious, I at least have to go through the process of ruling out all other conceivable possibilities before I can accept that, just maybe, this offering really is the right thing for me. And I remind myself that I do work hard every single day, and that effort is part of what creates these opportunities. My hard work = grades = ACT scores = scholarship, without which a University of Wisconsin education would not have been in the cards for me, despite how easy it seemed to get in, once senior year rolled around.

Does my hard work create these opportunities? Or am I destined to “the fix’d events of fate’s remote decrees?” As long as good things come my way, I guess it doesn’t much matter, does it?

January 12, 2007 | Filed under: Boys Are Dumb, I Write About My Feelings, Is She Still Talking?

I got my hair cut today, which is always a delightful experience. I don’t know if it’s the scalp massage, the general feeling of pampering, or the lovely things Frank says about me, but I always leave there happier than when I arrived.

Today, Frank’s comments ranged from “I love your sweater! Feels so soft…like Angora, almost.” (Yes, that’s because it’s 50% Angora.) to “Your eyebrows are perfect! Do you have them waxed?” Um, no I tweeze them myself. “Holy crap! They’re gorgeous!” (Yes, I think so, too.) to persistent head-shaking at how stupid boys are. “What is wrong with them? Don’t they know a good thing when they see it? God, I’d snap you up in a second and never let you get away!” (Yes, what, exactly is wrong with them? I’d like to know, too.)

So, I left there feeling like a million bucks, having spent only half that, and looking like this:

Not pictured: 40 degree weather, annoying wind whipping
hair into my face, and creepy moving company guys staring
from the parking lot.

Back in the office, I checked my e-mail and was immediately hit with some rather unwelcome news. Apparently I’m still a 19-year old sorority girl, because upon hearing this not-so-pleasant news, my first reaction was to get drunk and screw. (It’s an expression, people; let’s not take this too literally.) Not surprisingly, neither beer nor someone to hook up with magically materialized in my office. Instead I settled for a seething e-mail rant, half of which was conducted entirely in capital letters. Good times.

So, as long as my good mood’s been shot to hell and we’re talking about stupid boys, let me ask you this: Is it acceptable to stop seeing someone because you don’t like the way he walks? And, is the mere fact that you’re considering this definitive proof that maybe, just maybe, you’re too picky?

January 10, 2007 | Filed under: I Write About My Feelings, The Fam

Home is full of little paradoxes, which tends to make being there a little strange. My trip over Christmas lived up to that standard…a long, strange trip, indeed.

After doing all the family/Christmas-themed things, I had a couple days to just chill, during which I really can’t recall what I did. I believe naps featured prominently. But my last night in town, I went out to dinner with my parents and then attended a friend’s birthday party. At dinner Dad handed me the wine list and inquired as to my suggestions for a bottle. Apparently living in California qualifies me to be their sommelier. (Admittedly, I probably do have a more extensive repertoire, particularly of California wines.) The surprising part of this interaction was in being treated as a peer, an adult, not my dad’s daughter.

Two hours later, when he handed me the keys to his car, Dad asked what time I’d be home. Just like in high school. (I began to wonder if I still had a midnight curfew…but then realized I probably wouldn’t be putting it to the test.) “It’s Janesville. 10:30.” Dad raised his eyebrow. “Ok, maybe later than that, but I can’t imagine it’ll be past midnight.”

For the party, I’d packed jeans (it’s Janesville – everyone would be wearing jeans) and what can only be described as a “going-out shirt.” But when my friend’s mom stopped over to chat on Christmas Eve (bearing a cheese ball, no less) and invited my parents to the party, it occurred to me that there would probably be other parent-types there. And that perhaps they wouldn’t enjoy seeing my midriff through my translucent shirt. Whoops. Time for a new plan! I concluded that I could still wear the shirt, if I tossed a shrug-like sweater over it. I didn’t take the sweater off all night. And I was still one of the cutest-dressed people there.

At the party, I caught up with four girls I went to high school with. We were mutually aware of each others’ existence, but I wasn’t friends with them. Now that we’ve been at several post-college events together, we actually can carry on not-so-awkward conversations. During one of these exchanges, Heather mentioned that there are a dozen girls, mostly friends from high school, but a couple additions from college (all of the high school friends attended the same college, 30 minutes away from home) who are still friends and every year they go away for a girls’ weekend. This concept amazes me. I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a 12-person circle of friends, and it certainly wasn’t comprised of people I went to high school with!

I was left with a mild feeling of being an outsider — a feeling which, while significantly diminished, has not yet dissipated, despite living in/having ties to Janesville for the past SEVENTEEN YEARS. (Seriously, people, how long does it take to be considered a local? Don’t be too quick to bestow that term on me, though, I’m still ambivalent about the idea of being “from” Janesville.)

At one point during the evening, the five of us girls were chatting when a guy friend joined us. Upon seeing me he said, “Katie! Are you back? Like, are you just here for Christmas or did you move back to Janesville?” I didn’t even have to answer, as each of the four girls shot him a withering look and one chortled, “No, she did not MOVE BACK here!” (The only thing missing was “as if” tacked on to the end of her statement.)

Despite my outsider status, I have made some noticeable inroads. When I stopped at the drug store to buy a birthday card, I recognized the cashier as the mother of a boy I went to middle and high school with. I debated about saying hello, but when there was no glimmer of recognition on her part, I decided to pass. Other than, “Hi, I’m Katie! Do you remember me?” what was there to say? “I went to school with your son and despite the fact that he’s turning 30 this year, I can still only picture him as the 13-year old boy I had a crush on” just didn’t seem appropriate. Besides, she probably would’ve asked if I’m married, and that becomes a pretty short conversation in a hurry.

Lastly, one of these high school girls (who still lives in Janesville) is newly engaged. I politely inquired about her fiancé, expecting not to recognize the name. Turns out he’s a guy we graduated with. Though neither she nor I were friends with him in high school, I know exactly who he is because my mom taught him science at a different middle school than one I attended. So, I got all caught up on his life and dutifully reported back to my mother what one of her former students is up to.

After a couple hours of birthday fun, the high school girls headed out to the bars. I took my leave, as well — why stick around when the few people I knew were leaving? — and pulled in the garage at 10:38.

I don’t know what any of this means, really. I guess just that there’s some weird bond, maybe just the bonds of time, that tie me to this place that I’d never heard of or cared about before we moved there. Some day my parents will retire elsewhere and I’ll have no reason to go back to that little city in Southern Wisconsin that everyone recognizes because of “The Oasis Cow.” Dad won’t show off all the fancy new restaurants in town. Mom won’t brag that there’s now a Starbucks over by the Interstate. (Awwww, my baby’s all growed up!) My family won’t marvel over the intertwined families, the descendents of whom stick around Janesville and marry each other and send their kids to school together and, apparently, plan a weekend getaway together once a year. It’s a little sad to think that, someday, I won’t be part of this place, that nobody expects me to move back, that I’m missing out on that kind of wholesome, small-town, everyone’s-connected-to-each-other lifestyle. Then again, perhaps that’s an idealized, insider version of reality. After all, it’s not the life I had, even when I lived there.

May 8, 2006 | Filed under: DC! DC! DC!, I Write About My Feelings

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But I haven’t been able to find a picture that adequately captures how I feel about this magical place.

How I get off the airplane and stand on the platform waiting for the Metro to take me downtown and am struck by an overwhelming urge to wrap my arms around the city and give it a great big hug, like reunited lovers reveling in their good fortune of once again being in the same zip code who can’t bear the thought of ever letting go.

How I laugh at signs for the Verizon Center, because, duh, it’s the MCI Center, and always will be to me. (Hey, the first pro basketball team I saw in DC went by the name of The Bullets and played at an arena most easily accessed by way of a rather frightening Cab Ride from Hell, so I think referring to it as the MCI Center is the least of my sins.)

How content I am walking out of the house at 5:15 am, headed to the gym, the comfortably humid air of DC in May wrapped around me with the same cozy feeling of flannel sheets in a Wisconsin winter.

How I gush like a proud parent over her kid’s first tooth when I see an area that’s been (re)developed and a new restaurant opened since the last time I was in town.

How perfection may be six in the morning, the sun up and the air just cool enough that I have to run to stay warm, iPod-less, with only the view of the Capitol, the Washington Monument and whatever event is being set up on the Mall this week to entertain me on my run.

How it gets easier each time to leave, not because I love the city less, but because I am filled with the knowledge that I will be back sooner than I think and confident that one of these days there won’t be a return flight.

You had me at hello.