Falling Into Place March 29, 2008
Posted by Katie Oh in : Such As , add a commentit’s been a whirlwind. i’ve been stressing so much about the vagina monologues, about apartments and living situations for next year.
it was going to be grace in the singles lottery, and me waiting til april 17th to see if we’d be getting a space together. amber had a room in a space not too far from school, ready to put down a deposit. tuesday night, i got a message from amber: “i got bumped from my sublet. let’s get an apartment.” we found a place on craigslist, right on dekalb. we called, set an appointment for 1:30 on friday, in the middle of our ridiculous, busy day. we went. the guy didn’t show. we called, he said he’d be there in an hour. i went to go get my mother and my aunt, and we returned. 30 minutes later, around 3:15, we called him again. he finally made it there around 3:30. the space was cramped, with railroad-style bedrooms, one leading into the next, in a line. i was not pleased. we told him we’d let him know.
we returned to the bakesale. on thursday, we’d done $101 in two hours. we’d sold everything, and now we had 48 brownie bites and four pieces of raspberry crumble. finally, another bakery called us and we picked up a tray of large black-and-white cookies and something else i forget. i ran around, hysterical, worried. we made another $53 at the bakesale friday.
i ran to my room, pulled on some clothes, ran back to memorial hall with my hands full. i kept shaking my hands up in the air, trying to shake the stress from myself. this is something adrian does when she’s excited, she bends her forearms up into the air and twists them up and down, complete with jazz hands. i’ve picked up the move from her: it’s so fitting for excitement or nervousness, it’s striking.
we photocopied the programs using our copy budget, 750 copies total to make 250 programs. i had the actresses sit in a circle and fold, stuff, fold, stuff. they were so willing to help with whatever i needed. it was amazing.
we went on and it was perfect. not an issue. 70 people showed up, bought baked goods, tossed in a couple extra bucks. the final count was $360, i was so happy.
now i am just tired. tired, tired, tired. but a good tired. like i worked out for two months straight and now i just get to breathe.
A Few Days in Pittsburgh March 19, 2008
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i intended to come home and sleep every day for twelve hours. i didn’t really accomplish that to the fullest. i mostly worried. summer employment, budgeting, the vagina monologues, the control freak just kept thinking and thinking. and i watched 19 mind-numbing episodes of friends, which made me feel like life might be okay.
my cousin jen turned 30, and had a fantastic party. jen is tall, gorgeous, composed. her mother and my mother are two peas in a pod. jen had some of the most fantastic food, hors d’oeuvres: stuffed mushrooms, bruschetta, spinach puff-pastry things, raspberry-filled cupcakes. it was literally painfully delicious — my poor stomach ached from over-eating. there were jello shots — my first encounter with them — and my mother took down quite a few like a champ.
two days later, we had our version of easter, a week early since i won’t be here. my mother made ham, “funeral potatoes,” corn casserole, jello salad, deviled eggs. i made the best fruit cobbler i, personally, have ever eaten. we went shopping at walmart for supplies, which i was not too keen on. we stood in the condiment aisle and pondered the difference between mustard powder and ground mustard. an employee asked us if we needed any help, and we repeated our conundrum. he laughed. “i went to culinary school, and this is what it got me: a job at walmart and a question i don’t know the answer to.”
today we made the hour-and-a-half long trek up to johnstown, pa. a hundred-odd years ago, johnstown suffered through a horrible flood: the water poured down into the valley before word could get to the poor town. then they just rebuilt — the town looks like it’s stuck in the 80s, but the people are as nice as could be.
we went because i was on a mission. i wanted a typewriter. of course, johnstown would have a place that sells and services them. i looked up the address and we pulled up to a two-car garage next to a man’s house. the upper level of the garage held the motherload: tons of typewriters, manual, electric, portable, half-apart, bits and pieces. the gentlemen looked a touch skeptical of the chubby girl with the messy hair that was poking and prodding at their babies, but they pulled out two portable manual typewriters for me to check out.
i tapped, typed, considered. and i ended up with the adorable smith-corona pictured up there. $70 got me the typewriter, an extra ribbon, and corrective papers. i carried the bulky thing out and felt genuine. this is my craft, i’m going back to the times where things were so much more agonized over — you couldn’t just hit a key and delete, you had to physically throw something away if you wanted to start over.
i head back to new york city tomorrow. it’s raining cats and dogs in pittsburgh, flood watches all over the place. i hope my flight isn’t delayed.
Going Slowly Crazy March 12, 2008
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the screencap is from adrian’s blog [www.adrianshirk.com] i just couldn’t resist. these people here, they know me so well.
i’m having a mini existential crisis, like i do every week and a half. i think i might want to go to grad school. i think i want to do nyu. i think i want an mfa so i can teach creative writing. i don’t know what else i could possibly do. i don’t think i’m talented enough to be the next best-seller [although taste is subjective, and one could say that the best-sellers aren’t necessarily “good” in a literary sense.]
i am going a little crazy. i have so much on my plate for the next few weeks. i’m blogging at 2:30 in the morning because i can’t sleep because i am having a mini-crisis.
i am so worried about everything. i guess this is just another aspect of my being such a control freak, but i’m having issues handling it. i can’t ever ‘go with the flow.’ i don’t know what i want to do with my life, and that is terrifying.
i think i’m going to go drink some warm milk and try to sleep.
Posessions March 10, 2008
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photo courtesy stephanie willis and her amazing camera. gillian and i went to a party at taaffe on saturday, a western-themed. i, of course, have no western attire. i don’t even own cowboy boots. note my ridiculous-looking hair. oh jeez.
gillian brought up possessions that night. “i don’t really have that many possessions,” she mused as we meandered down the street. i thought about it and agreed. i don’t have much stuff. i have a computer, a cellphone, random hand-me-down furniture [a desk, a table and chairs] that i picked out from the wreckage of the divorce, but aside from that, what do i really have? books, maybe. i don’t know when it will feel like enough. perhaps this is what leads to america’s retail obsession: we feel like we just don’t carry enough mass, have enough things surrounding us to bring us the kind of comfort we seek.
i am not really sure what else i think i need. more books, probably. dishes: jenny brought up dishes in her blog, and i felt like crying. i’ve been looking at fiestaware and corielle, thinking “teal and brown, or teal and pink” and feeling this awful sinking in my gut when i realize that i don’t have a place to store them: no apartment yet, no real space to call my own.
Breathless March 5, 2008
Posted by Katie Oh in : Such As , add a commentoh! i have scarcely been able to breathe the past few days.
matt arrived, safe and sound, though delayed [flights and traffic and cab drivers] on tuesday afternoon. we walked to target and ate vegan soul food. got lost a bit.
we came back because i was scheduled to read on adrian and robert’s radio show, ‘the oregon trail and other stories.’ robert and adrian are both oregon natives, on the same wavelength. i am envious. i read two things: a story and a poem, both of which have haunted me from the first time i read them. we discussed family, moms, the bag of body parts they found two subway stops from ours on the g.
i said “i guess my life is a little like law and order. if i squint my eyes and tilt my head to the side.”
today, we ventured into manhattan, no real object, just a list of things we kind of wanted to do and see. apple store at 14th & 9th. i wonder if i’ll ever be able to give up technology. of course i won’t be able to, silence scares me far too much.
and then, back for another reading, this time in the basement of a kindred book store, unnameable books, on the border of park slope. the theme of the reading series is families, and i reworked the tale of the lavelle christmas party to read aloud. a cat almost climbed in the basement window while robert was reading.
and then! grace, oh grace, amazing grace, grace from seattle, vegan grace with the widest smile and rhinestone-bedazzled glasses, turned to me and said “oh, by the way, three vegan bakeries are donating cupcakes and brownies to us to sell after the vagina monologues.”
what?! i was amazed, ready to cry of happiness. she did that of her own accord, because she knew we wanted to have a bake sale, so she just went ahead and sent emails and now we’ll have dozens of cupcakes to sell to raise more money. oh, grace. she makes me smile so much.
i feel lighter as of recent. i don’t think i’m losing any weight or anything, i just feel as though i am lighter. a weight off my shoulders, belly, heart. i can climb the subway stairs without calf cramps now, i am considering this a victory. just lighter and happier.