Man cannot live by bread alone but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of Katie. And by mouth, I of course mean hands. So read on, little ones, and fill yourself full on this month of April, starting from the bottom of the page.
April 9th, 2003: I had the following conversation tonight around 3 AM. I had the following conversation with a person who randomly messaged me a few weeks ago on Yahoo! Messenger. I had the following conversation with a person who I've been politely trying to rid myself of since Day 1. Evidently, I was not so polite tonight.
midget_hunter2003: hi
(minutes pass)
midget_hunter2003: why u have an attitude i thought u were cool.. if u want to bitch t about that then u really need a fucking life
(minutes pass)
midget_hunter2003: what the fuck is your problem.. if u cant talk to somone then u neeed some ppl skills
(conversation is clearly done; I close window; minutes pass)
midget_hunter2003: then leave me alone u fake bitch
(I ignore him; minutes pass)
midget_hunter2003: u madart me now
Ha. Haha. And ha.
April 4th, 2003: Today was one of those days that made me feel, to be perfectly cheesy, happy to be alive. I left work at 5:30 and began my drive home. My windows were up and my radio was on at first, but then a car horn sounded and I wanted to immerse myself in it. I had nowhere to be for hours, and suddenly the city was beautiful. Ahead of me, three firetrucks flashed their lights but were silent. The juxtaposition between the new Arena District office spaces and the old Long Street warehouse buildings struck me for the first time, though I’ve been driving that route to and from work for eight months now. The trees on Neil Avenue in Victorian Village had blossomed in the hours since my morning commute, and the white branches reached for my car. Even the woman in the brand new Audi gave a friendly wave when I allowed her to slide in front of my two year-old Hyundai. One of my neighbours greeted me from his open bedroom window when I arrived home, and I sat on my front porch in solitude to soak up the final warmth of the day. What a great time to live in the city. What a great time to live.
What a great time to wonder when I became so quixotic and cliché.
April 2nd, 2003: I have become what I’ve always hated, what I once thought the most despicable thing imaginable:
a social drinker.
I suppose that I’ve actually been one for several months now, but I really just realised that that was the case tonight. See, I never drank in high school. Not a single beer. Not even when my older friends turned 21 and had kegs at their birthday parties. I didn’t want to grow up to be a haggard old alcoholic cat lady, and I figured that the best way to combat that was to be a pretty young non-drinking-type thing. I went to frat parties my freshman year of college, but seriously, I didn’t drink. An older man bought me a Rolling Rock at an Our Lady Peace concert in 2001, and I remember feeling so bad about even holding it that I nursed it all night and threw half of it away at the end of the show. I had a couple of screwdrivers at a bar in the summer of 2001, got drunk, fell asleep on a friend’s kitchen table, and woke up with the big black under-21 “X” rubbed off onto my forehead from sleeping with my head on my hands. Chris and Dave, the men I “dated” last summer, both liked beer, but I never drank when we went out. Every single one of my dates with Dave was to a bar in this city or that, yet the most I ever did was take a sip or two of his Amstel Lights.
I’ve never really seen a need to drink. Cranberry juice alone tastes just as good as cranberry juice with vodka, and the giggly effect that I get from liquor is only good for an hour before I become stumbling tired. But social drinking—that’s the worst. Saying that you’re a social drinker is just a nice way of saying that you’re a conformist. If you like the taste of it, drink by yourself at home. If you like the way that it makes you feel, drink by yourself at home. If you like that it makes you and your friends more fun to be around, then you’re a loser, and your friends are, too.
I say that half in jest, of course, because I’ve just admitted to being a social drinker, and you and I both know that I’m not a loser. I understand why we do it, though. It’s just fun to “throw back a few”, isn’t it? The first time I really did it was in Savannah, Georgia, in October of last year. I had just turned 21 two weeks prior to my visit and hadn’t felt the need to drink on my birthday, but when my friend Clay bought me a margarita during dinner and then got me started on Long Island Iced Teas, I realised what I had been missing. I can still count the number of times I’ve had a drink on two hands, but I know what it’s all about now. It’s fun to be loud and obnoxious in public places, to sing along to drinking songs in an Irish pub when you don’t actually know the words. It’s fun to have to lean on someone for support when you can’t walk straight. It’s fun to vomit afterward while your friends laugh at you. And it’s even more fun to laugh at them when they vomit 5 minutes later.
One of my roommates this year, Michelle, likes to hang out at this bar called “The Press Grill”. It’s in the Short North part of Columbus (which is just down the street from campus), so it’s full of über-hip art-y types drinking sangria. She took me there last night to introduce me to the bartender, Matt, and his most excellent Sour Apple Martini, which I followed up with a Malibu/cranberry juice/pineapple juice mixture. The Malibu was pretty heavy, and I asked Matt too many questions about his feelings for singer-songwriter Pete Yorn.
Tonight, we were back again. This time, it wasn’t for Matt but for the atmosphere and the drinking. A very stupored man approached us as soon as we sat down at the bar and called himself “Joe”. He liked that we’re college girls and explained to us that he was in his pajamas because he lives directly behind the joint. I wondered what it would take to catch the bar owner’s eye and unbuttoned my shirt a bit more until he looked my way, stopped pouring someone’s drink, and said, “Hi.” I quickly rebuttoned. He then made us martinis and Amaretto Sours and Tootsie Rolls, and we became much more talkative.
But when I got home, I just felt stupid. Michelle and I could have just as easily invited our friends over, whipped up those drinks ourselves, dimmed the lights in our living room, and turned on some musicforthemorningafter. But there’s something really cool about sitting on a tall stool in front of a chrome bar, telling an older man to surprise you with “something fruity”, sucking on cherries from your amaretto drinks while 30 lonely men and boys look on. Who cares if I’m just playing a game, right? Who cares if I’m conforming? Who cares if I have a drink when I’m out with my friends? I don’t get drunk. I don’t yell offensive things out of my car window when I leave the bar. I don’t drink cheap beer and make myself look like trash. So really, who cares?
Well, even if you don’t, I do. Blasted conforming.
April 1st, 2003: The first day of classes of the quarter is always the greatest time for me. I love the receiving of the syllabus and spending an entire class period reviewing participation expectations and attendance requirements and grading policies and plagiarism warnings. I love seeing how many people I recognise from past classes. I love speaking loudly and clearly and telling professors that I go by “Katie” rather than “Kathleen”. I wish that every day could be the first day.
Today started out as every normal first day does. I woke up two hours early to write three gargantuan e-mails, allow my very feisty hair to airdry after my shower, and have enough time to drink and expel three glasses of Welch’s Country Pear juice (a.k.a. Orgasm in a Carton™). I donned my favourite brown sweater, the one with the johnny collar that makes boys think that they’re going to get to see my cleavage, and headed to my car to grab a light jacket. But when I stepped outside, I realised that the sun was shining and the air was warm and that I was going to go to class without a coat.
Once seated in my 9:30 AM Literature of the U.S. from 1830 until the Civil War class, I looked around for familiar faces but found none. Everyone else seemed to know someone, though, so I began cursing the first day of class. And then my professor entered the room. Jared. Jared Gardner. Doctor Jared Gardner. He told us that we can call him whatever we want to. I decided to call him “Doctah”. He’s especially cute in a geeky sort of way and informed us of every time that he stopped himself from making an April Fool’s joke. I spent the entire class period gazing at him from under the curls that insist on draping themselves over my forehead and into my eyes, but I think that he was too busy discussing his love for pre-Renaissance literature to notice. In the middle of class, I saw that my more-than-acquaintance-but-not-quite-friend Megan was sitting toward the front of the room, so we exchanged happy waves and smiles, and after class, she pointed out a guy in the back who lived in our dorm freshman year. So I went from being alone and sad to knowing two people and having a lovely professor.
Megan and I left the building together and discussed what we were going to do to waste time before our next classes since our first had ended so early. I began running through a huge list of all of the things that I could do but stopped in the middle and said, “But instead, I’m going to go talk to my friend Johnna.” For there Johnna was, slouched down on a bench across the street, smoking in her Devil-may-care sort of way. She took notice of me at the very same instant, and we met in the middle of the street with a hug that would have squashed lesser beings. We caught up on the happenings of our respective Spring Breaks—mine with its four concerts in four cities, hers with its protest for peace in Hollywood. For more than an hour we stood there until we learned that we have class in the same building across the street at 11:30 and migrated there to sit on the bench as Johnna had been doing when I first caught her eye. Not two minutes after perching, I looked up and saw one of the girls I’m living with next year, Holly, talking to a friend a mere two feet from us. She joined us when she finished and chatted until 11:25, when we all parted for class.
My class was a poetry workshop. I signed up for the class because it scares me. I’m scared to death of poetry and having to share mine with people. I walked in with this beautiful short-haired girl who held the door for me. I told her that I didn’t want to go in, because I was so scared. Of course she turned out to be the teacher, a Masters of Fine Arts student. Maggie is her name, and it fits her perfectly. She made us one-by-one tell her about ourselves—our names and majors and why we’re in the class and anything else of interest. I told her that I’m Katie, that I’m an English major, that I’m taking the class because “I pretty desperately want to be a rock star and need to be formally trained in lyrical writing”, that I spent my Spring Break following around my favourite band in the entire world. When I said the rock star bit, a boy two seats down laughed out loud, so I leaned back to see who he was. Paul. Paul is a friend of my friend Aaron, and Paul can’t remember my name. I met Paul last spring in a coffee shop the first time that I saw Aaron’s band play. I saw Paul every time that I saw Aaron’s band play after that, and Paul was always very friendly, but Paul always called me “Valerie” or “Natalie” or other names that are far prettier than “Katie” is. Paul and Aaron and some other guys took me to Cleveland to see Pedro the Lion last summer, and Paul still can’t remember my name. I always made fun of Paul for his mistake until Aaron told me one time that it really hurts Paul that he just can’t recall what I’m called. I saw Paul every day last quarter on my walk from my fairy tales class to my astronomy class, but he was always listening to music or smoking a cigar, so we merely waved at each other in passing.
I didn’t know whether to feel pleased or uncomfortable about Paul’s presence in my poetry class at first, but as soon as Maggie released us, Paul asked me the name of my favourite band in the entire world. So we left the classroom together, discussing our shared superior taste in music and our Spring Breaks. He had been backpacking in South Carolina and was using a golf putter as a cane after an unfortunate collision with a rock while swimming in a mountain stream. We discussed Aaron and poetry and being rock stars outside in the 75° weather until our next classes at 1:30. Paul said, “See you Thursday, Katie.” Yeah, that’s right—he called me “Katie”.
My final class of the day was a 500-level anthropology class, a course about “genomania”, cloning, and heredity. My friend Patrick is in the class, but we didn’t sit together so that he could pick up chicks and I wouldn’t have to listen to his snoring. The professor called my name, and I told him, “I go by Katie.” He said, “Katie?” I said, “If it matters.” He said, “If it matters?” I said, “You may not ever call on me and won’t need to know that I go by Katie rather than Kathleen.” He said, “Well, now that you’ve sufficiently identified yourself, I’m going to call on you all quarter.” When the boy in front of me told the guy that he’s called “Jimmy” instead of “James”, the professor asked if he really wanted to have everyone identify him with me. He said, “Umm,” and paused, so I slapped his back and he quickly agreed that it was okay. I liked that Jimmy, I did.
As promised, the professor spent the rest of the class calling on me to answer every question. I loved the attention, of course. More than that, though, I loved my responses. When he asked me for a definition of a gene, I very confidently replied, “It’s a . . . thing . . . on a larger . . . thing . . . that’s coded for a trait.” He told me, “Very good.” Mmm . . . anthropology makes me feel like a genius. No, seriously.
On my way home from class, I walked smack-dab into my friend Adam Gray from the super-amazingly-good-and-fun Columbus band Underhero. Adam is not actually enrolled in classes yet this quarter but was still on his way to class . . . JUST FOR FUN. He uses “quat” as the past tense of “quit”, and I think that’s all I need to say about that. After we had been talking for 10 or 55 minutes, my best friend from high school, Tracey, and her boyfriend, Ken, approached, and an orgy ensued. Then, not two minutes later, Johnna was passing by and stopped to say hello, and I knew that my day couldn’t get any better, and not wanting to risk ruining it in some way, I went home after bidding them all a good afternoon. And other such run-on ideas.
pruningtheninjastar: Hey.
midget_hunter2003: what u doing up
pruningtheninjastar: Talking.
midget_hunter2003: to
pruningtheninjastar: One of the ex's.
midget_hunter2003: fun.. so why dont u talk to me
pruningtheninjastar: I can't handle your lack of punctuation and complete sentences.
midget_hunter2003: why is that causr u have no imagination?
pruningtheninjastar: Frankly, it makes me think that you're not intelligent.
midget_hunter2003: well. think what u want to rhink..
midget_hunter2003: i dont give a shit right now.. if u have at fucking hang up about nothing then fuck u..
pruningtheninjastar: Thank you for being so mature about it.
midget_hunter2003: no.. i am mature uare being a fucking child.. i am not writingf a novel. i dont give a fuck if i use correct grammer.. its chatting.. if that bugs u so the nfuck off.
pruningtheninjastar: All right.
pruningtheninjastar: Goodnight.
pruningtheninjastar: I only said that I find it hard to fight through your non-sentences.
pruningtheninjastar: I like good grammar and punctuation.
pruningtheninjastar: Nothing to get upset about.
midget_hunter2003: well. this is chatting.. deal with it
pruningtheninjastar: I'd rather not.
pruningtheninjastar: I'm talking to three other people at this moment.
pruningtheninjastar: Two online, one on the phone.
midget_hunter2003: and your point is
pruningtheninjastar: I CAN talk to people.
midget_hunter2003: u dont know me.,. u dont like me.. so why u talking to me
pruningtheninjastar: I'm not.
midget_hunter2003: thats all u are.. u are fake trying to be somein u are not and wont be
midget_hunter2003: i am not in the mood to be nice anymore
midget_hunter2003: i wont play by rules or with this bullsshit