Jun

16

Top 5 Update

June 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment

It’s been over six months since I last updated my Top 5 (Freebies List), and so now I’m updating again.

The shocker: I’m bumping Hugh Grant.

I know we all thought this day would never come, but I felt the same away about John Cusack until I realized that it just had to be done. Now it’s Hugh’s turn.

The list is now:

1. Shia LaBeouf

2. Matt Damon

3. James Franco

4. Jason Segel

5. Patrice Bergeron (who also may be bumped in the near-future…sorry, man)

Same-sex alternate: Megan Fox

Jun

14

The Thrill is Gone

June 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment

I’m in the process of trying to import all of my Dad’s CDs into iTunes, a program about which he knows nothing except that it plays music and now and then his computer prompts him to update it. Such a prompt popped up on Thursday or Friday night while I was here, and I got to watch as he watched the little blue bar crawl with epic slowness across the screen. It was like listening to a little kid in the back of the car, “Are we there yet? Are we? ARE WE?!”

Dad: “Wow, [20-30 something] megabytes. That’s a lot, right? It’s so slow.”Me: “Yeah. Well, you probably ignored a thousand bazillion updates lately so….”

Dad: “It’s taking a really long time.”

Me: “You can do other stuff while it updates… it’s not going to yell at you.”

Dad: “I know. It’s just slow. That’s a lot of space.”

Me: “You have NOTHING on your computer. Believe me, you have PLENTY of space.”

Dad: “That’s a lot of megabytes!”

Me: “YOU HAVE A LOT OF GIGABYTES! DO YOU KNOW WHAT A GIGABYTE IS?!”

I’m embellishing the conversation a little bit for my amusement, but you get the gist. At one point or another we did go over that a gigabyte is a thousand megabytes and that with 200+ gigabytes of space he was certainly in the clear for a 20-30 megabyte iTunes update.

So, back to my point. I’m importing CDs. My mum and I got Dad an iPod Classic (120GB, that’s a LOT of MB!) for Father’s Day. Last night before he got home from work I had to rifle through all his stuff to find the BB King, Eric Clapton, Santana, etc. CDs. They were on the top shelf of a cabinet above his desk, so I knelt on the desk and pulled them out stack by stack. Then they all fell out of the cabinet ONTO MY HEAD.

Today I wanted to continue, but every time I went into the office I was followed not only by Dad, but BY THE ENTIRE PACK OF THEM. Mum and Nora, too, both of whom know what I am trying to do and instead of DISTRACTING THE MAN like I kept making mean eyes at them to do, they chatted in the office until I gave up and went upstairs. At this point Mum finally decided to take Dad to Manchester for a while so I could finish my project.

All I can hope is that while they are at Sam’s Club they remember my subtle hints over the last few weeks of what I want for my birthday, specifically that I, too, would like an iPod Classic because my iPod is slowly but surely getting ready to kick the bucket.

Jun

12

Smells like Teen Spirit

June 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Sometimes—very rarely—I get this urge to organize. It’s just this kick, a spurt of organizational power that comes from nowhere.

Last night at 11PM I got such an inkling. Of course I’m at my parents’ house, so cleaning my apartment wasn’t really an option. However, there is this entertainment unit in my room that has two cabinets just stuffed with, well, crap from before I moved out for college. So I decided to sift through everything and found several embarrassing photographs, poems, scribbles, etc. depicting the melodrama that was my teenage years.

A brief overview for you, Dear Reader, because I’m sure that someone besides me must find these little horrors to be amusing.

+ I was going to have a photo here of me at Disney World when I was 16-ish, but I have no scanner. But man, what style! Jeans and a huge Roca Wear hoodie… I think this was after my brief bout of Hot Topic, fishnets, and over-sized pants with nonsensical zippers. The large hoodies phase lasted through my first or second semester of college.

+ Apparently I was quoted as having said, “The monkeys are in the hills. Tell the general.” If you knew me then, it wouldn’t seem so strange.

+ Another example of such lunacy, a scribble on a random blue piece of paper: “Dear Rabbit named Joe, I like rabbits named Joe because they are rabbits. And they are named Joe.” No, I never touched drugs in my life. Amusing to me and perhaps no one else is that if you consider Chinese astrology, I technically pseudo-dated a rabbit named Joe several years after the estimated date of above scribble.

+ A letter addressed “Dear You” discussing a stuffed hippo and my being disgruntled at being asked, at 16, to help in the planning of a friend’s wedding that myself and all other mutual friends knew would never take place. The letter ends mid-sentence. I’m assuming the second page was lost somewhere over the years.

+ Poems about death, about love (which I had at that time not yet experienced to any extent), to my ex. All angsty, poorly written. There is one titled “Gay Pride and Mangoes” that I may try to do something with.

+ Fake postcards from a project in 8th grade. We had to “travel” across Europe and send postcards we drew home to our friends. My favorite is one I wrote “from” Dublin:

Dear Lauren,

I’m in Dublin right now. I saw my aunt and cousins. I went to Phoenix Park and the Dublin Zoo. There was a baby kangaroo. He was so cute. I also went to Kilmainham Jail. That’s where the 1916 leaders were killed. Well, I gotta go! –Kayleigh

I hate writing postcards. Apparently I hated writing fake ones, too.

+ When I was 16-ish, I had a website with outrageously nonsensical info and quizzes. One had to do with which deranged mind-of-Kay animal you were. I found one of the responses. Again, I would post the image, but I have no scanner. So here’s what it said: “You are a Rabbit! You’re a bad ass fuzzy critter with a bob tail! Almost everyone bows down to you because if they didn’t, you’d beat the shit out of them! You took over Froggie Island and you’re working your way in on those stupid little monkees. You rule the world and you know it.”

I remember people who didn’t know me or my friends leaving comments like, “What the hell is this? It makes no sense.” Which was the point…. I want to be crazy again.

+ Episode descriptions of the home-made movies we called DPOA (Different People of America). My two favorites:

Episode One: A girl falls in love with her Beanie Baby. What happens when the Beanie turns its back on her and has an affair? Watch as host L. Bass interviews the couple, as well as Osito’s mistress. (I believe episodes one to five are lost).

Episode Six: Meet Bin Rah Hah Bin Laden, his pregnant girlfriend, the Queen of some little-known country, and male/female…thing, and be amused by the most interesting DPOA yet! (Includes special guest appearances).

Kara still has that last one somewhere, but I believe episodes one to five were lost. The last is the funniest anyway…. While Osama was busy with terrorism of whole countries, Bin Rah Hah (played by Deidra, better known these days as porn actress Lanah Layeau) was more interested in taking over Burger King.

Enough teenage craziness for now. I’m sure I’ll find more when I go through my closet tonight…

Jun

4

I’ve been awake for twenty-nine minutes.

June 4, 2009 | 2 Comments

I started going to the gym again. I went twice, actually – two days in a row. Be proud. My arms now hurt all the time, and if I reach above my head I wince and sometimes whine. I blame this machine. Which, you know, the nice old fellow in the photo seems to be enjoying just fine. But it’s all a LIE. It’ HURTS. In all honesty it’s more like a modern, legalized form of torture that one willingly subjects oneself to because they’ve been drawn into the EPIC. LIE.

The thing is that I have this problem with “working my way back up.” I want to be able to do the workouts I was doing by the end of last summer — 30-40 minutes on the treadmill at 15% incline, 20-30 minutes of weights, 300+ crunches, five days a week, etc. But, you know, I can’t. Not after eight months of my most vigorous exercise being dancing on a Friday night. So I’m stuck with 20 minutes at 10% incline, 20 minutes of weight, 300 crunches — maybe three days this week, four tomorrow. Slow and steady wins the race, yadda yadda. Sigh.

My small goal: 30-35 lbs by the end of August.

My overall goal: 45-50 lbs.

In all of this my hope is that I don’t lose my ass and start looking like the McDaid side of my family. I’m not offending them, don’t worry — they’ve heard it all and know that they all got nothin’ back there. It’s a sad, Irish thing, the McDaid ass. I actually laughed out loud once while reading Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield. He was describing his wife and him on a trip to Ireland (although I’m not sure if at this point they are married or not):

Around that time we went to Dublin (the one in Ireland, not the one in Pulaski County) to visit cousins of mine. As we walked down the street, she said, “You know, I’m starting to understand this whole Irish boy/southern girl thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I have the only ass on this entire street. Look around.”

“I’ve seen your ass before.”

“Look at the men. The men are walking into walls.”

“That’s true. I thought they were staring at me.”

“I have the only pair of hips as far as the eye can see. They have never seen a girl before. Holy shit!”

“I thought it was my new Suede T-shirt.”

“None of these women have any ass at all. This is fucking awesome.”

Beautiful. I stopped reading right there, called my mum, and made her listen while I read the passage aloud.

So anyway. After the amount of torture I’ve put my female relatives through regarding their lack of a behind, it’d be a sad thing for mine to go because I worked out too much. I’ll have to be careful. And when all is said and done, if I have lost it… I’ll just have some overpaid plastic surgeon move some of the deadweight from my boobs into my ass. There’s plenty to go around.

May

31

Air’s getting thin, but I’m trying, I’m breathing in

May 31, 2009 | 2 Comments

So here I am at 10:38 PM on a Sunday evening contemplating my life. Not because I felt my life needed contemplating, or because anything significant has changed or come about, but because for the last few weeks I’ve felt like I’m just treading water. And then the catalyst for my finally facing this came when my ex, of all people, had to be the one to point out that not only am I treading water but am doing so very close to shore while wearing a life jacket and some swimmies  — and I know how to swim.

Enough of the metaphor?

I don’t want to be at Salem State. More so given the recent changes in structure, but really because I never wanted a Masters in English, I wanted a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. I just can’t bring myself to do it. I think about it all the time – where I would apply, what I would need to do. But truth is that I’m scared out of my mind to go there. I backed out of the GRE last minute from fear of not doing well. I threw away my applications last year because I honestly don’t believe I can get in. Or that I would get in and then just fail miserably. Or that I would get in and have to move far away – alone—which just scares me more.

So here I am. Trying to figure out what the fuck I am going to do. Bite the bullet, or relax in my safety zone like I always have?

May

7

Your Southern Can is Mine

May 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment

I need a firing can. If I can’t sell the book for my lit crit class, I’m going to have to burn it to remove all the negative energies from my house. You probably feel that that’s extreme. Believe me, Reader, it’s not at all extreme. All of my hatred for literary criticism poured into this book. If I were magical I would equate it to Tom Riddle’s diary in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Fine, maybe it’s a little extreme.

Happier thoughts lead me to City Lines. Our second issue came out on Tuesday. Matt did an amazing job of proofing, and Josh and I spent seven hours last Saturday printing, folding, stapling. Seven hours compared to the week and a half it took us last time to figure out all of the problems! This issue looks so much better than the first — from the cover, to the margins, to the readability. The difference between the first two issues just proves that we are learning and will continue to get better at all of this. I’m really very proud. Now all that needs to be done is to figure out a way of selling online.

The content for our August issue was decided ages ago, although I think we may need at least another poem or two, and more artwork would be nice. Unfortunately, few people are submitting artwork. We’ll have to fix that…. It’d be lovely to have more photography, illustrations, another comic to feature. I’d also like to do an “Art Issue” eventually, when we are less poor, that is all in color. How can we do that with no art?!

JEEZE.

Apr

26

Surfer Girl.

April 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Things I will do this summer:

Skydive.
Learn to surf.
Ride in a hot air balloon.
Lose 30 lbs.

Things I would like to do this summer:

Road trip.

Fin.

edit:

JW: How is it that all the hard stuff is “will do,” and the easiest thing is “want to do”?
KM: Because I don’t have anyone to go with!

Apr

26

Soy un perdedor.

April 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment

A couple of days ago I started playing Queen. There’s something about winter that hinders the proper Queen experience, and so they have become one of my summer-time bands. Listening “Killer Queen” and “Fat-Bottomed Girls” kick-starts that sweeping away of all the cobwebs that have settled in my brain and I feel like I can breathe again. When it’s warm enough, I’ll cruise downtown blasting The Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun” until it gets old, and some night I’ll lie on the roof listening to “Soco Amaretto Lime” by Brand New and reminiscing about being sixteen and seventeen and having no idea just how easy life and love were then.

Apr

16

Dear, I fear we’re facing a problem.

April 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment

I named that character. The one you’ve forgotten that I was trying to name because it’s just been that long. His name is Jack. I won’t give you the full name because if I ever bear a child, I may just use it - I like it that much.

This is for the story that I’m working on right now - something in which a girl cheats on her boyfriend. I normally don’t write the girl into that role - particularly because the majority of the females I write are three parts me, one part someone else, and another part actual fiction. I guess I just needed a change…. Not sure of the point of it yet, I just wrote a lot of stuff about a hockey game that I really like and refuse to get rid of. I have seven pages of material that is just…not going anywhere. I’ve been having issues with the dialogue, getting it just right. Although I do have a charming scene in which Jiminy Cricket stops on his top hat. Wrote that in today, little proud of it. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

I’m also trying to work on a delightful piece about a woman daydreaming of ways in which to kill her husband. It’s fantastic. I have no idea where it came from, and no idea where it will go. I have the ending and that scene…the one where she imagines doing it. Love it. But the rest-the rest is shabby. It’s worthy of lining a litter box with, and maybe not even that. I just want the time to work on it. Right now I’m too consumed by literary criticism homework to even be able to get into the right frame of mind for all of this.

Hell. I don’t even know how I’m attempting a blog entry. Or why, because really it’s just rambling at the moment.

The second issue of City Lines is coming out on May 5. It’s pretty fantastic, I have to tell you. We received tons of submissions so that now you don’t have to settle for reading the material of our editors. Our August issue is looking like it’s going to be pretty great, too.

Tune in. Or out. Or… I don’t know when I’ll try this again.

Mar

9

I’m drunk on Freedom.

March 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment

As of midnight last night, like some cruel spell broken, my hour-by-hour schedule came to an end. It’s a brief ending. No doubt after Spring Break I will find myself having to once again adhere to such strict time lines, but for now I’m breathing a sigh of relief. This week I have only fifty pages to read and a two page paper to write. Maybe I’ll catch up on all the episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and Heroes that I’ve missed, although I’ve heard the latter isn’t even worth watching anymore. No surprise there.

And then on Friday afternoon I am leaving for Florence with my dad. Florence. Firenze. The last time I was there it was a mad scurry to figure out the bus system, the train system, the streets, the people, the food. The last time was arguments with my former boyfriend, and tears in the Boboli Gardens. (Who wants to cry in the Boboli Gardens?) This time I will know where I am, and the arguments with my Dad never lead to me crying, only winning. We’ll go to Santa Croce, the central market, and finally I’ll stand in the Ufizzi and look at Boticelli’s The Birth of Venus and Michaelangelo’s David. We’ll get gelato, and tiramisu, and drink wine. I’ll get the vegetarian carbonara that my heart has longed for for three years. I’ll take my dad to Fiesole and show him why I never enjoy American pizza anymore….

I want to sleep, but I also want to stay up until 2 in the morning writing. If I can convince myself that due to the time change I would really only be up until 1 in the morning, maybe I can keep myself from falling asleep and drooling on my fancy keyboard.


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